by David Archer
Sam smiled. “Sounds like you boys have been watching James Bond movies,” he said, and Jeff laughed.
“Nah, we're not that good,” he said, “or I'd have you a gun that looks like a pen, or a car that drives itself. 'Fraid this is the best we can do, on our budget, but here's one last thing; you're going into a situation where you're trying to watch whoever's watching the bomb. If he's already hidden there someplace and spots you, you're blown and could get killed without ever knowing it, so I got these out for you.” He held out a pair of glasses. “Latest thing from Langley for covert surveillance; they give you an infrared view. If anyone is hiding in that building, even behind concrete, you'll see his shape appear in red on the inside of the lenses, even if he's moving. Check for anyone hiding before you get out and walk around with the Geiger counter.”
Sam put the watch on, looked through the glasses at the red outlines of Jeff and Harry, and was surprised that he could see everything else, as well; the glasses only showed the red images of a heat signature superimposed over them, without obscuring the world itself. He smiled. “These are great,” he said. “And thanks for the watch; at least I know you'll find my body if they kill me, right? Let me get going.” He tucked the glasses into his shirt pocket.
Harry walked outside with Sam, and they stood beside the truck for a moment. “Sam,” Harry said, “I want you to think about one thing as you go out on this mission. This is not police work, and it is not a case for a private eye. You are entering the world of terrorism and espionage, and the rules you've always played by don't apply here. There is one thing you must do, and that is complete the mission, no matter what you have to do to accomplish it. Your mission is to identify the cell behind this attack, and if that means you have to kill someone, then do it. If it means you have to let someone die, then do it. If it means you have to make someone talk when they don't want to, then do it, no matter what you have to do. Civil rights don't apply in this world, Sam, nor do any others. Can you understand what I'm saying to you, boy?”
Sam looked him in the eye. “My mission is to find the cell behind the bombs, and I'm to do anything necessary to accomplish that mission. Trust me, Harry; these bastards didn't just attack America, they attacked my home and my family, and all I need to do is turn that part of me loose.” He turned to his truck and opened the door. “I'll do whatever I've got to do to get them.”
Harry grinned. “I know you will. Oh, wait,” he said, digging into a pocket. “Got two more presents for you.” He handed Sam an ID case, and when he flipped it open, Sam saw his own face on a Homeland Security ID card with a badge on the opposite flap. The picture was a copy of his driver's license photo, but Sam didn't comment on it. He accepted it and slid it into his pocket.
“Then there's this,” Harry said, and reached behind his back to produce a small automatic pistol with a silencer attached. “This is a thirty-two caliber automatic, and it's loaded with hollow points designed to go through a flak vest. It's very quiet and very deadly.” Sam took the gun and slid it into his own waistband at his back, while Harry produced two extra clips from a pocket. Sam put them into a pocket of his own.
“Thanks, Harry,” he said. “Let's just hope I don't need it.”
“Use it if you do. Sam—just be careful out there,” Harry said, “and come back safe if you can. I'm sorta fond of you, Sam, boy.”
Sam got in and shut the door. “I'm gonna do my best. Got a wife and kid who need me, y'know?” He started the truck and drove away before Harry could say anything more.
The trip to downtown would take about forty minutes from where the hidden office was located, so Sam called Indie as he drove. “Hey, babe,” he said when she answered. “How's it going there?”
“It's okay, but I'd rather be curled up in bed with you,” she said. “Kenzie says to tell you hello.”
“Hi back to her. I got to meet Harry's two playmates; does the word 'nerd' mean anything to you?”
She laughed. “I can imagine. They're probably both into Warcraft and other games, besides tracking down international bad guys. Long as they do their jobs and get you home safe, I can forgive 'em. Where are you now?”
“On the way down to see if anyone's watching our package. The nerds gave me some neat new toys to play with, so I don't have to take too many chances. I can spot them before they can spot me.”
