Bookmaker, The (20 page)

“We turned down Avenue Montaigne and the driver said, ‘Voila, Hotel Plaza Athenee.’ It was a beautiful, century
-old building with intricately designed black-wrought iron patios dripping with red flowers. The foyer was magnificently posh. The furniture and the decor looked older than the hotel and had a regal renaissance flair. Matador gave me a look that said
we must stay here sometime.

“‘Top floor, penthouse, suite four,’ Matador told the man working the elevator. He just gave us a bored look and pushed the button. We knocked on the penthouse door and heard rustling inside, but no one opened the door.

“Finally, a voice drenched in a thick Middle Eastern accent yelled through the closed door, ‘Shaw’s boys, yes?’

“‘Falafel,
’ Matador said the password.

“
The door opened. Once he confirmed our identities, the two men with him put the guns down and relaxed somewhat.

“The man who opened the door spoke. ‘I am Mahmoud Hamshari, please
d to make your acquaintance. Forgive our cautiousness, you never can be too careful,’ he said as the two men patted us down.

“Matador and I gave him the fake names we decided on beforehand and sized him up. Shaw was right, he was hard to look at: short and squat with thick glasses, haphazard facial hair, beady eyes under dark bushy eyebrows; he was a stereotypical swarthy Middle Easterner. His two silent companions were bigger but cut from the same cloth. Hamshari stood out from them because he was educated, he spoke almost fluent English
, and we found out later, five more languages. When you were in his presence, he was in charge or at least acted like he was; he liked to talk and expected to be heard.

“He walked as he spoke, leading us through the room. ‘I’d offer you boys a drink, but I’m afraid we don’t have any alcohol, we don’t drink you see. I can offer you tea or water?’

“‘We’re good,’ I said with an urgency meant for him to get down to business. Unaffected, he continued on with the small talk as we walked through the opulent suite and stepped out onto the large balcony that looked down on Paris and directly at the Eiffel Tower. The view was breathtaking. Both Matador and I stopped following him and headed for the railing to try and take it all in as we both knew this was our only chance to really see the city.

“Hamshari motioned for us to come join him at a glass table set with four chairs. He sat down. ‘So, you are Shaw’s boys? You come highly recommended from one of America’s truly elegant criminals.’

“We both sat down. ‘Yeah, we’ve worked with him in the past.’

“Hamshari rubbed his sweaty hands together
. ‘So I hear, so I hear. You know, I admire what Mr. Shaw has accomplished, it’s unfortunate he has chosen a lifestyle that offends God so.’

“Matador and I planned for this rhetoric and held our tongues. I touched his knee under the table, a quick gesture that said
let’s just get through this
.

“Hamshari went on
. ‘It’s funny, this homosexuality, it is not an issue in my culture. Where I come from, there are no homosexual men…or women for that matter. I feel it must be a western phenomenon. Perhaps your liberal ideals have taken you too far away from God and His way. I myself have no problem with the queers, as they are called. I consider myself open-minded. Plus, more women for the rest of us, right, my friends?’ He waited for us to laugh or respond somehow; when he saw he would get no response, he went on. ‘So I understand that you and I have something in common—you would like a certain man out of the way. This man offends you?’

“‘We have our reasons and we’d prefer to keep them to ourselves
, if you don’t mind,’ I said.

“He was taken aback by my bluntness but remained unfazed
. ‘Fine, fine, what do I care, as long as you do your job and I do mine we can work together just fine. Right, my friends?’

“‘Right,’ I answered.

“Hamshari shifted in his seat and sipped his tea. ‘I will, however, tell you about my motives, if you don’t mind. Perhaps my openness will help loosen your tongues.’

“Matador and I nodded and stared at him, he had our attention. ‘My benefactor is a very
wealthy and important man. He has it in his intentions to marry the widow Kennedy, and he finds Senator Kennedy’s actions to stop their courtship infuriating. When he heard the rumors that they were having an affair, he came to me for help, and now I come to you.’

“
‘Actually,’ Matador said, ‘we called you.’

“In an attempt to test his level of respect for us
, I asked, ‘What is that you’re drinking there?’

“‘This,’ he made a face indicating we wouldn’t like it, ‘
this is Turkish coffee, very strong, bitter. You would not like.’

“‘That’s for me to decide,’ I said. He snapped for one of his goons and pointed to his coffee
; they quickly obeyed.

“Hamshari took a sterner tone, apparently from being taken off the subject
, and got down to the point. ‘My conversation with Shaw was brief, but he informed me you would take care of the act as long as I would supply the…what is the term you use…scapegoat. Yes? Such an odd language you have.’

“The hairy man with the rifle gently handed me the cup
, and I placed it down on the table. ‘Basically,’ I agreed.

“Hamshari smiled. ‘Good, now we are getting somewhere. Our mutual friend has made me aware of your past work
, and I must say, I am impressed.’
“We assumed Shaw had told him about JFK. ‘Now I must prove to you that I can hold up my end of the bargain. If you please take your drink and follow me inside, I have something you need to see.’

“We stepped back inside, fighting off the abrupt change from the bright sunlit balcony to the darkened suite. The two men were already preparing the scene.

“Hamshari directed their every move. ‘Talib, the screen.’ He motioned to the other man. ‘Aquib, the projector. Are we ready?’

“Aquib gave him a nod. Like a classroom film strip
, it began counting down in the familiar test pattern 3…2…1…

“I interjected, ‘What are we about to see here?’

“Hamshari annoyingly motioned for Aquib to stop the film. ‘This is the process we will use to achieve our goal, we are creating your scapegoat organically, now please, watch.’

“The film was grainy and silent, which was fine because Hamshari planned to narrate the entire scene. ‘We have in our control an American doctor. Dr. Bryant is the world’s foremost expert on hypnosis.’

