Cold Snap (36 page)

"You're kidding—"

"You're a thief. Be a thief."

Lawson's eye widened. He went over to Rhee
and began digging through his trouser pockets. "Sorry, Rhee, but we
need to gather intelligence."

Rhee's head drifted left and right. "Black is
ugly color."

"It's not a color at all. I can't find your
wallet. Where is it?"

"I don't know…fucking nephews always robbing
me…"

Lawson nodded at the two guards. "Are they
OK?"

"They got shots, knocked them out. If they
don't wake up, fine by me. Useless nephews..."

"How many nephews have you got here?"

"Too many."

"What about you?"

"They tossed my leg!"

"Yes, I saw. Bastards."

"They gave me drug to tell truth." Rhee began
to weep. "Life is so depressing!"

"What did you tell them?"

"Password to company computer. They run off
with my other idiot nephew!"

"Why'd they do that?"

"He got passwords to all sorts of accounts. I
don't know them all. They step on his toe, he'll tell them
everything. No need truth serum for him."

"Who are these people?"

"They were my customers."

"Did you crash their cars?"

"Big black dummy you are," said Rhee, who
promptly passed out.

"Yeah, and without your glasses, you look
like a squashed prune."

Ari only half-listened to this interview,
keeping his other ear to the door. There was a loud burst of
machine gun fire up front, instantly accompanied by the sound of
shattering glass and plastic. A moment later, there was shuffling
in the hallway. Ari pocketed his gun and looked down at his
knuckles, still sore from a recent encounter. He took up a heavy
ash tray on a table next to the door, waited until he saw a shadow,
waited an instant more for the shadow to darken.

He flung the door open. Mohammed had the
laptop under one arm and his machine pistol in hand. He had removed
his ski mask. Blood flowed from a gash in his forehead and he was
trying to wipe the blood out of his eyes with the back of his free
hand. Surprised, he was only halfway in his turn when Ari slammed
the ash tray into his cheekbone. The laptop flew up, but he kept
hold of the Uzi. Ari kicked him in the knee, and as he fell kicked
him in the hip. Mohammed slapped onto the floor, the gun thudding
on the carpet. Ari picked up the gun, turned it sideways, and began
beating Mohammed on the side of the head.

"No time!" Lawson banged him with his elbow.
"Listen! We've got all of copland falling down on us!"

The sirens in the distance confirmed this
assessment. Ari took out his gun and pressed it to Mohammed's
head.

"They'll trace it!" Lawson warned.

"No they won't."

"Don't take the chance."

Pocketing his Glock, Ari raised the Uzi. But
the gunfire at the end of the building had stopped and a door began
opening at the end of the hall. They had no idea who would be
coming through.

Ari kicked Mohammed one last time and picked
up the laptop.

They reached the front door. Ari took note of
Rhee's bullet-blasted desktop and the shattered monitors above the
doors. Then he turned the lock and they were out. They had half a
block to go to reach the Scion. The sirens were perilously
close.

"Lose the Uzi," said Lawson as he slid his
gun into his coat pocket. Amazingly, he had held onto his cane. Now
that his hand was free, he used it to pick up speed.

"What a lunatic you are!" Ari protested. "A
Micro Uzi is worth $2,500 on the street."

"A fucking arms dealer," Lawson complained.
"The cops see that in your hand they'll light you up."

"My junk is imperturbable."

"So I see. Jesus, they're close. We're not
going to make it."

Two cruisers roared around the corner at the
end of the street. They were coming right at the two men.

"Goddammit, ditch the Uzi!"

"It's hidden behind the laptop."

"Ditch them both!"

The high whine of an engine rose behind them.
They were in the middle of the road. When Ari turned, he saw the
blue van headed straight for them. He grabbed Lawson.

"Not again—!"

Lawson's protest was cut short as Ari slammed
him to the road between parked cars. Lawson shouted in pain and
anger. The van roared passed and Ari jumped up, ready to try a
shot. But the van driver had seen the racing cruisers and had begun
fishtailing.

"Don't fucking shoot!" Lawson shouted.

