The Rule of Nine (28 page)

I
t was five
A.M
. and Flannery and Son's cement contractors were scheduled for a major pour. The framing crew was finishing up the last few forms as the cement-pumper truck set up over the site at the Fulton Street subway station.

There was already a line of seven heavily laden cement trucks queued up on the street outside the gate, each one waiting to disgorge ten cubic yards of concrete. More trucks were on the way. They would be rolling in and out all day, dropping their load into the hopper of the pumper truck as the cement crew moved the hydraulic-powered chute around, pouring the concrete as they spread and leveled it.

“Hey! You got a problem.” One of the drivers milling around outside the gate yelled over the sound of the idling diesels. He pointed to the second truck in line. Its giant mixer barrel on the back was not revolving.

The driver of the truck leaned out of his open window. “I know. Batch plant didn't give me enough water. Had to shut my mixer down. How about I get inside to use your hose to get some more water in the mix?”

The guard at the gate looked at the officer in charge. Both private guards and transit police provided security for the construction site. The transit cop nodded, and the private security man with the clipboard wrote down the license number of the truck as well as the owner's name and contractor's license number from the driver's-side truck door. He then swung open the gate and waved the truck inside.

The guard raised his hand and stopped the truck just as it was about to enter. “Two water trucks parked over there.” The guard pointed off to the left, a fair distance from the site of the giant open hole over the subway. “Tell 'em to give you a hose. They should have more than enough water.”

The driver smiled, nodded, and drove through the gate.

 

Ahmed sat in the left-hand seat as the 727 climbed through twelve thousand feet. He could see the white surf and the azure blue shallow waters just off the beaches on the southwest coast of Puerto Rico as he and Masud held the plane on a steady course headed north.

They had a full load of fuel. The two air-to-air missiles were now slung under the wings, attached to the pylons that Ahmed and his comrade had helped to install.

The two Saudis were mystified by how easily Thorn had managed to bulldoze his way past the inquisitive onlookers on Vieques after the plane landed. A handful of bureaucrats from the U.S. Department of the Interior who worked at Camp Garcia came by to look when they heard the plane come in.

The workers made the trek a half mile or so from the dilapidated offices at the camp to the airfield, some of them in cars and a few on foot. Thorn took charge, showing them some papers and telling them that he'd already called in the incident to the FAA, and that a Federal Aviation Administration inspector was being
dispatched from Washington to Vieques to investigate. He would be there Monday morning.

This put an end to all their questions. A few of them lingered, wandering around the outside of the plane for a few minutes, and then disappeared.

As soon as everything calmed down, Thorn went back to work on the plane. He finished the spray job on the company logos just forward of the wings and skipped the big one on the tail section. He told the two pilots it wouldn't matter.

Thorn arranged for a load of fuel. As soon as it was delivered, he started up the engines and turned the plane around so that its nose was pointed down the runway. Finally he went over last-minute instructions with them and then departed for the airport on the other side of the island.

For two nights Ahmed and his comrade slept on the plane. They were armed and instructed to kill anyone, quietly if they could, who approached the plane or tried to get on board.

Then early Monday morning before daybreak they broke out the two air-to-air missiles from their crates inside the plane, mounted them to the pylons under the wings, and armed them both. Within a half hour they had the engines warmed up and were headed down the runway. It was six thirty
A.M
. None of the government workers would show up at Camp Garcia for another hour and a half.

Ahmed piloted the plane on a northwest course sixty miles out to sea before heading due north. The plane climbed over puffy patches of tropical clouds casting shadows on the water below. He kept his transponder turned off and stayed well out over the ocean. The plan was to avoid ground-based radar from Puerto Rico and the frequent radio inquiries from the island's air traffic control towers. Forty minutes into the flight, he turned ninety degrees to starboard and put the plane heading over the ocean forty miles north of Rafael Hernández Airport on the extreme north end of the island.

Formerly known as Ramey Air Force Base, the field had been turned over to civilian use as part of the base closure program a few years earlier. The Air National Guard and the Coast Guard still retained a presence there. It was also used by the airfreight carrier FedEx as its hub for the Caribbean Basin.

Ahmed climbed to twenty-five thousand feet and put the 727 into a circling pattern out over the water as Masud listened to their VHF radio receiver. They had plenty of fuel. He was scanning the frequencies, searching for their quarry.

“Federal Express flight 9303—Squawk 1423, runway two north. You are cleared for takeoff.”

