THE WAVE: A John Decker Thriller (29 page)

“As you promised, you mean. Why not? It’s either us or the Americans.”

“Al-Hakim was an Egyptian national. My government doesn’t look upon this matter precisely as you do. But, on a more positive note, our government is not nearly as restrictive when it comes to issues of interrogation. We are the Mecca of extraordinary rendition.”

“What do you mean,
was
an Egyptian national? Be careful, Mr. Talhouni. Should I interpret the noises that I heard earlier as the screams of a dying man; should I learn that certain interrogation techniques, that specific protocols which are – how should I put it? – unorthodox are being used by my Egyptian counterparts; should I be placed into a position of foreknowledge, I would be in violation of International law, not to mention several UN Human Rights directives. Article four of the ’94 Convention Against Torture obligates
all
state parties to ensure that
all
acts of torture are criminal offenses under domestic legislation.”

“You have a remarkable memory, Chief Seiden. Did you study the law?”

“Psychology, actually,” said Seiden. Then he added, “You’d be surprised how useful it can be in our profession. Over time, for example, I’ve developed an uncanny ability to know when someone is lying.” He stared at Talhouni and frowned. “You might think this a gift. It’s not. It isn’t always pleasant lifting off the skullcap, looking in. Where was the suspect apprehended?”

Talhouni stroked his greasy mustaches. “Not far from here,” he said. “In the Khalili Khan. It is ironic, no? The Khalili market was a venue for the spice cartel controlled by the Mameluke in the Middle Ages, a monopoly which eventually encouraged the Europeans to search for new routes to the East, which prompted Columbus to discover America, without which, of course, Israel would not exist. Amusing, is it not?”

“You live in the past, Mr. Talhouni. Your whole country does.”

“When the past is so much more glorious than the present, Chief Seiden, it is easy to fall out of time. But do not think me an ignorant man. I have traveled. I have been to Hangelar and Bonn. I was trained there by the German Grenzscutzgruppe Nine. I am sure you’ve heard–”

“All three of them,” answered Talhouni. “Three mules dispatched by Gulzhan Baqrah. Al-Hakim, who admitted to planting the bomb in the sewers of Beersheba. A man called Ziad, shot while crossing the border from Lebanon into Israel. I’m sure you know about him.”

Talhouni sighed and looked down at the red spots on his shirt. “To New York,” he answered, picking at the stains. “The Empire State building.”

Seamus Gallagher of WKXY-TV had only planned to drop by his office for a few minutes en route to a story in the Bronx when he noticed the little brown shipping box in the tray outside his cubicle. It looked like a videotape cassette. Gallagher hesitated for a moment, put down his cup of coffee and examined the label. Nothing. No return address. But the stamps and postmark were from Lebanon. He unwrapped the box and removed the plastic holder. As he’d suspected, it was a tape, but of what, he had no way of knowing.

Gallagher sat down behind his desk. There was no label on the box, nor on the tape itself. It was anonymous. He plopped it into his old VHS machine. Then he leaned back in his seat, pulled the lid up from his coffee cup, and took a sip. It was light and sweet, just as he liked it. He watched the TV screen. It seemed to be working but he couldn’t see a thing. The screen was blank. No, black, he realized, as it came to life, as fire blossomed in a corner of the screen, crawling from right to left. Then he saw two people in the shadows, two men. One was in his forties, with sloping shoulders and a close-cropped beard. The other was a fat youth in his mid- to upper-twenties. He said something, and then more lights appeared, descending from the ceiling; they swung down in a kind of cape, a fishing net of flames.

Gallagher parked his coffee on his desk. He nuzzled closer to the TV screen. The bodies of the men were suddenly illuminated. He heard them start to scream. He watched them writhe and wiggle, even as a pale green line snaked in across their chests, bright floriated text, from right to left. Gallagher couldn’t read Arabic but he knew it when he saw it. And then they simply melted, live and in color, the men, like in some cheesy horror flick. Their hair caught fire and their eyes and noses dripped like melted wax, blackened and fell away. The recording ended. The videotape went blank, then exploded into static. Gallagher hit the “rewind” button.

He watched the clip over and over again, editing it in his mind. There was only so much you could show on television. It wasn’t the FCC that worried him, although Homeland Security would have a field day with this clip. It was the sponsors. Management didn’t give a rat’s ass about the audience – not really – as long as it was big enough. It was the ad dollars that concerned them.

Let the chips fall where they may, he told himself. The tape was clearly the Beersheba terrorist attack. Someone was feeding him this story, was handing it to him on a platter. He didn’t know who, and he didn’t particularly care. It was making his career.

He examined the packing box more carefully. Something was stuck on the inside, glued to the paper. He plucked it out. It was a kind of postcard, he realized, the photo of some dome, looking up from within. He turned it over. The legend was in several languages, including English:
The muqarnas featured in the dome of the Shaykh Lutfallah Mosque, Isfahan
. It bore a postmark from Iran. He read the card. It was an invitation to some kind of event at midnight on Wednesday, the very next evening in New York. And it was signed by El Aqrab.

Gallagher put the card down on his desk. He stared down at the dome of the Iranian mosque. He looked at the ornate paneling and thought that this would probably topple Prime Minister Garron. News of his freeing El Aqrab in exchange for a fake nuclear device wouldn’t go over very well in Israel. The Israeli press had recently reported that a number of PLO detainees had been released in exchange for a couple of Israeli businessmen and the remains of several soldiers – but certainly not the infamous El Aqrab. El Aqrab must have anticipated this event prior to mailing him the tape. That’s why he’d sent it to an American, as opposed to an Israeli journalist. And to help cultivate suspense, no doubt, in the hearts of all New Yorkers.

