Cold Snap (54 page)

"He has been looking for you ever since you
disappeared," Ari interrupted. "You destroyed the credibility of
Sayed. Since Bruce was your supervisor, you destroyed him, too. You
could have said anything at all to him and he would have come. Were
you planning to squeeze him for money, too? What else did you steal
from Sayed?" Ari paused. "How did he know you were here?"

"I told you, I don't know. I didn't tell
him..." Ethan winced, looking at Mohammed. "He's really dead? I
mean, you really shot him? Why—?"

"I didn't shoot him. That was Hasan. But I
would have done the same. Gail had just been killed. We didn't know
what was going on. And then we see this guy in a pickup, where he
didn't belong. Didn't know who he was. We didn't know. And Gail was
dead..."

Mohammed began to sob.

"You sound like a real American," was Ari's
unforgiving summation.

Ahmad retreated into the kitchen and came
back a moment later. He held up a phone in front of Ethan's face.
"This yours?"

"Uh-huh."

"Ha!" Ahmad shook his head and grinned at
Ari. "Dumbass here forgot to disable his GPS."

"His feeble mentality is well demonstrated by
his style of living," Ari snorted. "Rebecca Wareness is a good and
decent woman, a good and decent mother, and you have treated her
abominably."

"Hey...what are you...you aren't—"

"Yes, I am," said Ari, and punched Ethan in
the face.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Freddie answered the doorbell. He stared at
Ari, his slackjaw quivering in dismay. In answer to a shout from
inside, he gave a kind of sorrowful moan.

"It's that man."

"It's me," Ari called out, flapping his arms
to warm himself. Liquid sloshed in the bag he was carrying. "Can I
come in? It's bloody cold out here. My johnson has been transformed
into an icicle!"

There was another querulous shout from inside
and Freddie widened the door. Ari stepped through.

The foyer was overheated and smelled of
medicinal ointment. Freddie raised his arms as though to help Ari
out of his coat, then cringed and pulled away. Ari found his innate
fear both annoying and painful.

"That's all right," he said, laying the bag
on a chair and pulling off his coat. He glanced around the living
room. "Where is your uncle?"

"He's that way." Freddie raised his arm
vaguely and began to back out of the room, hugging the furniture
and wall. Ari came forward. "No, not this way. That way."

"There's no need to be afraid of me," said
Ari.

"You don't have to follow me," Freddie
insisted. "He's not this way. Go the other way..."

Ari picked up the bag and crossed the living
room into a dim hallway, at the end of which a door stood open.
Light flickered in the room and Ari heard an unfamiliar voice.

"You say this started two months ago?"

Lawson's response was garbled to
near-incomprehensibility. "Been getting worse..."

"I'm sorry to hear that," came the voice.
"Can you turn on another light? I'm having some difficulty
seeing..."

Hearing Ari enter the room, Lawson asked him
to switch on a table lamp. Ari did so, then slid the bottle out of
the bag and held it up for Lawson to see.

"I see you have a visitor holding a big
no-no," came a voice from the computer Lawson was sitting in front
of. Lawson glanced up at a small insert view at the upper right
edge of the monitor and saw the Jack Daniels label. He gave Ari an
irritable backward wave of his good hand.

"Alcohol is contraindicated for your current
medication—"

"I know, I know," Lawson nodded at the
screen. "My friend here mistook it for a prescription."

"So long as you are aware that returning
veterans, especially those who have suffered grievous wounds, are
prone to drug and alcohol abuse."

"So's everyone else," Lawson said. "Sit on
the bed, Ari. I'll be done in a few."

"All right," said the man on the screen.
"Your chart says you had some revision surgery not long ago. An
infection can be caused by a buried suture, or even ingrown facial
hair. Are you using your Peridex?"

"Four times a day." Lawson gave a small
cough. "It feels like my fake lower jaw is sinking into my fake
chin."

"Can you lean closer to the camera? Turn your
head to the left some. I want to see the suture line."

Lawson's prosthetic leg was lying on top of
the blanket. Ari moved it aside and sat on the bed. From this angle
he could see Lawson's badly swollen jaw.

"You're taking your antibiotics?"

