Excerpt…
“You worked for Isa,” Bob said.
Behind the glass, Patrick stiffened.
“Y-y-y-yes,” Karim said.
“From when to when?” Bob said.
“F-f-f-from 2003 until you k-k-killed Zarqawi.”
“Three years. You must know him pretty well.”
A spark of defiance gleamed in the young man’s eyes. “Y-y-you’ll never catch him.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Bob said cordially, and pulled up a chair. He gave Karim’s knee a comforting pat. “I want you to tell me all about your time with him, Karim. Everything, every tiny little detail you can remember.” He smiled at Karim again and Karim flinched. “Take your time. I’ve got all day.”
“I-I-I already t-t-told you everything I know.”
“I don’t think so,” Bob said cheerfully, and gave Karim’s knee another encouraging pat. “Start talking.”
“W-w-what do I get if I do?”
Patrick had to admire the little terrorist. Terrified as he was, he was still trying to bargain.
Bob shrugged and worked his head. His neck cracked with a loud pop and Karim jumped so hard it moved his chair a couple of inches across the floor. “What do you get?” He smiled again at Karin. “Maybe I let you live to see the dawn.”
Karim, who evidently got most of his courage from putting together bombs to be detonated far from his person, started talking. A lot of it Patrick already knew, such Isa’s prediliction for and proficiency at Internet banking and communications. The particulars of Isa’s dispersal of Zarqawi’s cell after Zarqawi’s death was news. Isa dispensing with the services of a group of men he and Zarqawi had trained from terrorist infancy seemed wasteful. Why cut loose your experienced personnel, when you had so much time invested in them?
Answer, Patrick thought, because one of them betrayed your boss. You don’t know which one, all you know is it wasn’t you, so better to cut them all loose. Even wimpy little Karim.
Karim, now weeping over the same of his own betrayal, knew more than he would say about the bombing in Bagdad and nothing at all about Isa’s current whereabouts. He drew a heartrending picture of his and Isa’s farewell in the Damascus airport. “I didn’t know where to go,” he said, sniveling. “I didn’t know what to do. So I went back.”
Patrick shook his head. Embarrassing.
The speaker was quiet for a moment, but for Karim’s sniffling. “Almost the last thing he said to me,” Karim said wearily, “was a quote from your president Bush.”
“Oh?” Bob said, bored. “What was that?”
“He said that Bush said that it was better to fight us on our ground than for the Americans to fight us on theirs.”
“Oh, yeah?” Bob said.
Irritated at Bob’s apparent lack of interest, the little terrorist said with a snap, “And then he said that he thought Bush was right.”
Shortly thereafter Bob joined Patrick over a cup of coffee before Patrick headed north again. “What do you think?”
“Is he gay?” Patrick said. “He sounds like he’s in love with Isa.”
“Something we’d thought of, too, he talks like Isa jilted him in Damascus,” Bob said. “He didn’t write, he didn’t call, it’s all one long moan.” He cocked an eye at Patrick. “Anything you can use?”
“It’s all grist for the mill, Bob,” Patrick said thoughtfully. “He was in on that bus bombing in Bagdad.”
“Ya think?” Bob said. “I’m going to sweat the little weasel until he tells me exactly how he designed and built that bomb, every nut, every bolt, every wire. I want to know where he got the parts, what the original target was, who picked it, who changed the target and why, and who gave the order for execution. When I have a confession, signed, witnessed, notarized, recorded on tape and on video, then at least, even if they won’t let us hang him, he won’t be exercising that talent on the streets of anyone’s town ever again.”
Dana sez–
I did my second ridealong with the US Coast Guard in 2007, on an Eastern Pacific (EPAC) patrol, seven weeks offshore of Central and South America doing drug interdiction and migrant mitigation, and national security in all its many aspects.
As with Blindfold Game, I only wish this plot had been more of a stretch. They say the difference between crime fiction and thrillers is that in crime fiction, Auntie Ethel is at risk. In a thriller, Auntie Ethel’s entire nation is at risk. I only know it’s a lot easier to sleep nights writing the former than it is the latter.
As with my 2004 Bering Sea ridealong with the US Coast Guard, the price of passage was a daily blog for friends and families back on the beach. I have collected blog posts from both ridealongs in an ebook, On Patrol with the US Coast Guard.
Chatter On Patrol with the US Coast Guard Prepared for Rage us coast guard