Fear City

by F. Paul Wilson

  Which he richly deserved. But Jack wasn’t into pain right now. He was into answers: Who, what, where, when, why? Reggie had already supplied the what and where. As far as who went, they had three, al-Thani being the latest, but certainly not the last. Jack wanted every who to pay, but before they paid, more than anything, he wanted to know why. Why had a sweet, harmless creature like Cristin been singled out for torture and murder?

  When Burkes and Rob stepped away from the contraption, al-Thani was suspended within the chrome frame. Leather supports ran across his chest, his pelvis, and his knees, both front and back.

  “What is this thing?”

  La Chirurgienne glanced at Burkes. “I thought he was new.”

  “The lad’s new at everything.”

  “Ah. Well, then.” She pressed a button on a steel shelf against the wall. “Voilà.”

  The frame began to rotate along its long axis. Within seconds al-Thani was facing the floor.

  “You see? No need for lifting and turning. All parts of him are accessible.”

  “I have a list of questions we wish answered,” Burkes said.

  She thrust out her hand. “Give.”

  “Do you want me to stay and write down his answers?”

  “I work alone. And I record everything. There’s a waiting room outside. Go there and … wait.”

  “Want us to strip him before we go?” Rob said.

  “Not necessary.” She pressed another button to rotate al-Thani faceup again. “I find proximity to a naked human, how shall we say, distasteful. I can cut away to expose whatever area I wish to explore.”

  Explore … Jack shuddered at the way she said that.

  2

  Dane Bertel idled in the two lanes of cars waiting for the left-turn signal that would allow them to turn off Dolley Madison Boulevard into CIA headquarters. The light took forever and never failed to back up the traffic this time of morning. A lot of people worked in there and the Company had never been into staggering shifts.

  Which was another reason why Dane was glad he’d been a field agent instead of an analyst. Sure, analyst was safer, but analysts had to wait in this backup every morning. He knew it would drive him crazy.

  He dried his sweaty palms on his suit pants. He admitted to being a little tense. Hadn’t been back in a while. He’d left under a cloud, and he’d be viewed through that cloud until he could blow it away with the City Chemical bill.

  He saw a brown Datsun station wagon coming the other way brake for no good reason as it passed him, then speed up again. Drivers around here were terrible.

  He concentrated on the red light way ahead. It should be changing soon. He hoped he made the turn this cycle and didn’t have to wait through another.

  3

  The return route from an early delivery near Fort Marcy Park brought Aimal Kasi west along Dolley Madison Boulevard. As usual at this time, he passed the two lanes of eastbound cars headed for the CIA entrance. As he did every morning, he wondered if this would be the day he would strike that blow for jihad.

  He’d had no contact with Kadir and Mahmoud and the others. But as much as he yearned to know if they’d made any progress on the bomb, he knew he could not risk asking them over the phone.

  Traveling in this direction, he could see the faces of the drivers. He stared at the idling rows of spies behind their wheels, wondering if he would ever recognize one of them on the street. And then he almost slammed on the brakes, but stopped himself in time.

  He’d recognized one of those faces.

  On a night almost exactly two years ago, he had been waiting in a rented truck near a Hertz lot in Alexandria. He’d received a call from New York telling him to hand the truck over to Kadir and an American for a mission that would bring riches to jihad.

  An older American with gray hair had knocked on the truck window asking for directions to the Pentagon. Aimal had been concerned that he seemed more interested in the interior of the truck cab than the directions Aimal offered. And then, after Kadir and his American companion had left in the truck, Aimal had seen the gray-haired man racing after them. He had been driving a pickup then. This man was in an old sedan, but Aimal recognized that face. After he’d learned that the rental truck had been blown up while full of brother soldiers of God, he’d vowed never to forget it.

  The man with that face sat in a car near the end of the line.

  Here was the sign he had been waiting for. Here was Allah pointing the way.

