by Leon, Judith
“I did a job several years ago in Pakistan that involved bioweapons.”
“Well, a translator fluent in a bunch of languages who knows about bioweapons is an exceedingly rare bird. That’s you. Or maybe they think they need an on-site translator with a good cover who won’t obviously smell like security. We’re foreigners. We, as a team, would fit. Maybe they want all of those things.”
“I cannot tell you how much I don’t want to do this.”
“Look, it’s not going to be like last time. No wet work involved. This is a break-in and translation job, and I do the break-ins. I’ll even tell you where. It’s in Italy. The Amalfi Coast. What could be more beautiful? It’ll be more like a vacation. How’s that? A great, paid vacation for a little translation work and the potential to save thousands.”
She remained silent. “You’d be lead agent,” he added with an encouraging smile. “In charge, just like in Germany.”
Nova sighed and shifted her weight. She put her hand over Joe’s. She could tell from his tone that he was honestly reluctant to drag her back into this, but reluctance wasn’t stopping him. He believed she was, in fact, essential.
Her stepfather’s sexual and verbal abuse had hardened her. Killing Candido to save her younger sister Star from that same abuse and the years she’d served in prison for the killing had toughened her still more. Being recruited for the CIA by a man she thought had loved her but who’d dumped her when she no longer served his purposes, had been the finishing touch. She was capable of taking out the bad guys, and if Joe was being honest—and she believed he was—then how could she turn down this job and live with herself afterward? All they asked from her was translations. Was she going to call Claiton Pryce at Langley and say, “I absolutely refuse to translate one word for you or the Italians no matter how many people might die if I don’t?”
“Okay,” she said. A heavy weight descended onto her shoulders. “One more time.”
Chapter 5
The young man’s feet felt like great stones, every step requiring a huge effort. His palms were clammy and even though he had rubbed on massive amounts of deodorant to prevent perspiration in his armpits lest he be detected too soon, he felt some wetness there.
Scarcely one block away, he saw his target, Madrid’s famous and busy Gaudi Galleria, a shopping and entertainment center that at this afternoon hour would be crowded with hundreds—no, thousands—of infidels. Although people were dashing across the boulevard, he crossed the street at the light. He must do nothing that might call attention.
Half a block from the entrance, his vision of the glassy Galleria structure ahead momentarily blurred. He stopped, his legs shaking, and sucked in a breath.
“Don’t stop,” Ahmad al Hassan had coached him repeatedly. “It will seem strange.”
To cover the moment, he glanced in the window of the shop beside him. Nothing he saw registered in his mind. He turned again to his target and walked at the same practiced pace. Not too fast.
But his heart raced with his eagerness to get there, to have it done. He prayed he would not lose courage at the last minute, that he would be the one to press the button. If for any reason he froze, two others were with him on this mission, and one of them would do it for him. There was no way out now, no way back, only forward to honor and paradise.
No one seemed to notice a clean-shaven, nicely dressed youth with dark, intense eyes and well-combed hair.
Fifteen paces inside, he put his shaking finger on the detonator button. “God is great,” he shouted in Arabic. He pressed, the circuit completed connection.
The roar, which he did not hear, was deafening.
In his small, tidy office on the second floor of a building in Amalfi that housed a bakery on the first floor, Ahmad al Hassan fought the urge to squirm in his desk chair. The aroma of fresh bread seeped into the room from below and his mouth watered despite his anxiety. His two assistants, Mohsin and Brahim, appeared to be busy laboring at their desks.
He stroked his beard, kept short so that he would not draw excessive attention to that fact that he was Muslim in this heathen land. So much was happening all at once. In his pocket he carried the e-tickets that would take Nissia and the children out of Italy, and he was anxious, now, to tell her she must leave. But he could not possibly leave work until he knew if today’s attack had succeeded. Ahmad had spent enormous emotional energy and substantial Al Qaeda financial resources to get the bomber in place.
To Mohsin he said, “If the boy is caught—”
He spoke in Arabic, which he allowed his assistants to speak only in the office. Outside it, they were never to speak anything but Italian, the better to blend in.
