"I believe your wife would be pleased to set a torch to your testicles," said Ari. "I suppose all of your wives would."
Ethan's eyes widened. "How the..." He lowered his head and slammed a foot on the floor. "Fuck!"
Mohammed looked puzzled.
"Ethan took a page from the Holy Book and indulged in many wives," said Ari. "He could quote chapter and verse, but I do not think it is the custom of this country."
"So he's even a bigger creep than I realized," Mohammed said, momentarily diverted.
At this point, Ari felt the need to tread very carefully. "At the time you invaded A-Zed, you had no idea who was behind the hacking business?"
Mohammed shook his head. "We were hoping to find out once we studied the data from their computer, but of course you ran off with my laptop."
"You thought perhaps the Koreans were cooking up a fallacious stew to deceive you?"
"You mean, some sort of blackmailing scheme? It's possible. You think that's what happened?"
"When did you first meet Mr. Wareness?"
"Now that's a mystery," said Mohammed, staring at Ethan. "I got this screwy call. Some guy said if I wanted to get my stolen data back, I should call a certain number..."
"Do you have any idea who this man was?" asked Ari, hiding his agitation.
"Not a clue. The number didn't show up on Caller ID. I didn't recognize the voice. One thing, though—there were a lot of dogs barking in the background."
Ari was horrified to discover he was gnawing on his own knuckle. This was rude and unsightly. It also betrayed his jitters. He quickly lowered it into his lap.
Bruce Turner.
Who worked for a company with ties to ISAF. The invisible hand of Ari's benefactor and tormentor was clearly evident. And he could think of two good reasons why someone in Afghanistan would stick his busy fingers into Iraq and the States. Ethan's hack-job had threatened the A-Zed illegal immigration operation. ISAF must have been using it to help Afghans who had been assisting them in Kabul (and who were now at risk) to escape to America. And no wonder they would want to keep it under wraps, since many of them were no doubt former opium dealers. Not to mention thieves, murderers, torturers and other assorted undesirables, though Ari chose not to dwell on this.
The other item was far more ominous, but iffy. Did ISAF know about 'Scenic Iraq'? Or had one of the biggest heists in history been pulled off under the very nose of the international community? He had once read about the theft of almost the entire treasury of Spain during the Spanish Civil War, with the whole world looking on. It had ended up in Russia, which showed no inclination to return a single peso. You just had to admire such hutzpah, especially if it involved enriched uranium. Even if Saddam was in on it, it still amounted to theft…in the eyes of the West, at least.
If ISAF had inserted the execution video on Ari's CENTCOM flash drive, they must have known he would be roused. They knew the identities of the unmasked killers, could track them down and give Mohammed's phone number to Bruce. But they would not have anticipated Bruce and Turnbridge trying to warn Ari away from Ethan. It was a former Sayed employee who had hacked A-Zed, and he had hacked A-Zed in revenge for being fired. For all Ari knew, Sayed Technical Solutions had set up the A-Zed immigration database. Rhee's nephew didn't seem capable of it. Having somehow learned about A-Zed while at Sayed, Ethan chose to go after the aching little pustule that would hurt Bristol Turnbridge the most.
"Wasn't that risky, calling a number given to you by a stranger?" Ari asked Mohammed.
"We used a pay phone...there's still a few around. It was riskier meeting him in the first place. We didn't know...it could have been a set-up, right? In fact, I'm still not sure..." Mohammed drew a visual line between Ari and Ethan. "We met. We invited him to stay with us for a while."
"It's called 'kidnapping'," Ethan barked.
"Can you kidnap a blackmailer?" said Mohammed. "Anyway, we didn't tie you up until an hour ago." His tone said, 'Much to my regret.'
"You took away my keys," Ethan shot back. "And those Chaldeans you left with me weren't so friendly. They didn't look like they wanted me to leave."
"They were friendly enough to let you sneak your phone out of your car," said Mohammed. "Idiots. And look where it got your friend."
"I don't know how he found me…"
Mohammed would soon be in front of the police. Ari was supremely relieved that, thus far, ISAF had been kept out of the conversation.
"Ethan was asking $500,000 for the immigration database?"
"No, fifty-thousand," Mohammed sneered.
