Zane Keator. Zayn al-Qadir. Was it possible that the al-Qaeda leader existed after all? Had stolen Zane’s identity as a means of getting into the country unsuspected? If so, for what purpose?
Janice didn’t like what she was contemplating, but the signs were there. She pushed away from her desk and stood, momentarily unsure. With a shake of her head, she turned and headed out the door for Douglas’s office. He looked up from his desk when she knocked, and sighed with annoyance.
“It’s important,” she said. At a nod of his head, she stepped inside the office and closed the door behind her. His brow furrowed. “Zane hasn’t traveled anywhere recently, has he?”
His eyes widened. “You’re the second person who’s asked me that in the past hour.”
“SA Roberts? I overheard her ask, which is why I’ve been doing some research. What did you tell her?”
He shrugged. “Honestly? I don’t keep track of Dad’s comings and goings, but I don’t think he’s been farther than the V.A. hospital in Ann Arbor since his honeymoon with Susan.”
“That’s what I thought.” Janice perched on the edge of a chair in front of his desk. “We have a problem, Douglas. Somebody wants something from you.”
She watched him fight to control his anger.
“The kidnappers, you mean,” he said “Then why haven’t they called?”
She shook her head. “It’s bigger than that. I’m not sure how big or what’s going to happen, but you’re at the center of whatever it is. Somebody wants something from you. We better figure out what it is quickly, or I’m afraid a lot of people are going to die.”
40
“Are you fucking crazy?” Fahrouk screamed. “You fucking killed him!”
“Shut up!” Amir barked. He looked around the room of the small house. In the far corner, a square cut in the floor with a railing mounted around its perimeter caught his eye.
Fahrouk went on as if he hadn’t even heard the command. “He gave you nothing, man!”
“Did you not hear his phone conversation with Keator! He said he could find out who stole Keator’s identity. That would ruin our plans!”
“But he didn’t know anything! And you fucking shot him!”
“No more cursing!” Amir shouted, waving the gun. “Now shut up. I need to think.”
“Oh, man, we need to get the fuck out of here,” Fahrouk moaned. “Come on, let’s go!”
Amir’s anger flared, burning brightly within his chest. He pointed the Glock at Fahrouk. “By Allah, I said no more cursing.”
“Fuck Allah, and the camel he rode in on,” Fahrouk muttered, turning for the door. “I didn’t sign up for this shit. I’m leaving.”
Amir blocked his path and shoved the barrel of the pistol into Fahrouk’s chest. “We’ll go when I say we can go.”
“You’d shoot me, too? You are fucking crazy. Fine, but you better make up your mind quick before the cops get here.”
“No one heard anything,” Amir said.
He was more concerned about Keator showing up than the police, and knew that Fahrouk was right. He tamped down the anger roiling inside and gave Fahrouk a little push with the gun barrel.
“Don’t move,” he said.
Quickly, Amir walked over to the platform in the corner. A metal box attached to a thick electrical cord dangled from the railing. He reached for it and turned it over in his hand. Three large buttons aligned on one face, labeled “Up,” “Down,” and “Stop.” A hydraulic lift, Amir guessed, so Jackson could get from one floor to another in his wheelchair. The tiny house had no second story, so the lift went to the basement. With a check on Fahrouk to make sure he stayed put, Amir strode toward the kitchen and found the staircase. He skipped down several steps and peered into the dimly lit space. An oil-burning furnace and an old washer/dryer set stood against one wall. Most of the rest of the basement was devoted to a make-shift office—a door on sawhorses for a desk, computer monitors haphazardly placed atop it. A couple of two-drawer metal file cabinets stood off to one side.
Amir took a closer look at the images frozen on the monitors, but saw nothing that gave him an indication of what Jackson had been working on, or what Keator’s plans might be. A creaky floorboard reminded him that he’d left Fahrouk unattended. He wished he had the time to search the house and especially the computer file more thoroughly, but knew they’d already overstayed their welcome. He hustled up the stairs two at a time and burst through the doorway, immediately turning to the living room. Fahrouk stood in the same spot, hands in his pockets, nervously shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
“Can we go now?” he said.
