Fear City (35 page)

“You're supposed to be dead!”

Roman forced a smile that he was sure looked a little sickly. “The report of my death was an exaggeration.”

“Tony … Tony Zahler,” he said. “Is Tony Zahler really Roman Trejador, or is Roman Trejador really Tony Zahler? Or are both names phony?”

“As phony as ‘Lonnie Beuchner'?”

“No fucking games, Tony. Who
are
you?”

Roman leaned to get a look past him. Nothing but an empty foyer. He'd come alone. A rank amateur move. Which meant this was still salvageable.

“Call me Roman.”

“All right. Who the fuck are you, Roman?”

“Lonnie … should I go on calling you ‘Lonnie'?”

He hesitated, then shrugged. “You can call me Jack.”

The shrug spoke volumes. It said knowing his name didn't matter because he didn't think Roman Trejador had long to live.

Get him talking. I'm the pro, he's the amateur. Draw him in, draw him closer, then take that pistol away.

“Well, Jack, I'm sorry you thought I was dead. After the incident on the Outer Banks and the massacre on Staten Island, you can understand why I couldn't resurface as Tony.”

Good thing he'd had Klari
ć
watching the Outer Banks place. The Croat had killed the Guatemalan slaver who had been assigned to kill Roman, and Roman had left Tony's ID on him.

Jack's lips pulled into a tight line, barely moving. “I mourned you, and then look what you did.”

That caught him off guard. “What did I do?”

“You had Cristin killed!”

The sudden ferocity in his young, usually bland face made Roman retreat a step. Maybe he wouldn't survive the day—maybe not the next minute.

“Wait-wait! Cristin who?”

“You knew her as Danaë.”

Was that what this was about?

“I assure you I did not have her killed. The last thing in the world I would do was hurt Danaë. You must believe that.”

“Why must I?”

“Because it's true!”

“Really? That's not what your minion said.”

“My minion?”

“The Arab—al-Thani.”

“You broke Nasser?”

He nodded. “He said the order came from you.”

Why on Earth would Nasser think—?

Oh, now he saw it. Nasser would hesitate, maybe even seek confirmation if he thought the order came from Drexler. But if Drexler told him that Roman Trejador himself had ordered the death of his favorite call girl, Nasser would see to it right away.

“He's wrong. He may have been told that, but someone else gave the order without my knowledge.”

“How convenient. And who would that be?”

“I can't say.”

“Oh, but you
will
say. And you'll keep on saying and saying and saying until we shut you up.”

As much as Roman would have loved to give this seething young man Ernst Drexler's name, he would not. One member of the Order did not give up another, no matter how much of a snake that other member might be.

But Nasser had …

“You say you broke Nasser. How?”

He smiled. “We took him to the Isle of Doctor Moreau.”

La Chirurgienne? For a call girl? He shuddered at the prospect. If the infamous Adèle Moreau broke al-Thani, she might well break him.

“I swear I had nothing to do with that! I would never—”

“Everything leads back to you.”

“Nothing can lead back to me because—!”

“You sent Reggie and Klari
ć
after me and—”

“I did nothing of the sort!”

“Well, then you had al-Thani do it. I won't even ask why. You'll explain later. Reggie killed two people dear to me before I took him out. And that would have been that, with no connection to you or al-Thani, except I found this on his buddy Klari
ć
.”

He removed something from his blazer pocket and tossed it across the room. Roman caught it, stared at it, trying to fathom what …

And then he knew.

“Oh, no. He didn't!”

His stomach lurched and his knees weakened. He had to sit. He dropped back into his chair and hurled the grisly thing across the room.

Jack was looking at him with a puzzled expression. “Bravo. If I didn't know better, I'd almost believe you really cared.”

“I did. I'd never hurt Danaë. But you … what's she to you?”

“We went to high school together. We reconnected here in the city and became close … very close.”

“Then you should know that anyone who had been with her could never hurt her.”

“Apparently you could. You—”

The phone rang. To Roman's surprise, Jack reached for it, saying, “This could be interesting.” He raised the receiver. “Mister Trejador's suite. Who may I say is calling?” A surprised look, then, “Oh, hi. Yeah. Everything's cool. We're just having a nice chat.” Listening, then, “Okay. Right. Sure. Just give me another minute.” He hung up and looked at Roman. “My friends are getting impatient.”

So … he hadn't come alone. Should have figured that. No one sent after this young man ever returned. He wouldn't be so foolish as to come alone.

“Friends?”

“Yeah, they have all sorts of issues they think are more important than Cristin—like this bombing of the UN you're planning.”

Roman hid his shock. Obviously they'd completely broken al-Thani.

“I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“Yeah, you do. And you'll tell us. Doctor Moreau found a way to make an end-run around al-Thani's blocking techniques. She'll work the same magic on you. But I've got a couple of niggling questions for you that they won't care about.”

“And what would they be?”

Keep him talking, keep him talking …

“Why were you working for Dane Bertel?”

“Just a hobby.”

Bertel was a pipeline to the Jersey City Arabs and via them to the radicals in the Al-Kifah Center in Brooklyn who wanted to bring jihad to America. Before the Order could help them do just that, they had to be identified. In his guise as Tony, Roman had helped set up the shipment of little girls without tipping either of his identities.

Jack's face hardened. “Did you have anything to do with Bertel's murder?”

Roman didn't have to fake shock. “He's
dead
?”

