Jameson looked confused. Roberts felt the same way.
“We heard the shot,” she said. “It sounded like a silenced weapon to me.” She looked at Hunt for confirmation.
Hunt turned to Jameson. “You sure he came at you with a revolver?”
“Positive. Looked like a .38 Special. In his right hand. Black combat knife in his left. But it happened so fast.”
“We need to dig the slug out of that vest, see what it is,” Peters said.
Roberts thought it through. “He was waiting for us. Saw us coming.”
Peters blinked. “Why? Why not get out if he knew we were coming? And why leave Jameson alive?” He glanced down. “No offense, kid, but he had a gun and a knife. He could have gone for a headshot, but he aimed for the chest. He had to know you were wearing a vest. And sounds like you were stunned enough he had plenty of time to finish the job with the knife.”
“We still don’t know if this is our guy,” Roberts said.
“Enough!” Hunt said. “That son of a bitch attacked one of ours. One of us. I don’t give a shit what he was thinking, or whether he’s the right guy. He assaulted a federal officer and I want his ass in a sling. He can’t get that far on foot. We’ve got four vehicles. We work our way out from here in concentric circles. We’re bound to catch him. Roberts, your guys got a photo, right? Get it out to the locals. Peters, leave one of your men with Jameson and have him get an ambulance out here. Let’s move, people.”
22
I ran until my lungs burned and my legs ached, using wooded lots for concealment and heading into cul-de-sacs and cutting through yards to streets beyond to deter followers. I pulled up short to catch my breath before I puked, and took stock of the cross streets while my chest heaved. It hadn’t been that many years since I’d been able to run a lot farther getting winded. My thoughts raced even faster than my heart rate.
How could I have missed all the signs on my way home? The SUV at the curb a block away, full of passengers but not idling. The plumber’s truck down the street from the house with a name painted on the side I didn’t recognize. The sedan parked in the drive of the empty rental house down the block, but no lights on inside. I’d seen them but hadn’t paid attention.
Why hadn’t any of the raiding party worn identifiers on their clothing? It was SOP these days so no one got hit by friendly fire, and so bad guys couldn’t claim later that law enforcement officers hadn’t identified themselves. And why hadn’t they announced themselves? This team had made a point of concealing its identity, operating more like a military team of commandos than cops. So who were they after? Certainly not me. I hadn’t done anything. I’d served my country, paid my taxes, didn’t even have a traffic violation on my record. So what the fuck?
The sound suppressors on the weapons were the real puzzler. Whether or not they intended to kill me—or whoever they were really after—they didn’t want to attract attention. Get in, get out, as quickly and as quietly as possible. I had no answers, but I had more pressing problems. They wouldn’t give up after one attempt. They would track me, in cars, while I was on foot, literally. I had to regroup, get supplies and get the hell out of town. I could think of only one place to go. Ignoring the stitch in my side, I straightened and broke into a lope down the grassy median strip next to the sidewalk, just another fool jogger out for an early morning run. The couple times I saw headlights I thought my heart might give out, but each time they turned a corner to get out of the neighborhood, early commuters on their way to their jobs.
Ten minutes later I came out on a main drag through town a block from the service station where I worked. I wondered how much these people knew about me. Or was this really a case of mistaken identity and they were after someone completely different? Either way, I decided to backtrack around the block and come up through the alley from behind the garage. A lone car parked next to the gas pumps out front. Two young guys stood next to the trunk, arguing. Bits of their conversation floated back to me. They couldn’t agree on who should pay. I scanned the street, looking up and down the block for idling cars or any other signs that the station was being watched. Nothing stood out, but that didn’t make me any less nervous.
Carl, the night man, sat on a stool behind the counter, eyes raised to a small TV mounted high in one corner. A video camera in the opposite corner pointed down at the door. Usually, the TV monitor displayed whatever the video camera recorded, but Carl liked watching Cartoon Network, so it was tuned to “Sponge Bob” or something. A pet rock could probably have beaten Carl on an IQ test, but that led a lot of people, including me, to underestimate him. He was observant and curious, big enough to discourage robbers, and Cassidy the owner liked him. I did, too, but we didn’t have a whole lot to say to each other.
