by Allan Topol
“I like it,” Musa said, now smiling. “Omar knows a forger, Hamza, in Marrakech. He prepared the fake passport Omar used to get into Italy when he stole the Vatican water plans. And he said Hamza knows how to keep his mouth shut.”
“Good. Do you think Omar can get Hamza up here to do the job?”
“For money, you can get anything.”
Though it was four in the morning, Musa had to begin. Time was of the essence. “I’ll have Omar call him now. I have a deal with a man in Marrakech who runs a helicopter service. He’ll get Hamza up here immediately.”
Musa went back into the torture chamber with General Zhou trailing behind. “Listen carefully, Professor Etienne,” Musa said. “If you do what I want, the electric shocks will stop and I’ll untie you.”
“Yes. I’ll do it. Anything. Please no more.”
Musa explained about the preparation of the phony parchment. Etienne eagerly agreed to work with Hamza. “I’ll tell you what materials we’ll need. Also a computer to access other documents from the period, particularly ones authored by Queen Isabella. It will be perfect. I promise you.”
Musa ordered two of his men to lead Etienne back to his bedroom cell. Then he went upstairs and told Omar to call Hamza.
Once the arrangements were made, Musa said to Omar, “When you grabbed Etienne, did you take his cell phone?”
“Absolutely.” He pulled it out of his pocket. “I’m letting his calls go into voice mail, then listening. So far just routine university stuff. If I hear anything important, I’ll immediately tell you.”
49
PARIS
Friday morning, Craig was in his office, studying reports of last night’s riots. Eighty-eight police cars were set on fire in the Paris suburbs. compared with ninety-two the night before. Looting was still widespread, and arrests numbered in the hundreds. So far, no sign of the riots abating.
His cell phone rang. Elizabeth.
“Listen Craig, I got a call from Carlos in Madrid.”
“And?” Craig was holding his breath.
“He said Alvarez is acting like a guy who just won the lottery. Bought a big new red Audi. Expensive suits. He’s looking at brochures for property in Mallorca.”
Alvarez is on the take from Musa, Craig decided. “Call Carlos back and ask him to find out where Alvarez banks.”
“C’mon Craig. Don’t underestimate me. I already have it. Bank National in Madrid. Carlos couldn’t get an account number.”
“I don’t need it. I may come back to you. Where are you?”
“My editor at the paper, Rob, has me working on an article about Europe’s tenuous relationship with President Dalton. The ‘Death of the Atlantic Alliance’ is my working title.”
“Haven’t you done a couple of those already?”
“Yes, but we have blank pages to fill every day. Have you ever noticed how top columnists for the newspapers repackage the same stuff over and over? And I don’t want to hear one of your anti media diatribes.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. I save those for CNN.”
“I’m happy to interrupt if you need me.”
Craig walked down the hall to IT. Clarissa was the best computer whiz he ever met. Not exactly the usual-looking geek. She was a tall, statuesque redhead.
“Clarissa,” he said, approaching her desk. “Let’s break into a bank.”
“Sure, Craig. I love doing banks. Whose account?”
“General Jose Alvarez at Bank National in Spain. One of the Madrid branches.”
“Piece of cake.”
In admiration, he watched her move her long thin well manicured fingers over the keys.
“Look at this,” she said pointing to the screen. “Two days ago, five hundred thousand Euros transferred into Alvarez account from a Singapore sub of UBZ.”
Confirmation, Craig thought. Alvarez is definitely getting paid off by somebody. He had to prove it was Musa.
He turned to Clarissa. “Can you access the account at UBZ Singapore? Find out who put the money in that Alvarez took out?”
She shook her head. “UBZ has an impenetrable electronic wall around their database. The parent and all the subs. At least, I can’t get in.”
“If you can’t, nobody can.”
Craig wrote down the number of the UBZ Singapore account, SX23A0, and went back to his office. He picked up the phone and called Hans Schmidt, the President of UBZ in Zurich.
