by Dan O'Shea
Hardin flicked off the radio. “Seems a little worked up,” he said.
“Yeah,” she answered.
“That make any sense to you?”
“The immigration stuff? That’s just right-wing radio noise. But the other stuff, tying Al Qaeda and the cartels together? Even that fat-ass whack job wouldn’t make that up. That came out of somebody on Hickman’s team. Somebody fed him that story.”
They drove for a minute, radio off, tires humming on the pavement. “Something doesn’t add up,” Wilson said. “We know they want to keep this thing quiet, that’s why they haven’t gone public on us. But somebody’s got America’s favorite dickhead bloviating about it on the radio. If they want to sweep it under the rug, why raise the profile on the whole mess?”
Quiet for a minute, passing by a pasture full of Holsteins.
“We queered their play,” Hardin said. “They were supposed to have me in the bag last night. Me and the diamonds. Would have given them all the window dressing they needed on the Al Qaeda front. Probably leaked this BS ahead of time. A little public positioning to back their play on the cartels. Question is who’s doing the leaking? That Hickman guy, you think?”
Wilson shook her head. “He might be the mouthpiece, but this feels a little above his pay grade. That last meeting we had, there were some mysterious DC suits in the room, and all of a sudden we got the DEA and the FBI playing kissy face, coordinated raid to grab you, lots of background on money movement everywhere from Switzerland to Vanuatu. That wasn’t our intel, and I don’t think it was the Feebs’ either. That smelled like Agency.”
“Makes sense,” Hardin said. “If somebody was going to pick up some chatter out of West Africa after I knocked over that load, those would be the guys, them or Mossad.”
“And they’d know who the diamonds belonged to,” said Wilson. “And they know who you are. And they know about Hernandez. So this is their chance to tie all that shit up in one nice, neat package.”
“But without the diamonds, they’ve got no story.”
“And without you, they’ve got no diamonds.”
“And,” Hardin said, “with this BS story already out there, they’re running out of time. I think we just found our lever,” Hardin said.
“Something else to think about, though.”
“What?”
“Who else was shooting back at the condo?” Wilson asked.
“What do you mean?”
“That shit inside?” Wilson said. “Radio said what, two druggies and an old lady dead in the hallway? Who did that?”
Hardin thought for a moment. “Agency maybe? SOG guys?”
“I don’t think so,” Wilson said. “Hickman and whoever is pulling his strings, they were looking to get everything official, had a joint raid task force ready to bust you at Lafitpour’s office. If they’d known you were at my place, they would have had me in a box and they would have had enough shooters in raid jackets running around Downer Grove to invade Iwo Jima. You never would have made it out of the building.”
“Already had the mob after me once,” said Hardin. “Maybe Corsco took another shot, ran into the cartel guys, things went bad?”
“Possible, but Hernandez and Corsco? They have to coordinate shit to run their drug territories, so they’ve got channels, they talk. Seems like they would have talked about this.”
“That leaves Al Qaeda. I did steal their diamonds.”
Wilson’s face went still. “Ah shit. The guy from the briefing.”
“What guy?”
“Quick slide they threw up on the screen, some Al Qaeda hotshot. Husam something. I kinda lost focus there for a second, after they announced they were set to bag you.”
“Al Din?”
“Yeah, Husam al Din.”
Long exhale out of Hardin. “Fuck.”
“You’ve heard of him?”
Hardin nodded. “In the Legion. If the DGSE needed muscle in Africa, my unit was usually it. So I played ball with them a bit. Some after I was out, too. This al Din guy, he’s the best the Al Qaeda types have. If that was him up in your hallway, I’m glad we weren’t there.”
Wilson sighed, sank down in her seat a little, a long look out the window. She talked without turning her head. “So we’re dodging a drug cartel, the mob, the cops, the Feds, and some hot-shot terrorist guy.” Wilson said.
“Don’t forget the mysterious suits,” Hardin answered. “Somebody’s playing the man behind the curtain. Whoever the Great and Terrible Oz is, he may well be our biggest problem. But he’s also probably the guy who might want to buy our lever.” Hardin flicked back on the radio, scanned looking for some music. “We should be back in Chicago in a couple hours.”
“There’s no place like home,” said Wilson. “There’s no place like home.”
“Screwing you, my friend?” Fouche shouting into a phone somewhere across the Atlantic.
Hardin and Wilson were heading west on 90 toward Elgin, big enough town, not one either of them had ties to, close enough to Chicago to operate, far enough out to keep some of the eyes off of them. Hardin put a call in to Fouche to see if he could reopen channels with the other side.
“Screwing you?” Fouche’s voice still raised, but calming down a little. “A day ago, I’m expecting my cut on this deal. Now I’ve got the Russians I roped in making angry Russian noises. And these are the wrong sorts of Russians, those Eastern Promises types, gonna show up in the sauna, cut my schlong off for me. And you wanna know am I screwing you?”
“Sorry, man,” said Hardin. Reaction he needed. He knew Fouche. If Fouche had played it cool, Hardin would know something was up. “But I had to ask, you know? And I’m getting a little short-tempered over here myself. Second time in a couple of days I’ve had somebody trying to kill me.”
