Veil of Civility: A Black Shuck Thriller (Declan McIver Series) (15 page)

"Sir, I just need to pass this over you real quick before I can let you onto the field," she said with a smile.

Declan stood still and raised his arms as she waved the wand around his extremities.

"Thank you, sir," she said, and returned the wand to an agent standing at the row of walkthrough scanners. "I'll take you guys down now."

Nazari and Declan followed the woman to the right of the security checkpoint to a windowless metal door marked with an emergency exit sign. Using a set of keys from a carabiner hooked to her belt loop, the woman disarmed the alarm and pushed open the door. Holding it open, she waited as they entered a concrete stairwell. At the bottom of the stairs she unlocked another emergency door and stood aside as they exited the building onto a concrete staging area occupied by several baggage carrier trains.

"I'll take you over in this," she said motioning towards a white Ford Explorer with an orange light bar attached to the roof, red lettering identifying it as a law enforcement vehicle belonging to the airport.

As they got in and closed the doors the woman's eyes flitted between her passengers as she eyed them nervously. Obviously uncomfortable with the silence, she spoke as they pulled out of the staging area and onto one of the runways. "It's just terrible what happened. No one here could have imagined anything like this. I mean, we all go through training for various types of workplace violence, but you never think it's really going to happen, then it does," she said, her voice trailing off as she finished.

Declan grimaced. What kind of bureaucratic double speak was workplace violence? What had happened at the university was terrorism, plain and simple. He dismissed the thought as a camouflage Hercules C-130 transport aircraft came into view. Parked near the end of the runway, the plane was surrounded on three sides by vehicles. As the Explorer neared the cluster, the woman turned the wheel sharply to the left and stopped.

"Thank you for the ride," Nazari said, as he got out of the passenger side front seat and closed the door. Declan followed suit but chose not to speak to the woman as he exited. The lady pulled away as they walked towards a group of people at the rear of the plane. A sharp breeze blew across the concrete runway. Declan's heart sank as he saw the faces of the bereaved; Kafni's wife and eldest son, David.

Zeva Kafni, a woman in her mid-fifties with long dark hair covered by a multi-colored scarf, looked up at the two approaching men, a look of recognition immediately crossing her face as she saw Declan. Breaking from the small gathering she walked towards them, opening her arms to embrace him as she drew near.

Declan hugged her tightly. Letting go, he tried to communicate his sorrow with his eyes as the words he wanted to say caught in his throat. "I'm sorry," he said, shaking his head. "I—I'm sorry."

He'd attended many funerals in years past and had never known exactly what to say to a bereaved widow or family. Not being the type of man to show emotion easily, most of the time a feeble apology had been all he could choke out. Thankfully, funerals in Northern Ireland had either been large affairs full of pipes and waving flags, where he could easily fade into the crowd, or small, masked gatherings of three or four where a sympathetic priest would open a church and allow a fallen warrior a flag-draped ceremony in the late hours of the night away from the prying eyes of the British army and loyalist mobs. Here on the tarmac of a regional airport with the sun quickly fading over his shoulder, his weakness was on full display.

"Thank you," Zeva said softly. "We're taking him back to Israel to be buried in Jerusalem. While he spent much of his time overseas, Jerusalem was his home. That's where he would want to be."

"And what about you? What will you and the children do now?"

She looked down to the ground briefly before replying. "We will stay in America. David and Hanah have begun building their lives here and although they are adults now and can live on their own, it would make me sad to be so far away from them. Abaddon would not want that."

Declan nodded as David Kafni arrived at his mother's side. A foot taller than either parent, David was an otherwise spitting image of his father, with the same thin-rimmed glasses and dark hair that receded to the very top of his head on which he wore a black
yarmulke
. David embraced Declan tightly as Zeva dabbed tears from her eyes with her scarf. Declan wiped away his own tears as he and David drew apart from their embrace and looked each other in the eye. Somewhere deep inside, each of them had known this day was coming. Declan supposed they had both hoped against hope that it would be many years hence and that Abaddon Kafni would have slipped away during an illness brought on by advanced age.

