Tony grinned at him--this was going to be even easier than he had hoped. As long as their luck held for a few more minutes and no nosy passing motorists stopped to investigate the crash scene, he and Brian would be out of the woods--literally--and on their way home soon.
Tony glanced at Brian and nodded slightly, and the younger man slipped behind the vehicle to approach it from the other side.
Meanwhile, Tony hefted a bottle of cheap whiskey in his right hand and splashed liberal doses of the amber liquid over the seats, the dashboard, the floor, and, of course, over Michaels. He was fading fast and didn't seem to notice what was happening.
As the sharp, tangy smell of the whiskey filled the air, Tony roughly pulled Michaels's head back by his hair and poured some down the man's gullet. He choked as he reflexively swallowed.
Whiskey and spittle flew from his mouth in a fine mist, spraying Tony and everything else in its path. His eyes flew wide with fear and panic, but in his weakened condition he was unable to defend himself in any meaningful way.
The bottle now nearly empty, Tony pitched it hard against the dashboard. It smashed into a thousand glittering pieces, razor-sharp missiles shredding the air, and the brown glass from the liquor bottle mixed with the opaque greenish automobile safety glass scattered throughout the vehicle.
Tony glanced across the front seat and saw Brian reach for the briefcase full of cash Tony had given Michaels just a few hours ago.
The case had gotten wedged under the ruined dashboard, much like Michaels's legs, and Brian tugged it back and forth before it finally popped free, its battered leather shell ripping on an exposed jagged iron support bracket.
Tony studied the inside of the car thoughtfully, like an artist stepping back from his easel to get a better perspective on the entire canvas. Time was of the essence, but he wanted to make sure this was done right. Satisfied, he nodded and returned to the driver's side door of the disabled vehicle for the last time. The stench of cheap whiskey was overwhelming and almost made him gag.
Wrinkling his nose in disgust at the smell, Tony leaned inside and gently, almost reverently, placed two gloved hands around the flabby neck of Michaels. He was clearly terrified, but he gave Tony a look that was almost indignant, as if he couldn't wrap his brain around the fact that he was being double-crossed.
"Don't take it so hard," Tony said with a brief smile, leaning into the wrecked car and putting his mouth next to Michaels's ear so he was sure he could be heard. "It's nothing personal; this is just business. I'm sure you understand." With that he began choking what little life remained of Michaels, who tried to thrash and resist but was unable to do much of anything but shake his head like he disagreed with Tony's plan, which undoubtedly he did.
Within seconds Michaels was gone. He had been breathing only with extreme difficulty anyway, and even in the short time Tony and Brian had been working at the car, his respiration had become noticeably more labored.
Tony again examined the inside of the car with a critical eye, pulling off his latex gloves and stuffing them into the back pocket of his trousers. Blood and glass were everywhere, giving it the look of some twisted surrealistic painting. Michaels was slumped in the driver's seat, an indignant expression still framing his slack, lifeless features.
"What do you think?" Brian asked, handing Tony the briefcase with the slashed leather front and removing his own gloves with a snap. "Does it look believable? Will the cops buy the idea that the guy croaked as a result of the accident?"
"Well, that whiskey I splashed all over the place will lead the investigators to believe he was drinking on his way home from work and lost control of the vehicle. And his legs being trapped under the smashed dashboard is very helpful to us. The investigators will assume he was alive after the accident but couldn't move and died before help arrived.
"Of course, when the autopsy is performed, it will quickly become clear that virtually none of the liquor actually made it into his stomach, so he really wasn't drunk, and they will discover fine traces of powder from the latex gloves around his neck. The authorities will piece it together and will reach the obvious and correct conclusion--he was murdered. But by the time they put it all together, it will be irrelevant. At least to us."
The two men had now hiked back to the road, bursting through the thick brush and running along the shoulder. They didn't want to be caught exiting the woods just as a car happened to be driving by. But there was nothing.
