The Last Infidel Read online

  Cody stepped through the door, and the small, antique bell attached to the door’s header announced his presence. An older Muslim man, hobbling along on a cane, answered the summons.

  “Jadhari isn’t seeing anyone at this time,” the old man said. “It would be best to return in the morning.”

  “In the morning? Why in the morning?” Cody asked. “Tell him I want to see him now.”

  The old man, knowing the relationship between Cody and Jadhari, didn’t argue. He disappeared through a door behind the old, glass display case, his cane thumping as he went.

  The smoke shop still smelled of tobacco, a sweet, rich fragrance Cody loved to breathe as a child. The glass jars on the wall, sitting empty for almost two years now, still smelled like the contents they once held. Cody walked over to the wall and picked up a jar, a jar he had picked up many times over the years. He removed the lid, placed his face into the jar, and inhaled. Apple, he thought, and he breathed deeply once more. Only here in the smoke shop could one escape the reek of Islamic civilization on a hot summer day when the humid air floated in thick and nasty from the garbage dumps.

  “Cody, my old friend,” Jadhari called out from behind the counter. “Of course, I will beat the old man for disobeying me – he should have told you I was not here.”

  “We’ve got business to discuss,” Cody demanded. “And if you don’t mind, we can discuss it right here, business-like.”

  “Whatever it is, I am sure you can hammer it out with Bashar,” Jadhari said, looking at his watch. “Why don’t you share a cigar with me?”

  “You know I don’t smoke.”

  “Unless you catch fire,” Jadhari said, laughing. “That’s what you always used to say!”

  The old man came hobbling into the room. Jadhari told him he could leave for the night.

  “How appropriate,” Cody snapped. “How many people have you smoked in the last two years?”

  “And you’re a hypocrite, Cody Marshall,” Jadhari said, with his eyes fixed on Cody’s, “because you stopped caring for these people about two years ago – or am I wrong? And wasn’t it you who pushed Mikey Ferguson off the roof yesterday after Mikey tried to push one of the guards to his death? I saw it with my own eyes, as did all the men.”

  Cody pursed his lips. He knew Jadhari actually believed what he’d just said, even though he’d seen his own father shoot Mikey between the eyes. No amount of evidence, not even a replay of a video, had one existed, would make a difference. Same as the Black Lies Matter soldiers back before the war.

  Darken the lightness.

  “I want the boy,” Cody said loudly.

  Jadhari moved his head, ever so slightly. He was about to deny knowing anything about the boy. Cody knew it: that was Jadhari’s way. The jerk of the head, the knowing look in the eyes, the pause after the accusation – Jadhari knew Cody knew that he’d taken Marcus Maddox, but he’d deny it to the very end. And he’d probably believe his own lies.

  “I have nothing to do with Marcus,” Jadhari insisted.

  “I’ve got a proposition for you, Jadhari,” Cody countered. “I’ve got a ten-dollar gold piece – that’s enough gold to buy what’s left of this crummy town.”

  “I’ll see that he is returned safely for a twenty-dollar gold piece. That is, if he hasn’t already been bought – he’s at the camp, with the women.”

  Cody had already spoken with his contacts in town. No boys were in the camp; and there hadn’t been for some time. Most of them were bartered under the table – probably even sampled there – bought and sold before they had a chance to get to the auction block. Islamic caviar is what the infidels called young boys unlucky enough to be captured.

  “How long will you be here?” Cody asked.

  “I will be here until midnight, at least. I’m going over some details for the last day of Ramadan.”

  Cody heard a knock on the window, turned, and looked out. He saw Jose waving, and then he watched him open the door.

  Cody looked at Jadhari and said, “If you’re not here when I get back, the deal’s off, you hear me?”

  “I’ll be here,” Jadhari said.

  Jose came in, greeted Jadhari, and said, “You’re gonna miss dinner tonight, Cody.”

  Cody smiled once at Jadhari, put his hand on Jose’s back, and both of them walked out of the store.

  “Are we gonna have time to do this?” Jose asked. “What if we get caught?”

