Fear City

  She frowned. There didn’t seem to be a house there. Keeping her eyes on the spot where the car disappeared, she waited for the light, then crossed Kennedy’s four lanes of traffic. She walked a few hundred feet down Pamrapo until she could see the driveway. It appeared to be a vacant lot. But it couldn’t be. There had to be a house back there.

  Fearful of approaching any closer, she returned to the bus stop to wait for them to leave. If necessary she would call in sick to the bakery. Today she would learn what Kadir was up to.

  4

  Even though the four of them had one of the Lexington Hotel’s elevator cars to themselves, Burkes kept his voice just above a whisper.

  “I can’t find anyone who’s heard even a rumor of Rabin visiting.”

  Rob and Gerald wore suits and ties, Jack his blazer, Burkes wore a nylon jogging suit. They shared the car with a huge rolling suitcase.

  “That means it’s top-top secret?” Jack said.

  Burkes snorted. “That means La Chirurgienne’s pain-enhancing potion fried some of the Arab’s circuits. I made some very, very discreet inquiries and the responses I got were pure shock. Looked at me like I was jaked.”

  “That doesn’t mean the bomb’s not real. It could be why Bertel was killed.”

  “I’m aware of that, lad, and I’ve put out word that I’ve heard something. I’ve not rung a full alarm—I need to maintain some credibility if nothing happens—but I’ve let it be known that there’s a rumor floating ’round that some Middle Easterners with a grudge against Boutros-Ghali might take explosive action in the very near future.”

  “‘Explosive action’?”

  Burkes shrugged. “They got the message: extra patrols around the perimeter of the UN complex starting today. But we worry about that later. Right now…”

  “Yeah.” Jack straightened his blazer. “Now.”

  “You sure you can handle this?”

  “Very.”

  Which was a lie. He’d been holding the tension at bay, but now it all came flooding through. In the next few minutes he was going to invade a hotel room in midtown Manhattan, confront and subdue at gunpoint the man who’d ordered Cristin’s death, and then, with the help of Rob and Gerald, spirit him away.

  Am I crazy?

  Yeah, probably. But this needed doing and he wanted—no, needed to be the one to do it.

  “Do we know anything more about this guy other than he was one of Cristin’s regulars?”

  Burkes shook his head. “Not much. Did a quick background on him last night. The good thing about him is his name. Not too many Roman Trejadors about, so he was easy to find. The bad thing is there wasn’t much to find. He was born in Spain forty-nine years ago but is now a naturalized American citizen. He has no permanent address. He works for an offshore holding company and likes to live in hotel suites. We don’t know what he does for the company. We don’t even know what the company does. We do know he draws a generous six-figure salary and pays his taxes—although if he’s audited, he might have trouble justifying his hotel bills as business expenses.”

  Jack was impressed. “Pretty good for a ‘quick’ background check.”

  “You think so? Actually, it’s pretty thin. But not as thin as what we could dig up on you.”

  Jack’s stomach clenched. “You backgrounded me?”

  “You’re surprised? You think we’d bloody well allow you to tag along with us without checking you out?”

  “Tag along with you? You’re tagging along with me!”

  Gerald laughed. “I love this kid.”

  Jack was more than fed up with the “laddie” and “kid” shit by now, but this wasn’t the time or place to address it. He had another matter front and center—a question he was almost afraid to ask.

  “What did you find?”

  “Next to nothing,” Burkes said. “Trejador’s got a lot of blank spaces in his life, but yours is one big fecking void. It’s like God created you from nothing and set you down here. If you were older, I’d say you were a field agent for some intelligence agency, but even they create false histories for their people. You don’t have any history, true or false.”

  That was a relief.

  “Can we keep it that way?”

  Burkes shook his head. “I don’t like mysteries. They keep me awake at night.”

  Jack wished him a lifetime of insomnia as the elevator dinged for the twenty-sixth floor.

  Burkes said, “Weapon ready?”

