Cold Snap (42 page)

"He's a traitor. He works for the American
Army."

"If America's such a shithole, what are you
all doing here?"

Ari felt dozens of eyes shift away from Abu
Jasim and pierce him.

"No, I work for Saddam here," said Ari,
taking the opportunity to present a cocky strut and forging into
the ninjas. He thought he heard Lawson say something about not
getting them killed. "Don't shit with Saddam! Look at him, crazy as
a Ramadan pudding. You know what he's like. He'll blow us all into
Hell if you piss him off. So you'd better take off your masks!
Hasan Al-Jamil, Abu ibn Al-Quassim! Are you here? Come on!"

"Hasan isn't here," said Mohammed over his
shoulder. "You shot him in both arms, remember? He's laid up."

"Will he survive?" Ari asked.

"Praise be to Allah."

Ari grunted. Only a few of the ninjas removed
their ski masks. Ari decided not to press the others. This could
still easily end in disaster. He went up to Rhee's nephew and
helped him to his feet. He fingered the zip tie binding his
wrists.

"Anyone here got a knife?" he called out.

No response.

"All this hardware, and no knife?" Ari shook
his head and shoved the nephew in Ben's direction. "Go stand over
there. We'll take care of you, later."

"Kill him!" someone shouted.

"Him?" asked Ari. Then his eyes widened
innocently. "You mean me?"

"He knows all of us! We can't let him out of
here!"

"I won't say I know all of you," said Ari,
sauntering over to one of the unmasked men. "But Ammo Eshoo, I
happen to know. He was accused of murdering Munir Yonan. Did any of
you know Munir? Personally, I find the murder of one of my racial
kin by another repugnant."

Regarding his dark complexion, they returned
blank stares.

"He's lying!" said Ammo, backing several
steps. "I escaped during the Uprising, like most of you!"

"No, you ran away from Dora two years after
the rebels were put down because Munir caught you robbing him and
you slit him gut to throat."

"You're lying!"

"Go fuck your brother. He was in on the
killing. He's here too, isn't he?" Ari drifted his eyes over the
crowd.

"It's DISGUSTING!" Abu Jasim strutted through
the ninjas, his launcher shifting across his prospective targets.
"Good Arabs associating with Chaldean and Assyrian scum. Only in
America!" He spat. Obviously, he had forgotten his own dealings
with the Chaldean Mafia. He whirled on Mohammed. "Where's your
self-respect?"

"He left it in Nineveh when he torched Abdul
Ghafour al-Mutlaq ," said Ari. "I saw the video you made on Route
12."

Sayid raised his hand against the laser and
turned to Ari. "That's not..."

"Possible? Obviously, someone found it and
sent a copy on to me." He had to make certain no one here knew of
his connection to CENTCOM. "I think American intelligence did it as
an insult. They enjoy seeing Arabs kill Arabs, no matter what their
news commentators say."

Lawson's hidden sniper has painting
Mohammed's forehead with the targeting light, making him look like
a Hindu deity.

"Why would you do that, Mohammed? Can I take
a guess? First off, you and your companions re-entered Iraq through
Syria, an expensive endeavor that would also require connections;
both of which the Chaldean Mafia probably possess. You…or whoever
pulls his strings..." Ari nodded at the driver of the van. "...had
approached the Chaldeans with a business proposition. You had found
out about a Korean importer who sidelined in illegal immigration.
They also happened to make extra change selling novelties to
tourist shops. I think you found out about the Korean's immigration
business by accident, when you asked some Iraqi immigrants about
the trinkets they were wearing. The Koreans probably couldn't sell
them fast enough, and unloaded them as free gifts to their
customers—including the immigrants. You approached the Koreans with
a proposition. If the Koreans would share their connections, you
would supply him with a shitload of Iraqi customers, with himself
taking a cut as middleman. The Koreans said sure, if he could find
enough would-be émigrés to make it profitable. Were they kidding?
The Iraqis couldn't leave town fast enough, and a lot of those
ended up with the Chaldeans. Everything went well for a few years.
But then came the first fuckup. One of your business partners went
off to Iraq for some reason. I don't know why, but he was probably
stiffing the Chaldeans. You boys have a lot of relatives in Nineveh
Province, and that's where Abdul Ghafour was caught and flambeaued.
Were you shipping guns to your kin in Hadra? Was Abdul Ghafour
diverting them to Sunni rebels? That would piss the Chaldeans off
no end, so they ship Abdul Ghafour's buddies off to Iraq to settle
the matter...very graphically, I might add. How am I doing?"

