Doha 12

by Lance Charnes

  “We’re going after the little girl, right?” Kelila’s eyes filled with a mother’s fear for a lost child, even one not her own.

  “We’re going after whoever we can find.”

  Sasha said, “When do we start, boss?”

  “Soon. I have a hunch the covers are still in Brooklyn. I doubt they went to the local Hilton, so you know what that means.”

  “Hostels. Boarding houses.”

  “Yes, and cheap hotels. They’ll use false names, so we’ll have to go to each location with Eldar’s and Schaffer’s pictures. Kelila, work up a list for us. We’ll start with Carroll Street as the center of our circle and work our way outwards. It’s going to be a long night. Dress warm.”

  Once the others retreated to their bedrooms, Gur crossed to the tiny kitchen to splash water on his face. Eldar’s child kidnapped; his fault. He’d become a menace to the people he was supposed to protect and to his own team—a hazard to everyone except Hezbollah.

  It was time to quit. The Watch Center called his name. He’d teach at the Academy, live to see his grandchildren. Perhaps be with Kelila.

  All he had to do was live through this damned mission.

  SIXTY-NINE: Sunset Park, Brooklyn, 21 December

  Gabir slumped in the doorway of a commercial garage, its corrugated metal door cold against his back. There was nothing rich or fancy about this street—a Russian deli, a Chinese building-supply warehouse, a Hispanic food wholesaler, cheek-by-jowl in one low-slung, brick-faced, graffiti-scarred building after another. Trash, almost no streetlights, people he could hear but not see. It reminded him of Beirut.

  The Jews had stayed on major streets all the way. He might have been able to kill them, but he’d never have escaped.

  Blood dribbled into Gabir’s eyes from the furrow the cop’s bullet had carved across his forehead at the safe house. His shoulder wound seeped into his undershirt. He needed help, and soon. But he needed to do his job even more.

  His hand trembled as it held the cellphone to his ear. By now, everything on him shook from the cold. Two rings, three. “Yes?” Alayan’s voice.

  “Sidi, it’s me. I’m on 39th Street in Brooklyn.” He focused on an old four-story brick hotel across the street, flanked by warehouses. A few windows were still lit. Two men sat on the front steps, passing a paper sack between them. “I followed them. I know where the targets are.”

  SEVENTY: Sunset Park, Brooklyn, 21 December

  “Miriam?”

  She glanced away from the gap in the hotel room’s plastic curtains toward Jake’s voice. “Go to sleep. It’s my watch until two.”

  “I can’t. I close my eyes and all I see is Eve and Gene.”

  “I know.” That’s all she could see, too. She shifted on the squeaking wooden chair and flipped up her coat collar, willing away the cold. They’d shut off the heater to stop its clattering. “How’s your chest feel?”

  “Throbbing. How about your back?”

  “The same. It’s hard to get comfortable.” She peeked out into the night again. The street and sidewalk were completely dead. Too bad the thumping, laughing, squealing party next door wasn’t so quiet. Hezbollah’s army could march down the hallway and she’d never hear them.

  Jake asked, “Have you ever killed anyone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Long-range or close-in?”

  “Both.”

  “Doesn’t sound like it bothers you much.”

  “It doesn’t.” She knew what she was about to say would make her sound hard and ruthless, but she didn’t care. “Every one of those bastards I killed was like getting even for my father and all the other murdered people I know.” No answer. She could hear him breathing, a surprisingly intimate sound. “Do you have a problem with that?”

  “Not…really. I have to think about it, though.”

  “Have you?”

  “What?”

  “Killed anyone? Other than in the parking lot.”

  Silence, filled with thought. “Yeah. Couple times directly, with my rifle. A bunch of times with artillery.”

  “That doesn’t count.”

  “It does if you’re the one building the target packages.”

  “That’s what you did?”

  “Yeah, in Yahmam.”

  She dredged up what little she knew about the Target Field Intelligence unit in the Artillery Corps. They sent men behind the lines to find enemies to shell. It didn’t seem like the kind of thing Jake would do…but he’d shot those two terrorists in the parking lot without hesitation. “You were a commando?”

