Mortal Dilemma (32 page)

Her disappearance from his life had been sudden and shocking. A little more than three years before, he had left home early one morning, leaving her in his bed snuggled under the covers. He kissed her forehead and went out the door, intent on some long-forgotten mission. He never saw her again.

Thomason had, some years before the Syrian girl's disappearance, entered into an agreement with a group of Middle Eastern thugs who were working along the entire eastern seaboard, importing cocaine from South America and heroin from South Asia. They had a well-developed and secure pipeline that Thomason could never replicate, so it seemed like good business to become the street distributor of the drugs the Arabs brought into the country.

Thomason was making a lot of money and decided to give loan sharking a try. He loaned out money at exorbitant rates to the marks who were constantly losing money in his New Jersey gambling parlor. Their addictions were played out on rigged games and tables, and they could never beat the house. Their debts mounted as their families fell apart and descended into poverty. None of this bothered Thomason. He was living the good life and raking in huge amounts of money.

Almost four years ago, he had been spending an evening in one of his small casinos when the Syrian girl appeared. She was with another woman and they took a table next to the one Thomason was occupying. He didn't pay too much attention to either of them, knowing full well that they were out of his league. He was fifty years old, and the women appeared to be in their mid-twenties. He was pudgy and balding and they were beautiful.

As the night wore on and the drinks flowed, a conversation was struck between Thomason and the women. At some point, one of the
women left and the other moved to Thomason's table. Her name was Rahima and she was the American-born daughter of Syrian immigrants. Her family lived in Brooklyn, where she had been raised, and her father was a butcher in a local supermarket. She was in Atlantic City visiting a friend from college, the woman who had just left. She would get a taxi back to the friend's apartment when this wonderful evening wound down.

As it happened, and much to Thomason's surprise, she went home with him. He could never remember how that happened. Did he suggest it? Did she? It didn't matter. The fact was that she had gone home with him, made love to him, and changed his life. She moved into his house the next day and stayed for four months.

One day, two of his Middle Eastern partners came for a visit. They told him they were now going to become his partners in the gambling and loan-sharking business. Thomason laughed and told them they were full of shit.

They left. The next day, Rahima disappeared from his house. He came home at noon, and she wasn't there. At first he wasn't concerned. She had probably gone shopping. Then he received a text. The message was that the same two men he'd met with the day before would be back for a visit that afternoon. A picture was attached to the text. It showed Rahima, bound to a bed with ropes. She was stark naked. When he zoomed in on the picture, he could see tears running down her cheeks.

The two men returned that afternoon and the deal was sealed. Thomason turned over his entire operation to his new Arab “partners” and he was given the role of manager and a percentage of every dollar that found its way into the syndicate's coffers. He was never told what happened to Rahima, his questions about her were never answered, and over the years she became a dim memory and a dull ache in his heart.

Thomason continued to work for what he always thought of as the syndicate, but in reality was a jihadist group who called themselves Ishmael's Children. He had funneled money to some of its operatives who were working in the United States, and on occasion provided manpower through his underling, Wally Delmer. While he suspected what the terrorists were doing, he had no direct knowledge and therefore was able to convince himself that he was not complicit in acts that were ultimately aimed at the destruction of civilization as he knew it. Besides, it wouldn't happen in his lifetime, and he was living the good life. He didn't care what happened after he was dead.

As his mind was wandering over the bleak landscape of his life, a man wearing a ski mask, down jacket, and jeans was walking up the yard, passing close to the house, out of Thomason's line of sight. The intruder approached the pool deck soundlessly and moved closer to Thomason. When the man was a few feet from the figure on the chaise, a fracas broke out on the beach, drawing Thomason's attention. The two men he had been watching were throwing fists at each other, their voices loud and heated.

Thomason sat up on the chaise, felt a pinprick in his neck, and almost immediately experienced only darkness. The intruder called to the men on the beach, and they hurried up the steps leading to the pool deck. The three of them hoisted Thomason and quickly carried him back up the yard and to the driveway that ran along the southern side of the house, terminating in a four-car garage built under a short wing of the residence. They put the unconscious man into a work van that was backed up in front of the garage, climbed into the front seat, and drove out of town.

T
HURSDAY
, N
OVEMBER
6

“W
HAT HAPPENED
?” S
AIF
asked Youssef. “The woman is still alive and our man is dead.” They had gotten Cuban food from a take-out place in downtown Sarasota and were sitting at a picnic table in a park on the bay at the western end of Main Street.

“All I know is what I saw on television last night. There was a shooting in the home of the detective and she survived and our man did not.”

“I guess that's the reason we did not hear from him yesterday.”

“That's a safe assumption. Since he was dead.” Youssef was getting a bit tired of the stupidity of the big man who was his companion. Maybe he'd kill him when the mission was finished. He didn't relish the thought of having to make his way back to Syria in the company of this dolt.

“What do we do now?” Saif asked.

“I guess we could call our contact and get another man, but we cannot trust the Westerners. We are going to have to take care of this on our own.”

“How are we going to do that?”

“I did not trust the man to carry out my instructions. I have a backup plan. I just have to make a call and we will be able to get a boat and somebody who knows how to operate it. Our dead friend found
a place we can hide out where nobody will find us. As soon as we kill the woman, we'll go to the hideout.”

“Why not just go home?”

“The authorities will know that the two were killed by Arabs. They will be on the lookout for us. We need to stay out of sight for a week or two and then we have to find Algren.”

“What about the man, Matt Royal?”

“We'll kill him, too.”

“And Algren? Why wait to kill him?”

“We'll kill him soon. But first, I want him to know that it was I who killed his friends. I want him to grieve for a while, to know the hurt he caused my mother when he killed my father.”

“What is your plan?”

