“Watch for what?”
Black shrugged. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know. My bro and I are heading out on the island to scope out the Amityville place, get the lay of the land, find a vantage point so we can see who’s coming and going. Basically sniff around and see what kind of stink it gives off.”
Jack stared at the entrance. The sign over the double doors had green Arabic squiggles above MASJID AL-FAROOQ in red. At six stories, the building was by far the tallest on the block. The second and third levels showed floor-to-ceiling windows. A steady flow of Arab types passed in and out of the doorway.
This was the place Bertel had gone on about. Wheels within wheels …
“Busy place for a refugee center.”
“Al-Kifah takes up just a tiny part of the first floor. Upstairs is a mosque and Islamic center. I don’t pretend to know what else goes on in there.”
Jack felt at sea. “I still don’t get what I’m looking for.”
Black turned in his bucket seat to face him. “Figure it this way: If the jihadists are expecting a real shipment of kids, they’re gonna have to pay for them. The money—and it’s got to be cash—is gonna have to come from Al-Kifah. I don’t have a photo of any face you should look for, but if you see heavy-duty wheels roll up, and see an Arab with a satchel surrounded by a bunch of wary-looking guys come out that door and pile into it, you get on that phone to us.”
“And then what?”
“You don’t let it out of your sight. We’ll all keep in contact and one or both of us—depending on what the Amityville scene looks like—will catch up with you as backup.”
“What if they’ve got the money stashed somewhere else?”
He shrugged again. “Then we’re shit out of luck on this end and we’ll have to concentrate on Amityville. These are the only contact points we know. That’s the hand we’ve been dealt. We’ll play it the best we can.”
Fine, but Jack wasn’t even sure what game they were playing.
Black handed Jack a mobile phone. “Plug this into your lighter socket. The number’s programmed in just in case you lose it. You see something, call right away. Probably best if you call in every hour or so no matter what, just so we know everything’s cool on this end.”
“How long do I hang out here?”
Black reached for the door handle. “Well, if nothing’s shaking here by one A.M., I think you can pack it in.”
“One A.M.?” Jack glanced at the dashboard clock. “That’s like eleven hours.”
“Yeah, a long time on your ass,” he said, getting out. “Stay as long as you want or can. We appreciate the help.”
He slammed the door, jumped into the Mark VII, and roared off.
Stay as long as you want or can …
Shit.
Soon as he’d heard those words Jack knew he’d be here for the duration.
He restarted the Corvair’s engine and turned on the heater. Another downside of a convertible top in winter, besides not being able to put it down without freezing, was lack of insulation. The heat seeped out through the fabric like it was netting.
So he sat and watched the sun slip behind the mosque, which meant he’d be restarting the car even more often. He checked the dashboard clock again. Just three now. He’d been sitting here for only an hour but it seemed like half a day.
As he warmed his hands over the heating vents, he saw a blue Ford Taurus pull into the curb before the mosque and stop beside the fire hydrant. The driver’s door opened and a skinny guy with a mullet haircut got out and limped around to the sidewalk.
“Holy shit!”
Reggie. Jack would know that face and that haircut anywhere.
He reached for the phone but hesitated before hitting the speed dial. He was going to have to hear an I-told-you-so from whichever Mikulski answered.
Oh, well …
He pressed the button and Blue answered.
“You’ll never guess who just showed up,” he said.
“Don’t keep me in suspense.”
“Reggie of the broken knees.”
“Told you so! Didn’t I tell you that guy would be back to bite you on the ass?”
The brothers had warned him about letting Reggie live, but the man had been unconscious at the time and Jack simply hadn’t been able to kill him. He’d settled for breaking his knees with a tire iron. He must have got them fixed up because he was walking pretty well. But how had he connected with the Arabs?
“Yeah, he’s back, but I don’t see this as a bite on the ass. This is more like a bit of luck.”
“Yeah? How so?”
“Reggie’s experienced in hauling…” How secure was a mobile phone transmission? Best to play it safe. “You know what.”
