Bishop's War (Bishop Series Book 1) (21 page)

“What has happened?” Gonzalo asked her.

“Ma, ma, ma…” was all she could manage to choke out.

Felix poured her a glass of water and she drank it greedily. She looked first to her husband Gonzalo and then turned her eyes to her beloved adopted son, John.

“Maria! They took Maria!” she screamed.

“How? How could they get to her?” John asked, his voice almost a whisper.

“A policeman came to the hospital. He said he worked for your friend the Captain. He said he had some papers for you. She went with him.”

“Pretending to be a cop!” Felix shouted.

“No, no. He was a cop. A lieutenant. All the other policeman there knew him. That’s why we thought she was safe. We didn’t think… we were all so sad about Chris and we just didn’t think. I’m so sorry, John. I should have gone with her,” Grasiella said, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“I’m glad you weren’t with her, Auntie. Otherwise you’d be dead now,” Felix said.

“He’s right. They wanted Maria. That means Amir wants to trade her for his explosives. It means she’s still alive,” John said, talking through the logic.

“Yeah, you nailed it. He wants the explosives back. And one other thing,” said Antonio.

“Let me take a wild guess. Me?”

“Yeah, you, primo. He called Marci’s phone to let us know he’s got her and what he wants. He’s calling back in ten minutes to speak to you directly.”

“Where’s the truck?” Gonzalo asked.

“It’s close. Couple blocks away in a private garage,” Antonio said.

“I’ll need some time to wire it all to blow on a timer. As soon as Amir gives us the time and place you gotta get me to that Con Ed truck on the double,” John said.

“No problem.”

“Auntie?”

“Yes.”

“Did you get the name of the cop that she left with?”

“Yes, yes. He gave me his card,” Grasiella said, as she handed it over.

“Lieutenant Adam Harbey, NYPD,” John read aloud. “I need a clean phone.” They had all handed their cell phones over to Antonio before going to the funeral home to avoid being tracked.

Antonio left the room momentarily and then quickly returned with a new cell. John punched in Captain Ryan’s number. Ryan picked up on the third ring.

“Hey Johnny, good to hear from you.”

“I think you’re gonna revise that statement. Adam Harbey, lieutenant. You know him?”

“Sure. Why?”

“He abducted my fiancé from the hospital and handed her over to Amir Khan.”

“There’s no way. Gotta be a mistake.”

“You think I’d be calling if we weren’t sure? All your men knew him and he gave my aunt his card. He wrote on the back, ‘Bishop, Amir wants to meet you.’ Sound like a mistake to you?”

“The guy’s a twenty-year vet. He’s about to make captain.”

“That ain’t gonna happen.”

“No shit. But if Harbey’s a terrorist mole then anyone can be.”

“Yeah, well, let’s focus on him for now. You said you wanted to help. What are you prepared to do?”

“John, I swear, this conversation stays between us. I’ll get you everything we’ve got on Harbey. You want to meet?”

“I don’t have time. Where are you?”

“Downtown, at One Police Plaza. The file will be waiting at the main information desk.”

“Thanks, Cap. I’m sending a guy to pick it up. Give me everything. Especially anything that’ll help me find him.”

“Gladly,” Ryan said. “And Johnny…”

“Yeah?”

“When you see him, put one right up his ass and tell him it’s from me.”

“Gladly,” John said before hanging up. He turned to speak directly to his cousin. “Antonio, can you send one of your guys down to One PP to get the Harbey file?”

Antonio snapped his fingers and a Valdez soldier moved from his post against the wall and hurried out the door. The room became suddenly still. There was now only silence as everyone in the room stared at the phone on the table. They all tried to control their breathing, as every breath seemed amplified, disturbing the quiet. Anxiously, they waited for Maria’s kidnapper and Chris’ killer to call.

Grasiella jumped when it finally rang. John flipped it open and put it on speaker.

“Yeah?”

“Is this Bishop?”

