by Ted Bell
“Yes. How would you know that?”
“The others the same?”
“Uh, no. She was the only one.”
“Hmm.”
Congreve got up from the table and began pacing around it, puffing thoughtfully on his pipe. “Please continue, Mr. Patterson. This is most interesting.”
“Included in bin Wazir’s grisly personal murder video collection was another tape. This one was of the bombings of our embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi. You remember that—” He stopped suddenly and looked at Congreve. “Inspector, I believe I just figured out where the hell you’re going with this. I’ve got it now. Africa.”
“Yes,” Congreve said. “The Dar es Salaam and Nairobi embassy attacks in Africa. I believe they took place sometime in late summer 1998?”
“August 7. We lost eleven in our Dar es Salaam embassy that day. Two-hundred thirteen died in Nairobi the very same day. These were the first two terrorist acts against U.S. interests in Africa. No one knew the attacks were just the beginning of a worldwide war, of course.”
“Attacks which occurred just two months after the Kearns girl was murdered in May,” Congreve said, studying Patterson’s face. “The Kearns girl would have had access to embassy files and information, no? Architectural plans, personnel, schedules, et cetera.”
Tex nodded his head, favoring Congreve with a grim smile of appreciation. “Yes, she would have, Inspector. That’s how he did it. He extracted what he needed from that poor girl in order to plan the two bombings.”
“Tell us, please, about the videotape of the bombings?”
“The African videos were apparently shot from vehicles parked across the street from our embassies at the time of the explosions. Just far enough away to avoid damage and shot with a long lens. The man operating the camera can be heard laughing. Especially when the rescue workers begin removing corpses from the rubble.”
Congreve rose from the table, puffing on his briar. He looked at Hawke and Patterson for a moment, thinking. “If I may,” he asked mildly.
“Please,” Patterson said.
“Snay bin Wazir is not a maniac at all,” Congreve said. “A murderous psychopath, yes. Fiendishly clever. But he’s no lunatic nor religious zealot, either. One has only to look at his lifestyle in London. He seems to have embraced western fashion with a passion. Clothing, habits, mannerisms. So the man was, by all appearances, completely apolitical. If anything, a dyed-in-the-wool capitalist. Few al-Qaeda apply for membership at Nell’s. Suddenly, he kills a young woman for her secrets and attacks American interests in Africa. Why? And then he just disappears.”
“It doesn’t make any sense at all,” Hawke put in. “An unlikely political terrorist if ever I saw one.”
“Unless he became a pawn of someone else. Someone who actually is fundamentalist, who is a zealot, who does have a burning hatred for the West.”
“Yes. The Dog is a henchman for a terrorist network. But why would he do that?” Patterson asked. “Become a pawn?”
“Motive? Ah. Money, I suppose,” Congreve said. “He lost his shirt in London real estate, don’t forget.”
“If you’re looking for a zealot, I’ve got a candidate,” Hawke said. “This Emir the boy Kerim mentioned before he died. The man who controls all the sleepers. Someone with apparently limitless resources. Power and influence.”
“Yes,” Tex said, excitement creeping into his voice. They were finally getting somewhere. “That’s how this bin Wazir does it. He has some massive organization behind him, founded by the Emir. Why, the bastard just pulled off the assassination of one of our most prominent ambassadors in front of the whole world!”
“Meanwhile this Emir hides out in a cave or a bunker somewhere, keeping his own hands clean,” Hawke said.
“But, think about why this Dog is doing what he is doing, Chief Patterson,” Congreve said. “He is calmly and systematically destroying your entire diplomatic corps. Paralyzing you. Why? Why would he do that?”
“Ambassadors and their families make an ideal target. Potent symbols of the country’s ideals. And a projection of America’s power abroad.”
“All true. But, still, why target your ambassadors? Yankee go home?” Congreve asked. “Perhaps. But I think not.”
“Ambrose?” Alex said, seeing the man’s thoughtful expression.
