Brian got up from his desk, went over to the small office on the east side of the building. The lieutenant was sitting behind his own messy desk - Brian almost smiled at the memory of the biting memo that the Chief of Detectives had sent out last month, about how cluttered desks led to cluttered cases and court dismissals - and he rapped his hand on the side of the door.
‘Looking for me?’
The lieutenant looked up, gazing at Brian over his half-rim glasses, which were kind of sissified for a squad lieutenant. But those nearly bloodless blue eyes behind the lenses never let anybody call the lieutenant sissy, even though his nickname was Ellie. He was squat, like a man whose intended weight and girth had been shoved into a frame built six inches too short. He waved a thick hand up at Brian and said, ‘Yeah, Bri. Come in and close the door.’
Brian nodded, still hating the nickname Bri, wondering what in hell had gotten into the lieutenant that he needed an office visit. He sat down, noted the filing cabinets filling the office — at least those were neat, like they were part of the goddam wall system or something - and the lieutenant picked up a thin file folder, opened it up as he sat back. Brian kept quiet, kept his mouth shut. Better not to offer anything before knowing what the hell was going on.
The lieutenant was no longer looking at the file folder. He said, ‘Last December.’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘There was a test we all took. Remember?’
‘Vaguely.’
‘It was an intelligence test, that’s what most of us thought. Odd questions. Puzzles. Who’s buried in Grant’s tomb. Crap like that.’
Brian nodded. ‘Yeah, I remember now.’
The lieutenant tossed the folder on his desk. ‘Okay, Bri, we’re now in confidential land, got it? Confidential such you don’t tell your partner, you don’t tell the ex, don’t tell nobody. Understood?’
‘Sure, boss,’ Brian said, feeling better that the meeting wasn’t for something he had screwed up on but was for some-thing else.
‘Okay. Deal is, we all thought the test was just another pysch bureau bullshit project, but it wasn’t. Maybe it was bullshit after all, but it wasn’t ours. It’s the Feds.’
‘What do they want?’ Brian asked.
‘You.’
‘Huh?’
The lieutenant grimaced. ‘Don’t like it at all, and you’re gonna like it even less. The Feds are looking for people, on temporary duty. Six months, maybe a year, maybe longer. You’ll be detached from the precinct, full pay and benefits and seniority accruing, plus you’ll get a twenty percent pay bonus to make up for whatever OT you lose. Plus the usual travel and per diem goodies.’
‘Lieutenant, I got cases to close, court appearances set for the next month, and—’
‘It’s all been taken care of.’
Brian heard his voice get heated. ‘It has, has it? Excuse me, lieutenant, but what the fuck, okay? Don’t I get a say in this? Don’t I?’
The lieutenant seemed to choose his words. ‘Apparently not. Because I’ve been raising a shit storm, too, losing a guy like you, but I’ve gotten the word, inscribed in granite letters ten feet tall from One Police Plaza, that it’s a go. For some reason the Feds like the answers you gave on the test and what they saw in your personnel jacket. And don’t take this the wrong way or the hard way, and you can be a royal Irish pain in the ass, Bri, but I’m gonna hate losing you.’
Brian clasped his hands together. ‘Shit, boss, what the hell do they want me for, anyway?’
Lancaster opened up the thin folder, bent his head down and said, ‘Something called Federal Operations and Intelligence Liaison. FOIL. Duties and responsibilities to be announced once you report in and sign a standard non-disclosure form, yadda yadda yadda.’
The lieutenant closed the folder. ‘That’s the official. Unofficial line, you want to hear it?’
‘Christ, yes.’
‘Unofficial, the Feds are cherrypicking people with different skills, putting them together in these teams. Thing is, Bri, you’re going hunting.’
‘Hunting? For who?’
The lieutenant made a gesture with his head, like he was pointing out something outside, and Brian looked out the window and knew what the lieutenant was pointing at. That near and terribly empty spot on the horizon, where the two buildings had once stood.
Brian said, ‘Okay, I get it now. Shit.’
The lieutenant offered him a slight smile. ‘Go and do well, Bri. And maybe the Feds, looking at your record and all, decided that with your dad it makes sense that you—’
Brian interrupted, saying, ‘So. When do I go? Next week? Next month?’
The lieutenant shook his head. ‘Guess I wasn’t clear, Bri. They want you now.’
‘Now? Like what?’
His boss reached for a phone. ‘Like now I’m calling a squad car, to get your ass to LaGuardia and to DC later this morning. That kind of now.’
~ * ~
And through the open door of the conference room, the princess came in, the leader of Tiger Team Seven, Adrianna Scott. Brian eyed her carefully as she came into the room. Unlike Stacy out in the front entrance, Adrianna didn’t dress flashy, though there was something about the way she dressed and carried herself that Brian found interesting. Of course, if his ex-wife Marcy had been around, she’d laugh in that braying tone of hers (and why had he ever found that laugh attractive? He blamed Jameson’s Irish Whiskey and Marcy’s impressive chest) and say, sure, interesting. Another way of saying you’re just a horny jerk, can’t keep your eyes off the girls.