“Yeah. That you Amir?”

“It is. So you know I have your woman.”

“Do I? Put her on.”

Amir must have placed his hand over the phone because there was only muffled noise before Maria’s voice came through the speaker.

“Johnny?”

“I’m here, baby. You okay?”

“That traitor cop tased me. My body’s still shaking.”

“Just hang tight, sugar, I’ll be there soon.”

“Please hurry up and kill these guys. I really have to pee.”

Amir came back on. “Very brave and very beautiful. My compliments. Now, I don’t want to hurt her, but you know I will.”

“Let me guess. You want a trade. Me and the explosives for her?”

“Yes. You have my word that once I have all my C4 back, she is set free.”

“Then let’s schedule a meeting. When and where?”

“Midnight.”

“Where?”

“First, get in the truck and park between the orange cones on Ninth Street and Fourth Avenue. You will stay in the driver’s seat at all times. You have fifteen minutes from when we hang up the phone to get there. Once you are there I will call you back on this number and tell you where to go.”

“Fifteen minutes isn’t enough time.”

“That’s all you have. The timer starts when this line goes dead. At fifteen plus one I start slicing this pretty face. “

“Okay, okay. You’re in charge.”

“Yes, I know.”

“See you at midnight, Amir.”

“Bishop…”

“Yeah?”

“Your cousin Felix must come as well.”

“Felix?”

“Yes. He comes too, or no deal.”

“You got it. Make sure my girl isn’t harmed or you’ll never see your explosives. Understood?”

“Yes, yes of course. Until then.”

“Until then,” John said.

“Did you get a trace?” Antonio asked.

“Not enough time,” Kevin said.

“We didn’t think he’d be that careless, but we have to be ready for when he makes a mistake,” Antonio said.

“So the man wants to kill us both,” Felix said.

“Looks like it,” John said.

“Do you think he’ll let Maria go?” asked Grasiella.

“Auntie, I seriously doubt it. The only way to get her out of there is to take out Amir and his whole crew.”

“Why midnight?” Felix asked.

“Not sure. Maybe he needs some time to get his troops in place,” John said.

“The truck is on the way. It’ll be downstairs in three minutes and it’s only a five minute drive to Ninth Street and Fourth. I’ve already sent guys there to scout it out, but he picked a good spot. It’s an open avenue and his guys can see you from a long way off. They can watch you from a high rise apartment anywhere within twenty or thirty blocks,” Antonio said.

“At least we know where he’ll be,” Gonzalo said.

“Where?” Carlos asked.

Gonzalo walked over to the window and pulled back the heavy curtains. They all stared towards the East River and the massive structure of the Con Edison power plant. The huge maze of pipes and chimney towers bellowed thick white plumes of steam into the night sky.

“You’re right! The explosives are in a Con Ed truck, but there’s six power plants in Manhattan alone. We can’t be sure it’s that one,” Kevin said.

“That’s the biggest. That’s his target,” Gonzalo said firmly.

“Do you think he knows we’re only three blocks away?” Carlos asked.

“No, Con Ed was his target all along. We should have known from the truck,” Antonio said.

“There is more to this. He knows we will to try to stop him,” Gonzalo said, still staring out of the window.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Kevin said. “The East Fourteenth site produces power and steam for the Lower East Side and most of downtown. As I said, even if Amir blows it away, it’s only one of five Con Ed plants in Manhattan. A lot of the city will be in the dark for a long time, but the rest of it, especially the big commercial centers in midtown won’t be affected at all. There’s gotta be more to his plan unless he’s just trying to make it a symbolic act.”

“For us, the only thing that matters is that we get Maria back safely. We get her and kill Amir. If we can stop a city-wide blackout that is good, but it is not our primary mission.”

“Glad to hear you say that, Tio,” John said. “Let’s go, Felix.”

“Johnny, how you wanna do this?” Antonio asked.