“Where does it all lead?” Congreve mused. “These attacks are not random; they are systematic, beginning with the first two embassy attacks in Africa. And they will lead, eventually, to total paralysis. So why does one, this Emir for argument’s sake, wish to paralyze one’s enemy? Obvious, isn’t it? A paralyzed enemy cannot fight back. Can’t react. Incapable of retaliation when the killer or killers finally move in for the ultimate and perhaps cataclysmic objective.”
“Yeah,” Patterson agreed. “Looking at our recent digital cell intercepts, I’d say cataclysmic is a pretty good description. It is no secret our embassies are our primary intelligence platforms around the world. You paralyze our diplomatic corps and you cripple a lot of our intelligence-gathering capability. Hell, I see traffic almost every day alluding to some great ‘day of reckoning.’ ”
“Every dog has his day,” Congreve said.
“We just have to make damn sure this dog’s days are numbered,” said Hawke.
“Chief Patterson?” a young technician said.
“Yes?”
“A flash traffic e-mail for you, sir, just coming in from your Paris chief of station. Marked Top Secret.”
“Acquire and verify. Then just decode it and print it, son,” Patterson said. Because of Blackhawke’s almost constant communication with the U.S. State Department and British MI6, all but the most sensitive U.S. and U.K. codes were permanently loaded in her computer servers.
A minute later, the crewman handed him a single sheet of paper inside a black folder bearing the words “TOP SECRET” in red.
“Aw, damn it to hell,” Patterson said, quickly scanning the thing.
“Tell me,” Alex said.
“Regret to inform you,” Patterson read aloud, “that Special Agent Rip McIntosh died in the line of duty at 1220 hours this afternoon, in a valiant attempt to save the life of Ambassador Duke Merriman.”
Patterson’s chin sunk to his chest.
“He was the best of the best,” the DSS man said softly, “Ripper was the best guy I had.”
“I’m sorry, Tex.”
“This son of a bitch is ripping the heart out of my organization, Alex.”
“No, he’s not. You’re the heart, Tex.”
“That’s what I meant.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The Emirate
BLESSED AND ACCURSED. THAT IS MY LIFE, THE FATE I HAVE made for myself, Snay bin Wazir thought, gazing upon the lovely face of his Rose. The Pasha and the Rose, lounging atop silken pillows scattered across the parquetry flooring, watched the two sweating sumos inside the dohyo, the ring, watched them collide, grunting loudly as they did so.
Snay bin Wazir was also watching Rose, keenly aware of her reaction to the private demonstration he’d arranged for the two of them, alone, in the beautiful shrine he’d had built for his sumos. Her lips were parted and she was breathing rapidly. Her bosom swelled rhythmically. There was a light sheen of perspiration on her forehead. Far from being repelled by the sight and sounds of two nearly naked giants grappling with each other, she was, it seemed, decidedly excited.
The sight of her erect nipples, etched in perfect relief against the taut yellow silk of her chemise, was having an increasingly noticeable effect on the Pasha as well.
The Pasha looked down upon this growing evidence of passion beneath his robes and sighed. The potent admixture of desire and frustration was something he’d always dealt with badly.
All of his latest efforts to bed this most prized of all the hashishiyyun in his seraglio of assassins had failed. Since Francesca had arrived at his palace from Rome, he had plied her with jewels, enormous rubies and diamonds.
One sapphire as big as a plum. Gifts of sable and myrrh and gold. Nothing, it seemed, had any effect on this most sublime of creatures. She was, as he constantly reminded himself, one of the world’s most beautiful and desirable women.
Francesca. Even her name stirred him, inflamed him, ignited fireworks of fantasy deep in his brain. Francesca. Sleeping alone in the desert, a fortnight ago, he’d written the word in the sand outside his Bedouin tent. Awakening, he saw the wind had erased her name. Why did he torture himself? It was foolishness. This forlorn desire of his did nothing but demean him. She was a world-famous film star with a considerable personal fortune. A creature of such transcendent beauty, she could bat one of her enormous brown eyes and instantly have any man she might desire groveling at her feet.
