by Dana Haynes
It was the last time she would ever see the big building with the once-white walls.
It was cold in the car. Very cold. And the wall was cement. Only it wasn’t a wall. It was a floor.
She lay not in a car but on the floor. Under a bed. Under a—
* * *
Daria Gibron’s eyes snapped open.
The cement floor under the cot was ice cold. It was the cold that woke her. Then the pain. Her head was a burlap bag of barbed wire.
She lay under a simple bed frame with a simple mattress, in a bare, cinder block room with harsh phosphorescent lights. Daria lay in a tight fetal position, her body a parenthesis of terror. Again.
The nightmares had been her constant companion for as far back as she could remember. Daria thought they might have had the decency to give her the night off. No such luck.
She peered out. The ceiling, the color of bad mayonnaise, was fifteen feet high. She groaned, slowly rolling over. She sat up and hugged her knees, her bum and the balls of her bare feet on the poured cement floor. She wore her matching black panties and camisole.
She looked around. The room was a perfect cement square. The floor, stained with years of accrued residue, sloped slightly downward at the center to a rusty iron drain. There were two identical doors, both the kind that hang off heavy iron castors and roll open sideways. She checked the upper corners of the room for cameras but saw none. It was maybe fifty degrees in the room.
She climbed up onto the bed, off the frigid floor. She remembered New York. The CIA. The trap. The Syrian, Belhadj.
The room felt old. The smell of the air was slightly off, but she wasn’t sure why.
She set her feet back down on the cement floor and stood, wobbly. She braced herself by gripping the bed until the nausea passed. Her head swam. She wasn’t dead. And so far she hadn’t thrown up.
She stumbled over to the door to her right, gripped the vertical iron handle with both hands and hauled on it. It was locked.
She limped to the other door, the floor painfully cold under her feet. She pulled it open. Beyond she found a cheaply hacked-together shower over a simple floor drain, a sink, a lidless toilet, and an aged mirror showing more silver than reflection. A coarse towel lay on the floor, neatly folded, with a single bar of soap.
She stood before the mirror. Being doped and left on a cot with a head full of styling gel made her look like the Bride of Frankenstein. Perfect. Captured by a Syrian spy, called a “horse” by the Central Intelligence Fucking Agency, and a legendarily bad hair day to boot. Simply perfect.
* * *
She showered. The hot water helped raise her body temperature and the headache evaporated. She slid back into her panties and camisole. The panties consisted of a few square centimeters of black lace and silk. They had been prohibitively expensive, made for her bespoke by a designer in Rio de Janeiro. She sort of wished she’d chosen something a tad less racy.
She padded back out past the bed to the second door, which now was cracked open. Peering through the door, she discovered she was in a warehouse, wide and vast, with sparrows darting through the rafters and chirping for freedom. She noted a garage-style exit door bolted with a padlock the size of a small ham. The iron-grated windows were grimy and ten feet off the rough cement floor. Crates were stacked fourteen feet high. The furniture consisted of one long, chipped Formica table and a few folding chairs.
Khalid Belhadj sat in one of the chairs, an empty holster under his left arm, the Springfield .45 auto resting near his hand. He ate from a greasy takeout box of panfried noodles, using a cheap plastic fork. A file folder lay open before him. It was the CIA Operation Pegasus file.
“Sit, please,” he said in English.
The Syrian had set up a sturdy metal chair, away from the folding table where he ate. Handcuffs dangled from the slatted back of the chair. Daria sat—the chair was freezing!—and noticed that the chair legs had been bolted to the cement floor.
Her eyes on Belhadj, she fixed her wrists in the cuffs, behind her back.
Belhadj shoveled the food into his mouth in the manner of soldiers throughout the world: eat when you get a chance to eat.
The food smelled wonderful.
After a minute, he used an unbleached, brown paper napkin to dab his lips then stood, leaving the noodles but picking up the Springfield. He circled wide around her, approached her chair from the rear and checked Daria’s cuffs. Satisfied, he returned to the folding table, set down the handgun and picked up the takeout box. He turned a page in the CIA file. He had hardly glanced at her.
