National Security

by Marc Cameron

  Blue taxiway lights shot by the windows as the jet rolled into Fort Worth and past Alliance Airport’s iconic snow-cone-shaped control tower.

  After the photo of Zafir went public, there had been no shortage of leads. Thousands of people phoned the number to say they’d seen the fugitive. Some even claimed to be him. Agents from virtually every organization in the government took part in trying to locate the fugitive (though none of them knew the real story beyond that he should be considered a highly “toxic” target). There was no way to check all the tips, but they couldn’t stand by and do nothing.

  Then, call screeners sent forward a report from a Border Patrol agent in South Texas who said one of his prisoners had seen the photograph on the television while in the hospital after having his eye cut out by a “devil bandit” on the banks of the Rio Grande. According to the agent, the prisoner had nearly broken his handcuffs trying to get out of his bed when he saw the picture on the news. He swore this was the man who had cut out his eye and sawed the head off his friend.

  Moments later, the call had come in from Carrie Navarro and they finally had something to go with.

  “One-thirty in the morning.” Thibodaux yawned. “That’s two-thirty in my brain. I know we’re tryin’ to save the world and everything, but I feel like I’ve been stomped to death.”

  Mahoney gathered up the sheaves of notes she’d worked on during the flight and stuffed them in a black ballistic nylon briefcase. There was no attendant to lord over their safety, and she stood to take a bag out of the overhead while the plane was still moving. “Can I ask you something, Jacques?” she said, holding a pen in her mouth as she worked the compartment’s latch.

  “Fire away, l’ami.” The Cajun yawned again, holding both arms above his head like huge goalposts as he gave a shivering stretch.

  “You don’t cuss very much for a Marine,” she said.

  Thibodaux grinned as he unfolded himself out of the plush leather seat. “My child bride only allows me five non-Bible curse words a month.”

  “Yeah, but she’s back at Cherry Point,” Quinn said. He straightened his pistol and situated the Masamune blade at the small of his back. “How’s she gonna know?”

  “Let me tell you somethin’.” Thibodaux raised an eyebrow, as if he alone held the knowledge of a dark and dangerous secret. “I can’t count the times I’ve looked death square in the yap, but none of that scared me near so much as that little Italian woman between my sheets. Believe me, beb, she’d know.”

  Quinn leaned in so Mahoney couldn’t hear him. “You do realize that shit isn’t a Bible word?”

  “Really?” Thibodaux said, wide eyed. “Dammit!”

  Through the windows, Quinn could see a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter as the Challenger slowed. Strobe lights flashed in the night. The rotor turned, spooled up and ready to go. Men in blue jumpsuits moved toward the belly of the 605 before it had even stopped, ready to unload the duffel bags of gear at the first opportunity.

  “The chopper will take us to the helipad at Texas Christian University,” Quinn said, leaning on the back of his seat to watch the chopper out the side windows. Even in the shadows he could make out dark semicircles of sweat on the men’s coveralls. He braced himself for the Texas humidity, knowing it would hit him in the chest like a wet towel. “Palmer has a car waiting for us at TCU,” he said. “Navarro’s house is just a few miles from there. He’s set up a place for us to do our surveillance in a vacant house across the street.”

  Bouncing in her Nikes with a contagious buzz, Mahoney seemed to have a limitless reservoir of perkiness. Quinn was relieved she showed some level of human mortality when she actually rubbed her eyes and yawned like a lioness, wide and long enough he could count the fillings in her teeth.

  “Sorry about that,” she said, putting the back of her hand to her mouth as the yawn turned into a full-body stretch. “We’ve got less than eight hours left ... if we’re lucky.” She looked down the aisle at both men. “I could be dead wrong about the timeline, you know. Even as we speak, Zafir could be spreading this thing like some kind of Johnny Ebola Appleseed.”

  “What else can we do?” Quinn arched his back, trying in vain to pop his spine.

