Ten seconds went by before a medium-sized Syrian-looking guy came into view. He ran down the short hall and stepped into the tiny kitchen. His eyes were fixed on the flaming bag, which he proceeded to stamp out with a large, black boot. After three stomps, he realized his predicament, lifted his shoe, and looked at the sole.
He never saw me enter the room, but he felt my gun’s muzzle when I touched it to his neck. He went rigid as I stepped to face him.
“Where’s the woman?” I asked in a quiet voice.
He answered me with an Arabic insult. I tossed a few back at him, including calling him the son of a whore in the same Levantine dialect he used—the dialect of Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s dictator. I slammed my knee into his groin. As he doubled over, I swept his legs out from under him, slammed him to the floor, and bashed his head into the linoleum several times. When I considered him docile enough, I put my gun to his nose and patted him down.
Not a nice guy. His pockets held a collapsible baton, a Sig Sauer P229, a hunting knife, and a garrote. A handheld radio, a Motorola business model, went straight into my pocket. I tossed his other toys across the room and propped him against the wall.
“Where is she?”
He sneered at me. I stood up and kicked him in the face. His nose bled, and he smiled. He was a tough guy—either a long-term gangster or a veteran of Assad’s secret police. Questioning him would be unproductive.
I heard the wheeze of a wounded man in the other room. I’d not secured the place, and my victim still looked dangerous.
So I shot him.
Sabel Security darts look and act like regular bullets except that they’re a lot quieter and less accurate. Instead of a chunk of lead at the front, the casing holds a small cylinder filled with a nonlethal dose of Inland Taipan snake venom and a heavy sedative. The cartridge is interchangeable with a regular bullet but holds less gunpowder due to the longer payload. The venom puts the target into a state of paralysis, so he can see and hear, but his primary motor cortex is disconnected. He can’t move for about ten minutes. By the time that wears off, the sedative will have put him to sleep. Good for two to four hours of incapacitated bad guy. The only drawback: unintentional death. Some people have a violent reaction to the poison. For that reason, all Sabel Security agents are required to carry antivenom injectors, which are administered to prevent accidental death and the nasty lawsuits that follow.
He slumped over.
I patted my runner’s pack. All Sabel Security agents carry antivenom injectors except anyone who may have flown out of his house in a desperate rage.
Oh well.
I hoped he was going to live. I needed to interrogate him when he came around.
I heard movement in the front room and moved silently into the hallway. I crouched and spun around the wall. Agent Marty lay on the bare floorboards with a nasty gash on his forehead and a bruise high on his cheek. Just beyond him, a metal folding chair sat four feet from the window. Two strips of paper were taped up to look like a curtain.
It would take more than one guy to beat Marty, so I secured the apartment before attending to him. One bedroom and closet, empty. One filthy bathroom, empty. One kitchen with a breakfast nook, equally empty, not counting the incapacitated Syrian. I checked outside the door. The boys were gone; no one was watching. I closed the door, slapped the Syrian with plasticuffs, just in case he was immune to the sedative, and went back to Marty.
A small-caliber bullet hole wheezed in his chest with each breath. His head showed signs of a serious concussion from a pistol whipping. Not life-threatening, but serious wounds nonetheless.
The Major called the police and ambulance while I looked the place over. The setup was obvious: our Syrian was the spotter who radioed instructions to the men in the van. After the takedown, he waited for Ms. Sabel’s backup to arrive. He probably lured Marty by fluttering the curtains—the same trick he tried on me. When I didn’t run straight for him, he probably figured me for a real jogger and relaxed. Marty would have been in bodyguard mode, pissed and running around with his gun drawn. He would have jumped at the curtain. I would have too.
Agents Miguel, Carmen, and Tony arrived a minute before the ambulance. Carmen, a former medic, took over on Marty and had him talking in no time. Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure which city he was in, much less what happened to Ms. Sabel.
I let Miguel deal with the police and sent Agent Tony back to the café to retrace Ms. Sabel’s steps, while I ducked out to look for my boys. As soon as I hit the bottom of the rickety stairs, the tall, skinny kid materialized. He led me to Sister Raissa’s apartment in a slightly nicer building at the end of I Street and left me on my own.
Inside I could hear voices raised in anger.
When I knocked, the voices stopped in unison. There was some shuffling before a voice came through the door. “Who is it?”
“Jacob Stearne, Sabel Security. I’m here to help.”
An argument in forced whispers broke out and carried on for thirty seconds before someone hushed everyone else. The voice said, “How are you with God?”
Not the usual through-the-door question.
Honesty is the only policy.
“I was facedown in a drainage ditch in Hindu Kush with three hundred Taliban raining lead on my squad. I swore to God if he got me out of there alive, I’d believe the rest of my life.”
“And you made good on that promise?”
After a breath, I said, “No … but I’m working on it.”
The door opened, and a black woman with glasses hanging on a chain around her neck stepped out. She wrapped her arms around me. “Ain’t none of us as good as we should be. Knowing that is a good start.”
