Cold Snap (40 page)

"That's a lost cause. No, physical."

"Two against four," said Ahmad. "Not so
hot."

"You forget, I am a trained killer who can
consume a hundred times his body weight."

"You are?" Lawson and Ahmad said in
unison.

"Indeed," said Abu Jasim. "The stories I've
heard about him, you wouldn't believe."

"I don't," said Lawson. "Or I hope it's not
true. I didn't realize Italy trained an elite corps of special
ops."

"The Compagnia Alpini Paracadutisti," said
Ari, giving Ahmad and Abu Jasim hard looks.

"I know you're lying, but you always come up
with an answer," said Lawson, his eye drawing venom from the wounds
surrounding it. "And what exactly is a wop special forces operative
doing in my country?"

"Retired," said Ari. He was thinking about
Ben, who had told him once that he no longer had the will to hunt
game. Would that include human game? He could carry a gun, but
would he use it? Would the odds end up being one against four? It
wouldn't be the first time for Ari to go solo against numerous
adversaries. But after his confrontation with the assassin at
Manchester Docks, he was not so sure of himself. He went over to
the side of Ahmad's bed and studied the laptop screen. "Do you
think you could reverse the process?"

Ahmad glanced up quizzically.

"If they can see us...can we see them?"

"Only if they turn on the GPS in their
computer, which I don't think they'll do."

"Can these pings tell you how close they
are?"

"Probably...let me look at the log." He began
opening other screens. "You know, if I jiggle the firewall...naw,
shit. They've locked in an exception. Still..."

"Let them find us," said Ari.

"They've already pinpointed our address. We
can blind them."

"And if you block their GPS, will they ping
you to death?"

"Good point," said Ahmad, his face falling.
"I'm not even halfway through copying. If we had fifteen minutes,
that would be great."

"Do we have fifteen minutes?"

"The log..." Ahmad switched to a DOS screen.
Ari saw the date, the time and a sequence of four numbers, followed
by 'OK'.

"Well?"

"Theoretically, as they get closer the pings
should get shorter. But we're talking microseconds here." He
scrutinized the logs. "There, another packet. They're getting
closer. I just don't know their starting point. Bet there's a way,
though...if I could access their log...but there's no time!"

"'Time is like a sword,'" Abu Jasim intoned,
quoting an Arab proverb. "'If you don't cut it, it cuts you.'"

"OK, so I'm not a real geek," said Ahmad.
"Did I ever say—"

Ben came back into the room. "Next door's
taken," he announced.

"Abu Jasim," said Ari.

Moaning loudly, Abu Jasim sat up. "I hate
killing people this late in the day. It disturbs my sleep."

"Put your gun on the bed and take Elmore with
you. One look at him and they'll vomit out of the room."

"Remember that Beretta I showed you?" Lawson
glowered. "And what's the plan, anyway?"

"We want to use the next room as an ambush
nest. We leave the laptop in here, they enter, and when they come
out we sever them from the earth."

"That sounds like a plan, but I'm still
thinking of leaving. Look at what you're asking. Losing my license
is the least of my concerns."

"Go, then," said Ari, dismissing him with a
wave. He was too preoccupied watching the inscrutable numbers of
the packet log to engage in debate.

"Mr. Ciminon...you know...this is insane?
Things like this don't happen."

"You have forgotten Iraq so quickly?"

"I mean here...they don't happen here."

"Hey, man, Mr. Lawson," said Ahmad. "I'm from
Chicago. You know what happens in Englewood every day?"

Abu Jasim had made it to his feet. He lurched
for the door.

"Please protect him from the innocent unarmed
civilians next door," said Ari to Lawson, who dropped all of his
weight on his cane and followed Abu Jasim out the door.

"Who and what is coming?" Ben asked when they
were gone.

"Killers," said Ari. "There will probably be
gunplay. You may leave if you wish. But be advised, seeing your
image on this laptop makes me think you are at risk."

"And my wife?"

"I would be remiss to say 'no'."

"Thanks. Thanks a lot."

"I apologize from the bottom of my
heart."

"That's pretty deep," Ahmad sneered.

Ari thought of knocking him upside the head,
but one did not abuse one's tools.

