Mortal Dilemma (12 page)

“Sounds just right.” I nodded at the waitress.

When she'd gone, I said, “Can you put up with Jock for a few days?”

“Sure. What's going on?”

“I think he needs to keep out of sight. I want to see if I can find the people who're trying to kill him.”

“How're you going to do that? We don't have any clues, nowhere to start.”

“Paul, you know what Jock does.”

“Sort of. I don't know much beyond the fact that he works for a secretive government agency and has lots of pull.”

“That's about all anyone needs to know. But, I know a lot more and have some information that I can't share with you. National security and all that crap. I've at least got a starting point, and Jock's agency will give me more help as I need it.”

“What can I do, other than babysit Jock?”

“I'm going to start turning over rocks and there may be some very bad people crawling out from under them. They're not going to be cooperative. How close are you to the sheriff?”

“Like brothers. We started with the department on the same day and were partners on patrol for a couple of years. I took a leave of absence and ran his campaign six years ago when he was first elected. Why?”

“I need him to make me a special deputy, give me some law enforcement credentials.”

“I'm pretty sure you have to go through a police academy to get deputized.”

“You're right,” I said. “I looked it up. But the sheriff is a constitutional officer in Florida and he has the power to appoint a special deputy. One who has no enforcement powers. He can't arrest anybody or enforce the law in any way. He's just honorary, but he gets a badge. If the sheriff will appoint me, nobody has to know that I'm toothless as a cop. I just need a badge to flash.”

“Doesn't the badge say ‘honorary' or something like that on it?”

“It does. But mistakes happen, and I could inadvertently be given a real badge. Given the people I'll be dealing with, I don't think it'll ever come back on the sheriff.”

“Let's go to the station and I'll run it by him.”

*    *    *

I followed Paul as he crossed the bridge to Stock Island, turned north, passed the Key West Golf Club and the animal shelter and pulled
into a reserved parking space in front of the modern building that housed the sheriff's headquarters. I parked a few places down from him in what seemed to be general parking. We bypassed security with a nod from Paul, took the elevator to the second floor and a secretary escorted us into a spacious office overlooking a lot of green water.

Galis introduced me to the sheriff and explained a bit about Jock's background and why I was trying to ferret out the bad guys and what I needed. He might have led the sheriff to believe I was an agent of the same shadowy organization to which Jock belonged. I didn't say anything. If it came to that, Dave Kendall would back up the story that I was one of his.

The sheriff called his secretary and asked her to dig up a badge that hadn't been assigned to anyone. When she brought it in, he swore me in as an honorary deputy and handed me the badge. It was real, not an honorary one. “You'll need to go down to the ID section and get Matt a picture identity card to go with the badge. I'll have Carla call down and tell them the ID needs to be real, not honorary.”

“Would it be too much to ask that we give me a fictitious name?” I asked.

“I guess not,” the sheriff said. “In for a penny, in for a pound. What name do you want on the identification card?”

“Don Monk,” I said.

“Okay. If this comes back to bite me, I'll just blame Carla,” the sheriff said. He laughed. “Damn if I'm not turning into a real politician.”

When we finished at the ID section, I was a bona fide Monroe County deputy sheriff, at least as far as the idiots I'd be dealing with would know. I left Paul at the elevator and made my way back to my rental. It was only a little after eight and the bar I was headed for wouldn't open until nine. Paul had given me the name and phone number of the cab driver who'd taken Jock to the hospital. His name
was Tariq Gajani, a Pakistani national who was a legal resident of the U.S. That information was like a big red arrow pointing to Gajani as a bad guy. But then I was probably letting my darker side slip out. The fact that he was Pakistani, and presumably a Muslim, did not make him a terrorist. Still, it didn't hurt to keep my guard up.

According to the background check run by the sheriff's detective working on the case, Gajani had come to America a couple of years before and was working for his brother-in-law who was a shift manager for the cab company. He had no criminal record.

