Three Weeks in Washington, page 3
part #3 of Titus Ray Series
“Come out to my magnificent house at The Meadows,” she’d said. “We’d love to have a visit from you.”
When I’d arrived on that summer morning, the house had hardly appeared magnificent to me.
Big, yes.
Imposing, yes.
But hardly magnificent.
Nevertheless, once inside, magnificent had been the perfect word to describe it.
Each of the rooms, from the living area to the den to the study, was oversized and lavishly furnished, and the tall ceilings and dark draperies gave the place a kind of manor house feel. Carlton’s study, with its dark wooden accents and elaborate stone fireplace, contributed to this old-world look.
When I’d arrived in Carlton’s study, he’d been seated behind a massive desk with a wall of bookshelves at his back. To his right, a set of French doors led out to the patio, and, on his left, in front of the stone fireplace, was a small seating area.
He hadn’t been expecting me, so when he noticed me standing in the doorway, he looked surprised—and angry.
“What are you doing here?”
I’d never seen him look so disheveled.
He was wearing a dark green, button-down cardigan, with a white shirt and a pair of dark, ill-fitting slacks. There were stains across the front of his white shirt.
“I’m here to let you off the hook,” I said.
He stared at me with impassive eyes, revealing nothing.
I continued, “None of it was your fault. Baker shouldn’t have gone in there. He should have called the whole thing off.”
He suddenly pushed his chair away from his desk and stood to his feet. “Did Gladys call you? Is that why you’re here?”
“Yes on both counts.”
He shook his head. “That wasn’t necessary. I’m just taking a few days off.”
“It’s been two weeks.”
He walked over to the French doors and looked out towards the pool.
“She thinks I’m depressed, but I’m not.”
“Good,” I said, joining him at the French doors. “I’m glad to hear it. Stanley Baker wasn’t a very nice man, and he wasn’t someone to lose any sleep over.”
He turned towards me, his bald head shiny with sweat. “Why would you say something like that?”
“Stanley was arrogant and insufferable.”
“I could say the same thing about several people.”
He walked back over to his desk and stood there for a few seconds, staring down at a stack of papers.
Without looking up, he added, “Even you.”
“You’re probably right about that, but I wouldn’t have put the whole team in jeopardy when my asset didn’t show up.”
He jerked his head around. “I was the one who gave Stanley the go-ahead. I was his handler. That was my call.”
“No, Douglas. It wasn’t your call. I was there. You gave him permission, but, ultimately, you said it was up to him to decide whether to go in or not. His death was his own fault. It wasn’t yours. None of the team blames you for what happened to him.”
He sat down in his leather desk chair again. “I doubt your opinion matters much to the wife and kids he left behind.”
“If you’re trying to convince me you’re not depressed, you’re doing a lousy job of it.”
He pointed his finger at me. “Are you forgetting something? In addition to losing Stan, the entire mission was a failure.”
“Listen, Douglas, I’ll tell you something a very wise man once said to me after a blown operation.”
“I don’t want to hear this.”
“Just because there’s been a mission failure doesn’t mean the mission’s a failure. Every disaster holds the key to the next successful operation.”
His dead eyes came alive with anger. “You can go now.”
As I walked out the front door, I told Gladys I wasn’t sure my visit had done her husband any good.
Whether that was true or not, Carlton had come back to work the next day.
Neither one of us had ever mentioned that visit again.
Ever.
Chapter 4
The moment Mitchell pulled into the circle drive at The Meadows, I thought I heard Felipe say, “Magnífico.”
When I asked him to repeat what he’d said, he shook his head and denied he’d said anything at all. Maybe that was true. I hadn’t had much sleep in the last twenty-four hours, and I was beginning to feel a little punchy.
After Mitchell had shut off the engine, he gestured toward the house. “Does this place have some kind of basement dungeon where we can question this scumbag?”
Felipe didn’t react to Mitchell’s remark, giving me even more reason to believe the shooter wasn’t that fluent in English.
