Cold Blooded Assassin Book 6: Red Horizon (Nick McCarty Assassin) (28 page)

“You are thinking all four should disappear, huh Muerto?”

“I admit I’m as sick of the enablers as I am of the Islamist scum terrorizing the world. Flo embraces life as a slave, draped in a tent so no one ever sees her, enables any Muslim man to beat her, arrest her, throw acid in her face for any reason, or simply stone her to death. Flo has no rights and no clue, but she had no hesitation going into a public school to brainwash kids into a murderous cult. You tell me, Johnny. I have my thoughts on it, but I’m willing to go along with Dr. Deville and the Dark Lord. It will be easy to cover the disappearance of the others. Flo going bye/bye might attract a bit too much attention.”

Johnny smiled. “We can always go get her later.”

“Exactly, brother.”

* * *

We worked Nazari first. Clint and I strapped him in after the minions brought Majd to us. We never took chances with strangers. Our ploys in the interrogation room sometimes produced humor, but we never forgot these prisoners’ histories of violence. One misjudgment or loss of concentration could end in death for one of us Monsters. A casualty away from combat always means an error made, especially here in the House of Pain. Lynn kills without thought, but errors happen even to professionals. If errors happen at Pain Central, two or three killers backed any play made. By this time most prisoners, after seeing Lynn’s interrogation videos, beg to help us. Nazari wasn’t one of them.

“Dead boy called,” Clint said. “The very dangerous Jack Gichki sleeps with the fishes.”

We spent a few seconds in humorous appreciation of Clint’s Nick McCarty report. Lynn, a huge Godfather movie fan, loves anything related to the dialogue. Nazari didn’t like what he’d heard. Apparently, Majd was a Godfather fan too. He understood the reference to his man Gichki being dead. I could tell he was stunned for the first time. I grinned at Clint.

“I think Majd thought his boy Jack could take Muerto.”

“You lie!” Majd lost concentration. For a moment Nazari thought he was in an Isis meeting. Lynn zapped his balls with her stun-gun she always keeps with her.

Lynn waited until the screams and shock faded. She pinched his cheek. “We don’t take shit from Isis Munchkins. Would you like to shoot your mouth off again?”

“How…how can you do this? Those torture videos… they cannot be real! Jack… he was the most dangerous man I ever knew.”

“Against who? Most of you bad boys, like those two awaiting their turn in here, are all women killers.” Lynn leaned over Nazari. “I’ll bet your buddy Jack liked to knife little girls and cut the throats of shackled guys, huh?”

When Majd remained silent, looking away from Lynn, she started laughing. “I knew it. Clint. Show Majd how Nick fixed good old Jack.”

Clint showed Nazari the pictures Gus forwarded to us of Gichki lying in a pool of his own blood. “On one hand, your buddy Jack is a lot luckier than you. He died quick. You won’t be. I’ll watch the baby while you two show Majd all the ways he’s going to help us. Call me when you need me, DL. Let John and I take care of Sohail and Javid once you finish with Majd, Babe. They won’t know much more than our big timer here.”

“I’ll think about it. Let me see what I can learn from Majd. I’ll decide then whether to-”

“I will make a deal!” Majd twisted in the head harness. “I see you people will carry this game out to the end. Guarantee my safe return to Saudi Arabia and I will tell you anything you want to know.”

“Oh my… you are a slow learner. Go on with the baby, Hon. Put in the needles, DL. Let’s show Majd what’s behind the other door that’s not his safe return to Saudi Arabia.”

“No!” Majd tried to make it difficult for me to insert the acupuncture needles into his heels. We redesigned the foot restraints each time we did an interrogation at first, but we found a combination of reinforced Velcro straps that easily held the feet immovable we were satisfied with.

I inserted the needles. Our needle clips now fit over the needles with thumbscrew tightness to our heat and electrical jolt machine.

“Wait… okay… I will tell you everything!”

Lynn patted his face. “Yes… you certainly will. Light him up, Cheese.”

