James Grippando - Afraid of the Dark

“Stop, woman!”

“I was raped!”

“Enough with your false accusations!” said Abukar. “You have brought shame on your family.”

“Shame?” said Habib. “Look at her!”

“I’ve seen how she looks at men,” said Abukar, “the way she tempts them. Her thoughts are impure. The shame is on Samira and her family!”

The Dark’s cell rang, jarring him from his memories. It took a moment to shake off the anger-the stinging memory of how, brainwashed by a cunning and convincing older woman chosen by Abukar, Samira had walked into a crowded market in Mogadishu and “cleansed herself” of her shame.

“Go ahead,” the Dark said into his cell phone.

“I’ve been thinking about our conversation,” said Littleton. “We need a plan to recover those files that were taken.”

“That’s impossible. Even if I get the originals back, there is no way to account for every possible copy that could exist. It’s the technological version of trying to put the genie back in the bottle.”

“Damn you, Habib! How could you have been so stupid? You should have destroyed those files!”

Littleton was shouting a string of obscenities, as if that would change the fact that the videos were out there. It only made the Dark angrier. He was a young man who had believed in a cause when, years ago, he’d spent countless hours online for al-Shabaab, studying the state-of-the art encryption methods of pedophiles, trying to duplicate their methods for terrorism. It wasn’t Habib’s fault that, after viewing thousands of explicit videos, sex with underage girls didn’t just seem normal. It became a turn-on. It remained his obsession.

“I don’t understand it, Habib! What in the hell were you thinking?”

What could the Dark tell him? That the cloud had a silver lining? That if Project Round Up hadn’t led Chuck Mays to the black site torture videos that the Dark was trading on the P2P networks, the Dark might never have discovered that Jamal Wakefield was actually Abukar’s son? That this bit of good fortune was the only reason the Dark even bothered to prostrate himself in daily prayers anymore? That it had been worth all the pain and aggravation to show Abukar that he couldn’t even protect his son by harboring him on the run and turning him into Khaled al-Jawar?

It would have been perfect, in fact, had it not been for Vince Paulo and the explosion.

“No more!” he shouted into the phone.

“No more what?” asked Littleton.

“I made myself clear in the last call,” the Dark said. “I warned you that the files were out there. I didn’t need your permission to play my ace in the hole, but I asked for it anyway, which put you on notice that dead cops might be involved. Now it’s every man for himself.”

“So your ace in the hole is what-your exit strategy?”

“Yes. And I suggest you get one. Because in less than eight hours I’m playing my hand, and my ace in the hole will be a dead man.”

He ended the call, tucked away his phone, and started back to the old hotel.

Their taxi stopped in front of a tiny East End establishment with a big sign that read BANGLATOWN CURRY SHOP. Jack counted at least twenty restaurants up and down the narrow street that looked almost exactly like it. Not one was open for business.

“I told you everything would be closed,” the driver said. “If you’re hungry, I know a little place not far from here.”

“This will be fine,” Shada said.

Jack paid the fare, and when the cab left, they were the lone signs of life on the block. It wasn’t hard to imagine the street clogged with cars and delivery trucks, the sidewalks jammed with people from all walks of life from around the world. In a matter of hours, tourists and regulars alike would stop to decipher exotic menus posted in the windows, and by the end of the day, the guy at the pushcart on Brick Lane would hear customers order the jellied eels in at least twenty different languages. From two A.M. to four A.M., however, was a dead zone, when the eerie pall of urban quiet fell.

“I guess this is why they call New York the city that never sleeps,” he said.

“Don’t kid yourself,” said Shada as they passed a wall covered with BLM gang graffiti. “This is Brick Lane Massive territory.”

Jack followed her around the corner to the back of the curry shop. Many of the windows along the alley had been bricked over, and burglar bars and metal shutters covered those that remained. Jack recognized more BLM graffiti tags on the walls, but most of them had been spray-painted over by “White Flatz” and “Bow E3,” suggesting a turf war. It made Jack want to walk faster. Chuck had called ahead to say they were coming, and the light burning over the rear entrance indicated that someone was indeed expecting them. Rather than knock, Shada made a quick call on her cell. Someone on the inside started working the locks, and from the sound of it, Jack had visited jails with less security. Finally, the door opened.

“Come in, please,” the man said.

Jack followed Shada inside, and the man introduced himself as he closed the door and refastened the locks. His name was Sanu Reza from Dhaka. Chuck had already told them about Reza’s earlier meeting with Vince.

“I’m so sorry to hear about Mr. Paulo,” he said.

“I’m sorry you sold him a gun,” said Jack.

“I do as Mr. Mays requests. That makes tonight your lucky night.”

Jack could only wonder.

Reza led them down a dark hall past the kitchen, and the lingering smell of curry made Jack hungry. They stopped at the solid metal door at the end of the hall. A separate alarm system protected whatever was beyond that door, and Reza entered the pass code. There was another set of locks to unfasten, too. Finally, he pushed open the door and switched on the light. Bags of rice were stacked from floor to ceiling. Boxes of spices lined another wall. Reza directed them inside and locked the door.

“An awful lot of precautions to protect rice and spices,” said Jack.

Reza smiled. “Old family recipe.”

A PC hummed on the desk in the corner. Reza took the chair in front of the glowing LCD and logged on. “You there?” he asked.

The computer screen flickered and Chuck’s image appeared. “Welcome to Banglatown,” he said. “First things first: Reza, show them the money.”

Reza popped a switchblade and cut open one of the bags. Rice spilled to the floor, but not much. Reza reached inside and, by the handful, pulled out twenty-five bundles of fifty-pound-sterling notes. Jack didn’t ask where it had come from, but with the East End’s history of organized crime and gang graffiti all over the neighborhood, he didn’t really want to know. Reza stacked the bundles of cash into four neat piles on the table.

“Two hundred fifty thousand pounds,” he said.

It wasn’t nearly as bulky as Jack had expected; he could have stuffed it in his coat pockets and walked out.

“What will I carry it in?” asked Shada.

“How about a big bowl of yogurt and cold cucumbers?” said Jack. It was how patrons of Bengali restaurants put out the fire in their mouths.

“Good one, Yank.” Reza pulled a backpack from a shelf and handed it to Shada. “In my neighborhood, this will draw much less attention than a briefcase.”

Jack picked up one of the stacks and examined it. “Is this real or counterfeit?”

“Absolutely real,” said Reza. “The only qualification is that in one of the stacks I will insert a bogus bill that contains a miniature GPS tracking system. Chuck will be able to follow the money after Shada delivers it.”

“Doesn’t GPS require a battery?” asked Jack.

“It’s all in the same bill. I’m talking miniature. The battery will only last twenty-four hours and is set to beep out the coordinates every fifteen seconds. It sleeps between signals.”