  “I guess. I was better with the intel than the field work, so they moved me to target development. I took the stuff the snake-eaters brought in and turned it into actionable targets. Mostly southern Lebanon.”

  Snake-eaters. She liked that; it said so much about those people. “You must’ve been good at it. You still are.”

  “Whatever.” His bed creaked and the blanket crackled; he must have turned over. “Did you like the Border Police?”

  A hard question; like had lots of meanings. Did he need to know about the power, the loss of privacy, the satisfaction of protecting Israel, the non-stop sexual harassment, winning citations for valor, being slapped with reprimands for doing the same things the men did? No, he wouldn’t understand. “I suppose so. It’s complicated.”

  “Yeah. Why’d you leave?”

  “I wrecked my knee in a fight with a Hamas scout.”

  “How’d he come out?”

  “Worse. Anyway, they transferred me into the command legal office. That’s where I learned to do what I do now. With my experience, I should’ve been training recruits. If I was a man, I would’ve been, but a woman? They made me a secretary. It turns out the chief counsel liked having pretty girls in his office.” It still rankled after all these years. She’d wanted to fight for her country, not type for it. “Then at the end of my enlistment, they forced me out because I was injured. Why did you leave the Army?”

  “They told me to.”

  This, she hadn’t expected. “Oh. Why?”

  “Long story.”

  “Are you sleepy yet?”

  “No.”

  “Well, help keep me awake, then.”

  “All right.” He sighed. “There’s this place called Yohmor, it’s a village just north of the Litani. Hezbollah command center, plus they were running heroin through it for export. Northern Command was screaming for months to take the place out. So I finally worked up a package, sent it around for coordination, everyone gave us the thumbs-up. Except they never asked Mossad, or they didn’t answer.”

  “They were watching it?”

  “They were running it. They never said what they were doing, but their own people were in charge of the place. Well, we flattened it. Best pattern we’d laid down in months. For once we even managed to miss the school about a hundred meters from the compound.”

  Miriam was pretty sure she knew what was coming.

  “Mossad went apeshit. We killed something like ten or twelve of theirs, both Israelis and Arabs. Mossad went at it with the Army, and everyone started looking for a scapegoat. Pretty soon all the fingers were pointing at me. I thought the Army would defend me, but they didn’t. They threw me in an army prison for a few months, then court-martialed me for dereliction. They didn’t convict me, though. I guess it would’ve raised too many questions. Anyway, they ‘invited’ me to resign, so I did.”

  It was like something the left-wing Israeli papers would print. Miriam had gone into the Border Police thinking the liberals were treasonous liars and came out wondering how they managed to miss so much of what went on in the country’s sprawl of security agencies. “Do you think that’s why they used your name in Qatar?”

  “Wouldn’t be surprised. I don’t think they forgive and forget.”

  Miriam leaned back in the chair, thinking once again how incredibly unfair their situation was. Not that “fair” had been much a part of her life. But Jake’s life? He di
dn’t deserve this.

  None of them had. But they deserved the chance to fight back.

  She looked forward to that.

  SEVENTY-ONE: Sunset Park, Brooklyn, 21 December

  Jake watched the bustle around the Chinese construction-supply warehouse while he listened to Monica’s phone ring. Trucks in and out, pickups double-parked, crews of men in the watery sunlight stocking up before the morning’s jobs.

  “Hello?” Monica’s voice, tired.

  “Hi, it’s Jake. I tried to call again last night—”

  “Jake! God, sorry I didn’t call back. They made me turn off my phone in ICU and I forgot to turn it on again. They say he’s going to be okay.”

  He sagged onto the edge of the bed in relief. All the sleepless night, the only times he hadn’t worried about Eve were the times he’d worried about Gene. “How is he?”

  “Serious but stable. The doctor said if he wasn’t such a big dumb ox, he might not do so good.” Her voice broke. “Oh, Jake. I’m so scared. All these years on the job without a scratch, and now…”

  “I know. He’ll pull through. I’ll be there when I can.” She’d been a surrogate mother for him, and she was better at it than his real mother. He owed her more support than a phone call. “You got people with you?”

