She yawned and rested her head on the table next to her laptop.
John should be on the ground in Islamabad by now.
The local police and a half dozen two-person teams of secret service agents were cruising the area’s motels, looking for the old, rusty Camaro. Neither their searches, nor the APB that covered the area between Cleveland and Mount Vernon, had produced so much as a glimmer of hope.
She sat up and looked at the dispatcher. “Is there any place open around here where I can get a donut?”
The dispatcher was watching House of Cards reruns on her tablet. She didn’t look up. “Bonnie’s on Main is open all night. She makes a fresh batch every couple of hours. If you’re going to make a run, I’d appreciate a couple of chocolate-covered, cream-filled.”
Stony stood. “Be happy to, but it may be a while before we get back. We’re going to join the search.” She was staring at Hammer.
“We are?”
“Move your sorry, good-for-nothing ass,” Stony said.
43
Islamabad, Pakistan
Tareef and AC sat in the truck, doors open to catch a breeze.
Tareef had carried two cards with him for the trip to Islamabad. One had been the American’s. He reached in his pocket and withdrew the other.
“I’m beginning to think you have magic pockets,” AC said. “Anytime you need help, you pull out another name.” He nodded at the dilapidated card. “Who’s that?”
An Islamabad police car turned onto the side street from the direction of the embassy, moving slowly, as if they were examining each parked car.
“I didn’t like how that guy at the post office was staring at us,” Tareef said, “and I don’t like police.”
“Yeah. Let’s slip out the side and hide between a couple of houses so we can watch what they’re doing.”
Tareef stuffed the card back into his pocket. They slumped in the seat, scooted out the passenger door, ran to a narrow patch of green grass between the nearest two houses, and hid behind a large air conditioning unit.
“Maybe someone called the police when they saw us park in their neighborhood,” AC said. “Maybe they think we’re thieves.”
Tareef was peering around a cooling unit that was as tall as he was. “Or maybe the embassy guard called them.”
The police car continued its slow patrol down the street and stopped beside AC’s empty truck.
“Shit,” AC hissed. “They have to wonder why the doors are open and no one is around.”
The car moved on. AC exhaled and stood up. “We need to get out of here.” He started back to the street.
“Wait,” Tareef said. “Where’d they go?”
AC peeked around the corner of the house on their left. “Dammit. They turned back this way and parked about a block away.”
Tareef turned around and looked toward the front of the houses, away from the truck. Sprinklers chattered across an expanse of emerald green grass. “We’re going to have to leave the truck and go that way.” He pointed toward the sprinklers. He smiled. “At least we’ll be cool.”
“My dad is going to kill me if they take the truck.”
“What’s he going to do if they take his son?” Tareef asked.
They rushed along the sides of the two houses, stepped out on the lawn and stopped, trying to decide which way to go from there.
“Hi.”
Tareef jumped and jerked his head toward the voice. A girl about his age with blond hair and eyes the color of a mountain stream was sitting on a patio that ran the width of the house on his left. She’d spoken English, but with an accent that Tareef didn’t recognize.
“Hello.” He was ready to bolt if she called for help or screamed. He looked to his right for AC.
“Your friend ran off when he heard my voice.”
She was right. AC had disappeared.
I can’t yell for him or I’ll attract attention.
“What’s your name?” the girl asked.
“Tareef. What’s yours?”
“Ann Marie Johnson. My father is an attaché in the American embassy. I’m not supposed to talk to strangers, but you don’t look dangerous. You look scared.”
I’ve got to get away from here.
“I can help you find your friend. I won’t hurt you, I promise. Are you in Transition, Tareef?”
“Is your father home?” Tareef asked.
“No, but Karl is here. He fell asleep and I decided to come out on the deck.. He’s my guardian.”
Tareef tensed and turned in the direction that AC had fled.
“Wait! Why won’t you let me help you?”
He stopped and looked back.
I’m crazy.
“I need to call a friend, Ann Marie. Do you have a phone?”
“Of course, silly. Right here.” She pulled a cell phone from the pocket of her jeans.
Tareef took Ann Marie’s phone and called the university student and cab driver who’d helped him escape the city months earlier, after his father had been abducted.
Please answer, please.
“Salaam Aleikum. This is Ali.”
Tareef choked back a sob from the overwhelming surge of relief.
“Ali? This is Tareef. The Kalash boy you helped get to Murree. Do you—”
“Ali! How could I forget my brother? Where are you? Are you in Islamabad?”
“I need your help again, Ali. Could you come get me?”
Fifteen minutes later, Tareef was slouched down in the front passenger seat of Ali’s yellow cab as his friend cruised the back street where the truck was parked, looking for AC.
As they searched, Tareef explained why he was back in Islamabad. Ali nodded, as if surprise visits from his mountain friend were a common occurrence.
“There is no truck,” Ali said, “and I see no one sitting in a car anywhere along the street. I think the police have left.”
Tareef pushed himself up on the seat. “Can we look again?”
They drove up and down the street two more times and found neither AC nor the truck.
