Read Afraid of the Dark Online
Authors: James Grippando
N
eil Goderich spent all of Thursday in court and ate a microwaved frozen dinner at his desk in the office. Long days were the rule for him. Friends often asked him what his tiny salary came out to on an hourly basis, but he would just smile and shake his head. People didn’t get it. There was no minimum-wage law for lawyers at the Freedom Institute.
“Can you please turn on the air-conditioning?” asked the doctor.
The day had been unusually warm even by Miami standards, and Neil was in a windowless room with a new client: the doctor who had come to Ethan Chang’s aid on the Lincoln Road Mall, and who feared he had been exposed to the same deadly toxin.
“Sorry,” said Neil, “there’s no budget for AC after five
P.M.
”
The doctor dabbed his sweaty brow with a handkerchief. “I’d sure hate to be in here in the summertime.”
“You get used to it,” said Neil, and he meant it. In twenty-eight years, the run-down house on the Miami River that was the Freedom Institute had changed little. Four lawyers shared two small bedrooms that had been converted into offices. The foyer doubled as a storage room for old case files, one box stacked on top of the other. The bottom ones sagged beneath the weight of denied motions for stay of execution, the box tops warped into sad smiles. Harsh fluorescent lighting showed every stain on the indoor/outdoor carpeting. The furniture screamed “flea market”—chairs that didn’t match, tables made stable with a deck of cards under one leg. The vintage 1960s kitchen was not only where lawyers and staff ate their bagged lunches, but it also served as the main (and only) conference room. Hanging on the wall over the coffeemaker was the same framed photograph of Bobby Kennedy that had once hung in Neil’s dorm room at Harvard.
The other lawyers had gone home, and Neil was with Dr. Spigelman at the kitchen table. The old refrigerator made a strange buzzing noise, which Neil silenced with a quick kick to the side of the appliance. It didn’t exactly convey the image of powerhouse legal representation, and Neil could hear the concern in his client’s voice.
“Are you sure you’re equipped to handle this case?” the doctor asked.
“Absolutely,” said Neil. “Granted, our typical client is not a retired physician.”
“Unless that retired physician is also a murderer, I presume.”
“Accused murderer,” said Neil. “But let’s get beyond that. Jack Swyteck steered this case in my direction because he thought it was a cause I would want to fight for. And he was right. You were a doctor for forty years. You witnessed a man die with your own eyes. You’ve clawed for information as to the cause of death, and in your professional opinion, the medical examiner may be covering up evidence that a synthetic toxin was released in one of the most famous outdoor malls in the country.”
“In a nutshell, that’s it. But hearing you repeat it back to me gives me some pause. Do I sound paranoid?”
“A little. But you came to the right place.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“We know things about Ethan Chang that lend credence to your concerns.”
“Like what?”
“The night he was killed, Chang was on his way to see Jack Swyteck. He was going to hand over photographs about a government secret that would help us defend a man who was held overseas as an accused terrorist. When you’re talking about government secrets and accused terrorists, there are any number of entities, foreign and domestic, that could have access to nerve gas or a similar toxin.”
“Holy cow,” said the doctor. “I really could be at risk.”
“I don’t mean to diminish your personal right and need to know if you should start taking an antidote. But if someone used a weapon of mass destruction—and that’s what these synthetic toxins are—then the
public
has a right to know.”
“So how do you get the medical examiner to give us the information we need?”
“Obviously, time is of the essence. I’ll draft the complaint and emergency motion tonight, file the papers in the morning, and request an immediate hearing. The case will go before the emergency duty judge, and—”
Neil halted at a loud crash in the other room.
“What the hell was that?”
Neil started toward the hallway, but the café door flew open before he got to it. A man dressed in black burst into the room. A ski mask covered his face, and in one quick motion, he raised his right arm and took aim with his pistol.
“No!” the doctor shouted.
Neil braced for the crack of a gunshot, but it was the muffled sound of a silenced projectile. The doctor’s head snapped back, and as he tumbled backward in his chair, the crimson spray of blood reached all the way to the framed photograph of Bobby Kennedy.
