Three Weeks in Washington, page 13
part #3 of Titus Ray Series
She gave Otis a wave. “Catch you later.”
“Call me if you get bored.”
We called him, but not because we got bored.
* * * *
Juliana and I headed west out of the embassy compound in the direction of the Palermo district. She drove an older model Jeep Cherokee, and I sat beside her and rode shotgun.
Once we’d cleared the compound, I pointed to her ball cap. “Does that mean you’re a San Francisco Giants fan?”
“I grew up in San Francisco, and my dad was an avid Giants fan. He gave me this cap the day I told him I’d taken an overseas assignment with the State Department.”
She touched the cap’s logo. “An hour after he gave it to me, he had a massive heart attack. He died in the ER a few hours later.”
Her matter-of-fact way of telling me this caught me off guard for a minute, and I quickly mumbled, “I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay. While he was in the ER, the doctors discovered he had lung cancer. If he’d been given the choice, I believe he would have preferred a quick end to his life rather than a slow one.”
“That ball cap looks new. You must not have been with the Agency very long.”
She glanced over at me and smiled.
“I’m not unacquainted with indirect interrogation techniques, Titus. But let me spare you the trouble. The short version of my bio is that I’ve been with the Agency for seven years now. The reason the cap looks new is because I don’t wear it very often. For some reason, I was thinking about him today and grabbed it.”
“I wasn’t trolling for information, I just wanted—”
She didn’t let me finish. “Before I joined the CIA, I was a detective in the narcotics division of the San Francisco Police Department. I’d been with them for less than three years when my husband, who was also a cop, got killed by some gang members. After he died ...”
She paused when her voice broke, but she quickly recovered and finished her thought.
“... I found it impossible to go to work every day. That’s when I decided to do something completely different. Now, seven years later, here I am.”
“Have you been stuck in surveillance the whole seven years?”
“Yeah, pretty much. I’m not complaining, though. The routine’s been good for me.”
We drove along in silence for a few minutes, and, while I wanted to change the subject and ask her what she’d noticed at the Montilla house, I wasn’t sure if I’d given her enough time to compose herself. I didn’t know how long I was supposed to wait after hearing about a dead husband before I got back to the business at hand.
Social niceties had always been a mystery to me. Even when I thought I had them figured out, someone was always changing the rules on me.
She said, “By the way, Titus, now would be a good time for you to tell me something about your own career. Despite what Ken said, I’m not really acquainted with Titus Ray, and, if I’m not mistaken, a give and take is what’s supposed to happen in polite conversation.”
Case in point.
I gave her my best smile. “There’s not that much to tell. I grew up in Flint, Michigan, and graduated from the University of Michigan. I joined the Agency right after my graduation, and I was a Level 2 operative on the Latin American desk until I was transferred over to the Middle East. That was back when the Agency put out a call for operatives who were willing to learn Arabic right after the first Gulf war. I’ve spent most of my career as a Level 1 covert operative assigned to the Middle East, but, as you probably know, special circumstances have brought me to Buenos Aires today.”
She glanced over at me. “The facts you’ve just recited told me nothing except you’re really good at making your life sound as dull as possible. If all that’s true, then why did Ken imply you’re some kind of CIA legend, and I should swoon over you?”
“For the same reason he said I’d fall in love with you.”
She laughed. “I think you’ve got Ken figured out.”
* * * *
After Juliana made a left turn onto a residential street, she brought the Jeep to a stop in front of a row of houses.
She pointed down the block. “The third house. The one with the ash tree out in front. That’s Roberto Montilla’s new address.”
It was a modest-looking house on a quiet residential street. I wasn’t sure how much the Agency had spent on relocating Roberto and his family to Buenos Aires, but at least it didn’t look as if the U.S. taxpayer had been stuck with an extravagant bill to pay for his housing needs.
Within seconds of Juliana maneuvering her way into a parking space, a Nissan Pathfinder, parked a little further down the block, pulled into traffic and disappeared around a corner.
“Was that one of ours?” I asked.
“Pretty obvious, huh?”
“He could have waited a few more minutes before leaving.”
She shifted in the driver’s seat so she was facing me. “Why not ask me those questions now? If Montilla keeps to his schedule, he’ll be on the move soon, and I might get distracted.”
“What’s his schedule?”
“Today, he usually drives over to the cemetery to visit his son’s grave.”
I nodded. “That doesn’t surprise me. He and Ernesto were very close.”
“He gets extremely emotional when he goes over there. It’s hard not to be moved by his tears.”
“That’s the kind of information I need when I question him tomorrow. I also need to know if anyone has shown any interest in him. Have you noticed anyone following Roberto or his family? Even someone just cruising around his neighborhood?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t spotted anyone, and no one’s reported anything. Why? What makes you think someone might take an interest in Roberto or his family?”
“I’m assuming you’re aware Roberto was a Venezuelan government official who helped the Agency take out a Hezbollah assassin?”
She nodded. “That would be Ahmed Al-Amin. Ken briefed us on Montilla’s background. He said Ahmed also targeted Montilla after he refused to help Hezbollah build some warehouses in Venezuela. At least the guy didn’t want anything to do with storing Syria’s chemical weapons.”
