Act of Revenge

by Dale Brown

  In the aftermath of the Easter attacks, there was a general consensus that life had to go on. Amid the sorrow and the cleanup efforts, under the watchful eye of National Guardsmen and state police reinforcements, Boston made an effort to push ahead. The citizens didn’t ignore what had happened, let alone hide their grief, but many went out of their way to stick to their old routines. Even with a significant part of the Orange Line closed for emergency repairs, ridership on the T approached record levels, as if residents had decided taking the subway was a good way to give the terrorists the finger. Restaurants were overbooked. If the atmosphere throughout the city wasn’t quite St. Patrick’s Day happy—a bit too warm for that—it was definitely Boston Proud: F-U to all and any that messed with us.

  Defiance ran deep, from skin to bones and back. But there were other things beneath the surface: wariness, queasy suspicion, distrust. There was ugliness as well. A handful of Arab Americans had been beaten in the wake of the attacks; there were threats and graffiti.

  There was also fear. People glanced over their shoulders as they walked. Many rehearsed what they would do if something nearby exploded.

  Massina passed through the security check, then waited for Johnny, who had to explain who he was and why he needed his weapon even though he’d been precleared for the event as Massina’s bodyguard. The screener’s supervisor came over and gave him a small red pin to wear on his lapel.

  “Red Badge of Courage,” remarked Massina.

  The former FBI agent gave him a confused look.

  “Stephen Crane. Book,” said Massina, turning to greet one of the board members as she came forward to peck him on the cheek.

  He peeked at her name tag, unable to place the face.

  “Delilah, how are you?” he asked.

  “Fab-u-lous.” She was a sketch out of Saturday Night Live. “And you, Lou-is?”

  “Just looking for a drink,” said Massina, excusing himself.

  He made his way toward the bar at the far end of the room. Along the way he shook a few hands, received three or four air kisses, and nodded a lot. When he made it to the bartender, he asked for a pair of seltzers. Stuffing a five in the cup, he took the drinks and slid sideways toward Johnny, who was watching the crowd. Bozzone insisted he go everywhere these days with a bodyguard, and aside from Bozzone himself, he felt most comfortable with Johnny.

  He handed Johnny the cup. “It’s seltzer,” he told him.

  “Thanks.”

  Massina passed through the crowd, nodding and smiling, occasionally stopping to chat. He knew a good number of the people at the reception, though he wasn’t very close to any of them. The crowd was a bit too artsy for his taste.

  A half hour later, he nudged Johnny aside and glanced at his watch. “I think we’ll call it a night.”

  “Your party, boss.”

  “Party is too strong a word.”

  Massina headed to a side door, smiled at two people he didn’t know, and pushed through. He walked down a short hall to a door that opened onto a side terrace. To his surprise, there was a small group of men there smoking cigars. He started to pass through—there was a gate at the far end to the street—when someone called his name.

  “Louis, trying to escape?”

  Massina stopped. “Jimmy? Hey.”

  A tall, broad-shouldered man stepped through a cloud of cigar smoke and thrust a beefy hand toward him. It was Jimmy Gorman, former district attorney, former mayor, former party chairman, now just a big muck behind the scenes.

  “What the hell are you doing at this soiree?” asked Gorman. He pounded Massina’s back so hard he nearly coughed.

  “Thought I’d see where they were spending my money.”

  Gorman laughed. “Want a cigar?”

  “Nah.”

  “How about your friend?” asked Gorman, gesturing to Johnny.

  “This is Johnny Givens. He works for me.”

  “Yeah, I see his pin.” Gorman smirked, then turned to introduce Massina to the others he’d been standing with. Two were state senators whom Massina had met briefly in the past; the others were business people—donors, he guessed.

  Everyone nodded politely. Massina was about to leave when Gorman pointed his cigar in the direction of the Patriot Hotel across the street.

  “You want to go for a look?” he asked.

  “What’s to see?”

