The Lion

Maybe Khalil couldn't find his ice pick.

Walsh said, "We have no idea what Farid Mansur passed on to Asad Khalil, but we can assume it was the usual false IDs, money, weapons, and maybe the skydiving gear, plus some information about Wiggins."

"Don't forget the saw," I reminded him.

Walsh gave me one of those looks, then assured us, "The LA office is following up by questioning Mansur's friends as well as investigating his purchases, his phone calls, and so forth." He concluded, "If we catch a break there, I'll let you know." Walsh asked us, "Any questions? Or comments?"

Paresi asked, "What do you want me to do about the local Libyans?"

Walsh replied, "Stick to the surveillance. No street interrogations and no invitations to come in to talk to us."

I said to Walsh, "Captain Paresi told me about your idea to put out a text message to Kate's phone saying we had some informants in the Libyan community."

Walsh avoided eye contact and said, "Standard disinformation." He added, "Actually, I think that was John's idea."

"No, no," I said. "You thought of it."

Tom Walsh moved on to other subjects, and we kicked around a few thoughts, then Walsh looked at us and said, "We must now assume that Khalil is poised to strike again. We don't know where, when, how, or who-but based on Khalil's attack on Kate, his murder of Gabe, and his threat to John, let's recognize that the Task Force has become his target."

George Foster went from white to gray, and even Paresi, who's usually cool and macho, looked a little unsettled. I mean, this was not abstract with seven dead and Kate lying in a hospital.

Walsh looked at me and said, "You are definitely a target. So maybe you should lay low. Like, stay home while Kate recuperates."

I saw that coming and replied, "That's not what I had in mind." I informed him, "Look, Tom, I'm willing to act as bait-if we can come up with a good plan."

Walsh said to me, "We can discuss that later." He remembered to add, "I appreciate the offer." He changed subjects. "We have another murder that may be co

"Correct."

Walsh asked me, "How did you anticipate that?"

I replied, "As you know, that's Khalil's M.O." I added, "The last time he was here, he used a Libyan taxi driver to take him from JFK to a destination in New Jersey, where he murdered him in much the same way as he murdered"-here was my moment-"Amir on Murray Street."

Paresi said, "I never mentioned the name of the murdered taxi driver, or where he was murdered."

I agreed, "No, you didn't."

He, of course, inquired, "How did you know that?"

I wasn't going to tell him I had a chance chat with a cop on the beat; I wanted to stay on this case so I needed to maintain my aura of being informed and co

That did not go over well with my two bosses, and Paresi said, "We'll discuss this later."

Walsh let it go and continued, "No murder weapon was recovered, but the medical examiner says that he found a puncture wound in the deceased's skull, and that the autopsy will probably reveal a deep puncture in the brain consistent with the type of wound made by an ice pick or a similar instrument." He added, "Death was not instantaneous. In fact, the victim exited his taxi and died on the street."

That didn't sound like the Asad Khalil that I knew. I mean, you really don't want your victims doing the zombie walk in the middle of the street while you're trying to put some distance between you and them.

My own brain, which works well enough, retrieved a piece of trivia-Leon Trotsky, an old Bolshevik who had fallen out of favor with his Commie buddies, was murdered in Mexico City by a guy working for the predecessors of the KGB. The weapon used was an ice pick-and Trotsky had lingered for days before dying. So if I was seeing Boris's training here, you'd think Boris would have remembered to tell Khalil, "We love that ice pick, Asad, but you gotta give them two or three pokes."

I made a mental note to discuss this with Boris if I got the chance. Or maybe Khalil.

Walsh continued with his crime scene briefing. "The police found no cell phone on the driver's body or in his taxi. We then attempted to retrieve the murdered man's cell phone records, and his house phone records, but we discovered that he had no house phone, and if he had a cell phone-which he undoubtedly did-it was either not in his name, or it was the paid-minutes type and no records exist." He concluded, "Dead end."

Poor choice of words, perhaps, but not surprising. As I've discovered, most Middle Eastern immigrants come from places where it's not a good idea to create records of your existence-and that mentality had carried over to America, which made my job a little more difficult.

Walsh continued, "We're making the assumption, of course, that it was Khalil who murdered this taxi driver… though it could be a coincidence."

I offered my unsolicited opinion and said, "Khalil murdered the taxi driver." I added, "That's why you have a BOLO out on Khalil and why his photo is in every police car in the city."

Neither Walsh nor Paresi asked me how I knew that, though by now they had concluded that John Corey was still plugged into the Blue Network. Well, I was, but with each year that passed since my disability retirement, my NYPD sources were fewer, and by now I'd called in most of the favors owed to me. Still, I could flash my shield and talk to a cop on the beat.

Walsh concluded, "NYPD Homicide is investigating this murder and will keep us informed."

Walsh filled us in on a few more odds and ends, including the not-surprising discovery that Global Entertainment in Lichtenstein and Hydra Shipping in Athens were sham corporations. INTERPOL and the national police of both countries were investigating.

In police work, intelligence work, and counterterrorism work, we always say, "It's important to know who fired the bullet, but it's more important to know who paid for it."

Indeed. And when you know that, you can guess at the bigger picture.

Who was backing Asad Khalil? And why? He could not have pulled all this off by himself. My knowledge of geopolitics is limited, but I did know that Libya and its weird president, Colonel Muammar Khadafi, were being quiet since we bombed the shit out of them in 1986. And since 9/11, they'd gotten even quieter. So they wouldn't risk backing their former psychotic terrorist-there was nothing in it for them except more bombs.

The next usual suspect was Al Qaeda, but I didn't see their fingerprints on this-unless there was something in it for them. Which brought me to quid pro quo.

It would appear that a terrorist organization with some resources had provided Asad Khalil with funds, sham corporations, passports, and intel about his intended victims-including me and Kate. But Asad Khalil's mission was his mission and not very large in scale or significant in terms of what it would accomplish in the war against the U.S. For sure it was insignificant when compared to 9/11. I mean, whacking Mr. and Mrs. Corey was not high on Al Qaeda's agenda.

Therefore, Khalil had to return the favor; he had to take out a big target for his sponsors-a building or monument, or maybe an important person or persons.

I was thinking about all this while Walsh was going on about this and that, speaking mostly to George Foster now. I was waiting for Walsh to get to the question of who might be behind Asad Khalil, and the possibility of a major attack, using a weapon of mass destruction. But that didn't seem to be on Walsh's agenda memo. Maybe later.

Walsh finished with George, who apparently had just been made the case agent in my mental absence. I had no real problem with that, but I was a little concerned about my future status on this case. Tom, nice tie.