The Beltway Assassin (3 page)

“You rang,” Ritter said as he sat down in the camel leather seat opposite her.

Shannon sniffed and sat back. Her eyes were raw, worn from some catharsis weathered before Ritter’s arrival. Her face shifted into the stone mask she always wore before she spoke.

“You have an assignment,” she said.

“I can go to the Ukraine? Join up with Cindy and the rest of the team?” he asked. Cindy, Mike, and Carlos—his normal coterie of operatives—had been in the Ukraine for the last week without him. Shannon hadn’t shared the specifics of their mission. Her strict need-to-know policy had no exceptions.

“No, you’re not going to a war zone until you’ve fully healed. We’ve been over this,” Shannon said, her tone cold.

“I’m fine for combat. Send me,” he said. He’d been anxious to join Cindy since she’d left for the Ukraine. He had no worries about her abilities, but Cindy’s heart for this line of work had waned. She’d had serious misgivings about staying with Caliban since her last mission to garner the location of a nuclear warhead from a terrorist financier had ended in the messy death of her target. Some operatives could handle the killing that came with the work; some couldn’t. Cindy had told Ritter about her plans to quit the program the morning before she had a meeting with Shannon. Instead of being freed from the program, Cindy and the rest of the team had deployed to the Ukraine later that day. What had Shannon said to Cindy to get her to go on the mission?

Shannon looked him over with her basilisk stare and slowly swiveled her chair from side to side. Her hand shot toward Ritter’s face. A pen speared through the air, and Ritter’s hands went up out of reflex to block the projectile. His left hand batted the pen from the air; his right arm wasn’t nearly as fast, as if his shoulder joint had rusted.

Ritter grimaced and swore under his breath as he rubbed his burning shoulder.

“Don’t bullshit me, Eric. You’d be a liability to the mission in your current state. Besides, you can’t even speak Russian,” Shannon said.

“And what is
their
mission?” Ritter said through clenched teeth.

Shannon ignored his question, pulled a manila envelope from her desk, and slid it across her desk. Tamper-proof tape was over the sealed flap, the name “Eric Gamil” printed above the tape.

“That’s you,” she said.

Ritter looked at the envelope but didn’t touch it.

“Seven hours ago, a bomb exploded in Ashburn and killed a man named Michael Bendis. Michael Bendis was…a mentor.” Shannon drifted away for a moment, her mind someplace far away and long ago. She shook her head and continued.

“You’re going to join up with the FBI and figure out who killed him and why,” she said.

Ritter pressed his lips together. This was damn peculiar.

“Shannon, is this a sanctioned operation? We don’t operate in the United States. You made that clear when I first came on board, and we’ve stuck to that rule ever since.” US law forbade the CIA and its covert elements such as Caliban from conducting any intelligence activities on American soil. That was the remit of the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.

“This is sanctioned by the directors, and that’s why Eric Gamil is an FBI agent.” She pointed to the envelope. The directors, the leaders of the Caliban Program, were a mystery to Ritter. Only Shannon could communicate with them, and they were rarely spoken of.

Ritter snatched a letter opener from a cup on Shannon’s desk and sliced it across the tamper tape. Inside was a badge and ID for an FBI agent with Ritter’s face and a slew of credit cards and driver’s licenses for the same man.

“A bombing on US soil is in ‘kind of a big deal’ territory,” she said. “The FBI will elbow out any and all other parts of the intelligence and law enforcement community to keep this their baby, which is why you need that cover identity.”

“I’ll be guilty of half a dozen felonies when I put this badge in my pocket. Why is this so important? What aren’t you telling me?”

Shannon let out a slow breath and looked away.

“Bendis is—was—a director. Their identities are known to a select and very small group of men and women in the United States government. We need to know who ordered the hit and why.”

Ritter stayed quiet. This was the first concrete thing he’d ever learned about the directors. That one had been murdered begged a very scary question.

“This is about the nuke, isn’t it?” he asked. Ritter and the rest of Shannon’s team had captured a North Korean nuclear warhead, which fell into the hands of Somali pirates months ago. Ritter took a bullet when his erstwhile Israeli Mossad allies decided they wanted the weapon for themselves. While the Mossad team was eliminated, the trail of dead behind the nuke might have gotten one body longer. Ritter and Mike had handed the weapon off to another element of the Caliban Program, but he had no idea where it had gone after that.

Shannon nodded.

“That’s our working hypothesis,” she said. “Only our organization, aside from the Israelis and the Koreans, knows about the weapon. If someone inside the organization—or higher—is making a move for the nuke, then we need to know who.”

“Higher?”

“Everyone works for someone, Eric, even the directors.”

