Guys asked Angela to suck their cocks often enough, but so far none of them had been a cop, so she’d never feared getting arrested when she said no.
“But that ain’t the worst of it,” Tiffany said. “The prosecutor called me in. He gave me that smug smile like he knows I’m a whore, know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I know the look.”
“And then he says to me, he says, if I want, he could help me out of the jam I was in and maybe drop the charges. I said I’d appreciate that because they weren’t true.” She looked over at Angela. “It’s not good for your health to go accusing cops of shit, know what I mean? So I said it was just an honest misunderstanding.”
Angela nodded.
“So this prosecutor—he’s still got this shit-eating grin on his fat face—says to me that his officer has pretty good taste in cocksuckers. He told me then that he could add on some drug-dealing charges so that I’d spend at least six months, maybe even a year, in jail.”
Tiffany glared off at the police. Silent tears started rolling down her cheeks again. “I got a kid, you know. A daughter. This fucker says that he could make sure that when I was convicted the county would take away my kid.” She wiped the tears from under her eyes with the tissue. “She’s only three.”
“Jeez, Tiffany, I had no idea.”
Angela had been taken by the county once when they sent her mother to rehab. It had been a fresh kind of hell—one invented by the legal system. They had Angela in their clutches for six months before she was tossed back into the frying pan.
“He asked what I’d be willing to do to get the charges dismissed so I could keep my kid. I thought he meant community service or something. So I told him I’d do anything, ya know? He says to me, then, that all I had to do was to come around to his place a few times a week for a month or so and give him a blow job, and if I did it good enough he’d drop all the charges. He said I’d need to give Palinski his blow job so that he’d be willing to go along with the charges being dropped.”
Angela didn’t have to ask if Tiffany agreed to the deal.
“What was the prosecutor’s name?”
Tiffany made a face. “Assistant District Attorney John Babington. Why? You know him?”
“I know the prick,” Angela said under her breath.
“Yeah? Sorry to hear that you had a run-in with that motherfucker.”
After a time, Angela asked, “Did Barry say anything else?”
“No.” Tiffany shook her head. “Alls he mumbled when I asked him what happened was ‘Those Mexicans,’ before he passed out. I hope to God he makes it. Barry’s a good guy, ya know?”
“Yeah, I know.”
As Angela listened to Tiffany’s story, she was trying to figure out why in the world the four men who had attacked her would have done this to Barry.
Tiffany trembled as she hugged herself. “I gotta pay my rent. I got a kid. What am I going to do?”
“Well,” Angela said, thinking out loud, “some of us girls have keys to the place. Why don’t we keep the bar open? Barry has bills to pay, too. We don’t want him to lose his bar. Most of the girls are like you—they can’t afford to be out of work. It would help all of us out and it would help Barry out until he got better if we all pitched in and kept the place up and running.”
Tiffany started smiling for the first time. “Yeah, we could do that.” Her eyes widened when she had the spark of an idea. “We could start a ladies’ night, offer them a free drink. That would bring in women, and women bring in lots of men.”
“Barry never wanted to have a ladies’ night,” Angela said.
“Well Barry ain’t here to say no.” She snapped her fingers. “I could bring in a string of Christmas lights and we could hang ’em up behind the bar or something. It would class up the place, make it look fancy. We could even paint the ladies’ room, ya know? Make it look better so women would want to stay around.
“Until Barry gets better we could do some things to make the place more money than it brings in now. I’m sure of it. And if we do it right—bring in the ladies—we’d all make a lot more tips from the men who would come in.”
Angela thought about it for a minute. It sounded like it was worth a try. It certainly would help Barry out if the bar pulled in some money for him while he was in the hospital and until he could recover. If he recovered.
“I think that sounds like a great idea. You’d be able to make more money to help out with your little girl.”
Tiffany considered a moment. “With just us girls, I think we’d need a man around to watch over things. Like a bouncer or something, so there wouldn’t be trouble we couldn’t handle.”
“I think you’re right. Barry always watched over everything. Him and that baseball bat he keeps behind the bar. But I guess it didn’t help him tonight.”
“Any idea who we can we get?”
Angela shook her head. “I don’t know. We’ll have to give it some thought.”
Tiffany looked over. “Hey, wasn’t it some Mexicans that almost killed you, too?”
Angela stared off into the darkness. “As a matter of fact it was.”
Tiffany frowned. “But they’re in jail, so it couldn’t be the same ones.”
“They’re not in jail. The charges were dropped and they were released.”
“Dropped? Why?”
“Babington let them go.”
“Fuck,” Tiffany said under her breath.
Angela didn’t believe in coincidences. It had to be the same four.
She suddenly realized why they had tortured Barry.
FORTY
The city they drove through, like many cities in America, seemed run-down, neglected, and devoid of hope. Many of the places where Rafael had grown up were old, but they were old in a different way. They were old in a historic way, with buildings, monuments, and mosques that were many hundreds of years old. Some were thousands of years old. In his land, history lived in all of them. History never died.
Everything in these cities looked merely decades old and already they were unkempt and rotting. The people in America were weak. Their lives were aimless. They did not accept Allah.