Adrianna looked tired, her long dark hair drawn back in a simple ponytail, with a tiny red ribbon. She had on a charcoal-gray skirt that reached mid-calf and a black pullover sweater. She carried her laptop under one arm and opened it up after she’d sat down. Brian looked around at the collection of characters, gathered here in this so-called undisclosed location, thinking of what weird shit had to have happened to have brought them all together. Himself, a New York City cop. Darren, the thin blond kid. Something to do with the National Security Agency. The doc, from Atlanta and the Centers for Disease Control. Monty, an active-duty military officer - who for some reason kept his branch of service secret - with a quiet smile and the sharp confidence that if he had to, he could kill everybody in this room and leave while munching a doughnut, not even having broken out in a sweat. And the princess Herself, with brown eyes and mocha-colored skin, an officer with the Central Intelligence Agency.
She smiled and said, ‘So sorry to have gotten you all here on a Sunday, but it could not be avoided.’
By now Darren and Monty had torn their gazes away from the computer screen, and Brian kept his hands folded on his stomach. On the far wall the plasma screen flickered into life as Adrianna started tapping away on her keyboard. Letters appeared, spelling out an Arab phrase.
Brian looked up and then glanced over at Adrianna, who - surprisingly enough - now had her elbows on the table and was slowly rubbing her temples with her long fingers. She said, ‘The phrase shown here is the Arabic for May 29. That’s a very special day for some fundamental Islamists, May 29. The day Istanbul - known back then as Constantinople - fell to the Muslim forces in 1453. A day celebrated in many parts of the Islamic world, a day in which the infidels suffered a defeat that shook the very foundations of the Christian rulers in Europe.’
Adrianna raised her head, no longer smiling. ‘A special day, indeed. Its anniversary is coming up in less than four weeks, gentlemen.’
Brian felt something cold start to crawl its way through his stomach, like being on a stakeout and realizing that your radio batteries have drained away in silence, just as four or five assholes with guns are walking your way.
‘And on that day, gentlemen, we are going to get hit.’
Monty spoke up, his voice lilting lightly with a Southern accent. ‘Hit? Really?’
A sad nod.
‘Hit, gentlemen - and hit hard.’
~ * ~
CHAPTER FOUR
On the island of Bali, in the tourist resort town of Kuta, twenty-year-old Ranon Degun stood before the blackened and twisted wreckage of the Sari nightclub in the light rain. Wilted and faded plastic flowers were scattered as offerings on the nearest pile of debris. Ranon kept his face impassive as he looked at what had once been a gathering place for foreigners, mostly Australians, loud and drunk Australians, swaggering through, acting like they were the rulers of this place. But some time ago holy warriors had attacked this nightclub, had killed more than two hundred infidels, and for that Ranon was pleased indeed.
But he kept his face still. Even now, it was still not seen as right in some quarters on this island to gloat over what had happened, even though a blow had been struck for righteousness. For ever since the bombing, the tourists had not returned in the numbers that Bali had become accustomed to. The Australians and the New Zealanders and the backpackers from Europe had stayed away from Bali, and those who lived from the tourists, including Ranon’s own uncle and aunt, who had served as a houseboy and a chambermaid for one of the beach hotels had suffered. Seeing his aunt and uncle depart each day, clothed in some Western dress for the hotel, had caused resentment to bum inside him, as they scraped and bowed to the infidels. And he had mentioned that one night to his uncle, who had surprised him by standing up and striking him on the face. ‘These “infidels” as you call them,’ his uncle had cried out, ‘these infidels pay good money, money that pays for your clothes and your food and this home. So shut up about the infidels, unless you wish to live someplace else.’
And living someplace else was not possible, for Ranon was a cripple, and he was dependent on the charity of his aunt and uncle. Years earlier, soldiers had camped near their village, soldiers fighting bandits in the hills, and he had snuck into their campsite one night, to watch, to observe, and, well, of course, to steal. Even though it humiliated him to think about it, he recalled stealing a slumbering soldier’s belt, hoping that there was a wallet or something valuable hanging from it, and going home, the belt in his hands, a branch tugged at something hanging there, a small metal object that exploded in a flash and ruined his hands forever.
Ranon looked down at the pink stumps of his fingers that always made the young girls turn away, that made everything so hard to do, and the thought came to him that his own land of Bali was now a cripple, crippled by the foreigners. For Bali had long ago lost its own native way, of living off the land and the sea, and now she was nothing more than a whore for the foreigners, opening her legs for the chance of getting dollars or euros or yen.
Which was why the bombing had to happen. The infidels had to be expelled, from here and all other holy lands, and if sometimes people lost their jobs and innocents had to die, well, that was God’s will. For had not God Himself said that there would be struggles and difficulties before going to Paradise?