“We do know. And I see what you mean. You think…?”
“Yeah. This could be the real deal.”
“He driving a truck?”
“No.”
“He could be heading out to meet it. Follow him. Keep us informed.”
“Will do.”
“This just got more interesting.”
“It did.”
“Hey, Jack.”
“What?”
“Thanks.”
The line went dead. Jack put the phone aside and watched the Taurus.
A couple of minutes later, Reggie reappeared with a young Arab in tow. Jack leaned forward for a better look and smiled. The paranoid jerk from the firing range who’d thought Jack was following him.
Guess what, shmuck: You were wrong then, but you’re right now.
Reggie hung a U-turn from his parking space and headed west. Jack pulled out and followed.
This was getting better and betterer.
4
“Hey, Camel Boy,” Reggie said as he cruised the lower end of the New Jersey Turnpike. “Did they tell you the change in plans?”
“What?” the Arab said.
“We really are picking up a load of kids.”
“What? But I was told—”
“You were told bullshit. A dozen kids will be in the back of that truck. That means a big payday for you guys.”
Kadir’s eyes lit. “Sheikh Omar will be so pleased.”
Reggie had no idea who Sheikh Omar was but he obviously was important to Camel Boy. Reggie didn’t know why he was lying to Kadir. Just bored and felt like messing with his head, he guessed.
He glanced in the rearview and saw that same car.
“I think we’re being followed.”
If he’d been driving with Moose he probably would have said We got a tail, but this twitchy Arab with the bad English probably would have checked his ass.
Camel Boy did exactly what Reggie expected him to do: Turned around in his seat and stared out the rear window.
“Where? Who?”
“I don’t know who, but I know where—about two cars behind us—and I know what—that little white convertible with the black top.”
He would have mentioned it was a Corvair but Kadir wouldn’t have any idea what that was.
He’d taken Third Avenue to the Gowanus and then across the Verrazano. He’d first noticed the car on the Staten Island Expressway and remembered his uncle had had a Corvair when he was a kid. He’d noticed it again on the Goethals Bridge, and now here he was in south Jersey near the end of the turnpike and the car was still behind him.
Maybe it was his imagination. If you were headed from Brooklyn or Staten Island to, say, Wilmington or Baltimore or DC, this was pretty much the only route you could take. So yeah, he could be wrong, but he didn’t think so. He’d slowed down and speeded up and always the damn Corvair stayed two or three cars back, right behind him. On the other hand, what kind of an idiot trailed somebody in a thirty-year-old car that was so easy to spot?
He ran through his options and settled on a couple: Get off the turnpike and see if the Corvair followed. But he’d just passed Exit Two and Exit One was a ways off. Then he spotted a sign saying the Clara Barton Rest Stop was coming up. He c
ould pull in there and see if the Corvair did the same.
But why bother? Al-Thani and Mr. Drexler had indicated that they hoped he’d be followed. That was the whole point of the charade: Make it look as real as possible.
He wondered if he should check in with them. He had al-Thani’s number but he’d got the impression it was for emergency use only.
He decided this wasn’t an emergency, so he drove past the service center. To his surprise, the Corvair turned into it and disappeared.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “I guess I was wrong.”
5
“Goddamn idiot!” Jack said, pounding the steering wheel as he headed for the gas lanes.
He was used to his Harley going forever on a tank of gas and he hadn’t expected this kind of trip. He’d figured he might have to follow someone out to Long Island at most, not all the way down the goddamn New Jersey Turnpike and beyond.
As a result, he hadn’t gassed up earlier and his engine was running on fumes now.
He pulled up next to a pump and looked around for an attendant. In any other state he’d hop out and fill up himself. But not good old NJ. No self-service here.
He spotted someone approaching in his sideview mirror and rolled down his window.
“Fill it with regular.”
“No time for that,” said a startlingly familiar voice.
Jack looked up and saw Dane Bertel leaning on his car.
