The Executioner's Game (11 page)

Nappy entered the premises slowly and deliberately, as he always did. He didn't want anyone to think he was in a hurry or in any way different from how he was on any other day. What he, Tevin, and Jimon had done would bring the cops, and when they and the FBI came, they wouldn't hear anything incriminating from anyone. That was, if they came at all. Nappy never underestimated their stupidity.

He walked down the hallway to his office, located in the back of the building. The lights were low, and the sounds from the outer office faded. Soon all he heard was the muted noises from the street outside.

Inside his office Nappy immediately sensed a presence. He scanned the place, and his eyes settled on a figure nestled in the far corner. The man was half turned away from him. Nappy approached the man slowly, as he always did. Sudden moves were not healthy in this man's presence. Nappy didn't ask the man how he'd gotten in or how he'd evaded detection by his staff. He knew by now that this man had his ways, that he was like a ghost when he had to be.

“Is it done?” asked the man in his scratchy, tortured voice.

“Yes,” said Nappy.

“And your operatives?”

“Just like you said…what was it called?”

“Backwashed,” said the man, who got to his feet. He stood straight at attention and turned. Nappy was always aware of the grace and elegance of his movements. It was one of the first things he'd noticed about him when they met.

“Excellent,” said the man. “I have your payment.”

The man reached into his pocket and removed an envelope, tossing it to Nappy. Inside, Nappy found a copy of a secret FBI plan to detain inner-city populations in case of domestic terrorism. The containment plan was clearly aimed at African-Americans.

The man come toward Nappy. Light from the dimmed overhead lamps moved over him, cutting his face into sections of shadow and light as he approached, and soon Nappy looked directly into the mangled face of Alex Deavers.

“Things will happen swiftly now,” said Deavers.

“What things?” asked Nappy.

“The government will react, and the community will fall into its politically correct responses. So we must be quick with phase two.”

“It's already begun,” said Nappy. “I got a nice little crew of boys who are gonna go into the Arab neighborhoods and raise a little hell.”

Deavers didn't respond. He went to the window and looked out. In the back of the building, he saw Nappy's nameplate. His face contorted. No one could tell, but he was smiling. It was ironic humor indeed, he thought. The Buick Electra's nickname was a Deuce and a Quarter, which stood for the car's number, 225, an ominous integer that only Alex understood.

“Nice ride,” he said.

 

At 4:35
P.M
. in Dearborn, a fire started in the cellar of an Arab-American community center. The incendiary device was crude, but effective enough to set off a fire that engulfed the building and sent two people to the emergency room.

Cries of anti-Arab violence were immediately sounded. The FBI was called in, and the city was placed on a high terrorism alert.

The specters moved with a fierce quickness in the early hours of the morning. It was still very dark outside, and they took advantage of that fact by wearing dark clothes. Invisible and lethal, they carried the seeds of death in their minds.

They approached the dwellings of their enemies and struck with precision and power. They left their curse on homes, schools, and businesses. They smashed cars and blighted billboards. They even put their mark on busy intersections for all to see. They had power, and they wanted everyone to know it.

The vandals wreaked havoc and spread hatred that night. They had been well paid by a man who was of Middle Eastern extraction and who seemed not to care that he was harming his own people. This man in turn was paid by a white man who had known criminal ties. The white man had been paid by another white man, a friend who trafficked in inner-city drugs. And that man had been given his instructions by one of Nappy's best lieutenants.

The specters finished their work and moved on. The city lay behind them, bearing the mark of their anger and nurturing the seeds of rising discontent.

Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, is home to the largest Arab population outside the Middle East. There are some three hundred thousand and counting.

The first immigrants arrived in the 1870s. They were from the Ottoman province of Syria, an area that would become known as Lebanon. Their numbers swelled as they brought their relatives from overseas to the land they called “Amreeka.” They flooded in: the Lebanese, Yemenites, Syrians, Palestinians, Egyptians, Iraqi Shia, and Chaldeans. They came in droves, populating the city of Henry Ford's birth and giving rise to an ethnic minority that has defied assimilation and built a political and economic power base.

Alex Deavers had been aware of this for many years through E-1. In fact, he had put together the first national database on Arab-Americans after the initial terror attacks on soldiers during the Carter administration. He was an expert in the area and was happily surprised to find that the CIA and E-1 had chosen this city in which to hide their dirtiest secret.

