Unmanned (9780385351263) (13 page)

“That’s what he said.”

The woman upstairs was still making noise, speaking into her phone now. Her enforcers might be only minutes from arrival. Steve and Cole shoved through the door and ran toward the Honda.

Pickard was less than a mile away, and even drearier than Gough. It ended at Fayette, which made hunting for Mansur’s house easier. It was immediately apparent what he must have meant by “the tall house.” Just down the block was a three-story row house that towered over its two-story neighbors.

Steve parked at a metered spot on Fayette that offered a view of the front door around the corner. It was almost ten. He got on his cell phone. Cole heard Barb pick up.

“We’re outside what we think is Mansur’s new address. We’ve already raised alarms at two other locations, so we’ll probably sit tight awhile.” He looked questioningly at Cole, who nodded in approval. “Anyhow, this could take some time, so don’t wait up for us.”

“We’ll leave a light on,” Barb said. “Call if you need reinforcements. Where are you, exactly?”

“Pickard Street, at East Fayette.”

“Quaint digs in a salubrious location. If you’re not back by sundown I’ll alert the desk sergeant for the Eastern district. Don’t step on any needles.”

They decided to stake out the house until midnight. If no one came or went by then, they’d return in the morning. They were both a little puzzled by the tenant’s description of Mansur. Cole had expected to find a rough-and-ready tribal type, not easily intimidated. He instead sounded like an object of pity. Bickell had implied Mansur wasn’t exactly a bright light. So had this guy. Maybe here he was at an even greater disadvantage. But hadn’t he brought his family with him? That’s certainly what Bickell had implied.

Steve and Cole had little to keep them busy, and almost no one was out on the sidewalks in the bitter cold. By ten thirty they were stamping their feet to stay warm and wishing they had coffee.

“You do a lot of this kind of stuff?” Cole asked.

“Stakeouts? Almost never. Last time was years ago, down in Arnold, waiting to see if a governor would show up at his mistress’s apartment. Which, come to think of it, was also the last time I went through anybody’s garbage.”

“Find anything?”

“The gov was a no-show. But there were some pretty good credit card receipts. That was the story that was supposed to get me a foreign bureau. Barb got it instead.”

“Hard feelings?”

He shook his head.

“I was slated for the next opening. Then they closed all the bureaus, hers included. All those jobs are gone now. Newspapers. Equal opportunity unemployers.”

“So that would’ve been you instead of her with those two kids, getting brains all over your shoes?”

“Yeah, there’s that, too. Barb doesn’t always sleep so well.”

“Firsthand knowledge?”

Steve smiled and shook his head.

“Our lives are already too complicated. But you’ve seen the house. Not much happens that the other two don’t know about. Barb can get pretty restless late at night, moving around in the dark. Her and the cat. So what about you? No stakeouts in your Infowar training?”

“Not much call for that in a fighter wing.”

“I never did ask what your fake name was. The one on your ID?”

“Oh.” He smiled. “Floyd Rayford.”

“Wasn’t he—?”

“Orioles third baseman, back in the eighties. Four errors in one game, but I liked him. Sugar Bear. Had some pop in his bat.”

“The Wally Pipp of the Orioles. Ripken replaced him at third in game two of a doubleheader. That’s when the Ironman streak started.”

“You’re shittin’ me. How did I not know that?”

“How’d I not know you’re an O’s fan?”

“Listened to ’em on the radio when I was a kid. Virginia Eastern Shore is O’s country. Or used to be. So when I was thinking up a name I figured why not?”

“Hey, what’s this?”

A black SUV was pulling up in front of the house, brake lights shining. It was shortly after eleven. Two men in dark warm-ups hopped out from either side and scanned the block in both directions while Cole and Steve slid down in their seats. The man on the right opened a rear passenger door and hauled out a much shorter fellow in light clothing. Cole was reminded of Bickell’s description of Mansur as a “little shit Pashtun.”

“Think it’s him?” he asked.

“If so, not exactly a happy homecoming.”

The two big fellows escorted the smaller one toward the house. If this was an FBI operation, activated by the alarms they’d tripped, Cole doubted they’d be delivering Mansur back so soon, if at all. These men were acting more like jailers than protectors, with hands clamped on either arm. Hardly the sort of arrangement you’d have expected Mansur to cook up for himself.

