NanoStrike (24 page)

The men talked loudly and all at once, slapping backs and shaking hands. The emotions were palpable. These were good people, Quinn thought. Not so different from his father’s family back in Ireland: hardworking blue-collars without much, but overflowing with love of family.

Once Lana had been touched and held by everyone in the room, her father called for silence and addressed the room. Quinn heard his name mentioned, and all eyes turned to him. He was the giant, Gulliver, in Lilliput. None of women weighed more than a hundred pounds, and Lana, at a couple of inches over five feet, stood tallest of the group. Quinn found himself stooping; although the headroom was probably seven feet, it seemed like he might bump the ceiling if he straightened. A dozen sets of eyes stared at him, heads nodding as they listened to the father’s speech.

When the man finished, everyone rushed to Quinn. They surrounded him, and he didn’t need to understand the words: they were thanking him, all at once. The intensity of their gratitude moved him. His eyes welled with tears as he shared their relief from the pain and worry they’d suffered over Lana, miraculously returned to them by this stranger from a distant land.

Quinn was anxious to get going, but he stayed for coffee served in tiny espresso cups, strong, gritty, and sweet. He welcomed the jolt. They sat on cushions or on the floor. Lana’s mother offered him a large slice of honey-soaked cake. The family waited until he took the first bite. He nodded and smiled.

“Mmm. Delicious.”

Lana’s mother grinned, then everyone ate a small piece of the cake. He hadn’t been eating regularly for the last couple of days, and the sweet cake hit the spot.

Finally, his need for action overrode his obligation to be polite, and he knelt beside Lana. “I’d like you to thank your family for their hospitality. Please tell your father I have to get to Tel Aviv now. Tell him I’m going to look for Adiba.”

Lana stared hard at him. “Why is Adiba in Tel Aviv?” She turned to her father and barked something in Arabic. Her mother came across and tried to wrap her arms around her daughter, but Lana pushed her off and jumped to her feet. She screamed at Quinn. “Where is Adiba? What have you done with my sister?”

Before Quinn could respond, Lana’s father gripped her by the shoulders and spoke firmly to her. Quinn watched the girl’s expression melt from anger to fear. Finally, she wiped at her face and spoke to Quinn. “You must bring her back, Mr. Quinn. Bring back my Adiba.”

“I’ll try, Lana.”

The girl nodded, once. In her mind a deal was made. Then she spoke to her father.

“Mr. Quinn, my father will take you to Tel Aviv now.” Quinn stood, and she took his hand and shook formally. “Thank you for saving me.”

Lana’s father led the way, and Quinn climbed into the Datsun, relieved to be in the front seat this time. Lana’s mother came out of the house, ran around the car to the passenger side, and handed Quinn a package wrapped in brown paper. She smiled at him, kissed her finger, and touched it to his forehead. He and Lana’s father pulled away. Quinn opened the package and finished the honey cake before they reached Jerusalem’s outskirts.

They drove for about an hour until they pulled up in front of a painted clapboard building, larger than Lana’s home.

Maybe this was the moneyed side of the family.

Lana’s father signaled for Quinn to remain in the car. He went to the door and knocked. The brother-in-law appeared, similar to Lana’s father: short and stocky, with a dark beard and mustache. The two men talked for a few minutes. Quinn watched through the windshield until he was waved over.

Lana’s uncle greeted him, “Mr. Quinn, on behalf of my family I want to thank you for saving Lana. I am Hassan. Welcome to my home. Please come in.”

Relieved that the uncle spoke English, Quinn shook the man’s hand and stepped through the front door directly into the living area. A low table sat in the center of the room: hand-carved wood, ornamented with beaten copper, and well used. His ex-wife had a similar piece; to her it was an ornament. A sofa and two beanbag chairs completed the furnishings. When his gaze landed on the white telephone sitting on a small table at the corner of the room, Quinn smiled. Perhaps his luck was changing.

Quinn pointed to the phone. “May I make a call?”

“Yes . . . yes, please.” Hassan herded him to the phone and dragged a large cushion across the room. Quinn hadn’t sat on a beanbag since he was a boy. He wondered whether he’d be able to get up again. He pulled Keisha’s number from his pocket and plunked himself down, back against the wall. Hassan politely moved to the opposite side of the room and began a low-voiced conversation with his brother-in-law. He dialed, and she answered on the first ring.

