“Harris risked the operation for this meeting,” Scorpion said. “We probably have Hezbollah agents combing the city right this second looking for both of us. What is it you haven’t told me?”
“We received a Special Access CRITIC from Harris. He was in Tallinn,” Peters said.
Again Russia, Scorpion thought grimly. Since the end of the Cold War, Tallinn had become spy central for trading information outside Moscow, so like the bioweapon, it undoubtedly involved the Russians.
“What was he doing in Estonia?”
“To meet with Checkmate.”
“Ivanov himself.” Scorpion whistled silently. Checkmate was the code name for Vladimir Ivanov, head of the FSB’s Counterintelligence Directorate and a legendary spymaster. “What brought that about?”
“Rabinowich found something. An NSA thread. Some MOD colonel from some shithole called Mayak got a promotion to Moscow. Two weeks later Checkmate picks him up and takes him to Adult’s World.”
“So why Venice?” Scorpion asked, his thoughts racing. MOD was the Russian internal security agency for atomic weapons. Although he wasn’t sure if Peters had connected the dots, Mayak was the Russian cover name for the city of Ozersk. The whole oblast around the city of Ekaterinburg in Russia was filled with atomic labs and atomic weapons facilities and stockpiles, but Ozersk was the bull’s-eye, the dead center of the Russian atomic universe. “Adult’s World” was CIA-speak for Lubyanka, FSB headquarters in Moscow, so-called with a touch of spook humor because it stood across the way from a famous Moscow toy store called “Children’s World.” If Ivanov had arrested this MOD colonel from Ozersk, it could mean there was a serious security breach. They wouldn’t have interrupted his operation unless there was a connection. “Come on, Peters. What does Harris want to tell me?”
“Checkmate told him they’re missing twenty-one kilos of highly enriched U-235.”
“Jesus,” Scorpion said, realizing he’d stopped breathing. “How highly?”
“They don’t know exactly. Checkmate said seventy-six percent. Harris said to tell you that Rabinowich said it could be more.”
“Rabinowich is right. The Russians know exactly. If Checkmate admitted to seventy-six percent and was willing to talk to Harris in Tallinn, it could definitely be more. Christ! Anything else?”
“Harris said one more thing to pass along from Rabinowich.”
“Yeah?”
“He said the Russians are all over Ekaterinburg and he’s getting ‘subtexture’ from Volgograd. Also, he thinks someone took a couple of hundred kilos of RDX from GUMO.”
Scorpion took a deep breath. It was a cool, sunny day. The trees near the edge of the pond were reflected in the water, and a fountain in the center sprayed up water that caught the sunlight in a rainbow. So much beauty, he thought, and then it hit him. This wasn’t terrorism; it was total war.
“Any more good news?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Peters said. “Rabinowich said to tell you to hurry.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Westerpark, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Zeedorf, the detective from Amsterdam, was a big man with a round belly. He and Scorpion met in a café near the Dom Tower, the fourteenth century church tower that dominated the picturesque center of Utrecht. The café smelled of Pilsener beer and cigarette smoke and was nearly empty. They sat at a table in a back corner so they could both watch the door.
“His name is Abdelhakim Ouaddane, age thirty-four. I have his address and telephone along with photographs for you here,” Zeedorf said, tapping the pocket of his surprisingly expensive sport jacket. “Also a copy of his identiteitsbewijs—identity card—his SOFI tax form, and a utility bill from REMU, the gas company. He has a wife and two children, both boys, ages six and three, also living with him. He completed VMBO technical high school, average grades, after which he worked as an auto mechanic at a Peugeot dealership in Hoograven. He lost his job there four years ago. It is not clear why. There seems to have been a problem, but we haven’t had time to find out more. For the past several years, as you know, he has been the night security guard at the Masjid al Islamia Ibrahim Mosque in Kanaleneiland. Two years ago he applied for a gun license as a hunter under the Wet Wapens en Munitie law, but it was denied. We are not sure why. He has never been arrested or had trouble with the police. He pays his bills, keeps to himself, although he has been heard to express strong anti-Israel comments and to deny the Holocaust, but that is hardly unusual among Muslims.” Zeedorf shrugged.
