"Just like home," Abu Jasim observed airily.
"I mean, did you hear anything else?" Ari said. "Something that would tell us where they were going."
"There was one that I saw before I hid…a real hayawaan…he told the guards they could beat the women all they wanted, but to be careful with the treasure. I didn't know what he was talking about until I was dragged out of the closet. Then I saw the paintings missing from the walls…"
"Did you drag this poor woman out of the closet?" Ari growled at Abu Jasim.
"She's exaggerating," Abu Jasim said in a tone that was only mildly defensive. "She was holding onto a safe and it was narrow in there."
"A safe?"
"A safe."
"It is still there?"
"Alas, it was too heavy to lift. And we were in a hurry."
Too bad, Ari thought.
"You heard nothing else?"
Karida had finally determined that the people around her were trying to help, and that her life was not in immediate danger. She frowned, sifting through the horrors of the last hour for anything that might help. "No…the hayawaan only said everything was to go to the warehouse. He didn't give it a name or location."
The animal…probably Nizzar…had not proved helpful.
"Ben…Ben…?" He turned and saw Ben standing with Ahmad at the fence, still gaping at the herd of deer. He was about to shout at the pair of idiots when a police car pulled out from another side road and proceeded in their direction up the lane. "Everyone!" Ari shouted. "Go to the fence and admire the wildlife!"
"They're cops, Ari. Nothing to be afraid of." Then Karen thought a moment and slugged Fred. "Get to the fence!"
"What—!"
"Ari might be making us accessories to God knows what. You want your mugshot taken?"
"But we're—"
"The Richmond cops would love to nail a couple of Feds."
"Oh," said Fred, and strolled with studied indifference to the fence.
Ari slammed shut the door of the van, leaving Karida inside. Being only a few blocks from the Sadiq mansion, a woman wearing a hijab was sure to draw attention. He tugged on Abu Jasim's shoulder. "Whatever you do, don't look back at the police."
"You think they would look twice at me, Colonel, after they've seen you?"
"I don't look like Saddam."
"Only like the one who wiped his ass every morning."
Very well, they had traded insults. Ari could only hope that the deduction would show up on his bill. In the meantime, Abu Jasim was perfectly right. His face would draw stares like…he could not think of a polite analogy. As he stood facing the rolling field beyond the fence, he murmured, "Ben, if the police stop to ask—"
"Hey, you folks!" a voice called out. "You seen anything unusual hereabouts?"
Ben turned, wearing a goofy grin, and pointed at the field. "Look at the deer!"
"Deers?" returned the voice, whose lack of grammar Ari immediately recognized. He felt like grinding the chain links with his teeth.
"Yeah! It's pretty amazing when you think we're in the middle of—"
"Is that Ari Ciminon standing there with his back to us?"
Ari forced his grinding teeth into a broad grin and faced the lane.
"Officer Jackson! And dispossess my soul, if it isn't Officer Mangioni as well!"
Mangioni emerged from the car, a trace of caution in his grin. Ari had met the two policemen on his first day in Richmond, when they laid flowers in front of the house Ari now occupied. The family who had lived there before him had been murdered. Detective Louis Carrington had been in charge of the investigation—unsolved, up to that point. When Ari figured out Carrington was in all probability the murderer, he had murdered him in turn. It seemed like the reasonable thing to do. Jackson and Mangioni, needless to say, were unaware of this.
Since then, Ari had struck up an amicable symbiosis with the two men. Believing him to be an Italian descended from the Arab invaders of Sicily who was fluent in the language of his ancestors, they sometimes employed him as a translator when dealing with Richmond's small but growing immigrant community. In return, they supplied him with the occasional tidbit of useful information. They suspected his sleuthing pastime was not entirely amateur. He had turned up some real dirt. Like when he found that gang of terrorists in—
With an inward moan, Ari watched Jackson's eyes drift in the direction of Karen and Fred.
"I believe you already know Deputy Marshals Sylvester and Donzetti. You shared a hail of gunfire from the bad guys in Cumberland."