  “We’ll worry about that when the time doesn’t come.”

  { 15 }

  Cody and Jose walked down the street on the east side of the square, two dark figures moving silently through the shadows. After a quick glance back towards the square, and after Cody felt reasonably sure nobody had taken any interest in them, the two men slipped into a small, darkened alley and hurried away from the square.

  “You know,” Jose said, “You’re sitting on a gold mine.”

  “A bomb mine,” Cody replied.

  “Just tell Jadhari what you have and come to terms with him. I’ll bet he’ll even drive you and me past the checkpoints and half way to Chattanooga.”

  “And you’re sure about that?”

  “I don’t want to die like Mikey did – and time is getting short.”

  “You didn’t care about Mikey any more than I did, probably less. You only care about yourself. I get it. You’ve stayed alive. It doesn’t get much better than that.”

  “You’re just describing yourself, Cody – that’s what you always do. Why do you think everybody else is just like you?”

  Cody and Jose headed for a strip of tall growth growing along the curb. East Main Street, with its tall mansions and tennis courts, looked more like a jungle than a haunt of the rich, the depraved, and the idle. Bashar’s men occupied a few of the homes. You could see their lamps burning in the windows. But most of the others sat vacant, slowly deteriorating, like everything else in the wake of ISA’s conquests.

  Jadhari owned the Second French Empire on the left heading out of town, a three-storied, mansard-roofed mansion built in the 1870s.

  Ten minutes later, Cody and Jose were looking at it from across the street, from behind a tall, massed growth of hydrangeas, from a position totally engulfed in darkness.

  “You could just let me handle the transaction with Jadhari – I can get us a good deal,” Jose said.

  “You think I couldn’t?”

  “I’ll take all the risk – nobody will ever know that you were involved. And then you and me will be outta here, man. Just like that.”

  “Why are you here, Jose?”

  “To try to talk some sense into you.”

  A door slammed somewhere in the distance and a woman screamed. Cody looked out through the bushes towards Jadhari’s mansion and saw an oil lamp being trimmed in one of the windows. A window on the second floor was faintly lit.

  “That would be a maid, or somebody,” Cody said.

  “Or somebody with a gun,” Jose shot back. “So what do you want to do?”

  “There’s a key to the back door that’s hidden under a fake rock. Fakest rock you’ll ever see.”

  “No, I mean about the bombs,” Jose shot back.

  “You’re just a piece of work, you know that?” Cody snapped. “Let’s do what we came here to do.”

  Cody and Jose slipped quietly out of hiding and sprinted across the street. They ran through the tall grass without stopping and hurried along the right side of the house, stopping at the rear door. Cody knelt down next to the stone steps, feeling around for the fake rock. Jose, who had gone up the steps, gently turned the doorknob.

  “Hey,” Jose whispered down to Cody. “It’s open. Stop fooling around down there and let’s do it.”

  The door led into a kitchen. Cody looked through the glass door and, seeing no movement, hearing no sounds, he turned the knob and pushed the door inward. Once inside, he slowly drew his roofing knife, a short, hooked blade, clean and sharp, and he held it at the ready.

  Some
body spoke in the next room, a voice low and heavy. Cody and Jose froze and knelt on the floor. They listened, but they couldn’t make out what had been said.

  Suddenly, the voice of a young girl cried out: “Leave me alone! Please!”

  “Jadhari says I can have you any time I want,” a man said. “It’s okay if you fight – I like that.”

  “Please leave me alone!” the girl cried.

  Something hit the floor, perhaps something made of glass, because it shattered. Then there came the sound of cloth being torn, and the girl screamed; and a commotion, like furniture falling over, and scuffling could be heard. Now the sound of muffled screams and moans filled the room.

  Cody, without any concern for himself, turned the corner into the dining room with his blade raised. One of Jadhari’s guards, with his pants below his knees and a girl pinned beneath him on the long dining room table, never knew the sheriff was coming. Cody grabbed the man by his dark, black hair, lifted his head, and slit him open from ear to ear, throwing him aside before a geyser of blood covered the girl.