“Mr. Schmidt, this is Craig Page, the Director of the EU Counterterrorism Agency.”
“We haven’t met, but I know of you Mr. Page.”
Craig explained what he wanted.
Without hesitation, Schmidt responded, “As you Americans say, Mr. Page, your request is a no brainer.”
“You mean you’ll give it to me.”
Schmidt laughed. “You have a sense of humor, Mr. Page. Of course the answer is no.”
“I could bring pressure from the President of France.”
“We both know that would never happen. Besides our Singapore bank is a separate entity. It has to be under Singapore law. I have no control over it. I couldn’t obtain and divulge the information if I wanted to, which I don’t.”
Schmidt slammed down the phone leaving Craig to contemplate his next move.
His cell phone rang. Jacques.
“Craig, you better be sitting down. You won’t like this news.”
“One time, Jacques, you’re going to call me with something good, and I’ll probably pass out with surprise. What now?”
“General Zhou slipped our tail.”
“I thought you had your best people on him.”
“They were outfoxed.”
“I don’t believe it. I fucking don’t believe it.” Craig was shouting. “First Lila in Marseilles. Then this. Can’t they do anything right?”
“That wasn’t justified. These things happen. You want to call me back when you get control?”
“I’m sorry. Give me the details.”
“They thought they were following General Zhou and Androshka home after lunch yesterday at Apicius. The two of them went into his apartment. No one left until this morning when another Chinese man who looks like General Zhou came out of the apartment. Our guys got suspicious. They asked to see his ID. His name is Charlie Ming. Works for Chinese Military Sales. Says he’s a friend of Androshka’s. He was keeping her company last night because General Zhou is out of town. He has no idea where. They checked the apartment. General Zhou was gone.”
“Have you been leaning on Charlie?”
“He’s in a police station. We’ve been pressing him for the last hour. I waited to call you, hoping to have more info, but he won’t budge from his story. He’s threatening to call the Chinese Ambassador. What do you want me to do?”
“Release him. No point holding him. General Zhou is too smart to have Charlie know where he went. That’s all we care about. And we have no chance of getting records from Chinese military sales. They work under the Embassy’s umbrella.”
“Let me give the order. I’ll be right back.”
When Jacques returned to the phone, Craig said, “General Zhou probably left Paris. Maybe the country.”
“I agree. We have people watching his house in Antibes. No sign of him. We’ve checked airplane manifests out of Paris. He wasn’t on any of them.”
“Probably using a phony passport.”
“That’s where I was an hour ago. I have people examining the feed from security cameras at Charles DeGaulle and Orly.”
“That’s a helluva job.”
“Fortunately, we’re working with a narrow time window and not many Chinese men go though our airports.”
“Smart move.”
“I have to do something to redeem myself. I’ll let you know as soon as I get any info.”
“OK. Listen, I need help with a Swiss banker.”
Craig outlined the problem.
“I have a solution,” Jacques said. “I’ll talk to a friend in the Mossad here i
n Paris. They get stuff out of Switzerland nobody else does. I have no idea how.”
“I don’t want them to know why we’re interested in Alvarez.”
“Gideon’s always discreet. I would trust him with my son’s life.”
“Do it then.”
Half an hour later, Jacques called back. “The UBZ Singapore bank account is in the name of Shanghai Partners, a Singapore entity. The name on the account is Shen Ling, a Chinese national. That’s as far as the trail goes. Not much, I’m afraid.”
“It’s plenty. It means General Zhou is in this even deeper than I figured. It puts a premium on finding him. He has to be with Musa. How’s the airport feed coming?”
“I’ll put you on hold and call downstairs.”
A minute later, Jacques was back on the line. “They located him at Charles DeGaulle. He boarded Air France 629 at 17:00 yesterday to Madrid.”
“How sure are they?”
“An exact match with his visa picture.”
“Good. I’ll call Carlos and ask him to look at their feed from arriving passengers. Meantime, we have another card to play.”
Jacques completed Craig’s thought. “Androshka.”
