“I thought I could take consolation in the fact that I was too far away for the rebels to be able to come after me,” Hamid said, shaking his head. “That is, after all, a big reason I swore off politics and decamped to LA. The point was to put entire continents between my family and me.”
“I asked Uncle Carl if the rebels were going to take power. He said, ‘Over my dead body. Bastards are trying to take credit for the uprising when it was a spontaneous occurrence and the dominant group has been moderate.’ The CIA was going to get the various factions to sit down and talk. There’s the remains of my father’s cabinet who might still have some sway. It was gonna be touch and go for the next few months. Wheels were in motion. Uncle Carl told me to stay put here in LA, to go about my life as usual. He assured me that my diplomatic immunity should still stand. He would put in paperwork for me to claim political asylum. Meanwhile, I wasn’t to do anything to call attention to myself, to stay out of trouble—not that I ever went looking for trouble. Then he left. I didn’t tell him that going about my life as normal was exactly what I was planning to do anyway. No way was I going to get involved in any of the negotiations or rites of succession or whatever bullshit Carl no doubt was going to be involved in. I have my own life here that I quite like.”
Hamid seemed to be indulging in some kind of depressed reverie as he spoke. Julia and I were tired, so neither of us was inclined to stop him. It was easier to let him speak. It wasn’t as if we were going anywhere, so what the hell. Hamid was probably trying to take his mind off the present by talking about his life as much as we were by listening to him tell it.
“My normal day here in Los Angeles generally goes like this,” Hamid said. “Spend about two hours working out with Janos, my personal trainer, put in a couple of hours at my production office in Beverly Hills, then lunch around the corner at a three-star French bistro I have a controlling interest in. You might assume I’m another playboy douchebag loitering around Hollywood, but the production company and six restaurants I own do earn me a decent income, you know.
“Now, my morning workout done—Carl complimented me for the work I’d been doing with my abs, which are decidedly non-flabby so that I might at least maintain a decent façade of not looking like a fat bastard drunk on booze and red meat—I go down to the lobby, past Bobby the concierge, with whom I exchange a knowing wink in a gesture of bro-camaraderie (God knows I tip him more than enough every week, and that’s on top of the drugs I score from him), and my Mercedes is brought to the front by Jerry, the parking attendant, which is another twenty bucks discreetly passed through our daily handshake. I don’t use a chauffeur, I prefer to drive myself to work. I don’t need to be too ostentatious in my displays of wealth and status here in LA. The point is to show you’re not a nobody, but not to put yourself too far in the public spotlight. We have movie stars and reality show victims for that, so that those of us with real money and power can hide in the shadows should we feel the need. Celebrities are the canaries down the coal mine in the world of the rich and privileged. The most successful celebrities are the ones fully aware of this role; it’s the ones who fail to grasp this duty that crash and burn. I’ve been in Hollywood for more than ten years and I learned this very quickly.
“My day at the production company generally consists of meetings to justify my being in the office: hustling producers and filmmakers pitching projects hoping for some investment money to help them set up their movies; I’m usually surfing the Web and doing some shopping while pretending to listen to their pitches before having my assistant Kelly usher them out the door. They’ll invariably send a screenplay over. Jane will dutifully read it and write up a report telling my partner and me how awful it is and why we shouldn’t put a cent in it.
“And yet I couldn’t shake the sense of unease that had started with Uncle Carl’s visit the day before. As much as I wanted to pretend I was going to have a normal day, my father and brothers did just get overthrown and massacred in a violent revolution back in our home country the night before. There was something Carl seemed to implying that I was missing, and I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be something I would like.
“I was saved from this bout of brooding by my partner Harold Florsheim, who burst into my office in his usual the-sky-is-falling manner. ‘We have a problem,’ he said. I could have guessed that, since Harold only ever comes into my office when we have a problem. ‘Dana Leveson is all over TMZ. She lost her shit at a club on Sunset on Saturday and tried to fight four girls at once.’ ”
“Sorry,” I said. “But who’s Dana Leveson?”
“Oh, I forget,” Hamid said. “You’re not from here. She’s only the highly popular star of a teen show our company produces and owns that happens to be the highest-rated show on TV, more than any prime-time network show. Hangin’ Out is a fairly innocuous teen sitcom with mostly harmless situations and mild moral lessons dressed up in the colorful glamour of how teenagers would like their lives to be. So Harold and I got on the Internet and saw the video that a clubber had taken of the fight. Dana was so drunk or stoned or high that her attempts to swing at the girls only succeeded in sending her sliding rather ungracefully across the dance floor. She was more successful beating herself up than the girls. Of course, there was the obligatory up-skirt shot that had to be blurred out. I bet the guy who filmed this is an aspiring filmmaker.”
Hamid found the video on his smartphone and played it for us.
“This isn’t so different from what we get in the tabloids back in the UK,” Julia said.
