Huddled Masses (JP Warner Book 2)

by Derek Ciccone

  It had become clear that the government airstrike didn’t miss us, but provided us cover. It was no coincidence that Jovana and Zahir were spared, in an information-swap between the Syrians and Al Muttahedah, and we would be delivered to them as the payment.

  The doors swung open and the guards we’d just tied up—or that Jovana had made to look that way—walked Christina in at gunpoint.

  She looked the same way we’d left her—pissed off. And it wasn’t directed at the men who were holding her captive. She looked to Jovana, and then me. “You are so easy, Warner—all it takes is some chick to wiggle her cute ass and you’re tripping over yourself to follow her to the depths of hell.”

  I appealed to Qwaui, “She’s not part of this—let her go.”

  Christina glared at me. “I’m not going anywhere … and you’re not my dad!”

  Carter’s booming voice halted our spat, “If you two don’t stop acting like two-year-olds, I’m going to leave you behind when I walk out of here.”

  The comment piqued Qwaui’s interest. “You sound confident you’ll be leaving, Mr. Carter, despite the great odds against you. What would spark such bravado?”

  Carter shrugged. “I’ve dealt with turncoats in the ring hundreds of times—Hulk Hogan comes to mind—and I’m always the one standing in the end. Don’t see why this time will be any different.”

  I thought to mention that this wasn’t professional wrestling, and the weapons ratio was about twenty to none, not in our favor, but I decided against it.

  Qwaui absorbed Carter’s words, nodding like he’d made a point. “I think Mr. Carter has hit on an important topic—loyalty.”

  His gaze moved to Jovana. The guards read the signal, and seized her. After searching her, and removing her weapons, she was forcefully placed alongside us in the infidel conga line.

  Qwaui glared at us. “So have the American journalists come to end the civil war in Syria? I find that to be the definition of hypocritical.”

  Carter and I knew better than to say anything, but Christina had yet to learn that lesson. “You’re calling us hypocrites? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “The United States is an unsustainable cauldron of non-believers. You have created a divisive subculture of secular Haves and Have Nots, who will eventually fight to the death in your own civil war.”

  “Is that the speech you’re going to make me recite this time?” I asked, referring to the propaganda video I was forced to make the last time we had one of these powwows.

  “I’m afraid that no further warnings are needed, Mr. Warner. The United States is on course to destroy itself, and nothing you or I say will change that. I plan to just sit back and watch it play out.”

  “I’m not here to discuss what will or won’t happen in my country—I’m here to discuss Byron Jasper.”

  He remained disturbingly calm, which continued to prick at my uneasiness. “What is your American saying—three strikes and you’re out? Well, I’m afraid you’ve struck out of luck, Mr. Warner. First you exposed our operation, then you tracked us to Serbia, and now here. So when I’m done with your other friends, you’re going to think that Mr. Jasper got off easy.”

  I stepped toward him, knowing, or at least hoping, that they wouldn’t kill me until my usefulness had been used up. But I only made it one step before I felt pain shoot through my knee. I fell to the ground in agony. When I looked up, I saw a smiling Zahir, who had kicked out my injured leg.

  “As Mr. Warner recuperates, I will use this time to feed my men” Qwaui said. “Unlike the Americans who shun their soldiers and reward them by spitting on their sacrifice, provide them little in jobs and medicine, we take care of those who have risked life and limb for Allah.”

  Zahir bowed his head to his boss, as if giving thanks.

  “Melk al-yamin,” Qwaui said with a nod in Jovana’s direction.

  “Ghanim,” Zahir responded back.

  “Please don’t do this,” Jovana said, in full understanding, as she was dragged off at gunpoint. “Kill me! Anything but this!” she screamed out, and for the first time since we’d crossed paths, she didn’t seem in control. Considering her double-cross, it was hard to find sympathy, but I wouldn’t wish her fate on my worst enemy. I’d seen the end result of Qwaui’s work on many occasions, and it was never pretty.

  “I thought you clowns were waiting for virgins,” Carter belted out. “We all know she’s no virgin.”