"But I was told—"
"I could've asked for a lot more," Ethan boldly announced.
"I wouldn't care if it was just the Chaldeans who were listed," said Mohammed. "But there are hundreds of innocent people in that database. If the Americans get hold of it and they're forced to go back home..."
"We shall forgo any mention of it to the authorities," said Ari, shooting Ethan a menacing look. "If you hold your nuts in such high esteem, it would be a shame to lose them."
Ethan opened his mouth, then closed it. Ahmad gave him a hard nudge.
"He's not kidding."
Ethan opened his mouth again, then closed it again.
"Yeah," Ahmad continued. "Maybe you'd better tell us about any copies you're keeping."
"Just one," said Ethan. "On a flash drive in my car. A Pinto. In the barn."
"We searched your car," Mohammed protested.
"It's taped in a plastic bag on the firewall," said Ethan. "Same bag I kept my phone in."
"Then the names are assuredly safe," said Ari, swiveling his dark gaze onto Ahmad, who promptly turned his gaze up to the ceiling.
Fifty-thousand, Ari thought. There had seemed to him to be nearly a thousand names on the list. If he demanded a mere $100 per name, he could—
Force of habit, he sternly admonished himself, putting the idea out of his head.
"What was Bruce doing here?"
"I managed to give him a call before they tied me up," Ethan answered. "I just sort of told him I thought I might be in over my head, and could he come out—"
"He has been looking for you ever since you disappeared," Ari interrupted. "You destroyed the credibility of Sayed. Since Bruce was your supervisor, you destroyed him, too. You could have said anything at all to him and he would have come. Were you planning to squeeze him for money, too? What else did you steal from Sayed?" Ari paused. "How did he know you were here?"
"I told you, I don't know. I didn't tell him..." Ethan winced, looking at Mohammed. "He's really dead? I mean, you really shot him? Why—?"
"I didn't shoot him. That was Hasan. But I would have done the same. Gail had just been killed. We didn't know what was going on. And then we see this guy in a pickup, where he didn't belong. Didn't know who he was. We didn't know. And Gail was dead..."
Mohammed began to sob.
"You sound like a real American," was Ari's unforgiving summation.
Ahmad retreated into the kitchen and came back a moment later. He held up a phone in front of Ethan's face. "This yours?"
"Uh-huh."
"Ha!" Ahmad shook his head and grinned at Ari. "Dumbass here forgot to disable his GPS."
"His feeble mentality is well demonstrated by his style of living," Ari snorted. "Rebecca Wareness is a good and decent woman, a good and decent mother, and you have treated her abominably."
"Hey...what are you...you aren't—"
"Yes, I am," said Ari, and punched Ethan in the face.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Freddie answered the doorbell. He stared at Ari, his slackjaw quivering in dismay. In answer to a shout from inside, he gave a kind of sorrowful moan.
"It's that man."
"It's me," Ari called out, flapping his arms to warm himself. Liquid sloshed in the bag he was carrying. "Can I come in? It's bloody cold out here. My johnson has been transformed into an icicle!"
There was another querulous shout from inside and
Freddie widened the door. Ari stepped through.
The foyer was overheated and smelled of medicinal ointment. Freddie raised his arms as though to help Ari out of his coat, then cringed and pulled away. Ari found his innate fear both annoying and painful.
"That's all right," he said, laying the bag on a chair and pulling off his coat. He glanced around the living room. "Where is your uncle?"
"He's that way." Freddie raised his arm vaguely and began to back out of the room, hugging the furniture and wall. Ari came forward. "No, not this way. That way."
"There's no need to be afraid of me," said Ari.
"You don't have to follow me," Freddie insisted. "He's not this way. Go the other way..."
Ari picked up the bag and crossed the living room into a dim hallway, at the end of which a door stood open. Light flickered in the room and Ari heard an unfamiliar voice.
"You say this started two months ago?"
Lawson's response was garbled to near-incomprehensibility. "Been getting worse..."
"I'm sorry to hear that," came the voice. "Can you turn on another light? I'm having some difficulty seeing..."
Hearing Ari enter the room, Lawson asked him to switch on a table lamp. Ari did so, then slid the bottle out of the bag and held it up for Lawson to see.
