The Architect of Revenge: A September 11th Novel (21 page)

Cotsworth called Brosinski’s former captain Oscar Jefferson and asked him to set up a meeting. The phone conversation ended with laughter when Jefferson told of the lost and rediscovered license plate.

“The idiot earns a living investigating people?”
was all Cotsworth could add.
His confidence in the detective’s helpfulness dwindled more.

Jefferson told the agent that he’d have Brosinski there for the meeting—in cuffs if need be. He wasn’t joking.

“Going down to District Eight,” Cotsworth called to the pool secretary, putting his suit jacket on to cover the shoulder holster.

She waved without looking up from her computer. If they needed him, she’d call.

Cotsworth parked, flashed his badge at the entrance guard, and was directed to Jefferson’s office.

Brosinski didn’t stand when he came in. The limp handshake suggested the morning meeting would drag from the start.

“I searched his flat in Rogers Park,” said Brosinski.

“You mean
breaking
and
entering
,” said the chief.

“Warrants ain’t no ass pain for me,” said Brosinski. “Only you guys.”

Oh, geez
,
thought Cotsworth. Nothing was needed to understand why Brosinski no longer worked for Chicago’s finest.

“So what did you find?” asked Cotsworth.

“Wasn’t much there,” said Brosinski. “A cot, weights, cheap table and chair…shit like that.”

“Did you say
cot?
”

“The good doctor lived rather austerely.”

“Why?”

“No fucking clue.”

The FBI agent rubbed both eyes, yawning in frustration. “Anything on it?”

“Not even stains, if that’s what you mean,” answered Brosinski. “Like he slept on plastic sheets.”

“Hmm…” Cotsworth added another thing to ponder. “Fingerprints anywhere?”

“Every surface was clean. Had to be some somewhere, but…I mean the place was fuckin’
clean
. But he lived there, I know it.”

“What makes you believe that?” asked Cotsworth.

“I saw him go in the day before.”

“Doesn’t mean anything,” said Oscar.

“Yes it does. Here.” The PI handed a baggie with two sealed vials to Cotsworth then tried to sound professional. “I got these from his floor and bathroom.”

Cotsworth held the vials up to the light. “What’s this?”

“Morgan has dark hair. These are his,” said Brosinski, his voice overflowing with conceit.

“Did you process these?” asked Cotsworth.

“Nope.”

The FBI agent stared at him, his frustration fermenting. The PI’s brute arrogance reminded him why he didn’t miss fieldwork. “Why the hell not?”

“Ain’t pinball money for my ass like it is for you Feds. And the fat lady stopped paying me,” said Brosinski, avoiding any comment about the GPS. Cotsworth’s sarcastic smile suggested he knew.

“Besides,” Brosinski added, “I didn’t see Morgan doing no fuckin’ crime.”

“Abandoning a car with a stolen license plate isn’t suspicious?” asked the agent, not expecting an answer.

Brosinski glared at Jefferson.

“I didn’t know the fucker had taken it,” he retorted.

“What Fred says is true,” Jefferson conceded, adding, “but Agent Cotsworth and I laughed hard when Morgan whipped you at your own job.”

Brosinski wanted to tell both men to go blow themselves.

“Anyway, Fred…you watched him…” said Cotsworth. “What the hell do you think he’s doing?”

Brosinski had contemplated that as Jane Bonwitt blew the ink dry on the first check. “You’re assuming Dr. Morgan’s alive,” he replied.

“For the moment, yes. And it sounds like he’s done an effective job leaving no traces. The license plate would suggest that.”

Brosinski held his words.

“What was his behavior like?” asked Cotsworth.

“Unstructured, and that’s no fuckin’ lie. Took a long time to find him. Had to sit outside the fuckin’ Berwyn post office for months…watching all those fat-assed bitches go in and out.” Brosinski didn’t mention there had been a couple of good-looking ones he had taken pictures of for his collection.

“Okay, what else?” asked Cotsworth.

“Went to the
libary
fuckin’ more than college fags.”

“There had to be a reason. Did you ever go in, try to see what he was looking at?”

“No. Hate
libaries
.”

That information would have been very helpful, you idiot,
Cotsworth didn’t say.

“What else, Mr. PI?”

“Dude’s athletic, but even more. Physically strong, tough-like.”