“Why stop at one director? Why not take them all out in one fell swoop?” he asked.

“An excellent observation,” she said. “Find out who did this and ask them why.”

Ritter examined the FBI badge, light glinting from the copper. There was more to this story than Shannon was telling him.

Shannon lifted a small framed photo from her lap and set it on the desk. A much younger Shannon in navy whites stood next to a man dressed in khakis and a safari vest.

“There’s a personal aspect to this, Eric. Bendis was an old Soviet hand. He went on countless missions behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War and did great things in service of our country. After 9/11”—Shannon’s hand swept over a bare ring finger—“he brought me out of a dark place and gave me a purpose. He was the director who brought me into the Program.

“That’s how it works, you understand? Every director has one operative who reports to him or her. They recruit a single team leader. Then that leader builds the team.” She swallowed heavily. “I’ve said too much.”

Ritter pocketed the badge and glanced into the envelope; sheets of paper detailing Eric Gamil’s backstory were inside.

“Why don’t
you
do this?” he asked. “If I can be FBI, so can you.”

She smirked. “I’m ronin until the rest of the directors decide what to do with me, and they’ve all gone to ground until this plays out. I’m going to lay low for a bit. My contact with Bendis was indirect, but traceable. Whoever killed him might have me in their sights.

“Besides, the angle we have set up for your placement and access with the FBI depends on you. True name or otherwise,” she said. “Base out of the off site. Tony’s already there, setting up the tech support. Irene is under an alias at TEDAC, where all the forensic exploitation for this case will take place.”

“Wait. You sent
Irene
into the FBI undercover?” Ritter asked. Irene was a brilliant analyst and an asset to Shannon’s team, but she didn’t have a dishonest bone in her body.

“She’s a big girl. The FBI is bringing in additional analysts for this case, and her alias is airtight. I told her to keep her head down, mouth shut, and to be unfriendly. She’ll fit right in.”

“I don’t speak FBI very well. What’s this angle you mentioned?”

Shannon chewed her bottom lip. “Yes, about that…”

Shelton jotted down the address for the house in front of him, then stretched his arms behind his back. He’d interviewed dozens of Bendis’s neighbors in the preceding hours. None had anything worthwhile to add to the investigation. The house before him was the last one before the road cut off into sparse trees covering a small knoll.

He adjusted his badge so it was easily visible on his chest and stepped onto the driveway.

“Shelton! Someone wants to see you,” Burkowski said as he rumbled toward Shelton. The large man had graduated from coffee to cigarettes hours ago, a smoldering butt still between his lips.

Shelton rolled his eyes and made his way toward Burkowski. The last house could wait a bit longer. He looked to the setting sun and estimated he had another half hour of useful light left. Asking a witness to point out anything in the dark wasn’t good police work.

“Who needs me?” Shelton asked.

“Assistant Director Cox,” Burkowski said. He didn’t bother to match Shelton’s quicker pace as he continued. “What’d you do to get on the Counterterrorism Division’s radar? I thought you were with Major Crimes.”

Shelton ground to a halt and put his hands on his hips. Cox was a big name in the FBI, responsible for numerous arrests of terrorists around the world since long before 9/11.

“Damned if I know,” Shelton said.

His cell phone buzzed with a text message. Shelton pulled the phone from his pocket as he walked toward the command truck. There were a half-dozen texts from his wife demanding to know where he was and when he’d be home, and one text was from a blocked number.

He opened the message from the blocked number, which read: “Act Natural”

The command truck was even more crowded than it had been this morning, Cox’s entourage adding to the scrum.

At six and a half feet tall, Cox towered above the crowd. His salt-and-pepper hair was so perfect that agents often joked he was getting ready to run for president. Cox caught sight of Shelton and waved him over. Shelton pushed into the conversation circle and froze when he saw someone he’d thought was gone from his life forever.

Eric Ritter, an FBI badge hanging from his neck, stood next to Assistant Director Cox. Ritter nodded along to Cox’s words, which were lost to the stunned Shelton. Ritter cast a glance at Shelton and winked.

“Agent Shelton, glad you made it here,” Cox said. The tall man wrapped an arm around Shelton’s shoulders and guided him over toward Ritter. Cox had a gentle air to him, which was at odds with the stony grip he kept on Shelton.

“Shelton, this is Agent Gamil,” Cox said, nodding toward Ritter. “Gamil is out of our Jordan office and is one of our most knowledgeable agents on all things al-Qaeda.”

Ritter held out his hand to Shelton. “Nice to meet you,” he said.

