Cold Snap (51 page)

Staying close to the bushes, he made his way
up the long curve. He stopped when he saw someone standing in the
middle of the lane.

A young man, almost a boy, was staring
straight ahead.

"That's it, you stay right there," came
Lawson's voice.

Ari edged ahead until he could see Turner's
truck. Lawson stood braced against the panel, the gun aimed at the
boy in the road. His backward glance told Ari he was fully aware
that the other Chaldeans must be working their way through the
field to take him from behind. Ari made a curt gesture to catch his
attention. Lawson nodded, relieved, but stiffened again when the
young man took a step forward.

"I'll shoot," Lawson warned, his voice
shaking.

The young man shrugged and took another
step.

"It's always the young ones," Lawson
complained. "Too stupid to know better."

Was there a suicide vest under the boy's
coat? Ari couldn't tell. The coat was bulky. It was also bitterly
cold. Suicide bombers came in all ages. So did stupidity.

But they were dealing with the man before
them, certainly young, certainly not very bright, and definitely
behaving like someone wearing a bomb. It might be empty bravado, a
show to distract Lawson from his companions.

Another step forward. Ari took aim at the
back of the young man's head. He had left his gloves in the
Sprinter and his fingers were freezing. His attention was divided
as he looked for movement on the other side of the truck.

Lawson must have heard something with his
remaining ear. He shifted a few inches.

"Why do you want to do this, boy?" he called
out. His wound and frozen lips mangled his words, but they were
clear enough. "We're not in Iraq. This isn't a war zone."

"The world is a war zone!" the boy
exclaimed.

"Is that it? You want to die for Allah? Or
are you scoring points for your gang buddies? Those aren't God's
men you're hanging around with. They're just thugs. I wouldn't
sprain a finger for them. How old are you, anyway? Eighteen?
Seventeen?"

Why was Lawson yacking on like this? Ari
wondered. He could be ambushed at any moment. It was as if he was
tempting the Chaldeans closer. He flicked the barrel of the Glock,
letting Lawson know he could ready to take out the boy. Lawson
shook his head. Gritting his teeth, Ari moved slowly to the other
side of the lane for a better view behind the pickup. He saw
movement and bared his teeth at Lawson.

The young man took another step.

"Take a good look at me, boy," said Lawson.
"Someone even younger than you did this to me. Was it worth it,
turning me into this lump? It's not the dead you want to study.
It's...this..." He raised his coat sleeve, exposing the prosthetic
hand. "And this..." He pulled back his scarf.

"You were in Iraq?" asked the young man.

"Yes. That's where my country sent me."

"And this is where I have been sent," said
the young man, advancing another step.

"Well, boy...it's your call..."

The bushes beyond the pickup rattled and
three men shuffled onto the lane, guns lowered. At the same moment,
Lawson dropped his Berretta, grabbed hold of the truck's handle,
and yanked the tailgate.

Bruce Turner's pit bulls had been remarkably
silent during all of this, as if anticipating the moment for
vengeance was at hand. They exploded off the truck bed with insane
intensity.

"Shit!" Ari cried out, and ran towards the
tree, thinking to join the crow. But when he heard no canine
panting at his heels, he stopped and turned around.

They must have recognized Bruce's killer,
because all but one lit out after the three men from the bushes.
There was a shout of horror as the hounds went for their throats.
They managed a couple of shots at the dogs, then turned and broke
back into the field, hotly pursued. But Killer stayed put, not a
foot from the young man, staring up at his face, daring him to make
the slightest move.

Ari was not overly fond of dogs, especially
killer dogs, but he took the chance and ran up to the young
man.

"Hello," he said.

The young man, his face transformed by sudden
terror, slowly swiveled his head. Ari clipped him on the chin. He
went down like a sack of oats.

Killer gave a dismissive sniff and took off
through the bushes. Sighing with relief, Ari leaned down and pulled
open the young man's coat. He briefly considered his prospects if
he put the exposed suicide vest on the market. What was that
computer site called that Ahmad had spoken about? 'Ebay'?

"Wouldn't you like to be like them?"

Ari raised his eyes to Lawson, limping
forward and nodding towards the field.