  The eastbound and westbound lanes were separated by a flat grassy median no more than twenty feet wide. Aimal swerved across it and parked at the end of the left-turn line. He quickly pulled the assault rifle from under the blanket behind the front seat, worked the slide, and then hurried up the line of cars.

  Along the way he decided that it didn’t matter who was in that car—the same man or someone who simply looked like him. Allah had given him a sign: Time to declare war on the spies.

  When Aimal reached the car, the driver looked up at him. Yes! The same man!

  “Allāhu Akbar!”

  Aimal fired three shots at his shocked face, shattering the window and blowing his head apart. Then he walked back down the line, firing randomly into other cars as he passed. He killed or wounded at least five more before he reached his car. Tossing the rifle into the rear, he roared back across the median and sped away.

  “Allāhu Akbar!”

  4

  “I must say, I am impressed,” the woman said in her French-accented English.

  Nasser opened his eyes and squinted into the overhead surgical lamp. It wasn’t aimed at his face, but close enough. He couldn’t ask what impressed her because he was gagged.

  The woman, La Chirurgienne, never shut up. Was it because she lived alone with only a rat-size dog to talk to day in and day out? Or was keeping a running commentary on what she was doing a part of her technique? Simply another tool: ramble on and on in her French accent until her victims pleaded for death.

  “I am quite precise in my approach to interrogation. I abhor brutality—the fists, the truncheons, the waterboarding. And the mutilation of genitalia—dégoûtant! So crude. So unnecessary. Brutality is ultimately counterproductive. Knock a man unconscious—concuss and contuse and confuse his brain and then expect coherent answers? Break his jaw and expect him to talk? Absurd. The work of sadists, or worse—idiot sadists.”

  He heard a buzz nearby and felt a pain in his right arm, but it seemed far away. More like the memory of pain.

  “I am not a sadist. I am a trained physician. I started out as a surgeon—thus my appellation, La Chirurgienne—but I switched to anesthesiology. And in the course of relieving and blocking pain, I became interested in pain itself. So no, I am not a sadist. I am not even an interrogator. Not really. I prefer to think of myself as a researcher—a nociresearcher, to be exact—and these interrogations allow me wonderful opportunities for pain research.”

  That’s your vital lie, Nasser thought. Self-delusion is a wonderful thing.

  Another buzz, another faraway pain.

  “You are quite fascinating, Monsieur al-Thani. I have exposed your right brachial nerve and have been sending jolts of current through it. You should be screaming and flopping around like a beached trout—or at least attempting to.”

  What an awful image.

  “Which leads me to believe you have been taught a central blocking technique. And very effectively, I might add. Now who would teach you something like that, hmmm? The question is rhetorical, as I know you are gagged. This room is soundproofed but I find the sound of screaming offensive, and it disturbs Charlot. So, even though you are not screaming now, you might begin to. So we shall leave the gag in place, n’est pas?”

  He closed his eyes again. Through the Order he had learned the ancient art of Entungfer, handed down from the First Age. It wasn’t for everyone. Some minds could only partially grasp it, others not at all. Nasser had taken to it like the proverbial duck to water. He’d been delighted
to become an Entungfer adept because it qualified him for the position of actuator within the Order. At this moment, however, he had other reasons to rejoice for his adept status.

  “Pain, you see, does not happen in the peripheral tissues. It happens in the center of perception: the brain. The pain fibers—we call them nocireceptors—record the damage to the somatic tissues and report it to the brain. But if the brain doesn’t receive that message, due to, say, a local anesthetic nerve block or a severed spinal cord, no pain is perceived. Without the brain, pain does not exist. The tissue damage is just the same, but … no pain.

  “Now what you are doing, and doing extremely well, is controlling your pain pathways through the brain. Animals do that when threatened. When a mouse sees a cat, its nervous system anticipates tissue damage that will cause pain. Pain can be incapacitating, and that would lead to even more tissue damage, so mice and other fauna have developed the ability to put a temporary damper on the perception of pain. It’s not a conscious thing in them, but in you it is. But it doesn’t come naturally. It has to be taught. And during our time together, you will tell me where you learned this. Not for your captors’ sake, but for my own.”

