“Stop here,” he told Mahmoud just after he made the turn.
“Are they on time?” Mahmoud said.
Nasser checked his watch: 12:22.
“They should be appearing any minute.”
Drexler had arranged for two boats to ferry a dozen jihadists from a Babylon marina. Its owner had been suspicious, but Drexler had convinced him that it was a religious thing for the Muslims—that and a thick wad of cash had been enough. Nasser had the man’s mobile number. He called him.
“They’re not there yet?” the man said. “Could be the chop. The wind’s really picked up in the last hour. We’ve got a front moving through. If you don’t see them in the next ten minutes, get back to me.”
And you’ll do what? Nasser wondered as he hung up.
He watched through his sideview mirror and needed to wait only minutes before he saw movement atop the dune on the far side of Ocean Parkway. Mahmoud popped the trunk and the two of them stepped out of the limo to wave them forward.
When the twelve newcomers were clustered around the car, Mahmoud lifted the trunk lid and began handing out Kalashnikov AK-47s. They all knew how to use them. He directed them to positions in the dunes lining each side of the sandy road.
Nasser took as much of the icy, cutting wind as he could, then slipped back inside the limo. Growing up in Qatar had left him ill-prepared for these conditions.
When the jihadists were hidden from view, Mahmoud took the wheel again.
“Did you hammer home that we need those men alive?”
Mahmoud nodded. “They know. They will aim for the legs if it comes to that.”
“Good.”
They drove to the beach at the end of the road and parked. When the hijackers arrived—if they arrived—they would not be able to leave without passing through the jihadist gauntlet.
If … a big if now that the truck had been stopped and searched. If the hijackers knew it was empty, this would turn out to be a long, cold night with no return.
But no loss, either. Only some disgruntled pederasts. And that was hardly worthy of concern. A gain of sorts, in fact. With that thought nestled in his brain, Nasser al-Thani settled down to wait.
2
Over the phone, Black had told him to turn off 27 onto County Line Road east of Massapequa and park in the visitor lot of South Oaks Hospital. Less than a minute after Jack had killed Ralph’s engine, he showed up in a beat-up Chevy Suburban and drove them south through Amityville.
“Where’s the Mark Seven?”
“A little too memorable.”
Jack thought of Ralph. Same problem.
“Where we headed?”
“The auction house.”
“What’s the plan there?”
“Plan B.”
“What happened to A?”
“Plan A was freeing the kids. We suspected from the git-go the Arabs might make the run with an empty truck, but just the possibility that it could contain kids narrowed our options. Forced our hand, really. We would have had to make a play—either where the truck ended up or here at the auction house. But your call changed all that.”
“I hope that’s a good thing.”
“Oh, it is. Now that we know no kids are involved, who cares where the truck goes?”
Jack knew one person who did, but didn’t mention Bertel.
“So Plan B is…?”
“Hit the pervs. That’s where the money will be. Whoever’s waiting for that empty truck won’t have any money on them. Just lots of guns in the hope of getting their money back. But here…”
Hit the pervs … Jack remembered all the shooting at the Staten Island marsh last year.
“Hit them how?”
“Relieve them of their assets. They come prepared to bid for kids. No checks or credit cards accepted, so they bring cash.”
Jack nodded. “Hit them in the pocketbook.”
“And other places.”
Okay … but he didn’t want this getting too crazy.
Black parked by the head of a lagoon.
“We walk from here.”
They both had to keep their heads down against the wind coming off the bay. Blue met them halfway up the block; he had a backpack slung over his right shoulder.
“All’s still quiet outside. Just one guy watching the streetside door.”
“What about inside?” Black said.
Blue’s expression was grim. “Trading photos while they wait.”
Black pulled a machine pistol from under his coat. A long suppressor extended the barrel.
“Let’s not keep them waiting any longer.”
Blue shrugged off the backpack and handed it to Jack. “Here’s yours.”
“My what?” he said, unzipping it. Another machine pistol lay within. “Oh, crap.”
“What’s wrong? Your own HK.”
“I’ve never shot one of these before.”
“It’s easy.” He pulled it from the pack along with a long suppressor. “And you don’t really have to hit anything. Just fire short bursts at the front door when someone tries to get through.”
“But my Glock—”
“Fires one shot at a time.” Blue began screwing the suppressor onto the muzzle as he spoke. “Not impressive. People hear a burst of automatic gunfire—even if it’s only three rounds—it scares the shit out of them. Instant respect.”
“Where will you guys be?”
“We’ll come in from the waterfront side and get everybody facedown on the floor.”
Jack was almost afraid to ask. “Then what?”
Blue reached back into the backpack and emerged with a fistful of nylon zip ties. “We immobilize them while we shear them of their assets.”
“And one more thing,” Black added, taking a turn reaching into the pack. He pulled out a black ski mask. “Don’t want that innocent boyish face in the papers, do you?”
No, Jack did not want that.
3
“Where the fuck are we?”
Reggie knew he’d get no answer from Kadir.
“We are on Ocean Parkway,” Kadir said. “As we should be.”
Okay, check that. He’d get no useful information.
