by Marc Cameron
“That’ll work if we find him before he goes contagious on us,” Mahoney mused. “You say the Saudis shut their borders six hours ago? Someone with influence in the Kingdom must have expected people to start getting hot at about that time. If we go with that pattern, Kalil came in first, followed about twenty-four hours later by Hamid. That would put Zafir arriving sometime today.”
“Makes sense,” Quinn said. “I got a call from one of my OSI buddies in Iraq a couple of hours ago. My informant, Sadiq, has gone missing. He says there was quite a bit of blood on the floor of the kid’s apartment so no one’s holding out too much hope of finding him alive.”
“I suppose they were all in the john,” Thibodaux snorted. “And didn’t see a thing.”
“A neighbor remembers a guy with a deformed hand walking up the stairs sometime on the eleventh. That would have been shortly after Sadiq called me.” Quinn scribbled in his black Moleskine notebook as he spoke. “DOD finally came up with a name to go with the third martyr photograph we gave them. Zafir Mamoud al Jawad. He was arrested with a bunch of other insurgents outside Baquba sometime in oh-seven. The report said they had American hostages. Should have gone to trial, but he escaped his Iraqi police detail along with some other prisoners and got away in the desert. He’s a Bedouin, real tough guy, missing three fingers and part of his left hand, apparently from some sword fight.”
“Now we’re gettin’ somewhere, beb.” Thibodaux bobbed his big head. “So we figure Zafir was still in Iraq on the eleventh. Let’s say he left on the twelfth, how long would we have from right now until he was contagious?”
“If the virus in him reacts like it does in the macaques,” Mahoney said, “and supposing he infected himself as soon as he left the Middle East, maybe a day.” She walked to a poster-size calendar Palmer had on his wall above a mahogany credenza that matched his desk. The September scene was a photograph of two sailboats racing in cobalt water of Cabo San Lucas.
Taking a red marker from a mug on the credenza, she drew a big circle around September 16. In the center of the circle, she wrote 10 a. m EDT.
She looked at her watch. “I don’t know how we’re going to do it, but before ten tomorrow morning, we need to find Zafir Jawad and kill him.”
“Eighteen hours,” Thibodaux moaned, leaning back in a huge, yawning stretch. “I guess I can sleep after I’m dead.”
CHAPTER 39
Zafir removed his shirt to kill the leader of the three cocaine smugglers. He used a short knife with a silver eagle head on the hilt he’d bought from a street vendor in Nuevo Progresso-across the Rio Grande in Mexico. The night was inky dark, but he couldn’t risk getting caught. Not now, not when he was so close. U.S. Border Patrol agents were everywhere and the dying drug smugglers provided them with a job to take their minds off chasing illegal aliens-especially those from the Middle East.
The knife was an inexpensive weapon, nothing like the fine steel Zafir was used to in his homeland, where such a blade was often used to take a life. The eagle-head blade was easily sharpened, as cheap knives often were, but easily dulled-much like most of the people Zafir knew. By the time he’d removed the head of the first cocaine smuggler, he had to stop and use a flat piece of sandstone from the river to bring back the edge. The other two smugglers looked on, trussed like goats as he tended to his gruesome work. Their eyes sparkled with that strange sort of glowing shock Zafir had come to appreciate. Lying on the their bellies, hands and feet behind their backs, neither moved, paralyzed by the sheer terror of watching their companion lose his head to a person who was an obvious expert at such things. Their mouths were taped, but Zafir guessed they wouldn’t have made a sound if he’d done nothing but tie them.
These were young, cocky men from the nearby city of Reynosa, who had made the mistake of many in the lower echelons of criminal organizations, believing that since their boss commanded respect, such respect automatically trickled down to their level. Zafir had never heard of the Ochoa cartel, and when they’d thrown the name out as something that should certainly strike fear in his heart, he’d only laughed and stabbed the apparent leader in the belly. He’d knocked the other two senseless with a rock.