Neil shrieked and ran for the other door. It led to the alley, but the second half of the attack team was right outside, dressed in the same black fatigues and playing lookout. The triggerman grabbed Neil by the ponytail and took him down hard. Neil’s spectacles flew from his face and slid across the linoleum. The wind rushed from his lungs as the attacker drilled his knee into Neil’s back. The man yanked harder at the ponytail, forcing Neil’s chin up from the floor. A cold, serrated blade was pressed so firmly to his throat that he could feel the blood starting to trickle down his neck, moistening his shirt collar.
“This is not going to end well for you, Mr. ACLU. So you might as well talk.”
Neil’s body was shaking, and his mind flashed with the memory of what Jamal had told him about his abduction three years ago.
“What . . . do you want to know?”
The masked man leaned closer, burrowing his knee deeper into Neil’s spine.
“I want to know everything about Jamal Wakefield,” he said, hissing into Neil’s ear. “You can start with what he told you about Prague.”
M
idnight was fast approaching in central London—lunchtime in a day in the life of the Dark.
The tube ride from Bethnal Green to King’s Cross was about twenty-five minutes, most of which the Dark spent reviewing his plan. The man seated behind him was snoring like a drunk, and the grind and hum of the underground railcar had lulled a handful of other riders to sleep, or near sleep. The Dark, however, was wide awake. His regular six hours of rest were from nine
A.M.
to three
P.M.
, which meant that London’s winter suited his needs perfectly. Some days he never saw the sun. Still, he wore his sunglasses everywhere, including the underground. He was no vampire; even artificial light bothered him. Not that vampires were a bad thing. Hell, the number of schoolgirls reading
Twilight
on the tube was enough to make him bloodthirsty.
“Farringdon Station,” came the announcement over the loudspeaker. One more stop until his destination.
The train squeaked to a halt, and the doors opened. The smell of urine and feces entered the car, and the Dark spotted the mess someone had left on the platform. He ignored it, but not entirely. He’d read somewhere that memory was most closely linked to the sense of smell, and this unmistakable odor was indeed taking the Dark around a strange bend of memory lane. It smelled like the central market in Mogadishu, and the fact that his mind was making that connection was far from random. He’d been thinking about the Bakara Market on and off, ever since he’d sent that e-mail to Jamal’s father.
The e-mail hadn’t been part of the original plan. It was definitely beyond the scope of what he’d been hired to do. But getting paid for this job was just the icing on the cake. The Dark wanted that Somali son of a bitch to know that his son was dead, and he wanted to be the one to break the news. There was history between the two men, and the root of his animosity was burned into the Dark’s memory. As much as he wanted to stay focused on the present journey to central London, his mind was taking him back to that hot summer day in the Bakara Market, when the East African sun made the stench unbearable, when the sounds of war were never far away, and when the smell of newly spilled blood was in the air. To a time when he was known only as Habib, a foot soldier for al-Shabaab, and he worked under a cell leader named Abukar—Jamal’s father.
I
t was midmorning, and Habib was looking east across the Bakara Market from the charred second story of yet another building that had been destroyed by mortar fire. Years of armed conflict had reduced the Italian architecture of Somalia’s colonial period to rubble. Despite the recent shelling, Somalia’s biggest trading center was alive with the dangerous blend of war and commerce. It was just Habib and his cell leader on patrol, each of them well armed with an AK-47 rifle.
“There,” said Abukar, pointing.
The market was mostly shanty shacks made of old wood, rusty corrugated steel, and any piece of cloth that was large enough to provide shade. With temperatures exceeding 110 degrees, the stench of raw sewage and garbage rose up from the streets. At the whim of the breeze, Habib caught whiffs of the business being conducted at the various kiosks. He could smell live animals—camels, chickens, and goats—and the putrid piles of guts and puddles of blood that baked in the sun after the animals were slaughtered on-site. He detected sour goat and camel’s milk in unrefrigerated steel drums, which stank like a rotting corpse. There were rancid meats, many of them unidentifiable. Habib did not smell it today, but he’d been told of kiosks where human corpses—villagers dead from disease or starvation—were butchered and sold as animal feed for the dogs and hyenas that the poorest of the poor kept as pets, watchdogs, or a future meal.
And there were the arms traders. An RPG-2 grenade launcher would set the buyer back about five hundred American dollars. Ammunition for your AK-47: just seventy-five cents. Around these booths, it didn’t take a trained nose to breathe in the smell of gunpowder.