  “I’ll tell you what.” Thibodaux fished a protein bar out of his camouflage backpack and ripped it open with his teeth. “Once we locate Zafir, the most sensible thing to do would be to drop some napalm on his ass—toast him and the germs that rode in on him.” He swallowed the bar in three bites and washed it down with a gulp of water from the SIGG Aluminum bottle he carried everywhere.

  “And kill everyone around him... .” Mahoney said through clenched teeth. “Maybe we should declare martial law and force everyone to stay in their homes for the next three months.” She ran a hand through her hair, mussed from the long flight. She sighed like an exhausted runner, still miles from the finish.

  “No one would have the stomach to enforce a nationwide quarantine until people start dying,” Jericho said. “Most of our National Guard troops are just kids—even the ones who’ve done a tour in the Middle East. I’m not sure they’re up to shooting the local barber just because he leaves his house for food.” He studied Mahoney in the stark light of the cabin. Her eyes were wide and round, like a frightened little girl. “Palmer trusts your timetable and so do I. He’s convinced we can do this without losing too many innocents. We hold off as long as we can before we tell locals what’s really going on. As soon as it leaks out what this manhunt is really all about, there’s a very real possibility cool heads will not prevail.”

  “I don’t like it.” Mahoney groaned. “It’s no good. If we’re all there is ...”

  “Oh.” Jericho gave her a wink. “We’re not all there is.” He punched a number in his cell phone as they walked down the boarding ladder.

  “Brother Bo,” he said. “We’re on the ground. You and your boys ready for a little excitement?”

  CHAPTER 42

  Gail Taylor, the sturdy girl behind the Avis counter at the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, had at least three tattoos. A delicate hummingbird sipped nectar from a yellow cactus flower on her left wrist. The alluring red petals of a briar rose blossomed in the swell of pale flesh above the loose V in the front of her peach-colored cotton blouse. When she turned to retrieve the keys to his rental car, Zafir caught the glimpse of a third. It was some kind of tribal design, reminiscent of something he had seen on natives of the South Pacific islands, visible along the narrow strip of exposed flesh above the waist of her jeans and below the hem of her shirt, just where her buttocks came together.

  The pious side of Zafir found such an open display of sexuality revolting. The rest of him couldn’t pull his eyes away. He was not unaccustomed to seeing women with tattoos. It was common for Bedouin women to draw intricate designs on their hands with henna during weddings and other celebrations, but none were so wanton as this.

  Gail Taylor was pleasant enough. She was in her late thirties, with an oval face, and carried her extra weight around her hips. She had a graveled, whiskeyed tone to her voice that made Zafir’s heart beat faster every time she spoke. He was happy when she turned her attention away from him and to the business of her job.

  Bubbling over with giddy energy, she worked through all the papers he needed to sign with an eagerness that surprised even Zafir. In all his travels, he’d never rented a car and he fretted over this one moment more than any other part of his plan—even his death. Above all else, Zafir hated to look foolish

  The jiggling briar rose tattoo peeked out when Gail filled in the paperwork, leaning over the chest-high counter to show him where to initial when he declined unneeded insurance. He’d trimmed his coarse beard into a neat goatee and cut his windblown hair in the style of an American movie actor. She touched his scarred hand gently, as if it made no difference that he had a claw there instead of fingers.

  Feeling heady, he pulled away, struggling to gain control of his emotions. He was not used to a woman who paid a
ttention to him of her own accord.

  “And this ...” He coughed, swallowing hard. “This is the GPS?”

  “Yep,” Gail said. “You just punch in the address of where you want to go.” She pressed her breast against his shoulder as she demonstrated. “It’ll even talk to you in Spanish if you want.”

  “English will do.” Zafir smiled, straining to look pleasant. “I need the practice.”

  “What’s the address?” Gail’s red fingernail poised over the little colored screen.

  Zafir paused. In his lust to find Carrie Navarro, he’d only thought to get to the city where she lived. He’d assumed finding her in a place as open as America would be simple enough.

  “West Fort Worth,” he said at length.

  “That’s an area.” Gail Taylor giggled. “Not an address. I have to put in a street and numbers.” She tapped the back of his hand with a red fingernail.

