by Glenn Meade
Chad pulled up a chair, sat, crossed his legs, and tugged at his trousers. Arrogance in the gesture. “I played a part, sure. Like your father, like Tarik, and like Jack here. We all did. It was a team effort. No use lying anymore.”
His words set Jack’s eyes on fire, and he seemed to lose it, his fists clenched like steel balls as he lunged from his chair. “You’re a scumbag, Chad. A liar and a thief. You set it all up!”
He stabbed a finger at Chad. “You caused the plane to crash. You caused all of this . . . with your greed, your scheming. What’s the matter? Didn’t you have enough money?” Jack’s eyes blazed at me. “He killed Amy. He killed our daughter.”
His mouth was frothing with spittle, and Kevin grabbed his arm, struggled to hold him back. “No, Jack, don’t lose it, man.”
Jack’s eyes were wet, and I knew by the wild look on his face that his mind was in overdrive, but then so was mine once I heard his words.
Chad shook his head. “No, I didn’t, Jack. You’re wrong there. You can claim what you want, but the crash wasn’t my fault. It was simply whatever it was—engine failure, weather, a combination of events, but it wasn’t me, Jack. Your mind’s haywire, buddy.”
I listened, dumbstruck, caught in the middle of Jack and Chad’s confrontation. Jack’s mind could fly wild now and then, go off the scale. Was this one of those times? Or was he right?
“How . . . how did Chad cause the crash?” I asked Jack.
“Ask him.”
But before I could, a look of rage erupted on Jack’s face, and he gave a snarl and lunged at Chad, grabbing him by the jacket collar. The men outside rushed in, but Tarik beat them to it, a Kimber .45 appearing in his hand. It looked like my father’s gun. The hammer clicked as Tarik pointed the barrel tip at Jack’s face.
“Let go of his collar. Settle down, Jack. Or your temper’s going to get everyone killed. Another move like that, and next time someone is dead.”
Tarik pointed the Kimber at me. “She’ll be the first to go. Understood?”
Courtney calmly tried to reason. “Jack, if you want Kath, you, Sean, and your buddy”—she pointed at Kevin—“here to walk away from this alive, you really need to listen good and not lose your head. Just stay calm, and I promise you’ll feel differently when you hear what’s going to be said.”
Jack didn’t budge.
Chad’s men tensed, fingers flexing on their triggers.
“Jack,” I pleaded.
Jack finally let go of Chad’s collar.
Chad jerked it back into place. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing from Courtney. It was as if she was Chad’s woman all over again and had planned this conversation out with him.
Jack’s neck muscles stood out like ropes, his rage like molten lava. As Chad’s men covered him with their weapons, I had a terrible feeling that this was all going to end badly. “Jack, please, do as they say.”
Kevin touched Jack’s arm. “Stay calm, buddy. Calm, you hear?”
I knew how unpredictable Jack could get, and I feared the worst. I thought of Sean, asleep upstairs, and my heart wrenched. I prayed he wouldn’t come awake and hear, walk down the stairs, and cause anyone to get trigger-happy. If that happened, things could go very badly very quickly.
Chad patted down his jacket. He stared at me, as if insulted. “He’s wrong, Kath. So wrong. It’s crazy, for God’s sake.”
I felt my heart sink into a hole, one so deep I couldn’t even begin to climb out of it. I didn’t know what to believe. Could barely comprehend Jack’s accusation.
“I . . . I don’t know what to believe, Chad.” It was all I could say.
Chad looked at a fuming Jack. “You don’t believe me. I can’t change what you believe. But now is all that matters. Just hear what we have to say. It costs nothing to listen. You know why you need to listen, Jack?”
Jack didn’t reply, but Tarik did.
“Because if you don’t, there’s no way out of this, except for us all to die. We began this together, as co-conspirators. And we could all die together or spend the rest of our lives in prison.”