Success meant he could concentrate his efforts immediately on the still greater spectacle, one that would bring Italy and the continent to its knees. Failure in Madrid meant he would have to deal with criticism from Syria.
Again he checked the television screen. The station put out continuous news but Ahmad had ordered Mohsin to silence the sound. He simply had too much to do to have the monstrous machine blaring at him in Italian.
He checked the clock. If the boy had succeeded, the Galleria would be in chaos at this moment and the boy in the presence of Allah. The news should appear on the screen soon.
Mohsin sneezed. His head, a small round ball atop a long skinny neck, nodded over the fake documents he was preparing for Al Qaeda recruits due to arrive soon from Palestine, Egypt and Syria, on their way to Germany.
By habit, the dua associated with sneezing spilled from Ahmad’s lips, “May Allah have mercy on you.”
“May Allah be praised,” Mohsin responded.
Mohsin was a graybeard of fifty-five, much older than Ahmad’s thirty-six years. They had met in Palestine. Then ten years ago, Ahmad had become a sworn member of Al Qaeda and the two of them had been sent here to Amalfi. Now fronted by Ahmad’s profitable and legitimate fishing business, both of them were deep undercover. And although Mohsin felt the creeping affliction of Parkinson’s disease, the fire of jihad still burned hot in his soul. He would sacrifice his life, if he had to, to get all Westerners out of the Holy Lands.
“I am sure that all will go as we have planned,” Brahim said from across the room. His voice, high with anxiety, betrayed his confident words. Brahim, twenty-five years old, short and plump, was a financial whiz, skilled at laundering money through the fishing business.
Ahmad studied Brahim for a moment, fascinated as always by his remarkably fat yet agile fingers, then he snapped, “Concentrate on your work. The list of weapons needs to be sent to Greco by tomorrow at the latest.”
The weapons, to be secured from the weapons dealer Fabiano Greco, who lived in Positano, would be smuggled via Lebanon into Syria. The heart of Al Qaeda now resided in Syria under the leadership of the Saudi imam, Ramsi Muhammad.
Ahmad forced his eyes once again to his own work. Because of his language skills, one of his tasks was to translate all-important, sensitive messages from Kenya, Libya and France, brought by courier to this office, into Arabic. Another courier carried them on to Syria. The secret to remaining undetected by the electronics of the infidels was to avoid electronic devices for all really critical communications. At the moment, he labored over a report from the Al Qaeda cell in Kenya.
“That’s it,” Brahim shouted.
With his two assistants, Ahmad turned to the TV, his gaze transfixed by the scene of twisted metal, broken glass, scattered paper, here and there, something recognizable as a body.
“Allah be praised,” Ahmad said, almost a whisper, his head bowed.
Mohsin leapt to his feet and turned on the sound.
The news anchor spouted the basics: how many known dead so far, twenty-three but the death toll swiftly rising; that it was the work of a suicide bomber, but as yet no clues and no one claiming responsibility; that the wounded were being taken to nearby hospitals.
Ahmad turned to Brahim. “I am going to be busy with preparations for the fourtee
nth. You are in charge of getting the information out to the usual outlets that this is our accomplishment. Make sure Aljazeera receives it first, by at least an hour. They are fanatical about having priority. And the video, too.”
Brahim nodded.
Mohsin said, “I have the article for the Web site ready. Do you still wish it to be posted tomorrow, not today?”
“Yes.”
From the beautifully carved cedar PrayerKeeper on the wall came the call to prayer, interrupting Ahmad’s growing sense of joy, swelling sense of pride and relief that the boy had not been caught and they were all still safe. As the head of the Al Qaeda cell in Italy, keeping this Amalfi operation safe—their home base in Italy—was his most solemn duty.
Like the good Muslim that he was, he prayed five times daily at the appointed hours, and the PrayerKeeper let him know the correct moment. It could indicate the time for prayer at any place in the world. In addition to playing the call to worship, it indicated the direction of Qiblah. The time was 16:09, the time for mid-afternoon prayers.
