"You should get that looked at."
"In due time."
Buffett lowered his gaze to Ben. "Yeah, now I recognize you…from the motel."
"You were among those hiding in ambush?" Ari said. "You rescued our nether regions from the motorcyclists. So you are part of Mr. Lawson's army. Bless my wreck. I did not know he hired Gates' former mercenaries."
"There's a few of us," Buffett admitted. "Lawson likes to get things done."
"So I see. It is such a small world, Mr. Buffett."
How small he couldn't know. This was the second man associated with Iraq that Ari recognized at this gate. If the fictional Mr. O'Connor had existed, he would no doubt have recognize him, too.
"Is Mr. Lawson here?"
"I think he's been trying to contact you."
Ari had encumbered himself with three cell phones: one for speaking with the likes of Karen and Ben (Fred never called him), one whose number was known only to Abu Jasim and Ahmad, and one associated with CENTCOM—which had never actually called him, but if it did, it was a call he could not miss. The phone with the number Lawson used was back at home. This was not only to prevent overloading his pockets. He had not wanted to be pestered by his temporary employer.
Buffett nodded at the other men and they pulled back into the woods. Raising his phone, he waved Ben and Ari through.
Elmore Lawson was standing on the platform of the Pick-Up office. He lowered his phone and scowled. At least Ari assumed it was a scowl. He could not guess why the investigator was here, unless he had new information on the hijackings. He noted that, except for a Fiesta, the employee parking lot was empty.
"Why the hell aren't you answering your phone?" Lawson slurred angrily through his artificial mouth. Ari had been trying to formulate a well-turned greeting that did not sound hollow, but was forced into an apology.
"I left my phone at home."
Karen heard this as she jumped out of the truck and discredited his lie with a loud burp. Fortunately, she left it at that.
"That is unprofessional, unacceptable. You can be an asshole, Ari, but not to me!"
"I stand in horror of your remonstration," said Ari, somewhat truthfully. "What is it you wished to talk to me about? Uhm…why are you here with your private army?"
"Mr. Lawson is here because I called him," said Yilmaz, coming out onto the loading platform.
"And why is that?" Ari asked.
"Come inside and I'll explain."
"Nothing would give me greater pleasure, but at this moment a great horde of law enforcers is racing to this spot. Is anyone here averse to confronting assorted tactical teams?"
"We didn't call them," Lawson said. "Why are they coming here?"
Ari hemmed.
"Because he told them he was coming," said Karen, pointing at Ari. He would have to remind her again of how rude that gesture was in his culture.
"Why would they care if he's coming here?"
"Because they think he has the inside track on the hostages."
"What hostages?" Lawson said, then waved his own question aside. He steadied his cane on his forearm and lifted his phone. "Everybody un-ass, now! RV at Happy Hill!"
His tone said it all. No questions asked.
"I know where it is," said Ben, getting back in his truck. "Follow me!"
Once again, Karen and Fred were caught flat-footed. They took a step towards Abu Jasim's van, but neither he nor Ahmad had gotten out. They were pulling away. Ben and Ari were already inside the pickup so they had to jump over the tailgate. From the back of the truck she apportioned curses equally between Ari and Ben as Ben roared out of the lot. He went right, avoiding a return to I-95 and the oncoming police, but placing them in the midst of enigmatic back roads bordered by swamps and forest. Close behind them was Mrs. Sadiq's Cadillac, Singh driving while Yilmaz made magical turns using an invisible steering wheel.
It seemed that Ben used to hunt in this area and knew every intersection and deer crossing. Which was more than what could be said for the members of Lawson's private army, half of whom were missing when they gathered in the parking lot of the small strip mall hidden from Route 1 by a screen of trees. While Lawson fielded calls from his lost mercenaries, Ari performed the unpleasant task of informing Yilmaz and Singh of events at the Sadiq mansion. Yilmaz vented her rage with several sound kicks to Abu Jasim's van. Sirdar Singh, unaware of what he was doing, took hold of the van's rearview mirror and twisted it in his massive hand until it was irremediably front-view.
"Log it on your accounting tabulator," Abu Jasim sighed, raising his eyes but remaining in the van.
