The Last Infidel (10 page)

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Cody and Jose walked down the street on the east side of the square, two dark figures moving silently through the shadows.  After a quick glance back towards the square, and after Cody felt reasonably sure nobody had taken any interest in them, the two men slipped into a small, darkened alley and hurried away from the square.

“You know,” Jose said, “You’re sitting on a gold mine.”

“A bomb mine,” Cody replied.

“Just tell Jadhari what you have and come to terms with him.  I’ll bet he’ll even drive you and me past the checkpoints and half way to Chattanooga.”

“And you’re sure about that?”

“I don’t want to die like Mikey did – and time is getting short.”

“You didn’t care about Mikey any more than I did, probably less.  You only care about yourself.  I get it.  You’ve stayed alive.  It doesn’t get much better than that.”

“You’re just describing yourself, Cody – that’s what you always do.  Why do you think everybody else is just like you?”

Cody and Jose headed for a strip of tall growth growing along the curb.  East Main Street, with its tall mansions and tennis courts, looked more like a jungle than a haunt of the rich, the depraved, and the idle.  Bashar’s men occupied a few of the homes.  You could see their lamps burning in the windows. But most of the others sat vacant, slowly deteriorating, like everything else in the wake of ISA’s conquests. 

Jadhari owned the Second French Empire on the left heading out of town, a three-storied, mansard-roofed mansion built in the 1870s.

Ten minutes later, Cody and Jose were looking at it from across the street, from behind a tall, massed growth of hydrangeas, from a position totally engulfed in darkness.

“You could just let me handle the transaction with Jadhari – I can get us a good deal,” Jose said.

“You think I couldn’t?”

“I’ll take all the risk – nobody will ever know that you were involved.  And then you and me will be outta here, man.  Just like that.”

“Why are you here, Jose?”

“To try to talk some sense into you.”

A door slammed somewhere in the distance and a woman screamed.  Cody looked out through the bushes towards Jadhari’s mansion and saw an oil lamp being trimmed in one of the windows.  A window on the second floor was faintly lit.

“That would be a maid, or somebody,” Cody said. 

“Or somebody with a gun,” Jose shot back.  “So what do you want to do?”

“There’s a key to the back door that’s hidden under a fake rock.  Fakest rock you’ll ever see.”

“No, I mean about the bombs,” Jose shot back.

“You’re just a piece of work, you know that?” Cody snapped.  “Let’s do what we came here to do.”

Cody and Jose slipped quietly out of hiding and sprinted across the street.  They ran through the tall grass without stopping and hurried along the right side of the house, stopping at the rear door.  Cody knelt down next to the stone steps, feeling around for the fake rock.  Jose, who had gone up the steps, gently turned the doorknob.

“Hey,” Jose whispered down to Cody.  “It’s open.  Stop fooling around down there and let’s do it.”

The door led into a kitchen.  Cody looked through the glass door and, seeing no movement, hearing no sounds, he turned the knob and pushed the door inward.  Once inside, he slowly drew his roofing knife, a short, hooked blade, clean and sharp, and he held it at the ready.

Somebody spoke in the next room, a voice low and heavy.  Cody and Jose froze and knelt on the floor.  They listened, but they couldn’t make out what had been said.

Suddenly, the voice of a young girl cried out: “Leave me alone!  Please!”

“Jadhari says I can have you any time I want,” a man said.  “It’s okay if you fight – I like that.”

“Please leave me alone!” the girl cried.

Something hit the floor, perhaps something made of glass, because it shattered.  Then there came the sound of cloth being torn, and the girl screamed; and a commotion, like furniture falling over, and scuffling could be heard.  Now the sound of muffled screams and moans filled the room.

Cody, without any concern for himself, turned the corner into the dining room with his blade raised.  One of Jadhari’s guards, with his pants below his knees and a girl pinned beneath him on the long dining room table, never knew the sheriff was coming.  Cody grabbed the man by his dark, black hair, lifted his head, and slit him open from ear to ear, throwing him aside before a geyser of blood covered the girl.

Jose ran in behind Cody and helped the girl off the table.  “Looks like we were just in time!”

“Is there anyone else in the house?” Cody whispered to the girl.  “Anymore guards?”

The girl, with tears in her eyes, holding her torn nightgown to cover her upper body, shook her head.  “But there’s a boy on the second floor, he’s---”

“Stay here,” Cody said to Jose, “and make sure nobody else comes through that door.”  He hurried through the dining room, took a right down a long, dark hallway, and found the living room.  He took the stairs to the second floor and turned right into a long hallway.  On the right, two doors down, he saw the faint glow of an oil lamp casting its light into the hall.

