HARD CASE (A John Harding Novel - Special Ops, Cage Fighter, CIA Agent) (27 page)

Jafar grinned and went up with Casey. I could hear Lucas discussing plans with Denny while I hunted for tracking transmitters. I found four of them. I also confiscated all cell-phones on board and uploaded everything on them to Denny before throwing them overboard. A final sweep of the ship revealed no more surprises so I paid Chardin a visit in his stateroom.

I had left his mouth unbound. His face showed no emotion whatever. Chardin’s eyes watched me, dead dark orbs without expression or light. He waited without a sound while I checked the makeshift bandages binding his tendons. Nothing much leaked so I pulled another chair into place near him and sat down. If you’ve never had an Achilles Tendon injury let me tell you it is without doubt one of the worst pains in the world. Chardin’s a pro and he can take pain. That much was certain.

“You’ve probably assumed recruiting that dirtbag Nelson for an unwilling suicide bombing didn’t go well. Want to discuss the details since this boat trip will be your last travel on planet earth?”

“Why did you maim me?”

“Professional courtesy.”

I watched Chardin’s eyes show the rage he reined in throughout the rest of his body. When I smiled, he realized his mistake and looked downward. See, I know if I ever get taken by anyone in his league mercy will be the last thing I get. I’m up for it. Never get taken. That’s my motto. Maybe Chardin should have put his Uzi into his pie hole instead of pointing it at the doorway when we came through. Hope is a risky business. When dealing with the public persona of America our enemies think we’re pussies. We’re not, because a few of us guys will risk everything to make sure whatever these bastards want to do gets a big shit sandwich. Chardin was duct taped to a chair with his Achilles Tendons slashed because he made an error in judgment. Chardin was considering his options right now. He didn’t care about anything so selling out who he worked for wouldn’t bother him. He was probably wondering if there was any way to be so helpful we’d keep him around.

“We need to know why you’re here, Claude. We also need all the details.”

Chardin kept watch on the floor in front of him. I won’t pretend to know everything going on in his head but I figured even sociopaths don’t like pain. “I have diplomatic immunity.”

“That’s nice.”

“I would like to negotiate for my release.”

“I’ll bet you would, Claude. Tell me everything and I’ll give you a painless release from this world of woe.”

Chardin looked up at me then, leaning back in his chair. “I know of you, John Harding. I know how you think.”

“No you don’t. If you did you’d be asking me to start recording everything about what I’ve asked.”

“You would risk an international incident with your ally Pakistan?”

“Why would you assume Pakistan will ever find out about this? Besides, they’re only an ally because they’re able to extort billions of dollars from the USA by pretending to be an ally, but thanks for caring. That’s really sweet.”

“I could be an invaluable asset.”

“I think you will be but only for a short time. Let’s start with something harmless. Do you have a contract on Samira Karim and was she the main target for tonight’s suicide bombing?”

Chardin returned his gaze to the floor. He’s not going to like these negotiations. Lucas comes in while I’m staring at our guest considering where I’m going to start negotiating from.

“Gettin’ anywhere, John?”

“Just moving past the preliminaries. You know how it is. I tell him we want to know everything about his mission and he says he wants to go to Disneyland in return. I tell him it ain’t happenin’ and he starts communing silently with the floor.”

“I think the silent part will be temporary. Denny’s on his way. Casey has the coordinates for the meet up. Denny told me he’s glad you prepped our buddy Chardin here. He hinted at a bargaining chip to avoid any distasteful interaction while we extract information. It seems Mr. Wonderful here left a couple of images on his phone.”

Chadin’s head popped up at that news, his eyes moving wildly between me and Lucas. Lucas took out his own phone. He displayed a photo on his screen for Chardin’s perusal. Chardin tried desperately to hold onto control as Lucas held the photo up in front of him. His mouth tightened in fury but he refrained from any comment, knowing we would not be moved by threats. Chardin’s hands clenched into fists. He returned his gaze to the floor once again but this time there was a perceptible shake to his hands. It seemed Nelson wasn’t Chardin’s only error in judgment.