The timekeeper had been a gift last year from his son, Saddoun. A good son. Smart. Devoted to Allah. Ahmad could never have hoped for a better seed. He had tried to have at least one other boy, but Allah, the one true God, had blessed him with three daughters instead. Allah’s will be done.
He made ablution, as did Brahim and Mohsin. Afterward, he unrolled his carpet as they did theirs. They all took the position of reverence. “Allahu Akbar” they intoned.
Praying on clean ground would be better, but even the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, had used a carpet. Although Islam was growing in fertile soil in Italy and the country now had more than four hundred mosques or cultural centers, there were none yet in Amalfi, so they prayed together at the office.
He prayed thrice, at the end said Aameen, and used both hands to rub his face. He stood and rolled up the carpet.
“I have to leave now,” he said. “I cannot return, so you should close up.”
Ahmad rushed out the door, down the outside stairway and to his ancient Audi. As he seated himself inside and turned the ignition, he said the appropriate dua.
He pulled into the Amalfi traffic, heading for home. Nissia was not going to want to leave, but before the fourteenth, his entire family must be out of Italy.
Chapter 6
Joe hung above her, climbing quickly, halfway up to the hovering Huey. Someone had hauled up her minimal gear. She’d taken only four minutes to change from walking shorts into a pair of light gray cotton slacks and matching short-sleeved top.
“It’s such a shame they can’t get someone else,” Charles Scott said, his hair and clothes rippling in the downdraft. “Robin is going to be horribly disappointed. She admires you enormously.”
James Padgett grabbed Nova’s hand. “Take care,” he bellowed. “I’ll try to remember what you said. ‘Don’t give up.’”
Joe disappeared into the Huey. James Padgett gave her a leg up onto the first rung. She grabbed the ladder with both hands and climbed swiftly.
Joe and a blond, blue-eyed, and quite young military woman pulled her into the Huey. With Joe beside her, Nova buckled herself into a jump seat, and the blonde went forward to join the pilot and copilot.
“Where are we headed?” Nova yelled.
“The USS Ronald Reagan. About thirty minutes off the coast.”
The blonde then reappeared carrying two cups. She handed one to Nova. “Coffee?” she yelled over the noise of the helicopter blades.
“Yes, thanks.” Nova loved Costa Rican coffee. Better still, a cappuccino made with Costa Rican coffee. She was pretty much hooked on cappuccinos.
The blonde extended the second cup to Joe. “How about you?” She gave him an unabashedly come-hither smile.
Nova snapped her gaze to Joe’s face. He captured the blonde’s gaze with those dark chocolate eyes of his, returned her smile and, when he took the cup, managed to let their fingers touch.
Or had the blonde arranged that?
This guy is absolutely incorrigible.
He’s a jock. Women are crazy about him—beautiful women younger than me. He’s younger than me. And if I let him get under my skin again, I’ll richly deserve the disappointment I’ll eventually have. I’ve got to stow it.
The blonde went forward. Nova gave Joe a cocky smile. “Still got that winning way with women, I see.”
He just grinned and shrugged.
Twenty minutes later, they touched down onto the carrier’s deck. They had barely dashed out from under the still rotating blades when a young, sun-blistered lieutenant colonel met them. “We have an EA-6B Prowler waiting for you,” he said. The lieutenant colonel’s aide carried a couple of bags Nova assumed must belong to Joe.
The blonde deposited Nova’s two bags at Nova’s feet. She gave Joe a parting smile and strode off, back straight, hips in a swagger. Nova felt a flash of admiration for the confidence in her stride.
Looking at Joe’s gear and the large duffel bag and aluminum camera case at her feet, the lieutenant colonel added, “I don’t think the Prowler will handle that much.”
“Sure it will,” Joe countered.
“I’ll leave the clothes if I have to,” Nova said. “I won’t leave the camera equipment.”
“While we take a quick anticipatory trip to the head,” Joe said to their contact, “you check with the pilot and find a way to bring all her gear.”
“Yes, sir,” came the man’s crisp answer. “You’ll find the heads one deck down that ladder,” he gestured with his thumb, “and to your right.”
