Cold Snap

by J. Clayton Rogers

  Jackson offered a reluctant shrug.

  "That guy killed in Chesterfield worked for a real estate manager specializing in flex property: Stanley and Starr. They have offices all over Greater Richmond, with their own interoffice mail set-up. Somewhere between the offices someone slipped the package into the courier's truck." Mangioni looked around to make certain there were no precinct commanders within earshot. "But there's something weird about it."

  "And what might that be?" Ari politely inquired.

  "The package was delivered over a month before the explosion. The bomb was hidden in a bowling trophy! That's pretty sick. It was some sort of promotional gimmick. The box it came in was opened the day it arrived, and it sat there all that time before going off."

  "That's interesting," Ari agreed. "It would have to be a fairly stable explosive, not that I know anything about such things..."

  "PETN," said Mangioni. "The favorite of shoe bombers, among others. But get this: they traced where it came from. It was old...they can tell, somehow. And they found out someone had dug it up from the Plum Tree Island Natural Wildlife Refuge near Hampton Roads."

  "Is that a bird sanctuary?" Ari inquired.

  "Yeah, plus other swamp things you wouldn't want to meet on the street. The Navy used it as a bombing range way back. It's been closed to target practice for years, but there are tons of unexploded bombs all over the place. Most of it is off limits, now, which means these bombers went out there in the middle of the night to dig up old shells and extract the explosive. That takes some kind of balls."

  "Balls are an American specialty," Ari observed.

  The officers stared at him for a moment before Jackson cleared his throat and asserted, "You got that right."

  "Do you know anything about the victim? I believe his name was Abdul-Wali—which, incidentally, is very curious. That was also the name of an Afghan beaten to death by your CIA."

  "Those spooks are always up to no good," Mangioni said with a shake of his head. "Jackson here applied, but they turned him down as being mentally unstable."

  "I did not!" said Jackson as he turned to watch an ambulance pass.

  "I saw a guy from Chesterfield PD go in," Mangioni said, cocking a thumb in the direction of the orphanage administration center. "Maybe they think there's a connection. But I don't know anything about Abdul. I'm sure the FBI knows more." He gave Ari a wink, on the assumption that they were among his 'connections'. "By the way, you're not still trying to play detective with that missing person, are you?"

  "What?" Jackson whirled to face them.

  "Didn't I tell you? Ari's trying to track down a missing husband for one of his neighbors. Judging from what happened at his party, he might be in over his head."

  "Alas," said Ari with a helpless shrug.

  "Was a report filed? Has anyone contacted NCIC?"

  "That's the National Crime Information Center," Mangioni explained. "You can set up a Missing Person file there."

  Ari flipped up his coat collar. "It must be difficult for the two of you in this cold."

  "Well, I can't whistle Dixie," Jackson snapped.

  Ari bid the two men adieu, determined to look up 'Dixie' in a warmer environment. As he drove back across the river, he plied himself with questions. Had Paul Trinity and Abdul-Wali any inkling of what lay in store for them? If so, was the implied threat Elmore had received, the desecrated G.I. Joe, part of that same pattern? And was Ben Torson being followed so that he could be set up for the same treatment? But what connection could he have with Elmore and Abdul-Wali and Paul Trinity? Or Sung-Soo Rhee? Thinking back on the video he had seen of the murder in Nineveh Province, he grew increasingly doubtful. The killers had been apologetic, almost abject. No mujahideen Ari was familiar with ever slapped his forehead and exclaimed "Oops, my bad." But it had not been a mistake. They had killed a man at the right time in the right place, to the extent that they had even known when his truck would be on that road near Mosul. How had they known?

  And why had that particular video been put on Ari's flash drive? The victim was known, and it would be no stretch for military intelligence to identify men who had voluntarily unmasked themselves. Ari had been indirectly contacted before by someone in the CENTCOM network. Was this the same man or woman? Whether a friend or tormentor, he had no clue. The video from Iraq could be a warning, or a threat.

