In Hot Pursuit Read online

  “I’m Agent Bowles.” She took a seat on the chair across from him, and lowered her head to meet his eyes.

  He tilted his head up, and stared defiantly at her.

  “That’s quite some injuries you have there? Are you okay? I hope they are treating you well.”

  He looked at her and said nothing.

  She decided to try it another way. “It says here that you are from Libya,” she said to him in fluent Arabic. “I’ve had the opportunity to work there. It’s a lovely place, and so are the people.”

  That caught his attention. His eyes lit up somehow, and he leaned in to hear her better. “Are you seeing a doctor for those broken bones?” She continued in Arabic. “I can get one in here to change those bandages, and to have a look at your arm and leg, maybe give you something to help with the pain too.”

  That got to him. “I speak English,” he said to her, finally. He sounded relieved. “I just didn’t want to speak it to those animals.”

  She looked at him and smiled.

  “Where did you learn English?”

  “I went to an American school in Tripoli.”

  “That’s impressive.”

  He gave her a guarded look. “I know why you are here, but before I answer any of your questions you have to promise to get me out of this hell hole.” There was intense desperation in his voice. “Those animals will kill me if I stay here. They have been threatening to do it. I’ve heard them.”

  “Who’s threatening to kill you?”

  “All of them, including the white American! They have been starving and beating me. Promise you wouldn’t leave me here, and I will tell you everything you want to know.” He tried to pull himself up from the bench.

  “I will try to help you, but first, you have to help me as well. Do you know this man?” She pulled a photo of Raybourne from the file and held it up for him to see.

  He glanced at the photo for less than a second, and looked away.

  “Have you ever recalled seeing him?” She probed anxiously. She could tell he knew something—she could see it in his eyes.

  He looked down at his hand. “I could have.”

  “Where?”

  “In Libya, when he was one of you.”

  “When was that?”

  “About four or five years ago. My father did a lot of business with him.”

  “What sort of business?”

  “My father was an informant for the Americans. He told them things, and sold them secrets. He made a lot of money from the Americans.”

  “Where is your father now?”

  “Dead. The Americans shot him during a raid in Benghazi. Mr. Raybourne came to us after. He told us that it was an accident, and that they didn’t mean to kill him. But we knew it wasn’t true. We knew they killed my father because they suspected that he was working for Al Qaeda.”

  “How did you end up with an American passport?”

  “I can tell you, but I’m not saying another word until I get what I asked for.”

  Bowles dropped the folder on the small table and met his eyes. “I don’t think you understand—you don’t have a choice here. You are in custody. You aren’t going anywhere. I can also walk out that door, and let those men come back in and deal with you the way they were before.” Her eyes went to his head and arm.

  “Agent Bowles, it is.” He met her eyes in a bold stare. “You don’t scare me. I know things, and you aren’t going to get them from me until you get me out of here. And torturing me isn’t going to get me to talk, either. It didn’t work with those guys before. I’m a fighter—I trained with ISSI. I can withstand anything.”

  He sat back against the wall, and took a deep breath.

  “I need to get something before I start making deals with you. The information

  you have could be useless for all I know.”

  “I don’t think it is.” He called her on her bluff. “I know that man in the picture, and I know him well. He has been a great asset to us.” He pointed to the picture she had shown him of Raybourne that was still lying on the desk. “And I know he switched sides and is helping us. Maybe he’s doing it out of guilt for all the people the Americans killed, or he is in it for the money. I don’t know, but what I do know, is that I can help you find him.”

  “You know where he is?” she asked, not completely convinced.

  “I can point you in the direction.”

  “Okay, then you can begin by giving me some names, starting with those passports, including the one from this country? You weren’t born here. Someone must have helped you get one.”

  “Okay. The passport was sent to me in Tripoli—I used it to get to Europe, and then on to this country. The American passport was waiting for me when I arrive here.”

  “Who supply them to you?” She was getting impatient with him.

  “A government official.”

  “Does he have a name?”

  “Yes, Charles.”

  “Is that his first or last name?”

  “I just know what he told me. I didn’t ask him for a first or a second name.”

  “What does he look him?”

  “Tall, dark, and handsome—like most of the men here.”

  He glanced at her and chuckled.

  She was getting irritated and running out of patience with him. “So you think this is some sort of jokes!”

  “I just described him to you.” He gave her a defensive shrug of the shoulder.

  “Where did you meet him?”

  “He picked me up at the airport when I got off the plane and drove me to a hotel.”

  “Do you remember the name of the hotel?”

  “It was one of those luxury ones on the beach. Oh, yeah, The Red Hibiscus, I think it’s called. It’s named after a flower.”

  “How long did you stay there?’

  “A week. I was leaving the day they arrested me.”

  “Did you meet with anyone else while you were there, except for this Mr. Charles?”

  “No.”

  “How did he contact you? Did you have a number for him?”

