“Thank you, I appreciate your candor.”
“I truly wish I could offer you more than candor.”
“Believe me, Chief Inspector, your candor is quite enough.” He looked at his watch. “And now,” he said, “I must take my leave. We’ll be speaking again before long.”
“Will we?”
“Yes, Chief Inspector. We will. I assure you, we will.”
With that, Amzi Ben-Meir turned on his heel and walked away between the graves.
Chapter Forty-Two
JAMIL AL-FULAN DIPPED A forefinger into his glass, removed a single drop of wine and shook it onto the tablecloth. The stain joined others on his side of the table.
“Why do you keep doing that?” Matias Chaparro inquired politely.
“The fact that you have bought me dinner,” Al-Fulan said, “does not give you the right to interrogate me about my customs.”
The smile on Chaparro’s face didn’t falter. Maintaining it, however, took some effort. “Quite right,” he said. “It does not. Shall we get down to business?”
“By all means. What did you want to see me about?”
“The disposition of that plastic explosive your man Kassim bought. May I assume the purchase was made on your behalf?”
“You can assume anything you like. As to the disposition, it’s none of your business.”
“On the contrary, Jamil. The use to which that explosive was put is likely to bring down the wrath of four governments on our heads. It is, therefore, very much my business.”
“Four governments?”
“The Argentinean, the Brazilian, the American and the Israeli.”
“The Israeli?”
“Their ambassador to Argentina, his wife and two children were killed in the blast in Buenos Aires. Their representative in Asunción has been making inquiries about you.”
“About me?”
“Yes, about you. Specifically.”
“This is the doing of that Jewish bitch.”
“What Jewish bitch?”
“The Brazilian federal agent killed in that shootout last week at the Hotel das Cataratas. The day before she died, she and her boss came to see me. A fact, I might add, which you well know, because you were the one who pressured me to accept an appointment with them.”
“Yes, Jamil, I know that. But what I don’t know is what you discussed. Why don’t you tell me about it?”
Al-Fulan waved a dismissive hand. “It would be a waste of your time and mine. The conversation from their side consisted entirely of unfounded accusations.”
“And from yours?”
“Truthful denials.”
“So there was no truth, whatsoever, to any of their accusations?”
“There was not.”
“Then you should have no objection to telling me the disposition of the explosive. So I ask you again, what did you do with it?”
“I? I did nothing with it. It wasn’t sold to me. It was sold it to Kassim, remember?”
“Yes, Jamil. I remember. What do you suppose Kassim did with it?”
“I suppose he sold to the Comando Vermelho.”
“I submit to you that it was not sold to the Comando Vermelho, or to any other drug gang.”
“No? What happened to it then?”
“It was used to commit the bombings in Buenos Aires and São Paulo.”
“There’s no way to prove that.”
“In fact,” Chaparro said. “There is.” He took another sip of wine. “Do you know what taggants are?”
“What?”
“Taggants.”
“No.”
“Taggants are tiny pieces of plastic embedded into some explosives. They’re as unique as fingerprints, and they’re not destroyed by detonation.”
“Wait. So you’re saying—”
“I’m saying, Jamil, that the explosives used to bomb the American consulate in São Paulo, and the Jewish synagogue in Buenos Aires, have been traced back to those three drums of C4 sold to your associate, Kassim.”
“Traced by whom?”
“The Brazilian Federal Police.”
“They’re lying.”
Chaparro went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “I don’t think you realize,” he said, “how injudicious you’ve been. Selling our C4 to a drug gang is one thing. Using it the way you did is quite another. It’s unacceptable.”
Al-Fulan held his glass in front of one of the candles as if to admire the color of the wine. Then he locked eyes with Chaparro.
“You have my answers,” he said. “Do you have further questions?”
“No.”
“Then our business of the night is concluded.”
“Except for one small detail.” Chaparro rubbed thumb against forefinger. “Need I remind you that it is, once again, that time of the month?”
