“Pretty tough to pull off in a U.S. port.” Jaxon laughed as he signaled for two more beers. “LNG tankers have to provide ninety-six hours’ notice of their approach, and the Coast Guard is all over these tankers as soon as they hit American waters. They’re inspected and checked for explosives. Then they’re escorted to the terminal facilities by a small navy and air force that includes tugs, helicopters, and armed Coast Guard cutters.”
“Yeah, and there’s no way a bunch of raghead terrorists with box cutters were going to hijack airliners and crash them into commercial and government buildings,” Ariadne scoffed. “Some of those facilities in the States are close enough that hijackers could make a run at a waterfront population area. Hell, there’s a floating facility at the mouth of the Long Island Sound. And it’s a big ocean out there, even the Coast Guard can’t be absolutely sure that a friendly captain is who he says he is.”
“So are you learning anything new?” Jaxon asked, then laughed as if he’d told a joke and rubbed Ned’s shoulders, causing the younger man to jump.
“Well, I think we have a right to be afraid,” Ariadne said in a low voice. “There’s something going on, but I haven’t been able to find out exactly what it is. Twenty years ago, radical Islamic plotters staged a bloody coup, trying to take over the government of Trinidad and Tobago and turn it into an Islamic state. The coup was put down, but the main players—and a lot of new young recruits—have been rebuilding for another try ever since. The two major groups are Waajihatul Islaamiyyah, aka the Islamic Front, and Jamaat al Muslimeen, and the fact that they are back and worse than ever is not a good thing. Along with the goal of establishing an Islamic state in Trinidad, they’ve declared holy war against American and British interests in the Caribbean. Of the two, the Islamic Front is openly allied with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Islaamiyyah is tied to a terrorist organization by a similar name in Indonesia that was responsible for the bombing in Bali a few years ago.
“Jamaat might be the worst of the lot. After the coup, they basically turned into a bunch of Muslim thugs—more gangsters than religious fundamentalists, though they couch everything in the rhetoric of radical Islam. A few years ago, Trinidad ranked second worst behind Colombia for kidnappings—especially the wealthy and politicians—to make a buck. They also deal drugs and do murders for hire. But at their core, they’re still committed to an Islamic state. Right now an American-born member of Jamaat, whose father immigrated to New York City from Trinidad, is on trial in Miami for attempting to buy arms—including AK-47s, grenade launchers, and antiaircraft missiles—through a Florida mosque. He intended to smuggle the weapons into Trinidad for another coup attempt.”
Ariadne paused as two prostitutes, who’d suddenly wondered if they’d allowed an interloper to snag two potential clients in their territory, walked up. “Why are you talking to this white cow,” one said, putting her arm around Ned, “when you could be having fun with us?”
Standing up, Stupenagel, who was several inches taller and outweighed the bigger of the prostitutes by fifteen pounds, growled, “Get your big ass out of here, sister, before I kick it up around your ears.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed, but she hadn’t expected the hard-nosed reaction. She noted the muscles in the white woman’s arms and decided she was not a soft American, nor could she afford to be arrested again. “Watch your back, bitch,” the prostitute sneered, and sauntered off with a nod to her companion to follow. “If you two gentlemen want something with more spice, we’ll be over here.”
As she sat back down, Stupenagel saw the amused look on Jaxon’s face. “Glad I was able to provide a little comic relief, Espey. Anyway, the minister for national security in Trinidad is smart and tough and knows what he’s doing, and his antiterrorism squads are well trained and resourceful. So far they’ve kept the radicals in check. But everybody here knows, and I suspect you do, too, that all it takes is one slipup and thousands could die in an instant…. So, now that I’ve told you what I know, would you mind telling me what you’re here for?”
“Vacation,” Jaxon replied.
“Even off the record?”
“Even off the record.”
“Well, then I guess you wouldn’t be interested in a guy named Omar Abdullah?” Stupenagel caught the looks on the men’s faces and chuckled. “Remind me to set up a poker game with the two of you when we get back, I’ll own your pensions.”
