I was sure they’d try something …
And then it hit him: the auction attendees.
He grabbed for the car phone. “Oh, no!”
“What is wrong?” Mahmoud said in Arabic.
Nasser ignored him as he frantically tapped in Saleem Haddad’s number at the auction house. As the phone rang and rang, he cursed himself for not realizing that the auction attendees might wind up targets—especially once the hijackers knew the truck was empty. Not that he cared about the bidders themselves—scum of the earth, as far as he was concerned—but they had been gathered under his aegis and if anything happened to them, it might well cost him his credibility with the jihadists.
At least he wasn’t alone in his error. No one else had foreseen it either.
“Answer, damn you!” he shouted into the phone.
Then a blinding flash flooded the limo’s interior through the minuscule rear window, followed by a deafening boom. A shock wave slammed the car with enough force to lift its back tires off the pavement.
Nasser stared in shock and dismay at the flying bits of flaming debris where the rental truck had been.
8
“How could this go so astonishingly wrong?” Roman said.
Dawn lit the windows as he paced his suite’s living room, staring at Drexler and al-Thani where they sat with averted eyes. He was angry, yes, but more baffled and dismayed than anything else.
When neither replied, he went on. “I didn’t hold out much hope for success, but—”
Drexler’s head snapped up. “Is that so? You said nothing of the sort.”
“I figured that if they had even half a brain between them, the hijackers would smell a trap. But there was always the chance they wouldn’t. Always a chance, as you said, that their fervor for their ‘agenda’ would overcome caution. So I let it proceed. Why not? The overhead was low, and the potential reward was high.” He pointed to al-Thani. “You were there. How could this have happened?”
The Qatari shook his head. “I questioned Reggie and Kadir separately and they both swear they stopped only twice of their own accord, both times at public rest stops to call in. The bomb must have been placed at one of those stops. I can assure you that no one came near the truck when we were parked on the beach.”
“And no one could time the explosion so perfectly,” Roman said. “Someone had to be watching.”
“But from—?” He stopped. “He could have been hiding behind one of the more distant dunes. Reggie and Kadir saw no one following. Was it possible he was waiting there?”
“Then he would have had to know where you were meeting.”
“But only we three and Kadir and Reggie knew—and only just as they were leaving. They had no time to tell anyone.”
Reggie … that worthless piece of subhumanity.
Roman said, “What do we know of this Reggie?”
“We know he was supposed to be behind the steering wheel when the truck blew up. The only reason he wasn’t was because I wanted to question him and Kadir about their trip. If you had seen how white and shaken he was after the blast, you’d know he was as shocked as I was. More so, because he would have been blown to pieces with the others.”
Too bad he wasn’t, Roman thought.
“If nothing else,” al-Thani added, “we know now there’s more than two of them.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, it requires more than two men to have followed the truck from Virginia or been hiding on the dune while committing the slaughter at the auction house as well.”
Roman closed his eyes and fought for control.
“Yes, the auction house slaughter. We should rejoice that no one knew the Order was connected with this, because do you realize what asses these hijackers have made of us? And by extension, the Order itself?”
“But—” Drexler began.
Roman silenced him with a slash of his hand. “No buts! They outplayed us at every turn. I don’t care about a bunch of pederasts being burned alive, but I do care about the painful fact that we were completely unprepared for the possibility. And I do care about a bunch of jihadists being blown to pieces while assisting us. They are the greatest potential source of chaos in the world today and we need communication with them to know what they’re planning. We can’t guide them if they suspect us of treachery or, perhaps worse, incompetence.”
“I’ll smooth it over,” al-Thani said.
“How do you plan to do that?”
Drexler said, “They were only in it for the money. We can offer them the two hundred thousand they were to receive if we were successful.”
Roman shook his head. “They lost a dozen of their faithful. Somehow I don’t think that will be enough.”
“It will be if we shift the blame,” al-Thani said.
“To whom?”
A slight smile twisted his lips. “Whenever anything goes right, they give credit to Allah. But when things don’t go their way, when they suspect treachery, they have a favorite target for blame: the CIA.”
Roman nodded and saw Drexler doing the same. “Excellent. Can you sell it?”
“Of course. It feeds into their paranoia. It stokes their fervor against the Great Satan.”
Roman liked it. What was the expression? When handed a lemon, make lemonade.
9
The Post front page said it all.
AMITYVILLE
HORROR!!!
Abe was slicing a second bagel in half. “And you’re saying you were there?”
Jack had spent the better part of twenty minutes telling him just that, so he simply nodded as he skimmed the news piece. Details were scant. Not all the bodies had been identified yet, and no one was talking about those that had. He wondered if the truth about them would ever come out. Motive unknown, perpetrators unknown.
“I shouldn’t doubt it. Blechedich you look.”
He’d heard that word before.
“I gather that’s bad?”
“Of course it’s bad.”
“No sleep.”
Not for lack of trying. Jack had parked Ralph in the garage space he rented for an astronomical fee, then collapsed onto his bed like a felled tree. But sleep had played coy, coaxing him with false promises into believing he’d fall off, and then jolting him awake with sights and sounds from the Amityville house.
