The Fanatics of Al Asad Read online

  Martinson snapped an order. "Leary, get that ID!"

  One of the patrolmen moved around behind me. One hand lifted the flap of my jacket to extract the card case from my hip pocket. All the while, the barrel of his .38 Police Special was pressed roughly into my back. I ignored the spasm of pain as the muzzle of his gun raked across the wound. I hoped Leary wasn't new on the Force. I didn't want a bullet in my back by a nervous, itchy-fingered cop. Even by mistake.

  Leary moved away from me, the gun in his hand no longer quite so threatening. Handing the ID case to Captain Martinson, Leary stepped to one side, never once having once taken his pistol off me for a second.

  Martinson flipped open the leather wallet to look at the laminated ID. He stepped close to me to hold the picture up beside my cheek. Carefully, he compared my face to the photo on the ID card.

  Finally, he nodded. He held out the ID case to me. I took it with my free hand. The terrorist was still draped over my shoulder. I shoved the case into my pocket.

  "Okay," said Martinson. "The word's come down about you. I've been told to give you my full cooperation if I ever ran into you. How can I help?"

  "Take your men out of here, but leave an unmarked police car behind. I'll need it."

  Martinson studied me for a second. He reached out. Grabbing the unconscious terrorist by the hair, he turned his head so that he could look at the man's face. He satisfied himself that the man was not the new President of the United States.

  The captain let go his grip and the terrorist's head fell limply.

  "You're not going to bring him in?"

  Captain Martinson was quick. He'd sized up the situation in -a single instant.

  "Maybe," I said.

  "Maybe?"

  "If he's still alive."

  I waited for Martinson's reaction. He didn't show any. He just nodded his head. Casually, he took out a handkerchief. Wiping his hand slowly, he said, "There's blood on that wallet. If it's yours, I can get a doctor to you in less than five minutes."

  "Later," I said curtly. I didn't want Martinson to know where I was going with the Al Asad fanatic.

  Martinson's answer was to spin away, shouting orders to the cops covering the street. One by one, squad car doors slammed, cars turned and left. In less than a minute, the street was empty except for Tamar, myself, the Palestinian terrorist slung unconscious over my shoulder and one empty Plymouth sedan with its engine running.

  * * *

  Friday. 3:27 a.m. East 56th Street. Manhattan.

  I threw the limp, unconscious figure of the Al Asad terrorist into the back of the sedan. Tamar and I climbed into the front. We turned out of 56th Street onto Second Avenue, heading toward the Queens Midtown Tunnel. Tamar kept looking out the back window to see if we were being followed by Martinson's men.

  "They won't tail us," I told her. "Captain Martinson's smart enough to know when something's too big for him to fool around with."

  Tamar turned back.

  "Where are you going?"

  I spotted what I was looking for. I pulled the sedan over to the side of the street, next to a public pay phone.

  "Keep an eye on him," I told her as I stepped out of the car. "I don't trust these bastards an inch. He may be faking it."

  Tamar nodded, turning to face the unconscious Arab, the automatic pistol in her hand pointing steadily at his head.

  The telephone had one of the new, all-metal, stainless steel push button mechanisms. I punched the number with my forefinger and waited while it rang twelve times. The voice that answered finally was filled with sleep — and irate. It spewed out a torrent of abuse.

  "Knock it off, Sal," I interrupted. "I need you."

  Big Sal fell silent. He knew when to talk and when to listen. This was one of the times to listen. I spelled out what I wanted from him.

  There was a minute of quiet on his part, then he said, with surprise in his voice, "You really want a man like that, Carter?"

  "I wouldn't ask for him if I didn't. Don't tell me you can't produce him. I know better."

  I could almost hear the sigh of resignation as he gave in. He said gruffly, "All right, he's yours. Take down this address. From where you're calling me, it's maybe a forty-minute drive. Just watch the streets at the end. You could get yourself lost if you ain't careful."

  I wrote down the directions and repeated them out loud.

