The Beltway Assassin (5 page)

Irene pulled a pen from her pocket protector and tapped its tip against the TV screen. “You see the blast pattern on the asphalt? Just a bunch of cracks. No asphalt ejected like we’d see with a subsurface IED…or the crater we’d see if it was surface laid.”

“One vehicle took the brunt of the blast, but the car wasn’t flipped over,” an analyst said. “It looks like it was almost sheered in half by the blast.”

“So the bomb was…right next to the driver’s door? A few feet in the air?” Irene asked.

“A magnetic IED?” Shelton asked. The audience turned to look at Shelton, murmuring. “I saw this in Iraq a few times. Hajji would slap a bomb on our fuel tankers and try to set them off once they made it back to our base.”

The analysts nodded, and the murmuring grew louder. Irene’s face flushed, and she crossed her arms over her chest. Ritter suppressed a smile; Irene always prided herself on being the smartest person in the room. For someone—who wasn’t even wearing a lab coat—to connect the dots before she did would gall her pride.

A pair of analysts stepped toward the TV and started a discussion with Irene.

“Think this is the same guy?” Ritter asked Shelton.

“Two complex bombings in less than twenty-four hours, and you think they’re a coincidence?” Shelton said. “Killing someone with an IED isn’t a crime of passion. It takes time, planning, and precise execution. This perp knows what he’s doing.”

“The attack on Michael Bendis wasn’t an isolated event. We’re dealing with a serial killer,” Ritter said.

****

Located just west of the Beltway, Tysons Corner was a boomtown. The gigantic contractor firms that had consumed a significant portion of America’s intelligence and defense budget had grown the town from a few scattered farms and a single gas station in the 1980s to a sprawl of corporate high-rises and trendy restaurants.

Francis Zike spat a bisected sunflower seed into a Styrofoam cup and checked his dashboard clock again. The Iranian was late, as usual.

Zike looked at the half-complete concrete columns amid the idle construction equipment across the highway from him. The much-daunted Silver Line, meant to run from Dulles International Airport to the heart of Washington, DC, was behind schedule and over budget, which came as a surprise to absolutely no one.

A dilapidated Honda parked next to Zike. A blond man in his early forties, with a widow’s peak and a mustache that would have been appropriate in a 1970s adult film, looked at Zike through their car windows. The Iranian had arrived.

Zike unlocked his car doors, and the Iranian let himself into the car.

“You’re late,” Zike said.

“Traffic just got worse,” the Iranian said. Zike, who’d traveled to almost every country America had serious dealings with and had heard just about every accent English could carry, would never have guessed the Iranian was from anywhere but the United States based on his voice.

“About that.” Zike spat another seed shell into his cup. Since the bombing on the Beltway, government staffers, policy wonks, and professional class of lobbyists had reacted with the usual amount of DC maturity; they’d panicked. Highways out of DC were choked with cars as rumors about the Ashburn attack crept into the blogosphere and Twitter feeds of the nation’s policy makers. “You care to explain why the hell Jefferson is active without our express order? Did you forget the very specific terms of our deal?”

The Iranian kept his hands on his lap; his fingers tapped against his thighs as if a separate twitch possessed each.

“I didn’t unleash him. Jefferson has…gone rogue,” the Iranian said.

Zike smashed his cup against the dashboard. It exploded like a grenade and sent sunflower seeds everywhere.

“Rogue? What do you mean he went rogue?” Zike asked.

“He missed his check in two days ago. I went to his normal haunts to find him. Nothing. I thought he was having another one of his episodes. Then he killed the first name on the target list. No warning. I went to clean out the caches we set up for him, but he got there before me,” the Iranian said, unfazed by Zike’s outburst.

Zike rubbed his temples and cursed his fate.

“What’s the matter? This is what you wanted,” the Iranian said. “Fear and chaos in the capital.”

