NanoStrike (14 page)

They stood back from the window in Quinn’s room, looking down on the front of the hotel. The road, as usual, was crammed with vehicles. A young man dressed in a white short-sleeved shirt and jeans, with a laptop case slung over his shoulder, came out from the hotel and stood on the sidewalk.

“He looks a lot like me,” Abdul said.

Quinn nodded. The fifteen minutes before a black car pulled up seemed like an hour. The driver climbed out, stretched, and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief.

“Same car, but different guy,” Abdul said.

Decoy-Abdul climbed into the back, and they drove off.

“Nice job, Abdul. Let’s hope these Mossad guys are as good as they say.”

Abdul was sweating. Nervous butterflies scrambled around in his stomach. The decoy was in danger, but so was Adiba. He hated lying to Quinn, and avoided looking at the policeman. “I’m going to take a shower. Then I’m heading to the bar for a cold drink and some fresh air.”

“Great idea, mind if I join you?”

“Nope. I’ll even buy the first round.” Abdul attempted a smile. He went back in his room and bolted the adjoining door. He waited. Quinn didn’t say anything. Either he hadn’t noticed the lock turn, or he didn’t care now the Israelis had taken over.

Abdul showered and changed into a fresh shirt and jeans. He put his passport in his jacket pocket, wallet and phone in his pants. He took the writing pad from the desk into the bathroom. He drummed the pen on the countertop. How could he make Quinn understand? Then he remembered their conversation on the flight over and wrote:
Sorry
Quinn
,
but
making sacrifices
for
the
ones
they
love is what caring people do
.
I’ll
be
fine
.
Abdul
. He jammed it, with the original note from Ghazi and the picture of Adiba, behind a clip halfway up the mirror.

He left his room and knocked on Quinn’s door. The policeman opened it so quickly he must have been waiting with his hand on the knob. They took the elevator to the lobby.

“Let’s use the poolside bar,” Abdul said.

They entered the outdoor pool area, Quinn scanned the perimeter. He seemed satisfied. The pool could only be accessed through the hotel. They sat on barstools and ordered. Abdul’s hand trembled as he picked up the glass and took a long pull of ice-cold Coke.

“Looks like you needed that,” Quinn said, smiling. “Police work’s not as easy as it seems, is it?”

“Pretty nerve-wracking,” Abdul agreed.

Abdul kept checking the clock behind the bar. At 6:55 p.m., Quinn ordered another round.

“I need the toilet again,” Abdul screwed up his face to show the disgusting nature of his mission.

“Good luck with that. I’ll wait right here.”

When Abdul walked into the bathroom, a man dressed in traditional white robes, his head covered with a white
shumag
, stood at the sink washing his hands. He turned to Abdul and nodded toward a toilet stall. Abdul went in and closed the door. A set of robes hung on the door-hook. He pulled them over his jacket, placed the
shumag
on his head and secured it with a braided rope. He flushed before leaving.

“Come,” the Arab said.

They left by a second door, which opened to the lobby. The man took Abdul’s elbow and guided him down a hallway to a side exit. A black sedan stood at the curb. The rear door swung open. Abdul climbed in, and the man followed. They pulled away before the door had closed.

Quinn had almost finished his second whisky. He checked his watch.

Ten minutes, poor kid.

By 7:15 p.m., he’d waited long enough.

He went to the bathroom and shouted at the only occupied stall. “Abdul, is that you?”

“Not here,” an American voice called back.

“Shit!” Quinn ran through the second door. The lobby was deserted. He scanned the restaurant and seating areas, then grabbed the courtesy phone and called Abdul’s room. He visited the poolside bar once more before taking the elevator up to their floor.

He ran through his room and tried the adjoining door—locked. He shoulder-charged. Pain shot through his arm and radiated up his neck. The door was solid.

He pulled his Glock from the holster inside his jacket, stepped back six feet, and put three rounds through the wood surrounding the lock. This time when he kicked the door, the wood splintered, and the door gave.