I called him. I didn't want to give him my real name in case he was somehow involved in the whole thing. I was pretty sure my ID would pass even a close inspection. “Mr. Gajani, this is Detective Don Monk. I'm with the sheriff's department and I'd like to talk to you about the guy you took to the hospital yesterday afternoon.”

“Okay. I don't know what I can tell you, though.” He spoke heavily accented English. “I just took him to the hospital. He wasn't saying much at all.”

“Just routine,” I assured him. “Trying to get the paperwork in order. Where can I meet you?”

“We can't do this on the phone?”

“Afraid not. It shouldn't take but a few minutes.”

“Can you meet me at the Starbucks at the corner of Duval and Fleming?”

“I can be there in ten minutes,” I said.

“I'm wearing a Florida Marlins ball cap.”

“I'll find you.”

Just as I touched the off button on my phone, it chimed, indicating an incoming text. It was from Dave Kendall and contained ten photos of dark-skinned men caught in candid shots. I assumed they had been taken with a long lens. Some of them appeared to be low resolution and were a bit blurry.

*    *    *

Gajani was a small dark man with a mustache and smartly trimmed beard. He was neatly dressed and appeared to be in his late twenties or early thirties. He was sitting at a table next to a window overlooking Duval Street. He stood when I approached and we shook hands. “Can I get you a coffee?” I asked.

“Thank you. I'll have three shots of espresso in a small cup.”

Ugh. I'd be climbing the walls. I ordered my standby, a skinny vanilla latte. It's never too early to start watching your weight. I brought the drinks back to the table and took a seat. “Mr. Gajani, I appreciate your meeting me. I only have a few questions. Just trying to tie up all the loose ends.”

He nodded.

“First of all, can you tell me how you happen to be in this country?”

“I graduated from University in Pakistan as an electrical engineer. I came to this country on a work visa, but the company in New York that hired me to work as an engineer lost a big contract a few months after I started there and they didn't need me. I also needed to work on my English, so my brother-in-law got me a job with the taxi company he works for.”

“How long have you been in Key West?”

“A little over a year.”

“You like it?”

He smiled. “What is not to like?”

“Let's talk about yesterday afternoon.”

“Okay.”

“Were you dispatched to pick up the wounded man?”

“No. I was driving by.”

“What made you think to stop?”

“He was pretty drunk.”

“How could you tell?” I asked.

“He was staggering, and seemed about to pass out.”

“Did you see any blood on his shoulder or arm?”

“Not at first.”

The timbre of his voice changed when we started talking about his picking up Jock and there was a little tightening around his eyes, a subtle change of expression. It's hard to describe, but experienced trial lawyers learn to read small signs that tell them when a witness is lying. We call it our bullshit meter, and it seldom fails. When the meter pegs into the red zone, the lawyer's mind moves into cross-examination mode. I had to be careful here.

“When did you first notice the blood?” I asked.

“When he got into the back seat.”

“Did he tell you where he was going?”

“No. He mumbled something, but I did not understand him. When I saw the blood, I drove him to the hospital.”

“I guess you see lots of drunks in Key West. Especially during Fantasy Fest.”

“Yeah, but you see that most every night.”

“So, you must pick up a lot of drunks. How many per day, would you say?”

He hesitated, unsure of what his answer should be. Did he sense the trap? “Not so many.”

“Why not? There are a lot of them on the streets.”

“I'm pretty busy with sober customers.”

“Where would you have taken your passenger yesterday if you hadn't noticed the blood?”

“Wherever he wanted to go.” He was taking quick sips of his espresso before he answered each of my questions. Trying to give himself time to think. As soon as he answered, I threw another question at him. I wanted to keep up the momentum, keep him off balance.

“You just told me he was almost passed out when you first saw him. What would have happened if he had gotten into your car and passed out without giving you his destination?”

He took another sip of espresso, then faltered. He started to rise from the table. “I have to get back to work.”