"You started cold and are getting colder,"
said Mohammed.

Ari glanced at the office window. There was
no sign of the manageress. She had no inclination to begin writing
down license plate numbers. There was no sign of a security camera.
He ignored Mohammed's denial and continued:

"So, with that problem settled and the four
assassins safely back in the States, everybody's happy again. Only
suddenly, out of the blue, someone plants a disease into the A-Zed
computer and downloads all its data. The hacker was looking for
evidence of a cash-for-crash ring, and got more than he was
bargaining for."

Which was less than the truth, but Ari was
stabbing for the eyes. The heart would come later.

"The Chaldeans found out that their illegals
had been compromised, they told you or your controller to fix it,
or else...and here we are. Poor Sung-Soo Rhee thought he had taken
care of the problem by trashing his computers. But that wasn't good
enough for you, because you knew Rhee would have to reload all that
information from his backups or go out of business. So he goes in
with his friends, tortures Rhee for the passwords, makes a copy of
the immigrant list and trashes Rhee's computer, and were probably
going to cut his throat, but...well, you were interrupted. And now
here we are. Now let that be a lesson to you Chaldean boys: never
trust an Arab."

Abu Jasim glowered at him.

"Moreover, if you think you can go home now
and then bump us off one by one at your leisure, think again. I
don't know about this cloud business. For all I know, Immigration
is already reviewing your names—I'm sure most of you are on that
list—and in no time they'll be sending their hordes after you. So
you have no time to plan a good, gruesome execution for us. You
need to haul ass. I hear Columbia is looking for immigrant workers.
If you want to save your necks, go pick coffee beans."

It was possible they wouldn't care if
Lawson's snipers picked off Mohammed and the man in the van. They
were the ones who had gotten them in this mess. Ari was hoping the
Chaldeans needed to resolve certain matters, and Sayid Mohammed's
death would leave too many things hanging in mid-air.

Some of them began retreating to the vans.
One, mask still on, was standing close to Abu Jasim, his glaring
eyes almost hidden behind the steam of his breath.

"I remember you," the Chaldean said. "We met
in Milwaukee."

"Never been there." Abu Jasim said.

Ari stepped over to Mohammed, making sure the
ruby light did not paint him, as well.

"Where's Ethan's body?"

"Can I move, now?" Mohammed said to
Lawson.

"You just stay right there until this
gentleman decides you can leave," Lawson said.

"How about me?" Ahmad griped. No one bothered
to answer.

"You wouldn't have gone to all this trouble
if you didn't think we had the only copy of the immigrant list,"
Ari continued. Mohammed seemed ready to collapse from dread. The
targeting light played over his face like a cannabilistic firefly
seeking a soft spot to nibble. "Cm'on, Mohammed, you tracked him
down, didn't you?"

"Yes and no," said Mohammed. Ari was
surprised. He had not expected an answer.

"I think I hear sirens," said Ben.

"Why are you interested in him?" Mohammed
asked Ari. "What good would it do you?"

"I want my cat."

"What?"

"Where's the body, that's all. It's not like
Iraq, here. They don't like people just disappearing. The law is
strong, but it's weak in some things. Without a body, the book
stays open. That makes the authorities nervous and costs time and
money. Let's close the book."

Across the lot, the man facing Abu Jasim
removed his mask. It was Abu ibn Al-Quassim.

"You don't remember seeing me? I remember
you. Strutting around, trying to make the Chaldeans think you were
Saddam while saying you weren't. You're nothing but a kis."

Abu Jasim, who was quite strong even when
drunk, flipped the Milkor like a quarterstaff and clipped Quassim
on the side of the head.

"Your language is foul and you set a bad
example for the fucking Americans."

"There's no body," Mohammed told Ari.

"What, you threw Ethan's body in the river?
You took it to Beacon Corner to have it incinerated?"

"I don't know Beacon Corner. The hacker isn't
dead."

"But you got the list back?"

"Ethan sold it back to us. Five-hundred
thousand U.S. Dollars."

