Hard Case IV: A Violent Life (John Harding Series Book 4) Read online

  “Fine with me,” Case agreed. “It’s a hell of a lot better than having runners to chase all over. Are you sure you want to ride in back without your mask?”

  “Very funny.” Laredo jogged out with his equipment trunk, saluted us and ran around to the driver’s side. I got in the back. “See you guys over at the house.”

  Dev was getting ready to shut the door. “Do you need me and Jess to fly back with you guys tonight?”

  “No… stay here with the dependents. We should be back before morning. Denny and I, along with Lucas and Casey can transport these guys. Look in on Lora and Al tonight for me though, okay?”

  “You got it, John.” Dev closed up the hatch.

  I looked around at my sullen nineteen lambs with a smile. “Did you enjoy Samira’s speech?”

  Oh boy, the steam could almost be pictured blowing out of their ears. They knew better than to run their mouths off. Casey opened the window between the front and back. “Is everyone comfortable back there, HF?” Casey asked in Arabic.

  I answered in kind as I did when asking them about Samira’s speech. “I believe my companions are angry about their situation. They wish they had skipped the speech.”

  “I’ll bet they do. Are you going to warm them up before the plane ride?” Casey and I were already warming the little lambs up. We didn’t want our jihadists getting comfortable. We wanted them to start getting really nervous.

  “Only if I can wrap them in plastic afterward. Lucas has his clean freak on, even when we’re not on his boat. I am certain he would be angry with the way I warm these lamb chops.”

  “You cannot touch us!” The one farthest away from me shouted, spittle fogging his beard, and rage fogging his good sense. Just the way we like these guys.

  “I bet you gentlemen think we’re going to take you somewhere nice where you get halal meals, prayer rugs, guards wiping your asses, and ACLU lawyers working for your release. We are taking you somewhere, but things will not be as you have been told to expect. My friends and I belong to a special group. Our group specializes in extracting information from tough guys like you bunch. How we get the information will be up to you. Right now, we have to assume that none of you have anything of interest, in which case there will be a lot of pain and not much else. Before we get to our destination, I would like all of you to search those tiny minds of yours for anything we might be interested in that will buy you out of the pain we have waiting.”

  A clean shaven handsome devil next to me raised his head. He portrayed the polar opposite of his buddy down the way. His smile reminded me not all of the nineteen were going to escape Lynn’s personal attention. This guy was one of those. He shook his head. “We have been trained to detect your bluffs. We will tell you nothing.”

  “Give him a demo, John,” Casey urged.

  “If you clean the blood I’ll do it.”

  Casey chuckled. “Not happening, brother.”

  I shrugged at my smiling man. “Do you like boats? We have a wonderful boat in a harbor up in Oakland. Do you know how to swim?”

  His smile went away. “What does it matter if I know how to swim or not?”

  “We like to put a man we have skinned into the water as a demonstration. The saltwater acts nearly like acid on such a wound. The problem with non-swimmers is we have to put a lifejacket on them so they do not go under too quickly. Plus, we hate when the life jackets get stuck in the sharks’ mouths.”

  Wide eyed, horrified stares of disbelief is what I got. Then the fun started. They actually had the nerve to pull the Geneva Convention card. Suddenly, they weren’t innocent anymore. They were prisoners of war. I could hear Laredo and Casey laughing all the way from the front.

  “Gee… it is obvious not one of you has read the Geneva Convention Accords. You have to be wearing the uniform of the country you are soldiering for. You cannot sneak into a country, plan terrorist acts, and then claim you are prisoners of war when apprehended. When enemy combatants are caught in a host country, they can be executed on the spot, and that is by the Geneva Convention Accord. In other words, you bunch are toast… or shark bait… whichever term you like better.”

  “But… but you cannot torture us. It is illegal!” My smooth buddy found his voice again.

  “So is blowing up innocent people in a crowded mall, idiot!”

  “We are not setting off bombs! We…” then it struck him he was getting ready to give up what they were all here to do and shut up.

  “You may as well tell us. You will later anyway.” I saw a few faces getting the resigned look of doom on their features. Now, they’ll have a nice trip back to the Bay with nothing to ponder but their short future. My work was done.

