Swift Vengeance
Page 23
“Night, Joan.”
“Roland and Joan are French heroes,” she said. “You a legend and me a saint.”
“It’s all making sense now.”
She took a deep breath, trying to pump herself up for the foggy hour’s drive home.
The new-message tone dinged from the device at her feet. It sounded faint and far away and harmless. She looked down at it with unusual Taucher deliberation. My scar itched.
She brought the device to her lap, squared it, and checked the inbox. A catch of breath.
“Dear sweet Jesus God in heaven,” she said quietly. “We have a reply to our solicitation of Ben Azmeh.”
She turned the screen toward me in the darkness.
34
CALIPHORNIA 2:35 A.M.
Your solicitation is an insult. Are you trolling for idiots? I’m genuine. I’m centuries ahead of you. I am Caliphornia. Know me by my dead. I need $50,000 to finish my journey and begin my jihad. Don’t waste my time, you alleged Warrior of Allah.
“Caliphornia” appeared at the top of the Telegram secret-chat screen, below it a clear circular graphic of a black janbiya and a crescent moon on a red background.
“Telegram secret-chat mode,” she said. “End-to-end encryption means only we will see his message. It will self-destruct when he wants it to. My heart is pounding, Roland. This guy is real. I didn’t make him up. What do we say back?”
“Our Warrior of Allah should be a tough sell,” I said.
“I agree. And you might be better at this than me. I’d just lose my temper and scare him off.”
I settled the tablet on the console between us and wrote:
WARRIOR 2:37 A.M.
We deal with thousands of liars and cowards. From that crowd we have to sponsor who is authentic. We hope that you are genuine. You are young so you brag about your actions. Tell us more about yourself, Caliphornia. We like your clever name. But we don’t know your dead. Impress us.
Taucher read it twice, hit send with a firm poke of her finger. My rebuke hit the screen immediately. Telegram is not only heavily encrypted, it’s able to synch messages to all your devices at once, and it’s fast.
I watched the fog coil and roll past the windows.
CALIPHORNIA 2:39 A.M.
I now introduce myself. Link to story and follow-up.
I linked to an article on page three of the Bakersfield Californian for December 12. It was a brief piece and a picture of smiling Kenny Bryce:
COUNTIAN STABBED TO DEATH IN HOME
Kenneth Bryce, thirty-four, a Kern County employee, was found dead of apparent stab wounds in his Bakersfield apartment yesterday . . .
The follow-up link took us to a page-seven article in the same newspaper, two days later:
NO TRUTH TO MURDER RUMOR, POLICE SAY
Bakersfield Police say there is nothing to substantiate a rumor that a recent murder victim had been decapitated.
Kenny Bryce, thirty-four, was found dead in his apartment Tuesday afternoon, victim of multiple stab wounds. Bakersfield PD says there are no suspects and no arrests have been made.
However, two Kern County Medical Examiner and Coroner’s Office contractors have said that Bryce’s body was decapitated when it arrived for autopsy. Neither contractor would speak on the record or give a name to this publication . . .
My turn again:
WARRIOR 2:47 A.M.
Do you claim responsibility?
CALIPHORNIA 2:48 A.M.
I claim glory.
WARRIOR 2:49 A.M.
But where is your proof? Maybe you only read these stories as we just did.
Caliphornia answered the Warrior of Allah with two brief and hideous video clips.
One of Kenny Bryce’s head dangling over his pillow, an anonymous hand clutching his hair.
The other of Marlon Voss’s head being set on his back, the head rolling off, then two gloved hands putting it back and getting it balanced.
A long silence.
Failure of words. Pause of will.
My anger building. Lure this cutthroat bastard in.
WARRIOR 2:52 A.M.
Why doesn’t America know you? Terror must be seen to be valuable. Where are your posts and Tweets? We do not sponsor crime, we sponsor fear. America must hear from you. If God allows. Inshallah.
Ten minutes passed. With a sinking feeling that I had asked him to do something he wasn’t ready for. And lost him.
