Paradise Falls (60 page)

“What are they?” Katie said, softly.

Jennifer swallowed again. Hard.

“They’re atomic bombs,” she whispered.

“Take our guests to my stateroom,” said Al Naab. “Kane should be here soon. Then, we can begin.”

8.

Jacob watched the boat return to the slip. There was one man aboard.

No, one Fang.

He moved quickly, barely daring to breathe. He left most of his gear behind, stashed by another slip, and almost crawled along. The target was not aware of him. That was good. When he moved he’d have to be fast. Quick. The Fang was tying up the boat. Jacob leapt over the gunwale, and his foot slipped on slick fiberglass, but he made it. He crashed into the man, pushing him against the other side, and took an elbow to the gut, but it hit the strike plate in his vest and the Fang cried out until Jacob’s hand closed around his mouth, and Jacob dragged him down and pinned him with a knee to the chest. He pulled the man’s sidearm from his belt and slid it away, checked his pockets, and released his grip.

He also slid a long knife from his own belt and let the sun catch it. It was climbing too high. It was late afternoon, fading into evening.

She’s not dead!

“Tell me how to find the ship,” Jacob said, calmly.

“
You can’t understand a word I’m saying,”
the Fang snapped, in Arabic,
“and if you could, I wouldn’t tell you anything anyway!”

Jacob’s lips peeled back from his teeth in a savage not-grin, and he felt a tension in his jaw as he spoke, like he wanted to bite something.

“I can,” he said, very softly, “and you will.”

Startled, the Fang’s mouth worked, open and closed. He made a sound and Jacob squeezed his throat.

“Quietly,” he murmured.

“Transponder,” the Fang croaked. “Follow signal. Simple.”

“Good,” said Jacob.

Jacob stabbed him, in the heart. The thin blade slipped between his ribs and Jacob could feel a pulse through the grip. When he slid it free the blood began to pool under the body and flow in pulses from the chest wound. Jacob tossed the knife aside, lifted the body and heaved it over the side.

A quick trip to recover his gear and stash it and he untied the rope and threw it in the cabin, climbed up and started the motor. He hit the throttle hard and motored away from the dock and out into the river, and knew he was pushing against the current. He should have checked the fuel, but the gauge read two thirds. If there had been enough to get out and back there was enough left.

The water was just water. He watched the screen more intently, only glancing ahead. It looked like a fish finder, almost. Jacob felt itchy being out of his element, not knowing every detail. He could see the blip on the screen, though. There was a speed advantage. The boat threw up a wake, and he was legitimately worried he’d be stopped by the port authority or something like that, and eased off the throttle. It would be difficult to explain the guns and the bloody smear on the… deck?

A head shake splattered pinkish sweat tinged with blood on the instrumental panel. He wiped it clean and took a deep breath. It felt like his bones were made of concrete, like there was a lead weight around his neck, but he was only aware of the feeling. It was like he could smell her. If he was too late, if Al Naab put her under the knife before he got there…

He crushed the wheel in his hands, turned his knuckles white. No.

Please, God. Just give me this one thing.

Then he saw it. Riding high in the water, a rusted hulk of a tramp freighter bearing the legend CASUAL FRIDAYS spread across her stern, churning ahead fairly slowly in the brown, heavy water of the river.

His stomach sank.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. They’d spot him a mile away. They’d see the wake even if he slowed down. He sank down and sighed, watching the stern come up ahead of him. With his luck, they’d open fire on him without warning and just sink the boat. He started to laugh and bit down on it. A cold shiver ran down his spine and his legs tried to drag him down. He was running out of steam.

No, not yet. Not yet.

There was a ladder on the starboard side. No other way up. He hit the throttle and realized he’d have trouble, now. No way to hold the boat steady while went for the ladder. He strapped on what he could carry and throttled back until it was mostly steady, nosed over and jumped back down to the deck, grabbed the mooring line and wrapped it around the bottom of the ladder. The boat swung from side to side, trying to pull away. With another knife from his belt, he sliced off a length of the mooring line and climbed back up to the bridge, tied off the wheel so the boat nosed into the freighter’s hull, and went back to the ladder.

