C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-NINE
Ward became dimly, slowly aware of sounds and images. He was not firmly in command of his senses until he opened his eyes and saw white walls and felt an ache deep in his ribs each time he breathed and a duller pain inside his elbow. Then he knew where he was.
He did not try to rise. His bandaged chest warned against that. The IV drip in his arm would not permit it. Ward lay on his back, moved his legs and hands slightly, making sure that everything still worked. He heard voices in the hallway, turned slightly to his left to see that the door of the private room was shut. He swallowed a few times and managed to utter a weak sound.
“
Hey
...” he rasped.
No one came. He moved his eyes as far as they would go on either side, saw the call button hanging from a line on his right. Ward cautiously raised his hand back over his head to grab it. His shoulder didn't hurt much, his arm not at all.
A male nurse and the police chief arrived together. Brennan shut the door and stood beside it, facing the bed, while the nurse took Ward's blood pressure, slipped a thermometer in his ear, and checked the vital signs monitor.
“I'm Howard,” the young man said with a pleasant smile.
“Hi ... Howard,” Ward said. His mouth was sand-dry.
Howard hushed him. “Respiration and heart normal. Tempâ99.6, which is good. That means your body is healing. Excellent. Your blood pressure is actually a little below normal, but that's natural for as long as you've been sleeping.”
“How long has that been?” Ward asked as his mind became more focused.
Howard give him a drink, water from a cup with a straw. “You've been here fourteen hours.”
“And what am I âhealing' from?” he asked when he'd finished drinking.
Brennan stepped forward as Howard checked the IV drip.
“You collected three broken ribs and a variety of minor cuts and contusions,” she said. “Randolph still has you beat.”
Ward thought back to the house ... the masked men... .
“Debbie!” he said suddenly.
“Ms. Wayne's in the next room,” Brennan told him “She lost about two pints of blood and took over forty stitches here and there, most of it on her face and torso. She should be all right, though. At least, physically.”
“Should?” Ward asked.
“They've got to watch for infection. And she may need a little reconstructive surgery on her chest.”
Ward stared back at the scene in his mind. He filled with hate. He was sure his blood pressure was rising.
“Would you please excuse us?” the police chief asked the nurse. “If you're done, of course.”
“Finished,” the young man said. “I'll be with Ms. Wayne.” He gave Ward a gentle pat on the shoulder and left.
“We borrowed him from pediatrics,” the police chief said. “Ms. Wayne needs constant attention for the first forty-eight hours.”
“I'm going to kill them.”
Brennan pulled over a plastic chair. “What happened?”
“Oh, God. Debbieâshe gave me her number earlier in the day. It was in the shirt pocket that those two punks ripped.”
“I wondered how they found her.”
“Have you got anything on them? Any evidence at the houseâ?”
“I wish I could tell you we went right out and nailed the folks who did this, but the place was pretty clean,” Brennan said. “Ms. Wayne couldn't tell us much, other than that they wore gloves and ski masks. The welts on her skin show the impression of a belt buckle, but it's one of her own. We didn't find any bodily fluids, no spit, no perspiration other than her own, blood was hers, and she wasn't sexually molested.”
“The vehicle?”
“No one saw anything, not at that hour. Some stuff was stolen ... her wallet, jewelry, a laptopâ”
“To make it look like a robbery,” Ward said. “One which I had the misfortune of interruptingâright ?”
“That's how the morning paper reported it,” the police chief said.
“
They
did it, the Muslims,” Ward said bitterly. “They figured I'd show up there sooner or later, since I had nowhere else to go. Even if I didn't go to her house, hurting her would send a message.”
“Likely, but none of it remotely enough for an arrest.”
“No,” Ward agreed. “And if you interrogate themâ”
“Harassment. I can't do that without some kind of lead, which is what I was hoping you could give me. Their voices?”
“Can I lie?”
She made a face.
“They were muffled by the ski masks,” Ward said.
“Were they the same kind of masks you saw on the off-roaders?”
Ward exhaled. “I don't know. I was looking into a headlight up on the plateau. And when I wasn't, it was too dark to see anything.”
“What about height? Build?”
“Nothing useful. The only light was a candle that the guy was blocking, and I spent most of the time on my belly, checking out the carpet. Is there anything that matches the attack on Randolph?”
She shook her head again. “The tire tracks on Ridge Road were inconclusive, those plastic bag footprints in the mud have no analogue here, and Scott didn't even get a glimpse of them.”
“The fact that they whipped her won't convince anyone they were raised on the Koran,” Ward said. He was staring at the white ceiling. All he could see was the arm coming back at her again and again, mechanically, making her shriek into her gag with every descent. “I'm going to get them. I don't know how, but I will.”
“I didn't hear that,” Brennan said.
“Want me to say it a little louder?”
“Only if you want me to get it exactly right at your murder trial,” she said.