“Precisely. Keep tabs on her phone and add personal surveillance. Sooner or later he’ll contact her. Then we’ll grab him.”
Carlos was happy to help. Two hours later, he called back. “General Zhou was traveling under the name of Wei Shu. Yesterday at 18:30, he exited the airport terminal and went to a cab stand. We located the driver, who said he dropped him at the train station in Madrid.” Craig was leaning forward in his chair, listening anxiously.
“Unfortunately, the security cameras weren’t working at the station.”
“Oh, shit! Technology is the bane of our existence! We depend on it then it fails us.”
“I agree.”
“He has to be in the south. That’s where Musa must be launching his attack.”
“It’s a large area. I’ll mobilize all of our intelligence resources down there. Check train station surveillance. Hotels. Car rental agencies. Don’t worry. We’ll find him.”
“Move fast. We don’t have much time.”
50
MARBELLA
Musa stood in the doorway of the upstairs room in the villa and watched Hamza, about thirty, bearded and wearing a New York Giants T-shirt and jeans torn at the knees, sitting at a table with Etienne, leaning over the parchment, with papers spread out and an open bottle of ink in the center. In a corner, one of Musa’s men with an AK-47 stood at ease looking bored and tired. Bright morning sunlight was streaming in through the windows.
“How much longer?” Musa asked impatiently.
“A couple more minutes,” Hamza replied.
When he was finished, Hamza said to Musa, “OK. Done. Take a look at it.”
Musa stepped forward and read, “I, Isabella, Queen of Spain, do hereby grant into perpetuity to the believers of Islam that portion of Southern Spain bordered by Malaga, Cordoba, Ubeda, and Granada, including the Alhambra.” At the bottom, the parchment contained Queen Isabella’s signature.
To Musa, the document looked authentic, but he realized he had no expertise. He compared it with a copy of one of Isabella’s actual documents Etienne had printed on the computer. They looked the same. He spot checked the letters I, S and T. They were identical. Hamza had done a good job.
“Let it dry for half an hour,” Hamza said. “Then you can cover it with dirt for a few minutes to make it look old.”
“Excellent,” Musa said. He handed Hamza a roll of bills. “One of my men will drive you back to Marrakech. I need the helicopter.”
Once Hamza was gone, Musa said to Etienne, “The guard will take you downstairs.”
Etienne was staring at the document. “An official edict like this should have a border along the side.”
“But the other documents don’t have it.”
“Those weren’t official edicts.”
“Why didn’t you tell that to Hamza?”
“I’m tired and I forgot. But it’s no big deal. I can easily add it myself. It will only take a few seconds. For that, we don’t need Hamza.”
“OK. Do it. I have to go downstairs and call Professor Khalid in Casablanca. As soon as the document’s ready, I’ll fly there to meet him.”
Etienne was reaching for the pen. Musa said to the guard, “If he does anything other than work on the document … If he tries to escape, shoot to kill.”
“I’m going to make you rich and famous,” Musa said to Professor Khalid as he walked into Khalid’s office and shut the door. It was one in the afternoon.
“I would like that,” Khalid said. “I’m struggling on a teaching salary. And no one from a university in a Muslim country gets any respect in the academic world.”
Musa reached in to his briefcase, pulled out the parchment, and placed it on Khalid’s desk. The Professor’s face lit up like a bright bulb.
“Incredible … Fantastic … This will change the course of history. Did you get it from Professor Etienne?”
Musa was pleased that, in his immediate reaction, Khalid accepted the parchment’s authenticity. Having told Musa that Etienne had discovered the existence of the parchment, Khalid just assumed that Musa had gotten it from Etienne.
“Dodging Khalid’s question, Musa said, “How soon can you call a press conference and assemble media people in Casablanca?”
“For something this significant, a couple of hours. Certainly by four this afternoon.”
Musa reached into his briefcase again. He pulled out his checkbook and wrote a check to Professor Khalid for one million euros.
When he handed it to the Professor, Khalid broke out into a broad smile.
