The Godless One (30 page)

"What
is
that thing?" Ahmad cried out,
horrified.

"In English, it’s called a ‘gun’. Don’t
worry, no one around here’s going to call the cops."

Ahmad’s arm sagged under the weight as
he gave Abu Jasim an accusatory glance. "You just said I’m only
supposed to run errands."

"Shooting someone is an errand. Don’t
look at me like that," said Abu Jasim. "I told your father I
wouldn’t let you get your head blown off. We didn’t say anything
about blowing off someone else’s."

"So I get killed
and
miss the game,"
Ahmad said despondently as he walked slowly out of the
bungalow.

"There's a third option," Ari said. "He
might accidentally blow his own head off."

"You think he doesn't know how to use a
gun?" Abu Jasim answered, amazed by the idea. "He was born here! In
Chicago! The land of Al Capone! It's practically like
home!"

Ari shrugged, as though confessing he
was ignorant in such matters.

"I can't say I always act wisely," Abu
Jasim confessed. "I mean, I'm sitting here with you, right? And now
we've both killed an American citizen."

"We didn't find any ID in the GT," said
Ari.

"But you ID'd the tattoo, right? And he
talked like an American."

"So does Ahmad," said Ari.

At the mention of the young man's name,
they cocked their ears, expecting at any moment for the yelling
next door to stop. When it did, Abu Jasim smiled in appreciation.
This quickly changed to alarm when screams of terror and breaking
glass erupted. He jumped up from his chair and rushed to the door.
He changed direction when they heard thumping noises out back.
Rushing over to the rear window, he lifted the thin
curtain.

"What's so funny?" Ari demanded when
Abu Jasim began to laugh.

"The pigs broke through the window," he
said. "Two men and a woman, hauling ass. The men are much faster
than the woman. I guess they don't feel so much like fighting over
her, now."

Ahmad came back in, sweating and
breathing hard.

"Warmed up outside, has it?" Abu Jasim
said.

Ahmad rested the gigantic pistol on the
bed before retreating into the bathroom.

"That's right, take a dump," Abu Jasim
quipped, reseating himself next to Ari. "Looks like the boy
swallowed a laxative."

"You got the license I wanted?" Ari
asked.

"And thanks for asking me
to risk my life in one of the most peaceful countries in the
world." Abu Jasim leaned back, glowering at Ari. "Those folks can
be as tough as the
Mukhabarat
, and I’m not talking
about the Mounties. Good thing I have a cousin working at
Société
de
…
de
…
de
…"

"
Société de l'assurance automobile du
Québec
," said Ari, more or less
patiently.

"She was able to track down your
plate," Abu Jasim nodded.

"Front and back?" Ari asked.

"You only need one in Quebec, not like
Virginia."

"You stole it yourself?"

"Mahmoud got it while I played lookout.
It wasn't all that hard. The guy lives in Westmount Park, the fat
English district. Parked right on the street. I had my boy replace
it with another plate, so the guy won't notice too
quick."

"Another stolen plate?"

"From somebody less dangerous...I
hope." Abu Jasim fidgeted. "You really want me to put that on my
van?"

"Not yet."

"You'll owe me a new van," said Abu
Jasim slowly.

"I'll get you one."

"I want a Sprinter from Mercedes-Benz.
They're very expensive, upwards to $45,000, with features…and I
would want features."

"Will my share from the Kayak Express
cover it?"

Abu Jasim instantly became cagey, as he
always did whenever the topic of money came up. Ari had no doubt
the Saddam Hussein look-alike had shortchanged him. But how could
he pinch pennies with the man who had just saved his
life?

"Easily," Abu Jasim answered, "with
plenty left over. But if the police ever get hold of my old van
they'll find the storage space behind the panels. There's going to
be traces of that filthy cocaine you made me sell."

"Perfect," said Ari as Ahmad emerged
from the bathroom, still looking sick. He plopped himself down on a
tattered sofa and turned away from the two men. Abu Jasim looked at
him, then turned and leaned towards Ari.