  “Yep.”

  They couldn’t supply a suppressor for his Glock so they’d given him a suppressed SIG-Sauer. They told him it was a P226 chambered for S&W .40 caliber. Jack took their word for it. It presently rested in the small of his back, hidden by the blazer.

  “Just remember: Use it as a last resort, but if you’ve got to use it, go for the kill shot and get out. Either he leaves with us or he leaves in a body bag. No loose ends.”

  “Got it.”

  To Rob: “Syringe loaded?”

  “All the way.”

  The plan was simple: Jack would get the drop on Trejador, then let Gerald and Rob into the room. They’d shoot him up with some super sedative they had and cart him off in the suitcase.

  “I still don’t like him going in alone,” Gerald said. “No offense, Jack, but it’s asking for trouble.”

  “Maybe it is,” Burkes said, “maybe it isn’t. But I gave him my word, so let’s make it work.”

  “It’ll work,” Jack said.

  Jack slipped on a pair of driving gloves as the elevator stopped on the twenty-sixth floor. Rob took hold of the suitcase handle and the three of them stepped out into an empty hallway.

  “Meet you downstairs,” Burkes said as the doors slid closed between them.

  Rob and Gerald had already reconnoitered the floor and led Jack straight to a room door—number 2612. Gerald had what looked like a credit card wired to a black box about the size of a walkie-talkie. He stuck it into the slot of the door’s electronic lock. Lights blinked on the box, then stayed lit. Gerald removed the card and a green light lit on the lock.

  Taking a breath, Jack slowly depressed the lever and drew the SIG as he entered. He stepped into a large sitting room where a dark-haired man of about fifty sat at a table. He wore some sort of ugly silk smoking jacket as he read the Times and munched on a piece of toast.

  The door slammed behind Jack.

  The man looked up.

  Jack nearly dropped the pistol when he recognized him.

  “Jesus Christ—Tony?”

  5

  At last. After an hour and a half in the numbing cold, Hadya saw the Chevy pull out of a driveway and roar toward her. Again she averted her face but took careful note of who was in the car. Kadir and the same unknown friend again.

  As soon as they had turned onto Kennedy to head north—back to that Space Station place again, she was sure—Hadya was dashing across the street. She hurried down Pamrapo to the place where she’d seen the car turn. And it did indeed look like a vacant lot, complete with rotting abandoned cars. But a path—two ruts, really—curved through it. After looking back up the street to make sure the Chevy wasn’t making a sudden, unexpected return, she followed the ruts. They ended at a ramshackle two-story building.

  A dog barked from somewhere inside. She saw a white face appear at a second-floor window, then turn away. She’d been seen. She hadn’t wanted anyone to see her. What if the man said something to Kadir?

  Nothing she could do about that. But at least she could be sure now that Kadir and his friends were using the ground floor.

  Praying to Allah that no one was inside, she crept up to the front door—no porch, no storm door, just a door in the wall. Before trying that, she decided it might be safer to take a peek through one of the windows. But that proved useless. She dared not wipe away the outside grime—that would leave a sure sign that someone had been here. Lights glowed within, but even if she wiped the glass clean, she’d gain no information; the inner surface seemed coated
with a glaze of some sort.

  She tried the door handle. It turned but the door would not open. It rattled a little on its hinges but refused to budge inward. The reason was right in front of her: a shiny new dead bolt.

  She leaned against the door to see if she could catch a glimpse of the interior, but snapped her head back as a sharp chemical odor wafting between the door and the jamb stung her nostrils and made her eyes water.

  What were they making in there? Poison gas?

  She looked around for something she could use to pry a wider space when she heard a car engine behind her. Without pausing to look, she dashed around the far edge of the building and crouched with her back against the side wall, panting not from exertion, but from fear. She had already suffered the force of Kadir’s wrath for simply baring her head in public. What would he do if he caught her spying on him?