“Well, well, well,” I exclaimed with enthusiasm, looking over Chardin’s shoulder at Lucas’s phone screen. “It looks like Claude has a very beautiful daughter of college age.”

“Denny says she attends Vassar. You must be very proud. Claude here never figured on ever coming close to getting caught, John. Otherwise, he’d never have left a trace like this for us to find. Think he’ll keep silent now?”

“How about it, Claude? Want to avoid mixing business and family?” I could tell my buddy Claude wasn’t a pure sociopath, at least not where it concerned his child.

“I know you will not torture a child.”

“Why hell no we wouldn’t torture a child, Mr. Chardin.” Lucas sat down in the chair I vacated to check out the photo. “We now know your college kid and her Mom. If such information should somehow… you know… get leaked to the wrong people it would be a real tragedy. Right, John?”

“You betcha.”

“You would sign the death warrant for an innocent woman and child?”

Chardin pulls the outrage card. Yeah, that’ll work. “Your past life signed the death warrant for them. We’re attempting to give you a way to keep them safe while making up a little for being a cold blooded, soulless monster, responsible for probably hundreds of deaths, directly or indirectly. You need to step up, Claude, because my boss ain’t much of a negotiator. He’ll want to just torture you, get the info, and then hold the wife and daughter over your head until we check out the intel you give us. Start talking now, me and Lucas give you our word no one will find out about your wife and daughter. We’ll also make sure they get some of your ill gotten gains.”

Chardin spat on the floor. “Your word. Your word means nothing to me.”

“John and I are Marines. Our word means everything. We don’t strap bombs onto children and blow them up in crowded places so as to kill untold numbers of innocents. If John says your wife and kid will be safe make book on it. We’d kill our boss if he ever broke our word and he knows it.”

Chardin stared at us as I came around him to stand next to Lucas. His choices were hell and his family safe or hell and his family dead. “You two have killed in cold blood. What is it you think makes you any different, truth, justice, and the American way? Bullshit! Set it up. I will record what you want.”

I looked at Lucas and he shrugged. What’s there to say? We are cold blooded killers but we know we’re not the same as Chardin. What’s the point of arguing with a dead man who has agreed to give us what we want? Time enough later if his info proves false. Then we’ll show him what cold blooded really means. I left and came back with a digital recorder from our equipment bag. I set it up on the bed next to Chardin and turned it on. The next couple hours were very interesting to say the least. He confirmed Reddig’s involvement. I think by the time he neared the end of his story Chardin was getting a buzz from telling it to us. Denny arrived toward the end so he fired off a few questions of his own he’d been putting together on the way out to meet us. Only one remained for me he hadn’t addressed to my satisfaction. We knew now who had hired him and why he set up a bombing using Nelson’s crew but we didn’t know what the goal was.

“Okay, so it’s Iranian money buying off some Pakistanis to cover your involvement in activating cells out here on the West Coast. I get the part they’re trying to smuggle spent medical irradiated material up from South of the border to use in dirty bombs. Why the hell did you need to risk it all on blowing up a kid in the middle of Jack London Square?”

“If non Muslim blacks were involved in a suicide bombing it would have put everything in a state of chaos for at least a few months. I picked that idiot Nelson’s crew because they were into everything but religion - plus, there was a five million dollar bonus if I could kidnap Karim in the aftermath of the explosion.”

I knew it wasn’t a coincidence but killing her was one thing, kidnapping was a whole other ball game. “But you would have risked having suspicion back on Muslims by kidnapping Samira, thereby undoing the reason for the bombing. I don’t get it.”

“We would have had her in the public eye from Afghanistan within a week, retrained to say anything they wanted her to say and make fools out of your security agencies. I was only to take her if the circumstances permitted. Reddig would arrive to draw you away on some pretense right after the blast. We would have only needed thirty seconds. Reddig was to get one million dollars for the risk.”