"I see you have a visitor holding a big no-no," came a voice from the computer Lawson was sitting in front of. Lawson glanced up at a small insert view at the upper right edge of the monitor and saw the Jack Daniels label. He gave Ari an irritable backward wave of his good hand.
"Alcohol is contraindicated for your current medication—"
"I know, I know," Lawson nodded at the screen. "My friend here mistook it for a prescription."
"So long as you are aware that returning veterans, especially those who have suffered grievous wounds, are prone to drug and alcohol abuse."
"So's everyone else," Lawson said. "Sit on the bed, Ari. I'll be done in a few."
"All right," said the man on the screen. "Your chart says you had some revision surgery not long ago. An infection can be caused by a buried suture, or even ingrown facial hair. Are you using your Peridex?"
"Four times a day." Lawson gave a small cough. "It feels like my fake lower jaw is sinking into my fake chin."
"Can you lean closer to the camera? Turn your head to the left some. I want to see the suture line."
Lawson's prosthetic leg was lying on top of the blanket. Ari moved it aside and sat on the bed. From this angle he could see Lawson's badly swollen jaw.
"You're taking your antibiotics?"
"Yes, sir," said Lawson. "You think I need to increase the dosage?"
"Maybe," said the video doctor, peering closely at his own screen like a sailor looking for a tiny speck of land in the ocean. "Can you get any closer to the camera?"
Grunting, Lawson leaned down. The video insert provided a close-up of tortured skin.
"Have you been bleeding?"
"A little..."
Ari glanced at the pillow at the top of the bed and the traces of blood and saliva.
"Does it still smell?" the doctor asked.
"Hell if I know. I've gotten used to it." Lawson turned stiffly to Ari. "Does it stink in here?"
"There appears to be some necrotic issue," said Ari.
"I think he means it stinks," Lawson said, turning back to the screen. "I also think my friend wants to be a doctor when he grows up."
"You're going to have to see your doctor at the VA," said the man on the other side of the country. He lifted his clipboard and consulted Lawson's chart. "That's...Dr. Enright?"
"That's him." Lawson gripped the side of his chair. "You think I have to go under the knife, again?"
"Let's let Dr. Enright decide. But we might have to go from intraoral to external."
"I've got a job!" Lawson protested. "I can't take any more time off!"
"You've got a life, too. Let's hold onto it." The doctor began scribbling on the chart. "I'll contact your VA, maybe speed up your appointment. Um...do you still have a cat in your house?"
Ari sat straight. Glancing down, he saw traces of fur on the bedspread.
"What about it?" asked Lawson warily.
"Does it go outside? Do you keep a kitty litter box in the house? Who cleans it out, and is it done regularly?"
"He comes and goes," said Lawson. "My nephew does the scooping every day."
"That's good." The doctor sighed. "There is plenty of evidence about the benefits of having pets. Does the cat sleep with you?"
"Sometimes..."
"Until your infection clears up, I'm thinking the cat should stay somewhere else. Temporarily, of course." Seeing the pain in Lawson's eye, he quickly added, "It's possible the cat has nothing at all to do with the infection. This is only a precaution, until we can confirm that it's an infection and not something …else."
"Well..."
"Contact me if it gets worse and I'll be sure to get you in immediately," said the doctor. "Otherwise, it can wait until Monday. Or Tuesday. Now you take care..."
"So long, Doctor."
The screen blanked out.
"I didn't know you had a cat," said Ari.
"He keeps himself scarce." Lawson twisted around and studied the bottle. "It's not even noon, yet."
"I wasn't planning on drinking right away," said Ari. "I was planning to take you out for a visit."
"I wasn't planning on going anywhere."
"The best laid plans of men and mice are often cast adrift," said Ari. After a moment's hesitation, he added: "I would be willing to accommodate your cat."
"That's mighty white of you," said Lawson. Noting Ari's befuddled expression, he elaborated: "That's a joke."
"Ah," said Ari.
"Find a whitey to explain it to you."
"A 'whitey'?"
"One of our feeble descendants." Lawson pushed himself up in his chair and flopped down next to Ari on the bed.
"You remind me of my wife," said Ari.