  I saw the lights of Las Vegas thinning as we hit the suburbs where we would be checking in with Denny, and preparing for a flight back to the Bay. That was until automatic weapons fire blew out our left side tires. Laredo turned into a screeching halt to the right, jackknifing the cab away from the line of fire. I had to pause and snap smoothie’s leg when the prick tried to kick me during the distraction. He howled bloody murder, which made his compatriots uneasy about following his lead.

  I got the hell out of there, slamming the door behind me while dropping below to the ground for a quick crawl around the wheel well. The firing ended now that the truck was stopped. I could see Laredo and Casey crouching behind the front wheel well, peering out, trying to locate our shooter.

  “How’s it look, Case?”

  “Just one I think… probably the unaccounted twentieth that was supposed to be at the estate.”

  “What’d you decide to pack, Case?”

  “My trusty MP5, brother. What about you?”

  “Damn it… my .45 Colt. On three?”

  “You’re running bait, brother. Make it easy on yourself. I’m set. He’s at ten o’clock somewhere. Ready when you are.”

  I’m glad I kept my vest on. Case could hit anything, including a muzzle flash in the dark up to two hundred yards with that old Heckler and Koch MP5 9mm. I had seen him do it. “One… two… three!”

  Out I went, zigzagging, hitting the sand on the other side of the road, then up and zigzagging some more. I thought for a moment the shooter was waiting to see the whites of my eyes. Then a burst ripped the ground in front of me. I dove flat out, as I heard the MP5 fire a short burst. It was rewarded with a scream that brought a satisfied smile to my face. I had to go reap the harvest now. I didn’t need a guide to help me follow the noise to a spot out on the desert sand, where our guy had ridden a dirt bike out to. In the dark, his form was vague, but I could see him gripping his right shoulder with his left hand, rolling around in agony. Poor baby. I took careful aim with my Colt, and blew a nice big hole in his left foot. That was good shootin’ in the dark. I’d brag it up to Case, but as I looked back at our truck, Casey nailed the guy from over a hundred yards. I was only about twenty-five away from my target, and Casey shot at a momentary muzzle flash. Oh well.

  I ran over to him because he was a mess. It had to be done though. I’m not running up on a guy in the dark that’s rollin’ around supposedly in pain. It’s only good sense making certain he’s in pain… a lot of it. I figured since I had him in pain, it might be a good idea to question him a little while he was coming to grips with the agony of defeat. I knew Laredo would have already alerted Denny. We’d be out of here soon.

  “Oh my… what have we here? Did you fall off your bike, Sir?”

  “Please… I…I need a doctor…” he paused to pant in misery for a moment. “You… you must take me to a hospital. I’m… losing a lot of blood.”

  “I notice you speak English. That’s good. I speak Arabic, but it’s good to know we won’t need an interpreter for your buddies back in the meat wagon. First off though, let me show you something.” I stepped on his left foot. By the time I let up, there were probably dogs howling in the city trying to match his ear piercing scream. “Wow, you hit a high note there, pal. Now that you know I’m not here to hol
d your hand and whisper sweet nothings in your ear, let me ask you a question. Who put this pack of cells together for distribution into the drug network cities?”

  Sore-foot thought if he kept whining and panting I’d forget my question. Wrong. I moved to his shoulder. After all, I’m not a complete monster, I booted him in the bad shoulder to take his mind off the foot.

  “Tamara… Tamara Rouheni!”

  Well holy shit… she was the widow of an Al Qaeda leader, whom the US had nailed jetting across Libya in a pickup truck. The USA kids put a hellfire missile right up his ass. She was hiding out in Jordan last I’d heard, buying protection with the billions her husband had bilked out of his jihad promotions. See, these clowns kidnap people, pirate the high seas, and plunder scared officials all over the globe who would rather pay the scum off than end them. Man, I couldn’t wait to get another shot at the Somali pirate assholes with The Sea Wolf, but Denny thinks it’s still too hot politically after our last successful attitude adjustment. Anyway… rumor has it Tamara had the billions in Swiss bank accounts like most of those poor old Islamic warriors, and dictators. She’d been pretty quiet since the drone kids introduced her husband to overdo justice. She should have stayed quiet.