Hopeless!
He could not force himself upon her, she was far too valuable. Should he lose her, there would be hell to pay with the Emir, who rightfully considered her a great asset. Born of a Roman father and a Syrian mother, Francesca had grown up begging on the backstreets of Damascus. Abused as a child by her cruel Italian father, she had, since childhood, nursed a fevered hatred for the impious Westerners who ruled the world. Her celebrity cover, achieved over the last decade, was ideal. A rabid holy warrior in the guise of a glamorous Italian film star. It was too delicious for words.
Still, it meant he could not buy her affection with gems or gold. Yet there was something powerful between them. A bond. A thirst, a hunger that bound them together. A kind of lust, yes. Bloodlust?
He had been afraid this rejection was because of his recently acquired girth, his now enormous size. But, no, watching her watching the massive sumos, it was clear this was not the problem. Ah, well. This was not the first time he’d faced this insoluble and most distressing dilemma. Nor would it be the last. He could have as many wives as he wished, of course, as long as they were approved by Yasmin. And Yasmin approved only drudges and dogs. Thus, Francesca was forbidden fruit.
He was as eternally bound to Yasmin as the sea is to its bed, as the earth to its orbit, as the moth is wedded to the flame. Yes, he loved her, he supposed. In his way. And she him. But it was love without passion.
His anger for this gilded steel trap called his life, on the other hand, blazed with passion. Fueled each day as, in a thousand tiny ways, his wife Yasmin threw oil on the fire. A look, a word, a stare.
The Emir’s daughter was both his salvation and his doom. With all his money and power, he was still Yasmin’s slave. A prisoner here, inside his own palace. As long as he behaved himself, he could keep his head. Keep your head down and you might keep it, he reminded himself daily. Meanwhile, the Emir was biding his time, waiting for him to make a single misstep. Even a cross word with Yasmin behind closed doors somehow got back to her father. A word floated into his feverish mind, the word that came to him whenever the impossibility of his marital situation reared up and seared his brain.
Poison.
He wasted endless hours plotting his escape, as if it were remotely possible. Yes, he lay beside his wife, awake those countless nights, conjuring up accidents, mishaps, catastrophes that might befall this woman he no longer desired. Over the years, love had atrophied, which was not unusual. But resentment had grown in its stead. All because of her father’s sword, dangling over his head. A situation she never hesitated to exploit in even the smallest disagreement. Even though she claimed to love him deeply!
To the Emir, and to the Pasha’s world at large, they were a picture of mature wedded bliss. But, as the old saying has it, one never knows what goes on inside a marriage unless one sleeps under the tent. Unbearable.
So he fantasized endlessly of slips and falls; he conjured Yasmin’s tragic demise and his ensuing freedom. Yet, no matter how delicate and elegant the scheme, no matter how sublimely he plotted his dreams, in the end, the Emir always found him out. His would be just one more among the countless heads the Emir had sent dry and scuttling across the desert sands.
Now, if the Emir himself were dead…
Suddenly, he couldn’t breathe. His ribcage was taking a terrible battering from his heart, an organ that threatened to detonate at any moment. He looked down, startled and astounded to see Rose’s beautiful white hand resting lightly upon the folds of crimson silk that draped his thighs. The hand traveled upwards, the fingers parted, searching. He was hard as stone when the hand seized the object of its desire.
“My Pasha,” she said, turning those eyes toward him as she caressed him through the silk, wrapped him in it, tightening and then easing her grip.
He opened his mouth to speak, but she pressed a finger to his lips and stopped whatever mad, mindless, unspeakable words he was about to utter.
“No, Pasha,” she whispered hoarsely, taking his hand and crushing it against her lush bosom where he felt one nipple already engorged under the silk. “My lips will speak for both of us.”
He collapsed back against the pillows as she bent her head to his lap, parting the hem of his robes, yanking them upwards and then taking him in, her thick mane of blond hair cascading over the great expanse of his girth, her darting tongue everywhere at once.
