by [Kamal
“We weren’t paying you enough for that.”
“That’s why I wasn’t bothering with life jackets.” He grimaced badly. “Fuck, that hurts.” He squeezed his leg until he could get a tourniquet in place. “Well, hoss, I guess that leaves the rest up to you. You go and get it done, while your missus and I guard the door.”
“Get what done?”
“Blow the freighter.” He balled up a section of his shirt he’d torn off and winced as he tightened it around the bullet wound. “Gonna turn these fucking drugs into a giant Alka-Seltzer tablet in a glass of Hudson River water.”
* * * *
B
rickland explained how to reach the engine room and mapped out for Ben what to do when he got there. Amazing how simple it was to set fire to an old freighter like the Muna Zarifa. The ancient diesel-burning lines and nonfireproof material made it scarcely a challenge. The challenge would come when Ben reached the engine room, depending on the level of resistance he encountered. With only the nine-millimeter pistol the colonel had given him for firepower, there had better not be much.
Brickland’s route took him the back way through the cavernous layers of the old ship, into the deep lower bowels. Taking it meant retracing his steps down the same ladder-like stairs they had used to reach the main deck. Ben felt the heat increase as he dropped ever lower, the unventilated hull acting like an oven.
Encountering no resistance, he reached a complex of catwalks that rose twenty feet above the hull’s black bottom. Thirty feet over those catwalks was the engine room. Part of its floor had been finished in a grate to help drain the enormous volume of heat that would otherwise make working within it intolerable. Ben ducked through a hatchway that reminded him somewhat of a submarine, and reviewed the rest of Brickland’s plan in his mind.
Cross the catwalk through this section to a ladder where he would—
The sound of many footsteps rapidly coming his way from the left made him stop. He charged back to the hatch he had passed through to reach this cavernous pipe room and grabbed hold of the rounded steel door. The thing was monstrously heavy and probably hadn’t been closed for years, its joints rusted through. It took all his strength just to budge it, but Ben managed to get it sealed an instant before the sailors came down a nearby ladder. He slammed a bolt lock into the rusted slots tailored for it and moved on, satisfied the approaching party would be kept out.
He then sped down a catwalk for the ladder Brickland had described, only to hear another flood of footsteps converging from the right side of the cavern. The door to this hatch gave with less resistance and clanked shut just as he heard the first party trying to bang their way through directly across the floor.
Ben backed off, heart hammering against his chest, intending to enact the rest of Brickland’s scheme. He headed for a steel ladder that rose from a pumping station to the engine room above, at once realizing the folly of trying to commandeer the entire facility with a single pistol.
Then his eyes fell on the network of pipes rising from the pumping station, locking on a warning in faded paint printed just above a turn wheel and spigot:
WARNING: DO NOT OPEN TO PURGE SYSTEM UNTIL ENGINES ARE SHUT DOWN
Those engines now, of course, were running. Ben could hear them cranking noisily in the engine room above. Heavy diesel fuel crawled like blood through the Muna Zarifa’s rusted network of steel veins. The nearby spigot was intended to bleed the pipes of excess air bubbles which could severely curtail engine performance. So if he opened it now . . .
Deviating slightly from Brickland’s instructions, he leaned over, joined both his hands on the wheel, and turned. He felt a rumbling after the first spin, followed by a heavy wisp of air. Halfway through the second turn, a jet of air burst from the nozzle beneath the spigot, followed by a series of what sounded like rasping coughs. Ben had backed off by the time the black fuel began to ooze out, the stream slow at first, then steady, and finally gushing out in torrents that carried it across the length of the catwalk, staining the rusted grating an even darker color.
Ben tore a strip of fabric from his shirt and then soaked it with some diesel oil. He climbed ten rungs of the ladder leading to the engine room and stopped to remove Brickland’s lighter from his pocket. Wedging an arm through the rung even with his chest, Ben touched the flame to the scrap of his oil-soaked shirt and watched the fuel catch instantly. He held it out over the catwalk, now engulfed in huge rivulets of oil spewing down through its grated layers to the very bottom of the ship, and dropped it.
The flaming rag fluttered through the air, settling over the catwalk. It touched oil and Ben saw a cloud of black smoke before the first flame peeked out and quickly spread in both directions down the catwalk. Ben began climbing as fast as he could, glancing once or twice at the fire intensifying below. By the time he reached a hatch that led into the engine room, the oil dripping beneath the catwalk had caught too, making it seem as though the air itself was on fire.
Ben slammed his way through the hatch, before the befuddled stares of the nearby workers.
“Naar!” he screamed in Arabic. “Fire! Get out!”
A huge fuel tank against the far wall exploded to punctuate his warning. In the next moment, men were rushing in all directions as the flames spread through the engine room. No sprinklers switched on to fight it. An old-fashioned bell alarm began to clang, covering the workers’ desperate screams as they ran, the flames starting to appear on all sides now, with Ben caught in the middle.