  I was dragging the screamer back with the AK47 he had killed our tires with when he passed out. It was nice to get a little quiet out here on the desert sand. I could concentrate then on the half-moon night, clear skies, and a layer of incredible star tapestry. Lucas jogged out, having arrived with another transport. He slowed when he saw I was just taking my time dragging my new buddy.

  “I jogged out to meet you before Casey bored me to tears with his MP5 tales. Good Lord, Hamburger, why didn’t you just race out and punk this guy yourself? Now you’ve gone and let Butch Casey make a night shot from over a hundred yards to nail a bad guy in the dark. There won’t be any peace until he’s told us about it another thousand times.”

  I nodded along as Lucas grabbed the other pants leg to help. “Putting your shattered sensibilities aside, I did get a name: Tamara Rouheni.”

  Lucas was impressed. The annoyed drill sergeant face faded into sharp interest. “They should have already blown that bitch into little pieces. Why in hell would she be growing a network of cells? These lunatics get weirder every day. Old Hajib probably kicked her ass whenever he came home for a weekend from jihad, dressed her in burka bundles, and cheated on her with whatever he could get his dirty little hands on. Is she still in Jordan?”

  “I don’t know. Are you thinking she’s moved to be closer to her project?”

  “Aren’t you? We have a question to add to our list for the lamb-chops.”

  “All I can think of Lucas is how short sighted and stupid these cartels are, partnering up with these stone-age mutants. If they ever did conquer everything, the first ones put to death would be all these cartels and their soldiers. I’m sure it’s just chaos they’re shooting for. They let the mutants attract all the attention while they develop in the shadows.”

  “That’s the only thing that makes any sense at all, brother. Make sure you bind up bloody here before you throw him into my transport. You’ve already wrecked one transport.”

  I glared over at him with my meanest looking Hamburger Face. “I didn’t shoot the damn tires out.”

  Lucas gave me the wave off. “You were in charge. You should have anticipated every possibility for the sake of the operation.”

  I shook my head. There was no use in taking on Lucas when he was on a roll. Somehow everything I’d ever done would be drawn into the debate to bolster his goofy point. I bowed to the master. We made it to the truck as Casey, Laredo, and Denny were finishing the transfer of prisoners. Denny walked over to meet us.

  “Please tell me he’s not dead, John.”

  “He’s not dead, Denny,” I deadpanned my response. “I have a name that will light your pants on fire: Tamara Rouheni.”

  I seldom see surprise on Spawn’s face, but he was wearing the deer in the headlights look at the Tamara revelation.

  “Let me get this straight. These complete idiots rush over to the Palms ready to harass Samira during her speech, but are working for a woman. Maybe these suckers figure they’ll stupid us into surrendering. I smell a rat.”

  I started heading toward the damaged truck. I noticed there was a first aid kit. Denny was still jawing with Lucas when I returned. I did a quick cinch up to stop the blood with compresses soaked in peroxide. He didn’t like my bedside manner, so Lucas kicked him in the side of the head to remind him I wasn’t a real doctor, nor did I play one on TV. He stopped fussing, so I figured he understood. We threw him in the back with my old buddy, Smoothie, now known as the groaner, because of my leg adjustment. Just like that we were back on the road again. Lucas rode with me in the back, probably to get away from Night-shot Casey.

  Lucas grinned down at Smoothie. “I see you worked your magic inside the truck too, Doctor.”

  “The prick tried to kick me, Lucas. I get no respect since you guys started calling me Hamburger Face. Now, even trussed up little lamb-chops think they can kick my ass.”

  “Serves you right. Want me to tell the rest of the lamb-chops we know who they work for?”

  “Sure.” We had their attention, possibly because one or three of them were going to try and bargain with us using the name. Lucas wanted to make sure they didn’t get hung up on any one item while thinking of ways to avoid pain.

  “Tamara Rouheni has all you brave Islamic warriors on her woman’s leash,” Lucas stuck the knife in and twisted it in their native language. “You must all be very proud. Does Tamara make your little halal lunches, and pat you all on the head as you board a plane for jihad?”