  Christina provided an Arabic translation, “Melk al-yamin means non-Muslim sex slave, and ghanim is ‘spoils of war.’ Basically, they issued a fatwa that gave Islamic fighters permission to rape non-believers during a war of Jihad. That’s their penalty for disbelief.”

  This drew a rare emotional response from Qwaui, “No fatwa was necessary. Allah has provided permission: Marry such women as seem good to you, two and three, and from what your right hand possesses.”

  “Which you’ve twisted into a sick rationalization,” Christina fired back.

  “My right hand is going to possess your nose … when I rip it from your face,” Carter backed her up.

  A rhythmic squeaking of the bed-frame could be heard from the room they’d taken Jovana into, accompanied by her wails. It was bad enough to know that Zahir was raping her, but I also knew she was just the appetizer—Christina would be the next “spoil of war.”

  As if reading my mind, Qwaui pointed in her direction, and one of the guards began escorting Christina toward the same room they’d brought Jovana.

  “I think Mr. Warner should get the pleasure of watching his protégé in action … the fruits of his teachings on display,” Qwaui calmly stated. I felt the tip of a gun lodged in my ribs, as he pushed me behind Christina.

  We entered the room in single file. Immediately, the guard at Christina’s side dropped to the floor. A second gunshot rang out, and my guard joined his partner.

  I looked up to see Jovana bouncing on the bed as if it were a trampoline. She was wailing at the top of her lungs like a wounded animal, but with a smile on her face. She was fully clothed, unlike Zahir, who was tied spread eagle to the bed, naked, and had a bullet hole through his forehead. A bloodstained pillow lay beside him, which Jovana had used as a poor-man’s silencer.

  Another guard entered the room, responding to the shots, and received the same fate. She was an impressive shot—shooting while bouncing was no easy feat. She hopped off the bed, and her path was now clear.

  Qwaui kept a confident posture as she approached him. But just in case, he had Carter in his clutches, standing behind him with a knife to his neck. It was a mistake that I’d seen more times than I could count—never underestimate the skill-set of a professional wrestler. Carter launched a backwards head butt that likely broke Qwaui’s nose, and left him momentarily blinded.

  Before the last two remaining bodyguards could react, Jovana shot them both dead. Not wasting a second, she then fired two shots into Qwaui’s legs and he fell to the floor in agony.

  “That’s for Byron Jasper,” she said, her face pulsating with intensity. “His legs for your legs. A fair trade.”

  He screamed at her in Arabic, but it fell on deaf ears.

  “Where’s Hakim? Take us to him and you live,” she offered, but everyone in the room knew that even if he gave up the location of the Al Muttahedah leader, Qwaui wasn’t leaving this room alive.

  He shook his head, his eyes tearing in pain, but not sadness. “Nobody knows. The system is set up that way. He seeks us out when he needs us, not the other way around.”

  Jovana looked to me. My experiences had left me with sharp instincts on separating the truth from lies. I thought those instincts had betrayed me by trusting her, but it was looking like that might not be the case. I confirmed what she already knew, and Carter and Christina backed it up. He was telling the truth—he didn’t know where Hakim was, any more than we did.

  Just to be sure, Jovana gave him one last chance. When she got the same answer, she walked up to him and placed he
r gun directly on his chest. “This is for my brother, Milos … your men took his life by shooting him through the chest, and now you will get a taste of your own medicine.” And then she fired. And fired again. And kept firing.

  Carter and I traded a surprised glance. It takes a lot to shock Carter, but this certainly did. Jovana was the sister of our Serbian guide, Milos. It seemed as if she also had unfinished business.

  Chapter 20

  Rockfield

  March 13

  Home sweet home—the car service dropped me off in front of the dark house.

  As expected, getting out of Syria proved more difficult than breaking in. And our motorcycle-driving smugglers appeared much more concerned about being caught by Turkish border patrol without a stamped passport, than anything that befell us on the journey into hell. But three days after the showdown in Jabal al-Zawiya, we had made our way back to Istanbul.