“That's good, I don't want them spotting you at all! You better come home to me, Sam Prichard, do you hear me?”
“I'm planning on it, baby. Give Kenzie a kiss goodnight for me, and tell her I said it's past her bedtime.”
“I will,” Indie said. “You call me soon as I can help with anything. I love you, Sam.”
“Love you, too, babe. I'll call.” He hung up the phone and paid attention to the streets.
They were all but deserted. With the news constantly covering the search for the bombs, most anyone who could leave the city probably had. Sam wondered about his friend on the police force, and started to call his old partner, Dan Jacobs, but stopped himself. Dan would want to know why Sam was back, and then he'd want to help. Sam didn't have the authority to let anyone else in on what he was doing, so he put the phone away without dialing.
He got to the parking garage and drove inside, grabbing a ticket as if everything were perfectly normal. He slipped on the glasses, watching through them as he drove slowly through the building, the Geiger counter phone on the dashboard and the earpiece in place. He heard an occasional click, which he knew was normal, just the unit picking up stray background radiation that’s always there, but there was no rapid chatter yet.
He drove up onto the second floor level, and still got nothing from the Geiger, so he continued higher. The garage went up five levels, and when he got to the top without hearing anything, he began to wonder if he was in the right place. He started down again, still wearing the glasses. When he got back to the ground floor without hearing any chatter, he knew their guess about a car had to be wrong.
He parked the truck close to the only other vehicle on the ground floor, a sports car that was probably abandoned in the rush to flee the city, and got out, slipping the Geiger phone into his shirt pocket and keeping the glasses on. He walked through the deserted structure nonchalantly, as if he had every reason in the world to be there when no one else would even want to, and spied a door in one of the side walls. He walked over and tried it, but it was locked, so he held the Geiger up to it.
Nothing. He was starting to wonder if the bomb had already been moved, but he kept walking, looking for anywhere else it might be hidden. So far, the only place he hadn't checked was the security gate where you had to pay your parking fee to get out, so he walked toward it.
The earpiece suddenly began to sound like an old radio with static, and he stepped up his pace. The closer he got to the gate, the louder and faster the chatter became, and he knew he'd found what he was looking for.
The gate was in plain sight from the street, so he walked right past it as if he were heading somewhere. He put the phone to his ear and spoke into it as he walked, pretending to be engrossed in whatever conversation he was having, and let his eyes wander around the area. Just a hundred yards away, he saw a car sitting alone, and there was the definite red outline of a man sitting inside it. The way the car was parked meant that the man inside it would be looking straight at him.
Sam walked past the car on the opposite side of the street and kept going. The guy didn't seem to be paying undue attention to him, but Sam would have bet his life that he was being watched like a hawk. He went to the end of the block and turned the corner, waited five seconds and then turned around walked right back to the intersection, looking around as if he were lost.
The man had gotten out of his car and had been jogging toward the corner, but when Sam reappeared, he froze and ducked into the doorway of one of the buildings on that side of the street. Sam saw him, but pretended not to.
“Well, which way is it?” he yelled into the dummy phone. “H
oney, I'm standing in the middle of a ghost town at night, and you can't remember where you left your car? Come on, now, think!”
He turned and went back around the corner and kept walking, yelling into the phone about how stupid his wife was, and how he was going to slap her silly when he got home. He got to the other end of the block and stopped, turning as if looking for the missing car, and spotted the infrared outline of the man's head peeking around the previous corner at him. He started across the street to his left, and then stopped just out of the man's sight.
The glasses could spot a heat signature through concrete if the heat signature was right behind it, but they couldn't see through an entire building. Sam waited and listened, and when he was sure the man wasn't coming his way, he started off again in the same direction he'd been going and hurried as well as his bum leg would allow to the other end of that block, then turned left again. Two blocks further he made another left, and shortly came to the rear of the parking garage.
