THE GUARDIAN (Taskforce Series) (27 page)

“I’ll think about it,” Ike replied, jotting himself a note. “That’s not all,” he continued, his rough voice raising the hairs on
Jackson
’s forearms. He should have guessed something else was going on, here, besides a royal ass-chewing.

“At zero five hundred hours today, Greenwich time, the Algerian rebels who received funds from Gateway last year rammed a boat packed with explosives into a luxury cruise liner, causing it to catch fire and to sink. There were dozens of casualties including six American tourists.”

Jackson
felt suddenly sick to his stomach.

“Whether that stunt could have been pulled off without Gateway’s financial backing is a moot point. Attorney General Wilkes wants to prosecute the leaders, only he knows he won’t win his case without substantive evidence. It’s our job to find a link between Gateway and terror.”

Toby scrubbed his face with his hands. “I hate fucking politics,” he muttered under his breath.

“Maddox, this is the halfway mark in the program,” Ike reminded him. “I need you to pull out all the stops and goddamn find what we’re looking for.”

“Understood,”
Jackson
answered.

“Identify that music, and I’ll have our analysts study it for hidden meaning.” Ike jabbed a key with a long finger, and the screen went black
.

Jackson
slowly exhaled.

“He busted my balls last night,” Toby offered consolingly
.
 

“The man’s under a lot of pressure,”
Jackson
said in Ike’s defense. Though, come to think of it, he had seen the Taskforce lead under unprecedented pressure before, and Ike had never once lost his cool. Could pressure from the AG really be stressing him out, or was something else going on, maybe in his private life?

“Let’s find the music,” Toby suggested.

“Right.” Sitting forward,
Jackson
went to YouTube to hunt down the two songs he’d heard snatches of the previous night. “This was the first one.” He turned up the volume as Wu Tang spewed,
Wu Tang Clan Ain't Nuttin Ta Fuck Wit!
Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nuttin Ta Fuck Wit!

Jackson
glanced at Toby, who flipped him the bird.

There's no place to hide once I step inside the room.
Dr. Doom, prepare for the boom
.
BAM! Aw, MAN! I SLAM JAM, that's freedom like Tarzan.

They listened to the rest of the song filled with similar messages of frustration and revenge
.
Sending the link to Ike,
Jackson
hunted down the song by Public Enemy. He found it by the lyrics he remembered.

Can I live my life without 'em treatin' every brother like me, like we're holdin' a knife? Alright, time to smack Uncle Sam. Don't give a damn, look at the flag. My bloods a flood--

Jackson
glanced at Toby, who rolled his eyes at what clearly sounded to him like gibberish
.

War at thirty three and a third, not really live! I’d rather do it at forty five! Went west in the quest for my intelligence.

He added the link to the music in his email, suggesting a code prescribed by the Supreme Alphabet and Supreme Mathematics, and fired it off to Ike. The allusion to bombs, bloodshed, and anti-government sentiment was obvious enough, but he had a feeling the message went deeper. Had Zakariya been disseminating information to Five Percenters everywhere?
He doubted he was just playing random snippets of hip hop for his own kicks.

Toby pushed to his feet. “Why would a guy his age even listen to that shit?”  

“Because the rhythm is catchy?”
Jackson
suggested.

“I wouldn’t know,” Toby said on his way out of the room. “I’m a white Devil, and I have no rhythm.” 

It was meant to be a joke, but
Jackson
wasn’t in a humorous frame of mind. Sitting back, he heard the refrigerator open and close; heard the familiar hiss of a twist-off cap as Toby ventured out onto the balcony
.

Sending off his email,
Jackson
logged out of his computer and left the office.
He found Toby lounging on the sun-baked balcony nursing a beer. Beyond him, at the bottom of the long run of stairs, Naomi and Silvia stood in water to their ankles.

“Hi, Dad!” His daughter caught sight of him and waved. Her bright hair lifted in the warm breeze. “Come on down.”

“In a minute,” he promised.

Drawing a deep breath of air, he tried to shake off his growing sense of foreboding. The air smelled of brackish water and sunscreen. He imagined it might have smelled similarly aboard the cruise ship that was attacked by rebels that dawn.

No one vacationing on that cruise ship would have expected the attack. It made
Jackson
wonder if equally unforeseen violence was about to break loose on
U.S.
soil.

**

Not a soul had entered Artie’s in the past hour. Gateway stood deserted. Out in the darkening parking lot, Deputy Doug Hazelwood had fallen asleep in his cruiser, his head lolling against his head rest, one arm flopped outside his open window. Sweeping the linoleum floors with an electric Swiffer,
Lena
sought to pass the time while contemplating Peter’s intent to accuse the government of infringing on civilians’ rights by spying on them
.