I looked across the street at Roberto’s new residence. “Before Ahmed went after Roberto, Ahmed tortured and killed Roberto’s son, Ernesto. When we informed Roberto what Ahmed had done, he was willing to help us take him out. Now, it seems Roberto has information on how the Iranians are planning to use those chemical weapons on us. That will be the main topic of conversation when I meet with him tomorrow.”
“Are you afraid Hezbollah will send someone else to assassinate Roberto to keep him from talking? Is that why you’re worried about his safety?”
I shook my head. “It’s hard to say. Roberto may be completely off their radar by now, and we’ve certainly taken precautions to keep his whereabouts a secret. But since I’m about to interrogate him again, I want to make certain I won’t have any company when I do that. And, although I think it’s unlikely, I’d also like to be sure Roberto hasn’t had any contact with any of the Hezbollah groups in Argentina.”
Juliana nodded her head at Roberto’s house. “Here he comes.”
Roberto walked out of his house and headed over to his driveway. He was dressed in casual clothes and running shoes, like the last time I’d seen him, but now, his moustache was gone, and he was sporting a different hairstyle.
Even though he’d changed his appearance—which I had to assume he’d done for security reasons—he didn’t bother looking around his environment before getting inside a Honda Accord.
When he was about halfway down the block, Juliana pulled away from the curb and followed him.
She was extremely proficient at tailing a target, but even so, when we pulled up at a stoplight, several cars in front of us decided to change lanes at the same time, and we suddenly found ourselves directly behind Roberto’s car.
I immediately lowered my head and slid down in the passenger seat.
Juliana said, “If you’re afraid Montilla might recognize you, there’s a hat in the console.”
I opened the console and pulled out a slightly crushed, brown fedora. When I put it on, the soft felt regained its shape.
Juliana smiled. “I can’t say that style does much for you.”
“You think anyone at the cemetery will notice my style?”
She laughed. “Dead men tell no tales.”
Once we arrived at the cemetery, the dead men weren’t my concern, it was the live ones carrying guns who worried me.
Chapter 18
The cemetery was located one block south of Camino Delgado about twenty minutes from Roberto’s house. When Roberto turned in at the gate at Cementerio de Flores, Juliana drove on past the entrance and circled back around, entering the cemetery a few minutes later.
Conducting surveillance at a cemetery was difficult because two people sitting in a car at a graveyard tended to draw unwanted attention, especially from the cemetery’s caretakers.
Since very little activity seemed to be taking place around the grounds, I wondered how Juliana was going to handle keeping an eye on Roberto without drawing attention to us.
It turned out she had that covered.
As she pulled into the driveway of a small chapel in the center of the cemetery, she pointed off to the east, where I could see Roberto just getting out of his car.
“Ernesto is buried next to that quebracho tree,” she said, opening the glove compartment and removing a pair of binoculars. “We’ll be able to observe him from inside the chapel.”
The small stone chapel was situated beside a much larger mausoleum, and the two buildings were connected to each other by a covered walkway.
As we crossed the threshold of the chapel, our footsteps echoed off the walls and high ceiling, and since the stained-glass windows made it almost impossible for any sunlight to get through, we lingered at the doorway a moment to let our eyes readjust themselves to the darkened conditions. Even though I could smell the lingering odor of flowers, the air inside the chapel was oppressive.
A few seconds later, I followed Juliana down the aisle and over to an unmarked door next to an organ. The door provided access to an odd-shaped storage room where extra chairs and a few flower stands were stacked in rows against the interior wall. Numerous boxes of candles were sitting in the middle of the floor, along with two containers of old hymnbooks.
Juliana walked past the containers over to the only window in the room. It faced the east side of the cemetery, and once she’d taken a quick look outside, she handed me the binoculars.
I immediately trained the glasses on Roberto. He was kneeling in front of a gravestone next to a quebracho tree.
He was weeping.
* * * *
We took turns watching him. When I had the binoculars trained on him, Juliana monitored the doorway, making sure no one popped in on us, and I did the same thing while she was scanning the area.
Twenty minutes after our arrival, a funeral procession entered the cemetery and wound its way around the network of roadways. I watched as they drove past Ernesto’s grave, where Roberto continued his vigil.
The hearse finally pulled up to a stop at a funeral tent some three hundred yards away from Roberto’s location, but the line of cars following the hearse continued to roll past him.
Roberto didn’t appear to be disturbed by this, and he never glanced up to observe the procession.
A few minutes later, at least two dozen people piled out of the cars parked alongside the roadway and began walking toward the funeral tent, which had been placed over a freshly dug grave.
As I watched the mourners heading toward the burial site, I noticed a Ford sedan slowly cruising past them.
The driver’s face was partially hidden by a pair of dark sunglasses, but, as he passed by the quebracho tree, I saw him crane his head around, as if he wanted to get a better look at Roberto’s kneeling form.
Seconds later, the car disappeared from sight.
