Brad Thor - Foreign Influence

“Probably,” said Davidson with a shudder. “I can’t watch him clip his nails. It creeps me out.”

“If that’s the worst of his behavior, then you’ve got it pretty good.”

“That’s the thing. It isn’t just one quirky thing with him. It’s a million. And they all add up.”

“And that’s why you don’t like doing surveillance with him?”

“Damn straight,” replied Davidson. “The guy’s an investigative genius, but there’s something just not right about him. It’s like if Magnum PI and Rain Man had a baby. You saw how he wouldn’t leave the van.”

“So?”

“So Judge Wapner probably comes on in ten minutes.”

Vaughan shook his head. “The guy’s a little eccentric. So what? You need to lighten up.”

Davidson smiled. “Give it another hour. You’ll want to beat the guy to death with the heel of your shoe.”

He doubted it and they walked in silence the rest of the way to the Bronco and climbed in.

While Davidson did a radio check, Vaughan received an e-mail from one of the forensics specialists going over Nasiri’s taxi. The piece of plastic that had been recovered at the scene of the hit-and-run was indeed from a radiator header, and the radiator header in Nasiri’s cab was new. Everything they were telling him jibed with what the Pakistani mechanic from the Crescent Garage had told them.

The bad news was that there was no blood, hair, or tissue anywhere on the outside of the vehicle. Worse still was what the tech told him next.

Skirting the poisonous tree issue had not been easy. The only thing Vaughan could do was to ask his forensic pal to search the interior of the cab, as well as the trunk, for traces of any chemicals. He said he was looking for any sign that Nasiri had washed down his cab with solvents in an attempt to hide evidence of the hit-and-run. His real hope was that they would come back with hits for TATP or the precursors for the compound. The bad news from forensics was that the cab contained no traces of chemicals whatsoever.

Vaughan shared the bad news with Davidson as they pulled away from the curb and headed toward the alley.

“I’m not surprised,” replied Davidson. “If that stuff is as volatile as you say it is, they’re not going to want to move it until they absolutely have to. If Nasiri was transporting anything, it was bottles of peroxide and cans of drain cleaner; all nice and sealed.”

Vaughan didn’t like it, but he had to agree. “So we’ve still got nothing.”

“What do you mean nothing? You’ve got Josh Levy’s balls in the palm of your hand.”

He held up one of the cameras and looked at it.

“Now, Josh may think his balls are made of brass,” said Davidson, “but I still think you should drop them out the window delicately. Nobody likes to have their balls busted.”

“Are you done?” asked Vaughan as he rolled down his window.

“Since you asked, you have to admit that even though he wanted to stay in the van, Josh really does have big balls.”

“Is that all of them?”

“All of my ball jokes?”

“Yeah.”

“For the moment.”

“Good,” said Vaughan. “I’d like to concentrate on what’s happening at the mosque.”

“Like Captain Hook.”

Vaughan nodded.

As they rolled up to the stop sign half a block from the alley, Davidson snapped the clip on the metal clipboard wedged between his seat and armrest. “You know what that is?”

“No. What is it?”

“The sound of no hands clapping.”

Vaughan shook his head. “Can we please concentrate on what we’re about to do?”

“So you’re asking me to give you a hand with this part?”

“You know, Levy probably isn’t the one I’m going to beat to death with my shoe tonight.”

“All right. I get it,” said Davidson. “You lawyers have no sense of humor. How fast do you want me to drive down the alley?”

“Fast enough to look like you know what you’re doing and are just cutting through.”

Davidson put his left hand over his eyes and waved his right index finger over the speedometer before landing on a speed. “Okay, got it. Anything else?”

“Yeah. You’d better put your thinking cap on. If this surveillance doesn’t pan out, we’re going to need a really good plan B.”

Vaughan lowered the radio and looked at Davidson. They had just driven out of the alley after dropping all three covert surveillance balls. “Is the placement of the second camera ‘not right’ because it’s not right, or because Levy’s not right?”

“Despite what I told you, he knows what he’s doing. He wouldn’t ask you to tweak it if he didn’t have a good reason.”

Levy’s voice came over the radio again. “Did you guys copy that?”

“Ten-four,” said Vaughan. “We heard you loud and clear.”

“You didn’t pitch it under a Dumpster, but you did manage to get it wedged behind a garbage can,” added Levy. “I wouldn’t be expecting a call from the White Sox this year.”

Davidson looked at him. “Is he pissing you off yet?”

“He’s getting there.”

“So what are we going to do?”

Vaughan really wanted a view of the back door of that building. “I’ll fix it.”

He climbed out of the Bronco and made his way into the alley. It was cluttered with empty boxes, splintered pallets, Dumpsters, and garbage cans. Though he didn’t have a terrific view, he did have lots of good concealment and he carefully picked his way forward.

Just before the building that held the mosque, he stopped and took a slow look around. If he was going to move the camera, he might as well put it in the best spot possible. Now that he was here, he wished he’d brought along a couple of the fiber-optic cameras as well. Having come this far, it would have made sense to go the rest of the way and get the best look at what was going on inside as they could.

The back of the building was covered in gray brick. The basement windows had been painted black and were covered with iron bars. The first-floor windows were covered with newspaper and also covered with bars. A broken lightbulb hung over the back door. The ground was littered with cigarette butts, despite a coffee can filled with sand, which the building’s smokers must have figured was a doorstop.

Vaughan identified a spot for his camera and stacked a few empty boxes around it so it would run less of a chance of being noticed. With a new hiding place ready, he went looking for the hard, black sphere.

There was a row of about five trashcans. The ball was fairly heavy for its size, and when he dropped it out the window he hadn’t expected it to roll very far. They must have been driving down the alley at a higher rate of speed than he had thought.

Pulling a flashlight from his pocket, he leaned over, tilted back the first can, and looked. There was nothing there. He slid out the second can and came up empty as well. It was the same story with the remaining three cans. Where the hell had that thing gone to?

Vaughan studied the alley. There were buildings, cans, Dumpsters, and trash on both sides. The camera could have rolled to the other side, but he doubted it. He had dropped it on the east side of the alley. That was where it had to be.

He came back down the row of cans, tilting each one out, and this time he saw it. Even if his life had depended on it, he couldn’t have made such a one-in-a-million shot. Sitting wedged inside a laundry vent or a drain opening of some sort was his missing surveillance camera. He pulled back the can and bent over near the wall to free the ball.