Capture (Butch Karp Thrillers) (4 page)

Al-Sistani tried to think of a way out. “In the name of Allah the most merciful, I tell you I don’t know,” he pleaded.

Grale nodded and suddenly Jeremy grabbed al-Sistani’s hair and pulled his head back. The dwarf, Paulito, stepped in front; a long knife had appeared in his stubby hand, the tip of which was pressed into the prisoner’s throat.

“Then there’s no reason for you to live,” Grale said.

Hardly able to breathe, al-Sistani felt the warm rush of urine down his leg. “I’ll tell you,” he cried out. “The tunnel…they plan to blow up a tunnel!”

“Which one!”

“I don’t know. By Allah, I swear this is true. They did not tell me!”

Grale hesitated and al-Sistani felt the knife pull back from his neck ever so slightly. “When?”

“I don’t know,” al-Sistani said. “Before the end of the year.”

“And what is your part in it?”

“Nothing,” al-Sistani cried. “My plan was to attack the New York Stock Exchange.”

“You’re lying to me again,” Grale hissed. “If you have nothing to do with it, why are your friends so anxious to have you back that they will pay millions of dollars, and have even risked exposing themselves to find you?”

Al-Sistani felt the knife pinch into his skin. “Money! They need my money to pay for it!”

“They? Who are they? The Sons of Man? They certainly don’t need your money.”

It didn’t surprise al-Sistani that his captor knew about the secretive, powerful group of American business, political, and military leaders who plotted to take over the U.S. government while conspiring with him to set the scene for the coup by throwing the U.S. economy into chaos. Unsure of how much Grale already knew, he’d decided to tell part of the truth. “They want to make it look like the Iranians did it and cause a war! The war will allow them to gain power.”

Grale looked hard at him, then leaned forward and sniffed. “Again, you’re lying to me. I can smell it…the fear. Is it really worth dying for? Now tell me…last chance…who is behind this plot? Or join your friend.” With that he bowled the head of Tatay across the platform, from which it fell and rolled to the captive’s knees.

Al-Sistani screamed and tried to move away but was pinioned by Jeremy and Paulito. “It is the Sons of Man, but a faction that disagrees with their leadership council and needs my money. They also need the help of my followers.”

“What faction? Name them.” Grale leaped off the platform and leaned close so that only he could hear his prisoner. “Tell me,” he whispered. “Who is their leader?”

“I don’t know,” al-Sistani whimpered quietly. “I’ve only heard rumors.”

“No more wasting my time, tell me about these rumors!”

Al-Sistani looked up and into Grale’s glittering eyes, saw the madness, and knew that there would be no more second chances to tell the truth. “His name is…”

Grale sat back in his chair with a strange, excited look on his face. “As it is written in Revelation, ‘Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. To him was given a large sword.’ Perhaps the end of time is here at last!”

T
HE PRETTY RED-HAIRED COCKTAIL WAITRESS IN THE TIGHT,
low-cut dress sized up the two “customers” trying to look both inconspicuous and older at a table in the back of the Well lounge in the Poliziano Fiera Hotel.

Fourteen, maybe fifteen,
she thought to herself as she walked over. The lounge was hopping—the famous Broadway producer, Mr. F. Lloyd Maplethorpe, was throwing one of his preproduction cast parties—and the boys had probably hoped to avoid getting noticed in the crowd. They studiously avoided looking in her direction, staring off instead in the direction of the DJ booth, nodding their heads to the music.

They were both good-looking teens, she noted as she approached.
Five years older and I might have thought about robbing those cradles.
One of them looked like he’d stepped out of some Renaissance painting of a young prince—which, as an art student at NYU, she could appreciate—with his porcelain skin, ringlets of dark hair, and refined features. He glanced at her as she stopped in front of their table before looking quickly away.
Whoa,
she thought,
this one’s going to be breaking a lot of hearts someday
.

