Cloudburst (38 page)

“Dear God, Meir…” Art had figured right, and the rest now made complete sense. He had the link, the motive, the players, and most important of all, the intent. “I have to go. Thank you so much.”

“Good luck, and shalom.”

Art had no time to waste. The last news he’d heard was that the aircraft had left the Canaries. He buzzed Carol and asked for the director.

What had been a murder investigation with probable international ties now was small in comparison to what he knew was going to happen. Art was relieved, but still found himself taking deep breaths to compensate for the tightness in his chest.

Chicago

He was no longer in his Army uniform. That had been stripped off him during booking and was replaced by a white jumpsuit. His left hand was cuffed to the table, which was bolted to the floor for obvious reasons. Sammy’s hastily arranged attorney from the PD’s office sat next to him.

“Gentlemen.” His name was Bob Lomax, the special agent in charge of the Chicago field office of the FBI, and at the moment, he was one pissed agent. Word had spread that a brother agent was lying in the hospital, a bullet in his body, an event only slightly mitigated by the fact that the perp had bitten the big one.
So you’re his brother. Have we got a surprise for you.
Lomax was a tough agent, but one blessed by both street and administrative finesse. There was a need here, for information. All else was secondary—he could hate this man later.

“Lomax,” the attorney began, “this is highly irregular. You won’t release my client to custody, instead you keep him—keep us—in here.” He motioned to the cubic room. “Let’s all get some sleep. How about it?”

Bob Lomax smiled at the lawyer, then shifted his happy gaze to Sammy. “Sam, guess who’s here to see you. Well, actually he’s here to see us, but maybe we can arrange it so he can drop by.”

“Who…who are you talkin’ ‘bout?” Sammy asked. He was shooting looks between his lawyer and Lomax.

“Your brother,” Lomax answered, his smile becoming cheeky.

“Marcus? He’s here?”

“No, he’s dead.” The smile disappeared instantly. His face was flat, physically and emotionally.

“What?”

“Lomax, what the hell is this?”

“You, mister attorney, had better listen carefully, just in case your client is too grief-stricken to comprehend what is happening.” He turned back to the youngest Jackson. “Your brother shot and seriously injured an FBI agent in Los Angeles before he was killed. Now, you can and will be held as an accessory to assault on a federal law enforcement officer, plus multiple counts of conspiracy to commit murder, and anything else we can find. You are had, Mr. Jackson. We have you cold. The cases that held the weapons used in the assassination were found with the stencils still on them. Marcus wasn’t too bright, huh? And interestingly there was an inventory done just prior to a certain duty shift you worked, and those weapons were logged in—still in their packing crates. But,” Lomax said sarcastically, bringing a finger to his lips, “some of your fellow soldiers just finished another inventory and—guess what?—the weapons are gone. Can you believe that?”

“This is unheard of!” the lawyer protested, which only earned him a wave-off.

“And you know what? Your brother Ernest is next door saying that he knows nothing about any of this. He says his El Rukn days are far behind him, and he does have a hell of an alibi. So, it looks like you’re going to take this rap all alone.”

“My client has not even been arraigned, Lomax!”

“He will be…alone.”

Sammy tried to stand but was held down by the restraint. “No way! Ernie was the one, man.”

“Sammy!” his attorney shouted. “Keep quiet.”

“You shut up! This is my life, man. I didn’t do all this alone. Ernie set it up, man—him and his Rukn bros.”

“Do you want to talk, Sammy?”

“Hell yes!”

Lomax looked to the frustrated PD. “Shall I get a DA in here, and a crew?”

“Go ahead, why not?” he answered, giving his client a glance filled with pity.
Stupid kid
. “It’ll get thrown out, anyway.”

“You think so?” Lomax walked to the door. “I’m not so sure.”

For the next thirty minutes Sammy Jackson spoke slowly and clearly into the microphone, telling all, while the video camera saved every sickening moment of it.