Amir thought a moment, feeling as if he’d left something undone, then nodded. They could not risk staying in the house any longer. His heart pounded, and blood still roared in his ears. He hadn’t thought it through, had pulled the trigger too soon. But he didn’t regret it. This is what he had trained for, the life he had been born to. He felt the power of Allah course through his veins. He was Allah’s instrument here on Earth; he had been tested, and had been found to be true. Through him, Allah played pure, powerful chords.
Fahrouk remained silent all the way to the car, head in constant motion as he looked to see if anyone watched them. The street remained deserted.
In the car, Fahrouk started the engine. “Where to now?”
Amir motioned up the street. “Move just close enough to see the house and park.”
“Please, Amir, we have to get out of here. The cops…”
“The police will not come until someone calls them. And I won’t call them until Keator gets here.” He glanced at Fahrouk and almost laughed at his forlorn expression. “Relax. It won’t be long.”
41
For the second time, my call to Dinky went to voicemail. I pulled the phone away from my ear and frowned at it. I worried that he might have had second thoughts. Information had an address for him on a street with an SE after it, which I took to mean the southeast part of town. I headed in that general direction and got off the highway before the houses got too far apart.
A gas station close to the highway beckoned. I pulled in and pumped only a couple bucks worth of gas into the tank, planning to dump the car as soon as I could. After paying inside, I asked a blowzy blonde at the register with troweled-on mascara for a map of the city. She let loose a tsunami of laughter, rolls of fat hanging around her middle rippling up and down in waves.
“Geez, mister, we ain’t sold maps in ages. Something wrong with your phone?”
I gave her a sheepish grin. “No fool like an old fool.”
“Horse-puckey. You ain’t near as old as me, and I can work one of them things just fine. Ask Siri, or whats-her-name. You just talk to it.”
“Nah, I’d rather talk to you any day than look like one of those idiots with a growth sticking out of his ear. What’s your name, anyway?”
She pinked. “Dolores.”
“Okay, Dolores, how about this? Instead of Siri or some other robot, what if I ask you for directions? Think maybe you’re smarter than those phone assistants?”
She looked startled, like she had to think about it. “Where you want to go?”
I told her the address.
“Shucks, that’s easy.” She proceeded to tell me how to find it.
Her directions were clear enough that I found the street inside five minutes, and stopped to get my bearings. A large lot sat on the corner outside my window, occupied by an almost disproportionately small house with a shed behind it. The front door of the house faced the cross street. After a moment of indecision at the intersection, I turned left to check the number. Lucky guess. The street dead-ended ahead of me, but a grass track led off to the left behind a small copse of trees on the edge of Dinky’s lot. I followed it out of sight of the street and parked.
Hoping Dinky had a big pot of fresh coffee brewed, I dumped all the phones into the tool bag with my spare clothes, the weapons and the bundles of money, and hauled it out of t
he car. It felt heavy, and I had to stop every few yards to catch my breath and switch it from one hand to the other. When had I become so old and feeble I couldn’t lug a bag with a couple of heaters, a few pieces of clothing and some spare cash packed inside? I chalked it up to lack of sleep because I didn’t want to admit it might be something else.
The sun directly overhead thumped the top of my head, the weight of it merciless. It felt more like August than October. An Indian summer day. The drone of late season bees looking for the last of the flowers floated on the breeze, accompanied by the syncopated buzz of a fly. Otherwise the neighborhood was quiet and still, people either at work or taking siestas, cars all gone except one parked on the street, sun glinting off the windshield. The hypnotic effect made me even drowsier.