“He must have
some
freedom of movement if he’s got his own apartment,” Steve said. “I mean, if he’s hanging out at some bodega when that other guy saw him. Maybe they just keep him on a short leash.”

“Well, they’re yanking it tight now.”

The three men disappeared into the house while the SUV idled out front. Ten minutes later the big guys returned, doors slamming. The SUV made a U-turn back toward Fayette, Steve and Cole sinking below the dashboard as the headlights swept the Honda. They popped up just in time to see it flash past them toward downtown. A GMC Yukon Denali, Maryland tags. Steve wrote down the numbers and phoned Barb.

“Got a tag for you to run with your guy at DMV.” He read her the number. “We may be a while longer, but I’m shutting down the phone for now. We’re gonna do some poking around.”

“Be careful.”

“You bet.” He switched off the phone and turned to Cole. “Let’s go see Mansur. Only this time, not through the front door.”

They walked up the alley behind Pickard toward the back of the house, where a fire escape stairway was bolted to the bricks. To foil burglars, the iron ladder hanging from the bottom was folded up just
out of reach, held in place by a counterweight on a steel cable. Steve and Cole jumped for the lower rung but came up short. Steve got an aluminum garbage can from next door and rolled it into position beneath the ladder. He climbed shakily atop it and steadied for a leap. A dog began barking from a fenced lot across the alley. If Steve missed, the racket would be even worse. Cole readied himself to act as spotter.

Steve’s first try was awkward, and if not for Cole he would have landed in a heap. The barking dog was in a frenzy now.

“Christ, what am I thinking,” Steve said. “You’re the fucking pole vaulter, right?”

“In high school, but yeah.”

They traded places. Cole crouched carefully and pushed off, achieving just enough lift to grab the lowest rung with both hands. It was rough with rust, and for a moment he dangled like a trapeze artist while the can rattled back into place. The dog was still going nuts, and a light flashed on in one of the opposite windows just as the ladder began easing lower from the weight of his body. As soon as his feet touched the ground he started climbing. Steve followed him up, and they quickly reached the latticed platform outside the second-floor windows.

No lights were on. They paused to wait for the dog to quiet down, which took another five minutes. By then the light had gone back out in the window of the house across the alley. There were no curtains in either second-floor window of Mansur’s house, and both were dark. A streetlamp at the end of the alley offered just enough light for them to see that the rooms were empty and unfurnished. They crept slowly up to the top floor, where a window spilled light between the crumpled slats of an aluminum blind. They heard a voice from inside, a woman speaking Spanish. Cole moved close enough to peek through a slit and saw her facing into a dingy room from an open doorway. Like Consuelo Reyes, she, too, was shouting angrily, gesturing emphatically with her right hand. Crouching lower, Cole now saw that she was speaking to a man seated on a narrow bed against the far wall. He was short and sallow, with a scanty beard and the weathered, old-before-his-time look of a tribal Pashtun, although instead of a billowy
shalwar kameez
he wore baggy jeans and a white T-shirt. It had to be Mansur.
He looked cowed, submissive, and when he opened his mouth, his voice was so meek and muffled that Cole couldn’t even make out what language he was speaking.

The woman left, shutting the door behind her. A lock snapped with a click. Mansur rose to turn out the light. His footsteps approached the darkened window, so Cole shrank out of sight, bumping into Steve, who steadied them on the landing. Then, in a stroke of luck, Mansur shoved aside the blinds and unlocked the window. The lower sash groaned as it rose an inch or two. He slid a shoe into the opening to keep the window from shutting, its scuffed leather toe poking into the frigid night. The old blinds settled back into place with a noise like a Slinky, and they heard Mansur’s receding footsteps. There was a creak of bedsprings, then silence.

Steve checked his watch: 11:24. They whispered in consultation, and decided to wait another twenty minutes to give Mansur time to fall asleep. They settled their rumps onto the cold steel slats, hoping no one was looking out from the back of any houses across the alley. Even in the darkness they probably showed up like a pair of giant spiders.

When the twenty minutes were up, Cole stood quietly and tugged at the sash. It was stiff and swollen from years of repainting, so he pulled harder, knees bent. When the window finally came free it shrieked loudly.

