The Chef - James Patterson Page 0,76
nods. “That’s right. They didn’t care if I got into fights with some mud folks in the service, or if my psych profile wasn’t a hundred percent. They just needed someone who knew how to shoot…and who could learn ’bout settin’ explosives. Which took a while. And then I thought I could figure out how to make ’em myself.”
He shows me the chemical burns on his hands that I noticed earlier.
“Guess I wasn’t a fast learner.”
“Who was in charge of the group?” I demand. “Who was calling the shots?”
“That’s the thing. It was like everybody was gettin’ their orders separate. We only knew our little piece of the puzzle. And the couple times we’d meet up—at different abandoned houses all over the city—the team looked like the goddamn United Nations! There were always a few ragheads there. Couple wetbacks, too. I hated it. But like they say, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
“The bomb-making supplies you mentioned—where did they come from?” I ask. “Who was paying for all this?”
He shrugs. “Rumor is, some rich restaurant guy, sympathetic to the cause.”
Holy shit. David Needham might be a paranoid asshole, all right. But is he really a closeted white nationalist?
“Then what?”
“They finally brought in some new dudes who knew bombs,” he says, bringing up his cigarette for another puff. “So I got kicked to the curb. Until, that is, they needed some people to go after that girl. I didn’t know who she was, or why they wanted her, but I figured it was all part of the plan.”
He takes a long drag on his cigarette, then tosses it over the bridge into the murky canal below. I bite my lip in frustration. He’s clearly just a tiny cog in a terrible machine. He doesn’t know shit. He’s not just a dumb racist. He’s a pawn.
“So what happens now?” he asks. “Do I get to go home?”
I have to laugh at this man’s stupidity. I’m about to answer in the negative when I see something off in the distance that instantly shatters my laughing mood.
Chapter 64
IN THE distance, a flurry of red and blue lights churns up the starless sky.
Shit. A caravan of cops. Speeding our way fast.
So much for taking things slow with Angus.
“You need to tell me more,” I insist. “Details about the attack. Specifics. And you need to tell me now.”
“It’s like I said, man. I already told you everything I—”
“Bullshit!” I yell. “How many floats and tractors are they using? What part of the city are they hitting? Which parade? When?”
He chews on his lip. For a second I get the feeling he’s having a change of heart and wants to help me out. Maybe I’m just asking the wrong questions.
“Give me some names, then,” I say, nearly pleading. “Let’s start there. Who else was part of the team?”
“The Aryan Brothers came from other chapters. From all different parts of the state. I only knew ’em by their war names.”
“You said there were other people, too. What about them?”
He hocks a wad of saliva over the railing into the inky canal below.
“You mean the Mexicans and A-rabs? No idea. I don’t talk to animals. There was even a goddamn Russian if you can believe it. And they even got these smarty scientist types—smarter than you, cop, you can be sure.”
Fury overtakes me. I reach down and grab this asshole by his sweaty, bloodstained tank top, tug at him hard.
“Here’s the deal, shithead,” I growl. “At a minimum, you’re looking at aggravated assault and conspiracy to commit terrorism. That’s thirty-five to life, no parole. See those cops heading this way? They’re not coming to help you. But maybe I can—if you help me. I know some good lawyers in this city. And some flexible judges. Get what I’m saying? So unless you want to die inside a supermax, I’m the only hope you’ve got.”
Apparently, my words finally get through to him.
“Holy Cross,” Angus mutters.
“What does that mean?” I demand. “Some kind of code? Religious thing?”
“Holy Cross the place,” he says, almost whining. “It’s where all of us were supposed to meet up tonight. Some shack on the corner of Dauphine and Flood.”
A late-night gathering. In a rough part of town. Inside a vacant home.
Sure sounds like a sleeper cell’s latest safe house.
And there’s a damn good chance they’re meeting there right now!
I push Angus to the ground and race back to my car.
Holy Cross is a neighborhood in the Lower Ninth Ward. Only six or seven miles