Rounding the end of an aisle, she was startled to find herself staring at a pair of scuffed boots. Snatching her head up, she recognized the man standing silently in front of her. “Seth!” Her heart pounded at the false alarm. “I didn’t hear you come in.” Turning off the appliance, she hurried behind the counter to get him a scratch-off ticket
.

It wasn’t until she stood directly opposite the Amish man that she caught a whiff of whisky on his breath. He clutched his straw hat to his stomach as he held the edge of the countertop, using it to keep his balance. Astonished and fairly positive that Amish folk were forbidden to touch liquor, Lena went through the motions of ringing him up while wondering if there were any Amish rules Seth didn’t break
.

“Having a rough day?” she worked up the courage to ask.

When he raised bloodshot eyes at her,
Lena
realized he’d never looked directly at her before. She was startled to discover his eyes were a vivid green. With his beard wildly disheveled, he looked a little like a madman. She instantly regretted her impulse to reach out to him but then, surprisingly, he answered her.

“Yeah,” he admitted on a gruff note. “You?”

Because he asked, she told the truth. What the heck. “Yeah, me, too.” If it weren’t bad enough that Peter’s anti-government campaign was going to put
Jackson
in danger, all hope for reconciliation between them was doomed, which sucked. Every moment she had ever spent with him had been fraught with exhilaration, something that had never happened to her before, not with any man. What if he was meant for her and she’d blown her one and only chance at finding the love of her life?

Seth grunted. He opened his mouth as if to say something, changed his mind and handed her his payment, instead
.

Sensing he was on the verge of actually confessing something and that he could benefit from unburdening himself,
Lena
gave him a nudge. “So I noticed your tattoo the other day,” she said before he could get away. “Is it a girl’s name?”

He looked down at his right arm. Today the tattoo was hidden under the sleeve of his homespun shirt. “Yeah.” 

“Old flame?” she asked.

He seemed confused by that remark, but then his brow cleared. “Oh, no. I didn’t...love her,” he admitted. “I just—” With a far-away look in his eyes, he cut himself off.

His Lotto ticket was paid for, but he still didn’t leave.
Lena
felt sorry for him. He had to be lonely, cut off from the other Amish folk. “You don’t really fit in here, do you, hon?” she asked, curious to know more about him.

He loosed a humorless laugh. “You noticed?”   

“I don’t know of any Amish who play the lottery.” She didn’t know any other Amish, period, but that was beside the point.

He smoothed his wild, wiry whiskers, his eyes downcast
.

“So, what happened?” she asked, betraying the journalist in her. “Did you do something that branded you an outcast?”

He glanced up, and his glassy eyes filled with tears that darkened them to a lovely emerald green. She suffered a sudden sense of déjà vu. Hadn’t she seen that effect before, on someone else with green eyes?

“’S not what I did.” Seth’s words slurred together. “’S what I didn’t do.” Pocketing his scratch-off ticket, he swiveled on his heels and staggered out the door
.

Struck by his remorse,
Lena
watched him stumble off the sidewalk, waking Deputy Doug with his muttered curse. His words reverberated in her mind: 
’S what I didn’t do.

She thought immediately of
Jackson
and of what might happen to him if she didn’t warn him of Peter’s intent. So what if
Jackson
blamed her for tipping off Peter in the first place? Not warning him would be an act of cowardice. The last thing she wanted was to be like Seth and regret all her life that she hadn’t acted when she should have.

Her heart began to pound as the thought took hold. How should she get a hold of
Jackson
? She didn’t have a number.
Should I call the FBI?

Then suddenly she knew. She could find the house Peter had photographed this morning. First thing in the morning, she’d locate it and confess everything
.

A feeling of calm resolve filled her as she made up her mind.
Jackson
might possibly never forgive her. On the other hand, her warning had to count for something. If there was even a slim possibility that he’d offer her a second chance, she was willing to take it.

Chapter Fourteen

Jackson
glanced over at his daughter, who eyed him sleepily from the kitchen table. “You sure you don’t want blueberries in your pancakes?”

With Silvia away that weekend, he was the one cooking their breakfast and attempting to whip himself into a more cheerful mindset. But between the tragedy off the coast of
Algeria
and the aborted search of Ibrahim’s office, everything in his life seemed to be going to shit. And that included his relationship with a sherry-eyed beauty who’d opted to stick to her own path of justice rather than rely on another individual. And in so doing, she had denied them the possibility of a future together, one that had seemed so fraught with possibility.

What more could he have promised her that he hadn’t already? He’d gone over it in his mind a thousand times. Obviously she wasn’t as drawn to him as he was to her or she’d have taken him up on his offer. For days now, he’d felt drained, incomplete. His zest for life—so recently rediscovered—was crushed
.

“Gross,” Naomi said in answer to his question. “Blueberries are mushy and they turn your pancakes purple. Why can’t we have chocolate chips?”

“Because blueberries are better for you.” He winced at his own surly tone
.