Soon many would die under the withering light of the sun Rafael and his brothers would unleash on them.
Rafael spotted the beige Toyota off to the side of the parking lot of the convenience store. Because the building they owned where they would assemble the bomb was remote and difficult to find, Miguel had suggested they meet at the convenience store and then he would guide them to the building just outside town.
Rafael pulled his used cargo van into the lot and tapped the horn once. The cars that were escorting the van and protecting its cargo were spread out all around them. Some waited out on the street. Some were behind. Some were out ahead making sure they would not encounter any problems.
A hand extended up in recognition from the front passenger window. The four-door Toyota Camry turned on its headlights and pulled out in front of Rafael to lead the way.
As they left the lights of the city behind, the countryside became dark and forbidding. Rafael had never seen so many trees in all his life as he saw driving across the country. They came right up to the road all around. It was claustrophobic.
As was typical, Cassiel hadn’t spoken for hours. He silently watched the American landscape go by out his window.
“So,” Rafael said, “what do you think of America so far?”
Cassiel continued looking out the passenger window as he spoke. “I have been to America before.”
Rafael briefly glanced over as he turned a corner, following the Toyota onto a different road. “You have?”
Cassiel nodded. “As a matter of fact, I came to this very city, Milford Falls, several years back. It looks the same.”
Rafael was surprised to hear it. “Why were you here?”
Cassiel was still looking out the side window. “I came here to kill some people.”
Rafael glanced over to meet Cassiel’s gaze. “You should
rejoice, then. You are about to have the chance to be part of killing many more people.”
Hasan had told him that Cassiel was a killer. In fact, he had been about to be put to death for killing a family in Iran, but Hasan thought that a man like that would be useful for their mission. Rafael didn’t agree. Every detail of their mission had been painstakingly planned and every need supplied. He didn’t see what Cassiel could add to their mission.
It felt more like he was babysitting a moody child than having the fellowship of a brother-in-arms.
The Toyota led them through a dark countryside until they entered what appeared to be an industrial area, but it looked long deserted. Rafael saw no cars, no people, no signs of life. The buildings were decaying and looked to have been abandoned for many, many years. Windows were broken out. Many of the walls had spray-painted words or symbols that made no sense. Where Rafael came from, people who did this kind of thing would be put in jail, or in work camps, or might even be put to death. But America was a land devoid of morality.
As they made their way through a maze of crumbling buildings, he saw sprawling areas surrounded by chain-link fencing and barbed wire. The whole place was a maze of ruins. Rafael realized that Miguel was right to suggest leading them in. He would never have been able to navigate the concrete labyrinth of American industrial decay on his own.
As they pulled up to the end of a large building with a curved roof and almost no windows, one of their men waiting outside jumped up and rolled a big door to the side. He waved the Toyota, Rafael’s van, and all the escort of vehicles inside. Because the building was so large, it swallowed all the cars and trucks, so that no one going past would have any idea that there was any activity inside.
There were only a few battery-powered work lights on, leaving most of the cavernous building dark. One of their men motioned to Rafael where to park to be in position for unloading. The Toyota parked off to the side.
When Rafael climbed out of the van, Miguel rushed up to greet him. The smiling man gripped Rafael by the sides of his arms, leaned in, and ceremonially kissed each cheek.
“We are so relieved that you have made it here safely, brother,” Emilio said. “We followed with great interest the glory you brought to us at the border crossing. It was a tremendous strike against the infidels.”
Rafael nodded. “It was everything we have planned for all these years. Esteban and Javier brought great glory to themselves and are now with Allah.”
A cheer went up for their martyred comrades.
Miguel regarded the stranger suspiciously. “Who is this?”
Rafael held out a hand. “This is Cassiel. Hasan assigned him to come with me. Cassiel has special talents that may be useful. He is an expert in a variety of weapons. I have been assured that he is lethal with all of them.”
Cassiel bowed his head to the men.
“You can all introduce yourselves later,” Rafael said. “For now, I would like to see your work.”
Miguel held out a hand in invitation. “I am sure you will be pleased to find everything ready for you. Here, on the floor, as you can see, we have the lead sections prepared.”
They looked just like the ones they had practiced making many times back in Iran under the watchful eyes of their technical trainers. Miguel moved on to a row of shelves.
“Once we completed the machining we moved everything here to be ready for final assembly.”
He handed Rafael one of the geometrically shaped pieces of Semtex. Assembled in a sphere around the outside of the lead tamper, they would form the explosive lens that would implode the plutonium pit to critical mass.
Rafael noted that they were as well made as those they practiced making many times.
“And here are the brass chimney sleeves. As you can see, the connectors for the detonators are already installed and awaiting the attachment of the EBW.”
“The exploding bridgewire arrived safely by courier?”
“Yes, of course,” Miguel said. “We laid it into the wiring loom. It is ready now for the final connections.”
Rafael caught Miguel’s brief sideways glance to Juan, Emilio, and Pedro, who were standing not far off to the side.
