by Gary Ponzo
Like people waiting for the ball to drop in Times Square on New Years Eve, Kharrazi and Hasan were counting down the minutes until the White House exploded into rubble.
“One hundred and forty-two minutes, Sarock,” Hasan said. They both found the digital display atop the detonator irresistible. The detonator beamed the countdown from an open-doored wall safe. At the first sign of trouble Kharrazi would lock the safe, but he knew it was irrelevant. The detonator was foolproof and could withstand scrutiny from the world’s best bomb experts without deactivating. Any tampering would merely cause the missiles to deploy earlier than scheduled. A true Rashid Baser masterpiece.
Kharrazi noticed his number one soldier fidgeting in his chair. “Relax, Hasan. You worry too much.”
“Yes, Sarock,” Hasan replied, twirling his thumbs.
“What is your concern?” Kharrazi asked.
Hasan pointed to the detonator. “We should push the button now. It makes no sense to wait.” The second Hasan finished his statement he immediately appeared to regret it. He searched Kharrazi’s face for a reaction and squirmed with anticipation.
Kharrazi smiled. “Hasan, you are a warrior. I can’t expect you to understand the finer points of using political pressure to maximize our assets.” He patted his soldier on the knee. “You have a bulldog mentality, but sometimes all a bulldog need do is bare his teeth.”
This only added to the confusion on Hasan’s face. Kharrazi offered his plate of grapes and cheese to the young man and Hasan nodded, placing it on his lap. He picked a couple of grapes and flung them into his mouth.
Kharrazi rose to his feet. This caused Hasan to gulp down his partially chewed grapes.
Kharrazi’s stiletto was leaning up against the wall in the corner of the room. He reached down and retrieved his favorite blade. “You see, the American people do not have the backbone for a war on their turf. They will do anything necessary to avoid it, including impeaching their own President.”
With his stiletto behind his back, Kharrazi paced in the darkness. Hasan watched Kharrazi with hawk’s eyes.
“If we explode the White House early,” Kharrazi explained, “it could make the President a victim, which would draw sympathy from U.S. citizens. But if we give him the full opportunity, every possible chance, every minute we offered, and still he refused to remove his troops from Turkey, well, then he got what he deserved. And we did precisely what we said we would. And any threat that followed—” he swiftly dove his dagger into Hasan’s lap, stabbing a large chunk of cheese and drawing it to his mouth. Hasan nearly fainted at the maneuver.
“Would be treated with respect,” Kharrazi finished with a cheek full of cheese.
Hasan nodded enthusiastically, appearing grateful to be alive. “Yes, Sarock. You speak the truth.”
“Of course I do.” Kharrazi returned his attention to the T.V. screen. The FBI had no clue where he was. Even if they found him and overcame his squad of soldiers protecting the safe house, they couldn’t stop the missiles from deploying. In just over two hours, Kemel Kharrazi would harvest the fruits of his labor.
He watched as Nick Bracco turned toward the camera. He yawned and rubbed his eyes. Bracco looked to be a beaten man. Kharrazi remembered his failed attempts at eradicating Bracco’s family. Bracco himself would not be so lucky. He had to be done away with. Kharrazi was going to put him out of his misery very soon.
Kharrazi thought about his own wife back home, and his children who counted on him to rid their country of the pestilent American soldiers. Soon he would be able to return to a hero’s welcome and rally his soldiers to victory over the Turkish Security Force. Statues would be erected in his image. Kemel Kharrazi was going to be a legend for all of eternity.
He found it hard to remove the smile from his face.
* * *
Headlights flashed across the front window of the Gila County Sheriff’s Office. Nick knew it was too soon for the SWAT team from Phoenix. A short burly man eased out of a Cadillac wearing a dark suit. Nick realized who he was. Silk went out to greet the man with a bear hug. Both of them pecked each other’s cheek. They exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes, then Silk pointed inside. He stood gesticulating this way and that. The squat man nodded repeatedly. The conversation ended with the two smiling and slapping one another on the back.
