May 3
Trump International Hotel and Tower
New York City
3:19 A.M. EDT
Jeffrey Connor was exhausted, suffering a bone-deep weariness that defied even the adrenaline still coursing through his body, despite the subsequent hours after the discovery of Ahmad Abu Khaled’s presence in America.
That had been an indisputable victory, though it was singular in light of the subsequent flurry of activity to capitalize on it. Finding a moving car in a road-rich section of New Jersey—with no description other than the face of a man inside it—was admittedly a long shot indeed.
Nonetheless, the impressive force of American law enforcement had been activated, if something less than immediately; a tsunami of BOLO advisories sent to state and local police departments throughout the Northeast was only the initial step.
But it was one thing to circulate a ‘be-on-the-lookout’ name and photo; it was another entirely to attempt to placate Tavah Duhahi for doing so.
She had opposed the idea with vehemence.
“Do you wish to alert him, Jeffrey? To have him once again submerge himself, disappear into the shadows? You might as well erect billboards asking him to report to the nearest police facility to turn himself in!”
“The BOLOs will say he’s wanted in connection with an attempted murder, Tavah. No mention of terrorism. Just that he’s armed and considered extremely dangerous. That doesn’t exactly make it routine, but it should keep it out of the media and the eye of the general public.”
“‘Should?’ It is a foolish risk.”
“So we’re supposed to obtain intel on him, but not to act on it?”
“Not to act foolishly,” she snapped. “‘Should’ we also assume that Ahmad is so stupid that he will not add two and two? That a telephone conversation with his son, followed almost immediately by an FBI alert that he also ‘should’ not discover, is a—” here, Tavah’s English failed her momentarily—“… a coincidence? Mere happenstance? Insanity!”
“What would you suggest?” Connor fired back.
“We wait. The boy will contact him again in one week. Knowing now a more limited area in which to look, it will be far faster, easier, to pinpoint the location of his next call.”
“Which may well also be from a moving vehicle, maybe in a different state, which we’d also have to alert local cops to look for. Which would put us back to square one anyway.”
“You have no shortage of drones, or of the Hellfire missiles that they may carry. Flood with them the skies of your New Jersey, of New York—of everywhere, Jeffrey. Place them aloft that night, and we will deal with the problem of Ahmad Abu Khaled for once and all.”
Connor narrowed his eyes, meeting her fury with his own.
“That’s not how we do it here. Since you’re not a cop—not a real one, that is—you may not have known that.”
“No, you await the actions of terrorists to occur—and then ‘investigate’ them. Shin Bet has not that luxury, nor have we learned the wisdom of following rules that the terrorists do not themselves acknowledge. The lessons were taught in Israeli blood. How much American blood—how much more American blood, Jeffrey—will it require for your country’s education in this?”
“I’ll pass your suggestion on to my bosses,” Connor said. “But in the meanwhile—on the chance that maybe our laws work better for our country—we’re going to do it our way. The BOLOs are going out, lady.”
There was a sizzling silence for a moment, as each glared at the other.
Finally, Tavah spoke.
“As you say, Jeffrey, it is your country.” She rose. “But Abu Khaled is not only your problem.”
Tavah Duhahi had pivoted on her heel and left without another word.
• • •
It had taken several hours for the machinery of law enforcement to grind, even in so limited a form as distributing the alert.
Not being a complete fool—and despite what he had told Tavah—Connor first had sought and received authorization for the BOLO from higher-ups in the FBI, if only for the hopefully unneeded record. Other aspects of a more-or-less covert manhunt had subsequently been discussed, including Tavah’s somewhat bloodthirsty suggestion, though most of those were deferred to a more clear-headed morning and yet another group meeting.
And so Connor had returned to the most convenient bed at Trump Tower. It was, by no measure, the most comfortable one: The door to what he had come to think of as “Katie’s room” was still firmly closed. His probably-not prospective father-in-law’s room was empty, and he looked at the unused bed with envy before rejecting that potentially complicating option.
Connor shrugged, resigned to his fate: Only the sofa offered hope of the few hours’ sleep he so desperately needed.
He had moved from door to bathroom to sofa, taking care not to make unnecessary noise; Connor had no desire—and less energy—for a renewed, still-puzzling-to-him, confrontation with his probably-not fiancé.
Damn! he remembered, and chastised himself for his lapse. I forgot all about dinner with Katie. Again.
Anyway, I hope she had a decent meal, he told himself, and settled into the sofa to sleep.