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“Observation,” she keeps on saying. “That’s all you’re going to do. Observe and report. See if he meets with anyone.”
So a-roamin’ he keeps goin’, sometimes resting on a bench, conscious that the World Trade Center Memorial is within a stone’s throw—and that somewhere in this vicinity, so many years ago that an entire generation has grown up without knowing about it, his terrified cousin Malcolm had leaped hundreds of feet to his death, his clothes and hair on fire.
He crosses his arms.
Lunch, soon.
Time to try the sidewalk vendor he had sampled three days ago—the Egyptian selling a kind of Middle Eastern gyro-meat sandwich on folded bread. It had been a nice change of pace from his usual hot dogs.
Freddie uncrosses his arms.
What the hell?
Mike Patel emerges from the Vesey Street entrance, turns right, and starts briskly walking east. He’s not wearing his typical work uniform, and his hands are empty. He’s moving at a good pace, like he’s about to meet someone.
Freddie waits a few seconds, then stands up and starts walking as well.
What the hellone more time.
The trip to New Jersey—and now this?
Mike Patel is definitely up to something, and Freddie is determined to find out what.
As he walks, there is the comforting weight of his illegal Glock 26 9mm pistol on his ankle, and that is a good feeling indeed.
Chapter75
WALTER WILCOXis sitting in a dusty living room with dreadful pink wallpaper in this old English farmhouse, yawning and watching the two television monitors set before him on a low counter. There are actually four, but only two are live: one shows the basement cell containing a Nigerian man who spends most of the day sitting on the floor, moving back and forth and praying to himself, and the other an American woman, a traitor who appears to be going nuts.
Walter sips from a cup of coffee. Blah. He has been in this cold rainy country for nearly a year and has yet to get a decent cup of coffee. Before this he worked in the Pentagon Force Protection Agency—guarding VIPs within the Department of Defense—until a shooting incident in Karachi kicked him loose, to be scooped up by Triangle Executive Solutions, a private security force that overlooked his drinking and other illegal activities to give him this job.
He’s dressed casually: dark-blue polo shirt, khaki slacks, and a holstered 9mm Beretta 92FS at his side. Before Walter on the counter sit a handheld Motorola radio, a phone system, and a computer terminal. The radio is hooked up to the three other security guards stationed here: Frank Quinn, in the small kitchen preparing dinner; Henrietta Diaz, out on sick leave; and Desmond Hope, upstairs deep in sleep.
All of them are heavily armed and well-paid, and all of them are here from the Island of Misfit Military Screwups.
On one screen the Nigerian is still praying. On the other the American traitor lies curled up on her simple bed. Walter has enjoyed watching her the past four days. The woman has paced her small cell, cursed, torn at her hair, and shouted up at the hidden camera and microphone she knows are in the room.
She’s been stripped of her shoes and jacket, is wearing only a white blouse and black slacks, and her undies. Somewhere in an encrypted folder on his personal PC, Walter has some hot videos of dark-site prisoners better looking than this bitch who had desperately stripped and performed sex acts on themselves in the hope of being set free.
But not this woman.
Not yet.
Eventually she will break, like the rest. She’s on Confinement Regimen Four, meaning that a thermostat program will randomly vary the temperature from 50 to 95 degrees F. and that the lights will randomly dim to dark for periods ranging from two hours to twelve. The food slid into her cell will be two breakfasts in a row, then a heavy stew, a sandwich, and three breakfasts in a row. All designed to screw up one’s internal clock, making the prisoner susceptible to future interrogations or punishments.
Another sip of this damnable coffee. He surveys the woman’s simple cell: door, bed, combination stainless-steel sink and toilet. One of the other security personnel here—Quinn, the chef—likes to keep videos of the women prisoners squatting on the throne. Walter is pretty openminded, but that’s a weirdness too far.
The woman is wailing. She’s pulling her blouse over her head and chanting something that sounds like the Lord’s Prayer—only she’s repeating “Our Father” over and over again, and nothing else.
Walter is not impressed. This one is a former Army captain and CIA field officer, and the way she’s collapsed and has been wailing the past couple of days only reconfirms Walter’s belief that women deserve but two jobs: in the kitchen and in the bedroom.
The woman suddenly springs to her knees, facing the camera.
She’s holding up her wrists.
Dripping blood.
“I’m dying!” she screams.
