ROGUESTATE, page 16
Darby kept a poker face and buried his eyes on the text. Harper was treading dangerously close to one of their black missions.
“Layne shows up again in Afghanistan and Lebanon conducting hunter-killer missions. In Afghanistan he’s busy killing Russian generals, and in Lebanon he’s going after the people who arranged truck bombs against our embassy and Marine barracks. Assassination appears to be something Layne excelled at.”
Mark flipped back through the file folder and said, “But who authorizes those kinds of missions? I mean assassination of foreign governments or armies isn’t something you advertise.”
Harper had the same questions. Louis Edwards had sent Jerry and Jim on several harrowing missions. However, assassination did not come into play until OperationJust Cause , and then the target was Damon Layne.
“He drops off the map in 1988,” observed Darby.
“But he was operating in Panama this year out of the US Embassy,” protested Conner.
Mark looked at Jonas and asked, “Where’s the rest of it?”
Jonas motioned towards the file in his hands and explained, “That’s the entire Q file.”
“What’s he been doing for the last ten years?” snapped Mark. “And where was he before 1980? He didn’t start up with an assignment to Khomeini.”
Harper looked up at Schaeffer and said, “You’ve got a point. I don’t know those answers.”
Mark scowled.
“Says here that he purchased land in a place called Dolan Springs, Arizona,” said Jonas. “Anyone know where that is?”
“Maybe we should find out,” suggested Harper. “Sergeant?”
Hayes looked up from the file and answered, “Ready when you are.”
Harvey perused the last pages and suggested, “We’ll nose around the District.”
* * * *
Bethesda, Maryland
While they made plans to hunt for Damon Layne in places where he no longer lurked, Jayne Skinner—the first victim—walked into her kitchen and flipped the light switch. The circuit completed, igniting four pounds of Damon’s homemade plastic explosive. The concussive shockwave bent her backwards, and the heavy nails embedded in the explosive tore two massive wound channels through her chest. Flame leaped along the expanse of her kitchen ceiling, the second floor above her kitchen buckled and splintered upwards. It was the accumulated natural gas pooled in the basement next to the severed water heater gas line that obliterated the home.
A white-hot finger of fire leaped upwards from the basement, shattering the house’s foundation and smacking the first floor aside like it was nothing more than tissue paper. The windows across the street and along the backyard alley shattered. The plaster, wood, and brick broke apart. Pieces tumbled over the green lawn and along the street. The thunderous noise clapped loudly in the Maryland suburb as the terrible mixture of flame and fuel spent itself.
The days of rage had begun.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Chechnya,London Telegraph,Nigel Turner, April 25, 2000 –In another disturbing development for the Chechen Freedom Fighters, Doku Uramov, Commander of the southeastern front for Chechen fighters was killed in the Caucasus Mountains.
The Caucasus Mountains form the southern border of Chechnya, and have served as a transportation route for smugglers. Primarily war supplies have been delivered through a labyrinth of canyons and arroyos. The fact that Uramov was killed on this treacherous terrain suggests new capabilities introduced by federal forces as they seek to capitalize on their success at Grozny earlier this year.
Chicago, Illinois
Wednesday, October 25, 2000
10:00 A.M. CDT
Special Agent Ellen Grafft bent under the yellow police tape and followed Detective Kevin Crosby. He ambled towards the door without worrying whether Ellen made it under the tape and around the barricades.
The Bureau blew into Chicago on an unwelcome wind. Ellen arrived in a government-leasedGulfstream III business jet. She was flanked by four agents and cited an Executive Order authorizing the Bureau to examine any crime where there was the whiff of terrorism or terrorists. The Department of Justice, the Bureau, and a plethora of lesser-known alphabet soup agencies had benefited greatly from President Clinton’s liberal use of executive orders. It became governance by fiat rather than legislation.
