Fuse of Armageddon (12 page)

“He’s a terrorist!” It didn’t take much knowledge of Middle Eastern affairs to be aware of the name. Silver knew Safady was as famous and elusive as Osama bin Laden; whereas bin Laden was seen as a spiritual leader for Muslim extremists, Safady was renowned for performing actual acts of terrorism. More covert than bin Laden.

“Watch what you say.” The man smiled. “You don’t want to insult me.”

It took Silver a moment to comprehend. With horror. “You?”

Safady smiled. “Yes, you do understand. I am the Black Prince.”

“What do you want?” Silver asked. “Don’t kill us. We can pay you—”

Silver’s words were cut off as Safady clapped a hand across his mouth. Silver jerked his hands up in a defensive response but was stopped by the woman’s arms linked through his.

Safady smiled. With the thumb and forefinger of his other hand, he pinched Silver’s nostrils shut.

Silver tried to suck for air but found none. Frantically he tried to pull his bound wrists up to his mouth again.

Safady stared directly into Silver’s eyes, as if trying to watch the light of his soul dim with unconsciousness. Silver bucked, desperate for air.

With another smile, Safady released the grip. “Do not forget this lesson,” he said. “You depend on me even for the very air you breathe. And so do all the others.”

“Whatever you want,” Silver said, “I can give to you.”

Safady stared into Silver’s face. After a few minutes, he nodded. “You will. And more.”

Ad Duhayr, Egypt • 12:26 GMT


Hot.

Even in the shade. Joe Patterson thought he’d spent enough time in Afghanistan to understand hot. But something about having only two canteens of water made the hot seem hotter.

Saliva dripped from Orphan Annie’s jowls.

“Hot,” Joe said. He figured he might as well speak his thoughts out loud.

Orphan Annie blinked.

Joe wanted a drink of water badly. But he had his orders. The heifer mattered more than his own life.

Joe screwed open the lid of the canteen, splashed a little water on the opening, and let the heifer smell the water. “Try this,” he said. He jammed the canteen into the heifer’s mouth and tilted it sideways. He poured the water slowly, making sure he didn’t spill any onto the sand.

“Good, huh?” Joe said.

Yeah, he wanted some water badly. But last thing he wanted to do was run out. The heifer wasn’t built for this kind of heat. Patterson knew Saxon would make him pay if anything happened to it. The thought only added to his misery.

Tulkarm, West Bank • 12:28 GMT


Under the supervision of six masked men carrying AK-47s, Jonathan Silver and his partner were the first two off the bus. Because he and Peggy Bailey were linked together, they were forced to move in a sideways shuffle down the steps of the bus and into the warehouse.

The building could have held six buses of the same size. The warehouse floor was hard-packed dirt. It had the smell of rotting fruit, and the old, wooden shelves were crowded with boxes of ripening oranges. Light came through dusty windows.

Behind the bus was a large produce truck. The flat deck on the back had canvas sides and a canvas roof. A wide ramp rested at the tail. Beyond that was a video camera on a tripod. A huge PLO flag hung down from the ceiling behind it, forming a backdrop.

Silver expected the gunmen to herd them up the ramp into the cargo area of the produce truck. In fact, he hoped they would. It was obvious to him that the video camera and the flag were not part of the produce business.

Instead, as he feared, the first two masked men motioned for Silver and Peggy to stand behind the truck as the other tourists awkwardly emptied from the bus.

There was a dead man on the floor, his hands bound. The bus driver. All of them averted their eyes. One of the women sagged to her knees and needed help to stand again.

When all the tourists were gathered, Safady faced them and smiled tightly. “It’s obvious by now that this isn’t part of Mr. Silver’s famous Holy Land tour,” he said. “It’s only the first of several detours. But first, the famous Jonathan Silver has a television appearance to make.”

Safady nodded at the gunmen near Silver. They prodded Silver toward the video camera. Peggy had to move with him; she wept silently.

“Don’t do it!” shouted one of the two men who had been across the aisle from Silver. “God is on our side. Stand up to him!”

All the attention turned to this man.

Safady squinted at his name tag. “Neil Cain.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” Neil answered. He wore a black golf shirt and jeans. His hair was moderately thinning, and his face shone with holy bravery. “We all have an eternal home waiting for us. Death is not the worst thing that can happen.”