  Gorman shrugged.

  “Johnny helped rescue the hostages,” said Massina.

  “No shit.” Gorman stepped over and clapped Givens on the back. Johnny gave him a very uncomfortable smile.

  “So,” said Gorman to Massina, “you wanna take a look?”

  “Sure,” decided Massina. “Sure.”

  There were no less than three dozen police officers and twice that many National Guardsmen scattered around the block, with half a dozen cops blocking the entrance to the Patriot. Gorman tossed his cigar into the gutter and walked up to the sergeant in charge of the hotel detail; the man waved them in.

  “How long before it reopens?” asked Massina.

  “Don’t know. They still have their investigators running in and out,” said Gorman. He waved toward the bank of elevators. “They do a complete DNA vacuum thing or something in each of the rooms, pulling out all sorts of DNA, you know, hair and saliva and that stuff. Looking for any sort of clues. Seems like a hell of a lot of work to me, but they know their business. I’ll show you the ballroom.”

  Massina remembered the hallway from the surveillance video, but it was difficult to map that memory on the wide space he walked through now. In the video, it was dark and grainy, foreboding. Now, even though it was night, the hall was bright and inviting, the walls a delicate mauve, the sconces polished, the hardware gleaming.

  The doors to the ballroom were open. Gorman ducked under the yellow evidence tape still strung across them and walked a few feet in. Massina hesitated, then followed.

  “They took out the carpet and the wallboard for evidence,” Gorman said. “That’s where the massacre took place.”

  He pointed to the area where the men had been slaughtered. Studs and insulation were all that were left.

  “That’s where I danced with my daughter,” said Gorman, pointing near the stage. “On her wedding. Not five years ago.”

  Massina looked around. He’d been at that wedding.

  “Wanna see upstairs?”

  Massina caught a glimpse of Johnny’s ashen face.

  “I think this is enough,” Massina said. “But thanks.”

  “Difficult,” said Gorman, leading them out.

  He stopped when they reached the front lobby, pensively retrieving a cigar from his pocket and cutting it with fastidious precision. Retrieving a silver-shrouded torch lighter, he slowly warmed the end before setting it afire and taking a puff.

  “Bastards,” said Gorman. “We can’t let them keep us down.”

  “They won’t,” said Massina.

  “No. I wonder, Lou—I wonder if maybe you might want to do me a favor.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m getting together some people to make a statement, public, you know? On a stage. TV. Tell the fuckin’ world we’re not taking this shit on the chin. I know you don’t do this sort of thing, but it would be good for us. People respect you.”

  “I’ll do it. Send my assistant the details.”

  “You got it, bro.” Gorman swatted him on the back.

  Bro? thought Massina. He’s getting hip in his old age.

  “Home, boss?” Johnny asked, climbing into the driver’s seat.

  “No. I have some things to do at the office.”

  “All right.”

  “What’d you think?”

  “Think of what?” asked Johnny.

  “The hotel. Did it bother you? Being inside again?”

  “Nah. Just a place.”

  “We’re going to get them back,” said Massina. “This sideshow in Libya, it’s got nothing to do with what’s really going to hap
pen.”

  “Really?”

  “We’re lending the government some gear. I need volunteers to—”

  “If there’s some sort of action involved,” said Johnny, “I’d like to be part of it.”

  “I was hoping you’d think that way,” said Massina. “I’ll make it so.”

  26

  Syria—around the same time (approximately 4:00 a.m. local)

  Everywhere he went, they hailed him as a hero.

  Even at four in the morning, on a dusty airstrip in eastern Syria, Ghadab was well-known. “Emir!” they called him, bowing their heads and striking their chests. Ghadab, in theory traveling in secrecy, was accorded every honor and luxury the Caliphate’s soldiers could afford.

  Objectively, this wasn’t much—fresh water as he stepped from the plane, a blanket against the cold of the truck, which had sat at the edge of the airstrip for nearly three hours, waiting for the plane. But he appreciated it nonetheless.