There were no watchers on that side of the building, so Sam climbed over the concrete half-wall and slipped into the ground floor again. He watched through the glasses as he moved stealthily along the shadowed wall toward the gate, but saw no sign that the man had come inside. He got to the front side of the building and peeked over the half-wall again to see the guy sitting back in his car. He was just close enough to the gate that the Geiger was picking up a bit more radiation, and the earpiece was clicking steadily, so he took it off and slipped it into his shirt pocket.
He'd found the one he was looking for, he was sure, and had made the guy believe he was just a man looking for his wife's misplaced car. He slunk back into the shadows and called Harry.
“Okay,” he said when the old man answered, “I've found the bomb, but tell Brainiac Jeff it wasn't in a car. It's in the exit gate building, and I can't get to it without being seen; they’ve got a guy stationed in a car outside, keeping an eye on the gate. I tested him, and he followed me until he was sure I was a nobody, then went back to watching the gate again.”
“Good work,” Harry said. “Leave the bomb alone, we'll handle it. What do you want to do next? If he's just sitting there, he may not be relieved for a while, and he may not go back to the cell even when he is. Can you take him?”
Sam thought about it. “I think I can,” he said. “Odds are he's not looking behind himself very often, and I can get around the block and come up that way. There's an alley just a few feet behind where he's parked, so I think I can take him by surprise. Want me to turn on your super ears?”
Harry hesitated. “Do you recall what we talked about just before you left here?”
“Yes, about doing whatever it takes.”
“Don't turn on the ears. Just go do what you have to do.”
8
Sam went back the way he'd come, out through the half-wall and around the two blocks until he found the alley that led up behind the watcher's car. He walked slowly, taking it easy on his leg so that he'd have its full use when he got to where he was going.
At the end of the alley, he got down on the ground and peeked carefully out, glasses in place. The red silhouette was in the car, glowing brightly and clearly to show him that the man watching the garage was sitting up, but with his head back against the headrest of his seat.
Sam pulled back and thought for a moment, then peeked out again. He read the car's license number, and then moved halfway down the alley to call Indie.
“Honey, run a tag number for me, just a hunch—AAX 771.”
Indie said, “Gimme a minute,” and he heard keys being tapped. A moment later, she said, “It comes back to a business, Mahmoud Imports. Address is out at West Fifty-Sixth Street and Pecos.”
“Interesting,” Sam said. “Thanks, baby!” He hung up and called Harry.
“Yes, Sam?”
“Harry, I got the tag off the watcher's car and had Indie check it out. Ever heard of Mahmoud Imports, out on Fifty Sixth and Pecos?”
Harry asked Ron and Jeff, but neither had heard of the company. “Nothing here, I'm afraid. Think they might be involved?”
“No idea, but it strikes me as odd that the car he's in is registered to a company with a Muslim name attached. Any suggestions?”
Harry was silent for a moment. “Sam, it's your call. If you think this should be checked out, go ahead, but I'd hate to lose the one lead you've already got sitting there now.”
“Yeah,” Sam said. “I think I'm going to question the guy here, and see what I can find out. I'll get back to you when I'm done.” He ended the call and moved to the end of the alley again, this time staying on his feet. When he was there, he took a couple of deep breaths, then stepped out and walked quickly to the vehicle. He was at the driver's window, which was down, before the man knew he was even nearby, the little silenced thirty-two in his hand and pointing right at the man's face.
The guy jumped, and started to raise the gun in his own hand, but he froze when he realized he was looking into the eye of death. Sam reached in and took the piece, an older style Colt forty-five, and shoved it into the same spot the thirty-two had occupied seconds earlier, then looked at his captive. The watcher was a boy, probably not over eighteen yet.
“Since I'm pretty sure you speak English, I'll keep this simple. You move, you die, right here and now. Got that?”
The boy nodded, his wide eyes never leaving the silencer that was inches from his face. Sam reached in again and took the keys out of the car's ignition and slipped them into a pocket.