His grizzly task completed, Zafir leaned the dead smuggler’s body against the base of a thorny acacia tree. The head, eyes locked wide as if still wondering how such an awful thing had happened, he placed in the lap of its previous owner along with the backpack of cocaine. When Zafir reached for the second smuggler, the young man’s eyes rolled back in his head and he began to writhe against his bonds, wracked with sobs. The high-pitched buzz of his screams purred against the duct tape stretched across his mouth. Zafir paid no attention and dragged the boy to the tree beside his headless friend, where he dropped him like a sack of garbage. The last smuggler was quieter, whimpering softly as Zafir dragged him to the tree by his belt and dropped him on the opposite side of his dead compatriot.
This done, he retrieved his shirt from where he’d left it on a willow shrub by the Rio Grande and knelt beside the quivering men. Up to this point, he hadn’t said a word.
Turning the knife slowly in his good hand, he let the blade glitter in the scant light from a sky of endless stars. He held the freshly honed point to the eyeball of the writhing one, causing him to freeze in the middle of his gyrations.
“When I remove the tape from your mouth, I need you to scream as if you’d just lost an eye,” Zafir whispered in fluent Spanish. “Here,” he said pressing the point home with a satisfying pop. “Let me help raise the volume…”
Frenzied howls from the terrified drug smugglers drew nearby Border Patrol agents to the riverbank. The responding agents’ radio reports quickly brought every agent in the sector, hungry to witness the brutality of such a bloody scene. Zafir was able to slip past what were normally heavily manned observation posts completely unmolested.
He estimated he’d walked almost seven miles before he saw the yellow flicker of a tiny campfire in the woods. He moved in slowly, picking his way through the clumps of prickly pear cactus and thick thorn brush. The night was hot and choked with dust. But for the tangle of so many bushes, it reminded Zafir of his home. Through the darkness, he heard lilting laughter. As he inched closer, he saw two Mexicans, a man and a woman, sitting on a white limestone boulder beside the dying embers of a fire. The woman’s belly was stretched tight under a black shirt as if she carried a huge ball. She was pregnant and very near to giving birth.
Zafir was about to move by, fearing contact with anyone that would slow him down. Then he heard the young husband mention in a soothing voice that his cousin would be arriving soon with a truck to take them to the hospital in McAllen.
He listened to the giggling couple while he knelt in the shadows of dry grass. They dreamed together about the birth of their son, how he would be born in America and experience all the fruits of such citizenship. Zafir smiled at the thought. Very soon America would experience some very bitter fruit indeed, but this young couple would never see it. Their cousin’s car would get him to the Harlingen Airport, where he could fly to Fort Worth. Farooq’s contacts in Los Angeles had provided him with a California driver’s license under the name of Jorge Ramirez. The sheikh’s influence was everywhere.
Quietly drawing the pistol he’d taken from one of the drug smugglers, the Bedouin looked at his watch. It was a U.S. Navy Seals dive model, given to him as an ironic gift from the sheikh. Tritium numbers glowed an eerie green in darkness. It was almost midnight. He began to move toward the sound of laughter.
Time was short and he had business with an old friend from Baquba.
CHAPTER 40
Fort Worth
Carrie Navarro hardly had enough energy to hit the button on the blender for Christian’s banana milkshake. Lately, work had been such a battle. Her new editor at the Star Telegram was nearly ten years younger than her with no real-world experience beyond being a livestock reporter for the farm and ranch section, but still he felt it necessary to change every sto
ry she wrote to the point that she didn’t even recognize it by the time it came out in print. Not only was he an ass, he was an incompetent ass, and that was unforgivable. Still, there was little she could do about it but scream, since he happened to be the publisher’s nephew. She’d dealt with her share of idiots over the course of her career, but the fact that this one was her boss made it more of a challenge. If her life’s experience had taught her anything, it was to prioritize the things that stressed her, and the pimple-faced editor of the political section, mired up to his little pierced eyebrow in nepotism, was not going to be one of her stressors, not today anyway. She had plenty of things to give her ulcers without worrying over that little weasel.
