Т Паркер - Swift Vengeance

“You memorized Ben’s cell number when you asked Marah to see his text.”

“Crafty old Joan,” she said.

I thought it over. Taucher going rogue, with my help. After suspects we could not identify with certainty and had little physical evidence against.

“If it goes wrong, the Bureau will bust you down,” I said. “And cook me for obstructing a federal investigation.”

Taucher stared out the windshield, then folded her hands back over her purse. “Yeah. They’d find me a desk somewhere quiet and miserable. Make room for the new. They’ve been wanting that for a while. San Diego’s a plum with a history and I’m part of it. Just yesterday the SAC told me I might find a change of territory refreshing. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. And told him so.”

She made no acknowledgment of my own risk here. Not that I needed it. I wasn’t close enough to Taucher’s world to discern the fine borders between leadership and manipulation, insight and paranoia, fear real and fear imagined.

My first responsibility was to Lindsey Rakes. My second was to Voss and the thousands of other people who could receive one or more of the bullets delivered by Hector Padilla to Caliphornia. Probably Caliphornia. My third was to keep myself out of federal prison long enough to complete missions one and two.

“We’re a good team, Roland.”

“I’m glad I don’t work for your people.”

“Mostly they’re good people and in the right,” she said. “We stand for the rule of law and we protect the innocent.”

I weighed Joan Taucher’s smallness within that great Bureau against the bigness of her spirit and her fight.

“Now, help me compose a solicitation to Ben Azmeh,” she said. “From Raqqa Nine — an extremist organization offering him money.”

“Zkrya Gourmat’s recruitment network?” I asked, remembering Leising’s story.

“As re-created and updated,” said Taucher, with one of her small dry smiles.

“By you,” I concluded.

“Of course.”

Our fearsome Bureau , I thought, trolling for terrorists .

I pondered my mission for a moment. Then ad-libbed: “‘Dear Mr. Azmeh,’” I said. “‘We are Raqqa Nine. We operate in the spirit of Allah and Zkrya Gourmat. As you know, we finance terror in America against the infidels. How can we help you succeed?’”

“That’s good,” said Taucher. “But if Ben is driving around an SUV full of ammo, taking routine evasive action on Interstate Five, he is very wary. And now that Marah and Alan have probably both told him about their terrible experiences with the FBI today — he’s even warier. Suddenly, Ben gets a solicitation for free money, just for being called a promising young jihadi? No. It has to be something that will speak directly to Ben Azmeh-Adams-Anderson.”

I thought about that a moment. “Okay. ‘We are Raqqa Nine. We seek to finance homegrown terror in America, against the infidels. Your name has come to our attention through a mutual friend whose brother died at IH-One in Aleppo in April of 2015. I cannot reveal his name at this time. However, the link below is to an encrypted app where we can communicate securely. We can arrange to meet at a time and place where ideas can be exchanged, cash can be transferred, and security is without question. Sincerely... Warrior of Allah.’”

Taucher turned and raised her sunglasses to stare at me unfiltered. “It’s beautiful. I love the ‘Warrior of Allah’ touch. I can have it to Ben Azmeh as soon as I get home.”

Home , I thought: where she can keep her confederates in the digital dark . I was surprised at her crude guile.

Taucher’s email to me arrived one hour and forty-five minutes later. I was upstairs in my home office. She had logged the property from Ben Azmeh’s apartment into evidence, then “sped” home and sent him a Telegram “Secret Chat” message from the Warrior of Allah, offering support, enthusiasm, and money for his jihad.

On her email to me, she had signed off:

Thanks for being a genuine help.

Best,

Out in the barn, I banged the heavy and speed bags for a long while. Then showered and joined the Irregulars for cocktail hour under the palapa. They had a big fire going in the pit under the high part of the thatch, where the flames couldn’t catch it on fire. Dick poured me a forthright bourbon and added a few drops of water. We sat on chaise longues facing the hills. The night was cool and the stars were post-storm bright.

Dick swirled his glass and the ice clinked. “If those weren’t four feds sitting at that table this morning, my name’s not Dick Ford.”

“Friendly neighborhood FBI.”

“And what did they want with my favorite grandson?”

“Dirt on one of their own.”

“That’s low,” said Dick.

“I thought so, too.”

“Who was that earlier?” he asked. “The dapper Arab with the bodyguard.”

“Not important.”

“Something about Lindsey, I surmise,” he said. “And that’s why you sent her away for a while.”

“Need-to-know, Dick. Sorry.”

“I’m cool with that,” he said. “But I’m not sold on that dog of Lindsey’s. I don’t like him, and he senses it. Looks at me like he wants to eat my balls. Well, off to see how Liz is doing. That knee of hers doesn’t love the tennis court as much as it used to.”

I waved Lindsey over and she took Dick’s vacated chaise. Zeno lay between us, head up and facing me, a gray-eyed sphinx.

I told her about my visit from Rasha. That he physically resembled what I had briefly seen of Kenny Bryce’s killer. That his temper had boiled. That he had admitted to brandishing a janbiya at a college party. I told her that his claim of being out of the country on the night of the murder was yet to be vetted. She reminded me of his handwriting, so similar to that of Caliphornia’s.

I told Lindsey that I could find no motive for Samara to take Kenny’s life, and no reason for him to threaten her. I admitted that I found his interest in her genuine, if possessive and impulsive.

“My gut tells me he isn’t our man,” I said.

“How sure are you?”

“I can’t make any claims there,” I said. “Rasha could be enough of a sociopath and a liar to fool us all.”

“Comforting, Roland.”

I said nothing of Ben Azmeh.

The fact that we had only circumstantial evidence linking him to Caliphornia dripped in my mind, the sound of water hitting water. A constant reminder that something isn’t right.

I looked out at the placid black water of the pond and saw Ben’s strange dance behind the cheap plastic blinds of Del Sol unit 24-A.

But Rasha’s voice is what I heard, when I’d asked him if he still had his old janbiya: Somewhere.

Such are the vagaries of an uncertain soul.

Lindsey and I took on Burt and Clevenger in Ping-Pong, best of three, fought them to a one — one draw. Lindsey served to open the third. Burt’s high, long-distance spin-bombs made up for Clevenger’s slowness and poor motor skills. Lindsey had remarkable reflexes but was tactically unsound, trying to make winners of almost every shot. I stayed in close to the table, bringing my six feet and three inches to bear, hitting the ball early and flat at tough angles.

Zeno lay under the table on Lindsey’s and my end, positioned, of course, as close to Lindsey as he could get without being stepped on. I looked at him occasionally, a large, brindled, gray-eyed beast patiently sizing me up. A ball went off the table and click-click-clicked on the uneven pavers, finally rolling to a stop between Zeno’s huge front paws. I kneeled and thought whether or not to reach in. He studied me. Eyes inscrutable within the heavy folds of his face.