Rogues & Patriots, page 18
I didn’t believe Rowe. Not really. Hard to believe anyone could have timed the battle so precisely. Maybe the guys on the roof were lookouts? But that, too, seemed unlikely…
“Now, Mr. Crane, I do want to make one thing clear. I did not sign off on the attack. In fact, I vigorously opposed it. You could easily have been killed, and I’m surprised you weren’t. But you did demonstrate a certain pluck. Much as we find your lack of patriotism distasteful and, frankly, a tad alarming, based on what you’ve shown us so far, we’re ready to discuss you coming on board in some capacity. And in this age of accelerating disorder with the Constitution in peril, I don’t recommend waiting a day longer than necessary.”
Quincey all over again. Recruitment pitch. Smooth and brazen like a master jewel thief or cool jazz on heroin. Despite being shackled with a hood over his head. Then came the next peculiar revelation. Charges were to be brought against Thomas Quincey, the man now calling himself Miles Amsterdam. Rowe was there to help build the case against him. In his zeal to protect America, bitter truths, which came as no surprise to more cynical or worldly men, had demoralized Quincey. He had become increasingly unstable, which caused much head-scratching. The practical men who keep the ship afloat were well aware that complex circumstances sometimes call for the ability to step out of the line of fire and think things through. Which Quincey had not been able to do. A good soldier who served four tours of duty in Iraq, it had been a rugged road, and Quincey had become unhinged.
Off-the-book escapades require money. Quincey had turned to drug trafficking and money laundering. Rowe believed the case against him would be airtight. A slam dunk in federal court. Quincey would have no choice other than to cooperate and plead guilty to conspiracy to traffic cocaine and methamphetamine. He’d serve a few years in a protected federal facility. Since he had never been officially a part of any government agency, he could be prosecuted like any ordinary felon. His unsanctioned hijinks would recede into memory like the remnants of a guilty conscience. While Frank Constantine was still seen as a good and patriotic soul who had been undone by inner demons, Quincey, a man of great courage and resolve, was thought to be fatally flawed, in the end a slave to his own stubborn pride.
“Very few people could have done what Thomas did,” said Rowe sadly. “He averted the deaths of hundreds of Americans and saved the beautiful library from extreme damage when he wrestled the suicide bomber into submission. But damnation, man, now he’s gone over the edge. And can you please take off this hood?”
“We’re almost there. First, tell me what you’re leaving out.”
A long silence. Bobby yawned, and Rowe finally shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Well, then, let me put it this way. What happened to Quincey in ’Raq? Why did he come back unhinged?”
Another long silence. When Rowe spoke, I could hear real sorrow in his voice. “That’s what we all ask ourselves. We know that mistakes were made, but of the kind that could happen to anyone.”
“What sort of mistakes?”
“I’m not privy to the details.”
Rage. I stood up. Started toward him. Stopped. Sat back down. Perhaps Rowe got the message. He spoke in a wheedling tone. “What I do know is when Quincey returned from Al-Anbar Province, he had turned into a fanatical isolationist. He insisted we had no business in the Middle East. None, the oil notwithstanding. His primary focus became keeping America safe from terrorists here at home. This, in turn, became a kind of megalomania. The man is on the brink of madness.”
“Poor baby. This is the man who ordered the murder of Roberto Diaz.”
“I already told you,” said Rowe. “I don’t recognize the name.”
Bobby let out his breath. Time to change gears. He said, “But if your job is to build a case against Quincey, how come you’re working for him up at the Nazi compound?”
“Fair question. Thomas got a call from a certain ranking principal. He was told to put me to work. We already knew each other from our State Department work in the nineties. At a certain point, Thomas asked me to take over monitoring the female detainees. His everyday thugs were incapable of handling them with even a modicum of decency. For a while, Tami Wheat was getting called in daily to put out fires.”
“Tami” again. Interesting. So Rowe undoubtedly knew about my black site abduction, which meant he probably knew about Roberto’s murder. “I like Tami. The way you like a retrovirus. But just out of curiosity, where is Quincey’s office?”
