Black Ops #1

by William W. Johnstone

  Nighthorse nodded. “Yes. Of course, at the time, our monitors didn’t know what they were talking about, but later realized that the conversation had taken place within moments of the crash that killed Bert Mossenberg.”

  “And you are certain that he was talking to Azeer?”

  “Absolutely certain,” Nighthorse replied.

  “Damn. If there was ever any doubt about that son of a bitch, there is no doubt now.”

  “They are planning something else,” Nighthorse said.

  “What?”

  Nighthorse shook his head. “We don’t know yet, but it is something big.”

  “All right, stay on it. And get Art in on this now. I don’t want to react after the event, I want to prevent it if we can.”

  “Yes, sir, will do,” Nighthorse said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Chateau Spud Bar, Alexandria, Virginia

  “You’ve been a busy man,” the bartender said as he set a frosted mug of beer in front of Art.

  “What?”

  “Well, you haven’t been in here in a while,” he said. “I figure you must’ve been chasing down bail jumpers.”

  “Oh yes, I have,” Art said.

  “I figured there must be some reason why you haven’t been around for a while.”

  “You plan to drink alone? Or would you like some company ?” a woman’s voice asked.

  Turning, Art saw the same beautiful woman who had connected with him on one of his previous visits to Chateau Spud.

  “The company of a beautiful woman is always appreciated,” Art replied.

  “Aren’t you the flatterer though?” she asked.

  “Johnny, give the lady whatever she wants.”

  “I’ll have what he’s having,” she said.

  “Coming right up.”

  “I didn’t get your name before,” Art said.

  “Tiffany,” the woman said.

  Art chuckled. “It would be.”

  Tiffany smiled. “Yes, I thought you might appreciate that.”

  Johnny brought Tiffany her beer, Tiffany smiled her thanks, then took a drink. She spoke as she held the glass to her lips, thus concealing the fact that she was speaking, and speaking only loudly enough for Art to hear.

  “You have a tee-off time reserved for you at Hilltop tomorrow afternoon at two,” she said.

  Returning to his apartment that evening, Art turned on his TV, but finding nothing to watch that interested him, he looked over at his great-great-grandfather’s journal.

  “Well, Grandpa Smoke,” he said quietly, “we seem to be running parallel paths here, taking care of the bad guys. How did it work out for you?”

  From the journal of Smoke Jensen

  The sign I was looking at said “Welcome to Bertrand, population 312.” Behind it, another sign said “A vibrant city of the future! Come grow with us!”

  I wasn’t at all sure if the fella who wrote that sign was talking about the same town I was riding into about then. I didn’t see much vibrant about the little town. It had two dirt roads that formed a cross in the middle of the high desert country, a handful of small, shotgun houses on the outskirts, and a line of business buildings, all false-fronted, none painted. The saloon was partially painted, though, with its name, “Lucky Nugget,” painted in red, high on its own false-front.

  I started toward the saloon, as much to slake my thirst as to find information. I tied my horse off in front and then looked around before I stepped inside.

  I didn’t see anything to alarm me . . . but I was alarmed, nevertheless. Art, I don’t think this is something you can teach a person, and I know I can’t explain it to you. You will either understand what I am about to tell you . . . or you won’t, and there’s nothing more to be said about it. But I felt something, a tingling of the hair on the back of my head, a prickling of the skin . . . call it what you will, but I knew that there was danger close by.

  I pulled my pistol from its holster, spun the cylinder to check the loads, then replaced the pistol loosely, and went inside. I had long had a way of entering a saloon, stepping in through the door, then moving quickly to one side to put my back against the wall as I studied all the patrons. Over the years I had made a number of friends, but it seems that for every friend I made, I made an enemy as well. And a lot of those enemies would like nothing better than to kill me, if they could. I didn’t figure on making it easy for them.