“Somebody’s trying to screw you, it’s that fucker Lafitpour,” said Fouche. “Maybe you should pay him a visit.”
“I already know about Lafitpour,” Hardin said. “But he’s fronting for somebody. I need to know who. I want you to get back to him, tell him I know he tried to fuck me over. Tell him I know he’s playing ball with somebody at Langley or thereabouts. Tell him that’s a nice story they’re selling, this drugs and terrorists bullshit. Tell him I got no problem with that, I love a good story. Tell him I get my money and get out, they can tell whatever story they want. But if I don’t, and quick, then I’m gonna start telling my own story.”
Pause on the line, some transatlantic hum filling the void.
“Drugs and terrorists?” Fouche said. “You want to fill me in here?”
Hardin gave him the quick version.
“So you have some leverage,” said Faust.
“Yep,” said Hardin.
“You don’t mind, then, if I look to move that ten million figure a little, bump up both our ends.”
“Don’t mind at all. Oh, and Pierre?”
“Yeah?”
“Since this is supposed to be some cartel-and-terrorist circus now, if they need some coke, you know, to lend a little verisimilitude to the enterprise, let them know I’ve got a kilo of Hernandez’s blow.”
CHAPTER 59
Munroe admired the view across Adams Street from Lafitpour’s office in the Rookery Building. “Burnham designed this place,” Munroe said. “Pretty revolutionary in its time. Metal framing, elevators. One of the first high-rises, the start of the great architectural Renaissance after the Chicago fire.”
“Who’s Burnham?” asked Hickman.
“The man who was quoted as saying ‘Make no small plans, they have no magic to stir men’s blood,’” answered Lafitpour. “Large or small, however, we need plans. Hardin’s Frenchman has been back in contact.”
“Then I guess we’re in the right place,” Munroe said. “What did Fouche want?”
“Recent events have emboldened our fugitives. Between the rather colorful news coverage and the desultory effort being made to pursue them, they have discerned our plans, at least in broad outline.
Hardin knows we need him and his diamonds to make it work. Fouche says that Hardin is happy to play along, but he is having some trust issues.”
“I’d be having some myself,” said Munroe. “We can always buy a little trust. Everything has its price.”
“Price was mentioned. They want $25 million now. It seems they also have a kilogram of Hernandez’s cocaine, and they are willing to throw that in.”
“The blow will help,” Munroe said. “Window dressing on the Hernandez side of things. Push back on the number a little. We cave too easy, it’ll smell funny. But settle for whatever you gotta settle for. Just get us a meet. “
“I thought you were tapped out at fifteen,” said Hickman.
“I am,” Lafitpour said.
“Doesn’t matter,” said Munroe. “Comes down to an actual deal, we show up with the $15 million, they’ll take it, trust me. Right now, I just need them somewhere I can get a scope on them.”
“I will get back to Fouche,” said Lafitpour.
Munroe looked at Hickman. Hickman was looking thoughtful.
“What?” Munroe asked.
“It’s Wilson,” said Hickman, “She may have queered us snatching up Hardin, but putting her in the mix really tightens up our story, especially now that we got her toting some blow around.”
“How?” asked Munroe.
“We got their back story now, her and Hardin. Old lovers. That will all check out, anybody digs into it. Now we got him coming out of Africa with the diamonds, not too hard to make the case for an Al Qaeda connection there. And we have her coming out of the DEA with a kilo of coke, so we can make her dirty, tie her to the cartel. Them running around together, that bakes them right into the deal. They end up dead? Hey, bad guys meet up, and it goes to guns. Shit happens.”
Munroe smiled at Hickman. “So we still pin it on Hernandez, but we paint Hardin and Wilson with the dirty brush, take the sympathy card away. I like it. People think they’re with the bad guys, they’ll dig at it less.” Munroe smiled at Lafitpour. “You were right about this guy, Bahram. He’s our kind of people.”
CHAPTER 60
A small line of blood ran down the boy’s forehead, veering left at the bridge of his nose, dripping from the jaw line onto his T-shirt. Al Din tried to place the character on the shirt. Iron Man, that was it. The movie had been heavily promoted. Al Din waited for the woman to stop struggling against the duct tape that held her to the chair, to stop trying to scream through the gag. The girl’s eyes were still open, but she was not moving. Shock, probably. He saw all the resistance go out of the man’s face. Always start with the boy, al Din had learned. Men had this strange willingness to sacrifice their sons. So he always preserved the illusion that they could save their daughters.
Ringwald lived in a large, modern house on a two-acre lot in Highland Park. The house had very good locks and one of the better electronic home protection systems, but the large lot meant that no one could see al Din from the street, and, with time, locks and electronic systems were meaningless. The large lot also meant the neighbors would not hear what happened in the house. Once al Din had defeated the system and the locks, he gathered the family and duct taped them to the four chairs from the kitchen table, arranging them in a semi-circle, Ringwald on his left, then the daughter, then the wife, Ringwald’s son facing him directly from the right.