"Tell me you know who did this and that they will be caught," David said.

Declan looked quickly at Altair Nazari who was standing a few feet away. Had he and Osman neglected to tell Kafni's family that it was Baktayev who had taken Abe's life? The look on Nazari's face confirmed this and Declan looked back to David.

"We don't know anything for sure. The FBI is investigating. They'll find out who it is and they'll catch them. It may take a while, but it will happen," he said, trying to sound as reassuring as possible.

David looked at his shoes momentarily and when he finally raised his head and spoke his voice was angry. "Why are you keeping the truth from us?" he charged.

"David!" Zeva Kafni said as her eyes bored into her son. "These men are your father's friends!"

"I'm sorry, Mother. You may not choose to see it, but they know who killed Dad and they aren't telling us."

Declan watched over David's shoulder as Okan Osman left the three suited men he had been standing with and joined them. Standing next to Declan, Osman looked at David with as soft an expression as his hardened soldier's soul could muster. "Would knowing make it any better? Your father's gone, David. There's nothing we can do about that."

"I want to know," David answered through clenched teeth. "I have a right to know."

Osman looked at Declan and nodded his permission.

Declan placed a hand on David's shoulder and looked him in the eye. "I was there when your father was killed. I didn't see it happen, but I saw his killer afterwards. His name is Ruslan Baktayev."

He continued to look the younger man in the eye as the name bounced around his head and finally sank in. "Baktayev," David said, "just like the man in Boston. The man you killed."

Declan nodded. "Yes."

"Then they finally got him, didn't they? The ones we ran from all those years ago. None of it did any good. They still got him."

"None of it did any good?" Zeva repeated as her eyes narrowed at her son. "It did all the good in the world and I won't have you dishonoring your father's memory by saying otherwise! The hate-filled memories of Islam are long, you should know that better than anyone."

Declan placed his other hand on David Kafni's shoulder. "We're limited as to what we can do here, but you have my word that I'm going to do everything I can to make sure this guy is caught and that he pays for his crimes."

David nodded and wiped tears from his eyes. "They never pay for their crimes. They sit in prison living in luxury while the governments of the world debate endlessly about what to do with them. How do you punish a man who considers himself a martyr? You can't. All you can do is rid the world of him."

Declan nodded. He agreed wholeheartedly. Still, he'd fulfill the promise he'd just made by not letting the police forget about Ruslan Baktayev.

"It's time for us to get going," Osman said, looking at his watch and ushering the small group towards the three suited men standing near the plane's open cargo ramp.

As they arrived Declan looked up and saw two large mahogany coffins strapped down in the center of the plane's cargo hold. Leaving the group, he slowly climbed the metal ramp and looked over the smoothly finished caskets. On top of the first one was a gold plated Star of David with an Israeli and American flag either side. This was the coffin that held the body of Abaddon Kafni, the other bearing the remains of Levi Levitt.

"Goodbye, my friend," Declan said. He kissed his hand and pressed it against the coffin in the center of the Star of David. "I'll miss you."

"He will be missed by many," a deep, accented voice said from behind him.

Declan stood quickly, unaware that anyone had been standing behind him. He turned to see a tall man with a head full of thinning gray hair, a chubby, rounded face and soft gray eyes that looked down on the coffin with the sadness of a father who had just lost a son. Declan recognized him as one of the three suited men who had been standing near the plane. On the left lapel of his suit coat, an Israeli flag pin glinted under the overhead lights in the cargo area.

Declan regarded the man kindly for a moment and then moved to step away. He had no interest in getting into another discussion. As he started to walk away, the man caught him by the arm.

"I'm sorry we are meeting for the first time under these circumstances," the man said.

Declan stopped and turned towards the man. "I'm sorry, but I don't know who you are."

The man smiled briefly. "No, you don't. My name is Asher Harel."