“Alright, here’s what we’re gonna do…”

Chapter 28

Welcome Home

East Harlem

Khalid Mulan knew
he was going to die. Even if everything went according to plan, which rarely happened anymore, he still expected to be dead before sunrise. He also knew he shouldn’t be going home. He’d done everything he could to protect his family and not even Amir knew where he kept them. Still, with so many safe houses already destroyed, he felt uneasy as he watched for signs of danger from across the street. Neighbors moved about as they always did. The old Puerto Rican woman who held court on his stoop was sitting at her usual post gossiping with another woman from farther down the block and local kids were playing a game of touch football that was constantly interrupted by the cars going west on 117th Street. Everything appeared normal. Everything except for his stomach which kept rolling over and the hairs on the back of his neck which were standing straight up.

A voice from deep inside his head whispered a single word over and over again.
Run. Run. Run.
He couldn’t. Forces beyond his control drew him to his wife and daughters. He had to say goodbye. He had to kiss them all one last time before he died.

Khalid paused before going up the final flight of stairs leading to their top floor apartment in the six story walk up. He strained to hear his wife’s voice over the sounds of the building. The sounds of people talking and laughing. Of music playing. Sounds that came through the thin apartment walls, filling the hallway. He stared at the front door wondering if danger lay behind it. Everything seemed right. Only the rapid fire beating of his heart and the relentless voice in his head told him that something was actually very wrong.

His hand shook as he placed his key in the lock and carefully turned it, as if he could sneak up on whatever was waiting for him on the other side. The keys in one hand, his pistol in the other, he pushed the door open and took a quick step inside. He smiled and his whole body relaxed when he saw his wife and children sitting together at the table. His ears didn’t register a warning from the whistle of the blade. His body didn’t even react when it effortlessly sliced through skin, muscle, and bone without pausing. From what seemed like a great distance Khalid stared down at his own hand. Still holding the Berretta, it now lay at his feet on the floor. The fingers twitched slightly and the blood flowed steadily from the bloody stump.

His wife and daughters tried to scream. He hadn’t noticed the clear tape that covered their mouths when he walked in. They made muffled sounds, distorted and unintelligible.

The initial shock wore off and the pain from his missing hand brought him to his knees. Khalid clumsily tried to reach for his pistol with his left hand as he turned to see his attacker. The blade whistled again, this time striking his left shoulder. His left arm hung limply at his side, now numb and useless from the precise cut that severed the tendons.

His featureless attacker was covered from head to toe, dressed in a black burka worn by many Muslim women. Only the dark emotionless eyes were revealed. Even the hands were covered in cloth gloves, though one held the thin, slightly curved eighteen inch blade that dripped blood from its tip.

“Welcome home Khalid.”

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I am Omar.”

“Hah! You are not Omar. The Sword of Allah is a giant of a man.”

“I am no giant, and not even a man, but be assured Khalid, I am Omar.”

“To die by a woman’s hand,” he said with disgust.

“You find irony in that?”

He sighed. “I do, but what does it matter in the end? Death is death.”

“You could not be more wrong. It can be a swift and painless moment, or a long hard journey.”

“Aziz sent you?”

“You swore allegiance to him alone. When you ignored his order to kill Amir your fate was sealed.”

“I knew it was, but Amir is my brother. I couldn’t kill him, even if it means my own death.”

“What about the lives of your wife and children?”

“You are not here for them Omar. Kill me and be on your way.”

“Yes, I will. That is what will happen once you tell me where the meeting is.”

“What meeting?”

In a blur of motion Omar pulled a long thin dagger from somewhere inside the Burka and threw the knife across the room. Khalid screamed as it flew through the air and struck the chair just to the right of his youngest daughter’s neck. The lightning fast throw was so precise that it pinned her hair and made a shallow cut across her throat.

“Please Omar. Mercy. She is only five,” Khalid pleaded.

“I was her age when I began my training.”

