Swift Vengeance

by T. Jefferson Parker

“Or?” I asked.

  “We keep Ben to ourselves and nail his ass fast.”

  “If it is Ben, Joan.”

  “Christ, Roland, of course if it is Ben.”

  “I still like Alan’s anger,” I said. “It’s up front and real.”

  “He’s a family man.”

  “So was bin Laden.”

  “Okay, then I like Alan as brother Ben’s right-hand man. I like him as Caliphornia’s Zawahiri.”

  “Brothers in arms,” I said.

  “It makes perfect sense.”

  I drove into the carpool lane and set the cruise control. My thoughts were on the move again, in and out of light and shadow like Clevenger’s coyotes in the floodlit night.

  “The money,” I said.

  “I think so, too.”

  “Ben asked Marah for money,” I said. “Twice.”

  “I heard it,” said Taucher. “Loudly. So if the brothers are in this together, we only need one. I vote Ben. We approach him online, just like Islamic State would. Get him on the encrypted apps, offer the money through an IS or al-Qaeda sympathizer. Remember, Caliphornia is already on high alert. He’ll be very careful. But if we bait the hook just right and he takes it—game on.”

  “You memorized Ben’s cell number when you asked Marah to see his text.”

  “Crafty old Joan,” she said.

  I thought it over. Taucher going rogue, with my help. After suspects we could not identify with certainty and had little physical evidence against.

  “If it goes wrong, the Bureau will bust you down,” I said. “And cook me for obstructing a federal investigation.”

  Taucher stared out the windshield, then folded her hands back over her purse. “Yeah. They’d find me a desk somewhere quiet and miserable. Make room for the new. They’ve been wanting that for a while. San Diego’s a plum with a history and I’m part of it. Just yesterday the SAC told me I might find a change of territory refreshing. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. And told him so.”

  She made no acknowledgment of my own risk here. Not that I needed it. I wasn’t close enough to Taucher’s world to discern the fine borders between leadership and manipulation, insight and paranoia, fear real and fear imagined.

  My first responsibility was to Lindsey Rakes. My second was to Voss and the thousands of other people who could receive one or more of the bullets delivered by Hector Padilla to Caliphornia. Probably Caliphornia. My third was to keep myself out of federal prison long enough to complete missions one and two.

  “We’re a good team, Roland.”

  “I’m glad I don’t work for your people.”

  “Mostly they’re good people and in the right,” she said. “We stand for the rule of law and we protect the innocent.”

  I weighed Joan Taucher’s smallness within that great Bureau against the bigness of her spirit and her fight.

  “Now, help me compose a solicitation to Ben Azmeh,” she said. “From Raqqa Nine—an extremist organization offering him money.”

  “Zkrya Gourmat’s recruitment network?” I asked, remembering Leising’s story.

  “As re-created and updated,” said Taucher, with one of her small dry smiles.

  “By you,” I concluded.

  “Of course.”

  Our fearsome Bureau, I thought, trolling for terrorists.

  I pondered my mission for a moment. Then ad-libbed: “‘Dear Mr. Azmeh,’” I said. “‘We are Raqqa Nine. We operate in the spirit of Allah and Zkrya Gourmat. As you know, we finance terror in America against the infidels. How can we help you succeed?’”

  “That’s good,” said Taucher. “But if Ben is driving around an SUV full of ammo, taking routine evasive action on Interstate Five, he is very wary. And now that Marah and Alan have probably both told him about their terrible experiences with the FBI today—he’s even warier. Suddenly, Ben gets a solicitation for free money, just for being called a promising young jihadi? No. It has to be something that will speak directly to Ben Azmeh-Adams-Anderson.”

  I thought about that a moment. “Okay. ‘We are Raqqa Nine. We seek to finance homegrown terror in America, against the infidels. Your name has come to our attention through a mutual friend whose brother died at IH-One in Aleppo in April of 2015. I cannot reveal his name at this time. However, the link below is to an encrypted app where we can communicate securely. We can arrange to meet at a time and place where ideas can be exchanged, cash can be transferred, and security is without question. Sincerely . . . Warrior of Allah.’”

