One Rough Man

by Brad Taylor

  “What’re you looking at?”

  “Uh . . . nothing. I was just surprised to see you without those Arab rags on.”

  “Well, speaking of Arabs, have you thought about what we talked about earlier?”

  And she’s crazy.... What is it with her family and conspiracy theories?

  “Man, you’re like a dog with a bone. I told you I’d think about it, but we can’t do anything until we get to the U.S. anyway. Let’s focus on that right now.”

  “I found something in the shirt. A bunch of e-mail addresses and passwords. I think we need to tell someone sooner rather than later. They may have already robbed the temple and smuggled out the artifacts.”

  I paused, torn because I wanted to stomp this latest request, but intrigued by the find.

  “How many addresses?”

  I knew that terrorists used hundreds of e-mail addresses to communicate, a move and countermove continually fought between intelligence agencies and Al Qaeda. AQ switched addresses so frequently it made me wonder how they knew which ones to use, but somehow they did.

  “Six different addresses, with six different passwords.”

  “Well, that will be something we want to turn over to whoever we talk to in the States. When we get there.”

  “Pike, please, I think this is important. We need to tell someone now. Can’t we go to the U.S. embassy? Won’t they do something with it?”

  I shook my head. “Unfortunately, no. They would listen to us, but they wouldn’t do anything with the information. It’d be put into some report and buried in a ton of other information. You wouldn’t believe the amount of reports that embassies get on crime and terrorism. We’ll get quicker action by flying to the States first.”

  I could tell she didn’t believe what I’d said. “Nobody in the embassy deals with crime? Who gets called when an American citizen is a victim of something?”

  “The legal attaché. He’s the representative of the FBI at the embassy, and if we go to him, he’s going to be more concerned with the death and destruction we’ve done than any story of a temple vandalism. They’d listen to us for about five seconds. Then they’d put us in handcuffs. Remember, we don’t have any proof of what you think. The only thing we have in concrete is that I’ve killed folks both in the U.S. and in Guatemala. Going to them isn’t going to get the action you want. It’s just going to get us in trouble.”

  “Well, couldn’t we talk to the CIA? Wouldn’t they listen to us?”

  “Jennifer, trust me on this. I have a lot of experience working with country teams. We wouldn’t even get in to see the CIA. They won’t have a sign out front saying, ‘Spying Done Two Doors Down.’ They aren’t acknowledged publicly. If we went to the embassy and said, ‘We’d like to talk to the head spy,’ we’d be shown the door.”

  “Look, how about this? We go to an Internet café and check out these e-mail addresses. If we see something in them that leans toward some type of illegal activity, we take that to the embassy. How does that sound?”

  I gave up. “Okay, fine. We’re safe here. We can either take some time out walking the beaches and seeing the sights, or we can waste our time trying to figure out this giant conspiracy theory. First can we get some lunch?”

  “Sure. I’m hungry.”

  We practically ran to the first taco stand Jennifer could find, where I watched her suck down fish tacos like she was in some kind of competition. We finished in fifteen minutes, with Jennifer tapping her foot while I paid the bill. A little later, we found a tourist store with two ancient computers in the back. For the small price of twelve U.S. dollars per five minutes, we were allowed access. Sitting down, Jennifer went to the first e-mail account listed, at Yahoo.com. Putting in the password, we saw that the account was empty. Looking in the sent file, Jennifer saw one entry. She clicked on it, pulling it up.

  “Look! It’s in Arabic! This account is used by the guys staying at Miguel’s.”

  “Great. We already know they’re Arabs. All this proves is that they’re e-mailing their family to tell them what they bought as tourists.”

  “Hang on, let me check the other accounts.”

  She did so but found nothing else. Every other account was empty. Okay. Maybe she’ll let this go now.

  She began typing on the computer, pulling up the Google search engine.

  “What’re you doing now?”

  “I’m going to try and translate the Arabic. I have to do this kind of research all the time at school. I’ve never translated anything before, but trust me, there’s a Web site that’ll tell us what this says.”

