A Murder of Crows (11 page)

“I’m sure it’ll make for some interesting reading,” Roger said. A wise man always knows as much about one’s enemy as one can. I’ll read it over immediately. I’m sure there’s something we can use against Mr. Stephens to bend him to our will.” Roger grinned. “Their name always cracked me up. ‘Beekeeper.’ Buzz, buzz.”

Hicks smiled, too, despite himself.
Fucking Roger.

Roger checked his watch and wasn’t smiling anymore. “It’s going to be sunrise in a couple of hours. Tali and her Mossad friends are going to be looking to interrogate Bajjah. Have you decided if you’re going to honor your commitment to Tali or Bajjah?”

Another rotten decision leaving him nowhere but fucked either way he went. Hicks closed his eyes and rolled his neck. The image of the dead girl appeared, and she looked at him with the same dead eyes.
Help me.

He answered her in his mind.
Help me, too, little one. Wherever you are. If you can.

He’d need all the help he could get.

T
HE SKY
had begun to brighten as Hicks led Bajjah—shackled and hooded—out onto the graveled rooftop of the safe house. Roger slipped out onto the roof behind them and quietly closed the door. He held his nine-millimeter flat against his leg. Hicks’ .454 Ruger was still tucked in the holster under his left arm.

Bajjah’s leg irons jingled as Hicks steered him by the back of the neck to a clear spot on the eastern side of the roof. The prisoner’s prayer rug, which the Varsity Squad had found during a search of Bajjah’s apartment, was tucked under Bajjah’s arm. Hicks had already allowed him to perform
wudu
—the cleaning ritual symbolizing absolution—in his cell before bringing him up to the roof.

Hicks pulled Bajjah to a stop at the spot on the roof where he had a clear view of the eastern horizon and the sunrise over Queens.

Hicks undid Bajjah’s handcuffs and pulled off his hood. He kept the leg irons in place. No sense in risking him running off the roof. A dead body on the pavement would be difficult to explain and nearly impossible to clean up before rush hour. Even the University’s abilities had limits.

Hicks took a couple of steps backward as the prisoner automatically laid his carpet atop the gravel and began his morning prayer.

Bajjah buried his face in his hands and chanted quietly before kneeling on the rug. He bowed once and knelt upright, chanting the morning prayers all devout Muslims said each day of their lives. The man hadn’t been allowed to pray in weeks, though in his mind, it had been years. His time away from the ritual hadn’t changed his practice of it, as he slipped right back into the rhythm of his faith.

Hicks watched Bajjah stop in mid-chant when he opened his eyes in time to see the first glimmer of the sun rising above the eastern horizon.

Even from behind, Hicks could see Bajjah smile. It was the first hint of sunlight he had seen in more than two long years.

Or so he had believed.

Until that moment.

Hicks watched the prisoner’s expression slowly evolve into something else, just as it had during his interrogation. This time it wasn’t hate. It was something closer to awareness.

The skyline looked familiar. He wasn’t being held on an island somewhere. He was in New York City. And the air was cold, as it had been when he’d first been taken. The position of the sun was not so dissimilar to the last morning he had made his morning prayers. Something was wrong. How long…

The little girl flashed in Hicks mind.
Help me.

Hicks drew his Ruger and fired a single round into the back of Bajjah’s head. His body fell face-first into the prayer rug.

The loud crack of the shot echoed throughout the quiet early streets of the Lower East Side, but quickly faded. No lights came on. No dogs barked. No one opened their windows or appeared on their patios to see what had happened. The sound could’ve been a truck starting up or any number of other things. It was too early in the busy city for people to be curious. Most hadn’t had their coffee yet.

The man who had dedicated his life to killing thousands of people in New York City had died alone on a rooftop without notice.

Hicks opened the cylinder of the Ruger and replaced the spent cartridge with a new one. He let the cylinder spin freely before snapping it shut. The clean sound of oiled steel had always given him comfort.

“I’m surprised you gave him so long,” Roger said as he tucked his Glock away. “You’re getting generous in your old age.”

“I promised him the sunrise.” Hicks tucked the Ruger back in the shoulder holster under his arm. “Have him tossed in the incinerator downstairs. Dump whatever’s left in the lime pit in the cellar.”

