In the seventh-floor conference room in CIA headquarters, Jake Harrison sat between Khalila Dufour and Pat Kendall, opposite Deputy Director Monroe Bryant and Deputy Director for Operations PJ Rolow. Their case manager, Asad Durrani, also joined them, while CIA director Christine O’Connor was seated at the head of the table.
It was a short-notice meeting, with Kendall taking the call in the NCTC from Durrani less than an hour ago. There had been a break in Mixell’s case and the DDA was running down another lead. To pull everything they knew about Mixell together, the DDO had directed they meet at Langley.
The previous day, when Harrison returned to the NCTC, Kendall had asked how things had gone in Sochi. It was a loaded question, which Harrison had to answer carefully. Until Sochi, he thought Kendall’s opinion of Khalila was off base, colored by her suspicion that she had killed her boyfriend. He hadn’t put much credence in her warnings, but now he had to admit that she’d been right.
However, he had made a deal with Khalila and couldn’t reveal anything he had learned about her, or anything she had done that hadn’t made it into the official CIA reports.
To prevent Kendall from prying into the matter, Harrison had replied, “It went well. Khalila helped track down Bogdanov.”
Kendall seemed satisfied with the answer, or perhaps it had been a polite inquiry and she didn’t really care, because she returned to her computer screen, studying the document on her display. The call from Durrani had come shortly thereafter, requesting their presence at Langley.
Khalila seemed at ease during today’s meeting, as if nothing unusual had happened in Sochi, while Harrison had to focus on his responses and body language, trying not to raise suspicion that there was an issue between them. At one point, Christine cast a curious look his way, then shifted her gaze to Khalila, and he wondered if he had given anything away. Christine had known him his entire life, from the time they’d begun playing together as toddlers through the ten years they dated in high school and beyond. Although he’d been married to Angie for fifteen years, he wasn’t willing to wager as to which woman knew him better.
He tried to stay focused on the case, and after the DDO reviewed what Khalila and Harrison had learned thus far, next up was the minor break Durrani had mentioned over the phone. Rolow took the lead.
“We tracked down Mixell’s cell mates at Leavenworth, and he talked to one of them about his fiancée. They never married, but Mixell referred to her as his soul mate, and she was indeed a stripper, as Harrison mentioned while reviewing Mixell’s file. The bad news is that Mixell was tight-lipped about the woman and never mentioned her name. The good news is that we know where she worked. Mixell recommended the strip club to his cell mate if he ever found himself in Baltimore—the Player’s Club.”
Tracey McFarland, the deputy director for analysis, entered the conference room with a folder, taking a seat at the table.
“What do you have?” Christine asked.
“I’ve got two more leads,” McFarland replied. She opened the folder and handed copies of the first sheet to everyone. It was a picture of a man Harrison found familiar, but he couldn’t identify who he was.
McFarland said, “We picked up this image of a man entering the country through Dulles Airport yesterday morning. We didn’t get a match until the image went through regression analysis, but we’ve got a ninety-one percent confidence it’s Mixell.”
“He’s back in the country,” the DDO said. “To do what?”
“Hold that thought,” McFarland said as she passed several more sheets around the table. “We’ve broken part of the code on one of Issad Futtaim’s files. It’s the critical document—the one that lists the weapon procurements. We’ve linked one of the purchases to Mixell’s Swiss account, and although we don’t know what he purchased, we know where it was shipped—the Port of Baltimore.”
“Where is it getting shipped from there?” Rolow asked.
“Just the port. There are no additional shipping instructions. My bet is—Mixell is here to pick it up.”
“Has it arrived?”
“We don’t know. We’ve run the shipment manifest number, but it doesn’t come up in the port’s database, nor on any ship unloading in the port. It must be off the books.
“One more thing,” McFarland said. “It must be a fairly large item. Futtaim shipped it in a CONEX box.”
“That should make it easier to find.”
“Not really,” McFarland replied. “The port unloads over two thousand CONEX boxes a day.”
Rolow turned to Harrison and Kendall. “Table the stripper lead for now. Run down Futtaim’s shipment at the port. If it’s there, find it.”
Kendall pulled out her cell phone as they left the conference room. “I’ll call Baltimore PD.” She looked up the number in her contacts, then placed the call.
“Jason, this is Pat Kendall. I need your help.”
She explained the issue with Mixell’s weapon shipment to the Port of Baltimore and asked for an immediate quarantine until she and Harrison arrived.
“Thanks, Jason,” she said before hanging up. She turned to Harrison. “They’ll have someone at all exits within the hour.”
Kendall’s call to Baltimore jogged Harrison’s mind. He was supposed to meet Angie and her mom for dinner in Baltimore tonight, and he had no idea how long he’d be tied up running down this afternoon’s lead.
He called Angie. “I can’t make it tonight. Something’s come up.”
Angie said it was okay, but he sensed the disappointment in her voice. He was going to explain why he canceled, but decided against it; the case details were classified and he wasn’t allowed to share them with anyone without the proper clearance, even his wife. At least not with Kendall walking beside him. However, it wasn’t hard for Angie to figure out the underlying reason.
“You’ve got something on Mixell, don’t you?”
“Yeah. We’re running down a lead. I’ll be in Baltimore, though, and if things wrap up early enough for dinner, I’ll give you a call.”