“Outstanding,” Raza said.
“Why are you doing this?” McMahon asked, his voice rising despite Rashid’s admonitions not to show fear or panic. “Why do you hate me? Why do you hate Americans so much?”
“Where do we start?” Raza said, suddenly serious.
5
“I’m just a humble former FBI director,” Conley said.
Conley was still in New York, and he was furious. He’d been forced to stay overnight and attend some stupid worthless “emergency meeting” that Tower had foisted upon him. Then the private government jet that Tower had put him on had developed mechanical problems, and now he’d been stuck in that damn plane on the tarmac for five straight hours. Sitting in a bolted-down stuffed chair at a worktable in the main cabin, he’d been staring into a computer screen and answering bullshit emails for over three hours. He was now in a blind rage. He’d not only gotten the runaround from the asshole Tower and his drunken chain-smoking closet-dyke sister, he was now held up on the runway like he was flying commercial.
Like he was a fucking citizen.
He’d never had a private government jet held up for this long. This was unacceptable. He was the Former Director of the Fucking FBI. He felt like arresting that cretin of a captain and clapping his ass in Guantanamo just for pissing him off.
“Captain,” Conley roared once again at the cockpit. “What the fuck is the holdup? Did the engine fall out of the plane?”
“No sir,” the uniformed captain said, hurryng back to Conley’s cabin. “I’m so sorry, but we have no flight attendants. Both of them are down with the stomach flu, and we can’t fly without at least one. It’s against FTC regulations.”
“There’s a lot of flu going around,” Conley admitted grudgingly. “My stomach doesn’t feel so well either. But goddamn it, can’t you at least—”
Suddenly, a tall statuesque flight attendant opened the ramp-hatch and entered the plane. She had indigo eyes, her hair was long and lush—so incredibly light it looked almost platinum—and she had a smile like the end of the rainbow. Decked out in a short blue skirt, black high heels and black stockings, and with the top three buttons of her white blouse enticingly undone, she was showing enough cleavage and leg to take Conley’s breath away.
But now she was strolling straight into his cabin, staring at him as if she owned him, as if she owned the whole plane, coming at him, her eyes unwavering, unblinking, locked on him the whole time.
“I heard you say what you said about your stomach, Director Conley,” she said. “Let me get you something for it.”
She had a slight accent, which he couldn’t place, and the name on her flight badge was Helena. He thought she might be Estonian.
“Scandinavian?” Conley asked.
“Further east.”
“Finland?”
“Further.”
“Russia?”
“St. Petersburg originally. But I’m American now through and through.”
Conley gave her his best smile.
“We’ve been having some dealings with Putilov lately,” Conley said, trying to sound serious, important. “Since you’re Russian, you must have an opinion of him.”
“He’s a great man,” she said simply.
“He and I are friends, you know,” Conley said, smiling now, “close friends.”
“Then you must be a very important man,” she said.
“I’m just a humble former FBI director,” Conley said.
“Which means you’re someone very important, and I love big powerful important men. I find them so … stimulating.”
“Perhaps you could instruct me on how the Russian people view their leader.”
“And I’m sure I could learn so, so much from you.”
“Well I’m glad you two are hitting it off,” said the captain, returning from the cockpit. “Even better, Helena has rounded out the crew and we’re cleared for takeoff.”
“Great news,” Helena said. “Let’s drink to it. Not you, Captain. You have to fly. But our friend, the director, could use a drink. He’s been under so much stress with this endless wait. Mr. Director, you must have gotten tense, sitting on this runway. Maybe I could get you some good Russian vodka and untense you a little.”
“I’ll bet you could,” Conley said, his voice growing thick.
“I can, and I will. But first a little drink. I have some orange-flavored vodka you’ll never forget—Russian vodka.” She rolled the R and pronounced the v as if it were a w. “I’ll add a splash of OJ for good measure. When you finish that, maybe we can go into the rear cabin, get comfortable and have a nice private undisturbed conversation.”
“I’d love nothing more.”