  Taucher turned and raised her sunglasses to stare at me unfiltered. “It’s beautiful. I love the ‘Warrior of Allah’ touch. I can have it to Ben Azmeh as soon as I get home.”

  Home, I thought: where she can keep her confederates in the digital dark. I was surprised at her crude guile.

  * * *

  —

  Taucher’s email to me arrived one hour and forty-five minutes later. I was upstairs in my home office. She had logged the property from Ben Azmeh’s apartment into evidence, then “sped” home and sent him a Telegram “Secret Chat” message from the Warrior of Allah, offering support, enthusiasm, and money for his jihad.

  On her email to me, she had signed off:

  Thanks for being a genuine help.

  Best,

  JAT (the A is for Annabelle)

  30

  OUT IN THE BARN, I banged the heavy and speed bags for a long while. Then showered and joined the Irregulars for cocktail hour under the palapa. They had a big fire going in the pit under the high part of the thatch, where the flames couldn’t catch it on fire. Dick poured me a forthright bourbon and added a few drops of water. We sat on chaise longues facing the hills. The night was cool and the stars were post-storm bright.

  Dick swirled his glass and the ice clinked. “If those weren’t four feds sitting at that table this morning, my name’s not Dick Ford.”

  “Friendly neighborhood FBI.”

  “And what did they want with my favorite grandson?”

  “Dirt on one of their own.”

  “That’s low,” said Dick.

  “I thought so, too.”

  “Who was that earlier?” he asked. “The dapper Arab with the bodyguard.”

  “Not important.”

  “Something about Lindsey, I surmise,” he said. “And that’s why you sent her away for a while.”

  “Need-to-know, Dick. Sorry.”

  “I’m cool with that,” he said. “But I’m not sold on that dog of Lindsey’s. I don’t like him, and he senses it. Looks at me like he wants to eat my balls. Well, off to see how Liz is doing. That knee of hers doesn’t love the tennis court as much as it used to.”

  I waved Lindsey over and she took Dick’s vacated chaise. Zeno lay between us, head up and facing me, a gray-eyed sphinx.

  I told her about my visit from Rasha. That he physically resembled what I had briefly seen of Kenny Bryce’s killer. That his temper had boiled. That he had admitted to brandishing a janbiya at a college party. I told her that his claim of being out of the country on the night of the murder was yet to be vetted. She reminded me of his handwriting, so similar to that of Caliphornia’s.

  I told Lindsey that I could find no motive for Samara to take Kenny’s life, and no reason for him to threaten her. I admitted that I found his interest in her genuine, if possessive and impulsive.

  “My gut tells me he isn’t our man,” I said.

  “How sure are you?”

  “I can’t make any claims there,” I said. “Rasha could be enough of a sociopath and a liar to fool us all.”

  “Comforting, Roland.”

  I said nothing of Ben Azmeh.

  The fact that we had only circumstantial evidence linking him to Caliphornia dripped in my mind, the sound of water hitting water. A constant reminder that something isn’t right
.

  I looked out at the placid black water of the pond and saw Ben’s strange dance behind the cheap plastic blinds of Del Sol unit 24-A.

  But Rasha’s voice is what I heard, when I’d asked him if he still had his old janbiya: Somewhere.

  Such are the vagaries of an uncertain soul.

  * * *

  —

  Lindsey and I took on Burt and Clevenger in Ping-Pong, best of three, fought them to a one–one draw. Lindsey served to open the third. Burt’s high, long-distance spin-bombs made up for Clevenger’s slowness and poor motor skills. Lindsey had remarkable reflexes but was tactically unsound, trying to make winners of almost every shot. I stayed in close to the table, bringing my six feet and three inches to bear, hitting the ball early and flat at tough angles.

  Zeno lay under the table on Lindsey’s and my end, positioned, of course, as close to Lindsey as he could get without being stepped on. I looked at him occasionally, a large, brindled, gray-eyed beast patiently sizing me up. A ball went off the table and click-click-clicked on the uneven pavers, finally rolling to a stop between Zeno’s huge front paws. I kneeled and thought whether or not to reach in. He studied me. Eyes inscrutable within the heavy folds of his face.