Omar granted herself the rare moment of self-indulgence, drifting back in time to the small Punjab village in India where she was born to a family of struggling farmers who barely grew enough to survive. On her fifth birthday an old man appeared at her father’s door. Even by their meager standards he appeared poorly dressed, wearing little more than dirty rags. His brown skin was baked nearly black from the sun and he was layered in dust and dirt from his journey. Long tendrils of matted white hair cascaded down to his waist. Only the intricately hand-carved wooden staff that he carried indicated he might be something more than a wandering beggar.

Despite his appearance she had been drawn to him. When he spoke to her father he stared only at her and she boldly back at him. The old man said that he had traveled for months in his quest for her. He said that she was special. A rough jewel that he would shape into the finest warrior the world had ever known. The concept of their daughter becoming a fighter, or even that she was somehow special, was far beyond the reach of her parent’s limited view of the world. They saw only a willful and belligerent girl who could not be disciplined no matter how often or how hard they beat her. They offered him one of their sons instead, but the old man merely laughed at their ignorance. He tossed a bag of gold and jewels to her father, ending the discussion and her father’s life behind a plow.

She happily left with him the next morning. He walked ahead, moving fluidly, effortlessly. She remembered how he seemed to float silently across the ground, keeping a steady pace, never once looking back for her. Her little legs quickly tired, but he never slowed and when she fell too far behind she would sprint forward to catch up. Many hours and many miles later they stopped for lunch.

“How much farther?” she asked.

“A long way,” he answered.

“Where are we going?”

“Does it matter?”

“My feet hurt,” she said.

“I know they do, little one. Today is the first day of your training. There will always be pain at first. But remember, pain will pass. Not today, not tomorrow, nor the next. But soon your feet will no longer hurt and your legs will be strong.”

“Where are we going?” she asked again.

He raised his hand, pointing a long boney finger to the north. “To Pakistan little one, to Pakistan. To your new home in the northern mountains. More than a thousand miles from where we sit.”

“Should I be scared?”

“Are you scared of me?” he asked.

“No,” she said truthfully.

“Good. Fear nothing in this world. Your training will be hard. Very hard. But fear nothing. I will be with you through it all.”

On their second day of traveling the old man stopped and had her sit on a fallen tree. He stepped into the middle of the road. As if immune to the terrible heat from the glaring summer sun he stood there silently, effortlessly. He never moved, letting the swarming, biting insects do their worst. They feasted on his flesh, crawling into his nose and ears. Sensing he was waiting for someone she too sat in silence, though she constantly smacked at the attacking flies.

After many hours they appeared in the distance. The old man remained a statue, his back to them as they marched forward. When they arrived, ten men from her village, led by her father, surrounded him. They had not come for her. Greed drove them. Not content with the fortune that the old man had so casually given him, her father believed there must be more for the taking.

As they made their demands the old man appeared to be in a trance, oblivious to any danger. He kept still, with his eyes half closed and the wooden staff held casually at his side when the first two men came at him. Like a fleeting shadow seen through the corner of an eye, his assailants barely saw the movement and suffered dearly for it. One received a vicious kick, the other an upward strike from his palm. Just one blow each and they both lay dead in the road.

The old man yawned loudly before resuming his sleepy stance. The remaining eight became enraged by his indifference. Brandishing long knives and hatchets, they charged him from all sides. He twisted the staff and pulled out a gleaming sword. With the blade in one hand and its wooden sheath in the other it took him only seconds to end them all. He swept through them as if they were blind men, dancing around and under their clumsy thrusts, then slicing open stomachs and throats with deadly precision. Not one attacker laid a hand on him before he cut them down. The dusty road was quickly covered by a thick, dark red river of blood that flowed from the men of the village.

“Why weren’t they afraid of you?” she asked.

“Their eyes and instincts were blinded by their greed. They chose to see only a weak old man before them.”

“They were foolish,” she said.

“Yes, they were. Remember this lesson. People see what they choose to see. We will help them. We will hide behind their own stupidity and become invisible.”