  I’ll die first, Nasser thought.

  He had no doubt that this was his last day—or at best, next-to-last day alive. He had accepted that. But he wished to determine how he would die. And he wished to die in silence.

  Suddenly he began to rotate.

  “You have somehow learned to activate the periaqueductal gray area in your midbrain. You are doing more than secreting endorphins to keep the pain at bay, you are directly interfering with pain-pulse transmission. A nociresearcher’s dream. But let’s have a look at your spinal cord, shall we?”

  The frame stopped rotating and he found himself staring at the gleaming white tile of the floor. He felt a tug on the back of his thobe, heard it tear, then—

  “Ça alors! What have we here? You are scarred. No, I take that back. You have been branded.”

  Nasser knew she was looking at the Order’s sigil on his back. Question was: Would she recognize it?

  “You belong to the Septimus Order.”

  First question answered. Now for the second: Will it matter?

  “This is a complication. I have done some work for your Order.”

  Nasser had heard La Chirurgienne mentioned between Trejador and Drexler as some sort of interrogator of last resort, but never any details.

  “This presents a bit of a, how you say, an énigme. I believe conundrum is the English word. The Septimus Order is very secretive. Your captors have led me to understand that you are to die after they obtain the information you are withholding. If the authorities find you and identify your brand, it will embarrass the Order. If the Order recognizes evidence of my handiwork on your remains, its High Council will be unhappy with me. Not because I have participated in your demise, dear man—they understand that I am a freelancer and not beholden to anyone. And besides, I am never the one to administer the coup de grâce. No, they will be incensed by the fact that I allowed the Order to be embarrassed by your death.”

  He wished he weren’t gagged. He’d tell her to let him sneak out and all would be forgotten.

  “But I believe I know a way to please all parties.” She patted his back. “Except you, of course.”

  He gasped with the sudden stab of pain at the rear of his left shoulder. He’d relaxed his Entungfer block while she’d prattled on. He set it up again and the pain faded. What was she doing?

  As if reading his mind, she said, “The simplest thing is to remove the brand. Then if your body is found, you will not be connected to your precious Order and I won’t have to answer pointed questions as to why I allowed the organization to be embarrassed.”

  He imagined from the far-off burning pain that she’d cut a circle in his skin and was fileting it off.

  “Now. How to dispose of it?”

  A grim thought slithered though his brain: You could always salt cure it and make it into a key fob.

  “I know. I’ll just cut it into strips and … Charlot! Here, dear boy. A little treat for you.”

  The rapid clatter of tiny claws on the tile and then her Yorkie skittered into view.

  Oh, no. She wasn’t …

  “Ready? Catch.”

  The tiny dog leaped and caught a bloody strip of flesh in midair.

  “Chew carefully, mon cherie. Human skin is tougher than you would expect.”

  She was feeding his branded skin to her dog.

  5

  After the shooting, Aimal Kasi had raced east on Dolley Madison Boulevard to Fort Marcy Park. He waited with his assault rifle across his lap, ready for the police to appear. He would not be taken captive, and he would not die without a fight.

  But after waiting for an hour and a half, and seeing no sign of police or any suspicious-looking cars, he started up the Datsun and headed out. He did not take Dolley Madison, however. The George Washington Memorial Parkway ran right by the park so he took that to the Beltway, then took the Dulles toll road to Reston.

  He drove past his apartment complex twice but saw no police activity, and no one watching. He rushed inside with the rifle and hid it under the living room couch. Then he grabbed whatever cash he had, a change of clothes, and fled back to his car.

  He had just killed or wounded six CIA employees. Why weren’t the authorities swarming all over him?

  6

  Jack was scanning through a year-old issue of Sports Illustrated as he half watched the flickering TV in the waiting room. Just like any other doctor’s office, La Chirurgienne’s waiting room had old paneling, industrial-grade carpeting, poor lighting, an ancient TV, and older magazines.