Jack sighed. “This is useless. But let's try one more: That time back in 1990 when you dressed up as an Orthodox Jew and went down to the Marriott where that Rabbi Kahane got shot—”

“I told you that wasn't me.”

“Yeah, it was. What was the deal there?”

“Again, it wasn't me.”

But it was. He'd known of the plot to kill Kahane and had gone along to make sure the rabbi didn't survive in the event that Sayyid Nosair missed. Fortunately, the Arab's aim was true and all Roman had to do was pretend to be another shocked follower.
Un
fortunately, the assassination didn't spark the Israeli-Arab conflagration the Order had hoped for.

“All right,” Jack said, keeping the pistol trained on him as he backed toward the door. “Time to wrap this up.”

Roman had to act now: Get that pistol or die in the attempt. Because he would
not
allow himself to be subjected to the tender mercies of La Chirurgienne.

He leaped from his chair and charged. He expected to see surprise on Jack's face, but instead saw a smile.

“Thanks,” Jack said.

He lowered the pistol and fired.

In the space of a single second Roman saw the muzzle flash, heard a report, and felt his left thigh explode with the agony of a shattered femur. As he went down he saw Jack open the door. Two beefy men rushed into the room with drawn pistols identical to Jack's, one dragging a suitcase.

Through a fog of pain he heard one say with a British accent, “You wounded him? You were supposed to—”

“He's got too many questions to answer,” Jack said. “We can always kill him. Can we get him downstairs like this?”

“We might,” said the other. “Just got to stop that bleeding so it doesn't seep through.”

That was all Roman needed to hear. He reached under his left upper arm, found the capsule, and squeezed.

A blaze of even worse agony spread up his arm and into his chest. He felt his body begin to shake …

 

7

“Hey!” Gerald said. “What's he doing?”

Rob said, “Looks like some sort of fit!”

Jack had been picking up the key fob. He turned to see Trejador, eyes rolled back, flopping around like a beached fish and foaming at the mouth.

“Shit! I'll bet he had one of those cyanide capsules tucked away.”

“You mean like the doc found on the Arab?”

Jack nodded. “Gotta be.”

Jack couldn't think of anything to do, so they had no choice but to stand by and watch him die. It took less than a minute.

“God
damn
it!” Jack said. “He knows so much—Cristin, the bomb, the Arabs, Bertel, everything!”

He'd never imagined kicking a dead man, but he had to restrain himself from doing that now. Maybe he should be kicking himself. He'd known about al-Thani's implanted capsule. He should have guessed Trejador would have one too. But what he could have done about that he had no idea.

Who
were
these guys?

“Let's get out of here,” Gerald said. “I heard that shot in the hall. Not loud, but I heard it.”

“Why'd you shoot him at all?” Rob said as they moved toward the door.

“He was charging me. I think he'd decided he couldn't allow La Chirurgienne to get her hands on him, so he was going to get my gun or die trying.”

“I don't suppose you took any pleasure in wounding him.”

“Not hardly.”

Jack had wanted to keep shooting him until he'd emptied the magazine.

The elevator cab was empty and stayed empty for a few floors, giving Rob time to turn on his walkie-talkie and say one word.

“Abort.”

A young couple with a suitcase about as big as Gerald's joined them on the twenty-first floor.

Jack smiled at them, then pointed to their bag and said, “That looks big enough for somebody to stow away in.”

The woman giggled. “So does yours.”

“I know. We have a kidnap victim in ours.”

Her smile vanished.

Jack bounced his suitcase up and down, obviously empty.

“Just kidding.”

Unfortunately.

 

8

Although he hated the stinging fumes enveloping him, Kadir smiled behind his mask as he mixed the last of the urea pellets with the last of the nitric acid. Soon this mind-numbing labor would be done and the bomb would be ready.

But that wasn't the only reason he was smiling. He was thinking of that criminal who had loaned him the money for the first bomb. He envisioned him showing up at Mahmoud's taxi depot expecting an interest payment of one thousand two hundred dollars. He would wait. And he would wait some more. And then he would go back to wherever he came from with empty pockets.

He also smiled at the thought of how they had solved the problem of stopping in front of the UN. The plan was simplicity itself. All it required was a stolen minivan and a number of smoke bombs. Salameh had been assigned to the task.

Then Kadir's gaze fell on the six cylinders of compressed hydrogen resting on the floor. The Space Station had refused to allow him to store the cylinders there, so this was the only other place they had. He found their presence unsettling.

Backing away from the drum, Kadir lifted his mask and pointed to them. “Is that really safe?” he said to Yousef.

“Is what safe?” Yousef said.

“Keeping those here with these explosives.”

“They are a lot safer than that urea nitrate you're mixing, and urea nitrate is pretty safe.”

Last May, on the anniversary of the Hindenburg explosion, the TV news had played a film of the hydrogen-filled zeppelin bursting into flame. He couldn't get it out of his mind. Burned alive …

“But hydrogen—”

“It is safe, Kadir,” Yousef said, his impatience showing. “I know more about this than you, and I am telling you it is
safe
.”

“Well, if it is so
safe
, why wouldn't the Space Station let us keep it there?”

“Because they are ignorant, like you.”

Kadir ignored the barb. “And if it is so
safe
, why then are we adding it to the bomb?”

Yousef rolled his eyes. “How many times do I have to explain? When the nitroglycerin sets off the urea nitrate, the nitrate explosion will rupture the tanks—
then
they will explode. Not before.”

“I just don't like looking at them.”

Yousef's grin looked demented. “We can always move them into the back room with the nitroglycerin—”