Tony and Brian hurried back up the lonely road to their stolen F-150 in silence. The sun had sunk beneath the trees now, and there was a very good possibility that Michaels wouldn't be found until morning, which would suit their purposes perfectly. Placing the heavily damaged briefcase securely on the bench seat between the two of them, Tony slid into the beat-up Ford and fired up the truck's tired engine. Then they chugged slowly away from the site of the ambush.
Chapter 13
Nick was exhausted. He had never realized until now just how much effort, both physical and emotional, was involved in burying a loved one. Sure, he had been to plenty of funerals before, but putting your great-aunt in the ground after eighty-five years of life was a lot different than saying good-bye to your wife, especially when she had been just twenty-nine years old, taken from you without warning in a single violent instant.
"Honey, you need to get some rest." His mother brushed his shaggy hair from his eyes, something she had been doing since he was a little kid and something he had always hated. "Lisa wouldn't have wanted you to wear yourself down and get sick; I'm sure of that."
"Yeah, I know." Nick breathed deeply and looked at his watch.
Two hours until he had to drive his parents to Logan Airport to catch their flight back to Dayton.
Everyone else who had gathered to bury Lisa was already gone, and Nick was anxious to be alone so he could grieve the way he badly wanted and needed to. He was touched by all the support the throngs of friends and relatives had provided, but Nick had not truly been alone since those first few horrible hours after the police officers had shown up four days ago with the news that his wife was gone. Irrevocably and permanently gone.
With everyone using his house as a staging area--people coming and going at all hours for days, and his parents staying in the house with him--Nick felt as though his entire focus had been on remaining strong for everyone else, keeping up some sort of ridiculous charade where he convinced the onlookers who were watching him so closely that he was doing just fine.
The fact of the matter was that he was doing the opposite of just fine, whatever that was. Just crappy? Just stunned? Just lost and rudderless and totally numb? He hadn't yet had a chance to contemplate how he was going to continue without Lisa or whether he even really wanted to for that matter.
It wasn't like he was contemplating suicide; he knew Lisa would never forgive him if he were to take his own life. But since the very first day he had met Lisa Harrison, way back in high school, Nick had never given one solitary thought to the possibility that he might not spend the rest of his life with her. Now that the exact scenario had come to pass, Nick hadn't the slightest idea what to do next.
"Listen, Mom, maybe that's a good idea. I think I will take a short nap. I'll make sure I'm up in plenty of time to drive you and Dad to the airport. Don't worry."
"That's fine," she said, gliding gracefully out of the bedroom and pulling the door softly closed behind her. Moments later Nick heard the whine of the vacuum cleaner running at the other end of the house as his mother finished getting the home in tip-top shape before departing for Ohio.
Sleeping was out of the question, of course; Nick had simply used that excuse as a convenient way to maneuver himself into some time alone. In a way he felt badly, knowing his parents were going to be leaving soon and he wouldn't see them again for months, but he needed to be by himself. He rose and paced around the room, walking from the bedroom door to the dresser filled with his dead wife's clothes, behind the foot of their bed to the window,
then back to the bedroom door, starting the cycle all over again. He was too wound up to sleep.
Nick threw a stick of gum into his mouth and wandered into the couple's massive walk-in closet. Lisa had loved that closet. In fact, it played a major role in their choosing this house over several others.
He stopped and stood quietly in the middle of the closet, in-haling Lisa's scent. He wasn't a guy who paid too much attention to what he called girlie stuff, so he hadn't the slightest clue what she wore for perfume, but whatever it was, he could smell it here--
something cinnamony--and it made his heart ache. As he wondered how long it would take before the scent simply faded away and was gone forever, he felt the tenuous control he had kept over his emotions beginning to crack.
Hanging in a far corner of the big closet was Lisa's wedding gown, which had belonged to her mother. Lisa had absolutely adored it. She had been planning to put it in storage to save for her own children in case one of them wanted to get married in it but had never quite gotten around to accomplishing that task, although she had used a clear plastic garment bag to protect the delicate silk and lace dress.
