Fear City (21 page)

“True. But I know what my gut tells me.”

“I'm more interested in what your eyes tell you. You've been watching Kadir and his friends for a couple of years now and no second coming of this guy al-Thani till last week?”

Bertel nodded. “Right. And what's gone on since then—or what
hasn't
gone on, I should say—has me a little worried.”

“Like what?”

“Well, it's nothing definite, but for the past week or so, ever since al-Thani reappeared, the jihadists haven't been hanging around the mosque like they used to.”

“Didn't they used to be at a Brooklyn mosque before they moved here? Maybe they've found yet another—”

“No, they're still in town—we saw them just yesterday. But ever since they moved here, the Al-Salam has been their social center of sorts. They were in and out of there every day. Now they show up to go for a ride with this al-Thani character and then head off somewhere else.”

“You think he financed a new project?”

“I can't think of anything else.”

“Another slave shipment?”

Bertel shrugged. “No idea. That's why we're here: to watch, to follow, to find out.” He gestured toward Jack with his Thermos. “You know the two who hijacked the money. What did they say would have happened to the girls had they not crashed the party?”

Jack ran through his conversations with the Mikulski brothers and distilled them to a bottom line.

“They said preteen girls like that go for two hundred thou to two fifty apiece at auction.”

“And there were how many?”

“Twenty-eight.” His gut tightened as he remembered a conversation between two of the slavers. “Supposed to be thirty but two didn't survive the trip.”

The slavers had referred to the loss as “spoilage.”

Bertel was nodding. “That means the three million would have more than doubled after the auction. Assuming al-Thani or his backer”—a glance at Jack here—“put up the initial three, he would have had his principal back with interest by the next day, leaving the jihadists with a fortune to spend on terror.”

“Instead they wound up
out
three million plus a bunch of dead buddies. And no girls.”

“Right. And things went from bad to worse for them after that, ending with their fearless leader being kicked out of the Al-Farooq Mosque and banished to Jersey City.”

“So you think they've been marking time since then?”

“Or waiting to gather the right personnel.”

“For what?”

“What else? Bombs.”

“Oh, hell.”

“I wish I could find out more about this Ramzi Yousef character.”

“The one with the Manson eyes?”

“Right. He's got a bunch of different names—goes by ‘Rashed' on the street—which is a sure indicator that he's a bad actor. He may be the bomb guy they've been waiting for.”

“Oh, yeah. I could see him as a bomb maker.”

“Well, shortly after Yousef arrives, al-Thani reappears. Could be they hit him up for money to buy the ingredients.”

Jack caught the drift and didn't like where it carried him.

“And they're not hanging around the mosque these days because they're mixing those ingredients.”

“Exactly. Jersey City has a large Mohammedan population, so it's not as if we can go door to door looking for a bomb factory.”

Not that Jack could ever see himself doing that anyway.

Bertel straightened in his seat and put on the windshield wipers. “There's a familiar car.”

Up ahead and across the street, an old Chevy Nova pulled to a stop before the three-story building that housed the mosque. He didn't recognize the Arab who got out of the driver's seat, but he'd seen the other three before: Kadir, the redheaded Mahmoud, and Manson-eyed Yousef.

“Hail, hail, the gang's all here. Who's the driver?”

“Don't know. Saw him yesterday.”

They clustered in a knot out of the rain under the toy store awning next to the entrance to the building. By the way they looked up and down the street they seemed to be waiting for someone. Jack let his gaze wander up to the check-cashing/notary-public signs on the second floor, and then to the crude Al Salam sign in a third-floor window. He remembered how the second-floor Al-Farooq Mosque—which at least announced its presence with a neon sign at street level—shared space in a commercial building in Brooklyn.

“I thought mosques were supposed to have golden domes and high towers.”

“You mean minarets,” Bertel said. “That's in the Middle East. Lots of Mohammedans here in Jersey City, and over in Brooklyn as well, but nothing like the numbers back in Araby. And so they don't have the kind of money it takes to build one of those. These mosques here are like the storefront Bible-thumping churches you see on the far West Side and down along the Bowery. Really, what's a church but a place to pray and study your holy book? The rest is just window dressing. Like those big ostentatious cathedrals of the Middle Ages.”

“I guess so. It's just that sharing space with all those low-end businesses doesn't seem very … I don't know … holy.”

Bertel looked at him. “What do you know about holy?”

Jack had to smile. “Not a goddamn thing.”

“Starting tomorrow morning, things will get holier around here.”

“Meaning?”

“Ramadan begins with sunrise.”

“You say that like I'm supposed to know what you're talking about.”

“It's the Mohammedan holy month where you don't eat or drink or have sex from sunrise to sunset.”

“How do you
know
that?”

“I read.”

“What? You study Islam?”

“Know thy enemy.”

“You read Machiavelli too?”

“That was Sun Tzu.”

“Whatever.” Jack gestured to the mosque. “They're all enemies?”

Bertel shook his head. “Most of them are decent, hardworking folks who just want to earn their daily bread and raise their families, and maybe see a better future, which will never come because their religion mires them in the past. But that's not my business. Everyone chooses their own path. The enemies are the psycho-sickos like Sheikh Omar and his minions who think it's their divine mission to make all the world bow to Allah. They hide behind the skirts of their religion and kill noncombatants.”

“You think they'll be fasting too?”

“Most certainly.”

“A whole month?”

“Twenty-nine or thirty days, depending on the moon.”

“That can only make them crankier than they already are.”

“I wouldn't be surprised if they're thinking their holy month of Ramadan is the best time to strike a blow for jihad.”

Jack was still trying to get his head around this whole fasting thing. Self-imposed hunger and thirst … for what? What kind of supposedly benevolent god finds it appealing for his followers to do that?