He started to climb. His hands wanted to slip, his boots wanted to catch and make him lose his grip. With the rifle on his back and the other hanging on a sling off his good shoulder, he was just plain carrying too much shit. It weighed a million pounds, and he was panting by the time he was two-thirds up. If he fell now he was a dead man, and Jennifer was lost, forever.

She would suffer first. For a long time, in absolute agony. Her and her sister too. Jacob clenched his teeth, pressed his eyes shut, and summoned all his strength to climb.

He made it to the top and there was a rifle barrel in his face.

“Ah, there you are.”

Jacob froze. That voice.

There he stood, dressed casually. He was even wearing boat shoes. The only thing incongruous about him was the eyepatch, and the scars on the side of his face. Al Naab had been a handsome man before, even striking, not at all the stereotypical image of a terrorist warlord. He had his hands in his pockets and two of his men aimed rifles at Jacob.

“I could kill you now,” he said, calmly, “Let you fall over the side and you would be gone, but I have decided I will amuse myself instead. Come aboard, and no sudden movements.”

Jacob nodded and mounted the top of the ladder, gripping the rail hard to move away from the gap in and keep from slipping and falling back out over the side. As soon as he was clear, two more Fangs stepped and quickly, efficiently disarmed him. They took all his gear, down to the knives jammed in his boots, but they left the vest on after a pat down.

Jacob was glad of it. He felt like it was holding him together. That is, until they took it, roughly, and his arm guards and gloves, too. Stripped to the waist, held by both arms, they led him along towards the stern of the ship, and he ducked through a bulkhead. Two more Fangs waited on the other side, watching intently.

“You came alone,” said Al Naab. “Where is my operative?”

“Your daughter?” said Jacob.

“Is she dead? Did you kill her?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Jacob said nothing.

Al Naab laughed at him. “Ah, sentimentality. I thought you were harder than that. I thought I taught you a deeper lesson.”

“Taught me?” Jacob gasped.

“Of course. You were so close to breaking. Did you think I was going to kill you? No. After the old man gave you the account numbers and codes you would have given them to me
willingly
. After I finished your instruction.”

Jacob spat on the deck. “Not a chance in hell.”

“We’ll see,” said Al Naab. “This way.”

Jacob expected something more utilitarian. This was like a yacht, except for the armed guards. One stood by the wet bar, where Elliot was leaning, downing a tumbler of brown liquor. Jacob eyed him and Elliot’s knees buckled, and he went pale as a sheet.

Jennifer jumped up, and before they shoved her back down, she shouted, “Jacob!”

He almost ran to her before they stopped him.

“Oh my God,” she said, “What happened to you?”

To
him?
She looked like she’d been through the ringer. Her hair was roughly chopped off, she had bruises on her face and arms, one of her earrings had been torn out and her earlobe was still bleeding. Her sister was curled up in a ball, whimpering.

The guards shoved Jacob down into a plush leather sofa, opposite Jennifer and Katie. He had a rifle pointed at him, and he was unarmed. He felt like a sack of cement, like he couldn’t move if he tried.

Jennifer’s smile vanished, but she had smiled. Just to see him, even now.

Al Naab looked from one to the other.

“Go on, tell her,” he said.

“I love you,” Jacob blurted.

Jennifer smiled slightly. “I… I know,” she said, “I love you too.”

Al Naab laughed quietly. “Now that we have that out of the way,” he said and sat down next to Katie and barked an order at one of his men. “To business!”

“What business?” said Jacob.

Jennifer’s hands were bound. Neither was Katie. Jacob didn’t dare move, but he was still free, if he could make a move without getting shot first. Unlikely. He was covered, and from a distance.

“This is what is going to happen,” said Al Naab. “Tomorrow morning, at three locations across the United States, my men will move. A shopping mall in the suburbs of Richmond, Virginia. A multiplex theater in Albany, New York. A high school in Paradise Falls, Pennsylvania.”

Jacob went rigid.

