Northern Sun: Book Four in The Mad Mick Series

by Franklin Horton

  “What did you find on her?” Mumin asked.

  Omar had returned his eyes to the bound woman. He wanted to go back to what he’d been doing before Mumin had arrived. He either ignored the question or was deafened by rage.

  “I asked what you found on her!” Mumin barked.

  Omar threw a loose gesture toward a dresser. On it sat a pile of items that Mumin assumed to have been removed from the woman. He walked over and began going through the pile. There was a .38 revolver in an ankle holster. There was a leather sheath from which Mumin extracted a bloody fighting knife.

  “That’s Rahim’s blood,” Omar spat. “This bitch killed him. She needs to pay for that. I should slice her to pieces with her own knife.” Restating the facts seemed to infuriate him all over again. He rushed toward the woman, fist drawn back to strike her again. From the condition of her face, it would not be the first time.

  “No!” Mumin yelled. “We need information. You do nothing until George is back.”

  Omar spun on Mumin. “I do not answer to you. Nor do I answer to your lapdog George.”

  His face was a brilliant red and spittle flew from his mouth. He appeared ready to vent his fury on Mumin. With the slightest provocation, it could happen. Mumin sensed it and sought to defuse the situation. He turned away from Omar and returned to examining the items on the dresser. There were some ration bars, a folding knife, and various bits of survival gear. There was paracord, a compass, a lighter, and a can opener. There were no electronics though. No GPS, no camera, and no communication device of any type.

  “Omar, may I speak to you in the hall, please?”

  Omar conceded with an angry nod and Mumin led the way. Outside, Mumin leaned close and kept his voice low. He assumed a posture of acquiescence, of solidarity. He wanted to convey that they were in this situation together and they needed to work with each other.

  “We need information from this woman but we must proceed with caution. I think this woman is a professional. Did you get a good look at her? I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s an Israeli. Who else would send a woman into a situation like this?”

  Omar nodded, some of the anger gone from him. “They said she fought like a soldier. She’s trained. She disarmed Rahim and stabbed him before he even knew what was happening. She knew just where to slice him. His insides were shredded and we couldn’t stop the bleeding.”

  “George has experience at this,” Mumin said. “There’s a reason the man works for me. He served many years in the military doing ugly things. Scary things. While he’s worked for me, I’ve seen him stare down the mafia, Mexican cartel leaders, and Detroit gangs. The man has no fear. He does everything with a cold rationality that you clearly don’t have. But that’s okay, my friend. I don’t have it either. That’s why we have men like George. That’s why we have to wait for him. He can succeed here while we would fail. Do you understand?”

  Omar let out a long sigh. “I understand. But Rahim...”

  Mumin patted him on the shoulder. “She will pay for Rahim. I promise you.”

  “Really?”

  Mumin nodded. “Remember, we are brothers in this. We targeted the Great Satan and we won. Be patient. You will be home soon, among friends and family. The time is coming. It will be just a little longer.”

  Omar nodded in understanding so Mumin continued.

  “I want two men watching her until George gets back. Do not strike her. Do not undress her. If she speaks to you, do not answer her questions. Any information we provide her, no matter how small, could be dangerous. Put your calmest men with her. Use men who will show restraint. Can you do that?”

  “I will see to it.”

  Mumin smiled. “Good. Now I must attend to some things. Thank you for your cooperation.”

  18

  Conor was quietly settling into a new observation position closer to the men’s building when Mumin came stalking out the door. He brushed past the men standing guard on the porch without speaking and charged down the gravel path that connected the buildings. He was a man on a mission – concerned, worried, and single-minded. Conor watched him go, noting he was not headed toward his own home but toward the storage building. While Mumin could have had several reasons for going there, only one possibility concerned him.

  The armory.

  Conor realized this was a good opportunity for him. Mumin would be alone in that building and it was perhaps the only place on the property where he might catch him by himself. Conor decided he needed to get to the storage building too, as fast as possible.