Tarik shrugged, the .45 still pointed at Jack. “Yes, you could cut off your nose to spite your face and rat on everyone. But what would that achieve? Consider it before this gets out of hand, Jack. We all saw enough bloodshed in my homeland. We don’t need to see any more. And this . . . this offer . . . allows a way out for everyone.”
“That’s pretty darn good of you, Tarik. A man who caused enough bloodshed and misery to send him to hell a hundred times over. And not a shred of conscience about it either. Good of y’all, in fact.”
Tarik registered the sarcasm in Jack’s voice, and his face twisted with a smug grin. “Well?”
Jack leaned in closer to Tarik, his fury still livid. “Like that little girl in Falluja that Kyle befriended. The flower girl. That’s what really broke him, you know. You killed her, too, didn’t you, Tarik? You enjoy killing. I bet you helped Chad here plan the plane crash. Was that your handiwork, too? Bet it was.”
Tarik stared Jack down. “I asked you a question.”
Jack didn’t answer. Nobody did, and a frightening, hollow silence filled the room, like a pregnant storm cloud just ready to burst. I could hear Jack breathing heavily, his temper hanging by a flimsy thread. “What’s your offer?”
Chad placed the tips of the fingers of each hand on the table, flexed them like a dealer preparing to shuffle a deck. He took a deep breath, held it, let it out fast.
“OK, listen up. Time to put all our cards on the table.”
101
* * *
Babek chewed on an Atkins protein bar and watched the monitor screen.
The drone was flying in perfect circles two hundred feet above the farm. Nothing unusual, nothing odd. Zilch, in fact. Babek had watched Tarik walk up to the farmhouse and enter the front door, could hear his every word through the cell phone. Now it was a waiting game.
Babek chewed the last of the protein bar, scrunched the wrapper into a ball, and tossed it into the corner of the van. As it landed, he heard a grunt. The abducted young man, his face red, drenched in sweat.
Babek swiveled his chair toward Abu, sitting in the corner, his arms crossed, toying with his cell phone. Mehmet was busy scratching himself, looking at the drone screen.
“You think you should give him some water? He doesn’t look too good.”
Abu grunted and toyed with his phone.
“Hey, buddy, you hear what I said?”
A pair of dark, dangerous eyes almost cut Babek in two. “Don’t ‘buddy’ me. I am not your buddy.”
Babek didn’t like Tarik’s henchmen, and he certainly didn’t like this guy. Dark, moody, dangerous. He sounded even more dangerous than usual. Maybe it was the tenseness of the situation, except that Babek didn’t like it, felt under a cloud of threat. “But . . . he looks like he could choke. I mean, no one wants to kill anyone, right? That . . . well, that’s murder. A serious business.”
Abu actually smiled. “You think I care? He’s dead anyway.”
Mehmet gave a strangled little laugh that made Babek swallow, and a sickening feeling sank into the pit of his stomach, as if he were in a elevator in free fall. “Dead anyway? What do you mean?”
Abu’s smile vanished, and he grunted. “Talk to Tarik.”
A cold chill went through Babek. This guy was nuts, dangerous. So was Tarik, all his relatives knew that. Babek sometimes did things for Tarik, technical things that bordered on the edge of crime, for money. But this felt different. What if he was in danger of being killed, too?
He swallowed. What if he ran for it, just scurried to the Mercedes and drove off? But he figured there was no hiding from Tarik. He would find him, find him and maybe kill him.
He looked up at the stars, tried to think, his brain a fog. He decided then just to run. To get aw
ay from here. He didn’t know where, but this whole business had a bad smell.
“I’m going outside.”
Abu looked at him suspiciously.
“I need to take a leak, get some air.”
“Two minutes, no more.”
“Sure. Just watch the screen for me.”
* * *
“It’s simple. You hand over the mask and the other artifacts you took back from the Caymans. We don’t care about cash or bonds. You keep them.”
Jack was silent as he listened. “Yeah? What else?”
“That’s it. Let’s face it, if it ever comes out what happened, we’re all in the same boat. Theft. Conspiracy. Kidnapping. You want that? I don’t think so, Jack.”