“At first, their intent will appear to be taking and holding hostages. They will indeed hold them, and provide enough time for us to arrive and prepare. This ship will dock outside of Philadelphia tonight. In the cargo hold are three nuclear devices of Russian manufacture. I’m sure you know, Jacob, that the ‘suitcase nuke’ is a myth. These do not fit in a suitcase. However, a private plane will be more than sufficient to carry each one, along with the rest of my cargo- containers of waste products from a defunct Russian power plant. Not much; only about a thousand pounds, but it will increase the fallout, spreading nuclear material over a vast area.”

“Dirty bombs,” Jacob said. It was like listening to his voice coming from another mouth. He felt so cold.

“Yes. Originally I planned on one, detonated near enough to Washington to make a point but while providing safety for the apparatus of government.”

Jacob frowned. “Why?”

Al Naab stood, moved in front of Jacob, and looked down at him.

“Look at me.
Look at me.
”

Jacob looked up.

“You think I’m a barbarian, don’t you?”

Jacob said nothing.

“First, I want you to know that three times as many people will die as before, when I was preparing to carry out this plan this first time. We had to resort to other methods to achieve our aims after you disrupted the operation and
appropriated
the funds we planned to use. You see, Jacob, it is a game.” He made a flicking motion with his hand. “We launch a terrorist attack. Your government responds. We launch a bigger one. They respond again. We direct those responses. A regime falls, and money comes into our hands. The game is rigged. We play both sides. Do you know what our name means, the Fangs?”

Jacob shook his head.

“You are in the jaws of a predator, Jacob,” said Al Naab. “A creature so large it is invisible to you. We are only the tiniest part… but it is the tiniest part that pierces the body and injects the venom. The rest of the beast is wrapped around you, has been wrapped around you since you were born, choking the life out of you even as you struggle through it.”

“What are you going on about?”

The Fang laughed at him again, and then he sighed, deeply.

“You’re so astute, boy, yet you see so little. The Jihad is but one mask we wear. Before we wore that mask, we wore a red one. Before that one, we wore a swastika, before that a dozen others you may not know,” he smiled softly to himself.

“It’s about chaos,” he said, turning away. “Since the beginning our order has understood that only through strife and change does the organism grow. Peace, what you call prosperity, is the end of mankind, an evolutionary dead end. We will make the human race stronger. We will force it to grow, and along paths we have chosen. In two days, a war will begin.
Our
war. One one side, millions strong, a holy war fueled by our skillful manipulation of poverty, faith, and ideology. On the other side, a new order. The people will cry out for safety and vengeance, and James Katzenberg will give that to them. We have already laid out everything we need. The next attack will come five years hence, after the war is in full swing. Then we will have the clout to install our instrument permanently. A constitutional amendment, and James Katzenberg becomes President for Life, and if he so much as sets one toe out of line, I will skin his son alive and feed James the pieces. The slow dying of his other son will be nothing by comparison.”

Jennifer tensed, and sucked in a breath. Elliot whimpered.

“A plan that was set in motion before your grandparents were born will come to fruition tomorrow,” Al Naab went on. “That is no longer your concern. It is inevitable fact. Now, you must make a decision.”

Jacob swallowed and tasted blood.

Al Naab stepped behind Jennifer and Katie, and his man returned with a briefcase. When he opened there were no papers or computer, but the inside was padded and full of knives. Al Naab chose one with a hooked blade, and tested it in his hand. He caressed Jennifer’s cheek and she froze.

“You will give me access codes, account numbers, whatever I require to transfer the funds you stole back to my control,” he said, “or you will watch the slow dying of these two. The younger first, to sweeten the elder sister’s suffering. If you give me the codes, I will allow you to choose. You may spare the love of your life, and make her watch her sister beg for death, or you may give your lover to my blade to spare her sibling. Truly I would prefer you give me the younger one.”

He ran his finger over the bandage on Jennifer’s cheek.

“I prefer my canvasses unmarked,” he sighed.

Jacob froze. Before he could even speak, Jennifer blurted out first, “Oh, fuck you.”

“What?” Al Naab barked.

“Jacob, don’t listen to him. He’s going to kill us all no matter what you do.”

“Hey,” said Elliot.

Everyone turned to face him, as he stood by the bar. Then he smashed the liquor bottle he was holding over the head of the man standing next to him, the one covering Jacob with the rifle.