by Dale Wiley
The manager turned the key in the door and quickly peeled off.
Nick and Jessica entered and saw what they had. They had a murder, quite possibly of the main suspect in all this destruction. You reap what you sow and all of that.
Sixty-Three
Pal Joey and Raylon parked across the street from the house and played some low-volume old school shit on the stereo. They couldn’t risk the music being loud.
Still no sign of the gangster.
Raylon wanted to be home, but since that wasn’t possible, he rolled down the privacy glass. “Marvin, get some rest. We gon’ be here a while.”
Marvin nodded. “I’ll do that.” He put up the glass.
Raylon looked at Joey. “You too, man. Catch some rest. We may need you in a while.”
Joey shook his head. He couldn’t look tired—even now.
“Naw, man,” Raylon urged. “Get some rest. For real.”
Joey took a hit of the little bit of purple that was still in the car.
“Aiight, man, I will.”
Raylon was all to himself for the first time in many hours.
Sixty-Four
Grant had never let his guard down quite so spectacularly, and his body paid for it. He didn’t know how long he had been out, but he didn’t think it was long. Still, it was long enough for Naseem to be well on his way. He felt the blood running down his cheek, and the pain radiated up and down his neck. But those were the least of his problems. Now, Grant was doubly fucked as there was still video of him assaulting Mandy on the plane. He cringed when he discovered he didn’t even have his badge.
He heard his phone ring; thank God Naseem hadn’t taken that. It was Caitlin, giving Grant no additional time to wallow in his grief. Grant grabbed at the phone.
Caitlin told him to come to Harrah’s and explained as best she could what wing she was in. She told him to call again when he was on site, and they could talk on house phones, which seemed safer to her. After everything that had gone on, she was terrified Britt might still have some ability to track her. Her rational mind was sure this wasn’t the case, but she wanted to hedge her bets.
Grant told her he could be there in twenty minutes. He was also pretty sure that if he waited much longer there would be a dragnet thrown across the city looking for him. He walked through baggage claim, which was nearly empty, and ran to the front of the taxi line, normally longer than a good lie but instead had only a few employees trying to make it to the other side of town. Grant flashed his wallet as a “badge” and gave everyone a dirty look who dared cross him. He had learned this trick years ago, and he looked just gnarly enough to pull it off. The Indian man who kept the taxi line was no match, and he gave Grant the first taxi.
The cab smelled of incense and clove cigarettes; it was overpowering. Any other day, Grant would have waited for another cab, but today he didn’t have time.
“Hundred bucks extra if you can get me to Harrah’s in fifteen minutes,” Grant said to the driver
His driver was astonished. “Done,” he nodded.
Sixty-Five
Yankee was more important to Naseem than freedom. Ending Yankee’s life was more important than keeping his. He was willing to do anything he needed to in order to avenge what happened today. So the next move was easy.
He saw another government-issued Chevy Suburban, obviously an FBI vehicle. He knew he only had seconds, but it was worth a try. The vehicle was still running, and its driver stood having a smoke a few yards away. He hadn’t thought this through, but he edged toward the vehicle, out of the driver’s sight. He imagined that even with today no one was planning on someone doing something quite so bold. Naseem walked up to the vehicle, put it in gear, showed Grant’s badge, and headed out. He figured the badge bought him a few seconds, so he drove slowly at first and then floored it as soon as he was past the flabbergasted driver. He made the corner and knew he could get out in time to put some distance between him and another vehicle.
Naseem managed to keep hold of the phone he bought at Wal-Mart. He expected them to confiscate it, but they hadn’t—thankfully. It was another sign Grant didn’t have the makeup to do what needed to be done with Yankee. He was foolish to believe he ever had. He was the only one who stood a chance.
Now, the phone came in handy. He memorized all of Yankee’s numbers, but he knew that Yankee would be carrying only one phone now—the secret phone, only given to those closest to him.
He drove fast and texted. Sue him. He sent a simple and direct message:
THIS IS NASEEM. YOU DIDN’T KILL ME.
He didn’t have to wait long for the response.
HOW DO I KNOW?
Naseem took a second. He needed to make this quick.
BECAUSE I HAVE THIS #. BECAUSE YOU’LL KNOW MY VOICE WHEN YOU CALL ME.
Brilliant. Make him make the move. He knew it wouldn’t take long.
The phone rang. Naseem answered it immediately.
“Who is this?”
“You know who it is.”
He could hear the recognition on the other end.
“Wha …?”
“Your plans have failed, you two-timing sonofabitch. Your woman is still alive, and she’s meeting with your enemy, the real reason you did all of this.”
There was a long pause.
“Where are you?”
“I’m coming to find you. Let me know if you want to make it easy.” Naseem hung up the phone.
Sixty-Six
Raylon nudged Joey, who had almost gone to sleep. They were in this position now for well over two hours. Raylon wondered if they weren’t chasing ghosts. Well, obviously, they weren’t. Here was their man.
They rolled down the window after he went by. He didn’t acknowledge their vehicle at all and parked in the driveway, not bothering to use the garage. He got out of the SUV and activated the rear gate. He got a small black carry-on bag out of the back and then closed the door. The vehicle made the familiar yap-yap sound and yellow lights flashed.