* * * *
T
he fire alarm had just started wailing when Brickland and Danielle returned to the main deck. The sharp, gritty smell of an oil fire assaulted their nostrils even before the black smoke belched up from below, followed by the sound of explosion after explosion, each shaking the freighter more violently. They watched as the crew topside frantically began lowering lifeboats down the length of the Muna Zarifa’s hull to the water. Others unfolded rope ladders and dangled them over the starboard side to provide access. The order to abandon ship must have already been given.
“Ben,” Danielle murmured.
“Boy’s got a knack for overdoing things, don’t he?” Brickland said, still wincing in pain. “I think I’ll get us one of those lifeboats. You stay here, wait for your boyfriend.”
He left her the shotgun and hoisted himself over the rail onto a ladder that descended all the way to the water. Danielle turned back to stare at the stairwell Ben had disappeared down, willing him to appear. But all she saw was more of the black smoke that was quickly overtaking the entire ship. Any man trapped down there . . .
The thought terrified her. Ben couldn’t die after all this. She couldn’t bear another life to be stripped from her! Both brothers, her mother, her father wasting away. Not Ben. Not Ben!
Danielle took a deep breath and plunged into the blackness.
* * * *
B
en keptclimbing. Theblack smokechoked offmost ofhis breath and stole his vision, leaving him only ladders and stairs to feel for and take without thought of direction. He could feel the heat nipping closer at him with each frantic step.
He grew lightheaded, had no idea where he was, realized suddenly his hands weren’t working anymore. He could smell clean air somewhere close, knew the main deck and the outside world were in reach, but he couldn’t find them. Felt himself starting to slump, his lungs begging for air that was denied, when a pair of hands closed blindly upon him.
Ben felt himself jerked back to his feet and yanked upward, his feet thumping over steel steps. His lungs grabbed thirstily for the fresher air. His eyes found some light. He grasped the railing with both hands and helped pull himself upward. At last he emerged into the bright sun with Danielle still holding fast, pulling him toward the railing.
“Come on!” the voice of Frank Brickland screamed from below, where he was balancing himself painfully in a lifeboat.
Danielle helped Ben drag his legs and torso over the rail, holding on while he stretched out
for the ladder and grabbed the top rung.
“I’ll be right above you. Just keep going.”
Ben negotiated the rungs with surprising ease. He kept focusing on one at a time and staring straight ahead at the ship’s hull. He heard Brickland calling to him just before he thumped down to the lifeboat, taking the colonel to the deck when Brickland tried to reach up and guide him in.
“You’re a real pain in the ass, Benny, you know that?”
Danielle dropped behind them and took control of the oars. With powerful strokes, she rowed the lifeboat away from the tanker, enshrouded now in a blackened haze. The smoke continued to bellow from it, the first of the flames appearing when they were a hundred feet away. The explosions followed rapidly in a series of poofs that coughed miniature fireballs into the air, temporarily lighting the blackness of the deck.
By the time a cabin cruiser fished the three of them from the water, the Muna Zarifa was nothing more than a floating coffin, charred barbecue-black, its load of cargo lost forever.
* * * *
* * * *
Chapter 65
T
he flight from New York City to Amman was about to land right on schedule early Wednesday afternoon. Ben lifted a nervous eye from his watch and gently rousted Danielle, who had slept for virtually the entire twelve-hour duration of their trip. They were due to land just a few hours before the official reconvening of the peace talks.
“We’re back,” he told her.
She didn’t smile.
“You know we can never go home,” Danielle had said as they huddled together on the cabin cruiser’s deck the day before, watching the Muna Zarifa’s slow death continue, the smoke and flames visible for miles.
“We can if we’re willing to face what’s waiting for us.”
“We’re pariahs. We turned against our own people, disobeyed. We’re traitors, Ben. That’s the way they’ll see it.”
Ben’s face tightened. “I left once. I’m not leaving again.”
“What’s the alternative?”
“Show the world who the real traitors are. Tell the truth both sides wanted so much to hide.”
“And you think we can survive that?”
“Can we survive a life on the run? Because, Danielle, that’s our only other choice. Keeping everything quiet only makes this a race to see which side can kill us first.”
Frank Brickland swung toward them from the rigid post he had held at the gunwale. He dragged his wounded leg forward and leaned against the cabin for support.
“Only one way you can handle this, hoss, and that’s to get them before they get you.”
“We can’t get them all, Colonel.”
“You get enough, you won’t have to get them all. I can help you with the groundwork, show you how to get it done without dirtying your own pistols. Your part of the world’s got lots of hate. Makes things easy to manipulate.”
Ben shook his head. “Not this time.”
“It’s the way of the world, Benny.”
“Your world maybe. Not ours.”
“Can I ask you a question, Colonel?” from Danielle.
“My calendar’s open right now,” Brickland replied, a smile rising through his next grimace.