“Why don't you come on out of there, and let's take a little walk down the alley,” Sam said, and the kid slowly raised a hand to open the door as Sam stepped back out of his reach. When he was out and had shut the door, Sam motioned with the gun for the kid to precede him into the alleyway, and he did so. They walked down to the middle of the alley, and Sam said, “Okay, far enough. Turn around and face me.”
The boy did so, keeping both hands in plain sight the whole time. “Look, Mister,” he said, but Sam cut him off.
“No, no, here's how this works,” he said. “I ask a question, and you give me an answer. If I believe you, you live a minute longer; if I don't, I pull this trigger and your brains turn into jelly on the wall behind you. Understand?” The guy nodded. “Good. What's your name?”
“Zayan Jamal,” he said. “I'm just...”
“Just answer the question, nothing else. Okay, Jamal, why were you sitting there with a gun, watching that building? Remember, it's all about whether I believe you or not, so be sure you're telling me the truth.”
Jamal swallowed. “I was told to,” he said, and stopped.
“By whom?”
“By my uncle, Imran Mahmoud.”
“And what is it you're supposed to be watching for?”
Jamal swallowed again. “I was told to watch for anyone entering the little room where you pay.”
“Why?”
Jamal began to tremble. “Because there is something in there that my uncle wishes not to be disturbed.”
“Uh-huh,” Sam said. “And what might that be, Jamal?”
Jamal began to cry, then, and Sam had to fight the urge to feel sympathy. “It is a bomb, that's all they told me. I was to watch and make sure no one goes in there to find it.”
Sam looked at him for a moment. “And what were you supposed to do if someone did?”
Jamal's tears were flowing freely. “I was to just watch unless someone went inside, or if I saw someone acting suspicious,” he said, “but if they went in, or they were trying to get in, I was supposed to kill them.”
Sam suddenly slapped him across the face. “And what if it was just somebody who works there? It might be a woman, a mother with kids at home even younger than you. Were you supposed to kill her?”
Jamal nodded, sobbing. “Yes, I'm sorry, my uncle told me I must do this for Allah's Glory!”
Sam looked at him again, thinking. “Jamal, do you hate America?”
Jamal shook his head from si
de to side, gasping his words out through his sobs. “No, I don't, I grew up here! I do not hate America!”
“Then why are you doing this?”
“I don't have a choice! If I do not do as I am told, I will be killed!”
“Do you want to live?”
The boy nodded vigorously. “Yes, sir, yes, I do, please, please don't kill me!”
“I'm going to ask you some very important questions, Jamal, and if you answer them right, I won't kill you. But if I think you're lying, just as I said before, I'll shoot you dead right here and now. Is your uncle the man behind these bombs?”
Jamal shook his head. “No, he's just one of many who are helping to do this. I don't know who the others are, I swear I don't!”
“Do you know how I can find them?”
More head shaking. “No, sir, I don't, I'm sorry, I don't.”
Suddenly a cell phone rang, and the sound came from Jamal's pocket. The boy looked terrified, but he stared at Sam and said, “If I don't answer it, they will think I've run away, and my uncle will kill my mother and my sisters. Please, let me answer it!”
Sam nodded, making a sudden decision. “Can you speak English to them?”
Jamal nodded as he took out the phone. “We always speak English, so no one suspects us,” he said, then pushed a button on the phone. “Hello?” he said. “No, nothing. No one has been here since I got here. No, it's a little cool out, and I've been sneezing, that's all.” He sniffled. “It's making my nose run. Yes, I know; no one will get inside, I promise. May I speak to mother?” He grinned nervously at Sam, then said, “Mother, are you all right? Yes, I'm fine. I'm doing as Uncle asked, don't worry. I won't let anything happen to you or Shaista or Bisma. Yes, put him back on.” He sighed and closed his eyes. “Yes, Uncle? No, I took a walk down the alley. I had to—you know. Go pee.” He listened for a moment, and then his eyes went wide. “Yes, tell him I'll be right there,” he said, and ended the call.