“I do not understand,” said Cotsworth.

“A buddy of mine at marine patrol found him swimming in the lake.”

Cotsworth produced an unsatisfied expression. “So?”

“It was fuckin’ two in the morning.”

“Where was he?”

“You won’t believe it,” said Brosinski. “Outside the breakwater north of Navy Pier. Somebody on a sailboat called it in. A police boat found him.”

“What the hell was a sailboat doing out there at two a.m.?”

“The owner was screwing his girlfriend over the railing when the asshole backstroked alongside, embarrassing them to hell. How the fuck am I supposed to know?”

“When was this?”

“Shit, last year sometime. Don’t remember.”

The questioning persisted. “Did your buddy ask Morgan what he was doing in the lake?”

“Training for some thing called Ironman.”

“Okay,” said Cotsworth, “I’d buy that at the time, but not now…not in the present context.
Did they pick him up?”

“No.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Guess they thought he wasn’t doing anything wrong, just being stupid maybe. Cops probably flushed it away like all the other random crap in this city.”

Oscar Jefferson cleared his throat.

“You didn’t look into it?” asked the agent.

“Give me a break!” protested Brosinski. “I didn’t even know about it until recently! I was drinking beers and shootin’ the shit with the guy after a ballgame. Total frigging coincidence. Those Sox bastards had lost again.”

“Anything else, Detective?”

Brosinski had been saving the best for last. “Well, he did deck two”—he glanced at the African-American police chief before resuming—“gentlemen of color on the Midway.” It remained one of Brosinski’s most cherished memories of the case. “Damn near killed one of them…clean and efficient.” Brosinski handed over a disc with the pictures. “You’ll find these entertaining.”

“Drugs?”

“No. Looks like they wanted his car.” Brosinski’s lips bulged. “It was pure self-defense on Morgan’s part. He kicked—and I mean he
kicked
—the fuckin’ shit out of them.”

Cotsworth shook his head with incredulity. “Strange for a doctor.”

“Fuckin’ weird.”

The agent had heard enough. The meeting concluded with the usual drivel about sharing information and working together. The business cards would get lost in the drawers.

The FBI agent made it a few feet out of the office before Brosinski called out, “Hey…Cotsworth…”

“Yeah?”

“April…last year.”

“What was?”

“The swim,” said Brosinski.

“Sounds invigorating. Was he wearing a wetsuit?”

“A thin shorty.” The temptation was too great for Brosinski. “Tiger striped with pink booties.”

Cotsworth felt an immediate desire to shoot him but instead replied, “Ambient air temperature’s probably no more than forty degrees.”

“My buddy put in his report that the captain and his deckhand wore their sweaters while they were banging.”

Cotsworth shook his head and walked to his car.

Shifting the characterless sedan to reverse, it remained motionless as the agent’s foot pressed the brake for an indefinite time.

Invigorating? Michigan was damn near freezing in April. Not even an Ironman competitor required that.

But navy SEALS do…

For five minutes he sat, thinking, before adding another question to the list.

September 20, 2003

B
erbera, Somaliland, was the
Sagar
’s first port of call after passing through the Suez Canal. At dawn Arwan and Jamil disembarked and got into a car, its driver honking continuously to open a path through the swollen crowd. Morgan watched it creep away.

With the offloading done, Morgan wandered the open street markets near the wharf. The carcasses of abandoned boards and boxes from the day before were now tables that displayed wares to be exchanged, bartered, or sold. In all the ports, the bazaars offered local foods and goods, legitimate or stolen—and always drugs.

In Berbera one of those offerings was khat. Flown in daily from Ethiopia, eager customers would swarm the tarmac to be first in line to buy a bundle of the slender purple and green stalks. What those peddlers didn’t sell they’d chew to add to their own tombstone-eyed euphoria. Watching the locals grind the plants with decaying teeth, oozing olive saliva, reminded Morgan of goats frozen in place, contently munching cud. He declined offers to indulge and headed back to the ship, waiting on the dock near the gangway.

Belching filthy exhaust, four semitrailer trucks pushed through the tumult and stopped abreast of each other near the freighter’s stern. The air horn of the first truck drew Morgan’s attention to Arwan’s face as it stuck out the passenger’s window. Peppered with his usual sacrilegious profanity, he shouted at the crew to quickly get their asses down to the quay.