  “I understood everything was mapped here in the U.S.,” he said, feigning his best Mexican accent. “Can you not type in a name and have the GPS give me an address?”

  Gail gazed up at him, batting big, cowlike eyes. There wasn’t an ounce of guile in them.

  “Well, no ... that wouldn’t get us anywhere, not with this little guy. You’d need a computer for that.”

  “I have no computer.” Under the lip of the counter, out of the girl’s line of sight, Zafir clenched his good fist. He had no time for this.

  “My jackass manager shut down our Internet or I’d help you look it up on our computers. I guess you could go to the library, but my guess is you don’t have a library card... .” Gail suddenly brightened. “An iPhone would do. They’re just little computers anyhow. I have one in back with my stuff.”

  “You would show me how to use it, this little computer iPhone of yours?” Zafir smiled, willing himself to relax, though his instinct was to strike this woman as hard as he could.

  Gail mistook his seething anger for passion and lowered thick, black lashes accented by peach eye shadow to match her blouse. Her full cheeks flushed pink. “I could do that.”

  Charm was not Zafir’s strong suit. He did not have to play games with women. They did as he told them to do and he did to them as he pleased. The importance of his mission pushed him forward. He knew he was a wanted man and needed to get out of the public eye as soon as possible.

  “Perhaps we could go somewhere ... more private,” he said, clenching his jaw.

  The fleshy woman stepped back, letting her hand trail along his arm. “Mr. Ramirez ...”

  He hung his head, to hide the fire in his eyes. “I hope I have not been too ... how do you say it ... aggressive.”

  “Why, Mr. Ramirez ... I ... I think I’d like that very much,” she said. “We meet some real weirdos here, but I can tell you’re not one of them.” She glanced at the digital clock on the wall behind her. “It’s a quarter to six. I get off in fifteen minutes. Tell you what, you buy me breakfast and I’ll help you find what you’re looking for.” She touched him on the arm again. “Everything you’re looking for.”

  “I would be most happy to buy you breakfast in return for your kindness,” Zafir said. In his mind’s eye, he saw the plump thing in a burqa. She was much too forward with him, a complete stranger. In the Kingdom, breakfast alone with an unrelated male would have earned her a hundred lashes.

  “Meet me back here in fifteen minutes,” she said. “I’m so hungry I could eat a cow.” She lowered her gaze. “I can promise you one thing. I’m a lot more fun to be around when I’m not hungry... .”

  CHAPTER 43

  Zafir wiped a smeared droplet of Gail Taylor’s blood from the iPhone with the tail of his shirt. The infidel woman had been overly helpful, falling all over herself as she showed him how to use a free people-finder website to find Carrie Navarro’s address in her small, handheld computer. She’d played the part of bold lover almost to the end, giggling and winking until he’d taken the eagle-head knife out of his duffel bag and passed it slowly in front of her flushed face.

  Remembering, Zafir lifted his collar to his nose and smelled the scent of the American woman that lingered on his clothing. He rolled down the window of his car and breathed a deep breath of the humid morning air.

  Imminent death, he thought, was a liberating thing indeed. The notion of its certainty endowed him with a sort of heady focus he’d never before experienced, even in the heat of deadly conflict. His perspective changed. No longer would it be important to fret over fingerprints he might leave behind. Stains of the American woman’s blood on his clothing would never cause him a problem. The sloppy manner in which she’d died didn’t matter. And the fact that he’d left his DNA on her body was something from which he could walk away and never give another moment’s consideration. The filthy woman had obviously been of loose morals to flaunt her body the way she had—with him, a complete stranger. She was a common whore and deserved what she got. Was he not a man? Did he not have natural tendencies and desires that such a wanton woman would inflame with her behavior?