Karen and Fred turned, their grins too obviously sheepish.
"Hey," said Karen.
"Hey," said Fred.
"Hey yourselves," said Jackson, stepping forward.
It was then that Ari noticed the bullet holes stitching the side of Abu Jasim's van. If the cops saw that, the delay would become permanent. He hustled to the rear of the van.
"We are an amusing collection of sightseers, are we not?"
Ari's hearty laugh deflated when Jackson said, "Actually, no, you're not."
Karen's and Fred's grins evaporated like slivers of ice under the hot sun.
Jackson might be a fellow smoker, but he was cantankerous in the extreme. Ari hoped for a better reception from Mangioni, a prissy non-smoker but far more mellow than his partner.
"We've got some serious fuss going on here, partner," said Jackson over his shoulder.
"Cm'on, this is Ari. There's always a fuss when he's around."
"That's what I'm saying." Jackson's gaze fell on the van's license plates. Looking down, Ari was dismayed to see it was from Quebec. Presumably, in his haste, Abu Jasim had switched to a plate from his own province. There was an image of a flower between the first three numbers and final three letters. "Je me souviens…"
"It means, 'we'd rather forget'."
"Tabernac!" Abu Jasim bellowed, turning around. He strode up to the two policemen, now standing together. He nodded down at the license plate. "See that poppy? That is permitted only to veterans who meet the standards of the Royal Canadian Legion!"
Abu Jasim had stolen a veteran's license plate? Ari thought. What a bastard!
Both police officers were touching their holsters.
"You're a Canadian veteran?" said Jackson nervously.
"I have stuck my dick in more terrorist assholes than you can wave a stick at!"
"Not in a friendly way, I hope…" said Mangioni.
Ari hoped that the officers' knowledge of current events was typically American, with convenient, gaping holes. Except for the occasional hostage captured by the insurgency, Canada's participation in the Iraq War had been minimal. Really, only enough to stir up mass protests in Montreal and other cities.
"If you don't mind my saying," said Mangioni, "you look a lot like—"
"My friend suffers from a terrible disfigurement," interjected Ari.
"Yeah, he looks like Saddam Hussein."
Abu Jasim's chest swelled belligerently. "Do you have a problem with my handicap?"
"Well…no…" said Jackson. "But I sort of want to shoot you."
"Ari..." Mangioni laid a hand on Ari's forearm. "I know you're one of the good guys. I think I know it. But you've put us in a bind."
"By looking at Bambis?"
"By being here with a really weird crew only blocks from a major crime scene that happens to involve Middle Easterners."
"Should I be alarmed?"
"You probably belong in handcuffs." Jackson cruised his eyes across the little gathering. "All of you. Sorry, Deputy Marshals. I don't want to tangle with the Feds, but your being here is something we can't ignore. Especially with Saddam Hussein here."
"I am Captain Sir Tommy Crerar!" Abu Jasim announced boldly. "Or Sir Captain Tommy Crerar! Whichever!"
Ari wondered how much he had been drinking. The man should not even have been driving, let alone taking on Sanad's gang of armed smugglers.
"Partner, I don't think we have enough handcuffs."
>
Jackson nodded. "You want to come peacefully?"
"We are under arrest?"
"Only for questioning."
Ari sighed and looked at the others. "We have become humans of interest."
"You aren't whistling Dixie," said Jackson.
"I have heard this expression before," said Ari. "I think it is a song I must learn."
"I think you already know it."
"I'm a vet, too," said Ben, breaking away from the fence. "Don't I have any rights?"
"Sad to say, we've got vets galore in lockup," said Mangioni.
"Fuck this," said Karen, coming up to the policemen. "You are interfering with an ongoing federal investigation."
"What, watching deer?"
"Human trafficking. Interstate human trafficking, which makes it our bailiwick."
Jackson and Mangioni looked doubtful.
"You've seen or heard about the sit at the Sadiq mansion. Everything points to a hostage situation. A massive hostage situation. And as much as I hate to admit it, because I know him better than you do, Ari here is the one most qualified to deal with it."
