Razing Beijing: A Thriller (5 page)

McBurney heard Kosmalski ask him, “Does that look like
Ahmadi to you?”

The murderer clearly had taken his time before delivering
the moment of death. Both victims’ faces were cut, swollen, and mottled purple
with bruises but it was the woman, young and probably attractive, who had taken
the brunt of abuse. One of the investigators flashed a photograph and stepped
back—McBurney’s stomach turned. The woman’s left breast was mangled beyond
recognition. Her chest and inner thighs were awash in coagulated blood. Averting
his eyes, he saw arranged like surgeon’s instruments on the dining room table a
pair of pliers, a bloodied broom handle, and a carving knife. “Could be him,”
McBurney replied.

He looked back in time to see an investigator’s gloved
fingers insert a hollow plastic straw into the entrance wound of Ahmadi’s
temple. An assistant held Ahmadi’s head upright while the investigator used a
protractor to establish the bullet’s trajectory. It took them less than a
minute to repeat the exercise for the dead woman.

“I guess the neighbors heard the gunshots?” McBurney asked Kosmalski.

“Apparently not the gunshots. Screaming and shouting,
disturbance.”

“You’re probably right, chief,” the investigator confirmed
a minute later for Special Agent Kosmalski. “The spray patterns over the wall
and carpet are consistent with a left-handed perpetrator.”

“Or a right-hander using his left in order to throw you
off,” suggested McBurney. “And with a silenced weapon.”

“Actually, between torture and busting up the place, this
perp could learn a thing or two about reducing the number of clues,” Kosmalski
observed. “This isn’t the typical work of your seasoned professional.”

“We found hair follicles and skin under the woman’s
fingernails.” The investigator pointed down at the floor. “And a pair of men’s
size nine or so, fairly light depression.”

Kosmalski was listening with his eyes on McBurney. “A
little south-paw bastard?”

“Looks like it. I’ll need another few minutes to verify his
eye color.”

“Ha-ha.” Kosmalski said to McBurney, “Maybe you should step
out for some air.”

The investigator followed Kosmalski’s gaze. “Better yet,
we’re about done here.” He caught McBurney’s eye and jabbed a thumb at the
grisly straw sticking out of the woman’s temple. “Care for a sip?”

McBurney’s stomach did a somersault. Agent Kosmalski accompanied
him into the kitchen.

“Every squad has its wise-ass,” Kosmalski apologized for
his colleague’s behavior.

McBurney took a deep breath but still felt a bit queasy. “Has
anyone contacted the Iranian consulate?”

“Not yet.”

“So, the Secret Service bit. The woman looks familiar.”

“I figured she might. Her name’s Katherine Prouty.”

“The
president’s
Katherine Prouty?” McBurney
remembered seeing the young woman at a national security council brouhaha a
couple of years ago. Prouty had drawn the unfortunate duty of being tapped by
the president to ride herd on a bloated Homeland Security budget. He recalled
some of his colleagues fuming over having to justify their programs to a
snot-nosed academic. There were the usual rumors about her having a romp in the
Oval Office which McBurney ignored. His own impression was that Prouty was
merely in over her head. “What the hell was she doing with a character like
Ahmadi?”

Kosmalski didn’t reply.

“You’re kidding. The president’s favorite staffer was
screwing a terrorist?”

“Yeah, imagine that. And she wasn’t even CIA. Listen, your
need-to-know does not include Ms. Prouty’s sexual proclivities. It’s strictly
off the record.”

McBurney studied his host. “There’s more.”

“Actually...you’re probably correct that somebody back home
caught wind Ahmadi was schmoozing a little too closely with Uncle Sam. I’m
thinking Ms. Prouty just got in the way.”

“She got in the way, all right. And I would think taking on
the president
is
something more typical of a seasoned professional,
wouldn’t you? So let’s cut the bullshit, Kosmalski.”

Kosmalski shrugged. “Our profiler seems to think the perp
simply used the woman to extract what he wanted from Ahmadi—”

“If that were truly the case, I assure you that the
murderer did not know Mohammad Ahmadi.’