Cody hurried, fearful that Jadhari might return, and worrying that other guards might be coming on duty.  Inside the room, he found Marcus handcuffed to the bed with his eyes closed.  Cody reached into his pocket for his keyring.

Marcus, his face bruised and his lower lip cut and swollen, opened his eyes when he heard the jingle of the keys.  “Sheriff Marshall?  Are you here to get me out?”

Cody nodded and told him to remain quiet.  He found his handcuff key and quickly unlocked the cuffs from Marcus’s feet.  Then he freed his hands.

Marcus swung his feet over the side of the bed and stood up.  He marched in place, trying to shake off the tightness in his leg muscles, and he shrugged his shoulders.

“Are you okay?” Cody asked.  “Can you walk?”

The sound of hurrying feet coming up the stairs startled Cody.  He walked to the bedroom door and looked out, seeing Jose and the girl.

“We’re getting her dressed,” Jose said, as he hurried past Cody, turning into the bedroom opposite.

Cody turned. He saw Marcus with an oil lamp without a globe in his hands and a burning white sock in the other.  Before he could say a word, Marcus smashed the nearly-full oil lamp onto the floor of the closet and threw the blazing, smoking sock in after it.  The closet, full of clothes, burst into flames.

“This’ll teach him, won’t it, Sheriff Marshall?”  Marcus yelled.

“Jose!” Cody yelled.  “We’ve gotta move, and I mean now!”  He grabbed Marcus’s forearm and pulled him towards the hallway.

Jose came running, and he leaned into the room.  He saw the fire and looked up towards the high ceiling.  “I hope somebody outside doesn’t see that!  Smart move, Cody – just because you have a death wish doesn’t mean the rest of us do!”  He ran back into the other room.  The girl had changed into a pair of jeans and was just finishing with the buttons on her shirt.  She grabbed a pair of shoes and socks just as Jose grabbed her hand.  He jerked her out of the room, down the hall, and towards the stairs.  Cody and Marcus followed.

“No, wait!”  Marcus yelled.  “The turret room – Jadhari keeps a lot of gold there, sitting out in the open!”

Jose let go of the girl’s hand. “Where is it?”

“At the other end of this hall through the last door on the right!”  The girl said.

“There’s no time!” Cody yelled, jerking Marcus along with him.

Marcus freed himself from Cody’s grip, following Jose and the girl in a race down the hall. 

Cody shook his head, muttered under his breath, and followed reluctantly.  He looked in on the burning room as he passed it.  The walls near the closet were blazing and the paint delaminating, curling, and igniting; and billows of poisonous, grayish-black smoke began pouring out into the hall like a storm cloud.

The turret room, at the end of the hall, was dark.  Cody pulled out a small flashlight and flipped it on.  “If there’s anybody looking, they’ll know we’re now in Jadhari’s office.”

“Here it is!” the girl cried.  “Right where he always keeps it!”  She picked up an old cigar box sitting on a large, mahogany desk, and she grabbed it, groaning under its weight.  She held it up and flipped the lid back, showing its contents to Jose. 

“Holy cow!” Jose said.  “A bunch of small, one-ounce bars!  I’m rich!”

“Jadhari counts them every night,” the girl said.  “He loves them.”

Jose reached for the box, smiling; but the girl frowned and pulled it away.  “This belongs to me and Marcus, so back off!”

Cody, standing over the desk, gathered up several papers he’d found in a manila folder.  He held up two papers in particular, one in either hand, and he smiled.  His eyes bounced back and forth from one to the other like the head of a spectator at a ping pong competition.  He quickly folded them up and slid them into his back pocket.  “Now, if you guys don’t mind---”

“But what about me?  I haven’t got anything to show for this rescue!” Jose said, looking around the room for something to take.

“You felt our joy,” Cody said calmly and serenely.  “He opened the cigar box, removed a one-ounce gold bar, and handed it to Jose. 

“And that’s it?  That’s all I get?”

“You’ve never had a bar like that before, have you?”

“You better make this worth my while,” Jose warned severely.  “I’ve always had your back – well, most of the time, you pendejo.”

“This is America – and in this town, we speak American, got it?” Cody said.  He took the cigar box from the girl and handed it to Jose.  “We’ll divvy it up later.  Now, if you don’t mind, let’s get these kids someplace safe.”

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Cody descended the secret staircase from the hardware store down into the dark tunnel.  Marcus and the girl, whose name was Katrina, followed Cody.  Jose brought up the rear.  Cody flipped on his flashlight at the bottom of the steps and lit the way through the damp, musty, cobwebbed passage.  Jose tucked the cigar box full of gold bars tightly under his arm, only to have it slide down again to his elbow.  Cody had offered to carry it for him, but Jose’s desire to protect his share of the profits was best summed up by the old adage that possession was nine-tenths of the law.