Normally, Lynn treated her patients in three minute intervals of hell. She gave Majd a five minute dose of hot foot hell after I stuck the pad in his mouth to keep him from biting his own tongue off. When Lynn finished with Majd, we knew a lot about his relationship with Al-Kadi. He also confirmed our suspicions about the Pilot Hill compound’s purpose. Any imports from Carone’s ship Tempest would be quietly handled through the Marina in Monterey. Infiltrators would be passed through Nazari’s house and on to Pilot Hill. The weapons, drugs, and human trafficking were to be transferred back and forth in the same way. Al-Kadi trusted Nazari to run the operation as a middle man; but to our relief, Majd confirmed that Carone ran the operation from the ocean to Pilot Hill.

Clint joined me to transfer the nearly insane Nazari to a restraint chair. We needed to learn every detail about the compound from Sohail Bhatti and Javid Kamboh. They had lived there for a time. With Nazari completely under Lynn’s control, we would use him as a confirming witness to anything his two companions said. Bhatti wanted no part of it. The minions had to zap him twice with the cattle prod to get him in with us. Sylvio gave him a full thirty seconds of the juice to get him on the table after he crashed to the floor trying to resist. I picked him up and jammed his ass down on the table finally. We strapped him into our rocket ship to hell. This murderer knew what awaited him. He believed the videos.

We all knew well what horrors Bhatti and Kamboh visited upon humanity during their putrid lives. Bhatti began crying when he saw Nazari in the observation chair. Apparently, Bhatti recognized the face of insanity due to torture. Nazari began yipping in short quiet barks until Lynn slapped him in the back of the head. Bhatti blubbered out phrases about being duped, led astray, blackmailed, threatened, used against his will, and finally at the end as we let him ramble the poor boy screamed out for his mama. Lynn and I recognized the jargon. Isis fighters captured by the Kurds begged in the same manner. Bhatti would get the same leniency those guys received from the Kurds. Lynn spent the next thirty minutes defining pain for Bhatti. No questions were asked and no quarter given. Sohail Bhatti began hallucinating after fifteen minutes.

“I think we have you nice and toasty now Sowhat.” Lynn nicknamed him for our amusement. “Let’s start with an easy one. Majd told us the names of everyone involved with this network between the ship Tempest and Pilot Hill. Most are already dead and others soon will be. What was compartmentalized according to him is the identity of the major Kader family member who sent you and your buddy, Java. We don’t want to wait until Al-Kadi is in our hands. We want the name now.”

“Yes… I will tell you!” Instead, Bhatti began to cry again.

Lynn gave him thirty seconds of electric sheep to count. “Save the tears for someone that gives a shit. Name, please?”

“Eliah! Eliah Kader…” Bhatti passed out.

“Did you get that, Clint?”

“I heard,” Clint said from our meeting room with the kids. “I’ll make the call.”

* * *

Nick answered on the first ring. He wrote on his upstairs deck. Jean and Sonny across from him did their homework. Deke sprawled over Nick’s shoes while Rachel sat next to him, editing his already completed work. Quinn slept in a rocker between Rachel and Nick.

“Dead Boy… the man in New York is Eliah Kader,” Clint said. “How are you doing, brother?”

“Five by five, brother. Thanks for the name. Do I have enough time to go see my friend in New York?”

“I’m afraid not. Although it appears your intro to Al-Kadi should go smoothly, he’ll be getting suspicious because his connection to the Tempest is gone. Lynn has Fernando and Senta rehearsed to provide you with an Academy Award winning performance covering an emergency repositioning of the ship.”

“Excellent! Let me know when you want us.”

“Will do. Would you bring the family with you for safety?”

“They’ll be fine here, but thanks. Is John orchestrating our positions during my visit inside?”

“Yep. Lynn’s extracting final details on the compound from the two killers you sent to us. They lived with Al-Kadi for a time, so we should know all about his favorite places to hang out.”

“That’s very good news. If I’m familiar with where Al-Kadi would conduct a meeting along with where his men are normally positioned, I could get the drop on him and do some real damage inside.”

“That’s what we’re hoping. Talk at you soon.”

“Bye, Clint.” Nick disconnected and started writing again, only to receive a Rachel bop on the back of the head. He turned with a sigh. “What was that for?”

“What the hell are you up to now? I heard references to New York and the Al-Kadi trip you’ve been planning all along with the Monster Squad. Secondly, what was the talk about the family being transported north for safety?”

