Enemy Among Us-A Jordan Wright Thriller (17 page)

Kate sighed to herself. There would be no dinner with Jordan tonight.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

SOUTH PHILADELPHIA

Kate just stared at the back of his head. She hadn’t heard from him since he left for Pakistan. She’d heard the mission had gone well and Tahir was in custody of the Pakistani ISS, but that was weeks ago and he hadn’t even sent a text message. This was the part of Jordan she just hadn’t been able to figure out.

She was also determined not to give up. One thing Kate Woolrich was known for was the fact that, once she set her mind to something, she didn’t stop or let anything get in her way until she’d gotten it. Why should Jordan be any different?

She’d missed most of the introductions as she recalled the last time she had been with Jordan. She’d just nodded at individuals who had been pointed out to her by Frank. “Great,” she thought to herself. “They just think I’m another stuck up Washington bitch, coming in to tell them how to do their jobs.” Frank was looking at her, knowing that she was preoccupied. She grinned and turned. She had Jordan in her sights and she wanted to take the initiative. Nothing over the top, but she wanted him to know she was there and that they were going to be working together. More importantly, she needed to get his reaction. She needed to read his body language, to see if there was still interest. Or, did he consider her yesterday’s news?

She walked over to the table where it looked like he’d been listening to some tapes.

“So, how’s tonight for dinner?” Shy was never a trait attributed to Kate. She was always ready to put it right on the table.

“Kate, it’s good to see you.” Jordan stood up. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Yeah, last I heard you were off to Andrews to catch a flight.”

“Ouch! You hit a bull’s eye on that one.” Jordan flashed back to his home, the dinner with Kate, the evening on the porch, his standing outside her bedroom door, trying to get up the courage to knock, but his courage never getting strong enough to put his hand into motion against the door.

He’d never met anyone like Kate. She excited him, scared him. She was something special and he just wished he could figure out the best way to approach her to begin a relationship. He was supposed to be the execution expert when it came to planning, but this time, he was stumped. “Dinner would be great but, unfortunately, I think it’s going to be Chinese with twenty-five of our closest new friends.” Jordan gestured around the room. “We’ve got a big one here Kate, with no real data on what the mission is and when it’s going to happen. I’m glad you’re here. We can really use your expertise.”

“Is that the only reason you’re glad I’m here?” Kate kept pushing.

“You are something, Miss Woolrich. I do want to have that dinner and, if not tonight, we’ll make sure we get away for it tomorrow. Deal?” Jordan asked.

“Deal — as long as no last minute flights come up.” Kate was never one to stop a dig until she made her point.

“If they do, I’ll take you with me. Has anyone briefed you yet?” Jordan so wanted to move the conversation to the case.

“Just the prelims. No real details. And what I got was several hours old.” Kate told him.

“All right then, take a seat and I’ll fill you in.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Mustafa awoke the next morning. He reached under his bed and retrieved his prayer mat. He unrolled it, placed it in the proper position facing Mecca and began his morning prayers. He was unsettled about Akmed and Aziz. He just wasn’t sure what exactly was going on. Was Akmed struggling with Mahasin’s death that he needed time away? He could understand it if they really had been man and wife. He’d been surprised that Akmed had even tried to save her life. At least he didn’t know enough about the mission to compromise it if he were talking to anyone.

He was more comfortable with Aziz. While Aziz was concerned about his father, he was still dedicated to his uncle. Mustafa had worried he might need to place Aziz in a lesser role for the mission, which would have been a shame. Aziz had grown into a natural leader amongst his cousins. They respected him and did as he asked without questioning. To move him out of the role would have been a huge risk. Yes, Aziz would stay in his role.

Mustafa noticed the clock and would need to rush to ensure he arrived at work on time. The last thing he needed was to create issues at work. His job as a Shift Supervisor at the Brotherly Love Cleaning Service was a critical element to the mission. He’d worked hard over the past six years. Starting as a night janitor, he worked harder than anyone else. He surpassed all of the quality standards for his job and his performance evaluations were always excellent. He truly relished the feedback, “If only everyone here worked as hard as you do.”

He eventually became the supervisor for the team, working at the Rohm and Haas Chemical Company Headquarters on Independence Mall in Philadelphia, always surpassing expectations. He was also in a position to hire and was able to place many of the people he needed for the mission into various roles. A year-and-a-half ago, he was again promoted. In his role as Shift Supervisor, he was now in charge of the day cleaning crews at the company’s six clients in the Independence Mall area. He’d also made himself valuable to the business development team and had found cost savings that allowed their bids to be accepted by three more clients in the same area. He was given a substantial raise, plus bonus. His manager also assigned him a company van to use both during and after work. Mustafa would laugh to himself at how these American’s thought everything could be fixed by money or material things. They had no idea what would be coming. They didn’t realize that their star employee had the Brotherly Love Cleaning Company at the center of the plan to wreak havoc in Philadelphia. This company would never stand up to the scrutiny it would receive by the Feds when they discovered the role it played. It always gave Mustafa a big grin that his employers took as a sign that they once again had pleased their employee and that he wouldn’t even think twice about leaving them. He finished dressing, thinking that any day now he would move his plan forward.