Declan recognized the name immediately. Asher Harel had once been the Prime Minister of Israel and the man whom Kafni had worked under during his days with Mossad. It was Harel and his political connections that had seen to it that Declan was released from a Massachusetts prison after he'd saved Kafni's life in Boston. "I'm sorry. I had no idea. Forgive me for being so rude."

The former prime minister waved off the apology. "It is not rude to be overcome by sadness at the loss of a friend. Abaddon Kafni will be missed by many, but that much more by those who knew him as we did. Such friends do not come along very often in life. You should know that Abaddon thought very highly of you. He was overjoyed at the life you've built for yourself and was very excited to be meeting your wife."

Declan nodded vacantly as he felt an all too familiar feeling in the pit of his stomach. Up until now the events of the last two days had somehow seemed surreal, but now the reality was starting to creep up on him, the realization that he would never be able to speak to Kafni again and that this time he had been too late to save his friend's life.

"He and I have had many conversations over the last month since I arrived in the United States on a diplomatic visit," Harel said, as he put a hand on Declan's shoulder and began walking towards the cargo ramp. "When he learned of the circumstances behind Ruslan Baktayev's escape from prison he was very concerned."

"Last night when we talked he seemed to shrug off the idea of Baktayev coming after him. I should have seen this coming. In ninety-seven the Baktayevs showed remarkable tenacity to follow him all the way to the U.S. and then to try and kill him the way they did. It wasn't a hit and run on a street corner somewhere. It was well planned."

"I know, but it was not the Baktayevs who were entirely responsible for that. That was the workings and connections of an Iranian named Sa'adi Nouri. Abaddon's concern wasn't for himself; it was for the others that Baktayev could harm."

"Abe told me this guy was involved in some pretty heinous attacks. The Nord-Ost theatre, the Beslan school...I'm sure there were many others."

"Yes, there were. Most of his attention was focused inward towards the conflict between Russia and Chechnya, but there are several video-taped messages from him where he openly threatens targets in Western Europe and the United States. It was one of these tapes that first tipped us off that he was interested in revenge on Abaddon."

Declan nodded. He'd seen such tapes before, both in person and on the nightly news programs.

"The reason why I wanted to talk with you is because, as with the attempt in Boston," Harel said as they reached the edge of the ramp, "we cannot ignore the circumstances of this attack. It, too, was well planned and far beyond anything we have seen from this man outside of the Russian Caucasus."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that Abaddon believed that whoever got Baktayev out of that prison had to be extremely wealthy and very influential. He believed that person had a reason for wanting Baktayev out besides just freeing a fellow warrior of Islam. Now, Abaddon had a long career in Mossad and crossed paths with many people of Islamic persuasion. I don't know if his death was that purpose or if it was something else, but Abaddon's greatest fear was a Beslan-like attack in the United States. Do you know much about what happened there?"

"Aye," Declan said, thinking back to news reports he'd seen and books he'd read on the atrocity. He remembered thinking that in all likelihood, he had probably known some of the soldiers involved. The Black Shuck unit of the IRA had been trained by a Russian Special Forces team known as
Vympel
, or Vega in English. He'd spent two full years with them, and though they'd never totally warmed up to each other, the two teams had developed a teacher-student relationship and garnered each other's respect. "In Beslan there were nearly five dozen, well-armed terrorists holding over one thousand hostages, most of them children," he said. "Russian Special Forces stormed the building three days into the standoff when an explosion went off inside. A massive gunfight ensued with the hostages caught in the crossfire. It redefines the word 'tragedy', if you ask me."

"Correct," Harel said, giving a somber nod. "But what you probably do not know is that in the latter part of September 2004, only a few weeks after the crisis in Beslan ended, a group of twelve Islamists linked to the Chechens crossed the Mexican border into this country. A week later they were followed by another group of twelve. It was feared at the time that these men had come here to do the same thing that had been done in Beslan. Mossad worked tirelessly with the CIA for months, but none of them were ever found. They just vanished. All of them were linked to Baktayev and to a Chechen extremist group called the Crescent Vanguard."