It was late, almost time for the news. Christian’s bedtime had come and gone, and Carrie felt a twinge of guilt for being such a rotten mom. Of course he was more than happy to stay up and now sat cross-legged on the floor looking at his favorite Dr. Seuss book. She compensated for her lack of mothering skills by making them a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches and banana milkshakes-a late-night snack that would have caused her own mother to throw a bona fide fit. Again, it wasn’t something she was going to let get to her. Dr. Soto had helped her with that.
Paper plate of sandwiches in hand, Carrie flopped down on the couch and patted her lap.
“Climb up here and keep Mama company, little man,” she said.
Nights were not as scary as they had been before she started seeing Dr. Soto, but they were still dark and still lonely. Unspeakable memories popped into her thoughts when she least expected them, particularly if she didn’t keep her mind occupied. Despite his cruel beginnings, Christian proved more than a pleasant distraction. He was her life.
No matter the violent way he came into being, this amazing child had saved her. He was smarter than any other three-year-old she’d ever heard of, already reading hundreds of words. He spoke Spanish as well as he spoke English-and he spoke English like a child three times his age. But more importantly to Carrie her son was a gentle soul. He doted on his mother as if he somehow sensed her inner fears, crying when she cried, often reaching up to touch her cheek with his tiny fingers for no apparent reason. It was as if he was as much in awe of her as she was of him.
Christian cuddled up in her lap, Dr. Seuss book in one dimpled hand, a quarter of grilled cheese sandwich clutched in the other. Who would have thought she could get so much joy out of watching the little guy chew?
“You read,” Carrie said, picking up the remote. “Mama will see what the talking heads have to say before we go to bed.”
“Talking heads.” Christian giggled. “You’re funny, Mom…”
Carrie took a bite of sandwich as she flipped through the channels. She preferred her local news to the cable networks. The reporters and anchors still wore too much makeup, but most of them had enough meat on their bones to look a little more human than the big-haired stick-figure beauties on CNN.
… USE EXTREME CAUTION. DO NOT APPROACH, scrolled along the bottom of the screen, followed by a toll-free number. Carrie sat up with renewed interest. She’d missed the lead-in and the blond, female member of the anchor team of Kip and Jane was running down the top story of the evening. Jane Baily wore big glasses and kept her hair straight, hanging past her shoulders, looking more like a sixties-era flower child than a news anchor. That’s why Carrie trusted her.
“… authorities tell us they’re looking for this man in connection with the theft of highly dangerous radioactive material. They’re warning people who may see him-and this includes law enforcement-not to attempt contact. Don’t even approach him, they’re telling us. Anyone who sees the man in the photograph we’re about to show should call the number at the bottom of the screen immediately. Let’s go ahead and bring up the photograph…”
“This is like something out of the movies, Jane,” Kip said, looking somber without his trademark sparkling grin.
“Here we are,” Jane said as the photograph came up on the screen. “Authorities aren’t saying where he’s supposed to be or where he’s going, but the man is identified as…”
A bite of cheese sandwich fell from Carrie’s gaping mouth. Her bare toes clenched at the carpet.
“Zafir!” she cried. “NO… I can’t…”
“… of Middle Eastern descent,” Kip continued. “Zafir Jawad is missing three fingers…” Kip and Jane kept up their banter. Carrie heard nothing but the whoosh of blood pulsing in her ears.
“You’re hurting my leg.” Christian wriggled to escape Carrie’s fingernails on his thigh. Squirming around to face her, he looked up with an olive complexion and deep-set eyes identical to the man staring at her from the television.
A thousand bees buzzed inside her. Her skin crawled as if writhing in a bed of poisonous snakes. Trembling so hard she worried she might crack a tooth, Carrie reached for the phone beside the couch. It rang as her finger brushed the receiver.
She screamed, memories of months of torment and pain flooding her system like an illness. If Zafir was in the United States, she knew exactly what he was after.
In her lap, Christian began to cry.