“The film opened up with a middle-aged, bespectacled white man diligently speaking to a vacuous-eyed peasant of Middle Eastern descent.

“‘Through a screening process of our prisoners
, we find the subject with the most susceptible mind for controlling; usually it is the most simple that fit this bill, so we start there.’

“The brainwashing continued. The stark grey room stayed the same, but the doctor’s clothes and items on the table changed
, indicating the passage of time. ‘The process usually takes a month of eight hour days to get them where they need to be,’ Hamshari said.

“‘What’s happening here? Where’s this all going?’ Matador asked.

“‘Please, show some patience, it will all make perfect sense in a moment.’

“The film went on, the doctor was now obviously in control of the subject
, who still had the same blank stare but was now doing odd things throughout the room until the doctor handed him a gun and the subject pointed it at a guard who was previously out of the scene. He pulled the trigger. The gun was filled with blanks, and the guard, apparently aware of this, hardly flinched; then the subject put the gun to his own head and pulled the trigger, dropped the gun, and waited for his next order.

“‘See that, the control we can achieve?’ Hamshari shouted, breaking the dead silence and startling us.

“‘I see,’ I said. ‘But where are you going with this?’

“He had Aquib stop the film and put another in
. ‘So impatient, you Americans can be, now watch this.’

“The next film started with the same grainy stock, same countdown. This time the scene was in front of a run-down apartment building.

“Hamshari started. ‘Inside the building, in a second-floor apartment, is one of our men who sold secrets to the Israelis. This traitor exposed the identity of two of our men who had infiltrated Mossad in Tel Aviv. With his information, our men were executed by firing squad. Now Allah has his revenge,’ he said with a bitter tone as if this had happened yesterday.

“The subject from the first film walked into view of the camera and headed straight into the dilapidated building.

“Hamshari went on. ‘We have our man strapped with twenty pounds of our homemade explosives.’

“The building sat quiet for a moment. Then from the second floor, an explosion ripped through the walls and sent debris of brick and glass falling to the sidewalk below. The image was peculiar in its silence. The explosion didn’t pack the same punch without the sound—it had a false urgency, movie back-lot fakeness. But the body torn in two halves filling the sidewalk
with black liquid pulled you back to reality.

“‘Now Allah will judge,’ Hamshari said
, stopping the tape.

“Matador and I gave each other a disgusted glance, but who were we to judge?

“Before we could give our opinions, Hamshari put on another film. ‘Now, this one…this one was a pleasure to carry out. This man here—I say man, but he is far from it. This man from England, working for British Petroleum in the oil fields of Kuwait, committed the darkest of crimes. To put it discreetly, he had his way with a ten-year-old girl. When the girl’s father found out, he disowned her for shaming the family, now she is an orphan. The British washed their hands of him, and the Kuwaitis offered him up to us.’

“The scene started the same as the first one
: the doctor working his hypnosis on a white man who looked to be in his thirties or forties. Aside from the shoddy clothes, the disheveled, dirty hair, and blank stare, he could have been one of us.

“‘This man was not as easy as some of the others to control, but the doctor took it as a challenge and eventually had him,’ Hamshari said
, looking at the subject with hatred.

“Again, the room changing indicated the time it took to train the man, you could see the progress even in the grainy silence. ‘This one took two months, but he was well worth the effort. Talib, the next one,’ he
barked.

“The film opened up in a sun-drenched seaside setting. The camera panned the boardwalk. It could have been Miami Beach, I thought. Hamshari set me straight
. ‘Haifa last summer, an Israeli tourist destination.’

“The British man entered the scene, this time dressed in a bulky but nice black business suit. The man walked straight ahead into a busy restaurant, past the outdoor tables
, and into the restaurant, out of the picture. Now that we knew what was going to happen, the wait was excruciating. Finally, with a blast far bigger than the apartment building explosion, the entire restaurant was blown from the inside out, body parts mixing with the rubble. Matador and I looked away.

“Hamshari noticed
, and shut the projector off. ‘A little squeamish for men with your track records, aren’t we?’

“‘Those were innocent civilians,’ I said.

“‘You are wrong!’ Hamshari snapped violently. ‘The Israelis established long before that civilians were not off limits, we are playing by their rules now! What you just saw was a reaction to the children bombed in Gaza during the Six Day War, as they call it.’

“‘Okay, okay, we aren’t judging. All’s fair in love and war, right?’ I said
, trying to break the tension.

“Hamshari smiled. ‘I’ve never heard that before. I like that, and truer it could not be.’

“Matador, in an attempt to dissolve the growing hostility in the room, tried some complimenting. ‘What you’ve just shown us is very impressive. I didn’t think it could be done.’

“‘Yes, we are very proud of our team,’ Hamshari said.

“‘However, a bomb might not be the best way to take out our objective,’ Matador said.

“‘I agree,’ he said. ‘Subtlety is an issue. That’s why you must see the last film I would like to show you.’

“The film was the same quality as the others. ‘You see the subject, he’s your man,’ Hamshari said, pointing at the screen. He looked like the other malnourished Middle Easterner who blew up the apartment building.

“‘That’s our guy? We’re gonna need someone in America to do this job,’ I said.

“‘That’s just it. This man is American, just like you. One of our operatives recruited him in California, believing he’d be an ideal fit for this program, and he was right. This is a dream subject. Not too bright, an Arab Palestinian, staunchly anti-Zionist, easily manipulated and hypnotized, and he has dual citizenship, Israeli and U.S. We flew him out about a month ago and planned on using him for a job in Jerusalem, until you called.’

“He had my attention
. ‘Can he be coerced into shooting one person? It’s quite different from tripping a bomb,’ I said, looking back at Hamshari.