Licks of fire.
Suddenly, her mouth was at his ear, nibbling, her breath hot and loud.
“I want you,” she whispered. “Here. Now.”
“But the sumos…Ichi and Kato…”
“In front of the sumos. I want them to see. Now.”
That night, the four sumos carried the lovers through the orange groves in the Pasha’s sedan chair. Once the sumos had been dismissed, the two alighted and walked deep into the heavily scented gardens. The evening sky was shot with stars, blazing in the clear mountain air. She was his now, and he took her, roughly, and pressed her to him.
“Put a dagger in my heart,” he said, “we might as well get it over with.”
“The two sumos’ lips are sealed,” she said. “She will never know.”
“Yasmin knows everything.”
“No one knows everything.”
“In this house there are no secrets. How do you know the sumos—”
“Trust me.”
He laughed then, almost giddy that such a woman as this could care for him, let alone exist. He could only imagine how she had managed to guarantee their silence.
“Venice was thrilling, but Paris was exquisite,” he said, kissing her forehead. “Grazie mille.”
“You enjoyed watching it, caro?”
“Yes. But, far more importantly, the Emir is ecstatic. He went so far as to say that it was good.”
“Grazie.”
He smiled at her and said, “She is first-rate, this Parisian one. This Lily. But, then, she learned from the best.”
“I thought the white phosphorus would be more cinematic on CNN than a simple shot to the head.”
It was such a perfectly outrageous statement he threw his head back and laughed, entwining a lock of her hair in his fingers.
“Genius,” he said. “Pure genius.”
“The hard part was thinking where to put it. The idea of the shoes, it was Lily’s.”
“It was perfection itself. Now, you must listen. Business. I have spoken to the Emir. We move to the next phase.”
“Yes. It’s time. To be honest, I was myself enjoying this first part. But already we have the Americans running in circles.”
“The next few moves will be the more challenging. Far more complex, intricate. It will not surprise you to learn that this assignment is yours.”
“I am ready.”
“I know.”
“Tell me, Pasha.”
“There is one more ambassador.”
“He’s a dead man.”
“No, no. You are not to kill him. We will do that when we have what we want from him. We want him alive. He has certain information that is vital to our purposes.”
“What, then?”
“A clean abduction. Snatch him. I will arrange for him to be brought here.”
“How? Caro, i
t’s one thing to kill. The…how you call it…logistics…of a kidnapping of such a public figure…molto difficile.”
“You’ll think of something, my precious Rose.”
He kissed her hard on the lips, crushed her against him, wanting to do more than possess her, wanting to both devour her and own her at the same time. Have his cake and eat it…he bent his head to her bosom.
Blessed and accursed.
“What was that,” Francesca whispered, whirling her head about.
“What, darling girl?”
“I heard a sound. Over there. In the jasmine bushes.”
“It is nothing. A peacock, perhaps. Come, now. To bed.”
The man lingered in the bed of jasmine for an hour after the two lovers had returned to the palace, savoring both the scent of the flowers and the sweetness of his situation. Finally, he rose and went to the fountain he still visited daily, listening to the songs of the splashing waters, longing to hear the voice that haunted his every waking moment.
He lowered himself to the broad rim of the fountain and spoke quietly to his love. His words were full of hope and joy and promise.
The heartbroken sumo, Ichi, enslaved by the Pasha for so long, now had both the means and the opportunity to escape this prison and return to his homeland, to the source of the sun, his beloved Michiko.
He stole back through the gardens.
Ichi moved as quickly and as quietly as his great bulk would allow. Someone was waiting for him. He would find her sitting on the small marble bench, she said. The far end of the reflecting pool in the secret heart of her private meditation garden, she had told him. What he would say to her would both break her heart and steel her spine. But, no longer would Ichi be alone in his determination to be free of bin Wazir’s velvet bonds.
He would have an ally in his struggle.