Nick walked over and slid the surrounding clothes out of the way. Lisa had owned a lot of stuff, and the heavy mass of clothing hanging on the rod moved slowly, reluctantly. He lifted the gown off the rod, planning to lay it on the bed for no particular reason other than to run his hand over the smooth silk and think about Lisa.
When he pulled the dress away from the wall, a bright blue notebook binder caught his eye. It was big, at least three inches thick, and had been placed behind the gown on the floor of the closet, wedged up against the side wall. It would have remained out of sight indefinitely had Nick not moved the dress. He stared at it in wonder. What the hell would a binder be doing amongst Lisa's clothes? It looked new, too; it was completely clean and dust free.
Nick had never seen it before.
He placed Lisa's wedding gown back on the rod in the closet and lifted the binder off the floor, turning it over in his hands, as if he could learn the story of its contents through osmosis. When that didn't work, he carried it over to their bed--his bed now--and sat down to examine it more closely.
Chapter 14
The harsh white light generated by the fluorescent lamps hanging in rows from the ceiling in Tony's garage shone down on the small group of men as they worked. Tony was seated in his customary spot behind his desk, a dazzling smile lighting up his olive-colored face. Not so much as one twenty-dollar bill was missing out of the ten thousand in cash he had given Michaels in exchange for the map and personnel list. Now he had not just the information he needed, but all the money it had cost him to procure--the best-case scenario, at least as far as he was concerned.
Dimitrios Stavros, who despite the Greek-sounding name had been born and raised in the United States and was another of the American citizens working with Tony, saw him smiling and asked,
"Why did we need to kill the guy? He gave you what you wanted."
Tony shot Stavros a scornful look. "Why? Two reasons." He held up a finger. "One, that idiot was a cog in the machinery of the corrupt United States government, a government I have devoted my life to destroying, and which, I remind you, every one of you in this room has committed to destroying as well. There was absolutely no good reason to allow him to live and continue making his small contribution to the oppression of my people in the Middle East when we had the means and the opportunity to rectify the situation."
"Two"-- he held up another finger--"even though ten thousand dollars is a relatively small amount of money in the grand scheme of things, why should I allow it to go to an American and to the pigs I am trying to destroy when we could better use it to purchase more equipment and weaponry? In this manner, we can use the Americans' own money not just once but twice to contrib-ute to their downfall. I like to think of it as an unintended but not unappreciated little bonus.
"Now . . ." Tony paused, taking a moment to search the eyes of each of his soldiers in the small building. "Does that make sense to you, or do we have a problem we need to iron out? If anyone here doesn't see the wisdom of what I am saying or disagrees with the direction our little operation has taken, now would be the appropriate time to mention that fact. In order for us to be successful, we must all be on the same page, as you Americans like to say, from this point on."
He waited. The silence in the garage spoke volumes. "Well?"
No one answered. Each man averted his eyes when the laser gaze of Tony fell upon him. There was no doubt as to who was in charge.
The only member of the team not an American citizen was Tony, a Syrian by birth. The others had graduated from an intense indoctrination program held in a remote training camp located deep in the mountains of Afghanistan. Run by the resurgent Tal-iban and financed by various Middle Eastern governments through dummy organizations and generous individual donations, the camp specialized in training disaffected Westerners. They worked mostly with young white American males, teaching them guerrilla tactics and warfare as well as providing an introduction to radical Muslim theology.
The days of using Middle Eastern men to fly airplanes into buildings were over. Forward-thinking terror organizations like the one Tony represented now recognized the value of employing homegrown citizens, who could blend seamlessly into the cultural landscape of the West, to accomplish their goals.