"I don't know what you have in mind,
but if this guy is really big, like you say..."

"He is."

"You'll get us all killed!"

Hearing this, Ahmad twisted around and
watched them.

"Do you have any fake ID's?" Ari
asked.

"I might have something in the van."
Abu Jasim stepped out of the room and returned a moment later with
an inch-thick collection of plastic-encased cards. Sitting down
next to Ari, he propped his feet on the bed frame and began
flipping through them. "You want Canadian, American,
Mexican…"

"American."

"All right...Harun al-Rashid,
Pittsburgh; Ronnie Khalil, Miami; Umm Kulthum, Indianapolis;
Frederic Fekkai, Houston; Alaa Abdelnaby, Boston; D.J. Khaled,
Bismark; Ralph Nader, Los Ang—"

"Where did you get those ID’s?" Ari
demanded, his bruises glowing like sunspots.

"There's a guy out west that churns
them out left and right."

"Where out west?" said Ari.

"Maybe more
north…northwest."

"Where northwest?"

"Maybe in Detroit."

"The Chaldean Mafia." Ari lifted his
sore hand to his sore head. "What are you doing messing around with
those people?"

"I don’t mess around with them, I’m
just a customer. I buy from Walmart without owning any Walmart
stock, right?"

"We’ll have to discuss this later." Ari
nodded at the phony licenses. "Are they any good?"

"Sure. I've even got matching credit
cards on most of them."

"Well, pick the one you want, because
you'll be buying your new van under that name."

Abu Jasim's face went wistful.
"Really?"

"But you can't use your home address or
any other place in Canada. And don't buy from an Arab dealership.
And if you see a face with a complexion like this—" Ari touched his
own face, which in its current condition looked like that of a
defeated boxer's. "First off, they'll look at you cockeyed. You may
be used to that up north, but down here it would draw too much
notice. You got both of us in enough hot water going to that gas
station in Cumberland the night we shot that that cop."

Ahmad moaned.

"There wasn't anything wrong with that
gas station. It was…uh…congenial."

"You mean it was run by an Arab. If I
hadn't been sleeping, I would have told you to skip it." Ari smiled
at Ahmad. "We'll talk more about it later."

Abu Jasim gave the colonel a long look,
then shrugged. "So what if I register my new van at his father's
address?" he suggested, flicking a glance at Ahmad. The young man
met his eyes. He was being subverted in a dozen ways. When he
arrived that morning, Abu Jasim had immediately driven him out to
the water treatment plant near the Manchester Docks. It was there,
at the edge of a large, disused concrete apron, that he had stashed
the assassin's GT.

Ahmad had voiced his concern that the
scenario was all askew. "Is this car stolen?" he asked. "How did
you end up with the keys?"

"No normal kid would ask such a
question." Abu Jasim handed him the keys and told him to follow his
Astrovan. Ahmad drew back—a little too delicately, Abu Jasim
thought. "What's the matter?"

"I'll leave fingerprints. And hair
follicles."

"It's the way of the world," Abu Jasim
reasoned. "Besides, I'll shave your head and cut off those precious
fingers of yours if you don't get in and drive."

"You wouldn't."

"I guaranteed your head, not your
hands. Or that precious haircut. What kind of haircut is that,
anyway? What's that purple stuff? Did you cut yourself?"

Rather than discuss his coif, Ahmad
reluctantly did as he was told, following Abu Jasim's van to a
parking spot a short distance from the motel bungalow.

Now Abu Jasim was asking Ari if he
should register his prospective Sprinter in Chicago. It sounded
outlandish, sinister and not a little illegal.

"You don't want your brother dead, do
you?" said Ari.

"Uh, no."

"Or your brother’s wife?"

"I guess not."

"And I don't think you
want even
him
dead." Ari cocked a damaged eyebrow at Ahmad.

"I appreciate that," said Ahmad sourly.
"But I’m still missing the game. I might as well be
dead."