“You irritate me,” Safady said. “But I suppose this is as good a time as any to teach all of you a lesson.”

Safady was standing beside a bench. On it was a box of clear plastic shrink-wrap. Beside that lay a paring knife. Safady took the knife and stepped up to the older woman who had mocked him on the Megiddo hilltop during his questions about the river of blood. He cut the plastic strap binding the woman’s wrists, allowing her to step away from the other woman whose arms had been intertwined with her own. Then he picked up the box of shrink-wrap.

“Are you as willing to give up someone else’s life?” Safady asked Neil Cain. He turned back to the woman and read her name tag. “Trudy Warner,” he said, “I’m sure you remember my questions for Mr. Silver on the hilltop at Megiddo. Remember, when Mr. Silver was the apparent leader of the group? It is a shame you did not know I was born in Palestine. Or that I hate Americans, especially fundamentalist evangelical Americans who add to the suffering of Palestinians.”

He stepped behind her. Before she could turn, he pulled loose the end of the shrink-wrap and wound the clear plastic around her head in three quick turns. Her face was completely covered.

Trudy flailed her arms, trying to get her hands up to pull the clinging plastic off her face. Safady calmly spun another wrap of plastic, pinning the woman’s arms to her head. Four more wraps, and she was as helpless as a struggling insect in a spiderweb.

Safady stepped in front again, halfway between Neil Cain and the struggling woman. He looked at Cain, then looked at Trudy.

Her eyes were wild, her mouth open in a silent, sucking gasp that had pulled the plastic even tighter.

“Remember this,” Safady said to all of them. “I am in complete control. I have the power to decide if you get something as simple and basic as the air that surrounds you.”

Trudy’s face was frozen in horror as she tried to suck air through the plastic. She rocked back and forth, unable even to make a noise. She fell to her knees.

Safady turned to Neil Cain. “Watch this woman die because you chose to defy me. Or fall on your knees and beg me to let her live.”

Neil looked at the man bound to him and nodded. Both of them crouched and got on their knees.

“I’m begging.” Neil choked out the words. “Let her live.”

“There is something terribly poetic about this,” Safady said. “All that air available. The thinnest of material robbing her of it. Plastic wrap that a child could rip apart, but she is so utterly helpless. I quite enjoy this.”

“I’m begging!” Neil repeated.

“Perhaps thirty more seconds until she dies,” Safady said. “More if she stops fighting it. Less if she continues to panic. Tell me, Mr. Cain, that you Americans are spawn of the devil.”

Trudy had fallen onto her side. Her body spasmed.

“Let her live!” Neil said.

“‘We are spawn of the devil,’” Safady said. “Repeat that. ‘We Americans are spawn of the devil.’”

“We Americans are spawn of the devil,” Neil said. “Please. Let her live.”

“Certainly.” Safady took a step to the bench, grabbed the paring knife, and squatted beside the elderly woman. He put the point of the knife into the plastic sealing her wide-open mouth and cut the wrap in a swift sideways move that nicked the side of her lips.

Her gasp for air was a horrendous sound, and the flaps of the split plastic sucked in and out with each breath.

Safady made several more slashes and cut her hands free. Still on the ground, she clawed at the wrap on her face, sobbing with relief.

Safady left her there and moved to the video camera. “Now then, Mr. Silver,” he said, turning on the camera as if nothing had happened, “I did bring something prepared for you to read to the world. You might think of it as a hostage demand. But really it’s a call for justice.”

9

Acco Harbor, Israel • 12:36 GMT


The CCTI Mercedes was parked at the edge of the busy market.

Without the driver.

Quinn had a set of spare keys in his pocket but didn’t know if getting behind the wheel was safe. On one hand, the driver had not expected him back for a few hours and could be nearby at a café. In this case, there was probably nothing wrong with the situation. On the other hand, the driver knew how strict procedure was. Given the call from Rossett, the driver’s absence might be more than coincidence. That meant there was the possibility that the car was now a bombed trap.

Quinn slowed as he approached the Mercedes.