  As I stood there in the saloon with my eyes adjusting to the shadows, I saw him. I may not even have noticed him had he not been wearing my shirt, the very shirt my Sally had mended when I tore it on a nail in the barn. As I thought about it, I began to get angrier and angrier. I was not only angry with him for being one of the men who framed me, I was angry because he was wearing a shirt that Sally’s own hands had mended and washed.

  What right did that son of a bitch have to be wearing, next to his foul body, something that Sally had touched!

  The man was talking to a bar girl and, so engaged was he that he noticed neither my entrance nor my crossing the open floor to step up next to him.

  “That’s my shirt you are wearing, you son of a bitch,” I said.

  “What?” the man replied, turning toward me. For a moment he was confused, then, perhaps because I was wearing the very shirt he had been wearing, he realized who I was.

  “Where’s your friend?” I asked.

  “What friend? What are you talking about?”

  “You know what I’m talking about,” I said. “You and two other men set me up to take the blame for a bank you robbed in Etna. I’ve already taken care of one of your friends. I’ve got you and one more to go.”

  The man’s eyes widened. “You got Dooley?”

  “Was that his name? I didn’t catch it.”

  The man laughed nervously. “I . . . I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “You asked if I got Dooley.”

  “Yes, well, I . . . I mean you come in here tellin’me you got one of my friends. He was just the first name that come to mind, that’s all.”

  “Mister, are you saying this man robbed a bank?” the bartender asked.

  I nodded. “Robbed a bank and killed a man. I didn’t know anything about that when I run across them on the road outside Etna. They attacked me and left me for dead, after changing shirts with me so that the people in town would think I was one of them.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “I don’t know that he is so crazy,” the bartender said to the man wearing my shirt. “I’ve wondered where you and your friend got all the money you two been throwing around ever since you come here. Besides which, he’s wearing a shirt just like the shirt your brother is wearing.”

  “We . . . we sold some cows, that’s where we got the money. And the shirt’s just a coincidence.”

  “So, the other fella is your brother, is he? I’m only going to ask you this one more time. Where is he?” I asked.

  Suddenly the man went for his pistol. I drew mine as well, but rather than shooting him, I brought it down hard on the top of his head. He went down like a sack of feed.

  “Who are you?” the bartender asked nervously.

  “Jensen,” I replied. “Kirby Jensen.”

  “Jensen? Say, you wouldn’t be the one they call Smoke Jensen, would you?” the bartender asked.

  “That’s me,” I said, a little wary of answering because of fear that word might have gotten here that I was an escaped prisoner.

  Happily, the bartender stuck his hand across the bar. “Well, it is an honor to meet you, Mr. Jensen,” he said.

  “Thanks.” I stared at the man on the floor. “Do you have any idea where his brother is?”

  “Oh yes. He’s upstairs,” the bartender said.

  “Which room?”

  “First room on your right when you reach the head of the stairs. He’s in there with Becky.”

  “Thanks.”

  The altercation at the bar had caught the attention of all the other
s in the saloon, and now all conversation stopped as they watched me walk up the stairs to the second floor.

  When I reached the room at the top of the stairs I stopped in front of the door, then raised my foot and kicked it open.

  The woman inside screamed, and the man shouted out in anger and alarm.

  “What the hell do you mean, barging in here?” he shouted.

  “Get up and get your clothes on,” I said. “I’m taking you back to Etna.”

  “The hell you are.”

  From nowhere, it seemed, a pistol appeared in his hand. I should have been more observant. If I had been, I would have noticed that he had a gun in the bed with him.

  He got off the first shot and I could almost feel the wind as the bullet buzzed by me and slammed into the door frame. I returned fire and saw a black hole suddenly appear in his throat, followed by a gushing of blood. His eyes went wide and he dropped the gun and grabbed his throat as if he could stop the bleeding. He fell back against the headboard as his eyes grew dim.

