The Last Patriot

“According to them, Andrew Salam has never had any connection to the Bureau whatsoever.”

“Maybe he’s making it all up. He wouldn’t be the first law enforcement impersonator who got caught. Maybe the guy’s delusional.”

“I don’t know,” said Rasmussen. “He interned in the Near Eastern section of the Library of Congress and graduated top of his class at the Georgetown Center for Arabic Studies.”

Ozbek knew Georgetown ’s Arabic Studies Program. It was a prime recruiting pool for many of the intelligence agencies, particularly the CIA, but that didn’t mean this guy wasn’t unbalanced. “Fast-forward to where Transept plays into this,” he said.

“Salam claims he has been running an FBI-sanctioned operation to infiltrate and develop intelligence assets in radical mosques and Islamist groups across the country.

“One of the groups he infiltrated was the Foundation on American Islamic Relations. He had turned an employee inside the organization and was meeting with her at the Jefferson Memorial.”

“Where she wound up dead,” said Ozbek.

“He claims he and his ‘asset’ were attacked,” replied Rasmussen.

“And he survived.”

“He says that when the attackers saw Park Police approaching, they bolted before they could finish him off.”

“Lucky for him. Did he get a look at them?”

Rasmussen shook his head. “They were supposedly wearing masks.”

“What about CCTV footage? The Park Police have cameras at the Jefferson Memorial.”

“They were down at the time the crime occurred. They’ve been ‘looking into it.’”

Ozbek was getting more interested. “Any romantic history between him and the victim?”

“Investigators are looking into that too.”

“What else do you have?”

“Park Police are confident that they caught him in flagrante delicto-blood on his hands, clothes, everywhere,” said Rasmussen. “Salam says he was trying to save the victim’s life.”

“Was there a weapon?”

“A knife, but it was wiped clean. No prints. The D.C. cops have been sweating him since he was brought in. He’s been shut up tighter than a clam and just when they thought he was about to break, that’s when the NOC story surfaced.”

“What was his alleged asset meeting with him to discuss?” asked Ozbek.

“According to Salam, she had stumbled across something pretty substantial. Supposedly, FAIR had hired an assassin.”

“And this assassin graduated from the Transept program?”

Rasmussen nodded. “Whether this guy is full of shit or not, he did mention Transept, and you know as well as I do what a closely guarded secret that program is. He couldn’t have made that up.”

“No, he couldn’t. Obviously somebody has been talking about things that they shouldn’t.”

“I’ll tell you something else. The D.C. cops might not be overly impressed with this guy, but he really talks like an intelligence operative.”

Ozbek looked at his colleague. “Maybe he actually thought he was working for the FBI.”

Rasmussen nodded again. “I spoke with our liaisons at the Bureau and a contact I have with D.C. Metro police who are heading the investigation. Because the Agency has come up in the interrogation and they can’t make heads or tails out of this guy, they’re prepared to let us have access to him.”

“When?”

“As soon as we want.”

“All right,” replied Ozbek. “Let’s pull everything we have on the Foundation on American Islamic Relations, Andrew Salam, and especially the Transept program.”

Rasmussen picked up the folder. “That’s fine, but as far as the FBI, D.C. Metro, and this Salam guy are concerned, we’ve never heard of the Transept program. That’s the word from on high.”

CHAPTER 7

PARIS

A ghost in his mid-forties wearing tan corduroys and a navy blue cashmere sweater sat on a narrow green bench admiring the medieval ruins of the Parc Monceau. He hadn’t been seen by anyone from his past life in over five years.

His brown hair was medium in length and his wire-rimmed glasses framed a rather unremarkable face punctuated by two sharp green eyes. When standing in his brown leather shoes he came to just over five feet nine inches tall. He had the trim frame of an endurance athlete.

In a discreet pocket inside the man’s Barbour jacket was a passport that bore a false name. It was as good a name as any-no better or worse than any of the names he had assumed throughout his career. Distinctly Anglo-Saxon, like the name he had used for his assignment in Rome, it suited him, as had his true Christian name, Matthew Dodd.

He had renounced that name when he embraced Islam. It wasn’t hard to let go. With all of the different aliases he had assumed over his career, it was difficult to remember who he really was anyway.

The only things that had ever grounded him and given him a true sense of purpose were his beautiful wife and his little boy, but they had been gone from his life for almost ten years now; killed in a car accident by a spoiled, drunken teenaged girl in her brand-new BMW while he had been away on an assignment.