“There it is!” said Ahmed. He couldn't believe it. It was exactly as Thorn had said. The airport at Rafael Hernández usually didn't have FedEx flights any farther north than Miami or Memphis, but today they did.

Flight 9303 was headed for Newark Liberty Airport in New Jersey. The wide-body DC-10 would dwarf the smaller 727. And anyone familiar with the FedEx flight schedule would know that the carrier never used smaller planes on such long-haul routes. But by the time anyone on the ground or in the air saw the plane, the 727 would be so close to its target that this would be the last thing on their minds.

Ahmed continued to circle, holding his altitude at twenty-five thousand feet and waiting as the huge wide-body took off and slowly climbed toward its cruising altitude.

Almost twenty minutes later Masud spied the larger plane cutting through a cloud deck eight thousand feet below them and still climbing. Ahmed continued his arc around in the circle and fell in behind them, still five thousand feet above the larger jet. He went into a shallow dive and used his altitude to pick up speed and close the distance on the other plane.

When he got within a half mile, he eased back on the throttles and flew fifty feet above the tall tail of the DC-10 to avoid the air turbulence off its wings and its jet wash.

The bigger plane had a slightly slower cruising speed than the 727 and Ahmed wanted to be careful to avoid getting on top of it. He hugged in as close as he dared, knowing that with his transponder turned off, the collision avoidance system on the DC-10 was blinded. From out in front there was no way that the crew on the flight deck of the large wide-body could see them.

In less than a half hour they were more than a hundred miles off the north coast of Puerto Rico, well beyond the range of ground-based radar, in an area approaching no-man's-land, the heart of the Bermuda Triangle.

 

Once inside the chain-link gate, the driver of the large cement truck made a broad-arcing turn toward the two parked water trucks. But instead of continuing on, he stopped. He turned the wheel and started to back up. The reverse safety bell on his rear wheels started to clang and by the time the guard at the gate turned and saw him, the truck was moving backward on a direct line toward the open cavern over the subway.

“Where the hell's he goin'?”

Two of the transit cops looked over. One of them shook his head, then started to wave his arms back and forth. “No. No. Not there.” He took a few tentative steps toward the moving truck. “Hey, dimwit!” he yelled at the top of his voice.

The driver looked at him for an instant before pressing the accelerator to the floor. The weight in the back of the truck was the only thing that slowed it down. The cement truck started to back up faster, its reverse safety bell now ringing frantically. As the transit cop realized there was something wrong, both he and his partner started to run toward the moving truck.

One of the workmen, still hammering forms, hearing the bell bearing down on him, looked up and threw his body out of the
way as the rear wheels barely missed him. They rolled right over the wooden forms, crushing them, and kept right on going. The forms didn't even slow down the heavy quad set of dual wheels.

“Stop!” The workman leaped to his feet and jumped up onto the truck's running board as it passed by. He reached inside and tried to grab the steering wheel.

The driver wrestled him for control of the wheel, but the framing contractor was big and burly and by now was flowing with adrenaline.

The Somali driver grabbed the Sig Sauer nine-millimeter pistol next to him on the seat, pressed the muzzle against the workman's forehead, and pulled the trigger. In a cloud of bloodred spray, the workman's gaze fixed as his body tumbled backward off the truck. A second later the driver felt the steering wheel pull to the right as the front left wheel of the massive truck rolled over the dead laborer.

The two transit cops pulled their pistols and started firing at the truck's windshield. They unloaded their full clips on the fast-moving vehicle. Two of the rounds hit the driver in the head and chest.

His right foot went all the way to the floor as his body fell forward onto the wheel.

The truck careened to the right and caromed off a pile of steel I beams. The impact jarred the dead driver's foot off the gas pedal. But the truck didn't stop. Instead it slowly continued to roll toward the open pit.

One of the transit cops launched himself onto the running board at the driver's-side door. He pulled on the door handle and found it was locked.

He reached through the open window and opened the door from the inside as the truck continued to roll. He jerked the dead driver out of the seat, threw him to the ground, and climbed up into the cab.

The rolling dolly on the rear end of the truck slid over the edge of the open cavern. It disconnected from the tow gear on the back of the truck and tumbled down into the open shaft.

The cop hit the clutch and jammed his foot on the brake just as the first set of rear wheels went over the edge.

 

About two hundred miles out, over the dark blue water of the Atlantic, Ahmed told Masud to dial in the transponder numbers and to be sure that the altitude button was pressed.

Masud turned each of the four knobs until he dialed in the squawk number for the big DC-10, the numbers 1423, then he pressed the button that would disclose to ground radar the 727's altitude. But he didn't flip the button to turn the transponder on, not yet. “Ready,” he said.

