Т Паркер - Swift Vengeance

Then he walked up the gangplank and boarded. A few minutes later his flash was going off again inside the dining ship, white blips behind the smoked-glass windows.

“Hector has bought decorations for a holiday celebration,” said Taucher. “Let’s just say it’s going to take place aboard a party ship. Glorietta , for example. Which he is now photographing.”

“It makes me think of the ammunition he delivered to Caliphornia,” I said.

A pause, then we spoke the same words at the same time.

“San Bernardino.”

A moment later, Hector came back down the gangplank and started up the dock toward the boardwalk.

“You know,” said Taucher. “If Ben Azmeh is Caliphornia, he’s the first Syrian American terrorist to take lives on American soil.”

I thought about Ben, the American-born kid who read the Qur’an with his sister and made up last names that sounded American, who couldn’t settle on a faith, who liked art and practiced calligraphy, surfed and snowboarded and climbed rocks and learned Hapkido. And I thought of a U.S. drone strike — flown in part by a friend of mine, from Creech Air Force Base in Las Vegas — that left nine innocents dead in Aleppo, Syria, seven-thousand-plus miles away, one of the dead being Ben Azmeh’s much-loved father. No acknowledgment by the United States until later. Along with a small condolence payment delivered in enforced silence.

Which led me to remember Rumsfeld’s cogent inquiry on war in the Middle East: Are we creating more terrorists than we’re killing?

And a line I found on the Internet one night: Don’t think of a bomb as going down and destroying stuff. Think of it like a seed that goes into the ground and grows insurgents out of it.

I shut my eyes and imagined a map of the world, with red lines across time and space, connecting what had happened that day at IH-One to what had happened before and after. I saw the red line from Dr. Ibrahim Azmeh’s Damascus all the way to UCLA, and another to Lindsey Rakes’s Fort Worth, another across the American desert to Las Vegas, one stretching across the world to Syria again, then coming back to connect Torrance to Santa Ana to Bakersfield to Grass Valley to San Diego, where this complex collision of fates and nations and families was still happening before our very eyes, right here on the waterfront.

“And if Ben Azmeh is our first Syrian American terrorist to kill his own citizens,” said Taucher, “then I’m responsible for stopping him. This is what I do and this is where I do it.”

I opened my eyes. The Cube started up and Hector backed out. We followed him to the 163 north, past Balboa Park, and under the stately Cabrillo Bridge. Hector exited Clairemont-Mesa Boulevard and drove the speed limit to the Spotted Jaguar adult club, where he parked far out in the lot, as was his habit. A moment later he was shuffling toward the entrance, hiking up his jeans again, looking up at the sky.

“The red lines back and forth across the world just extended to a strip club in San Diego,” I said.

“I don’t see any red lines,” said Taucher.

“They’re imaginary but real,” I said. “They connect everything that’s happened with everything that’s still to happen. An improvised hospital in Aleppo to the Spotted Jaguar. Dr. Ibrahim Azmeh to Hector O. See? Connections. Three out of the last five end with O .”

“So do ‘mumbo’ and ‘jumbo.’ You’re just tired.”

“I’m tired of severed heads,” I said.

“Your duty right now is to stay alert, Roland,” she said. “I shall be taking a power nap. That’s any nap under thirty minutes.”

Taucher released her seat belt, reclined her seat, buttoned up her peacoat, set her watch cap over her eyes. “Dad told me stories before sleep. Made them up on the spot. Most were funny. I’d always demand one more story, so Dad saw how short he could make them. My favorite was ‘This is the story of a snail who tried to cross a busy freeway.’ That was it. The whole story.”

“I like that one,” I said. “You like your dad a lot.”

“Worship,” Taucher said, her voice losing volume. “Mom, too. But I hung Dad’s moon and that means everything to a girl. I was his star and everybody knew it. If he’d been blown to pieces by a drone, I’d track the guilty parties down, too. So I get Caliphornia on that level.”

“I don’t know what I’d do,” I said.

“Where do you think he is right now?”

“Sleeping,” I said. “I wonder if he has people he can trust, beyond Hector. He has to cache his weapons and ammunition and whatever else he’s got. A storage unit. A cheap apartment. Friends.”

“We need to reach out to him again,” said Joan. “Make sure he knows we’re interested.”

“He knows,” I said. “He’s probably checking out Raqqa Nine and the Warrior of Allah every way he knows. Let your Bureau website fool him, Joan.”

“But what if we scared him off?” she asked. “Should I just apply for the FISA warrant, give my evidence to Blevins, let the old boys take over my operation and run it into the ground? Remember, if I’m the one who stops this son of a bitch, then they can’t transfer me out of my city.”

I thought about that. “You’ll have to bring in the Bureau at some point, Joan.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she whispered. “I know. Here I thought you were on my side.”

“I’m on whatever side gets us all out of this alive,” I said.

“Not my side?”

“You can call it your side, Joan.”

“Good. Because I’m the one paying you the big bucks.” A catch of breath from Taucher, then a long sigh. “Wake me up when party boy comes out.”

An hour and a half later, just past one a.m., Hector traipsed from the exit of the Spotted Jaguar to his car.

Taucher cussed me for letting her sleep that long. I followed Hector back onto the freeway and all the way home.

Then drove the hour back to Fallbrook Airpark for Taucher’s car, parked in foresight outside the locking gate. Before climbing out of my truck she turned and offered me a tired smile. “Night, Roland.”

“Night, Joan.”

“Roland and Joan are French heroes,” she said. “You a legend and me a saint.”

“It’s all making sense now.”

She took a deep breath, trying to pump herself up for the foggy hour’s drive home.

The new-message tone dinged from the device at her feet. It sounded faint and far away and harmless. She looked down at it with unusual Taucher deliberation. My scar itched.

She brought the device to her lap, squared it, and checked the inbox. A catch of breath.

“Dear sweet Jesus God in heaven,” she said quietly. “We have a reply to our solicitation of Ben Azmeh.”

She turned the screen toward me in the darkness.

CALIPHORNIA 2:35 A.M.

Your solicitation is an insult. Are you trolling for idiots? I’m genuine. I’m centuries ahead of you. I am Caliphornia. Know me by my dead. I need $50,000 to finish my journey and begin my jihad. Don’t waste my time, you alleged Warrior of Allah.

“Caliphornia” appeared at the top of the Telegram secret-chat screen, below it a clear circular graphic of a black janbiya and a crescent moon on a red background.

“Telegram secret-chat mode,” she said. “End-to-end encryption means only we will see his message. It will self-destruct when he wants it to. My heart is pounding, Roland. This guy is real. I didn’t make him up. What do we say back?”

“Our Warrior of Allah should be a tough sell,” I said.

“I agree. And you might be better at this than me. I’d just lose my temper and scare him off.”