  She heard doors open and slam, voices muttering. She recognized the language as Arabic but could catch only an occasional word. She couldn’t be sure but thought she recognized Kadir’s voice.

  What was she going to do? What if one of them came around the side of the building for some reason? She had to move.

  Frantic, she looked around. The building backed up to a wall of trees and bushes. She could make out some sort of paved area, maybe a parking lot, through the naked branches. If she could slip through there …

  As she began moving toward the rear, she heard a metallic clang from out front, almost bell-like. And then another. What were they doing?

  Cursing her curiosity, she inched toward the front edge of the wall. More clangs. Taking a deep breath, she chanced a quick peek around the edge and instantly pulled back.

  Metal cylinders … they were carrying red metal cylinders from a car—not the Chevy—into the building. She’d seen part of a word on one.

  HYDRO …

  She knew enough English to work the bakery counter and for simple conversation, but this word was beyond her vocabulary.

  As she hurried toward the brush at the rear of the building, she vowed to look it up as soon as possible.

  6

  Lonnie … Roman shot to his feet and gaped at him.

  He’d hoped that if Lonnie appeared, the shock of recognition would provide an opening. But Roman himself had been too shocked by his sudden arrival to act. Already he could see him tightening his grip on the pistol.

  “Lonnie! How did you—?”

  The intruder tried to speak but failed on his first attempt. Then he found his voice.

  “You’re supposed to be dead!”

  Roman forced a smile that he was sure looked a little sickly. “The report of my death was an exaggeration.”

  “Tony … Tony Zahler,” he said. “Is Tony Zahler really Roman Trejador, or is Roman Trejador really Tony Zahler? Or are both names phony?”

  “As phony as ‘Lonnie Beuchner’?”

  “No fucking games, Tony. Who are you?”

  Roman leaned to get a look past him. Nothing but an empty foyer. He’d come alone. A rank amateur move. Which meant this was still salvageable.

  “Call me Roman.”

  “All right. Who the fuck are you, Roman?”

  “Lonnie … should I go on calling you ‘Lonnie’?”

  He hesitated, then shrugged. “You can call me Jack.”

  The shrug spoke volumes. It said knowing his name didn’t matter because he didn’t think Roman Trejador had long to live.

  Get him talking. I’m the pro, he’s the amateur. Draw him in, draw him closer, then take that pistol away.

  “Well, Jack, I’m sorry you thought I was dead. After the incident on the Outer Banks and the massacre on Staten Island, you can understand why I couldn’t resurface as Tony.”

  Good thing he’d had Klarić watching the Outer Banks place. The Croat had killed the Guatemalan slaver who had been assigned to kill Roman, and Roman had left Tony’s ID on him.

  Jack’s lips pulled into a tight line, barely moving. “I mourned you, and then look what you did.”

  That caught him off guard. “What did I do?”

  “You had Cristin killed!”

  The sudden ferocity in his young, usually bland face made Roman retreat a step. Maybe he wouldn’t survive the day—maybe not the next minute.

  “Wait-wait! Cristin who?”

  “You knew her as Danaë.”

  Was that what this was about?

  “I assure you I did not have her killed. The last thing in the world I would do was hurt Danaë. You must believe that.”

  “Why must I?”

  “Because it’s true!”

  “Really? That’s not what your minion said.”

  “My minion?”

  “The Arab—al-Thani.”

  “You broke Nasser?”

  He nodded. “He said the order came from you.”

  Why on Earth would Nasser think—?

  Oh, now he saw it. Nasser would hesitate, maybe even seek confirmation if he thought the order came from Drexler. But if Drexler told him that Roman Trejador himself had ordered the death of his favorite call girl, Nasser would see to it right away.

  “He’s wrong. He may have been told that, but someone else gave the order without my knowledge.”

  “How convenient. And who would that be?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “Oh, but you will say. And you’ll keep on saying and saying and saying until we shut you up.”

  As much as Roman would have loved to give this seething young man Ernst Drexler’s name, he would not. One member of the Order did not give up another, no matter how much of a snake that other member might be.

