by Dan O'Shea
And so al Din struck out on his own. Sometimes, what was needed was a bus full of dead Jews – any bus, any Jews. But sometimes someone – Hezbollah, the Syrians, Iran – wanted one man dead. A well-guarded man. Or they wanted a secure, high-value target destroyed. And when they did, they hired al Din. And they paid al Din. When the New Mexico plan was designed, al Din had been the clear choice.
“Legend?” al Din said. “The Koran also says that he who has in his heart the weight of an atom of pride shall not enter Paradise. In the wisdom of my age, I now reject the legend of my youth and would be only Allah’s anonymous servant, who works for his wage alone, not his pride.”
Javadi shook his head. “The infidels claim that the devil can quote their Bible for his own purposes. I fear you do the same with our Holy Koran.”
“Payment within twenty-four hours to the account designated,” said al Din. “Those were the terms. Those always have been the terms. I cannot bring Stein back to life, or Heinz, but I have your devices, and I will not deploy them until I have been paid.”
They walked for a while in silence. The brutal cold from a few days before had abated, but the wind was still strong and out of the north, traveling the full length of the lake and driving tall waves into the breakwater along the edge of the path so that a cold spray flew into their faces. It was uncomfortable, but except for one solitary runner who had passed a few minutes earlier, it meant they were alone. And with the wind and spray there could be no audio surveillance.
“Recent events require postponing the final phase of the New Mexico project anyway,” said Javadi. “Stein’s death was meant to ensure the safe sale of a shipment of diamonds that were to recoup for us what we have spent funding this operation. Once we had the diamonds, we were going to arrange their liquidation in circles monitored by Mossad, circles with established ties to our Al Qaeda friends. The funds from that transaction would replenish the accounts out of which Heinz was paid, accounts we have always maintained through contacts with ties to Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda assets on our payroll then would release the appropriate celebratory videos to Al Jazeera.”
“So you wish to give Al Qaeda credit for an Iranian operation?”
Javadi nodded. “The act itself is immaterial. It is the credit for the act that matters. Historically, the Americans are not a patient people. That they have spent more than a decade in Iraq and Afghanistan is a testament to how violently they can react if properly motivated. But now they intend to take their troops and go home. They have already left Iraq, and have a deadline for leaving Afghanistan. Even the American puppet Karzai is calling for them to leave. But leaving will free up both their political and military resources to focus on Iran. This is not attention we desire. Every piece of evidence associated with the New Mexico project will point to Al Qaeda and to Waziristan. After this act, the Americans will not only stay in Afghanistan, but they will double or triple their presence. They will force Pakistan to invade the tribal areas, may even invade them themselves. That will either topple the American puppet regime in Islamabad or force the Americans to send even more troops to prop it up. India, of course, will take advantage of Pakistan’s troubles to press their interests in the region. America will have to spend billions, and will be so busy with Kabul, Islamabad, and Delhi that they will have no time for Tehran. Meanwhile, in two years, perhaps less, we will be ready to strike at Israel. The Americans know we have no weapons that can reach them at home. But if we can keep a few hundred thousand American troops in Afghanistan, the Americans will also know that if they strike back for the Jews, those troops will be consumed in Allah’s fire.”
Al Din said nothing for a moment, digesting this information. “Such grand designs,” he said finally, “and you cannot pay this poor workman his wages?”
Javadi waved his hand as if al Din’s comments were without consequence. “This business with the diamonds, it should already have been completed. Your payment, being part of the New Mexico project, was to come from those funds. Alas, it seems that Stein and his Mossad compatriots are not the only ones with a taste for Al Qaeda’s diamonds. The fools in Sierra Leone allowed the entire shipment to be stolen. By this man.” Javadi pulled a picture and an envelope from his pocket and handed them to al Din.
Al Din looked at the picture of Hardin. “He was with Stein, the night I killed him.”
“Trying to sell the diamonds, no doubt,” said Javadi. “His name is Nicholas Hardin. His dossier is in the envelope. He needs a new buyer. Find this Hardin, retrieve the diamonds, and kill him.”