"Yes, sir," said Lawson. "You think I need to
increase the dosage?"

"Maybe," said the video doctor, peering
closely at his own screen like a sailor looking for a tiny speck of
land in the ocean. "Can you get any closer to the camera?"

Grunting, Lawson leaned down. The video
insert provided a close-up of tortured skin.

"Have you been bleeding?"

"A little..."

Ari glanced at the pillow at the top of the
bed and the traces of blood and saliva.

"Does it still smell?" the doctor asked.

"Hell if I know. I've gotten used to it."
Lawson turned stiffly to Ari. "Does it stink in here?"

"There appears to be some necrotic issue,"
said Ari.

"I think he means it stinks," Lawson said,
turning back to the screen. "I also think my friend wants to be a
doctor when he grows up."

"You're going to have to see your doctor at
the VA," said the man on the other side of the country. He lifted
his clipboard and consulted Lawson's chart. "That's...Dr.
Enright?"

"That's him." Lawson gripped the side of his
chair. "You think I have to go under the knife, again?"

"Let's let Dr. Enright decide. But we might
have to go from intraoral to external."

"I've got a job!" Lawson protested. "I can't
take any more time off!"

"You've got a life, too. Let's hold onto it."
The doctor began scribbling on the chart. "I'll contact your VA,
maybe speed up your appointment. Um...do you still have a cat in
your house?"

Ari sat straight. Glancing down, he saw
traces of fur on the bedspread.

"What about it?" asked Lawson warily.

"Does it go outside? Do you keep a kitty
litter box in the house? Who cleans it out, and is it done
regularly?"

"He comes and goes," said Lawson. "My nephew
does the scooping every day."

"That's good." The doctor sighed. "There is
plenty of evidence about the benefits of having pets. Does the cat
sleep with you?"

"Sometimes..."

"Until your infection clears up, I'm thinking
the cat should stay somewhere else. Temporarily, of course." Seeing
the pain in Lawson's eye, he quickly added, "It's possible the cat
has nothing at all to do with the infection. This is only a
precaution, until we can confirm that it's an infection and not
something …else."

"Well..."

"Contact me if it gets worse and I'll be sure
to get you in immediately," said the doctor. "Otherwise, it can
wait until Monday. Or Tuesday. Now you take care..."

"So long, Doctor."

The screen blanked out.

"I didn't know you had a cat," said Ari.

"He keeps himself scarce." Lawson twisted
around and studied the bottle. "It's not even noon, yet."

"I wasn't planning on drinking right away,"
said Ari. "I was planning to take you out for a visit."

"I wasn't planning on going anywhere."

"The best laid plans of men and mice are
often cast adrift," said Ari. After a moment's hesitation, he
added: "I would be willing to accommodate your cat."

"That's mighty white of you," said Lawson.
Noting Ari's befuddled expression, he elaborated: "That's a
joke."

"Ah," said Ari.

"Find a whitey to explain it to you."

"A 'whitey'?"

"One of our feeble descendants." Lawson
pushed himself up in his chair and flopped down next to Ari on the
bed.

"You remind me of my wife," said Ari.

"This isn't an invitation," said Lawson,
drawing back. "I just need to put on my leg."

"No...she was gravely injured, too." Ari
hesitated. "In an accident."

"How's she doing now?" asked Lawson.

"Not well..."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Lawson pulled his
leg onto his lap. "Can you go out and fetch Freddie? I can pop the
leg on, but the arm..."

"I can help."

"I'd be more comfortable with the boy."

Nodding, Ari rose and went into the living
room.

"Freddie?" he called out. "Your uncle needs
you."

The young man percolated out of the shadows
and disappeared down the hallway. Ari searched around for the cat.
Now that he was aware of his existence, the signs became apparent:
tears in the furniture, a fur ball against the baseboard, a sense
of furtive presence.

He caught a fecal whiff from the hallway and
realized the true reason why the boy had gone back to help. He also
thought that Lawson was relatively new to this handicapped
lifestyle. It would not be long before he could take care of
himself. In fact, it was the boy who needed looking after.

"Who and where's this visit you want to take
me on?" said Lawson as Freddie held up his coat. "Or do I know too
much and you want to dump me in the nearest spare parts bin?"