It would have been a longshot. Besides, the
van was charging ahead. There were no side streets between the van
and the oncoming cruisers. It was the purest form of chicken.

Another cruiser suddenly swerved in front of
A-Zed and came up next to them. Ari just managed to hide his gun as
the driver jumped out. He stared at Ari, his hand hovering at his
holster.

"They almost killed us!" Lawson cried loudly
from the ground. Ari noticed that he had pulled up his pants leg,
exposing his prosthesis. Hell, Ari thought, the blasted face was
enough to send the cop into convulsions of sympathy. Lawson did a
bit of hammy wallowing, like a turtle on its back. "Did I give my
all in Iraq to come back to this?"

Horns and squealing tires drew the cop's
attention away from them. The van was about to go head-on into a
pair of cruisers.

"I'll call for an ambulance!" he shouted to
Lawson before jumping back into his car and speeding off.

Staccato shots echoed up the street. A
passenger in the van had opened fire on the cruisers, which swerved
to either side the instant before the van clipped both their rear
fenders. The van turned off at the next intersection. The noise
level increased. The police were arriving en masse, some going for
the A-Zed building, others taking out after the van.

"Help me up!" Lawson demanded. When Ari
stooped over him, he gruffly commanded, "The real arm, you idiot! I
don't want you tearing off my fake."

"Where's my Uzi?"

"Your Uzi? Underneath me, and it's
uncomfortable as hell."

They made it back to the Scion. To Ari's
annoyance, he could not fit both the laptop and the Uzi together
under his seat. Lawson laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh. Ari
calmly tossed the machine pistol onto the floor behind his
seat.

"Take the alleys," said Lawson. "They won't
be cordoned off, yet."

Ari did as he was told. Soon, they were out
on Broad Street, passing the monolithic Seaboard Building.

"Pull into that gas station," Lawson told
Ari. "I have to piss. I'm lucky I didn't do it in my pants back
there."

"You were frightened?"

"I was preoccupied." Lawson shifted sideways,
easing the pressure on his bladder. "It had better be handicap
accessible, or they'll rue the day. I'll piss on their
Twinkies."

"Twinkies are very popular in America."

"All the better to piss on." Lawson turned to
face Ari. "What was that business about me being a thief."

"It's obvious," said Ari, pulling into the
station.

"And what's the business about them being
Italian? You mean Arab-Italians?"

"That's not so obvious."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The laptop's battery was almost completely
drained. Ari panicked, as he often did when confronted by obtuse
machines.

"Don't worry," Lawson reassured him. "Ms.
Perch is a master of arcane retrievals."

"I don't think it matters much," Lawson
continued once he had informed his secretary over the intercom of
their need for a laptop power cord. "As soon as it booted up you
could see it was password protected. Ethan could have broken in, I
guess..." Lawson trained his eye on Ari. "I guess that has
something to do with you calling me a thief."

"Not a born thief," Ari said placidly,
scowling at the laptop battery indicator as it sank lower and
lower. "I believe you saw an opportunity and stumbled ahead."

"Go on," said Lawson, suddenly sounding
tired. He had called to tell his secretary he was not feeling well
and intended to take the rest of the day off, but after she relayed
a message to him from one of his field operatives he decided to go
back in.

"Couldn't your agent call you directly?" Ari
asked.

"I don't give my private numbers out to any
of them. They'd be calling me day and night. I gave my number to
you, and look what happened."

Ari blanched theatrically.

"Olson, the guy who called, is
investigating..." Lawson tapped his desk several times. "It's a
good one. "Her wife was having an affair. She goes off one day with
her boyfriend, letting him drive her car. The husband sees them on
the road and gives chase. He forces the wife's car off the road,
and when the boyfriend makes a run for it the husband shoots him in
the leg."

"He should have shot his wife," said Ari
blandly.

"Spoken like a true Sicilian, not that I
believe that story anymore—or ever did. So get this: no charges
were pressed against the husband, so he's already out of jail. Both
cars were insured with this company, as well as the couple's home.
So the husband files a claim for damages to his car, the wife files
a claim for damages to her car, and the lover files a claim on the
couple's homeowner's policy for bodily injury. They stand to make a
fortune."

