The Godless One

by J. Clayton Rogers

Ahmad nodded vigorously. He glanced at his uncle, whose voracity with the sandwich was matched by his cupidity. Abu Jasim's English comprehension improved by leaps and bounds when money was discussed. His mouth jammed with ham and cheese and a variety of condiments, he demanded, "Howf mufch?"

  "Over 22,000,000 Euros. That's thirty million."

  Uday was looking down, absent-mindedly rubbing the black eye Ari had inflicted. But he was thinking hard. Ari knew Uday would not be Uday without several slimy tricks up his sleeve.

  Again, Ahmad held up his hand. "Option 2 is 'manage your account'."

  "And 3?"

  The young man's face lit up. "'To make deposits or transfers...'" Ahmad pattered his hand with fear and excitement. "Where would we transfer to?"

  "I half un Cafmuh..." Abu Jasim quickly swallowed. "I have an account in the Caymans."

  "Do you now?" Ari scowled. There was much about his factotum that he did not know. "Would you like to share your account number with us?"

  Abu Jasim's eyes went as buggy as his nephew's. "If I say it, you'll remember..."

  Ari nodded at Ahmad, who pressed 3. After listening another moment, he said, "Fuck."

  A word Uday knew in any language. He smirked.

  "Phone transfers on this account are limited to six withdrawals of 5,000 Euros per statement cycle. If we want more...well, he would have to present himself personally at the bank." Ahmad glowered at Uday, as though he wanted to join the slugfest.

  Abu Jasim picked up on most of Ahmad's English. "Khara..."

  'Shit' indeed, Ari thought. The fond hope of instant wealth faded like an equally pleasant dream.

  "What now?" Ahmad asked. "Should I hang up?"

  "Press 2," said Ari.

  "Manage accounts?"

  Ari nodded.

  "All right," Ahmad summarized: "Email address, other contact information…ah! 'To change your password, press 4.'" A grin spread over Ahmad's face. Ari gave him a thumbs up. The young man pressed 4. "Aw, crap again, what is it with these people?"

  "What is it?"

  "If we change the password, we won't be able to withdraw any money until Uday shows up in person to confirm it."

  Abu Jasim brightened. "All we have to do is find his fatid! Uday said he didn't set up his account. One of his look-alikes had to have done it!"

  "His fatid died four years ago, creamed in Mosul by the Americans," said Ari. "Remember the pictures they posted for all the world to see? What was left of his face looked like it could be Uday. I saw the double when he ran out for a moment, when some car-thief soldier hot-wired his Lamborghini. He fooled me, too..." Ari thought back. "But the limp was missing..."

  "You were there?" Uday said, watching him closely.

  "Sure. Who do you think sold you down the drain? I couldn't claim the thirty million reward. I let it go to Nawaf az-Zedain without a word of protest. And look what happened to his relatives left behind in Iraq. I didn't know at the time I would end up here. I couldn't put Rana and Qasim at risk."

  "You sold me out?"

  "It was one of the great pleasurable moments of my life."

  Uday jumped up and tried to charge at him. The cuffs on his ankles stalled and then tripped him. He fell to the floor, swearing loudly. Ari rested a foot on the man's head. "Change the password," he told Ahmad. "If we can't have the money, neither can he."

  "Change it to what?"

  Uday's leap had caused the van to rock. Abu Jasim pointed at the station shop. Buddy was holding up a phone and pointing at it. "I think he's telling us he's going to call the cops."

  "You finished your sandwich? Half of it's on your lap. You eat like a sow."

  "Leave?" said Abu Jasim with a piggish sneer.

  "Yes, yes. Let's go." He noticed Ahmad punching on the cell phone keypad. "What are you doing?"

  "They were going to disconnect on me. I'm putting in a new password. I'll let you know what it is..." He glanced down at Uday, held in place by Ari's foot. "...later."

  "Please don't forget it with that soft American memory you've inherited."

  "We'll find our own fatid," Abu Jasim asserted. "We know the account number, the name, the answers to all those personal questions. All we need is some documentation."

  "Don't get it from the Chaldean Mafia!" Ari warned. "You shouldn't mess around with those chaps."