“Here is his contact information along with photographs of him, his wife, and children, as you asked,” he said, taking an envelope out of his jacket pocket and sliding it over to Scorpion.
“What about vices? Gambling? Drugs? Women? Boys?”
“Women. Once every few weeks or so he goes to De Rode Brug, you know, the houseboat women. Other than that, nothing. Except, he stops every day before going to work at a coffee shop on Beneluxlaan.”
“Hashish?”
“Coffee and a little hashish. Nothing more. He is a quiet one. He reads.”
“What does he read?”
“Islamic religious books mostly.”
“Do you know any of the titles?”
“Does it matter? If you like, I can find out. We only had a limited amount of time,” Zeedorf wheezed, a note of apology combined with frustration in his voice.
“Any friends at the coffee shop?” Scorpion asked.
“No one. I watched him sit alone for nearly an hour. He smokes; he reads his Islamic books; he has a coffee and leaves. That’s all.”
“Do you have the name and address of the shop?”
“It’s in the envelope.”
“What time is he usually there?”
“He’ll be there in two hours. We don’t know about Friday. His schedule may change for the Friday prayer. Is there anything else, meneer?”
“You’ve done well for such short notice,” Scorpion said, passing him the cash on the table. Zeedorf scooped up the money and pocketed it in his jacket with a surprisingly quick and graceful move for such a big man.
“Can I be of any further service, meneer?” he wheezed.
“Yes. Do the same thing for the imam at the mosque where he works. I want everything you can get by midday tomorrow. And keep even farther away from the target. Keep it very long distance. Talk to no one,” Scorpion added, getting up. He left the big Dutchman finishing his beer and ordering an almond pastry to go with it.
Later, he met Anika, the call girl from Amsterdam at the hotel bar. She was blond and very pretty in a short red dress that had the businessmen in the bar glancing sideways at her, no matter who they were with, to check her out. The bar was dark, intimate, located in a medieval arched vault on a lower level in a spaciously landscaped hotel popular with expense account types. When Scorpion nodded to her and she came over to his table, most of the businessmen realized she was a high-paid prostitute, and there were knowing leers and whispers as she sat down.
“Do I look like my picture?” she asked. Her English was accented but not bad.
“You’re very pretty. You attract a lot of attention,” he said, glancing at the businessmen at the bar who kept looking over at them.
She shrugged. “I’m used to it. I drove from Amsterdam. It’s eight hundred euros for six hours, a thousand for the night. Do you want to go to your room now or have a drink first?”
“Let’s talk,” he said, motioning the waitress over.
“I’ll have a jenever, zeer koud,” very cold, she told the waitress.
“The same,” he said.
“So what business do you do?” she asked as the waitress left.
“Is that what most men want to talk about? Their work?”
“Most men want to talk about themselves. Usually business. Sometimes they try to impress me—with their cars, their houses, elegante restaurants. If you get to know them, they’ll talk about their jobs, their wives and kids. They talk about their kids and then they want to fuck you
. Don’t get me started on men.”
“What about you? What do you like?”
“I like money. You pay me well, I will make you very happy.”
“Don’t,” he said.
“Don’t what?”
“The whore talk,” he said. “We don’t need it.”
She sat up, momentarily less sure of herself. She watched him carefully as though not sure what he might do next. The waitress brought the drinks and left.
“Santé!” she toasted and drank.
“Santé,” he said, taking a sip and leaning closer. “It isn’t me you need to make happy. I’ll need you for a few days, maybe a week. I’ll pay you fifteen hundred a day. Cash. If it’s a full week, ten thousand. Up front. I’ll pay you as soon as we leave here. But for someone else, not me.”
She looked at him suspiciously.
“What is this? Is this some kind of zwendel? I don’t do this.”