CHAPTER 41
16 September, 0130 hours
Jericho opened his eyes when Winfield Palmer’s Bombardier Challenger touched down in Texas with a puff of smoke and a muted squawk of tires on tarmac. Designed by Bill Lear, the CL 601 had roughly the same cruise speed and only slightly less range than a Gulfstream IV-the more famous sister jet on which every spy in the world of fictional espionage seemed to fly. This particular CL 601 was registered to the Federal Aviation Administration. Just as Quinn and Thibodaux served as Other Governmental Agents, the Challenger was an Other Governmental Aircraft-one thing on paper, but quite another in point of fact. The pilots were paid through the FAA payroll system, but took their orders from the Director of National Intelligence. Without a very close inspection, both pilots and aircraft would blend in with the thousands of other boring cogs of the civil service gears that made up the unwieldy bureaucracy of the United States government.
The sleek plane bounced once, then settled into a smooth ground roll. The seats were plush-comfortable leather that leaned all the way back for long overseas trips. Teetering on the razor’s edge of complete exhaustion and delirium, he’d collapsed into a dreamless sleep as soon as the jet had jumped off the ground at Langley. A two-hour nap had done little but add to the kinks in his spine and the unshakeable feeling that he was walking around with his head inside a barrel of crude oil. He tried to swallow but felt as if he had a mouth full of talcum powder. Accustomed to the freedom of the wind on his motorcycle, airplane air was among Jericho’s most hated substances.
Blue taxiway lights shot by the windows as the jet rolled into Fort Worth and past Alliance Airport’s iconic snow-cone-shaped control tower.
After the photo of Zafir went public, there had been no shortage of leads. Thousands of people phoned the number to say they’d seen the fugitive. Some even claimed to be him. Agents from virtually every organization in the government took part in trying to locate the fugitive (though none of them knew the real story beyond that he should be considered a highly “toxic” target). There was no way to check all the tips, but they couldn’t stand by and do nothing.
Then, call screeners sent forward a report from a Border Patrol agent in South Texas who said one of his prisoners had seen the photograph on the television while in the hospital after having his eye cut out by a “devil bandit” on the banks of the Rio Grande. According to the agent, the prisoner had nearly broken his handcuffs trying to get out of his bed when he saw the picture on the news. He swore this was the man who had cut out his eye and sawed the head off his friend.
Moments later, the call had come in from Carrie Navarro and they finally had something to go with.
“One-thirty in the morning.” Thibodaux yawned. “That’s two-thirty in my brain. I know we’re tryin’ to save the world and everything, but I feel like I’ve been stomped to death.”
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Mahoney gathered up the sheaves of notes she’d worked on during the flight and stuffed them in a black ballistic nylon briefcase. There was no attendant to lord over their safety, and she stood to take a bag out of the overhead while the plane was still moving. “Can I ask you something, Jacques?” she said, holding a pen in her mouth as she worked the compartment’s latch.
“Fire away, l’ami.” The Cajun yawned again, holding both arms above his head like huge goalposts as he gave a shivering stretch.
“You don’t cuss very much for a Marine,” she said.
Thibodaux grinned as he unfolded himself out of the plush leather seat. “My child bride only allows me five non-Bible curse words a month.”
“Yeah, but she’s back at Cherry Point,” Quinn said. He straightened his pistol and situated the Masamune blade at the small of his back. “How’s she gonna know?”
“Let me tell you somethin’.” Thibodaux raised an eyebrow, as if he alone held the knowledge of a dark and dangerous secret. “I can’t count the times I’ve looked death square in the yap, but none of that scared me near so much as that little Italian woman between my sheets. Believe me, beb, she’d know.”
Quinn leaned in so Mahoney couldn’t hear him. “You do realize that shit isn’t a Bible word?”
“Really?” Thibodaux said, wide eyed. “Dammit!”
Through the windows, Quinn could see a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter as the Challenger slowed. Strobe lights flashed in the night. The rotor turned, spooled up and ready to go. Men in blue jumpsuits moved toward the belly of the 605 before it had even stopped, ready to unload the duffel bags of gear at the first opportunity.