“Abdul!” He ran through the empty bedroom into the bathroom. He snatched the note off the mirror and read.

The original note in Arabic meant nothing to him, but the photo told the story. He kicked the cupboard and screamed at the bathroom wall. “Goddamn it, Abdul! Why didn’t you tell me?”

Quinn ran back into the room. He tore open all the drawers, ripped off the sheets, checked under the bed and the mattress, looking for something, anything, to give him an idea where the little shit had gone.

Out of ideas, he drifted over to the window and gazed at the street below. Vehicles jammed the road. An impatient driver mounted the sidewalk and passed two cars before blasting his horn and slamming back down the curb into a ten-foot gap. Quinn stared at the Hebrew lettering on the street sign opposite.

How would he ever find Abdul in this crazy place?

Someone hammered on the door. “Security. Open up!”

Quinn pocketed the notes and photo before three men barged into the room, guns drawn. Two were uniformed hotel security, the third wore gray flannels and an open-necked white shirt, a Mossad agent, Quinn assumed. Gun snugged in its shoulder holster, and hands raised to show no evil intent, Quinn nodded to the agent. “Abdul’s gone.”

The guy kept his gun on Quinn, keyed a radio with his free hand, and barked a few words in Hebrew. The radio squawked back.

The agent relayed the question. “Who fired the gun?”

“I did, to get into the room.” Quinn eased his hand down, backed toward the connecting door and pointed at the splintered wood. The agent nodded and spoke again into the handset, listened to his instructions, then said, “You wait here for the captain.”

Chapter 16

The sedan tore away from the side door of the hotel and slammed Abdul back in his seat.

The Arab said, “Give me your phone and passport.” He switched off Abdul’s iPhone and slipped it and the passport inside his robe. When they reached the first intersection, a black SUV blocked traffic from the right, and the driver waved them through. As they turned left, an identical vehicle pulled out in front, forming a convoy. Abdul’s heart raced. The man who’d led him from the hotel bathroom hadn’t spoken except to demand the phone. His face was a blank, forward-facing mask, and he reeked of stale sweat.

“Where are we going?” Abdul got no reply.

After tracking the lead SUV for twenty minutes, at a service entrance in the rear of a medical facilty the driver pulled into a driveway marked
Ambulance Only
. The tail car pulled up close behind.

“Wait.” The smelly man left the vehicle and pulled out a bunch of keys. He unlocked a door labeled
Employees Only
and signaled Abdul to follow.

As he climbed from the car, Abdul’s first instinct was to run. He’d come voluntarily. There was no logic to running, but still he wanted to. He went through the door, and the man locked it. Tires squealed outside as the SUVs pulled away.

They were in the receiving area for emergencies. The partition behind which a receptionist had once sat was shattered. Shards of glass lay heaped to one side of the hallway. Abdul wondered whether the place had been bombed. Seeking instructions, his gaze moved back to his escort, and his heart skipped because the man now held a pistol. A cruel prod in the back with the gun barrel sent Abdul walking along the corridor.

With more lights blown than lit and no windows, it proved difficult to see. Abdul stumbled over loose plaster and broken ceiling tiles until the man stopped him in front of a door marked
Office
.

While he waited, his captor shouted something Abdul didn’t catch, and an overweight man in baggy sweatpants and a grubby shirt opened the door. He also held a gun. The man from the hotel took up a guard position in the hallway, and Abdul stepped into the room.

The office was large and mostly empty, one wall lined with gray filing cabinets, the others bare except for a crooked calendar hanging by a piece of string from a nail. The room had no windows. Two neon tubes buzzed and flickered in the only working light fixture, and below them Ghazi sat behind an old metal desk. Strangely, Abdul felt relieved to see him.

“Abdul-Haqq, again you have proved yourself an honorable man. Thank you for coming.”