The police chief was right, of course. Ward loved that lady. She was thoughtful and consistent, not like the other women in his life. “It had to be Angie,” Ward said, thinking aloud. “I didn't see Muscle, I didn't see any other vehicles. She was the only one who could have tipped them off.”
“She knew you were here?”
“I wanted to make sure she was okay, so I called.”
The police chief gave him a look. “Was that the real reason?”
“Not entirely.”
“Uh-huh. And she refused to help you.”
“She hung up on me,” he told her. “Or was that Joanne? I forget.”
“You
do
have a delicate touch,” the police chief said.
“I don't get a lot of practice in crack dens and gun parlors,” Ward said. There was nothing of an apology in his statement.
“Fair enough.”
“They both hung up on me,” he said, thinking back.
“I've foundâand this is just meâthat things work better, at least out here, when you knock instead of kicking in the door.”
“A guy with a hostage or a bomb doesn't always give you that luxury,” Ward said.
“Hey, we've got crazies out here too,” the police chief said. “I once had a kid who took an old stick of TNT, sweating nitro, and hung it by the fuse from the inside doorknob of the Jolly Burger office. We didn't know at first that it was there. If my team and I had busted in, as the former police chief recommended, two hostages would have died and you and I would never have met.”
“What did you do?”
“Found out what he liked to drink, slipped someone into the restaurant, spiked the root beer, then just waited him out.”
“That kind of tactic is tough when you've got nine kinds of media watching you,” Ward said.
“Only if you care.”
Ward laughed, instantly regretted it as spikes of pain shot from navel to armpit. He sucked air through tightly drawn lips.
“Yeah, that's gonna hurt for a while,” Brennan said. “What gets me is you probably feel you deserve itâ”
“Damn right.”
“Why? Because you fell for the same ploy that got Scott Randolph?”
“Not entirely,” he said. “I was actually calling you when they made their move. I'm angry that I didn't pull out of the kill zone the instant I realized there was one.” The pain subsided and he relaxed. “Has Debbie been awake at all?”
“She drifts in and out. They've got her doped up for the pain, so mostly, she's out.” The police chief moved closer. She swung an old wooden chair from the wall to the bedside and sat. “I want those sumbitches too. I agree that it's probably the kids from the community center. Hell, they're the only ones around here smart enough not to get caught. But they need to be drawn out, the way you almost did inside the van.”
“If I hadn't blown thatâ”
“This would still have happened, maybe worse,” Brennan said. “Stop beating yourself over the head, it isn't helping.”
Ward shut up.
“Before we can hope to get back on this horse, you need to heal some and things need to settle a bit,” she said. “The oddballs always stand out when the world is otherwise normal. That's the whole idea behind airport security, right?”
Ward nodded.
“So here's a thought. I was kickin' this around with Scott a bit. He's getting out today and is going to open up his cabin in the mountains.”
“He told me about that. His hunting place.”
“Right. You can both stay there. No one will bother you. Christ, no one can
get
to you without creating a ruckus of rock and brush. Can you ride?”
“A horse?”
She made a face. “No, one of those
Avatar
birds. Yeah, a horse.”
“No.”
“You'll have to learn. It'll be too difficult a climb in your condition.”
“Learn where?”
“Yakima Corrigan's.”
“Where?”
“â
Who
.' Yak owns a stable on the north side of town,” Brennan said. “That's where Scott gets his rides. Anyway, you can fake it up the mountain with their help, spend a few days at the cabin recovering. When you're ready, we'll talk again.”
“You ready to go off-the-books?” he asked.
“I don't see that we have a choice,” she said. “Playing by the rules leaves us on defense and we can't afford that.” She regarded him for a moment. “Do we have a deal?”
“A deal?”
“You got my concession, now you give me yours.”
“Meaning?”
“I may not need the radiation suits Homeland Security bought for us, but I do read the white papers and alerts. No Wasp tactics.”
The police chief was referring to the strategy of sending a single operative into enemy territory to cause havoc; it was named for the disruption a single insect could cause at a picnic or in a room. In the case of anti-terror warfare, a Wasp could be an ethnic ally who infiltrated a house of worship or training camp, or it could be an outsider who sabotaged hardware, software, or ordnance. In al-Qaida strongholds, the CIA was especially fond of contaminating explosives rather than attempting to apprehend bombers. Electronic surveillance was used to collect intel from a given site; a premature detonation got rid of the personnel and robbed radicals of the media platform afforded by foredoomed extradition efforts.
“Don't worry, chief,” Ward said. “My head's cooling. It's the hive I want, not the drones. I want it bad.”
Brennan nodded once, put the chair back, then looked down at the detective.
“Heal,” she said. “When you're better, we'll get 'em.”
“What are you going to tell Gahrah if he asks why I was back in Basalt?”
She thought for a moment then replied, “I'll tell him your hate crime back east put you on a no-fly list. Let's see him complain about
that
.”