The fog lifted in my head a little. I’m already wondering if we’ll get to carve up Reddig. “I noticed only two Pakistanis in your ship’s crew. The others looked like a motley bunch with mixed blood. Are those the ones you’ve used before?”

Chardin hesitated a moment for the first time. He shrugged. “They’ve been with me a long time. We were to finish this job and use the boat to head South. This was to be our last job.”

“You got one out of two,” Lucas observed. “Casey will be happy with this news. It means the Pakis ain’t expecting to get their boat back. Don’t even look at me like that, Denny. We’re keepin’ the boat.”

“It’s your funeral. Don’t think for a second they won’t be looking for the boat. I have some connections down San Diego way. We might be able to get this baby a complete new look. How’s that sound, Lucas?”

“Like you’re tying strings to it as usual. You better not be thinking of putting my boat at risk. I’ll-”

“Your boat? Never mind that alternate reality stuff. In this reality you might get the boat but at some point in the future we may need to use it for company business. Take it or leave it.”

“Can I get something for the pain now? I assume you’ll keep me alive long enough to assess my information.”

Denny took a hypo out of his bag and stuck Chardin with it. The crunched look on the assassin’s face eased and he slumped backwards in the chair. Chardin began snoring as he passed out in relief from the pain. I poured some peroxide onto my makeshift bandages from Denny’s bag to stave off any infection before we left the room together. Lucas started in on Denny the moment we cleared the room door.

“We want the boat without the strings, you prick. You know the first time we have to use it for company business we might as well paint a bulls-eye on the hull. When we take it out on a fishing trip I don’t want foreign ops blowing the shit out of us.”

“How about if I add some distinctive self defense touches to it… like a couple of fifties on hideaway turrets?”

“Damn! You can do that?”

“I know of a couple craft they’ve reworked that were smaller than this ship. Hell, you guys could go boating off the Somali coast with a couple fifties ready for action… not to mention travelin’ around in Mexican waters.”

“Okay, but I want it licensed to us with some NSA or Homeland Security covers.”

“Done,” Denny agreed.

“You might as well sign in blood, Lucas,” I told him. “The Devil here is a mean master, my friend. It is an interesting setup though. I’m thinking maybe a couple portable surface to air missile launchers to round out our array.”

Lucas chuckled as Denny’s mouth dropped open. “Oh yeah! I think that would be the perfect finishing touch.”

“You guys are nuts. I’ll think about it. Can we get back to the mission at hand? Leave Chardin and his crew for my mates. They’ll drop your boat off down in San Diego and relocate our guests for further questioning. We’ll take my launch, round up Samira, and stroll around Jack London like our lives depended on it after we take care of Reddig. It will be bad if Chardin messed with us. On the good side if he’s telling the truth, the night will be uneventful, and the Bowery Boys get a free dinner on the government tab for their date. I want you two wearing your com units.”

“Casey and I can’t be bought that cheap. I want a grand a piece overtime bonus.”

I laughed at Lucas’s demand as Denny turned scarlet. He took a couple deep breaths and his color faded a little. He needed them in the area as a precaution. Oakland cops would not kill on sight. Lucas and Casey would.

“Fine. Let’s go before it gets any later. I want Ben Reddig in our special room with plenty of time to spare for our Jack London Square gig.” Denny headed out of the room but Lucas hung back with me.

“Did you hear him throw that Somali line out there, John?”

Yeah, I did. “Noticed that, did you? I think Denny’s creative juices flowed the moment he got on board. There must be something cooking above our pay-grade they don’t want any significant money trail for. Denny’s a multitask kind of guy. He has our little terrorist cell problem all solved in his head and he’s thinking of some op he might get booted upstairs for pulling off. Believe this: it will have to do with a boat and Somalia.”

“Damn it! Couldn’t we get just one nice thing without selling our souls?”

I put my arm around Lucas’s shoulders. “Only if we frag Denny.”

* * *