“This man,” he said, sliding the photograph of the night security guard, Ouaddane, toward her. “You need to make him fall in love with you. Can you do it?”
“He looks like an Arab,” she said, frowning as she picked up the photograph.
“He is. Can you do it?”
“Sometimes men fall in love with me. Given how we meet, it seems strange to me. Sometimes I think it has nothing to do with me. I’m not in the love business,” she said.
“Make him want you enough to come with you and I’ll pay you the ten thousand even if you don’t work a full week.”
“What is this for?” She took a pair of glasses out of her handbag to look at Ouaddane’s photograph, then put them back in her bag. “Is he rich? He doesn’t look rich.”
“He’s poor. It’s not about that.”
She looked sharply at Scorpion.
“You don’t kill him? I don’t want any part of anything like this.”
“If I wanted him dead, I wouldn’t need you. He works as a security guard in a place where I need information. That’s all. You take care of him; I get the information; I take care of you. Everyone is happy.”
“That’s all, just information? Nobody gets hurt?” she said, looking at him from behind her drink.
“Nobody gets hurt. Not this man, not you. Come, let’s walk,” he said, standing up. As they walked out together, his hand lightly touching her waist, he was conscious that the eyes of every man in the bar were on them. They walked outside the hotel to the landscaped garden lawns. Night was falling. Lights were lit along the path, giving the hotel with its Dutch farmhouse architecture the quiet feel of being out in the country instead of in the center of the city. It was getting cold, and she pulled a pashmina shawl out of her handbag. He put it around her shoulders and handed her a wad of euros as they walked around the grounds.
“There’s three thousand to start for two days, plus three hundred for expenses,” he said.
“What do you want me to do?”
“You’re booked for the night here in the hotel. Tomorrow, you move to an apartment by the Nieuwegracht Canal. I’ll show you in the morning. For how long depends on how well you get him to like you. And get some clothes. I want you to look like a student at the university. Pretty, nice short skirt or tight jeans, but not a hoer. Understood?”
She stopped walking. “You don’t like me, do you?” she said, her face in the shadow cast by an outdoor lamppost.
“I like you fine. Actually, you and I are in the same business. We both lie to men to get something out of them, and we both have our own set of rules. The only difference is what we sell. But I don’t want Abdelhakim—that’s his name, Abdelhakim Ouaddane—to want to fuck you. I want him to fall in love with you. You’re not just bait, you’re a reason.”
“I see,” she said, and resumed walking. “What am I studying at the university?”
“Islamic culture.”
She made a face. “I don’t know anything about it.”
“Learn. Buy a book. Every afternoon he goes to a coffee shop. Tomorrow, you make contact there and get him to come with you to the apartment. That’s all you have to do. Get him into bed. Then I’ll take over and you leave.”
“No violence? No trouble?”
“It’s business, that’s all. Once I meet with him, I’ll call you on your cell and let you know what we need to do and for how long.”
“What about you?” she said, stopping.
“What about me?”
“Do you want to go upstairs?” she said, coming close. “I don’t mind. It’s already paid.”
He felt the urge to grab her. Whore or not, she was sexy as hell and she had shown sparks of something even more interesting. He was tempted, but time was running out. He had to get back to Amsterdam and there was still a lot to do. Worse, he couldn’t afford to let anyone get close to him now. “Maybe later. I have things to do. Believe me, it’s better for both of us if I don’t right now,” he said, letting go of her and moving away into the shadows.
He drove back to Amsterdam and had dinner at a brown bar near the railway station. He felt a tinge when he thought of Anika, but it was too dangerous. They’d already set a trap for him once, and she was antsy enough as it was. Let somebody put the screws to her and she would sell him out in a heartbeat. He glanced around the bar, but no one was paying attention to him. The place was noisy with tourists and young backpackers, and he sat in a corner over an Oranjeboom beer and tried to put the pieces together, because it didn’t add up.