Jaxon laughed. “No doubt. So this guy…what’d you say his name was? Homer?”
“Omar, but I could tell by the looks on your faces that you already knew the name,” Stupenagel said, “which means you’ve read his file and know that he’s with Jamaat and committed to the cause. He’s perfectly willing to die in a glorious fireball for Allah.”
“So what’s he have to do with Trinidad?” Jaxon asked.
“You mean other than the fact that he’s here?” Ariadne glanced quickly at both faces and shook her head. “I wouldn’t just own your pensions, I’d win your firstborn children…if I wanted them…which I don’t. I have enough of a child in my darling Gilbert Murrow. How is my little Murry Wurry snuggle bunny, by the way?”
“I’ll be sure to refer to him that way the next time I see him at the DAO,” Jaxon replied with a laugh. “But the last time I spoke with him, he was missing you.”
“Aaawww, I miss him, too,” Stupenagel cooed. “He’s going to be one worn-out lover boy after I get home.”
“Uh, you were saying something about Homer being in Trinidad?” Jaxon said, changing the subject.
Stupenagel nodded. “Port of Spain to be exact. Or so I’ve heard from my sources; I haven’t actually seen him yet.”
“You know what he looks like?” Blanchett asked. “All I’ve seen are a bunch of fuzzy photographs.”
“I certainly do.” Stupenagel smiled. “After all, the Big O and I go way back.”
“The Big O?” Jaxon’s eyebrows shot up.
“That’s what I used to call him back when we were…friends.”
“Friends? You were friends with one of the world’s most wanted terrorists?”
“Well, perhaps a bit more than just friends.” Stupenagel giggled. “But back then you and the other American spooks were referring to guys like him as freedom fighters. I met him in Afghanistan in the early 1980s. He was fighting the Soviets as a foreign mujahedeen from Trinidad, and I was a young, horny reporter for the Associated Press stationed in Islamabad. I was interviewing him in the mountains and, what can I say, he swept me off my feet…. It was so romantic, sitting in his cave on the side of a cliff after making wild and scandalous love, watching Soviet helicopters searching the valley below…”
“You and Homer…” Blanchett said with a look of horror.
Stupenagel sighed. “Like I said, I was young and he was this gorgeous black hunk of Muslim machismo. Please, don’t tell Gilbert. It was a long time ago, but my Murry is the jealous sort. Anyway, Omar’s men didn’t like him consorting with a fallen woman like me—they said it was for religious reasons, but personally, I think they were envious. I mean, I saw what some of their women looked like behind the hajib, and no wonder they’re willing to blow themselves up. Anyway, Omar ignored them until the Soviets captured and tortured him; he escaped but he was a changed man, even more radicalized and violent. He told me I had to leave his camp, or he’d allow his men to stone me to death for ‘being a whore,’ which is just proof of the ridiculous double standard for women in the Muslim world.”
“I take it you didn’t stay in contact with Omar,” Jaxon said.
“No, I’m allergic to rocks and being bludgeoned to death,” Stupenagel replied. “And he just wasn’t a pen-pal sort of guy. I did hear that he had joined up with the Taliban and was training in an al-Qaeda camp when the United States invaded, and that he ended up in Pakistan with the rest of the rats. But now he’s back home and that worries me.”
“So is tracking him the reason you’re here?” Blanchett asked.
“No, I had no
idea he was back in Trinidad until I got here and started nosing around,” Stupenagel replied. “My editor got a note from someone suggesting a story about the link between LNG tankers and potential Islamic terrorism, and I lobbied for the job. Anyway, I was talking to the national security minister about a group of fundamentalist Islamic schools in Trinidad and Tobago that are suspected of recruiting and financing terrorists when he mentioned that one of the schools was in Omar’s old hometown. I decided to visit my former lover’s old haunts when I picked up a rumor about a famous local jihadi who had returned to his native land. No one I spoke to seemed to know why he was back, other than that if the prodigal native son was in town, then something big was going down.”