Daria chose to go with Arabic. “I’m surprised you recognize me. I’ve been out of the game a while. And we’ve never met, the two of us.”
Belhadj kept his eyes on his food.
“What time is it?”
“Almost noon. Friday.” He switched to Arabic. He ate voraciously but his left hand never strayed far from the handgun.
Friday? “I’ve been out two days?”
He didn’t reply. Daria stuck out her lower lip and blew damp hair off her forehead. “You could have killed me.”
Belhadj devoured the noodles, studied the files.
“Why take me? Why keep me alive?”
“According to the Americans, we are partners in crime. Yes?”
She snorted. “Pegasus.”
“A noble beast. A mythical, winged horse.”
“I suppose the hippos in tutus from Fantasia had already been taken.”
The Syrian frowned, getting neither the reference nor her pique. He set down his plastic fork and reached down to retrieve a black messenger bag from behind his chair. “I need your help.”
“You should feel free to go fuck yourself.”
Belhadj nodded, as if agreeing. He opened the flap of the waterproof bag and withdrew a folder. From that, he withdrew a photo, eight-and-a-half-by-eleven. He held it up, facing her.
She leaned forward, squinting at the photo. Her dark eyes grew wide. They rose from the photo to the sullen face of Belhadj.
“You lie.”
The Syrian nodded. “No. Asher Sahar. Former Mossad agent. Convicted in a star chamber of high crimes. Locked away in a secret prison we weren’t supposed to know about, but of course we do. And the man who shot you.”
He propped up the photo against the greasy bag from the takeout food. Daria studied the photo. It showed Sahar from the waist up, wearing an olive tunic with epaulettes and many pockets. Under the military jacket he wore a wilted white shirt and a cardigan. His hair was both thinner and shorter than Daria remembered and he wore a short beard and mustache. His small, round glasses made him look academic.
“That’s not possible.”
Belhadj wiped his lips. He shrugged, eyes on his food. “He has reassembled many members of his old covert unit. Plus mercenaries. We do not know why. But then again, this is the same Asher Sahar who planned to kill a member of the Israeli Parliament and start a war. Before you intervened, that is.”
Daria sat leaning forward in the unmoving chair. The last time she had seen Asher, he had indeed attempted to kill her. The wound had been near fatal.
“How is he out of prison?”
“He didn’t dig out, if that’s what you’re asking. Someone opened the door and handed him his hat. Someone powerful. We don’t know who. As soon as we learned he was out, we had a surveillance team on him. They discovered he came to America to steal something. They also found a code name: the Viking.”
“Fredrik?”
That got his attention. “You know him?”
“Fredrik Olsson. The Viking. Specializes in transporting stolen goods overseas. The Atlantic and the Mediterranean, mostly.”
Belhadj scraped out the remains of his takeout, then threw it away with the fork and the napkin. He made eye contact with Daria for the first time. “Now. What would Asher Sahar be transporting from America?”
“How would I know? I thought the fuckwit was in prison.”
Belhadj sighed as if
disappointed. “You’re alive to the degree you can help me find him and stop him. Fail to do so…?” he shrugged.
Daria leaned back and crossed her legs at the knees. The Brazilian-designed thong offered him an interesting diorama. “Then best to shoot me now. I was enjoying the company of a rather delicious first officer in El Salvador when this comic opera began. I know nothing of the CIA and Asher. Or of you.”
She sat back, half-smiling, looking calm. But her brain was working at Mach 3, processing data, trying to figure out what was so wrong with the scene. Something just felt … off. The warehouse was old—nineteenth-century old, although that wasn’t unusual for sections of New York. The crates she could see bore stenciled labels in English, French, and German. Again, not too unusual.
Still, something was amiss. It was in the walls, in the stale smells of the warehouse. Even the metal chair to which she was cuffed seemed oddly wrong (and Daria had been cuffed to chairs before; she could compare and contrast).