  The woman had not stopped screaming from the moment I kicked open the door. I started toward her, intended to calm her down, but she was convinced that I was going to kill her as well, and her screaming grew even louder.

  Because of the screaming, I didn’t realize that someone was behind me. I heard the gunshot and saw his bullet hit the iron headboard of the bed.

  Whirling around, I saw that the man I had encountered downstairs was awake and tending to business. Before he could shoot me, I fired back and saw my bullet hit him in the middle of his chest. He backed out of the room, partly under his own power, and partly from the impact of the bullet. He hit the railing then, and was carried over by his own momentum.

  I hurried to the railing and looked down. He had fallen on one of the tables, crashed through it, and was lying on the floor below me.

  When I ran downstairs to him he was laughing, or at least trying to laugh. About as much wheezing and blood as laughter was coming from his lips.

  “What are you finding so funny?” I asked.

  “We recognized you right off,” the man said. “We figured it would be a pretty good joke to play on the great Smoke Jensen if we could get him hanged. Almost worked, too.”

  After that, there were a few more coughs and wheezes, and then he died. I looked around at some of the others who had come close.

  “Did any of you hear that?” I asked.

  “I heard it, Mr. Jensen,” one of the others said.

  “I heard it too,” another admitted.

  “Don’t worry, Smoke, we’ll tell the sheriff what happened here.”

  “And what you just heard,” I told them. “I’m a wanted man because of them, and I’d like to get it all cleared up.”

  The sheriff in Bertrand sent a telegram back to Marshal Turnball, explaining the entire situation, and stating that he had a prisoner who had confessed to everything, while at the same time the judge at Bertrand, who just happened to be an appellate judge, issued a letter overturning the result of my trial. I was a free man once more.

  By the way, Art, I never did lease out Sugarloaf. I figured if I could come through what I had just come through, Sugarloaf could weather a little storm. And, I’m proud to say, it did.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “Here it is, Reverend Bixby,” Deacon Norton said, holding up the newspaper. What he was pointing to was a full-page advertisement.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Norton asked.

  “It is indeed,” Bixby said. “And I believe God will reward us for reaching out to all his children.” Bixby spread the page out on his desk so he could get the full impact as he read it.

  TO ALL PEOPLE OF FAITH

  CHRISTIANS, JEWS, AND MUSLIMS

  We, the Christ Holiness Church of Nashville,

  a full gospel, nondenominational church,

  plan to have a

  CELEBRATION OF FAITH

  We all worship the same God, let us join together

  to celebrate his Glory.

  The Reverend J. Peerless Bixby

  The Shabihul Mosque in Nashville, Tennessee

  Sheikh Muhammad Kamal Mustafa poured heavy cream into his coffee, then sweetened it with three teaspoons of sugar. He swirled the spoon around in the beige-colored liquid as he talked to Hassan and Labib.

  “You have brought honor on yourselves by your action in killing Mossenberg,” Kamal said.

  “We did not do it to honor ourselves, but for the glory of Allah,” Labib said.

  “Yes, and that is as it should be,” Mustafa said, taking a drink of his coffee. Lowering his cup, he used his forefinger to wipe a bit of the liquid from his mustache.

  “Suppose you were called upon to perform a deed of even greater importance, would you do so?”

  “Yes,” Labib said.

  “And you, Hassan?” Mustafa asked.

  “I will do whatever is asked of me,” Hassan said.

  “You do understand that those who serve Allah best, those who will be with him in paradise, are sometimes asked to give much.”

  “Yes,” Labib answered.

  “Hassan?”

  “Yes.”

  “You do understand what I am saying, don’t you?”

  “You are asking us to die for you,” Labib said.

  Mustafa held up his finger and shook his head. “Listen to this quote from the Noble Quran, 3:169 – 171,” he said. Clearing his throat, he quoted the verses from memory.