Ahmed eased back on the throttles. He wanted to maintain altitude but increase the distance between himself and the bigger plane. The 727 fell back three-quarters of a mile. The fear was that if he was too close, the jet intakes on the smaller Boeing would suck in debris and stall out.

“What do you think?” said Ahmed.

“A little farther,” said Masud.

Ahmed eased back on the throttle a little more. Suddenly the smaller plane was buffeted by the swirling turbulence off the wing-tips of the big DC-10. Ahmed shook his head and adjusted the throttle forward again. “Do it.”

Masud opened the lid on a metal box bolted to the floor at his feet. He lifted the two red plastic switch covers, looked over at Ahmed one last time, bit his lower lip, and flipped both switches.

The two wing-mounted missiles fell from their pylons and an instant later their rocket motors flared on. They streaked forward on each side of the cockpit, leaving a contrail like a running torpedo as Ahmed lifted the nose of the 727 and pulled to the right.

Two seconds later a massive ball of fire erupted just over the nose of the plane, to the left. Ahmed pushed down on the right pedal and turned the wheel. He lifted the left wing as streaks of smoking-hot debris flew past the window and made a rat-a-tat pattern like flack striking the aluminum skin along the side of the fuselage.

“Transponder!” Ahmed had his hands full with the controls.

Masud reached over and flipped the transponder button on. It was unlikely that ground radar from anywhere would have had them on the screen, but any loitering AWAK flights that might have them on the screen would have noticed only a momentary flicker in squawk signature on their screen for 1423, and only a slight adjustment for heading and altitude.

Ahmed looked out his side window and watched behind him as the flaming debris fell toward the sea.

I
t is sometime Monday morning when I hear the familiar and now detested ring tone from my cell phone. At least this time I know where it is, on the nightstand somewhere behind me.

I can sense the satin smoothness of her body stir as I move my hand like a blind man along the surface of the table feeling for the phone. The blanket lifts up just enough to allow some of the chilled air from the register of the hotel's air conditioner to spill between the sheets.

“Turn that thing off. It's cold.” Joselyn presses her warm back up against me like a hot spoon under the heavy covers.

My hand finds the phone and I pull it to my ear. “Hello!”

“You might want to be getting your ass outta bed,” says Herman. “Thorn's on the move and unless they're ghosts, I don't see any cops or the FBI.”

“What are you talking about?” I am half asleep. “They told us to leave it alone,” I tell him.

“Yeah, I know. But I got hungry. Got outta bed to come over and see for myself Thorn's hotel,” he says. “They got a bar with a small
restaurant, so I decided to get some breakfast. While I was eating Thorn came out of the elevator carrying a briefcase.” Herman is breathing heavily.

“Where are you now?”

“Just across the street. I'm out in front of a liquor store on the corner, place called Kogod's Liquors,” he says. “There's an old fire-house next door.”

I toss the blankets off, throw my legs over the side of the bed, and sit up. “What are you doing?”

“Following Thorn,” he says. “Nobody else seems to be interested. I'm just across the street from our hotel, corner of E Street and New Jersey Avenue. I followed Thorn from his hotel half a block to the corner where you turn to go to ours. He walked across the street, went up to the door at the liquor store, but it was closed. It's not open yet. It's just after nine. I think he knew it wasn't open but was lookin' at the mirror, you know—the glass door, to see if anybody was following him.”

“Which means he probably saw you,” I tell him.

“No,” says Herman. “I had the angle on him. I'm not that stupid. Then he went down the street and ducked into a garage that's, like, right across the street from the front door to our hotel. I hope to hell he's not gettin' into a car, 'cause if he is we're about to lose him.”

“Listen, don't go in there,” I tell him. “Wait for the cops.”

“There are no cops,” says Herman.

“What's going on?” says Joselyn.

“Herman is following Thorn. He says there's nobody tailing him.”

“No, that can't be right,” she says. “Let me talk to him.”

I hand her the phone. She's still lying down under the covers, head on the pillow.

I start to get dressed.

“Herman, this is Joselyn. What are you doing?” She listens for
a moment. “Yeah, but my people told us to stay away from him. They have it covered. Give them some credit. You're going to mess things up. Now get back over here.”

He says something to her, but I can't hear it.

“Here, he wants to talk to you.” She gives me the phone back. “Tell him to come back to his room,” she says.

“Paul!” Herman is shouting into the phone.