"So if I stay and fight, the threat ends?"
Ben asked tensely.

"I believe so."

"Fuck, I can't turn the GPS off," Ahmad
complained, leaning forward and staring at the screen as if
scrutinizing his reflection in a pond.

"Didn't I ask you not to?"

Screams and shouts from next door announced
the arrival there of Abu Jasim. Had Lawson stayed with him? Ari
looked longingly at the 500 S&W Magnum Abu Jasim had left on
the bed. He had told his friend to acquire an identical weapon for
him. As of yet, his order was unfilled.

The intensity of the screams rose. Lawson had
arrived. A minute later, Abu Jasim came into the room and flopped
on the bed, bellowing loudly when he fell on the Magnum. He pulled
it out from under his back.

"The room is ours."

"Did you bring anything with you from up
north?" Ari asked him.

"You mean guns? I brought along a few
things."

"Then go get them and hide next door."

"Can't I rest?"

"Don't they have beds next door?"

"They've been soiled."

"Go," said Ari. "And tell Elmore to come back
here for instructions."

"Your instructions? He might run away."

"If he stays."

Abu Jasim once again groaned himself out of
bed and left, this time with his Magnum.

"I've got two questions," said Ben, stepping
aside as Abu Jasim left. "One's a repeat: if we handle this now,
does the threat to me and my wife end here?"

"Very well, I don't know," Ari answered
truthfully. "We have to find out if you have something in common
with Abdul-Wali and Paul Trinity."

"Who?"

"Two men killed in recent bombings here."

"I saw the news. I don't know them."

"You have been followed," Ari continued. "I
think these people want to leave you a graphic warning, or
something worse, but they haven't been able to find where you
live."

"I'm not in the book," Ben smiled
ruefully.

"The Book?"

"The phone directory." Ben lifted his
shoulders and let them drop. "We're listed under my wife's maiden
name. There was this girl, way long ago...I dated her. We broke up.
She never got over it and kept calling me, even after I got
married. When Becky and I moved to our new house, I made sure my
name stayed out of the book."

"Ah," said Ari. "We need to find out why they
are interested in you. Elmore is obvious. He was probing A-Zed and
became their natural enemy. I was helping him, in a manner of
fashion, so they are not enamored with me, either. But you and the
other two men? I'm mystified."

"Don't forget, I'm the one who dropped Uday
Hussein off at the embassy," said Ben. "Maybe I've been
fingered."

"But that doesn't explain your connection to
the others. I'm quite mystified."

"That makes two of us."

"After tonight, we will have to sit down and
discuss the matter. And your second question?"

"Where do you want me?"

Ari was gratified by his willingness to join
them. From Ben's perspective, his involvement was an unnecessary
risk.

"Got it!" Ahmad exclaimed, pulling the
external hard drive cord out of the laptop. "I didn't even need 16
gigabytes. I could have brought something smaller and cheaper."

"That red device is expensive?" Ari
asked.

"Put me out forty bucks."

"A noteworthy investment. Are we still being
pinged?"

"Yes." Ahmad slid the Simplex into his bag.
"It's spooky. Like those old war movies where the sub commander
hears the destroyer's sonar getting closer and closer..."

"But you still don't know how close they
are."

"There must be a way. I could figure it out
with time."

"And by the time you sort it out you'll be
frolicking with the virgins of Heaven. Leave the A-Zed laptop on
the bed, turned on. Go next door with Ben. Your uncle will arm
you."

"But I told you—"

"Your protest is meaningless in this
environment. Ben, you are armed? Good. Keep your phone on. I will
let you know when to come out."

"Come out shooting?"

"Of course."

"Of course!" Ahmad threw up his hands. "What
if it's the FBI? You going to shoot them, too?"

"Elmore and I will be in the parking lot. We
will assess their identity from our vehicles."

"So it could be FBI?" Ahmad drew on his ski
mask and hid.

"Stop that! Go! And protect that information
with your life. If it is stolen, I expect to find you
eviscerated."

Lawson was waiting outside when Ari followed
them out. Ari thought he gave him a curious look when he told him
what he wanted to do. But with his half-face, it was hard to tell.
He went to his Land Cruiser and pulled off to the far end of the
motel parking lot. Ari closed the room door, then drove the
Sprinter to the other end. His phone vibrated.

