Guardian (11 page)

 

Chapter Eighteen

“I
understand, sir.” Glenn sat behind his desk, phone pinched between his shoulder and his ear, and sorted through papers on his desk. “No more favors. Got it. Oh, I owe you one now. Fine.”

Glenn hung up on the director of the CIA and leaned back. “Putz.”

He checked his watch. Close to midnight. Probably should get some sleep. Mike was on a plane to Tel Aviv. Kitra was ready to pick him up when he arrived. And all the fires Mike had lit stateside had been extinguished.

Glenn considered feeling his ass, wondering if he had any left after what he'd gone through to cover up Mike's trail of destruction. Then he smirked. Too many were dead civilians, which meant his ass didn't mean much at all.

Cost of doing business, he concluded, and popped a cherry Tums in his mouth.

His phone rang again.

“For fuck's sake.” He picked up. “Deputy Cheatum.”

“Up late, aren't you, Deputy?”

He winced. Mr. “I own your soul” Steve Ogden. Probably calling for the favor now. Talk about timing. Why couldn't he buy a few hours of peace and quiet? “I'm the eye that never blinks.”

“Right, right.”

“What can I do for you, Steve?”

“Heard some interesting things.”

“I bet you did.” Glenn had to deal with the director's shit, he didn't have to deal with Steve's. Not right now, at least. “What's your point?”

“I'm guessing your boy isn't available at the moment, for me to use.”

“You'd guess right.”

“When will he be?”

“Not sure. I'll let you know as soon as I do.”

“Make sure that you do..”

“Yeah, yeah. I got it.”
I owe everyone right now.

Glenn hung up and cursed Mike under his breath.

Across the office the television was tuned to
Headline News.
It broadcasted the same news Glenn had heard earlier. All the media attention swarmed at the Democratic Convention. The Republican one followed next week, and all the flapping heads on television couldn't shut up about either of them. Glenn turned it off. The election was a little over two months away. He'd start caring in two months.

He turned to his computer screen and pulled up his e-­mail, checking for anything new before calling it a night. Just one. From FBI Director Frank Eton. The subject line read:
You'll love this.

He read the e-­mail out loud, just above a whisper. “We dropped the ball on our front, too. Should have had more than two agents on the house. Luckily, we were smart enough to rig some surveillance cameras. Check out the attachment.”

Glenn double-­clicked on the attachment. The computer scanned it for viruses before it opened several pictures from the Greengrass house. One was a shot from above the front door. Another from a hallway inside. Several more from various angles. All showing the same man. Medium height. Shaved head. Broken nose. Middle Eastern complexion. A few were nice close-­ups of his mug.

“You magnificent bastard.” Glenn laughed and returned to the e-­mail, reveling in the photos. “I've got your face.”

His phone rang a few minutes later. This time the sound of it didn't make him cringe. Glenn answered but never took his eyes off his screen. “Deputy Cheatum.”

“Did you see the photos, Glenn?” Eaton asked.

“Yes, I did. Thank you very much, Director.”

“You and I have known each other too long for formalities.”

“Thank you very much, Frank.”

“Photos are being distributed far and wide. This fucker will not get out of the country.”

“I know he won't. And when you catch him, how about handing him over to me?”

“Done. I don't want to keep this guy on any official record. As soon as we get him, he's yours. And then I never want to see him again.”

“You got it.”

“Say it, Glenn. I want to know that family and my two agents will be avenged.”

“No one will ever see him again.”

“Good. And this stays between us, right?”

“You don't have to ask that.”

“Nice talking to you, Glenn.”

Glenn hung up and drummed his fingers on his desk and whistled as if a naked model instead of a murderer was on his screen. “You're mine, fucker.”

R
ather than fly out of Yuma, Mayyat had decided to drive to Phoenix and lay low for a day at a hotel. He booked a Southwest flight from there to Houston, where he would switch to a United flight to Amsterdam. Time to leave the US for good.

Now he stood in the check-­in line behind three extremely sunburnt tourists and about a dozen others waiting to check luggage and receive their boarding passes. Mayyat tapped his foot and glanced at the time on the clock behind the Southwest desk. A little over an hour before his flight.

He looked around the terminal, taking in ­people and their faces. Happy. Content. Bored. All their moods reflected in their smiles or droopy eyes. Then he noticed a security guard about fifty feet away watching him and talking into a radio. Mayyat shifted his eyes away and focused on the back of the head of the person in front of him.

I am burned,
he thought, and risked another glance at the security guard. Still talking on the radio and looking at him.