Behind Ellen came her cell phone-dialing staff. They carried FBI forensic kits and laptops equipped with encrypted satellite modems. Tucked in their briefcases were copies of the police report and current investigation. The ballistic evidence had been commandeered by local Bureau agents and forwarded to the Bureau’s ballistic lab. It was a heavy federal hand sweeping up evidence, and Kevin reflected the general resentment felt by the Chicago Police Department.
Ellen had read everything the Bureau had gathered on the American Committee for Chechen Freedom. It was pitifully sparse. Publicly, the Committee raised money to funnel humanitarian relief to Chechen refugees and war victims. It expressed the finest elements of American charity and moral concern. It was patently false. The only humanitarian relief the committee provided was medicine and bandages; the rest consisted off shoulder-fired anti-aircraft and anti-tank rockets, wooden crates and metal ammunition cans filled with cartridges, and many boxes of grenades.
Chechnya was still a Russian Republic. The details of moving humanitarian relief into the war-ravaged republic raised more than one eyebrow at the CIA’s Russian desk. Chechnya was land locked—sandwiched between Georgia to the south and the Russian Federation to the north. The most viable way to deliver supplies was to smuggle goods from Iran through the Caspian Sea to Makhachkala, Dagestan, and overland to Grozny.
One hundred fifty thousand Russian troops sealed off the roads and railheads crossing the border between Dagestan and Chechnya. According to State Department memoranda, the Russian Federation protested the interference of private American groups sympathetic to the Chechen rebellion.
The Russian troops did not venture into the Caucasus Mountains where relief took the form of medicine, mortars, and munitions. Most of the war supplies came in on the backs of mules. The American Committee for Chechen Freedom had a roster of twenty-two members and an annual budget for seven hundred thousand dollars. The two dead people had operated the Committee from their modest bungalow.
Ellen stepped across the threshold.
The house smelled of onions and sausage. It was grayer on the inside than the peeling gray clapboard on the outside. The dim light merged with the empty cold death. It felt like they were stepping into a grave.
Kevin moved to one side and pointed towards the silent living room. “We found the old guy sitting in his easy chair,” he offered grudgingly. He attempted to catch Ellen’s eye, but she looked through him as if he were vapor.
Ellen’s minions spread out across the house.
She walked past Kevin into the living room. The pale brown easy chair had a pile of newspapers and magazines stacked to one side, and a stand for pills, drink, and food on the other. The nasty reminder of violent death littered the headrest. Dried blood, bone fragments, and splattered brain matter demanded answers. Ellen believed she should provide the answers, and she seriously doubted Kevin even had a clue. It was the natural animosity between federal and local law enforcement.
“They shot him twice in the brick,” continued Kevin.What was her problem?
Ellen gave him a sidelong glance and surveyed the room. Considering the violent murder, it was surprisingly mundane. Idly she picked up the remote control for the television and pushed POWER. The screen came to life on ESPN-2.
“It was a 9mm,” babbled Kevin. He was becoming angry at her continued silence.
The ballistics report was based on the shell casings and the retrieved rounds. A 9x18mm was a Russian caliber and the Fiocci 90 grain jacketed hollow-point rounds were of European manufacture available in the United States. The Bureau’s crime labs identified the weapon as a Makarov based on the firing pin and breech face markings from the brass shells.
“Your report said it was Makarov,” he blathered on.
She never even nodded acknowledgement towards Kevin. This fat, short man with bad body odor and atrocious manners was someone she had to tolerate for the moment. Finally, she turned and asked, “Where was the woman found?”
It was a snippy little demand that further rankled the Chicago detective. He scowled and walked back into the kitchen. “We found her in the basement with her throat slashed.”
And all of her fingers broken, Ellen mentally added. The coroner’s report was quite detailed and graphic. What kind of monster kills an old man and tortures a woman?
Kevin stomped down the stair. He was a heavy-footed man, but the Bureau witch gliding behind him grated his sensibilities. They moved under strung laundry lines and cardboard boxes filled with a life’s collection of memories.