“Anything else?”
“Hey, what’s with the non quid pro quo interrogation? Are you at least going to pick up my bar tab?”
“Let me buy you a drink…or four,” Jaxon offered.
Stupenagel smiled and signaled the bartender. “I’ll have a double and these kind gentlemen have offered to pay.”
The bartender looked surprised but shrugged and started making the drink. Maybe these two are kinkier than I originally guessed, he thought.
The reporter turned back to Jaxon. “A little bird told me to keep on eye on the Trinidad and Tobago Dairy Products, Inc., office across the plaza, which I was doing when I spotted you and your boyfriend…”
“I ain’t his boyfriend,” Blanchett bristled.
“Like I said, Ned, you might want to pretend,” Stupenagel teased. “In fact, I’d suggest a small public display of affection would go a long ways…”
“Ain’t no way I’m—”
“She’s yanking your chain again,” Jaxon interjected, rolling his eyes.
Stupenagel laughed. “Sorry, Ned, but it is funny to watch you turn the color of a ripe tomato. But seriously, remember that everybody is watching everybody else in this town. My sources tell me that Omar is supposed to show tonight.”
“You sure?” Jaxon said, leaning toward her, his eyes intensely searching her face.
“That’s what I’m told. I was thinking I might ‘accidentally’ run into him and see if I could get him to sit down for an interview.”
“That could be dangerous,” Jaxon replied.
“Don’t I know it,” Ariadne said. “I certainly won’t go anywhere out of the public view with him, but it’d be worth a try.” As she spoke, the reporter glanced across the plaza and then froze. She nodded toward a tall, thin black man walking through the plaza toward the office. “That’s him!”
Jaxon glanced over Ned’s shoulder. “You sure? I can’t see his face clearly.”
“I’m sure,” Ariadne replied. “When the Soviets caught him, they broke his legs and he walked with a funny hitch after that…sort of like John Wayne. That’s him, all right. You going to take him down?”
Jaxon shook his head. “Look, I’m going to trust you with this, but just so you know, we believe a lot of lives could be at stake. We know he’s involved, but he’s not the only one or even the most important. We’re hoping he’ll lead us to the others, as well as to whatever is being planned. I’d appreciate it if you’d hold off on your plans to talk to him. It might drive him underground.”
Ariadne sipped her drink before replying. “I know journalists have a reputation for getting the story at any cost. But most of us are responsible human beings, too. Just remember who scratched your back on this one when it’s time to play little birdie.”
Jaxon slapped a hundred-dollar bill on the bar. “I will. Now, do you mind if Ned keeps you company for a bit? I need to go see a man about a horse.”
“Mind? If I didn’t know Lucy—and if I wasn’t trying to be a good girl for one Gilbert Murrow—I’d be on this boy like white on rice,” Stupenagel said, smiling at a suddenly nervous-looking Ned Blanchett. “As it is I’m going to have to slow down on the babash or I might accidentally forget my newly discovered scruples.” She licked her full red lips, which made Ned blush even brighter.
Jaxon laughed. “Well, try to keep your hands off the boy. He’s got a job to do.” He turned to Blanchett. “I’m going to go have a talk out of sight with Tran and Jojola. Keep your eye on the store and let me know on the cell when Omar reappears.”
“Good luck getting service on your phone,” Stupenagel added. “Mine’s been spotty at best.”
“Ned knows where to find me if the cell won’t work,” Jaxon replied. “And thanks again, Ariadne, I won’t forget it.”
“Say hi to Tran and John,” Ariadne replied. She turned back to Ned. “Now, where were we…tall, dark, handsome, and oh so temptingly young?”
18
A TEAR ROLLED DOWN MARLENE’S FACE AS THE DRIVER OF the Lincoln, Detective Neary, turned right off of First Avenue onto Thirty-fourth and headed for the entrance of the Midtown Tunnel. “Remember when the kids were little and they would see who could hold their breath the longest whenever we’d drive through a tunnel?” she said, quietly changing the subject.