  Carter and Christina were called away to their next assignment—I remembered the constant treadmill of “the business,” where you hadn’t even come down off one high, before you were chasing the next one.

  I took my time in the old city, alone, and finally got to indulge in the self-analysis that Gwen suggested. Seeking answers each night, looking at the moon and stars, I thought there was no more perfect place to be at the crossroads than in a city that for centuries had been at this same intersection of past and present.

  I was not sorry that men like Qwaui and Az Zahir were dead. But I was left with the hollow feeling that nothing I could do would ever change what happened to Byron. It was a torch I would carry with me for the rest of my life.

  I wondered about Jovana’s thoughts on the subject, having gotten “justice” for her brother, but she offered none. She did give us a ride to the city of Idlib, where she unceremoniously dropped us off. I doubted she’d be spending much more time in Syria, as she would become enemy number one of Al Muttahedah once word leaked of what she’d done. I knew it was doubtful that I’d ever see her again, yet the reporter in me was filled with curiosity and questions. I couldn’t shake her out of my mind.

  March had come in like a lion in Connecticut, yet there was no sign of the lamb as it approached mid-month. My teeth chattered from the cold, as I made my way to the colonial. It was dark inside, and it didn’t appear that Gwen had spent much time here while I was gone. My stomach was growling, pleading to get some greasy American food into it, but the refrigerator was bare.

  So I went to the place where food was always stocked—my parents’ house. I knocked, but the place was completely dark inside, and I couldn’t detect any movement.

  “Hello?” I called out, after using my key to enter, but received no answer. I turned the kitchen light on, and the note on the counter answered my question. Before my mother gave her blessing to my father’s return to politics last fall, as interim first selectman, he promised to honor their Myrtle Beach vacation planned for this March. It was the first true vacation they’d taken in a decade.

  I found a bag of potato chips and a beer, and plopped on my dad’s favorite chair in the living room. There was something about my childhood home that always provided comfort, and after a tumultuous few weeks away, comfort was what I needed.

  Just as I began to settle in, I heard the door open, and I sprung to my feet.

  But it wasn’t Uncle Al dropping by for some good old-fashioned payback—it was Ethan, Pam, and the kids who checked in on the house each day while Mom and Dad were away. The responsible ones. They looked more surprised to see me, than me them.

  After warm greetings, and my providing them evasive answers about my mysterious trip, Ethan informed me that our parents were expected to return tonight. We then touched on important topics, such as plans for Easter, Eli’s loose tooth, and Ella filled me in on the team pizza party that I had missed.

  I offered them to stay for dinner, but potato chips and beer didn’t meet the proper nutritional standards of their household, and they headed out in search of the four basic food groups. Alone again, I settled back in, clicking on the Knicks game. But I got the impression that the Samerauk Elementary girls squad could beat the Knicks tonight, so I began the dangerous journey down the television dial. And proving once and for all that I’m a complete masochist, my channel surfing stopped at GNZ.

  Lauren Bowden and Tino Fernandez were showing off their disturbingly white teeth on their nightly show. Lauren began with “Breaking News!” about the latest episode of Huddled Masses killings, which had taken place back on the final day of February. It was the third suicide attack—Scottsdale, Atlanta, and now West Palm—targeting wealthy citizens. And like the previous attacks, the killer wore a shirt that displayed his allegiance to the Huddled Masses—this one read “Jobless”—and left behind a note of rhetoric and demands.

  But what was different in this case was that two men had boarded the ship, and assisted in the crime. And when the deed was done, they left the scene via speedboat. Unlike the others, they didn’t sacrifice themselves for the cause. And the “breaking news” Lauren spoke of, was that a new photo had been released—it was taken by a passenger with his phone as the men sped away. Lauren pleaded with the viewers to call the FBI tip line that flashed on the screen, if they recognized the men.

  She looked pleased with herself, until Tino topped her with some “Really Breaking News!”

  “It has been confirmed to GNZ that a top Al Muttahedah operative, known as Qwaui, thought to be the second most powerful man within the terrorist organization, has been killed by a US drone attack in the Jabal al-Zawiya section of Syria. Also believed to be dead is Yassad Az Zahir, a Chicago native, best known for his role in the attempted attack on Soldier Field during the NFC Championship game, two years ago.”

