Shakedown

  Dedication

  Newt Gingrich dedicates this book to his wife, Callista Gingrich, who is tirelessly serving her country and working to end human trafficking and expand religious liberty.

  Pete Earley dedicates this book to his granddaughters, Maribella Earley and Audrey Morton.

  Epigraph

  Shake down (v.): to obtain money from in a deceitful, contemptible, or illegal manner. As in: racketeers shaking down store owners for protection.

  —Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Cast of Characters

  Part I One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Part II Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Part III Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Part IV Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Epilogue

  A Note about Our Tsunami Plot

  Acknowledgments

  About the Authors

  Also by Newt Gingrich

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Cast of Characters

  Brett Garrett: former Navy SEAL

  Valerie Mayberry: FBI counterintelligence agent

  Gelleh Peretz, aka “Esther”: Mossad operative

  Saeedi “The Roc” Bashar: Palestinian assassin

  Taras Aleksandrovich Zharkov: billionaire oligarch

  General Firouz Kardar: Iranian intelligence

  Julian “Big Jules” Levi: Mossad director

  Connor Whittington: CIA director

  Thomas Jefferson Kim: cybersecurity expert

  Boris Petrov: submarine commander

  Part I

  Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.

  —Helen Keller

  One

  The old man bent down. Tried, but couldn’t slip the envelope under his neighbor’s door. Checked the empty hallway. Turned and began walking toward the floor’s elevator while pulling a pistol from under his jacket. Pressed the call button and took a deep breath to calm his nerves. Ding. He tightened his index finger on the handgun’s trigger, anticipating the opening doors. Sucked in another calming breath. No one was inside. Tucked his handgun between his belt and watermelon belly. Stepped inside.

  The building’s lobby was empty. The security guard had gone home at 10:00 p.m. The condo board didn’t believe it necessary to have him stay longer. Their Rosslyn, Virginia, neighborhood was relatively crime-free. The man walked to a wall of mailboxes directly across from the elevator. Ran a finger along the tenants’ mailboxes, stopping at the second box on the third column. His neighbor’s. He inserted the envelope into it. From his jacket he drew a second envelope, which he dropped in the outgoing mail.

  Behind him, the sound of laughter. A couple entering the building through its double glass doors. The man at the mailboxes noticed that the woman was younger. Giggling, holding her male companion’s arm. Her loud chatter and wobbly walk suggested she was drunk. A Saturday-night date, perhaps a one-night stand. The condo building was across the Potomac River from the nation’s capital, an inexpensive Uber ride from popular Georgetown pickup bars.

  The approaching couple appeared harmless, still. The man returned to the elevator and pushed the call button, hoping to board and depart before they reached him. The couple quickened their pace. The old man reached inside his jacket, resting his hand on his pistol. He noticed that she was wearing a gray wool stocking cap and scarf. He wore a red Washington Nationals baseball cap, and the collar of his dark-blue coat was turned up. Difficult to see faces.

  The elevator doors opened.

  The woman straightened, lunged forward, grabbed the old man’s left arm. At the same moment her male accomplice slipped in front of him. A blade before the old man could draw his handgun. Directly into his heart. One thrust. One twist. No time to cry out. Who would hear? The woman steadied him. Pushed the man’s body forward. He hit the elevator floor hard, face-first. Its doors shut.

  Two

  The loud belching of Brett Garrett’s Norton Commando Interpol motorcycle—manufactured in 1975 by the Brits for police use only—reverberated inside the condo building’s underground parking garage. The bike was his most prized possession, discovered in a Belgian barn, shipped home, rebuilt. He’d always been good with his hands.

  Riding on Virginia’s rural blacktops away from the congested DMV—shorthand among those who lived there for the District, Maryland, and Virginia—helped, blocking out all extraneous thoughts. A one-lane road and a speeding motorcycle. A patch of loose gravel; a pothole; a fox darting unexpectedly across the blacktop; topping a hill pushing a hundred miles per hour and discovering a farmer’s slow-moving tractor blocking the path—Garrett knew the statistics. Five thousand motorcycle fatalities each year in the United States.

  His solitary rides had become much more frequent, daring death, forcing adrenaline into him. He needed the rush. At thirty-six, Garrett knew he had been put to pasture, a bitter irony in a life filled with much irony. The media once had labeled him a national hero. He’d been feted at the White House, praised by the president. But the federal agencies that could benefit most from his talents had no interest in him now.

  Initially, he’d blamed his addiction. Opioids for chronic pain from multiple burns. A helicopter crash in Africa. A terrorist’s RPG. It had taken him months to heal, only to confront the fact that he had become addicted to pain pills. He’d started using Suboxone to wean himself off opioids and found it took him longer to kick his addiction to medication than to heal from his burns. Finally he had become drug-free, and a Navy psychiatrist had cleared him of post-traumatic stress disorder. He’d been ready for a new assignment, but no one called. What was it that made him unhirable? he asked himself, although he knew. His last kill.

