The president and Conrad left.
Before she could gather her things and stand, three large, dark-suited security officers entered the room, relieved her of her credentials, and escorted her from the building.
2
“You mean you’re not going to electrocute my genitals?”
—Rashid al-Rahman
When Rashid came to, he was flat on his back on a thin mattress in a small, dimly lit space. His mouth was duct taped, his wrists bound crosswise with zip ties. His ankles and knees were also restrained. An IV was in his arm. The woman was sitting next to him on the floor, her back against the wall. She was still dressed in black Levis and a black blouse. Her boots were off, however, and she was wearing black Nikes. She was absorbed in a book.
Rashid grunted. She leaned over and removed the duct tape gag.
“Any good?” Rashid asked, nodding toward the book.
“Su-per-la-tive,” the woman said dryly, pronouncing each syllable with contemptuous emphasis.
“What’s it about?”
Putting the book down, she gave him a slow, disdainful stare, then averted her eyes.
“You wouldn’t be interested,” she finally said.
“Why?”
“It’s full of long sentences and big words.”
“Who’s the author? The Marquis de Sade?”
She silently returned to her reading.
Rashid looked away from her and studied their surroundings. The room was about twenty feet long, eight feet high, and eight feet across. He could see now that the walls of the room were paneled with noise dampening tiles and acoustic foam. Someone had soundproofed it to the max.
At one end was a small portable toilet, a minifridge, a case of Cabernet Sauvignon, bottled water, and boxes of groceries with loaves of French bread sticking out the top. Another box was filled with Meals Ready to Eat. He saw a half-empty bottle of red wine beside his bed.
When he looked up at her, she was staring at him. She slowly lay down next to him. He noticed she had a flat, spring-loaded, leather-encased sap stuffed crosswise in her belt. He suddenly felt very tired, his body and head achingly sore. He also felt drugged. He shut his eyes and let his head sink into the pillow.…
* * *
Then he remembered what had happened.
The white-robed cleric was walking toward him with the red-hot metal shears and pliers, grinning. The big ape called Ali was standing directly in front of him, laughing maniacally in his face. The woman was still sitting at the rear of the room. Taking a 9mm Makarov out of the shoulder bag lying next to her chair, she put the edge of her hand to her mouth and winked at him. Giving Rashid a cryptic smile, she screwed in a GEMTECH GM-9 silencer. She quickly stood, walked up to the doctor, and, from four feet away, shot him in the back of the head. Ali was turning to face her, but she was too quick for him. Before he could complete the pivot, she was at his side, putting a round in his temple. After he hit the floor, she followed up with an insurance tap to the forehead. The three shots, even in the closed confines of the cement-block room, were little more than a tap-tap-tap.
Still smiling, she walked up to Rashid again, once more kissed him on the lips, and cut him down.
The moment he hit the ground, he passed out.…
* * *
When he came to a second time, she was leaning over him, one palm over his mouth. She motioned him to be quiet. Pulling off the second strip of duct tape, she pressed the neck of a plastic water bottle against his lips.
“Drink it slowly,” she whispered.
“I’d rather have beer,” he said softly but took three slow sips.
“I have a twelve-pack in the minifridge. For the moment, though, you need some Sustacal.” She opened a can and gave it to him. “After you’re able to eat a couple of MREs, you can have that beer.”
“You mean you’re not going to electrocute my genitals?”
“No, I’ve been ordered to nurse you back to health.”
“In order to torture me again?”
“Rashid, we’re both in a shipping container on a truck, headed toward a U.S. cargo ship, which will take us to the United States. The Inner Harbor of Baltimore to be precise. I’m taking you to safety.”
Rashid’s head lay back on the pillow.
What the hell is happening?
Again, he passed out.
PART VII
Let them see what is on the end of that long newspaper spoon.
—William S. Burroughs
1
“I’m going to drag their dirty laundry out into the street.”
—Elena Moreno
Jules and Elena sat at the Rockville McDonald’s, silently staring at their large cups of black coffee. The more famous of the two, Jules wore a baseball cap and sunglasses. Elena, who’d come straight from the White House, was still in her black, pin-striped pants suit and heels. They had also been careful to avoid tails.
“Sometimes you just have to go with it,” Jules finally said, “come back at them another time.”
“There won’t be another time,” Elena said.
Jules nodded her grudging agreement. “If it goes down like you say, Caldwell and his gang could turn these attacks into a power grab.”
“They’ll say they need the extra authority to protect us from terrorists,” Elena said. Turning toward the window, she stared out at the Maryland countryside. Rain was cascading down in slanted, layered sheets out of a blue-black sky.
“Sometimes you have to swallow the hurt and move on,” Jules said.
“Never happen,” Elena said, her eyes still fixed on the rain hammering the window like double-ought buck.
“The shit you know is so heavily classified, you breathe it to anyone outside the Agency, you’re going away for good. The Patriot Act has provisions written specifically for people like you.”
Elena turned her head and looked back at her, her eyes hard and flat as the rain-splattered window glass.