Joe took Nova’s arm. Her body remembered at once the feel of his hand on her arm—firm, warm and a bit possessive. And she didn’t mind any of that. Not at all.
He steered her toward the ladder. “Here’s the deal,” he said. At last she was going to get a better feel for what was afoot. “We need to be in Rome as soon as possible. We’re going to be picked up by SISMI, the Italian version of the Company.”
“SISMI. Right. Servizio per le Informazioni e la Securezza Militaire. And Rome. I haven’t been to Rome for about eight years.”
“It will be easier for them to pick us up from Rome’s Leonardo Da Vinci International Airport than from the American military base, so we’re going to make the last leg of the trip on Alitalia, out of Atlanta. And we have to be there by 17:30 this afternoon, Atlanta time, to make the connection. It’s sure a better deal for us. We’ll be a lot more comfortable in Alitalia’s business class than on a military transport.”
“If I’m not mistaken, my niece, Maggie, is in Italy right now. Or should be soon. You remember I told you my sister Star has three kids. Maggie, the girl, is their ten-year-old.”
They reached the lower deck and turned right. She spotted the sign for the women’s head.
She met him back on deck where he was waiting with the lieutenant colonel. In short order, she slipped into flight gear and a helmet; as she climbed into the Prowler, she felt her pulse picking up. Joe had been a naval aviator before an accident had ruined his vision and he’d traded flying for spying. This would all be old hat for him, but she’d never flown in a jet with this much power before.
The takeoff from the carrier’s deck was a thrill ride times a thousand, the jet’s thrust slamming her hard into the seat. “That was way too quick. I want to do it again,” she said into the intercom.
“You’d have made a great pilot,” Joe’s voice came back.
“Glad you enjoyed it, Ms. Blair,” she heard from the pilot. “Always my pleasure to give a hot woman a thrill.”
Yes, she thought with a grin. Flyboys do love their thrills—of all kinds.
The flight to Pensacola left her too much time to wonder about what job could be so complicated as to require uncommon linguistic skills.
Time to think, also, of how much she did not want to deal anymore with the brutality and destruction some people seemed compelled to commit. She was quite certain why they’d sent Joe to rope her in
. They knew she would trust him. And she did. If Joe believed it was important for her to do this, then they figured she’d go along.
At the Pensacola air station, she and Joe ran to a waiting private executive jet, were whisked inside and were quickly once again airborne. Free of the uncomfortable flight suit, she stretched her legs and arms and sighed. Except for the pilot and a copilot, they were alone at last, Joe sitting facing her in one of the comfortable leather seats. “So what can you tell me?”
Joe removed one shoe and then the other. “It’s bad, Nova. Potentially a disaster.”
He started massaging the ball of one foot. With a grin, he said, “Sorry, but the sneakers are new. My feet ache like hell.”
She pinched her nose in fake revulsion. “As I recall, you’re the guy with a great perfume connoisseur’s nose. How can you think of subjecting me to male foot smell?”
“Gonna pass out?”
She let go of her nose. “No. I’ll just cut down on breathing. So, what kind of disaster?”
He talked with his eyes closed. “On the plane coming down here, after I got the call instructing me to fetch you, I received some further information. Not much, but here’s what I know.” He opened his eyes, propped one leg across his knee. “SISMI has obtained reliable information that someone in the Amalfi area has their hands on the formula for a new strain of the Ebola virus.”
Icy fingers brushed a chill across her throat.
“It’s a modified form of something called the Reston strain, which apparently means you don’t need physical contact to get it. It can be spread in the air.”
From her op in Pakistan, Nova was all too familiar with the early symptoms of the Ebola Zaire strain: fever, headache, muscle ache, rash, diarrhea, vomiting and stomach pain. The Zaire strain was the first one recorded, named after the African country of Zaire, where the first outbreak was recorded. To date, it was the most lethal strain, with a fatality rate of eighty to ninety percent. During her pre-op briefing for Pakistan, she’d been shown a photo that had been taken during an outbreak in Gabon. A woman held her child, both of them in the final stages of the disease. A bloody rash covered their bodies and they were bleeding from the eyes, ears and nose. They would likely die from shock before they bled out.
