The Godless One (19 page)

"It was her first body,
ever."

Ari produced a heartening smile. "Rest
assured, Deputy Sylvester behaved in the best tradition of your
service. She neither wept nor wailed. I was very
impressed."

"Man, I'm so glad to hear that." Fred
sat back, sighing with relief. "Something like that, it's like out
of Nightmare on Elm Street. I mean, we've been told you were a cop
in the Middle East, but I guess even something like this gets to
you, right?"

Ari's shrug miffed the young
agent.

"Aw, cm'on, like how many
headless bodies have
you
investigated?"

"Three hundred and twenty-seven in
Anbar Province."

Fred gaped. "Jesus..."

"Over a three month period."

"And then you couldn't take it anymore?
You burned out?"

"Not at all. I was sent by your armed
forces to Baghdad, where there were more headless
corpses."

Ari allowed Fred to mull this over for
a moment, then leaned forward, hands clasped under his chin. "So
tell me, why did your supervisory deputy so readily accept the fact
that Deputy Karen was at Mustafa's for no rhyme or
reason?"

Fred noticed that his sandwich was not
even half finished and began scarfing it down.

Ari decided to ease off again, for the
moment. "How many forts are there in this area?"

Puzzled, Fred slowed his chewing. "Like
from the Civil War? Fort Drewry and that kind of thing?" Then he
blushed and laughed at himself. "Sorry, but you made it sound like
castles and palisades. Are you talking about military
bases?"

Ari nodded.

"Why? I mean..." Fred shrugged and
thought for a moment. "Fort A. P. Hill, Fort Eustis, Fort Lee, Fort
Pickett…but that’s National Guard. Fort Belvoir is big, but that’s
partly National Guard, too. I think. I don’t know. There are the
Marines at Quantico, of course. And I’m not even beginning with the
flight commands and naval bases out on the coast. Those are
huge."

"Is the 101st Airborne stationed at any
of them?"

"Oh, hell no. 'The Screaming Eagles?'
They're famous. Everyone knows they're at Fort Campbell,
Kentucky."

Ari sighed and momentarily surrendered
a theory. Reaching into his coat pocket, he pulled out his copy of
the Brown and Stern prospectus. When he unfolded it on the table,
Fred stiffened. "What’s that?" he asked.

"Something I picked up at Mustafa’s
place of work. I found what I believe…I think you call them
‘typos’. And a rather glaring typo, at that. One which might cause
undue embarrassment."

"So?" said Fred, compacting himself
behind his Coke cup.

"Well, see for yourself…" He turned the
prospectus around so that Fred could read it. "Here, under ‘Our
Team’."

Fred's show of indifference might have
convinced someone his age.

"I see you aren't reading.
You aren't speaking. Are you in distress? Have you gotten a fish
bone stuck in your throat? But I forgot, American fish don't have
bones. Let me read it out loud for you: Mustafa Zewail, AIA, CID.
Oh, and here, much closer to the top: 'Ari Ciminon, AIA, IIDA.' I
assume these hideous acronyms indicate something to do with
architecture. Beyond that…how could such a mistake be made?" When
Fred declined to answer, Ari slapped his hand flat on the table.
The deputy jumped. So did a mother, passing them with her two girls
in tow. Seeing their frightened glances, Ari turned on them and
bugged out his eyes. "
Transparency
..."

The woman took her girls further down
the aisle.

"I don't need to look at it," said
Fred, shading his eyes. "I've seen it."

"And this is why Super Agent Karen
Sylvester did not need to explain to her supervisor why she was at
Mustafa's house," Ari said heatedly. "Could it also be the reason
why he was killed?"

"No, it couldn't be," said Fred,
pleading with his eyes for Ari to lay off him. "There's no way
anyone could make the connection."

"Ah! The 'connection'! I'm
filled with wild surmise. Mustafa was Iraqi, was he not? Is it
possible 'Mustafa Zewail' is concocted out of thin air? That
Mustafa gave the killers his real name as he begged them not to
remove his head?" A young couple stood frozen with their orange
trays next to the table. "Shall I put up a sign?
'
Transparency at work
!'"

"Listen..."

Ari theatrically cocked his ear.
"Yes?"

"Having both of your names in there was
just a bureaucratic screw up. It's because FAST had the same
list—"

Ari held up his hand, palm out. "Are
you subjecting me to another American acronym? I am unappeased by
American acronyms."

"Foreign-deployed Advisory and Support
Teams. They’re sort of the overseas action unit for the DEA. They
got guys from Special Forces, the Rangers…you know, the close
quarters combat type of guys."

"In fact, I met some of your FAST
people in Anbar. They were very fit, but they had a poor sense of
direction. I told them Afghanistan was that way..." Ari pointed at
a promotion poster for Happy Meals.

"Then you knew already?" Fred glowered.
"Well, FAST must have decided Mustafa was pretty special, because
they exfiltrated him to the States. But it was all done too quickly
and there was a mix up. The DEA was trying to—"

"Acronym," said Ari
threateningly.

"That's the Drug Enforcement Agency, as
I’m sure you know already. They're part of Justice, just like us.
So there's this list of companies who allow the government to post
phony employees. In this case, they found Mustafa a job, too. But
they forgot to tell our division about it. We posted your name at
Brown and Stern and got a royal scorching when someone asked if Ari
Ciminon wasn't one of our guys, too, and why had we posted both of
you at the same company? But when we bounced it upstairs, the Chief
Deputy thought we could keep running with it without any risk. I
agree. Besides, it's too late."

"Too late?" Ari said. "Just remove the
magazines."

"It's not that simple. We
were establishing your
bona
fides
, you see. If someone asked you who
you were and what you did for a living, they could google you and
figure you were legitimate."

"I'm on the internet?"

