Hoda and Jake Page 7

  The front door tinkled, and the men exchanged glances. Ortiz moved quickly down the aisle of shelves to the front, but it was only Ortega, returned with the coffee,

  Seeing Holman walk out behind Ortiz, Ortega said, “Didn’t know how you like it, sir. so I brought it black.”

  “What a coincidence,” Jake said, smiling. “That’s how I take it.

  ***

  That night Ortiz rapped on Tammy Gillis’s door. No answer. Funny, she wasn’t at work that afternoon, either. Pondering, Ortiz walked back down the path. Minutes later Jake Holman stepped from deep shadow, watching the sergeant major retreat. Another piece of the puzzle confirmed.

  ***

  Jake sought out Alex Greenwald the next day. The CID man looked like he’d had another long night at the O-club, but greeted Jake cheerfully enough.

  “Anything new?” Alex asked.

  “Well, not on your murders,” Jake hedged. “But I may have bought you some time, and a new lead or two.”

  “Really? We could use the help.”

  “I need to wrap up a few loose ends, and I could use your help. How many men do you have here?”

  “About a dozen. Ten men and two women, actually. Welcome to the twenty-first century.”

  “I plan on springing a sting here pretty soon. Just don’t know exactly when. But I don’t want the local MPs involved, for security reasons. Don’t even want to tell you everything yet.”

  “So what do you need?”

  “Have your people where you can get them in a real hurry. It’ll be a stakeout, at the supply building. I don’t think it will be too long, either. Maybe even tomorrow night. Tonight, even, if things fall right.”

  “Okay Jake. Just keep me in mind on my end. Hey, did you notice they shipped out the colonel’s girl? The fat, ugly one?”

  Jake didn’t remember Alex Greenwald being this way. He was starting to not like him. Then he remembered the drinking. Once drink got its hooks into a man, it changed him. He said, “I heard she’s not around anymore.”

  “You have anything to do with that?”

  Jake couldn’t lie. Not about this. Too easy to get caught. “Yes. Something.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Alex, I can’t go into it. All I can say is, she might be a witness in the rocket thing.”

  “We haven’t interviewed her yet, Jake. You should have checked with us. Where is she?”

  “I don’t know.” Which was true; all Jake knew was that she’d taken the big bird out to Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, on the arm of the only female MP on post. Robinson confirmed her arrival in a subsequent e-mail, but hadn’t said where she was being kept.

  Greenwald didn’t look happy. Still, he smiled. “Okay, Jake. Consider your sting on.”

  ***

  “Good news, sir,” Ortiz said. “We’re on for tonight.”

  “That was fast!”

  “Well, sir, I’m having trouble getting the provenance paperwork, and we have to get these out fast. I have some local contacts who will give us a pretty fair price.” And he told Jake the number.

  “What’t not half bad,” Jake admitted. “I assume you have all the infrastructure in place to get the stuff moved?”

  “Infawhat, sir?”

  Jake stifled a smile. “The way to move it. A way to get it out of here with no one asking embarrassing questions.”

  “Oh, yessir. Count on me for that.”

  “What time is the shift?”

  “Sir, it might be better if you weren’t here. Keeps you out of the loop. What do they call it?”

  “Plausible deniability,” Jake prompted.

  “Yeah. That.”

  “You’re probably right.” This was getting easier.

  “We should be moving them about zero-two-hundred.”

  “How?”

  “You leave that to me.”

  “Okay, Ortiz. You’re on point.

  ***

  The CID team set up about 10 o’clock that night—2200 hours to Jake and everyone else involved—and he was satisfied with the ambush. Night vision equipment, plenty of firepower for the threat level, and enough planning so they wouldn’t be shooting at each other in the dark. A lot of the Ranger School is patrolling, with ambushes a major part, and a poorly-planned ambush can turn into a slaughterhouse for one’s own side.

  They waited nearly four hours, and Jake could see Greenwald chafing under the delay. Knowing something of the demon rum despite his own freedom from it, Jake kept a close eye on Alex. It wouldn’t be the first time somebody tried to hide a few nips, and drinking with guns was a really bad idea, Jake knew. Alex passed the test.

