THIS is a voluntary statement by Mrs. Violet Simms of 29A Linden 1 Avenue, Rockhill, N.Y., on this date. The statement was made to Mr. Samuel Warsaw of this department. This memorandum is restricted to internal use only.
SAMMY: We'd like you to tell us whatever you can about the letters that you have been sending over the years to the man you know as Hassan Rashid.
VIOLET: First of all, I haven't done anything illegal, and as far as I'm concerned I haven't done anything improper or immoral, either. I know what moral is. I'm a churchgoing woman, have been all my life, and I know the difference between right and wrong. I haven't done anything to be ashamed of. If you want to talk about shame, you ought to talk about the shame that my daughter put on me, having a baby without a husband that way. All I've done is try to raise Lila the best that I could, and I couldn't have done it without the money from Hassan. He's been generous to me, kind and generous.
SAMMY: Are you aware that the man you know as Hassan Rashid is the terrorist that the world knows of by the single name of Safeer?
VIOLET: So you say. Since I've been in this place that's all I've heard, that he's one of those people who blows up airplanes and does those terrible things, but as far as far as I'm concerned it's all a lot of talk. I haven't seen any proof that Hassan is this Safeer fellow, and until I do I just don't believe it. It's been a lot of years since I last saw Hassan, but it's been my experience that people don't change all that much over the years. You start out with a basically decent human being, and that's what you wind up with, more or less. And decent was what he was. What he is. Not that I felt that way about him right from the start. I had some funny feelings then about Arabs, and I didn't like it one little bit when Julia started to throw herself at him. Threw herself at him like a slut, that's what she did, and that's where the blame lies, not with me.
SAMMY: You don't blame Hassan for what he did to your daughter?
VIOLET: What did he do? She threw herself at him, didn't she? A man is a man, isn't he? He did what any other man would do, and she got exactly what she was looking for. Got herself pregnant without a husband, which doesn't mean much to some people these days, but it still does where I come from, and I begged her to tell him before he went home after college. He had to go back to his people, didn't he? Well, she should have told him then that she was pregnant, but she wouldn't. I tell you, I almost got down on my knees and begged her to, but that girl was so stubborn, so filled up with pride. Wanted to see if he'd send for her, wanted him to prove that he loved her before she would tell him. Love, my foot. She knew who that man was in love with, everybody knew, and he took up with my Julia only after June turned him down. Well, I guess she got her proof. He never did write to her, never did ask for her to come to him, which only goes to show how little he thought of her throwing herself at him that way. A man thinks you're cheap, and he treats you cheap, it's always been that way and it always will. Some people might find fault with the way that he treated her, but she had only herself to blame. He was a decent person, and he proved it later on when I needed him.
SAMMY: When was that?
VIOLET: When the baby came, and Julia died. God's judgment? I try not to think of it that way, but it's hard to escape the thought. In the end, it doesn't matter, does it? I lost my daughter, and suddenly I had a baby to care for. That's when Hassan-I'm sorry, but I can't call him Safeer-showed how decent he was. All it took was one letter from me explaining the situation, and the money started coming. Now, remember, as far as he knew it could have been anybody's baby, Not that it was, it was his, all right, but how was he to know that? And even if he knew, how many men would do the right thing that way? Well, Hassan did. The money started coming, and it never stopped, right to this day, deposited every month like clockwork in my bank.
SAMMY: What did he ask for in return?
VIOLET: Nothing much, nothing more than any father would ask. He wanted to hear about his child, wanted to know how she was growing up, wanted to see some photos once in a while, that's all. Little enough to ask for what he was doing, and I can be like clockwork, too. I've been writing once a week without fail, first to Beirut and later to that address in Paris, never missed once over all these years. I tell him about Lila, and all the other things that he wants to know. He always wants to hear about Mike Teague, who was like family to him once, and all about that singer, too.
SAMMY: What singer is that?
VIOLET: The opera star with that funny name. Maria-Teresa something.
SAMMY: Bonfiglia? Maria-Teresa Bonfiglia?
VIOLET: That's it. Any time her name is in the papers, I send him the clipping. And anything about the Van Buren basketball team. And anything I hear about Calvin and June, of course.
SAMMY: Why, of course?
VIOLET: Because they were all so close in college, the three of them. My Julia was never a part of it, she just tagged along. That's why they called her the Poodle, she was like a pet. But the other three were the best of friends, and if you want my opinion, Hassan never got over it when Calvin and June got married. If you want my opinion…
SAMMY: Yes?
VIOLET: I think that Hassan has always been waiting for the marriage to break up. There, I said it. Not very nice, but that's what I think, and that's why he wanted me to keep him posted about it. If anything ever happens between Calvin and June, you can bet that Hassan will be Johnny-on-the-spot.
SAMMY: You think he still wants her after all these years?
VIOLET: I'm sure of it.
SAMMY: Would he come back here to get her?
VIOLET: I'm sure of that, too.
SAMMY: What does Lila know about this?
VIOLET: Nothing, and I'd like to keep it that way. She thinks her father died in an accident just after she was born.
SAMMY: But she knows that her parents weren't married?
VIOLET: She knows that much, because of her name. She doesn't have to know the rest of it, does she?
SAMMY: She won't hear it from us.
VIOLET: Good. I don't want her hearing all that talk about terrorists. Her father is a fine, decent man, not this Safeer person you're talking about.
SAMMY: Would you say that he loves his daughter?
VIOLET: Of course he does, what a question. Everything that he's done over the years proves that he does.
SAMMY: Then why has he never tried to see her?
VIOLET: (No response.)
SAMMY: It's because he can't, isn't it? He hasn't been able to show his face for years.
