Читать книгу Jackknife - William W. Johnstone - Страница 20

Traffic was really backed up in the northbound lanes of the interstate. The southbound lanes were moving a little faster. Hamed was grateful for that. He was anxious to reach his destination. Fort Worth was not far ahead of him now. In fact, as his car topped a long rise, he was able to see the tall buildings jutting up from the prairie ahead of him, still some five or ten miles to the south.

He took the prepaid cell phone from his pocket. Before he’d ever entered the country, he had been given a phone number to commit to memory. The plan called for him to use it when he reached the destination to which he was summoned when the call to action came. He thought he was close enough now. He hadn’t programmed the number into the phone; that would have been too risky. But he had no trouble thumbing the ten digits and then hitting the connect button while he was driving.

He heard the phone on the other end ringing. Wherever it was, whoever owned it would see the number of Hamed’s phone and would know who was calling. So he wasn’t surprised when there were no preliminaries, just a neutral-sounding voice that spoke an address when the call was answered. Hamed repeated it back, and the connection was broken. Quickly, so that there was no chance of him forgetting it, he entered the address into the GPS unit mounted on the car’s dashboard. A moment later a map popped up on the unit’s screen.

Hamed followed the turn-by-turn directions given to him by the computer-generated voice. They led him around Fort Worth on a loop to the east, into the densely packed suburbs between the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth. Everywhere he looked were housing developments, apartment complexes, and shopping centers dominated by the so-called “big box” stores. He saw perhaps a dozen different MegaMarts and grimaced each time he passed one of them. These American cities were nothing like Paris. They had no charm, no grace, and the starkly ugly MegaMarts were the perfect symbols of everything that was wrong with the American infidels and their godless culture.

The voice from the GPS unit instructed him to leave the highway. He did so, and followed a route of twists and turns into the mazelike apartment complexes. He recognized the name of the street he was on. He had to be close to the address he was given.

He found it a few minutes later. The apartment complex was not new, not fancy, but it appeared to be fairly well cared for. The parking places were not reserved, so he slid his car into one of them and stopped. He had been on the road for a long time, so his back was stiff when he climbed out of the vehicle. As he stretched, trying to unkink the sore muscles, he was aware of the gun tucked behind his belt at the small of his back, its butt covered by the tails of the loose shirt he wore. He hadn’t carried it there for the whole trip, of course; that would have been too uncomfortable. But as he approached his destination he had taken the weapon from between the car’s bucket seats and concealed it under his shirt. He didn’t know what he was walking into, but he wasn’t going to do it unarmed.

The apartment number was 427, but the building had only two stories. It was arranged in a square around a central courtyard that contained a swimming pool. Signs were posted on each leg of the square, giving the numbers of the apartments it contained, so Hamed had no trouble finding 427. It was on the second floor, overlooking the pool, which had been drained and stood empty at this time of year. It looked forlorn somehow. Dead leaves from the trees in the courtyard had blown into it.

Hamed knocked on the door and was surprised when a woman opened it—a very attractive woman at that, although her long, raven-black hair should have been covered instead of displayed so openly and shamelessly. Hamed concealed his reaction and said in English, “Hi. I’m looking for Steve.”

“Sure, he’s here,” the woman said as she stepped back from the door. “Come in.”

Hamed did so—then froze as the woman shut the door behind him and pressed what felt like the barrel of a gun against the back of his neck.