“I'll tell you more about it when the time comes.”

“When do we strike?”

“Tonight.”

T
HURSDAY
, N
OVEMBER
6

W
ALLY
D
ELMER CAME
awake slowly and fitfully. He was lying on his back. He awoke and then nodded off again. He woke again with a start, his breath caught in his chest. After three or four episodes, he was awake enough to try to turn onto his side, his usual sleeping position. He couldn't. He was tied to the bed rails, or rather, as he began to discern, handcuffed to them. What the hell? Where was he? Then, as the brain fog dissipated, his memory began to gnaw at the last thing he remembered. Finally, he drew it out of the recesses of his brain, and it began to take form and shape. He remembered a man attacking him in his bed, his ride on a gurney and a sharp pain in his neck. Then nothing else. Until now. What was going on? Had he run afoul of his Arab masters in some way that he didn't understand?

He looked around the small bare room, devoid of any decoration or any sign that anybody had ever been there before he awoke. The door opened and a man walked into the room holding a bottle of water. He unhooked Wally's right hand from the bedframe and handed the bottle to him. Wally swallowed the whole thing. The man took the empty bottle and left without saying a word.

Time moved slowly, but Wally was only dimly aware of its passage. The pain had arrived and steadily worsened, but he had no access to his pills. There was nothing he could do but endure. Every so often
the same man would show up, hand him a bottle of water, wait while Wally drank, and leave with the empty. Silently. No words, no gestures, nothing.

Wally Delmer thought he was going to die. He didn't know why, but he'd always known that someday, some men would come and take him away and kill him. He'd made his pact with the devil a long time ago, and he knew those deals always required a final payoff. His bill was coming due. He smiled to himself. The pain was getting to the point that death would be a relief. He could only hope that whoever was going to kill him would make it fast. Unfortunately, he understood that the men he'd been dealing with for over a decade were not much for mercy. They liked to watch people suffer. And justice? Ha. He wouldn't get his day in court. He probably wouldn't even know why he was dying. So be it. He'd made a good life for himself and he had a lot of money tucked away in offshore accounts. The banks all had specific instructions. If six months went by and they didn't hear from him, they were to assume he was dead, and they would distribute the money as he'd instructed in the many documents he signed as he set up the accounts. Millie would be a very surprised and happy woman.

He let his thoughts drift back to the early days when he was young and life was good. He had grown up in a small town on the shores of Lake Okeechobee between West Palm Beach and Ft. Myers. It had been pretty much a hand-to-mouth existence, and, as soon as he graduated from high school, he joined the Army. After three years as a military policeman, he was discharged and joined the Ft. Lauderdale police department. He was tall and in good shape and cut quite a figure in his police uniform.

After a couple of years on the force, Wally took a course to earn his Coast Guard captain's license. He knew boats. His dad had earned his living fishing in Lake Okeechobee, and Wally had spent many
afternoons helping the older man run his boat and pull in the trotlines that hooked the catfish.

License in hand, Wally transferred to the Ft. Lauderdale PD marine unit. He wore shorts and a golf shirt to work every day and carried his weapons on an equipment belt just like any beat cop. And that was what he was, except his beat was the Intracoastal Waterway, the New River and its tributaries and any number of manmade canals on which very rich people lived.

One day when the sun was shining and the humidity was low and the spring breeze brought the smell of the sea wafting over the city, Wally watched as a cigarette-type speed boat came busting up the channel near Port Everglades. The boat had three men aboard and was going way too fast. Wally knew that he would endanger local boaters out enjoying the weather if he tried to pursue the boat. He sped up some, trying to see where the captain was taking the boat and hoping to be able to get him if he slowed. The boat was pulling away at a fast rate when suddenly it just disintegrated. Almost instantaneously, the sound of an explosion rolled over Wally. He turned on his emergency lights and siren and sped across the water while radioing his location and the news of the exploding boat to the department's dispatcher.

He searched the debris field until the Coast Guard and other boats from the sheriff's department and the Ft. Lauderdale PD arrived. There were no survivors, and there were no bodies. The explosion had been so intense that the men in the boat were vaporized, the medical examiner said.

Two days later, as Wally was checking over his boat and getting ready for another day patrolling the waterways, Millie showed up at the marina. She was beautiful, elegant, blond, self-contained, and dressed casually in what Wally guessed probably cost a cop's monthly salary.

“Are you the officer who saw the boat explode down by the port a couple of days ago?”

“I am. Can I help you?”

“I think a friend of mine was on that boat.”

“What was his name?”

“It was a woman. Penny Parkins.”

“I didn't see a woman on the boat. Only three men. We didn't recover any bodies, but I was following the boat when it exploded and I didn't see a woman aboard.”

“She might have been out of sight. I think she was kidnapped.”

“Tell me about it,” Wally said. “We know the boat was stolen. We found enough pieces to put a registration number together. Why do you think your friend was aboard?”

“The name of the man who owned the boat was in the paper this morning. I know him. He lives near me and keeps the boat in the back of his house on a canal. I think the man who stole the boat was named Francisco Mendez. He's the son of Javier Mendez. Do you know that name?”

“Yes.” Every cop in the city knew the Mendez family. They were involved in almost every illegal activity that happened in South Florida, drugs, prostitution, guns, extortion, and others. It was rumored that Francisco, the oldest son, ran the family's business branch that dealt in prostitution.

“Penny was a working girl,” Millie said. “An escort. She worked for Francisco, but wanted to leave the business. Francisco told her she couldn't. She decided to leave anyway. I live in the townhouse next door to hers and two days ago, I heard a loud argument coming from Penny's place. Then she started screaming and suddenly stopped. Like somebody stopped her. I heard Francisco leave and everything was quiet.”