Ranon wiped at his face with one hand, the other hand barely holding on to a small plastic bag with a firm object inside. The warm drizzle still fell from the gray skies, and in the wreckage of the nightclub there were those faded plastic flowers, left behind by relatives or friends, he imagined. He looked around, saw that nobody was gazing at his direction, and he placed his hand up to his face to hide the wide smile that he allowed himself. For here was a monument to what could happen when holy warriors did their work for God, and very soon, in a very simple way, he was sure that he would be allowed to join those holy ranks.
Ranon turned and started walking away, his feet splashing through the puddles.
~ * ~
Some blocks away, Ranon came to a store - really not much more than a shack tacked onto the end of a narrow alley - that sold wood carvings. A sullen-faced man in a soiled tank-top T-shirt sat inside, smoking a cigarette. Ranon went in, nodded in his direction, and said, ‘I am here for a pickup.’
‘Yes?’
‘A pickup for a Mister Wilson. At the Amandari Hotel. If you please.’
The man stared at him through a cloud of cigarette smoke, reached underneath the counter and removed a small package fastened with string. Hands trembling, Ranon took the package from the man’s hands and ignored the pitying look he gave Ranon’s twisted finger stumps.
And Ranon remembered.
Weeks ago, at the small mosque that served his village, just north of Ubud, a stranger had come to him. A tall Sudanese who had called him by name, and led him away to a cafe where they had shared small glasses of sweetened tea, and where the Sudanese had peppered him with questions. About his young life. His struggle with his crippled fingers. His devotion to God. His thoughts for the future, even on an island such as Bali, polluted with so much corruption and with strange religions like Christianity or Hinduism. And had Ranon ever made the hajj, to the holy place of Mecca? And Ranon had said, no, he had not - though, of course, like any good Muslim, he hoped to make the hajj before he died. The Sudanese, his eyes bright with certainty and strength, had said that, indeed, Mecca was a holy place, and except during those times when he had been in the Sudan and Afghanistan, he himself had made the hajj many times.
Other questions had followed in the cool interior of the cafe. The Sudanese had nodded at Ranon’s answers, and had said, ‘Ranon, would you be willing to do a holy task for me, a task that will strike fear in the infidels?’
And Ranon had hesitated, only for a moment, and the Sudanese, smart and holy man that he was, had said, ‘You are reluctant.’
Ranon had nodded and had said, I am willing to do whatever you ask, but. . . would it take place here, in Bali?
The Sudanese had smiled. ‘You are concerned, perhaps, with the well-being of your family? Of your aunt and uncle?’
They are not very devout, Ranon had said, but they are good-hearted people. What happened at the Sari had hurt them terribly, and so many others. The tourists had left and the jobs were lost, and the money dried up, and children went hungry, and—
The Sudanese had interrupted him. ‘But what about the Palestinian children, who are shot and bulldozed by the Zionists? And what of the Iraqi children, poisoned by the uranium-tipped weapons of the Americans and the British? And what of the Chechen children, burned in their homes by the thrice-damned Russians? The children here, they may go hungry and they may go thirsty, but at least they live.’
Ranon had been embarrassed. The righteous Sudanese had set him straight, had made him look at things more clearly. He had nodded and said, I will do whatever you require.
The Sudanese had smiled again, had gently tapped Ranon on his shoulder. ‘Not to worry, my young warrior. What I will have you do, it will take place here, in Bali. But no one will die. No Hindu. No Christian. And especially no Muslim. No, the task I have for you, it will be simple, but in what it shall accomplish, it shall be deadly indeed.’
The Sudanese had looked around the cafe, seen that they were alone in this part of the building, and had leaned forward and spoken softly. ‘It will be something so deadly that years from now, what happened at the whorehouse, the place where the men and the women danced together, that will be forgotten.’
The memory made Ranon shiver. He walked a while until he was sure that he wasn’t being watched, or being followed, for the Sudanese had been quite specific in his directions. He sat on the wet concrete steps of a shuttered clothing store -whorish clothes for Europeans to display their bodies in on the sands of Bali - and clumsily unwrapped the package that he had received. The small plastic bag he had carried was now at his side. Unwrapping the rough paper revealed a carving of a kangaroo. A souvenir for some Australian. But what Australian would ever come here again after seeing what had happened to his or her countrymen? He put it aside and smoothed out the paper across his lap. There. A string of numbers and a collection of words.
His heart thumped harder as he looked at the simple scrawl. Something so simple, yet so simple a weapon would do so much harm.
The light rain had stopped. Ranon looked around him again, saw the empty taxicabs trundle by, the drivers looki
ng bored and angry. He picked up the cheap plastic bag, took out the object. A bright green cellphone. He had bought it last week with one hundred Australian dollars that the Sudanese had given him. Again, the Sudanese had been specific on where to buy the phone, and how to buy it. Purchase it just before the store closes, so that the clerk is hurried and pays little attention to who you are or how you look. Pay with cash. Leave no record of who you are.
Which was what Ranon had done. Now he picked up the phone and switched it on, and then punched in the number scrawled on the packaging, being slow and careful, knowing how hard it was to do this with his injured hands. A man’s voice answered.
Final Winter Page 3