  I didn’t know what to make of Zeno yet. I told him so.

  He must not have known what to make of me, either, because he didn’t move when I reached in and took the ball. Just looked at me as if I was not really there.

  Burt and Clevenger beat us in the deciding third game, twenty-four to twenty-two, a heartbreaker decided by cloddish Clevenger’s shot that came off his paddle and finger at an unintended angle, nicked the white baseline in front of me with an audible tick, and dropped uninterrupted to the floor at my feet.

  I wanted to knock out Clevenger with an uppercut, but I’m a good sport, so I couldn’t, even if the bourbon suggested that I could. Instead I dropped the paddle to the table, went to the fire, did an Ali shuffle, and threw some punches into the flames. Felt good, hands and feet working together, heavy as they were from the workout. This drew hoots and claps from the Irregulars, who broke into Zevon’s “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner,” a song I’d always liked but that now struck a hideously raw nerve. It’s an Irregulars favorite, along with “Money for Nothing,” in which they diss their landlord for charging rent but doing nothing. I might add that none of them except Burt pay on time. I have never once collected all rents by the first day of any month, as mandated by the rules posted on the palapa caisson not ten feet from here. But they have a point. I really do do almost nothing, though I always warn them of that before we sign a lease. Those Irregulars. You never know quite how they’ll come at you.

  Grandpa Dick presented me with a fresh drink. “That Clevenger’s a lucky prick.”

  Clevenger waved guiltily and headed off for the barn and his coming night of coyote hunting. Limping Liz and Dick took their towering drinks and reclined next to each other on the padded chaise longues, quickly falling into an argument about whether to ice or heat a sore knee: Dick for heat but Liz all ice.

  When my phone vibrated in my pocket I hoped it was Joan saying that Ben Azmeh had responded positively to our offer of cash. Instead it was Tammy Bellamy, just to let me know that the gray striped cat spotted walking along Stage Coach Road turned out to be plain gray, and not Oxley at all. So he was still out there, somewhere, and Tammy was really hoping I hadn’t given up. A full moon was coming, and I knew what that meant. She asked me to keep an extra-sharp eye out, and offered to pay for my gasoline if I ever wanted to fill her up and patrol Fallbrook. I told her not to worry, said I’d keep an extra-sharp eye out, not to sweat the gas.

  Lindsey, Burt, and I put on our coats and walked the pond under good clean moonlight. Zeno traveled at Lindsey’s left side, matching her pace exactly, anticipating her turns on the meandering path, a darkness within the dark. Breeze in the cattails. An owl sweeping low past us from behind, hefty but silent.

  “About those bottles of Stoli on my kitchen counter,” said Lindsey. “They are there for a reason. They’re unopened, so that I can see them and they can tempt me. I can beat them. I’m a boozer, but I know I can. And Burt was in my casita, Roland. We’ve discussed it. One of Clevenger’s drones recorded him in high-def. I was in the barn looking for a Phillips-head and wasn’t supposed to see him.”

  Burt cleared his throat. “I won’t apologize twice. I was trying to help you.”

  “I know,” she said. “But it’s between me and the bottles now.”

  We rounded the west bank and came to the outcropping of boulders that mark the halfway point from the house. “Thanks for sticking with me, guys,” said Lindsey. “We’re going to beat Caliphornia. I’m going to get joint custody of John. I’m going to be a good mom. But I’m not going to hit the bottle again. I feel a little bit stronger every hour, every time I look at those things. Sometimes I’m so damned thirsty for it my body wants to turn inside out. But I refuse. It’s not one day at a time, it’s one second at a time. Then the second passes and I think about tomorrow being better. Because it’s going to be. And you guys are bearing me up on your shoulders. I love you both.”

  She stopped and knelt and scratched Zeno’s ears with both her hands. “I love you, too, Zeno. Yes, I love you, too.”

  She jumped up and loped off toward her casita, the great gray protector bounding along beside her.

  “Just FYI,” said Burt. “She drove back to Los Jilgueros earlier today, so she could see Johnny again. She asked me to ride shotgun and said she was going with or without me. I actually did bring a shotgun—the little sawed-off model you’re familiar with. Zeno in the back. Lindsey well protected. Her ex brought her flowers.”