That was a mistake. It gave two men a chance to step away from the usual tourist crowd and close in on him, one in front, one in back. They wore blue jeans and T-shirts but were obviously not tourists. Their bearded faces were intent. Hunters.

Quinn checked his escape routes.

“Don’t run,” the first one barked. He lifted his shirt, showing the handle of a pistol. “We’ll shoot if necessary.”

They were too close. Quinn couldn’t hope to outrun or dodge gunfire. He couldn’t trust that they’d stick with body shots that would be absorbed by his Kevlar. And there were too many bystanders nearby who would be put at risk if Quinn ran.

“No problem.” Quinn dangled his keys. “Where?”

“Our car.” A gleaming grin from the beard. “Nobody tracks us.”

Did they know about the GPS tracking device in the Mercedes? Or was it a lucky guess?

A white van came up the street. One of the men signaled it.

Quinn weighed his options. He knew that if he got inside the van, it was unlikely he’d survive whatever these men had for him. Especially if this was something that Khaled Safady had set up.

That’s when Kate Penner stepped off the sidewalk.

“These guys speak English?” she asked Quinn.

“Go away,” Quinn said. “You don’t want to be part of this.”

“Wrong,” she said. No smile. “Tell your buddies here to go away. They don’t want to be part of this.” She fumbled with a button on her wristwatch. Immediately a piercing shriek filled the street, hurting Quinn’s ears and settling the bustle of noise around them into instant silence. Tourists gawked at the scene.

Kate snapped the alarm off after a few seconds. “Rape alarm,” she said. “Never thought it would come in handy like this.”

The white van that the men had signaled stopped beside them just as a uniformed Israeli police officer appeared on the left side of the car, blocking Quinn from running back down the sidewalk. Another officer moved to the opposite side of the Mercedes.

The van door slid open.

“Stop these guys,” Quinn said to the police.

Both bearded men jumped inside. The door slammed shut as the van pulled away again.

“Stop them,” Quinn shouted. The Israeli officials were only a few steps away. Quinn tried to get the number of the van’s plate, but one of the Israeli police grabbed his arms and spun him. The other snapped handcuffs into place.

Tulkarm, West Bank • 12:37 GMT


“These two,” Safady told the masked gunmen. He pointed at Neil Cain and his companion. “Pull them aside.”

“I read what you wanted in front of the camera,” Silver protested. He and Peggy were among the final half dozen at the bottom of the ramp leading up to the flat deck of the produce truck. All the others had been forced up the ramp and inside the canvas walls. “We will get you anything you want. Tell me what it is and let us go.”

“Hit the woman beside him,” Safady told another gunman.

The masked man raked the sights of his machine gun across Peggy’s face and she screamed. Blood poured from the torn skin.

“You’re a slow learner, Mr. Silver. Speaking without my permission is an act of defiance.” Safady shrugged, as if suddenly considering something. “I’ll return to you a degree of power, Mr. Silver. These men will be left behind to put on a different show in front of the video camera. But I’m doing it for your benefit. The world will take my demands seriously. You choose. Will they die to a beheading? Or should they take a bullet in the skull?”

Silver said nothing.

“Speak up, Mr. Silver. I need to make a statement. They most certainly will die. Sword or bullet? Answer me, or I will take their wives too, and those two more deaths will be on your conscience. So should the execution be bullet or sword?”

“Bullet,” Silver finally said in a whisper.

“Good choice,” Safady said. “Have you learned your lesson about defying me?”

Silver nodded.

“Then follow the others into the truck.”

Two minutes later, the old produce truck was completely loaded. The canvas was pulled down from the roof, completely concealing the hostages.

But it could not hide the sound of the two women crying out to their husbands as the truck pulled out of the warehouse.

Acco Harbor, Israel • 12:40 GMT


Quinn entered the Israeli police car and settled back against his seat. Kate sat in the back on the other side.

“You are safer up front,” one of the policemen told her, leaning through the open door of the back.

“I’m hoping he does try something stupid,” Kate said. “Leave me here.”

The policeman shrugged and joined his partner in the front. Whatever was happening, Quinn immediately realized escape wasn’t part of it.

“There’s a white van,” Quinn said to them. “At least get someone looking for it. This could be a national security issue.”