"Will they succeed?"

"That's what I'm working against. Now Olson
has found out that the husband and his wife's lover were the best
of buddies. Nothing unusual in that. Friends are always screwing
each other's wives. It's a tradition around here. But now Olson
thinks he can get the woman to spill her guts on the scheme."

"How has he managed that?" Ari asked.

"He's sleeping with her."

"What? Olson?"

"Mmm-hmmm."

"Is he good friends with the husband,
too?"

"The husband doesn't know about it, and the
wife wants to keep it that way."

Ari mused this over. "You approve of Olson's
methods?"

"He's a lady-killer. Why not use that to our
advantage?"

"He plans to kill the woman?"

Lawson stared at Ari. "Uh...not to my
knowledge."

"It is well, then," said Ari.

"'Well' what?"

"If you are willing to use Olson's talent—is
that a talent?—to subvert the embezzlers, you might just as well
use Ethan's expertise with computers to access the data from A-Zed.
All impeccably illegal, I'm sure."

Ms. Perch came in with the power cord.

"You're the perfect scavenger," said
Lawson.

"That's how I ended up with you," she
responded before leaving.

Ari plugged in the laptop. The battery icon
showed a lightning bolt. "Is that good?"

"It means it's charging." Lawson gave him a
skeptical look. "You're so handy with these things…maybe I should
turn the laptop over to our IT guys here."

"And then your company would find out about
your methods. Would they approve?"

"They've got a couple of auditors here with
scruples," Lawson shook his head sadly. "Complete idiots."

"A scandal," Ari agreed. "Was Ethan what one
might call a 'phisherman'?"

"I don't know his methods, but he seems
pretty sharp."

"And if he was able to con the Kkangpae
Puppets, would he not also be able to con you?"

"I don't doubt it...but why?"

"I mentioned ISAF before."

"Don't get my hackles up, again."

"If you were investigating something that
involved ISAF—"

"But why would they be interested in a
penny-ante like...oh, right...immigration."

"Precisely."

"ISAF is smuggling illegals into the States?"
Lawson said incredulously.

"Or someone associated with them."

"Who might that be?"

"I have no idea," Ari admitted. "But if Sayed
Technical Solutions is subcontracted to them, they might plant a
spy in your organization. He would investigate Central Virginia
Group...and control whatever information came your way."

After his interview with Bruce Turner, Ari no
longer thought this entirely true. But he wanted to pluck Lawson's
paranoia nerve.

"Shit."

"The con has been conned," Ari said, pleased
with the conjunction.

"I don't like the way you say that." He
paused. "I also don't like thinking about those security cameras at
A-Zed. I know the boys we had a shootout with would want to get rid
of any surveillance tapes, too, but we were all sort of rushed at
the end."

"I doubt Rhee taped anything during the day,"
Ari conjectured. "He would not have wanted there to be a record of
his visitors. Or of what his strapping young brutes might do to
some of those visitors. Incidentally, the original owners of this
laptop won't be the only ones looking for it."

"Oh, swell," said Lawson. "So the Puppets
will be gunning for us. Or the jokers who were shooting at us might
drop in. You seemed to know them."

"The picture I showed you."

"They were wearing ski masks," Lawson
protested.

"Mohammed removed his to wipe his wound."

"His face was covered with blood."

"He responded when I called out his
name."

"I'm sure he's not the only Mohammed in the
Sandbox…oops, I mean Sicily. Or Richmond, for that matter."

"I got a good look at Hasan. He's standing in
the middle of that printout I showed you."

"Yeah..."

The more important question was if Ari had
been recognized, but he didn't bring it up.

"So what are we going to do about this?"
Lawson asked, nodding at the laptop on the side of his desk, where
Ari had scooted up. "You know any IT guys who can crack it open? Do
we even need to crack it open? What are you hoping to get, a list
of illegals? That won't help me."

"But it might help Ethan," Ari answered. "We
haven't forgotten about him, have we?"

"What's Italian for 'snotty'?"