They paused to listen for any signs they’d awakened Mansur. His breathing was slow, regular, so Cole pulled aside the blinds and slid feetfirst into the room while holding back the blinds for Steve, who also dropped quietly to the floor. No wonder Mansur had opened it. An old steam radiator hissed in a corner, and the heat was stifling.

As Cole lowered the blinds back into place they came free from their wobbly brackets and clattered loudly to the floor. Mansur sat up in alarm as Steve crossed the room in two big steps to clamp a hand on the small man’s mouth just as he was about to shout. Mansur thrashed and squirmed as Cole grabbed him from the other side. The little man felt brittle, his bones like sticks you could snap with your hands, and his eyes were wild with fear. Cole whispered into his ear.

“We are here to help you, Mansur.” Then he took a gamble. “We are here about your family.”

Mansur relaxed only slightly, but Cole was heartened enough to ease his grip. When Mansur didn’t try to break free he took it as a sign of progress and nodded to Steve, who gently let go.

Cole whispered again. “I am going to take my hand off your mouth, but do not cry out. Do not call for anyone. Do you understand?”

Mansur nodded, his eyes still wide.

Cole let go. Mansur sagged in apparent relief. When he finally spoke, his voice was a soft rasp.

“Who are you?”

Third time today for that question.

“We’re friends. But for security reasons we can’t give you our names.”

Mansur nodded resignedly, as if he’d grown accustomed to that kind of dodge. Cole leaned closer and kept his voice low.

“Those men who brought you here tonight, in the black SUV, the black truck. Who are they?”

“The angry people.”

“Angry why?”

“Angry for Mansur, angry for me.”

“Angry
at
Mansur?”

He shook his head in apparent irritation, as if he’d been over this a thousand times. It reminded Cole of his son, Danny, the way he got frustrated when he couldn’t explain something.

“The angry people, who do they work for?”

“Not know,” he said, shaking his head again. “Bring here. I sleep home, then I bring here, the angry people. Now
all
places, the angry people.”

He looked at Steve as they tried to piece together Mansur’s fractured English.

“They came for you, in Afghanistan?” Steve asked.

“Yes. Sandar Khosh.”

The effect on Cole was electric.

“Sandar Khosh? That’s your home village?”

“No, no. Mandi Bahar. Mansur home.” He tapped his chest, placed a hand over his heart. “Mandi Bahar.”

The name stirred a memory, hazy and remote, another of those forlorn dots on the tactical map, one of hundreds. Surely he’d seen it.

“Sandar Khosh,” Mansur continued. “Very kilometers.”

“Very
many
kilometers?” Cole offered. “Far from Mandi Bahar, is that what you mean?”

“Yes. Far.”

“I know Sandar Khosh,” Cole said. “I’ve … been there.”

“Yes?” Mansur looked straight into Cole’s eyes, and for the first time he seemed pleased, almost hopeful. Cole wondered if Zach and he had ever seen Mansur during their recon of Sandar Khosh. Surely he must have been one of those robed men on the ground, moving like ghosts among their neighbors.

“In Sandar Khosh, did you drive a white truck?”

“Yes. No. He does, but …” His voice trailed off.

“Who does?”

“Truck gone. No truck.” Mansur shook his head, no longer smiling.

“Whose truck, Mansur?”

“Men’s truck.”

“The angry men?” Steve asked. “The ones who brought you here?”

“No!” He was irritated again. “First men.”

“From earlier?”

“Yes. From here.”

“Americans?”

“Yes.”

Had Cole’s missile strike killed Americans, then, along with the women and children? If so, then why had Castle wanted them killed? Or maybe that, too, had been a colossal mistake, a gross error of faulty intelligence. Unless they were talking about a different truck altogether. The way Mansur spoke English, he supposed that almost any interpretation might fit.

“The Americans,” Steve asked. “What were their names?”

“Not know.” Mansur shook his head again. “Not know. From Lancer.”

Lancer again, the handle Bickell had mentioned, that had popped up on Cole’s chat screen, whereabouts unknown. A name with no face, no affiliation.

“Lancer,” Cole said. “He’s American?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Working for who?”

“For who?”

“Who does Lancer work for?”

Mansur frowned and again shook his head, exasperated.

“Not know. Not know. He is
American
!”