American Terrorist (The Rayna Tan Action Thrillers Book 1) (19 page)

“Where are you taking us?”

“Jennah, let me have your phone. I need to make a call.”

The girl nodded and handed Rayna her phone. Rayna dialed Julio.

“Hello, Mario’s Pizza. Can I take your order please?”

“Double pepperoni, no onions, lots of mushrooms but absolutely no pineapple,” said Rayna, rolling her eyes.

“It’s protocol. Blame Barry,” replied Julio. “So what do you want, you pain in the ass?”

“Do you adopt older kids, like early teens? They’re the kids of the man who was beheaded in the video. Their mother was raped and killed just before that. And, oh yes, the a-hole’s name is Ahmed and he has a long scar running down from under his right eye. He’s got some young kid working with him in America by the name of Casey. And can you find someone to rescue us while you’re at it? This scrap-heap pick-up we’re in is going to fall apart soon. That is, unless it runs out of gas first.”

Julio sighed. “Yes, yes, and yes. If we don’t adopt them, we’ll find someone else to. Keep your cellphone on as long as you can. I’ve already sent word to FME to get a chopper to you. If the phone dies, stay put. Otherwise, we can’t track you. And Rayna?”

“Yes?”

“Nice work.”

“You can thank Lena and Jennah, your two new kids.”

“Helena’s going to freak when I tell her.”

“Deal with it.”

The quiet air of the breaking dawn was suddenly ripped apart by the sound of bullets. Rayna looked behind to see an old beater less than a quarter of a mile away with two snipers hanging out the windows, one in the front passenger side, and one on the rear driver’s side. Rayna booted it, hoping against hope that by backtracking on the road she took to get here, they could avoid any IEDs.

“Julio!”

“Yeah, I heard it. They’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

“We don’t have thirty minutes.”

“Wait. Wait. There’s an FOB ten miles away. Hang on.”

An interminable thirty seconds went by. Julio came back on the phone. “There’ll be a chopper there in two minutes.”

“How the hell did you do that? Even if this was fast-tracked, it takes three hours to make a decision.”

Rayna could feel Julio’s grin over the phone.
 

“Not if you promise a truckload of beer.”

Two minutes might be a minute and a half too late with the bouncing clunker gaining ground on them. Rayna looked in the rearview mirror and shook her head again.
Maybe, just maybe.
She veered off the asphalt and into the desert. “Hang on!” she shouted to the girls as the pick-up seemed to hit every pockmark in the crusted sand. As the girls gripped the doors during the rocky turbulence, Rayna shot another backward glance.

Perfect! When she saw the ancient sedan bobbing like a drowning man in the middle of the ocean, she figured the car’s suspension was in even worse condition than the pick-up’s. Even though the old car slowed down when it launched into the desert, it was less than a dozen seconds before the suspension gave out. But there was no time to celebrate.
 

“Julio, we need help, now!” yelled Rayna.

“Rayna, the cell phone battery is dead,” called Jennah. “We don’t have much electricity so I can’t keep it charged.”

Damn!

To compound problems, the pick-up started sputtering. It was running out of gas. Even worse, it was now more than two minutes without any sign of the chopper.

Rayna stopped the car. Seeing the pick-up immobile, the gang started running toward them.
 

“Get out and run!” yelled Rayna, pointing in the opposite direction of the oncoming marauders.
 

Jennah and Lena jumped out and dashed away. Rayna reached into her pocket and pulled out her matches. She yanked the cap off the gas tank, lit a match, and ran like heck. She only made it a few steps before the vehicle exploded.
 

BOOM! The shock waves sent Rayna to the ground, knocking her senseless.

***

In the sky, a searching chopper scoured the highway. There was no sign of a beat-up pick-up truck at the last known location before the cell phone signal dropped off.

“Look, Jack!” shouted Sandy, the co-pilot. About a mile away, there was a fireball in the desert.

“Let’s check it out.” Jack flew closer and saw a group of five men less than a hundred yards away from two people running for their lives and another next to the truck. “RPG,” commanded Jack.

“You got it!” Sandy positioned himself by the chopper door and took the shot.

***

“Grenade coming! Back up!” shouted the sharp-eared Ahmed. The men turned around.

