Fuse of Armageddon (14 page)

“The papers check out,” Mark Edersheim said. “I’m not sure there’s anything else I can do with this little time and at this time of day. The plane is at the gate, and you’re scheduled to board in a few minutes.”

Edersheim was the CCTI go-to lawyer. He was a small, tidy man with dark hair slicked back, wire-rimmed glasses, and an immaculately starched white shirt under a vested suit. He carried the faint smell of baby powder. Quinn doubted the man had ever sweat a drop in his life.

“What have you got on Rossett?” Quinn said. Both men were standing. There was no furniture in this windowless room in Ben-Gurion Airport. While Edersheim had been going through the extradition papers and making phone calls, Quinn had been alone in this room for a couple of hours with only two breaks to use washroom facilities. Both times he had been escorted by airport security and a stone-faced and silent Kate Penner, who had changed into jeans and a blue Gap sweatshirt.

“The Mossad has the surveillance tapes,” Edersheim said. “No way to tell who came in. The security guard—”

“Steve,” Quinn offered. Edersheim walked through that lobby at least once a week, Quinn thought. He didn’t need to treat Steve Gibbon like an object.

“Yeah. He didn’t have much to add.”

“Nobody’s heard from Rossett?”

”Nothing. If he was taken by Hamas, I’m sure we’ll hear. There will be a demand of some sort.”

Big coup for Hamas, given Rossett’s prestige among Israelis. Quinn hoped it wasn’t part of Red September but feared it was.

Edersheim had his arms crossed. “What’s important here is that you’re half an hour away from an involuntary departure to the United States to face indictment for murder one. Maybe you should deal with that.”

“Just so I understand,” Quinn said, “an extradition isn’t like arresting someone for jaywalking. OIA sends the request through diplomatic channels, and the Israeli government has to agree to it, right?”

“Right,” Edersheim said. “U.S. prosecutors put all extradition requests through the Office of International Affairs. A provisional arrest is followed by the arrival of a full set of extradition documents. Those docs are here. I have no way of delaying the process.”

“Kate Penner,” Quinn said. “She’s a cop, not a U.S. marshal. Can’t we do anything with that?”

“You mean she’s out of her jurisdiction area.” Edersheim smiled tightly.

“Well?”

“They covered that, too. She’s been given a temporary badge as a U.S. marshal. Turns out she came out here on vacation time. As near as I can tell, she’s taking this like a personal vendetta. Was she someone you spent time with when you were in Vegas? A woman scorned and all that . . .”

“No,” Quinn said. “That’s not even funny.”

There was an awkward pause. Edersheim studied the toes of his shiny shoes. Quinn’s refusal to even consider dating over the last five years was legendary in the firm.

“I’m not a criminal lawyer,” Edersheim said finally, “but the papers show a solid case against you.”

“Are you asking if I murdered and tortured Akim Yazeer?”

“By the time your flight gets to Chicago, I’ll have recommendations for the best legal team possible.”

“So you’re not asking.”

“It’s no secret that part of the reason you joined CCTI was to track down every Red September terrorist in the group behind the deaths of your wife and daughter.”

“That’s not correct.”

“You’re denying it?” Edersheim was startled. “Come on, a prosecutor could swing a cat and hit five witnesses who would say otherwise.”

“It’s not
part
of the reason I joined CCTI. It’s the
only
reason.”

“Why not offer to throw the switch on the electric chair yourself? This guy Yazeer was next to last on your list.”

“But you’re not asking if I did it.”

“Lawyers shouldn’t make moral judgments,” Edersheim said.

Yeah,
Quinn thought,
especially lawyers who don’t really understand the concept of morality in the first place.

Edersheim continued. “But I’d have no hesitation agreeing that this was a justified homicide. If I understand American juries correctly, they should extend you the same sympathy.”

“You’re going to assume I did it, then.”

“Penner was thorough. I mean, how do you deny that video clip of you meeting the guy in a casino? You were sloppy. She was not. It shows in the extradition papers. I suspect that’s why all of this is happening so quickly.”

