by John Whitman
“Now you’re not,” Jack agreed. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Jack got out, moved toward Dortmund’s house, and performed a quick reconnoiter. One car in the detached garage, which sounded right for a priest living alone. A light went on in back when Jack hopped the fence, but it was one of those motion-sensor lights so it meant nothing. Jack checked for the alarm certification that was required by the city for any residence that contained a burglar alarm, and found none. Just to be sure, he checked one or two windows, searching for telltale wires or tabs that indicated an alarm circuit. Nothing. Apparently Father Dortmund trusted his safety to God.
Jack hurried back to his car and uncuffed Biehn’s legs. “I’ll get us in,” he said firmly. “I’ll take control of the situation. You talk to him when I say so.” He didn’t ask if Biehn understood. If there was a problem, he would make Biehn understand.
Jack led Biehn over to the porch and left him there, then walked around to one of the side windows. The bungalow was decently maintained, but it was almost all original. The old-style casement window was easy to jimmy, and Jack slid it open in a few seconds. He hopped up and slid himself through the window into what appeared to be the living room. No alarm had sounded, and there was no noise inside the house. Jack stood and walked carefully and quietly to the door. He unbolted the door with only the faintest of clicks, and opened it. Biehn was standing there, his bruised face ghastly in the porch light. The man looked eager, perhaps manic, and it occurred to Jack that he might be collecting information from a madman. Still, Biehn had known the time and place of Yasin’s arrival. There was bound to be more.
The two men, one cuffed and the other guiding him, entered the house, and Jack closed and relocked the door. Together they moved down the hallway and easily found the one bedroom. Jack’s heart started to pound as a rush of adrenaline hit him. Now was the time for both speed and stealth. He moved forward quickly.
Dortmund was a light sleeper. He was sitting up, drowsy and startled, as Jack reached him and clamped a hand hard over the priest’s mouth, shov
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ing him back down into the pillow. He put a knee across the priest’s sternum, robbing him of breath. Dortmund panicked, thrashing ineffectually under his blankets. Behind Jack, Biehn hopped onto the bed, straddling Dortmund’s legs and pinning them down. Madman or not, he knew how to gain control of a suspect.
“Stop. Listen,” Jack commanded.
Dortmund, realizing he was trapped, went limp.
“Good. Don’t give me any trouble and you won’t get hurt. Don’t change positions. Don’t move at all. Don’t make a sound unless you’re told to. When you speak, speak quietly. Understood?”
He could see Dortmund’s eyes wide and gleaming in the dark bedroom and felt him nod his head. He released his grip over the priest’s jaw and face, but kept his knee on the chest. Dortmund did not say a word.
Jack lifted his knee away and nodded at Biehn, who crawled awkwardly off the priest’s lower half. He stepped back and allowed the detective to step forward. Dortmund was frantic to ask a question, but the authority in Jack’s voice still held him in silence.
“You’re Father Dortmund from St. Monica’s,” Biehn said menacingly.
“Y-yes,” the man said. He was mid-sized, perhaps 160 pounds, Jack guessed, with close-cut brown hair. His face was slightly chubby. There was terror in his eyes.
“You know Aaron Biehn?” the detective asked. He fidgeted, shifting his weight from foot to foot. His hands twitched inside the cuffs, but Jack could see that they were still on.
Dortmund looked bewildered for a moment, then replied, “Y-yes, I know him. He’s a good kid—”
“Shut the fuck up!” Biehn said, his voice quiet but as intense as a scream.
“Please, what did I—?”
“Don’t ask what you did! Don’t ask. You know. You tortured my son. You molested him!”
Had Jack been present for Frank Giggs’s interrogation, he would have seen that Dortmund’s reaction was entirely different. Giggs had been forced to confront his monstrous self for the first time, and in public, and it had sent a shudder through him. Dortmund’s reaction was fearful, of course, but there was more disappointment and resignation than sudden self-loathing.
“I . . . don’t know what you’re talking about,” the priest said. “I didn’t do anything.”