At an Internet café, he had transferred money from the Credit Suisse numbered account to a secured account in Luxembourg. He would handle the rest of the banking in the morning. He also sent a coded message for Rabinowich asking if he had come up with anything on who had been funding Dr. Abadi and the Al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya in Damascus. If there were twenty-one kilos of highly enriched U-235 missing, it must’ve cost somebody millions. Who had that kind of money? Also, he was no expert and wondered if twenty-one kilos was enough to make a nuclear bomb. If it wasn’t, then what was it for? What the hell was going on?
And then there was the RDX military explosive. A couple hundred kilos of RDX would be difficult to smuggle anywhere, particularly past Homeland Security in the United States. Plus there was the logistics problem. How the hell would you move all that from Russia and where was it going? And worst of all, they still hadn’t fed him any information on his target, the Palestinian. Who was he? Where did he come from? How did he operate so far under the radar that not a single intelligence agency had been able to come up with anything on him in all this time? It was as if the Palestinian had never been born, but suddenly materialized as a fully grown trained terrorist. He was beginning to get a sense of his enemy, and he didn’t like it. Whoever the Palestinian was, he was very good, and Scorpion knew that unless he could make Utrecht work, they were dead in the water.
After dinner he got up, went outside and caught a taxi, telling the driver to take him to a nightclub where he would find Serbians. Lots of Serbians.
“You want sex club?” the taxi driver asked.
“Do they have Serbian girls?”
“Sure. Serbian, Ukrainian, Asian, even Nederland girls,” the driver joked.
“I want Serbian—and don’t take me to the place that pays you the biggest commission.”
“You Serbian?”
“Just take me to a Serbian club,” Scorpion said. He didn’t give a damn about Serbians or their girls, but much of the organized crime in Amsterdam had been taken over by Nas Stvar, the Serbian mafia, and right now what he needed was a forger. The taxi dropped him off at a neon-lit club in Pijp near the old Heineken brewery. Inside, the club was dark, neon red light casting shadows, and he had to fend off a half-dozen women who wanted him to buy them champagne. A twenty euro note to the bartender got him a conversation with a sweaty Serbian in a black sweater with a two-day beard stubble who called himself Javor and kept looking around as if they were being watched.
“You want identity, I got all kinds. Credit cards, American Expr
ess, Visa Black, whatever you want,” Javor said.
“I want a blank Nederland passport and identity card. Official stamps. I’ll put in the name and information.”
“Better I do it. You do it, it won’t pass,” Javor said.
“Maybe I don’t trust you.”
“Nobody trust nobody. That’s the best way.”
“Good,” Scorpion said. “All right, we do it now, but I watch you while you do it. I hear the standard is two hundred. You do the job and forget you ever saw me and I’ll pay you double, but we do it right now.”
“Double? Why didn’t you say before? I thought you was a smeerlap flikker son of bitch,” Javor said, getting up.
Scorpion followed him out of the club. The night had turned cold and a wind had come up, the overhead tram wires at the corner swaying. They got into the Serb’s car and drove to a small print shop in Westerpark, near the Houthaven port. The Serb unlocked the door and Scorpion followed him into the back. Scorpion handed him the Xerox copy of Ouaddane’s identity card and told Javor to use that information for the new card and passport.
“I’ll need a beard,” Scorpion said.
“What kind?”
“A Vandyke, like this.” Scorpion indicated on his face. Javor nodded, rummaged around in a box and came up with a paste-on beard. He put it on Scorpion, who looked in the mirror, asked for a scissors, and holding up the picture of Ouaddane, trimmed the beard to match the photograph. Javor perched Scorpion on a stool and took his photograph, then used the computer to transfer the image to the new identity card and passport in Ouaddane’s name.
“Give me the chip,” Scorpion said, holding out his hand.
“What?”
“The camera memory chip. Give it to me.”
Javor opened the camera and handed Scorpion the chip, who put it in his pocket, then took off the beard. When the new Dutch identity card and passport were complete, Javor handed them to Scorpion, who studied them both carefully and put them in his pocket.
“It’s good, the identiteitsbewijs, yes? Fool this guy’s own mother,” Javor said.
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