Foreign Influence

CHAPTER 66

As they had a very small surveillance team, Harvath decided that they could risk exposing only one of their operatives. Because she was biracial and Jarrah’s furniture store catered to a largely ethnic clientele, Alex Cooper had nominated herself to go in and look around.

Armed with her camera phone and an exceptional when-I-want-your-help-I’ll-ask-for-it attitude, she walked around inside ostensibly taking pictures of furniture while getting the most accurate lay of all three levels that she could.

She found the door to the basement, but it was locked. The door to the business office, on the other hand, was open and she walked right in. She was immediately confronted by two very large Middle Eastern men who told her in broken English that she was in an area off-limits to customers.

Feigning insult, Cooper scolded them for being rude and demanded to know where the ladies’ room was.

One of the men directed her back into the showroom and pointed at a door on the far side. After she had washed her hands and come back out, the two men were talking to another, younger man who also appeared somewhat Middle Eastern.

As soon as he saw her, he headed straight for her. Cooper pulled her camera phone back out and began taking pictures again.

“Can I help you, miss?” the man asked. He was tall and a bit ski

“No, thank you,” she replied haughtily. “I’m just browsing.”

“You’ve been taking a lot of pictures.”

Cooper turned to him with her camera in one hand and the other on her hip. “Is there a problem with that?”

He put on a smile, spread his hands and replied, “It’s unusual.”

“It’s unusual? Or it’s unusual when a black woman does it?”

“It has nothing to do with the color of your skin.”

“Oh, really?”

His smile faded, and he glanced at a closed circuit camera as if someone else might be supervising their exchange and said, “I just want to know why you’re taking pictures.”

“You want to know why?” she said, turning the attitude knob all the way up. “Because I’m tired of sending shit back. I’m tired of my boyfriend not liking a damn thing I buy. That’s why I’m taking pictures.”

“We do have a Web site.”

“I know you’ve got a damn Web site.”

“I’d also be happy to get you a catalog.”

Cooper clicked her phone shut and got right in the young man’s face. “You know what? You can keep your damn catalog and your damn Web site. I’m going to find another store that isn’t afraid of having black customers.”

The young man reached out. “May I see your phone before you go?”

Cooper drew it to her chest. “What the hell is wrong with you? No you may not. You people are crazy,” she said as she began walking toward the door.

The young man trotted alongside her and then stepped right into her path. “You’ve been in here almost half an hour taking pictures.”

“I happen to be moving into a very big house.”

The young man was completely blocking her path now. He put his hand straight out. “Give it to me.”

Cooper tapped her foot and then rolled her eyes before putting the phone into her purse. “What are you going to do now?”

Rashid reached for the purse and before he knew what had happened, Cooper had kicked him right in the crotch.

“Never mess with a woman’s purse,” she said as she stepped over him and quickly exited the store.

Cooper crossed the street, walked over two blocks, and turned the corner. Harvath was waiting in the Sportage. “How’d it go?” he asked as she got in.

“You were right. They’re beyond paranoid in there.”

“Did you learn anything?”

“From what I could see, they take their security very seriously. There were a couple of Middle Easterners who got pretty upset when I stumbled into the office. The door to the basement was locked, which could mean anything or nothing, and their CCTV system looked like it came out of a Vegas casino. It was a little overkill, but what do I know? Maybe they have a problem with people shoplifting dressers and armoires.”

“Did you see anyone matching Jarrah’s description?”

“No, but I did get pictures of his employees and a couple of the goons he’s got working there,” said Cooper.

“So we have no idea if he’s in the building or not.”

“No.”

“Do you think it’s worth taking a look after dark?” asked Harvath.

“If we can get around their security system, I think it would be a great idea.”

The team spent the rest of the day and into the evening watching Jarrah’s business. As darkness fell, the doors were locked and the lights dimmed. A handful of employees filed out, but missing from their ranks were the man Alex had kicked and the two goons who had chased her out of the office.

Shortly before eleven p.m., there was activity in the alley as a truck pulled up to the loading dock. A Pakistani-looking driver backed it in and one of the store’s large, overhead doors was raised.

Casey looked at Harvath. “Seems pretty late for a delivery.”

“Or a pickup,” he replied as he watched three medium-sized crates being wheeled on dollies into the truck.

“Those are the two goons I met earlier,” said Cooper over the encrypted radio as the men, dressed in matching delivery uniforms, placed the crates in the back of the truck and then were joined by the plain-clothes driver. “And that’s the man who tried to take my phone,” she said as a fourth man appeared. He was wearing a matching uniform.

Harvath and Casey watched from their vantage point in the KIA as the other team members held their positions.

The young man stepped out onto the loading dock and took a slow look around. Satisfied, he pulled down the truck’s rear door, enclosing the two goons and the Pakistani man with the crates inside.

He said something over his shoulder and the furniture store’s overhead door was closed. He then hopped off the loading dock, got inside the truck, and started it up.

“What the hell are they up to?” said Ericsson. “Do we follow them?”

As the truck’s engine rumbled to life and it began to pull away from the loading dock, Harvath had a decision to make.

“No, you stay here,” he replied. “We’ll go.”

Putting the KIA in gear, Harvath pulled out into traffic and kept as much distance as he could between themselves and the truck. As he drove, Casey reached into the backseat and flipped up the lid of one of the Storm cases. Removing a 4.6 mm Heckler & Koch MP7 submachine gun, she affixed its rectangular, Gem-Tech “Brick” suppressor, inserted a fresh magazine, and chambered a round. “Something tells me this is going to be a very long night.”

CHAPTER 67

Marwan didn’t need to tell him to drive carefully, but he did anyway. With two cops and a private eye boxed up in back, Rashid wasn’t exactly anxious to get pulled over.

Traffic was light and the drive up to Nasiri’s apartment took half an hour. The truck was large and difficult to maneuver, but he nevertheless conducted several SDRs to make sure he wasn’t being followed.

In the alley behind Mohammed’s building, he stopped and walked around to the back of the truck. The exterior stairwell was just as Nasiri had described. It was going to be a bitch carrying the three crates up to the apartment, but without an elevator, they had no other choice.

Rashid and Nasiri assisted, but Marwan’s goons did the bulk of the work. They were sweating and cursing quietly even before they got halfway up with the second crate. This was probably not how they had envisioned spending their final night alive. And that went for Nasiri as well. They all knew what tomorrow would bring and they probably wished to already have ritually bathed and shaved themselves for their journey to Paradise.