Andrew Kaplan - Carrie's run

“That’s what I think too. We found something, but I’ve been working with a handicap,” he said.

“What?”

“I didn’t know him. You did.” He motioned to her to move her chair around to his side of the desk.

“What did you find?” she asked.

“This,” he said, indicating his computer screen. It was a hidden-camera video of this very office. Carrie automatically looked up at the joint where the wall met the ceiling where the camera had to be located, but it was too small and well hidden in the molding. The screen showed Davis Fielding sitting at his desk, his back to the camera. Suddenly, he was on the floor, a Glock pistol in his limp hand, a pool of blood spilling from his head.

“There’s a three-minute-forty-seven-second gap,” Saunders said. “The dead man didn’t do it.”

“Can you freeze it?” Carrie asked.

“Why? Do you see something?”

She peered intently at the image of Fielding lying on the floor.

“There’s something wrong. I can’t put my finger on it, but as Saul would say, something’s definitely not kosher.”

“It’s not the angle he’s lying at. We had a forensics expert calculate that the body would fall in that position.”

“Is that all you’ve got?” she asked.

He shook his head. “We’ve got gaps in security cameras in the reception room, the staircase, the front and back entrances to the building. Longer, but all for the same period and on the same night Fielding was killed. Somebody didn’t want us to see him.”

“How do you know it’s a him?”

“Because he missed one,” Saunders said, switching the view on the screen. It showed a view from a roof security camera looking down at Rue Maarad beyond the overhang of the portico. “The roof camera’s digital recording disc was on a separate circuit. Watch. We’ve been able to extrapolate from the time gap. This is about forty seconds after the gap ended.”

On the screen, a man in a coverall appeared out from under the portico, crossing the street and walking away toward Nejmeh Square. She could only see his back.

“Not much to go on. Assuming that’s our killer,” she said.

“We found something else. This is from four days earlier, after one A.M.”

Another video, same view, appeared on the screen. A man in a similar coverall was caught walking toward the building briefly before he disappeared under the portico. To Carrie’s eye, it looked like there was a company patch or logo on the front.

“Go back. What’s that coverall say?”

Saunders rewound and froze the image, which, given the darkness and distance, was too fuzzy to get a clear glimpse of either the man’s face or the company name.

“Can’t you digitally enhance the image?”

“We did,” he said, opening another window and zeroing in on the patch. Although still indistinct, the patch read “Sadeco Conciergerie” in French and Arabic.

“Looks like a janitorial service. I’m sure you checked the company,” she said.

“Of course. It’s our janitorial service all right, but he’s not our regular janitor and according to Sadeco, no such person has ever worked there. We black-bagged their offices one night. Went through all their personnel files. They were telling the truth. Whoever he was, he wasn’t one of theirs.”

“What do your assets tell you?”

“Nothing. Not a damned thing.”

“And the Lebanese ISF? Or the police?”

“As soon as they realized who we were, they backed off and referred us to the Interior Minister, who happens to be from Hezbollah. We’re dead in the water. Do you have any ideas?”

“Give me prints of the two images: the one of Fielding and the mystery janitor. Oh, and a head shot of Fielding, something easily identifiable.”

“What are you thinking?”

“If this guy in the picture, whoever the hell he is, has got something to do with Rana or Hezbollah or Abu Nazir, I’ll find him,” she said, getting up, passing him her cell phone so he could add his cell number as a contact.

That night, having a margarita at the bar in the Phoenicia Hotel, Carrie took out the print of Fielding’s body and tried to spot what was wrong with it. The image had been shot from above, from the hidden ceiling camera, and behind. A body and a gun. What was wrong with the image? For one thing, it wasn’t the way she was used to looking at Davis. How was she used to looking at him? She reoriented the image in her mind as it would be if she were facing him. And then she saw it.

Idiot, she told herself. It was plain as the nose on your face. How was it that no one had caught it before? Of course, she told herself. After Fielding, they’d had to clean house at Beirut Station. No one who really knew Fielding had seen this image. She took her cell phone out of her handbag and called Saunders.

“Snapdragon,” he answered. His code name.

“Outlaw,” she said, still using the name because of Crimson. “Fielding was left-handed,” she said, and hung up.

He would see it the instant he went back and looked at Fielding’s body with the pistol in his right hand, she thought. Proof positive, if they needed any more, that Fielding had been murdered. But by whom-and why?

The answer, she hoped, was walking right toward her. Marielle Hilal, still redheaded, still pretty in tight Escada jeans and a low-cut top, with enough male eyes on her to give any girl’s ego an elevator ride to the penthouse suite.

“What are you drinking?” Carrie asked.

“Whatever you are,” Marielle said, sitting down at her table.

A waiter came over.

“Two Patrón margaritas,” Carrie told him, and motioned Marielle closer. “The man you knew as Mohammed Siddiqi is dead. Thought you ought to know.”

“I heard Rana was killed too,” Marielle whispered back.

Carrie nodded. “Also a Syrian named Taha al-Douni, who was running both Rana and Dima. Did you ever meet him?”

“No, alhamdulillah ”- thank God -Marielle said, checking her lipstick and the room to see if anyone was watching them in her compact makeup mirror. As she started to put the mirror back in her purse, Carrie slipped the photograph of the unknown janitor into Marielle’s purse as well. “Is anyone still after me?”

“I’m not sure. I need you to do something for me,” Carrie said.

“Why should I? I’m already taking a chance meeting you,” Marielle said, looking around nervously. There were at least half a dozen men checking them out. No way to know if it was normal male interest or something else, Carrie thought. Except for one. Ray Saunders, putting away his cell phone and nursing a Scotch at the bar.

“Because I’m trying to help you. And because, well. .” She didn’t finish the sentence, a reminder that she knew where Marielle lived.

“I don’t like this,” Marielle said. “First Dima, then Rana. Their boyfriends. Who’s next? Me?”

“Take a vacation till things blow over. Someplace nice. Someplace safe. Where would you like to go?”

Marielle raised her eyebrows cynically. “I’ve had men try to buy me. This is the first time by a woman.”

Carrie put her hand on Marielle’s arm. “Listen, if I can solve this, you’ll be safe. In the meantime, what’s wrong with getting away? Where would you go?” she asked.

“Paris,” Marielle said. “I’ve always wanted to go.”

“I’ll give you five thousand dollars American,” Carrie said. Money she’d gotten from Saunders for this meet. “You can be sipping wine on the Champs-Élysées tomorrow.”

“Just like that? Five thousand American? You must like me better than I thought.”

“Too many have died over this,” she said, a pang going through her at the thought of Dempsey. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”