CALIPHORNIA 3:02 A.M.
No publicity yet. Stealth and secrecy. One more U.S. drone killer to behead. Then I’ll bring the terror America has earned since 9/11. Inshallah, Warrior of Allah, whoever you are. I will launch my jihad with or without your bags of money!
WARRIOR 3:05 A.M.
Drone killers? American soldiers?
CALIPHORNIA 3:06 A.M.
Why aren’t you talking about my money? Why are you so slow? Are you believers or the FBI?
WARRIOR 3:10 A.M.
We ask the same of you. Life is risk. We have the money and are eager to invest in the right people. Acts in America are more valuable to us than acts at home. We need heroes and martyrs. We need great warriors, not shy killers. We need him who will take the head of the unbeliever and hold it high, dripping blood on the world!
CALIPHORNIA 3:12 A.M.
If you want real American terror, be ready to move very quickly. Fifty thousand. It must be delivered by an Arab man who speaks Arabic. A man of the book. I’ll message you with instructions when and if I decide to trust you. If you contact me before then, you will never hear from me again.
Half an hour of silence from Caliphornia, Taucher staring out the window, lost in something.
“He’s real,” she whispered. “He actually does these things.”
“We found him, Joan.”
Another deep breath from her. Decision time.
“You found,” she said. “But now I have to take him back to my tribe.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want to. There, in the tribe, I’m Taucher the paranoid. Taucher the haunted and hysterical, Taucher the beat up and made up. Soon to be promoted out of her job and her city. But before that happens, I need the Bureau for fifty thousand cash and a takedown team. What I want most on earth is to crush Caliphornia. I’ll do what I can to keep your hand in, Roland. You brought him to us and I need you to push his buttons.”
35
FOUR HOURS AND NO WORD from Taucher. Maybe Caliphornia had ducked for cover. Maybe I’d simply been cut from the team. Maybe both.
Too tired to sleep, brain on spin cycle, I sat under the palapa in the cool morning.
Noted the evidence of last night’s party: take-out boxes from Vince’s Pizza in town, beer and soft drink empties, Ping-Pong table left uncovered. Zeno’s water bucket by the barbecue.
Clevenger’s drone hovered above the casitas, streaming me and everything else that moved within its field of view back to one of Clevenger’s computers. I was glad to have it protecting Lindsey. I flipped it off anyway.
Moving slowly, I dropped some pizza boxes and foam salad containers into the trash. Listened to the red-shouldered hawks screaming in a chill, unsettled sky. The storm that almost chased us out of the Sierra Nevada, I thought, making its way down to us. I looked out at the pond for a while, where a snowy egret stalked. If you want to see patience, watch a snowy egret stalk.
Then the slapping of a screen door, and a muscular gray beast emerging from casita three. Followed by a tall black-haired woman in a Navajo-style coat, jeans, and boots. She raised her coffee mug at me, then they started down the railroad-tie steps.
Zeno arrived a few yards in advance, stopped and beheld me. Head up, legs wide, chest full. Brindled flank like a tiger’s stripes in sunlight. Soulful brows, gray eyes focused only on me. On me, but somehow detached from me. Without judgment.
“Guess I’ll say good morning from here, Roland.”
“Morning, Lindsey. Looks like you and Zeno are getting along.”
“Like peanut butter and jelly,” she said.
“I see you had a pizza party without me.”
“We waited for you as long as we could,” she said. “Grass Valley?”
I nodded.
“We’ve contacted him,” I said. “Caliphornia. He’s close.”
A cloud crossed her handsome face. She lifted the handgun from the pocket of her robe by its grip, then let it drop heavily back in.
“Take a walk?” I asked.
We started up the gravel path around the pond, Zeno between us and keeping our pace. The sun was still low but warm through my coat.
I told her what I’d learned about that day in April of 2015, in Aleppo, where the Headhunters had been cleared to take out Zkrya Gourmat. I told her about the local doctor who ran the improvised hospital—a man beloved by many friends and family—one of the volunteers who died.
