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“All right,” she says. “I’ll take the night work. You watch him in the morning when he leaves.”
Freddie tries not to sigh, thinking of his squalid little second-story motel room several blocks away on Broadway, with its fights in the parking lot and the yells and come-ons from the local hookers, trying to catch some business.
“Sure, boss,” he says. “But I sure would like to know what the little bastard is up to.”
“Don’t we all,” she snaps back.
“He’s here illegally, he’s Muslim, and he has access to the entire One World Trade Center.”
“And?”
Freddie waits for a moment before proceeding.
Oh, what the hell,he thinks. This is a temporary assignment. It’s not like she can do too much to his career once this silly job gets wrapped up.
“What if he’s placing explosives?” Freddie asks. “He’s been there for months. Maybe he’s part of a plot to take the building down and—”
Portia interrupts him.
“Don’t make jokes like that,” she says.
He can sense her anger even though she’s not looking at him.
“I’m not joking,” Freddie says, his long-dead cousin Malcolm still haunting him.
Chapter24
LONG SECONDSdrag by like hours as I stand rock steady, moving my MP5 here, there, and everywhere to keep the three men under watch.
The armed men are staring at me. I decide the guy with the AK-47 will be the first to get it if he attempts to move back and bring the weapon up, because in an enclosed space like this, the inefficient pray-and-spray shooting tactic would actually work.
The guys on the ground are next up: the one with the pistol at the base of Jeremy’s neck will be target number two, and—
“Amy.”
—because the guy kneeling, aiming at Jeremy, his hand is shaking—
“Amy.”
—but if any of the three make a move toward me, they’re dead.
“Amy, damn it,” Jeremy says, “I’m talking to you!”
I keep moving my MP5, swiveling back and forth, back and forth.
“So you are,” I say. “You tell these three assholes to drop their weapons.”
Jeremy swears at me. “They’re relatives of Nassim. They aren’t bad guys.”
“They have a funny way of showing it.”
“They didn’t recognize me, they didn’t like the tone of my voice, so they dragged me in,” Jeremy says, his voice muffled some because his head’s plastered against a carpet.
The man with a gun against Jeremy’s neck rattles off a long stream of angry Arabic words. Jeremy replies in Arabic as well, softer, and says, “They wanted to check me out before bringing Nassim out. But then you broke in, and now they’re pissed.”
“Too bad,” I say, still not hesitating in moving my MP5 to keep these three off balance. “I saw you assaulted. Now, tell them to drop it.”
“They won’t do it,” Jeremy says. “You’re a woman.”