“Not even water?”

“Not during the daylight hours. And no beer either. Ever.”

Unimaginable. He'd never understand why people do those things to themselves.

“I'd be so out of there.”

“You might try it sometime. For the self-discipline.”

“It's like Lent on steroids.”

“You were raised Catholic?”

“Nah. My parents weren't into religion—weren't against it, weren't for it … it just never came up. But I had friends who were Catholics. They'd give up chocolate for—what's Lent run? Forty days? Anyway, a bunch of the other kids would cluster around them with packs of M&Ms and chomp away and smack their lips. But at least they could eat and drink other stuff.”

“This time of year daylight runs from about six thirty to five thirty—eleven hours. Not a big deal to go without food or water for eleven measly hours. Although by the end of Ramadan daylight will have stretched to twelve hours. Still no big deal.”

“Yeah? Ever try it?”

Bertel kept his gaze focused on the mosque building. “I've gone
days
without food or water.”

“Really? Why?”

“Circumstances out of my control.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“Nope.”

He wished he knew more about Dane Bertel—where he'd been, why he'd been there, who he'd been working for at the time. Jack bet he had some amazing stories to tell.

He laughed. “Well, if I was Muslim, I'd be hitting Mickey D's at six
A.M.
sharp to pound down a whole tray of Egg McMuffins before sunrise.”

And then the Mercedes pulled up.

Bertel lifted his field glasses and adjusted the focus.

“Same car, different driver.”

Jack watched Kadir step up to the car and bend to speak to someone in the rear seat. After a brief exchange, a manila envelope was handed out. Kadir stepped back as the Mercedes waited for a big enough break in the traffic, then made a U-turn and zoomed away. He turned to his friends and held up the envelope like a prize. The other three grinned and gave him congratulatory pats on the back.

Bertel lowered the glasses and said, “Payday. You want to follow the Mercedes? Ninety-nine to one it's your N. al-Thani, but let's be sure.”

“On my way. What about you?”

“I'm going to have another go at our jihadists and see if I can find out what they're up to.”

“Right.” Jack hopped out but leaned back in before slamming the door. “Talk to you later—much later.”

“Why much later?”

“Got a date for lunch and a movie.”

Bertel's expression turned sour. “This is important, Jack.”

“So's this.”

He trotted ahead to the pickup, got it running, and tore off after the Mercedes. Yeah, that had been al-Thani. No one else it could be. He knew they'd be heading to the Holland, just like last time. He'd catch them, no sweat.

 

3

“There he goes,” Reggie said.

Klari
ć
nodded as he put the car in gear and got rolling. “I see.”

“Looks like he's following al-Thani.”

“What is plan? Do we wish to stop him from learning who is al-Thani?”

Reggie thought about that a second. “For all we know, he's already followed him home.”

Klari
ć
shook his head. “I do not think so. I have been driving him and I have been on lookout for follower. I would have seen.”

Reggie didn't want to argue with him. Nobody was perfect.

“Either way, it doesn't matter. He ain't surviving the day.”

“Ah yes. I see. You are right.” He smiled. “It does not matter.”

Reggie thought Klari
ć
was following Lonnie way too close.

“It
will
matter if he spots us on his tail.”

“He will not spot. Easiest man to follow is one who is following someone else. His eyes always straight ahead. He is never looking behind.”

“And you know this how?”

“I follow many people many times. Besides, we only think he follows al-Thani. What if he is not? If I am not close, I can lose.”

Reggie hadn't considered that. Good thought, although he'd be damned if he'd say so.

Since being assigned to snatch and interrogate the whore, he and Klari
ć
had been jockeying back and forth for a pecking order between them. Reggie's bow and how he had been able to use it on her had put him in charge then.

She'd told them at the start she hadn't heard anyone say a word about Senator D'Amato, and was blubbering the same at the end before he put a shaft through her heart. The hours of torture—okay, and a good bit of tying her over a table and diddling her as well—hadn't accomplished anything. Well, maybe they had. At least they'd ended up sure she hadn't heard anything.

He'd never tortured anyone before and had wound up liking it. Really got into it. He'd never heard of torturing anyone by making them an archery target, but doubted he could be the first. The trick was not to hit a vital organ until you learned what you were after. That meant sticking to the legs, hips, shoulders, arms. Especially the knees. They'd gagged her, so she didn't make much noise when he put the first arrow into one of her knees, right into the joint space, but her eyes had damn near bugged clear out of her head.

Yeah, the bow and arrow had made him
numero uno
then, but his own bad knees made him only a so-so driver, which gave Klari
ć
a leg up today, so to speak.

“Mister al-Thani's driver goes to Lincoln Tunnel,” Klari
ć
said as they rolled along. “I prefer Holland.”

“Whatever.” Reggie was dreaming of the near future. “As long as we catch him.”

Eventually they followed Lonnie's pickup into the Lincoln Tunnel.

“Where do we take him?” Klari
ć
said.

Reggie laughed. “Well, not in here, that's for sure. He's got to stop sometime. When he does, we'll grab him and toss him in the back.”

Just like with the whore. They'd watched her apartment building. When she came out they double-parked ahead of her and pretended to be unloading the van. When she came abreast, ox-sized Klari
ć
had lifted her off her feet and hurled her into the rear of the van where Reggie had waited. The door slammed, Reggie stuck a knife against her throat, and she was all theirs.

Lonnie wouldn't be so easy, but between Klari
ć
's strength and Reggie's lead-filled sap, the result would be the same.

And just like the whore, they'd take him to the Order's run-down loft in the Meatpacking District. But this time there'd be no diddling—unless Klari
ć
was so inclined. They'd call Drexler, and when the man in white arrived, they'd go to work on Lonnie. What a shame if Drexler's suit got splattered with red.