Cody heard Tracy’s voice, smooth and articulate, coming down the tunnel. The light of an oil lamp, not very bright, flickering – or maybe someone had been walking past it at the moment – could not have been more than twenty feet ahead.  He stopped his little posse and, with the flashlight in his face and his finger to his lips, he told everyone to remain quiet.  He turned off the flashlight.  When he reached the entrance to the realty building basement, he stopped.

Zafar, with his back facing Cody, was sitting at the small, wooden table.  Tracy sat opposite him, listening now, as Zafar talked about troops coming out of the north – their numbers, their leaders, and their objectives.  She remained attentive to Zafar, but her head moved, almost imperceptibly, and her eyes met Cody’s, calmly and without alarm.  Cody wanted to look away, swing his head in the other direction.  But he didn’t move.

“And our time is running out,” Zafar said.  “ISA troops are already ahead of schedule.  My people are getting scared, and they tell me it may be too late now to equip the Yazidi.  But I don’t think so.  We have only a little bit of time.”

Cody slipped quietly into the room and stepped up close to Zafar.  He looked over his shoulder, carefully, holding his breath.  He looked down and saw a hand-drawn map.

“But there is still time to hit them here and here,” Zafar continued, pointing at the map. “All we can do is slow them down and make them use some of their troops to guard the rear.  That will give your people time to---”

“Time to what?” Cody said.  “Get themselves all killed like they did at Nashville?”

Zafar, startled, jumped up from his seat.  “Mr. Marshall, I didn’t expect to---”

Jose entered the room, corralling the kids in front of him.

“The Army of Tennessee is outclassed on every front, Zafar,” Cody snapped.  “And I’m beginning to wonder if you’re really the turncoat you claim you are.”  He looked at Tracy briefly and turned away.  “It looks like you’ve got everyone fooled, Zafar.”

“I hardly know what you mean.” Zafar replied, with perfect calm.

“But you’re still not sure which side you want to be on,” Cody said, “because you’re not sure who’s going to win. You’re a profiteer, just like my friend Jose.  Seems like your leaders aren’t so sure this fight is over yet.  I happen to know that you--”

Lisa Maddox came into the room, saw her son, and ran to him, breaking down into tears as she scooped him up into her arms.

Marcus broke away from his mother’s embrace and walked around the table, stopping beside Tracy.  He squinted in the weak glow of the lamp light and then pointed at Zafar.  “I saw him – he was at Jadhari’s.  He came into my room and he---” His voice trailed off and he lowered his head.  “I just hope you die, mister.”

Katrina walked over to Marcus, her eyes boring holes into Zafar, and she took his hand.  “Come on, Marcus.”

“Lisa, take the kids,” Cody said.  “I’ll see you in a minute.”

“I have never seen that boy in my life!” Zafar protested, stirring uneasily in his chair.

“Your body language, X-rated, I’m sure, tells me a different story,” Cody said.  He pulled the folded up papers out his pocket, opened them up, and handed them to Tracy.  “Jose, I need you to keep an eye on Zafar – that is, if you can part with that gold for a few minutes.”

“I got this,” Jose said, and he put the box down and removed a knife from his belt.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Cody,” Tracy said, as she pored over the papers he’d just handed her.

“Seems like the Army of Tennessee is marching right into a trap,” Cody said to Tracy.  “Your recon teams are leaving entire areas untouched.”

“Two thousand men,” Tracy said, looking at one of the papers.  “Coming up through North Georgia as we speak.  How did we miss that?”

“It’s been a huge set up all along,” Cody said.  “But those explosives?  They’re the real deal.  And it’s a good thing Mr. Zafar here hasn’t made up his mind about what he wants to do with it.  He alone of Bashar’s men knows about the C-4, only he didn’t count on . . . well, let’s just say he didn’t know that I’d stumbled into his little hiding place and moved his stash.”

“How do we know these papers are legitimate?”  Tracy asked.

“You’re being played,” Cody said boldly.  “You’ve been feeding bad info back to General Williams.  And that covert of yours?  He left town yesterday.  And if I’m guessing correctly, General Williams is moving his men up from Chattanooga as we speak.”

Lisa Maddox, with Jose on her tail, hurried back into the room, carrying her rifle, the one Cody had traded to her.  She put the muzzle against Zafar’s back.  “Up, Mr. Katila – right now.”

Jose looked at Cody, raised his brows, and drew his finger across his throat.

Cody slowly shook his head, and Jose backed away from Lisa.