Biehn’s hands twitched again, and Jack knew that he wanted to strike the priest. He was glad he’d kept the handcuffs on. “You violated my son. My son, you sick son of a bitch.”
“Please,” Dortmund said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Jack needed this all to happen much faster. “We already have one confession,” he said. “You might as well confess, too.”
“Confess—?” Dortmund said. “Are you . . . are you the police? I want a lawyer.”
“We are the people who decide what happens to you next,” Jack threatened. “And that depends on what you say next. Did you sexually abuse Aaron Biehn?”
Despite the darkness, he could see Dortmund look from one of them to the other, trying to decide what to do. Jack suspected that the priest saw the madness
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in Biehn’s eyes, and that it scared him, because he finally said in a tiny voice, “Yes.” Biehn said something that was lost behind a choked sob.
“Who else?” Jack demanded. “Who else did this? We know there were others. Tell me now, or I won’t be able to control him.” He pointed at Biehn.
“Giggs. Father Giggs,” Dortmund replied. “And Mulrooney.”
“The Cardinal?” Biehn said.
“Not . . . He didn’t . . . didn’t do it,” Dortmund said. “But he knew why I moved to this diocese. He helped make the arrangements.”
Why I moved to this diocese . . . Jack guessed what that meant. “Are you saying you did this in other places? Is that why you moved here?”
Dortmund nodded. “In my old parish. The church moved me after the parishioners complained. They moved me here. I was supposed to . . . was supposed to control myself.”
Jack’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out and checked the number. Shit. This couldn’t come at a worse moment. “Wait,” he said. He stepped back so that he’d be out of earshot, but kept his eye on Biehn. The man was still twitching, still asking Dortmund a question, but Jack had to answer this.
“Carlos, go,” he said quickly.
“Hey, man,” the NSA operative said. “We got you something. Your boy works late, like me. He made a call a little while ago. Having a meeting at three a.m. at his place with someone. They were definitely talking about plastic explosives. He wants to get hold of more for a new client, he said.”
That’s it, Jack thought. He’s our man. “Who’d he call?”
“That’s a harder one, my friend,” Carlos replied, a little dejected. “Someone with a little sophistication. It was a scrambled line, and sent our tracers all over the damned planet. Could have been right next door for all I know. But we’re on it. He calls that number again, and we’ll get ’em.”
“Thanks, Carlos. This was helpful. I—”
What happened seemed to occur in slow motion. Jack saw Biehn’s hands twitch again, but this time they twitched and came loose. The handcuff stayed on his good hand; the bandaged one came free. Jack was already in motion. He’d already taken one step by the time Biehn’s good hand snatched up the loose ring off the handcuff, turning it into a weapon, and Dortmund’s eyes were growing big as saucers. Jack was finishing his second step and taking his third when the detective punched downward, smashing the sharp edge of the handcuff into Dortmund’s throat.
Life sped up again, and Jack was tackling Biehn across the bed. Biehn turned into a rag doll and Jack rolled him onto the floor, crashing against a dresser. He put Biehn on his face and dragged his hands behind him. He couldn’t see the hands clearly in the darkness, but by the feel of it he could guess what had happened. Biehn’s hand was more damaged
than he realized. The fingers had dislocated. Biehn’s twitching had been an effort to dislodge them further. He’d popped his own thumb out of its socket, letting him slip the cuff.
“Damn it!” he cursed. He cuffed Biehn again, this
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time digging the cuff in so tight it drew blood. He couldn’t leave the cuff like that forever or the man would lose his hand. But for the moment he was taking no chances. Jack pulled his second pair of cuffs out again and resecured Biehn’s feet.
He jumped up and vaulted the bed to check on Dortmund. The priest was in the middle of convulsions, gagging and clutching at his throat. Jack reached for the small lamp on the nightstand and turned it on. He pulled Dortmund’s hands away from his throat. A deep bruise was already forming there, and Jack knew what had happened. Biehn had crushed his throat with the blow. Dortmund was choking to death.