  Their deaths weren’t news to me, but the only drone I could recall was named Jovana. Not that I wanted the credit, but I did make a mental note not to believe anything I ever saw on the news, even if I’m the one reporting it. It served as a good refresher course.

  Photos were displayed of the Syrian hideout, which was now just a bunch of smoking rocks. It left no doubt it had been hit by the aforementioned drone, even if it was a posthumous attack.

  The coverage switched to a pentagon official who was either a great actor or, more likely, wasn’t briefed on the truth, as he was able to keep a straight face while patting himself on the back for bringing Qwaui and Az Zahir “to justice.”

  Tino did the honors of reading the president’s response—to summarize: world a safer place, his policies rock, drones are cool, bad people still out there, need to remain diligent—before passing the baton to Lauren, who segued, “And speaking of Syria, coming up in the next hour will be an exclusive report from our own Christina Wilkins, who had been embedded within the Syrian Rebels, and she will tell their harrowing story as they fight for freedom.”

  Tino added, “I’ve been to the most horrific war zones, Lauren, and I can say with great certainty that Syria is the worst I’ve seen.”

  I didn’t know if it was the greasy chips or just the sight of Tino Fernandez, but I began to feel a pain in my stomach. So just to be safe, I turned off the television.

  But I couldn’t escape the “Breaking News!” as I noticed the headlights coming up the driveway.

  Chapter 21

  I watched as she stepped out of the van and walked toward the A-frame. The front door was unlocked, and she stepped inside.

  Gwen stood in the doorway, her raven hair streaming out of the knit winter cap. We just stared at each other from across the room. It felt like I’d gone another fifteen years without seeing her.

  “I was going to call you tomorrow,” I said. “I didn’t know if you had plans tonight, or something.”

  “I just saw Ethan and the kids in the Village Store, and he told me that he’d run into you here. So I thought I’d come over and say hello … so hello, JP Warner. Welcome home.”

  “It’s good to be home, Gwen Delaney.”

  Gwen closed the door,
cutting off the cold draft. But I really didn’t feel anything at the moment.

  “So how was your trip?”

  “It was a little hectic at first, but it calmed down towards the end, and I was able to do some thinking.”

  “About that, JP—I was being stupid. If we’re going to be together, then we have to figure out things together, not apart.”

  “It wasn’t stupid. I think it’s what I needed, and you were able to read that. You’re always much better at reading me than I am at reading myself.”

  “Did this thinking result in any conclusions?”

  “That I’d already done this before, and I was wasting my time … and yours.”

  Gwen’s face sunk, and there was an edge in her voice, “So you’re saying coming back here, and us, was just a waste of time?”

  “No—I mean spending time away from you was.”

  Right answer. She walked over to me, and wrapped her arms around my neck. We kissed … and kissed … and kept kissing. It could have gone on forever, but a voice stopped us.

  It was my father, “Don’t let us interrupt anything.”

  My mother trailed him into the house. She looked tanned and rested, but also annoyed by her spouse. She hit my father on the shoulder. “Will you give them some space … for goodness’ sake, Peter.”

  Gwen put an end to the awkward moment by going to them and hugging them home. “How was your trip?” It was the question of the night.

  My father went on to describe each meal they ate along the way, and the results of every hole of golf he played. If you give a politician the floor, expect a filibuster.

  My mother’s summary was much more concise. “We had such a nice time … and your friends Byron and Tonya had us down to Charleston one night, which was fantastic. The history in that city is just amazing, I could have spent weeks there.”

  Last time I’d returned home after an overseas hostage situation, my mother refused to talk to me—I was sort of missing that right now. She continued, “And Mama Jasper’s—let me tell you, I don’t think I’ve ever eaten food that good … it practically melted in my mouth. They said you’ve never been there, JP, which is hard to believe. Anyhow … they both say hello, and look forward to seeing you for the Hall of Fame ceremonies next month.”