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she still wondered how she would get out of this jam and help Colin Bennett-Smith with his life and death problem. But, of course, Colin wasn’t anywhere near this situation. He never had been.
Once she’d played that bit out, she also remembered that the message had used the Hebrew word for cat, chatoulah. Colin Bennett-Smith might have known that old nickname. But Asher would have known it for sure. He’d been the one to give it to her.
Belhadj studied her long, lean form, leaning back, looking calm. “You’ve no idea why Sahar would stage an operation in the United States?”
“The man is capable of anything.” Daria willed herself not to shiver from the cold. She was trying to look seductive. “He’s a brilliant strategist. He’s a chess player; always sees ten moves ahead of everyone else.”
Belhadj rubbed his eyes. He didn’t look stimulated by the barely clothed woman before him. He looked fatigued. “Unlike you. I never pictured you as the chess player.”
Daria remained surprised that the Syrian had even heard of her, let alone had an opinion of her skill sets.
She shrugged as well as she could with her arms cuffed behind her back. “I never had the patience to learn chess. I never saw the point in thinking that far in advance.”
“Stealing the CIA command vehicle? That wasn’t preplanned?”
“I didn’t even know I was under surveillance until my plane landed a few hours earlier.” She didn’t tell him about the mysterious warning at JFK. Dee Jean d’Arc … “It just seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Belhadj absently played with the Springfield, which lay on the cheap table before him. He spun it slowly, like the second hand of a clock. “You say this Viking, Olsson, specializes in overseas transportation.”
“He has access to a fleet of cargo planes and boats. If it really is Friday, I haven’t eaten in two days. I’m starving.”
“Palestinians are starving,” the Syrian replied without rancor. “You’re hungry. There’s a difference. Tell me more about this Viking.”
It was the smell of the warehouse, Daria decided. That’s what was wrong. It didn’t smell bad. It just didn’t smell right.
“He’s a middleman. His services are expensive.”
“Very?”
“Yes. But he’s paid off every field tower and harbormaster from Alexandria to Edinburgh. If you need something to cross the Atlantic or the Mediterranean, he’s worth the price.”
“So Sahar wouldn’t have hired him on a whim.”
“Asher Sahar wouldn’t take a piss on a whim. But beyond that, the Viking’s services are often booked far in advance. Now, you answer some of my questions.”
This seemed to amuse the Syrian, who allowed a lopsided smile to appear on his unshaven face. The bags under his eyes were slightly blue. He kept spinning the .45 slowly on the tabletop. “Oh, really? I am not the one chained to a chair.”
Daria smiled meaningfully. “Not today, you’re not. No.”
He paused, then smiled back and shrugged. “Very well.”
“How long has Asher been out of prison?”
“Who knows? I first heard he was out almost six weeks ago.”
“Impossible. I would have heard.”
This earned her a slow, noncommittal blink.
“How is Israeli intelligence reacting?”
This time Belhadj paused, thinking it over, trying to decide how much to tell her.
“Let us say, they are being very quiet. The Knesset has not been informed. We don’t know for sure but we don’t believe the prime minister knows.”
“How did you get onto Asher’s operation?”
“Luck. He hired a Croatian mercenary we were watching. The Croatian led us to Sahar, and Sahar led us to the States. I decided to take command of the surveillance team but, two days ago, they missed a scheduled communiqué. No word since. I assume my people are dead. Okay, my turn: I need you to try to be the chess player for a moment. Say you had money and power enough to get Asher Sahar out of prison. Quietly. Why would you?”
“So I could kill him myself.”
“It’s a serious question.”
She was hungry and freezing and tired of playing by the Syrian’s rules. But if Asher Sahar was truly free and had assembled his old squad? The thought was frightening.
“Not for an intelligence mission,” she said. “You don’t free Asher to bug an embassy or to photograph a deputy minister buggering choirboys. I can think of a dozen crews good enough to do that. I’m not talking about just inside Israeli intelligence, either. Spies, thieves, and mercenaries: take your pick.”