Mayyat played at checking his watch. Then he slid out of the line and headed for the exit. As he turned, though, he found two more security guards approaching, both with nine-­millimeters holstered. He considered running but resisted. He knew his passport would clear with no problem. Maybe someone in line had grown paranoid with an Arab flying with them.

“Excuse me, sir,” the guard on the left said. “Do you mind coming with us?”

“What is this about?” Mayyat asked with the Spanish accent. “My flight leaves in little over an hour.”

“Please, just come with us. Everything will be explained.”

I could kill them
.
Overpower each and snap their necks before they even realized what had happened.
But he could not account for the guard who had been on the radio. If he was behind him, the third guard could shoot him without any issues. And he had no firearm to neutralize him from a distance. No, he had no choice but to go.

“Very well,” Mayyat said. “Lead the way.”

G
lenn rubbed his eyes, reached out and smacked his alarm clock off. He sat up and coughed and rotated his head in a circle, trying to work a kink out. No luck. The sharp stabbing pain danced into his shoulders.

“Shit,” he said, and pushed out of bed.

He stumbled to the kitchen and fired up the coffeemaker. Then turned to the window in the living room. Still dark out.

Four hours of sleep every day for nine years. He had somehow grown used to operating on so little sleep. He wasn't sure how, because even in his days as a field agent, he always managed to find a way to snag seven hours a day, even if they were catnaps standing up against walls in listening outposts or propped against a Dumpster in an alley in some third world shithole. He figured—­no, convinced himself—­it was the price he had to pay for his position at the Agency. And one he'd accepted and, for some reason, hadn't mind paying. But the first few seconds every morning still hurt like a son of a bitch. It was in those seconds he often wished he could just flick the world off and call it quits and retire. It only lasted a little while, though. Then he started running through the work he still had to do and forgot about telling the world to kiss his ass.

The coffeemaker percolated. Glenn moved to the freezer, opened it, and pulled out a Jimmy Dean sausage biscuit from a stack. The only other thing in there was an empty ice cube tray. He freed the biscuit from its cellophane, wrapped it in a paper towel, and threw it in the microwave. Then he turned to the cupboard and pulled down a paper plate. A cupboard of nothing but a stack of paper plates.

The microwave beeped. Glenn removed the steaming biscuit, unwrapped it, and placed it on the plate. After he poured himself a cup of coffee, he took his breakfast over to the small table on the other side of the kitchen and sat down. Chow time.

His cell phone rang as he took his third bite of the biscuit. Glenn chewed it fast, chased it with a slug of coffee, and grabbed his cell phone from the kitchen counter.

“Deputy Cheatum.”

“It's Frank. We've got him.”

“Where?”

“Phoenix, getting ready to board a flight to Houston and on to Amsterdam. Looks like our boy is done snuffing ­people on our soil.”

“Who made the collar?”

“TSA security guard recognized him.”

Glenn rapped his knuckles on the Formica. “Where do you want to make the handoff?”

“Phoenix. I don't want to document this guy traveling. Can you pick him up?”

Glenn checked his watch. “Yeah. Give me six hours. I'm on a plane in forty minutes.”

“You've got it.”

Glenn typed a quick text message to Mike once he was done with Frank. It read:
We got your boy from the Metro.
Then he hit Send.

That should make you feel a little relieved,
he thought.

He set the cell phone down, returned to the table and finished his coffee and biscuit.

 

Chapter Nineteen

K
harija blinked and saw light and for a moment was happy. No more swirling darkness. No more flies and locusts.

A dream. An insane dream.

He tried to sit up but could not move. His arms were pinned tight against his sides. His legs would not budge a millimeter. It was like when the black cloud had enveloped him in the dream, only colder and without all the insects.

He lifted his head. Strap after leather strap secured his nude body to the surface of a metal table. It was then he realized the cold was due to the stainless steel pressing against his back and thighs.

Like Gazzar's table.

His nerves quaked as his eyes darted back and forth, taking in the details around him. A bare room. Concrete block walls painted white. Fluorescent track lights. Nothing else.

Except for a smaller table next to him. On it, spread out on a white cloth, were a rubber mouth bit, a syringe, and an amputation saw.

Kharija closed his eyes and shivered.

Was it Caldwell? Had the American caught him? Was this his revenge?

No. It could not be. Not that fast.

But Kharija admitted to himself he had no idea what day it was now. How long had he been unconscious? How long had he been pinned to this table?

He struggled to remember what had happened last. Before the blackness enveloped him. He had been in the motel room, waiting for Nassir's men to arrive. Then what?

Then the shadow dancing in the light under the door. It had consumed the light.

Kharija remembered clearly now. It had moved into the room. The shadow had not retreated. It had invaded, gaining access through the crack under the door.