Alex stood near Tiger Stadium. It was closed down now and abandoned, a ghost of itself. Alex loved baseball and lamented the new stadiums and their corporate sponsors. Who wanted to watch the almost spiritual game of baseball in a park named after a goddamned financial institution?

Alex tilted his hat a little as a car passed by. There were homeless men about, and he couldn't help but think of them as scavengers and the stadium a dead animal. He got into another car and drove away, certain that this would be a great day in his quest.

An hour later a parking-lot attendant called the city's impound service to take away a car for which he had no key or parking receipt. The car had been sitting all day in his lot, close to the McNamara Federal Building. When the tow-truck operator popped the lock on the car, he discovered thick wires running from the steering panel into the backseat.

Within minutes the fire department and four agencies of law enforcement, local and federal, were on the scene. The city bomb squad traced the thick wires and successfully removed them from the car's full gas tank.

In less than an hour, the place was a full-blown police crime scene and media circus. Stories about the vandals Alex had sent to Dearborn to deface certain areas with anti-Arab slurs were all over the news. Everyone was waving U.S. flags and copies of the Constitution. The victimization process was well under way, he thought. Today the media would report that someone had tried to strike back.

The attempted attack near a federal facility was seen as retaliation. The antiterrorism unit in Detroit would be mobilized, and by tomorrow the city would be placed on its highest level of alert ever.

Now more local and federal police power would be shifted to protect public buildings and concerns. Correspondingly, they would decrease manpower in other areas. This was what Alex had been waiting for.

Nappy and his minions had done a good job in Dearborn. The armies would now be set against each other, and they would grapple in the arena of public opinion. Once the situation was set, Alex would be able to make his move.

He suddenly became dizzy. The bootleg meds were catching
up with him. He sat down and collected himself. The dreams of Africa were not as bad as they once had been. They had faded to rough, hazy images of pain, the jungle, and the sun.

He was aware that he was not operating at 100 percent. Sometimes he felt righteous in his quest. At other times he felt as though the whole thing was a bad dream from which he'd just awakened. The fabric of reality shifted constantly in his head, and only the contents of that black case and the items it had led him to in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York reminded him he was not completely insane.

Luther had found Alex. His street work wasn't nearly as neat as he wanted it to be. He'd been lied to, led down false paths, and generally fucked over in the last few days. But he had found what he needed to know about Alex's whereabouts, as well as the man called Nappy.

Nappy was a street alias. Hampton had discovered that Chokwe Muhammad was on the government's list of subversives. His father and mother were sixties radicals and known anti-American activists. It was also no surprise that Nappy was engaged in the drug trade and had somehow been recruited by Alex. Sharpie had been a valuable source of information in this regard.

Getting to Alex had also been complicated by the terror alert in Detroit. There were more cops than ever on the street, and under the Homeland Security Act they had greater powers to detain people. Luther did not fancy himself a political person. At best he was a cynic, but he always thought it sad that so many laws that sought
to protect the people shredded parts of the Constitution to achieve their goal.

In the end Alex's race had betrayed him. There were not many white men frequenting the areas he traveled, and many people had “heard” about a white man who was handing out money and who was not to be trifled with. But no one had actually seen him. Even disfigured and desperate, Alex was still largely invisible.

Luther could barely restrain himself as he prepared to take Alex. A thudding rap tune by David Banner still echoed in his head as he slipped further into mission mode.

Hampton had reported back to Kilmer that they had found Alex. Luther wasn't sure whether that had been a good thing to do. He had his suspicions about this mission. E-1, like any covert government agency, was steeped in dangerous secrets and lies. Luther knew many stories about the agency and had been witness to what it would do to keep its secrets. And they'd all signed the
vita pactum
, which in a sense forfeited their lives to the agency.

Alex was speaking to Luther through this mission, and Luther had to know what he was saying before he completed the mission and neutralized Alex.

Alex was living in three places in Detroit. He had a far-east-side place, a protected house that he basically rented from a smalltime drug dealer. He also had a motel room on the north side just south of Eight Mile Road. And he had the place Luther was now near, a tenement near Third and Porter in what had been home to Detroit's Asian community years earlier.

It figured that Alex would be here, Luther thought. His last crime had been committed not far away. And with the terror alert, Luther was sure that no one was working too hard to solve that crime.