  But Nasser had …

  “You say you broke Nasser. How?”

  He smiled. “We took him to the Isle of Doctor Moreau.”

  La Chirurgienne? For a call girl? He shuddered at the prospect. If the infamous Adèle Moreau broke al-Thani, she might well break him.

  “I swear I had nothing to do with that! I would never—”

  “Everything leads back to you.”

  “Nothing can lead back to me because—!”

  “You sent Reggie and Klarić after me and—”

  “I did nothing of the sort!”

  “Well, then you had al-Thani do it. I won’t even ask why. You’ll explain later. Reggie killed two people dear to me before I took him out. And that would have been that, with no connection to you or al-Thani, except I found this on his buddy Klarić.”

  He removed something from his blazer pocket and tossed it across the room. Roman caught it, stared at it, trying to fathom what …

  And then he knew.

  “Oh, no. He didn’t!”

  His stomach lurched and his knees weakened. He had to sit. He dropped back into his chair and hurled the grisly thing across the room.

  Jack was looking at him with a puzzled expression. “Bravo. If I didn’t know better, I’d almost believe you really cared.”

  “I did. I’d never hurt Danaë. But you … what’s she to you?”

  “We went to high school together. We reconnected here in the city and became close … very close.”

  “Then you should know that anyone who had been with her could never hurt her.”

  “Apparently you could. You—”

  The phone rang. To Roman’s surprise, Jack reached for it, saying, “This could be interesting.” He raised the receiver. “Mister Trejador’s suite. Who may I say is calling?” A surprised look, then, “Oh, hi. Yeah. Everything’s cool. We’re just having a nice chat.” Listening, then, “Okay. Right. Sure. Just give me another minute.” He hung up and looked at Roman. “My friends are getting impatient.”

  So … he hadn’t come alone. Should have figured that. No one sent after this young man ever returned. He wouldn’t be so foolish as to come alone.

  “Friends?”

  “Yeah, they have all sorts of issues they think are more important than Cristin—like this bombing of the UN you’re planning.”

  Roman hi
d his shock. Obviously they’d completely broken al-Thani.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Yeah, you do. And you’ll tell us. Doctor Moreau found a way to make an end-run around al-Thani’s blocking techniques. She’ll work the same magic on you. But I’ve got a couple of niggling questions for you that they won’t care about.”

  “And what would they be?”

  Keep him talking, keep him talking …

  “Why were you working for Dane Bertel?”

  “Just a hobby.”

  Bertel was a pipeline to the Jersey City Arabs and via them to the radicals in the Al-Kifah Center in Brooklyn who wanted to bring jihad to America. Before the Order could help them do just that, they had to be identified. In his guise as Tony, Roman had helped set up the shipment of little girls without tipping either of his identities.

  Jack’s face hardened. “Did you have anything to do with Bertel’s murder?”

  Roman didn’t have to fake shock. “He’s dead?”

  Jack sighed. “This is useless. But let’s try one more: That time back in 1990 when you dressed up as an Orthodox Jew and went down to the Marriott where that Rabbi Kahane got shot—”

  “I told you that wasn’t me.”

  “Yeah, it was. What was the deal there?”

  “Again, it wasn’t me.”

  But it was. He’d known of the plot to kill Kahane and had gone along to make sure the rabbi didn’t survive in the event that Sayyid Nosair missed. Fortunately, the Arab’s aim was true and all Roman had to do was pretend to be another shocked follower. Unfortunately, the assassination didn’t spark the Israeli-Arab conflagration the Order had hoped for.

  “All right,” Jack said, keeping the pistol trained on him as he backed toward the door. “Time to wrap this up.”

  Roman had to act now: Get that pistol or die in the attempt. Because he would not allow himself to be subjected to the tender mercies of La Chirurgienne.

  He leaped from his chair and charged. He expected to see surprise on Jack’s face, but instead saw a smile.