  Jesus Christ. Stick a fork in it and call it done. “Come on. This is getting ridiculous.”

  “Just a second. We paid for five minutes. Let’s use it.”

  She found a dozen translation sites and clicked on the first one that came up. Copying the Arabic from the Yahoo! mail, she pasted it into the translation box, then clicked on the “GO” button. We sat and waited for the slow Internet connection to work. Eventually, it timed out. She went back to the Google search page and clicked on the next one, trying again. Before this one timed out, it presented the translation of the Arabic text.

  Jennifer, clearly disappointed, said, “Looks like you’re right. A drunk must’ve sent this message. Let’s go.”

  The pasted Arabic had turned into a translation in English, reading:

  Praise be to Allah, peace and prayers be upon the Prophet of God. Trip took our rotary [for good]. We have sight to the enemy hits far in country his. We established weapon that the Zionist inside the searching will wipe the poison he causes the enemy far to the Persians destroy. In Allah’s name, the Merciful, the Compassionate, we will rejoice in the destruction from all [[‘iynfydls]], Hope responds with blessing to new task, or says us the path to takes.

  I stared at the screen. I’ll be damned. She found something.

  49

  Jennifer said, “What? What’re you looking at?”

  “We need to print this and the original Arabic. Don’t say anything else in here. We’ll talk back at the room.”

  Jennifer was about to respond when I cut her off, looking at the woman manning the trinket counter. “Please, I know it sounds paranoid, but I’d rather do this somewhere else.”

  She printed both pages and we left, returning to the hotel. Along the way, I told Jennifer what I thought.

  “It looked like a drunk had written the passage because it’s a free Internet translation. Basically, it’s a cheap-ass computer giving you exactly what it sees. The point of those things is to get you to buy a better translation. It’s like you said, ‘Last one home is a rotten egg,’ and that was translated into Arabic as ‘The long dead dropping from the bird is owned by the man who has the last house.’ We don’t know what idioms they used that the computer doesn’t understand, but the direct translation says some things that support the fact that those guys are up to no good.”

  “Really?” Jennifer looked at me in surprise. “What did you see?”

  “Let’s get back to the hotel and I’ll show you.”

  Twenty minutes later we sat at the cheap desk in our room, the translated printout in front of us. I pointed at what I had seen. “Look, ignoring the bad grammar, you find the following words: weapon, Zionist, Persians, destroy, and infidels. On top of that, you’ve got all the “Praise Allah” stuff. I’m starting to believe your crazy theory. At the least, I’m starting to believe that there might be some terrorists, and they believe your theory.”

  “Terrorists? Seriously? What do you make of the translation? Can you figure anything out from it?”

  “Well, taking it at face value, I can make some assumptions. Rearranging it a little bit we get something that appears a little clearer.” Working with the translation, I ended up with:

  Trip took our rotary [for good] (No Idea). We have sight to the enemy hits far in country his. (We have the sight to hit the far enemy in his country). We established weapon that the Zionist inside the search
ing will wipe the poison he causes the enemy far to the Persians destroy. (We have a poison weapon that the Zionists were searching for which will cause the far enemy to destroy the Persians.) In Allah’s name, the Merciful, the Compassionate, we will rejoice in the destruction from all [[‘iynfydls]., (Praise Allah, we will rejoice in the destruction of all infidels.) Hope responds with blessing to new task, or says us the path to takes. (We hope you respond blessing our new task, or tell us the path to take.)

  Putting it together, I came up with:

  Praise be to Allah, peace and prayers be upon the Prophet of God. We have the sight to hit the far enemy in his country. We have a poison weapon that the Zionists were searching for which will cause the far enemy to destroy the Persians. In Allah’s name, the Merciful, the Compassionate, we will rejoice in the destruction of all infidels. We hope you respond blessing our new task, or tell us the path to take.

  Jennifer read it, asking, “I don’t get it. Who’s the far enemy? Jewish people?”