"Pure conviction. The dogs, I mean. They know
what they want, and they go for it." He cocked his head when a
particularly loud set of screams crossed the harrowed field. "They
got one of them good."

Ari went through the bushes. Three dogs had
downed one of the Chaldeans, leaving the other two men to scamper
blindly for the treeline. Killer bore in and joined them. Without a
doubt, the victim was the one who had pulled the trigger on Bruce.
The rest could wait.

Ari was alarmed when a file of a dozen or so
men came racing across the field from the opposite direction, Ben
in the lead. He took a few more steps towards the tangled mass of
dogs tearing at the downed man. Then he stopped. He didn't
particularly want to get closer.

Ben came up, panting hard. "Ari! We have to
stop—"

"You want to shoot dogs?" Ari asked him.

But one of the strangers shouted at the dogs
in what must have been some kind of universal fang language. The
pit bulls did not draw back, but their intensity seemed to lessen.
Several men joined the first, speaking the same language and
kicking the dogs away from their thrashing, sobbing victim. They
looked down at the man and shook their heads.

"Son, you're lucky you still have a throat,"
one of them observed.

"Let them have his throat," said Ari. "He
killed their master."

"That guy we met at the park?" Ben said. His
attention went back to the two men running over the corn stubble.
"Them, too? Should we take them out?"

The use of the plural brought Ari back to the
newcomers.

"Oh, Ari...I ran into these guys," Ben
explained. He nodded at the nearest one, hefting a Remington in the
crook of his arm. All of them had hunting rifles. Some, like the
R-15, were semiautomatic, which Ari thought mildly unsportsmanlike.
"I forgot your name."

"Moses Gingham," said the man, giving a small
and not entirely friendly wave. He stared at the Glock in Ari's
hand. "President of the Purple Sow Gun Club."

"They've had their eye on this place for a
month or more," Ben informed Ari. "They saw some suspicious
activity—"

"If it talks like an alien, looks like an
alien and smells like an alien—" Moses began.

"Hey, I think this guy's a goner," said one
of the hunters, looking down at the man mauled by the dogs. He
pulled away the man's arm. "Oooh, shit. He doesn't have a throat,
after all."

Another hunter raised his arm in the
direction of the men near the trees. "Should we take out the rest
before they run to cover? Might be tricky prying them out of the
woods."

Ben shrugged. "Ari?"

"I wouldn't shoot them unless they made a
threatening gesture. Then, of course, I would blow their brains
out. These are dangerous assholes."

The hunters nodded, suddenly blind to Ari's
complexion.

"Now you're talking!"

"Shucks," another hunter complained. "They
made the trees."

Moses turned to the dogs. Ignoring the blood
dripping from Killer's muzzle, he patted it on the head. "You say
the master's dead?"

"I'm afraid so," said Ari.

"Then I guess he wouldn't mind us taking
these fine animals."

"He's in no condition to protest," Ari
agreed.

Moses shouted something that Ari couldn't
make out. Or maybe it was a bark. The four dogs' ears pricked up
and they joined the men as they began trotting across the field. As
they passed Ari he caught the scent of beer. Lots of it.

"Is that a wolf pack or a man-pack?" Ari
wondered out loud.

"More like a twelve-pack. You don't have to
worry about them, they won't say anything about us," Ben assured
him. "They won't say anything about anything."

"Can you be sure of that?" Ari asked.

"They're trespassing, they're drunk, they're
hunting out of season, they're hunting..."

"Humans."

"There's no license for that," Ben
agreed.

But Ari accepted Ben's reasoning at face
value. In Iraq, people disappeared every day. By the hundreds.

Ben was tentatively jabbing his finger
towards the woods. "You don't mind..."

"You want to join them?"

"It's been a long time since I..."

"You haven't lost your eye," said Ari. "You
eliminated that man out back with a very nice shot. Thank you."

"Yeah," said Ben, introspective. But only for
a moment. "He was a scumbag, right? He was going to kill you and
Ahmad. Anyway, you don't need me anymore, do you? I should go after
those two terrorists."

"I thought you intended to become a
vegetarian."

"I'm not going to eat them."