"What?" he answered.

"Where's my uncle?" came Ahmad's frightened
voice.

"Isn't he with you?"

"No. He isn't with you?"

Ari stretched his lower jaw to his upper lip
and pressed down on his moustache. Had the stupid fool gone and
passed out somewhere?

"Stay where you are," he ordered Ahmad.

"But I have to look for him!"

"I would agree, but it's too late. They're
here."

Ari recognized the blue van from A-Zed, the
same that had almost run over him and Lawson. It pulled slowly into
the lot. He clambered into the back of the van and quickly found
the silenced AR-15 Abu Jasim had bought from Canada. The idea was
to wait until Sayid Mohammed and his men went into the room. If
they had sense enough to leave a lookout, Ari would take him out
with one silent shot. Then he could call for Ben to come out and
they would drop on the rest of the gang when they emerged with the
laptop.

His phone vibrated. It was Lawson.

"You said four, right?"

"Yes."

"Four just got out on this side. The driver's
staying put."

That called for an adjustment. Ari would have
to take out a lookout and the driver, unless the driver was the
lookout, connected by cell phone to those inside.

"They're playing ninja, again," said
Lawson.

"I see..." Actually, Ari saw only one man,
coming out from behind the van, his arms extended. He was holding a
laptop. He walked halfway down the length of the single story motel
and stopped in front of the room where Ben and Ahmad lay waiting.
Ari chewed his moustache a little more fiercely. It was a pencil
moustache, so this was difficult. The man with the laptop was
covered head to toe in black. Though he was well lit by the coach
house lamps bolted next to the door, his face was invisible. Ari
assumed it was Sayid Mohammed, but he couldn't be sure. Peering
down at the laptop display, he backtracked to the next room. He
slammed the laptop shut and began walking back to blue van. He had
taken out his phone and had begun speaking when he froze. Ari
followed his gaze. The motel manager was standing behind the broad
office window, gaping at the ninjas in her parking lot. The man
with the phone made a curt gesture and two men sprang out from
behind the van, racing for the office door. The manageress took a
step backwards, but otherwise did not move.

The men reached the office and one of them
pulled at the door. Nothing happened. Ari grinned. The entrance was
secure. No one could get in unless the woman pressed the release
buzzer. One of the men raised his gun to fire through the glass,
but the man with the phone had rushed to his side. He smacked him
on the side of the head. That's right, Ari thought. Start shooting
and wake up everyone in the neighborhood.

The woman rushed to the back of the
office.

"We're going to have the cops here, soon,"
murmured Lawson in his phone.

Ari had foreseen none of this. He thought
cautioning Lawson and Ben against being followed sufficient
heads-up. The cyber age was slipping past him at light speed and
planting itself like a mammoth roadblock in his path. He became
even more disoriented when Lawson came back on and said:

"Is this them already?"

Ari shifted behind the window and saw two
vans rolling up behind the first.

"Are you seeing this?" Lawson asked.

"To my large regret."

A half dozen men jumped out of each van, all
wearing dark balaclavas and dark outfits, all carrying weapons. The
man with the laptop hastened them forward with urgent sweeps of his
arm. Yes, the cops were coming. They had to work fast.

Ari froze when he heard a sound behind him,
inside the Sprinter. Imagining the barrel of a gun pointed at his
head, he swiveled around slowly.

There was a deep, throaty snore. Ari stared
at the large blanket-covered hump on the cushioned bench bolted
against the van's wall. A curl of frosted breath rose up at one
end. Ari yanked the blanket back and saw Abu Jasim, oblivious to
the world, his lip curled in a very Saddam Hussein-esqe leer.

"Pig," Ari hissed and turned back to the
window.

The first ninja was handing his laptop to the
driver of his van. Eight others split to either side of the motel
room door. The rest spread out through the parking lot. Ari found
himself feeling sorrow for Ben, who had gotten involved at first
because it severed him from boredom, and then as a necessary
defense of his wife. He also spared a brief thought for Ahmad.
Lawson and Abu Jasim had had a better concept of the risks
involved. But even Ari had not guessed it would come to this.