“Yeah.” I put the phone up to my ear as I hold my pants up with the other hand. “The sign out in front of the garage says ‘Colonial Parking,' right over the door. Big white block letters. If you step out of the hotel and turn right, you can't miss it. It's right across the street.”

“Wait for me,” I tell him.

“I'm just gonna stick my nose inside to see if he's there. He might be tryin' to slip out another door. And if he's got a car, at least I'll get the license plate number.”

“No!”

“Get over here as quick as you can,” he says. Then he hangs up.

 

Herman smiled at the attendant in the glass booth as he walked into the garage. He strode with confidence, as if he was heading to his parked car inside. Then as soon as he made the turn where the attendant couldn't see him anymore he immediately slowed down.

Herman knew he'd made a mistake the moment he passed through the door. The light was all wrong. But it was too late. He was already committed. He moved toward the wall and tried to stay in what shadow there was as he moved toward the line of cars in the second aisle. From what he could see from the outside, that was the route Thorn had taken when he entered.

Herman slipped one hand into his pocket and tried to melt his
huge frame into the concrete wall while he inched his way along. He walked until he was opposite the long, narrow driveway that made up the second aisle in the parking garage.

From here he could see straight down the long row of vehicles, all the way to the other end of the building. There were cars parked nose in on both sides, with the painted arrow on the floor pointing in this direction. The garage was one way, with traffic weaving up and down each aisle.

Herman listened for the noise of an engine starting and scanned the aisle on both sides looking for backup lights. But he didn't see or hear anything.

 

“Damn it!” I tell her.

“What's he doing?” says Joselyn.

“Herman followed Thorn to the garage across the street, now he's going inside.”

“Who, Thorn or Herman?” she says.

“Both of them.”

“Why didn't you tell him to stop?”

“I did. He wouldn't listen.” I pull my shirt over my head and slip on my shoes sans socks.

“You're not going over there?”

“I have to.” I press my phone into the holster on my belt and strap it down.

Joselyn throws the blankets off and starts to get up.

“Where are you going?” I ask.

“With you.”

“No, you're not.”

“Why not?” she says. “If the two of you can be terminally stupid, why can't I? Herman has rocks in his head. And you're not much better. Neither of you listen,” she says. “The FBI and the po
lice have Thorn covered. I have it from on high. You can trust me on this.”

“Tell that to Herman,” I say.

“I did. He wouldn't listen. In other words, he doesn't trust me,” she says.

“It's not just you. Herman doesn't trust anybody,” I tell her. “Herman believes what he sees with his eyes and smells with his nose. I think that's how he's stayed alive this long.”

“So it'll serve you right if the FBI busts both of you for interfering with their investigation.” She has her bra on and is pulling up her pants, searching for a top. “And if they do, don't call me to come post bail,” she says.

I glance at her and smile. “You mean if I called, you wouldn't come?”

She looks at me, trying to maintain a stern expression. “I don't know. What I want to know is why men are so stupid.”

“Probably has to do with the yin and the yang,” I tell her. “Testosterone versus the female hormone.”

“You mean estrogen?”

“Yeah, that's the one. It's why women find it so easy to manipulate us. It gives you that whole sexy package,” I tell her.

“Yes, that along with intelligence,” she says. “Don't try to patronize me and don't change the subject. If you guys want to think with your dicks, that's fine, but don't ask me to put my body on the block with friends in the future unless you're willing to cooperate.”

“You stay here,” I tell her.

“Oh, sure.” She has her top unbuttoned and no shoes on her feet. “I'll just lie back down and go to sleep,” she says.

“I'll grab Herman and be back in a flash.” Before she can answer or follow me, I'm out the door. I hear one of her shoes slam against the inside of it before it can close.

 

Thorn was down on one knee between two parked cars about twelve vehicles down the aisle in the garage. He looked at his watch to check the time. This morning he was on a very tight schedule, and he had to keep moving.

Thorn knew that the three of them had been following him since before his last trip to Puerto Rico: the lawyer, his investigator, and the bitch Joselyn Cole. Thorn had been tipped off, been given detailed information and then told not to worry, that everything was taken care of. It wasn't then, but it would be now. He had to get them off his back and keep them off for at least one hour. That was all he needed. After that it wouldn't matter. By noon it would all be over.

In the meantime his luggage from Puerto Rico would catch up with him at the hotel. Thorn would be free to select any one of the three fresh passports from his suitcase and disappear, vanish forever into the luxury of a multimillion-dollar retirement.

