The Godless One

by J. Clayton Rogers

  Samir Salman nodded.

  "So, how did a lowlife like you end up driving a Lamborghini?"

  Samir threatened him with a pout.

  "If you don’t tell me, I’ll let them pass you on to the Federals. They’ll find out about your connection to the ambush and…snip-snip."

  The prisoner suspected Ari was bluffing. But there was no doubt in his mind that this was the Godless One in the flesh. How he had gotten here was anyone’s guess. But the Americans were devils, and their association with the godless was only to be expected.

  "I stole it," he confessed.

  "Alone? An owner of a car like that must have had every security device imaginable," said Ari.

  Samir Salman’s compressed lips twitched.

  "You know, even here they don’t think much of rapists of little girls."

  "I know a man…"

  "Where?"

  "Up above the national capital."

  "Washington? How close?"

  "Some place called Montgomery."

  "Montgomery County? Where? Gaithersburg? Rockville?"

  "That’s it…Rockville."

  "And this guy’s name?"

  Samir must have decided it was time to own up. Otherwise they would be here all day. "You understand, it’s your neck."

  "I’m beginning to think it’s many necks, but go ahead."

  "Naji Turabi. He deals with exotic imported cars."

  "Yes?"

  "You’re not going up there and drop my name, right? He’s old-fashioned. Believes in torture. Or at least the man who hired him for this job does…so I hear."

  "And who would that be?"

  "I don’t know. Really! And I don’t want to know."

  "Go ahead."

  "The place is called Naji’s Exotic Imports. There’s a garage…everything is first-rate guaranteed. It’s a clean operation, but every so often a ‘special order’ comes through. Naji will hunt all over the world, but if it’s under his nose, he’ll go for it."

  "I’m not sure I understand, but continue," said Ari.

  "The Lamborghini was one of the new Murciélagos. It’s the first new model since Audi took over. I heard that the customer wanted to know if it was as good as the older models."

  "He could have read a car magazine," said Ari.

  "This guy, whoever he is, is a fanatic. He wanted to find out first-hand, find a straight stretch and voom!"

  "So this unknown customer put in a ‘special order’ for one."

  "Yes."

  "But why go about it this way? The Murciélago isn’t one of the limited edition models. Why not just go to the dealer and buy one? Or, if he’s shy, use someone else as his proxy? Naji Turabi didn’t lose any money in this transaction, right?"

  "He better not have," said Samir. "He hasn’t paid me, yet."

  "Why should he pay you? You failed."

  "But I haven’t failed to keep my mouth…" He glanced up at Ari, looking even more crestfallen.

  "Until now," Ari nodded. "And you’re doing very well, for a filthy pig."

  "Can I get a date of birth, if it’s not too much trouble?" Jenny said. "I’m mesmerized by your discussion, as you can see, but there are a few forms here—"

  "The 21st of April, 1985," said Ari.

  "How could you get that without asking him?" said Jenny.

  "It came up during our conversation," said Ari.

  "Yes. What have you two been talking about?"

  "Nothing much," Ari answered. "I’m trying to put him at ease."

  Jenny glanced at the prisoner. "He looks more uptight than ever."

  "Should I continue?" Ari saturated the question with deference.

  "I guess," Jenny said doubtfully, shifting uncomfortably behind the desk top.

  "You don’t have any idea who the customer is?" Ari asked Samir Salman. "Or why he should risk stealing a valuable car instead of purchasing it from a dealer? Is he impoverished?"

  "All I know for certain is that he’s loaded and he’s impatient." Samir rubbed his hand where his beard should have been.

  "Made you shave, did they?" Ari inquired.

  "I can sue them! Did you know that? They have to respect my beliefs."

  "They have to respect the beliefs of American citizens," Ari said with an air of sadness. "You, of course, are not one of them. They can deal with you however they want to. I think the lady here wants to ask how you got into the country. You don’t have a passport?"

  "The Canadians gave me some papers," said Samir. "I left them back in Mississauga."

  "Just south of Toronto. You have relatives there?"

  "You don’t plan to—"

  "They helped you into the country? And they helped you out of the country?"