Rafael leaned in a little. “You did follow my instructions, didn’t you? Hasan wanted the courier eliminated. You followed the orders included with the EBW and killed the courier?”
“Well,” Miguel said as he fidgeted with the brass sleeve he was holding, “we certainly did follow your instructions. The courier was a woman who works for herself.” He gestured offhandedly. “We hanged her.”
“You hanged her.” Rafael looked to the sheepish faces of the other three. “But you didn’t say if you killed her, as instructed.”
“We beat her so she was hardly conscious and then we put a rope around her neck. We hanged her up by her neck”—Miguel gestured off to his right—“over at the other place where we did the machining. We had things we needed to do over here, so we left her hanging there by her neck to choke to death.”
“Did that kill her? Did you see her dead?”
“Actually, no.” Miguel turned his palms up. “Who could know that a person could escape from that? It was impossible for anyone to escape from that rope. We were sure of it.”
“So then this woman you say could not possibly escape, escaped.”
Miguel shrugged self-consciously. “There was no way for us to know.”
Rafael took a settling breath as he gritted his teeth while looking around at the four men. “Well yes, there is a way to know. You stay there until she is dead, or, better yet, you cut off her head.”
“We were working hard on finishing the job so that we would be ready for you, Rafael—that was what was most important. The woman went to the police but they let us go because they believe we are Mexican immigrants. The police are not interested in charging us with a crime. We know that we must fix this, so we went to the bar where this American whore works to find out where she lives. At first, the man who owns the bar wouldn’t tell us. In the end he told us how to get to her house.”
“And did you kill him so he couldn’t tell the authorities you were the same men who tried to kill this courier?”
Miguel nodded furiously. “Yes, Rafael. Of course we killed him. I’m pretty sure he was dead when we left him.”
“Pretty sure. Not sure, just pretty sure.”
“He was not breathing.”
“And I thought José was the stupid one,” Rafael said under his breath as he shook his head in frustration. “So, who is this woman that you hanged?”
“Her name is Angela Constantine. She is an American whore.” He flashed a brief smile. “We used her as a wife to us before we hanged her.”
Rafael noticed that Cassiel had come closer. The man’s hands had fisted at his sides.
“You say you know where she lives?” Rafael asked.
Miguel nodded furiously before repeating the directions to her house.
Rafael grabbed the man’s shirt and yanked him close. “I want you, Juan, Emilio, and Pedro to go to her house—right now—and finish the job, as you were instructed. Do you understand?”
Miguel nodded again, afraid to speak.
Rafael looked at the other three, standing self-consciously together. “Do you all have knives?”
They all nodded.
“Shouldn’t we take some guns?” Pedro asked.
“Why? So that if you’re stopped by the police you can be arrested for carrying AK-47s? So that you can be interrogated about being heavily armed illegal aliens? So that the authorities can discover our operation and put a stop to our decades of planning? They let you go before because they thought you were simply undocumented Mexican immigrants. They won’t let you go if you are caught with guns.”
“Sorry, Rafael,” Miguel rushed to say. “No guns. We can do what is needed with our knives.”
“I think I should go with them,” Cassiel said in his gravelly voice.
Rafael thought the man look
ed a little too eager to go back to his personal fetish. “No. This is not your responsibility. Miguel and his men should be the ones to take care of it.”
Miguel nodded again. “We will, Rafael. I swear.”
Rafael swept a finger back and forth, pointing at the four men. “I want you to cut off her head and bring it to me. Do you think you can do that correctly this time? Do you think that you four strong men with knives can handle this one woman who escaped from you already once before?”
“Yes, Rafael,” they said as one.
“We handled her easily before,” Miguel added. “She is not big enough to cause us any problem.” He dismissed her importance with a casual flick of his hand. “Our only mistake was being too eager to get on with our work and not staying to see that she was dead, that’s all. We will take care of it.”
“Then get going and finish it before she can cause any trouble.”
The four men all scrambled to get into the Toyota.
“All right,” Rafael said to all the other men standing around him as the door rolled to the side and the Toyota drove off into the night, “you all know what to do. You all know what this means for us, for our cause.
“Our computer team in Russia successfully launched the cyber attacks, so that we might be able to succeed with our part of the mission. American intelligence agencies have blamed the Russians for the cyber attack. America is angry and demanding retaliation.
“Our comrades running those servers in Russia are standing by for the second phase. Just before detonation they will launch a second wave of cyber attacks. Those cyber attacks will hopefully cause US defense agencies to assume that the nuclear attack that we launch was the second phase of a Russian attack on America.
“This will hopefully result in the US launching a nuclear strike at Russia. Once those missiles are in the air, Russia will counterattack with their own missiles.
“This all means that within a matter of minutes, World War Three may be under way.
“The Great Satan will be destroyed.
“But even if such a nuclear war does not develop, America will never recover from the blow we strike. Hundreds of thousands of infidels will die. Vast territory will be uninhabitable. The electromagnetic pulse will take out much of America’s infrastructure. The US will be thrown into chaos. Many millions more will starve to death as they shiver in the darkness we have brought upon them.
The Girl in the Moon Page 26