by Trevor Scott
“Those men who attacked us in Vermont were not acting alone,” Robin said.
“We figured that much,” Britt said.
Mike said, “We reported that to our superiors. But there’s no way of knowing who the Iranians were working for. Nothing links them to anyone else.”
“That’s my problem,” Robin said. “My brother knows. And I’m afraid he’ll go and take matters into his own hands. Alone.”
“We figured he had to know,” Britt said. “But he didn’t put the man’s name in his report. Where is he now?”
Robin shook her head. “He made up some bogus story about visiting a friend in Iowa. But I used to know when he was lying. Since the military, I have no idea.”
“He sounded sincere,” Britt said.
“That’s the problem. He is sincere. But he also doesn’t always tell me the whole truth. He tries to shelter me.”
“That’s what big brothers do,” Mike said.
“We’re twins. He’s twenty minutes older than me.”
“You know what I mean.”
Yeah, she did. And he had a point. Suddenly the bar erupted with the entry of a man in his mid-50s. He was a redhead and he came directly to their table. Britt and Mike got up to hug their father.
“Looks like you two are ahead of me,” Curtis Ryan said. Then he cast his gaze upon Robin. “Is this Hedy’s kid?”
Robin stood up and went to her uncle. “Where I come from they called my mother Judy.”
Her uncle gave her a hug and looked her over. “You’ve got your mother’s eyes, but your father’s hair and nose.”
“You knew my father?” Robin asked.
“Of course,” her uncle said. “My sister was five years older than me. I was in their wedding.”
Britt squeezed down on her father’s shoulder. “My dad was the baby.”
Curtis waved for his bartender to bring them more drinks, and then they took seats at the corner table.
“I was hoping to meet your twin brother,” Curtis said.
“He wanted to be here,” Robin said, not knowing if she was telling him the truth.
“My kids tell me he took down some real dirtbags in Vermont,” her uncle said. “Sounds like both my sister and your father. I was told that Bruno Borelli was a real American hero in the military. And now your brother. Your papa would have been proud.”
“You knew about them going into witness protection?” Robin asked.
Her uncle shook his head. “Not really. We assumed either that or the families disappeared them. We hoped and prayed for their safety, of course.”
She had already heard about the death of her uncle’s parents, her grandparents, but wondered about other family members. “Tell me about our family.”
“I’m not sure we have enough beer in this pub,” Curtis said. “But let’s start way back and work our way to the present. Our family comes from County Cork in the south of Ireland.”
Robin sat and listened to her uncle talk, taking in everything she could, but her mind continued to drift off toward the safety of her brother. What was he up to?
26
A couple of days later, having driven nearly straight through from Vermont, Max sat now outside of the Iranian’s house in the hills overlooking downtown Portland, Oregon. Surprisingly, it wasn’t raining, but low clouds hung over the Rose City, bringing a dull, gloomy feeling to Max.
He had mixed feelings about what he was about to do. Deep down, he knew that Saeed Gilani deserved a bullet to his head. And Max was more than willing and able to make that happen. He had never crossed that line before, and he knew that it would be hard to come back from an action like that. Every man that he had ever killed had it coming. They were either terrorists attacking his position, or Max had strong intel indicating they had killed other innocent people, and they would more than likely continue to do so in the name of Jihad. Gilani was guilty as hell, but he was not actively attacking him. Self-defense was not on the table, Max knew. At least not at this time. The Iranian was too smart to attack on his own. He had people for that.
“Go time,” Max said aloud to himself. Then he pulled his keys from the ignition and got out.
Coming across the country, he had texted with Gilani’s daughter a number of times, so he knew Firuzeh was home now in her old high school room on the second floor of this massive mansion. She had wanted to simply run away when she heard that her arranged husband had been killed in Vermont, but Max had convinced her to stay until he got there. Hopefully, she had not tipped off her father that he was coming.
As Max walked up the sidewalk toward the house, he texted Firuzeh and said he would be there in seconds. She would have to invite him in, though.
Just as Max got to the front stoop, the large oak door opened and Firuzeh stood wearing a Portland Timbers soccer jersey, black yoga pants, and bare feet. Her most distinguishing feature, though, was a healing bruise around her left eye. Someone had corrected her behavior.
“Destiny has brought us together again,” Max said, bringing up the name she had used in Reno.
She smiled. “You have a good memory.”
“It’s one of my only redeeming qualities,” he said. “May I come in?”
She waved her hand for him to pass.
“You must say it,” Max said smiling. “I’m like a vampire. I have to be asked in.”
“Would you please come in Mister Max Kane?” she said formally.
“Yes, I’d like that.”
She closed the door but didn’t lock it behind them.
“My father is in his man cave watching the Trailblazers,” she said. “You’ve been there.”
He let her lead the way into the man cave, which sat behind large sliding pocket doors. Once she opened the doors, the noise from the game could be heard.
Max hesitated when he saw Gilani in sweats and a T-shirt lounging in a thick leather chair yelling at a massive LED screen that covered most of the far wall.
Only about twenty seconds were left in the game, and the Blazers were behind by twenty points.