"This isn't an invitation," said Lawson, drawing back. "I just need to put on my leg."
"No...she was gravely injured, too." Ari hesitated. "In an accident."
"How's she doing now?" asked Lawson.
"Not well..."
"I'm sorry to hear that." Lawson pulled his leg onto his lap. "Can you go out and fetch Freddie? I can pop the leg on, but the arm..."
"I can help."
"I'd be more comfortable with the boy."
Nodding, Ari rose and went into the living room.
"Freddie?" he called out. "Your uncle needs you."
The young man percolated out of the shadows and disappeared down the hallway. Ari searched around for the cat. Now that he was aware of his existence, the signs became apparent: tears in the furniture, a fur ball against the baseboard, a sense of furtive presence.
He caught a fecal whiff from the hallway and realized the true reason why the boy had gone back to help. He also thought that Lawson was relatively new to this handicapped lifestyle. It would not be long before he could take care of himself. In fact, it was the boy who needed looking after.
"Who and where's this visit you want to take me on?" said Lawson as Freddie held up his coat. "Or do I know too much and you want to dump me in the nearest spare parts bin?"
"I think I can fit some bits and pieces together into a coherent whole," said Ari. "I mean, regarding the events of last week."
Lawson gave him a long, musing look. "You know, after I got blown to pieces, I started looking at things in pieces. History? I loved history. Still do. But that's all it is: bits and pieces. Even when something fits, it really doesn't. You know the German Krupps?"
"Merchants of death?"
"Yeah, you know them. Well, after the First World War the Allies made them cut out all the machine guns and Big Berthas and all that crap. They were forced—for a while—to work small. They came up with a steel implant for soldiers who'd had their jaws shot off in the war. And there were a lot of guys who stuck th
eir heads up out of the trenches at the wrong moment. And since most of those jaws were shot off with Krupp weapons, it made a perfect circle. Krupp shot off your mouth, then put it back on. But then Adolf comes along and you realize the circle is just a coincidence. Everything broke up again."
"Into pieces."
"Exactly. So what grand revelations do you have in store for me?"
"Follow me and discover," Ari smiled, opening the door. The smile vanished as an arctic blast tried to shove them back inside.
"You can't spill your guts in the comfort of my home?"
"I feel—very illogically—that the discomfort of the weather will help my thought-meshing."
"You do intend to turn on your car heat?"
"Of course..." Ari took note of the Civic parked down the block. The couple in the front seat appeared to be bickering. A bag flew up between them and bounced against the windshield. It was too far away to clearly see the logo on the bag, though Ari thought he saw golden arches.
Lawson squeezed into the xB while Ari started the engine. "Heat!" he moaned as he settled in, shivering. "If my teeth chatter too much my mouth falls off."
"Is that true?"
"Probably not, but it feels like it will."
Ari pulled onto Hull Street and headed for town.
"Sayid Mohammed Al-Rafa'ee, Hasan Al-Jamil, Abu ibn Al-Quassim, Gail Prescott."
"The first three came to America with their parents," Lawson nodded. "You already told me this. They got mixed up with the Chaldeans, who got mixed up with Rhee, who got mixed up with Ethan, who got mixed up with ISAF."
"I think I told you ISAF is a red flounder," said Ari. If ISAF was in the thick of this, their intentions were certainly at cross-purposes. They might have wanted Ari to track down the hacker to find out what had happened to their immigrant database. But after that? They may not have sent Bruce Turner to chase him off with abusive phone calls and man-eating dogs, but they must have guessed Turner would do anything to save his reputation. And it was probably Turner who had broken into Ethan's house and planted the ISAF link in their computer, just to show Ari he was dealing in matters best left alone. He would have thought they most definitely would not want Ari sniffing around if ISAF was responsible for bringing Uday Hussein to America, via A-Zed. Ari had already brushed too close to their source. And yet there was the video of Abu ibn Abd Al-Samad being immolated on Route 12. Whoever had planted the video assumed Ari would discover the killers had connections to the Chaldeans, a group no one in their right mind would want to tangle with. There were probably Chaldeans mixed in with the group surrounding Uday in Cumberland. The war on drugs created many odd bedfellows. So which way was it? Did ISAF want Ari to find Ethan…or not?
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