The other boy was a beauty, too, but in a more rugged, masculine way. He had an olive cast to his skin, thick, dark eyebrows beneath
short black hair, and a shadow that promised to be a heavy beard someday. When he looked up at her, she thought her knees might buckle.
Pull yourself together, he’s a kid!

With an effort, the waitress scowled and placed a hand on her hip. “So what’s up,
boys
?”

The more rugged of the two looked at her and flashed his pearly whites. “A Corona with lime,” he replied, and turned away as if he’d suddenly found something interesting in the potted palm next to him.

The waitress fought to keep a smile off her face. The kid apparently thought that talking in a baritone would improve his chances of landing a beer.

The other boy smiled sweetly. “Just a Coke…” He glanced at his companion, who glared at him, and corrected his order. “A rum and Coke, that is.”

“Uh-huh…can I see some ID, please?” She held out her hand as the two boys exchanged glances and then reached into their back pockets and pulled out their wallets. They each handed her a driver’s license.

The waitress held the licenses up in the light. “Okay…let’s see, Mr. Bob Smith of 1234 Mickey Lane, Mount Vernon, New York, and Mr. Roy Jones of 2468 Mouse Street, Newark, New Jersey, it says here that you’re twenty-three and twenty-five years old…”

“I’ll be twenty-four in March…” the pretty one said helpfully.

The waitress squinted at the boys. “I need you to wait here,” she said. “We’re now required to run the licenses of all new customers through a computer with the National Security Administration. Doing our part to combat terrorism, you know. I’ll be right back.”

The boys looked quickly at each other, the alarm spreading across their faces like a grass fire. They stood and reached for their licenses.

“That’s okay, it won’t be necessary,” said the pretty one.

“We just remembered that we have another pressing engagement,” added the other.

The waitress kept the cards out of their reach. “Nonsense,” she purred. “This will only take a moment and then I’ll get those drinks right to you. I’m sure your other engagement can wait.” She leaned
over the table as though to wipe something, which she knew gave the boys a good view of her cleavage.

The pretty one blushed and looked down at the table. The other didn’t take his eyes off her chest, but managed to stammer, “That’s very nice of you, but we’re already late to meet our breasts…I mean our guests…at another bar. So if you could just give us back our licenses…”

“Sorry, hot stuff, but I’m keeping these,” the waitress said, standing up. “And I don’t want to see you back in here until you’re twenty-one.”

As the disappointed boys started to gather their coats to leave, a commotion broke out at the entrance of the lounge. The waitress turned toward the sound and squealed as a young Latino man entered the room with a beautiful Latina on his arm. “Oh my God, it’s—”

“Boom!” shouted the second of the boys. “He’s our friend!”

The waitress rolled her eyes. “You two never stop, do you?” she said.

The boys didn’t have to answer. Instead, Alejandro “Boom” Garcia looked in their direction and sauntered over with a wide Cheshire cat smile. “Zak…G-man…Zak…wassup, dawgs?” Proudly aware of the looks of astonishment on the faces of the waitress as well as the other patrons in the lounge, the boys embraced their short, barrel-chested friend.

Giancarlo and Isaac Karp had met Garcia, a former gang leader of the notorious Inca Boyz from Spanish Harlem, several years earlier when he was still just an aspiring hip-hop artist trying to break out of the gang life. He’d actually helped their dad bring down the infamous sociopath Andrew Kane, and had since signed a major recording deal and moved to Los Angeles to pursue his musical career.

“So how’d my homies hear about this little shindig?” Garcia asked as they all sat down at the table.

“Read about it in the
Village Voice
,” Giancarlo replied. “It said there was going to be a cast party and that there was a rumor you might perform because Carmina’s in the cast.” He looked over at the strikingly beautiful young woman sitting next to Garcia.

Carmina Salinas had long, wavy dark hair, large jade-colored eyes, and full red lips that exposed perfect white teeth when she smiled at Giancarlo and laughed. “A very small role,” she said, then shrugged. “But who knows? It could be the start of something big.”

“So are you going to rap tonight?” Zak asked Garcia.