  Or nothing at all. Just three men happily torching a fourth. Neither the three men nor the victim should have been in Iraq. The killers had arrived in America as children. Ari dismissed Abu Jasim's harsh assessment of their parents, fugitives from Saddam's Iraq—of which Abu Jasim himself was one of the most prominent. Abu Jasim found Christians, Jews and Shia loathsome at worst and misguided at best. And his opinion of Ari himself was pretty low, seeing as he was about as godless as they came. A perfect match for his new home.

  Sayid Mohammed Al-Rafa'ee, Hasan Al-Jamil, Abu ibn Al-Quassim. They had all been about ten years of age when their families fled Iraq, having been foolish enough to follow President Bush's advice to rise up against Saddam. Many others had gone to Saudi Arabia, but nearly 50,000 came to the States. All three families had kept a low profile. Texas, Michigan, Washington State. The SSO was tasked with keeping track of dissident émigrés, and its agents in America had filed reports on a more or less regular basis. The general assessment was that the former dissident journalists had gone from being bland Iraqi citizens to bland naturalized Americans. Abu Jasim's assertion notwithstanding, Ari could not recall anything in their files about them being terrorists—from the Iraqi perspective. But things could change, had changed. The boys were in their mid-twenties. For each, Ari's retentive mind held a blank in excess of ten years.

  The man they had killed in Nineveh Province had a different background. Abu ibn Abd Al-Samad had been a small-time film producer and part-time spy for the Fedayeen Saddam. If he overheard someone say, for example, that "Saddam is the son of a dog", he would report the offense to his superior and then race home for his movie camera. When the Fedayeen arrived, anonymous in their world-famous black uniforms that covered everything but their eyes, Samad would film the torture. This could range from having one's tongue cut out to having lighted dynamite sticks jammed in one's pockets, depending on the severity of the unpatriotic aspersion and the mood of the Fedayeen. This was all performed in the middle of the street, with pedestrians looking on in silent horror. Afterwards, Samad would burn the scene on a disc, make copies and sell them from his little shop in the souk. Independent filmmakers like himself made a killing with atrocity DVDs, purchased by the very same people who had witnessed the event, or many similar to it.

  Ari had last heard of him during the mid-nineties, when he ratted on someone who had influence in the Republican Palace. Iraq had been (and still was) a 'it's-all-who-you-know' type of place, and Samad quickly learned it was time to haul ass for parts unknown, which was what America amounted to. He was later spotted hanging around with the Chaldean Mafia in Detroit, and the SSO decided to leave him be. After all, those thugs were doing more harm to the enemy's infrastructure than Saddam ever did.

  And then, of course, there was the unseen cameraman whose shadow betrayed a long, oddly gentle swoop of the arm that sanctioned burning a man to death.

  Or was that his imagination?

  It was too late to visit Lawson. Ari drove home, donned his jogging togs and set out on his usual route across Westover Hills Boulevard and down Forest Hill Avenue. When he glanced at the river, he could make out, here and there, stretches of the mountain bike trail Grainger's jogging club had used the day before. It was not his fondest memory, but at least today he was not hung-over.

  His destination was the very boat landing where he had been ambushed and nearly killed. When he arrived thirty minutes later he glanced around for any lingering evidence of what had taken place. But the mucosal rawness of the parking lot had absorbed signs of the fight, while the cats had carried off the bits of the assassin unintentionally strewn across
the gravel.

  The cats.

  Ari took out a plastic bag filled with cat chow and sauntered over to the jumble of broken concrete at the edge of the lot. A colony of long standing, the occupants knew every nook and cranny and quickly slid out of sight at Ari's approach. But they were accustomed to the occasional Samaritan and reemerged at his call, coming forward cautiously as he began to distribute food.

  "You're man-eaters now, my little friends," he cooed. "I know this isn't as good as raw human meat, but until the next assassin comes along, it will have to do."

  Having been an assassin himself, Ari immediately reconsidered his words. He saw a large gray cat at the top of the heap.

  "Hector! Come, mighty Hector! I know how courageous you are!"

  But having been used by Ari as a wounding projectile on a previous visit, Hector prudently maintained his distance.