“You should know. You’ve been all three.” It wasn’t an insult, just a brief recitation of Daria’s CV. But it again suggested he knew more about her than seemed likely.
Daria unfolded her legs and sat forward, her back away from the chair, coal-dark eyes locked on Belhadj. “You free an Asher Sahar for destruction,” she said. “You free him for something big and awful. The man may be brilliant but he also is a sociopath. You free Asher if you plan to make horrifying headlines.”
Belhadj stopped spinning the gun.
“Yes.” He seemed to mull the information. Again, he looked as tired as Daria felt. “Thank you. That was my assessment as well. But you know him better than I.”
He stood. The sturdy black auto fit snugly in his right hand. Like many natural-born soldiers, Belhadj’s hands looked more at ease holding a weapon than not.
Daria had answered his questions. If he had no more to ask, she couldn’t think of a logical reason he would keep her alive.
Back in the CIA command vehicle, she’d tried using skin and sex appeal to lure him close enough for a strike and it hadn’t worked. She sat here now, in her tarty underthings, bound to this bolted-down chair, and he’d barely made eye contact with her. That left her precious few options.
Belhadj circled around her, keeping his distance. One shot to the back of the skull had been a favorite method of assassination for decades. Do it right and the bullet ricochets around inside the victim’s skull, turning the brain into porridge. A shot at the base of the skull tends to lessen blood splatter, too. Neat and efficient.
Daria heard a rustling, as if something made of cloth was being removed from a paper bag. No need for a blindfold, obviously.
She willed herself to sit still. When it comes, it comes—if you play the game long enough. She knew that before she had even reached her teens.
She felt a vibration behind her and it took a moment to realize he had uncuffed her left wrist.
Daria brought her arms around forward, the tension in her shoulders lessening. She dragged the handcuff with her, still pinioned to her right wrist.
She stood and pivoted on the balls of her bare feet.
Belhadj threw something at her and she caught it. She held it up in both hands. It was a pilled Royal Air Force sweater, midnight blue and woolen, well-worn cloth patches on the shoulders and elbows, and epaulettes.
The S
yrian stood ten meters away, gun held by his thigh. His weary eyes didn’t blink. From the way he stood, Daria wondered when he’d slept last.
She pulled the RAF sweater over her head, freed her hair from the collar, and threaded her arms through the sleeves, holding the free end of the handcuff in her right fist as she did. It was a tight fit and she tugged it over her breasts and down her torso. It covered most of her bum. But it was deliciously warm compared to the cami and panties.
“In front,” Belhadj said.
She understood. She encircled her wrist with the free cuff and clicked it closed.
“Come.”
He began walking toward the warehouse’s garage-style door. As he did, he dug a set of keys out of the pocket of his thick canvas trousers. Daria padded behind him, suddenly aware of her tactical advantage in his blind spot. Israeli military and intelligence officers train in a form of martial arts known as Krav Maga. It addresses exactly this sort of scenario: taking advantage of blind spots. Taking the offensive.
“Sahar is freed by someone powerful to do a terrible thing, yes?” He turned his head slightly but Daria remained outside his field of vision. “He is brave or confident enough to conduct his operation on American soil. His mission is to steal something. Did I tell you that part?”
“I believe you mentioned it.” Daria was only five meters behind him now. With the sturdy metal links between her wrists, if she could get her arms over his head and her hands to either side of his neck, she could then put one foot on the small of his back and launch herself in the air. Her fifty-two kilos would throw him off balance, toppling him backward. The fall likely would break some of Daria’s ribs, and there was a better-than-even chance of snapping her sternum, but at least she would have crushed his larynx.
Sacrifice my queen to topple your king? How is that for fucking chess?
But she hesitated as Belhadj did the unthinkable: he stuffed the Springfield into his shoulder holster.
What the hell?
Belhadj used both hands to undo the massive padlock that held the garage door closed.
“Sahar is a weapon of mass destruction,” he said, slamming aside the bolt that held the door down. He bent at the knees and used both hands to shove upward on the door. The metal shrieked and rust flecks rained down off the tracks.