Protected from the glare by the overhang of the porch, the front of the house looked dark and empty. The peeling paint reminded me of my own home-maintenance issues, another sign that I’d aged far faster than I wanted to admit. I shuffled up the walk, a sense of foreboding seeping into my consciousness. I glanced around quickly, but saw only a quiet neighborhood taking a noontime nap. Pressing onward, I climbed the steps to the porch and knocked on the door. No one answered. After the unanswered phone calls I could’ve assumed Dinky had gone out, or had changed his mind and left. I knocked again, and when there was no response I tried the doorknob anyway. When the door opened, I should have turned tail and run.
Instead, I pushed it wide open, stepped inside and stood unmoving to let my eyes adjust to the dim interior. Aging had started diminishing my sense of smell, but I had no trouble identifying the ferrous scent that assaulted me. Blood—lots of it—pooled on the floor a few yards away underneath the wheels of a chair. A diminutive black man, shrunken even further by the loss of all that blood, sat askew. His head tipped to one side, gray matter dripping onto his shoulder. I choked back the gorge that rose in my throat and took a step closer. I’d seen enough death in the jungles of Southeast Asia to know Dinky had been gone a while without feeling for a pulse. What drew me in was the shattered knee and the belt someone had cinched above it to stanch the flow of blood.
Far better than the pot of coffee I’d wished for, the adrenaline pumping through my veins jump-started not only my heart but my paranoia as well, and my thoughts went from zero to sixty in a fraction of the time it takes a McLaren P1. Someone got to Dinky, someone who wanted information. How?
Carefully, I set the bag on the floor, stooped next to it, and felt inside for the butt of one of the semi-automatics. I didn’t care which one. Grip in hand, I slowly stood and listened, cracking knees on the way up the only sound. His killer likely hadn’t stuck around, but better safe than sorry. No cops out front I hoped meant that neighbors hadn’t heard the gunshots. I kept an ear out for sirens as I moved quickly through the house. Remains of the coffee in the pot in the kitchen were cold. Basement lights and computer were on, as if Dinky had been interrupted by someone at the door.
I’d used a burner to call Dinky. No way anyone could have bugged it. No way anyone knew I was going to call Dinky, so his phone couldn’t have been bugged.
The computer held secrets that the cops might or might not ever unearth. The technology was beyond me, so I left it alone and headed back upstairs.
Then it hit me:
The Crown Vic had to be bugged.
But by who, and when? No one knew that I planned on taking that particular car from the garage.
Think, damn it!
One of the kitchen drawers yielded a set of keys to a Dodge vehicle. I leaned over the kitchen sink to glance out the window and confirm that the two-tone pickup I’d seen parked there was a Dodge. I headed for the small bedroom behind the kitchen.
Someone must have followed me. But I made only one stop before calling Dinky, to pick up the cell phones. No, two. I stopped at Mary’s house. Time enough to bug the car? Sure. By someone watching my ex-wife’s house? FBI? They didn’t blow people’s kneecaps off to encourage them to answer questions. But then they were supposed to announce themselves when they busted down a man’s door in the middle of the night. Still… Okay, so not the FBI.
Who?
As a mental image of two young men standing next to a car at the garage pumping gas came into focus, I stopped shuffling through the clothes in the closet and darted back into the living room. The car on the street. In my exhausted state I hadn’t paid close enough attention. Scrabbling across the floor, I avoided the blood around the butchery that used to be a human and my comrade-in-arms. I raised my head just far enough to peek through the gap between the curtains and the window, and looked out. The Mustang at the curb the next block the other side of the intersection stuck out like a zit on a pretty girl now that I was looking for it.
Ice ran up my spine. Someone else was playing me, probably whoever had stolen my ID and created a fake passport with it. These two had followed me all the way from Ypsi, and they’d killed a man I’d never met. Why? For what?
My heart thundered, sounding like a rhino galloping across the savannah. They’d been waiting for me. They’d known where to go and had gotten ahead of me. They were setting me up. I had to get the hell out of there. Suddenly, the chill I felt squeezed my heart so tight I thought it would stop beating altogether.
They knew about Rachel.
