The Godless One (28 page)

"Don't be jealous, I'll get you one. Is
it too heavy for you? It's almost 80 ounces."

"Not at all."

"If you have to shoot, use both hands
and watch out for the kick. You could break some more bones. I'll
be back in a few minutes. I have to get the van out by myself. I
couldn't bring my son with me."

"What's wrong with Jasim?"

"The stupid fool broke a
collar bone doing
hagwalah
." This was the Arab version
of American 'drifting', where young men tilted their cars up on two
wheels while passengers hung out the side. It was most often
performed in Saudi Arabia.

"But there aren't any deserts in Quebec
to do that," Ari said.

"I know."

"Then what about Mahmoud?" Another of
Abu Jasim's sons.

"He has exams this week.
All of them do.
French
exams. Can you believe that?"

"'
Bâteau, ciseaux

La rivi
ère, la rivière

Bâteau, ciseaux

La rivière tombée dans l
’
eau
…’
"

"I hope you're not brain-damaged," said
Abu Jasim before walking away.

Ari proceeded to check out his
injuries. Since he could barely move a finger, the inspection was
remote, his mind drifting through the caverns and extensions of his
body. First off, check the instrument that would be doing the
checking. He had taken two hard head shots. Or maybe it was twenty.
He did not think he was concussed, although he would probably be
the last to know. But he certainly would have to wear a bag over
his head for the next month if he did not want to terrorize the
local inhabitants. His jaw twitched properly if painfully, his nose
was surprisingly unbroken and his eyes were intact, the assassin's
attempt to blind him blocked by a timely upward thrust of his arm.
Down to the neck, massively bruised but with his cervical vertebrae
intact. His mental robot scooted down to the thorax, a hazardous
morass of tangled bones and hammered skin. The report was
depressing but not dire. The following reports were similar:
bruising, swelling, sprains, contusions...overall, however, the
prognosis left him in painful gratitude. The assassin had reduced
him without crippling him. Luck purred at his ear like a cat
snuggling near his neck.

In the distance he heard swearing in
Arabic, a beautiful sound that could snap the neck of any saint or
sinner within hearing. Ari decided he was neither, since he
survived. There came the sound of an engine wailing, then loud
cracks as Abu Jasim rocked his van over the branches he had lain
down for traction. A minute later, the van appeared, fishtailing
over the slush as the irate driver worked his way over to
Ari.

"I didn't hear any shooting," said Abu
Jasim, as he got out. "This guy must have been the only
one."

"One," Ari groused,
lifting his head. "They sent one, without even a gun.
Against
me
!"

Abu Jasim coughed diplomatically. He
waited a minute. "I'll help you up when you ask me to. I don't want
to be presumptuous."

"Hold on..." Ari lifted the .500 and
Abu Jasim took it from him.

"A fucking howitzer," he said
admiringly as he returned it to the van.

"You'll get me one?"

"Yes, yes, Colonel. How are you
doing?"

"As you see." Ari was
sitting up. It was all he could do to stay in that position.
"
Khara!
"

With that, Abu Jasim reached under his
arms and began to lift him. Ari howled.

"Where's all that ninja training of
yours?" Abu Jasim complained. "Aren't you supposed to hold your
peace even if your dick is getting cut off?"

Ari howled again as Abu Jasim planted
him on his feet. He let go. Ari wavered, but did not fall. He
toddled over to the would-be assassin's corpse and stared at him in
the glare of the van's headlights. "He's much younger than me. You
can see he worked out forty-eight hours a day."

"Anybody with a forty-eight hour day
would have an advantage," Abu Jasim conceded. "But he won't be
getting any older, now."

Ari drew back his leg and gave the body
a kick.

"You call that a kick?" Abu Jasim came
over and gave the corpse a kick that sent a squirt of blood out of
the gun wound.

"Again," said Ari.

Abu Jasim kicked the body
again.

"Again," said Ari.

Abu Jasim obeyed.

"Search his pockets."

Abu Jasim crouched and ran his hand
through the baggy pockets of the jogging pants. "Just his keys," he
said, pocketing them.

"We have to find his car. It's parked
nearby."

"I didn't see anyone else down by the
river."

"Near the entrance, then."

Ari howled once more as Abu Jasim
settled him into the van's passenger seat.

"I did not whimper," Ari said with a
glare.

"Right, Colonel. What do we do with the
body?"

"Leave it."

"You think that's such a good
idea?"

"Go down by the shore. You'll see
crosses dedicated to people who have been murdered here. The
Americans are very big on crosses."

"Murder, too. That's what we say up in
Canada."

Ari's silent contempt expressed the
imbecility of the sentiment. Like people weren't being murdered
left and right in Iraq?

"I still think we should dump him in
the river," Abu Jasim persisted. "We don't want to give the locals
too much to think about."

"You plan to drag him all the way there
by yourself?"

Abu Jasim went around to
the back of the van and removed a tow rope from his cargo bay.
Attaching it to his hitch, he walked around the front and displayed
the hook. "See? Easy." Going to the body, he pressed the legs
together and tied the rope around the ankles. "
Voila
!"

At any other time, Ari would have
congratulated Abu Jasim on this great stride in French. Abu Jasim
got in and drove. The palpable jerks as the body caught on rocks
and roots soothed Ari's wounds. Abu Jasim pulled up as close as he
dared to the muddy riverbank. Ari heard swearing after he got out
to untie the rope.

"What is it?"

"Big chunks of him fell out of the
bullet hole! They're all over the parking lot!"

"The cats will take care of it," Ari
replied.

"Ugh."

"Fresh meat."

"Ugh," said Abu Jasim again. Having the
same broad physique (and practically the same face) as his one-time
employer, Saddam Hussein, Abu Jasim did not find dragging the body
very difficult.