"Sing me another," said Jackson, taking out a cigarette. Ari saw this as an opportunity—he believed that, in their shared obfuscating haze, smokers were more likely to bond than non-smokers. He took out one of his own and both men lit up.
"Ugh, gaspers," Karen protested, taking a step back. Ari doubted he would ever truly bond with her, in spite their shared adventures.
"You owe me," said Ari to the policemen, who both stiffened. Apparently, these were fighting words. Ari continued: "Did you not receive commendations for your heroic actions in Cumberland when I guided you to the bad people?"
"We got reprimanded for discharging our weapons outside our jurisdiction," said Jackson.
"It wasn't official," Mangioni murmured.
Jackson's frustration was vented in a jet of cigarette smoke. "We had to pay for the bullets!"
"But our testosterone ranking skyrocketed," Mangioni reasoned.
This prompted a look of confusion from Ari, but Karen nodded. "I know about that. After the nursing home…"
"Ah, je comprend," said Ari, characteristically lapsing into the wrong dictionary.
"What is it you want?" asked Mangioni.
"Let us leave without detention," Ari said.
"That's a big ask."
"You have our faces in your phonetic template," said Ari.
"Say what?" Jackson said.
Seeing another one of Ari's linguistic enterprises going astray, Karen risked the second-hand crossfire of smoke and stepped between him and the policemen.
"These people are of no concern to you. They are in federal custody."
Seeing the benefit of a turf war, Ari smiled and nodded. "I am under this lady's complete bondage."
"I don't see a government vehicle here," said Jackson, a breeze wafting his own smoke into his face. "Did you arrive here in the back of the van or of the truck?"
At that moment, both officers' radios sputtered.
"All units 10-12. All units 10-12."
"Shit." Jackson frowned at his partner. "I don't think I want them, meaning Ari, hearing this."
Mangioni nodded.
"Don't move," said Jackson as they retreated out of earshot.
"10-12?" Ari inquired.
"It means 'stand-by'," said Fred.
"Stand by for what?"
"Listen…" Karen looked up into Ari's face. It was quite a distance. "Before I make any final commitment, what is it exactly you want to do? You don't know where the warehouse is. Even if you did, then what? I guess from your behavior that we'll be seriously outgunned. I don't care about myself, but mama's boy here wants to get home in one piece."
"Hey!" Fred protested, then shrugged. "She might be right."
"We all want to be of a piece," Ari nodded. "We must get to the O'Connor's truck depot. I have hope that we'll find our answer there. And if that is not the case, there are two people whose welfare greatly worries me."
"Unlike ours, I guess."
After leaning their ears to their clip radios, the two officers returned to the grass verge.
"We just got a BOLO on a couple of unmarked 26-foot box trucks. A motorist says he heard women screaming in the back. He got one of the plate numbers."
"Ah!" said Fred, drawing out his notepad and holding his pen over a blank page.
"I don't think so," said Jackson, shooting fire out of his eyes.
Fred obligingly melted, his hands drooping to his side. "We're good guys, too."
"Not our kind of good guys. Do you think these are the hostages you're talking about? If so, we most definitely have to run you in."
"You would interfere with a federal investigation?" Karen harrumphed. "Do I have to pull out my badge?"
It sounded like she was threatening to whip out her manhood. Back to the turf war.
"We can't just let you take off," Mangioni admitted with a headshake. "Maybe…some lead time?"
"One hour," said Karen.
"Ten minutes," said Mangioni.
"Fifty minutes," said Ari.
"Twenty," said Jackson.
"Go fuck your—" Abu Jasim began.
"Forty," Ben quickly interjected.
"Twenty, I said," said Jackson.
On hearing his uncle nearly trash the negotiation, Ahmad had finally broken away from the fence. "I think we're all agreed on thirty here, right?"
"No way, little Jose," snapped Jackson. "Giving you a lead is no good if we don't know where you're going."
"The same Nabihah Sadiq who owns the house up the road operates O'Connor's Freight," said Ari, seeing this as the only way to avoid an impasse.
"Why is it called 'O'Connor's'?"