  Jose ran in behind Cody and helped the girl off the table. “Looks like we were just in time!”

  “Is there anyone else in the house?” Cody whispered to the girl. “Anymore guards?”

  The girl, with tears in her eyes, holding her torn nightgown to cover her upper body, shook her head. “But there’s a boy on the second floor, he’s---”

  “Stay here,” Cody said to Jose, “and make sure nobody else comes through that door.” He hurried through the dining room, took a right down a long, dark hallway, and found the living room. He took the stairs to the second floor and turned right into a long hallway. On the right, two doors down, he saw the faint glow of an oil lamp casting its light into the hall.

  Cody hurried, fearful that Jadhari might return, and worrying that other guards might be coming on duty. Inside the room, he found Marcus handcuffed to the bed with his eyes closed. Cody reached into his pocket for his keyring.

  Marcus, his face bruised and his lower lip cut and swollen, opened his eyes when he heard the jingle of the keys. “Sheriff Marshall? Are you here to get me out?”

  Cody nodded and told him to remain quiet. He found his handcuff key and quickly unlocked the cuffs from Marcus’s feet. Then he freed his hands.

  Marcus swung his feet over the side of the bed and stood up. He marched in place, trying to shake off the tightness in his leg muscles, and he shrugged his shoulders.

  “Are you okay?” Cody asked. “Can you walk?”

  The sound of hurrying feet coming up the stairs startled Cody. He walked to the bedroom door and looked out, seeing Jose and the girl.

  “We’re getting her dressed,” Jose said, as he hurried past Cody, turning into the bedroom opposite.

  Cody turned. He saw Marcus with an oil lamp without a globe in his hands and a burning white sock in the other. Before he could say a word, Marcus smashed the nearly-full oil lamp onto the floor of the closet and threw the blazing, smoking sock in after it. The closet, full of clothes, burst into flames.

  “This’ll teach him, won’t it, Sheriff Marshall?” Marcus yelled.

  “Jose!” Cody yelled. “We’ve gotta move, and I mean now!” He grabbed Marcus’s forearm and pulled him towards the hallway.

  Jose came running, and he leaned into the room. He saw the fire and looked up towards the high ceiling. “I hope somebody outside doesn’t see that! Smart move, Cody – just because you have a death wish doesn’t mean the rest of us do!” He ran back into the other room. The girl had changed into a pair of jeans and was just finishing with the buttons on her shirt. She grabbed a pair of shoes and socks just as Jose grabbed her hand. He jerked her out of the room, down the hall, and towards the stairs. Cody and Marcus followed.

  “No, wait!” Marcus yelled. “The turret room – Jadhari keeps a lot of gold there, sitting out in the open!”

  Jose let go of the girl’s hand. “Where is it?”

  “At the other end of this hall through the last door on the right!” The girl said.

  “There’s no time!” Cody yelled, jerking Marcus along with him.

  Marcus freed himself from Cody’s grip, following Jose and the girl in a race down the hall.

  Cody shook his head, muttered under his breath, and followed reluctantly. He looked in on the burning room as he passed it. The walls near the closet were blazing and the paint delaminating, curling, and igniting; and billows of poisonous, grayish-black smoke began pouring out into the hall like a storm cloud.

  The turret room, at the end of the hall, was dark. Cody pulled out a small flashlight and flipped it on. “If there’s anybody looking, they’ll know we’re now in Jadhari’s office.”

  “Here it is!” the girl cried. “Right where he always keeps it!” She picked up an old cigar box sitting on a large, mahogany desk, and she grabbed it, groaning under its weight. She held it up and flipped the lid back, showing its contents to Jose.

  “Holy cow!” Jose said. “A bunch of small, one-ounce bars! I’m rich!”

  “Jadhari counts them every night,” the girl said. “He loves them.”

  Jose reached for the box, smiling; but the girl frowned and pulled it away. “This belongs to me and Marcus, so back off!”