  Around 2 a.m., the pickup backed close to the garage doors on the supply building. There were no MPs around, but if the canteen made night visits to them it made sense.

  Holman looked through the night scope, and saw tinted green in its ghoulish glow the unmistakable figure of Ortiz, together with four locals. Ortiz was in fatigues. He opened the door, and the truck backed into the building, where a bay was kept clear for loading. The door closed, and remained so for half and hour. When it opened, the pickup eased out without lights, turning for the road that led to the main gate. It was halfway when searchlights lashed out, stabbing and holding it in their glare.

  The Latinos piled out, lying prone with hands behind heads: they knew the drill alright. Jake almost expected that. The question was, what would Ortiz do?

  The answer wasn’t one Jake expected, though certainly they had prepared for. Ortiz was a desperate man, pushed beyond his limits, and he proved it by jumping out of the passenger side—it must have been crowded in there—and standing offhand with one of the M-14s. He popped off a few shots before the CID shooters butchered him: suicide by cop. Jake shook his head. That was that.

  Holman followed Alex out under the lights to have a closer look. Predictably, in a Special Forces camp, dozens came running, armed to the teeth. Greenwald took charge, showing his badge and ordering everyone to stand down and clear their weapons. After he’d talked with each of his people, and examined Ortiz’s corpse, he approached Jake.

  “Too bad,” Greenwald said. “Now we may never be able to make the connection with those murders.”

  “Maybe not,” Jake said, “but there’s a pretty good chance you got your man for them. Saved a trial, too.”

  “What do you think he was thinking?”

  “Desperate times call for desperate measures. He was at the end of his rope, Alex. Else why would he pull the stunts he did? He must have known the system would find him out. I guess that divorce put enough pressure on him, and he cracked.”

  ***

  About three hours later there was a knock at Jake’s door. He had just finished morning prayer, fortunately. It was Alex Greenwald. “Mind if I come in?”

  Once inside and into the light, Jake could see Greenwald’s eyes were a little glassy., but he didn’t seem out of control. Guys like Greenwald seldom were. He had an envelope in his hand.

  “We checked Ortiz’s bungalow,” Greenwald said, “and found this addressed to you. You can’t have it, it’s evidence. But it explains a lot.”

  Jake took the envelope and extracted a single sheet of paper.

  Mr. Holman (it read)

  If you’re reading this, the deal didn’t go down. Sorry. I’m also sorry you weren’t who you said you were. You seemed like such a nice guy. But we both had to do what we had to do. We both know that.

  I guess you know I killed those four soldiers. They found the truck with the rockets in the bush. What was I supposed to do?

  Don’t feel bad. I’m not sorry it turned out this way. Life was starting to get old, anyway. Maybe now the ex will feel safer and my kids won’t be afraid.

  Rafael Ortiz, SgtM

  “Guess we did wrap it up after all,” Jake said, handing the document back to Greenwald.

  “You had no way of knowing he wrote this,” Greenwald said. “You closed another case, and didn’t lift a finger o
n the murders. Jake, you are the luckiest agent I know.”

  “Better, they say, to be lucky than good.”

  Greenwald extended his hand. “I dunno, Jake. You’re pretty good, too.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Say hello to that pretty wife of yours.”

  “Will do.”

  “And salaam alaikum.”

  “Alaikum salaam.”

  Muslims don’t often exchange their greeting with non-Muslims, and whether Greenwald knew that or not Jake couldn’t guess. But if he had to, he’d say yes. What concerned Jake more was the reference to Hoda being pretty: was she the talk of the town? He hoped not. For that matter, he hoped his conversion wasn’t, either.

  Greenwald turned and opened the door, disappearing down the BOQ path in the dawn, Jake saw through his window.

  Acceptance

  Hoda Abdelal looked out the back window of her parents’ camp in Lebanon, New Hampshire as she readied the evening meal. She’d been watching her husband, Jake Holman, out behind at the edge of the woods, where he’d been clearing brush to expand the usable yard. Stripped to the waist and glistening, he was Adonis. She smiled, shivering deliciously.