Maybe he got away. Even if the police took him, they’d have no reason to keep him. He’s just a farmer’s boy who’s come to the city for supplies. They’d send him home.
He prayed that was true.
I can’t wait any longer.
“Let’s go.”
“Go where? You can’t just walk into the American embassy. People with appointments have to catch a bus to the embassy from a secure area on the University campus. Only big shots can get into the embassy without an appointment.”
“Could I telephone them and ask for help?”
Ali was back on the main road in the diplomatic enclave, headed away from the gate where Tareef had approached the soldier. He shrugged. “They can’t stop telephone calls, but they don’t have to pay attention to you. The Americans aren’t friendly.”
“I have to try. I can’t give up.”
“Lake View Park is nearby. It should be mostly empty since it’s the middle of the day. We’ll go there so you can relax and call as many times as you wish. Or until my phone’s batteries fail.”
A kilometer from the US embassy, the terraced park covered a spit of land that stuck out into Rawal Lake. Ali parked outside the entrance and led Tareef to a low hill. They climbed a narrow unmarked path to a bench on a wooded point that faced the distant Murree mountains. They weren’t far from the heart of Islamabad, but the only sounds came from the motor of a small boat that was crossing the reservoir below.
Tareef watched as Ali took his phone from the pocket of his shalwar kameez and located the US embassy with the web browser.
He copied the phone number, pasted it into the dialer’s screen, and handed the phone to Tareef. “You must tell them it is urgent, my brother, otherwise I fear they will ignore you. They may ignore you anyway.”
Tareef pressed the send key.
“May I help you?”
“I’m trying to find an American. This is most urgent.”
“Who’s calling please?”
“My name is Tareef Kahn. I met the American at my home in the Birir—”
“Who are you calling?”
“His name is John Benoit.” Tareef wasn’t sure he was pronouncing the name correctly. He spelled it as best he could.
“One moment.”
Could it be this easy?
“I have no listing for that name.”
His heart sank. He wasn’t sure what she meant by listing, but the finality of her tone and the word “no” made her meaning clear.
“Please, I have to find him.”
Her voice softened. “I’m sorry, but there’s no one working at the embassy with that number. I have no way of finding him for you.”
Tareef’s mind raced, trying to think of something before the woman ended the call.
No one works there with that name. But what about—
“Could he be a visitor? Could you find him that way?” he asked.
The woman hesitated. “Usually, but someone took my visitor’s list, so I can’t check it for you.” She muttered to someone in the background, then returned to the call. “I’m very sorry, but I must go. We’re very busy.”
“Children may die if I don’t find him.”
He had no idea why he said that, but he was desperate. The line was quiet for so long that he thought the woman had hung up.
“If you give me your name and phone number, I will check the visitor’s list and call you back if I find the name. If I don’t call, that means his name isn’t on the list. That’s all I can do.”
She will never call. I have failed to do as Transition’s power commanded.
“Bahut shukriya. Thank you.” He gave her the information and disconnected.
44
Mount Vernon, Virginia
GT jerked awake, surprised that he’d fallen asleep. Asshole had torn off the duct tape when he’d returned to the room the evening before, so GT could breathe okay, but he’d been unable to stop thinking about the people he’d killed in Detroit.
The light in the motel bedroom was on and Robert Lee was up and muttering to himself in a strange guttural language.
The eerie sounds triggered memories of the nightmares that had tortured GT throughout the unending night. Inhuman creatures with twisted faces as white as death had chanted and danced around low headstones in a massive graveyard. Somehow he’d known that all the dead were kids. A foul darkness cloaked the burial ground and fire the color of blood flickered in the air above the stones. Just before he woke, GT had gotten a glimpse of an inscription on one of the markers. He couldn’t see the date, but the name was clear: Gary Thomas Wells.
Asshole is speaking the same language as the creatures.
GT rattled the cuffs against the pipe under the sink and yelled, “Wake the hell up, Robert Lee!”
The bedroom fell quiet.
GT yelped when Asshole appeared in the bathroom door and leaned over him. He was wearing his boxers and wife-beater T-shirt, with a bird’s nest of white hair peeking out from the scalloped neck.
“What?” Robert Lee growled. He looked confused.
“You woke me up making weird noises,” GT said. “You scared me.”
“You’re afraid of your own shadow.” Robert Lee glanced back into the bedroom and back at GT. “It’s time to go.”
The fog seemed to suck the sound from the world as they left the cabin. An old pickup truck sat where the Camaro had been the night before. GT leaned against the door frame. “What happened to the car?”
“I liberated the truck and put the Camaro behind the first cabin as a kind of burglar alarm. Anyone coming after us would make a hell of a racket busting into the wrong place, giving us a head start. Hustle your ass.”
“Hustle isn’t happening,” GT said. He took a step and his knees buckled. He grabbed onto Asshole’s shirt and steadied himself. “Not feeling so hot.”
Robert Lee wrapped an arm around him and helped him to the passenger side of the truck. “You’ll get better when you’re done with the magic.”
He means when I’m dead.
