Abuse of Power (11 page)

Tony thought for a moment. “Not that I remember. What is it? Some kind of black op?”

“No idea. And I’m not even sure Copeland knows. But he went to a lot of trouble to put that phrase in my head, so I figure it must mean something.”

“I can check around.”

“Good luck. I tried, and all I found was some obscure World War II reference. Either this is something so far under the radar that it’s out of our reach, or Copeland is playing mind games.”

“Which do you think it is?”

“He may be annoying sometimes, but that’s not usually his style.”

“And you think this has something to do with the cover-up?” Tony asked.

“What I think is that all we’ve got is a hunch, based on speculation and hearsay, and unless we can get some solid information we’re just spinning our wheels.”

“So why not go to the source?” Tony asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Jamal Thomas or his brother. Ask flat out if they’re sure about who was driving that car and whatever else they might remember.”

Jack shook his head. “The brother’s not talking and the cops have Jamal on lockdown. I tried talking to his brother’s public defender a few days ago and got rebuffed. No way I’ll ever get to those kids.”

“Don’t speak too soon,” Tony said, then folded the newspaper over and slid it across the table. “The story’s buried on the second page, but I think you’ll find it interesting.”

Jack put his cup on the counter and crossed to the table, staring down at a single column, headlined
CARJACKING SUSPECT TO BE RELEASED
.

“Jamal’s bail was set at 200K,” Tony said. “His folks could barely afford the 25K they paid for Leon. His attorney filed a motion to reduce bail and the judge granted it.”

“How much?”

“He’ll be putting up ten percent with the bondsman, twenty thousand dollars. They’re taking him home at the close of business tonight.”

“Hold on,” Jack said. “If his folks—”

“There’s just a mother.”

“Okay. If she was tapped out by Leon’s bail, where’s the twenty grand coming from?”

Tony tapped the tabletop. “Read the article. Says the bond is being put up by an organization called the Juvenile Defense Coalition.”

“Never heard of it,” Jack said.

“Apparently they’re dedicated to keeping troubled teens out of jail because the poor things might actually have to take responsibility for their actions.”

Jack nodded. “Better to have them out on the street where they can sell dope to school kids and break into their neighbors’ houses, right?”

“Or steal cars from potential terrorists,” Tony said.

Jack shook his head in disgust. He had no problem with the juvenile justice system treating kids like kids, but there was a point where you had to draw the line. Sure, some of them came from broken homes and had grown up in terrible environments, but that didn’t really excuse the choices they made. And when it came down to it, the law-abiding citizens of this country were usually the victims of those choices.

Jack had come to believe that some people were just born bad. These kids knew damn well that what they were doing was wrong and couldn’t care less.

So why should anyone else?

Of course, in this case the actions of a bunch of misguided do-gooders might actually work in Jack’s favor. If the kid was due to be released, that meant access, and Jack might finally be able to talk to the punk.

Juvenile court records were routinely kept confidential in California, but Jack had managed to use a back-channel source to get a name and address, and he knew the kid lived with his brother and mother at the Sunnydale projects.

He had tried contacting the mother—Juanita Thomas—shortly after the blast, but her line was a constant busy signal, and he had assumed that he wasn’t the only one looking to do a bedside interview with her son. But now that the focus of the investigation was a bunch of militia wannabes, most of Jack’s colleagues would be centering their attention on the Constitutional Defense Brigade. Which meant, if he was lucky, he might just have the carjacker all to himself.

He looked at Tony. “You interested in a trip to Sunnydale tonight?”

Tony shook his head. “I’m headed to Camp Parks to run a training session. Gotta be up at dawn.”

“So what—you’re leaving me out in the cold?”

“I’d just slow you down anyway. I’m a doddering old man.”

Jack stifled a laugh. “A doddering old man who thinks two hundred knuckle pushups on a hardwood floor are just a warm-up every morning.”

“Sorry, Jack, but duty calls. Besides, if you’re heading into Sunnydale, what you really need is a negotiator. Somebody who knows the area and is a helluva lot easier on the eyes.”