Fifteen

PENANCE

East of Benghazi

He was not of Berber descent, which meant he had spent most of his early life in or near the city. The vast openness of the desert was alien then. He had come to appreciate it later as commander of the 3rd. Its location, far enough from Benghazi to render the city lights’ glow an afterthought, made it an ideal spot to stargaze. Stars cast a light all their own on moonless nights, of which this night was not one. There was a small sliver of a crescent high in the sky. It would begin to fade soon. Muhadesh looked to the east. No trace of the coming day was yet visible.

It was quiet and cool. The engine of the jeep was off and losing warmth. Muhadesh felt the little remaining on his butt as he leaned against the hood. He wore his blousy dress greens and the beloved mottled-pattern commando parka. At his side was the World War II vintage Makarov from al-Dir.

“My friend, what would you think of me?” He asked the sky. Al-Dir, the warrior patriot, would shoot him, Muhadesh knew. “You have not done what I have. You killed our enemies.”
I killed our people
, he added silently, afraid that his friend might somehow appear in the darkness.

The Americans had given him a way to relieve his guilt, to exorcise the ghosts that haunted him, or so he thought. He had no particular love for the Americans, but he did love his homeland. Why, then, had he betrayed it?
To avenge those I have murdered
, he would answer, knowing there was a more correct response. He had to hide his guilt. Masking his own culpability was essential.
I am alive.
So many had died because he had chosen life for himself.
I could have said no.
Yes, he had saved lives with his treachery, but he wondered if the number saved was not hopelessly outweighed by those who had perished at his own hands, and those slaughtered by his students.
I am alive, while they are damned to eternal sleep.

Muhadesh walked away from the vehicle. He faced north. The ocean was far away, yet he felt himself drowning where he stood. Again the quiet surrounded him, driving away his thoughts, and then he heard it: faint, still, and far away. It was an unmistakable sound. He slid the right side of his parka back.

*  *  *

It was a world of noise in the blackened cabin. Both side doors of the SH-60 Oceanhawk were fully open, with camo-clad Marines dangling their legs out, their M-16s pointing downward into the darkness. The night-vision goggles on their eight faces looked like stubby binoculars pasted on welding goggles. Each of the two pilots wore them also, as did Dick Logan.

“Pickup in two minutes,” the pilot announced, though he didn’t know exactly who he was picking up—a friendly, he had been told. He was flying at fifty feet in his hastily painted helicopter—he liked the “mean” look of its squat, black body—trying to pick out a man-size object, which was supposed to be there, but might not. He had flown special ops in the Gulf War, over similar terrain, and was familiar with the reality that “packages” weren’t always where they were supposed to be, when they were supposed to be there.

“FLIR is showin’ nothin’,” the right-seater said. The Forward Looking Infrared sensor would pick up any ambient heat, such as that generated by a man’s body, on a narrow track out a few hundred meters to the helicopter’s front.

“Right. Mister, is this guy supposed to signal us, or what?”

“That’s not in the plan,” Logan answered honestly. To either side of him the eight jarheads swept their areas of observation.

*  *  *

They
were
coming. Muhadesh was not certain until that moment. The pickup procedure had been laid out years before with safety and rapidity in mind, but there was no guarantee. He had ensured that they would come, however. The final answers were tucked away securely in his breast pocket with the other note—a request.

The
whop whop
of the approaching helicopter now assured him. No longer would he fear tomorrow, or the killing. He breathed deeply. The desert air tasted sweet and dry. His soul would be safe. That was his last concern, that his body not be desecrated by his vengeful countrymen.

Muhadesh undid the buckled holster cover and brought the Makarov up close to his ear. The sound was close now, off to his left. He half expected to feel the rotor wash.

“Thank you, al-Dir,” he said aloud, no longer afraid of today, or tomorrow, but still unaware that his last conscious act was motivated by the fear that was, truly, his soul’s undoing.

*  *  *

“There!” a bulky Marine shouted, pointing with his rifle and reaching behind with his free hand to tap Logan.

“Watcha got, Sergeant?” Logan leaned over against his restraints and pulled one earphone free.

“Over there, maybe three hundred yards. Looked like a muzzle flash.”

“Roger.” Logan patted the flak-jacketed soldier. “Major, one of the troops saw what may be a muzzle flash to starboard. Three hundred yards off.”

