Authors: Pete Barber
“The group who murdered those people in London?” She pulled back from Abdul and stared at him, a shocked look on her face.
“I came to Israel to meet Ghazi.”
“What does he want?”
“Well, he wants the Israelis to leave Palestine. But, meanwhile, he’s trying to get some buddies released from Israeli prison.” Abdul talked her through the decoy and the note on his pillow.
She kissed him on the cheek. “It was very brave of you to come.” He put his arms around her, and Adiba’s body sagged against him.
With no windows, he couldn’t estimate how much time had passed. He’d left the hotel at seven. He guessed it must be nearly midnight. Adiba lay on the cot and closed her eyes, clearly exhausted. Seated beside her, Abdul studied her face: makeup-free, smooth olive skin, high cheeks, and long dark lashes. Her breathing turned soft and shallow and she drifted to sleep.
When the room door opened, Abdul gave a start. The sudden movement woke Adiba and a scream stifled in her throat. Ghazi brought a tray with bread, cheese, and bottled water, which he placed on the floor.
“Eat. Then Abdul will return to his room.” Adiba started to protest, but Abdul held up his hand, and she fell silent. Ghazi left them alone with the food.
“Adiba, these people are Islamic fanatics.”
“I understand.” She took his fingers in hers and gazed into his face. “It’s just . . . I feel safer with you here.”
“My room is across the landing. It looks the same as this one. I’ll be thinking of you.”
She smiled, knelt by his feet, and began to prepare a plate for him.
Chapter 17
A pissed-off Mossad captain briefed Quinn on the loss of their decoy and left him in his hotel room with instructions to get the hell out of his territory, yesterday if possible.
Quinn hadn’t seen this coming, hadn’t considered that he needed to be “on” once the Israelis took over. He was furious at himself, such a rookie mistake, never drop your guard. He dreaded relating the story of his incompetence to Frank Browning, but he had no choice, so Quinn called Frank’s home number. It was midnight, UK time.
Frank said, “Let me get this straight. The Israelis lost their operative?”
“They were following by helicopter. The car rounded a corner; somehow the bad guys slipped the decoy out of the back seat. They followed the vehicle for fifteen minutes and when it was finally dumped: no decoy.”
“And you lost Abdul.”
Quinn’s guts churned. “He gave me the slip.”
“Humph.”
Quinn couldn’t blame Frank for the sarcasm. “Frank, I need someone who speaks the language. The longer we wait, the less chance we have of finding him.”
“Perhaps I can get help from the British Embassy. Stay put until I call you back. I don’t want to lose
you
next.” Quinn slammed the phone down and started pacing.
British Embassy, what a joke; I haven’t lost my fuckin’ passport!
At 9:00 p.m., two hours after Abdul’s disappearance, Quinn made the second call he’d been dreading.
Scott Shearer picked up.
“It’s Quinn.” The line went quiet. “Scott, I need your help. Abdul’s gone AWOL.”
Scott chewed him out, and Quinn took it. In a strange way, it felt better having someone else shout at him rather than beating himself up. Finally, Scott calmed enough to let Quinn explain what had happened.
“If I tell the Israelis about Adiba, they’ll lock me up, or worse, for getting their decoy taken.”
“So what are you going to do?” Scott said
“Translate the note. Find Adiba, and I’ll find Abdul. In his dossier I’ve got her full Arab name, her street address and all the e-mails she sent. Perhaps her family can tell me how long she’s been missing or where they saw her last.”
“Write out her contact information. I’ll call you back with a fax number. And we’ll need the note, too.”
“I don’t like faxing this stuff, Scott.”
Scott shouted so loud that Quinn had to hold the phone away from his ear. “And exactly how can you make this worse? Take off your stupid policeman’s helmet, Quinn. You’re in Israel, looking for an Arab girl you’ve never met. You don’t know the language. You don’t know where she lives. You don’t know jack-shit. Damn it, Quinn! Send the information. I’ll call right back.”
Quinn was still copying Adiba’s address when Scott called him with Rafiq’s fax number. “Go to the hotel’s business office, send the fax, then get back to your room. I’ll call you and conference Rafiq in.”
Ten minutes later, Rafiq translated the note for them over the phone.
“Doesn’t tell us more than the photo,” Quinn said.
“Tells me that Abdul is a brave young man,” Scott said with venom in his voice.
