Legends

Lincoln locked his eyes on the Egyptian. He was a skeletal man with a round pockmarked face and hunched shoulders, probably in his late fifties, though the gray beard could have been adding years to his appearance. The upper third of his face had disappeared behind dark sunglasses, which he wore despite being in a dingy room with the shades drawn. “Semtex in small quantities is no problem. Ammonium nitrate in any quantity is also no problem,” he said. “You probably know that ammonium nitrate is used as fertilizer—mixed with diesel or fuel oil, it is highly explosive. The trick’ll be to buy a large amount without attracting attention, which is something I and my associates can organize. Where do you want to take delivery?”

Leroy smiled out of one side of his mouth. “At a site to be specified on the New Jersey side of the Holland Tunnel.”

Lincoln heard the cry of the muezzin—it wasn’t a recording but the real thing—summoning the faithful to midday prayer, which meant he’d been taken somewhere within earshot of the only mosque in Ciudad del Este after Leroy had picked him up in front of the mosque in Foz do Iguaçú. He’d been shoved into the back of a Mercedes and ordered to strap on the blackened-out ski goggles he found on the seat. “You taking me to the Saudi?” he’d asked Leroy as the Mercedes drove in circles for three quarters of a hour to confuse him. “I’m taking you to meet the Saudi’s Egyptian,” Leroy had answered. “If the Egyptian signs off on you, that’s when you get to meet the Saudi, not before.” Lincoln had asked, “What happens if he doesn’t sign off on me?” Leroy, sitting up front alongside the driver, had snorted. “If’n he don’t sign off on you, he’ll like as feed you to the pet crocodile he keeps in his swim pool.”

Now Lincoln could feel Daoud scrutinizing him through his dark sunglasses. “Where did you hurt your leg?” the Egyptian asked.

“Car accident in Zagreb,” Lincoln said. “The Croats are crazy drivers.”

“Where were you treated?” Daoud was looking for details he could verify.

Lincoln named a clinic in a suburb of Trieste.

The Egyptian glanced at Leroy and shrugged. Something else occurred to him. “What did you say the title of your book on Fredericksville was?”

Leroy corrected him. “It’s Fredericksburg.”

“I didn’t say,” Lincoln replied. “Title was the best part of the book. I called it, Cannon Fodder.”

Apparently Leroy was still fighting the War of Secession because he blurted out, “Cannon fodder is sure as hell what they was.” His normal drawl, pitched a half octave higher, came across loud and clear. “Federal cannon fodder, fighting to free the niggers and legitimize intermarriage and dictate the North’s way of thinking on southern gents.”

The Egyptian repeated the title to make sure he’d gotten it right, then muttered something in Arabic to the fat boy piecing together the jigsaw puzzle on the linoleum-covered table in the alcove. The boy, who was wearing a shoulder holster with a plastic gun in it and chewing bubble gum that he inflated every time he fitted in a piece, sprang to his feet and rushed out of the room. The Egyptian followed him. Lincoln could hear their footfalls on the staircase of the ramshackle building as the boy headed downstairs and Daoud climbed up one flight. He let himself into the room overhead and crossed it and dragged up a chair as a telephone sounded. Lincoln guessed that the Egyptian was phoning abroad to get his people to check out details of the Dittmann legend.