Another awkward pause. Edersheim couldn’t even meet Quinn’s eyes when he spoke again. “I made a couple of calls while I was going through the papers. The DA in Vegas wants the death penalty.”

Khan Yunis, Gaza Strip • 16:39 GMT


The girl was less than six years old with huge brown eyes and an engaging smile, hungry for affection. Silver had led Holy Land tours dozens of times. But he had always avoided Arabs. She could have been any child he’d passed on the streets in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv.

Except for the crutches.

Her left leg had been amputated at the knee. Her left arm was waxen with the scars of burned flesh.

She continued to smile and spoke brightly. She seemed to be speaking Arabic, however, and it made no sense to him.

She was only one child among many gathered in a semicircle, who ranged from early teens holding babies to others the age of the girl with crutches. All of them part of the orphanage that was now the prison of the American hostages.

Silver felt awkward. He’d never had the ability to make kids feel comfortable, not even his own grandchildren. He didn’t like hugs, didn’t like hugging. And this girl had hopped forward, close enough now to be touching his hair, obviously asking a question, even if Silver couldn’t be certain of the language.

“She wants to know,” Safady said, “if the color of your hair comes from the shine of the moon.”

Safady was holding a pistol at his side. It didn’t seem to bother any of the children as much as it bothered Silver and the others of the tour group. When Safady and his men armed with machine guns had entered the orphanage and herded everyone into the military-style dorm room, there hadn’t been much reaction, either. For Palestinians, apparently, machine guns were as much a part of getting dressed as slipping a belt through the loops of a pair of pants.

“It’s not a wig; it’s real,” Silver said, immediately feeling stupid for his lame joke. Why couldn’t he think of something that would make a child smile?

“You should know her name,” Safady said. He turned to a woman who stood with her arms crossed, watching all of them. “What’s the girl’s name?”

“Alyiah,” the woman answered. She was obviously the one in charge, and although she’d spoken Arabic when Safady and the armed men had burst into the orphanage, it was clear that she had been protesting vehemently at the intrusion. Upon first seeing her, Silver had noted with some surprise her fair skin and light-colored hair. An American? She certainly wasn’t Arabic.

“Such a sweet girl, wouldn’t you agree?” Safady asked Silver. “Say hello to her. By name.”

“Alyiah,” Silver said. “Hello.”

The girl smiled widely.

Safady lifted his pistol and stroked the little girl’s cheek with the barrel. Her eyes stared straight ahead.

The woman launched a torrent of Arabic at him.

“Shut up,” he told her calmly in English. “You have pushed me dangerously far already. If you want these children to survive, the Americans must understand what is at stake here.”

Safady placed the end of the pistol against the little girl’s temple. She tried to hold herself still, but her trembling was obvious.

“It’s very simple,” Safady said to the Americans. “If any of you tries to escape, Alyiah will die. That’s the same punishment for all attempted escapes. I will kill a child for every one of you who tries.”

Safady pulled the trigger of the pistol, and the dry click of the hammer hitting an empty cylinder was like a shock wave.

He smiled at the reactions of all the Americans. “Next time, the pistol will be loaded.”

11

Ben-Gurion Airport, Tel Aviv • 17:28 GMT


Kate settled into the aisle seat behind the bulkhead, thinking how out of proportion a person’s relief was to sit next to an empty middle. She didn’t fly often, but it felt like winning a lottery to get that slight extra space for the next twelve hours of flying.

Quinn had the window. Kate would have preferred that for herself, but sitting in the aisle seat gave a sense of containment. Not that Quinn had any prospects of escape once the Boeing was in the air. Especially wearing the cuffs. They’d been the last ones to board, and walking down the Jetway, Kate had decided she would go the entire flight without speaking to her prisoner.

These were her thoughts while the male flight attendant went through the usual ignored instructions. Shortly after the jet began to taxi the runway, Kate snuck a glance at Quinn.

The man had tucked a pillow against the window and already had his eyes closed. His hands were neat on his lap, the left one bandaged. She was curious about that but wouldn’t ask. That would mean breaking her silence.

Sleep, huh?