  He crawled from his perch on top of a slash pile of logging refuse. When he hit the bottom of the jumbled stack of waste logs he was out of sight of the grounds, but likely still within earshot. He hurried away from the men’s building, carefully watching his steps to make no more noise than he had to. Even before Shani’s capture, the men might have investigated the sound of steps in the woods, thinking they’d have the opportunity to see a bear or deer. Obviously on alert, they might investigate with more lethal intentions.

  There was no running or even moving quickly. At swamp level, Conor was climbing over logs, stepping in marshy holes, and constantly fighting with underbrush. Once he put a little distance between him and the men’s building he moved faster. Now it wasn’t his fear of making noise that limited his pace but the wooded terrain through which he traveled. He wanted nothing more than to climb the embankment and tear across the open fields of the compound, but he’d be seen if he tried it. There was no cover until he got closer to the entrance to the property.

  He eventually felt comfortable enough to climb the bank and peer over the edge. He was at the point where the wooden board fence stretched toward the barn. It should break up his outline enough that he could move across the field if he was careful. Feeling an urgent need to make up time, to intercept Mumin before he was done in the storage building, Conor made haste. He belly-crawled to the point where the fence began, then shot to his feet and ran.

  Two hundred feet separated him from the storage building. Mumin was nowhere to be seen. He’d already gone inside. That was okay. Conor just had to reach the building before he came out. If Mumin headed back toward his home, Conor wouldn’t be able to get him. There was no way he could charge out into the open field and tackle him in plain sight. Someone would see him.

  At one hundred feet Conor began strategizing. The roll-up door was still closed. That was good. Conor wouldn’t have to be concerned about witnesses looking through that opening.

  Fifty feet.

  Twenty feet.

  Conor broke into the open, shooting the gap between the end of the fence and the storage building. He hoped no one noticed him across the distance. He headed for the side door into the building. At six feet he could see there was a gap around it. The door was pushed up but not latched. Even better, the key was still in the lock. Conor smiled and thanked the saints for the first blessing of the day.

  When he finally stood outside the door, he removed the key and dropped it into his pocket and paused briefly. He couldn’t just burst in there like a Tasmanian devil. He steadied his breathing. He listened but heard nothing.

  Conor pushed gently on the door and got his second blessing of the day. He hadn’t noticed this earlier, but the heavy door was hung on ball hearing hinges that opened with near-total silence. Noting this, he pushed the door open wide enough to enter without banging his gear on the doorframe. He slid through the opening and pushed the door back up, twisted the knob, closed the door fully, then made certain it was locked. He didn’t want any surprise visitors while he was inside. He wanted some alone time with his new friend.

  Pausing again, he heard rattling and then the screech of hinges. Mumin had to be in the gun cage. Conor assumed he’d opened the door and allowed it to swing fully open, banging back against the cage. Conor had to get to Mumin before he loaded a weapon.

  Fortunately, none of them were staged for rapid deployment. The weapons still had retail tags on them. The st
acks of magazines were sealed in plastic packaging. None of them were loaded. The cases of ammunition weren’t even open.

  Conor crept down the aisle of pallets in the direction of the gun locker, mindful of each step to make sure he didn’t scuff a boot. His gear was squared away so that nothing rattled. He’d even taken his rifle off safe before entering the building so that distinctive click wouldn’t give him away inside.

  Mumin was talking to himself, a mixture of complaining and what sounded like practice for a conversation he needed to have. Conor was grateful for the background noise that rambling created.

  Conor swung around the last pallet in the row and peered around a barrel of motor oil. He could see Mumin standing inside the cage, reading an instruction manual for the rifles in front of him. He must have been studying a diagram of the controls because he kept looking back and forth between the instructions and the rifle.

  Conor shook his head in amazement. This was definitely not the time to educate himself on the basics of operating a gun. Had Conor not held such revulsion for the man’s activities, he’d have almost felt sorry for him. It was pathetic and amateur.