  "Does anyone here need a home?" he announced to the feline assemblage. Some of the cats actually looked up, as though taking heed. "Not a palace, or even a chateau, but with food and heat. You must be freezing your furry nuts off out here! Like me, you are outcasts, adrift in an uncertain and unfriendly world. I know I look as but a lowly Arab...but much of me is Assyrian. What was that? I don't look it? That is what chance has dictated for me. But I am still a handsome devil, don't you think? I am told I look much like the late President Nasser, who could have been a matinee idol. Perhaps he would have done better in Hollywood. Are there any philosophers here? Anyone reborn from The Brethren of Sincerity? You were very esoteric and mysterious. I, too, am esoteric and mysterious. We could hold long dialogues on my gazebo. Won't one of you come to my nice, warm, philosophical home?" He took a step forward and the cats scattered.

  "Idiots!" he shouted.

  A white Sprinter moved slowly into the parking lot, the driver's wide eyes peering cautiously in every direction. And with reason. The last time Abu Jasim had come here he had found Ari on the verge of death and been compelled to blow out the chest of an American citizen. The American citizen had deserved it, but that had not made the chore any less onerous.

  There was still some light from the lowering sun, though not enough to suit Ari's indispensable right-hand man in North America. It would have been imprudent, unwise, unnecessary and stupid to bring Abu Jasim to his house on Beach Court Lane. This place held evil memories, but Abu Jasim was familiar with Manchester Docks and there had been no time to arrange a different rendezvous.

  Ari trotted over and greeted his friend as he lowered the window.

  "Your new van is all scratched and dented," Ari observed.

  "Thanks to you and your stupid adventure in the woods," Abu Jasim scowled. "I have been so busy trying to find new digs that I haven't had a chance to go to the body shop."

  "You mean you haven't found a body shop to suit your cheapness. Is your idiot nephew with you?"

  "Stop calling me that!" Ahmad protested, raising himself in the passenger seat and pulling out his earplugs.

  "Alas, I have learned all nephews are idiots," Ari shrugged. "It is written."

  "Ha!" Ahmad jammed his buds back into his ears.

  "Do you know where I found this idiot?" Abu Jasim complained. "In an 'oxygen bar'! Have you ever heard of such a thing?"

  "I don't understand," said Ari.

  "It's a place where they all sit around a bar with hoses on their faces and snort pure oxygen!" Abu Jasim shivered. "That place gave me the willies."

  Ari stared at Ahmad. "Is this true?"

  Ahmad's hearing was impeded. Abu Jasim roughly yanked the earbuds out.

  "Hey!" he shouted.

  "Tell the colonel about that gas bar."

  "It's not gas!"

  "I'm no scientist, but I know oxygen is a gas!" Abu Jasim glanced at Ari for confirmation. Ari nodded.

  "It's nothing!" Ahmad protested. "You see football players with oxygen masks on all the time!"

  "Football!" Ari snorted. "Where all the women dance naked! And besides, you are no athlete. You're a stick."

  "Listen, all you do is strap on a nasal cannula, like in a hospital, and inhale. It's perfectly natural. Well, maybe the flavoring is artificial—"

  "How can you flavor oxygen?"

  "Aw, cm'on. Vanilla, strawberry, chocolate—nothing abnormal."

  "It's disgusting!" Ari threw up his hand. "Why don't you smoke marijuana hay or shoot up heroin? You want a cigarette?" Ari reached for his pack. Even in jogging togs, he never left home without one.

  "Aw, talk about disgusting!" Ahmad winced.

  "Americans don't have enough oxygen." Abu Jasim shook his head in wonder. "They have to go to speakeasies to get it!"

  "And they harvest their shit from cans," Ari added.

  "What's in the knapsack?" Abu Jasim called to the back as Ari opened the van's sliding panel and stepped inside.

  "The reason we need your nephew. An enigmatic laptop."

  Ahmad had begun to cram his earbuds back in, but he whipped them out when he heard the magic word. "Laptop?"

  "Be delighted, young idiot nephew. It might contain nude images to delight and amaze you."

  "You don't know what's on it?" said Ahmad.

  "It's password protected. Is there a way to bypass such an infernal conception?"

  "Only a million."

  "Ah." Ari beamed at Abu Jasim. "We have selected the right idiot."

  "But for you, zero." The earbuds resumed their position in Ahmad's lobes.

  "He'll help, or I'll tell his father what a useless dick he is."

  "He already thinks that," Ahmad groused, hearing them over the music.