  At the end, when he’d already begun his work with the eagle-head knife, she’d been so pitiful, so utterly without spirit, absent even a hint of the strong will possessed by his old friend Carrie Navarro. Gail had whimpered and begged. Her eyes covered in garish makeup, eyes that had once flirted with him, had snapped wide in abject terror. She had pleaded for mercy as long as her tremulous chest held a breath—when the only merciful thing to do would have been to kill her more quickly. The woman’s weakness made Zafir despise her, but it had made him hate Navarro even more.

  He drove on into morning traffic on the littered streets of East Fort Worth near Gail Taylor’s scabby apartment off a frontage road that ran parallel to Loop 820. He passed a western store with a giant red cowboy boot out front and a McDonald’s restaurant with its golden arches rising heavenward like a heathen idol. A line of coffee worshipers queued in the drive-through waiting to show their devotions to their morning fix. Used-car dealerships sprawled along the access road. Stores selling every kind of goods imaginable from mobile homes to baby clothes lined the littered streets. Zafir shook his head at such decadence. America the wealthy, America the fat, America the arrogant. Soon, in a matter of weeks, stores and restaurants as far as the eye could see would stand vacant. Those few infidels who were left alive by the hand of Allah would be too frightened to venture into public places among the rotting corpses of their neighbors.

  The heady memories of Gail Taylor ebbed away like a receding tide with each new breath. A single burning desire drew Zafir forward like a flaming string through his heart. Though his death was a certainty, he had to survive the moment. He had to make it to Carrie Navarro’s home, to take care of the unfinished business with her. What happened beyond that was irrelevant. At first he’d thought to try and save his son, send him away somehow, back to the sheikh. But such a thing was impossible. No, he would take the boy from the pitiful shadow of his harlot mother—take him and allow him the great honor of dying as a glorious martyr alongside his father, where he belonged.

  Zafir glanced up in the rearview mirror of his rental sedan, scanning as he merged into the heavy traffic of Loop 820. He headed south, toward the highway that would bisect Fort Worth and take him to Carrie Navarro. His instincts told him there was someone behind him, someone who followed him like a jackal follows the lion—plodding just far enough behind to be out of danger. Such instincts had never failed him before. But this time, he had to be mistaken. If the Americans knew where he was, they would surely kill him before he drove another mile. He’d heard the reports. They had shot Kalil in the back of the head without ever trying to arrest him. He had no idea what had happened to Hamid, but assumed he also was out of the game. The Americans could not know everything, but they surely had some idea of the risk these men had posed. They had no reason to follow him and every reason in the world to want him dead.

  He moved to the fast lane, and then slowed to fifty miles an hour. Angry drivers honked and
shouted obscenities out their windows as traffic stacked up behind him, and then merged into other lanes to pass. If there was anyone following him, he was extremely good at his job.

  Zafir shrugged off the feeling and checked the GPS mounted on his windshield. The numbers showed he would arrive at Navarro’s in thirty-one minutes. He smiled, leaning back against the headrest to savor the thought.

  What he’d done to Gail Taylor was nothing but an enjoyable diversion. A frolic. He’d been easy on her, made her death come relatively quick. Carrie Navarro had to atone for the things she’d said to him—for the humiliation she’d put him through in the eyes of his subordinates.

  And Zafir would make certain that her atonement would be slow and painful.

  CHAPTER 44

  Mahoney sat on the carpet of the empty house, knees drawn up to her chin, her back against the peeling robin’s-egg blue paint on the living-room wall. The house smelled vaguely of cinnamon, mildew, and motor oil. Four dead roaches and a twitching cricket formed a pile of sweepings on the linoleum floor beneath Quinn’s chair in the vacant dining room fifteen feet away.

  Bo Quinn and four other bikers from his “club” had roared up on their Harleys at the TCU helipad and followed the team in the early-morning darkness to Carrie Navarro’s quiet tree-lined street west of Trinity Park. All the men looked like the sort Mahoney’s father had warned her about, the kind you didn’t want to meet in an alley on a dark night. She had smiled inside when Bo had dismounted his bike, and yanked his brother toward him in a back-slapping embrace. Jericho appeared to know the other members of the club as well, shaking their hands and hugging each of them in turn.