  “We’re the far enemy. It’s what Al Qaeda calls the United States and anyone who supports us. Basically, the West.”

  “So this is saying that they’re going to attack us? What’s the Zionist-Persian thing?”

  “Zionists in Arabic would translate into Israelis. Persians are Iranians. Looking at what I came up with, I’m sure it’s not right. There’s no way that the Israelis are looking for a Mayan poison weapon.” I paused, thinking, “Unless your uncle was Jewish. They could mean that he was looking for it. Was he Jewish?”

  Jennifer shook her head. “No. If anything, he was atheist. I don’t have any Jewish relatives as far as I know. What’s up with all the ‘Praise Allah’ stuff? It sounds fake, like someone stereotyping an Arab. Do they really talk like that?”

  “Not every Arab, but devout Muslims do—which by definition, a jihadist is. All those guys use about ten sentences for every one that means anything. You can’t ask them the time of day without them spouting off four sentences kissing Allah’s ass before they look at their watch.”

  I pushed back from the table. “Okay. I think we ought to stick with what we know out of the message. The fact that they mention kicking Persian ass means they’re probably not supported by Iran. That knocks out Hezbollah and the Shiites, and since they talk about the far enemy, they probably believe in the doctrine of Al Qaeda. So . . . I’d say they’re Sunni Arabs affiliated with Al Qaeda. They’re also asking for a blessing on the mission, so whatever they’re doing is not what they were sent to do. They’re basically asking permission.”

  I leaned back, putting my hands behind my head. “So, we have a couple of AQ terrorists sent to Guatemala to do some sort of evil activity, who then got sidetracked by the story of the weapon, and are now trying to get the weapon to do something horrible against the U.S., the Israelis, the Iranians, or all three.”

  Jennifer halfway nodded. “Okay. What do we do now? Go to the embassy or wait until we get to the U.S.?”

  “Well, I think we should try the embassy. I think I can get us in to the CIA. If not, we can always fly home. The key will be talking to the Agency. They’ll be the only shop that won’t care about the path of destruction we’ve left in our wake. Sound good?”

  “I thought you said we couldn’t find the CIA.”

  “I’m not saying it’ll work. But I know how embassies operate, and how to find the CIA in the maze. If we get to the right guy, and I can get him to send a cable to headquarters, I can guarantee that the cable will be read.”

  “Okay. If you say so. What do we do now?”

  “We take the first bus out of here to Belmopan. That’s where the embassy is. I’ve been there a few times.”

  The shadows created by the dropping sun told me we weren’t going anywhere today. I looked at my watch. “It’s past seven now, so we’ve probably missed the last bus, but we can check the schedule for tomorrow.”

  She didn’t look convinced but followed me out the door. Before I could lock it, Jennifer backed into me, her face ashen.

  “The asshole that kidnapped me is in the lobby. He’s talking to the clerk.”

  50

  The hotel had only six rooms. A simple establishment built around an old colonial house, it had a balcony that extended out past our room and overlooked the front desk, with stairwells coming up left and right to our floor. Looking down I saw a Caucasian and a native discussing something with the clerk. The clerk pointed in our direction, and before I could move, the men were looking right at Jennifer and me. Time froze for a fraction of a second. Jennifer broke it, racing down the hallway toward the access to the roof veranda. The men immediately sprang into action, taking the far stairwell to cut her off.

  Shit.

  It wasn’t the course of action I would have chosen, but I didn’t bother yelling. Too late for that. Jennifer had committed us, and I had no choice but to follow, although going to the roof was possibly the worst choice. We couldn’t jump off a three-story building.

  We raced up the small stairwell and broke out onto the roof. I slammed the door shut and jammed a deck chair up against it. Jennifer kept going to the railing, looking down. I surveyed the area, determining what I had to fight with, which was pretty much nothing. We were on a small ten-foot-by-ten-foot veranda. No weapons, no room to dodge and fight two men.

  Jennifer shouted over her shoulder, “You can climb down this, can’t you? You’ve had some type of badass commando training, right?”