  "Where to?" Abu Jasim asked Ari.

  "A little motel on Southside," said Ari.

  "Not that same dump we were in before," Abu Jasim objected, turning the van around in the lot and forcing a knot of cats to scatter. "Filthy beasts."

  "And not very intelligent," said Ari. "No, we are going to a motel that has...Wi-fi? Is that how you say it?"

  "Mmmm," said Ahmad.

  Ari directed Abu Jasim onto Jefferson Davis Highway, and once again Abu Jasim found himself on the long, flat stretch of independent, non-franchise shops and motels, a land forgotten by the usual business models. It was, in fact, very similar to the outskirts of the typical Iraqi city or township, power lines hanging dangerously low, buildings squat and unobtrusive, the occasional hand-written notice of the entrepreneurial spirit. The next best thing to being home.

  The motel was near the beltway intersection. While Abu Jasim and Ahmad stretched out the kinks from their long trip, Ari paid for a room. When he left the office, he surveyed the surroundings. Across the road was a flea market, closed on weekdays. Next door was a muffler shop, closed for the night. There was no foot traffic and lights from parking lots and businesses were few and scattered. He took out his phone and made some calls while Abu Jasim and Ahmad carried their overnight bags and the laptop into the room. They were arguing about sleeping arrangements when he went inside.

  "There are only two beds, and I bet you expect me to sleep on the floor, just like last time," Ahmad said with the dismay and dread of the permanently oppressed.

  "You can share my bed," said Ari placidly.

  "Hey, this is America!" said the boy who had grown up in Chicago. "Men don't share beds unless they...you know."

  "I assure you, if I bugger you it will be in my sleep. Without awareness, virtue remains intact."

  Ahmad began to make shrill sounds. Ari silenced him with a brisk wave.

  "Be not afraid, idiot nephew. I won't be staying here tonight."

  "I'm driving you back home?" Abu Jasim inquired.

  "We're having guests. I'll go back to town with one of them."

  Abu Jasim shot him a wary glance, but shrugged and said, "OK, Colonel."

  Slipping the laptop out of Ari's backpack, the relieved Ahmad occupied the bed furthest from the door.

  "Good thing you brought a power cord," he said, reaching into his overnight bag and pulling it out. "T
he battery's almost dead."

  "That is why I was wise enough to bring it," said Ari petulantly. He and Abu Jasim watched him for several minutes. Abu Jasim yawned when Ahmad took out his own laptop and booted up. Soon he was staring at two computer screens, oblivious to the older men.

  "You want to do something while he's dicking around with that?" Abu Jasim said.

  "Like what?"

  "I don't know. Go out and shoot someone?"

  "Not yet. Are you hungry?"

  "I could eat something." Abu Jasim looked at his nephew. "Want us to get you something?"

  Ahmad flung his fingers from one laptop keyboard to another. He did not answer.

  "Like a monkey with a banana," said Abu Jasim. "We're going out. If someone knocks, just shoot them."

  Ahmad did not respond.

  They crossed the dark road to a gas station crowded against a U-Haul rental facility. Ari complained emptily about the cold.

  "Hey, I just came down from Quebec," Abu Jasim shot back. "Bunch of frozen peppers up there."

  "'Peppers'?"

  "Quebecois. That's what the English-speakers call them. It's what they call politically insurrectionist."

  "'Politically incorrect'," Ari corrected him, pleased to be amending someone else's English for a change. "But your language skills are improving. How is your French?"

  "'Voulez-vous coucher avec mois ce soir'," Abu Jasim sang.

  Ari's alarm showed plainly as they entered the Qwik-Stop. "I hope you don't waltz down the streets of Longueil singing that."

  "Chicks dig it," Abu Jasim said awkwardly in 50's English, then laughed.

  They walked along the glass displays. Hispanic food predominated. Abu Jasim drew out a pimento cheese sandwich for himself and a torta for Ahmad.

  "Do you have any good sandwiches here?" he called up to the clerk.

  "¿Qué?"

  "¿Tiene algo bueno aquí?"

  "Just what you see."

  Ari settled on a pork-heavy torta.

  "Has all the holiness gone out of you?" Abu Jasim asked, looking at the