  "You got it," Big Sal said. "The guy you want will be waiting there for you. He'll do the job. Just do me one favor, okay?"

  "What's that?"

  "Don't ask him his name. When he's through, let him go and, for God's sake, don't try to follow him! He's funny that way. He don't like for no one to know too much about him."

  "You pampering your button men these days, Sal?"

  "Button man! Christ, he's no button man, Carter. He's crazy, that's what he is! And he's good at what he does. He's the best. You can't find guys like him no more! That's why nobody hassles me. They gimme any trouble, they know I'm gonna turn him loose on them!"

  "All right, Sal," I promised. "I won't say a word to him."

  I hung up and went back to the car.

  Big Sal hit it on the nose. It was exactly thirty-seven minutes later when we pulled up behind a big, ramshackle warehouse. Three tractor-trailers were parked randomly near the loading docks. Near one end of the building, there was a doorway cut into a huge, overhead steel shutter.

  I parked next to the nearest of the trucks and heaved the Arab onto my shoulder again. Tamar led the way, her pistol still in her hand. Six steps led up to the loading dock platform. The door was open. We went in.

  Inside the warehouse, there were only a few electric drop-lights shedding a filtered, yellow light that barely dispelled the gloom. Most of the interior was in darkness. Without warning, a shadowy figure stepped out in front of us. I came to a halt.

  He was skinny. I doubt if he was more than five-feet-four in height. His face was so pitted with old acne scars that it looked like he'd been savaged with baseball cleats by a madman.

  He gestured at us to follow him, and, without waiting to see if we would, he turned and walked back into the depths of the warehouse. Along each side of the long aisles, running the length of the warehouse, crates were stacked to the height of a two story building. The Arab's weight grew heavier on my shoulder. The wound along the length of my back began to throb in painful waves. My overstrained arm and shoulder muscles started to cramp up.

  The room we finally came to was tucked away in the inner recesses of the warehouse, the aisles forming a maze that made it impossible for anyone to find it unless he knew exactly where he was going.

  Inside the room, Big Sal's man indicated that I was to put down my burden. I dropped the still unconscious terrorist onto the floor.

  "You want she should stay?"

  I was surprised at his voice. It was light and pleasant, without overtones of menace or threat.

  I turned to Tamar. "It's not going to be anything nice to watch," I said, waiting for her to react.

  Tamar's nod was matter of fact. "I'll wait outside."

  She shut the door behind her, the gesture acknowledging her acceptance of what had to be done and making no judgments about it. Big Sal's man looked at me. "You gonna watch?"

  "I want to ask him some questions," I said, meeting his eyes.

  He thought about it for a moment. "Okay," he said. He bent down beside the Arab, flipping the body over so that the terrorist was on his back. Swiftly, he bound the man's legs at the knees and ankles with two lengths of thin, nylon cord. He turned him over onto his back, tying his arms in front of him with lashings at the man's elbows and wrists. When he was through, it looked as if the terrorist's arms were held together in prayer.

  "Put him over there," Big Sal's man said.

  I lifted the Arab, slinging him into the chair. It was a monster, made of solid oak, braced and bolted to the floor. Directly overhead was a droplight with a green shade directing its fight downward in a stark, pow
erful beam.

  Big Sal's man moved swiftly. It took him only seconds to bind the Arab upright in the chair. The man might be able to squirm, but that would be about all he could do. No matter how much he tried, he wouldn't be able to move more than an inch.

  "Now?"

  I nodded. "Go ahead."

  Big Sal's man took out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. He turned to the Arab. Almost gently he touched the burning tip of the cigarette to the man's hand and held it there.

  The Arab's unconscious body jerked involuntarily. Big Sal's man knocked the ash off the end of the cigarette. Deliberately, he drew on it until it glowed red. His left hand pulled apart the terrorist's bound hands and he thrust the burning coal into the man's right palm.

  A scream burst from the Arab's throat as he came awake. His body thrashed violently against the nylon cord that held him helpless.

