Executive orders - Tom Clancy [565]
It's a rug shop, the agent told Loomis over the encrypted radio channel. If we want to toss the place, we'll have to wait. There was already a tap on the phone line, but so far there had not been a single call in or out.
The other half of her squad was in Alahad's apartment. There they found a photo of a woman and a child, probably his son, wearing something like a uniform-about fourteen, the agent thought, photographing them with a Polaroid. But again, everything was pure vanilla. It was exactly the way a businessman would live in the Washington area, or an intelligence officer. You just couldn't tell. They had the beginning of a case, but not enough evidence to take to a judge, certainly not enough for a search warrant. Their probable-cause quotient was a little on the thin side. But this was a national-security investigation involving the personal safety of the President, and headquarters had told them that there were no rules. They'd already committed two technical violations of the law in invading two apartments without a warrant, and two more in tapping a couple of phone lines. With all that work accomplished, Loomis and Selig made their way into an apartment building across the street. From the manager, they learned that there was a vacant apartment facing Alahad's storefront. They got the keys to that without any difficulty and set up their surveillance of the front, while two more agents watched the back door. Sissy Loomis then used her cellular phone to call headquarters. Maybe it wasn't enough to take to a judge or a U.S. attorney, but it was enough to talk to another agent about.
ONE OTHER POTENTIAL subject wasn't completely clear yet, O'Day noted. There was Raman, and a black agent whose wife was a Muslim and who was evidently trying to convert her husband-but the agent had discussed it with his comrades, and there was a notation in his file that this agent's marriage, like others in the Service, was on shaky ground.
The phone rang.
Inspector O'Day.
Pat? It's Sissy.
How's Raman looking? He'd worked three cases with her, all involving Russian spies. The cheerleader had the jaw of a pit bull once she got onto something.
The message on his phone, the wrong number?
Yeah?
Our rug merchant was calling a dead person whose wife is allergic to wool, Loomis told him.
Click.
Keep going, Sis. She read off her notes and the information garnered by the people who'd entered the dealer's apartment.
This one feels real, Pat. The tradecraft is just too good. Right out of the book. It looks so normal that you don't think about it. But why the pay phone, except that he's worried somebody might have a tap on his phone? Why call a dead man by mistake? And why did the wrong number go to somebody on the Detail?
Well, Raman's out of town.
Keep him there, Loomis advised. They didn't have a case. They were still struggling for probable cause. If they arrested Alahad, he'd have the sense to ask for a lawyer-and what did they have? He'd made a phone call. He wouldn't have to defend the call. He just had to say nothing. His lawyer would say it was all some kind of mistake-Alahad might even have a plausible explanation already prepared; he'd keep that one in his pocket, of course-ask for evidence, and the FBI would have nothing to show.
That tips our hand, too, doesn't it?
Better safe than sorry, Pat.
I have to take this to Dan. When are you tossing the shop?
Tonight.
THE TROOPERS OF the Blackhorse were thoroughly exhausted. Fit and desert-trained soldiers that they were, they'd spent two-thirds of a day in airplanes with dry air, sitting in cramped seats, their personal weapons in the overhead bins-that always got a curious reaction from the stewardesses-and then arrived eleven time zones away in blazing heat. But they did what they had to do.
First came gunnery. The Saudis had established a