"Let me help you," said Ari, not
moving.

Abu Jasim didn't answer. As he moved
around the front of the van, Ari noted the man's shirt had been
pulled off while being dragged. He rolled down his window.
"Stop."

"What do you see?" Abu Jasim looked
down at the corpse. "Right, a tattoo."

"Hold his arm this way."

Dropping the legs, Abu Jasim shifted to
the front of the corpse and raised the right arm. "Just letters and
numbers."

"I can't see properly. Read it to
me."

"'TF-20.'"

"Task Force 20," said Ari, grinning
with bloodied teeth.

"Who are they?"

"They were with the 101st in Mosul,
part of the group that didn't bother trying to catch the Hussein
brothers but reduced them to their basic elements,
instead."

"Uday," Abu Jasim spat. "He deserved
worse."

"Indeed..." said Ari. "Okay, get on
with it."

Doing his best to keep blood off
himself, Abu Jasim awkwardly worked the body to the water, just
managing to maintain his balance on the icy mud and smooth stones
lining the shore. Finally, he gave a heave. There was a splash.
Then more swearing. The body was stuck in the mud. Ari would have
laughed, but it hurt just to blink. He felt something rumbling and
then oozing within himself. Blunt splenic trauma? Internal bleeding
was a possibility. If it was bad, the hemorrhage could be fatal. He
would have to undergo a splenectomy. But the pain seemed limited to
the upper left quadrant. It was probably minor...so to speak. His
brain would have to fend for itself.

Abu Jasim located a stout branch and
finally succeeded in pushing the body into the current without
diving into the water. Pleased, he turned and slipped in the mud.
He returned to the van looking like Saddam Hussein at his choleric
worst. Ari felt like flinching in respect.

"Now we find his car," he
said.

Abu Jasim drove slowly out of the
Manchester Docks entrance. They spotted the blue Grand Turismo
behind some bushes off of Brander Street. Wary of the mud, Abu
Jasim gingerly guided the van next to it. While Ari slouched in his
seat, Abu Jasim got out and looked inside the GT. There was no one
else in the car. "Engine’s still running. He didn’t plan to take
long. There's a couple of square lights on the dash. Looks like a
GPS thing, and something else."

"A tracker?" Ari roused himself up.
"Your van might be bugged."

"Shit." Abu Jasim pressed his face
against the driver door glass and said, "Think it's rigged,
Colonel?"

"Unlock it and find out."

"I've got more respect for virgins than
you do," Abu Jasim scowled. He got back inside the van and drove
off thirty yards. Then he took out the assassin's keys and pressed
the remote. The parking lights flashed, but there was no explosion.
He returned to the GT. He made certain that the Astrovan's
passenger side faced Akila Zewail’s car. "If there’s a bomb and
it’s not connected to the remote, you go with me."

"I see how you trust me."

Taking a deep breath, Abu Jasim grabbed
the GT’s handle and swung the door open. He let out his
breath.

"We're still alive."

"Could be a delayed timer," Ari
observed indifferently.

Abu Jasim delved into the car, leaving
the driver door open so he could talk to Ari. "GPS, all right. And
the tracker...it shows..."

"It shows
you
,
jahech
. We need to search your
van."

"The GPS shows nothing," Abu Jasim
sniffed. "From somewhere to Ashland. I passed a sign for Ashland on
I-95. So he didn't follow me all the way from Montreal. He picked
me up north of here. That means he had a friend in Longueil who
planted the tracker."

"It also means you'll probably have to
move and change your name and change your face," said Ari, very
alert. "The GPS is still on?"

"Yeah. Want me to turn it off? It's
draining the—"

"No!" Ari pushed open his door and
peered across the gap between the two vehicles. "You can backtrack
to his starting point. Be careful! Don't erase the program! I think
all you have to do is scroll..." He watched on tenterhooks as Abu
Jasim poked the TomTom. "If you erase it I'll tear out your tongue
and feed it to the pigs."

Tentatively, Abu Jasim rolled his index
finger over the screen. "I wish Mahmoud was here. He knows all this
crap."

"Careful..."

After a minute, Abu Jasim finished
tracing his way to the beginning of the route. "Got it. Five
twenty-nine Sugar Loaf Road, Cumberland. I don't have a pen and
paper."

"That's all right," Ari said, easing
back in his seat. "We have him."

"We have who?"

"A very big fish," said Ari. "And I
intend to fry him."

CHAPTER TEN

"Othman al-Dulaimi has
killed himself."

Lieutenant Abu Karim Ghaith
Ibrahim roused himself from his cot and tried to shake sleep from
his eyes and the sergeant's incomprehensible words from his
mind.

"Captain al-Dulaimi?" he
asked, last night's Clan MacGregor slaking off his
tongue.

"Should I have some tea
brought to you?"

Ghaith reached down to pull
on his boots, only to find they were already on. "What did you say
about the captain?"

"He's in his tent," the
sergeant answered tensely.

"Assassinated?"

"The guards say no one
entered the camp last night. His pistol is in his hand. He put it
in his mouth…"

"You're crazy." This
judgment carried a host of assumptions. Ghaith did not know the
captain well, having been reassigned to the Medina unit only the
week before. From what he could tell, the captain was an
introspective man, one of those rarities of thoughtfulness and
consideration who made you think humankind was suffering from a
mild dose of decency. Otherwise, he had everything going for him. A
Sunni born in Tikrit (nothing but Sunnis there), from a well-to-do
family, his father a close friend of the Husseins, a rising
military star. Sure, he had pissed in his pants on the Highway of
Death, but so had they all. Only some kind of shame, perhaps a
family scandal, would induce such a man to commit suicide. Another
assumption, of course, was that the sergeant was genuinely crazy.
Ghaith looked at him narrowly and repeated, "You're
crazy."