  I couldn’t believe how stupid that question was.

  “Yeah, I can, but I sure as shit can’t do it with you on my back. Get over here in the corner and stay down.”

  Jennifer bent down and tore off her sandals, throwing them over the side, followed by the knapsack she was using as a purse. “Don’t worry about me.”

  Before I could stop her, she vaulted the balcony and disappeared. I ran over to the railing. Jennifer was already at the second level and scampering down the building like a monkey.

  I was about to vault the railing myself when I heard the men hammer the door from the inside. The deck chair gave a foot. There was no way I could make it to the bottom before they reached the rail, and I’d be an easy target. I raced back, stopping on the side of the foot-long crack held in place by the deck chair, waiting on the men to break through.

  They hammered the door twice more, finally causing the deck chair to fly off. The first man ran out with his pistol extended in one hand, breaking into the darkness of the deck and silhouetted by the light of the stairwell.

  As soon as he was clear of the door, I grabbed the hand holding his pistol and used his own momentum to slingshot him up and over the railing of the deck, letting him fall the forty feet below. Turning, I saw the second man, the Caucasian, coming through the door, pistol at the ready. The sudden darkness from the light of the stairwell gave me an edge, as the man searched the gloom for a target he couldn’t yet see. I kicked out hard and launched his pistol over the railing.

  The force of the kick caused me to rotate slightly, getting rid of the immediate threat but exposing me to a counterassault. He wasted no time, giving me a roundhouse kick to my upper thigh that damn near crippled me. I went to a knee, collapsing my arms around my head to protect it. He followed with a snap-kick. My arms absorbed the blow, but it knocked me over. Hitting my back, I saw him close in for the kill, my position vulnerable for an endgame. I rose up on my arms like a crab and lashed out for his nearest leg with my foot, forcing him to back up and allowing me to regain my base. Back on my feet, we circled each other.

  “I’m glad you got rid of the weapon,” he said. “I’d rather beat you to death for the trouble you’ve caused. You should have hidden the Suburban. Not too many ways to go on that highway.”

  English accent. I said nothing, simply watching his technique. He had his hands raised chin high, balled into fists with his palms facing the ground. He bounced lightly on his feet, alternating between right and left, with one always poised to snap out and strike. A Muay T
hai stance, so he had some training. But Muay Thai’s a stand-up game. Get his ass on the ground, and he’s mine.

  He continued. “Where’d the little honey go? I’m looking forward to spending a little time with her. Once I get rid of you, she and I are going to get very well acquainted.”

  I ignored his banter, wondering why he wasn’t forcing the fight. It dawned on me what he was doing. He’s stalling. He’s got backup on the way. No time to fuck around.

  I waited for him to dance forward again, then shot inside his striking range, blocking a palm strike and following up with a right cross to the side of his head. I clinched him, grabbing his left biceps and controlling that arm, but before I could get my head into his chest he clocked me with a wicked elbow from the right, hammering right above my eye and causing an explosion of my vision. The blow broke the weak dam holding my blackness back, letting the beast loose. I now no longer wanted to escape. I wanted to destroy. I collapsed into him, protecting my head by pressing into his chest and completing the clinch. He gave me a useless blow to my back, and I was where I wanted to be.

  I stretched my lower body back and drilled my knee into his inner thigh, hitting the tangle of nerves there, causing him to jerk in an attempt to escape. He raised his knee to attempt the same on me, but I was twisted away from the strike and waiting. I grabbed underneath the raised knee and launched forward with all of my might. He instinctively rotated to absorb the fall with his upper body, and I obliged, driving him full-force into the deck.

  I ended up on his back in a rear-mount, his body facing the deck, the most vulnerable position I could ever imagine. He continued to fight furiously, trying to achieve dominance, but he had little skill on the ground. I pinned his arms with my legs and wrapped my right arm around his head, putting his forehead in the crook of my elbow and locking my hands together. Good night, asshole.