  “No, he didn’t give me his number, Agent Bowles. We weren’t that close.” There was a smirk on his face. “I only saw him again when he came to drive me to the airport.”

  “When was that?”

  “A week ago, last Friday.”

  “Will you remember him if you see him again?”

  “Yeah, sure, and the other man with him too. He was white.”

  “There were two of them?” Bowles raised her head to look at him.

  “Yes. The guy was white as sheet, which was odd because it’s super hot here.”

  “What did he look like?

  “You are really asking me that!” He chuckled. “Don’t they all look alike—he was pale, as I just told you, skinny, with long dirty hair.”

  “That doesn’t help,” she told him. “Did he have a name?”

  “I didn’t hear one, but I know he was working for the government because I

  overheard them talking about something big going down.”

  “So you are telling me that government officials are issuing passports to terrorists.”

  “I do not consider myself a terrorist, Agent Bowles, but yeah, looks like it to me.”

  He gave her a smug look. She felt like giving him a slug across the face.

  She looked at him, and got up. She had been talking to him for almost ten minutes.

  “I’ll be right back,” she told him eventually, and went to the door.

  She knocked on the top glass, and the policeman who was standing outside

  opened the door and let her out.

  Ferguson came out of the next room.

  “So?” He gave her an expectant look. “Did he tell you anything?”

  “I’m still questioning him.” She sidestepped his question. “Is there a room I can go make a call?”

  “Yeah, sure. You can use this one.” He seemed eager.

  He pushed the door open
for her to go in.

  She went in and made sure it was shut behind her, and that Ferguson wasn’t standing outside listening to her. She pulled the secured phone from her pocket, and hit the number that was programmed into it.

  “Agent Bowles, were you able to talk to the suspect?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m doing that now.”

  “And?” She could see how anxious Director Nilsson was to know what she had found out.

  “He’s willing to talk, sir. He will tell us everything he knows about Raybourne.”

  “But? There’s always a, but with those scumbags!”

  “He wants guarantee that we wouldn’t leave him in jail here, or send him to Guantanamo Bay or back to Libya. He fears ISIS will kill him if he goes back there, because he failed to complete the mission they sent him on.”

  “Coward! What makes him think that we will send him to Guantanamo Bay. We

  don’t send prisoners there anymore.”

  “Yes, sir, I know we don’t.” She tried to keep a straight face, even though she knew Director Nilsson wasn’t here to see it. “What do you suggest I do, sir?”

  “Do you know what he’s asking for specifically?”

  “He wants asylum.”

  “Absolutely not! You know we don’t negotiate with terrorists, Agent Bowles. There is no way he’s landing foot in this country!”

  “We will have to give him something to find out what he knows, sir.”

  “What about a good beating!” Director Nielson corrected himself quickly. “Know that I don’t condone torture in any way or form.”

  “I know that, sir. The authority here has already tried that with him. They didn’t

  get anything from him that they could use.”

  “Do you think he knows anything about Raybourne?”

  “He does, sir. I showed him a picture of Raybourne and he knew who he was right away. He said he can give us names and walk us through the entire process. Someone was supposed to pick him up at the airport when he arrived at JFK. He said he has names, numbers and addresses memorized. He can give them to us.”

  “Okay—here’s what we are going to do, Agent Bowles—this is highly classified information, and for your ears only. You are never to repeat a word of what I’m about to tell you. Is that understood, Agent Bowles?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I need not remind you that it is a matter of national and international security. There’s a lot at stake here, much more than you think.”

  “You have my word, sir.”

  “We can get him out of there, and to Steigerwald, Germany. We operate a prison in the mountains there with the Germans and our allies, something like Guantanamo Bay, but not quite. We keep the high risks guys there. We try to rehab them. They are treated well. I will arrange to have him flown there at the end of the week. Don’t give him specifics, only that he’s going to get out of there soon, that’s all.”

  “I will do that, sir.”

  “And, Agent Bowles,”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Call me back immediately after you’ve talked to him. I want to find out what he knows about Raybourne. It will give us the opportunity to get a head start here.”

  She pressed the off button and left the room.

  Ferguson was nowhere to be seen when she came out. The police officer wasn’t at the door, either. She frowned, and tried the handle. It was unlocked. She was surprised that they had left the door unlocked and unattended. It was hugely unusual to leave a high risk prisoner unguarded in a room. She opened the door and went in. The guy wasn’t sitting on the bench. His cuffs were lying on the floor next to one of his shoes. Someone had taken the handcuffs off, and had strung him up on the bars of the window, using his own clothes. She glanced at his naked body and rushed towards the window. His eyes were opened and he looked as if he was still breathing, but she couldn’t be sure.

  She knew there was no way he could have done this himself, not with his injured arm and broken leg, and certainly not this quickly. She had been out of the room for little over five minutes, if not less. She glanced at the handcuffs lying on the floor next to the bench. He certainly couldn’t have gotten out of those by himself. She pushed the chair next to the window and lifted his body up, and then down onto the floor. She began to apply pressure to his chest, hoping she would be able to revive him.