And judging from what they’d done to Dinky, they probably knew where to find her. I had to shake them. I had to get ahead in whatever game they were playing and go on offense. No way in hell they were going to hurt one of my own. Scrambling away from the window, I crouched, snatched up my bag and raced back to the bedroom.
On the way in I’d seen a ramshackle, detached garage to the rear of the house. If Dinky had been confined to a wheelchair most of the time, then he sure as shit hadn’t been driving the pickup. He’d have had a hell of a time getting in and out. I pulled my hand into the sleeve of my jacket and dug through the top dresser drawer first, with no luck. Whirling around, I spied the nightstand next to the bed, open book face down on top, a pair of reading glasses next to it. With the sleeve, I yanked open the drawer beneath and pawed through it, finally coming up with a key and electronic fob to a newer vehicle.
Now, I heard faint sirens in the distance. I ran into the kitchen. The window, on the side of the house facing away from my watchers, was the only way. I levered the window open and banged on the screen to push it out. The frame had been painted over on the outside and refused to budge. Stuffing the pistol back in the bag, I freed my hand to draw my combat knife from the sheath strapped to my ankle. I quickly slashed an X in the screen and lifted one leg over the sash. Pulling the bag through, I turned to see what sort of drop I had. The windowsill sat about seven feet off the ground, but the pickup truck was parked close. Not as far to fall.
Hanging onto the window frame with one hand, I pulled my other leg through and swiveled so I sat on the sill with my back to the kitchen. With the bag straps looped over one wrist, I pushed off the sill with both hands and landed in the bed of the truck with a muffled thump.
The sirens grew louder as they got closer. I guessed maybe half a mile away now. I jumped down to the ground, twisting an ankle in my haste. Pain jabbed it with a knife at least as big as mine, and I clamped my jaw to keep from crying out. I hobbled around the back of the truck and gimped toward the back of the house as fast as I could, feeling as foolish as I had when I ran three-legged races in the park as a kid on the Fourth of July. A zig-zag ramp descended from the back porch to a walkway that led to the garage. Bending low, I galumphed toward the out-building. A wooded patch fronting the street I’d come in on blocked most of the Mustang from view. I heard something that sounded like a chortle come out of my mouth despite the fear that filled me. Fear like I hadn’t felt since ’Nam. They’d fucked up. They’d seen the pickup and hadn’t checked the grounds, maybe for lack of time.
Reaching the door without raising an alarm, I breathed a sigh of relief, only to try the knob and find it locked. I cursed my
self for not thinking of looking for the key inside the house. Now I’d fucked up. The approaching sirens indicated I had no time to go back. I gingerly put more weight on the bad ankle to test it. With no other choice, I took a step back and put all my weight into a kick aimed just to one side of the doorknob. The door gave an inch with a loud crack as the wood around the latch splintered. Ignoring the searing ache in my ankle, I repeated the maneuver, and the old door popped inward on its hinges.
I rushed inside and shoved the door closed behind me. Next to the light switch on the wall was a button for the garage door. I pushed it, and turned to face a late model minivan. A soccer mom’s car. Perfect. This one had been tricked out with a side-door, retractable wheelchair ramp. I got in the driver’s seat quickly and tossed the tool bag on the passenger seat, not bothering to stop and admire the conversion. Dinky had added a hand throttle control and a hand brake, both of which were a little distracting as I started up the van. I worked around them to reach the gearshift and note location of other controls. The foot pedals still worked, thank God, so I gave the van a little gas and eased out of the garage, pressing the remote to close the door behind me.
Heart swelling up into my throat, I followed the overgrown gravel track as it swung left out to the street, and then turned right. My nerves screamed at me to stomp on the accelerator, and the muscles in my thigh twitched with impatience. I gripped it and squeezed, forcing myself to stay under the city speed limit. Ahead, a black-and-white, blue lights flashing and siren blaring, careened around the corner and roared toward me. Another followed. I held my breath, waiting for one or both to swerve into a skid in front of me, blocking my way.
Stolen Identity Page 18