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“And the Russians? Pretty formidable foes.”
“Yes.”
“I’ve had a few run-ins with them. They can get pretty nasty.”
Herbert said nothing.
“You spent time in Russia. At least that’s what your file says.”
“I did.”
“Cold War era?”
“Yes.”
“How was it?”
“It was what it was.”
“Was your mission successful?”
“I came back alive, so I’d say yes, it was.”
She drove on.
Twenty minutes later Herbert and she were standing in the office building from where they’d deduced the guns had been fired. He opened one of the windows.
“What are we looking for?” she asked. “This building has the height to give it a direct sightline to the park. But we’d already established that.”
“I know. But I think there’s something else.”
“Like what?”
“If I knew that I wouldn’t be here looking out the window.”
He continued to gaze down at the park and then onward, south to the White House. There was something in the depths of his mind that he knew was important, but he couldn’t recall it. He had seen it, he was sure of that. In fact he had seen it in the park. But it wouldn’t come. He’d racked his brain all morning, but that focus had only served to bury the potential answer even more deeply.
Anthony leaned against the window and stared at him.
“It’s hurting my brain watching your brain burn itself out.”
“Let’s go. I need to check the message board at Georgetown University.”
“You into social networking with college students?�
�
“No. My target is a little older.”
. 1
“ANYTHING INTERESTING?” Anthony asked as she watched Herbert gazing over the message board. His eyes focused on one piece of paper set about two inches from where he’d put his message the night before. He read over it, quickly translating the coded response.
“Yes. Let’s go.”
The trip was short and they soon arrived at the apartment located over a dry cleaner’s. Mrs. Penelope answered their knock and motioned them in. They sat down. Herbert slowly looked around. “I didn’t know you had moved back in here.”
“I haven’t,” said Mrs. Penelope. She had on a long skirt, a white tunic and a string of green beads. Her black-and-silver hair was pulled together at the nape of her neck. “This is just temporary.” She paused. “I was surprised to see your note.”
“I’m glad to see that the little code we came up with is still effective.”
“What can I do for you?” she prompted.
“How is Fuat Turkekul?”
“Is that why you came here? To get information about him?”
“Is that a problem?”
“I know you are having him followed. That could be very dangerous for Fuat.”
“The shots in the park came from a government office building. How dangerous do you think that is?”
Mrs. Penelope sat back, her features inscrutable to a stranger like Anthony. But Herbert could tell she was both intrigued and concerned.
“You have confirmed this?”
“To my satisfaction, yes.”
“And why tell me? I am not part of the investigation. My mission has to do with Fuat, nothing more.”
“What if one is connected to the other?”
“I do not think that likely.”
Anthony, who had been sitting there silently, blurted out, “But can you just dismiss it like that? You have to account for the possibility. Otherwise you’re not doing your b****y job.”
Mrs. Penelope didn’t bother to look at her. “I didn’t expect you to partner with such a nervous person, Oliver.”
“Do you discount the possibility?” he asked. “To such a degree that you won’t prepare for it?”
Mrs. Penelope hunched forward. “Fuat is prepared for anything.”
“He eats, he teaches classes, he reads. I suppose somewhere in there he works on finding bin Laden, even if he is seven thousand miles away.”
“As you were told, the plans are in the preliminary stage.”
“Very preliminary. Ever since my colleague has been following him he’s done very little prepping.”
“It is not always obvious.”
“It is somewhat obvious, Mrs. Penelope. To the trained eye.”
“What exactly are you saying?”
“That what I was told about Fuat may not be true.”
“In what way?”
“That he’s not actually going after Osama bin Laden.”
Mrs. Penelope sat back. Herbert noted that the fingers of her left hand twitched a bit.
He continued, “It’s logical, isn’t it? To throw me off stride you tell me Fuat is going after the most sought-after terrorist since Hitler. You probably counted on the fact that the name alone would preclude the need for further explanation.”
Anthony said, “You mean he’s not going after bin Laden?”
Herbert kept his gaze on Mrs. Penelope. “Well?”
She rose and strode over to the window and looked out.
“There’s no one out there,” he said. “At least no one connected to me. But maybe that’s not what you’re concerned about.”
She turned back to him. “This is not something you want to become involved in, Oliver. It really isn’t. I say this to you as an old friend.”
“I’m already involved.” He rose. “And I have one more question for you.”