“I guess that doesn’t go too well with any White House ambitions you may ever have, either, Chad.”
“Not the point. That may never happen. But what could happen is that we’re all looking at twenty to thirty years, depending on the judge’s mood. Maybe you never see Kath or Sean for the rest of your natural. Think about that.”
Something made me look at my father. His right jaw spasmed, the muscle twitching violently. But his eyes were closed, as if he was thinking hard or just trying to avoid what he was hearing, I couldn’t tell which.
I felt Tanner’s eyes fall on me, and I stopped looking.
Chad shrugged and sat back. “The way I see it, there are only two sides to this coin, and you’ve heard the first one. The other side is, if we kill you and we’re found out, the stakes are even higher, so why risk it? I like to keep my stakes low. By that I mean we all agree to walk away from this, no hard feelings, no prison time.”
He jerked his head toward me. “If Kath wants to, she can join you, wherever that is you all want to go. The Caribbean, the Riviera, you name it. New identities, new lives.”
Jack said, “You can arrange that?”
“Sure. Either way, we all carry on as before and keep our mouths shut like nothing happened. If you hid for eight years, you can hide for eight more, or a lifetime if you want. You know that, Jack. If it weren’t for the wreckage being found, you’d still be hiding out here and no one the wiser.”
“True.”
I said, “What about Sergeant Stone and Tanner’s buddy Agent Breedon.”
Tanner said, “We’ll take care of them.”
I gave Courtney a look. “Money makes all things possible, I guess, Chad?” I said.
Courtney didn’t react, and Chad shrugged indifferently, saying, “You could be right, Kath. It sure greases the wheels.”
“And if it doesn’t, you kill whoever you need to?”
“Sadly, that’s always a last option.”
There wasn’t a sound of sadly in Chad’s voice. He uttered the remark so matter-of-factly, so coldly, that I realized right there and then that he probably had absolutely no regard for human life unless it had a meaning for him personally or he meant to gain by it. He was probably a closet psycho.
Kevin said to him, “You really believe you can get away with this?”
Chad looked pretty cocky. “If we can get away with twenty-five million and a bunch of priceless artifacts for this long, yeah, I do.”
Jack’s mouth tightened, a gesture that made me sense danger. “Just like nothing happened, is that what you said, Chad?”
“Yeah. Like nothing happened.”
“But something did happen. You killed our daughter. You left Sean brain-damaged. You robbed me of my life. You robbed Kath’s, too.”
“No, you did that, Jack. And I didn’t cause the plane crash. Get that into your thick skull.”
I could see rage erupt again on Jack’s face. Kevin said, “Jack, back down, man. Get a grip.”
Chad shrugged, as if his patience was waning. “That’s our final offer.”
Tarik added, “Are you in or out, Jack?”
“We don’t have an option, do we?”
Chad shook his head. “Do any of us? See, I don’t want anyone harmed. Neither does Tarik. It complicates things immensely. This is the sensible way forward, for all of us.”
Chad’s gaze swept over all of us. “Well, can we cut a deal?”
102
* * *
The air was still and warm, not as stuffy as in the van.
Babek took a long, deep breath, let it out. He felt his legs shake. Fear rose up in his throat like bile. What had he gotten himself into? The Mercedes was fifty yards away. He strolled toward it. He knew the keys were still in the ignition. What if he ran for it, just drove off? But there was no hiding from Tarik. He would find Babek and kill him.
He walked back toward the van and looked up at the stars, trying to think, his brain in a fog. He decided there and then just to run. To get away. To where, he didn’t know, but this whole business scared him, had a really bad smell.
He had started to flex his legs, to prepare himself mentally to take flight, when a voice whispered, “Beautiful night, isn’t it?”
Babek felt his heart skip, was about to say, “Yeah, it is,” when he realized the voice was not Abu’s or Mehmet’s or that of anyone he knew.