“Sit down, Tariq,” I said. “Now.”

“I am leaving.”

“If you don't take your seat, I'm going to arrest you.”

He sat. “I'll call my brother-in-law, and he can have a lawyer meet us at the jail.”

I pulled my pistol and held it close to my chest at table height. I wanted him to see it, but didn't want to spook the other customers. His eyes widened as he caught sight of the weapon. “Tariq,” I said, “I want you to listen to me very carefully. I am not going to take you to jail. I am going to find a nice deserted place and tie you to a tree and see how many questions you can answer before I put a bullet in your head.”

He blinked several times, took a final swallow of his espresso, and spoke very quietly. “If I talk to you, they will kill me.”

“Who'll kill you?”

“The jihadist.”

“Here in Key West?”

“Yes.”

“Tariq, you're in what we call a lose-lose situation. If you talk to me, some very bad guys will kill you. If you don't talk to me, I'll kill you. The jihadists can't protect you from the law, but I can protect you from the jihadists. Think about it. Your best bet is to talk to me.”

“Are you really a police officer?”

I showed him my brand-new badge and ID card, pulling it back quickly so that he didn't have time to look too closely at it in case there was some flaw that I'd missed. “Yes.”

“And you would shoot me?”

“In a New York minute.”

“I do not believe you.”

“The man you took to the hospital is my brother. Somebody's trying to kill him, as well as my girlfriend and me. I'm not going to let that happen. Now tell me how you ended up picking up my brother yesterday, or so help me God, I'll shoot you.”

I raised the gun again, keeping it below the table, but in a position so that Tariq could see it. I pointed it directly at him, a determined scowl on my face, and he gave it up. I could see it in his eyes before he opened his mouth.

“I was parked on Duval Street waiting for a call for a fare yesterday morning. A man walked up and got into my cab. He spoke to me in Arabic. I told him in English that I didn't understand. He asked me in English where I was from and I told him. He asked if I was a good Muslim. I told him I was. Then he said it didn't matter where I came from, he had a job for me. He told me he wanted me to pick up a man who would have been shot, put something in the man's wallet, and take him to the hospital.”

“What were you supposed to put in his wallet?”

“It was about the size of a business card, but I don't think it was. The card was folded so that I could not see what was on it.”

“You agreed to do this?”

“No. I told him I wouldn't. He put a pistol to my head and told me I didn't have a choice. If I didn't do it, he'd kill me.”

“How did it work?”

“I had to stay near Mugsy's Bar where the man was drinking and wait for a call from the jihadist. He'd let me know when I was to drive the block to the bar and pick up the man. I would put the card in his wallet and take him to the hospital. That was all.”

“What were you to do if the man didn't pass out? How would you get the card in his wallet?”

“I asked the jihadist that. He said for me not to worry. The man would definitely pass out as soon as he got in the car.”

“Did you ever look at the card?”

“No. I was very afraid.”

“Did the jihadist give you his name?”

“No.”

“Did you get a good look at him?”

“Yes. I was facing him as we talked.”

I pulled my phone from my pocket and scrolled to the pictures Dave Kendall had sent me. I showed them to Tariq. “Do you recognize any of these men?”

At the sixth picture, he said, “That's him.”

“Do you recognize any of the others?”

He took his time, scrolling slowly through the pictures. He stopped again at the last photo. “I'm pretty sure this man was with the one who got into my cab. I saw the other one standing on the sidewalk watching us.”

I took the phone back and checked the pictures against a list of names Kendall had sent along with the photos. Picture number six was Akeem Said, and number ten, the man on the sidewalk, was Youssef al Bashar.

“Tariq, I can provide protection for you.”

“I think I'll be okay as long as you don't tell anybody about this conversation.”

“There are some people I'm going to have to tell about this, but I promise you they won't leak anything to anybody that would pose a danger to you. You've got my cell number in your phone from my call this morning. Get in touch with me if you have any reason to think you're in danger.”