“What? What are—?”
“No time to waste. Pull over there and park, then get in my truck.”
Jack couldn’t think, couldn’t form a complete sentence.
“I … I—”
“Stop yammering and move it or you’ll lose him.”
Still no sign of an attendant, so Jack pulled around the pumps and into the indicated space. He removed the plastic shopping bag from under the front seat and slipped the mobile phone in with his Glock and the extra magazines. By the time he was out and locking the car, a dark Ford F-150 pickup had pulled up behind him—the same one Bertel had been driving last Sunday. He hopped into the passenger seat. The tires chirped as Bertel got them moving.
“I don’t get it,” Jack said.
“What’s to get?”
“Why are you following me?”
“So I can find out why you’re following them.” He looked at Jack as they accelerated back onto the turnpike. “Why are you following them?”
Jack hadn’t expected that. “Whoa. Let’s just rewind here a little. Who says I’m following anyone?”
“Let’s not play games, Jack. Answer my question.”
“No-no. You’re the guy who comes up and says get in my truck or we’re gonna lose them. I can just as easily say, ‘Lose who?’”
“But you didn’t. You got in the truck.”
“Touché. But that doesn’t change things: You first.”
Bertel shrugged. “Not much to say.”
“You’re FBI, right?”
He laughed. “No way!”
“CIA, then.”
He shook his head. “I’m self-employed. You know that.”
“No. I don’t know that. I know what you seem to be, but when you come right down to it, I don’t know a damn thing about you.”
“Well, you know I’m not exactly a law-abiding citizen.”
“Neither are some CIA folks, from what I read.”
“I’m not CIA, FBI, NSA, DoD, or any other acronym.”
“Then why are you following them?”
“Told you: I’m not following them. I’m following you.”
“Bullshit.”
“No. Really. It’s true.”
“Why?” He couldn’t imagine why anyone would follow him.
“Because you’re so damn easy to follow in that old white convertible.”
Jack fought a furious urge to pull out the Glock and shove it in his face. He kept his hands in his lap and willed his voice toward calm.
“Would you please make sense? Please?”
Bertel glanced at him, then sighed. “I’ve been keeping an eye on that building for a while now.”
Jack leaned back. Bertel had gone on about Al-Kifah last week, and had seemed to know a lot about it. Not a big stretch to believe he’d been watching it. Finally Jack was getting somewhere.
“You’ve really got it in for that place.”
“Well, why not? The Al-Kifah Afghan Refugee Center is run by a bunch of bad actors since its founder, Mustafa Shalabi, moved on to be with Allah.”
Jack had seen a piece in the paper about finding his mutilated body.
“I remember you saying they were out to get him. And I guess they did.”
“Did they ever. Shalabi used to refer to Al-Kifah as the ‘Jihad Center.’”
He pulled into the left lane and accelerated.
“Holy war instead of just helping refugees?”
“Right. Because basically Shalabi was waging holy war against the Russian Army in Afghanistan.”
Jack had never been much interested in foreign affairs, but he picked up tidbits here and there via osmosis from the radio.
“Didn’t they kick the Russians’ butts?”
“Yeah. With the help of U.S. Stinger missiles. The Russian army withdrew two years ago but left a puppet government and millions of displaced Afghans. So the refugee charity was necessary. But now that this crazy blind Mohammedan has taken over, the donations are going to go toward killing infidels.”
“Such as…?”
Bertel made a broad sweep with his arm. “Look around you.”
“Americans?”
“You got it.”
“But why? Didn’t we help them—?”
“Doesn’t matter. Mohammedans can’t give gratitude to infidels. It all goes to Allah.”
“You mean they’ll start sending suicide bombers here?”
“They don’t have to send them—they’re right here, in that mosque. And why not? They blow up embassies and barracks over there. Why not Macy’s or Times Square on New Year’s Eve here? ‘Jihad’ pretty much gives Mohammedans the green light to do anything they damn well please in the name of Allah. And it ain’t terror if you ain’t killing civilians.”