“This is Keisha.”

“It’s Quinn. Do you have further information?”

“Are you on a cell phone, Detective?”

“No.”

“Excellent. You will need to take notes.”

Chapter 29

The day after his phone call to Keisha, Abdul stood in the downstairs office of the medical center while Ghazi paced in front of him. Thirty minutes earlier, Abdul had left a tearful and frightened Adiba in her room. Finally, Ghazi stopped, leaned in so his face was close enough for Abdul to feel his breath and fixed him with a hard stare. “Complete this task and you have my word that you and the girl will go free.”

Abdul didn’t want to know about the alternative if he didn’t complete the task. A sharp rap on the outer door signaled it was time. He slipped his arms through the straps of a small backpack that contained a bottle of water for him and a vacuum flask he must deliver to Nazar Eudon’s representative.

Ghazi returned Abdul’s passport and handed him a digital watch. “Remember Adiba,” he said. “Allah be with you.” He slapped Abdul on the back.

The man he and Adiba knew as Stinky opened the office door, and Abdul followed him to the car. Stinky dropped him in a bustling parking lot near downtown Jerusalem. Walking free among so many people seemed strange to Abdul; he’d grown accustomed to being a captive. Scanning the line of buses, engines idling, waited for passengers, he spotted one with ‘Historic Jaffa Tour’ marked on its front window.

The dozen passengers already seated on the bus watched him as he climbed the steps and stood next to the driver. His hand trembled as he handed over the ticket Ghazi had given him. The driver stared at him. Perhaps his face had been posted; the man seemed to recognize him. Abdul glanced behind, but the next passenger stood on the bus step, blocking his exit. The driver tore a piece off his ticket and returned the remainder to Abdul with a flyer, in English, detailing the trip.

“Shalom. Welcome aboard. Sit anywhere. We leave in twenty minutes.”

Heart pounding, he selected a seat.

Abdul sighed with relief when the bus finally pulled out and no one had doubled-up with him in the seat. A two-hour conversation with an enthusiastic tourist would have been excruciating.

They approached the ancient town of Jaffa from the east. Not until they parked did Abdul notice the clear, blue Mediterranean shimmering five hundred feet below.

He and his fellow tourists gathered like day-old chicks around the tour guide, who held a bright-yellow umbrella above her head for them to follow. Abdul walked the first few hundred feet with the group. After they entered a cobblestoned pedestrian area, the guide began describing one of the many archeological digs going on in the city, and Abdul drifted away.

He pulled out the tourist map he’d received from the driver and located his destination—the Church of Saint George. Abdul checked the cheap watch Ghazi had given him. They’d arrived in Jaffa at 11:00 a.m. By 11:30 he must be kneeling in a pew on the left side of the church, and someone would exchange backpacks. It seemed simple enough.

He strode up the hill toward the main part of the town. Twenty yards ahead, on his right, two Israeli police officers leaned on a railing in front of the sandblasted exterior of an ancient church. They stopped talking and stared at him as he passed. Looking straight ahead, Abdul put one hand in his pocket, acting nonchalant.

Through his peripheral vision, he saw them peel away and follow. Behind, he heard the metal taps on the heels of their boots, as they gained on him.

They split, drew level either side of him, and matched his pace.

“Shalom,” the officer on his left said.

“Hello,” he answered in English.

“On vacation?” the other officer asked.

“Yes.” His answer came out as a dry-throated croak. “Yes,” he repeated, clearer this time.

“Where are you staying?” the first man asked.

They suspected something. Could they know who he was?

“The King David, in Jerusalem.”

“Ah, beautiful.”

He turned to the officer, tried to smile, but it froze on his face and probably looked weird.

“Where are you from?” the officer asked.

“London.”

“Ah, fish and chips.” The officers laughed. Abdul offered his grimace again.

“Enjoy Jaffa,” the officer on his left said, and they veered off toward a side street.

With legs like two slithers of jelly, Abdul took deep breaths to slow his racing heart. After a twenty-count, he found the courage to glance behind. The policemen had gone. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his face.

According to the brochure, the church’s principal attraction was a large fresco of Saint George slaying the dragon. Saint George’s body reputedly lay in a mausoleum below the altar. Abdul reached the church with time to spare. He had no idea whether Ghazi had sent men to watch him, but he thought it likely.