She’d seen it before. Murder suspects breaking down under interrogation and finally admitting guilt. Their sense of relief at no longer needing to hide the horrible secret left them oddly serene, the break in tension so profound that the physiological reaction was sleep, sometimes in the interrogation room while the detective stepped out for a cigarette.

It irritated her, however, that Quinn had been so composed from the first minute of arrest. No protests of innocence. No outrage. No pleas. This was unusual. Kate had met plenty of scum who presented a good facade—charming, well-dressed, handsome men with dried blood of their victims beneath their fingernails. She’d been at hundreds of arrests. Seen all reactions. Except for this composure.

In a petty way, she’d been hoping that he would attempt conversation and her pointed silence would be a way of showing her contempt. Without him trying to engage her in talk, there was much less satisfaction in ignoring him.

The jet gained momentum, then reached liftoff and climbed hard. It banked, allowing Kate to look past Quinn, through the window, and at the blue slate of the Mediterranean.

He opened his eyes. Caught her looking.

“It always astounds me,” he said. “A couple hundred tons of steel . . . airborne. I never tire of it. Or the view of the Mediterranean.” He gave her a sad smile. “I’ll miss it.”

Before she could make a point of not replying, he leaned back against the pillow and closed his eyes.

If he was trying the sympathy approach, it wouldn’t work. Sure, she knew his background, the family tragedy. That didn’t excuse the unspeakable death he’d inflicted on another human being. And she had him cold on that. Two months of hard investigation, piecing together the last two days of the victim’s life in Vegas. With evidence of Quinn close by every step of the way, corroborated by telephone records, car rental, credit card charges, and then the break she’d been happy to brag about: a shot of Quinn and Yazeer leaving a casino together in grainy black-and-white from a surveillance camera tape.

As she was mentally reviewing the evidence, the jet banked hard again. It gave her a lurch of fear. On every flight she expected disaster and wondered if her consciousness would even register an explosion if the jet blew apart in midair.

Why had the jet turned back?

Muttering grew from the seats behind her, and an intangible sense of alarm seemed to mushroom.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” came the voice over the intercom, “we have been requested to return to Tel Aviv. I can assure you it’s nothing to worry about. There are no mechanical problems to report.”

Kate found herself leaning forward, gripping the armrests hard.

“I don’t blame you,” Quinn said quietly. “But I doubt it’s terrorist related.”

Kate was startled. It was as if he’d read her mind.

“Everyone will be thinking the same thing,” Quinn said, reading her mind again. “But this airline is untouchable when it comes to security. Big reason is profiling. Imagine that—spending less time grilling crippled grandmothers than young Muslim males.”

“It’s a human rights issue,” Kate said, frustrated with herself for how easily she had given up on her commitment to silence. She was a cop, and when political correctness trumped common sense, it drove her nuts, but she didn’t feel like agreeing with Quinn on any matter. “Everyone has the right to the presumption of innocence.”

“Of course. That explains your overwhelming kindness toward me.”

Kate said nothing.

“It’s probably a medical emergency,” he said. “Some poor soul had a seizure or heart attack. And of course everyone’s going to stare and talk as they help the person off the jet.”

He returned to his relaxed position, eyes closed.

Kate shook her head. How could someone be that self-contained? She spent the next few minutes seething at how much he managed to irritate her. When the jet landed, she discovered he had been wrong about the medical emergency but right about the fact that passengers would stare and talk.

Because when the jet had returned to the gate, a flight attendant stopped at their seats and told Kate that she and Quinn were required to return to the terminal.

Ad Duhayr, Egypt • 17:43 GMT


“Requesting identification. Over.”

The voice crackled from Joe Patterson’s walkie-talkie, reaching him where he stood in darkness beside the heifer in a gully some thousand yards from where the shipping container had been parked.

“Peyton Manning,” Joe said. “Request return identification. Over.”

The Freedom Crusaders were given permission to each choose their favorite sports hero for backup identification when face-to-face contact was not available. It seemed stupid now, that world a fantasy, where trivial things like quarterback ratings or putting averages had once seemed to matter so much.