My God, Elena’s going to do it.
She’s going to take her findings to the press.
Jules put her hand on her arm. “They will shred your birth certificate and burn off your fingerprints. It’ll be like you never were.”
“And when I do nothing and the nukes go off, how do I live with that?”
“We’ll both take time off,” Jules said. “Go to the Bahamas. Any place except Ground Zero, USA.”
“Really?” Elena said. “I know those assholes. They’ve talked about what they would do in a situation like this. After we get nuked, they’ll retaliate with nukes. Pakistan and everyone else will do the same, and the whole Mideast—maybe half the free world—goes up in nuclear flames.”
“It’s everything ISIS and al Qaeda have always wanted,” Jules said. “Turn 1.8 million Muslims worldwide into violent, infidel-hating fanatics.”
“And once again, we march to their drums,” Elena said.
“And the president can’t see it coming?” Jules said.
“He’s got his nose buried so far up Shaiq ibn Ishaq’s ass, he can’t see his own dick.”
“He’s not very smart, is he?” Jules asked.
“None of those boys are going to split the atom.”
“They’re all smart enough to think you’re a threat.”
“I got a news flash for you, Jules,” Elena said, leaning toward her friend. “I am a threat.”
“You want to fight a war you can’t win?” Jules asked.
“I don’t care,” Elena said. “They dealt the play, and I’m seeing it through—to the end.”
“Why?” Jules asked. “To what good purpose?”
“It’s what I do,” Elena said.
“What is it you do, anyway? I’d really like to know.”
“I serve a vast, vulgar, meretricious dream.”
“Which is?”
“To save planet earth from nuclear psychopaths like Caldwell, his Saudi patrons, and their Pakistani mad-dog killers.”
Jules shook her hea
d slowly. “I can’t top that.”
“I only speak the truth,” Elena said.
“Yeah,” Jules said, “but Caldwell and his crew don’t traffic in the truth.”
“Which is why they won’t see me coming,” Elena said.
“They won’t guess what’s jumping out of my jack-in-the-box either,” Jules said, suddenly grinning.
“What do you mean your jack-in-the-box?”
“You expect me to miss out on the biggest story of the century? I could be a nuclear Woodward and Bernstein.”
“This will not end well,” Elena said, shutting her eyes.
“They’re covering up what could be the biggest, baddest terrorist attack in history,” Jules said, “and we’re going to have them cold. When we’re done, they’ll be the ones stacking time.”
“I did warn them of the coming nuclear strike,” Elena said, “and they’re ignoring it. I’ll give you that much, and when they come after us, I’m not going to shut up and play nice. I’m going to drag their dirty laundry out into the street.”
“True,” Jules said, “and then they’ll destroy you, say you doctored documents, withheld evidence.”
“They’ll probably claim I colluded with the terrorists, which is why I knew so much.”
“You did conceal the identity of two known terrorists,” Jules said.
“Then why are you jumping into the same trick bag?”
“Because you have such a winning personality?” Jules asked.
“It’d be easier,” Elena said, “if we just cleaned out the White House with Uzis.”
“If you shot those assholes,” Jules said, shaking her head, “the shit’d run out of them like the Johnstown Flood.”
“It’s enough to make you want to quit show business,” Elena said gloomily, staring at her reflection in the window.
“You can’t run away from yourself,” Jules said.
“Then fuck ’em all but six,” Elena said, smiling, “and save them for pallbearers.”
“That kind of language will give you cavities,” Jules said.
“Look at it as my year of living dangerously,” Elena said.
“Our year.”
“You’re in?” Elena said. “Really?”
“I couldn’t let you have all the fun.” Jules handed her friend a padded manila envelope. “I’m way ahead of you. There’s a flash drive containing a copy of the article I stayed up all night writing and addresses for all the top print editors as well. By contract, I have to show it to The New York Journal-World. When they turn it down, one of us has to make sure it gets to the Huffington Post, The Washington Post, Salon.com, Slate.com, Mother Jones, Naomi Klein, The Nation. Anyone and everyone. We’ll post it on blogs and Web sites.”
“They’ll come after us with flags flying and guns blazing,” Elena said.
“They may already be after us, which is why I gave you an extra copy.”
“We’ll have to get it out fast.”
“And get away fast,” Jules said.
“Not a problem. Just have your go-to-hell bags ready to go. I’ll set it up.”
“We’re good?”
“We’re solid,” Elena said, giving her a high five.
2
“You could make a glass eye weep and turn out a nun.”
—Rashid al-Rahman
When Rashid came to, he was still strapped down on his mattress, his hands fastened together with zip ties, his mouth taped. The woman was sitting next to him on the floor of the shipping container, reading a book. This time he could see the cover—House of the Dead by Dostoyevsky. He groaned. Putting an index finger to her lips and whispering “shush,” she pulled off the tape.
“What happened?”
“You lay down with the devil, and you woke up in hell.”
“And you’re Dante’s Virgil?” he asked, squinting at her. “My guide through the Underworld?”