"I'll figure out something else," Abu
Jasim said. The idea of getting a new Sprinter had momentarily
displaced danger from his mind.

"All right, then, show some sense. Take
my share of the money and go get your new van. But first, go back
to the drug store and buy me something better than this crappy
aspirin. And buy some good gloves, too. And three ski
masks."

When they were gone, Ari took one of
the new phones Ahmad had activated out of its bag and made a local
call.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Ari had been in this area before, first
as a prisoner of Louis Carrington, then as his killer. Judging from
the GPS, they were only three miles from the spot where the police
detective had been lured into a trap, the murder arranged to look
like a suicide. It had been unavoidable. Carrington had gone from
being a nuisance to Ari to a threat to Rana, for whom Ari would do
anything to protect.

This was a landscape Ari had seen only
as a narrow, headlight-pierced tunnel in the dark. In daylight,
Route 60 (once one left Richmond behind) was a rolling, often
scenic road that carried traffic from the coast to the mountains.
Ari felt vaguely oppressed by the countryside, lush, even in the
dead of winter, when compared to so much of Iraq. Whenever he saw
verdant land, he felt his people had been cheated. What had
happened to the Fertile Crescent? Could it really have disappeared
so completely? No, it couldn’t. It was still there, more or less.
But even in its heyday, when it was the cradle of civilization, it
couldn’t match the Virginia Piedmont. Truly, God had spat on the
Iraqis right from the beginning.

They lost the GPS map to Cumberland
when Abu Jasim switched off the GT’s engine. Ari remembered the
address, but this was too wet-tech for Ahmad’s taste. Wearing an
insufferable smirk, he plugged the TomTom into the van’s cigarette
lighter and tapped ‘Go Home’. And there it was, the house number on
Sugar Loaf Road.

While Ahmad followed them in the old
van, Abu Jasim gloried in his new Mercedes Sprinter and vocally
itemized the luxury accessories even though they were plainly under
Ari’s nose. Ari stopped him when he began boasting about the
folding table.

"Are you planning to serve tea and
crumpets to the garden club in here?"

"I might," Abu Jasim answered, allowing
the sarcasm to whiffle harmlessly past him.

Ari suppressed further commentary.
Reclining on the cushioned bench was infinitely preferable to
propping himself up in the passenger seat. The driver seat was out
of the question. Ari would have been unfit to sit behind the wheel
even if Abu Jasim had allowed it.

On the outskirts of Cumberland, Ari
spotted a closed heavy equipment dealer and told Abu Jasim to pull
into the lot. Ahmad followed them to a line of yellow backhoes
parked out back. He switched off the van’s engine and hopped into
the Sprinter’s passenger seat.

"Why are we going through all this
rigmarole?" he asked as his uncle drove out of the parking lot back
onto Route 60.

"By ‘rigmarole’ I guess you mean
‘nonsense’?" Ari inquired.

"Well, yeah."

"The Colonel has a twisted way of doing
things," Abu Jasim told his nephew. "I’ve learned not to ask. He’ll
let us know when he wants us to know."

"
Turn right
," the TomTom
intoned.

"Should I turn, or do you want to go
straight to Joe's?"

"Turn." Ari pushed himself up on his
elbow so he could see past Abu Jasim and Ahmad. "Reconnaissance
comes first."

"A lot of woods around here," Ahmad
squirmed uneasily as they progressed down Bear Creek Lake
Road.

"And we intend to explore it," Ari
responded. "You're very lucky it's winter. Otherwise, you would be
eaten alive by insects and wolves."

"Ha!" Abu Jasim chimed in. "Don't upset
the city boy, Colonel. He doesn't know a tiger from a pussycat." He
reached across to give Ahmad a friendly cuff, but it sounded more
like a slap. "What is it you like about America so much, Ahmad?
Those juicy Chicago hot dogs I hear about? Is it the girls? Is it
that team you like so much, the Illinois Maggots?"