  “Uh-huh. Louis, and Jean came down from Boston.” Two of their three kids, the ones Jake had last seen at the birthday party a century ago. “Um, you know Reggie? Captain McLarty? He’s here, he wants to talk to you.”

  “I don’t want to talk to him, I—”

  The voice on the other end had already changed. “Jake? Reg McLarty. Where are you, guy? We need to bring you in.”

  “Oh, no.” Jake stood again, watched the controlled chaos in the street. “You got a leak. We’re not coming in ‘til you plug it.”

  “No way. We haven’t lost a safe house in years.”

  “Well, you just did. It wasn’t me and it wasn’t Miriam, so it’s on you guys. We’re safer on our own right now, thanks.”

  “Come on, Jake, be—”

  “No. Fix your problem, then we’ll talk. There’s things I have to take care of out here.” He realized how harsh his voice had become. NYPD’s screw-up had almost killed all three of them, but it wasn’t McLarty’s fault. “Look, I’m sorry, but we’re done here. Take care of Gene and Monica. I’ll be in touch.” He disconnected before the exchange could deteriorate.

  “How’s Gene?” Miriam asked from behind him. She’d lost her accent again.

  Jake looked back. She stood by the bathroom door, a towel in one hand, the ends of her hair still damp from the shower. He envied her the fresh clothes; he had his jeans and sportshirt and a bagful of underwear. The circles under her eyes told him she hadn’t slept much either.

  “Serious but stable. Doctors say he’ll make it.” He beckoned her to join him at the window.

  “I’m glad.” She drifted in his direction, worrying at her hair with the towel. “By the way, don’t be shocked, but I hung my underthings on the shower rod to dry.”

  Which meant she wasn’t wearing…no, that was the last thing he needed to think about. “I lived with a woman for almost ten years. There’s nothing you can hang up in there that’ll scare me.” Even so, he’d avoid the bathroom for a while. “Wish you’d brought your other bag instead?”

  “Yes.” She peered through the dirty window into the grimy day. “The sun’s almost shining.”

  “Yeah. Check that white Toyota down there, one in from the corner, across the street, with the guy in it.”

  “I see it.”

  “I’m pretty sure it was there last night, too.”

  “Same place?”

  “No, over on the other corner.”

  “But the same car.”

  “Pretty sure. New tags.”

  “Perhaps it belongs here.”

  “It’s too clean and new. And that guy’s been in it for a while, now.”

  Miriam draped the towel over her shoulder and gripped the curtain. Her lips pressed flat. “Do you think it’s them?”

  “It’s not the PD, or they’d have been up here already.” Jake’s heart perked up, stretched, started jogging. The combat edge was coming on.

  She stared at the car for a full minute before she said, “What do you want to do about it?”

  “I have some ideas.”

  The street had been marginally more attractive at night than in the watery sunshine. Daylight revealed without pity the tired and dirty brick facades, battered awnings and faded signs.

  Jake stopped for a moment on the sidewalk outside the hotel to adjust his coat, which didn’t need adjustment. He checked the watcher’s car: west thirty yards, across the street. A silver Impala had replaced the white Camry at ten. Miriam kept track of the watchers’ shift length from her post at the window.

  Jake trotted through a break in the traffic, pushed past the hardware store’s water-spotted double glass doors. He met densely packed shelves, pyramids of paint cans, a wall of faucets and shower heads. He quickly filled his shopping list: duct tape, wire ties, a box cutter, a pair of two-foot-long crowbars, heavy rubber gloves.

  Back outside, he headed west toward the bodega on the corner. Jake would pass right by the Impala, but he’d have only a couple seconds to check the driver without tipping him off.

  One man sat in the car, broad-shouldered, round head. Side-view mirrors turned too far out so he could see what was happening behind him. As he passed the rear fender, Jake caught a glimpse of the man’s profile: the big Arab again. He wasn’t being paranoid after all.