Mustafa left his house and jumped into the van. He stopped at the Wawa on his way to the office for a cup of coffee and an egg sandwich.

He headed to his office, which was housed in the basement of the Constitution Center, the most recent addition to Independence Mall and one of the newest clients. The General Manager hadn’t been in favor of Brotherly Love Cleaning being chosen and had pushed for one of their competitors. Mustafa decided to work out of this facility so he could keep a close eye on things. He’d shifted his crews around so he had several of his best people working at this location. He made it a point to seek out the Operations Manager several times a day, to check in, and had scheduled a weekly walk through the building with the General Manager. Feedback he was getting from his boss was positive and Mustafa felt that he was building a positive relationship with the GM. He would spend most of his day here, but in the afternoon he would walk to his other locations and check in. They included Liberty Bell Center, Independence Hall, Rohm and Haas, the Independence Visitor’s Center and the outside Mall area, which connected all of these buildings. During the day, he had a crew of sixty-five working for him.

Mustafa believed everything had fallen in place.

Chapter Thirty

As soon as the surveillance car notified the team that Mustafa had arrived at his place of work, the tactical team went into action. Agent Lutz walked up the alley to the back gate. Quickly checking his surroundings to make sure no one was watching, he rapped on the gate, alerting the dogs.

They dogs flew around from the front racing each other to the intruder at the gate. The agent raised his gun and fired at the first dog and then at the second. All that could be heard was the barely audible burp and then the low thud of the dogs falling to the ground. The tranquilizer would last four to five hours. By the time Mustafa returned, the dogs would be no worse for wear.

Lutz moved forward and retrieved the dart from each dog. If Mustafa returned unexpectedly, they had an antidote ready that would revive the dogs immediately.

“Dogs are down.” He spoke into his headset mike.

“Everyone move in.” The team leader replied.

Two Comcast Cable vans pulled up to the front of the house and four agents, disguised as installers, jumped out and went to the rear of the vans and grabbed large tool boxes and headed inside.

Another van pulled up in back of the house. This van included Jordan and Kate. While not dressed as installers, they moved rapidly to the back door, where Lutz just finished his inspection for tells on the back door before opening it.

He discovered a human hair stuck in the top hinge. He gently removed it, bagged it and taped the bag to the door. He then quickly utilized his lock pick set to open the door. They had anticipated no alarm and they were correct.

They moved in with Lutz, also dressed as an installer and moved to the front door. With a look out the window, he saw the agent on the other side who had affixed an envelope to the door and gave a thumbs up sign. Inside, the agent unlocked the door and opened it.

“Hey is Mustafa finally getting cable. I’ve told him for years he needed cable.”

The four agents on the front porch turned around and saw a woman standing on the sidewalk near their vans, looking at them.

“Oh Christ!” Agent Reggie Smith whispered. “I’ll take care of her,”

“Yep, he sure is.” Smith pegged the lady as somewhere between forty and forty-five years old. She was dressed in an old tracksuit that did little to hide or flatter her robust figure.

“He must be getting the works, because when you boys come to my house, there’s only one of you and he never looks as good as you boys do.” The woman looked hard at each of the men.

“Well thanks, ma’am. We’re actually using this installation to train some of our new guys. So, maybe next time you call, one of them will come out.”

“If I knew I was going to get one of you, I’d go and break something,” she laughed, teasing.

Smith smiled and laughed with her. “Well, we want our customers happy. But, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Why don’t you give me your address and when I get back to the office, I’ll put in your file for them to call me if you have any problems.”

“Well, I’m not sure you’re the cutest one. Can you bring all of your boys out here and let me pick?” She laughed again.

”Well, I can’t do that, but I’ll tell you what next time you have a problem and you call, they’ll call me and I’ll round up all four of us and we’ll come together. How’s that for a deal?”

“Sounds good to me, I just live right down in the next block. Twenty-seven O three is my place. It’s the third house in on the left.” She pointed down the street.

“It sure is. Let me also get your name.”

“Ms. Mirabelle Jones; but, my friends call me Belle.”

“Okay, Ms. Jones, I’ll put that note in the file.”

“Honey, we’re friends. You can call be Belle.”