Silk led the man into the Sheriff’s office and the man strode in patting his generous stomach. “The veal scaloppini is to die for, Silk. They have—” the man looked up and noticed the group of short-haired FBI agents sitting behind receptionist’s desks shuffling papers and banging on laptop keyboards.
“Jeesh,” the man said, “some fancy deputies you got up here.”
Silk found Nick working a highlighter over a list of newly purchased homes in the area. “This is a friend of mine,” Silk motioned to the man. “Gasper Continelli, this is Nick Bracco.”
Nick shook the man’s hand, almost expecting to come away with a couple of hundred dollar bills. “Good to meet you.”
“The pleasure is all mine,” Gasper said affably.
Silk gave Nick a conspiratorial nod toward the Sheriff’s personal office. Nick glanced at his watch wondering when reinforcements were coming. He waved the two men into Skrugs’ office.
The Sheriff’s private sanctuary seemed of keen interest to Gasper. His head circled the place as if admiring the decor. He gestured toward the tall portrait of Geronimo, “Hey, I know that guy. He used to play second base for the Indians.”
Nick pretended not to hear the remark as he took up a chair behind Skruggs’ desk. Silk laughed hard enough for the both of them.
Gasper sat down across from Skrugs’ desk and leaned back and crossed his legs.
Nick rocked anxiously in his chair, his hands folded to his chest. “You have something for me?” he asked.
Silk stood behind the plump man and patted his shoulders. “Gasper here knows something that you might find interesting.”
Nick lowered his head toward Gasper and raised his eyebrows.
Gasper looked about the room with wide-eyed innocence. “I’m a big fan of the police,” he announced, loudly.
Nick glanced at Silk, then back to Gasper. “Excuse me?”
“I donate a couple of dimes each year to the Police Athletic League.” Gasper was nodding as if to verify his own declaration.
Nick bit his lower lip. “Listen, Gasper, I’m not an IRS agent looking for dinner receipts. I’m kind of tied up with—”
“Tell me about it,” Gasper said. “I’ve been watching it on TV all day. They’ve evacuated a square mile around the White House.”
“Look,” Nick said, “speaking for all law enforcement officials nationwide, I truly appreciate your financial support, but if you don’t get to—”
“I ain’t saying a thing until we’re alone,” declared Gasper.
Nick tilted his head. “You want Silk to leave the room, or Geronimo?”
Gasper pointed to a silver sprinkler hanging from the ceiling above them. “That thing ain’t just loaded with water up there. If you look close enough you’ll notice that the part where the water is supposed to come out, well, it’s filled in with a wire. Probably fiber optic if my eyesight ain’t failing me.”
Nick stared at the man. He thought about Skrugs and his deception. Had Nick underestimated the depth of the man’s betrayal? Had he actually allowed Kharrazi to wire his own office? Nick finally looked up and saw exactly what Gasper saw. The head of the sprinkler was covered with a tiny glass bulb. Behind it, a faint red light beamed its narrow beam of absorption. It never occurred to him to debug the Sheriff’s office, but someone like Gasper probably never entered a room without scanning for bugs.
Nick almost put his finger to his lips, then remembered who he was dealing with. He pulled his duffle bag onto the sheriff’s desk, unzipped a side pouch and produced a narrow metal cylinder topped off with a clear plastic ball. The ball was a gauge with the needle leaning up against the left side of the di
al in the green zone. Nick crawled up on the desk and got to his feet. Before he moved the device even halfway toward the sprinkler, the needle was already buried deep into the red side of the gauge. Nick grabbed the sprinkler with his free hand and tugged hard. It came loose, but not completely unattached. He reached into his bag again and retrieved a Phillips screwdriver. A minute late he had loosened the casing that held the sprinkler in place and yanked down on the device. The sprinkler came free and Nick cursed as he unfurled the black cable that came rushing out of the ceiling behind the sprinkler head.
From below him he heard. “Am I good, or am I good?”