Robert Lee ran back inside the motel room and a few minutes later returned with two paper cups of black coffee. He started the car and waited a moment for the wipers to clear the dew on the windshield. “Takes about twenty minutes to get to the canoe rental. We’ll be waiting for the guy when he opens up. You so much as squeak and I’ll kill him. You get me?”
GT didn’t bother answering.
Please God, I’ll do anything. Let this end soon.
45
Mount Vernon, Virginia
Stony and Ron had transported a box of donuts, all chocolate covered and creme filled, back to the dispatcher and returned to prowling the streets of Mount Vernon. In appreciation, the dispatcher had assigned them the northern part of town and redeployed her other assets to the balance of the search area. The happy woman had told Stony and Ron that she was giving them the seediest hot-sheet joints, perfect for hiding out.
It was six forty-five in the morning and the only thing the two agents had learned from a long night of searching was that Mount Vernon was a boring town. Not a soul stirred on the streets after the bars closed.
“You want to take the wheel for a while?” Hammer asked. “The lights are starting to do a polka in the middle of the street.”
“Jesus,” Stony said. “Pull over. I’m not willing to die for a polka.”
Hammer stopped the car at a red light. They ran around the car and switched places before it turned green.
“Haven’t done that since I was sixteen.” Giggling and out of breath, Stony put the car in drive and turned left, following Ron’s usual circuit backwards for a change of pace.
Hammer yawned. “They’ve gotta be here by now if this is where Wells was headed. Maybe the note had nothing to do with him.”
“You’re too tired. The Gas n Go clerk identified Robert Lee. What are the odds that the note would appear an hour after they were at the station? They’re around here, somewhere. Probably arrived yesterday.”
“Eyewitnesses screw up all the time,” Hammer said. “If they’re here, why is DC still standing?”
“I don’t have a clue, but I wouldn’t take a bet that it’ll be here tomorrow.”
“Hold it! Back up.” The excitement in Hammer’s voice sent a shot of adrenaline coursing through Stony. “What?” She stopped, slammed the transmission into reverse, and crept backward.
“Stop,” Hammer said. “See it?”
The taillights of an old car poked out behind one of the cottages in a 1950’s style motel. The single window in the front of the cabin was dark. “I’ve always come down this street from the other direction. We wouldn’t have seen it.”
“You can tell that’s a Camaro from just the taillights?”
“Camaros were what every boy my age wanted when he got his license. I’d know that taillight grid pattern anywhere. We’re looking at the ass-end of a 1989 IROC-Z. Pull back some more.”
Stony lifted her foot off the brake and rolled another twenty feet.
“The mercury vapor light screws with the paint color,” Hammer said, but that’s gotta be the car.” He reached for the radio.
“Call for backup, but we’re not waiting.”
Ron hesitated. “You’re sure you want to do this?”
He didn’t say “again,” but he’s thinking about the trailer. So am I.
She brushed the thought aside. “Washington is already living on borrowed time. We can’t wait. Call it in and let’s go.”
46
Islamabad, Pakistan
John was sitting in an embassy conference room adjacent to the Ambassador's suite of offices when Dorothy Blue burst into the room. "We've messed up. A call for you came into the main switchboard at midday. The operator hadn't seen the daily visitor list or the alert. She got busy, forgot about the call, and only remembered when she was preparing to leave at the end of her shift."
"S
hit. Was it Tareef? Did she get a number?"
"It was.” She handed John a piece of paper with a phone number on it. “I’m sorry. I thought we were on top of the situation, but obviously—”
“What’s done is done.” John glanced at the bank of clocks hanging on the wall above a picture of the president. He'd lost more than four hours. “Get a car ready for me. If I can reach him, I’ll need to go pick him up.”
He dialed the number.
“Salaam Aleikum. This is Ali.”
“My name is John Benoit. I’m trying to locate Tareef Kahn. He called the embassy earlier today and left this number.”
The line was quiet for a moment, then “Alhamdulillah! We had given up. Wait one moment, please. You will wait, No?”
“I’ll wait.” John’s heart was pounding. His eyes were filled with unexpected tears.
I’m connected to this kid like no other in my life.
In the background, he could hear Ali’s voice yell “Tareef! I’ve found your American!”
Ali returned to the phone. “One moment only.”
“This is Tareef.”
“This is John Benoit. Do you remember me? I’ve come a long way to see you.”
“You came a long way the last time.”
“Do you know why I’ve been looking for you?” John asked.
“The power that rules Transition commanded that I come to the city and seek you. That is all I know.”
“The same power sent me here and I think I know why. We must meet. I can come to you.”
After some muffled conversation, Tareef returned to the phone. “Ali says that the area where he lives is not safe for Americans. He will bring me to your embassy.”
John was overcome with the feeling that the embassy was not the right place for what he and Tareef had to do. An image filled his mind. Trees and water and privacy. After all that had happened in the last couple of weeks, he didn’t waste a second analyzing the feeling. “Do you or Ali know of a place where we can be alone? Among some trees with some water nearby?”
The Ebony Finches: A Transition Magic Thriller Page 25