  “I need some help in here!” she shouted, thinking that the police man had come

  back to the door. It was quiet out there.

  She loosened the noose from around his neck, and continued to apply CPR. She pressed her hands against his naked chest in swift, steady movements. She felt for a pulse after. There was none. Her hand went up to check his neck. It was limp. He had probably been dead by the time they strung him up there. She sighed and stepped back from him. She went to the door and peered through the top glass.

  The police man still hadn’t made an appearance by the time she opened the door and stepped outside. She hadn’t counted on losing him. Someone had murdered him, and they must have done it for a reason. She found Ferguson outside in the yard, talking to a group of uniformed officers. He left them and rushed over to her side when he saw her.

  “Did you get anything from him?”

  She gave him an indignant look. She didn’t want to think that he had anything to do with this. “I don’t know, she told him. “Go ask him.” She turned away from him and walked to the Land Rover to get her bag.

  She grabbed the bag from off the back seat, and continued to the gate.

  Ferguson was close behind. “Where are you going?”

  “To take a taxi back to the airport,” she told him without looking back.

  He ran in front of her and tried to block her way. “Come on, Agent Bowles, this is

  ridiculous. Let me drive you back to the airport.”

  She whipped around to confront him. “You know what’s ridiculous, Agent Ferguson,” she told him in a heightened voice. “It’s you pretending to help with this investigation. How the prisoner got out of those handcuffs, and managed to string himself up to those bars is still a very huge mystery to me.”

  He gave her a mystified look. “What are you talking about? I was out here talking to those officers the whole time. I left because it seemed you had everything under control. I would have stayed close if I thought you needed my help.” He tried to explain.

  “Oh, save it! You were supposed to have my back, Agent Ferguson.”

  “And I did. Wait! Are you accusing me of something?” He shook his head and gave her a dubious look. “I can’t believe this!” There was a look of disbelief on his tanned face. He squint his eyes and looked at her. “I’m not the enemy here, Agent Bowles. We are on the same side.”

  She gave him a harsh look. “Then maybe you should start acting like it.”

  She swung the bag over her shoulder, and walked through the gates.

  Chapter 9

  “How can someone so evil come from such good people?” Director Nilsson held up the thick dossier the FBI profilers had compiled on Raybourne, and shook it a couple times. “I’m still in awe—completely in awe! It’s completely beyond me that Raybourne had the upbringing he did, and turned out the way he has.”

  Director Nilsson took the time to go through the list. “He started out as an all round good natured American boy. He was a private school kid. He was active in sports, including hockey, basketball and tennis. He was a member of the drama and poetry club. He went to Yale. His mother is a tenured Physics professor at MIT. She is currently on sabbatical. His father was a Commander in the military who did four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He served his country with pride and dignity. He would be appalled at his son for trying to destroy what he fought so long and hard for.”

  Director Nilsson shook his head in distress. As a military man himself, he fully understood the many sacrifices.

  “Where is his father now?” Earnes asked.

  “Dead. He was killed in Iraq over eight years a
go, just before we started pulling the

  troops out. He died from a road side bomb. They weren’t able to save him.”

  “It says here that Raybourne joined the Secret Service soon after.” Bowles scanned

  the pages in her hand. “He was working as a computer whiz for a start up company in

  Connecticut. He quitted and joined forces with us. He’s a trained engineer.”

  Director Nilsson brought his fingers together and tapped them idly. “Very convenient timing, don’t you think! Doctor Winston, one of the FBI profilers we have working with us to profile Raybourne seems to think that Raybourne did it to help him cope with his father’s death. They thought it was his way of wanting to feel close to his father. They had a good relationship. He took it hard when he died.”

  Earnes wasn’t convinced. “No respect to the doctors and their findings, but I find that very hard to swallow. Are you trying to tell me that everything Raybourne is doing is in the name of his father. Every single thing he has done so far has all gone against what his father stood for and fought for in Iraq and Afghanistan. This isn’t honoring his father’s memory, it’s trampling on it! Raybourne knows nothing about being a patriotic American!”

  Director Nilsson nodded his head in agreement. “He’s scum! He blamed us for starting the war in Iraq, and for sending his father there to die. He thinks we should pay, the way he has for losing his father.”

  Earnes threw up his hands in frustration. “This is pure madness! So siding with terrorists and all the people who hate us, is his way of getting back at us. It certainly isn’t going to bring back his father! People lose family members all the time. We don’t see them going off the deep, dark end like Raybourne. They find ways to cope. Raybourne is doing this because he’s evil, and for the money. And no one can tell me

  otherwise. He’s raking in millions of dollars selling information to our enemies.”

  “That’s a fact, Agent Earnes, but we still have to stay focus on the man himself, and what’s motivating him. It’s the only way we might have of catching him. That’s why we are working with the FBI profilers.”