Nick looked into the tip of the cable and said, “You don’t know how much I learned from this little game, Kharrazi. Is this what your daddy used to do to you when you were a kid? Did he spy on you and watch you get undressed, you piece of shit?” He quickly clipped the cable with a wire cutter and rendered it useless. “You were right, Gasper. Fiber optics. State of the art video monitoring.” He waived his wire-tapping detector around the room and found no other devices. He would sweep the reception area as soon as he finished with Gasper.
Gasper’s chest heaved with pride while Silk maintained a steady grin.
“It’s a gift, really,” Gasper said. “Like when people can sense when they’re being watched. I can always tell where the wires are. Actually, I’m pretty good at both.”
Nick hopped down from the desk and returned his tools to his duffle bag. “All right, Gasper, we’re all clear. Tell me what you know.”
Gasper folded his arms across his chest. “So you’re Tommy Bracco’s cousin, huh?”
“That’s right,” Nick said.
“From whose side of the family?”
“Tommy’s dad is my father’s brother.” All male connections. Nick knew this would make Gasper happy.
Gasper nodded toward the ceiling. “Smart guy like you, how’d you let something like that get by you? Aren’t you supposed to be in charge here?”
“Listen,” Nick said with a tight, searing look of impatience. “I didn’t know about the wire because the Bureau didn’t put it there, someone who was trying to spy on us had it installed before we got here. Secondly, Tommy is my cousin, like a brother really. As kids we spent every summer day playing the ponies at Pimlico. I even lived at his house after my folks died.”
Nick gestured toward Silk. “Don must’ve told you that much already. He and Tommy have been best friends since grade school. The three of us were inseparable throughout high school.” Nick leaned forward, his arms flat on the desk in front of him. “I wear a size ten and a half shoe and a forty-two long suit jacket. What else can I tell you before we get down to business?”
Gasper nodded. “Of course. I got just one other thing.”
“What’s that?”
“I need to know what’s in it for me?”
Nick blinked a couple of times. “Tell me, Gasper. What do you want?”
Gasper shrugged. “Actually, nothing now that I’m thinking about it. I’m just in the habit of asking—wait a second, I know. I got a speeding ticket a couple of weeks back and I have to go to one of those safety-driving classes next month. You ever been to one of those things? Like going to a wake, only without the alcohol. Anyway, I’d like to get out of it without getting points on my driver’s license.”
“That’s it?” Nick asked.
“Believe me, that’s plenty.”
“Consider it done,” Nick pronounced. “Now can we get on with it?"
Gasper turned and gave Silk a hesitant glance and Silk nodded.
“Silk here says you can be trusted. He says that anything I tell you will stay inside of this room.”
Nick grimaced. “Are you going to be telling me anything about dead bodies that you may have contributed to?”
Gasper seemed appalled. “Of course not. I don’t even like the way you said that.”
Silk gave Gasper a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Gaspers runs book down in Scottsdale. Once a week he makes a trip up here to Payson. He simply brings Las Vegas to Arizona for people who don’t have the time to drive back and forth.”
“Sort of a public service,” Nick commented.
“Exactly,” Gasper said, appreciating Nick’s insight.
“The answer is yes,” Nick said. “Anything you tell me will be confidential and won’t go any further than this room.”
“Good,” Gasper said, settling back in his chair and pulling his white cuffs out from the sleeves of his double-breasted jacket. “So this customer of mine up here is the guy who got his head cut off. His name is Fred something,” Gasper snapped his finger a couple of times searching for the name.
“Fred Wilson,” Nick said.
“That’s it,” Gasper exclaimed. “Well, he makes an unusually large play on the Cowboys a few weeks back. He was bragging about some shady blasting cap deal he’d made with some foreigners. I’m guessing these are the type that could be used to blow up houses, if you get my drift. Anyway, a friend of his tells me that he suspected something fishy and warned Fred not to make the deal, but the money blinds Fred to the danger and he goes and does it anyway. So one day this friend is in the parking lot of Fred’s business when this one particular Arab-type walks out the front door in a hurry. This guy don’t like the way the Arab is acting, so he waits in his car until he’s gone before he goes in and finds the mess that he was afraid he’d find.”