Inside the church, a solitary woman knelt in the front pew on the right, head bowed and hands steepled in front. He heard her murmured prayers in the quiet of the church; could she be the contact? Two tourists stood at the front of the middle aisle, gawking at the huge, golden chandelier that dominated the center of the church. He slipped into a pew halfway along the left-hand side, pulled off the backpack, placed it on the seat, and knelt.

When he closed his eyes, morning prayers, gouged into his subconscious and unused for years, sprang to mind. Softly, under his breath, he spoke to Allah, asking His help. Never having prayed in a Christian church before, he wanted to blend in, so he mimicked the woman’s pose, palms together, fingers pointing to the sky.

Ten minutes passed. The woman rose to leave. As she turned, she caught his eye and nodded; one believer to another—if she only knew.

Footsteps sounded behind; someone walking down his aisle. They stopped before passing him. Abdul’s heart fluttered. He swallowed.

This was it.

The pew behind him creaked, and the edge of his seat touched his back as the newcomer’s weight pressed on the kneeling board behind.

The hairs on his neck stood on end. At the corner of his eye, he saw a bulky backpack placed on his seat. In one smooth movement the same hand, a man’s, lifted Abdul’s pack. The pew creaked again, and shoes scuffed as the man rose and left. The footsteps receded.

“Do not speak to the courier. Do not look at the courier, or our agreement is void,” Ghazi had warned.

The new backpack, unlike his, bulged and looked heavy. He lifted it off the bench—maybe twenty pounds. So that was how a million dollars felt. He checked his watch—11:35, and waited five more minutes before hefting the backpack onto both shoulders and leaving the church.

Now all he had to do was board the bus by two, return to the square in Jerusalem, and wait for Stinky to pick him up. Then he and Adiba would be free. Somehow, it seemed too easy.

He walked back through the renovated older part of Jaffa. The ancient stone buildings, sandblasted clean and gentrified by the Israelis, housed art galleries, bars, restaurants, and souvenir shops. He selected a café some distance from the marked tourist route, away from his fellow bus passengers who would be following their yellow umbrella and listening to the Israeli’s revisionist history of this once great Arab city. At a corner table, he ordered a sandwich and coffee.

With the backpack firmly lodged under his seat, a million dollars between his legs, and his passport in his pocket, why not go to the police? Explain what was happening. They could follow him to the medical building. Storm the place. Capture Ghazi and set him and Adiba free.

Who was he fooling? The police would lock him up. Question him for hours. Make calls to check his story. He would miss the bus. Stinky would go back to Ghazi empty handed, and Adiba would die.

Shakily, he sipped his coffee and tried to read a six-month-old
Newsweek
from the paper rack. But he couldn’t concentrate on the articles. Their content seemed alien and insignificant to him. The focus of his existence had narrowed to two small rooms in a bombed-out medical center in Jerusalem, where the first woman he had ever loved waited for him to set her free. Would Ghazi be true to his word? Abdul had no option but to trust the man. Ghazi had Adiba, and so he held all the cards.

Time dragged. At 1:45 p.m., he was the first back to the bus. The door hissed when the driver opened it, and Abdul took the same seat he had used on the outward journey. Sitting in silence, sweat cooling on his forehead in the air conditioning, he sandwiched the backpack next to the window and waited. To his relief, everyone returned, and the bus departed on time.

When he alighted in Jerusalem, backpack firmly secured on both shoulders, he looked around for Stinky’s vehicle. Panic took him: what if something went wrong on Ghazi’s end, what if he wasn’t picked up? Would that constitute a death sentence for Adiba? Alone, he could never find the medical building.

When he spotted the terrorist’s black sedan parked across the square, his heart rate tripled. Actually happy to see the terrorist, he quickened his pace, opened the passenger door, slung the backpack into the empty back seat, and got in.

“You’re early,” Stinky said.

He pulled away, driving at a more sedate pace than Abdul had seen from him on previous rides. “Put on your seat belt,” he barked.

Not for safety’s sake, Abdul realized. The man didn’t want to draw attention to the vehicle. A million dollars in a backpack would be difficult to explain. The drive to headquarters took thirty minutes.