“Calm down. Calm down!” he said, slapping Dortmund. The man’s thrashing was not helping. Shit, he had to do something. If he didn’t, he was an accomplice to murder. Jack pulled open the top drawer of the nightstand. It was a gallimaufry. He dug through the odds and ends, shoe polish kits and old watches, until he found a Bic pen. Using his teeth, he tore the top off it and plucked out the ink tube in the middle, until all he had left was a hard plastic straw.
Dortmund was turning blue and clutching at his throat. Urgent, terrified, gurgling noises came out of him, and his eyes were shiny with tears and fear. “I’m trying to fucking help you!” Jack said, shoving him back down on the bed. He stuck the tube between his teeth and pulled a knife out of his pocket. It was a small folder. He snapped it open and held it over Dortmund. He made his voice calm. “Don’t move. This is going to hurt. But it will help you breathe. Understand? Don’t move.”
Dortmund nodded but couldn’t stop from twitching. Jack jumped on top of him, straddling him, his knees pinning the priest’s arms to his sides. With his free hand, Jack grabbed Dortmund’s forehead and pushed it hard into the pillow and mattress. Then, quick as he could, he touched the tip of the knife to the throat below the bruise. He made a quick incision. There was blood, but not much because Jack hadn’t come close to the carotid arteries. Jack put down the knife and snatched the pen tube out of his mouth. Lining it up with the hole he’d just made, he pushed it, driving it steadily through the resistance he felt. A second later, a wet rasping sound emerged from the outer end of the tube. Dortmund’s chest heaved and the wet sound was repeated. After a moment, the priest’s natural color returned. He moved his mouth but could not speak.
“Don’t try,” Jack said. He touched his own throat. “Your throat was crushed. I gave you a kind of tracheotomy.”
Dortmund’s hands probed his throat.
“Don’t touch. It’s a pretty bullshit emergency rig. You need to get to a hospital.”
The priest looked at Jack with something like tearful appreciation. Jack sneered at him. “Don’t thank me. You’re a piece of shit and you probably deserve to die. But I don’t have time to deal with it right now.”
1:49 P.M. PST Culver City
The door opened on Nina’s second loud knock. The man who answered was in his mid-forties, with a well-trimmed dark beard and soft black eyes behind a pair of wire-framed glasses perched crookedly on
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his nose. He was still arranging a robe about his body as he looked at her. “Are you aware of the time?” he said indignantly. “What is this?” “Mr. al-Hassan, Nina Myers again,” she said. “I have more questions for you.” “I’m sorry, who are you? Why are you here so late?”
Nina was annoyed that he didn’t remember her. She held out her Federal identification again. “Federal agent Nina Myers,” she reminded him. “I questioned you once before.”
“Oh!” he said, rubbing his eyes as though just coming awake. “Ms. Myers. I’m sorry, I was asleep.
I . . . may I ask what is going on?” “I’d like to come in.” “Of—of course.” He stepped aside, and she entered. “What hap
pened to your arm?” she asked. His left arm was in a sling.
“I fell,” he replied. “Off a curb on the street. I hit my arm on the curb and broke my arm, if you can believe it.”
“I’m not sure what to believe, Mr. al-Hassan,” she said bluntly. “Why didn’t you tell me about the conference in Peshawar?”
Abdul al-Hassan looked genuinely shocked. “Peshawar? What conference?”
She put her hands on her hips, which brought her right hand that much closer to the gun at her hip. “The one you attended. A month or so ago.”
“In Peshawar,” al-Hassan said, as though piecing together clues. “The Muslim union!” he said at last, his eyes lighting up. Nina swore that he was legitimately pleased with himself for figuring it out. “The reconciliation conference in Peshawar. And I didn’t tell you about it?”
“It’s late to play games,” she said impatiently. “Would you rather I take you into custody and we do this in a less comfortable situation?”
“No, no,” al-Hassan said, recovering his composure. “I’m sorry, Ms . . . Myers. I had simply forgotten. I’d forgotten I hadn’t told you about that conference.”
Nina glared at him. “I specifically asked you if you’d had contact with any Islamic fundamentalists recently and you said no. I believe at that time you might have mentioned a trip to a hotbed of radical Muslim beliefs.”