The building was an old-style apartment house. Its name had
been Crest Manor, but all you could see was
CR__T MA_OR
on the stone lintel. There were only a few families living there, if you could call them families. The building was home to low-grade prostitutes, lower-grade dealers, and the normal people from the bottom rungs of life.

“There are many innocents in this building,” said Hampton to Luther from his remote location.

“And Alex will not hesitate to endanger or kill them.”

“Stay on him,” said Hampton. “We can't afford to lose him again.”

Luther didn't appreciate this comment, but he didn't say anything. He did plan to do just as Hampton suggested, though. An E-1 agent was not humane—he was purposeful. It was the fulfillment of his mission that was humane.

Luther attached a Janlow silencer to the end of the P99. It was a bit bulky, but the high-tech alloy would cut the noise to almost nothing.

Luther moved as little as possible. Alex was too smart to be taken completely off guard, so Luther's only hope would be to give him the least amount of time possible in which to react. If he remembered his capture-and-detainment lesson well, Alex would use lethal means to the fullest extent to protect himself. So when Luther made his move, Alex would try to destroy him and everything in his path.

 

Alex Deavers watched as Luther approached the building. Luther had found him much sooner than he'd anticipated. Then again, Luther had always been a superior student. Alex had left enough clues on the street for him, but Luther had obviously done more homework.

Alex wondered whether Luther had put any of his clues together yet. He had to know that something was amiss with this mission, that Kilmer and the big boys were involved in some shit that was extremely dangerous, even by E-1 standards.

This was it, Alex thought. All his planning had come to this moment. He would engage Luther here, and either Luther would join him in his quest or Alex would leave him dead in the streets of his hometown. He would not make the same mistake he'd made in London with Lisa.

Alex was suddenly possessed of that feeling that he was not quite sane. His head spun with the circular logic of it. He had to rely on the confidence in his heart that he was a functional human being who had done terrible things to achieve a noble goal. He had to be sane. That was the only way any of this made sense.

Alex composed himself and then looked out the window again. He saw his men waiting and the dark figure of Luther across the street. To an untrained eye, Luther could have been a bush, a shadow, or at most some bum lurking in the night. But Alex saw the deliberate movement of a man on a covert operation. It was his old student, all right, and Luther was doing everything by the book.

Alex would be careful not to injure Luther too badly. But he had to hurt him to make his point. You couldn't reason with an E-1 agent. He was a killer, and the only way to neutralize this attitude was to threaten him with the same type of death the agent hoped to inflict.

 

Nappy had brought two of his best men for this mission. The man who called himself Wolf had asked him to help defend against
an assassin who had a beef with him. That had been days ago. They'd been camping out every night, waiting for the assassin to arrive.

Nappy knew most of the good street-level hitters in Detroit. The best of them were just sociopaths who were on their way to jail. This guy must be an out-of-towner, perhaps from Chicago or Cleveland. There was even a good one in Toledo he'd heard about a few years back.

Nappy had his two men, Menthol and Casey, posted in front and back of the house, respectively. Menthol got his name because of his chain-smoking. Casey was an import from Toronto. Both were smart and ruthless. Nappy was stationed a half block down the street, where he watched from the Buick. He had confidence in the two men, but just in case, Nappy had brought along his most trusted friend, a new Thunder Ranch .223 rifle, a nasty weapon made for gun nuts and NRA types. The Thunder Rifle would stop anything human. Nappy didn't like gunplay, but when he did shoot, he wanted to kill. In this city you didn't want to just wound a man.

The disfigured white man who had asked Nappy to call him simply Wolf was a great source of information, but Nappy was concerned that he didn't know what Mr. Wolf was planning. He told himself that it didn't matter, that after Wolf gave him more secret government information, he could take his business legit, create a new sense of political awareness for his people, get out of crime for financial support, and fulfill the dream of his father.

But his instincts told him something was wrong. Wolf had to be some kind of ex-government agent, CIA or NSA, to know the things he knew.

Mr. Wolf was holed up on the fifth floor of the place. Nappy
didn't know how the hitter expected to get past his men and get to the top of that building without being killed. So why was Wolf worried about this hitter? Why not handle it himself? Nappy began to get more worried about it himself, and he was suddenly glad he'd brought the two men to engage the hitter first. If Wolf was afraid, then the hitter was bad news.