VIOLET: (No response.)
SAMMY: It's because he's an acknowledged terrorist who is wanted by the police in virtually every country in the western world. That's why, isn't it?
VIOLET: All I did was write some letters. They were personal letters, family letters. There was nothing in them that would interest anyone else.
SAMMY: You're wrong there. They were of very great interest to someone else. A man named David Ogden read every one of them.
"So much for brain damage," said Sammy. "We read this job wrong from the beginning. There was nothing damaged about Ogden's brain. It was working fine right up to the end, trying to flush a master terrorist out of hiding. His goal was to get Hassan Rashid, the man we know as Safeer, onto American soil, nail him, and try him in an American court.
There were seven of us in the conference room at the Center, the five sensitives, Jessup, and Delaney. We had all just finished reading the Simms statement. Martha's copy dropped to the floor, and she muttered "damn" because she couldn't bend to pick it up. Her leg was still in a cast. Snake retrieved it for her.
"You're going too fast for me," said Delaney. "Are you saying that Ogden had an intercept going on Mrs. Simm's mail?"
"That's it."
"A private intercept. Not Agency?" He turned to Jessup. "Is that possible?"
"I'm afraid it is," Jessup said somberly. "You don't know how David worked. He ran Operations like a private kingdom. Look at those agents that he used, Madrigal, Sextant, and the others. People we never heard of. If he could do that, then he certainly could have mounted a private intercept on her mail."
"Ogden got to know Safeer from these letters," said Sammy. "He knew him inside out. He knew exactly what buttons that he had to push to move him out of his sanctuary."
"I still find it hard to believe," said Delaney. "How could he know how the man would react?"
Martha asked, "Do you have a daughter?" She knew that he did.
Uncomfortable, Delaney said, "Yes."
"How would you react if she was raped? Wouldn't you risk everything to be with her? Wouldn't you travel halfway across the world to crucify the bastards who did it?"
Delaney conceded the point with a shrug. "What about the other assignments?"
"Sound off," Sammy ordered. "Ben first."
"June was his first real love, maybe his only love," I said. "What would he do if he heard that she was suddenly a widow, available and vulnerable? I think he'd come running."
Snake leaned forward, and said intently, "Mike Teague was like family to Hassan. What would he do if the old man got burned out of his home? To tell you the truth, I don't know. But I'm sure he'd make some kind of a move, and he might have come here to make it."
"All right, I'll buy it so far," said Delaney. "But a basketball team?"
"They were the pride of his youth," Vince explained. "If you don't dig sports, then you won't understand it, but if Van Buren had made the tournament, I think there's a good chance that he would have tried to be here for it."
"Maybe a single button would have done it, maybe not," I said. "But Ogden wasn't taking any chances. He pushed them all at the same time."
"And it almost worked." Jessup shook his head sadly. "It was a masterpiece, a typical Ogden operation. Safeer hears that his daughter has been brutally attacked. He hears that the woman he loves is free to marry. He hears that his old friend Teague has been burned out of his home. He hears that his college team is going to the tournament. Damn, it's a psychological blitzkrieg, he can't resist it."
"He would have come over," said Delaney. "I'm sure of it."
"Damn it, if we had only known. We killed a beautiful operation."
"You mean, you would have let it happen?" asked Martha. "The rape, the murder, and all the rest of it?"
Jessup looked uncomfortable. "It's hard to say… I mean, if we could have gotten our hands on Safeer…" His voice trailed off.
"Talk about brain damage," Snake crowed. "Just look at him, he's ready to kick himself. He would have done it, all right."
Jessup said stiffly. "That's academic now. You stopped them. You stopped them cold."
"You sure did," said Delaney. "Four out of four."
Sammy said quietly, "Four out of five."
They stared at him, and there was silence in the room. So they had missed it. The five of us had caught it, but the two normals had missed it. It had nothing to do with being a sensitive. It was there, right in front of them, but they missed it.
"Five?" said Jessup. "You said five?"
"The singer," said Sammy. "Maria-Teresa Bonfiglia."
"What about her?" He still didn't see it.
"Mrs. Simms sends clippings about her to Hassan."
"So what?" said Delaney; "So the bastard likes opera." He didn't see it, either.
"You remember Ogden's lockbox?" Sammy said patiently. "The right-hand side contained envelopes, one for each of five women. They were Sarah Brine, the actress; Jenny Cookson, the anchorwoman; Carla MacAlester, the senator's wife; Vivian Livingstone, the socialite; and Maria-Teresa Bonfiglia, the soprano."
"My God," said Jessup. "Could it be a coincidence?"
"I don't think so. In the left-hand side of the box were the assignments to Ogden's four agents. I made the assumption, I guess we all made the assumption, that the right side was for personal use and the left side was for business, but we were wrong. The envelope for Bonfiglia was different from those of the other women. Students?"
"No erotic photos," said Vince.
"No love letters," said Martha.
"Correct, just the contract for the farewell tour. Ogden never had a romantic relationship with her. He arranged for the tour, he underwrote the expenses, but he wasn't paying off a sexual debt the way he did with the others. He knew that Safeer would hear about the tour. He was pushing one more button."
"How?" asked Jessup. "What has Bonfiglia got to do with Safeer?"
"I don't know," Sammy confessed. "But Ogden obviously did, and he used it to set one last piece of bait."
"The fifth button. Her final performance is next Thursday at Carnegie Hall. Are you saying that Safeer will be there?"
"David Ogden knew his man. If he knew him as well as I think he did, then yes, I think he'll be there. Sorry, folks, but that's the way I see it. It isn't over yet."