  "They heard about a job in the States. But there’s been a crackdown on the border ever since the martyrs of 9/11…" Samir Salman shifted his eyes to Jenny, who seemed focused on a pair of doodles.

  "She doesn’t understand anything we’re saying, believe me," said Ari. "Let me guess, you were taken through Quebec and crossed the border in Vermont. There are plenty of unguarded roads. It’s easy enough."

  "Yes…"

  "And that’s where Naji Turabi or one of his drivers picked you up."

  Samir’s silence answered the question.

  "How did you steal the car?"

  "How much of this are you going to tell her?" Samir asked, throwing another glance Jenny’s way.

  Ari turned to the lawyer. "Anything he tells us is confidential, is that correct?"

  "I haven’t heard anything to be confidential about, yet," she answered sourly.

  "You can say anything you want," Ari told Samir. "She took an oath before God that she will not repeat anything you say."

  "Whose god?" Samir asked.

  "Any big guy you care to name."

  It was the sort of answer one would expect from the Godless One, and Samir Salman was only moderately scandalized.

  "The owner of the Lamborghini brought it in for routine maintenance. Naji switched out all of the security devices: locks, inbuilt GPS, maybe a few things I don’t know about. Then he gave me the remote key and an automatic garage door opener with the guy’s frequency. He even had a remote key for the front gate. I watched the owner’s place for a day or so. He used a BMW to get back and forth to work, so the Lamborghini sat in the garage on weekdays. One morning I waited until his wife left to go shopping, and I went in. Pretty easy."

  "The reward for proper groundwork," Ari nodded. "But you were caught within three hours of leaving Maryland, as I understand it."

  "I don’t know how. I’m sure the GPS was switched off and the LoJack was disabled. I took back roads, where there shouldn’t have been too many policemen."

  Ari laughed. "Seeing you behind the wheel of a Murciélago, I would have pulled you over, myself. Where were you delivering it?"

  "I was supposed to park it at a gas station in Cumberland. Someone would be there to take me back to Maryland. Then the new owner would come and pick up the car." Samir thumped his head with his hand. "But I hardly made it past Culpeper before some runty girl in a Crown Victoria pulled me over. A Ford!"

  "You mean a cop in a police cruiser," Ari grinned.

  "If I’d known it was a girl, I would have stepped on the gas and left her miles behind."

  "I’m sure you would have. But she had a gun, and you didn’t."

  "What a country!" Samir moaned.

  From the sound of it, Ari doubted Samir Salman knew there were now female cops in Iraq, too. He decided against bringing him up to date. Swiveling in his chair, he lavished Jenny with his most courteous smile. Her eyebrows floated upward, as though she wanted to be seduced, but needed something more practical.

  "This man indeed drove a stolen car across state lines," he told her. "That means he goes to the Federal institution. I believe that is the result the Deputy Warden was hoping for: one less mouth to feed."

  "Never mind what Finley wants. Just tell me the facts."
>
  Picking and choosing, twisting facts and confabulating new ones, Ari gave the lawyer a brief synopsis of the interview. The rectangular blanks in Jenny’s notes begged for solid words, and since Ari fluffed out his story with featureless air, her forms ended up almost as unmussed as when the session had begun. There was certainly no mention of Naji Turabi or his exotic car dealership, and Samir’s relatives in Canada were perfectly excluded. But having a name and nationality contented her enough for the time being. It was, considering the hostility of her client, more than she had hoped for.

  "Remember," Ari said to Samir Salman as the guard came in to take him away, "I’m Italian."

  The prisoner smirked.

  "You might also want to consider making this your permanent residence. You won’t be as safe outside as you are inside these walls."

  The smirk sagged into dread. The guard bared his teeth and pointed at the door.

  Finley and Grainger were in the hallway. The minister was not looking very divine, while the Deputy Warden was beatific to a fault. Always the war between Insider and Outsider, Ari thought, with the insider smugly pulling the strings.

  "Any progress, Jenny?" Finley asked the lawyer as she preceded Ari into the corridor.

  "Sure—plus," she said. "You can move him out of here."