Although born and raised in the West, these were men who had developed a burning hatred of their countries, usually the United States or Great Britain, and to the guerrillas providing the training, that was good enough. Being a true believer in radical Islam would be nice, but it was not a necessary part of the package. All that mattered was that the recruits be willing to sacrifice themselves to their leaders' bidding at the time and place of their choosing.
The four men currently wilting under the smoldering stare of Tony had been recruited for the Afghanistan program from diverse locations all over the United States. Brian was a native Southern Californian who had attended Stanford briefly before dropping out when he was unable to reconcile his anti-American beliefs with the benefits of an elite education.
Jackie Corrigan was a high school dropout and former gang-banger from the Bronx, Dimitrios Stavros a second-generation American from Las Vegas who had been born into casino wealth but wanted none of it, and Joe-Bob Warren was ex-military out of Frankfurt, Kentucky, the recipient of a dishonorable discharge from the United States Army when he was busted for purchasing child pornography while stationed at Fort Hood in Texas.
All the men were in their twenties, none had any loyalty whatsoever to the ideals of the United States of America, and all had passed the training course conducted deep in the mountains of Afghanistan with flying colors. They had been sent back to the States more than six months ago with instructions to report to Tony and live their lives in the D.C. area as quietly and unobtrusively as possible while awaiting an assignment. That assignment had come just a few weeks ago, and with the information that had been acquired yesterday from Michaels, the team was ready to proceed.
Tony snapped the briefcase containing the ten thousand dollars shut and smiled. "No one has a problem with my leadership.
Then I will assume we are all rowing this boat in the same direction. Very good. Now, let us discuss the specifics of this operation."
Chapter 15
Nick hugged his mother tightly and shook his father's hand as they said their good-byes at the departure gate. Logan Airport was crowded as usual, and Nick was surprised to see that his parents'
plane was scheduled to depart on time. He knew he should be sorry to see them go, but he was still emotionally raw and wrung out.
After watching his mother and father disappear into the board-ing area, Nick made his way to one of the airport lounges and ordered a scotch and soda. He knew having a drink before hitting the road for the hour-long drive back to his depressingly empty home wasn't the best idea, but there really wasn't any point in being carefu
l anymore, was there? There was nobody left to worry about him.
He was alone. Totally alone, in fact, and that knowledge shook him more than he had realized until just now.
In a couple of hours, Nick was going to walk through the front door of their little Cape-style home, and Lisa would not be there to carp at him when he tossed his jacket over the kitchen chair or when he kicked off his sneakers and left them lying on the living room floor in front of the television for her to trip on. Sure, she had been gone four days every week during most of their marriage, but that absence had only served to make them appreciate each other that much more when they were actually together. Now they never would be again. Nick didn't know how he would be able to stand it.
He took a sip of his drink, savoring the warm bite of the scotch as it burned down his throat and splashed into his stomach, letting his mind wander to the strange discovery he had made in their walk-in closet a few hours ago. In his walk-in closet, he reminded himself. It was his now, not his and Lisa's.
The blue binder had to have been stuffed behind the wedding gown in the back of the closet intentionally; it wasn't the sort of place the thing could have fallen by accident. Clearly it contained information Lisa had not wanted Nick to see.
But what? Nick knew the binder had to be somehow related to Lisa's job at the Pentagon as a civilian auditor, as it contained names and dates and places, which meant nothing to Nick. But Lisa had always been forthcoming about her work; as far as he knew, she had never kept anything hidden from him. Most of the time--hell, just about all the time--the investigations she got involved in at the Pentagon were pretty straightforward. Boring even.
He remembered one instance she related to him last year where a very well-compensated high-level bureaucrat had been caught stealing toilet paper from a Pentagon men's room. For years the man had been taking a roll every couple of days, stuffing it inside his briefcase and bringing it home with him. The guy had nearly been fired--over toilet paper! As it was, he had earned a three-day suspension without pay and been put on probation. The United States government apparently took their toilet paper responsibilities very seriously, Lisa had told him with a straight face, before breaking into hysterical laughter.
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