She introduced herself as Raissa and led me into a small room with five people. One of the people was Tania, out cold on the couch. I knelt by Tania’s side and checked her pulse while Raissa introduced Louisa, Douglas, and Jamal. Louisa owned the dollar store; Douglas ran the pawnshop; and Jamal was Raissa’s lesser half. He trembled a lot and said little.
I instinctively reached for my missing antivenom injector and grimaced.
Louisa was a fine-looking woman who turned her face to hide her smile when I winked at her. I kept my eyes on hers, and she lifted her shoulder to hide her spreading grin. Mature women have a sensuous confidence and realistic expectations, while younger ladies have annoying neuroses and schemes. Forced to choose, I’d take the mature woman any day. When this op was over, I’d come back and call on Louisa.
They all started talking at once.
“They shot her,” Raissa said.
“They have my daughter,” Douglas said.
“She gonna be OK?” Jamal said, pointing to Tania.
“We should call an ambulance,” Louisa said. “I don’t see blood, but she’s hurt.”
The dart left a mark on her neck just below her ear. I stood and held up my hands to stop their jabbering. “She’s going to be fine. I take it they shot her with her own gun?”
“Yes,” Raissa said.
“Did anyone tell them it had darts, not bullets?”
“Darts? No.”
“Then they intended to kill her.”
The three of them nodded, their eyes locked on mine like sad puppy dogs.
“It was an accident,” Louisa said. “They thought they’d killed her. They freaked and ran.”
“What happened?”
“Ms. Sabel offered herself in place of his daughter,” Louisa said.
“They took my daughter,” Douglas said again.
This time it sank in. “They double-crossed you at the exchange?”
They nodded in unison. Raissa said, “It was her idea. Pia said she was the one they wanted. After all, it started when she took their guys out.” Her eyes rose to the ceiling. “That was something. You shoulda seen it. Like some kinda avenging angel or something, she showed up and kicked their asses.” She hung her head. “Uh, not that I condone violence, mind you—”
“Did they release the girl?”
“No. They’re supposed to call here and tell us where to find her.”
“Have you called the FBI?”
“They said we needed proof she’d been kidnapped.”
“Wouldn’t need proof if we was in Georgetown,” Douglas said.
A loud rapping on the door silenced all of us. I drew my weapon and took a position to the side of it. I pressed my hand to the peephole to block the light. No one started shooting, so I took a look. When I saw who it was, I opened it.
Five foot five, slender with her hair pulled into a tight bun at the nape of her neck, Major Jonelle Jackson had the presence of a giant. She always had a serious look that came from a lifetime of life-and-death decisions. When she strode into the room, Raissa and her friends fell into a silent semicircle around her. Greeting each of them with a slight nod and a reverential look, Major Jackson gave them a dual first impression: that she respected them and that they’d better tell her the truth.
We went through a timeline of events. To get back at Ms. Sabel for beating the crap out of their thugs, leaving two dead, the Syrian mobsters snatched Douglas’s eight-year-old daughter. Ms. Sabel found out about it when she returned from my place and immediately offered to trade herself for the child. With Tania advising against it, they went straight to the van on Twenty-First Street. The deal went sideways. Three Syrians jumped Tania, shot her with her own gun, and took off.
“What about Raya?” Douglas asked, his face drained.
With a glance, the Major told me to keep quiet. She didn’t need to; I knew damn well the chances of the girl being alive right now were slim and dwindling fast.
After a moment of silence, I said, “They took Ms. Sabel’s phone and smashed it. Did they take her bag too?”
“No,” Raissa said. “She just got in the van like she knew what she was doing.”
That was good news. The Major nodded at me. There was no need to tell them Ms. Sabel carried a concealed Glock 33 and a reserve phone in her waistpack. She had a hundred purses, backpacks, and waistpacks all fitted with secret holsters. Either luck or stupidity stopped the thugs from dumping her bag. The gun in it was light enough to make the pack look normal, but anyone who grabbed it would know it was too heavy for makeup and money alone. The good news: no one expected a former athlete to carry a piece.
I checked my watch: twenty minutes had passed. The Syrians could have taken her anywhere.
Douglas’s phone rang. He nodded to us after checking the caller ID and took the call on speakerphone.
“Daddy, I don’t like your friend,” a little girl said. She paused between sentences. “His breath smells, and he told me you were supposed to meet us here. Where are you? When are you coming?”
“I’ll be right there, honey. Where are you?”
She hesitated, and someone spoke in the background. She said, “At the zoo—the gorilla cages. I don’t like gorillas. Come get—”
“I’m coming, honey.” Douglas kept talking as he ran out the front door. Louisa followed, offering to drive.
They weren’t asking for help, no doubt expecting me to be a liability, but I had to participate. It was our only lead. I had to nab a Syrian during the exchange.
I checked my stolen radio. It was on, volume up, but there was no suspicious chatter. Did the Syrians know I’d captured a radio? I set it to cycle through the various channels, trying to find which one they were using. All I had to do was listen for Arabic. There had to be a second guy who would have seen me and laid low. I expected to hear him warning his pals over the unit, but so far, nothing. Why have expensive radios and not use them?