The dark brown spot at the far corner of the basement marked the woman’s last stand. The path through the boxes, shelves, and junk could be generously described as circuitous. The bloodstain was in the darkest corner of the basement. She had been running from her assailant.
What was the motive?
“Did you find her?” Ellen finally asked.
“The woman?” Kevin asked in return.
Who else you idiot?She bridled her tongue. “Yes.”
Kevin nodded. “Face down in her blood. He slashed her throat.”
“What about next of kin?” Ellen continued.
Kevin shrugged and settled his broad butt on the washtub. “Elisa Hyder has a daughter named Marianna one of the community colleges living with her. The old guy who got popped in the living room was Elisa’s father. Evidently, she was married, but the husband has been dead for several years. The daughter came home and found the old guy in the living room.” He picked at the edge of his nose.
“Anyone else?”
“Not that we’ve found. The daughter never mentioned anyone else to our investigators.”
“And the old guywith two in the brick ; what was his relationship to this woman’s daughter?”
Kevin examined something on the edge of his fingernail before flicking it into the gloom. “Grandfather. His daughter sponsored his immigration to this country after the Berlin Wall came down. It was big deal for these people. They’re sort of an anomaly in Cook County.”
Ellen turned towards Kevin saying, “Oh?”
Kevin stuck his pinky finger in his ear and twisted it. “Yeah, they voted Republican as soon as they could. Upstairs in the bedrooms are all these posters about Reagan and Bush. They think those two buffoons beat the commies.” Kevin shook his head. “People will believe anything, you know.”
Ellen remained ambivalent regarding politics. Her time in Washington had rid her of any illusions regarding honorable men interested in the country’s future. First-hand observation suggested a venal bunch much more interested in the accumulation of power and perks.
“He broke each of her fingers, one at a time,” mumbled Kevin.
Ellen stared at the detective. “You keep referring to the perpetrator as a man.”
Kevin looked from the crusty wax on his pinky finger to Ellen and calmly explained, “This city has a bunch of nutcrackers. Most of the time a crime like this is about drugs.” He left unsaid,and none of your business.
“Drugs?” she said incredulously. “Do you think this is about drugs?”
He brushed off the tip of his pinky. “Yeah, drugs. Somebody came in here and killed two people for drugs. It isn’t pretty and we aren’t proud of things like this, but it is usually about drugs.”
Her eyes ran over the dust laden, cobweb strewn boxes and shook her head. “And what did they steal?”
Kevin smirked wondering,is she really that stupid? However, he answered, “Credit cards, cash, bank accounts, stock statements—there’s all sorts of things.”
Disgusted she marched past Kevin and grumbled under her breath, “It has nothing to do with drugs.”
Kevin followed her up the stair. “If it’s not about drugs, then what is it about?”
Ellen paused at the top of the stair and turned back to Kevin. “I don’t know, but look around this house. No one stole anything. Why did your perp kill the old man with a gun and torture the woman?”
“Maybe he likes it,” snapped Kevin.
She scowled, turned away, and stormed back into the kitchen. Arranged on the kitchen table were envelope boxes. Peel-off/stick-on address labels were printed on fan-folded Avery forms. It remained undisturbed.
“Where is the daughter?’ she demanded.
“Staying with friends,” answered Kevin.
“Fingerprints?” she snapped.
Kevin rolled his eyes.We’re not morons! “Only three people living here.”
Oh yes, you are.Ellen stepped through the family room, and almost missed the obvious. None of the men who tromped through the crime scene had bothered to examine the photographs arranged on a shelf. The Chicago Police concluded the murders were drug induced, and none of the troubling details diverted them from their theory.
Prominently displayed on the shelf was a framed family photograph. The old woman was fifteen years younger, a husband stood next to her and seated before the two parents were two children.A son?
She turned to Kevin and ordered, “I want to talk to the daughternow .”
* * * *
Marianna Hyder watched the Chicago detectives exit the room, leaving her alone with Ellen Grafft. She sat on a chair twice as old as she was. Her hands clasped before her rested on a chipped Formica table. The carpet was new, but the whitewashed walls did nothing to remove the sense of a police station.