“Roger.” The Oceanhawk banked severely to the right, making the landlubber CIA officer grab for a handhold. He was jealous of the Recon Marines who swung easily with the roll of the helicopter.

The FLIR picked it up immediately. ‘Two sources, Maj. Come left.” The co-pilot adjusted the sensitivity of the FLIR. “One small, man-sized. The other’s a truck or something, no doubt.”

There would be no mistakes here. “Let’s sweep the area.” The pilot pulled back on the collective and brought the nose down, giving the SH-60 altitude and speed. He wanted to circle the area of the heat sources to make certain there were no surprises awaiting them. After two full sweeps the pilot brought the nose back around toward the sources.

“Dead ahead.” The co-pilot now had a better vantage point with the FLIR. Altitude gave a higher aspect to the scene, making the picture more obvious, and more ominous. “Just the two sources, but I don’t like it. See that one.” His finger pointed to a ghostly green spot of light on the screen.

The pilot didn’t like it either. “Lieutenant?”

In the cabin the Marine commander leaned farther in to escape the noise of the downwash. He pushed the boom mike almost into his mouth. “Go ahead!”

“We’re showing two sources: one man, looks prone, and a vehicle about ten yards beyond him. The area looks clean. I’m gonna set you down fifty yards this side of the guy. Roger?”

“Roger.” The lieutenant tapped the man to his left on the helmet, the sequence continuing around the cabin until all the Marines were alerted.

Logan felt hopelessly under armed with his seven-shot .45, but it would have to do. Really, he hoped it wouldn’t need to.

Suddenly everything slowed. The helicopter pitched backward and the main wheels touched the desert floor. A second later the cabin was empty, except for Logan, who felt very exposed to the night streaming in through both doors. He pulled the slide back on his Colt. At least it made him
feel
safer.

The thud scared the shit out of him. Everything looked surreal through the goggles. The Marines were back, six of them still around the edge, their legs hanging out as before, and two, including the lieutenant, were in the center over…
a body?
The helicopter threw everyone back as it rose and moved forward, banking hard to the right until it was heading due north.

“Seal it up,” the lieutenant ordered. His men followed it smartly, bringing their bodies fully into the helo and closing the windowless doors on each side. One slid a heavy fabric curtain closed between the cabin and the cockpit. “Glasses off. Lights.”

Where before there had been a world of dancing green specters, there was now the harshly lit tomb of the Oceanhawk’s interior. The floor jumped with the turbulence of the low-altitude flight, bouncing the Marines against the walls. Some still wore their Kevlar helmets, and all looked quite emotionless in their painted faces. Young white eyes stared at the form in the center of the cabin.

Logan safed his weapon. One of the arms had fallen to the floor from where it lay against the chest, and came to rest on Logan’s boot. There was blood on the arm, caked with sand, and there was blood all over the floor beneath the right side of the head. The face—the eyes were lifeless—stared toward him, and the left side of the head seemed caved in. He knelt next to the man, straddling one arm. Logan had never seen a dead person so close.

“Looks like he popped himself, mister,” the lieutenant commented. “In the right, out the left.” He noticed the civilian’s discomfort. “Your guy made an exit, that’s for sure.”

Why?
Logan thought silently. DONNER had made such a damn fuss about ensuring the pickup. Didn’t he want to get out? Logan shook his head as he checked the man for the last message.
We pushed him.
His pockets were empty, as was the holster at his side, except for one. He pulled the three pieces of paper out, unfolding the wrong one first. It didn’t speak to the questions his superiors wanted answered, but it did, at least partly, answer Logan’s.

“Well,” Logan said aloud, though it was drowned out by the turbine noise, “you win, DONNER.”

He opened the other papers. Their messages, to his mind, were secondary to what he had just read, but still important. The single-spaced typewritten pages were in Italian, both DONNER’s and Logan’s second language. Translating took a moment. Logan had a sense of what the whole picture was from the discussions with his bosses back at Langley; these messages completed the picture and scared him. The little he knew about nuclear physics was enough. A goddamn butcher would shit his pants.

“Major?”

“Go ahead, Mr. Logan.”

“How long to the
Vinson
?” This had to get to Langley fast.