The King of Fear by Drew Chapman Page B

Philadelphia.
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    At the FBI field office on the twenty-third floor of the Federal Building in lower Manhattan, Agent Chaudry pulled the headset from her ears and let out a long, angry breath.
    â€œPhilly PD are going to cut off the arterial streets,” an older agent—Murray, a transfer from DC—said, hanging up a phone.
    â€œHe knows that. They’re not going to catch him.”
    Murray parked himself at a desk. “So why’d he call?”
    Chaudry thought about this. Why did he call? To figure out who was heading up the case on the federal side? What difference would that make? No, there had to be a reason.
    â€œMaybe he’s just an arrogant idiot,” Murray said. “He kinda sounded like one.”
    Chaudry walked to the window and looked out over lower Manhattan. Yes, Garrett Reilly was arrogant. And he appeared to have reasons to be so. Hewas also careful, yet he exposed himself to call the FBI. That contradiction demanded examination. But he was no idiot.
    â€œPaul”—she nodded to Special Agent Murray—“will you play the call back for me?” Even though Murray was considerably older than she was, Chaudry knew he had to do as she asked. She was lead on the case, and he was, at least for the moment, her junior partner. She knew it infuriated a lot of the older men in the Manhattan field office, but so be it. She had few friends in the Bureau and wasn’t particularly interested in accumulating more. Omelets required cracked eggs.
    Agent Murray put the recording of the call on a speaker in the communications room. Chaudry listened to it twice, then backed it up one last time, starting in the middle of the conversation. Then it hit her. She played the sentence again.
    â€œAnd who is behind it, Garrett?” Chaudry asked on the recording.
    â€œI don’t know. I’m out here on my own. But you better believe I’m trying to find out.”
    Chaudry smiled. “That’s it.”
    Murray looked up from his computer. “That’s what?”
    â€œHe says he’s out there on his own. And he’s going to figure it out. He’s signaling us. That the DIA’s not behind him. They’re leaving him out in the cold. He’s making us an offer.”
    â€œAn offer to what?”
    â€œSolve the case,” she said with conviction, the thought now crystallized in her mind. “He wants to work for us.”

F ORT L AUDERDALE , F LORIDA , J UNE 16, 9:45 A.M.
    T he young man whose passport read Ilya Markov was genuinely surprised when he saw the two unmarked cars pull into the parking lot of the motel he’d stayed in the night before. A young woman in an army uniform had climbed out of the first car, and two bulky men in suits had gotten out of the follow vehicle. The men were most probably FBI, the young man thought, or perhaps Homeland Security. They made no effort to conceal themselves—they just swaggered into the lobby.
    The young man sipped his coffee and carefully unwrapped the wax paper covering his barbecue breakfast sandwich. The smell of freshly baked rolls and bacon fat mixed with the scent of coffee as he sat in the window seat of the restaurant across the street from his motel. L’il Red’s BBQ was the name, and he had to admit that the food was delicious. Americans could do some things right, better than almost anyone else, and breakfast was one of them.
    He peeked at the motel again. No need to rush. They wouldn’t come over here, he thought. But still, best perhaps not to take chances. He took a few bites from the sandwich, snapped the cover back onto his coffee, grabbed the backpack at his feet, and headed out to Marina Mile Boulevard.
    The young man—and most people who knew him called him Ilya, because that was, in fact, his real first name, although he often used Ilia, Elie, Elijah, Marko (because of his last name), and sometimes, when in the Islamic parts of