When Firuzeh went to her father’s side, he looked up startled. “The game is not over,” her father said.
“It’s as good as over,” Firuzeh said. “You have a visitor.”
Gilani craned his head around to see Max, and he nearly jumped from his chair when he saw him. “What are you doing here?”
The Iranian stood up quickly.
Max put up both hands to calm the man. “I come in peace,” Max said.
The Iranian tightened his jaw with resolve. “You have ruined everything,” Gilani said.
“I don’t understand,” Max said. He needed this man to say the words.
“You killed my daughter’s future husband,” Gilani said. “Now I must start over and open my search to other possible candidates.”
“I’m confused,” Max said. “You see, you hired me to find your daughter, Firuzeh. I told you right in this room that I would not drag her back here kicking and screaming. That would constitute kidnapping. Do you recall that conversation?”
“Of course,” Gilani said. “And you found her in Reno, but you told me she was in the Bay Area. You lied to me.”
“Technically, I told you I tracked her to the Bay Area, which is true. From there, I continued to track her until I found her in Reno.”
“Why did you lie to me?” Gilani asked with disappointment.
Max ignored him. “Why did you send your men to kidnap your own daughter and bring her back to Portland?”
“Kidnapping is such a loaded term,” Gilani said. “She is my family. Some day she will provide my legacy.”
“What if I don’t want children?” Firuzeh asked.
Gilani waved his hand at his daughter. “You are young. You don’t know what you want.”
“I had a good life in Reno,” she said. “I plan to start school at UNR next fall.”
“Studying what?” Gilani asked.
“I haven’t decided yet,” she said. “Science of some type
. Like mother.”
Max remembered the eventual fate of her mother, stepping in front of a light rail train a couple of years ago. Her mother had been an optics engineer working for a Beaverton company that made outstanding binoculars and rifle scopes.
He needed to move the conversation in the right direction. “I don’t want to get into internal family dynamics,” Max said. “I just need to know about the men you sent out to Vermont.”
Gilani paced back and forth, but he said nothing.
Max continued, “There was a short, fat, bald man who became very talkative when he was injured.” This, of course, was a total lie.
“That had to be the disgusting man my father was forcing me to marry,” Firuzeh said with contempt.
“Arranged marriages go back thousands of years in the Persian culture,” Gilani said. “It’s perfectly normal.”
“It’s not normal to mutilate my genitals,” Firuzeh said.
“This is also tradition in our culture,” Gilani explained, as if that made it all right.
Max needed them to keep talking, but he needed the man to admit what he’d done. “Back to those men you sent to kill me in Vermont.”
“That was a mistake and a misunderstanding,” Gilani said, his hands up in protest.
“The mistake was not sending more men,” Max said. “Or at least sending competent shooters. Were they part of a Boy Scout troop?”
“These were highly trained former Quds Force members,” Gilani boasted.
“Well,” Max said, “they should have been better trained. But I am confused about one thing.” He wasn’t, but it worked for his current narrative.
“What is that?”
“How did that fat little man track me?” Max asked.
Gilani smiled. “I own a number of companies. One is a communications company with access to finances. You used your Visa card all the way across the country. Also, one of my men placed a GPS tracking device on your truck on your first visit here. That’s how we also knew you were lying about my daughter’s location. At first, we thought you might have simply waited in Reno to call me after finding my daughter in the Bay Area. But that was not the case.”
“How stupid of me to think those credit card transactions were private,” Max said. “If you had that capability, then why didn’t you find Firuzeh that way?”
“Because I taught my daughter to be smart,” Gilani said. “She knew I could find her that way. Firuzeh must have been using cash.”
“Then how did you find her after I left?” Max asked. He already knew about the GPS tracker, which he found when the men changed out his tires. He had placed it on an 18-wheeler heading to Florida.
Gilani smiled. “You stayed in that casino hotel in downtown Reno. I tracked you there, knew you were in Reno when you called me saying Firuzeh was in the Bay Area. So, I sent a couple of my best people to track her down there. It took them days flashing around her photo before they found her.”
That must have been around the time Max got the text from Firuzeh saying someone was following her. Okay, he thought. He had gotten the man to admit that he had kidnapped his own daughter from Reno and hauled her across state lines. He had also gotten the man to admit he had sent former Quds Force members to Vermont to take him out. What more did he need? He felt like simply pulling his gun and putting a bullet in the man’s head. But then he glanced at Firuzeh. She was clearly conflicted. There was no doubt that her father loved her, and he wanted the best for his daughter. But Gilani was under the impression that they were still living in the Stone Age. Maybe Bronze Age.
“Back to the men you sent to kill me,” Max said. “Why take such a drastic measure?”
Gilani paced again, like a pedophile in front of an elementary school. Finally, he said, “You lied to me. Made me look like a fool. Nobody does that to me without paying a price.”
“Like your wife?” Max asked. He was fishing now.
“That was an unfortunate accident,” Gilani said.
“It wasn’t an accident,” Firuzeh said. “She killed herself to get away from you.”
“She would not kill herself,” Gilani said.
