Hardbingers

10

"Guy didn't have a clue he was being followed," Davis was saying. "No decoy maneuvers, nothing. Led us a straight shot over the bridge to here. Even unlocked it for us." He gestured around him. "You believe this?"

Jack didn't want to believe what he was looking at.

He and Zeklos had headed for the island as soon as they found a cab. Something about the Richmond Terrace address rang a bell, and then Jack remembered that one of last year's more interesting customers had a business there.

Richmond Terrace ran along Staten Island's north shore. A heady mixture of brine and fumes filled the air. At its southernmost end it started off scenic and well kept, with waterfront promenades and views of the Manhattan skyline. But it rapidly deteriorated from there, devolving into junkyards and chop shops and plumbing supply warehouses sprinkled among the piers and dry docks. Between the tugboats and through the forest of cargo cranes along the waterfront, the northern stretches offered a breathtaking view of Bayonne's tank farms just a short hop across the river.

A truly desolate stretch of road—overgrown fences, rotting wharves, graffiti-scarred buildings, potholed pavement—a place where small businesses come to die.

Jack's instincts had told him it might not be a good idea to have the address logged in the cab's record, so he'd told the driver he didn't have an address and to cruise Richmond Terrace until they saw the place they were looking for. When they'd passed the address—a self-storage cubicle farm—he let the cab drive on until they reached Sal's Salvage, Inc. They'd got out there and walked back.

North Shore Self Storage occupied a waterfront plot that used to be a dry dock—some of the docks and bays still remained. After finding the yenigeri-mobile in the parking lot, he and Zeklos had searched around until they spotted Davis standing in front of one of the units. He'd rolled up the corrugated steel door to let them in, then rolled it three-quarters down after them.

Jack instinctively reached to remove his new sunglasses and realized he didn't have to. They'd adjusted to the lower light.

He stared at the four black, fifty-five-gallon drums arrayed on the concrete slab, then turned to Davis.

"Tell me they're not full of—"

Davis nodded. "Yeah. Semtex A."

Zeklos gasped. "Dumnezeule!"

Jack didn't know what that meant, but it probably echoed his own shock. His gaze wandered to the bound-and-gagged figure on the floor. Miller stood over him.

"What do we know about him?"

Davis shrugged. "His license says he's Shabbir Something-or-other at the address where you spotted him. But who knows if that's legit."

Probably as legit as Jack's license.

"Why the gag?"

Not as if the guy was going to yell for help.

Miller said, "Couldn't stand listening to any more of his Allah bullshit."

Allah…

Jack knelt and ripped the duct tape from the guy's face, taking a fair amount of beard with it.

"Hey! Shabbir! You with Wrath of Allah?"

He spat at Jack. "I am a soldier of God! I am of the Omar Sheikh Martyr Brigade!"

"Never heard of it."

Davis said, "Omar Sheikh is the animal who beheaded Daniel Pearl on videotape. The Pakistanis sentenced him to hang for it, but they haven't got around to it yet."

Jack stared at Shabbir. "How can he be a martyr if he's not dead?"

"The traitors are offering him up to appease America!"

Jack shook him. "Forget that. Wrath of Allah—the ones who gunned down those people at LaGuardia. What do you know about them?"

"They too are soldiers of God! They are heroes!"

Jack remembered the litter of dead he'd seen around the baggage carousel—remembered one death in particular—and wanted to throttle this piece of crap. With no little difficulty he resisted the impulse and jammed the duct tape back over his mouth.

"What do we do now?" Zeklos said.

"We?" Miller shook his head. "There is no 'we' as far as you're concerned. Just me and Davis."

"Don't forget Jack," Davis said.

A glare was Miller's only reply.

"I don't know about you guys," Jack said, "but I think the best course is to tape him up, take off, and call the feds."

Miller sneered. "Yeah, right. So they can take him to the Gitmo Country Day School and give him a special diet and a Koran and a cleric and an ACLU asshole to hold his hand. You know how I'd handle these guys—the few who somehow survived? They'd get a cinderblock box smaller than this, no window, and a hole in the floor. And special diet? They'd get a special diet: Every day I'd whip them up bacon for breakfast, sausage for lunch, and pork chops for dinner—no substitutions, please. Eat or starve."

"You wouldn't get any argument from me," Davis said. "But we're not at Gitmo and this guy obviously isn't working alone. The feds can use him to find the rest of his posse."

"We don't need to find his posse." Miller waved his arms at the drums. "We've got their toys, and without their toys they can't play."

Jack said, "The Oculus saw them stuffing vests with plastique."

Davis pointed to the corner. "They're over there. Six of them packed full, salted with one-inch wood screws and ready to go. But that's small-time stuff. Take a look at this."

He led Jack to the nearest drum and lifted its lid. Jack looked inside. He saw reddish gunk up to the three-quarter level. A cell phone lay on top. A wire ran from the phone into the gunk.

Jack felt a jolt of alarm as he leaned over the rim. He knew that wire led to a detonator or two.

"I hope to hell that phone is turned off."

"It is. Every barrel's rigged like this. And don't worry, I made sure all the phones are off."

"Then they're all set to go."

Jack could see how it would go down. They load the drums into car trunks, stall the cars on bridges near a support or midshaft in a tunnel or two, hitch a ride away, and then call the rigged cell phone. The ringer sends a current to the detonators and BLAM!—collapsed tunnels, and bridges with severe structural damage.

And rampant panic.

Jack said, "The Oculus saw suicide bombings, but these are rigged for remote detonation. Which means they're probably saving the suicide vests for the buses and subways, after they've blown the cars."

Davis was nodding. "And that means they don't have bodies to spare. They've got half a dozen vests here. Probably means only half a dozen in their cell."

"Smart," Jack said. "Keep it small. Keep it tight. Fewer chances of a leak or a screw-up."

Davis turned back to Miller. "Jack's right. This is way too big and too well planned for our little crew. We're stretched to the limit as it is. We've got to turn him in."

Miller shook his head. "I'm sick of jawing about this."

He kicked the Arab onto his belly and stomped hard on the back of his neck. Jack heard the crunch of shattering vertebrae. The guy twitched once and then lay still.

"Now you're a martyr," Miller said.

Jack felt nothing for the terrorist. He didn't know how much blood he had on his hands when he died, but he'd have been bathing in it if he'd had his way. And if Jack had found out that he'd been part of the LaGuardia Massacre, his own foot would have been on that neck.

"For Christ sake. Miller!" Davis shouted. "That's the second time—!"

They all jumped as the dead man's cell phone began to ring.

"Must be Allah calling to tell him he ain't getting his seventy-two virgins."

Davis was still fuming. "Why the hell did you do that?"

Miller's lips parted into what he probably thought was a beatific smile. Not quite.

"I just want peace is all. You know how I hate arguments. And now there's nothing to argue about."

This is why I work alone, Jack thought.