“Yes,” Hamid said. “But over here, the stakes are much higher. We’re talking possibly tens of millions of dollars higher. The network wanted a meeting to discuss Dana. Harold was freaking out. I told him to handle it and he only panicked even more. The star of our top show, the show that justified the existence of our production company, had crashed and burned in spectacular fashion. Totally in keeping with the myths of Hollywood, I must say.”
“So I’ve been finding the more I spend time here,” I said.
“I told Harold I was sure the network was going to say they would put their support behind Dana in her time of difficulty and suggest that she take time off to deal with her personal problems, which we will attribute to exhaustion. Of course, we all know she has been a walking mental illness textbook since we first cast her on the show. It just happened that she was popular with the kids and managed to deliver ratings for the last three seasons. It was time to get her into rehab and find her replacement. She had already violated the morality clause of her contract, but we still had the show to make. The supporting cast could carry it for a few weeks while we searched for a new lead. The writers were already writing Dana out, and we were about to put out a casting call to find the next teenage ingenue to lead the show.”
“That all sounds perfectly normal,” I said. “But how did you end up here?”
“Well,” Hamid said. “I should have paid more attention to what Uncle Carl was saying between the lines. He was really prepping me to fly back home and lead the government.”
“I’d guessed that,” Julia said.
“I didn’t,” Hamid said. “I think I was in denial. Before I knew it, Uncle Carl came back and told me the wheels were in motion. The surviving members of my father’s cabinet would accept me as the new president. Uncle Carl said we needed to give the army some new guns that would give them the edge over the rebels, and arranged for some surplus to quietly leave the facilities here. It would be a sort of dowry for my new political career. But first they had to sneak the weapons out and keep them someplace safe until they got on the plane with me.”
“And that’s where Gossamer Rand Ross came in, I take it?” I said.
“I’d been friendly with Gossamer since I helped finance three of his last movies. That’s how I got executive producer credit. Gossamer also knew Uncle Carl, and he was eager to help the CIA in any way he could. Uncle Carl convinced him to hold the guns for me, since no one would suspect a Holl
ywood director.”
“Then who was it that’s after the guns?” I asked.
“That happened all within the last twenty-four hours,” Hamid said. “Uncle Carl called and said my life was in danger. There were rebel sympathizers here in Los Angeles like a cell, and they were activated to assassinate me. They also wanted the guns for themselves to fight the army with back home. These private military chaps—”
“You mean Interzone?”
“That’s them. Uncle Carl contracted them to take me from my suite over to this safe house until they got me and the weapons to the airfield and flew us back home.”
“And that is how Julia and I ended up in this situation,” I said.
“That was unexpected,” Hamid said. “But you’re professionals, right? Not private military like Interzone. You’re more problem solvers and fixers, aren’t you?”
“We’re really private investigators,” I said, as much to remind myself as anything else. This was way beyond what we usually handled at Golden Sentinels. The morality of this situation was off in orbit. I wasn’t even sure there was truly a right thing to do anymore. This was only chaos. This was why Kali was here in the room with us.
“What I don’t get is,” Julia asked, “how did the rebels know about you and the weapons for all this to become so messy so quickly?”
“Read between the lines,” I said. “Hamid here was the one who leaked to the rebels. It was you all along, wasn’t it?”
“Damn right!” he said. “I knew the back channels. I got word to my sister.”
“Why?” Julia asked.
“Look at him,” I said. “He’s terrified. He doesn’t want to go back and rule the country.”
“You know what happened to my father and brothers!” Hamid cried. “That is my endgame! To be a puppet of the CIA until I’m no longer useful or they can’t protect me anymore! I don’t want to go back! I just want my silly, placid, trivial life here in Los Angeles as a playboy and dilettante producer! I don’t want to die!”
“I’m sorry you’re in this situation.” I said.
“Help me!” he cried. “Can you help me? You know I can pay you. Gossamer told me Golden Sentinels were experts at fixing problems.”
“Well, this might be a bit bigger than we usually deal with,” I said.
“This is life or death for me!” Hamid said. “If I get on that plane with the damn guns, I am a dead man! It could be a week, it could be months, but sooner or later I’m going to wind up dead! In the meantime, I’m going to be forced to do some horrible things to remain in power! Look at Assad! He was studying to be an optometrist in London! An eye doctor! Then he had to rule Syria and turned into a bloody monster! Do you see the cycle I’m going to be forced into? I didn’t ask for this! My father did! It isn’t fair!”
“You do realize that your sister was probably the one who put out the hit on you, right?” Julia said.
“I didn’t expect the kill order,” Hamid said. “I just thought they’d seize the guns and be on their way.”
“You didn’t exactly think this through, did you?” I said.
“The thing is,” Hamid said, “I forgive her. I don’t blame her at all. She’s doing what she has to, as am I.”
The door suddenly opened, and Ariel came in with her pistol drawn.
I knew that look in her eyes. They were sparkling with excitement.
“Be vewy, vewy quiet,” she said, grinning, finger to her lips. “We’re being raided by ICE.”
THREE
Why are ICE raiding this house?” I asked.