“Marcus . . . he tells me you have a tattoo,” Lisa said.  “Get up and drop your pants.”

“Don’t do this, Lisa,” Tracy said, drawing a silenced pistol and pointing it at her.

“You’ve done unspeakable things to my child,” Lisa screamed.  “You Muslims are all the same – you’re all liars and predators.  Marcus says you have a tattoo right next to your---”

“I assure you I have no tattoo,” Zafar explained breathlessly.  “Allah would not---”

Cody and Tracy looked at each other.

“Allah?” Tracy asked.  “Since when do you---”

“He’s lying,” Cody said to Tracy.  “He has been all along.  He’s playing whichever side he can when he can.  He’s a profiteer, like Jose here – nothing more, nothing less.”

“Hey!” Jose shouted.  “That’s not fair!”

“He . . . Marcus tells me he has a rose tattooed right there,” Lisa said, pointing to her left hip just below her belt.  “Prove Marcus wrong, Zafar, and I’ll let you go.”

Cody nodded to Jose.

Jose put his knife against Zafar’s throat, and Cody walked over to Zafar.

“I’ve never undressed a man before,” Cody said.  “And I can’t help thinking I’m about to violate myself by doing it.”  He jerked Zafar up and out of his seat.  Then he looked down and unfastened Zafar’s belt and undid the button holding up his trousers.  “Here’s where I’m a little out of my league,” Cody said, glancing at Tracy.

“I . . . I can explain,” Zafar said, his voice trembling.

Cody shook his head.  “Thanks for saying that.  You’ve just saved us a lot of trouble.”  Cody looked at Lisa and nodded.

“No, Lisa,” Tracy said.  “Don’t do it.”

Zafar died with a bullet between his shoulder blades. His body fell forward across the old wooden table and laid there like a cheap suit at a day-old garage sale.

“Jose, get this lump of crap out of here,” Cody said.  “Take him back to our place and stuff him into the drain.  They’ll never find him in there.”

Jose turned the body of Zafar over, and Lisa lifted the waistband of the man she’d just killed.  Cody aimed his flashlight at Zafar’s waist:  everyone saw a tattoo of a rose, sitting right next to his shaven---

A few minutes later, Cody and Tracy were standing all alone.  Jose and Lisa had taken Zafar’s body away; Marcus and Katrina had gone to the hiding place.

Cody produced a small bottle, held it up to the light, and shook it gently.  It sparkled golden in the flicker of the lamp.  “The last cognac you’ll probably ever see,” he said.  And he sat down in Zafar’s chair.

Tracy turned to walk away.

“Tell me why you really walked away from us,” Cody said.

Tracy stopped and turned around.  She looked into Cody’s eyes.  “I would prefer to not talk about it – not after what I’ve seen here tonight.”

“And what have you seen?” Cody asked.  “Justice?  A rescued boy and his mother, a young girl, and a dead Muslim?  Hell, even Jose wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me.”

“I’ve just seen someone I once loved act as cold as a stone on ice,” Tracy said.

“So that’s it,” Cody said.  “You walked away because you---”

“Because I have seen my nightmares come true,” Tracy snapped.  “I wanted to remember you as that happy, easy-going boy I grew up with – not the cold, calculated, detached killer I’ve seen here tonight.  I . . . I don’t want a warrior.  That won’t work for me and it never will.”

“And because I’ve got blood on my hands, it means I have no blood in my heart,” Cody said.  “Is that it?  And you can run a bunch of recon teams from a distance and not be a killer?”

Lisa managed a brief quivering smile, and then she pressed her lips together.  “I don’t want to think about where you’re going to end up – I don’t want to know.”

“Just in case you haven’t noticed, I’m the one who’s still here,” Cody said.  “I’ve always been here.  You, Tracy darling, aren’t running away from anybody but yourself.  You and Bashar are very much alike as far as that goes.”

“Then I’ll run, and I’ll keep running, if it’s all the same to you,” Tracy said.

“So, you ran off because you didn’t want to see me dead, physically or emotionally.  But I will tell you something, little Miss whoever-the-hell-you-are.  You may think you’re alive.  But you died two years ago.  Only difference is that you shot your own danged self to save anyone else the trouble.  You’re a killer alright – only I know you don’t have a heart.”

Tracy turned and walked away.  Before she entered the passage, she turned around and said, “We’ll need to get word sent south of what’s happening.  Lisa’s the girl for the job.  Can you be here in a few hours – about four?”

Cody’s body posture loosened and he scratched his cheek, totally flummoxed by the turn of the discussion.  Who the hell was she talking to?  He looked around the room once, then at Tracy, and said, “Four?”