  With Mumin’s back to him, Conor stepped out from behind the barrel of oil. He moved toward the cage with slow, steady steps. His rifle was high, his optic on Mumin’s back, his finger resting lightly on the trigger, ready to press it if Mumin forced the issue.

  Perhaps sensing a presence, Mumin turned suddenly. What he saw was so unexpected it took a moment to register. He dropped the instruction manual and spun around, eyes wide. There was no mistaking what was coming toward him. It was not his imagination. It was an armed man. Maybe even a soldier.

  Mumin’s eyes dropped briefly to the array of weapons racked around him. Conor could see the wheels turning in Mumin’s mind, the frustration at having salvation so close, yet not knowing how to attain it. Here Mumin was with an entire arsenal at his feet and it did him no good at all. Had a weapon been ready, he could perhaps have grabbed it and made a stand, even though Conor had the jump on him. Under the current circumstances, Mumin couldn’t do battle without asking Conor to wait while he finished reading the instructions, loaded some mags, and figured out how to hold the damn thing.

  “Don’t fucking move,” Conor warned. “You move, you die.”

  Mumin stood there frozen.

  “Put your hands up!” Conor snarled. “Over your head!”

  This time Mumin did as he was told and Conor entered the gun locker. He could get no closer with a raised rifle. Doing so would put the barrel within Mumin’s reach. Conor needed to transition to his handgun. He trained for that and could do it in the blink of an eye, but he decided to experiment with a different technique this time.

  He lashed out with the buttstock, cracking Mumin across the temple. The man grunted and staggered, falling back into the wire cage that formed the locker. By the time he righted himself, blood streaming down his face, he was staring into the barrel of Conor’s handgun.

  “I thought it best I go ahead and establish the ground rules,” Conor said. “I wanted you to understand my willingness to inflict pain.”

  Mumin nodded, his hand pressed to his temple. “I understand.”

  For a man whose actions had directly contributed to the deaths of thousands, and who would indirectly kill hundreds of thousands more over the course of the ensuing disaster, Mumin seemed woefully unprepared for the experience of violence. He was shocked at Conor’s actions and stunned by the pain he was experiencing. He was disoriented, unsure of how to proceed from where he found himself. He was a businessman, not a thug.

  “Hurts, doesn’t it?” Conor asked.

  Mumin met his eye briefly before looking away, giving him a look that said of course it fucking hurt. “Who are you?”

  “I’m one of the team sent here to kill you.”

  Mumin met Conor’s eyes again but his expression was changed. He was shocked at Conor’s revelation, at learning he was a target. “To kill me? Why?”

  “You know why. We know who you are, Arif Mumin. We know what you did. We know your role in the terror attacks.”

  At the mention of his name, the full gravity of the situation hit Mumin. There were people out there in the world who knew about him. They knew about this place. What else did they know? “Am I being arrested?”

  Conor smiled. “No such luck, mate. There are no courts at the moment. Matters of national security are being dealt with in a much more expedited manner. There’s no lengthy trial, no extensions, no negotiations, and no media circus. In fact, I have a magazine full of due process right here at my disposal.”

  “I’m a simple businessman,” Mumin countered, struggling for an out. “I’m sheltering here with my family.”

  “Then who are the men in the other building? My money is that they’re part of the terror network that pulled off the attacks. Would I be right about that?”

  Mumin was silent.

  “Tell me what’s happening in that house,” Conor asked. “I need to know and I need to know now.”

  “Nothing! Those men are simply casino employees. They had nowhere else to go. I offered to provide them shelter. It was the Christian thing to do.”

  Conor started to laugh at the absurdity but took a different route. He lashed out with his foot, striking Mumin in the groin. When he doubled over, Conor delivered an elbow to the back of his head. Mumin dropped to the floor, groaning and clutching at his dented-in dangly bits. Conor stepped away from the body.

  “That’s for taking me as a fucking idiot,” Conor said. “You lie, you die. That’s how this goes down.”

  Mumin choked and threw up, gasping for breath. He retched again, then looked up at Conor, vile fluids stringing from his mouth. “Am I not going to die anyway?”