Shelton felt anger simmer in his heart. He’d known Ritter for years. Known him during their first deployment to Iraq in 2004. Known him between deployments and known him since Ritter helped recover two soldiers al-Qaeda had kidnapped during their last tour in Iraq. Their last parting, when Shelton had confronted Ritter with evidence that he’d murdered an Iraqi ally, had been anything but amicable. Shelton knew for damn sure that Ritter wasn’t “Agent Gamil.”

He shook Ritter’s hand and squeezed it so hard, Ritter’s lip twitched.

“Same,” Shelton said. This wasn’t the time to confront Ritter about his false identity; for all he knew, Cox was in on it.

“Gamil’s been overseas and undercover for the last decade,” Cox said. “He knows terrorist bomb-making techniques backwards and forwards, but he needs a partner who knows the area and the ins and outs of the analysis side of the agency. We’re lucky he was back in the States for leave when this crime happened. You’re partnered with him for the rest of this investigation,” Cox patted Shelton on the shoulder.

“I want you two to look at this case from the outside and use your Iraq War experiences to guide you. You two are independent from the rest of the investigation. Interact with the rest of us when you need to. Got it?” Cox squatted down to put his eyes level with Shelton’s.

“Yes, sir,” Shelton said. He wasn’t too far removed from army life to question orders from a superior, and challenging Ritter’s identity right then and there struck him as a bad idea.

“Shall we?” Ritter pointed through the crowd and back to the last house Shelton had been about to canvas before the interruption.

Shelton, his face rigid and hands clenched, walked the opposite direction from what Ritter had indicated and moved at a quick step past the police cordon. He strode to his car and opened the passenger-side door. He stared daggers at Ritter, then got in on the driver’s side.

Shelton sat in the car, his hands white-knuckle tight on the steering wheel.

Ritter sat in the passenger seat and closed his door.

“Explain,” Shelton said, his word tinged with rage.

“Nice to see you too. How’re Mary and the girls?” Ritter asked, his fingers drumming on his lap.

“You are
not
an FBI agent. What are you doing here, and what do you want with me?” Shelton said.

Ritter’s fingers ceased drumming.

“I’m here to solve this case, and you’re going to help me. We have intelligence that the bomber might be an al-Qaeda terrorist who earned his stripes in Iraq. I can’t be bothered with trivial matters like testifying in court or due-process nonsense. So you’re here in case that’s needed,” Ritter said, a slight smile on his lips.

“If you think I’m going to let you masquerade as an officer of the law and screw up this case, you’re—”

“Let me tell you exactly what’s going to happen, Greg.” Ritter’s voice and demeanor went from friendly to menacing in a heartbeat. “You’re going to do exactly what I say, or things will go very wrong in your life.”

“Fuck off.” Shelton opened his door.

“Don’t you remember our deal?” Ritter said. “You keep your mouth shut about what I did in Iraq, and me and my organization will keep you comfortable.”

Shelton closed his door.

Ritter’s voice calmed. “You know how you left Iraq. Two of your soldiers were kidnapped—an embarrassment to the chain of command and the army. You got a horrible evaluation of your time in command that would guarantee you’d never be promoted in the army again. Then an FBI recruiter calls you and talks up being an agent. You apply and are accepted into the program in less than a month—something of a miracle in the FBI’s hiring process. You get through Quantico, then get your first choice of assignment, even though you weren’t the top of your class. It never occurred to you that all this was a bit convenient? We made that happen for you, and we can unmake it in a heartbeat.”

Shelton fumed and looked away from Ritter.

“Your silence bought your success. Now we require your cooperation. Ready to get to work?” Ritter asked.

Shelton ruminated on Ritter’s revelation. His easy transition from the army to the FBI had struck him and others as fortuitous but never as a handout. He’d worked like as hard at the FBI academy as he had to get through West Point. He’d earned his badge; that wasn’t something Ritter could take credit for.

In Iraq Ritter had manipulated him into keeping torture and murder silent. Even if the victims were terrorists responsible for the death of his men, what had happened was an injustice. As an officer of the law, Shelton knew he had the chance to see justice done. He decided to bring Ritter to account…when he had an airtight case. Working with Ritter on this case could give him the evidence he needed.

Shelton brandished a finger at Ritter. “We make an arrest in this case. Then you disappear, and we’re even.”

Ritter laughed. “Greg, you’re adorable. I’m not one for ‘arresting.’ I’m in the ending business. But maybe we can do something as pedestrian as a trial, if needed. Just know I will never testify in a court.”

Keep saying that, you smug bastard
, Shelton thought.

“Shall we get back to work?” Ritter asked.

Shelton left the car and strode toward the last house left to canvas.

“What have you learned?” Ritter asked as he walked beside Shelton.