“You would not know it but I’ve traveled widely. In my own way, I’m a real female Odysseus. I’ll tell you the story of my travels.”
“I can’t wait,” Conley said.
“I’ll make you feel like you’re traveling with me. I will make you experience every inch of my journeys.”
“Any place special you want to take me?”
“Oh, I’m going to take you all the way … around the world. I will show you … everything.”
Conley felt so hot he feared he might faint.
“But first let me get you that drink.”
Turning, she walked over to the galley, swinging her ass like it was a diamond mine.
6
A second brief glimpse of Fahad’s eyes expunged forever any further curiosity Haddad might have had about Fahad’s assignment or the packages in the trunk. He contemplated instead hitting the road in search of another city and another job. But he was too afraid.
Fahad pulled up in front of U.S. Industrial Supplies, Inc., a massive warehouse of a building that sold heavy equipment to plants and factories. He walked up to Greg Mendes, the young fresh-faced cashier wearing dark gray coveralls. In his front pocket was a plastic holder filled with pens, Sharpies, pencils, scissors, a ruler and two box cutters. Next to it was pinned a black plastic employee ID that read U.S. INDUSTRIAL SUPPLIES, INC. and the name GREG. ASSIST. MANAGER.
It took Greg several seconds to recover from the shock of seeing a rather dark-skinned man, dressed in maybe $40,000 worth of clothes and jewelry, buying heavy-duty industrial supplies. Usually people came to Industrial Supplies looking like they just stepped out of a construction site or out of a steel mill.
“How can I help you, sir?” he finally asked.
“Greg,” Fahad said, mustering a smile and as much good cheer as he knew how. “I need four fifty-five-gallon drums, a cold chisel, an extra-large plastic floor tarp, a heavy denim shirt and size twelve work boots. Throw in a pair of large gray coveralls like the pair you’re wearing. A gray baseball-style work cap as well.”
“Don’t you want to pick the clothing out yourself, sir? Try some of that stuff on?”
“I trust your judgement,” Fahad said. “Also they’re for a friend, not me. Just tell me the amount.”
The assistant manager did some calculations.
“Sir,” Greg said, “it comes to $1,823.66.”
Fahad removed an extra-large money clip containing a two-inch stack of $100 bills. He handed Greg twenty of them.
“Pickup or delivery?” Greg asked.
Fahad wrote out an address.
“I need them delivered at exactly 6:00 P.M. this Thursday. It’s paramount they arrive precisely at 6:00. I’ll have a $200 bonus for each man on the truck if they deliver it on time.”
“Precisely 6:00?”
“Give or take fifteen minutes,” Fahad said, struggling to produce a smile.
“Hell,” Greg said, returning Fahad’s fake grin, “for that kind of bonus, I’ll deliver them myself.”
“Then it’s a $400 bonus. And I’m donating the change to the charity of your choice.”
Greg quickly pocketed the change.
Fahad went back to the Lincoln Town Car and climbed into the backseat.
“Next stop,” he said to Haddad, “
is the nearest Home Depot.”
Haddad went online and found one ten minutes away.
“What are you looking for?” Haddad asked, looking at Fahad in the rearview mirror.
“Do you really want to know?”
“No sir,” Haddad said quickly. “I don’t know what we’re doing, and you’re right. I’m sorry I asked—very sorry.”
“You weren’t thinking, were you?” Fahad said.
“No sir,” Haddad said. “I wasn’t, but I won’t make that mistake again. I’ll stay focused. You can count on me.”
Haddad turned around to look at Fahad when he said those words, and he was immediately sorry he had. One look at Fahad’s eyes, and Haddad prayed to Allah to forgive him for opening his mouth.
Haddad quickly drove Fahad to a nearby Home Depot. Getting out, Fahad entered the store. An hour later Fahad walked out with a shopping cart filled with brown anonymous-looking mailing boxes. Haddad opened his door and got out to help.
“Stay behind the wheel and pop the trunk,” Fahad said.