  "To the BOP?"

  "To the stockade. He’s Iraqi. He’s here illegally. He might be an enemy combatant."

  Ari had suspected he had been a participant in a preliminary show trial, but had not anticipated this result.

  "What!" The Deputy Warden was genuinely alarmed. "I have to call upstairs. This man needs to be put in solitary."

  "What an excellent defender of the downtrodden you are," said Ari blandly to Jenny as Finley unclipped his radio.

  "I’m a patriot and no fool," was her response before she shuffled down the hall.

  Pastor Grainger was staggered by the outcome, but composed himself quickly.

  "Well, that’s that, I’m afraid," he told Ari. "I guess we won’t need your services again until the next non-English-speaking Arab is incarcerated. I’m sure the Army has its own translators."

  "Will they let him grow his beard back?" Ari asked.

  "That’s important, isn’t it?" Grainger shook his head. "I don’t know. They’ve allowed the prisoners at Gitmo to grow their beards, I’ve heard. So maybe…"

  "Do you think this prisoner will end up at Guantanamo?"

  "I shouldn’t think so, but…" Grainger gave him a look of rueful helplessness. "I don’t seem to know much about anything at all, at the moment."

  "But you know Mustafa Zewail’s address."

  "Yes, of course. Were you thinking of going out there? You’re welcome to try. I called, drove out to his house and knocked, called his workplace…but he’s completely disappeared, him and his wife."

  "The prisoner told me he had received threatening letters."

  "Hate mail. He told me about it. But he wouldn’t show me the letters, for some reason. I asked him to call the police, but I don’t think he ever did."

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Ari lifted the garage door and wind like a cold shout almost knocked him backwards into his car. He took a few steps into the driveway for a better look down Beach Court Lane. To his left, the James River rumbled with floodwaters from the Alleghany Mountains. To his right, he could just glimpse Howie Nottoway’s house through a filter of winter-stripped trees. Straight ahead were more trees, a patch of forest that thinned to the east until it burgeoned once more at the Pony Pasture.

  This was the usual moment when Sphinx, if outside, would dash for the house. Ari called out the cat’s name (first, his name for him, then Diane’s) and waited a full two minutes in the bustling wind. Unrewarded, he got into his Scion xB. After backing into the driveway, he laboriously got out and closed the garage. There was a receiver on the wall but he had never found the remote for the automatic garage door opener. When Abu Jasim came with his money, a new opener would be among his purchases. As he drove past Diane’s house he slowed and scanned the yard for any sign of a yellow tabby.

  He was about to turn onto Forest Hill Avenue when a car pulled up behind him. The driver honked. Ari looked into his rearview mirror and saw the irate face of Deputy Karen Sylvester. She made a slashing gesture across her throat. Was she threatening to kill him? When she repeated the gesture, he realized she was telling him to terminate his trip. The light ahead had turned green. He crossed the road to the Food Lion parking lot and found an isolated spot next to a defunct pharmacy. Karen pulled up next to him and barged out of her dark blue two-door Civic.

  "Where the hell do you think you’re going?" she demanded when Ari lowered his window."

  "As you see," Ari said, nodding at the grocery store.

  "No you weren’t. You were getting ready to turn. You had your signal on."

  "May I emerge?" he inquired.

  "Yeah, sure, emerge yourself."

  He turned off his engine and got out. Karen stood close, refusing to be intimidated by his height, or her own shortness.

  "May I ask how you knew I had left the house?" Ari said with a bemused smile, as though asking a magician the secret to a trick. "Even if you are tracking me through the GPS device in my car, you got here very quickly."

  "I was coming to see you and spotted you on the road."

  "Ah." Ari glanced at her car. "Is this an official visit? Where is Deputy Fred?"

  "I came to tell you how close you are…this close…this close…" She held up her thumb and index finger so that he could clearly see the microscopic gap between them.

  "I’m sorry?"

  "To fucking everything up! You visited a prison yesterday. A fucking prison! That’s almost the number one rule not to break when you’re in Witness Protection or whatever the Army is calling this operation. You idiot! Where’s your common sense!"