“They must’ve known each other well enough for Ahmadi to
buzz him into the building.”

“How do you know it wasn’t Prouty who admitted him?” McBurney
looked into Kosmalski’s face—must have been a Marine, probably a sergeant, he
thought, having spent enough time in the Navy to know a Marine when he saw one.
“Just show me what I need to see and I’ll get out of your hair.”

Agent Kosmalski, whose head was shaved, regarded him a
moment before turning toward someone in the dining room. “Track down Agent
Mueller, would you?”

Back in the living room a tall and very young-looking FBI
agent presented McBurney with a single sheet of paper sheathed inside
protective plastic marked as evidence. There were dozens of series of numbers
that nearly filled the page.

McBurney looked up, confused.

Agent Jeffrey Mueller said, “A few of us agents started an
astronomy club a little while ago. Are you familiar with satellite epoch data?”

“Vaguely.”

“Mr. Kosmalski and I ran this page by a friend of mine in
the lab, and he immediately confirmed what it was.” Mueller went on to remind
McBurney what he pretty much already knew about satellite ‘epoch’ data, that by
applying the time and position of satellite insertion into orbit, along with
the defining Keplerian values, one could approximate the satellite’s orbital
location in the future, providing the orbit wasn’t subsequently altered or
‘retasked.’

“I get the picture,” said McBurney. “I don’t get what
interest the Agency has in amateur astronomy.”

Mueller looked to his boss. Kosmalski said to McBurney,
“Some of those dates seem to be launch dates—
future
launch dates. I
understand they might be considered important.”

McBurney saw some dates were indeed in the future, toward
the end of July. He felt the hair rise on the back of his neck...

Kosmalski asked, “This is your ‘purview,’ is it not?”

McBurney knew that the dates revealed on the page were
highly classified by the Pentagon. Nonetheless, he would have thought them
worthless in the hands of an ordinary terrorist. “Have you been advised as to
the significance of these dates?”

“Not specifically.” Kosmalski turned toward his junior
colleague. “That’ll be all, Mueller.”

“Hold on,” interrupted McBurney. “What else did you find
here? I mean, are we to presume the murderer was after this?”

“That’s inconclusive,” said Kosmalski. “Whatever the motive
at work here, you have to say it was important enough for the perp to run
roughshod over not just our sensitivities but also Iran’s. Look how their guy’s
left here, you know, strapped to some naked infidel whore.”

“I don’t think that excludes Tehran from the list of
probable suspects.”

“Go on, Mueller, tell him what else you found.”

“Well, let’s see. There’s a stack of US currency banded to
two passports amounting to several thousand dollars worth of hundred dollar
bills...” Mueller said that the passports, one Turkish and the other Italian,
were both issued in March of the previous year. Each bore the photograph of a
clean-shaven version of the man presently being picked over in the other room. There
was a thick stack of handwritten notes in Farsi and several dozen of the
typical reports documenting some of Ahmadi’s contacts with key Americans. They
had also found a rolled-up map of the northeastern United States and a copy of
the Koran.

As a former employee of a diplomatic mission, McBurney
thought the list sounded incomplete. “How about encrypted communications
protocols, stuff he might’ve been provided by the Iranian consulate?”

“Nothing like that,” Kosmalski confirmed.

“I see.” McBurney looked at Kosmalski. “Mind stepping into
the hall a minute?”

Kosmalski seemed a little wary. “Sure.”

Once they were out of earshot, McBurney asked, “What’s
going on here?”

“What do you mean?”

McBurney held up the page of satellite data. “You said
you’re supposed to provide me with the context of this discovery. With what
you’ve provided me so far, I’ll have no choice but to report that this slip of
paper was probably planted.”

“Planted?”

“It doesn’t fit anything here. It is completely
out
of context.”

“And who would you try to claim planted it?”

“You mean other than the FBI? How should I know? You said
the murders involved the Holocaust Memorial attack. Has the FBI identified a
murder suspect?”

Kosmalski looked away.

“I don’t think I can help you.” McBurney handed the evidence
back to Kosmalski. He turned and headed for the elevator.