“Brave or foolish, either way, how do we get him home?” Rafiq said.
“What about the street address?” Quinn asked.
“I’ve pulled up a map. I can fax it to the hotel.”
“If you’d carry a laptop we could e-mail this stuff to you, damned Neanderthal!” Scott said.
Quinn slapped the dresser hard enough to make his hand sting. He shouted into the phone. “Okay . . . okay. Enough! Look, Scott. I get that you’re pissed off. But this isn’t helping.”
Rafiq spoke in a calm voice, “What are you going to do when you arrive at Adiba’s home?”
Quinn stared out of the window at the street below, still crammed with cars. “I’ll have to hope someone speaks English. I have a picture of her from Abdul’s dossier I can use. Scott, did Abdul fly straight home after meeting Ghazi?”
“No, I sent him to a press conference in Eilat.”
“That’s something. What then?” Quinn asked. The line went quiet. “Come on, Scott. This is like pulling teeth.”
“He had a private meeting with Nazar Eudon. He’s—”
“I know who he is. Was he in Eilat?” Quinn paced the room, stretching the phone cord to its limit.
“Yes, but Abdul went to his home in Aqaba, Jordan.”
“
Great
. That makes it easier.” Quinn’s voice dripped with sarcasm.
“What about Adiba?”
“He didn’t mention her.”
“According to their emails, she was with him in Eilat,” Quinn said. “Okay, get me a contact number for Eudon while I visit Adiba’s folks.”
Quinn slipped a spare magazine for his Glock into his side pocket, put on his leather jacket, and headed for the lobby.
From the business center, he picked up Rafiq’s fax and showed the address to the doorman. He slipped the man a bill. “I need a driver who speaks English and Arabic.”
The doorman walked along the line of taxis outside the hotel until he found the one he wanted. He signaled, and Quinn got in.
When they pulled into traffic, Quinn said,
“You speak English?”
“A little.”
“What’s your name?”
“Caleb.”
“Pleased to meet you Caleb, I’m Quinn. I might need you to translate.” Quinn passed a fifty to the driver, who tucked it into his shirt pocket and grinned. Quinn, speaking slowly, explained he was looking for a girl. He couldn’t tell how much the driver understood—probably thought he was after a hooker.
Twenty minutes later, they pulled up in front of a row of single-story white block buildings. The driver pointed to a paint-chipped door beside a small window with sun-bleached, wooden shutters secured behind iron bars. A lit bulb hung from bare wires next to the doorframe. The street was empty and quiet except for an overloud TV playing in one of the houses.
“This one,” Caleb said.
Quinn got out. “Wait here.”
With the photo of Adiba held high, like an ID, he knocked, then took a step back so his face and Adiba’s picture were in the light. The window shutters cracked open an inch and then slammed shut. As he went to knock again, a short, barrel-chested man with a three-day beard, wearing a white undershirt and baggy cotton pants opened the door. He looked from Quinn to the picture.
“My name is Steven Quinnborne. I’m with the British police. I need to speak with Adiba-bint-Tariq-bin-Khalid-Al-Qasim.”
The man yelled at him in Arabic. Quinn raised his other hand to indicate he wanted him to stop, but the man was screaming, red-faced, and waving fists as if to throw a punch.
Quinn signaled to the cabbie. “Hey. Caleb, a little help!”
The driver leaned across and shouted something from the open passenger window. Whatever he said caused the man to turn and bark an instruction to those inside, and the front door slammed shut. The man pushed past Quinn and started talking to the driver. Quinn tapped him on the shoulder.
“What’s he saying?” Quinn asked the driver.
“His two daughters have been taken. He wants me to tell him whether you are a kidnapper. He says his family has no money, but they want their girls back. Why did you take them, Mr. Quinn?”
Quinn pulled out a handkerchief and wiped away the sweat beading on his face. “I’m no kidnapper. I’m looking for this girl.” Quinn pointed to the picture. The driver translated and again Adiba’s father began shouting at Quinn and shaking his fist.
“Ask him when he last saw his girls.”
The driver spoke.
This time, when the father answered, anger had faded from his voice.
“The youngest disappeared week; she never came home from school. The one pictured, Adiba, two days ago.”
“What’s his youngest daughter’s name?”