  Abu Jasim shrugged. "We're coming up on the command post."

  "This makes up for everything!" Ahmad said elatedly.

  "What are you talking about?" Abu Jasim demanded. "What have you suffered at the hands of this man?"

  "I mean the Bears. They're blowing the game. I saw it on the TV at the gas station. If I'd been in Miami, seeing it in person, I think I would've killed myself."

  Ari and Abu Jasim grunted in unison. The boy had a low pain threshold.

  "You have the address where you will leave this scum." Ari pressed some of the scum from his boot into Uday's compressed head. "And you are no longer so fearful of him? I would not want you to piss in your pants."

  "Seeing him like that, there's not much to him," said Abu Jasim, watching out for the law as he approached the command post.

  "He is only at the level where he placed the rest of us," said Ari philosophically. "And probably where we all belong. Where is my ice cream?"

  Ahmad rummaged around for the bag and pulled out a half-pint.

  "Spoon?" Ari asked.

  Ahmad scrounged around the bag and came up with a white plastic spoon.

  "Good."

  "Too bad there's no time for you to clean up," Abu Jasim said, looking in the rearview mirror. "You look like a butcher."

  He stopped just around the corner from the community center.

  "Farewell, my friends," he said to the two up front. He gave Uday's head another rough nudge with his foot. "And you…may God destroy your house."

  "We've already had a good start," Abu Jasim observed.

  Ari shrugged his sore body outside and watched as the van pulled away into the night, east on Route 60. Slowly, he walked the half block to the command post. Apparently, reinforcements had arrived. A guard who had not been there before was standing on the front steps. He was not reassured by the U.S. Marshal tag on his coat.

  "It's brutal out there," Ari said, nodding in the direction of Uday's country house.

  "Yes, sir," said the guard. "I think the only medic we have is out in the field. You need to bandage those hands. And…everything else…"

  "I will attend him at my leisure," said Ari, and began walking inside. He paused. "I hope you are not a Bears enthusiast."

  "No, sir. My team's Washington. They got blown out in the playoffs."

  "Washington is very unlucky?'

  "They're better now than they were last year," the guard reasoned.

  Inside, there were more techs present, attending to more consoles. There was no longer any gunfire in the distance. Ari assumed they were there to help reorganize the scattered teams after the evening's chaos. He wondered if they had located the two men on the fire road. Ari knew he should have had them dragged deeper into the woods, but then they might have frozen to death before being discovered. Another poor judgment call based on sentiment. Like not insisting that Ahmad give him the new password to Uday's account. He hoped he didn't take after his uncle.

  He staggered up the hall and into the classroom where the first prisoner had been held. Both he and the ex-Marine were still there. When the guard tried to chase him away with a frown, Ari lifted his arms. "Do not be dismayed. I swear before God that I will rinse my mouth."

  "Sir…" He regarded Ari's newly battered hands.

  "Assalam alaikum, Nazal," Ari said amiably, tucking himself into the same chair he had used earlier, the one that had caused controversy between Karen and himself. He held up the ice cream. "I believe this is the reason you got caught. Mmmmm…"

  Unable to decide if this was torture or teasing, the guard grinned.

  Ari pried off the top of the half-pint, resting the lid on
the table. He posed his plastic spoon over the container. "Pistachio…mmmmm…" Then he hesitated. "It's decidedly green…" Cautiously, he lowered the spoon. The ice cream had melted some and the scoop came easily. "Mmmmm…" Slowly, he inserted it into his mouth. His eyes widened in horror and he spat out a dollop of green mush. "Bah! Ah! What is this shit!"

  He slammed the container onto the table. "You risked being captured for this? Mahabee! You may have it, and may you be poisoned!"

  Both guard and prisoner stared at the bloodstained container while Ari dragged himself to another table, this one near the front of the room. He removed his coat and folded it into a pillow, then crept up on top of the table and promptly fell asleep.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Ari thought he had made himself presentable, but this assurance was shot down as he walked past Howie Nottoway's house. Hefting a bag of rock salt, Howie came around the side of his house and hailed him.

  "Holy moly, what happened to you?" he asked, coming up.