“Yet another mission, but you still have not paid me for the last two.”
“The diamonds are valued at more than 150 million US dollars. Tehran feels a finder’s fee of five percent would be appropriate.”
“Al Din feels a finder’s fee of ten percent would be more appropriate.”
“Which is exactly what I told our masters,” agreed Javadi.
“In addition, of course, to what I am already owed.”
“Of course.”
They turned back toward the campus, the wind now at their backs, walking in silence for a time.
It had never been al Din’s goal to serve Allah, or, for that matter, Tehran. It was his goal to serve al Din. This new assignment – Tehran expected him to retrieve a huge fortune and return it to them in exchange for a small one. Yet even that small fortune, added to the accounts al Din already had secreted around the world, would mean that he would no longer have to serve the ridiculous whims of his Islamic masters. Instead, he could serve his own appetites.
But he would be serving them in a dangerous world. On 9/11, the Americans were enraged by an attack that, in truth, destroyed more real estate than human life. A mere three thousand dead, and yet one could measure America’s rage in a decade of governments overthrown, countries occupied, hundreds of thousands killed. How would America’s rage be measured when the streets of Chicago were littered with ten times as many dead?
Tehran intended to pay al Din from the Al Qaeda accounts. That meant that the money trail from the New Mexico project would end with al Din, not with Tehran. Al Din’s methods for receiving payment were carefully structured to protect his anonymity, but only a fool considered any method perfect. If there was one thing the Americans understood better than anyone else in the world, it was money.
Al Din decided. He would proceed, but he would maintain control. He would deploy the devices, but only he could decide when or if to set them off. He would secure these diamonds, and then he would decide when and to whom he would sell them. Options and leverage. That is not what he would say to Javadi, of course.
“Agreed,” al Din said.
As they neared the campus, Javadi spoke.
“I understand that you killed the good Dr Heinz with a stone?”
“Yes.”
“How fitting. Like Goliath, seemingly invincible, yet felled with a simple stone. As soon will be these Americans, who imagine they can impose their will on Allah’s people. When all is in place our devices will kill them in their tens of thousands, and with weapons almost as simple as a stone.”
Al Din left Javari to wax poetic about his vengeful religious visions. Instead, he took one more look at the picture before pushing it back into the envelope.
Paradise awaited. Not in the next life, but in this. First, however, this Nick Hardin must die.
CHAPTER 14
Hardin had just walked into the garage, popped the trunk to the rental, and dropped his duffle inside when he heard a car stop behind him. He slammed the trunk shut and turned around. A skinny guy in a blue Adidas tracksuit got out of the back seat of a black Grand Marquis holding a 9mm Glock down along his right leg.
“Take your coat off a second, Hardin.”
They knew his name. Great. Hardin had no play. He slipped off the jacket.
“Turn around once for me.”
Hardin did a slow circle.
“You ain’t packing some little sissy gun somewhere, are you?”
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br /> “No,” said Hardin.
The guy moved away from the door and nodded his head at the back seat. “Get in and slide over. Somebody wants to have a chat.”
Hardin got in, scooting over behind the driver. The driver was a hugely fat man wearing some kind of velour pullover. The skinny guy got in on the passenger side and shut the door, staying away from Hardin, holding the gun on him across his lap.
“Let’s go, Beans,” he said.
The fat man drove the car out the Madison Street entrance, took a left down to Lake Shore Drive, and then headed south. As he cleared the garage, he pulled his cell phone, hit one button. “We’re clear, you can turn ’em back on,” he said, and put the phone away.
Nobody said anything. They drove past Grant Park to the museum campus, took a curve at Roosevelt then south again past Soldiers Field; McCormick Place sliding by between them and the lake. The driver stayed in the right lane, keeping the car right at fifty, cars flying past on the left. These guys didn’t look like Hezbollah. They looked more like something out of a Sopranos episode. And this chat the guy talked about, Hardin had a bad feeling he’d already had all the chat he was going to get.