Joey started to walk out of the limo, but Raylon put his hand on his arm. He looked at Joey. Wait. See what he’s doing.
The man pulled his phone out of his pocket. He was looking for the door code. He fumbled for a second but then found it. He punched the code in carefully and hit the pound sign.
Tony heard a “whee” sound he immediately recognized. He took only a step when the door blew apart in a violent burst. The man was enveloped in the flames. His phone flew out of his hands, and his head hit the ground hard.
Tony, who had planned and executed so many deadly bombings since he was a teenager, now experienced what one actually felt like; he felt the all-encompassing pain, the nerves flaring, then numbing, and the sense of hallucination and all-too-real at the same moment. He saw two black men approaching him fast. He wasn’t sure if they were friend or foe.
Sixty-Seven
Caitlin heard the phone ring and let out a sigh of relief. She gave Grant directions from the lobby up to the room and then waited the eternity it took for him to arrive.
She looked at Grant, saw the damage to his face. She hugged him and wouldn’t let go. He didn’t know how to play this, so he stood still and held on. She stood in that spot for an awkwardly long time.
Grant thought about saying something stupid like, “Fancy meeting you here,” but he couldn’t stomach it. He squeezed her tightly and then stood away from her. The reunion was over. It was time to get to work.
“What can you tell me?”
“I’ve dated Britt Vasher for about six months. It was nothing serious at first, but he kept pursuing me.” She looked down. It was hard to tell her former lover this. “I finally started seeing him more and more. He was always very inquisitive about my past, which is kind of rare. Most guys don’t ask much, you know? I found it odd. Finally, it was really awkward, actually, and he asked about you. And then after he brought it up, he couldn’t stop asking about you. It was weird. It was one of the first things that kind of pushed me off.”
&nb
sp; “Do you have a picture of him?”
“Just one, and it’s not very good. I left my phone in a cab on purpose, because I figured he could track me.” She went to the dresser and picked up a picture she left there. “It’s not great, but it’s some people I have known for a couple of years. He’s the …”
“… Second from the left.”
Caitlin looked at him. “You know him?”
“His name isn’t Britt Vasher. It’s Britt Vance. He was one of the FBI agents I busted in 2006.”
Caitlin’s heart sank. This wasn’t about her at all. It was about Grant.
“So he …”
“Set me up in D.C.”
Caitlin wanted to vomit.
Grant didn’t have an I-told-you-so left in him. He had to figure out how to get this information to the FBI, who now wanted him.
“Whose phone is least compromised?”
Caitlin gave him the phone that Tonya gave her.
“No problem.”
He looked at Caitlin. “Can your girl get rid of this after I’m done?”
“No doubt.”
“Call her now.”
Caitlin went to the room phone and did this.
Grant searched who to call. Mandy would be the easy choice, but he didn’t want to give her any more grief. He didn’t really have friends in the last couple of years. He didn’t have any of his contacts with him, so he decided to call the general FBI tip line in Vegas. He even had to search for this number.
After the dance of the automated phone, he finally got an operator. “This is Special Agent Grant Miller.”
“You are wanted, Agent Miller.”
“I know. I can’t come home just yet. Need to find a couple more details. But I have one bit of information you need. The man to look for? His name is Britt Vance. He masterminded this whole thing.” Grant wanted to say, “to get even with me,” but he didn’t. It sounded egotistical. It might not even be true. It probably seemed too flippant. But he knew that it was true, and it explained everything.
When he got off the phone, Tonya was waiting by the door. He handed her the phone she was going to make disappear.
Sixty-Eight
Red promised more money to the cab driver if he could make it to Harrah’s quick. She figured out her play. But first, she needed to help someone important.
Tony was the best lover she had ever had. He wasn’t a great conversationalist, wasn’t really great to even look at, but man he was well-equipped, and he could do what she needed. Red had always been horribly conflicted about sex. She used it as her stock-in-trade, but there were too many weird come-ons by a middle school teacher for her to feel completely comfortable with it. She couldn’t orgasm without deep penetration from behind, and she memorialized her sexual difficulties with a tattoo just above her vulva that read, in a beautiful and enigmatic script, You Tried.
If you were able to read her tattoo, you were not in position to take care of her. And, really, only Tony could do this reliably, from behind, with great effort, and intensity. Britt had no business fucking with Tony. That was her job. And by the way, Britt knew what he had in Caitlin: fucking trouble—beautiful, wild, fucking trouble. That was his fault, not Tony’s.
If Tony was trying to get away, she was going to help him. She didn’t care what Britt thought about that. She sent him a quick text:
B KNOWS. I HAVE STRONG LEAD ON C IN LAS VEGAS. AT HARRAH’S. HEADED THERE NOW. TURN AROUND AND JOIN ME.
There, it felt good to send that. Britt had enough control. She wasn’t going to see him hurt the one man who could bring her pleasure.
She grabbed her other phone and called the Harrah’s main number. She needed whoever was the head of the cleaning crew. She believed they had a little mole on their staff, if not an outright terrorist. She was sure they would want to take care of that.
