The Godless One (43 page)

"Seeing him like that, there's not much
to him," said Abu Jasim, watching out for the law as he approached
the command post.

"He is only at the level where he
placed the rest of us," said Ari philosophically. "And probably
where we all belong. Where is my ice cream?"

Ahmad rummaged around for the bag and
pulled out a half-pint.

"Spoon?" Ari asked.

Ahmad scrounged around the bag and came
up with a white plastic spoon.

"Good."

"Too bad there's no time for you to
clean up," Abu Jasim said, looking in the rearview mirror. "You
look like a butcher."

He stopped just around the corner from
the community center.

"Farewell, my friends," he said to the
two up front. He gave Uday's head another rough nudge with his
foot. "And you…may God destroy your house."

"We've already had a good start," Abu
Jasim observed.

Ari shrugged his sore body outside and
watched as the van pulled away into the night, east on Route 60.
Slowly, he walked the half block to the command post. Apparently,
reinforcements had arrived. A guard who had not been there before
was standing on the front steps. He was not reassured by the U.S.
Marshal tag on his coat.

"It's brutal out there," Ari said,
nodding in the direction of Uday's country house.

"Yes, sir," said the guard. "I think
the only medic we have is out in the field. You need to bandage
those hands. And…everything else…"

"I will attend him at my leisure," said
Ari, and began walking inside. He paused. "I hope you are not a
Bears enthusiast."

"No, sir. My team's Washington. They
got blown out in the playoffs."

"Washington is very
unlucky?'

"They're better now than they were last
year," the guard reasoned.

Inside, there were more techs present,
attending to more consoles. There was no longer any gunfire in the
distance. Ari assumed they were there to help reorganize the
scattered teams after the evening's chaos. He wondered if they had
located the two men on the fire road. Ari knew he should have had
them dragged deeper into the woods, but then they might have frozen
to death before being discovered. Another poor judgment call based
on sentiment. Like not insisting that Ahmad give him the new
password to Uday's account. He hoped he didn't take after his
uncle.

He staggered up the hall and into the
classroom where the first prisoner had been held. Both he and the
ex-Marine were still there. When the guard tried to chase him away
with a frown, Ari lifted his arms. "Do not be dismayed. I swear
before God that I will rinse my mouth."

"Sir…" He regarded Ari's newly battered
hands.

"
Assalam alaikum
, Nazal," Ari said
amiably, tucking himself into the same chair he had used earlier,
the one that had caused controversy between Karen and himself. He
held up the ice cream. "I believe this is the reason you got
caught.
Mmmmm
…"

Unable to decide if this was torture or
teasing, the guard grinned.

Ari pried off the top of
the half-pint, resting the lid on the table. He posed his plastic
spoon over the container. "Pistachio…
mmmmm
…" Then he hesitated. "It's
decidedly green…" Cautiously, he lowered the spoon. The ice cream
had melted some and the scoop came easily. "
Mmmmm
…" Slowly, he inserted it into
his mouth. His eyes widened in horror and he spat out a dollop of
green mush. "Bah! Ah! What is this shit!"

He slammed the container
onto the table. "You risked being captured for
this
?
Mahabee
! You may have it, and may
you be poisoned!"

Both guard and prisoner stared at the
bloodstained container while Ari dragged himself to another table,
this one near the front of the room. He removed his coat and folded
it into a pillow, then crept up on top of the table and promptly
fell asleep.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Ari thought he had made himself
presentable, but this assurance was shot down as he walked past
Howie Nottoway's house. Hefting a bag of rock salt, Howie came
around the side of his house and hailed him.

"Holy moly, what happened to you?" he
asked, coming up.

"I was on a construction site and
slipped on an icy girder."

"Jesus, how far did you
fall?"

Ari spread his arms, wincing. "As you
see."

"That far, huh? I didn't think they
allowed construction workers up on those things in this kind of
weather."

"It would greatly amuse me to talk to
you, but right now I have business to attend to."

Howie grinned wickedly at the bouquet
of yellow roses Ari was holding. "Oh yeah…? Anyone I
know?"

There was no help for it. Howie would
undoubtedly see him walking up to Diane's door. "Your neighbor,
right over there."

"Becky Wareness? I heard she was going
through a nasty divorce."

Checking through his list of things
that were right and proper in this country, Ari decided not to go
into details. "Yellow roses are very hard to come by this time of
year. I wouldn't want them to go into shock."

"Uh…right. Don't let me delay you.
Becky, huh?" He looked as if he was going to give Ari a playful
punch, then pulled back. "Guess that would be against doctor's
orders."

Ari approached Diane's house with
trepidation. From Howie's reaction, it was obvious he was not as
fit to be seen as he had hoped. The snow was completely melted now
and there were no pawprints to be seen. He stepped up to the door
and pressed the ringer button.

"No, no, stay back," he heard a woman
say inside. A moment later, the door swung open.

Becky Wareness was a woman stricken by
grief. Sorrow had planted lines and shadows across her face. This
had made her susceptible to fear, and the moment she saw the
contused Ari on her stoup she drew back in alarm.

"Mr. Ciminon…"

"Mrs. Wareness…" He could not bring
himself to call her 'Becky'. They had not been
introduced.

"I think…" Diane's mother took another
step backwards.

"I assume Diane told you we had a sad
moment the other day." Ari held up the flowers. "She mentioned
yellow roses. I didn't think such a thing existed, but she has
proved me wrong. She told me of your kind offer
regarding…Marmaduke. I wanted to express my
reconsideration—"

"It's not proper," said Becky, taking
hold of herself. "I didn't think they did this kind of thing even
in Italy. A man bringing roses to a little girl!"