Of course Ringwald would not answer the questions at first. Al Din did not expect him to. In fact, did not want him to. Al Din wanted an initial token of resistance that he could meet with complete brutality. That would break the man’s will. Then al Din would know that the man spoke the truth. So, once the family was in place, al Din asked a pointless question, allowed Ringwald to say no.
And then al Din shot the young boy through the forehead.
“Completely unnecessary,” he then said, turning to Ringwald. “Now you have killed your son. Are you ready to answer my questions? If not, do I shoot your wife or your daughter next? Really, no one else has to die. Will you answer my questions now?”
Ringwald nodded.
“You are Mr Corsco’s attorney?”
“Yes,” Ringwald said.
“What is his business with Nick Hardin?”
“Hardin used to work in Africa. They had that big charity thing there for Darfur a few years back?”
“I remember,” said al Din.
“He was the guy that punched Shamus Fenn in the face. Fenn knows Corsco pretty well. When he saw Hardin in Chicago, he snapped. He came to Tony to put a hit out on Hardin.”
“Shamus Fenn, the movie actor?” al Din asked.
“Yes,” said Ringwald.
“And he wanted Hardin killed because Hardin hit him in the nose?”
“It screwed up his career,” said Ringwald.
“It has nothing to do with the diamonds?”
“What diamonds? Why does everyone keep asking about diamonds?” Ringwald asked.
There was no pause when al Din asked about the diamonds, no sign of recognition. The man would not lie now.
“What about Hernandez? What is Corsco’s involvement with him?”
“Hardin killed his brother. Years ago. It’s why Hardin left the country. I don’t know why he came back, but Hernandez heard about it. He wanted Tony to help track Hardin down. Which was fine with us. It doesn’t matter how Hardin dies. Fenn would have had to pay off on the contract either way.”
“You said would have had to pay. Because this Fenn overdosed on drugs, he can no longer pay you?”
“Fenn fucked up, went on TV, drew some attention to himself, this whole thing with him and Hardin. The police were talking to him, he was getting nervous. Tony took care of that, cutting his losses.”
“Corsco and Hernandez, they are colleagues?”
Ringwald didn’t answer. He was looking at the boy, his eyes vacant. Al Din tapped him on the head with the barrel of the pistol.
“Focus. While your wife and daughter are still alive. Are Corsco and Hernandez colleagues?”
“No, they pretty much hate each other. Drugs are a minor revenue stream for Corsco, but there are overlaps between his operations and the local cartel distributors. So they have to cooperate to a degree.”
Al Din had what he needed. There was nothing more to learn here. What was the phrase Ringwald had used? Cutting his losses. Al Din liked that phrase. He would have to remember it. It was time to cut his losses.
He shot the woman first. She was an innocent; there was no reason she should have to watch her daughter die. The girl gave no sign she even noticed. Al Din shot her next.
Ringwald was straining against his bonds now, gasping, starting to scream. But not for long.
Al Din shook his head. Corsco wasn’t interested in the diamonds at all, didn’t even know about them. He was hired to kill Hardin because a movie star got punched in the nose. Al Din turned and left without even looking at the corpses taped to the chairs around him. The strange reasons why people had to die no longer surprised him.
CHAPTER 61
Back at the Hilton, Munroe set down a heavy document, took off his glasses and rubbed his nose for a minute. This Heinz guy, the bug herder who’d turned up dead out west, Langley got the goods on him.
A MULTI-VECTOR APPROACH TO BIOLOGICAL WARFARE: DEGRADING PUBLIC HEALTH RESPONSE THROUGH SIMULTANEOUS DISPERSION OF MULTIPLE INFECTIOUS AGENTS by DR MARK HEINZ.
The paper was a couple hundred pages long, full of charts and graphs and some really horrible pictures, but the main point was clear enough.
By dispersing several virulent bugs simultaneously, you could first delay consensus on what agent a target community was dealing with because of the overlap in symptomology among the various diseases and their varying incubation periods. Hospitals would initially report conflicting test results. The community’s ability to respond would be degraded by the sheer number of cases, their diversity, the compounding effects of continuing infections, and the fact that most of their health care workers would likely be
infected with one agent or another by the time they figured out what they were dealing with. Even then, they would be able to treat only a fraction of the infected persons because of the varied list of drugs required, most of which were in limited supply because none of the diseases were common. The paper had several simulations outlining casualty scenarios based on varying delivery vehicles, population densities, and response strategies. Even the most optimistic would lap the body count from 9/11 several times over.
This paper had been Heinz’s big claim to fame down at Fort Dix, and he’d been pretty passionate about it. A little too passionate for some of his peers. He had a rep as a cold fish who was a little too fond of his bugs. Langley had put Heinz through the ringer, run down his old cronies, checked him out. Munroe flipped through the transcripts of the conversations, found a quote that set off some alarm bells in his head:
You have to understand that, for most of us, this job is a non-stop horror show. Every day we’re working on ideas to contain some truly nasty stuff. And we do it so that someday we aren’t in biohazard suits walking through some American town watching people die and knowing there isn’t much we can do about it. But Heinz? You never got that vibe from him. You always got this feeling that, if the shit ever really hit the fan, he’d be trying to wrangle a seat on the first chopper in just so he could watch.