"It sounds American. Like McDonald's."
"An Arab trucking company in the middle of Virginia," Jackson scowled. "Doesn't make me feel very secure."
"It's more common than you think," said Karen with a shrug. "It's the American way."
"OK, fifteen minutes. And they're in your custody."
"Thirty. And yes."
"You know it's all our funeral if this gets out," Mangioni said uneasily.
"I understand," Karen nodded.
The officers went back to their car with heavy-footed reluctance, but once inside they peeled out in reverse. When Jackson reached the gap in the median, he shaved off a few small branches from a bush as he shifted into forward and made the tight turn.
"We have ten minutes," said Ari. "What is a BOLO?"
"An APB."
"What's an APB?"
"A BOLO."
Abu Jasim had already switched on the van engine. Ahmad hastened into the passenger seat, ignoring Karen's shout as he slammed the door shut. His uncle hit the gas, spinning off the verge. Seeing that Karen was not going to answer his question anytime soon, Ari hopped into the pickup next to Ben. The deputy marshals were once again forced to pile themselves on top of some boards and shingles stashed in the back of the truck.
Karen called Ari.
"And an APB is a BOLO!" she shouted, then hung up.
"All Points Bulletin," said Ben, who had heard her through the back window. "It means every cop in the city is looking for those trucks. They'll find them, too."
"I don't think Sanad and Nizzar would be that stupid…" Ari murmured.
CHAPTER 17
Richmond, Virginia
July, 2008
Disaster at O'Connor's
They were halfway to the O'Connor's depot when Karen next called him. Traveling at high speed on I-95, Ari could barely make out what she said under the blast of wind.
"They found the truck matching the plate number. The other one, too. A park ranger found them on the back road leading into Fort Darling. South of the city…not far from where we're going."
"They would need something large to transport all those paintings," said Ari.
"Have you forgotten the women? My guess is some kind of bus."
"Or a semi," said Ari. There had already been one attempt to asphyxiate some of the women in the back of a tractor trailer. Another attempt at mass murder was not inconceivable. Perhaps the women were already dead.
As they turned off the interstate onto Coach Road, they passed a Chesterfield County parole car parked alongside the ramp.
"We've been tagged," Ben said grimly.
"Not even ten minutes," said Ari. "I must remind myself not to trust my friends in the Richmond Constabulary."
"He's not following," said Ben, checking his rearview mirror. "Maybe they're honoring the agreement…but only up to a point. You have to admit, they're only doing their job."
"I will admit no such thing," Ari snarled as his phone rang. It was Karen.
"Did you see that cop?"
"Is he behind the van?" Ari asked.
"Uh…no. He stayed put. Maybe they're giving us enough rope to hang ourselves."
"I would never hang myself," Ari asserted.
"Then I'll do it for you."
They reached the O'Connor's entrance. A man in jeans and a blue denim shirt stood in the middle of the road. He smiled, waved them forward a little, then held up his hand. Ben braked as the man came up to his window, which was open. The air conditioner had long-since broken. Polishing his grin into goofy innocence, Ben began:
"Hi, we just came to pick up—"
And then he found himself staring down the barrel of a Beretta. Ari glanced into his rearview mirror. More men had emerged from the woods. They were aiming AK-47's at the deputy marshals and Abu Jasim's van. Leaning across Ben, Ari smiled at the man behind the Beretta.
"Well, rot my soul and give it a turnip squeeze!" he exclaimed. "Mr. Buffett!"
The man behind the pistol raised his head a little and stared at him. "Haji?"
"How well you'll never know," said Ari. "Like yourself, I employ nom de guerre's. I am now Ari Ciminon, and this is my bunk chum, Ben."
Ben made a sound of protest.
"How long it has been since we shared the night horrors of Sindabad?" Ari continued. "I admired your mayhem and physique."
"Yeah…" Buffett gave Ari a curious look. "What happened to your English? I remember you sounding like the Queen…well, you know."
"I think I suffered a brain turmoil while dealing with a notorious assassin," Ari shrugged.
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