  Escaping from Libya had been difficult. It wasn’t just that the Americans were bombarding everything that had even the slightest connection to the Caliphate. The group that had been sheltering Ghadab split into several factions and began attacking each other, making it dangerous even for Ghadab to travel. He’d had to use his influence with two of the rebels to institute a cease-fire so he could meet the plane to Sudan.

  Getting from Sudan to Egypt and then Syria was another odyssey. The Jews had spies everywhere, and he’d had to lay over in a gas station in Abri for five hours, at one point pretending that he was the attendant when some men in suit jackets arrived. They turned out to be Saudi businessmen, but could just as easily have been Mossad or even Egyptian GID, who would have shot him and sold his body to the Americans.

  Getting into Syria was easy by comparison: a commercial flight in heavy disguise to Jordan; from there, a private plane deposited him in Syria. The truck ride that followed was long and uncomfortable, but not dangerous—the center of Syria and much of bordering Iraq was Caliphate territory.

  Located in central Syria, Palmyra was a sleepy town organized around an oasis that made it possible to grow crops. It had been settled for millennia; monuments to old pagan regimes, an outrage to the true God and all that was good, still stood near the town. Its airfield and barracks abandoned at the start of hostilities, it had been one of the first places taken by the Caliphate and had withstood the infidels’ many counterattacks. At the moment, the hostilities there were largely dormant here; the puppet Assad was too busy concentrating on his weaker enemies to the northwest to bother with Caliphate strongholds.

  Assad’s caution bothered Ghadab. The end time would never arrive if their opponents were so cautious.

  He was especially disappointed in the Americans. True, they had attacked in Libya, and quite fiercely, but they had not brought their army back to the Levant as the Word declared they would at the start of Armageddon. The prophecy implicit in the words of the Koran had not been fulfilled.

  They were in sight of the city, close enough to make out its minarets in front of the distant hills, when Ghadab saw the first sign of war: a thin trail of gray smoke rose near the river on the near side. Apparently a structure had been targeted overnight. A missile—Russian or American, it was impossible to know—had destroyed the building. Being empty, it was allowed to burn.

  “It was on fire when I left,” said the driver, pointing in the direction of the ruins. “Now just the rocks are left to burn.”

  “Do they hit here often?” asked Ghadab.

  “A few times. It’s not serious. The Russians attack. With them, there is always some danger, since they never hit what they aim at.”

  A single bridge crossed from the south directly into the city. It had been damaged by artillery and bombed several times, but each time the brothers had repaired it swiftly, and the infidels appeared to have given up on it. They passed over quickly, speeding past an orchard and heading into the city proper. They took a right at the first intersection, then the next left, passing a mosque and continuing on to an intersection dominated by a large park, which in ancient days had been the grounds of a house so large it was called a castle. No longer standing, it had been home to relatives of the emir.

  Bordering the park at the corner was a restaurant and inn. The Caliphate had requisitioned it over soon after taking the town.

  A single man stood outside the entrance. Ghadab knew him only as “the African”; he was his liaison to the War Council.

  “Ghadab min Allah,” said the man as Ghadab got out. “The entire city is honored by your presence.”

  Ghadab bowed his head. They had first met three years before, serving together in Yemen. The African had apparently been born in Ethiopia, though his accent and features seemed entirely Arabic.

  “I am honored to be here,” Ghadab told him.

  “Work brings us all blessings, brother.” The African’s Arabic was quick and precise, with the slightest hint of Egypt in its accent.

  “I was told I have space to work?”

  “A facility has been found, a proper place for you,” said the African. “We will tour it tomorrow. Tonight, you must rest.”

  “I’d feel better working.”

  “Your people have not even arrived.” The African’s tone was that of a father chiding a child who wanted to play. “Come, we have arranged something for you.”