“Yeah, Zak cheated every time.” Karp laughed. “He’d only pretend to hold his breath and then after Giancarlo and Lucy exhaled, he’d make a big show of continuing to hold on—turn red, struggle, moan, and finally gasp as he let it all out. It was quite a show.”
Marlene smiled and nodded. “Yeah, and remember the argument the boys—they must have been about ten—had over whether it was the same hole you went into and came out of…just in a different place?”
“I don’t remember that one,” Karp admitted. “But it would make a good science fiction story.”
“Zak argued that tunnels were really just one hole—the same at both ends—and that you go in one end, drive around for a little while, and then pop out of the same hole but near your destination.” Marlene laughed, but then grew somber again as she looked out the window. “Life’s kind of like that…you enter one end of it, drive around for a bit, and then pop out at your destination. If you look back, you can see the hole you came out of, but everything you saw and did along the way gets sort of hazy or is a series of snapshots. You really have no idea how you got there. They can tell you all they want that you drove through a tube under the East River, but all you see is the road, the walls, and other cars and people.”
“Wow, getting a little existential, but I follow you,” Karp said. “I do suppose that in many ways life looks the same on both ends. For one thing, you start with nothing and you leave with nothing. But if you’re lucky, you find love, a family, and important work to do in between. If you can’t remember every detail later in life, maybe it’s because there were so many good ones, it’s impossible to recall each and every one.”
Marlene smiled and leaned over to rest her head on his shoulder. “That’s my guy. Mr. Sunshine on a Cloudy Day.”
Rain dripped like tears from the bare branches of the trees at Flushing Cemetery in Queens. Feeling a drop strike his bare head, Karp looked up at the lead-colored sky and then back at the sea of black umbrellas, hovering above the heads of those gathered around the gravesite that had been prepared to receive the body of Assistant District Attorney Stewart Reed.
Karp stole a glance at his wife, who was standing at his side. The expression on her face was tough to gauge as she stared straight ahead at the grave. But he knew that her mood didn’t have everything to do with Reed’s death and funeral. She was worried about Lucy.
It had been more than a week since their daughter had returned to New Mexico, and the only contact they’d had with her had been two text messages: one when she landed and another two days later saying she was fine and planned to enjoy some “meditative time” with friends in the mountains, without her cell phone. Marlene’s attempts to reach Lucy by text and by calling had failed and it appeared that her cell phone was turned off.
Karp tried to reassure his wife that neither of Lucy’s text messages had included the word “faith.” She and Marlene had settled on the word sometime back as a way of telling each other that she needed help in case
the messages were being monitored. Now Marlene lamented that it would have been better to use “faith” in all their correspondence, with the absence of the word indicating trouble.
When Karp tried to hint that she was being a little paranoid, it had not gone over well. And making matters worse, John Jojola was off, presumably with Jaxon and Ned, and so wasn’t in Taos to check up on her. Jojola was the former chief of police at the Taos Pueblo, but he’d left the job a couple of years earlier and now Marlene didn’t know who to call there “without sounding like a hysterical mom.”
However, Marlene had continued to fret, so Karp promised her on the way to the funeral services that he’d call the sheriff of Taos County and ask him to do a welfare check on Lucy. His wife had nodded gratefully as tears sprang to her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said, wiping at one on her cheek. “I’m so tired of worrying about my kids, especially knowing that I have only myself to blame for some of what they’ve been through.”
Karp looked around at the other mourners, nodding to those he knew. The turnout from the DAO reflected Reed’s popularity and their respect for him as a man and a prosecutor. All of the bureau chiefs were present, as were all of the ADAs from the Homicide Bureau who didn’t have a trial. Many other ADAs and other office personnel were present, too.
Karp noted that a number of NYPD plainclothes detectives and uniformed officers stood in a cluster off to themselves. He knew that many of them had worked with Stewbie on cases and were stating with their presence that he was one of them—a rare tribute for anyone outside the thin blue line.
Capture (Butch Karp Thrillers) Page 19