  * * *

  —

  Upstairs, I hit the computer hard, retracing my way through the many folders on “Martyr Statistics,” published by the Syrian Revolution Martyr Database to http://syrianshuhada.com, searching for Caliphornia’s companion, Kalima. I remembered Taucher’s office poster of the dizzying variations that a single Arabic name can have—in pronunciation and spelling. I followed the same twisting path through Aleppo, April 22 of 2015, to the page of the names of those martyred in the air strike on IH-One. I knew that a matrilineal first name would be an unlikely miracle, and in fact there was no Kalima killed that day. So I followed the names of the dead back to the Martyr Statistics for any mention of family. It took almost an hour, but when I tracked down the martyr profile for Dr. Mhood Amin, killed by the Headhunters that day in Aleppo, I found that he had been survived by four children, one of them a daughter—Kalima Amin.

  I found six Kalima Amins on Facebook.

  One of them was the dark-haired beauty who matched the picture we’d gotten from Marah.

  Where on earth could I find her?

  I struck out with TLO and Tracersinfo.

  But did much better with IvarDuggans.com, which listed Syrian national Kalima Amin as a legal visitor, on a fiancée visa issued in February of the previous year. Age twenty-eight. Her U.S. address was the apartment that Ben Azmeh had abandoned less than twenty-four hours ago. Surprisingly enough, Kalima Amin’s fiancée-sponsor-retriever was not Ben Azmeh at all. It was Caliphornia’s cryptic associate, Hector Padilla. Her visa photo was included.

  My heart thumped away with the thrill of the hunt—a solid connection between Padilla and Ben Azmeh. And thus between them and Caliphornia. I rolled back a few feet in my chair, then found the picture of Ben and Kalima on my phone again. Confirming the match.

  Ben looked solemn and proud. So did Kalima.

  I consulted my computer for the meaning of her name in Arabic.

  Truthful witness.

  I wondered if Hector had acted on orders from Ben, to secure the fiancée visa for Kalima, travel abroad, and bring her to America. As an employed, native-born U.S. citizen with no criminal record, as well as being a non-Muslim, Hector would qualify
to obtain the special visa. Leaving Ben in the shadows.

  * * *

  —

  Of course, I couldn’t let go of Alan Azmeh. Not with that white-hot rage surrounding him like an aura.

  I ran him through my services again, keen to the “Known Associates” listings and any financial irregularities. I found the arrest report for the assault complaint that was eventually dropped. The officer had written that Azmeh had apparently been provoked by racial epithets and a “yank of” his headscarf. I saw that the alleged provocateur had been arrested as well.

  Interesting. I wrote down the cop’s name and made a note to call him the next day.

  * * *

  —

  I was back on the patio early the next morning, sun warming me through my sweats, coffee in hand, and bullish on the day. My plan was to run two miles through the hills, beat up on the speed bag and the heavy bag in the barn for a few rounds.

  Then my phone vibrated, Taucher’s name and number greeting me. My first hope was that she was reporting that Ben was ready to do business with Raqqa 9. Or maybe she had found a home address for Kalima Amin.

  I knew this day would be good.

  “Voss went out for his usual sunrise run this morning,” Taucher said. “Another runner found him dead on the trail half an hour ago. He was lying on his front side, with his head removed and propped up on his back, between his shoulder blades. IS style. No witnesses. I’m checking the commercial manifests from Sacramento, Reno, and the Bay Area. Amtrak and Greyhound, too. No Ben Azmeh, and no Ben Adams or Anderson. Not yet. I’ve got his name on the hot watch. Son of a bitch, Roland! How long to fly us to Grass Valley?”

  “Three hours,” I guessed. “I’ll be waiting for you at Fallbrook Airpark. Dress for the cold.”

  A door banged shut behind me. Burt, starting down from casita number five, short and bow-legged, one arm swinging, the other bringing a cup of coffee to his face. Burt senses distress as surely as a shark. I told him what had happened and not to let Lindsey out of his sight.