“Where’s Adiba?”

“Soon I will take you to her. Did you tell anyone of our meeting?”

“You said not to, so I didn’t.” Abdul thought of the note he’d left for Quinn. “What happened to the decoy the Israelis sent in my place?” Abdul asked.

“This is not your concern. Abdul-Haqq, I apologize, but I must ask you to stay with us for a few days. Provided you follow instructions neither you nor the girl will be harmed. Do we understand each other?”

“Once I’ve seen Adiba unharmed, I’ll trust your word.” Abdul tried to sound braver than he felt.

Ghazi turned to the man in sweats who stood to the side with his pistol trained on Abdul’s chest. “Show Abdul-Haqq to his room.”

With a twitch of his gun, the man indicated a door on the far side of the office, which opened onto a flight of stairs. Abdul climbed to the top and stopped at a small landing with two doors. The man pointed to the right, and Abdul stepped into a room with bare plaster walls and no windows. Paint hung in flakes from water-stained areas on the ceiling. A canvas cot stretched out against one wall, one bulb provided meager light. An open door in the far wall led to a bathroom with commode and washbasin. Two white plastic lawn chairs and a card table, similar to the ones from his first meeting with Ghazi, sat at the center of the room.

The door clicked shut. A key turned in the lock.

Abdul took off the robes from the hotel and dumped them on the bathroom floor. The room was hot and airless so he splashed his face and neck with cold water. Why hadn’t he brought a laptop or something to write on so he could record what was happening? He smiled to himself at the stupidity of the thought. He didn’t
know
what was happening.

When he stretched out on the cot, canvas seams dug into his back. A low rumble of voices came from the office below.

Maybe he should have been stronger, insisted on seeing Adiba.

Ha. Exactly what leverage did he think he had?

If Quinn had gotten the note translated, what would the policeman do? He wouldn’t go to the Israelis; he didn’t trust them, but he’d have to report in to Special Branch. London would probably recall him in disgrace.

Abdul swallowed a few times. His throat tightened. Tears were close as the consequences of his actions struck home. If Quinn returned to London, no one in Israel could help him. He circled on those thoughts for a long time.

Abdul heard someone on the stairs. He sat up on the cot. The door opened. Ghazi entered, without a weapon. Abdul’s gaze locked on Gahzi’s scar. Such a vicious gash: the stitch marks formed a ladder climbing from the man’s neck to the corner of his eye. Ghazi’s chest was huge, and his hands even larger than Abdul remembered. This man could snap him like a twig. He didn’t need a weapon.

“Abdul-Haqq, are you comfortable?”

“I have everything I need except—”

“Come. I’ll take you to her.”

Ghazi unlocked the door across the landing, knocked, and stepped back to allow Abdul through. The room was identical to his, but this one contained Adiba.

She sprang from the cot and slammed into him so hard he staggered back a step.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She had him in a death grip, her head buried in his chest, sobbing, unable to answer.

Abdul knew then.

He’d made the right decision.

“Later, I’ll bring food,” Ghazi said. He left and locked the door behind him.

They held each other until her tears subsided and her grip slackened. When, finally, she pulled back and looked him full in the face, her cheeks were wet and her eyes rimmed with red. “How did you find me?”

Abdul remembered the picture of Adiba strapped to the chair with a knife at her throat. “They threatened to hurt you if I didn’t come.”

A shudder passed through her. “I was so frightened . . . but how will we get away from these people?”

“Have they harmed you?”

“No. But when they tied me up I thought they would slit my throat.” Her fingers trembled as she wiped at her face. He wrapped her in his arms again, moved her to the cot, and sat beside her, stroking her hair. For a long time, they stayed like that, without speaking.

Adiba broke the silence. “Now we’re both captives.”

“I don’t think they mean to harm us. Ghazi—”

“The big one with the scar?”

“Yes. He’s their leader. He wants me to publicize Allah’s Revenge.”