Maybe buying Ralph hadn’t been such a good idea. Then again, he didn’t plan on making a career out of bird-dogging people.
Bertel eased into the right lane, three cars behind the Taurus—only two southbound lanes down this end of the turnpike.
“Okay, now,” Bertel said. “Your turn.”
Jack paused, wondering how to begin. He decided to come in from left field.
“You ever think of Tony?”
“What’s Tony got to do with you following these two yahoos?”
“Plenty. Do you?”
“What? Think of Tony? Yeah. He was the best manager I ever had down there.”
“Okay. The white guy you saw picking up what’s-his-name—”
“Kadir Allawi.”
“Whatever. Name’s Reggie. He’s the one who left word to kill Tony if anything went wrong with the delivery.”
Bertel was silent a long time.
Finally, he spoke, his voice flat and low. “So, I’m following the guy who ordered Tony killed.”
“Yeah. Reggie and Moose.”
“Moose?”
“Don’t worry about Moose. Remember the guy they found in the dunes with his head bashed in? That was Moose.”
“You know who did that?”
Jack shrugged. “Lots of arguing going on between the traffickers.”
Not untrue. But not an answer either. Jack didn’t want to answer. He’d followed Moose out to the dunes one night. Moose never returned. He’d had good reason for that but wasn’t in the mood to share.
Bertel jutted his chin toward the Taurus. “And you say this guy’s name is Reggie? Reggie what?”
“Don’t know. We weren’t exactly close.”
“I’ll be looking forward to sharing a little face time with Reggie.” The menace in his tone was palpable. He cleared his throat. “So that’s why you’re following them? You think they’re bringing in another load of kids?”
“That’s what the word is. The auction is supposedly set for two A.M.”
“How reliable is your source?”
“Very. But it could also be a trap for the gunmen who busted up their last delivery.”
“The ones who made off with the girls and the money?”
Jack nodded. “Three million, I’m told.”
Bertel whistled. “Yeah, I’d want that back too.” He glanced at Jack. “Your being here means those two have been in contact with you.”
Jack stiffened. “What makes you say that?”
“Obvious conclusion.”
Sharp old buzzard.
“Yeah. They have. But don’t ask me who they are or where they are. I don’t know. They found me.”
Reminded of the Mikulskis, Jack pulled the mobile phone out of the plastic grocery sack and plugged it into the truck’s cigarette lighter receptacle. He didn’t know how long the battery in these things lasted.
“They give you that?”
“Yeah. They’re looking into the auction end of this scheme. Gonna be out on Long Island somewhere.” He saw no reason to mention Amityville.
Bertel shook his head. “Auctioning off kids. Makes you want to puke.”
“Or kill.”
“Yeah. Definitely. On that subject, how come you didn’t wind up dead like the others?”
“With Abe’s help I managed to convince them I wasn’t there willingly.”
“And how about this Reggie?”
“I broke his knees.”
“You should have killed him.”
Now where had he heard that before?
“Seems to be the consensus.”
“Well, he killed Tony. Maybe he didn’t pull the trigger but—”
“I didn’t know Tony was dead then.”
Another lingering silence, then, “So what’s the plan?”
“This long drive wasn’t part of it. But the main idea is to get the kids safely away.”
“And after that?”
“My main concern is the kids.”
“And the other two? They’re out for the money?”
“The kids come first for them too. They take this kind of trafficking problem personally, and they’re into permanent solutions.”
Bertel smiled. “From the body count of their last operation, I gathered that. But they’re not averse to making a little profit on the deal, right?”
“We’ve all got expenses.”
He gestured to Jack’s grocery sack. “Your Ruger in there?”
“Switched to a Glock.”
“Good for you. You gonna be able to use it should the need arise?”
“I’ll be okay.”
Or so he hoped. The question had been niggling at the back of Jack’s mind since his ride with the Mikulskis Sunday morning. He’d never been in a firefight. He worried he might freeze up.
“I mean, I hope you won’t go running around trying to break knees with the butt of your Glock. It’s polymer, you know. Very poor knee breaker.”
“Very funny. When we get back I think you should audition for The Tonight Show. I’m sure Johnny Carson will love you.”
Bertel laughed.
6
Jack wondered if the trip would ever end.
The Taurus stayed on 95 all the way. The sun had set as they’d trailed it over the Delaware Memorial Bridge and down into Maryland. Jack had to admit Bertel was pretty damn good at bird-dogging. Once they got onto 95, where he had more than two lanes to play with, he’d pass the Taurus, then pull into the center lane a few cars ahead of it. After a number of miles of letting the Taurus follow him, he’d move into the right lane, slow down, and let the Taurus pass. A subtle game of leap-frog, with one frog unaware it was playing. Really, would anyone suspect they were being tailed by a truck that spent a good deal of time running ahead of them?
Jack filed the tactic away for future use.
They were approaching Baltimore when the mobile phone started ringing. Jack fumbled with it and found the talk button.
“Where the hell are you?” Blue’s voice.
Crap. Jack had said he’d call in hourly.