  The African led him around the building to the back, entering a side gate to a fenced patio before continuing through another gate to the garden. Organized around a desert spring, the grounds were crisscrossed by gravel paths and heavily studded with trees; it was cool, almost cold in the predawn air.

  “Your thoughts are far away,” said the African as they walked. “Best watch your step.”

  He led Ghadab to a small rectangular pool near the center of the property. At one point, there had been a statue on the pedestal that stood above the pool; Caliphate soldiers had disposed of it soon after claiming the city.

  A man stood on that pedestal, hands bowed, head covered. He was barefoot; his clothes bore the blood and tears of a recent beating.

  “Hamas,” spit the African. “A spy.”

  Twelve warriors in black uniforms stood in a semicircle at the eastern end of the pedestal. Each held a Kalashnikov diagonally across his chest. Across from them was a young man in traditional Syrian dress, holding a video camera. A boom microphone extended from the top; the man looked like a tourist, or perhaps a new father waiting to capture his son’s first steps.

  Nearby was another man holding a curved sword.

  “We execute him at the moment of sunrise,” said the African. “I wonder if you would like the honor?”

  Hearing the words, Ghadab no longer felt tired. “It would be my pleasure.”

  His distractions stayed behind as he walked to the man with the sword, who handed it to him reverently. It was a heavy, well-polished and finely sharpened tool, a weapon even the Prophet would be proud to wield. Ghadab swung it around his head, slashing the air.

  Oh, yes, this is the pleasure of jihad. The victory over the weak, the profane infidels, the destroyers of the Word and all that is holy!

  Ghadab climbed up the pedestal. The apostate spy tried to stand erect, but Ghadab saw that his hands were trembling.

  “On your knees, blasphemer!” he commanded.

  When the man didn’t sink fast enough, Ghadab pushed him down with his left hand. Then he positioned his head slightly forward. The man moved it too far, bowing almost to the stone.

  Really, it did not matter. A clean stroke or several hacks—it was all the same to Ghadab. There were blotches of dried blood already on the pedestal. It was a sacred place.

  Ghadab glanced over his shoulder. The edge of the earth had a pink line, but there was no glow yet.

  Another minute. Perhaps two.

  The spy began to mutter something.

  “What are you saying!” shouted Ghadab.

  Instead of answering, the man continued to
mutter, almost singing.

  It was a prayer.

  “Apostate!” shouted Ghadab. “Blasphemer!”

  With that, he slammed the sword down as hard as he could, severing in one blow the man’s skull from his body. It was a clean stroke, and it unleashed a flood of blood. The head shot forward, bouncing on the flat stone, and rolling off the pedestal. The body stayed as it was for a full five seconds, blood spouting as if it were a fountain. Then it caved off to the side, bereft.

  Ghadab plunged the sword into the dead torso, pushing so hard that the tip went through and struck stone.

  Satiated, he went down to the African. A calm fell over him; he was no longer annoyed at the inconvenience of being given new quarters or told not to get to work. He felt tired, but also ready to concede that he needed rest.

  “Thank you, brother,” he told the African. “I wish to pray now and have a meal before I rest.”

  27

  Boston—the next day

  Chelsea rubbed her eyes, blinked a few times, then forced herself to reexamine the code on the computer screen. It was out of whack—she could see the syntax was messed up, but for the life of her couldn’t figure out why.

  She got up from her console.

  I need a break. Coffee.

  Chelsea walked down the hall, heading for the kitchenette at the far side. She put a coffee pod in the single-serve and waited for the French Roast to spritz through. A half-dozen donuts, two glazed, the rest sugar-jellies, sat in a box next to the coffee. She barely noticed them, unnerved by her loss of concentration.

  Fatigue.

  Cradling her cup in both hands, Chelsea walked back down the hallway, passing her own lab and continuing to Room B4. The lab had been taken over by Chiang, who headed a team assigned by Massina to “explore” the identities and location of the perpetrators of the Boston attacks.

  “Come to help?” asked Chiang.