“Tell me something I don’t know, Camel Boy.”
He checked the sideview for like the millionth time but still no sign of anyone following. This whole day was turning out to be a one big fat fucking zero. The hijackers had smelled the trap, figured the truck was empty, and stayed away. A waste of everybody’s time.
Yeah, but with three million smackers at stake, probably worth the effort.
He squinted ahead for a sign, anything that would give him a hint as to where he was. All he saw was sand drifting across the pavement as the wind howled around them. He’d passed a small golf course and had seen a sign telling him he was in Gilgo State Park, and now another hove into view telling him he was approaching Captree State Park and a road that would take him to Robert Moses State Park. This whole area was lousy with state parks.
The terrain looked weirdly familiar. Like he’d been here before. What did they call it? Déjà view, or something like that. Then he realized this was just like riding northbound on the Outer Banks, with a bay a few hundred feet to his left and the Atlantic an equal distance to his right.
But the Outer Banks had people. This whole stretch had nothing and no one. Great place to bury a body. Nobody’d ever find it.
And then the street sign on his right—Sore Thumb Beach Road.
He made the turn and stopped. Down the end of the road, down by the ocean, a pair of headlights blinked.
“There’s your buddy Nasser.”
“The man from Qatar is not my ‘buddy,’” Kadir said.
“You sound scared of him.”
“I am not scared. I am … I have respect.”
“Respect?” Reggie nodded. “Yeah, probably a good idea to have respect for him and the people behind him. Maybe a little fear too.”
“I fear only Allah.”
He started the truck forward. “Let’s not ruin a beautiful friendship by getting into that crap.”
He angled down to the end of the sandy path and stopped before the limo. Al-Thani and a tall, redheaded Arab Reggie had seen before—Mahmoud, or something like that—got out. The redhead carried an AK-47 in each hand. As Reggie and Kadir got out to meet them, he tossed each of them a rifle.
“Anyone following?” al-Thani shouted above the gale.
“Not that I could see.” He looked around, concerned. “This is it? I thought you were gonna have a welcoming committee.”
Al-Thani smiled and nodded to the AK-47 in Reggie’s hand. “You just passed through a gauntlet of a dozen of those.”
Reggie turned and looked back. “Really? I didn’t have a clue.”
“That’s the whole idea.”
The wind off the water carried salt spray that stung the eyes and frosted his face.
“They must be freezing their asses off.”
Al-Thani shrugged. “It’s for Allah and jihad.”
Reggie was pretty sure al-Thani was about as down with Allah and jihad as he was. So yeah, let the sons-a-bitches freeze.
“Well, if you don’t mind, I’m going to turn the truck around and wait in the cab.”
Al-Thani nodded. “I’ll watch from within the limo.”
Yeah, the Man from Qatar wasn’t down with the cold either.
“How long we gonna wait?”
“We’ll give it thirty minutes,” he said over his shoulder as he hurried toward his car. “If they don’t show by then, they never will.”
Hell, Reggie thought. If they don’t show in ten minutes, they never will.
4
After Jack had been properly outfitted—including latex gloves—and instructed in his duties, the three of them crept toward a brightly lit house farther along the lagoon. Its gravel front yard was crammed with cars, with more parked up and down the street. In a lighted recessed doorway near the right corner stood a beefy guy, smoking and shivering.
“Welcome to Perv-ville,” Blue whispered.
Black remained bareheaded while Jack and Blue had pulled on their masks. Jack found himself shivering—and not just from the cold. The selector switch on his weapon had been set to three-shot mode, but he’d never fired an automatic weapon in any mode, and had never shot any kind of gun at another human being. What he feared most, though, was failing the Mikulskis. He didn’t want his inexperience to cause one of them to get hurt.
“My move,” Black said. “Wait here.”
He straightened and strolled toward the house, head down, hands in his pockets, his MP5 slung out of sight behind his back.
When the guy at the doorway spotted him he tossed his butt and slid a hand inside his coat pocket.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m here for the auction,” Black said, not breaking stride.
“Hold up right there. What auction?”
Black took a few more steps before stopping. “You know.”
“Do I? Where’s your cash?”
“Oh, that. Right here.”
He swung the MP5 around and fired a three-round burst into his chest. The suppressor muffled the reports but they still sounded awfully loud to Jack. As the guard or whatever he was slumped to the ground, Black pulled the ski mask down over his face while Blue pushed Jack toward the car they’d already chosen for his cover—a white Mercedes sedan with a clear view of the front door. Black disappeared around one side of the house while Blue ran around the other.
Jack had already extended the tubular stock. He set it against his right shoulder and rested his elbows on the car’s hood. Checking to make doubly sure the safety was off, he stuck a shaky finger, sweaty from the latex and tension, through the trigger guard and rested it on the trigger.
Gunfire erupted from within. Seconds later the front door swung open. Jack saw a flash of a squat man in an overcoat and pulled the trigger. The MP5 jumped in his hands as it rattled off a three-round burst that tore into the wood of the door. The door slammed closed as more gunfire filtered through from inside.