“Stick around, bro, I just might spit out a few lines,” the rapper replied. He looked around the lounge and then back at the twins. “So where’s your mom and dad?”

The twins looked sheepish. “They’re not here.”

“They were trying to order drinks with fake IDs when you came in,” the waitress said.

Garcia closed his eyes and slapped a hand to his forehead. “Oh, shit,” he exclaimed. “You guys sneaking around again? Man, you’re gonna get me in trouble with your old man. He’s gonna get some cop to write me up on some traffic beef, then lock me up and throw away the key. Where’s he think you’re at?”

“The movies,” the boys answered. “He’ll never know.”

Garcia shook his round, shaved head. “Well, you sit tight and don’t get into no trouble, though I know with the two of you that’s like asking dogs not to sniff each other’s butts,” he said with a grin. “I promised Carmina that I’d do this thing for her group, but I can’t stay long. I got another appointment, after I take you home first.”

“Ah, come on,” Zak complained. “We don’t have to be home until eleven. You were out raising all kinds of hell when you were our age.”

“We read about it in your biography,
Boom: A Gangster’s Life in Spanish Harlem,
” Giancarlo added.

“If that’s all you got out of that book, then you missed the message,” Garcia replied, his voice now serious. “I was close to your age when I got locked up in juvie for shooting a man. I’m lucky he lived. And I’m lucky that I’m not rotting away in Attica. Besides, if your dad don’t put me away, your mom will kill me if something happens to you because you came to one of my shows at a bar.”

“Okay, okay, we get it,” Zak said, then smiled sweetly up at the waitress. “Now, could we get those drinks?”

She smiled back. “Yeah, sure, what was it you ordered? A couple of Cokes?”

Zak looked disappointed, but Giancarlo seemed relieved and said, “Sure, Cokes will be fine.”

The waitress turned and left. A minute later, there was another sudden buzz of voices in the direction of the hotel elevators, followed by the grand appearance of a thin, sallow-faced man in a peach-colored three-piece suit with matching fedora. Aware of the whispers and the looks from his backers, some of whom, according to the gossips, were connected with the mob and not happy with him, F. Lloyd Maplethorpe surrounded himself with bodyguards and sycophants—an odd collection of freaks who dwelled on the edges of the theater scene and lived essentially to flatter and entertain their master. In return, he allowed them to bask in his glory and attend the parties so that he would appear to be popular and liked. They swirled around him now as he made his way through the crowd and from table to table like a king among the peasants.

“Carmina! My darling girl,” Maplethorpe said in his high-pitched nasally voice when he spotted them. He walked over and grabbed each side of Carmina’s face with his white-gloved hands and kissed her on both cheeks.

The man turned to his followers. “My friends, allow me to present the lovely Miss Carmina Salinas…one of the next stars of Broadway,” he announced with a grand flourish of his hand toward the subject of his praise, who smiled and blushed. “I will just have to find the perfect role. Then, under my personal tutelage, she may well become the next Idina Menzel.”

“
Gracias
, Mr. Maplethorpe,” Carmina replied. “I’m just happy to be part of this show.” She turned to Garcia. “This is my friend, Alejandro ‘Boom’ Garcia, and these two young men are—”

“Boom Garcia!” the producer shouted, cutting off further introductions. “Oh my God, I was
soooooo
hoping you would attend. I am simply thrilled, thrilled, I tell you, that you’ve joined our little party tonight…. I may look a bit eighties this evening, but I really do like hip-hop…. It’s so gritty and real; it makes me feel like I almost know what it’s like to live in the ghetto. You really must sign my copy of your CD,
Spanish Harlem Soliloquy
.”

“I’d be happy to,” Garcia replied without much enthusiasm.

“Excellent! Isn’t that excellent?” Maplethorpe shouted to his circle of admirers.

“Excellent!” they shouted back.

“Do I understand that you may sing for us tonight?” Maplethorpe asked.

Garcia looked surprised. “I don’t think you could describe what I do as singing, but I told Carmina that I’d rap a little from the new CD.”