Ari shrugged. "I think we can deal with the
clean-up ourselves."

Ben took off, Ari's loaner in hand. At the
moment, he looked very much like someone who regretted leaving the
service. Perhaps he would sign up again. One day, Ari might receive
a post card via the U.S. Military Postal Service from the
occupation forces in Pyongyang or Tehran.

He found Lawson wiping the side of Bruce's
truck with a handkerchief.

"You touch anything inside the house? You'd
better take care of it."

Ari reached under his coat and took out an
Umo Lorenzo cotton handkerchief.

"What a shame, spoiling a nice piece of
fabric like that," Lawson said, but did not offer to loan Ari his
own.

"I'm drawing a bead on you," Abu Jasim
announced as Ari crossed the turnaround.

"How marvelous your English has become," Ari
said, crouching next to him. "Have you taken an American
mistress?"

"No, a Canadian beer heiress in Westmount,"
said Abu Jasim, moaning. Ari would not have been surprised if it
was true.

"You should not grieve your wife so," Ari
admonished.

"My wives accept it."

Frowning, Ari studied Abu Jasim's bloodied
trousers. "You'll be drowsing on your stomach for some time."

"Give me a break from all these relaxing
vacations in America."

"I'll come back with Ahmad."

Inside the house, he found Ahmad sobbing over
Mohammed, who was rolling in agony on the floor.

"I had to kick him again," said Ahmad. "He
was trying to—"

"Yes," said Ari, redirecting Ahmad's handgun
towards the wall. When he raised his hand Ahmad flinched, but Ari
merely patted him on the shoulder.

Mohammed looked a little too lively for his
liking, so Ari kicked him in the shoulder. Ignoring the howl of
agony, he walked over to Ethan, still bound, still staring.

"Now we shall talk."

But not yet, as it turned out. Once again,
Ari heard mewling from the room down the hall. Thinking he might
finally have a new cat—but not entirely sure—he raised the Glock
and trod as silently as possible across the antique floorboards. He
pressed his ear to the door. The weird whining sounded neither
human nor animal—not even mechanical. It was otherworldly, like a
micro-planet keening for home.

Ari swept the door open.

Bound to a headboard was Sung-Soo Rhee's
nephew. The gag in his mouth was cinched by a headband. He had
managed to tongue the gag out halfway, so that it dangled like a
misshapen sausage over his chin. Seeing Ari, his whine grew
louder.

"Don't you recognize me as your savior?" Ari
complained, stepping forward and yanking the headband down around
the young man's neck. The gag dropped out. "Or do all Assyrians
look the same to you?"

Ari took unseemly pride in the murderous past
of his alleged Assyrian ancestors, who had the unfortunately
proclivity for boiling enemies in oil. He thought this self-regard
must show in his face, because the young man's keening grew more
shrill—though at least now it sounded roughly human.

When he worked off the rope the boy slumped
forward.

"Are you all right?" Ari inquired. "Can you
walk?"

With a shriek that rattled Ari's teeth, the
young man bounded up and out the door. Ari chased him as far as the
back door.

"Wait!" he shouted as the former captive took
off across the field. "There are mad dogs out there! And worse
people!"

He was not heeded. Ari did not concern
himself too much with the escape, suspecting it was temporary. As
fast as that boy could run—and he had the blood of an Olympian
sprinter in him—he always ended up getting caught. Everything
depended on what one did at the finish line.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Mohammed sat up and glared across the room at
Ethan.

"Reserve your scowl for the mirror," said
Ari. "Your troubles started long before Ethan hacked into A-Zed.
Tell me now how you met Gail and the others, how you joined the
radical jihadists and ended up in Nineveh."

"It's a long story," said Mohammed bitterly.
"The cops will be here before I can begin to finish."

"This is a very isolated area," Ari observed.
"You chose it well. I don't think we'll be disturbed for a
while."

"It doesn't matter..." The young man found it
difficult to beat back the tears of grief and physical pain.
"Gail's dead."

"She died trying to kill an innocent
man."

"You don't understand..."

"As you have said before. I admit finding it
difficult. For example, the way you killed Abu ibn Abd Al-Samad on
the road to Mosul was...quite fanatical."