What’s going to happen
tomorrow at midnight?
he thought. Gallagher sipped his coffee, pondering.
One thing for sure: My ratings are going up.
He parked his coffee on his desk, picked up the phone, and dialed the FBI.

* * *

Long after his watch was over and most of the crew had already drifted off to sleep, the Algerian mule Hammel lingered in number two hold. The chamber had the density of a commercial garage. And it was but one of three holds, on top of one another, separated by a pair of giant metal hatches. It was dark in the hold. It was dark and cold and smelled of rotting fish. A reefer on the starboard side had sprung a leak. He’d have to report it to the Chief Mate in the morning. Hammel felt a wave of nausea hit him. He wretched and toppled over. He had been sick since early morning, ever since the
R
ê
ve
de Chantal
had steamed out of the port of Arrecife, away from Lanzarote and the Canaries, heading toward New York. Hammel was from Tamanrasset, in the heart of the Algerian Sahara. Whoever had called camels the “ships of the desert” had lied.

He was about to give up in disgust when he heard the sound of a heavy hatch creak open, then shut against the bulkhead. He struggled to his feet. The lights flicked on. It was the Gambian, Momodou. He was standing by the hatchway with a large knife in his hand. When he saw Hammel, he hesitated. Then he came forward, brandishing the knife.

Hammel leaned against the jukebox crate, nursing his knee, preparing. The Gambian drew closer. He was grinning now. Hammel could see his pink tongue dancing about in his mouth. The Gambian took another step, then two, and then – without warning, with uncanny strength and impossible agility – the Algerian was upon him. Momodou backed away but he was already too late. The knife tumbled from his hand. Hammel had wrapped an object round his neck. It whistled as it tightened, as it closed about his throat. The Algerian pulled and Momodou went down.

Hammel relieved the pressure. He did not want to kill the Gambian. It would arouse too much unwanted scrutiny, too much suspicion. He didn’t want the police boarding the freighter, with all manner of questions, as soon as they docked in New York. The Gambian coughed and fell onto his stomach. He tried to crawl away but the Algerian held him in place. Hammel swung and sat upon the Gambian’s back, pinning his flabby body to the floor, the garrote still wrapped about his throat. “You are an inquisitive man,” he said at last.

The Gambian could not answer. He couldn’t even breathe.

“But if I tell you what you want to know, I may have to kill you. You do not want that, do you? You don’t want to die.” He slackened the pressure and the Gambian took a breath. He coughed. He sputtered and choked. Then he took another breath. Hammel removed the wire from his neck. “I didn’t think so,” he said.

The Algerian stood, guarding his knee, and slipped the wire back around his waist. He leaned against the jukebox crate. The Gambian rolled onto his side, his back towards Hammel. His hands were wrapped about his throat. He was whimpering like a child.

“For if you were dead,” Hammel continued, “you wouldn’t be able to share in the profits from my cargo.”

The Gambian rolled over. He stared at Hammel, one hand still wrapped about his throat. “What cargo?” he croaked.

“From the poppy fields of Mazar e Shariff. New York is a city of addicts, my friend. What do you care? Let them destroy themselves. I will reward you for your silence.” He looked down at the Gambian with his impenetrable black eyes. He stretched his hand out with a smile. “Ten percent. Are we agreed?”

For a moment, the Gambian said nothing. Then, he smiled too. He reached for Hammel’s hand and said, “Fifteen.”

Tuesday, February 1 – 5:47 PM

New York City

It had been another worthless day. Decker had been tracking down leads about Moussa and the other suspects since seven o’clock that morning. But no matter how promising they appeared, no matter how solid, they always disintegrated in his hands at the last moment. He felt like a rat in a maze of dead ends. He returned to the office dejected and tired. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but he still wasn’t hungry. The entire team had been working double and triple shifts since Warhaftig had briefed them about the confession of the dying Egyptian, Al-Hakim. No one had any doubts now – New York was the destination. In fact, for all they knew, the device was already in place.

As Decker got up from his desk to fetch another cup of coffee, Warhaftig approached him from the side. He took him by the elbow and inquired, nonchalantly, if he had seen the videotape from Beersheba. Decker shook his head. Just snippets on TV, he answered glumly. What Gallagher had shown on WKXY. A moment later, they were sitting in the little office that SAC Johnson had assigned Warhaftig at the beginning of the investigation. Decker watched as the CIA operative popped a tape into his VCR. He played it in slow motion.

Decker was horrified by what he saw. At first, he could barely watch the grisly scene. But then, despite himself, despite the almost palpable combustion, he found himself drawn into each detail, like a reluctant medical student concentrating on a vein instead of the whole cadaver: the way the net hung from the ceiling, crushing the soldiers up against the wall; the color of the flames, unmasking chemical composition; and then the fiery script. He had seen this amaranth of arabesque before. It matched the phrase from Moussa’s notepad:
Death Will Overtake You
. But now, in living color, in active architecture, the words were even more distinct.

Decker smiled. He had been waiting for this moment. “What happened to my memory stick?” he said. “To those pictures I took of Moussa’s apartment?”

“I bet you’re not.” Decker scowled. “I didn’t forget to load the camera the day Bartolo died. And it wasn’t Moussa or anyone else who took the memory stick, was it? You and I were the only ones inside that surveillance squat, other than Bartolo.”

Warhaftig said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, John. Really, I don’t.”

“Don’t bullshit me,” Decker spat. He got to his feet. He towered over the desk. “You’d seen that design before, I know you had. In the work of El Aqrab. After some other killings. Like the ones in Tel Aviv.”