  While he bought toothpaste and a toothbrush for Miriam and chips and a couple sodas for them both, Jake pictured the Arab in the Impala. Would he try to shoot Jake here and now? Probably not; if that was the play, they’d have already stormed the hotel room. They were waiting for something. Nighttime? Reinforcements?

  Jake had Gene’s gun in his coat pocket; it would be so easy to step outside and put a couple rounds into the guy. But he needed one of these assholes alive if he was going to find Eve. Once he got her back, he’d settle with Hezbollah. If he survived.

  Almost midnight. No traffic, just the occasional dark ghost of a pedestrian. Jake and Miriam crouched behind a battered pickup sagging under a towering load of flattened cardboard boxes. The Camry sat gathering frost two cars ahead, the nearby signal casting red-amber-green lightwash on the roof.

  “Can you see him?” Miriam whispered.

  “Yeah. One guy, not the big one, thank God. He should be good and bored by now.”

  They’d gone out the hotel’s back door into a narrow service alley, then circled the next block to the west to come up behind the Camry. As far as the watcher knew, they were still in their room. He wouldn’t be looking in his mirrors so long as he believed that.

  “Ready to make some noise?” Jake asked. Miriam nodded, hefted her crowbar. “Okay, let’s go. Get it started when you’re ready.”

  Heart thudding hard, Jake slipped around the pickup’s left side, dropped, crawled on his elbows and knees toward the Toyota, holding his crowbar with both hands like a rifle at an obstacle course. The stiff body armor chafed his armpits and waistband. His coat and jeans softened the asphalt pebbles underneath him and muffled any stray noise as he passed the truck and the rusted-out Monte Carlo ahead of it. He paused at the Camry’s back bumper, wiped his hands and tried not think how vulnerable he was down there. Moments later, Miriam slithered past on the other side. Showtime.

  He’d just reached the rear door’s leading edge when he heard Miriam shatter the safety glass on the other side. Jake shoved himself upright, gripped his crowbar like a baseball bat and hit a line drive through the driver’s window. It imploded in a shower of glass cubes that caromed off the dash and passenger’s seat. The driver had twisted to his right to see what had happened; Jake bounced the iron off the side of the man’s skull. The shock rattled all the way up to his shoulders.

  A few seconds’ advantage, nothing
more.

  Jake wrenched open the driver’s door, grabbed the man’s hair and dumped him into the street. Jake buried his foot in the man’s middle much harder than necessary, then ripped a pistol out of the man’s waistband.

  Miriam knelt behind the Arab, stuck a wire tie between her teeth, hauled his arms behind his back. He groaned but didn’t fight. She expertly strapped his hands together, wrists crossed, then stood and covered him with her Walther.

  “You’ve done that before,” Jake said. She nodded. He used his foot to shove the man onto his back. “Recognize him?”

  Her lips disappeared into a tight slit. “That’s the bastard who tried to grab me in the parking lot.” Miriam jerked her gun into line with his head.

  “Whoa.” Jake thrust his open hand in front of the muzzle. “We need him alive for now. We have to find out where Eve is so we can go get her.”

  She stared at him with eyes that reflected the red of the stoplight. He remembered the fire he’d seen in those eyes at the train station, when she was ready to take on Hezbollah with her bare hands. Be smart, he tried to tell her through telepathy. Don’t make me protect this worm.

  Finally, Miriam stepped back and aimed her pistol at the ground. “For now.”

  Jake blew out his held breath. “Search the car. I’ll get him up to the room.”

  Miriam snarled in the Arab’s direction. “Make sure he falls down the stairs on the way.”

  SEVENTY-TWO: Sunset Park, Brooklyn, 22 December

  Miriam stopped next to the bathroom in the hotel room’s tiny entry hall and stared at the Arab.

  The man’s wrists and ankles were zip-tied to a ladder-back wooden chair in the small patch of open floor at the foot of the twin beds. A swatch of duct tape covered his mouth. Blood trickled down the back left edge of his jaw; little red nicks on his forehead and cheek showed where the glass had scoured him. The bruises from his broken nose had turned an evil shade of jaundiced yellow in the two weeks since he’d attacked her in that Philadelphia parking lot.