“We wanted every name on that list crossed off within hours of each other,” Zike said. “I knew we should have eliminated him as soon as the other prospect flaked out. He’s smart enough to build bombs and use them properly, but he’s a damn nutcase. Why the hell did he blow up some wonk?”

“I, unlike you, have spent a great deal of time with him. He’s delusional, convinced that those responsible for your nation’s foreign aggression must be punished. That he’s adding to the list of targets doesn’t surprise me. Don’t worry. He has nothing that can come back to me. You made sure of that,” the Iranian said.

Zike nodded. Erasing the Iranian and the two men he’d trained from every computer system and database in the US government had been time consuming and costly, but it would be worth it in the end.

“Keep him in play. It will make phase two that much more successful,” the Iranian said.

“The other prospect is a loose end,” Zike said.

“He is irrelevant, provided you did your job,” the Iranian said. “Now I have to finalize the arrival of the rest of my team and set up our workplace. Will you take care of the rest of the list?”

Zike cast a sideways glance at the Iranian. “We can keep one name in play. That might draw our nut job out. Two birds with one stone.”

The Iranian grabbed the door handle. “You will deliver the device once phase two is complete. That is our bargain.”

Zike’s face contorted into a grin. The Iranians would get their nuclear warhead, which the Caliban Program had captured from that mess on Socotra Island, just not the way they’d envisioned.

“You and your team have to make Jefferson’s mess look like a spring picnic,” Zike said.

“Have faith, Mr. Zike. We have something special planned.”

****

An FBI badge and an unpleasant demeanor opened a lot of door. Ritter strolled down the intensive care ward of Reston Hospital Center well beyond the established visiting hours. He’d slipped Shelton an hour ago; he didn’t need an actual FBI officer with him for what he had to do next.

Ritter flashed his badge at a pair of nurses, who showed an interest in his presence as he passed their station. His subject was two doors down.

Maggie Bendis was in her hospital bed, and the mattress had been elevated to allow her to sit up without any real effort. Her light-gray curls were wilting, and her pallor nearly matched her hair. The woman, in her mid-sixties, looked frail as if all of her were evaporating in the glow of the cable news show on her TV.

Ritter knocked on her door frame. Maggie looked up, jostled out of whatever reverie had kept her attention from the food in front of her. Ritter didn’t wait for an invitation before closing the door behind them.

“Ma’am, I’m FBI Special Agent Eric—”

“Don’t bullshit me, kid. I was married to a spy for four decades. I can smell your type a mile away,” she said, her voice tinged in sorrow. “You move like a killer, not a cop.”

Ritter sat next to her and looked at her uneaten meal. There was no need to confirm her suspicion; she would understand what could, and couldn’t, be said in an insecure environment like a hospital room.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said.

“Heh, I always knew the risks. Just thought he was out of any real danger once he retired from anything overseas. All the months apart, the long silences during missions, the unexplained cuts and bruises…You’d think I’d be ready for this. For him to be gone.” She looked away from Ritter and wiped away a tear.

Since joining the Caliban Program, Ritter had kept important people in his life at arm’s length. Spy work was inherently dangerous, even more so than his brief time in uniform and in a war zone. He could disappear on a mission and spend decades in a foreign prison under a false name—or find his way into a shallow grave. The reality of his profession had been evident to him on his first day in Caliban, when he’d killed an al-Qaeda terrorist on the streets of a Pakistani city and narrowly escaped arrest by the local police.

Ritter hadn’t allowed any close relationships—not because the job had demanded that he be cold and heartless but because he hadn’t wanted anyone to suffer from his loss, just as Maggie was suffering the loss of her husband. He’d have to discuss this lifestyle with Cindy when she returned from her mission in the Ukraine. He had strong feelings for her, but…

“Did your husband say anything? Mention anything dangerous?” Ritter asked.

“Michael was a damn steel trap when it came to anything work related. I had to pretend he was a telecommunications executive during our entire marriage. What’re you? Dry goods? Derivatives?” she asked.