By seven thirty he gave up, dressed in his hoodie disguise, and started walking around, sipping a series of coffees from a series of food trucks. Finally he showed up at Abe’s with a bag of fresh bagels and nothing else. He was too fragged to come up with anything more original.
“Well,” Abe said, “I’m sure it was a horrible scene, even if they were human dreck.”
“Oh, trust me, I don’t feel sorry for them. And as one of the brothers said, it did improve the gene pool. But for some reason…”
He shook his head, not sure where he was going with this.
“What? It doesn’t sit right?”
“You could say that, but I can’t put my finger on what about the whole thing that doesn’t feel right.”
“You would have let them live?”
“I don’t know. Anyway, I wasn’t given a choice. I had no vote, so…” And then it came to him.
“Nu?”
“I think that’s it: no choice, no vote. It was the Mikulski brothers’ show and I was just along for the ride.”
“Well, you knew that already.”
“Yeah, I did. But I’d sort of lost sight of the fact that I don’t play well with others—at least that’s what a lot of my early grammar school reports used to say.”
“But then you learned?”
Jack smiled. “Well, I learned to fake it. Anyway. I’m impressed with the way the Mikulskis get things done. The take-no-prisoners approach has its strengths, but it lacks something.”
“Like?”
“I don’t know.” Suddenly he remembered All About Eve. “Symmetry?”
Abe frowned. “Symmetry? You want symmetry, draw a circl
e. Or a square.”
“No, seriously. A symmetrical solution would have left each of them being horrendously abused for the rest of their days.”
Abe shrugged. “Who’s to say some of them wouldn’t like that?”
“Yeah, there’s that.”
“And how would you arrange that?”
“No idea.” He remembered what Black had said about the pervs getting off. This was further depressing him. “One thing I think I’ve learned from all this: I don’t like tagging along.”
“No nochshlepper, you.”
“Whatever.”
He was watching Abe. As he read the paper he was scooping the insides out of his bagel, leaving only the crust and piling the soft innards to the side of the counter. He’d done the same with the first, but Jack had been involved in telling his story and hadn’t commented. But now …
“What are you doing to that bagel?”
“I’m making it low cal.”
“Really.”
“If I eat only the crust—which after all is the best part—by half I cut my calories. Besides, you brought no cream cheese. Already my bagel was less than happy, being eaten without a shmear”—he gave Jack a pointed look—“so I might as well gut the poor thing. My waistline rejoices already.”
“What about the leavings?”
Abe glanced away from the paper at the pile of soft innards. “Not for me. You?”
“Nah. Like you said, the crust’s the best part.”
“A shame to throw away. I should have some sort of chozzerish pet to devour the leavings. A puppy maybe?”
“I don’t see you with a puppy. You have to take a puppy out and walk him.”
“Gevalt! Something else maybe?”
“A weasel?”
“Too sneaky.”
“A lizard. Say, an iguana.”
“A cold-blooded reptile you want for me? I’ll be an alter kocker soon. I’ll need warmth in my sunset years.”
“You could always toss your leavings out on the sidewalk for the birds.”
Abe’s eyes lit. “A mitzvah for our feathered friends! I—” He stopped and stared at the paper. “Did you see this?”
Jack rotated the tabloid—the Daily News—and scanned the pages.
“What?”
Abe tapped a header in a lower corner. “Here.”
A brief article on a truck explosion near Gilgo Beach. A dozen bodies were found scattered about the blasted remains of a Ryder truck. The dead appeared to be dressed in Muslim garb, but no further details were available at press time.
“Jeez.”
“Could that have been the Ryder truck you and Bertel were following?”
“Ours was empty.”
“Doesn’t mean it couldn’t have been filled. The brothers again?”
“They didn’t know where it was. Where’s this Gilgo Beach?”
“Near Babylon … which is near Amityville. Did they care about the truck?”
“Not once they learned it was empty.” He felt a chill. “But I know someone who did care.”
When Bertel had tagged the truck with that radio transceiver, was something else with the package? Jack never saw the contents of his duffel. Could something like C4 have gone along for the ride too?
He shook it off. Bertel a mass murderer? He couldn’t see it. But then what did he really know about Dane Bertel?
“Was Bertel ever with the CIA or FBI or anything like that?”
“I should know? He shows up, he disappears, he shows up again. Otherwise his rep is a mensch. If he’s a fed, I should have been raided six times already. I’ve never known him to be involved in anything even remotely legal, but illegal operations and government service aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.”
Jack remembered Bertel’s hard look when he’d told him that Reggie had been instrumental in Tony’s murder. Maybe that had been his intent: revenge on Reggie for Tony, and all the rest of the damage was collateral.
As Jack mulled that, he noticed that the pile of bagel innards had disappeared. Only a few crumbs remained.
“Probably better if you don’t get a pet for cleanup, Abe. It’ll starve.”
10
Jack bought another coffee and ambled west until he hit Riverside Drive. He found himself at loose ends, with nothing scheduled until Saturday when he took up the Zalesky trail again. A couple of empty days ahead. He could hang out with Julio and Lou and Barney at The Spot, but felt like being alone for a while. Well, he’d make an exception for Cristin, but she was busy planning her parties and events.