"Already on it," said Ahmad, whipping out his laptop.
Ari poked his head through the passenger window and looked over Ahmad's shoulder. He was ferociously plugging numbers into an Excel spreadsheet.
"You count every bullet hole?" said a dismayed Ari. "I am accruing fees at an alarming rate."
"Pretty soon you won't be able to afford our services." Ahmad sat back and smiled, pleased by the prospect of comfort and safety.
Pulling herself together, Yilmaz began explaining her side of the afternoon's events.
"We received a call from the depot a little over an hour ago." She nodded at Singh, who was contemplating the rearview mirror on the driver side. She called him away from his intended target. He came and stood next to her, a mountain to her tiny volcano. "It was Badawi Bahrani. He said there was real trouble that only Singh and I could handle. He sounded very stressed. Mrs. Sadiq told us to go at once. There was no worry. We had over a dozen men guarding the mansion. And now, you say…they were the ones who—"
"We never trusted them," Singh grumbled.
"But I thought…why not?" Yilmaz continued. "They came highly recommended by Sanad."
"Why would you trust him?" Ari asked.
"He has been Mrs. Sadiq's advisor ever since…"
"Ever since your mistress became an art collector," Ari nodded, smiling.
"Not at the beginning. Later…"
"I know."
Yilmaz looked down. "Then it's over…?"
"With Lawson here? Yes, you might say the pig is up."
"'Jig'," Karen corrected, coming up beside him. "But that's not the half—"
"Please," Ari interrupted. "Let Yilmaz continue. You arrived at the truck depot and…?"
"The only one there was Bahrani. We found him in the main office. He'd been shot—"
"What!"
"He is well, more for wear and less for…I have forgotten the phrase."
"'More or less'," said Karen. "But if he was shot—"
"You will see. Several of the dockworkers ambushed him in the office. They forced him to announce over the loudspeaker that everyone should go home, that O'Connor's was closing for the day. Several of the workers banged on the office door. He told them not to bother him, to go home. When everyone was gone, the criminals told him to call the mansion. Now it is obvious they wanted Singh and I…. We would have stopped the kidnapping!"
No, they would have died trying, Ari thought. But the cost to the kidnappers in broken necks and limbs could have been exorbitant. Tricking the pair into going to the depot made good actuarial sense.
"I didn't have your phone number," Yilmaz continued. "I wanted to call the police but Bahrani advised against it."
"Because of the paintings?" Ari asked. "So you called Lawson, instead? That makes even less sense. His company insures them."
"I thought we might be able to deal with him," Yilmaz said nervously. "We know where many of the paintings have gone. If we could tell him…he looks like a sympathetic man."
"Really?" said Ari, whose occasional unkindness could take a grim turn.
They followed Yilmaz to Lawson's van. In the back Badawi Bahrani lay stretched out on the floor. His face had been battered. His shirt was open, exposing a lurid bruise over his heart. Raising his head, he grimaced at Yilmaz.
"I am sorry—"
"No more apologies, Mr. Bahrani. You
withstood torture more than anyone could have expected."
Ari considered the commiseration back-handed. The way she ruffled her khimar strongly hinted that she would have suffered death before submitting to the assailants' demands. Bahrani saw this, too, and sighed. Catching sight of Ari, he dialed up a feeble grin.
"I had a feeling something might happen. I did not know in what form the badness would come, but I thought it prudent to wear this…" He pointed at a bullet-proof best on the bench.
"Very stylish," said Ari admiringly. "One would have to look hard to see it under your shirt."
"And not too hot. It got it for $168.99 at the Ballistic Store, including a bottle of body armor deodorizer."
Ari held up the vest and studied the bullet's imprint. He suspected a small caliber handgun, but withheld his opinion that anything bigger would have finished him off. Under the circumstances, it had been a perfect fit.
"If it had been a head shot, you wouldn't be talking to us," said Karen cheerily.
"Allah smiled upon me," Bahrani said as he lowered his head onto a knapsack that served as an improvised pillow.
"We can only pray the same will be said for the hostages," Yilmaz murmured, closing the van door. "You have been to the mansion?"