“I promise no answer.”
“Turkekul wasn’t at the park to meet with you that night. So who was he really there to see?”
THEY LEFT Mrs. Penelope’S APARTMENT without the question being answered.
Anthony said, “How did you figure they weren’t going after bin Laden? And that Fuat Turkekul was meeting with someone else that night?”
“I suspected each was true. Mrs. Penelope confirmed both for me just now.”
“But she didn’t say anything.”
“That’s what confirmed it.”
“But why were you suspicious in the first place?” persisted Anthony.
“You don’t task a man to chase Osama bin Laden and then plunk him in a teaching position in a university in the West, unless you believe bin Laden is hiding out on the East Coast somewhere. It makes no sense. That’s why I had Harry tail him. Not really for protection, but to see what he was doing. Or rather not doing.”
“And the fact that Mrs. Penelope wasn’t at the park to meet with him?”
“You don’t arrange a meeting like that and then just not show up. They had a message board arrangement. The meeting was late at night. It’s a ten-minute cab ride from Georgetown to the park. Turkekul could have checked the board right before he left. If she couldn’t make the meeting, Mrs. Penelope could have posted that message up until a few minutes before he
would leave for the rendezvous. She answered my post promptly, which tells me she checks it often. There was no need for him to stand around in the park waiting for her. That is inefficient and stupid. And potentially lethal.”
“But if not her, who? And did he meet with anyone?”
“Not that I saw, no.”
“What does that tell you?”
“That the meeting might have been off-schedule.” He added, “Not something his superiors knew about.”
“If that’s the case, why cover for him?”
“If Turkekul is a valuable asset he would be protected after the fact. And even if the meeting was off-schedule that doesn’t mean it was off-mission and thus could have been important to his superiors.”
“Could he have been set up, then?”
“They didn’t kill him. They could easily have done it by firing a few minutes earlier. No, he wasn’t the target.”
Anthony touched her temples. “My poor head is literally swimming with possibilities and none of them unfortunately make any sense.”
They returned to the park. Herbert walked it from north to south and east to west while Anthony dutifully followed looking alternatively curious and bored.
She finally said, “Are you thinking if you walk the scene of the crime, inspiration will strike?”
“I’m not looking for inspiration, just answers.” He gazed back at the building where the shots had presumably come from. “Shots fired. Everyone runs. Padilla jumps into the tree hole. The bomb detonates.”
“The bomb was detonated prematurely. And we need to find out who the actual target was. It keeps coming back to that. That bomb was really supposed to go off when this park was filled with VIPs. If we can determine the target we can reverse engineer it back to the people behind the plot. At least hopefully we can.”
Herbert shook his head. “We’re still missing something. The picture is still off. Way off.” He paused. “Okay, let’s change direction for a minute and do a simple process of elimination.”
“How?” she asked.
“If Turkekul wasn’t meeting with Mrs. Penelope, who was he going to meet with?” Herbert looked around the park. “Not your security man. Not Alfredo Padilla obviously. Not me.”
Anthony gasped. “Wait a minute. You mean the woman?”
Herbert nodded. “Marisa Mr. Green.”
.
“WHY Mr. Green?” ASKED Anthony as they walked along H Street.
“She was at the park. As I said, simple process of elimination.”
“But she explained what she was doing here. She voluntarily came forward, in fact.”
“I would too, if I were guilty of something. Her face was caught on the video feed. If she didn’t come forward it would look very suspicious. This way she defused that suspicion and appeared to be an upright, law-abiding citizen.”
“An adulterous upright citizen. But she has an office right over there.” Anthony pointed to the line of town houses on Jackson Place. “It would make perfect sense for her to be in the park.”
“Please put your hand down just in case she’s watching. They’ve allowed the business owners back in now.”
Anthony dropped her hand and looked chagrined at her indiscreet action. “Sorry.”
“She said she’s a lobbyist, and maybe she is. But maybe she’s more than that.”
“So she could have been Turkekul’s unscheduled meeting?”
Herbert said, “If he had such a meeting planned, she was the only one in the park he would be meeting with.”
“But if so, he might have told Sir James and the others about it.”
“Then perhaps they’re covering for her too.”
“Because she’s part of his mission, whatever that is?”
Herbert nodded.
“So her being in the park was because of Turkekul being there?”
“If my theory is right, yes,” replied Herbert.
- Writer