  A car was parked in his reserved condo space. Garrett cursed, and for a moment considered flattening its tires. Controlling his impulses was something he’d been working on. He inspected the car as he rolled past. An unmarked police car. He parked the Norton between two thick concrete pillars. Four more Arlington County squad cars took up visitor spots near the elevator.

  Garrett boarded the garage’s underground elevator, taking it up into the lobby.

  “You live here?” a uniformed officer demanded as soon as Garrett exited the elevator.

  “Me and about four hundred others,” he answered.

  “Let’s see some ID.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it!”

  Garrett unslung his backpack and had begun to reach inside for his wallet when the young police officer spotted a handgun.

  “Raise your hands!” he yelled, drawing his Glock.

  His holle
r set off a chain reaction among the other half dozen police officers inside the lobby. Each pulled their weapon, all aimed at Garrett.

  “Let’s just chill,” Garrett said in a calm voice, letting his open backpack slip onto the floor while lifting both hands into the air. “I got a permit.”

  Keeping his pistol pointed at Garrett’s chest, the officer kicked the backpack across the marble floor toward a colleague. She reached inside and removed Garrett’s Sig Sauer P226 handgun from the top of the bag, where it had been lying in plain sight.

  “Why you carrying this?” she asked.

  “I’ve been squirrel hunting.” Garrett smirked. “Like I just said, I got a permit.”

  The young officer was clearly trying to figure out what to do next when a voice behind him called out: “Don’t you know who this is? Put down your weapons.”

  A fifty-something bald man wearing lieutenant stripes stepped toward Garrett and offered his hand. “Sorry, Mr. Garrett. You live here?”

  “Afraid so.”

  His brass nametag read lieutenant morgan.

  “Recognized you from the television,” Morgan said. “You and that FBI agent—that female—what you two did at the Capitol, well, it was incredible. How’s she doing?”

  “Not sure. Haven’t seen her in a while.”

  “If the president of these United States gave me a Medal of Freedom,” Morgan continued, “I’d be wearing that fricking medal around my neck every day and shoving it into everyone’s face.”

  Garrett smiled but didn’t respond.

  The female officer returned his backpack and Sig Sauer.

  “Why the barrage?” Garrett asked.

  “One of your residents was murdered. His body was found in the elevator this morning. Stabbed right in the heart. Just once.” Morgan made a thrusting motion with his right hand. “Killer knew what he was doing.”

  “Catch anything on the cameras?” Garrett nodded at one in the ceiling near them.

  “The entire system went down last night. Some kind of computer glitch.” Morgan glanced at his notepad, where he’d written the dead man’s name. “Nasya Radi. You know him?”

  Garrett shook his head. “I stay pretty much to my own.”

  “Which floor is yours?”

  “Sixth.”

  “His too. Maybe you passed him in the hall.”

  “Maybe. What’d he look like?”

  Lieutenant Morgan called over a plainclothes detective.

  “This is Detective DeAngelo from homicide,” Morgan explained. “Show Nasya Radi’s photo to Mr. Garrett.”

  DeAngelo produced what was clearly a passport picture. “Didn’t have a driver’s license,” the detective said. “Got here in 1979. Lived alone as far as we can tell.”

  “Probably fled during the revolution,” Garrett said.

  “Say again?” DeAngelo replied.

  “Iranian Revolution. February of ’79,” Garrett answered. “Islamic radicals drove the shah out. You probably should check with State to see if he was granted political asylum.”

  “I remember,” Lieutenant Morgan said. “American embassy hostages.”

  “Oh, yeah,” DeAngelo said. “Think he was someone important over there?”

  “State might know.” Garrett studied Radi’s passport picture. “Can’t say I recognize him from the building, but it’s an old photo.”

  “Here’s my card,” Morgan said. “Call me if there’s anything I can ever do for you.”

  Detective DeAngelo produced a card too. “In case you remember anything.”

  Garrett paused. “Think he might have been murdered because he’s an Iranian?”

  “Could be a hate crime, but I doubt it,” DeAngelo said. “We got lots of foreigners living around here. Immigrants. Sometimes the most obvious is what actually happened, and this looks like a robbery to me. His wallet is missing.”

  “I figure if the Iranians wanted him dead because he fled after the revolution,” Morgan added, “they’d’ve killed him years ago.”

  “Like I said, a robbery. We’ve had an uptick in them,” DeAngelo said.

  “Arlington’s gone upscale,” Morgan explained. “Lots of highly paid millennials moving in, so naturally they’re going to be targeted.”

  Garrett took another glance at the photo. Radi hardly fell into the millennial category, but he decided to move on without comment. Both elevators had been sealed off by the police, so he took the stairs. When he exited on the sixth floor, another officer approached him.

  “You on this floor?” the policeman asked.