“Approaching 695 outside Baltimore.”
“Baltimore! Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Ran low on gas, had to pull off, then hustle to catch up.”
“But you’re on them?”
“Three cars ahead. You don’t think they’re heading down to the Outer Banks, do you?”
“Not if they’re gonna make the two A.M. auction.”
Jack looked at the dashboard clock: 6:30. He had a point.
“Yeah. Probably northern Virginia, tops. How are things up there?”
“Found the auction site. It’s waterfront. We’ve got eyes on it from a place across the street.”
“You rented across the street?”
He laughed. “We’re borrowing. It’s pretty much a deserted neighborhood. Summer homes and snowbirds. We can see some Mideast types rearranging furniture on the first floor. Looks like it’s gonna happen.”
“What’s the plan?”
“We won’t have one till we know the first point of sale.”
“First point of—? Oh, you mean the wholesale site.”
“Right.”
So sick, the idea of wholesaling kids, but that was the way it had been supposed to go last time. Reggie and Jack had driven to the Staten Island marsh where the Arabs were set to buy the two truckloads. From there the Arabs had planned to transport them to a rented house in the Hamptons and auction them off. A quick and easy operation: Take delivery and sell them off in a matter of hours, then go home and count your money … while the kids started journeys through hell.
Jack was glad they were all dead. Too bad the buyers waiting in the Hamptons hadn’t died with them.
“But if the Mideast types are doing the shipping, maybe they’re cutting out the middleman.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice. Much easier for us. We’ve discussed this. We could be wrong, but we figure they don’t have the contacts on this side of t
he Atlantic to put together a shipment. Probably used Reggie.”
“Still smells bad.”
“Oh, yeah, it stinks to high heaven. But if you see them take delivery on a truck, get on that phone and let us know. Then follow it home.”
“Roger. Over and out.”
“Say what?”
“Will do. Bye.”
He cut the connection and stared through the windshield at the taillights of the Taurus up ahead.
“What stinks?” Bertel said.
“Everything. There’s no plan. This could be a fake-out.”
“Pretty elaborate for a fake-out. Let’s say it’s not. Let’s say the deal will go down. What’s in this for the Arabs?”
“Money.”
“I get that. How much we talking?”
“They buy the kids for a hundred apiece.”
“A hundred grand? Each?”
Jack nodded. “I’m told they go at auction for at least two, sometimes three times that.”
“Shit. That gives them one to two million profit to put toward blowing up America. I’m in this, Jack.”
Uh-oh.
“What do you mean?”
“I want this stopped, and I’m ready to do whatever it takes to see that it is. Tell these guys I’m in.”
“I don’t think that’s gonna fly. They’ve got their own thing going—a two-man show.”
“They brought you in, didn’t they?”
“I was sort of left on their doorstep.”
“Your friends can have all the money. All I care about is keeping it out of the Mohammedans’ hands.”
“I don’t know…”
Bertel looked at him. “I don’t think you have a choice, Jack, seeing as how you’re in my truck and your car is way back up north on the turnpike.”
He had a point. A really, really good point.
Shit.
7
Jack squeezed his Whopper wrapper into a tiny ball. He loved Whoppers but had wolfed this one down so fast he’d hardly tasted it.
They’d followed the Taurus through the Fort McHenry Tunnel under Baltimore Harbor, then on down 95 to the Capitol Beltway. Jack had been afraid Reggie and his pal were heading south to Richmond, but they soon exited onto 1 North in Alexandria and stopped at a McDonald’s.
Bertel had pulled into a Shell station half a block past where they discussed their next move while filling up. They couldn’t go into the McDonald’s—Reggie knew Jack, and Kadir knew them both. But they needed to eat, so they stopped at a Burger King on the other side of the highway.
They’d taken turns using the restroom and buying food, never letting the Taurus go unwatched for a second, and ate in the truck.
Bertel finished off the last of his fries and started the engine.
“Let’s put ourselves back on the northbound side before they get moving again.”
He found a place to make a U-turn and they were just approaching the McDonald’s when the Taurus pulled out.
Bertel grinned. “Talk about timing! Am I good or am I good?”
Jack figured it was a rhetorical question so he said, “Weird seeing a human-trafficking, America-hating Arab going to McDonald’s for dinner.”
“Mohammedans can eat beef. It’s pork they can’t touch.”
“I know that. I’m talking about how incongruent it seems to hate America and then chow down on the most American of foods. Why’d they even stop?”
“Even pond scum’s got to eat. And maybe they arrived ahead of schedule and had to kill some time. They’re on the move again, that’s all that matters now.”
After a few miles the Taurus made a right into a Hertz lot.
“What’re they gonna do?” Jack said. “Rent a truck?”
“Who can tell? That Taurus they’re driving sure as hell looks rented. Maybe they’re turning it in. We need to find a parking spot with a view.”
As Bertel cruised past, Jack noticed a Ryder truck idling across the street.
He pointed. “The kids could be in that.”