He crossed into the park that buffered the Upper West Side from the Henry Hudson Parkway. The late morning sun had crested the old brick apartment buildings that lined the east side of the drive. Last night’s wind had died, allowing old Sol to leaven the chill in the air. Not warm by any stretch, but … nice.
The extra caffeine had done nothing to revive him, so he dropped onto one of the benches that lined the footpath. As his gaze came to rest on a sign wired to the low fence directly opposite—reminding him that his dog must be leashed—a middle-aged blond woman strolled by with an unleashed husky. It looked well behaved.
He pointed to the sign. “They ever fine you?”
She stopped and her dog stopped with her. Both stared at him for a second, then she spoke with a strange accent.
“No one fines me.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“You should not sit there,” she said.
“Why not?”
“It is not a good spot. It could be dangerous.”
How? Jack wondered. Muggers?
Didn’t seem likely out in the open near midday. Besides, he had the Semmerling strapped to his ankle.
“I’ll chance it.”
Another long stare, then she strolled off with her dog.
Through the naked trees he could see the boat basin and the glittering Hudson River. With the sun warming his back and the traffic murmuring behind him, Jack stretched out his legs and closed his eyes. Maybe he could catch forty or so winks here. If so, it would be his first sleep in close to thirty hours.
He felt himself start to drift … he loosed the tether …
—jolted awake / something slamming into him / opens his eyes to darkness / something over his head, over his shoulders and arms / black plastic of some sort / “Hey! What the—!” / tries to go for the Semmerling / arms pinned at sides / can’t reach it / lifted / carried / “Hey!” / voices speaking Spanish to each other / Oh, shit, not— / tossed onto a metal surface / a door slides and clangs shut / moving / floor bouncing / angry shouting in Spanish / getting kicked / can’t defend / blows to his head / blows to his face / the darkness deepens / he goes away …
11
Jack came to coughing, his face dripping cold water. He blinked, went to wipe his face and found his arms wouldn’t move. He shook his head and the move blasted pain through his skull and down his neck. His gut threatened to hurl.
Don’t do that again.
He opened his eyes and as his vision cleared he realized he wasn’t alone. In some sort of garage or warehouse or abandoned factory—concrete floor and walls, high windows with weak sunlight struggling through the dirty glass. Eight or nine young Hispanics surrounded him. He recognized Rico first, standing closest with an empty, dripping, plastic bucket. Then Carlos, Juan, and Ramon of Two Paisanos Landscaping came into focus, grinning like idiots. He didn’t know the others. A couple of them had their shirts off, revealing a gallery of tattoos as they strutted around. They wore fierce looks on their faces and strings of red, white, and blue beads around their necks. One of them was playing with the Semmerling.
DDP.
Shit.
He looked down at his arms—bungeed tightly to the arms of a heavy, beat-up office chair. His left leg was bungeed to a leg of the chair. He rocked the chair but it seemed solid—way solid. His right leg, though, was stretched out and bungeed in place on a low workbench that looked like steel. His boot and sock were
gone, as was his ankle holster. The leg of his jeans had been rolled up almost to the knee.
What the—?
“So, you awake now,” Rico said with his heavy accent.
Jack was tempted to compliment him on his powers of observation, but thought better of it. He was helpless and in deep shit and couldn’t see an upside to antagonizing this guy.
“Rico. Good to see you.”
His throbbing head felt twice normal size and he must have been kicked in the jaw at some point because it hurt to talk.
“Good?” Rico tossed the bucket aside. “You don’t think it’s good too long. Not when I finish with you.”
That sounded real bad. Jack’s gut made knots as he tested his bonds. The bungees had been pulled supertight. He could barely feel his hands and feet. He wiggled his fingers. They moved but were numb.
Christ, Jack thought as he watched Rico limp over to Carlos. His knee still isn’t right?
He hadn’t meant to put that kind of hurt on him. He had an awful feeling he was going to regret it even more. The misgivings turned to terror when he saw Carlos hand him a wicked looking machete. This wasn’t one of the crude, sharpened lengths of steel these guys used in gardening and landscaping. This was one of the DDP models, polished and tapered to a nasty point.
“Aw, no, Rico.”
“Yes!” He slashed it back and forth and the flashing blade whispered through the air as he approached. He touched the point to Jack’s foot. “This is the foot that wreck my knee, yes?”
Jack struggled with the bungees but they held. Helpless. He began to sweat. His bladder cried out to empty.
Rico spread his legs and began to raise the machete. “Say good-bye to your foot.”
The DDP guys egged him on, chanting, “¡Córtalo! Córtalo!” Carlos, Juan, and Ramon didn’t join in. Their grins had faded and they looked a little green around the gills.
Jack’s mind raced. This couldn’t be happening. Try as he might he saw no way out. Beg? That would only incite him. Reason with him? He didn’t see any way either would work. Rico looked beyond the reach of mercy and reason.
Or was he? Jack saw a flicker of something in his eyes as the machete reached the high point over his head. He hesitated. Second thoughts? Amputate a foot in exchange for a bum knee—a bit over the top?
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