“Shipping,” Ritter said with slight smile. His last cover had been with Eisen Meer, an import/export company operating out of Vienna, Austria.

“Shipping…Michael came home a few weeks ago, livid that their shipping arm had lost a package. He’d never give me specifics, just polite, meaningless terms so we could pretend to talk like normal people.”

The timing and doublespeak around what Maggie was talking about could have been about the nuclear warhead Ritter had procured for the Caliban Program. There was no way Maggie could confirm his suspicion, but maybe Shannon could.

“He was distracted ever since that happened. Lots more ‘business lunches,’ time away from me. Maybe that’s why he was killed,” she said.

She reached out and grabbed Ritter’s hand. Her touch was hot and dry, like wind off a desert.

“I’m alone now. No children. No real friends from our time together. Michael was all I had. Promise me you’ll find them and make them pay,” she said. Her blue eyes, wrapped in tears, pleaded with Ritter.

“I will,” Ritter said. He stood up and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. It was unprofessional to let personal feelings intrude on his mission, but Maggie earned an exception.

“One thing. All those years, and I never knew who he really worked for. Can you tell me?” she asked.

The answer was a single word, Caliban, but he’d vowed never to repeat it. The word could be given only to one who would safeguard it forever.

Ritter shook his head slightly and left the widow with her question unanswered.

****

Shelton closed his front door as quietly as he could; the warped wood on the door frame had a nasty habit of sticking in the winter air. The landlord still hadn’t fixed it. He slipped off his shoes and crept into his kitchen. His three daughters shared the same room, and if one errant noise woke one, then he’d have to put three girls back to sleep.

He got a beer from the fridge and tossed the cap into the garbage. There were few things more satisfying than a cold Canadian beer after a long day in the field. Shelton turned around and nearly gagged on his drink.

His wife, Mary, stood in the doorway, clad in her bathrobe, her blonde hair a frizzy mess. Dark bags hung under her eyes.

“Hey, honey,” Shelton said. He drew up a mental list of things he’d probably have to start apologizing for. “You’re not going to believe who I ran into today.”

She looked at him with stony indifference.

“Four hours. It took four hours to get from Kayla’s soccer game in Fairfax to here,” she said. “Four hours of full bladders, dead iPad batteries, and road rage. By the time we got home, I had to placate them with
SpongeBob
, ice cream, and wine. For me—the wine was for me. You mind explaining what the hell is going on out there, and why we’ve got a modern-day exodus from DC?”

“There was a bombing on the Beltway and another bombing earlier in the day out in Ashburn. Naturally, everyone wants to panic,” he said. Shelton led his wife by the hand to their dinner table, sat her down, and started rubbing her shoulders.

“Is it one guy or a whole team of terrorists out there?” she asked.

Shelton felt her shoulders bunch in tension under his touch.

“We think it’s just one guy, and he’s still out there,” Shelton said.

“The girls aren’t going to school tomorrow—that’s for damn sure. And…Wait, are you on this case?” she asked.

Shelton shifted an elbow onto her trapezius and started to work it.

“Yes, and you won’t believe who’s on the case with me. Eric Ritter,” he said.

Mary didn’t reply. She knew the entire history between her husband and the CIA spy she’d known as a run-of-the-mill army intelligence officer. She knew about Ritter’s bargain with Shelton, his silence about Ritter’s war crimes in Iraq in exchange for a career beyond the army. He’d never withheld anything from his wife, a rule that had kept their marriage strong through deployments and long hours as an FBI agent.

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“It means there’s more to this case than what I can see. I’ll play along with him until I can nail him on something—murder, extortion—something he or whoever he works for won’t be able to weasel out of. Then we won’t owe him a goddamn thing.”

Their last meeting, in which Ritter had admitted to deceiving Shelton and murdering an Iraqi, had been vital to recovering two soldiers al-Qaeda had kidnapped. Humiliation because of the betrayal had gnawed at Shelton’s heart. There’d never been a chance to get even, until now.