"The Web, yes. Facebook and all. Not
your picture, though. We're not that stupid."

"No, just transparently stupid," Ari
said, glaring lethally.

"We're the same organization, overall,"
said a despondent Fred. "FAST and us, we're supposed to fit hand in
glove..."

"Only the glove doesn't
fit."

Fred began to slide out of his
chair.

"You can't possibly imagine that I'm
finished with you, can you?" Ari snarled. "You have much to answer
for, my young friend, and I will get answers."

Fred slid back.

"So Mustafa was one of your 'assets'?"
Ari said. "I saw the thumb drive in his computer, an encrypted
Aegis. Did he have the same arrangement that I have?"

"You're CENTCOM. He was..." Fred took a
breath. "United States Central Command. Mustafa was the Drug
Enforcement Agency. But the arrangement with the U.S. Marshals
Service was pretty much the same." Fred gave Ari a scornful look.
"Except Mustafa went to work every day."

Ari was in the mood to be offended. The
young agent's tone sounded critical to him, as though Ari was a
loafer who did not pull his weight.

"I have saved more American idiots than
a puny penis like you can imagine."

"Hey, I—"

"Shut! Did any of you
muttonheads...Deputy Karen taught me that word, incidentally...stop
to think that if one of us was discovered, the killers would be
able to link us?"

"But that can't happen—"

"Shut! You're right, and you can thank
the heavens that it was through a rigged accident that the killers
found Mustafa, and not by looking up Brown and Stern. Otherwise, I
would slit your throat here and now."

"Jesus..."

"You do well to honor your faith, since
that seems to be all that you have going for you." Ari eased back a
little. "However, because I also volunteered to translate for the
Virginia Department of Corrections, I might very well be
decapitated."

"We can move you to a new—"

"With you nincompoops protecting me? I
would be dead within the week. It is better to let the enemy come
to me, if he locates me. I like that word, by the way.
'Nincompoops'. I think I learned it reading Charles Dickens. I hear
it's very offensive."

Fred shrugged this off, then managed to
look at Ari directly. "Enemy?"

"You don't even know the forces of
history that are crushing down on you! Which brings me to my next
question: how many others are there like me in this
area?"

"Oh wow, no, now you're asking too
much." Fred began to get up.

"You think I won't kill you?" Ari
lifted his coat. Fred saw the gun.

"What are you doing with that! You're
not supposed to—"

"Go fuck a bunny," said Ari with a
smile. "I learned that phrase in America, not too long
ago."

"You wouldn't shoot me. They would
crucify you."

"Be not so sure," Ari said smugly. "I'm
one of your national treasures."

"Go fuck yourself," said Fred. "That's
pure Abraham Lincoln." Then the cold kick of logic struck him. "Why
do you want to know about military bases?"

"If you don't assist me, I'll go to
your supervisory deputy and tell him I was at Mustafa’s house, and
that when Deputy Karen saw what they had done to him she wept like
a baby and bubbled in her Fruit of the Looms."

"You wouldn't do that."

"I have a cell phone and the number to
your office."

Fred crumpled like a crushed cup. "So
what else do you want?" He looked up when he heard a sound of
pleasure. "What?"

"Nothing, for now," said Ari, wearing
his broadest smile. "I am just so happy to see the tribal instinct
so strong and healthy."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Fred
asked, frowning.

"You will not tell your supervisory
deputy about my little toy, here." He tapped the coat over his
gun.

"Jesus..."

"And all praise to Allah." He gauged
Fred with a long look. "Be careful, Young Turk. I think your death
would cause me to skip a meal."

"I'm not in danger."

"That's why you are in danger. And pass
my warning on to Karen, who I have no intention of betraying with
negativity." Ari was exhausted. He felt his English slipping away
from him. "She was...how do you say it? A state
trooper."

"Close enough," said Fred, giving him a
curious look.

Ari began to rise, then stopped. "Do
you study history, Mr. Agent Deputy?"

"Uh...I know the Pledge of
Allegiance."

"I said 'history', not 'propaganda'. I
recommend that you read about the Crusades, which occurred a few
years before you were born. When the Europeans invaded the Muslim
countries of the Middle East, the former Byzantium territories,
they slaughtered thousands and brought back apricots, exquisite
perfumes, dyes, spices, glass mirrors and an appreciation for
beauty. When the Americans implemented their Operation Iraqi
Freedom, they killed thousands…and brought back shit. Be sure not
to besmirch yourself with it."

CHAPTER SEVEN

Were nightmares better than no dreams
at all? When Ari awoke at four, he blearily calculated that he had
managed to sleep six hours. They were toss-about hours, true,
roiling with ghastly mental reportage and fantastical images,
mingled with frozen still-lifes, numbing landscapes, lurid
tableaux. Weird sounds complemented the phantasmagoria, and while
Ari had not been present when the bomb went off in his walled
garden, he could clearly hear Rana crying out to Jarir the instant
before the explosion. The medics had urged him not to look at his
boy, but he had done so. And then he had turned to look at his
wife. The medic insisted that he not remove the rude bandages from
her face, that he not embrace her, that he not so much as kiss the
top of her head, swathed in the thick, bloody rags that would have
to serve until they got her to Saddam Medical City. He caught a
whisper between two medics: did the hospital still exist? The
bombing had been pretty thorough. One of the medics wept as he slid
Rana's severed arm into a plastic bag. But he was not weeping for
the colonel's wife. He had heard only minutes earlier that his own
home in Ghazaliya had been hit. There was no word yet on
survivors.

Ari sat up and stared about the room.
The aching emptiness was not healthy. He knew he should invest in
some furniture to give his home a semblance of normality. But
without Rana, there seemed no point.

He heard something at the window.
Standing slowly, he went to look. A tree stood near the bedroom.
Could Sphinx climb to the window?