Jack took a moment to process this. “Are you talking about who I think you are?”

Tony grinned. “As a matter of fact, I am.”

9

London, England

“Someone followed me to Sofia,” Haddad said.

He had waited for his imam for over an hour. It had taken some time to reach the decision to tell him about the Turk and the whore, but once Haddad had made up his mind he was anxious to be done with it.

When he first arrived, Imam Zuabi was away from the office and Haddad had grown more and more impatient with each passing minute. He had been to the Muslim Welfare Center and Mosque many times since the day it opened, but events of late were taking their toll on him and he felt little comfort within its walls.

When Zuabi returned, the sun had gone down and it was time for
Maghrib
—evening prayer. So the two went to the
wudu
room together and quietly washed their bodies before heading upstairs to kneel before Allah.

Afterward, they returned to Zuabi’s office, and after a few brief pleasantries Haddad broke the news.

“I think they may have traveled with me on the plane to Belgrade,” he said. “That is the only explanation I can think of for their being there. But I wasn’t aware of them until after I arrived in Sofia.”

Zuabi considered this. “Do you know who they were?”

Haddad shook his head. “A Turk and a woman, that’s all I can tell you. I thought she was a Gypsy, but now I’m not so certain.”

Haddad saw no point in mentioning their night together. The whore lingered in his memory as an effigy of dangerous lust and blind, stupid, dangerous trust. The pleasures he had enjoyed, and they were considerable, were swallowed in a swamp of disgust and self-reproach.

Zuabi frowned. “This is a concern, Hassan. If someone knows about our plans, they could destroy everything we’ve built. I assume you took care of the matter?”

“The woman,” Haddad said. “But the Turk got away. And I can’t be certain how much he knows.”

Zuabi’s frown deepened. “Our friends won’t be happy about this. They’ll want assurances that we haven’t been compromised. Our relationship is already on shaky ground after the incident with Abdal.”

Zuabi often spoke of their “friends,” but had never bothered to give Haddad details about who they were. The Hand of Allah had several sources of revenue, much of it funneled through charities around the world, but
these
particular friends—or benefactors—continued to remain anonymous to Haddad, an endless source of frustration for him. Did Zuabi not trust him? Was he not, after all, one of the Hand of Allah’s most dedicated soldiers?

But like any good soldier, he remained silent, not allowing himself to ask the questions that so plagued him.

Instead he said, “Is it necessary for them to know?”

Zuabi thought about this a moment. “I don’t suppose there’s any point in raising an alarm until we understand who we’re dealing with. You continue as before and I’ll look into the matter. If you see this Turk again, find out what you can and then kill him.”

“What about Abdal? Have you decided what to do with that fool?”

Haddad had only learned about the disaster in San Francisco upon his return to London, and had been relieved to hear that the Americans believed the incident had originated locally. Abdal al-Fida had recently returned to London himself, and if it had been up to Haddad he would have killed him within moments of his arrival.

But Zuabi was apparently leaning toward benevolence.

“He’s quite contrite about the whole incident,” the old cleric said. “He has promised to do anything he can to remain in our favor.”

“He’s a liability,” Haddad said. The words were softer than he had intended, since he himself had made a few bad calls of late.

Zuabi nodded. “But I see no reason to let him believe that. Fear has a way of loosening a man’s tongue. If he continues to believe he is safe with us, he’ll remain faithful to the cause.” He paused. “And he
is
the son of one of my dearest friends. I’ve known him since he was a boy.”

“Is it wise to let sentiment guide us?” Haddad pressed. “We could arrange an accident—”

Zaubi’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Do not worry. Abdal will be dealt with when the time is right.”

“And the woman he’s been seeing? Will she be dealt with, too?”

“We’re not savages, Haddad. Abdal may be impulsive, impatient, but he’s not stupid. The woman is a mere distraction. A Yemeni girl. I’ve looked into her and she knows nothing about us.”

“And if you are mistaken?”

Anger flashed in the man’s eyes. “Are you questioning my judgment?”