BOOM! The grenade exploded a hundred feet away from them, far enough that they were safe from the blast, but the huge sand cloud made it impossible for them to see.

The helicopter landed between the two girls and the fallen Rayna. Jennah and Lena ran back to help Sandy carry Rayna onto the chopper.

Chapter 21

About the worst thing that ever happened in Willow City, population 30,000, were the occasional drunk drivers and marijuana fields hidden in the old hippie hangouts. The explosion at the mall was something the sleepy town had no way of dealing with so they called in a forensic DNA analyst from San Francisco, Don Carson, and a more experienced investigator, Jerry Kang, to help deal with the explosion at the mall.
 

“Can you rush this?” Jerry asked Don.

“If we take a chopper back to Frisco, I can get it done in fourteen hours including travel time. That’ll give you the best and most accurate results.”

“You’ve done it in less than half that time, Don.”

Always a rush.
Don assessed the situation. A relatively straightforward case, it was ideal for shaving some time off. There were intact body parts, including heads and upper torsos. Four persons: one Asian, one African-American, one Caucasian and one South Pacific Islander. Body fluids were not intermingled. An hour for DNA extraction and cleaning, an hour and a half to determine how much DNA there was, four hours for polymerase chain reaction, an hour for electrophoresis and an hour for analysis and identification. “Will eight hours work for you?”

“You know the answer, Don. The critical time is the first few hours—two or less is best.”

Don sighed. “I’m testing one of these new fast DNA typing kits. Not approved by anyone just yet but you might get something to work on within an hour. I had a sneaking feeling you were going to ask me to do this so I brought one along. There’s lots of samples here. Why don’t we both work the scene?”

“You’re the man, Don.”

***

An hour later, Don and Jerry were sitting in front of Don’s laptop, going through the DNA database and also checking facial rec.

Jerry nodded. “Three ex-cons, out of the same jail for less than three days. One unknown Filipino we can’t find anywhere. Nothing in common with the crooks. I’ll forward this info to the FBI and Homeland to see if they can come up with something.”

“Sounds good. Am I done? I should get back to the lab to get the real profiling going.”

“Yeah, you’re good. Thanks, Don. I’ll see you back at the ranch in a day or so.”

As Jerry walked away, Don made a call.

“Mario’s Pizza. May I help you?”

“Hey, Julio, it’s Don. That DNA kit you gave me to try works like a charm.”

“Glad to hear it. Maybe I should invest in the company.” Actually, Fidelitas had already put a good chunk of change into the kit’s development. “What’s up?”

“You heard about the mall bombing. I got called in to do the DNA typing. Thought you might be interested in the results so I’m sending them to you.” Don hit, “Send.”

“Don, are you insinuating that our public defenders won’t be able to do this on their own?”

“Jerry Kang, the lead investigator, is one of the best but he’s hampered by the system.”

Don heard clicking on the phone as Julio’s fingers flew over the keyboard.

“I see, I see,” muttered Julio. “There’s got to be some kind of connection here. Three ex-cons aren’t just going to hook up with this random guy.”

“That’s my thinking. But to access all the records, Jerry’s got to go through proper channels whereas you...”

“Whereas your good buddy Julio doesn’t have to play nice.”

“Something like that.”

“Thanks, Don, and one more thing. You interested in adopting a couple of young girls, early teens?”

“Are you kidding? Those early teenage years will make you want to kill yourself. Hormones out of control, stupidest music in the world, hours in front of the mirror wondering if their breasts will ever grow, the smallest pimple a major catastrophe...”

“Okay, okay, I get it. Bye.”

***

“He doesn’t want them, either,” said Julio to Helena.

“Hell, I wouldn’t have wanted myself at that age, either,” said Julio’s darling wife. “This habit of Rayna’s of finding us more kids is gonna kill me. Especially if we homeschool them.”

“Not ‘we.’ You.”

“Thanks. Getting anywhere with Rayna’s leads?”

Julio shook his head. “I think we need to wait for her to get back.”

“With our two new kids?”

“Stop it. You’re killing me.” He gave Helena a kiss. “What I’m worried about is that we might be grandparents in nine months.”