  Conor gave him a regretful smile. “Yeah, guess I already spilled the beans on that one. You are going to die anyway. The question is how you die and whether your family is going in the hole with you.”

  Mumin tried to crawl for Conor, slipping in his own puddle of sickness. “No! You can’t! They had nothing to do with this!”

  “Then talk,” Conor demanded.

  Mumin collapsed to his side, curled up, and began sobbing.

  “Your tears mean nothing to me,” Conor whispered. “Your family’s tears mean nothing to me. All that can save them is your actions. Tell me what is going on inside that house. The clock is ticking.”

  Mumin coughed and wiped at his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “Those men in there figured out that one of the women was an imposter. She wasn’t supposed to be there. She didn’t ride in with George, my security man. He’s the one who brings the housecleaners here a couple of times a week. When they confronted her, she killed one of the men but they captured her. They were trying to interrogate her on their own but I asked them to wait until George gets back. He took the other housecleaners home. He should be back anytime though and he will find out...”

  Mumin trailed off, figuring it might not bode well for him to discuss George’s attributes as an interrogator.

  Conor’s mind raced. What should he do? Did he lock Mumin in this cage and rush over there? Did he go ahead and kill Mumin? A sound from outside, echoing across the compound, helped Conor make up his mind.

  He reached down, grabbed Mumin by the collar, and pulled him to his feet. Dragging the man along with him, he raced to the side door, cracked it open, and peered out. The man Mumin called George had returned, parking his van in front of men’s building. The noise Conor had just heard was the door slamming as George exited the vehicle. If he’d wanted to confront these men before George’s return, it was too late. He’d missed that window.

  Conor heard a sharp intake of breath behind him. It was Mumin filling his lungs to cry out. Conor spun and slammed a fist into his gut. Air forcefully expelled from his lungs and Mumin dropped to his knees, gasping. Conor carefully closed the door, then grabbed Mumin by the collar, dragging him back to the gun locker.

  Using a pair
of flex-cuffs he restrained the moaning, simpering man. When he was subdued, Conor deftly broke down each AR-15, extracted the bolt carrier group, and used his multitool to extract the firing pin. When he was done, he reassembled each rifle and replaced them in the rack. He used his multitool again to remove the filling cap on the fifty-five-gallon drum of motor oil.

  Conor dropped the handful of firing pins through the hole, then returned to the cage and removed the barrel from each handgun and did the same with them. For the bolt action rifles, he extracted each bolt and submerged them in the barrel. The quickest way to render the shotguns unusable was to mutilate the thin steel barrels.

  Conor slid the barrel into the two-inch gap beneath the gun locker fencing. He pried upward like he was trying to lever the wire cage up from the floor. The cage didn’t budge, securely bolted to the concrete. The barrels yielded with surprising ease, though, crimping in a manner that obviously prevented them from firing. When they were all done, Conor tossed all the mangled shotguns deep into the maze of pallets filling the building.

  Conor had no quick way to deal with the Ruger .22s. Removal of the firing pin required disassembly of the rifle. He decided the quickest route was to remove all the mags, hope they didn’t have spares, and toss them into the hydraulic fluid with all the other parts he’d removed. By the time he was done, he’d arrived at a rough plan.

  He scoured the storage building until he found a box with cases of baby wipes. He removed a single pack and returned to the gun locker. He dropped them on the ground at Mumin’s feet and unsheathed his fighting knife.

  Mumin took one look at the blade displayed in front of him and cringed away in fear. “Noooo! Don’t do it.”

  “Quit whining,” Conor said. “I’m cutting you loose. Clean the blood and puke off of you, then we’re going to visit your family.”

  Mumin whipped his head adamantly, terror in his eyes. “I will not.”

  Conor nodded and grinned. “You will. If you don’t, I’ll visit them without you. That what you want? You want to be sitting back here, tied up, and wondering what’s happening in your house? Wondering if they’re still alive? Wondering if they’re suffering and wondering why you aren’t there to help?”