“Will you teach me to fight like you?”

“Yes, but first you must learn to walk. Are you ready little one?”

“Yes,” she said.

Before following the old man she looked down upon her father’s broken body and stared into his lifeless eyes. She felt nothing. Her father was a stranger. A part of her past.

Trotting eagerly up the road towards her new life, she never glanced back. Even at that very young age she knew she had to focus on what lay ahead.

The many months of traveling transformed her. Her body grew taught and lean, her legs strong and powerful. Her bare feet became coated with thick impenetrable callouses that were hard as stone. Every step along their long journey had been both a lesson and an adventure. He showed her the unseen world around her. How to read the land to find water, food, and shelter. How to see, hear, and smell all the living things that remain hidden to the untrained eye. How to walk in the dark, feeling and sensing her way through the woods. He taught her how to use the natural world as an ally rather than an enemy.

After six months of walking they finally arrived at his home deep in the mountains. The small, one story cabin was built into the cliff face, sitting high upon a flat stone shelf. It would be her home for the next sixteen years.

He stopped calling her “little one.” She was instructed to call him Teacher, and he only addressed her as Student. He said she would be given a new name in time, but that time was a long way off. Again, he told her not to fear what was coming, only to survive it.

She learned to ignore and control pain. Pain from heat. Searing heat from long thin needles, glowing red from the fire, being pressed into her flesh by the Teacher. Pain from cold. Numbing cold from climbing snow covered mountains bare naked in the winter. Pain from thirst and hunger. Pain from the repeated blows she received in the daily combat drills as he taught her multiple fighting styles. Gut wrenching pain from the poison that he fed her in order to make her immune to it. Pain that took her near death over and over again.

In time she learned to use her body as an instrument of death. She could kill with her head, feet, elbows, or hands. Even a finger could deliver a lethal blow with an explosive force cunningly disguised within her diminutive frame.

She learned all manner of weapons. Pistols, rifles, explosives, the bow. An expert in all of these, she was truly a master of the blade. No one had ever survived a fight against her using a sword or knife.

Each evening, when the physical training was finished, the academics would begin. He taught her everything: from reading, writing and advanced mathematics, to economics, chemistry and linguistics. He taught her to cook, making her proficient in Eastern, French, Italian and Western creations. He even taught her how to drink without getting drunk. From a bare wooden table in the small cabin he showed her the world, spreading out maps and discussing every country and culture in great detail.

Every lesson drove her relentlessly towards one goal: molding her into a weapon and making her the world’s greatest assassin. He told her of her legacy and the history of those that came before her. It was a legacy of unparalleled success. His family, the Tringas, had been training elite killers for twelve centuries, one pupil at a time. In twelve hundred years of service they had never failed to execute an assignment.

On her nineteenth birthday she was given her new name and the name of her first target. From there the mysterious and deadly legend of Omar was born. Like her predecessors, Omar had never failed to complete a mission. The old man was now a very old man. She stayed with him during those times when she wasn’t working, though her visits were now infrequent. Her work kept her very busy.

After she was done with Khalid, Amir, and Bishop she would travel back to the cabin on the cliff, Omar thought wistfully. She wanted to see him one last time before he passed on.

Khalid groaned in pain, pulling Omar back to reality. She mentally scolded herself for losing focus. In her profession it was only her skill and discipline that kept her alive. Even a momentary lapse could prove fatal.

“One last time. Where is the meeting?” Omar asked, pointing the blade menacingly towards his family.

“You swear to me that they shall live?”

“You have my word.” She seemed to glide across the room towards his wife and children.

“What are you doing!?”

“Do you want them to watch you die Khalid?”

“Thank you, thank you,” he said.

He spoke softly to each of his daughters before Omar covered their heads with dark pillow cases from his bedroom. His wife struggled until he told her to stay calm and to remember him as he was in life and the love he would carry for her beyond death. He pursed his lips, sending her a kiss before her head disappeared under the dark cover.