“Yes,” she said. “Dr. Ibrahim Azmeh.”
“Caliphornia is his son.”
Lindsey stopped. Zeno did, too.
“Benyamin,” I said.
I was just now beginning to fully understand Lindsey’s take-home from the war. Post-traumatic stress, to be sure. We combat vets all had it, just in differing degrees. We handle it in different ways. In Lindsey’s case, the stress wasn’t something the enemy had done to her or to those around her. It was something she had done to the enemy. An act that could feel eternal and could not be forgotten or changed. A psychiatrist friend of mine had written about this kind of stress. She called it “moral injury.”
“Ben didn’t just snap,” I said. “He’s been preparing himself for this. He might be planning other things, too, but we’re not sure what or when.”
I told her about Caliphornia’s martial-arts and knife training, his time spent at gun ranges, his communications with the FBI’s “recruitment” site, loyal Hector, the ammunition.
“How old is Ben?” she asked.
“Twenty-two.”
She hugged herself against the morning chill, then we continued around the pond, dog between us. She was locked in thought, eyes to the ground, her footsteps measured and slow. We were halfway around the water before she spoke again.
“A Muslim trying to kill a half-Muslim,” she said. “But this isn’t about religion, is it?”
“No. It’s personal. Like he said in that threat to you.”
“Personal,” she said. Then, a few steps later, “Can I tell you something personal? Flying Predator drones for recon is tedious business. Hours of cruising and hovering. You follow a man. You follow a technical—that’s a truck with a machine gun mounted on the bed. You hover and watch. You’re like a cop on a beat. You get to know the people and their habits. You know their faces. Some by name. It drove me bats, not knowing all their names. You watch them go about their lives, do their jobs, trying to survive. Some are moms or dads, and you see a guy hugging his kids before he heads to work, or to the market to get food, knowing that he might not make it back. Of course, he knows it, too.
“But things can change. Fast. You finally get the guy out in the open—a terrorist you’ve been looking for, month after month. You find him in the right time and place, and as soon as you’re cleared hot, you’re going to light that fucker up. It’s why you’re here. It’s what you do. So that day in Aleppo, when Zkrya Gourmat took off on his motorcycle, we Headhunters went from zero to ninety in a heartbeat. For weeks we’d been the watchers, but suddenly we’ve got our pistols drawn and we’re running straight into a gunfight. I stayed cool, Roland, because that’s what all your training says. Cool, methodical, open-eyed. The sensor operator’s job is to guide the missile to its target. You use a targeting laser, which is one very temperamental piece of technology. It has a grip like a pistol but bigger. Trigger for acquisition, buttons for adjustment, set and reset, and a keypad for altitude, azimuth, distance, and closing speed. If you breathe wrong, you throw the laser off-target. If you flinch or twitch, you can put that Hellfire on the house next door, or into the group of old guys smoking cigarettes in a courtyard, or on a kid on a bike, or into a mosque at prayer. When Zkrya lost control of his motorcycle, I had that laser right on him. Followed him down and into the crash. When the doctors and nurses came running out of the field hospital, I saw I had to get that laser off Gourmat or we were going to kill them all. I could see it was going to happen, sure as sunrise. The timing was perfect. The distance they were covering. The seconds until the Hellfire hit. But it wouldn’t come off! My laser wouldn’t respond. I tried everything to get it off Zkrya, lying there on the ground in the rubble by his smashed-up motorcycle, but it wouldn’t come off target. Like it had its mind made up and I had no say in the matter. I watched my screen. Saw the people trying to help Zkrya. And then my screen pixelated. A second of white fire. When it came back to life a few seconds later, I saw the bodies and parts of bodies burning and smoking, and the few people still alive crawling through the blood and dust. Hell. Fire.”