Haddad made it a habit to question
everyone’s
judgment, including his own, but he immediately backed down.

“No,” he said softly. “Of course not.”

The anger was gone as quickly as it had appeared, and Zuabi rose from behind his desk. “Then I believe we’re done here.” He gestured for Haddad to accompany him to the door. “There’s much to do before you travel, my brother. This Turk aside, I trust everything else is in order?”

“Yes. It’s all falling into place. I’ll be leaving again in a few days.”

“Good,” Zuabi said, then smiled. “I look forward to the moment we can stand here together and celebrate the defeat of the infidels.”

“As do I,” Haddad told him. “As do I.”

*   *   *

He was waiting for his train when he thought he saw the Turk again.

Haddad stood close to the tracks at the Westminster Underground Station, listening to the voices of waiting passengers reverberate against the walls, when he caught a glimpse of movement at the far edge of the crowd.

Small. Dark hair. Flash of a beard.

Nothing particularly noteworthy, of course. There were at least half a dozen such people here. But the figure he saw had a way of carrying himself that reminded him of the man he’d spotted on the train from Belgrade and in that hotel lobby.

An instant later the man was gone, swallowed by the crowd, and Haddad wondered if his imagination were getting the better of him. He’d barely seen a face, and what he
had
seen could be anyone. Anyone at all.

But he didn’t think so.

His instincts may have failed him somewhat in Bulgaria, but he had the same feeling now that he had then: that he was once again being watched.

And he knew who the watcher was.

He didn’t take a second look, however, instead keeping his eyes on the tunnel, waiting for his train to arrive. If the Turk remained in that same general area he’d be entering just three cars down.

Haddad wasn’t foolish enough to make the same mistake twice. He assumed the Turk wasn’t working alone. The Gypsy whore had been replaced by someone new. Someone who would also be on this platform, a rooks-on-king move modeled after the game of chess: one rook could be blocked, lost, or avoided by the king but not without remaining vulnerable to the other.

The woman standing next to him, perhaps? The old man stooped over the water fountain? The curly-headed college student with an e-book reader?

It could be any of them. Or none. The only way to find out was to leave this place and see who followed.

But he didn’t leave immediately. Instead he waited several minutes until his train finally glided up to the platform, its brakes hissing. The doors opened and the crowd began pushing through them, anxious to find seats.

Haddad moved along with the other passengers, then hung back suddenly and turned, heading for the stairs.

He didn’t wait to see if he was followed.

*   *   *

When he reached the street, Haddad immediately ducked into a nearby pub—the Old Town Brewery—and stood near the front window, watching the underground steps less than two hundred yards away.

A moment later a man emerged from the stairwell and bounded to the top of the steps, out of breath, his head swiveling, his eyes frantically searching the crowded sidewalk. There was no question about it now.

It was the Turk.

As the man’s gaze shifted to the pub, Haddad stepped back from the window to avoid being seen. The place was dimly lit and the shadows hid him well.

But the Turk must have had instincts, too. He knew that Haddad couldn’t have disappeared that fast unless he’d taken refuge in one of the nearby stores. And the darkness of the Old Town Brewery was the most likely candidate. Fixing his gaze on the front doorway, the Turk headed straight for it.

That was Haddad’s cue to move.

The pub was sparsely populated with ruddy-faced businessmen and their whorish companions. Haddad weaved his way through them to the back, counting the seconds it took, then ducked through a doorway marked
TOILETS
and found himself in a dim hallway lined with old black-and-white photographs of London.

The men’s room door was less than two meters away.

Haddad knew that the Turk would check back here. It made sense. He immediately flattened against the wall and waited, mentally calculating the time it would take his pursuer to step inside and cross to the back. It had taken Haddad about twenty seconds, and the Turk was moving as quickly, with purpose.

In less than fifteen seconds the Turk stepped into the hallway, apparently expecting his quarry to be in one of the rooms, behind a locked door, perhaps trying to get out through a window.

He wasn’t. Haddad was facing the hallway door.