by Lauren Carr
“A few minutes ago?” Bogie gasped. “Maybe he escaped.”
“He would have called us if he had escaped,” Mac said.
“Not if he didn’t have a phone,” Bogie said.
Mac grabbed Jeff roughly by the arm. “Jeff, did you actually talk to David?”
“N-no,” Jeff stuttered. “I was too far away.” With a trembling finger, he pointed across the lobby. “I had just come out of the restaurant.”
Mac dropped his arm. “So you didn’t actually see David. You saw his uniform.”
“That answers your question about his coat!” Murphy was already pressing the elevator button. “They’re using David’s police chief uniform to gain access into Kochar’s room to assassinate him.” He sprinted for the stairway. “I’ll meet you up there!”
“Assassination!” Jeff called out. When all of the guests within hearing distance heard him, he covered his mouth with both hands. With wide eyes, he sucked in a deep breath. “Never mind.” He waved his arms to encourage merriment. “Enjoy your holiday. Eat, drink, and be merry. The new year is right around the corner!”
The hotel corridor was busy with guests coming and going out of rooms. Three couples dressed in evening fare were getting on the elevator while Mac, Bogie, and Sheriff Turow waded through them to step into the hall.
“We don’t know for certain that that was O’Callaghan,” Sheriff Turow said.
“It was his uniform, not him,” Mac said. “From across the lobby, Jeff thought he saw a police shield on the coat.”
“They’re using his uniform to get in to see this writer guy,” Bogie argued.
“We’re jumping to conclusions,” Sheriff Turow said as they approached the room. “My advice to you right now is to remain calm and not to get excited.” He knocked on the door. “Mr. Kochar, this is Sheriff Turow of the Garrett County Sheriff’s Department. May I speak to you for a minute?”
There was a moment of silence.
The sheriff knocked on the door again. “Mr. Kochar, open the door please.”
The answer from inside came in the form of a burst of automatic gunfire and the sound of glass breaking.
They dove on either side of the doorway for cover.
“Can we get excited now?” Mac asked the sheriff.
The sheriff, Bogie, and Mac drew their guns. Mac took his master keycard from his pocket and unlocked the door. Before he could push down on the handle, the door flew open.
Seeing three guns aimed at him, Murphy Thornton threw up his hands. “Easy guys, I’m on your side.” He stepped back to allow them into the hotel suite, which looked like a bloodbath.
A few feet inside the door lay the sprawled-out body of a muscular African-American. He had three gunshot wounds to the chest. Mac assumed he was the author’s bodyguard.
“How did you get in here?” Mac asked Murphy while stepping around the dead bodyguard.
A glance across the suite and the burst of freezing wind answered his question. Through the broken balcony doors, Mac saw a rope dangling from the floor above.
“You may want to send the couple in the suite on the next floor up a bottle of champagne on the house,” Murphy told Mac.
Bogie rushed to a man in a sweater and slacks lying on the floor next to the writing desk on the other side of the suite. “This one is still alive.” He got on his radio.
Anticipating Jeff’s reaction to the shot-out door, Mac asked, “Couldn’t you have opened the deck door before shooting him?”
“Not enough time.” The corner of Murphy’s lip curled upwards. “Besides, it wouldn’t have been half as dramatic.”
Sheriff Turow knelt next to another dead man sprawled out on the floor in the middle of the room. He was wearing the uniform of the Spencer Police Chief. The coat lay open to reveal a vest made up of explosives. There was not much left of his head. His body lay in a growing pool of blood and body tissue.
“Is that bomb deactivated?” Mac asked while holding his breath.
“Wires have been disconnected,” Sheriff Turow noted while looking up at Murphy. “You did this?”
Murphy patted the knife resting in the sheath on his belt. “When I heard he was wearing O’Callaghan’s coat when he got on the elevator, I realized there was probably a reason he didn’t take it off once he was in the hotel.”
“You assumed he was wearing a bomb under it,” Mac said.
“Surmised,” Murphy responded. “These guys want to take out as many infidels as possible. They wouldn’t waste the perfect opportunity to bring down a seven-story five-star hotel filled with rich Americans. Take out someone on their hit list, plus a hundred or so Westerners—it would be a big score for their side. I was right. I had just dropped onto the balcony when I heard your knock. As soon as you announced yourself, he reached for the detonator.” He gestured at the handheld switch lying on the floor a couple of feet from the body.
“You could have detonated the bomb when you shot him,” Sheriff Turow said.
“That’s why I made it a head shot and not a shot to the body.”
“You were damn lucky,” Sheriff Turow said. “We were all lucky.”
“If I hadn’t shot him, then he would have blown us all up anyway,” Murphy argued. “You don’t know—”
“I do know,” Turow said. “I’m a retired army captain. Did three tours overseas fighting these morons. My wife died over there. So I know exactly what we’re dealing with.”
“EMTs are on their way,” Bogie stepped between the two men to announce.
In an effort to break the tension, Murphy joined Mac kneeling next to the author, who had two bullet wounds to his chest.
“Ambulance is on the way,” Mac said to the man gasping for breath. “You’re going to be okay.”
