Gil took a step back, shocked to see such a vicious act coming from an otherwise very mild-mannered man. They let Faisal scream himself out, which took about thirty seconds before he fell to sobbing like a child.
Pope took hold of the ice pick handle, and Faisal screamed again.
“Shhhh!” Pope looked down into Faisal’s horrified eyes. “Listen to me now. Listen to me, Muhammad. I’m going to do that over and over again until your face looks like a tomato unless you stop lying to me. Okay?” He was thinking of Lijuan sitting in a government holding cell, alone and afraid.
Faisal blinked once, afraid to move because of Pope’s grip on the wooden handle sticking out of his face. “The al-Rashid brothers,” he whined. “Akram and Haroun. Wahhabi fanatics with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. They came to me for money four years ago. I didn’t want to help them buy the bomb, but they threatened me.”
Pope knew of the al-Rashid brothers, and to hear their names made him nauseous. “Are they still living in Canada?”
“Yes.”
“Where in Canada?”
“Windsor!” Faisal sobbed.
“Very good,” Pope said softly. “Now, what other names can you give me?”
Faisal was sobbing openly now, his upturned face awash in his tears. “I swear to you I don’t know anyone else.”
“But you’ve already lied to me so many times, Muhammad. How can I possibly believe that?”
“I’m not lying now!” Faisal wailed. “Please believe me!” He choked painfully on the blood and mucus draining down the back of his throat from his pierced sinus cavity, each convulsion causing the sharp steel probe to contort the musculature of his face. “Pull it out!”
“Look into my eyes, Muhammad. I’m going to stab you in the face again because I believe you’re lying to me.”
“No!” Faisal shrieked. “I’m telling you the truth!”
Pope pulled the ice pick from Faisal’s face. “Hold his head, Gil.”
Gil reluctantly grabbed hold of Faisal’s head to steady it.
“No!” Faisal shrieked with such force that it sounded like his vocal cords might snap. “I don’t know anything more! For the love God! I don’t know anything!”
Pope stood back and looked at Gil. “What do you think?”
Gil had seen enough, both of the ice pick and of Faisal’s testimony. “I’m pretty sure he’s tapped out.”
They left Faisal sobbing uncontrollably on the floor of the locker room.
Gil had some difficulty concealing his discomfort as he stood in the hall watching Pope think things over. He would have personally preferred the bloodless method of torture by suffocation, but he had to admit that Pope had gotten results very quickly after that stab to the face.
“Should we call the president?” he asked. “We’re going to need to get the Canadians on board to help us find—”
“No,” Pope said, half lost in thought. “We don’t need their help. I already know where the al-Rashid brothers live. They’re across the Detroit River from Detroit.” He stood staring at the floor.
“What’s wrong?”
Pope looked up. “I classified the al-Rashid brothers as low risk six months ago.” He shook his head. “The ultimate failure on my part — absolutely unforgivable.”
“What are you going to recommend to the president?”
“Nothing at all. It’s our mission to find the bomb, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
“Right,” Gil said, “but the president needs to get the Canadians on board.”
“And risk the Canadians screwing things up?” Pope shook his head. “No way. You and your team are going to cross the river and bring the al-Rashids back to American soil, where we can deal with them however we need to.”
“Bob, that could be considered an act of war against an ally.”
“Yes, it could, and that’s precisely why the president has chosen a team that he can easily disavow. Don’t forget what you signed on for. We’re all expendable assets.”
Gil nodded. “Okay. You gather the intel, and I’ll brief the men.” He gestured at the locker room door. “What about him?”
“Forget him,” Pope said absentmindedly. “He’s my problem now.”
39
Gil took Crosswhite aside after briefing the team on a probable incursion into Canada. “This stays between us.”
“Okay.”
“Pope took an ice pick to Faisal’s face.”
Crosswhite pulled back his shoulders. “How, exactly?”
“I mean he stabbed the fucker in the face with an ice pick.”
“Jesus! I guess it worked, huh?”
“You could say that.” Gil put out his hand. “Gimme a smoke.”
“When you gonna buy your own?”
“After I smoke all yours.” Gil lit the cigarette. “Something’s up with him.”
“Pope? Or Faisal?”
“Pope. He’s on edge about something. First he snaps and stabs a guy in the face, and now he’s ordering us into Canada without consulting the president.”
“Gonna go over his head?”
“We just have to make sure we don’t get caught on the wrong side of the river, that’s all.”
A few minutes later, he was sorting his gear and decided to check his iPhone on the off-chance that Marie had called.
He listened to her voice mail and called her right back.
She answered on the first ring. “Gil?”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Where are you?”
“I’m in Nevada.”
“How fast can you get here?”
“I can’t,” he said. “What’s wrong, baby?”
She didn’t reply immediately.
“Marie, what’s wrong?”
“I can’t tell you over the phone. Why can’t you come home?”
“Because I’m — I’m working.”
“Jesus!” she said. “Can’t you tell me what the hell you’re doin’ just once? You’re not even workin’ for the goddamn navy anymore.”
He knew instantly that something was gravely wrong. “Is it Mom? Did something happen?”
“Gil, tell me what the fuck you’re doin’ that’s so important!” Her voice was shrill, and it scared him deep in the pit of his stomach.
“I’m looking for the goddamn nuke!” he blurted. “There, ya happy? I just gave out classified information over a fuckin’ cell phone! Now what’s wrong, honey? I don’t have time for this.”
She fell silent, and he could just imagine her sitting at the kitchen table with her head in her hand; Oso sitting next to the chair, whining. “Marie, please tell me what’s wrong.”
She sniffled hard, and he knew she was crying.
“Baby, please tell me.”
“There was a man here,” she said finally. “Up on the ridge — with a rifle.”
Gil’s heart skipped a beat, but he remained composed. “Is he still there?”
“I shot him, Gil. I shot ’im from the bedroom window and hid his body in the stable.”
His eyes filled with tears, knowing that his wife would never again be the same woman. Now there would always be a hardness to her, a hardness where once there had been only innocence.
“I love you,” he said softly. “Tell me what happened.”
When they finished talking some twenty minutes later, Gil got off the phone and called an old friend of the family named Buck Ferguson, who owned the ranch on the other side of the valley from his own. He told Buck what was going on and asked him if he wouldn’t mind keeping an eye on Marie and his mother-in-law until he could get there himself.
“Hell, no, I don’t mind!” Buck said. “The boys and I are leaving right now.”
With that taken care of, Gil crossed the hangar to where Pope was on his satellite phone with a high muckety-muck in the DOD. “We need to talk right now.”