“Of course,” Roger agreed, “though I’d like to keep the prayer rug. As a memento.” The torturer smiled. “He was the first subject in The Cube and breaking him was one of the proudest moments of my career. I’d like something to remember it by.”

Hicks looked down at Bajjah’s body. Blood from the head wound was soaking the rug and flowing over onto the gravel. “You’ll have a hell of a time getting the blood out of it.”

“Don’t be silly. I wouldn’t dream of cleaning it. The blood makes it more personal.”

Hicks stepped through the door and headed downstairs. “Blood always does.”

I
T WAS
after eight in the morning when Hicks decided it was time to leave the safe house and head back to his Twenty-Third Street facility. Manipulating the Bajjah intelligence for Tali and the Mossad would be easier on his desktop at the facility than his laptop.

With Stephens and his people hunting him, he knew he should take a cab back to his Twenty-Third Street facility. It would have been safer, even if most cabs had cameras onboard. But, at that point, Hicks didn’t care about his own safety. He needed fresh air more, or as fresh as the air in Manhattan ever got. He needed time to himself, away from the University. He craved the anonymity of the New York streets while he got his mind in order.

It was the height of rush hour in Manhattan. If Stephens tried to track him by hacking camera systems, it would be harder for him to get a lock in such crowded conditions. Langley and the NSA may have had the best state-of-the-art facial recognition software at their disposal, but when eight million people were all trying to get to work or school at the same time, even the best systems had a hard time keeping up.

Besides, he’d just killed a man. He believed even the death of a mass murderer like Bajjah deserved pause. Pause prevented him from becoming a murderer himself. At least that’s what he told himself as he tried to sleep each night.

It seldom worked, even before the nightly visits from the dead little girl plagued his nightmares.
Help me.

He had helped her, at least he’d helped her the only way he knew how. He hoped it would be enough to give her peace. If one of them deserved peace, it was her. He knew he wouldn’t have any for quite some time.

As he began walking back to the Twenty-Third Street facility, the memory of the dead little girl began to fade, only to be replaced by the phenomena he called his Carousel of Concerns turning in his mind.

Stephens. The Barnyard. Jabbar. The Dean. The Mossad.
Five individual agendas pulling him in different directions. Each one presented a unique threat in their own way.

He knew a drink would ease his headache and calm him down, but one drink would easily turn into three or more. He needed to be sharp now. Too many eyes on him. Too many things could go wrong.

The fucking carousel:
Stephens’ surveillance. The threat of Jabbar’s global network. The Dean’s mandate.

He decided against the drink and pulled out a Nat Sherman cigar from his coat instead.

He was at the corner waiting for the light to change when he clipped off the end of the stick, struck a match, and cupped his hand around the flame as he lit the cigar. He saw the dirty looks he drew from the joggers and hipsters and Millennials also waiting at the corner. He ignored them. He’d just killed a man bent on killing them. He was entitled.

After the light changed and Hicks resumed his walk across town, his mind worked in two directions at once. One part of his brain passively took in the people he passed and what they did, like background music in a shopping mall. He scanned the street for familiar faces, for glances lasting a half second too long and for parked cars with the motor running. He didn’t see these things because of Stephens’ surveillance. This was something he had done for most of his adult life. The price one paid for being part of the University was a lack of peace.

The other part of his brain actively compartmentalized and prioritized the problems he faced. Two weeks before, the capture and death of a terrorist like Mehdi Bajjah would have been one of the top headlines of his career. Today, it was an afterthought.

He knew the Dean’s decision to keep the Jabbar information from the Barnyard was wrong. The University had always excelled at finding important information discreetly before handing it off to various intelligence organizations throughout the world to act upon it. He knew the University thrived on subversion. It had derailed thousands of acts against the West through misinformation or flat out sabotage since before the Second World War.

Effective obscurity had always been the University’s greatest asset. It was never supposed to be an active, forward entity. Making the University into the kind of organization with the ability to track down Jabbar while fighting off Stephens and the Barnyard would take time they didn’t have. Because now Stephens knew he was on to something. He wouldn’t stop until he found he found Bajjah. And, ultimately, Hicks.