Nick hugged her. “Concentrate on your editing. I already told you a Kader from New York ordered those two hired killers at the school. He may be the Kader kingpin we’ve been searching for. His name is Eliah Kader. Clint had good news on the Al-Kadi visit. Lynn has convinced Carone and Bulgar to assist me at the Pilot Hill compound.”

Jean, who had been eavesdropping as usual became instantly animated. “Lynn is the baddest!”

“Lynn is the best interrogator I’ve ever encountered,” Nick agreed.

“Are you certain you’ll be able to trust what she’s done once those two are beyond her reach,” Rachel asked. “You’d be hung out to dry if they come to their senses at the door of the compound.”

Nick shrugged. “Did you just insult me?”

Both kids and Rachel chuckled at Nick’s mock outrage.

“Listen,” Nick urged. “I will have the deadliest backup in the world ready to move if things go wrong. Besides… although I love the looks of this Pilot Hill compound confiscation, I would have no qualms about damaging it if things go wrong. I have a plan.”

“A plan to get out of a compound surrounded by murderers?”

“Grenade.”

“That’s not funny,” Rachel retorted.

“Do you see me laughing? The best diversions are messy. Besides, if I get an audience with this Al-Kadi, he’s not going to allow me to get near him armed to the teeth. I’ll need to make sure I have some diversion tools planted on one of my unknowing companions. We will cover everything from start to finish.”

“I’d rather you Monsters simply fly in on your ‘Apocalypse Now’ ships and salt the earth. You buggers have more money than God. Buy some other damn place near Pilot Hill.”

Nick smiled at Rachel. She blurted out the common sense, black and white facts without taking into consideration the Monsters. “First counter argument deals with all the electronic data and pipeline to other Islamist mutants across the country our federal agencies could act against legally with evidence. Think of us finding threads into huge Muslim enclaves like Dearbornistan.”

Jean giggled. “You mean Dearborn, Michigan?”

“We’re in a weird place as citizens, Viper,” Nick replied. “The common citizen is labeled a xenophobic racist when we question our government’s idiotic non-enforcement of immigration laws. The plot to induce two hundred thousand Muslim refugees into our nation is beyond belief, yet it is dropped on us with no recourse. The hard cold fact is Muslims do not assimilate into any nation they infest. They whine and cry to be allowed to escape their third world hell-hole, but insist on bringing it with them when they are granted sanctuary. They have infected Denmark and Norway to the point their protesters demand to annex parts of those sovereign nations as their own Muslim enclaves.”

Jean’s face twisted into an angry mask. “That’s not right.”

“You’ve already experienced life not right, kid. We learn and move on. We’ll stop this threat, one way or another, and move on to the next. At some point in the future, we’ll stop playing catch up and teach the troglodytes the meaning of war. Until then, allow us Monsters to tread water the best we can. We’ll stay safe to the best of our ability.”

“I remember in a time when Muerto was a cold blooded assassin his exact words describing an assassin in a novel were:
‘one of the traits a world class assassin would have is the skill to foresee every possible scenario on a job. It would be idiotic to have him stumbling from one situation to another as if he were Peter Sellers in a ‘Pink Panther
’
movie’.”

“Okay… that’s it, no more slinging my words in my face. I’m slowly regaining the edge to Muerto: cold blooded assassin. It isn’t easy. I’ve been corrupted by civilian family members who didn’t mind me risking my life for them, but I have to leave America at risk. How selfie of you, Rachel.”

Rachel stood with hands on hips. “Don’t blame your shortcomings on me, Muerto. You’re the one who developed delusions of grandeur and decided you’re bulletproof. Jean and I are simply left after your death to pick up the pieces.”

Jean followed her Mom’s stance in form and attitude. “Yeah, Dad!”

Nick chuckled. He leaned back in his seat and sipped the Bushmill’s Irish next to him. “Good one. Do you two rehearse this stuff when I’m not around? I have a job to do you two are very familiar with. Hell, Sonny knows me as well now. I’m an abomination. I hold onto this family life with my fingernails. If not for Gus talking me out of retirement I’d probably be out at night full time with a mask and cape.”