Gasping, the author uttered one word, “Ismail.”
“Ismail?” Mac asked. “Who is that?”
“Brother.”
Murphy knelt down close. “Mr. Kochar, I was sent to help you. Ismail is your brother? Correct?”
“Not … his fault.”
Murphy cast a glance in Mac’s direction before saying, “Isn’t your brother the leader of a major terrorist group in Iraq—”
“Yes,” Kochar replied with gasping breaths. “He ordered … he sent this jihadist to kill me because …”
“Save your strength,” Mac told him while grasping his hand.
“I know what you did,” Murphy said. “We all know what a chance you took bringing information to us to help fight your brother’s group.”
“Not …” he coughed up blood, “not his fault.”
“Ismail has been ordering jihadists from all over the world—”
Kochar grasped Murphy’s arm. “Yes, he has, because he … and many like him … they have all been fooled … they have failed to see who is behind the mask.”
“What mask?” Mac asked. “Who?”
“Mohammad,” Kochar said. “The Quran. The archangel Gabriel showed himself to Muhammad, and he wrote the Quran.” He held up a finger. “Islam was established as a religion of peace and understanding.” Grabbing Murphy by the shirt, he coughed loudly.
“You need to rest,” Mac said gently.
“No, you must tell them,” Kochar said, “They have been betrayed … by Satan. It is not Allah who orders the murder and destruction of non-believers—”
“That’s the basis of the extremists’ beliefs,” Murphy said.
Kochar slowly shook his head. He held up a bloody hand. “They fail to understand that those orders come from Satan wearing the mask of Allah.” He spewed blood over his bottom lip. “They truly believe they are following Allah when in reality they are doing Satan’s bidding.” Blood dribbled down his chin.
The EMTs hurried into the room.
“Forgive them!” Kochar cried out in anguish. “Not their fa
ult! It is Satan!”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“He’s handcuffed and tied down. That’s good enough,” David heard Neal Black arguing outside the door of the small room at the back of the jet where they had him secured.
“He’s a Marine Special Ops Officer,” Ra’ees said in a low voice that David barely heard. “As long as he’s alive and conscious, he’s going to be looking for a way out. If he escapes, Ismail will still carry out the execution and celebration—but it will be your head they saw off.” His voice dropped too low for David to hear what he added, but he could guess what it was—advice for Neal Black to think about his order.
Pressing against the strap holding him down on the gurney, David worked his fingers to insert the key he had taped inside his wrist into the hole on his cuffs. Black hadn’t noticed it under the liquid bandage that David had used to conceal it.
It was bad enough feeling his way with the key and cuffs. Being strapped down so that he didn’t have much room to work made the exercise more difficult.
“I want him fully awake and cognizant when we land in Baghdad,” Black was saying.
“This stuff will only knock him out for six to eight hours,” Ra’ees said. “We’ll be over the ocean when he wakes up.” He chuckled. “He’ll have plenty of time to think about what’s going to happen to him when we land.”
A cell phone rang in the room and interrupted their debate.
“It’s Bauman,” Ra’ees said.
Success. With his hands freed, David thrust his arm out from under his back and twisted it to grasp the catch on the latch of the strap. He made sure he loosened the one on the far side of the gurney away from the doorway so that they wouldn’t notice it until they were standing over the gurney.
“José, go give our guest something to help him sleep,” Ra’ees ordered.
“Si, señor.”
Dropping back down onto the gurney, David tucked both arms under the blanket. He watched the brown-skinned young man come into the room. He was dressed in a heavy winter coat. He wore a knit cap on his head that was pulled down over his forehead and ears.
Upon seeing David eying him as he came toward him with the syringe, an evil grin crossed José’s face. “Betcha wish there was something fun in this, si, piggy-wiggy?” Waving the syringe before David’s eyes, he bent over and snorted like a pig. “Day after tomorrow, we’re going to have a pig roast, and you’re going to be the main course.” He sniffed and wiped his nose with his sleeve. “Maybe if you’re nice to me, I can give you a little something to help you go out with a bang.”
José reached over to pull down the blanket and expose David’s arm. Looking for where to make the injection, he was unprepared when David’s other arm shot out, grabbed him by the back of the neck, and yanked his head down. At the same time, David shot up to head butt him between the eyes.
David heard José's nose break under the force of the head butt.
His nose bleeding, José slid down to the floor and onto his knees. David still had stars in his eyes when he thrust the needle of the syringe into José's neck and pushed the plunger. Careful to be quiet, David eased his captor down to the floor.
“The scanner is saying that the Spencer Inn is being evacuated due to a bomb threat,” Neal Black reported to their caller.
Even in his rush, David stopped unzipping José’s winter coat to take it off him to listen.
“Threat?” the caller sounded disappointed. “But nothing about an explosion? Obviously Harlan wasn’t as committed to Allah as he should have been.”
“No,” Ra’ees insisted, “he was very committed.”
“If he was, then my news stations would be flying journalists out to Spencer, Maryland, to show a crater on top of Spencer Mountain.” The man sounded frustrated.
“Kochar has a bodyguard,” Black said. “Maybe he was too fast for Harlan.”