“Oh, goodie,” Maplethorpe replied, clapping his hands together like a child promised an ice cream cone. “And I insist that after this little soiree is over, the two of you join us upstairs in my suite for a little private party.” He leaned forward and whispered, though in a stage voice loud enough for all to hear. “It could get quite wild…anything goes, you know.”

Garcia shook his head. “I’m sorry, but maybe another time. I have to be somewhere else at ten.”

Maplethorpe looked like he’d just been told that his favorite cat had died. He turned around in a circle, looking from one sympathetic face to another, all of whom then cast their baleful eyes on Garcia.

“You’re breaking my heart,” Maplethorpe whined. “Are you sure? Well, it must be some very important music business.” He sighed heavily and turned to Carmina. “And what about you, my dear, surely you’re not going to leave your castmates so early?”

Carmina looked at Garcia, whose face remained expressionless. “Well, I came with Alejandro.”

“But you heard him, he has business to attend to…so you should stay.” Maplethorpe looked at Garcia. “We’ll make sure she gets home safely. I’ll have the concierge arrange for my limo to drop her anywhere she wants to go.”

Garcia looked at Carmina and shook his head. “I’ll take her home.”

Carmina’s eyes flashed with anger. “I don’t need you to answer for me,” she said before turning to the producer. “Sure, I’ll stay. It would be nice to get to know the people I’ll be working with for a long time.”

“That’s the spirit,” Maplethorpe gushed. “Yes, a long, long time…
a glorious hit show. Who knows what could happen down the road. We’ll certainly want to take it on the road, and those roles will be opening up…. Now that it’s settled, I must away to greet my other guests. Ta-ta!”

With that, Maplethorpe glided off followed by his retinue. When he was out of earshot, Garcia turned to Carmina. “I don’t think leaving you with that dude is a good idea.”

“You’re not ‘leaving me’ with him. It’s a party…and a chance for me to make a good impression. What’s with the attitude?”

“Attitude?” Garcia scowled, his dark eyes bright. “Are you forgetting that last week the dude was on trial for blowin’ some poor woman’s brains all over that little penthouse you want to party in?”

“He was innocent. She committed suicide. That’s why he’s not in prison.”

Garcia shook his head. “You got it wrong,
chica
. Jury couldn’t decide one way or the other. It don’t mean he’s innocent.”

Carmina’s nostrils flared as she hissed. “I ain’t stupid. But I think the cops are the ones who got it wrong. How could he make something like that up? I mean, Mr. Maplethorpe could fuck—” She stopped when Garcia nodded at the twins, who were listening with fascination. She bit her lip. “’Scuse me, amigos,’ Jandro seems to think that you’ve never heard the word ‘fuck’ before.”

“Plenty of times,” Zak replied quickly. “Don’t mind us.”

Carmina laughed. “As I was saying, Mr. Maplethorpe could have sexual relations with a different girl every night without having to put a gun in their mouths. Some girls will do anything to get a part. So it doesn’t make sense that he would shoot someone over sex. I feel sorry for Miss Perez, I really do. She was from the hood, and I met her once; she was a nice lady. But maybe she was hoping he would give her a big part in the show, and when it didn’t happen, she decided she’d had enough. I mean when your dreams are gone, what do you have left? Especially if you’re getting a little older and your looks are starting to go.”

Garcia was unconvinced. “I saw the way he was checking you out. Dude wants in your pants, ’Mina.”

The young woman shrugged. “Maybe,” she agreed, then laughed at his expression. “But he ain’t going to get there.” She reached over
and patted his cheek. “Come on, ’Jandro, you’ve known me since we was kids growin’ up on the streets together. If I was going to lose my self-respect, I would have done it a long time ago back when I was hangin’ with you losers in the Inca Boyz. But the only thing I lost back then was my virginity to a certain hot-blooded gangbanger named Boom.” She leaned over and kissed him on the mouth. “But I never, ever lost my self-respect.”