Keeping the binoculars trained on the quebracho tree, I asked Juliana, “Have you ever seen a green Ford sedan sniffing around Roberto?”
“What part of I haven’t spotted anyone did you not understand?”
“No need to get huffy on me.”
“I don’t do huffy. That was me being miffed.”
“If that was miffed then ...”
I paused and readjusted the focus on the binoculars.
When the scene came into view, I quickly turned away from the window and handed the glasses to Juliana. “I want to check on something. Keep those trained on Roberto.”
She shook her head. “No, I’m coming with you.”
“Stay here.” I removed the Glock from my holster, “I’ll signal you if I need backup.”
She lifted the glasses to her eyes. “It’s the green Ford, isn’t it?”
I chambered a round in my gun and headed for the door.
“Yeah, it’s the green Ford.”
* * * *
I walked across the chapel and slipped out a side door. The door led onto the walkway between the chapel and the mausoleum. Once I reached the mausoleum, I skirted around the building and headed across the parking lot.
There was a slight slope down to the roadway, and, as I hurried down the embankment, I momentarily lost my footing. When I regained my balance, I suddenly realized I’d lost the fedora, but, at that moment, it hardly seemed to matter.
I raced across the cemetery, weaving in and out of the tombstones, while at the same time trying to be as inconspicuous as possible to the mourners across the street burying their dead.
Seconds later, I arrived in the clearing by the quebracho tree.
From there, I could see Roberto on his knees in front of Ernesto’s tombstone.
Now, though, standing over him was Marwan Farage.
He was holding a pistol to Roberto’s head.
It was a 9mm Ruger with a silencer attached.
* * * *
Both men had their backs to me, so I quietly eased my way forward, praying I could get to Marwan before he ended his conversation with Roberto and shot him in the head.
Marwan, who’d been Roberto’s translator in Damascus, was speaking to him in Spanish. “Why do you mourn for your son? It was your betrayal that killed him. You killed your only son.”
Roberto murmured something I couldn’t understand, and Marwan pushed the pistol further into his skull. “And Ahmed? Did you also kill him?”
“No,” I said, pointing the Glock at him, “that was me. I killed Ahmed.”
At the sound of my voice, Marwan quickly spun around and leveled the Ruger at me.
I stepped toward him. “Drop your weapon.”
He ignored me and centered the Ruger on Roberto once again. “Lay your weapon on the ground or I’ll blow his head off.”
As I considered my next move, Juliana suddenly walked up behind Marwan and placed her gun directly above his right ear.
“Not before I shoot you first,” she said quietly.
For a few seconds, there was a tense standoff, but with two guns pointed at him, Marwan finally admitted defeat and dropped his weapon.
Roberto, who’d been watching this drama play out while on his knees, now got to his feet. As he did so, he picked up Marwan’s gun.
For a brief second, I had a flashback of him standing in the living room in the safe house in Caracas and shooting Ahmed.
This time, though, he handed the gun over to me and said, “Thank you. You’ve saved my life once again.”
I nodded at Juliana. “Thank her instead.”
He did.
* * * *
A few minutes later, I contacted Ken Vasco. After briefing him on our encounter with Marwan, he agreed to dispatch Otis and two other operatives to Cementerio de Flores.
Once they were headed our way, I told him I wanted to take Marwan and Roberto over to Edificio Catalina, the office park where the Bub’s Subs executives were supposed to meet with Roberto the following day.
Vasco said, “I like the way you think, my friend. Everything’s already in place over there for Roberto’s interrogation.”
“Send the Ops Center an alert about what went down here, and let them know I plan to do an initial interrogation of Marwan immediately.”
“Should you need an extra body when you question him, let me know. People have been known to open up to me.”
“Will do.”
By the time Otis and his crew arrived, the graveside services across the roadway from us were just finishing up, and the mourners were going their separate ways. Their departure made it easy for those of us gathered around the quebracho tree to pile into our own vehicles and leave the cemetery with them.
One of Vasco’s guys drove Marwan’s green Ford, while Otis and Roberto went off in Roberto’s Honda Accord.
After placing a set of zip ties on Marwan’s wrists, I shoved him in the backseat of Juliana’s Jeep.
Once again, I rode shotgun.
This time, though, I did so figuratively as well as literally; although, since I had a semi-automatic pistol aimed at Marwan, maybe it wasn’t so literal after all.
I refused to let Marwan speak until we arrived at our destination, and, since I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to say to Juliana in front of Marwan, the forty-minute trip turned out to be a quiet one.
I rather enjoyed it.
Chapter 19
The office park, Edificio Catalina, was located a block west of Avenida Libertador and provided parking for its customers in an underground facility.
When we arrived, Juliana parked the Jeep well away from any other vehicles, which made it easier for the two of us to usher Marwan into the parking garage’s elevator and up to the third floor without anyone noticing he was entering the building at gunpoint.
There were two suites on the third floor and Bub’s Subs—a.k.a. the Agency—had leased Suite 301. The franchise’s logo, a shiny red and gold BS, was prominently displayed by the doorway, just above the nameplate identifying the offices as Suite 301.