“When I first got here, it was at One World Trade Center in Long Beach. Thomas still rents it, but it’s mostly empty now…”
“So I suppose the black site on Motor Avenue is his real office now?”
Rowe hesitated. We waited as he gathered his thoughts. “I wouldn’t say it’s his office. I think he only uses it for interrogations. Wasn’t that your experience, Mr. Crane?” He laughed. Shade of sarcasm. But no bite. He fell silent. He’d done a lot of talking. We’d done a lot of listening. Bobby stood up and walked over to the window behind Rowe’s chair. Stared out into the half-light. Dawn bathing the foothills to the east.
“One more question. Where does Quincey live?”
“That’s a tough one. He lives nowhere and everywhere. I think he stays with friends, mostly on the Westside, and he may have a place of his own. We communicate by phone and meet in public places—restaurants, bars, sometimes in parks. Thomas is a bit of a health nut…”
I nodded to Bobby and we stepped outside. Stood shoulder to shoulder, gazing at the rock outcroppings at the top of the hill behind Frank’s house. The obvious decision was to release and monitor Rowe. Better than dragging him around with us or locking him up in a safe house. Better to have him in the field. Bobby counted off our goals in no particular order on his thick stubby fingers: liberate the girls and women, including the two little girls in Southern Ohio; liberate Adara and Mohammad; bring Roberto Diaz’s murderers to justice; and finally, neutralize or liquidate Quincey, Tragg, and Tami Wheat. This is where it got tricky, mining the inscrutable layers of the principals’ agenda. Connecting the pieces. The who’s, why’s, and wherefore’s of the steadily expanding chess match…I sighed and Bobby grunted. We returned to the barn to fetch our new asset.
CHAPTER FORTY
The October dawn cut purple runners in the sky behind us as we drove west on 210. I rode in back next to Rowe, Bobby behind the wheel, slapping himself to stay awake, belting out scraps of Nirvana in his raspy baritone.
One of Rowe’s phones trilled just after we’d turned north off Sunset onto Capri. “Answer it,” I said. “Put it on speaker.”
Rowe frowned and elbowed himself to a sitting position. “Good morning, Blink. I trust you slept well.”
“Good enough, I guess. Had me some freakoid dreams.” Blink’s voice was flat and bored. “I’m fifteen minutes from camp. I’ll meet you there.”
“Sounds good. You’ve got the day’s supplies, right?”
“’Course I do. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And plenty of water. Why wouldn’t I have them?”
“Just following through. I’ll see you in a few minutes.” Rowe signed off.
When we came to Casale, where we’d left the Altima the night before, Bobby turned right, flipped a U-ey, and parked. “Okay, Rowe,” I said. “We’re gonna cut you loose.” We wrote down his cell numbers and dialed them. They checked out. I unlocked his handcuffs and leg irons and gave him back his stuff. The deal was we’d check in twice a day. Eleven a.m., eleven p.m. His job, among other things, was to get us intel on Tragg and Quincey’s whereabouts. And Tami Wheat for good measure. But our main goal for the moment was to liberate the girls and women and close down the Nazi camp. Had to be. Of course, we didn’t tell Rowe that. We told him if he tried to shake us, we’d hunt him down and execute him Red Chinese style. A single bullet to the back of the skull.
Rowe made one last pitch. Told us to step back into the shadows and wait. Told us if we would be patient, Quincey would be in federal detention before Thanksgiving. I told him no thanks. We got out of the van and watched as Rowe climbed slowly out of the back seat and into the front. Then we got in Bobby’s car and pretended to drive away. Circled the block and watched Rowe pull slowly away from the curb. Three minutes later, a second dark blue cargo van trundled up the roadway toward the compound.
No need to speak. We knew what we had to do. Back on the trail, we checked our weapons. Bobby produced a brace of granola bars. A blotchy, overcast morning, the sun simmering behind a cloud bank. We hustled and were dripping sweat by the time we reached the staircase. The five hundred steps dropping to the canyon floor were surreal in the early morning light, the sky a bruise of brown and gray. Scrub oak and manzanita. Occasional wildlife scuttling through the heavy brush. When we reached the bottom, we turned right and looped around to the main road, then left into the compound.
