“Nothing moving outside,” Clark reported, shutting the front door. “Ding, check the fridge, see if a little food’ll quiet down Fido.”
“Got it.”
Clark stepped over to Jack. “You’re bleeding.”
“Huh?”
Clark pointed at Jack’s right shoulder. The material of his shirt was dark with blood. “Take off your shirt.” Jack did so, revealing a two-inch gash on his collarbone at the base of his throat. Blood trickled down his chest.
“Huh,” Jack mumbled. “Didn’t know. Felt something hit my shoulder, but I didn’t realize.”
“An inch or two higher and you’d be done, Jack. Put your thumb on it. Hey, Ding, see if Sinaga’s got some superglue.”
From the kitchen came sounds of drawers opening and closing, then Chavez walked out and tossed a tube to Clark, who handed it to Jack. “Put a line of that in the cut.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. Better than stitches. Do it.”
Jack tried, but his hands were shaking. He looked at them. “Sorry.”
“Just adrenaline, mano,” Chavez said, taking the tube. “Don’t sweat it.”
“He’s really dead?” Jack asked Clark.
Clark nodded.
“Shit. We needed him alive.”
“His choice, Jack, not yours. You can feel bad about it if you want. That’s natural. But don’t forget: He was trying to open your throat.”
“Yeah, I guess. I don’t know.”
Chavez said, “Don’t overthink it. You’re alive; he’s dead. Would you rather have it the other way around?”
“Hell, no.”
“Then chalk it up as a win and move on.” Chavez capped the superglue tube, stood up.
“Just like that? Move on?”
“Might take a little time to process it,” Clark replied. “But if you can’t, you need to stick to your desk.”
“Jesus, John.”
“If you carry this dirtbag around in your head, it’s going to get you or somebody else killed. I guarantee it. This job isn’t for everyone, Jack. There’s no shame in that. Better you figure that out now than later.”
Jack exhaled, rubbed his forehead. “Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“Okay, I’ll think about it.” Clark smiled at this. “What?” Jack asked.
“That was the right answer. You just killed a man. I’d be worried if you didn’t have a little soul-searching to do.”
From the kitchen, Ding called, “Got something, John.”
Three days after it left on a charter flight from Dubai, the device touched down at Vancouver International Airport in British Columbia. Having landed the day before, Musa was waiting for the flight. His business card and letter cleared him into the customs warehouse, where he met the inspector.
“Silvio Manfredi,” Musa introduced himself, handing over his documentation.
“Thanks. Phil Nolan. Your package is over here.”
They walked to a nearby pallet on which the plastic crate sat.
Neither the card nor the letterhead had been difficult to create using Photoshop and a high-end desktop publishing program. Of course, the inspector would care little about a letter from the University of Calgary’s veterinary medicine department chair, but the psychological effect couldn’t be ignored. The inspector was dealing with a fellow citizen and a renowned Canadian university.
What Musa’s fourteen months of study had taught him was that customs inspectors the world over were overworked and underpaid, and lived by checklists and forms. For this particular type of shipment-radioactive materials-the inspector would be concerned with three forms of documentation: an invoice and bill of lading for the device; the stamps and seals from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) agent in Dubai, stating the origin of the shipment; and the myriad paperwork demanded by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Transport Canada, the Nuclear Substances and Radiation Devices license, the Canadian Nuclear Substances Act, and the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act. While none of these documents had proven difficult to reproduce, the intelligence groundwork Musa and his men had conducted had alone taken eight months.
“So what is it?” the customs inspector asked.
“It’s called a PXP-40HF portable equine imager.”
“Come again?”
Musa chuckled. “I know. Quite a mouthful. It’s a portable X-ray machine for horses. A friend of the university president lives in Dubai. Has this prized Arabian stallion worth more than either of us will make in a lifetime. Horse got sick, friend complains to president, the university puts the machine on loan.”
The inspector shook his head. “Must be nice. Did the horse make it?”
“Yes. Get this: It was just colic. Spent a week over there babysitting an X-ray machine because the guy’s vet didn’t recognize a simple case of indigestion.”
“Well, at least you got some sun. Okay…” the inspector said, flipping through the paperwork. “I need radioisotope code, activity level, dose rate, contamination limits…”
“Page four. And page nine. Pretty low across the board.”
“Yeah, okay, I see it. So how dangerous is this thing?”
“Pretty harmless unless you manage to take a couple hundred X-rays of your balls. Then you’d have problems.”
The inspector laughed at this. “Not exactly a WMD, is it?”
Musa shrugged. “Rules are rules. Better to be a little overcautious than the opposite, I suppose.”
“Yeah. Hey, how come they didn’t fly you straight into Calgary?”
“Couldn’t get a flight in there until Wednesday. Thought it’d be easier to come in here and rent a car. With luck, I’ll be home before nightfall.”
The inspector signed where he needed to sign and affixed adhesive seals on the crate. He had Musa countersign in the appropriate places, gave the paperwork once last glance, then handed it back. “You’re good to go.”
“My rental car is in the parking lot…”
“Just pull up to the gate. I’ll tell them to wave you through.”
Musa shook his hand. “Thanks.”
“Sure thing. Travel safe.”
67
AFTER STAUNCHING the blood pulsing from Bari’s severed fingers, they sat him in a chair in the living room and duct-taped his feet to the legs. The leader of the group they duct-taped to the trestle table. Both men were still unconscious. Finally, they policed up the bodies and piled them into the bathtub, atop Bari’s second bodyguard.
“I’m going to take a walk around the block,” Dominic said. “See if the natives are restless. Don’t think we attracted any attention, but…”
“Sounds good.”
“Be back in five.”
Brian sat in the living room, studying their captives and doing a mental postmortem of their takedown. Pretty damned good job, he thought. Dominic had always been good with a gun, and a pro at Hogan’s Alley, but this had been the first time they’d really gotten into the shit together. Sure, there’d been that mall thing, but that wasn’t quite the same, was it? Here they’d taken on genuine URC bad boys on their home turf. Not really accustomed to taking prisoners, though; he’d have to change mental gears on that point. The butt of the Browning had laid both mutts out, sure enough, but not very efficiently. Maybe a lead-and-leather sap might do the trick. Have to look into that.
He heard the courtyard gate open. He got up, walked to the door, peeked around the corner. “Just me, bro,” Dominic said, walking inside.
“How’s it looking?”
“Quiet. The place really dies down after dark. Another couple hours and it’ll probably be a ghost town.”
“Which brings up a good point.”
“These two?” Dominic replied, nodding at Bari and the other one.