Ari was so taken aback that for the briefest
instant he lost his composure.

"Where is he, then?" he demanded.

Now everyone could hear the sirens. All of
the ninjas were now retreating to the vans. Two gang members ran
over to Quassim, pulled him up and helped him across the lot.

"I don't know where he is," Mohammed told
Ari. "We never saw him. He contacted us and we arranged a pickup.
We tried to trick him, but he slipped away."

"You intended to kill him?"

"Of course. How do we know he didn't make a
copy?"

"Indeed. But if you had the list back, why
did you go to A-Zed?"

"We went for the squirt." Mohammed cautiously
pointed his chin in the direction of Rhee's nephew. You saw the
list, didn't you? The icons are in Korean. Can you read
Korean?"

"Why did you almost kill Rhee and his
bodyguards when all you needed was a translator?" said Ari.

"Only Rhee knew the password to A-Zed's main
computer. He changed it every day so the geek couldn't go in
without his knowing. And we needed a copy of the latest immigrant
list because it had been updated."

"But you could go anywhere to get a
translator," Ari insisted.

"Whenever he was allowed inside the A-Zed
computer, the kid had complete control. Did you know each separate
page of the spreadsheet is password protected! That's almost five
hundred pages..."

"We have to haul ass," said Lawson. "I can't
deal with the cops. I'm hypoglycemic."

"Listen," said Mohammed. "You only know the
least important part of the story, and you don't even have that
right. This immigration list...it's just for the Chaldeans. But
there's something else...it means everything. It means the
world."

"Grand exaggerations put me off," said Ari.
For the sake of accuracy, he should have added that other peoples'
grand exaggerations put him off. "These bombings around town...are
you involved in that? What do Paul Trinity and Abdul-Wali have to
do with you?"

"I can't tell you..." Mohammed glanced back
at the van. "And I'm not exaggerating. We're dealing with something
you can't imagine. Let us do our work."

"Are you employed by ISAF?" Ari demanded.

"Who?" Turning, the ruby dot struck
Mohammed's eye. He raised his hand. "Can you have your man turn
this off?"

"Not until you're out of the lot. Now
git!"

Ari had no choice but to let his prisoner go.
Mohammed ran back to the first van, the targeting light on him the
whole way. The other vans were already roaring out of the lot.

Ben and Ahmad ran back to the second room to
retrieve Ahmad's laptop and external hard drive.

"You'll have to sleep somewhere else," Ari
called out to Abu Jasim.

"All right," said Abu Jasim, who began to lie
down in the parking lot.

"But I paid for the room," he protested when
Ari ran to him and hauled him to his feet.

"No you didn't, I'm the one out $39." He
turned to Rhee's nephew, looking wan and helpless, his wrists still
flex-cuffed. "Get in the Sprinter! Now!"

Seeing no other options, Rhee's nephew
obeyed.

The van carrying Sayid Mohammed and the
mysterious observer pulled out.

"OK, boys, move out," Lawson said into his
phone. "I'll see you tomorrow. And thanks. You saved my half slice
of bacon." He nodded at Ari and went to the Land Cruiser.

"Ben, I apologize—" Ari began as the veteran
raced past him towards his truck.

"Later," Ben said briskly. "You'd better
hurry."

Ari had flung Abu Jasim willy-nilly into the
back of the Sprinter, ignoring his death threats as he slammed the
panel door shut. He jumped in the driver's seat. Ahmad was gripping
the overhead passenger handle, anticipating a speedy and precarious
escape.

The entrance to Route 288 was only a short
distance down Route 1. Before speeding onto the highway ramp, Ari
glanced in his rearview mirror and saw a host of flashing lights
flying into the motel parking lot. There was some thudding in the
back as Abu Jasim and Rhee's nephew were bounced around, but after
a mile down the highway he slowed to just above the speed
limit.

"You're a very lucky young man," Ari called
back to Rhee's nephew. "What is your name?"

"They're all dead," the boy moaned.

"Did Mohammed tell you that? No, your uncle
and his bodyguards are still alive—I hope that makes you happy.
Those idiots back there expected to meet with Koreans. Your friends
are still out there."

Ahmad turned in his seat and looked at the
Korean. "You password protected every page? That's kind of a pain,
isn't it?"