Nappy saw a man emerge from a house down the street—just appear, as if by some magic. Had he been there all along? Or was Nappy imagining it now? No, it was a man, a tall man, and he crept up the dark street a half block from Wolf's building. Then the tall shadow crossed the street and headed toward Menthol, who was guarding the front entrance and lighting up his tenth cigarette of the evening.

Nappy smiled. It would be a short night's work. Menthol and Casey would kill the man, dispose of the body. Wolf would thank Nappy and reward him with another subversive secret that would dazzle his readers. They would all be eating White Castles by ten o'clock.

Alex watched from his window as Luther circled toward the house. Luther would take the front man and then come straight to him on the fifth floor. Luther would wait and kill the rear guard, who would undoubtedly follow him in. Then he'd engage his target. Nappy would enter in the middle of the fight between Luther and himself. Luther would kill Nappy easily, but that would be his fatal mistake. While Luther killed Nappy, Alex would take him down. Then young Luther would get one chance to join him. If he answered wrong, Alex would have no choice but to end his life.

But he was forgetting something, Alex thought. He didn't know what, but a piece of this scenario was missing. These days
there always seemed to be something slipping from his mind. Luther's approach was stealthy but still too orthodox for what he knew of the man. But Alex had left him no choice, really.

I am not insane, he kept telling himself. He knew what he was doing. He was right in mind and mission.

Alex watched as Luther stopped just in front of the guard. He was probably going to pretend to be some local guy looking for drugs. The guard would try to take him, and then the game would be on. Alex watched. His pulse quickened, and he felt his muscles tighten.

The man they called Menthol threw down his cigarette and said something to the man who was about ten yards or so in front of him. Menthol slowly began to step toward Luther.

Then Luther turned and ran.

Luther sprinted back up the street away from the building. Menthol immediately gave chase, leaving his post. Alex heard him yell something and assumed that the rear guard had been called to give chase as well.

And that was what was missing. Alex thought.

Luther's only chance to take him was by surprise, and Alex's only assumption had been that Luther had found this hiding place just days ago, but it seemed possible that Luther had been onto him for much longer.

That was not Luther down there on the street.

Alex was pulling out his gun when the back windows to his room exploded. Luther swung in on a harness and flew at him, landing on his old mentor and dislodging Alex's gun from his hand. Alex flung Luther off him. When Alex got to his feet, he ran to Luther and began an attack, inflicting fierce blows and trying to keep Luther from drawing his weapon.

Luther threw a punch that Alex easily avoided, but Luther switched direction of the same hand and landed a backhand to Alex's jaw.

Alex spun and raised a kick, which barely missed Luther's head. Luther struck again, this time also with a kick. Alex dodged and caught Luther in the ribs with a blow that made him back off.

Luther attacked again, and now he and Alex traded blows, each man doing damage. Alex struck at Luther's throat but missed. Luther wrapped his arm around Alex's outstretched wrist and pulled him forward onto his knees. Alex reeled backward from the blow.

Luther heard the footsteps coming before the door burst open. He drew back from Alex, and the last thing he saw was the sad expression that passed for a smile on his old mentor's face.

Luther ran to the door as Nappy and his men burst inside. Either the decoy outside had gotten away or they'd killed him. Menthol was the first through the door. Luther hit him across the throat, and the big man dropped his gun and tumbled forward.

Luther heard an explosion as Nappy fired the rifle. The shots missed him but tore a hole in the far wall.

In his peripheral vision, Luther saw Alex jump out the same window that Luther had come in through, landing on a fire escape.

Luther easily took the second man, Casey. He grabbed the man's outstretched gun hand, pointed the gun into the man's own thigh, and made him fire. Casey dropped to the floor, dropping the gun.

Luther got a look at the third man. He was tall and bald and carried a rifle. He fired again, ripping bullets wildly. Luther dove
away, pulling his P99 and firing at the doorway. He heard the man back out of the room and run down the stairs.

Luther quickly walked to Casey and kicked him in the head, putting him out. Then he turned to Menthol, who was still on his knees, choking and gasping for air.

Luther put his gun to the side of the man's head. “Where can I find your boss?” he asked.

“Don't…know,” he said feebly.

Luther stepped back from Menthol. As the man turned to look at him, Luther knocked him out cold.

Luther made a hasty retreat. It would be harder to find Alex now that he'd narrowly escaped. But Nappy was in the mission, too, and he was not as clever as the wolf.