Bertel craned his neck to see through the sideview mirror. “Same model we use for the cigarette runs. How many kids did you say?”
“A dozen.”
“Plenty of room. Anybody behind the wheel?”
“You passed too fast to see.”
“All right. I’ll swing back.”
He made a left onto a side street, then used a driveway to turn around.
On their second pass, he said, “Take a gander.”
Jack had already seen him: swarthy guy with a Saddam Hussein mustache. The sight filled him with a terrible urgency.
“We can take him.”
Bertel pulled around a corner and eased to the curb.
“‘Take him’? What are you talking about?”
“Pull him out of the cab, mess him up, and take the truck.”
“We don’t even know the kids are in there.”
“Yeah, right.” Jack felt his anger rising. “We don’t know. But we do know that Reggie, a known slaver, drove all the way down here from Brooklyn with Kadiri Bumbeeri—”
“Kadir Allawi.”
“—to visit this Hertz lot where Saddam Hussein’s clone just happens to be sitting across the street in a truck the perfect size to haul those kids. What do you think he’s got in there? A bunch of Persian carpets?”
Bertel held up his hands. “Hey, easy. Lower your voice. Good thing the windows are closed.”
Had he been shouting?
Bertel said, “Did you see anybody else in the cab?”
Jack shook his head. “No, but it’s dark in there. For all I know he’s got two more crammed in beside him.”
“That concerns me.”
“A dozen cold, hungry, frightened kids in the back concerns me more.”
“If he’s got company and they’re armed, we’ll never take the truck without a firefight.”
Jack cooled quickly. “Well, yeah, all right. Point taken.”
He didn’t want to risk one of the kids getting hit. Hell, the whole purpose was to save them.
Bertel set the hand brake. “Only one way to find out. I’m gonna go look.”
“What?”
“I’ll ask for directions somewhere. That’ll let me see the inside of the cab. If he’s alone, I’ll come back and we’ll drive around and box him in. Since he won’t be able to drive away he’ll probably jump out and run. He’s sure as hell not going to call the cops.”
Jack thought about it: simple and direct. Things could only head south if the driver started shooting. But what would be the point in that? With the pickup blocking him, he had no place to go.
“I’ll go,” Jack said.
But Bertel was already out the door. “Keep the motor running. We may need to move fast.”
8
Aimal Kasi studied the rental place across the street. He’d seen a car pull in with two men in front. Were they the ones he was supposed to meet?
Everything was moving so fast. Only two weeks had passed since he’d come over from Karachi. He’d barely settled himself in Reston with his friend Zahed when he received a call to rent a truck and turn it over to a Palestinian and an American at this spot. The caller was from New York and knew that he’d entered the country with fake papers that gave his name as “Kansi” instead of Kasi. The caller had said his help would further the cause of jihad. That was all Aimal had to hear.
A second call had come this afternoon, telling him to watch for a Ford Taurus. Aimal knew little of American cars so he had gone to a dealership and studied the model. He had an excellent memory and the car that had just pulled in was a Taurus.
This was all very exciting. He had come to America with the money his father had left him; he planned to start a business near the nation’s capital and blend in. But he would always be ready to strike at the Great Satan. Jihad was coming to America and he intended to be part of it. As soon as—
A rap on his window made him jump. He twisted in his seat to see an ol
der, gray-haired man staring at him through the passenger-side window. He rapped again. Aimal sat frozen in alarm. Who was this?
The man made a rolling motion with his hand and Aimal lowered the window a few inches.
“I’m afraid I’m lost,” the man said. “I’m trying to get to the Pentagon. Any idea which way I go?”
Aimal had studied English back in Pakistan. He could speak and read it fairly well but had trouble understanding the spoken form. Most Americans spoke too rapidly for him, and this one was no exception. He noticed that although the man was smiling, his gaze was darting all around the inside of the cab.
“Repeat, please?”
This time the man slowed down and Aimal understood. He had driven all around the area since his arrival. He had passed the White House, the Capitol building, the entrance to CIA headquarters in Langley, but most often the Pentagon. From that huge structure the Great Satan had dispatched the infidel troops who besmirched the Holy Land and humiliated an Arab military. How he longed to drive a truck like this filled with explosives through the front entrance and detonate it in their faces. Then they would know humiliation!
“Do you know Route One?” Aimal said.
“Sure,” the man said, pointing. “Over that way.”
“Take it north. You will see signs.”
“Thank you.” The man took one more hard look inside the cab, then straightened. “Thank you very much.”
As he watched the man hurry away, Aimal felt his suspicions grow. He was convinced he hadn’t been looking for directions but had been inspecting the truck. Why? Aimal could not imagine what he might have done to draw such scrutiny. What—?
He jumped as the driver door opened.
“Are you Aimal?”
He whirled and saw a young Arab. “Who are you?”
“I am Kadir,” he said in Arabic-flavored English. “We have come to take the truck.”
He saw an American with hair cut short in the front and long in the back standing behind him.
“Yes-yes!” he said. “You must take it quickly! That man—” He went to point but the man was no longer there.