“Victim’s garbage can exploded while he was moving it. No evidence of a trigger or switch found at the scene, which is curious,” Shelton said. “The explosive used isn’t very shock sensitive. He could have hit the can with a bus, and it wouldn’t have gone off. No disturbance trigger either.”

“A bomb like that wouldn’t go off by accident. How did the bomber set it off?” Ritter asked. They passed the crime scene; Ritter craned his head to examine it as they passed by. His head swung around, taking in the entire neighborhood before focusing on the wooded knoll at the end of the road.

“I have a working idea but nothing to confirm it,” Shelton said.

“Don’t keep me in suspense,” Ritter said.

Shelton took out his notebook as he approached the last house on the street. Through the shattered windows, he heard the scrape of broken glass moving across wooden floors.

Shelton gave Ritter a hard look. “If I tell you, you might influence a prospective witness. Watch and learn how to gather information without ripping out fingernails.”

“I’m more of a kneecap man,” Ritter said, Shelton wasn’t sure of that was an admission or a joke.

Shelton shook his head and knocked on the door. A moment later a harried-looking woman with long, dark hair answered the door.

“What?” she asked. She had a dustpan in a well-manicured hand. Her outfit of yoga pants and a pristine college sweatshirt didn’t strike Shelton as what this woman normally wore to clean the house, if she did that at all.

“Ma’am, I’m Agent Greg Shelton with the FBI. Can I ask you a few questions?” Shelton smiled. A warm demeanor went a long way with stressed-out witnesses.

“Fine, whatever. I’m Mary,” she said.

“Mary, did you hear or see anything strange this morning?” Shelton asked.

“You mean, besides the giant explosion that blew out my windows?” she rolled her eyes at Shelton.

“Besides that, yes,” Shelton said.

Mary sucked on her bottom lip and looked toward the wooded knoll. She raised the dustpan and waved it in the air, fanning toward the small hill. “Right before the boom, I swear I heard a gunshot. Sometimes we get hunters in the woods, and those idiots will try to murder something. I went to the HOA about it, but they’re a bunch of worthless morons.”

“How many gunshots?” Ritter asked.

“Just one, then the boom. It was really close, too. No echo like I normally hear,” Mary said.

****

Ritter feigned interest as Shelton kept up the questions. With daylight fading, he decided to take the initiative. He tapped Shelton on the shoulder and walked off. He trotted across Mary’s lawn and into the trees beyond her property line. The knoll climbed fifteen feet high, which was steep enough to dissuade the average American. Ritter turned around and looked at the crime scene; he had a clean line of sight from the hill to the blast seat.

He made his way to the top of the hill with a few long steps and crouched behind a tree trunk. He scanned the surrounding forest, looking for anything and anyone.

One squirrel chased another up a pine tree, both chattering at each other. He saw an asphalt trail at the base of the slop leading to his perch, well over a hundred yards away. A pair of bicyclists in spandex rode through the forest on the trail. Ritter could barely hear the
click-click-click
of the spokes through the sound of the breeze wandering through the bare branches of the forest.

He took in a deep breath through his nose and caught the smell of something unusual: bleach. The wind changed, and he lost the scent. He stood up and walked along the ridge of the  knoll, his eyes scanning the ground.

The smell of bleach returned after he traveled a few yards. He stopped, looked around, and spotted a beaten patch of dead grass just off the ridgeline.

“There we go,” he said.

The sound of grunts and heavy feet in the brush came from behind him, Shelton making his way toward Ritter.

“Care to explain why you left your part—me alone back there?” Shelton asked.

“You’re a big boy, Greg. You couldn’t handle her?” Ritter turned his attention back to the ground between him and the patch of grass.

“FBI agents are never alone when interviewing a witness. Battle-buddy rule is in effect just like an infantryman on patrol,” Shelton said. He tromped up to Ritter and ran into Ritter’s extended hand.

“Don’t. The shooter was over there. There should be a shell casing in the grass,” Ritter said.

“Shooter?”

Ritter saw a glint in the grass and crept toward it. “There.”

He pulled a pen from his coat and removed the cap. He knelt in the cold, congealed soil and scooped up a bullet casing with the cap.

The casing, a light-green sheen on the copper body, was the size of his pinky finger. Ritter recognized it as either a .308 or a 7.62mm round. The differences were miniscule, but they could mean the difference between a shooter who’d used a rifle from Walmart or from a specific country’s armory. A ballistics analyst could find those answers, and Ritter had access to the best in the world through the fake badge around his neck and Shelton’s cooperation. Ritter inhaled slowly and brought the casing closer to his nose. There was a faint acrid smell; this round had been fired in the last several hours.