  "I was on a construction site and slipped on an icy girder."

  "Jesus, how far did you fall?"

  Ari spread his arms, wincing. "As you see."

  "That far, huh? I didn't think they allowed construction workers up on those things in this kind of weather."

  "It would greatly amuse me to talk to you, but right now I have business to attend to."

  Howie grinned wickedly at the bouquet of yellow roses Ari was holding. "Oh yeah…? Anyone I know?"

  There was no help for it. Howie would undoubtedly see him walking up to Diane's door. "Your neighbor, right over there."

  "Becky Wareness? I heard she was going through a nasty divorce."

  Checking through his list of things that were right and proper in this country, Ari decided not to go into details. "Yellow roses are very hard to come by this time of year. I wouldn't want them to go into shock."

  "Uh…right. Don't let me delay you. Becky, huh?" He looked as if he was going to give Ari a playful punch, then pulled back. "Guess that would be against doctor's orders."

  Ari approached Diane's house with trepidation. From Howie's reaction, it was obvious he was not as fit to be seen as he had hoped. The snow was completely melted now and there were no pawprints to be seen. He stepped up to the door and pressed the ringer button.

  "No, no, stay back," he heard a woman say inside. A moment later, the door swung open.

  Becky Wareness was a woman stricken by grief. Sorrow had planted lines and shadows across her face. This had made her susceptible to fear, and the moment she saw the contused Ari on her stoup she drew back in alarm.

  "Mr. Ciminon…"

  "Mrs. Wareness…" He could not bring himself to call her 'Becky'. They had not been introduced.

  "I think…" Diane's mother took another step backwards.

  "I assume Diane told you we had a sad moment the other day." Ari held up the flowers. "She mentioned yellow roses. I didn't think such a thing existed, but she has proved me wrong. She told me of your kind offer regarding…Marmaduke. I wanted to express my reconsideration—"

  "It's not proper," said Becky, taking hold of herself. "I didn't think they did this kind of thing even in Italy. A man bringing roses to a little girl!"

  "I—"

  "And what you said to her was cruel and…just plain weird! I meant to talk to Howie about you. We can't have someone so…I don't think it's right that you're in the Neighborhood Watch. Someone should be watching you! I felt sorry for you because you looked ill. And now…who beat you like that?"

  "I fell—"

  "No, don't say another word. I don't want you to see Diane again. I won't allow her down towards the river. Do you hear me? If I see you with my daughter, I'll call the police. Now leave!"

  "I—"

  She slammed the door shut.

  Ari lowered his arms, the unaccepted roses drooping close to the ground. Something curled hotly in his throat. He hoped it was cancer. All those cigarettes.

  Returning to the road, he noticed Howie was nowhere in sight. He must have heard Becky Wareness shouting. He was giving some privacy to the rejected suitor.

  A blue Civic pulled up. Ari was gratified to see two familiar faces through the windshield. When Karen rolled down her window, he leaned towards her. "Deputies Karen and Fred! I am so glad you survived the bad people! But what is this?" Ari reached for a bandage on Karen's head.

  "Hey, don't go poking. It still hurts!"

  "And Deputy Fred! What happened to your arm?"

  "It's nothing," Fred answered, shifting the sling around his arm.

  "At least you got shot," Karen fumed. "I fell head over ass into a ditch."

  "But otherwise things went progressively well?"

  "We got the bad people, yes. Three of them DOA."

  "That's an acronym," Fred cautioned her. She ignored him.

  "Three of them have been destroyed?" Ari inquired.

  "Your English is going to hell," Karen shook her head. "We ended up killing three of them, including Sid Overstreet. You should have seen him! Out there with an RPG! Blew up one of our armored cars!"

  "You suffered casualties?"

  "No fatalities, thank God. But get in, Ari. We need to take you somewhere."

  "I'd rather not," said Ari, looking back at Diane's house. "I'm having a senior moment."

  "Listen…Ari…"

  "Yes?"

  "We have to take you somewhere. Only for an hour or so. We'll bring you back so you can continue your dementia. Please, it's important."

  Ari shrugged and opened the back door.

  "Who are the flowers for?"

  "Why, you, of course."