  Jake was handy with anything, in this case a brush ax. Graceful movement didn’t detract from the power of his strokes, as the petty wilderness yielded to his relentless assault. He’d cleared the whole area in a single afternoon, bundling the cuttings and packing them into the bed of his F-250 pickup for delivery to a neighbor who’d agreed to let the Hassans dump on his land.

  “He’s so handsome!” said Maryam, Hoda’s mother, from behind her.

  “English, Mama, English.”

  “Don’t change the subject,” Maryam said, in English. “Do you enjoy marriage?”

  “Mother!” What Maryam had meant was, did they enjoy the pleasures of married life. Hoda’s parents did, always had; fertility problems had kept Maryam from conceiving a second child, try though she and Abdul might. “What would father say? What does the Quran say!”

  In fact, the Quran and its accompanying Hadiths from the Prophet Mohammed (Peace Be Unto Him) both encouraged married pleasures, but discouraged idle talk about them.

  The groaning screen door announced Jake’s arrival inside, and both women laughed self-consciously. Jake raised an eyebrow, but knew better than to get between the two co-conspirators.

  “Time for a dip,” Jake said. “I think I’ve earned it.”

  “You sure have,” Hoda said.

  “When will supper be ready?”

  “In about an hour,” Hoda told him. “Maybe a little more.”

  Jake loved this place. The lake was right across the street, with its fresh, clear, sun-warmed water. You could feel the pace of life slow down here. He went to the downstairs cabana and put on trunks, then checked the busy street before crossing. If he and Hoda had children, he’d be concerned about this street.

  Jake walked confidently to the end of the floating dock and dived in, reveling in the cool as it cleansed his body and did wonders for his mind. He dived to the bottom, slithering over its stones with powerful strokes. Jake had always been a natural around water, whether in boats on the surface or plying its depths. It had helped immensely during his service time, especially at Ranger and Special Forces schools, where water played an integral part: weak swimmers washed out.

  Soon after, Jake rinsed off under the outside shower head, making wudu for afternoon prayer. He went upstairs, where Dr. Hassan waited to lead the two men; the women prayed separately. Prayer was still a little strange to Jake, though he executed it well, and he was acutely aware of the aura put out by his impressive father-in-law. About as informal as Abdul—Dr. Hassan— ever got was wearing short shirt sleeves; he never wore even short pants. Whenever the family was together, he was the 300-pound gorilla in the room; Jake, as a non-Arab, had not been his choice as a son-in-law.

  “Jake,” said Maryam when they were seated at table, “the back yard looks great. You should see it, Abdul. That jungle is gone, Alhamdulillah.” Praise to God.

  “Yes,” said Baba. Jake always thought of Abdul Hassan as Baba; it humanized him. Though he’d never think of calling him that out loud, like the women did. “Thank you, Mr. Holman.”

  Jake smiled. That his father-in-law refused to use his Christian name—that western expression—didn’t bother Jake. At least, he didn’t think so. He refused to let it. “No bother,” Jake said. “Good exercise. Glad to help out.”

  Actually, Jake had helped a lot in the ten days since they’d arrived. It was the Hassans’ annual vacation and Abdul, for all his obviously immense skill as an anesthesiologist, was not handy with his hands. Jake was: carpentry, plumbing, electricity, gardening. He could do it all—and he’d arrived with a truck full of tools. A nip here, tuck there, a dozen nagging projects had been seen to fruition.

  Maryam shot a glance at her husband, thinking she wouldn’t get caught. But Jake Holman didn’t miss much, and the dynamic between his in-laws was gradually unfolding. For all the propaganda about Muslim women being chattel in marriage, in Jake’s observation they were strong, vibrant partners, as they were in any successful marriage. Men were poseurs, titular tigers; woe betide man who crossed the Little Woman, whatever the veneer.

  Realizing she, as Jake would put it, “had been made,” Maryam changed, abruptly smiling warmly at Jake as she passed a dish.

  “Really, Jake,” she said in English with markedly less accent than her husband’s, “we’re in your debt.”

  Jake glanced all around. “Oh, I think it’s a fair trade all around.” He couldn’t resist a laugh.