"My associate has," said Ari warily. "Before you meet him, I would ask you not to comment upon his disfigurement."
A look of sympathy crossed Yilmaz' face. Then she saw Abu Jasim emerging from the van and screeched something that sounded like "Yahhhh!"
Abu Jasim saw the little whirlwind charging towards him and smiled, as if looking at an interesting toy. Extending his arm, Ari deflected the sharp blow intended for his friend.
"I asked you not to comment," Ari winced, rubbing his elbow. Now he had a second sore arm to add to his sore leg. This wicked creature had a lot to answer for.
"Wow," said Fred, impressed. He looked at his partner. "I hope you're not thinking of taking lessons."
"The mansion is cleaned out," said Abu Jasim, for some reason unaware of the harm he had narrowly avoided. "My idiot nephew found a laptop that he is massaging with great industry, but so far he has found nothing that might tell us where they were taken."
"He has Mrs. Sadiq's laptop!" Yilmaz cried out, appalled. "Where is he?"
"That is neither here nor wherever," said Ari. "All we know is what Karida told us."
"Karida?" gasped Yilmaz. "She was not taken?"
"She is in Abu Jasim's van over there—"
And that was all Ari could say before Yilmaz flew past him. Tearing open the panel door of Abu Jasim's van, she let out a cry. Karida fell into her arms. There followed a duet of wailing.
"Mama!"
Ari's brain began to pulse while his limbs shriveled into matchsticks. Karida, the woman he had brainlessly insulted, was Yilmaz' mother? She must not have told her daughter what had happened during Mrs. Sadiq's grand soiree, or else his nose would now be on the other side of his face.
Sirdar Singh looked down upon the scene with open ambivalence. He must have learned of Karida's identity when she arrived at the mansion. Perhaps Yilmaz had given him advance notice of her imminent arrival. If Ari's guess was right, Singh would prove an unpropitious son-in-law. It was doubtful that he was pleased by Karida's abrupt disappearance with the other hostages, but he seemed to be suffering intestinal qualms at her miraculous rescue.
"That fool thinks I'm his mother!" Karida barked, raising her head from Yilmaz' shoulder and nodding at the dumbfounded Ari. Quickly adapting to American ways, she now felt free to call a man a fool to his face. Something no woman dared do in the Middle East, especially if it was true.
Yilmaz gave him a pitying look, as if she should break his neck for his own good. She began to rub her mother's shoulders. She might have been preparing her for a boxing match. "They say you overheard where the kidnappers were going. We can greet each other properly later. We are rushed."
Karida shook her head and wailed, "No. I only heard a man say they should go to the warehouse. He did not give it a name or say where it was."
Yilmaz stiffened and turned to Singh. "We must go."
"So soon?" Ari smiled while avoiding Karida's baleful eye.
"Can you take my mother back to the mansion? It will be safe, now. Everything of interest is gone."
"But you depart in such haste!" Ari said.
"Like he said," said Karen. "Don't you want to stay with your mother for a while?"
"Ah," said Ari when Yilmaz didn't answer. "She desires her mother to stay behind because of the danger."
"What danger?" said Yilmaz, shifting uneasily.
"Why, the danger at the warehouse. You know where it is, don't you?"
"I can handle—"
"Be cognizant of your limitations, young warrior. If you proposed to confront only three or four adversaries, I've no doubt you could competently stretch them out in their graves. But I'm afraid you will be dealing with a veritable horde. Why, the number of guards from the mansion alone would amount to…"
"Twelve," said Yilmaz in a low voice.
"And there are more at hand." Ari wrinkled his nose and pointed at the side of Abu Jasim's van. "At least one of them has an Uzi."
Yilmaz stared at the bullet holes and made a sound.
"Yes, a Yiddish weapon of mass elimination. These men have no scruples. How is it you know of this warehouse?"
"Rami and I would meet Sanad there," she said slowly. "It's where we stored some of the larger artifacts. Statues. Things that couldn't be moved easily."