Allah, help me.
The black cloud. It was real. And it swallowed me.

He looked back down at his body. Little red welts dotted his skin. He winced and his face ached. He swallowed and could not choke the spit down his throat. Swollen and raw.

Bites. The locusts and the flies swarming inside the cloud. Had been real.

Something scraped behind him. He jerked but could not see. A hinge squeaked. A door shut. Footsteps. Kharija tried his best to see who was walking toward him but failed.

Then his vision was filled with the person's presence, and he wished the flies and locusts had eaten his eyes out of their sockets.

“Hello, Kharija.” Nassir smiled down at him. “It seems you have come to the end of the road.”

“How?”

“Did I find you? Why, you told me where you were, remember?”

“How did you—­you—­”

“Oh, I see.” Nassir rubbed the tips of his fingers together. “You are wondering about the entity that secured you for me.”

“The black cloud.”

“It is much more than a black cloud.” Nassir fingered one of the welts on Kharija's left arm. “As you no doubt realize. You would never understand but you do realize.”

Kharija blinked and shivered as he recalled the flies and locusts. “What was it?”

“Still so easily distracted.” Nassir walked to the end of the table, standing near Kharija's feet with his back to him. “You were to capture Caldwell but you allowed your family to distract you. Now you are my prisoner and facing certain pain and death, yet you wonder about something you cannot possibly comprehend. Let us leave it as a being supernatural in origin.”

“Why not send your men to apprehend me? I was expecting them.”

“You took out an entire team from the order, Kharija. I respect your ability to evade capture. As a result, you required something more difficult to kill or evade.”

Kharija closed his eyes, praying Malika and Rasha were still alive. “If you control such supernatural things, why use me in the first place?”

“Because you were useful for a time. You revealed the order. Taught me things I had not known. Confirmed other things I've suspected for a very long time. You betrayed and killed its members. And you actually succeeded for a moment in capturing Caldwell. But you were also sloppy. You forced me to use more extreme measures.”

“That thing—­”

“Do not refer to it as a thing!” Nassir walked to Kharija's head and bent over in his face. “And do not assume I control it. It does not serve. I was lucky it agreed to do me this favor. In a way, Kharija, you are special. Not many humans have the good fortune of looking upon one and surviving.”

“What is it?”

Nassir smirked. “A type of demon, Kharija. At least, what mankind would consider a demon.” He straightened up and smoothed out his suit. “To me, it is much more.”

Kharija blinked back tears, terrified beyond his wits. “Much more?”

“Yes. You see, I understand what it is like to love a child and what it is like to grieve for one when it is lost. But some things are worse than death.” Nassir flexed his right hand into a fist. “Things like being imprisoned.” He opened his fist and swept his hand across the room. “Things like being turned into a shapeless and immortal mass.”

“I do not understand.”

“Of course you do not. You are not meant to. Nor do I have the inclination to explain. Let us leave it at that and move on to the business at hand.”

“I would have succeeded. I still can. Caldwell will come. This is not over yet.”

“You are correct, it is not over yet. Caldwell will come. I believe the last few murders may actually draw him here. But your physical involvement is at an end.”

“Please, Nassir. I can still be of use.”

“And you will be.” Nassir lifted the syringe from the table. “I had much the same idea you had. Bait is wonderful. But certain fish require certain bait. Caldwell needed a reason to come out of the shadows. Something enticing enough to risk going after. And you were the perfect bait. But your methods were poor and shoddy.” Nassir placed the syringe down. “I realized this quickly when I heard you had started using your credit card in Haifa before you knew for sure Caldwell was coming. Why not just parade your face outside Mossad headquarters? Or call the order and ask for a meeting?”

Kharija did not respond.

“You were so desperate to save your family, you rushed what was a decent plan. Impatience. One of the many weaknesses you humans suffer from.”

Kharija rolled his head to the side and made eye contact. “You humans?”

Nassir grinned. “Again, you would not comprehend it even if I tried.”

Kharija rolled his head away and stared at the ceiling.

“Once you escaped the order in Haifa, I decided it was time to take care of this myself. Caldwell is too precious to let you foul this up any further. So, we will continue your plan, but the correct way.”

“By using me as bait.”

Nassir lifted the amputation saw. The fluorescent light glinted off the blade. “Bait he will actually catch.”

“Nassir, I know you have no intention of sparing my life now,” Kharija said, tears welling in his eyes and blurring his vision. “But please, spare my wife and daughter. They are innocent in all of this. Their only fault is being loved by me.”

“I understand, Kharija. I truly do. You must understand, however, that I cannot spare the dead.”

Kharija arched his back, the leather strap across his chest digging into the flesh over his sternum, and screamed.