The first strange thing was the dog. As we approached the power station, a border collie came bounding toward us. Saw us. Stopped dead as if throated by an iron chain and slunk away into the underbrush. Bobby shook his head. “Motherfucker better not be rabid.”
The vans were parked side-by-side, their noses nearly touching the rusted debris spilling out of the ruined machine shed. Bobby looked at me. I nodded. He walked briskly to the second van and planted a bug inside the left rear bumper.
Then the second strange thing. A young girl with long blonde hair came walking toward us, a bowl of rice cradled against her chest. She wore a pink nightgown and had apparently just passed through the hole in the chain-link fence. When she saw us, she stopped and stood there, hanging her head.
“Talk to her, Nick. You’re better at this than I am.”
Yeah. And I was about to lose my mind. No matter. Bobby was right. “Okay. Cover me.”
Bobby blew on the barrel of his Ruger SR9. I slipped my Colt into my right-side pocket and walked casually toward the child. As I came closer, she cringed and covered her mouth with her right hand, balancing the bowl precariously with her left.
I stopped about a yard from her. The terror in her eyes was chilling. “I’m Nick. Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you. We’re gonna rescue you.” She shook her head, and I realized she didn’t speak English. Or was too freaked out to talk.
“Is your mother here?” This time she understood and pointed deeper into the compound toward the smokehouse. “Who is the food for?” Again, she shook her head. “For the other girls?” She nodded. “Where are they?” She hesitated for a long moment. Uncovered her mouth and pointed with a trembling right forefinger in the direction of the bushes where the collie had vanished.
It seemed cruel but I knew I had to ask. “Are they hurting you?”
Her face fell and her eyes clouded with tears. Then she nodded slowly and pointed toward her pelvis. The red curtain of rage split my forehead. It came in waves, and I had to fight to steady myself. The child’s trembling seemed to spread throughout her thin frame. I thought she might collapse and reached out to take the rice bowl. She seemed to understand and released it. Then she began to sob quietly, large tears flowing down both her thin cheeks. I wanted to hug her but feared it would only make things worse. Waited. She fought to compose herself. Rubbed her eyes with both fists.
Once she was calm, I spoke. Gently. “Come with me. My friend and I will walk with you.”
She seemed to understand. When we reached Bobby, she showed no fear. Maybe she realized the only thing Bobby loves more than his goats are children. She led us up the road past the powerhouse. There, a barely marked dirt trail led back into the brush.
The third strange thing was waiting fifty yards down the trail. A second smokehouse, smaller than the first, was tucked under sycamores at the edge of a clearing, its entrance shielded from the road. In front of it, in what appeared to be a work area, a plank was stretched across two sawhorses. A man lay strapped across the plank, blindfolded, pinioned at the ankles, waist, and throat. Rowe.
The child gasped, and I clapped my free hand over her mouth. Led her back down the trail. Told her to walk back to the other smokehouse and pushed her in that general direction. Then I joined Bobby. By now, two men wearing Middle Eastern headscarves and tunics were hovering over Rowe. One shoved wooden blocks up against either side of his head. He tightened them in place by looping a belt-like mechanism under the plank and across his blindfold before cinching it tight with a locking clasp. Immobilized, Rowe spoke to the other man, who was holding a gallon jug of water in his right hand and a plastic funnel in his left. “Listen Blink, this is crazy. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
“You got things a little out of order, Mistuh Rowe. First, we waterboard you, then you flap your gums. Mistuh Tragg wants to know who you’re working for, who you report to, how much you’re being paid, and where you’re stashing the cash. I’ll record your confession and my partner will film it.” Blink patted his shirt pocket with the heel of his left hand.
“But Amsterdam already knows everything.”
“Who the hell is Amsterdam? I report to Mr. Tragg and his instructions are clear.” Blink spat expertly, his lunger splashing across Rowe’s mouth and chin, where it hesitated before sliding down his throat.
“You bastard!”
“You got that right.”