“In the cargo hangar, when I heard you shooting—”
“Yeah,” he interrupted. “I did it to draw you over there, make you think I needed help.”
“Why?”
“Because I needed a distraction to help me get on board.”
“You could have mentioned your intentions in advance.”
“Sorry, ma’am, but the fact was, I never worked with you before and all the discussion in the world wouldn’t change the fact that I didn’t know how you were going to perform.” He cocked his gaze toward the smoke-shrouded freighter. “My priority was getting on that boat.”
“There had to be another way then and there’s got to be another way now,” Danielle insisted.
“There wasn’t and there isn’t, ma’am.”
“No,” said Ben, eyes widening in realization, “I think there might be.”
Now, as the jet taxied for the gate, Ben ignored the flight attendant’s warning not to move until the seatbelt sign was turned off, and fished a small tote bag from his overhead compartment. He kept it close to him as they disembarked.
Danielle was right at his elbow when they approached the end of the jetway to find Commander Omar Shaath waiting, flanked by Jordanian police officers armed with machine guns. The machine guns stayed at their sides, their presence enough to make the point.
“Inspector,” Shaath greeted Ben ebulliently when they reached him, “how good of you to return yet again. I see you haven’t learned anything from your mistakes.”
“It runs in the family,” Ben said. Even though he held back his rage, he looked into Shaath’s eyes and had the feeling the commander knew exactly what he was referring to.
Shaath stuck a hand forward. “I’ll take that case.”
Ben held it out to him stiffly. “You can let the woman go,” he said, sneaking a glance at Danielle.
“I could, but I won’t. We’ll see how badly the Israelis want her back. They’re still holding three thousand Palestinians prisoner, you know.” He smirked. “You should have learned from your first mistake.”
Shaath didn’t open the tote bag until they were inside a police van. Hand-cuffed now, Ben watched him from two seats back fumbling with the double zipper, finally getting it open and withdrawing an opaque zip-lock bag. He fingered its contents through the plastic, testing its weight.
“How’d you sneak your little souvenir on the plane?” Shaath wondered.
“You have better sources than I gave you credit for, Commander.” Ben told him.
“Just answer the question, Inspector.”
“The bag is coated with lead. Gives the X-ray machine a false reading.”
Shaath held the bag up for Ben to see. “You expected this to save you, no doubt. Use it so the two of you could prove your twisted story to your respective superiors. I would think exposing the whole truth of what transpired to the entire world would be a better approach. Let everyone learn how the Israelis dispatched an assassin to mimic the killings of al-Diib.”
“You can’t prove that.”
“You left me all the information I need to prove it. And what little you didn’t was easy to piece together.” He held the opaque bag up for Ben to see. “Now you’ve given me the final bit of proof I need: a sample of Fasil’s drugs. Distributed and sold with the express purpose of endowing Hamas’s terrorist actions until the Palestinians regain what is rightfully ours. Yes, Inspector, the world needs to know.”
“You’ll destroy the peace talks, our chance for statehood.”
“I’ll destroy a sham, a display of kowtowing that sickens any Palestinian who remembers a time when we weren’t held hostage on our own land. Let the terror continue. Let the fighting continue. Anything is better than watching Arafat kiss Israeli ass, just as your father wanted us to do.”
Again Ben bit down his rage. “You’ll set the process back years. The damage will be irreparable!”
“My people will be better off.” Then, after a brief pause, he added, “You and the woman will accompany me, Inspector. It’s the least I can do.” A cruel, thin smile crossed the big man’s lips. “After all, I couldn’t have done this without you.”
* * * *
T
he venue of the peace talks had been changed, incredibly, to Jerusalem, forcing a last-minute scramble among the participating diplomats and media officials who needed to book rooms and transportation. The King David had been chosen as the meeting site, ironically fitting since this very hotel had been the setting for an Israeli raid back when Israel was fighting for its own independence.
The King David had remained generally unchanged in the many years since it had been rebuilt. Its elegance lay in its tradition, although Ben could tell the magnificent marble floor and plush leather seating in the
lobby were relatively new, along with the beautiful arrangements of fresh flowers from one end to the other.
He and Danielle entered the hotel, their handcuffs removed, but both protectively enclosed by Shaath’s security troops. The commander’s pass got him through the entrance and into the hubbub of the lobby, where no one seemed to notice him.
He hustled the group toward a private meeting room where a press conference featuring the Palestinian delegates was already underway. He carried the Zip-loc bag Ben had brought with him from America in a zippered briefcase pressed tightly under his arm.
He signaled his men to hold Ben and Danielle in the rear of the conference room while he squeezed through the crowd of reporters toward the front. From his vantage point, Ben could see a large wooden table with the Palestinian flag suspended from its front and draped toward the floor. A podium had been set up alongside the table, but the delegates, including Arafat in the center and Mayor Ghazi Sumaya on the far right of the seven participants, had thus far elected not to make use of it.