Carl was used to seeing me come in early on days when I couldn’t sleep, so he barely registered my presence when I walked in. I’d have been happy for him not to remember I’d been there at all. I slipped past him to the door leading to the service bays, which were kept closed at night. Against the wall in the first bay stood a couple of lockers. I kept spare work boots and a clean change of clothes in one of them in the event I had really messy jobs. I put on the boots and rolled the pistol and knife up in the spare clothes, and stuffed the bundle into a canvas tool bag.
I went back inside with my bag around behind the counter where we kept keys to cars that stayed overnight either in the garage or parked out back. Carl glanced at me quickly then turned his attention back to the small screen, letting out a big guffaw at the antics of a pink blob with a pointy head. I rubbed my chin, and grabbed a set off the board belonging to a Ford Crown Vic that had seen service as a police interceptor. High miles, but in good shape for a car that had been on the road for more than a dozen years and driven hard. The guy who bought it at auction had given it to his mother because it was a solid car. I felt bad about taking it, but I couldn’t think of any other way out. I hadn’t given the woman a definite date when work on it would be finished, so it might not be missed right away.
“Where are your shoes?” Carl said.
Startled, I looked to see what had prompted his curiosity. He kept his gaze on the television.
“I’ve got boots on, Carl. Why would I need shoes?”
He shook his head. “You came in with no shoes on. Just socks. Too cold. You’ll get sick.”
He finally met my surprised gaze, but quickly looked away.
“You’re right, Carl. That wasn’t very smart of me.”
“And people say I’m a dummy,” he muttered. “You should know better, Zane.”
“I should. I’ll try to do better from now on.”
“Going to work now, huh?”
“Yes, I’m going to work.”
Maybe not in the sense Carl meant, but I was going to have to bust my hump to find out why I’d been targeted or I might end up dead. I considered him for a moment as he watched the flickering images and decided I had nothing to lose.
“Say, Carl, do me a favor. If anyone asks, pretend you didn’t see me this morning.”
“Sure, okay.” His gaze never left the TV.
Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t. With a nod, I headed out back. The two guys were still hanging around in front, but now one of them pumped gas in the car’s tank. Neither one glanced in my direction as I rounded the corner of the garage.
I grew up in Detroit in the 1950s and ’60s. My father emigrated from Lebanon after World War II, worked hard, and opened a little grocery store with savings and some family money. Though the Arab-American community was well-established in Detroit by then, to fit in better he Americanized his name. Instead of Jamil Bassam Qadir, he was known around the neighborhood as J.B. Keator. He met a pretty girl, got married, settled down, and had three kids. I was the youngest by several years, and by the time I came along neither my mother nor father had much interest in parenting anymore. I spent a lot of time alone.
After the war, the auto industry helped a lot of families become p
art of the middle class, but in Detroit that didn’t mean you were accepted everywhere. Race relations, never that good to start with, got worse in the ’60s. Arabs and blacks distrusted each other. Arab shopkeepers like my dad thought blacks, especially kids, were always out to rip them off. Blacks thought Arabs treated them shabbily because many Arab-Americans could pass as “white.” And a lot of white folks wanted segregation to last forever. As far as they were concerned, we were all “colored.” Some of us were sand niggers and some just plain niggers.
A small, scrawny kid, I made an easy target and got beat up a lot. By the time I got to high school, though, my voice had dropped an octave, my face sprouted stubble, and my muscles grew stronger. Still small, I grew wiry, not scrawny. And I started hitting back, giving as good as I got. But by ’67, I was tired of it. While Haight-Ashbury pushed its drug-induced world-view of hippie-dippy love, Detroit demonstrated some real-world hate with the worst race riots the country had ever seen. Five days of ninety-degree heat compounded by thick, acrid smoke that hung over the city like a pall from fires that lit the night sky orange. Five days of the constant wail of sirens, sporadic gunfire like popcorn, the rumble of tanks and armored vehicles like the thunder of a storm that provided no rain, only destruction and death and another fifty years of hatred and discrimination.