“Can the bullshit,” said the other guy, who was punching numbers into his phone. “I don’t feel too good about this, so let’s just get it over with.”
“C’mon, Sam. I’m not sayin’ this is fun, but it sure beats Ironwood.”
“What do you want?” said Rowe. “My people will take care of it. I can offer you a much better deal than Tragg.”
Blink was unimpressed. “Say your prayers, baby.”
Bobby looked at me and I shook my head. Whispered. “One or two rounds before we stop ’em.”
“That’s torture, Nick.”
“I know.” My jaw set, I shook my head. “We need the overt act for evidence. You should record it on your phone.” Bobby looked at me and nodded grimly. Stepped back into the brush to film covertly.
Blink moved forward. He wrenched Rowe’s mouth open and inserted a rubber mouth prop. Covered his face with a cloth. Then held the funnel over the cloth and began to drip the water slowly and deliberately. At first, no response from Rowe. Blink increased the flow rate. When the water reached Rowe’s bronchioles, he gagged and began sneezing uncontrollably. His entire frame spasmed like a man in the jaws of a grand mal seizure. It was horrible to witness, but Blink clearly enjoyed it. He stepped back to observe his handiwork while the gentler, kinder Sam stepped up and reached for the locking mechanism.
“Not yet, baby. Let him drown awhile.”
Sam hesitated. “C’mon, man. This is nasty.”
“That’s the idea. It’s supposed to be nasty.” Blink began dripping another full funnel of water onto the cloth and into Rowe’s nose and mouth. Muffled screams. Retching. Gagging. It was sick. I was riveted. With a huge effort, I wrenched myself out of my own private torture mode. I nodded toward Bobby and motioned. Go time.
Guns drawn, we eased into the clearing, first me, then Bobby. A mistake. A third phony Arab, this one wearing a fishnet keffiyeh, had apparently been watching from around the corner of the smokehouse. The Taser darts struck inches below my solar plexus. A split-second of confusion. Then I pitched forward onto the ground. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew Bobby had faded back into the brush. Spasms. Neuromuscular incapacitation. The ripple effect spread through my nerves and muscles like a stone dropped into water. Pure fetal agony. Keffiyeh Man stepped up, yanked me to a sitting position, and smashed me twice in the face.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
When I came to, my head was pounding, my jaw throbbing. Burning on the outside, hollow on the inside. Aching everywhere. A heavy weight across my legs. Tried to buck it off. Failed. Tried again. This time Rowe slid off me, moaning. No sign of Bobby. I’d been tased and punched out, not a stroll down Park Avenue, but it hardly compared to being waterboarded.
“Rowe? Are you alright?”
“Peachy.” The words grated in his throat, triggering a fresh coughing spasm.
“Where are we?”
Rowe coughed instead of answering. I forced myself to a sitting position. We were inside the small smokehouse. A thin stream of early morning light filtered through a skylight. No sign of the girls. The Taser darts, still attached to their guide wires, were burning at their point of entry. I took a deep breath, grabbed one dart between my thumb and forefinger, and yanked it straight out. Repeat performance with the other. Get a tetanus shot.
Minus his keffiyeh, Rowe looked the perfect patrician. Even-featured, long nosed, middle-aged finishing school product in need of a shave. Got to my feet. Slowly. Legs wobbly. Took a deep breath. Another. We were in a brick room with a gently sloping ceiling, the top cut away to allow for a skylight. The interior brickwork was painted white. A plastic curtain cordoned off one side of the room. Sleeping bags lay neatly stacked against the opposite wall next to a pile of backpacks and half-a-dozen one-gallon plastic water jugs. Children’s pictures, including a crayon drawing of a ferocious-looking dinosaur, were taped haphazardly to the walls. No chairs.
I took a quick look behind the curtain. A plastic utility sink and chemical camp toilet. I grabbed a sleeping bag from the stack and threw a second one at Rowe. Sat down with my back against the wall, muscles expanding and contracting. Vaguely aware of something hard in the sleeping bag. Kneading my calves and thighs, I treated myself to a long self-pitying sigh and stared at Rowe, whose features telegraphed purest misery.