Jack stared at him. “You are CIA.”
He shook his head. “We gonna go through this again?”
“You know too much. And don’t give me any of this stuff about ‘me and the Mummy talk now and then.’ You’re tuned in. So if you’re not FBI or CIA, then you’re ex-FBI or CIA.”
His expression darkened. “I’ll tell you what I am, Jack. I’m someone nobody will listen to. I’m a lone voice crying in the halls that jihad is coming to America and no one wants to hear it. Everyone thinks I’m crazy. But remember this, Jack—remember who said it and where you heard it: When a Mohammedan does blow up a bunch of innocent Americans here in the U.S., he will be connected, directly or indirectly, to the Al-Kifah Afghan Refugee Center.”
The truck cab fell silent as they sped along, the speedometer wavering in the seventies. Jack didn’t know what to say. He’d always associated suicide bombers with the Middle East—blowing up Tel Aviv coffee shops. He couldn’t see that happening here.
He remembered as a kid watching the footage from Beirut where the U.S. Marine barracks had been pancaked by a suicide bomber, just like the American embassy before it. Something like three hundred Marines dead and a group called Islamic Jihad taking credit. But that was long ago and far away.
“But what’s in it for them? I can see it happening in Israel—I mean, the Arab world wants Israel gone. But we’re way over here.”
“No, Jack. We’re over there. We just demolished Iraq’s entire army in a hundred hours. And where were we based? Saudi Arabia. And where’s Mecca? Same answer.”
“So what?”
“Infidel troops using their Holy Land as a base to launch attacks against fellow Arabs. It’s pushed Sheikh Omar to the edge of madness. And there’s one Saudi over there named Osama bin Laden who started a well
-funded jihad group two or three years ago called al-Qaeda. He’s so crazy mad and so rabidly anti-American that the Saudi government is banishing him to the Sudan. Want to take a guess where he has ties in the U.S.?”
“The refugee center?”
“Bull’s-eye! He and Sheikh Omar are natural-born allies. They—” He pointed ahead, toward the neighboring lane. “That looks like your friends.”
A blue Taurus with New York plates. As they got closer, Jack recognized the number—he’d memorized it. He wondered if he’d have been able to catch up with them if Bertel hadn’t come along.
“They’re not my friends.”
“Then why are you following them?”
Should he tell him? Yeah, why not? Bertel knew half the story already. Jack had had to tell him something last fall—give some explanation as to why he was quitting his smuggling operation. He’d been making good money running cigarettes from North Carolina to Jersey City, but that whole little-girls-for-sale episode had soured the idea of smuggling anything.
“Answer me one more question: Why were you following me?”
“I told you: I’ve been watching that building when I can, more so since Shalabi’s murder. I’m driving by this afternoon and I see this nifty Corvair convertible. Imagine my surprise when I see you behind the wheel. You don’t see me because you’re focused on the door to the Al-Kifah center. So I park down the other end of the street. I see a car pull up and a white guy picks up Kadir Allawi. I figure you’re watching because you’ve got a hard-on for the guys who ran you off the road. But I’ve got to say I’m curious about Kadir driving with a white guy—his contacts are purely Mohammedan. Then I see you start to follow them. I figure I’ll follow you just to keep you from doing something stupid. But it turns out to be the trip that never ends.”
“If I’d had any idea it would be like this, I’d have started with a full tank.”
“Just as well. I’m sure they made you as a tail.”
“Like hell. I always stayed two or three cars back.”
Bertel laughed. “In a vintage convertible? You kidding me? You might do okay at night, but with the sun still up? Forget about it.” He pointed again at the Taurus. “That’s the kind of wheels you should have if you’re tailing someone. Bestselling car in the country. A zillion of them on the road. So many, they’re damn near invisible. Same with this baby.” He patted the dashboard. “The F-One-fifty pickup’s the bestselling truck in the world.”