  The cable TV news channels were all amped up about the morning’s shootings outside CIA headquarters in Virginia—two dead and three wounded. The killer was still on the loose but described as an Arab male of about thirty. The names of the dead and wounded were being withheld until families were notified.

  If Bertel were here, Jack knew what he’d be saying: And now it begins.

  Maybe … maybe …

  Jack put down the magazine as La Chirurgienne sauntered into the waiting room, pulling off a pair of bloody surgical gloves as she entered. Her dog trotted behind, chewing on something.

  “No results yet, I am afraid.”

  Burkes looked perplexed. “Really? Why not?”

  “He has learned blocking techniques I have never encountered before. Fear not, I can get around them. It is simply going to take a little longer.”

  “How much longer?”

  “Not much. Right now I am to have lunch. I suggest you do too. The Tower Diner on Queens Boulevard is very close and very good.”

  Burkes’s voice dropped to a grumble. “I thought we’d have our answers by now. We don’t want people further up the line to take off for parts unknown.”

  “I understand. Not much longer now. Go. Eat. You will have your answers. I have never failed.” As they turned to go, she said, “Un moment, s’il vous plaît. I found this under his skin.”

  She fished a small gelatin capsule from a pocket and handed it to Burkes.

  “Under his skin? What is it?”

  “Be careful. I believe it is a hydrogen cyanide solution.”

  Jack leaned in for a better look. “Really?”

  “I noticed a small lump on the inner surface of his left upper arm and cut it out.”

  “A suicide pill?” Jack said.

  She gave him a tolerant smile. “Not to be swallowed. Merely ruptured under the skin. The poison leaks into the bloodstream and inhibits cytochrome c-oxidase.”

  “I knew that,” Rob said with a grin.

  Dr. Moreau gave him an icy stare. “It prevents cells from using oxygen. Therefore the heart and central nervous system, which use the most oxygen, are the first to die. When inhaled as a gas, or directly entered into the bloodstream—as this capsule would do—death is almost immediate.”

  “Blo
ody hell,” Burkes muttered. “Who is this guy?”

  Dr. Moreau looked like she had more to say, but instead she turned and walked away.

  Burkes pocketed the capsule, then turned to Jack and Rob. “Well? Hungry?”

  Rob put on a French accent, obviously trying to sound like Dr. Moreau but coming out more like Inspector Clouseau. “Ah theenk zee Towaire Dine-aire on Queens Boulevaird sounds gewd.”

  Jack laughed. “Fine with me.” He could always eat.

  As they trooped out to the van, Jack thought about Kadir’s sister—he’d never got her name—and how he’d promised to follow her brother today. The way things had gone this morning, that was going to be an unkept promise.

  Whatever her name, she was on her own today.

  7

  Since Ramadan left her unable to eat lunch on her lunch break, Hadya walked up Kennedy and passed the mosque going north and south. She saw no sign of the pickup truck. The young man or the old man might be using a different car, but she saw no one like them in any of the parked vehicles.

  Had they given up on the mosque or was the young one following Kadir as he had promised?

  She hurried the two miles to Mallory Avenue. Along the way she traded her hijab for a blue-and-red plaid scarf. She felt she’d draw less attention that way, especially when she leaned forward like an old woman. From a distance, in her long, baggy cloth coat, she could easily be taken for someone in her sixties.

  She positioned herself at the Virginia Avenue intersection. Maybe the green car—the young man had called it a Chevy Nova—would pass. She watched for it up and down Mallory and almost missed it to her south as it pulled out of Claremont Avenue onto Mallory and came her way. She hurried after it but didn’t have to go far because it soon turned into a storage facility called the Space Station.

  Taking a chance, Hadya hurried back to Claremont and walked along until she reached West Side Avenue. She found a shadowed corner at the base of the rail terminal that shielded her from the cold wind, and waited. She didn’t have much time to spare, but she had a feeling they wouldn’t be long at the storage place.