“He’s the one who found Fred?”
Gasper nodded. “Headless. Like that horseman guy.”
Nick rubbed his temple. “And how does this help me?”
Gasper flashed a knowing smile. “Because he recognized the Arab. This guy is an aluminum siding salesman and he drove up to the Arab’s cabin once to try to sell him some siding. He remembers that the Arab chased him away. Very rudely, I might add.”
Now Nick was interested. Since Rashid Baser killed Fred Wilson, he had to be the Arab this guy was speaking of. There’s no question Rashid would have been staying at the headquarters before he took a revenge bullet from one of Sal’s crew. “So he knows where the Arab lives?”
“Yeah.”
“And this is the same guy who killed Fred?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s his name?”
Gasper spread his arms with his palms up. “See, I’m not real good with names. Faces and numbers are really my strong suit.”
“You don’t know his name?” Nick asked.
“I think it was something religious, like Moses, or Peter, or Paul.”
“Paul? Religious?”
“What, you don’t know the Apostles?”
“Oh, for crying out loud, Gasper. All this and no name?”
“Well, I can tell you where he hangs out.”
“Where?”
“The Winchester. A bar over on Main Street. He’s some kind of a pool shark. I do a lot of business down there.”
Nick went to the door and called Jennifer Steele into the office, then closed the door behind her. She wore a borrowed FBI windbreaker and had on her black baseball cap minus the ponytail. If she were bald and wore a lavender sports jacket it wouldn’t have detracted from her looks.
Gasper jumped to his feet and offered his hand. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Gasper Continelli.”
Steele had one eye on Nick whiled she exchanged pleasantries with the character.
“He’s a big fan of the police,” Nick deadpanned.
“What’s up?” she asked, shaking off Gasper’s groping handshake.
“Are you familiar with a place called the Winchester?” Nick asked.
“Sure.”
“You’ve been there?”
“Yes.”
“Are you familiar with anyone who might be hustling pool down there?”
“Well, hustling might be a strong word considering the amount of money—”
Nick held up his hand. “No, you misunderstand me. I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just looking for a name. Anyone in
particular you might remember shooting pool and,” Nick chose his words carefully, “winning fairly often?”
Steele looked down in deep thought. Gasper dropped back down into his chair and waited for Steele to come up with someone.
Finally, Steele looked up at Nick. “The only person in this town that could even be considered a pool shark is a guy by the name of Angel.”
Gasper snapped his fingers. “That’s it! Angel. I knew it was religious. I’m good at association.”
“And numbers and faces,” Nick quipped. “What’s his last name?” Nick asked Steele.
“I don’t know,” Steele said. “I’m not even sure Angel is his real name. Nicknames are real common up here.”
“She’s right about that,” Gasper chimed agreeably. “Something about small towns and nicknames. I never quite understood it.”
“Great.” Nick looked down at his watch. Less than two hours to go and he was discussing nicknames with a bookie whose major concern in life was having to attend a driver’s education class.
“Tell you what,” Gasper said, “it’s a little early, but there’s a chance he’s down at the Winchester shooting pool right now. I’ll go down there and check it out. If he’s there, I’ll bring him to you.”
Nick couldn’t afford to augment his band of mercenaries any more than he already had. He looked at Steele. “You know what he looks like?”
She nodded.
Nick walked around the desk and offered Gasper his hand. The bottom-heavy man lifted himself from his seat and vigorously shook Nick’s hand. “Thanks for the offer,” Nick said, “but we can take it from here.”
“It’s been my pleasure.” Gasper smiled. “That’s all you need?”
“That’s plenty,” Nick said.
“Give Tommy my regards.”
Nick clasped his free hand over their handshake in a sign of respect. “I’ll take care of the speeding ticket.” He paused and eyed Gasper intently. “You did your country proud on this one. You know that.” Nick struck the proper chord to send the man off with a smile on his face.