And then, as quickly as the gunfire began, it stopped. But Jack held his position until he saw movement at one of the windows: Black waving him to come inside.
After a couple of deep breaths, Jack straightened and shuffled toward the house. Well, this wasn’t so bad. He’d only had to fire once and had succeeded in merely messing up the front door. Not bad at all.
He glanced down at the body slumped in the entryway as he stepped over it. Wide, sightless eyes stared up at him. He pushed through the punctured door and entered the house.
“Bring him inside, will you, Jack?” said Blue.
Jack wasn’t too keen on that, but he grabbed the dead guy by the back of his collar and dragged him across the threshold, leaving a wet red trail. He shut the door and turned to take in the house’s large front room. Twenty or so men and maybe three women littered the floor, lying facedown—most alive and unhurt, a few bloody and very still in pools of blood.
Except for the Muslim wearing a robe and a skullcap, most looked like ordinary people to Jack. Some were pierced and tattooed, but many looked like people he’d pass on the street any day and never give a second look, never guess the highlight of their life was the sexual abuse of children.
Black nodded to Jack, then raised his voice. “Okay, everybody, we’re here to lighten your load. We’re gonna send you on your way with less than you came with, if you get my drift. We can do this easy or we can do it hard. A couple of you who resisted have gone to their final reward, whatever that may be. Give us a tough time, and you’ll join them. Resistance is futile, so you might as well relax and enjoy it.”
“Hey, isn’t that what you tell the kids you buy?” Blue said, his voice tight.
Jack was staring at one of the bloody corpses when Blue sidled up to him.
“Since they’re carrying heavy cash, some of them brought bodyguards who tried to earn their pay. After they went down, the rest became real cooperative.”
“Women?” Jack said, his gaze flicking between the female captives. “I thought this was mostly a guy thing.”
“It is. Guys mostly have a lock on pervitudity. But some of them have wives or girlfriends who are into it too. It’s not always sex. Sometimes it’s just having power over someone, making them helpless, seeing how much they can degrade someone else. And who’s easier to subdue than a child?”
Jack shook his head. “Rotten, lousy…”
“All right!” Black shouted. “You will empty your pockets of your wallets and all cash. We don’t care about rings and jewelry, we just want your cash. If we see your hand come out of a pocket with anything that looks like a weapon, you will be shot dead on the spot.”
Jack watched as they complied. They looked scared but none of them seemed too upset about losing the money.
Blue handed him a bunch of the zip ties. “Let’s get to work.”
Black stood guard while Jack and Blue laid their weapons aside and put the ties to use.
“Hands behind the back and use a figure-eight that crosses between the wrists.” He demonstrated on the squat guy who’d tried to escape through the front door. “Then pull it tight!”
“Hey! That hurts!”
“You’re kidding, right?” Blue’s lips pulled back in a snarl as he rammed a fist against the back of the guy’s neck. “You wanna know hurt? Make another sound and I’ll give you hurt!”
Jack tied the guy’s ankles in the figure-eight configuration, glad for the gloves—not just because they wouldn’t leave prints, but because he didn’t want to touch these people.
“Make sure you tie just above the ankles. And if they’re wearing boots, yank ’em off.”
They moved on and eventually Jack came to one of the women. She had a crewcut, a pair of handcuffs tattooed on her neck, half a dozen earrings on each side, above-the-knee patent leather boots.
“Let me go and I’ll make it worth
your while,” she whispered as he tied her wrists.
He said nothing as he tugged the tie tight.
“You into B and D?” she said. “I am too. If you like tying up women, I can show you the best time you ever had.”
Pathetic. He was glad he was wearing gloves as he tugged at her boots.
“Easy with those. They’re my new fuck-me boots.”
When he slipped off the second, she tried to kick him but he caught her foot before she could connect. She began to scream and thrash until Black stepped over and jammed his MP5 muzzle against her temple.
“I assume you’ve heard that expression about making my day? Go ahead.”
She quieted. Jack finished tying her and moved on to the next.
5
Dane Bertel adjusted his field glasses as he watched the scene on Sore Thumb Beach. He knew three of the players: Kadir and the redheaded Mahmoud, plus the white guy with the trailer-park haircut who’d driven the truck. Jack had explained him. But the other Arab in the thobe? Dane had never seen him before.
The new Mohammedan intrigued him. Certainly not one of the blind cleric’s followers, who tended to be bearded, bedraggled, and in need of a bath as they waited for someone to tell them what to do. This Mohammedan looked more used to giving orders than taking them.
Following the truck had been easy. He’d dawdled along the northbound turnpike till his receiver had started beeping. He’d let the truck pass him and then tailed it just as he had without the tracker—sometimes leading it, sometimes following. He’d hung even farther back across Staten Island. And when they took the Meadowbrook Parkway south toward Jones Beach, he’d stayed as far behind as he could and still keep the receiver beeping.
Out here in the middle of nowhere, he drove Ocean Parkway with his lights off. And when the tracker signal started getting stronger, he figured they’d stopped. He’d pulled into a parking lot by an undersize golf course and continued on foot to this dune.