Chapter 22
 

The day had finally arrived. Hank was back in Los Angeles and was ready to begin the first day for the rest of forever. It had taken so much planning and so much sacrifice.
 

It began when Hank murdered his wife. That was a bonehead mistake. Taking his cue from Clemenza in the movie, “The Godfather,” Hank garroted her. Then he drove the car with her body into a quiet lake three hours out of town. What he didn’t know was that the insurance company wouldn’t pay because she was a “missing person” and not dead as he claimed. He couldn’t tell anyone the truth so he had to come up with another way to fund the lifestyle he so wanted to have.

So he was glad to have met Aida. At first, it was just about sex. That was fantastic but, when she’d asked him to be a mule for whatever she was smuggling into America, Hank felt he hit the jackpot.
 

Today was going to be the biggest and final payoff. Of course, there would be the small matter of getting rid of Aida, but he was sure that wasn’t going to be a problem.
 

Hank waited patiently at the baggage carousel at LAX and sighed relief when his two large checked bags finally exited from behind the wall and came to him on the motorized conveyor belt. Ten minutes later, he hid his nervous impatience as a customs officer processed his paperwork. He groaned inwardly when the officer decided to open his luggage—it was a routine spot check but Hank didn’t really want the customs agent to discover what was inside.

“What the…” choked the agent when the suitcase was opened—it was undoubtedly the worst thing he’d ever smelled.

“I wanted to warn you but then you might place me under arrest,” said Hank as the source of the smell was revealed. “I didn’t have time to do laundry for two weeks and, um... I had a bad case of the runs.” Shirts stunk, pants stunk and the underwear was full of diarrhea shit stains.

The customs agent was more than happy to shut the suitcase.
 

“Sorry for what you had to go through but that’s nothing compared to what my wife’s gonna do. Here’s a tip for you if you ever go to Saudi Arabia. Make sure you bring Florastor, Pepto Bismol and never ask for spicy at the restaurant.”
 

“Just go,” said the agent, waving his hand in disgust.

The Russian airport limo driver loaded Hank’s two bags into his trunk, then held the passenger door open for Hank. After closing the door, the cabbie climbed into the driver’s seat and the limo drove away.

Reaching into his pocket, Hank pulled out a pair of latex gloves and put them on. Reaching under the driver’s seat, he pulled out a brown paper bag. He opened it and smiled. There it was, a small Glock handgun with a noise suppressor.
 

“
Dah?”
asked the cabbie.

“Dah,” nodded Hank.
 

“Fifteen hundred. Includes ride,” said the ex-Muscovite in heavily accented English.

It was five hundred more than the street value of the weapon but Hank hadn’t had time to bargain during his call from Damascus. He took out his wallet and peeled off fifteen one-hundred dollar bills and handed them to the driver.

Half an hour later, the cab was cruising down Pico Boulevard, eventually turning onto a calmer side street. The driver parked across from the
Deluxi Dry Cleaners & Laundry
, the rundown shop that Hank had been in ten times this past year. Hank got out and grabbed his two bags out of the trunk after the cabbie popped the lid.

Hank brought the luggage into the shop and told the middle-aged clerk, “I’d like to have my laundry ready by Monday, if possible.”

“Of course,” snarled the former Syrian refugee. “Let’s see what it looks like.”

What an asshole.
Bringing his suitcases, Hank slipped under the counter, then accompanied the owner behind the rows of unclaimed dry cleaning to a back room where the luggage was again opened. When the odor of the dirty laundry hit, Hank and the shop owner ignored the odor—it was the smell of money, after all. Hank threw the shirts, underwear and socks onto the floor and opened a false bottom, revealing packets of pure, processed heroin.
 

“Your turn,” said Hank. “Half a million.”

“You think I don’t know? Just wait a moment.” The Middle Eastern man slipped behind one of the rows of hanging dry cleaning.

Hank put his hand into his pocket, just waiting for the laundry man to return with the promised loot. As soon as he showed it, Hank would shoot him, then take the cash and drugs back to the cab where he would sell it to a local member of the Russian mob the cab driver introduced him to, for an additional fee, of course.

And then I’ll be free.
That was the last thought of Hank’s life. Quietly emerging from the rows of clothes, Fatima held her own weapon equipped with a silencer. One shot to the head and it was over.