Using his stick to support him, Jamil dropped from the second cab and waved Morgan over. “Two bundles of khat in my truck. Take them aboard,” he shouted over the noise, adding the hasty explanation, “gifts for friends in Yemen tomorrow.”

Morgan hid his frown as he removed the huge burlap bags. Backtracking north was an unscheduled change in the itinerary, which would delay even more his arrival in Pakistan. That worried him. The BMW had been at the airport for almost two months. The pilfered license plate would only slow the authorities so long. Eventually the car would be considered abandoned and impounded—and searched. They would find the box.

The Pruitts would be contacted and at some point hopefully receive its contents. Given Jon’s placid but persistent temperament, he would do what Janie had tried and failed to do and doggedly search for him. In time Interpol could be alerted.

Morgan needed to get off the
Sagar
.

He carried the bundles into a storage room then climbed to the freighter’s bridge deck. In the drenching humidity, his arms resting on the railing, Morgan saw Jamil point his deverish stick at each truck, apply a numerical sequence for unloading acknowledged by the drivers with nods seen through the windshields, then limp a dozen yards farther in front of the truck cabs. While holding his stick like a conductor’s baton preparing to cue an orchestra, Jamil stood in the shade under a shanty roof and monitored his wristwatch, waiting by Morgan’s estimate at least two minutes.

The spear tip dramatically reached and pointed at the truck instructed to move first. It pulled forward alongside the freighter. The
Sagar
’s huge crane turned and began lowering its heavy cables.

Arwan came up to the bridge, passing Morgan without acknowledging his existence. Through the window Morgan saw him holding beer bottles in each hand. At first he was amazed that Jamil and Arwan hadn’t killed each other during their road trip but the explanation had to be within the large brick-colored containers being lifted to the freighter’s deck. Morgan continued to study the on-loading symphony.

After the first two containers were aboard and secured on the deck, the crane operator lifted the next one from the third truck, moving it over until it swayed gently a few feet above the first container.

Morgan saw Hamid scamper onto the upper surface of the container beneath with a tank on his back and a nozzle in his hand. Hidden briefly from Morgan’s sight, Hamid emerged spray-painting the final top square yards a different color brown and climbed down. The crane operator lowered and mated the containers, and several crewmen secured them. The sequence repeated itself as the fourth and final container was brought aboard the ship.

They’re hiding a big investment
, thought Morgan, and until the huge boxes were delivered to wherever the hell they were going, Jamil was in charge—of everything.

To Morgan’s relief, the passage back across the languid Gulf of Aden took less than a day. He could hear the turbines forcing the propellers to chew through the water, pushing the hull with determination. In the Red Sea near the island of Perim, the
Sagar
idled until high tide to slip into the abandoned shallow-water port.

“Barif, bring the bags down and say nothing,” Jamil instructed, “then return to the ship.”

Two flatbed trucks were waiting, their exhaust stacks exhaling black fumes.

Morgan did as instructed and then went to the bridge deck. With the engines rumbling below, blinded by the brightness of the decaying concrete quay, Morgan squinted under a straw hat, watching the action.

A man with a flowing white beard got out of a Mercedes with tinted windows. Jamil greeted him with a strong hug and quick kiss. Introducing the captain, the three men spoke as the top containers from Berbera were loaded and fastened onto the truck beds by men who emerged from the passenger doors of the cabs. In the withering heat they moved with efficiency, speaking little. When they had finished and gone back inside, the old man went to the car, removed a briefcase, and handed it to the captain. Arwan shook his hand and returned to the bridge.

Limping to one truck then the other, Jamil tapped on drivers’ windows. With automatic pistols strapped to their thighs, each driver got out, picked up a sack of khat, and climbed back in. The trucks spit smoke and rolled away.

Jamil and the white-bearded man shook hands a final time then Jamil boarded the
Sagar
as the thick lines retracted from the rusting bollards. Just as they were fully winched aboard, thrusters pushed the
ship away. The time at the wharf was fifteen minutes.

The first mate emerged from the pilothouse to get a clearer view of the ship’s progress. Before going back inside, he said to Morgan, “Tractors.”

The door latched behind him.

“No fucking chance,” Morgan said under his breath while examining the tops of the other two containers.