  “Live right down the hall. Lieutenant Morgan and Detective DeAngelo already talked to me.”

  “Which one’s your condo?”

  “Six-fifteen. On the left.”

  “That’s only two doors from the victim. You know him?”

  “No, like I said, I already talked to Morgan and DeAngelo.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking, where were you last night?”

  Garrett released a sigh. “I was out. Actually I’ve been gone three days.” He stepped past the policeman.

  “Hey,” the officer said, “we’re not done.”

  “Actually, we are. Like I said, Morgan’s already talked to me. Call him.”

  As he entered his one-bedroom condo, he turned on his cell, which he’d intentionally kept off until now. It immediately rang.

  “Where you been?” Thomas Jefferson Kim asked. “I’ve been trying to call you for days.”

  “Out communing with nature. Why, you got a job for me?”

  “C’mon, Garrett. You know better.”

  “What I know is, you’re supposed to be my best friend. You own your own international security company. And you’re telling me there’s not a single job opening anywhere in the entire world for me?”

  “You know why. You’re persona non grata and I can’t risk it. Too many government contracts.”

  “So why are you calling?”

  “Lunch.”

  “Give me a job, then we’ll have lunch.”

  Garrett hung up, stripped, and stepped into the shower. He had three days of roughing it in the Monongahela National Forest in eastern West Virginia to wash off. Three days of solitude. Basic survival. A way to strip yourself mentally and physically. But ghosts recognize no geographical boundaries. Multiple tours in Afghanistan. Cameroon. Water splashed on his unshaven face. Boko Haram. He ran a washcloth over the burn scars on the side of his abdomen. A reminder of the helicopter crash. Those on board had counted on him to save them. Little girls. Hostages being rescued. One face stuck out. Little Abidemi.

  He walked naked across the cold white tile out into his condo’s kitchen. Checked the fridge. Two beers. Leftover take-out Chinese. He grabbed the beers, tossed the Chinese. In his bedroom, he swallowed an Ambien, nursed one beer, and channel-surfed. For some unknown reason, he’d started watching cable cooking challenges. Considering how empty his cupboards and refrigerator were, it was an odd choice. Irish cuisine. Was there such a thing? Bangers and mash. Finished the second beer. Dozed off.

  Garrett’s body shook. His eyes popped open. A nightmare, a recurring one. He checked his watch: oh two hundred. He slipped on running shorts and a worn pair of Asics. An early-morning jog helps clear the head. The elevator floor had been scrubbed clean. All the cops were now gone. No sign of a murder less than twenty-four hours ago, except now the condo’s security guard, Calvin Russell, was sitting in the lobby, fidgeting with his cell phone.

  “Got you working nights now, Russell?” Garrett asked.

  “They sure do, Mr. Garrett. From now on, lobby guards twenty-four hours a day. I’m on overtime until they fill the slots. You should apply.”

  Not that desperate, Garrett thought as he pushed the interior glass door. It wouldn’t budge.

  “Sorry,” Russell called out. “I got to buzz it open. They installed it this afternoon.” He pushed a button freeing the door.

  Garrett sucked in the chill autumn air. Almost time for
the Marine Corps Marathon. Thousands of runners invading the neighborhood. He stretched and noticed a homeless man curled up in the doorway of a bagel shop directly across the street. Lying on cardboard, his belongings piled in a grocery cart, his face hidden under a gray wool blanket. Otherwise the street was empty.

  Five miles was a good distance. Time to think. Clear your mind. He pushed himself. He always did. Checked his watch. Six minutes the first mile. He could do better. He returned sweaty. The homeless man was still sleeping.

  “How was it out there?” Russell asked.

  “Always better when no one is around,” Garrett replied.

  “Same for this job.”

  “You see that homeless guy across the street?”

  “Started showing up a few days ago. Been getting complaints from tenants about him, but I think the bagel shop owner gives him a bagel and coffee. Like a stray dog. You feed ’em once, and they settle in.”

  Garrett pushed the elevator button and then hesitated. He’d been distracted by the police when he’d first arrived home and forgotten to collect his mail. He removed two keys from a pouch that he wore while running: one to his condo, the other to his mailbox.

  It was stuffed with junk mail, along with bills. Coupons. Nothing unexpected. Wait. A brown envelope. His name written in cursive. No postage. No return address. He opened the letter. It was written in Farsi, which he couldn’t read, but he did recognize the signature.

  Nasya Radi.

  Three

  The residents of the Mayfair district, described by Sotheby’s as the epicenter of luxurious London living and an internationally recognized world premier address, were comfortable with excess. But even the heirs of Britain’s aristocracy were jarred when Taras Aleksandrovich Zharkov purchased the legendary Fallbrook Manor on Brook Street. A consortium of investors had been in the midst of converting the nineteenth-century mansion into four apartments, each priced at £10 million (roughly US$13 million), when Zharkov surfaced.