But, if that were true, why did he claim to be a student at the University of Arkansas? Didn’t the school require some kind of English language skills in order to be enrolled in their institution?
I decided I’d ask him that question when I interrogated him in the basement dungeon.
Before I had a chance to respond to Mitchell’s question, Arkady Orlov opened the front door of the house and stepped outside.
I realized just the sight of him might prompt Felipe to start giving up his secrets.
Arkady had been the Soviet Union’s 1988 gold medalist in weight lifting. He and his wife, Millie, were permanent residents of The Meadows and served as its caretakers for the absent Carlton.
The day after Arkady had won his medal in Seoul, he’d entered the American Embassy and formally declared his desire to defect to the United States. One of Arkady’s escorts back to the States from Seoul had been Millie Durkin, a Level 2 Agency employee. She and Arkady were married six months after his arrival in America.
Because Millie had been Gladys’ roommate in college, Arkady and Millie had been frequent guests at The Meadows, and a few weeks after Gladys’ death, Carlton had asked the couple to come and live at The Meadows permanently and become its caretakers.
Even though both of them had responsibilities at The Meadows, Arkady and Millie continued to do contract work for the Agency—Arkady as a Russian translator and Millie as a consultant on Korean politics.
This turned out to be a perfect arrangement for everyone, especially Carlton, who didn’t have to worry about keeping his own employment a secret from them, nor did he have to hire a vetted caterer whenever he wanted to entertain Agency personnel.
Arkady was a large man, all of it muscle, and when he jerked open the passenger’s side door to let me out, I was surprised the door hadn’t come off in his hand.
“Welcome. Welcome,” he said in heavily accented English. “We’ve been expecting you. Come inside.”
When Arkady held the front door open for Felipe, he hesitated, eyeing the giant suspiciously. Mitchell, who was standing behind Felipe, shoved the shooter inside the foyer.
Ignoring Mitchell’s behavior, Arkady continued playing the role of the gracious host. “Is there anything I can get for you? Something to eat? Perhaps a cold beverage?”
I declined his offer. “We’re fine, Arkady. I just need to borrow the study for a few hours, and then we’ll be out of your hair.”
He pointed off to his right. “Help yourself.”
As Mitchell took Felipe by the arm and pushed him down the hallway, Arkady added, “I almost forgot. When Douglas called, he had Millie lay out a few things for your visit. She left them on the table by the fireplace.”
I thanked Arkady and followed Mitchell inside Carlton’s study.
After locking the door behind me, I immediately walked over to the fireplace. On the table, were a couple of zip ties, a roll of duct tape, some white cord, and several bottles of water.
I knew Mitchell would be disappointed to learn Millie had forgotten to bring up the implements from the basement dungeon.
* * * *
I tossed the zip ties over to Mitchell and told him to handcuff Felipe. By the smile on Mitchell’s face, I could tell he was looking forward to putting the restraints on the guy.
However, that feeling was not reciprocated.
Once Felipe realized what was happening, he began protesting, and I ended up slapping several strips of duct tape across his mouth.
Felipe managed to make some disparaging remarks about me before I silenced him. Among other things, he pointed out I’d betrayed his trust.
Whether that was true or not, it hardly mattered to me.
All that mattered was where this thing was headed now.
Once Mitchell had secured Felipe’s legs to the chair, I left the shooter to stew in his own juices for a while and ushered Mitchell out the French doors and onto the patio.
As I shut the door behind me, Mitchell said, “Has the Oklahoma sun fried your brain or do you really know what you’re doing?”
“I know what I’m doing.”
Mitchell gestured toward the French doors.
“Are you aware Felipe and his buddy shot up a bunch of people this morning? If you’d seen the body of that kid they killed, then maybe you wouldn’t have been so quick to get him out of there.”
“Is that right?”