“My name’s Adara, and, yes, you can think of me as your spirit guide.”
“Which means?”
“I’m the girl who shows up with the twelve-pack after everything’s closed.”
“But you were one of my torturers.”
“As Dylan says, ‘People are crazy, times have changed.’”
“So why are you helping me now?”
“My employer appealed to my better instincts,” Adara said.
“How?”
“He offered me money,” Adara said.
“There are other things more important than money.”
“Like?” Her face was filled with skepticism and contempt.
“Like sex?”
“Ever try spending head?”
“I hear money is the root of all evil.”
“In my world it is a many-splendored thing.”
“That’s all? He bought you?”
“He also promised to kill me if I refused.”
“And he scares you?” Rashid asked.
“He’s war, plague, famine, earthquake,” Adara said. “He’s more trouble than Jehovah gave the Jews.”
“So why does he want us?” Rashid asked.
“He knows our work. We both lived in the U.S. for several years and speak the language fluently. We know our way around Americans.”
“Suppose I said no?”
“Oh, he’s the last person in the world you want to fuck with.”
“What about you?”
“I’m the next to last.”
Rashid stared at his rescuer a long moment. “You really are beautiful.”
“But mean—don’t forget it,” Adara said.
“You don’t hold with ‘Love your neighbor’ and the Sermon on the Mount?”
“In my world,” Adara said, “your neighbor is cursed, the meek are fucked, and peacemakers burn in hellfire everlasting.”
“What about the poor in spirit?” he asked, baiting her.
Adara shrugged. “I never invest in other people’s misery.”
“I could learn to love you?”
“You ever love a woman—ever?” she asked, her expression dubious.
Rashid nodded. “Sure. When I was young. Her name was Aisha.”
“Why did you love her?”
“She was the first woman I didn’t have to pay for.”
“And that’s how you define love?” Adara asked, her eyes narrowing.
“Yes. Back then.” He looked at her intently. “But what about you? You ever love anyone?”
Adara smiled pleasantly. “Yeah. Me.”
“Why?”
“I’m really good at my job.”
“Which included killing those people back in the safe house?”
“I’m told,” the woman said, “I have the moral compass of an iron maiden.”
“You don’t strike me as all that bad,” Rashid said.
“I’m also told I have the soul of a sledgehammer, the heart of a whore, and the business ethics of a tiger shark.”
“Now who would say that?” Rashid asked with mock disbelief.
“My friends.”
“What do your enemies say?”
“That I’m Hitler times ISIS multiplied by metastatic cancer.”
“They don’t know you like I do,” Rashid said with a wry smile.
“And what do you know about me?”
“I’m told we’re all children of God.”
“Not anymore. God’s gone.”
“Really?” Rashid asked. “Where did He go?”
“The Big Bang blasted His ass into another dimension.”
“You mean He’s not here anymore?”
“He has left the building.”
“So where does that leave us?”
“If there’s no God,” Adara mused, “then everything is permitted.”
“I’m told without God, there is no hope.”
“Ah, there is infinite hope,” she said, shaking her head, “but not for us.”
“Do you like living like this—on the edge?” Rashid asked.
“I
t’s the only place to win.”
“And you expect to win?”
“I’m not sure this time,” she said, suddenly serious. “This one will be bad, a leap into the abyss.”
“So you’re afraid?”
“Never.” She suddenly smiled. “I was born in the abyss.”
“I don’t think I’m going to like this picture.”
“You’ll hate every frame.”
“Then what’s in it for me?”
“Nothing—except the alternative is unthinkable.”
“I need more incentive than that.”
“If we survive, we’ll both make a shitload of money.”
“Suppose the job violates my moral principles?”
“When money contends with morality,” she said, laughing, “the battle is always nolo contendere.”
“I’m going to hate myself in the morning.”
“Buck up. We’ll do some good.”
“Like what?”
“We’re going to lock the lid on Pandora’s box and weld it shut.”
“And my role in this little love fest?”
“You’re the indispensable man.”
“The graveyards are full of indispensable men.”
“My boss wants you on board, and he’s a man you don’t disappoint.”
“He’s persuasive?” Rashid asked facetiously.
“He could make rocks sob, mountains dance, the dead cry out from terror and from truth.”
Rashid looked away and shut his eyes. “I don’t know.”
“You have a day to decide. When we land, I have to know which side of the door you’re on. But once you walk through it, there’s no going back.”
“And if I do join up?”
The woman stood up. Her high-waisted black trousers were tight in the legs and thighs, sharply delineating her arching derriere. Her black, low-cut blouse invitingly revealed the sensual curvature of her cleavage. Her ebony riding boots featured four-inch heels and were polished to a mirror gloss. She stretched and yawned.
God, she was beautiful.
A wave of lust rushed through him like a hard, hot wind.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“That you could make a glass eye weep and turn out a nun.”
“You do have gonads for brains.”
“Even so, the dying man wants a last fuck.”
And Into the Fire Page 11