“And what do I have to do in return?”
“Present the parchment to the world at the press conference and use the script I have prepared for you.”
51
PARIS
Elizabeth was typing at the computer in her cubby hole of a work station called an office. “The Atlantic Alliance has been at the heart of US foreign policy since 1945. Until Roger Dalton became President. It was inconceivable that this would change. Now …”
Over her shoulder, Elizabeth heard Rob, the foreign news editor, call from the doorway. “Hey, Liz, c’mere. You have to hear this.”
Once she joined him, he turned up the volume on the television on his credenza. The CNN announcer said, “We now go live to Casablanca, Morocco, where professor Khalid is about to begin his press conference.”
The Professor stood alone behind a lectern with half a dozen microphones. Elizabeth saw television cameras in the background.
Khalid began: “I have in my possession a document of enormous historical significance. For many years, I and other medieval historians have believed that in 1504 on her death bed, Queen Isabella of Spain wrote on parchment an edict granting to Muslims in perpetuity a portion of what is now Southern Spain, bounded by Malaga, Cordoba, Ubeda, and Granada, including the Alhambra. She did so because she felt guilty for what she did in 1492. She had promised Muslims they could worship freely in Southern Spain if they put down their arms and didn’t continue fighting against her Christian army. The Muslims relied on her promise. Six months later, she reneged and ordered Muslims to convert or leave Spain. Otherwise, they would be killed.”
Elizabeth was stunned. What the hell’s going on? This can’t be right. In the myriad of texts and articles she had read on the subject, no one had ever mentioned this so-called promise of Queen Isabella. All the historians through the centuries couldn’t have missed something so critical. Moreover, by all accounts, Isabella was unwavering in her hatred of Muslims to her final breath.
On the television screen, Professor Khalid picked up a parchment resting on the lectern and held it up to the cameras. “Here is the parchment Queen Isabella prepared, which has not been seen in more than five hundred years. I will be willing to answer a few questions.”
One reporter
asked: “Where did you get this parchment?”
“I promised my source confidentiality. I must honor that.”
“What do you expect to do with the parchment?”
“Give it to a museum in Morocco.”
“Questions will be raised as to its authenticity. Are you willing to submit it to an independent group of scholars?”
“I will of course consider all such proposals. Until I have one that is appropriate, I intend to keep it locked up.”
“Will you make copies of the parchment available?”
He held it up again.
“All of the cameras here are filming it. Those photographs will no doubt be digitalized. So everyone in the world with a computer will have a copy. And now I must leave.”
Clutching the parchment in his hand and accompanied by two armed Moroccan soldiers, Professor Khalid strode from the room, looking like a cat who had swallowed a canary.
The CNN announcer was back. “We have just heard a Good-Friday bombshell. An announcement of enormous historical significance for Spain, as well as for Christians and Muslims everywhere. Professor Khalid has told us …”
Elizabeth picked up the remote and turned the TV to mute.
Rob said, “You’re writing a book on this subject. What do you think?”
Rob had no idea what she was doing with Craig involving Musa or what she knew about his plans. She had no desire to tell him she thought Musa had ginned up this phony parchment. So she said, “I think it’s all a crock. Khalid was wrong when he said medieval historians believe Isabella executed a document like this on her death bed in 1504. I’ve never read or heard anyone even mention it. And Khalid isn’t willing to make the document available now for examination.”
“But it could be a new discovery. Those happen from time to time. Look at the terracotta warriors in China. Or the Dead Sea Scrolls.”
Elizabeth was convinced the document was a fake. Besides everything else, coming now with Musa undoubtedly searching for legitimacy for his attacks on Europe, the coincidence was too great.
“That’s precisely the point,” she said. “In China, the Xian farmer who made the discovery told the world how he did it. While digging a well. For the Dead Sea Scrolls, the location, who discovered them, and details of discovery were immediately disclosed. Here, the Professor refused to say a word about any of these. Telling the world that he promised his source confidentiality confirms it’s all rubbish.”