Kosmalski said, “Katherine Prouty was sent here to
negotiate with Ahmadi.”

McBurney stopped and turned. “Negotiate for what?”

Kosmalski looked around to confirm they were still alone. He
waved McBurney back. “Two weeks ago, Mohammad Ahmadi approached the State
Department claiming he knew the names and whereabouts of two terrorists who
escaped from the scene of the Holocaust attack. State immediately ushered the
guy over to the president’s national security advisor.”

“Thomas Herman.”

“Oh, that’s right—I seem to recall you two being buddies. Any
way, we were tapped to pull together the Iranian’s bona fides. In the meantime
Herman’s people began this dance with Ahmadi, whose demands in return for the
terrorist names included political asylum as well as total amnesty for all of
his past misdeeds. Of course, this would have to be granted by President
Denis.”

“Then, Prouty was here negotiating on behalf of...? Whom
exactly?”

“Forget it—not your worry.”

McBurney mulled over the scenario. “That still doesn’t
explain your call to the Agency this morning.”

“The bureau determined that Ahmadi was simultaneously
trying to cut a deal by dangling the names before...a powerful senator.”

“Double-dealing? I wonder which of the two efforts was the
legitimate one. Perhaps neither. Of course, the senator couldn’t grant him a
pardon.”

“Ahmadi wanted the senator to provide him with classified
missile defense information.”

McBurney pointed at the sheet of paper in Kosmalski’s hand.
“You’re telling me that information was swapped in some smarmy deal with—”

“Not so. I know for a fact that no such exchange was ever
consummated.”

“Then where did it come from?”

“Well, we have to investigate that.”

“What missile defense program was Ahmadi fishing for? There’s
more than one.”

“SBIRS.”

For the second time now, McBurney sensed that Kosmalski had
been instructed to feign ignorance—the classified launch dates found in
Ahmadi’s possession were in fact for the space-based infra-red satellites,
otherwise known as ‘SIBBERS.’ So who had slipped the dates to Ahmadi, and why? “Which
senator are we talking about?”

Kosmalski shifted uncomfortably.

“Come on. Only a handful of senators might reasonably have
the information he was fishing for.”

“Senator Milner.”

“Milner, huh?” Ahmadi certainly hadn’t wasted time going
after some disgruntled bureaucrat; Milner chaired Senate Appropriations and sat
on numerous oversight committees. The Maryland senator was something of a
Washington institution in his own right. “You’re certain that Milner didn’t
comply?”

“I already told you. The satellite information did
not
originate from the senator. We know because Ahmadi proceeded to threaten him
for it.”

“He
threatened
a senator?” McBurney found the
prospect stunningly brash even for Ahmadi. “In what way?”

“Toward the end of their discussion it seems that the
subject might’ve attempted to blackmail the senator.”

“It
seems?
If it was blackmail, wouldn’t the senator
know?”

Kosmalski worked his jaw. “We don’t know what Ahmadi
thought he had on the senator, Milner isn’t saying, and most importantly, it
isn’t your issue.”

McBurney suspected that given the circumstances, the FBI
had probably been ordered to place Ahmadi under some sort of surveillance. He
also knew something of the pressures brought to bear on any man contemplating a
change of allegiance—assuming Ahmadi’s overture to the president’s security
advisor was legitimate—particularly the fear of being hunted down as a traitor.
Simply to stay alive such men were inclined to adhere to their established
routine of contacts, and so he wondered how much if any intelligence product
Ahmadi had led the FBI to. He asked Kosmalski, “What’s the FBI think Iran
might’ve wanted with classified missile defense information?”

“We’re still looking into that. We are talking about an
agent of a nuclear rogue. And that’s why you’re here.”

“Okay.” McBurney rubbed his face. “This solicitation of the
senator amounts to attempted espionage by a foreign agent. The Agency is
supposed to be kept abreast of such things, yet we weren’t until now. Why?”

“Because the president forbid it.”

“So, the president knew Ahmadi was trying to double-deal
him?”

“That’s a more recent development, but I believe the
president knew. Certain members of the national security council were adamant
from the start that they have absolute control of handling Ahmadi.”