  Oh man, that was an ace. They wanted to kill us in the worst way possible, but all they could do is gnash their teeth. I think a few of them were in danger of biting their tongues off to keep from being baited. They seemed to realize Lucas would beat them senseless without batting an eye. They already knew I’d help him.

  “Maybe they’re like her dogs, Lucas,” Casey added. “Bark for us, dogs! Maybe if you all bark together, she will hear your plea.”

  They whooped it up hearing Casey’s poke. The magic worked on the poor brainwashed saps. One I had not heard speak leaped up off the bench with his friends trying to bump him back down. “We… we do not jihad for her, fools! She is a pawn… a play thing with money stolen from the Brotherhood. I-”

  The guy on his right head butted him, busting his nose, and hosing down the interior with blood. Messy, but effective baiting. Lucas popped the nose buster back onto the bench while I played playground monitor for the rest of the lamb-chops, and shoved a towel against the bleeder’s orifice. I helped him lay down on the floor.

  “Okay… calm down. See, now this smart fellow on the floor will get a couple extra chances at not becoming skinned alive shark bait. So, the Muslim Brotherhood is using little Tamara and her billions to plant cells in the USA, huh? Now that’s good info. The rest of you need to think about helping out now that you are caught and helpless. After all, don’t they teach you to resist as long as possible, but then you are free to say whatever you wish? Look at old Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. They water-boarded him for about forty seconds and he gave up everything he ever knew from the time he could speak. Hell, we get water-boarded in training. My friend Lucas here comes up from the water asking for more, and why did the pussies pull him up. See, so you guys have gone through enough. Your jihad days are over. On the plane ride to hell, think about ways you can avoid the pain. In the meantime, no fighting, or I will have to adjust a few of you. Believe me, you do not want that.”

  They were sullen, but quiet for the rest of the trip. Our guy with the bullet wounds woke up. We let him howl for a while before giving him a shot. Smoothie saw us give the bullet boy a shot, so he wanted something for his leg pain too. I gave him a forearm blow to the head. Then his leg didn’t seem to bother him anymore. We were just one big happy family on the way home to the Ba
y.

  Chapter Four

  New Affliction

  A week later, I was on the mend. Lynn had a conniption fit because our warm up was so good. The lamb-chops started singing to Denny without let up the moment they touched down in the Bay. He kept them for a few days until the info panned out. We now had confirmation on the Muslim Brotherhood connection from all parties involved, and a name for the shadow behind Tamara Rouheni – Quays Tannous. Denny sent the lamb-chops overseas to Egypt, where they were cracking down on the Muslim Brotherhood. His contacts were most anxious to speak with our collection.

  As for our Victoria Lydia Voltaire, she talked, but Denny kept her solo for the time being, only taking her meals. The two cartel reps, who had been with her, didn’t know what to think. We had the fixed up room we kept them in bugged, but they weren’t stupid enough to say anything. Our three remaining guests played a dangerous game. If they had stayed in the Drug Enforcement Agency’s territory, they wouldn’t be here. Voltaire decided to take up with the Muslim Brotherhood. That is our territory. When you stray in with us, it carries a death sentence. The only catch and release we do is sometimes on our boats with an undersized fish. Hernaldo Vanga and Silvio Ruelas were already on the DEA’s watch list. They were ruthless killers, like us, but for the wrong reasons. The connection between Tannous the terrorist, and our three drug suppliers needed airing out.

  I sat on my front step with coffee, dressed in my thermals, because although early November weather here is like the tropics compared to other parts of the country, it is chilly. The temp stays in the fifties this early in the morning. Walking the kids to school, I heard all the usual complaints centering on why I wasn’t driving them. Although I walked the twins all the way to their class, I shied away from letting the teachers see too much of me. I had done funny things like approaching the school in stiff legged, arms out Frankenstein fashion for the amusement of the kids and parents. I had prevented a guy from blowing up the school with Lynn’s interrogation help, so I was golden no matter how I looked. The cringing teachers with looks of horror didn’t do much for my self-esteem as a recovering hamburger face though. Al and the twins loved it. They walked to school with the monster.