When the man heard the question from the cabbie, he turned back to Quinn. Tears streamed down his face. He dropped to his knees and grabbed Quinn’s trouser legs. Quinn didn’t need a translator to understand the man was begging for his children’s lives.
“Caleb, please tell him I am not a kidnapper. I’m a policeman, and I’m looking for his daughter. I want to help.”
As the driver spoke, Adiba’s father knelt in front of Quinn, staring up, imploring. Finally, he released Quinn’s legs, stood, and wiped his face with his sleeve.
Quinn pulled a pen from his pocket.
“Ask him to write down his youngest daughter’s name, and get me a phone number I can call if I find either of them.”
The man leaned on the taxi roof and wrote on the back of Adiba’s picture. Quinn handed it to the driver.
“Read it?”
“Lana-bint-Tariq-bin-Khalid-Al-Qasim, sixteen years old.”
Hearing her name spoken aloud, the man began crying again. Quinn heard the pain echoed in a woman’s voice from the inside of the home.
“I’ll look for them. I’ll bring them back,” Quinn said. He slapped the man on the shoulder and climbed into the cab. “Let’s get out of here.”
When he reached his hotel room, he called Scott and told him what had happened.
“Does Abdul know the sister, Lana?” Scott asked.
“She’s not mentioned in his e-mails, but she disappeared over a week ago. Maybe Ghazi wanted an insurance policy. Maybe he used her to get Adiba. Maybe the father was confused about dates. Who knows?”
“What now?” Scott said.
“I’m going to Eilat and try to meet Eudon. You said he’d taken a shine to Abdul. Perhaps he can help.”
Scott gave Quinn the contact number for Nazar Eudon’s office in Aqaba. “Keep me in the loop.”
“I will,” he said, and hung up.
Chapter 18
Kimberly Stevens took the elevator up fifty floors to the North Tower Grill in downtown Seoul, and, as promised, Firman was waiting for her. He kissed her cheek, took her arm, and guided her to a seat at the bar.
“Manhattan on the rocks, right?” The drink was waiting. “So good to see you again, Kim.” They chatted for twenty minutes until their table was ready. Firman spoke with a slight French accent and looked directly in her eyes. He wore a plain white shirt with two open buttons, gray jacket and slacks. The musculature of his chest and shoulders showed through the fabric.
Maybe this time, she thought. She’d been thinking that for over a year.
Kim had first met Firman at the Toronto G20 summit. He'd taken her to dinner, and they'd arranged to meet the following evening. Firman handled security for one of the dignitaries at the summit. His work schedule intervened, and he'd had to cancel. Ten days ago, he’d called and asked to meet again during this year’s conference.
Annually, the leaders of the twenty most powerful countries in the world met at the G20 Summit to agree on global policy. As executive assistant to the Canadian Prime Minister, she’d had a busy day of preparation; even so, Firman had never been far from her mind.
They ate dinner seated side by side in one of the restaurant’s famous crescent loveseats. Five hundred feet below, cars looked like Matchbox toys. The city lights sparkled in the distance. The rotating restaurant completed a circuit once every forty-eight minutes. As they began their third rotation, they sipped fifty-dollar cognac from large, thin-walled globes that Firman called snifters.
The black dress she wore, purchased especially for this evening, was the most expensive garment she’d ever bought. It lifted her breasts into a revealing cleavage and followed the curve of her hips.
Firman paid the check.
She’d been sending out signals all night, and he’d been reciprocating. Would it end here? She hoped not.
“Kim, I’m staying at the Ritz-Carlton. They have an excellent cocktail lounge. Can I interest you in a nightcap . . . or must you work tonight?”
“Yes, I’d love to extend the evening. I’m having a wonderful time.”
Firman guided her to the elevator. His palm burned through her dress where it rested on her back. In the cab he held her hand. They walked, still hand in hand, into the lobby of his hotel.
“Tell me if I am being too forward, but my room has a better view of the city than the cocktail bar. We could take the nightcap up there.”
“Yes, I’d like that.” Kim wanted to give a high-five.
The living room in his suite dwarfed her downtown Toronto apartment. Bodyguards must be well paid, she thought.
He fixed Manhattans. They stood close, sipping their drinks and staring through the panoramic windows at the city.
Firman put his drink down. “I have something for you,” he said and went to the bedroom. A few seconds later he emerged with a small box, gift-wrapped in silver-accented paper with a red bow. “Please, open it.”