Haddad climbed back behind the wheel, and the trunk opened. Fahad filled it with the three brown boxes.
Fahad climbed into the backseat.
“Ready, sir?” Haddad asked.
“Take me to the machine shop,” Fahad said.
Once more, Haddad sneaked a glance at Fahad. A second brief glimpse of Fahad’s eyes expunged forever any further curiosity Haddad might have had about Fahad’s assignment or the packages in the trunk. He contemplated instead hitting the road in search of another city and another job. But he was too afraid.
He knew in his soul he could never disobey the man in the backseat.
7
When Conley came to, he was on his stomach, hands bound behind his back and his mouth stuffed full of some foul-tasting gag. All the lights were out and the compartment was pitch-dark.
What the fuck had happened? Where was he?
Slowly it all came back to him …
He recalled taking the gorgeous Russian flight attendant back into the Executive Boudoir of his private jet. They had been sitting on the edge of the bed, Helena giving him a slow, erotic thigh-and-neck massage, interspersed with long, languid, sinfully sensual soul kisses.
In two seconds, she’d gotten him hornier than he’d ever been in his entire life.
He’d briefly felt a twinge or two of remorse—after all, he was a believing Christian, a married man and had eight children—but, strangely enough, he didn’t feel all that guilty. The eight Screwdrivers Helena had pumped into him, the lurid massage, the libidinous kisses and the lascivious lap dances had sent his lust soaring somewhere north of Polaris, dispelling any doubts or hesitations as if they were dust in the wind.
His universe consisted of one thing and one thing only—the beautiful Russian woman gyrating her ass on his crotch and exploring his esophagus with her tongue.
And then suddenly, inexplicably his whole world had gone black.
* * *
Damn, he wished he could see something. He was trussed up so tight he couldn’t move a muscle, and the bitch had not only stuffed his mouth with an excrement-reeking, piss-stinking rag, she’d shoved it halfway down his throat. He could barely breathe, let alone grunt.
Still he managed to squirm and emit a weak, mouse-like squeak, which apparently got someone’s attention. He sensed another person getting up and approaching him.
“So you’re awake now, right?”
He sensed Helena’s vague form hovering over his bed.
“Hope the gag isn’t too unpleasant, Director Conley. I didn’t have much to work with and had to improvise.”
All Conley could do was squirm helplessly.
“The only items I had at my disposal were your seriously soiled underwear and your foul-smelling socks. Really, Director Conley, doesn’t anyone wash your clothes? You used to run the FBI. Good help can’t be that hard to find, but we made do with what we had. It all worked out in the end.”
Conley struggled unsuccessfully to force out a sound.
“In any event, I hope you enjoyed your Screwdrivers. Tasty beverages, weren’t they? Of course, I added a little extra spice to yours. Comes from an only recently discovered flower found only in the Brazilian rain forest. One of our scientists discovered it down there. Wow, that extract we distilled from it is mean! That stuff does major-league damage to a person’s insides. I can’t tell you how excited President Putilov was when the man first told him about it. I heard he jumped up and down with excitement. In fact, our president immediately sent a small army of botanists down there to harvest the entire crop. Isn’t that exciting?”
Suddenly, Conley felt an ominous cramping in the pit of his stomach.
Helena divined his discomfort.
“It’s reaching your small intestines about now, isn’t it? Right on time. You are feeling its effects, correct?”
Shit, he was. In fact, his duodenum was not only burning up, the flames were blazing a southern path, spreading lower, lower, hotter, hotter, more and more horrific, every inch of his digestive tract blazing with agony.
“And guess what, Director Conley, you’re our first subject—other than a few experimental chimpanzees, that is. I saw the footage of those creatures’ last few hours. God, those little simians suffered. They went through hell on earth, and you know the most amazing part of their ordeal?”
She had to put a hand over her mouth to muffle her giggles.
The former FBI director twisted and writhed in stone horror but could not force out a sound. Hysterical with panic, he shook helplessly from side to side.