C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY
The prayer space was thick with purpose, and the purpose was more than prayer.
The early morning ritual had been completed, the devotees praising God and ritualistically asking for their faith to be increased, their sins forgiven. The fourteen men who worked in and around the community center left, save for Gahrah and the imam. The director of the Al Huda Center rose and helped the elderly cleric to his feet.
“I must speak with you,
abuya
,” Gahrah said. He used the word for “father” to show personal rather than clerical deference.
“I know your concerns.” The imam's dark eyes fixed on those of the younger man. “You fear for the young men.”
“Very much so,” Gahrah admitted.
“Why do you assume responsibilities that are not your own?” the imam asked. “Can you protect them better than God?”
“Imam, of course I make no such claimâ”
“They are soldiers in a war, with a clear and important role to play.”
“A dangerous role,” Gahrah said. “One I fear we make more dangerous by impatience.”
The imam bowed his forehead in agreement. “We have always been a patient people yet these are changing times. Events must not move ahead without us. The citizens of this town must fear that which has come among them. How is that to be done by other means?”
“We had a plan,” Gahrah reminded him. “They must fear without being able to attach blame.”
“
Dawah
,” the imam said with contempt. “A
jihad
conducted with stealth. Have we become women that we must conceal our true meaning?”
“Imamâ”
“Believers have fear of God and
only
God, not of the infidel,” the cleric continued. “Do you no longer believe, Aseel?”
“I believe with every breath.”
“Then you know that He will resurrect the dead when the earth has been cleansed. God has willed it and it is our sacred duty to prepare the way.”
The cleric clasped Gahrah's hands within his own then turned to go. Gahrah continued to hold one of his hands gently.
“Imam,
please
hear me,” the younger man said.
The imam regarded the locked hands then looked up, his eyes unforgiving. Gahrah released his grip. The imam stood there, waiting.
“We came here to make a beginning,” Gahrah said, choosing his words carefully, running passages of the Koran through his mind in an effort not to contradict the word of God. “We had a plan and it has been unfolding.”
“The man from New York was unexpected,” the imam said.
“Yet the end is certain because God has willed it,” Gahrah said. “Might we, in our haste to deal with this insect, take the wrong path? If by our new efforts the locals discover what we are really doingâ”
“Then they will die in a holocaust of fire sooner rather than later,” the imam said. “There is no wrong path in the war we fight.”
“Then why not just send the young men out with bombs and guns today?” Gahrah could not keep the desperation from his voice.
The cleric was unshaken. “Yes, that is one means, an honorable way, and it may come to that. But for now I am content with the skirmishes that frighten them without costing us resources.”
“But it frightens them to
action
! You've seen that.”
“Their action is to attack us blindly, for they
are
blind,” the imam replied. “Let them become a mob. Let them attack. The American president himself will speak against them. Our sacrifice will be their defeat.”
There was no convincing the imam. Like many other clerics he had embraced the strategy that had worked in New York at the Ground Zero Mosque and other locations. The rage of the citizenry became the story, not the territorial gains of Islam.
“The fire of anger creates smoke, and that is our greatest shield,” the imam said, his comforting manner returning. “When the enemy is distracted, like a dog by his basest drives, one is free to act in the open.”
Gahrah had not yet reached the level of faith or absoluteness that the imam had achieved; he was still, at heart, a businessman. That was why he had embraced this mission, this role, to own and control town after town, city after city, state upon state until the nation was theirs. It was a goal to play out over a generation or more, financed by petrodollars, smuggled by increasingly diverse means as loyalists or greedy infidels controlled more and more of the airports and harbors. The project had been precipitated by the start of the Great Recession in 2008; cash had proved a great inducement to those who had no political or theological agenda other than to stave off poverty.
The architects of the master plan in Riyadh had conceived of something that was simple and infallible. Gahrah was not an ideologue; he had committed himself because it would be the greatest financial takeover in world history. Only recklessness could cause them to fail, and that was what the imam espoused.
He does not have the time that I have
, Gahrah reminded himself as the elderly man left the prayer space.
He does not relish each property we collect, each street we control. Before he goes to Paradise he wants to see the end of America well-begun.
That was why he and the boys, working with Tehran, had conceived another plan, one that would run simultaneously with the Saudi operation. One that would shake the nation to a degree unprecedented in its history.
Gahrah still did not agree but it was not his call. The young men were with their cleric. They had suffered bias in Chicago and were nurtured to be zealots. All he could do was manage the original operation. To which end it was clear that Angie Dickson apparently knew something about it now, and that could be dangerous. If her father became frightened for her, that would be more dangerous still.
Perhaps the imam was right
, Gahrah thought. Perhaps the cleric knew, intuitively, how people must be manipulated and controlled. They needed the absolute cooperation of Earl Dickson, and the promise of financial salvation or the threat of prison might not be enough to retain that.
Reluctantly, he went to his office and called Hamza.