“Harlan was a little green,” Ra’ees said.
Keeping his ears tuned to track the conversation, David stripped José of his gun, a fully loaded nine-millimeter Glock semi-automatic, and two clips from his pockets. He found an LED flashlight in another pocket. A further search of José’s unconscious body found a knife in a sheath strapped to his ankle, which David transferred to his own leg.
In José’s coat, the police chief found more goodies. A disposable cell phone in one pocket, and cigarettes and a lighter in the other. David pocketed them all in case he needed them. The inside breast pocket held more hidden goodies—several tiny bags of cocaine, which he kept in the pocket and zipped shut.
José, you have been a bad boy.
“Have they reported Kochar’s murder yet?” the leader asked.
“Nothing on that,” Ra’ees said.
Aware that José’s hair and skin color were much darker than his, David yanked off his hat, pulled it down over his blond hair, and lifted the hood on the coat to conceal his face as best he could. Then he picked up José, placed him on the gurney, covered him with a blanket up to his face, turned his head so that he faced the wall, and tightened down the straps to hold him there.
“I’m beginning to think I’m not getting my money’s worth,” the leader said with anger in his tone. “Has anyone on the police channels said anything about O’Callaghan yet?”
“They aren’t going to make the disappearance of a police chief public,” Neal Black reported. “They’re going to keep it as quiet as possible. We have nothing to worry about. All of my research indicates that Mac Faraday has a lot of pull with the local cops here. He’ll give us anything we want as long as he thinks there’s a chance that he’ll get O’Callaghan back. I’ve read some speculation that they’re brothers. We can pretty well guarantee that everyone around here will do what Faraday says. As long as we put pressure on him, we’ll get what we want.”
“There are no guarantees,” Bauman replied with a knowing tone. “Where’s Elder, your partner?”
There was silence from the passenger compartment.
Now to get off this plane without them seeing me.
Trying to appear as casual as possible, David moved toward the open doorway. He kept his hand on the Glock in his pocket. If need be, he was prepared to shoot his way out.
“Elder hasn’t been answering his cell,” Black reported.
“So that detective, Cameron Gates, got the better of him,” Bauman said. “A common state police detective—a woman—fingered you and Elder, and now Elder is dead!”
“We don’t know for a fact that he’s dead.”
“We don’t know for a fact that he’s alive!” Bauman raged. “Never underestimate your enemy! As soon as these local yokels found out that their police chief was missing, every cop in the state started looking for him. They’re going to be looking for a plane to fly him out of the country, and it won’t be long before they remember the airstrip on Sanders farm and send police out to start snooping.”
The more he spoke, the more agitated the leader, who Ra’ees had referred to as ‘Bauman,’ became.
David could see that Neal Black’s and Ra’ees’ attention was directed at the cell phone, and that they had their backs to the doorway to the back room and the jet’s exit. It would have been easy for David to slip off the plane without them seeing, but curiosity made him want to learn more about their plans.
Sanders Farm. Old Man Sanders had been an Air Force pilot. He had his own plane that he flew in and out of the area for trips to Florida and California all the time. But he died over ten years ago. How had they known about there being a private airstrip on the farm only a few miles from Deep Creek Lake?
“You were the one who directed us to use this farm and the airstrip,” Ra’ees said.
“Even if they could wade through the paper trail to trace that farm back to me,” Bauman said, “no one with enough gas to think of doing anything about it could touch me. What I don’t want
is anyone going in or near that barn.”
What’s in the barn? David held his breath. I thought the Sanders Farm was deserted and a nearby farmer mowed the fields and cut the grass to keep it from being overgrown.
“What’s in the barn?” Neal Black had the nerve to ask.
“Hasn’t anyone taught you yet not to ask questions?” Ra’ees asked the federal agent.
“Let’s just say it’s where the Easter Bunny is hibernating.” Bauman laughed before he turned serious. “But he won’t be handing out any presents this Easter if you morons don’t get your hands out of your pants and get us those files. I paid good money for that formula, and I intend to get it. Ra’ees, make sure no one goes near that barn.”
“I’ll get one of my men out there to stand guard on it right away.”
Bauman was on a roll. “I’m holding you personally responsible for getting that flash drive off Faraday and getting that plane off the ground. Ismail is preparing to rally the troops with a massive team-building exercise, and he needs our special guest there on time for the main event.”
Keeping his head turned sideways so that the side of the hood covered most of his face, David stepped out of the cargo compartment and headed for the exit.
“Hey!” Ra’ees shouted.
Keeping his body sideways, David froze. He kept his hand on the Glock in his pocket.
“Did O’Callaghan give you any trouble, José?”
“Little,” David said with a Spanish accent. “He sleeping like a baby now.”
“Good,” Ra’ees said. “Where are you going?”
“Cigarette.”
“I’ll bet,” Ra’ees replied. “Go to the barn down across from the farmhouse and make sure it’s locked up and secure. And I don’t want to catch you snorting during your watch. We can’t afford any screw ups on this job.”
“Si, señor,” David replied before grabbing the door’s handle.
“Hey!” Ra’ees rose out of his seat.