What the fuck is happening! he muttered noiselessly to himself. I thought Tower and Putilov were my friends. I made Tower president. Those two promised to make me a senator. They were going to make me Tower’s VP. We had a deal! Promises were made!
But now a flood of almost indescribable agony was tsunami-ing through his entrails like they were Fukushima at full flood. He could feel his eyes bulging and walling wildly, rolling back into his head, swelling with terror and rage until he feared they’d pop out of their sockets. It felt as if that big beautiful blond-haired blue-eyed Russian bitch had inundated his abdomen with molten lead instead of Screwdrivers. He wanted to scream, but Helena had shoved his dirty, stinking shorts and putrid socks so deep down his throat he could barely inhale, let alone roar.
And then, suddenly, he sensed Helena hovering over him and felt her remove the blindfold, the bright lights temporarily blinding him. Then he could smell her vodka breath and hear her soft clucking chuckles. His vision began to clear, and he could make out her face.
The slut was … smiling.
Aaaarrrggggghhhhh! the former director soundlessly sobbed.
“So make yourself comfortable. I told the captain that you were meeting your wife and kids in Florida and that President Tower was putting you up at that big resort hotel of his on Isle Morado, so kick back. You’re in for a really great trip—the flight of a lifetime.”
Now Conley was uncontrollably hysterical. His back was arching hard enough to snap his spine, and his lips had pulled back in a feral snarl so terrifyingly taut that only the gag, teeth and gums showed, and all the while, Helena’s chortling laughter burbled in his ears, and her scintillating smile glittered merrily in his tear-filled eyes.
“Look at it this way, Mr. Director: You wanted to run with the big dogs? Well guess what? Big dogs bite.”
Then she was leaning over him, kissing his cheek, her treacherous tongue darting in and out of his ear, her breath rasping hoarsely.
Shit, the bitch was aroused.
“Think of it as a little like sexual assault, Mr. Director,” she said, her breath heaving with depraved desire, kissing his neck and rubbing up against him. “Remember what macho boys like you, Putilov and Tower are always saying about forcible rape? When it’s inevitable, just lay back and enjoy the fuck out of it.”
Suddenly she was on him, grinding her crotch against him, up and down, up an
d down, so close and clinging it felt as if she were him, and he were her. Then the only thing in his whole world were her groans, moans and her violently voluptuous orgasms.
Then she was gone, and he was lost and alone with only the firestorm below and the despair in his soul, racking his brain and inflaming his pain.
8
“This op would scare Hunter S. Thompson sober,” Elena said, “clean and sober.”
By the time, Elena and Adara had returned to the upstairs room, their friends were back at the table. They were drinking and talking—mostly about movies, soccer and women. The brawl hadn’t been that interesting.
* * *
When the nine men reached the balcony rail, they saw five men below, dressed like themselves in jeans, T-shirts, sweatshirts, and work boots. They surrounded a man who lay prone on the floor. Red-faced with rage, the five men were kicking him half to death. The two women approached them from behind, one on each side of the group. Slipping saps out of their hip bags, each of the women walked up behind the five men and began rapping each of them carefully and precisely across their temples. They swung the saps—spring-loaded and weighted with double-0 buckshot—in quick wrist-flicking arcs, the snapping of the springs adding extra torque to their blows. Forehand, backhand, forehand, backhand, they hammered the men’s heads as if they were banging speed bags, boxer-style. Instead, however, of hitting the men’s temples with the back and front knuckles of a single fist, as boxers do when they work the bags, these women used the back and front of the weighted sap.
Before the men’s knees could buckle, they were out cold on their feet, dropping where they stood like puppets unstrung. In less than eight seconds the violence was over, the five gang-stompers spread-eagled on the floor.
The two women helped the bloody, gang-stomped man to his feet and half walked, half dragged him over to seat at a nearby table. A waiter and cook took him back to the kitchen, where they could look after him and call an ambulance.
* * *
The two women sat down with their friends.
The Evil That Men Do Page 20