"A gun is a gun," said Lawson, hobbling up to them. His lost lambs had all arrived and gathered in the middle of the lot. He must have known that Latisha's Beauty Palace, Bill's Allstate and all the other shops on Happy Hill were unhappily out of business. Otherwise, they would have garnered a great deal of attention. Not that the members of his army were dressed like ninjas or openly toting their weapons. They simply looked like men and women you would prefer not to meet. Anywhere. At any time. "I've got a couple of mercs here with grenade launchers in their kits. You want them to trade them in for Nerfs? So…what's the lowdown? Yilmaz knows where the hostages are, that much I gathered."
The 'Nerfs' must be dangerous weapons, but Ari was too preoccupied working on 'lowdown'.
"We've got a real mess on our hands," said Karen, forgetting to introduce herself. "If you or anyone else here had any common sense, we'd call in a bunch of Federal guns and then go home."
"Amen," said Fred.
"Boy's left his balls in his other pair of trousers," Abu Jasim mocked. He might have been talking to his nephew, who at that moment opened the passenger door of the van and slid out.
"The woman sounds like common sense to me."
"Thanks," said Karen, staring at the laptop in his hands.
"I apologize for my wonderless nephew," said Abu Jasim. "He must have inherited his dicklessness from a Crusader. Certainly not his mother…"
"Whoever this belongs to has a helluva password," said Ahmad, holding up the laptop like a shield against his uncle. "I hooked it up to my computer and nada, and I've got the almost most expensive hacking software."
"I am relieved you didn't spendthrift me," said Ari.
"Even you couldn't afford top-of-the-line," said Ahmad, then paused. "Unless—"
Catching a glance from Yilmaz, Ari said, "There is no need."
"Mrs. Sadiq had a top-notch girl secure her laptop," Yilmaz said.
"You mean that girl at Allah's Carpets?" Ahmad protested. "Then it can't be that secure."
"Never mind," said Ari, comparing Ahmad's spreadsheet of his expenses against the list of paintings no doubt on the laptop. "Allow it to remain virginal."
"You folks want to pick it up?" said Lawson, nodding at his group. "The company's paying these guys by the mega-shilling. Ex-SAS don't come cheap."
"You have Englishmen in your contingent?" Ari asked.
"Former Englishmen. They're good Americans, now. They love this place. You know…gu
ns…"
Ari smiled broadly and waved at the group. "Welcome to the U.S. of A.!" said the non-citizen.
They glanced at Ari in concerned puzzlement, but Buffett grinned and waved back. They had shared danger and undocumented history. When he turned to the others in the group, still grinning but adding a nod, Ari knew everything was…what was the word Marines in Baghdad used? Right. Copacetic. Everything was copacetic. And once the shooting started, which it was sure to do, it would stay that way.
Except some of the men he contemplated killing were from his homeland. He had killed Iraqis before, in self-defense and the line of duty. But Sanad's and Nizzar's men were as stranded as Ari himself. They were in a foreign land that varied in hostility, but was invariably hostile. By all rights, he should unite with them. Hey, look: Americans! Three-hundred million of them! Shoot on sight! And some of them would have as much reason as Ari to despise their hosts. But there was a reason Ari needed to cooperate with the Yanks. He sometimes wondered what he would do if his wife, who lived between life and death, suddenly passed away. Would he become a berserker?
"What's the plan?" Lawson insisted. "Is it the Feds, or what?"
"Would your people be annoyed if we put them in harm's way?" Ari asked him. "By this, I mean confronting enemies with weapons."
"Including Uzis!" Lawson's laughter threatened to sweep away his carefully manufactured face. "They miss Iraq. They miss Afghanistan. They miss Africa. The only reason they aren't at any of those places now is because they've got significant others who'll kill them in their sleep if they go overseas again. I mean, to some place other than the States. It's a compromise. CONUS promises that it's safe…but we all know the casualty rate among civilians here isn't much different than in the Sandbox…"
Was the murder rate in the States really so high? Ari would investigate later.
"Very well," he said. "Do you have a pen and paper? I want Yilmaz to contrive a diagram for us. We need to plan our assault."
CHAPTER 18
Richmond, Virginia
July, 2008
The Buttered Women in Peril
"Iron Man, Wookie Monster, three cargo trucks in the rear, five Ali Babas."
The Shelter for Buttered Women Page 36