  Once more, Big Sal's man drew on the cigarette, paying no attention to the screams that came one after another from the terrorist's mouth. This time, he pulled the man's head back. He thrust the red hot cigarette end against the man's left cheek.

  A desperate sound, like the high pitched whinny of a horse in sudden agony spewed frantically from the man's strained vocal cords. His head twisted spastically from side to side in a tendon straining effort to get away from the pain.

  Big Sal's man stepped back and looked at his victim. He threw the cigarette butt on the floor, crushing it out with the heel of his shoe.

  "Try him now," he said. There was no emotion at all in his voice.

  I stepped up to the Arab.

  "Where did they go?" I asked in Arabic.

  His screams turned to curses. Vitriolic, passionate filled with hatred, he cursed me with a fluency I hadn't heard since I was in the bazaars of Cairo. Blindly, he spat at me.

  "I think you better let me at him again." Big Sal's man had a slight smile on his face. "I don't think he's ready to talk yet."

  As I stepped away, a slim knife appeared in his hand. It was a simple pocket knife, the kind you can buy in almost any tobacco or notions store for about a dollar and eighty cents. However, I noticed that the blade had been filed down so that it wasn't any more than a quarter of an inch wide and barely three inches long.

  Big Sal's man leaned over the terrorist. It seemed as if he just touched the honed blade to the fingers of the Arab's right hand, drawing the blade across the pulp of his fingertips. Skin and flesh opened smoothly under its touch. Blood welled out in a long stream. He made another cut and another, never stopping his actions for a moment. The weapon became a miniature flaying knife, and all the while his movements were so smoothly coordinated that they seemed almost rhythmical. In seconds, the terrorist's hand was slashed to ribbons.

  I turned away, disgusted.

  In my time, I've seen and done one hell of a lot of things. I knew that this was just the beginning. The Palestinian was tough, and Big Sal's man enjoyed his work. I suddenly realized that he had no intention of bringing the terrorist to the breaking point any sooner than he had to.

  Taking out one of my cigarettes, I lit it and tried to block my ears against the inhuman sounds that were beginning to come from behind me.

  Kismet is an Arab belief in the inevitability of Fate. I was struck by the strangeness of coincidence and circumstances that had brought these two together in this isolated room — one from halfway around the world, from a teeming, crowded, poverty-stricken refugee camp in the Middle East, the other from the swarming streets of a Brooklyn neighborhood that was just as poverty-stricken in its own way.

  The Palestinian and Big Sal's man were about the same age. They were both in their late twenties. The Palestinian had a blind, fervent belief in the fanatical teachings of Sharif al-Sallal, the new Prophet leading a holy Jihad against Israel, who had promised his followers a land of their own. That neither Jordan nor Egypt — nor Lebanon nor Syria — would accede even an inch of their own territories made no difference to the Palestinian. The Jihad gave him an excuse to kill, not caring whether his victims were innocent women and children or fighting men. What he was after was the deep-rooted, gut satisfaction he found in the act of killing savagely. Al Asad gave him a moral flag to wave; to use the words "loyalty," "patriotism," and "piety" as a cover for his vicious instincts.

  He liked to kill. It was that simple.

  And Big Sal's man, who had no deep-rooted beliefs, was — in his own way — as fanatical as the terrorist. He killed and tortured for the simple, sadistic pleasure he got from it but he required someone to give him the order to do it. Today, he gave his loyalty to Big Sal. Tomorrow, it might be someone else. On his own, he could not justify his twisted desires to cause pain and hurt to others. Big Sal had told him to make the terrorist talk. He would do his best — which was damn good — to see that the man talked, but first he would satisfy his blood lust.

  That was the key word. Blood-lust. The two of them had it. And the world was full of others like them.

  Blood lust.

  Christ!

  I included myself. I used Big Sal, so, in effect, his man was acting for me. And through me, he was no more than a tool for the government of the United States. We needed the information locked in the mind of the terrorist. The end justifies the means. Right?

  It was a hell of a thought to play with.