That was how it was ruled, Max knew. He had read the news reports of her death. Part of him hoped the man would pull a gun on Max right now, forcing him to kill Gilani. He was a despicable piece of bovine excrement. He had a feeling the Iranian had given his wife a push. If not literally, then figuratively. Somehow there was no video of his wife’s death. Most light rail crossings in the Portland area were covered by CCTV cameras. But they were not working the night of the ex-wife’s death.
“So,” Max said. “I guess that’s all there is to it. You kidnapped your own daughter. Then you sent a bunch of former Iranian special forces to Vermont to have me killed. They succeeded in killing two innocent men, but they failed to draw blood from me. I want to know your intentions now.”
“What do you mean?” Gilani asked.
“I’m right here in front of you. You could try to kill me right now.” Max lifted his windbreaker, exposing his Glock to the Iranian.
Gilani looked concerned. “You want me to try to shoot you, so you can take me out?”
“It’s either that or I have to keep killing people you send after me. That seems like a terrible waste of humans. Plus, ammo is costing much more these days.”
“What if I guaranteed you I would not send any more people to kill you?” Gilani asked.
“Seriously? That would be really cool.”
“Then it’s settled,” the Iranian said.
Max started to leave, but he stopped and turned back to Gilani. “One more thing. What about your daughter?”
“What about her?” Gilani asked.
“You need to let her choose her own life,” Max said.
“She is a child.”
Shaking his head, Max said, “I was in the military killing terrorists at her age. She knows what she’s doing.”
Gilani said nothing. He obviously didn’t want to piss off Max, who had killed so many experienced killers sent after him.
“That’s all,” Max said. “You should have enough.”
“Enough what?” Gilani asked, confused.
Max smiled at Firuzeh. Within seconds, the house was overtaken by FBI SWAT and special agents from the Portland office. They had been monitoring Max through a wire he wore. They cuffed Saeed Gilani without incident, and then started to rummage through the house like rats scrounging for food in an alley. The agent in charge handed a warrant to search the house to Firuzeh, who didn’t even read it. She knew it was coming.
Taking off his wire, Max thanked the special agent in charge and wandered out into the dark night above Portland. He got into his truck and sat for a moment, watching as local Portland Police Bureau patrol cars cordoned off the street in from of Gilani’s house.
Finally, he found his phone and tapped in a contact.
“Max! Where are you?” Robin asked. “I’ve been trying to reach you for days.”
“Are you back in Salt Lake?”
“Yes. I got in this afternoon. Where are you?”
He explained what had just happened in Portland.
“I was worried about you, Max,” she said.
“Why?”
“I thought you might go there and kill the man.”
“I don’t just kill people indiscriminately,” he said. “I’m very discriminating who I kill. They have to not only deserve it, but they have to be trying to kill me. It’s in the hands of the FBI now.”
“I’m so glad it’s over,” Robin said. “We should talk about my visit with our mother’s family in Boston. It went really well.”
“Yeah, we should,” he agreed. “But we should also discuss the deaths of our parents. They were in witness protection. It’s not a stretch to think they might have been killed.”
“Wouldn’t the U.S. Marshalls have investigated that when it happened?”
“Probably. I’ve got some contacts I can ask once I get back h
ome.”
“Are you going directly to Wells?” she asked.
“Yeah. Then up to my cabin for a while. I need to reset.”
“I wish I could be there with you,” Robin said. “But my firm wants me to do some actual work for them.”
“Sounds like a plan, sis. I’ll check in once I get to Wells.”
He tapped off his call and thought about what was next in his life. Maybe he should have gone to visit the good doctor in New Hampshire. But first he had to remove the last impediment in his life. He could simply drive to PDX and fly to Boston, rent a car, and drive up for a visit. Something to consider. He cranked over his engine and drove off.
27
Anna Aldo sat on the expansive deck overlooking the lake near Lebanon, New Hampshire. She had spent the last few days trying to understand the events of that evening in Vermont, where her sister-in-law had been shot in front of her, and that poor young girl had been accidentally poisoned with nuts. Not to mention all of those deaths, from the two cooks to those despicable terrorists who had attacked them. Thank God that her nephew Max had been there to save the day. She had found Max and his twin sister Robin to be lovely individuals. And she hoped the twins would feel comfortable enough to come back to visit soon. Anna still thought that Max and Dr. Kamala Sen would make a great match. The doctor was a wonderful, intelligent, and beautiful woman. She deserved to find happiness.
Thinking of twins brought her back to her own brothers, who were gunned down in their early twenties. It was only luck that she had not been in that restaurant that night, having an event at her high school. Being in her teens, she had been shielded from the horror of seeing her brothers riddled with bullets. Despite the accomplished efforts of the undertaker to have open caskets, her brothers still didn’t look right.
She sipped her glass of red wine and gazed out at the setting sun across the calm water. Soon the mosquitos would make this impossible, so she was making the most of this time of year.
Suddenly she heard footsteps coming from inside the house. She didn’t even turn to see who it was, since the only other person with her was her estranged husband, Francesco. Their relationship had been strained for years, but she would never consider divorce. Death was the only way to escape this marriage.