Ellen struck her as being much brighter than the Chicago detectives, and smart policemen were the most dangerous kind. She looked at the framed photograph in the Bureau agent’s hand. Marianna did not know what to say. Her mother had instructed her never to talk about Parvez, but that was before Mama and Grandpapa were murdered.
The Chicago detectives were content to believe the murders were related to drugs. It was a fiction in line with Mama’s wishes.How was she going to explain the photograph?
Ellen set the picture down between them and smiled. She reminded Marianna of a Jurassic Park raptor.
“I realize you have been through a great deal in the last couple of days,” began Ellen.
“Policemen are never your friends!” boomed Grandpapa.
Marianna smiled demurely. “Yes, it has been very trying.”
Ellen nodded understandingly. “I need to ask you a couple of questions.”
Marianna nodded as if she understood. Questions included dangerous ground and forbidden subjects. She would need all her wits to handle the false smile and factitious concern.
“I found this photograph in your mother’s home.” Ellen turned the old family portrait around.
Marianna recognized the braces on her teeth and the rotten square-rimmed glasses she used to wear. She might have been eight or nine. She looked up to Ellen and nodded.
“It appears that you have a brother,” prodded Ellen.
Marianna froze. How could she explain Parvez?
After a long moment, Ellen repeated, “A brother.” It was no longer a question, but a statement of fact.What’s going on here?
“Yes,” she breathed.
Ellen nodded triumphantly. When nothing followed Marianna’s simple admission, Ellen added, “and…”
“He’s dead,” she lied.
It was poor lie uttered by a girl unfamiliar with prevarication.
“Dead,” echoed Ellen. The word dropped woodenly between the two of them.
She nodded solemnly, avoiding eye contact.
“Okay,” said Ellen dubiously. “What was his name?”
Marianna stared ahead miserably and whispered, “Parvez.”
Ellen jotted the name down on notepad, and then asked, “Do you have any idea why someone would want to kill your mother?”
Marianna was not a stupid girl, and she had attacked the problem over last several days. She came back to one inescapable conclusion—everything led back to Parvez. Something or someone had followed him home. Yet, the inbred distrust of police authorities and the fiery images of the Branch Davidian compound at Waco, Texas, left her bereft of any comfort Ellen could provide. Whoever had killed Mama and Grandpapa was certainly searching for her brother as well.
“No,” she whispered, her second lie of the interview. It was just as obvious as the first.
The nagging doubt regarding this entire mess surfaced again. Ellen knew the Chicago Police had misread the situation, and Marianna knew a piece of the puzzle. A legion of threatening and dire warnings she could use to frighten the truth from Marianna came to mind, and she soundly rejected all of them. Men call it gut instinct; Ellen preferred to rely on a woman’s intuition. She smiled. “Thank you very much for talking to us.”
Marianna made eye contact for the first time and asked, “Am I free to go?”
Ellen nodded and handed Marianna her card. Before the girl made it to the elevators, Ellen ordered a nationwide search for Parvez Hyder. She had no idea of the topsy-turvy world she had just stumbled into.
* * * *
Washington D.C.
Eduard Gurov traveled from Chicago to Washington D.C. in a Subaru Outback. The registration, insurance papers, and license were in perfect order, and they represented the car as the property of a New York corporation. The FSB inherited a legacy of safe houses, corporate straw men, and secret bank accounts from the KGB. The SVR managed the old infrastructure from the Russian Embassy on Wisconsin Avenue
, and they were very circumspect about exposing anything to the Bureau.
While most of the money had been looted in the last ten years, the corporate entities remained functional. The FBI continued to search for former Soviet assets, but the Bureau was besieged by the White House to ignore campaign irregularities and Congressional edicts to police the Internet. A paper chase akin to lawyers and accountants fell by the wayside, and the CIA, bridled by budget cuts and an embarrassingly lack of success, chose to forego the search as well.