“The man by the orange tent?” asked Habib, his gaze trained on the kiosk to which Abukar had pointed.
“Yes. That one. He sold to the alliance.”
Abukar meant the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT), a group of secular warlords that was funded in part by the CIA. Militia loyal to the Islamic Court Union had driven the alliance out of the capital in what had come to be known as the
Second
Battle of Mogadishu, though to most Somalis it was all just one continuous battle with no beginning or end. In a single month Habib had been all the way down the coast to Marka, yanking out teeth because gold and silver fillings were sinful. Next it was Awdheegle, to punish women who did not wear the veil, with a stop along the way to carry out the sentence—public whipping—for two boys caught playing soccer. Then it was on to Afgoye, to destroy American textbooks in schools; to Baidoa, to defile the graves of infidels and loot the UN offices; and to Balcad, where Islamist clerics belonging to the Ahlu Sunna Wal-Jama faction were beheaded. More blood was spilled in northern Mogidishu’s Maslah Market: firing squads for spies and public amputation of hands for anyone caught stealing—common punishment for common thieves. Next week his team would take over six UN vehicles for use in suicide bombings against the African Union’s main base.
Important work, to be sure. But Habib’s calling was the high-tech stuff. He got started by simply monitoring reports about al-Shabaab on the Web—“100 Britons a year coming to Somalia Training Camps,” or “American from Seattle Kills 21 Peacekeepers in Suicide Bombing”—and reporting back to his superiors. His goal was to work with the production team on the latest propaganda video in progress,
At your Service, Osama
, in which al-Shabaab would formally and publicly pledge its allegiance to Osama bin Laden.
Habib checked his watch, then glanced at Abukar.
“One minute,” said Habib.
Timing was critical. They were implementing one of two separate but simultaneous suicide attacks in the city. It was Habib who had delivered the stock of explosives for use in the Bakara Market bombing: forty kilograms of fertilizer, the same amount of ammonium nitrate that last week had delivered up a thirty-year-old husband and father of four to martyrdom. Habib was dependable in all he did for al-Shabaab, and his reward was to witness firsthand the fruits of his labor.
“Ah,” said Abukar as he peered through his binoculars into the busy market. “She is right on time.”
“She?” asked Habib. He didn’t know the bomber’s identity; very few did.
“They will not suspect a woman.”
“She must be very brave.”
“You should be proud. It’s Samira.”
Habib did a double take. “My sister?”
“Our
shaheeda
.”
Habib glanced at the bustling marketplace, then at Abukar, then back at the crowd. He spotted several women dressed in traditional black burkas, any one of whom could have been a human bomb. Before Habib could speak—before his anger could even begin to find words—a huge blast ripped through the usual daily commerce. Screaming bystanders scattered as bloodied body parts flew through the air.
“Samira!” he cried out, invoking his youngest sister’s name.
“Allahu Akbar!” his cell leader shouted.
“K
ing’s Cross St. Pancras.”
The crackle over the loudspeaker stirred the Dark out of his memories. The blur of the platform whizzed past in the train’s window, slowing steadily to a stop. He was the first one off when the doors parted, and he walked straight to the escalator.
The largest tube station in central London was so named because it served two rail stations: King’s Cross and St. Pancras. Forty million riders coursed through the complex each year. The Dark was interested in a select few of them. The tube had delivered the goods in the past, but tonight he would try the Suburban Building. Platforms 9 and 10 to be exact.
In the Harry Potter series, King’s Cross is the starting point of the Hogwarts Express. Riders enter secret platform 9¾ by passing through the brick-wall barrier between platforms 9 and 10. The books and movies are set in the main part of the station, but platforms 9 and 10 are actually in a separate building. Nonetheless, authorities did their best to capitalize on the phenomenon, erecting a cast-iron
PLATFORM 9¾
sign on a wall in the right building. Part of a luggage trolley has also been installed below the sign, half of it seeming to have disappeared into the wall. Fans of the series were always flocking there for photographs, one after another taking a turn at pretending to push the cart through the wall.
That was where girls of the right age would be. Silly girls who hung out in train stations late at night and who wanted to disappear like Harry.
The Dark passed a row of shops in the concourse, checked his reflection in a storefront window, and smiled to himself.
Disappear, they will.