  "Well, leave them on the back seat," Karen said as she drove down to the end of Beach Court Lane and turned around. "I love them."

  "Wow," said Fred, admiring the bouquet. "You know, I can plant some of those in your garden next Spring."

  "Will I still be here?"

  "No one knows."

  Ari scowled at the flowers on the seat next to him. "I'm not sure they're acceptable." He raised his head as Karen turned onto Forest Hill Avenue. "Do you have a cultural icon named Frank Drebin?"

  Karen and Fred burst out laughing.

  "What part of left field have you been living in?" Fred asked.

  "I ran into a chap who had great admiration for this Drebin fellow. He desired to emulate him."

  "Don't tell him," Karen told Fred, laughing. "I want him to live with this the rest of his life."

  "That isn't charitable," Ari fretted. A moment later, he continued, "Then will you at least tell me where I'm being taken?"

  "Soon enough, but first…"

  "Right," Karen continued. "We want to know how it is that someone who looks a whole lot like Uday Hussein ended up being chained to the gate at the Iraqi Embassy in Washington this morning. And yes, we thought your icky fingers might be involved. But you were in Cumberland last night, not fit to drive. And it's obvious that you're still not fit."

  "One of your FBI competitors was kind enough to bring me home, when it became apparent I was not awake enough to translate for those dreadful roughnecks. He even stopped at the flower shop for me so I could purchase these…"

  "They were open that late?"

  "They had just closed. He showed them his badge."

  "Ari, you could talk a canary into a lion den."

  "If only that were true. But what is it about this man at the Embassy?"

  "A place like that, you know it's got security up the whazoo," Fred answered. "The cameras recorded a guy in a van driving up to the gate—a rental, by the way, under a phony name. He jumps out, wearing a Chicago Bears ski mask, and rolls out a wheelchair with this Uday-looker chained to it. He slaps another chain around the gate, locks it, and is gone before the guards could get to the fence. I guess they were looking for a more sophisticated kind of attack, if that's what you can call this. The police reviewed tapes from a nearby traffic camera. There was a man sitting in his car next to the van at
a stoplight. The cops got his plate number and interviewed him. He said yeah, he looked over at the driver of the van because he was taking off a Bears ski mask. The other guy rolled down his window and yelled something about bringing Walter Payton back from the grave. The van driver just laughed hysterically. He was Caucasian—no, that wasn't why he was laughing. I wouldn't think so, at least. They're going to take the witness in to try for a facial composite, but good luck on that."

  Yes, good luck, Ben, Ari thought. By the time Ben dropped off Uday, Abu Jasim and Ahmad were halfway to Chicago. He had been more than willing to do them this favor. If Ari or Abu Jasim had been caught in front of the Embassy and their identities revealed, hard-core Ba'athists back in Iraq would go after their third and fourth cousins removed. Ben understood the risk involved, though Ari did not know if he had spoken to his wife about it.

  "And what has happened to this Uday-man?" Ari asked.

  "Oh, the innocent voice I know so well." Karen gave him a jaundiced look in the rearview mirror. "He's inside the Embassy. For some reason, the Iraqis don't want to cough him up." She shrugged. "To be continued…maybe."

  "I'm speechless," said Ari.

  "Shut up."

  "I'm agog."

  "Double shut up. Can you honestly tell me you didn't have anything to do with this?"

  "I can tell you dishonestly that I did," said Ari. "Now that you're reassured, can you tell me where we're going?"

  "What's even freakier is that we got a preemptive call from ISAF—yes, that's an acronym. Get over it. This guy from ISAF swore they didn't know anything about this Uday look-alike. Now why would they go to the trouble of doing that, especially when we didn't even contact them about it? What I want to say, Ari, is that whatever part you had in all of this, we didn't know about him or his crew out there in the woods. Not a clue, I swear it."

  "It is the consequence of affliction."

  "You really need to pull yourself together."

  "I will, as soon as I know where I'm going."

  Karen had merged the Civic into the traffic on I-95. She exchanged glances with Fred.

  "No, you go," said Fred. "I'm already wounded."

  "Creep. OK…the Icelandic economy is about to go belly up."