  "How did you know—?"

  "You filled out a Visitor Application when you went inside Powhatan. We’re connected to the Virginia DOC database, because you’d be surprised how many numbnut crooks try to visit their goodfella buddies in jail when they’re supposed to be in hiding."

  Ari had not filled out any forms. And then he remembered Pastor Grainger saying he would take care of the application for him. He winced inwardly. There were so many ways to get caught.

  "I was already working on a warrant to get you permanently tagged."

  "That doesn’t sound good," Ari said, his bonhomie chilling.

  "I want an ankle monitor on you. The federal judge keeps putting me off. Maybe one of your military handlers had a brain fart and put in a good word for you. I thought I had you yesterday, I really did. Visiting a state prison! But when I checked, I found out a goddamn minister took you there. To translate! Like some fucking do-gooder! You know what would happen if I asked the judge to tag you now? He’s a regular holy roller. He would put me in a little red wagon and roll me out of the courthouse."

  "Deputy Karen, I sincerely apologize for any—"

  "Deputy Sylvester, you muttonhead!" She was fuming. She was flaming. The wind flared her short blonde hair into a satanic halo. "I will get you, Mr. Ciminon. I will have you contained, even if I have to order a straightjacket. I will have no one going off half-cocked on my watch!"

  The wry grin that this inevitably drew from Ari was completely lost on the irate woman, whose need for restraint was obvious. She appeared to have no concept of seemly behavior—a propensity Ari had found all too common in his current environment. He took out a cigarette, which inflamed her further.

  "You enjoy choking yourself in front of me, don’t you?" she complained hotly. When she stood back to avoid the first inkling of smoke, she finally had a good look at him. "Oh Christ, Ari, look at you!"

  "I’ve been told I look like shit," said Ari after another puff. "But I shaved."

  "You’ve lost weight. You look gaunt. Are you sick? Are you trying to die on me?"

  "I feel perfectly healthy," he said, annoyed
that his body chose this moment to stick a wad of phlegm in his throat, forcing a small cough.

  "Uh-huh. That would look real cheery on my CV: ‘custodee died while under the supervision of Deputy Karen Sylvester.’ You’re trying to ruin my career."

  "Your concern excites me," said Ari, who immediately reconsidered his choice of words, then decided it was too late to take them back.

  But Karen seemed to realize Ari was not as sharp as usual and forced herself to calm down. "I really don’t want you to croak, Ari. You’re important to the war effort, it seems. I’m not being mushy. You’ve grown on me, like an inoperable cancer."

  Ari chuckled, pleased that a reconciliation was at hand.

  "There’s something called ‘delayed acute capture myopathy’ in deer. I wonder if something like that is what’s happening to you."

  "I admit to looking a little bit like Thumper."

  "I think you mean Bambi. You saw a lot of American movies back home?"

  "Some. I preferred Bollywood movies, because of the music. But Hollywood has its own distinct, feeble charm."

  "Steven Spielberg thanks you, I’m sure." Karen’s hot glow had subsided, as if the light of reason had to be dimmed in order to work. "Anyway, captured deer begin showing signs of severe stress. They lose their fur and…I know about it because I grew up on a farm and my father trapped…forget it."

  "But it’s most interesting," Ari protested.

  "Do you feel like a captive, Ari?"

  "Of course."

  "I mean, like in a prison?"

  "Certainly."

  "I mean…shit, I guess you are sort of a prisoner." Karen grimaced. "And here I am talking about tagging you."

  "I feel the myopathy descending upon me."

  "Great." Karen's face had a curious way of going blank when deep in thought. "Is there anything we can do? I mean, to make you feel more at home?"

  "You can let me go where I want to go without following me," said Ari in a tone that said he knew he was asking too much. "Plus a lifetime subscription to Ahlan! Arabia for my wife."

  The last time Ari had brought up the subject of his wife to Karen he had almost killed the deputy. She veered away from the topic.

  "I'd love to let you float off wherever it is you want to go, but it's just not practical." Karen hesitated a moment. "Just out of curiosity, where were you headed before I stopped you?"