Sixty-Nine
Was there a moment for sure when you know it’s over? Was that where Britt was? He sure wasn’t going to quit fighting, but he had killed many of his allies and failed to kill those he specifically set out to kill.
He could feel himself losing blood. If he did not turn this around soon, he might have a death as ignominious as Alexander the Great’s: alcohol poisoning.
The work the back-alley doctor did helped but at quite a price. He cried and thrashed as the man cleaned the wounds and then stitched his manhood up. They found a place to park out of sight enough to make it worth their while to go there, and Britt allowed himself an hour’s nap. He awoke feeling a bit better, the pain meds kicking in a little, still painful, but with the edge off.
And then Naseem called; it felt like a call from a ghost. This was another miscalculation along with too many to count. He thought he knew what was in store. He could count on Red. She had her problems under control. He needed to kill Naseem, collect his prize, kill his nemesis, and pay someone who would fly when he said so.
Yes, this could still be salvaged. He dug the phone out and saw enough time had passed since Naseem called. He didn’t want to make him think he was panicking. Even though that was a mild word for the thoughts running through his head.
He dialed the number. Naseem picked up.
“My boy. You decided to stay in the land of the living. How lucky you didn’t follow orders, or you’d be dead. What came over you?” The words were difficult to muster. He felt weaker and weaker.
“I won’t play your games, Britt. I won’t even call you what you like to be called.”
“Oh, I just did that Yankee thing for you. Seemed more properly spy if we were calling each other by stupid names.” He laughed at his own joke.
“Where do we meet?”
“So you can try to kill me? What is this?”
“It’s a challenge, Britt. A taunting. Nothing has gone right for you. Caitlin is alive. Grant Miller is alive. Because of me.”
“Grant Miller is alive.” He said this as if he already knew it, although it hit him like a punch in the gut.
“Your plan is an utter disaster,” Naseem said. “A failure. All the people you targeted. They’re alive. A brutal, utter disaster.”
Britt sat unmoving and silent. His ears rang, whether from the truth or the blood, he didn’t know. It didn’t matter.
He debated whether to speak or not. He could leave the country right now; he was sure of it. But to leave it with his enemies intact? To be half a world away and not be able to solve a single problem? Death was better than that.
Maybe he was now ready for Naseem’s silly games. “I’ll be at the Heritage Air Strip in an hour. You can meet your beloved Allah there.”
He hung up, no longer sure if he was even close to the mark.
Seventy
The deadline hit. It was time. People stayed up just to see what happened. Live feeds showed a building in the middle of the night. Helicopters hovered in the dark, shining lights on the building to see if that was what Sabotage planned.
Britt smiled. This was his preferred outcome and definitely took his mind off all that went wrong. He made bets in every direction, but there had never been any doubt that if he could somehow get the American people to buy his worthless stock he would profit the most.
The trades were so minuscule and in so many names that it would never be possible to corral them all. In addition, much of the activity had already been captured and aggregated prior to actually getting to this moment, so everything else he raked from hard-earned money was truly just a bonus. What happened next was the real fun for him.
The website was off the charts. The hashtag #sabotage was trending number one. He liked this. Britt uploaded the next sequence of code—so simple, so much doom.
Sabotage, the Clown, ambled back to the middle of the screen. He looked up and made a carnival gesture. A YouTube video appeared right above him. Sabotage appeared in the video, too. He looked left and right before unfurling his banner. It read:
HAVEN’T YOU HEARD OF SHORTING A STOCK?????
The video cut away. The Sa
botage site stole one of the live feeds from a cable network. It showed the explosions on the roof of the building. Even if they found some of them, he knew there would be no way to find them all. It looked to him like they looked minimally. The explosions danced on the roof. They went off in random order, yet somehow looked choreographed. He loved it.
The anchors for the various networks started their hand-wringing. “Who was behind this?” they asked the audience. “Why would they want to cause such disruption?” They had nothing but questions to fill their broadcasts. Questions and speculations. They filled the airwaves with them.
Britt kept the Las Vegas police scanner on just to monitor the police’s progress. He heard them call in the tip on Trump Towers. They would meet Britt Vasher pretty soon. They would have to work a little bit to get from there to who he really was.
But then he was wide-eyed. Was that what they said? He was sure he had heard it. They called him Britt Vance, not Britt Vasher. It wasn’t rocket science putting these two things together, but it was still much quicker than he expected.
He set up Seth as the decoy to make them believe there was someone above him, and he was dead. It probably wouldn’t last forever, he knew, but it would give him a head start.
How did they know his name?
He was afraid he knew.
Seventy-One
President Morgan, with his stellar approval ratings and his eye trained on history, nearly retched after the latest attacks. They were outrageous and wrong, but he realized there weren’t really words strong enough for them.
For the first time in his nearly seven years in office, the president could honestly say he had no idea what to do—that terrified him. He knew he needed to speak to the people. He knew they were waiting on him. And now, when he was needed the most, he had the least to say. He asked Vanessa to set it up and said nothing else to her. He climbed back to the podium, looked into the cameras, and started to speak.