After that, I figured if I was going to fight I wanted to fight for a reason. So I stole my older brother’s driver’s license and enlisted in the army. A sightseeing tour of Vietnam after basic training was pretty much a given. I was fifteen.
Mary Anderson had been my girlfriend in high school before I went to ’Nam. When I’d gotten back, she was as surprised as I was that she hadn’t married or moved on. We’d had two kids and bought a house in the ’burbs before I figured out the war had had a greater impact on me than I’d admitted. It wasn’t long after that Mary became my ex-wife. Despite a succession of boyfriends over the years since, she’d never remarried, and still lived in the house where we’d raised Doug and his sister Rachel. Well, she’d raised them, mostly. I’d paid for it, in more ways than one. I headed there now, but not because of some maudlin desire to rekindle friendship or romance.
I saw a lot of guys come back from the war all fucked up. I didn’t have a problem with what I’d done over there. I’d volunteered, after all, and was proud to have served. What had gotten me had been the homecoming reception. If being called “baby-killer” and “traitor” by protestors hadn’t been bad enough, I’d discovered the depth of the lies the government had told us. It had made me suspicious and paranoid enough that I’d hedged my bets any time things looked “iffy.” Arab oil embargo? Put in an underground gas tank and buy a good generator. Iranian hostage crisis? Hide a couple of guns and ammunition in the garage. Market crash? Hoard cash. Y2K? Bury gold and MREs in the back yard. I’d have to tell Doug about that some day. He could use it as a college fund for the kids.
I’d gotten over my paranoia a few years after coming home. Seeing the Watergate investigation bust the Nixon Administration wide open gave me a grudging feeling of vindication, but I’d never completely lost my distrust of government. I felt badly about hurting that agent earlier, and guilty that I’d run instead of standing my ground. After all, I’d done nothing wrong. But the way that team had come for me made me think I’d been right to be suspicious of Big Brother all along.
I parked half a block away from Mary’s house, and sat for a moment wondering if I was doing the right thing. I thought about Doug and the kids, and felt guilty about what it would do to them to learn I was on the run. For a moment I thought about calling Doug, asking for his help. But nothing about the situation made any sense. This team had come in the middle of the night. I still wasn’t sure who sent them. If the Justice Department had me on its radar for some reason, Doug couldn’t get involved. But wouldn’t he have given me a heads-up? Given me a clue somehow without betraying the trust?
What if it hadn’t been law enforcement busting into my house? That presented a whole other set of problems. In either case, I didn’t seem to have options. Without knowing who had raided my home or what they wanted, I couldn’t trust anyone at this point.
Headlights turned onto the street behind me. I slouched in the seat, motionless, but the car cruised past few moments later. Two blocks up, it vanished around a corner. I glanced at my watch. Dawn would break soon. Time to move. I hadn’t seen any signs I’d been followed, so I mustered the energy to get out, and walked up the familiar street. The detached garage was set on the back of the lot. I stayed on the grass by the edge of the drive to keep from crunching gravel underfoot. I doubted I’d wake Mary—she’d always been a heavy sleeper—but aging has a funny effect on sleep patterns. The house stayed dark as I slipped past.
Old habits, they say… The key to the side door hung on a nail next to the garage window, hidden by a broken rose trellis. Careful to avoid thorns, I lifted it off and unlocked the door. The frame sagged, making the door stick. I put my shoulder to it and shoved hard, almost falling through when it gave way. Inside, the stale air smelled of oil and must. Signs of deferred maintenance. Metaphors for the stage of life Mary and I were entering. I leaned back against the door and took deep breaths to ward off the exhaustion that snapped at my heels.
My fingers moved along a brace between two studs next to the door and felt the flashlight we’d always kept there. When I turned it on, a dim yellow beam feebly reached for the rafters. If the batteries didn’t give out it would be sufficient. I turned around quickly to get my bearings, propped a stepladder up against a joist overhead, grabbed a claw hammer off the pegboard, and climbed up.