  His table manners were very good for an American, Maryam always noted. She didn’t realize they hadn’t always been. Boilermaker’s boy that Jake was, he’d grown up an animal; only the Army changed him, sending him to etiquette training when he earned his warrant. One didn’t dispute Army training. And etiquette had proven its worth countless times since, Jake knew: sometimes spies really did wear black ties. Hoda and Jake had been married less than a year, but he’d never given Maryam the slightest indication, vibration, of less than total devotion to their daughter. And Hoda continued her residency at Johns Hopkins.

  Maryam felt brave. “The only thing missing is a grandchild.”

  “Mother!”

  But everyone smiled, even the stony doctor shared a smirk with his wife. Was he actually thawing? Like Maryam, with whom he had often discussed this very thing, Abdul Hassan had to admit there was a lot to like about the young secret agent. Naturally, Hassan wished he’d get a real job, but his salary was evidently more than adequate. Hassan wondered what would happen with the traveling when Hoda conceived. Which of course he hoped for soon. Then Hoda could give up this psychiatry nonsense and settle down to an Arab woman’s real role: keeping her husband’s house, like his Maryam.

  Hassan looked at his wife of over thirty years, and there was no mistaking the glint in his eye: he was devoted to her. Jake caught it—and Hoda caught Jake catching it. The newlyweds smiled at each other, which in turn made Maryam happy.

  And so it went. It was a very pleasant meal. They all seemed to be, lately. Toward its end, Jake ventured, “I see a couple of loose fittings on the dock. I’ll tackle those tomorrow.”

  “Oh, Jake,” Maryam said, “you’re here to relax. You haven’t done that since you arrived. Take some time.”

  “Oh, this is relaxing, believe me.”

  “Well, you should have an evening off, without my husband or me around,” Maryam said. This was unlike her, but she seemed determined. “Abdul,” she declared, “I want to go out to the theater tonight. Hoda, will you clean up? I want to leave right away.”

  “Sure, Mama.”

  Mother and daughter exchanged glances, and Jake saw significance deeply ingrained: there was a message there. At first he chalked it up to clearing and cleaning; he’d help Hoda, Maryam surely knew, and the doctor wouldn’t approve. But then he realized there was much more to the message, and real
joy coursed through him.

  Uncharacteristically, Maryam was ready quickly, shooing her husband along, and in mere minutes the couple was gone. They would not be back for hours. “Have a good time,” Hoda called after them as she removed dishes from the table.

  The last dishes didn’t leave the table for some time; Hoda and Jake had other plans—as Maryam had known all along they would. Grandchildren, indeed.

  ***

  Hoda and Jake were sleeping happily when there was a loud knock on the front camp door. Persistent. No, relentless.

  “Coming!” Jake called, answering in a robe. He put his backup gun on the shelf next to the hinge side of the door, then opened it. There stood a man in a suit, with a New Hampshire trooper behind him.

  “Mr. Holman?” So he knew who Jake was.

  “Yes.”

  “And your wife is here?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sergeant Lane. This is Trooper Gorham. May we come in?”

  Jake stood aside, adroitly moving a telephone book to cover his handgun as he did so. The policemen entered. By now Hoda was up and out, likewise in a robe.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. She had a terrible feeling. It was justified.

  “There’s been an incident,” Lane said, Jake instantly picking up on “incident” as opposed to “accident.”

  “What happened?” There was an edge to Hoda’s voice—it could only mean her parents were involved.

  “Can we all sit down?” Lane suggested, gesturing at the table.

  “By all means,” said Jake calmly. He hit the overhead light switch, bathing the huge kitchen—center of the house—in warm light.

  When they were all at the table, Lane said, “Doctor and Mrs. Hassan are at in Dartmouth Hospital. Their car went off the road tonight on the way back from Hanover. The doctor is in fairly good condition.” His eyes fell on Hoda. “Your mother, Doctor, not so much.” He produced a hand-written sheet from his portfolio.

  A swirl of questions filled Hoda’s head. Questions filled Jake’s, too, but they were of a different sort; his professional mind had long since started tracking nuances Hoda would usually pick up, but the involvement of her parents forbade.