  Cody, standing over the desk, gathered up several papers he’d found in a manila folder. He held up two papers in particular, one in either hand, and he smiled. His eyes bounced back and forth from one to the other like the head of a spectator at a ping pong competition. He quickly folded them up and slid them into his back pocket. “Now, if you guys don’t mind---”

  “But what about me? I haven’t got anything to show for this rescue!” Jose said, looking around the room for something to take.

  “You felt our joy,” Cody said calmly and serenely. “He opened the cigar box, removed a one-ounce gold bar, and handed it to Jose.

  “And that’s it? That’s all I get?”

  “You’ve never had a bar like that before, have you?”

  “You better make this worth my while,” Jose warned severely. “I’ve always had your back – well, most of the time, you pendejo.”

  “This is America – and in this town, we speak American, got it?” Cody said. He took the cigar box from the girl and handed it to Jose. “We’ll divvy it up later. Now, if you don’t mind, let’s get these kids someplace safe.”

  { 16 }

  Cody descended the secret staircase from the hardware store down into the dark tunnel. Marcus and the girl, whose name was Katrina, followed Cody. Jose brought up the rear. Cody flipped on his flashlight at the bottom of the steps and lit the way through the damp, musty, cobwebbed passage. Jose tucked the cigar box full of gold bars tightly under his arm, only to have it slide down again to his elbow. Cody had offered to carry it for him, but Jose’s desire to protect his share of the profits was best summed up by the old adage that possession was nine-tenths of the law.

  Cody heard Tracy’s voice, smooth and articulate, coming down the tunnel. The light of an oil lamp, not very bright, flickering – or maybe someone had been walking past it at the moment – could not have been more than twenty feet ahead. He stopped his little posse and, with the flashlight in his face and his finger to his lips, he told everyone to remain quiet. He turned off the flashlight. When he reached the entrance to the realty building basement, he stopped.

  Zafar, with his back facing Cody, was sitting at the small, wooden table. Tracy sat opposite him, listening now, as Zafar talked about troops coming out of the north – their numbers, their leaders, and their objectives. She remained attentive to Zafar, but her head moved, almost imperceptibly, and her eyes met Cody’s, calmly and without alarm. Cody wanted to look away, swing his head in the other direction. But he didn’t move.

  “And our time is running out,” Zafar said. “ISA troops are already ahead of schedule. My people are getting scared, and they tell me it may be too late now to equip the Yazidi. But I don’t think so. We have only a little bit of time
.”

  Cody slipped quietly into the room and stepped up close to Zafar. He looked over his shoulder, carefully, holding his breath. He looked down and saw a hand-drawn map.

  “But there is still time to hit them here and here,” Zafar continued, pointing at the map. “All we can do is slow them down and make them use some of their troops to guard the rear. That will give your people time to---”

  “Time to what?” Cody said. “Get themselves all killed like they did at Nashville?”

  Zafar, startled, jumped up from his seat. “Mr. Marshall, I didn’t expect to---”

  Jose entered the room, corralling the kids in front of him.

  “The Army of Tennessee is outclassed on every front, Zafar,” Cody snapped. “And I’m beginning to wonder if you’re really the turncoat you claim you are.” He looked at Tracy briefly and turned away. “It looks like you’ve got everyone fooled, Zafar.”

  “I hardly know what you mean.” Zafar replied, with perfect calm.

  “But you’re still not sure which side you want to be on,” Cody said, “because you’re not sure who’s going to win. You’re a profiteer, just like my friend Jose. Seems like your leaders aren’t so sure this fight is over yet. I happen to know that you--”

  Lisa Maddox came into the room, saw her son, and ran to him, breaking down into tears as she scooped him up into her arms.

  Marcus broke away from his mother’s embrace and walked around the table, stopping beside Tracy. He squinted in the weak glow of the lamp light and then pointed at Zafar. “I saw him – he was at Jadhari’s. He came into my room and he---” His voice trailed off and he lowered his head. “I just hope you die, mister.”

  Katrina walked over to Marcus, her eyes boring holes into Zafar, and she took his hand. “Come on, Marcus.”

  “Lisa, take the kids,” Cody said. “I’ll see you in a minute.”