Sheets of plywood nailed to the joists created a path from one end of the attic-like space to the other. Up here, the wall at each end had been paneled with cheap, veneer-covered plywood, as if someone had started to finish the garage but given up halfway. My handiwork, it reflected the way I’d left so many things in life strewn in my wake—undone. I set the flashlight down, pointing at the wall, and forced the claw in between two sheets of paneling and pried one free of the stud. Gripping it with both hands, I pulled it off the wall, exposing the ribs and pink guts of studs and insulation. Free of constraints, a strip of insulation sagged. I peeled it away from the studs and carefully fished behind it, avoiding splinters from the Fiberglas.
My fingers grasped a paper-wrapped package and pulled it out. Under the paper, a sealed plastic bag held an envelope containing a small pack of hundred-dollar bills. I thought I’d squirreled away half a strap—five grand. I counted only twenty bills. It felt featherweight in my hand. Only then did I recall converting the rest to gold coins in a fit of paranoia. I had no time to go digging in the yard. I stuffed the envelope in my pocket and went fishing again. The package this time weighed far more. I struggled to bring it out, feeling suddenly weak. Breaking into a sweat, I gripped the bundle more tightly and lifted it from its hiding place. This one contained two Sig semiautomatics, a full-size P226 and a compact P239, along with several full magazines.
Going up against an armed assault team was madness. I wasn’t itching for a fight. I just wanted answers. But having a couple of weapons for self-defense that were effective at distances greater than ten feet couldn’t hurt. Not bothering to unwrap the pistols, I carried the bundle back to the ladder and climbed down.
Too late, I remembered the hammer. My shoulders sagged, and the thought of climbing up again exhausted me. After debating for a moment, I decided Mary probably wouldn’t miss it given the dust on it when I’d picked it up off the bench. As I moved to the door, the garage brightened. Out the window, light splashed the yard with dull yellow. I crossed to the side door and opened it just a crack, peered out, and swung it wider when I didn’t see anyone. As soon as I stepped through the opening, loud but muffled barking came from the house next door. A furry face pressed itself to a second-floor window, one wide eye peering down at me while the jaw opened and closed with each bark.
I stepped back behind the door f
or a moment, but the dog wasn’t fooled. I pushed through, shut the door tightly behind me and hurried up the drive toward the street, cringing with each bark. I’d drawn even with the corner of the house when the backyard brightened considerably as the porch door slammed open. I took a hurried step and pressed myself against the siding out of sight around the corner.
“Poopsie!” a woman’s voice whispered loudly. Mary’s voice, made deeper and rougher with age. “For crying out loud, shut up! You’ll wake the whole neighborhood.”
Poopsie? Who the hell would do that to a dog?
Distracted, the mutt in the window stopped its yapping for a minute and turned its head to look at the source of the voice. I took advantage, slipping alongside the house in the shadows. But Poopsie must have seen movement the moment I stepped away from the far corner because the barking started again.
“Shut up, Poopsie!” Mary called. “For goodness’ sake! Stupid dog.”
Afraid Mary would step off the porch and into view, I broke into a run, and the barking went from frenzied to half-hearted by the time I reached the street.
23
As soon as Amir pulled away from the curb he got on his cell phone and made a call. He had one chance to do this, and he cursed under his breath as he counted the unanswered rings. He hated relying on other people, let alone some kid who didn’t even attend prayers.
Finally, a sleepy voice picked up. “Hello?”
“Fahrouk, wake up! It’s Amir.”
“Amir? Do you have any idea what—?”
“Yes, I know what time it is,” Amir snapped. “It’s time for you to shut and listen. You said you wanted to help, to be part of something bigger.”
“No, you said that, man. I said I’d listen, maybe consider it.”
“Well, now’s your chance. Meet me at the corner of Washtenaw and Mansfield in Ypsi. Be there in ten minutes. No, make that six minutes. Five, if you can do it.”
Stolen Identity Page 9