“Who knows,” Ariel said. “They got the wrong address? That’s been happening a lot. They don’t give a shit and are just knocking on every door? Someone who’s fucking with us tipped them off? Take your pick. Either way, we have to play this cool. Here, put these on. Just in case.”
Ariel handed us balaclavas and surgical gloves so if the ICE agents came in, they wouldn’t see our faces. And we wouldn’t leave fingerprints.
“Are they going to force their way in?” Julia asked.
“Looks that way. They have a whole squad outside banging on the door,” Ariel said.
“But surely none of us is in this country illegally,” Hamid said. “I have a diplomatic passport. You two have British passports.”
“ICE are just going to raid first, and they don’t even bother asking questions later,” Ariel said. “Jarrod is going to try to talk them into going away.”
“And if that doesn’t work?” I asked.
“We’re on US soil and these are cops,” Ariel said. “So we can’t kill them.”
“Thank God,” I said.
“Nonlethal takedown. Beanbag rounds.”
“Oh, Christ,” I said.
“Now stay quiet and don’t open the door till it’s over,” Ariel said, and left the bedroom.
Julia switched off the lights and we sat in silence.
So this was what Hamid, Julia, and I faced: getting taken into custody by ICE and detained at their bloody detention center in Arizona for anywhere between a week and God knows how many months. Julia, having the luck and privilege of being white and British, would probably be released much earlier and be sent back to the UK. It didn’t matter that we were here legally. Hamid having a diplomatic passport might cause an international incident, but what did they care? They just wanted to nick someone tonight. The best I could hope for was not to get sent to a black site as a terror suspect, and if I made it back to the UK, I could look forward to getting interviewed by the Guardian for the liberals to tut-tut over. Well, fuck that. We had work to do here.
We heard the ICE agents banging on the front door down the hall.
“Open up!”
“There are no Mexicans in here!” Jarrod cried. “We’re all Americans in this house!”
“We have reports of guns being kept in there!”
“Bullshit!” Jarrod cried. “First you said you were ICE! Now you’re hunting for weapons? Which is it?”
“Open the door! We won’t say it again!”
“You got a warrant?” Jarrod called. “You’re not coming in without a warrant!”
We heard the sound of a battering ram slamming against the front door, then the metallic splintering of the hinge shattering as the door fell open.
“GET YOUR HANDS UP! NOW! HANDS—”
A clattering sound hit the floor.
I recognized that sound from more than a year ago when I was on the receiving end of it with Ken and Clive: a flash-bang grenade hitting the floor.
“Cover your ears!” I whispered to Hamid and Julia.
A loud bang went off out in the hall, followed by yelps and cries of surprise.
Shotgun rounds went off in rapid succession. Screams. Then bodies hitting the floor and footsteps advancing.
“Secure their weapons,” Jarrod said.
“Clear,” Ariel said.
“Clear,” Reyes said.
“Clear,” Mikkelford said.
“Clear,” DuBois and Williams declared.
More sounds: chains, the tightening of zip-ties, the ripping sound of duct tape.
Finally, Ariel opened the door to the bedroom.
“You can come out now,” she said.
Six burly ICE officers were facedown on the floor, all alive, thankfully. Jarrod and the gang had used their own cuffs, chains, and zip-ties to restrain them, and covered their mouths and eyes with duct tape. Their ears were probably still ringing from the flash-bang.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this safe house is blown,” Jarrod said. “We are leaving.”
“To go where?” I asked.
“Anywhere but here,” Jarrod said.
“We could be driving around for a while,” Ariel said.
DuBois and Williams dragged the ICE officers out into the street while Jarrod and Mikkelford packed up the spare ammo and equipment and put them in the back of the second SUV in the garage.
“Reyes,” I said. “Are you still pissed off about them na
bbing people who may not deserve it?”
“What do you have in mind?” he asked.
We took the keys off the ICE officers and went out to the street where their van was, balaclavas on in case the street cameras picked us up. Mikkelford opened the back to find a family of four (including two children), a couple in their thirties, and three men, all Mexican or Latino. It was entirely possible, even likely, that some of the men had committed felonies, might be drug dealers or gang members, or they might have just had a parking ticket, but the children and most likely their mothers were innocents here. We cut the zip-ties that bound their wrists.
“Eres libre de irte,” Reyes said. “Vamonos.”
They thanked us and ran off into the night. Mikkelford fist-bumped me and Reyes. Did they think I was one of them now? Sod that!
The two black SUVs drove out of the garage. Reyes and I got into the one with Julia and Hamid in the backseat. Ariel was driving. I was glad Jarrod was in the other one with the rest of the Interzone gang.
“We have your friend Benjamin to thank,” Jarrod said on the radio. “When we can understand what the hell he’s saying, anyway. He was the one who spotted the ICE team heading our way, with his satellite drones.”
“We ought to buy us some of those,” Williams said.
“Damn straight,” DuBois said. “We got the budget for it.”
“I’ll put in a request when this is over,” Jarrod said.
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