"I—"

"And what you said to her
was cruel and…just plain
weird
! I meant to talk to Howie
about you. We can't have someone so…I don't think it's right that
you're in the Neighborhood Watch. Someone should be watching
you
! I felt sorry for
you because you looked ill. And now…who beat you like
that?"

"I fell—"

"No, don't say another word. I don't
want you to see Diane again. I won't allow her down towards the
river. Do you hear me? If I see you with my daughter, I'll call the
police. Now leave!"

"I—"

She slammed the door shut.

Ari lowered his arms, the unaccepted
roses drooping close to the ground. Something curled hotly in his
throat. He hoped it was cancer. All those cigarettes.

Returning to the road, he noticed Howie
was nowhere in sight. He must have heard Becky Wareness shouting.
He was giving some privacy to the rejected suitor.

A blue Civic pulled up. Ari was
gratified to see two familiar faces through the windshield. When
Karen rolled down her window, he leaned towards her. "Deputies
Karen and Fred! I am so glad you survived the bad people! But what
is this?" Ari reached for a bandage on Karen's head.

"Hey, don't go poking. It still
hurts!"

"And Deputy Fred! What happened to your
arm?"

"It's nothing," Fred answered, shifting
the sling around his arm.

"At least you got shot," Karen fumed.
"I fell head over ass into a ditch."

"But otherwise things went
progressively well?"

"We got the bad people, yes. Three of
them DOA."

"That's an acronym," Fred cautioned
her. She ignored him.

"Three of them have been destroyed?"
Ari inquired.

"Your English is going to hell," Karen
shook her head. "We ended up killing three of them, including Sid
Overstreet. You should have seen him! Out there with an RPG! Blew
up one of our armored cars!"

"You suffered casualties?"

"No fatalities, thank God. But get in,
Ari. We need to take you somewhere."

"I'd rather not," said Ari, looking
back at Diane's house. "I'm having a senior moment."

"Listen…Ari…"

"Yes?"

"We have to take you somewhere. Only
for an hour or so. We'll bring you back so you can continue your
dementia. Please, it's important."

Ari shrugged and opened the back
door.

"Who are the flowers for?"

"Why, you, of course."

"Well, leave them on the back seat,"
Karen said as she drove down to the end of Beach Court Lane and
turned around. "I love them."

"Wow," said Fred, admiring the bouquet.
"You know, I can plant some of those in your garden next
Spring."

"Will I still be here?"

"No one knows."

Ari scowled at the flowers on the seat
next to him. "I'm not sure they're acceptable." He raised his head
as Karen turned onto Forest Hill Avenue. "Do you have a cultural
icon named Frank Drebin?"

Karen and Fred burst out
laughing.

"What part of left field have you been
living in?" Fred asked.

"I ran into a chap who had great
admiration for this Drebin fellow. He desired to emulate
him."

"Don't tell him," Karen told Fred,
laughing. "I want him to live with this the rest of his
life."

"That isn't charitable," Ari fretted. A
moment later, he continued, "Then will you at least tell me where
I'm being taken?"

"Soon enough, but first…"

"Right," Karen continued. "We want to
know how it is that someone who looks a whole lot like Uday Hussein
ended up being chained to the gate at the Iraqi Embassy in
Washington this morning. And yes, we thought your icky fingers
might be involved. But you were in Cumberland last night, not fit
to drive. And it's obvious that you're still not fit."

"One of your FBI competitors was kind
enough to bring me home, when it became apparent I was not awake
enough to translate for those dreadful roughnecks. He even stopped
at the flower shop for me so I could purchase these…"

"They were open that late?"

"They had just closed. He showed them
his badge."

"Ari, you could talk a canary into a
lion den."

"If only that were true. But what is it
about this man at the Embassy?"

"A place like that, you know it's got
security up the whazoo," Fred answered. "The cameras recorded a guy
in a van driving up to the gate—a rental, by the way, under a phony
name. He jumps out, wearing a Chicago Bears ski mask, and rolls out
a wheelchair with this Uday-looker chained to it. He slaps another
chain around the gate, locks it, and is gone before the guards
could get to the fence. I guess they were looking for a more
sophisticated kind of attack, if that's what you can call this. The
police reviewed tapes from a nearby traffic camera. There was a man
sitting in his car next to the van at a stoplight. The cops got his
plate number and interviewed him. He said yeah, he looked over at
the driver of the van because he was taking off a Bears ski mask.
The other guy rolled down his window and yelled something about
bringing Walter Payton back from the grave. The van driver just
laughed hysterically. He was Caucasian—no, that wasn't why he was
laughing. I wouldn't think so, at least. They're going to take the
witness in to try for a facial composite, but good luck on
that."

Yes, good luck,
Ben
, Ari thought. By the time Ben dropped
off Uday, Abu Jasim and Ahmad were halfway to Chicago. He had been
more than willing to do them this favor. If Ari or Abu Jasim had
been caught in front of the Embassy and their identities revealed,
hard-core Ba'athists back in Iraq would go after their third and
fourth cousins removed. Ben understood the risk involved, though
Ari did not know if he had spoken to his wife about it.

"And what has happened to this
Uday-man?" Ari asked.

"Oh, the innocent voice I know so
well." Karen gave him a jaundiced look in the rearview mirror.
"He's inside the Embassy. For some reason, the Iraqis don't want to
cough him up." She shrugged. "To be continued…maybe."