“Yeah, that’s right. If it were up to me, I would have turned him over to one of the SWAT teams and let those cops administer a little pre-justice before questioning him. That’s the kind of treatment he deserves; not this kumbaya stuff you’re giving him.”
“While that may be true, I don’t ever recommend those tactics. More importantly, those cops wouldn’t have asked Felipe the right questions. As to the justice he deserves, he’ll get it eventually. I’m sure of that.”
Mitchell plopped himself down in a patio chair. “Yeah, but that’s years away. Justice is sweeter when it’s delivered on day one.”
I wondered if those were Mitchell’s own thoughts or if he were simply repeating something he’d heard his father say.
After what I’d observed of Mitchell’s behavior in Caracas, I thought it might be the former instead of the latter.
I pulled a chair away from the patio table and angled it so I could keep my eye on Felipe.
“So, you weren’t just mouthing the bad cop script back there? You’d really like to take a few swings at our shooter right now?”
He stared at me for a second. “Look, Titus. I don’t need another lecture from you about getting involved with the players.” He gestured toward the study. “As you can plainly see, I’m not in there beating Felipe to a bloody pulp, am I?”
There were times when Mitchell let his emotions get the best of him. It was something I’d occasionally seen on our run into Caracas for Operation Clear Signal.
“I guess that proves you’ve learned your lesson after Clear Signal,” I said.
“So now you’re bringing up Clear Signal? What happened to your promise never to mention it again?”
“I don’t believe I ever made that promise.”
* * * *
Operation Clear Signal had come to an unsatisfactory conclusion in a safe house in Caracas the moment Ahmed Al-Amin, the Hezbollah assassin, had been killed.
I hadn’t been the man behind the trigger, nor had Mitchell, but with the possible exception of Carlton, no one at the Agency knew that.
Officially, I was listed as Ahmed’s executioner in the files stored in the Agency’s archives.
However, the person who had sent Ahmed Al-Amin off to his hellish fate had been Roberto Montilla, a high-ranking official in the Venezuelan government.
Roberto Montilla hadn’t shot the assassin in self-defense, nor had he killed Ahmed because the man had murdered hundreds of people on behalf of the Iranian government.
Instead, Roberto had secretly entered the safe house—where I’d been preparing to interrogate Ahmed—and shot the Jihadi terrorist multiple times in the chest because Ahmed had killed his only son, Ernesto.
Roberto had learned the details of Ernesto’s death after the Agency had made arrangements for Mitchell and me to interrogate him away from his family. Once we’d told Roberto what we knew of Ernesto’s murder, he’d been more than willing to tell us why he thought Hezbollah had hired Ahmed Al-Amin to come after him.
He’d confirmed what Carlton and I had suspected all along—Hezbollah had wanted Roberto Montilla dead because of what he knew.
Roberto had told us he’d been working with Hezbollah to facilitate the construction of a couple of warehouses for a Syrian export business in Venezuela. He said he’d changed his mind after realizing the two warehouses weren’t being built to store baubles and beads.
Instead, he’d discovered the storage facilities would be used to house canisters of sarin gas. Such canisters had once been part of Syria’s stockpile of chemical weapons, but instead of being destroyed, they’d been turned over to Hezbollah in direct violation of the agreement Syria had made with the U.S. to get rid of its chemical weapons.
As disturbing as that was, Roberto also said Hezbollah was making plans to use the sarin gas on American cities.
Although the details had been sketchy, Roberto’s disclosure had caused quite a stir back in the Ops Center. In fact, Roberto’s admission had almost caused my field officer, Olivia McConnell, to take her eyes off the goal of Operation Clear Signal; namely, the capture of Ahmed Al-Amin.
Because Roberto had told us the weapons were being stored aboard ships and weren’t due to arrive in Venezuela until much later, I hadn’t been as concerned about Hezbollah’s plans to use the chemical weapons as I had been about my own plans to lure Ahmed to a place where I could grab him without alerting the Venezuelan authorities.