“This about the diamonds?” said Hardin, trying to find an angle.
“Shut the fuck up,” said the fat man.
“Just drive the damn car, Beans,” said the skinny guy.
Hardin heard a squishy burble from the fat guy, and then the odor hit him.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Beans,” said the skinny guy.
They kept heading south, past the Museum of Science and Industry, Lake Shore Drive turning into South Shore drive, heading down toward the abandoned US Steel plant. The fat guy farted again. The skinny guy cracked his window.
“Mind if I open this side?” said Hardin.
“Shut up,” said the skinny guy.
“So you aren’t after the diamonds,” said Hardin.
The skinny guy didn’t say anything.
Finally the skinny guy said, “Tell me about these diamonds.”
“Better than $150 million in uncut stones. Gotta be about the diamonds,” said Hardin.
The fat guy turned his head. “Don’t listen to this guy’s bullshit, Snakes.”
“Shut up, Beans,” snapped the skinny guy. “There’s a reason I’m riding in the back and you’re driving. It’s cause your colon works a hell of a lot harder than your brains. Just drive the fucking car.”
The skinny guy twitched the gun at Hardin. “Some reason I should believe you ain’t full of shit?”
Hardin shrugged. “From the smell of things, there’s only one guy in this car who’s full of shit.”
Skinny guy snorted. The fat guy turned his head. “You ain’t gonna be so funny in a few minutes, asshole.”
Hardin said, “I’m going to get something out of my coat, so don’t get excited, OK?” Hardin had maybe five grand of his cash in an envelope in his inside jacket pocket.
Skinny guy lifted the gun up a little. “Slow and easy.”
Hardin nodded. He shifted his hips so he was facing the skinny guy, and then he slipped his hand in his coat, grabbing the envelope and the Air France ballpoint he’d pocketed on the flight over. He dropped the envelope on the seat between him and the skinny guy, top down, so the money spilled out.
The skinny guy’s eyes tracked down to the cash, the gun leaning a little away from Hardin.
Hardin did two things. He shot his left hand out and clamped it down on the barrel of the pistol, pushing it away. With his right hand, he backhanded the Air France pen into the skinny guy’s trachea. The pen went in deep.
Skinny pulled the trigger, putting a bullet through the back of the passenger seat and into the dashboard, blowing up the radio. Skinny tried to hold on to the gun, but his mind was on getting some oxygen, which wasn’t going so well, what with a pen through his windpipe and blood running down into his lungs.
Hardin twisted the gun out of Skinny’s hand and slammed it hard against his forehead. Skinny slumped against the passenger door, a little blood bubbling out around the pen in his throat.
The fat guy was squirming, trying to drive the car with one hand and pull a gun off his belt with the other, but his gut was in the way. Hardin put the Glock to the back of the fat man’s head.
“OK, Beans. Get the piece out real easy and hand it back here.”
The fat man worked the gun loose and handed it back to Hardin.
They were coming up on 86th Street, where it cut across the railroad tracks and onto the old US Steel property.
“Turn in there,” said Hardin. “Looks like we’re going to have that chat after all.”
“OK,” said Beans.
“And if you fart again, I’m gonna kill you.”
Hardin had the fat man park the car behind a pile of rubble most of the way down toward the lake. The whole US Steel plant was gone, ripped down, nothing but gravel, weeds and empty concrete slabs. Hard to believe. Hardin had an uncle who had worked at US Steel back in the Seventies. He remembered going down to the plant, the sprawling parking lot full of Oldsmobiles and Chevys. Dirty, hulking buildings puking gray-black smoke out over the lake. Clanging noises, thudding noises, the big-ass ore ships in the channels at the south end, and everywhere slope-shouldered men with meaty faces in dirty coveralls. Now it was just a flat expanse, grass poking up through the stone and rubble. It was like the civilization that needed the steel had been gone a thousand years.