"I think I can fit some bits and pieces
together into a coherent whole," said Ari. "I mean, regarding the
events of last week."

Lawson gave him a long, musing look. "You
know, after I got blown to pieces, I started looking at things in
pieces. History? I loved history. Still do. But that's all it is:
bits and pieces. Even when something fits, it really doesn't. You
know the German Krupps?"

"Merchants of death?"

"Yeah, you know them. Well, after the First
World War the Allies made them cut out all the machine guns and Big
Berthas and all that crap. They were forced—for a while—to work
small. They came up with a steel implant for soldiers who'd had
their jaws shot off in the war. And there were a lot of guys who
stuck their heads up out of the trenches at the wrong moment. And
since most of those jaws were shot off with Krupp weapons, it made
a perfect circle. Krupp shot off your mouth, then put it back on.
But then Adolf comes along and you realize the circle is just a
coincidence. Everything broke up again."

"Into pieces."

"Exactly. So what grand revelations do you
have in store for me?"

"Follow me and discover," Ari smiled, opening
the door. The smile vanished as an arctic blast tried to shove them
back inside.

"You can't spill your guts in the comfort of
my home?"

"I feel—very illogically—that the discomfort
of the weather will help my thought-meshing."

"You do intend to turn on your car heat?"

"Of course..." Ari took note of the Civic
parked down the block. The couple in the front seat appeared to be
bickering. A bag flew up between them and bounced against the
windshield. It was too far away to clearly see the logo on the bag,
though Ari thought he saw golden arches.

Lawson squeezed into the xB while Ari started
the engine. "Heat!" he moaned as he settled in, shivering. "If my
teeth chatter too much my mouth falls off."

"Is that true?"

"Probably not, but it feels like it
will."

Ari pulled onto Hull Street and headed for
town.

"Sayid Mohammed Al-Rafa'ee, Hasan Al-Jamil,
Abu ibn Al-Quassim, Gail Prescott."

"The first three came to America with their
parents," Lawson nodded. "You already told me this. They got mixed
up with the Chaldeans, who got mixed up with Rhee, who got mixed up
with Ethan, who got mixed up with ISAF."

"I think I told you ISAF is a red flounder,"
said Ari. If ISAF was in the thick of this, their intentions were
certainly at cross-purposes. They might have wanted Ari to track
down the hacker to find out what had happened to their immigrant
database. But after that? They may not have sent Bruce Turner to
chase him off with abusive phone calls and man-eating dogs, but
they must have guessed Turner would do anything to save his
reputation. And it was probably Turner who had broken into Ethan's
house and planted the ISAF link in their computer, just to show Ari
he was dealing in matters best left alone. He would have thought
they most definitely would not want Ari sniffing around if ISAF was
responsible for bringing Uday Hussein to America, via A-Zed. Ari
had already brushed too close to their source. And yet there was
the video of Abu ibn Abd Al-Samad being immolated on Route 12.
Whoever had planted the video assumed Ari would discover the
killers had connections to the Chaldeans, a group no one in their
right mind would want to tangle with. There were probably Chaldeans
mixed in with the group surrounding Uday in Cumberland. The war on
drugs created many odd bedfellows. So which way was it? Did ISAF
want Ari to find Ethan…or not?

Perhaps Ethan was not the motive. Perhaps it
was….

"Herring," said Lawson.

"Pardon?"

"You meant 'red herring', a deception
intended to draw someone's attention away from the real point of
interest."

Ari dwelled on this for a moment. "I prefer
'flounder', with its inference of 'floundering about'."

"Hey," Lawson shrugged, "English is plastic.
You won't get any argument from me. So...we were speaking of the
Chaldean Mafia...?"

"A violent group founded in Detroit but with
ties around the world. It was founded in the 1980's. Of course,
with most of them being Iraqis, they immediately started fighting
among themselves. There was a great deal of murder and mayhem.
Between that and the attentions of the Detroit police and Federal
authorities, the Chaldeans lost much potency. But they're still
extant and rather too numerous."

"So I saw back at the motel. Anyway, another
sordid gang. I've seen— Watch it!"