Those plans had finally come to fruition when Roberto had called Ahmed and invited him to a meeting. Once that phone call had ended, Olivia had given Mitchell the responsibility of getting Roberto out of the house, while I stayed behind to make the acquaintance of Ahmed.
Operation Clear Signal had gone south the moment Mitchell and Roberto had walked out of the safe house.
According to Mitchell, as soon as he and Roberto had driven away from the safe house, Roberto had asked him to make a stop along the way. When that occurred, Roberto had knocked him out, stolen the car, along with his gun, and returned to the safe house, where he’d placed several bullet holes in the torso of Ahmed Al-Amin.
The only part of Mitchell’s story I could verify was the part about Ahmed being killed by Roberto.
I’d been there; I’d seen it happen.
As to the rest, it could have happened that way.
But, I had my doubts.
Despite my misgivings, I’d taken the blame—or the glory—for killing Ahmed.
I did this because I’d already made an agreement with Roberto to help him relocate his family to Argentina in exchange for his help in capturing Ahmed.
If I hadn’t admitted to killing Ahmed, the DDO wouldn’t have allowed Roberto to leave Venezuela, and I knew I couldn’t let that happen, because I knew Hezbollah would come after him again.
Admittedly, Roberto’s safety hadn’t been the only reason I’d put my name down as Ahmed’s killer.
I’d also falsified the record because I knew Olivia McConnell.
I knew she wasn’t a very nice person, and I knew she would use her position at the Agency to have Mitchell demoted to an analyst for the rest of his career because of his failure to stop Roberto from killing Ahmed.
Moments after Roberto had killed Ahmed, the CIA’s chief of station in Venezuela, Sam Wylie, had shown up, and the two of us, along with Mitchell, had conspired together to adopt the story we’d eventually told Olivia and our handlers back at the Ops Center.
The short version—the one everybody totally bought—was that I had shot Ahmed when he’d gone for his gun and neither Mitchell nor Roberto had been present at the time.
Later, I became convinced Mitchell had lied to me about what had actually happened after he and Roberto had left the safe house that morning.
Whether he’d deliberately helped Roberto get back to the safe house in order to shoot Ahmed, I wasn’t sure.
What I did know was that Mitchell’s emotions had gotten the best of him, and I was pretty sure Roberto had exploited Mitchell’s emotions to carry out his revenge on Ahmed.
Now, as I sat on the patio and considered Mitchell’s attitude toward Felipe Arcos, I wondered if his present feelings weren’t further proof he’d been complicit in helping Roberto Montilla carry out his own form of justice on Ahmed Al-Amin.
However, knowing what might be at stake in the days ahead, I decided I couldn’t let that happen to Felipe.
* * * *
When Mitchell didn’t respond to my statement, I had to assume he was trying to remember whether or not I’d actually promised him I wouldn’t bring up Clear Signal again.
For my part, I was betting it was only a case of wishful thinking on his part.
“Yeah, okay,” he finally said. “Maybe you never made me that promise.”
“Look, Ben, we have to talk about Clear Signal because I believe what went down at the Navy Yard today is connected to what Roberto told us back at the safe house in Caracas.”
“How could they be connected?”
“Think about what Roberto told us. He said Hezbollah was recruiting students like Ernesto Montilla, and then paying their educational expenses so they could attend college here in the States. In effect, he said Hezbollah was building a network of terrorists on college campuses. Do you remember that?”
“Of course I remember. He said they plan to use those recruits to bring the chemical weapons into the U.S.”
“Exactly.”
I waited a second to see if he might put it all together himself.
Instead he asked, “How does their agenda relate to the shooters at the Navy Yard?”
I gave him another hint. “Douglas said Reyes Valario, the dead guy, was here on a student visa, and Felipe told me both of them were enrolled at the University of Arkansas.”
Mitchell sat back in his chair. “Are you kidding me? That’s all you’ve got? You kidnapped Felipe out from under the feds’ noses and risked our careers because both the shooters happened to be college students from Latin America?”