He felt cold metal push hard into his left jaw. His eyes skewed left. A man stood next to him in the semidarkness and whispered, “Don’t speak or move. If you do that, a lot of people could get killed. You understand me?”
Babek felt as if he were frozen into a block of ice. The man pushed the gun barrel even harder into his jaw. It hurt him. He glimpsed that the barrel had a silencer. Now his legs were really shaking, felt like rubber.
“I asked, do you understand me?”
“Y-yes.”
“I’m Agent Stone, CID.”
The man’s voice was a firm whisper. He wore black tactical gear, a bulletproof vest, black gloves. Babek heard other footsteps, soft, like a rustle of leaves, as other men in black swarmed in out of nowhere like black specters, brandishing automatic rifles, pistols, shotguns, submachine guns, most of their weapons silenced.
Thermal-imaging devices attached to their helmets, they moved like shadows, ghosts, wearing black, carrying firearms and flashlights like glinting sabers.
At least a dozen, and they moved everywhere at once—toward the Mercedes, circling the van, fanning out to take up positions near the woods. “CID” was emblazoned with Velcro strips on their ballistic vests.
Babek wanted to cry out, but he swallowed, managed to suppress it.
Two of the men began to pat him down for weapons. One yanked Babek’s hands behind his back and placed a plastic tie wrap on his wrists. Babek stayed frozen still. He didn’t want to risk a noise or gesture that might make the man shoot him.
“Who’s inside the van?” Stone whispered. “Speak quietly.”
“Abu and Mehmet?”
“Yeah? And who are they?”
“They . . . they work for Tarik.”
“Are they armed?”
“Yes.”
“With what? I want the truth, buddy.”
“Pistols. Automatic rifles.”
“What about the woman, Agent Adams?”
“I . . . know nothing about her.”
“Anyone else in there?”
“A man, they kidnapped him, from a home near Servierville. His name is Kyle. He’s tied up in the van.”
“Where exactly in the van?”
“That end.” Babek gestured to the back of the vehicle.
“Sitting or lying down?”
“Lying down.”
Stone tried to digest that information and stared at the van, as if judging where to direct gunfire if needed. “Where’s Tarik?”
“He went up to the farmhouse to join the others. To talk.”
“What others?”
Babek told him what he knew. “I . . . I think they mean to kill everyone at the farm.”
<
br /> “Is Tarik armed?”
“Yes. He has a pistol.”
Stone patted him on the head. “Good dog.”
Stone made several gestures with his hands, two agents joined him, and he whispered to them, as others began to encircle the van, and three of the agents took up positions near the sliding side door.
Without warning, the van’s side door slid open, and Abu stepped out, carrying a flashlight, Mehmet behind him, weapons in their hands.
It happened quickly.
A dozen flashlights sprang on and were directed toward the van. Shock registered on Abu’s face, and his gun exploded twice, firing wildly, and that was his big mistake.
As Mehmet went to fire and duck back inside the van, he managed to get off two shots before a hail of silenced gunfire erupted, riddling the van with bullet holes, hammering both men back inside the vehicle in an obscene dance of death.
103
* * *
“So have we got a deal, Jack?”
Jack said nothing, his blank face a cipher.
Chad sat there, his leg tapping up and down, his impatience showing.
“All we want is the mask and the artifacts, Jack.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“You’ve got them stashed somewhere, stands to reason. Why dispose of a fortune?”
“Good question.”
“You done being a wiseass, Jack?”
Jack was steadfastly silent, but his skin stretched tight across his cheekbones, his face white with rage, festering beneath his silence.
Chad glanced at his watch, and then, with a sweeping movement of his hand, he took out a small Sig auto and pointed it toward us.
“I told you, Jack. I don’t want anyone hurt. But so help me, if you don’t talk . . .” He glanced at Kevin, then at me. “Someone’s going to get killed. You’ve got three seconds.”
Jack glared back at Chad, and in that glare I recognized a hatred so intense it was ready to explode like a bomb at any second.