He didn't have to wait long. A few seconds later he heard footsteps moving in the shadows of the garage. They were coming from the direction of the sunlit entrance at the ticket kiosk out in front. He saw the large silhouette as the man moved slowly. He stayed away from the cars as if he knew that the blind spaces between them represented a risk. Instead, he kept his back to the front concrete wall of the building, where he knew there was nothing behind him.

The man stalking him tried to stay in the shadows, but given the bright morning sunlight and the fact that he was backlit against the opening of the garage entrance, it was impossible.

Thorn could have easily threaded the silencer on the small Walther PPK in his pocket, and even at this distance could probably hit the man at least three times without missing. The guy was that big. But he didn't want to take the chance, not with the ticket attendant in the kiosk out in front. Besides, the Walther might not drop him. Instead, Thorn stuck to the plan, waited, and watched. He would use the gun only if one or both of the other two showed
up. Thorn had arranged it all in the garage directly across from their hotel to make it as convenient as possible.

Herman started to wonder whether he might have lost him. He scanned the distance across the garage over the tops of the cars and noticed at least one lighted exit sign on the back wall as well as a bank of elevators leading to the offices upstairs. Thorn could have taken either one and slipped away.

The garage was quiet. Most people were already at work. Herman looked back toward the entrance, thought for a moment, then turned and started toward the next row of cars, the third aisle down.

Before he could take a second step, he heard a scratching sound on the concrete somewhere behind him and off to the right. He stopped, turned, and looked. He was certain that the noise had come from the aisle in front of him, and close.

Herman took a tentative step toward the line of cars, then decided he couldn't be sure which side of the aisle the noise might have come from. He moved as silently as he could on the rubber soles of his running shoes, one hand plunged deep in his pocket, the other balled into a fist.

Thorn slipped down onto his chest and looked under the car. He could see the shoes of the big man as he came straight down the center of the aisle between the two lines of parked cars. No doubt he was checking between each vehicle on each side as he passed them, trying to make sure that no one got behind him. It was a good tactic as far as it went, but Thorn could see that he had already blown it.

Thorn waited until the man was almost even with the other side of the car he was peering under and then, without warning, he suddenly bolted upright, stood straight up, and looked right at him.

Herman stood there wide eyed. Adrenaline shot through his body. He recognized Thorn immediately. The only thing he couldn't see was the man's hands, to tell if he was holding a gun.

Thorn took a step out from behind the car and Herman realized that the only thing in the man's hand was the briefcase.

Liquida would have preferred Madriani. But he knew that unless he could get the lawyer alone, sooner or later he would have to deal with the big investigator. So it might as well be now, when he had the element of surprise. He came at him with catlike quickness, the deadly stiletto in his gloved hand behind him.

Herman took half a step forward and was about to lunge toward Thorn when the searing pain in his back, up under his ribs, froze the soles of his shoes to the concrete floor. Suddenly Herman couldn't move. He reached with his one free hand behind his back and felt the warm blood as it pulsed from his body. Herman knew instantly who it was and that the sharp point still jammed in his back had pierced a main artery.

Liquida's blade found that magic place that paralyzes with pain. The big man's knees buckled. As he went to the concrete floor, Liquida went with him, holding the knife in place and moving it around for maximum damage.

Herman tried to call out, but he couldn't. It was as if his voice was paralyzed. He realized he could no longer draw air in his lungs, as the blade had punctured one of them and blood began to fill it.

“You got him?” said Thorn.

“He's mine.” Liquida withdrew the knife from its victim, straightened up, and looked over at Thorn. “Go. I'll finish up.” Blood dripped off the tip of the stiletto as he stood there like a butcher over his quarry.

“Good work,” said Thorn. He turned and ran toward the exit sign at the back of the building.

Liquida watched him as he went. He stood there, his feet straddling the big, bald black man he had seen in every dark dream since that night in Costa Rica almost a year before. Liquida looked down at him. “I will make it quick, but you must know before you
die that I have found the girl. Madriani's daughter will die next, before he goes into his own grave.”

Liquida leaned down, drew the nine-inch stiletto back for the death plunge into the man's chest, and felt a searing fire erupt from his right shoulder blade, all the way through to the muscles under his arm. He jumped back quickly, like a man who's been snake bitten. He reached across his body with his left hand to grip his dead right forearm at the wrist.

The bloody stiletto toppled from his numb fingers and rattled onto the concrete pavement at his feet. His right hand had no feeling. Liquida was unable to grip or even close the fingers of his right hand into a weak fist.