  “Think not of those who are slain in Allah’s way as dead. Nay, they live, finding their sustenance in the presence of their Lord. They rejoice in the Bounty provided by Allah. And with regard to those left behind, who have not yet joined them in their bliss, the Martyrs glory in the fact that on them is no fear, nor have they cause to grieve. They glory in the Grace and Bounty from Allah, and in the fact that Allah suffereth not the reward of the faithful to be lost.”

  “What would you have us do?” Labib asked.

  “Do you know of the Coliseum?”

  Hassan looked confused. “The Roman Coliseum?”

  Mustafa shook his head. “No, I am speaking of the Coliseum here, in Nashville. It is where the Tennessee Titans play their games.”

  Hassan was still confused.

  “It is American football,” Labib said. “He is speaking of the sports arena.”

  Smiling, Hassan nodded. “Oh yes, I know of the sport arena.”

  “There will be a football game two weeks from now,” Mustafa said. “It is said that sixty-five thousand people will be there. More could be killed there than were killed when the holy one, the sainted martyr, Mohammed Atta al Sayed, crashed his airplane into the World Trade Center Towers.”

  “More would be killed?” Labib asked.

  “Many more,” Mustafa said. “And all would be infidels, even from their own religion, for the games are played on Sunday, which is supposed to be a holy day for Christians. Surely, their sins should not go unpunished.”

  “But how could this be done?”

  “It would take the action of a martyr,” Mustafa said.

  “A martyr?” Hassan replied. He looked nervous. “Where will you find such a martyr?”

  “I think we could find someone,” Mustafa said. “As an iman, I say to anyone who would martry himself in such a way, he will become an even greater prophet to Islam than Mohammed Atta al Sayed.”

  “Martyr,” Hassan said, barely able to mouth the word.

  “Think of it, Hassan,” Mustafa said. “A moment of fear perhaps, an instant of pain, then all earthly trials will be over, and you will be in paradise, to live at the highest level for eternity—”

  “I will do it,” Labib said, interrupting Mustafa. “I will do it,” he repeated, almost giddy with excitement.

  Hassan paused for a moment, then nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I will do it as well.”

  “Good. Your reward in paradise will be great. But if you are to do this, it must be done by plan,” Mustafa said. />
  “What sort of plan? All we need to do is hijack an airliner and crash it into the stadium,” Labib said. “Remember, I took flying lessons with Atta. I can steer the plane into the target.”

  “There is more to it than that. If you take the airplane too early, word will be out that a plane has been hijacked and the Americans will have time to react. If you are too late, you will miss the opportunity.”

  “When should we act?”

  “There is a flight leaving at two p.m. for Los Angeles,” Mustafa said. “I have booked the two of you on that flight.”

  Again, Hassan looked confused. “But how did you know we would do this?”

  Mustafa smiled benevolently. “I knew that if you were called upon by Allah, you could not refuse.”

  “Allah Akbar!” Hassan shouted enthusiastically.

  “Allah Akbar!” Labib repeated.

  Alexandria, Virginia

  Art teed off on the fourth hole of the Hilltop Golf Course. He hit the ball well, and it flew straight down the center, never rising higher than ten feet, but landing far down on the fairway, then rolling almost to the edge of the green.

  When he returned to his golf cart, Nighthorse was sitting in it. He had not been there when Art stepped up to the tee a moment earlier.

  “Damn, Temple, you do have a way of appearing out of the blue,” Art said.

  “That was a good tee-shot,” Nighthorse replied. “You think you’ll make par?”

  “I generally do make par on this hole,” Art said. He started forward with the cart. “What do you have for me?”

  “Yesterday, a couple of people that we have been watching booked a flight from Nashville to Los Angeles, leaving at two-fourteen p.m. next Sunday.”

  “How do we know this?”

  Nighthorse shook his head. “It is best that we do not get into each other’s territory,” he said. “That way we can maintain a separation between us.”

  “I understand. It makes it easier for the Pentagon to cut me loose. Rather like a quick disconnect.”