Hardin nudged the Glock into the back of the fat man’s head. “Gimme the keys,” said Hardin.
The fat man tossed the keys onto the back seat. Hardin put them in his pocket.
“Give me the phone, too.”
The fat man unclipped the phone off his belt and handed it to Hardin as well.
“Get out of the car, go around the front and get your buddy off the back seat,” Hardin said.
The fat man climbed out, went around the hood to the passenger side. When he had most of the car between them, Hardin got out, too, keeping the Glock on the fat man as he opened the rear passenger door, grabbed the skinny guy by his track jacket and dumped him out on the gravel. There was a little gasp out of Skinny when he hit the ground.
“Jesus,” said the fat man. “He still alive?”
Hardin came around the back of the car, circling wide, keeping a good five yards between him and the fat man. Hardin looked down at Skinny. Looked dead to him. Probably just some left-over air forced out of his lungs when he hit the ground.
“If he’s alive, he’ll get over it,” Hardin said. “He’s got a phone on him somewhere. Get it.”
The fat man went through the skinny guy’s tracksuit, found the phone, and tossed it to Hardin. Hardin wiggled the gun at the fat man, and then pointed it at the pile of rubble.
“Let’s head over there.”
As soon as the fat man turned, Hardin took three quick steps and kicked him hard behind the left knee, buckling his leg, and then put the sole of his foot against the fat man’s ass, shoving him face down on the ground. Guy seemed docile enough, but at his size, if he got a hold of you, it was all over. Hardin wanted him on the ground. Big as he was, it would take the fat man a week or so to get to his feet – plenty of time to shoot him.
“What the fuck you do that for?” said the fat man, rolling over to sit on the ground.
“Shut up,” said Hardin.
Hardin stuck one of the pistols in his belt, stuffed the other one in his jacket pocket. He walked over to the rubble pile and picked up a fist-sized rock.
“So, who you working for?” asked Hardin.
“I can’t tell you that,” said the fat man.
Hardin took a short wind up and zipped the rock off the fat man’s right thigh.
“God!” the fat man shouted.
Hardin grabbed another rock. “So, who you working for?”
“They’ll fucking kill me,” the fat man whined.
Hardin threw the rock into the fat man’s gut. “Been in Africa a long
time,” said Hardin. “Don’t play much ball over there, so it will take a while to get loose Seen this done, though. Get up in northern Nigeria where they’re big on Sharia law and they’re always stoning someone to death. Usually some skinny-assed chick they think’s been sleeping around. Even then, it takes a while. Don’t know what your boss has planned for you, but this,” Hardin grabbed another rock and hit the fat man in the chest, a little harder this time, “this is one nasty fucking way to go. Big guy like you, I’m gonna get through most of this pile.”
The fat man started crying.
Hardin didn’t want to do any real damage, at least not yet, but he had to make sure he had the guy’s attention. He found a smaller rock and bounced it off the side of the fat man’s head, opening up a decent gash. The blood started flowing down the fat man’s face and onto his shirt. The fat man put a hand to his head, and then looked at the blood on it.
“Corsco,” he blubbered. “Tony Corsco.”
“Who’s that?” asked Hardin.
Fat man looked up, stopped blubbering. “What do you mean who’s that?”
“I’m not from around here, asshole. Who the fuck is this Corsco?” Hardin bounced another rock of the fat man’s leg.
“Ouch! Fuck, knock that off! I’m fucking talking, OK? He’s the boss – Chicago, Milwaukee, St Louis, the whole Midwest.”
“Boss like mob boss?
“Yeah. What the fuck did you think?”
Not that, thought Hardin. “So what’s he want with me?”
“He wants you dead. That’s all I know. Gave me and Snake the picture, told us your car was in the garage there, told us to take you out.”
“What picture?”
The fat man pulled a sheet of paper out of his shirt pocket, unfolded it, held it up. Picture of Hardin at the rental counter at O’Hare. And they’d been waiting when he got to the garage – which meant they’d been looking for him since before the Oprah show aired.