She stopped and looked at me. A tear ran down her cheek and she ground it away with a balled fist. “Kenny and Marlon knew how hard I tried to get that missile away from the people. They knew what a good sensor I was. I need someone alive on earth to understand that fact. That I was a good sensor. Kenny and Marlon are dead. So now maybe you can carry that truth for me, Roland.”
“I’ll help you carry it, Lindsey. You know that.”
“Resti,” commanded Lindsey. Zeno lay down on the path and watched her come to me. When she got close, he sat up, cropped ears alert.
Lindsey kissed my cheek and took my hand. “You’re a friend, Roland. Someday you will be whole. Until then, know that you’re my brother in arms. And if you need me, I’m yours. I might even pay my rent on time. Someday.”
Zeno growled.
“Silencio!”
Went silent and stared at me.
“Rasha called,” said Lindsey. “He apologized for scaring me with his calligraphy and his college stupidity. Said to call him if I wanted a man to talk to.”
* * *
—
On a hunch I called Liam Flaherty, my contact at Pacific Security, which provides security for First Samaritan Hospital, proud employer of Hector Padilla. It paid off: First Samaritan’s annual New Year Harbor Cruise would begin boarding at six p.m. on New Year’s Eve—on the dining ship Glorietta.
“It’s the big fundraiser for their Children’s Unit,” said Liam. “A pricey ticket. Live music, dancing, a high-dollar auction. First Samaritan employees do the decorating and cater it themselves so all the money can go to the cause. What are you fishing for, Roland?”
“We need to talk.”
“You sound serious, my friend. Name the time and place.”
I got into my truck, checked the gauges, set my phone in the cup holder, and plugged in the charger. Still nothing from Taucher.
Had we lost him?
36
MARAH AZMEH WAS UNHAPPY to see me standing in the lobby of her County of Los Angeles Public Social Services Department building in Los Angeles. She put on a smile anyway, understanding that I wasn’t here on a friendly visit. Signed me in, got me a pass, and led the way outside into the sunny L.A. day.
We sat opposite each other at a round concrete table in the big employees’ patio, in the shade of a green canvas umbrella. She wore a loose gray cowl-neck sweater, black leggings, and brown mid-calf boots. A house finch with a red breast stood on the edge of the table, looking back and forth at us. It was late morning, the tables still mostly empty.
Speaking carefully and softly, I told her that her brother Ben was in terrible
trouble. He had fallen in with some very bad people. We had learned a lot about him since talking with her and Alan. The FBI now had proof of Ben’s involvement in two murders and they needed to find him, fast.
Her face colored in that way of hers, revealing the fear and worry inside.
“Do you mean the Air Force man in Bakersfield?”
“Him, and another, just yesterday. Part of the drone team that killed your father. Both beheaded. Ben sent us video, Marah. It’s brutal.”
I watched her composure crack and her eyes swell with tears. She brought her hands to her face and bowed her head. Shook it slowly, her henna-streaked black hair falling over her fingers like dark water. The finch took off.
“As I told you, he’s threatened someone else, too,” I said.
“The woman with the son,” I heard her say.
“She’s alive. And Ben is alive. And you can help them stay that way.”
She raised her tear-channeled face to me, then looked off toward a black metal fence sparsely clung by mandevilla. A busy L.A. boulevard hummed beyond. “I knew,” she said softly.
“What did you know?”
Her eyes back on me. “I didn’t know what. But I knew.”
“Marah,” I said. “If you want to help him, I’m going to need more than that. You’re going to have to reach back and find it. What you knew. What you saw. Time is important here.”
She produced a tissue and wiped her eyes. Blinked three times. “The drone operator? In my house, when you said he’d been murdered, I thought of Ben.”
“You went to the kitchen and refilled Alan’s teacup.”
“I was surprised.”
“By?”
“Thinking of him in that way,” she said. “I had never let him question my belief in him. He was always, in his heart, so young. And sweet and happy. When Dad died, Ben began to change. Sweetness and joy gone, replaced by anger. And a belief that something had to be done. I told you this.”