The imam shook his head gently. “Ms. Myers, the problem is just that our definitions of ‘radical Muslim belief’ are different. The conference was a debate between Sunni and Shiite clerics. An effort to unify the Muslim community. To me, that is hardly a ‘radical’ notion. It would not have occurred to me to connect that meeting with any discussion of terrorism.”
“But Peshawar—
“Yes, I apologize,” he said sincerely. “To you, northern Pakistan must seem like the end of the world.”
“Don’t patronize me,” Nina snapped. Something about al-Hassan seemed different than her memory of him. If she recalled correctly, he had been superficially stern, but ultimately cooperative and concerned for justice. Now he seemed much more deferential on the surface, but harder underneath. “I understand the region pretty damned well. If I were going somewhere to meet with a terrorist organization, Peshawar would be ideal.”
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“And if I were going to confront a schism in my religion,” al-Hassan retorted, “I would choose a place just like Peshawar, in Pakistan, which has seen much violence between Sunni and Shi’a since the 1980s.” He shrugged at her. “Light does its best work in a dark room, Ms. Myers.”
“I don’t believe you,” Nina said simply. “I don’t believe you just forgot. I think you’re hiding something from me. Tell me more about your brother.” She was fishing now, but she wanted to keep him talking, and al-Hassan had proved in the past that he was more than willing to talk about his brother.
Al-Hassan’s eyes flashed. “My brother. Someday, by the will of Allah, he will understand the truth. Until then, his actions are his own. I have not spoken with him in years.”
“Do you think he is still involved with radical fundamentalists?” she asked.
“Most assuredly.”
“And where is he?”
Al-Hassan shook his head. “I have no idea where my brother might be, nor do I care. If I had any such information, I promise I would tell you.”
1:54 A.M. PST Culver City
Marwan al-Hassan listened to the woman ask several more of her questions. He answered them in the voice he had known from childhood, the voice he hated so much. The voice of his ridiculous embarrassment of a brother, that poor excuse of a Muslim who tried so hard to make peace with the nonbelievers.
Despite his disdain, Marwan played his part well. He tucked his filial dislike into a secret place within him. There was plenty there to keep it company, not least of which was fury at being forced to answer questions from a woman. As far as he was concerned, she should be beaten. Instead, he stood there smiling i
nnocently and answering her questions. Patience, he told himself. Patience. The time would come when Allah would give the faithful the opportunity to bring real Islam to this country.
“Are you aware that we could not locate your brother?” the Federal agent asked.
“Excuse me?” he said, genuinely startled. “I didn’t know that.”
“His last known location was Afghanistan, but he could be anywhere. What do you think the chances are of his coming here?”
“Here?” Marwan said, still using his brother’s scholarly tones. “You would know that better than I, Ms. Myers. I don’t know why he would want to come here. I can’t imagine he would be allowed in. And surely you must have some sort of registration, or visa, or—”
“We do keep track,” she said. “I was just wondering. Would he contact you if he came here?”
“His last words to me were filled with hatred and venom,” Marwan said, which was very true. He remembered speaking them. “I doubt he would have anything new to say.”
The Federal agent nodded. She spoke some more words—instructions on how to contact her, an urgent request to reach her if he heard anything out of the ordinary, and then she was gone.
As soon as the door was closed, Marwan al-Has
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san allowed the genial mask to slip from his face, revealing his utter and complete disdain. In his home, she would be beaten for impertinence, and for wearing such revealing clothing, and for so many other efforts to live and move beyond a woman’s legitimate place.
Marwan looked at the clock. It was a matter of hours, now. Only hours left until martyrdom.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 2 A.M. AND 3 A.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
2:00 A.M. PST Culver City
Nina Myers walked down the steps from al-Hassan’s apartment with the nagging feeling of uncertainty, like the feeling of someone who’s just walked away from a sale unsure if she’d been had. The only real purpose of her meeting had been to look him in the eye when she asked him about his trip to Pakistan. She had to admit to herself that he had looked genuinely startled. That genuine reaction, more than any words he might have spoken, suggested that he might be telling the truth.