  Behind me, the screams began to sound hoarse. I turned back and touched Big Sal's man on the shoulder. I'd had enough.

  "Let me talk to him again."

  He looked up at me, the smile on his face changing to disappointment, but he was just as polite as before.

  "Go ahead," he said easily, turning away.

  I could hardly look at the terrorist as the Arabic words came out of my mouth. Both his eyes were closed, burned shut by a cigarette. His face had been slashed to bits, shreds of skin and flesh hung slackly from his forehead and cheeks. His hands were still bound in an attitude of prayer, only now they looked like a sculpted carving of pure, bright ruby, washed by the red liquid of blood.

  His breath came in deep, uncontrolled gasps.

  "Where are they?" I asked. He tried to shake his head.

  I said, "If Allah had not willed it, you would not be here."

  I said, "If it was not to be, it would not be. It is your Kismet."

  In Arabic, the words sounded musical. He responded to his ingrained beliefs with almost a sigh of relief.

  This time, when he spoke, the words were not curses, but I could hardly make out what he was saying. I asked him again.

  "Where are they?"

  Brokenly, he repeated the address. It was an apartment house in the mid-eighties on the Upper East Side.

  "What is the number of the apartment?"

  "Twelve-H," he gasped.

  "Tell me about the place."

  "I have never been there," he gasped, trying to shake the pain. "I cannot tell you."

  I stood back.

  "You want me to go on?" asked Big Sal's man. I shook my head.

  "No."

  "You through with him?"

  "Yes."

  He waited for me to tell him that he could have him — or that I would take him with me. He wanted me to make the decision for him, and I was damned if I would.

  I just turned and walked out of the room, leaving the two of them together.

  Chapter Ten

  Friday. 5:30 a.m. The Georgian Hotel. New York.

  After the doctor finished working on the wound in my back, I put in a call to Hawk. It went through immediately, in spite of the early morning hour. I knew Hawk would be wide awake. The tension of the last two days must have been grueling for him, keying him up to a point where sleep would be impossible.

  Briefly, I outlined what had happened. Hawk interrupted me.

  "We know," he said, angrily. "We've received a message from the terrorists not more than half an hour ago. Nick, they're madder than hell at what you tried to do!"

  "It almost worked," I pointed out.

  "Almost
isn't good enough," Hawk snapped back brusquely. "Results are all that count."

  I still hadn't told him about the Palestinian I'd taken with me nor about the information he was forced to reveal. Somehow, my instincts made me keep my mouth shut for the time being. I let him go on.

  "They've cut back on the deadline, Nick," he said somberly. "They want an answer from us no later than noontime today!"

  "What's the answer going to be?" I asked.

  "The same as before," said Hawk. "You know that we can't knuckle under to their demands. What it means is that the President of the United States dies at noon today…"

  "…unless I can rescue him before then," I pointed out.

  "No," said Hawk firmly. "Not you. The NSA and the FBI are against your going on by yourself. They want to throw their own manpower into the situation."

  "That's stupid," I said angrily. "Give them enough time, and maybe they could possibly work something out. The trouble is that we don't have any time! Not one extra minute!"

  "It's the way they feel, Nick."

  "Are you telling me that I'm off the assignment?"

  "Not exactly. They're sending up a team of hand-picked men for you to brief. After that, you'll be pulled out."

  "It's wrong. It's wrong because it won't work," I protested, still angry and resentful. "You know that as well as I do."

  "I was outvoted." That was all the explanation that Hawk would give, but it was enough to tell me that he was still on my side.

  "Then until they get here, it's still my assignment?"

  "They're on the way, now," Hawk informed me.

  "Is it still my assignment?" I wanted a definite answer from him.

  "It is — until they get there," Hawk said. "What do you have in mind?"

  "I know where they're hiding out," I told him. "I want another chance at them."

  "Is that why you didn't bring in the terrorist, Nick?" Hawk must have gotten a copy of Captain Martinson's report telexed directly to him from NYPD Headquarters the moment Martinson turned it in.

  "Yes."