Without breaking eye contact, Al-Fulan reached into the breast pocket of his Zegna jacket and withdrew a white envelope. But, instead of handing it to his dinner companion, he contemptuously tossed it onto the table.
Chaparro, however, took no offense. “Thank you,” he said—and pocketed it.
Al-Fulan put his glass aside, as if the contents had become distasteful to him. He looked at his watch. “My car will be waiting,” he said, and rose to his feet.
His two bodyguards, seated at a neighboring table, rose with him. A young couple, hugging each other and laughing, were being bowed out by the headwaiter. The sole remaining customer was Chaparro.
But he didn’t intend to be hurried. “My car,” he said, “will come when I call it.”
The wine he’d ordered to accompany their meal was a magnum of fifteen-year-old Cheval Blanc, and Chaparro was in no way pleased that Al-Fulan had chosen to waste an entire glassful of it.
Jamil buttoned his jacket and nodded to his men. One preceded him out the door, the other followed.
Chaparro was reaching for the bottle when the shooting started. He added the last of the wine to his glass, and savored it, before going outside to view the carnage.
Chapter Forty-Three
“… AND then he heard shots. By the time he got out there, he said, there was no sign of either the assailants or Jamil. But, knowing Matias, I doubt he hurried. He’s not the kind to involve himself in a gunfight if he can possibly help it.”
Luis Chagas was recuperating in his hometown of Porto Alegre. After a jubilant Abasi Ragab had rung with the news, he’d called Matias Chaparro for a first hand report. Now, he was passing on what he’d learned to Silva in Brasilia.
“Witnesses?” Silva asked.
“Three. A doorman and two valets. It was past ten, and it’s a quiet neighborhood. There was no one else on the street.”
“How did it go down?”
“A young couple came out of the restaurant and asked for their car. A moment later, Al-Fulan stepped out of the same door. He was preceded by one bodyguard, trailed by another. The woman waited until the second bodyguard passed her, took out a pistol and put a bullet into the poor bastard’s head. Her companion did the same to the other bodyguard. While that was happening, a gang of guys in black, wearing balaclavas, materialized out of the night.”
“How big was this gang?”
“No agreement there. More than six, less than a dozen. Two grabbed Al-Fulan and wrestled him to the ground. One cuffed him. One went directly to the car window and shot the driver. It was Kassim Hamawi, by the way, the guy who killed Nestor. They singled him out for special treatment, shot him over and over in the head.”
“Six times?”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact, six times. What do you know that I don’t?”
“Israeli execution teams generally leave a signature when they kill enemies of the state.”
“And it’s six bullets in the head?”
“It is. Remember that Amzi fellow, the one Danusa mentioned just before she died?”
“Yes?”
“He’s Mossad. I spoke to him at Danusa’s funeral. He said we’d be hearing
from him again. I think we just have.”
“You think Chaparro collaborated with them? Set Al Fulan up?”
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised. How’s your wound?”
“Mending nicely. Ready for some more big news?”
“Go ahead.”
“I got a call from Stella Saldana.”
“And?”
“And she offered me a job, one I can’t refuse: State Secretary for Security.”
“Congratulations, Senhor Secretary. Does the Director already know you’re leaving our nest?”
“Not yet, and I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to telling him.”
JUST AFTER midnight, the telephone in the living quarters on the second floor of the Escola Al-Imam began to ring. He was not accustomed to receiving calls at that hour, and the mullah picked it up with a sense of dread.
“Yes?”
“Asim, is that you?”
There was no mistaking his patron’s voice.
“Yes, Jamil, yes! You’re all right?”
“I was kidnapped by the Israelis.”
“Yes, yes, I know.”
“But I escaped.”
“Praise God.”
“He is truly great.”
“You didn’t … tell them anything about me?”
“Of course not. What do you take me for?”
“I’m sorry, Jamil. I should not have asked. I know that you, of all men, can be trusted. How did you manage to get away?”
“There’s no time for that now. We have to meet.”
“Of course, of course. Where? When?”
“At the mosque. Immediately. Bring your passport and all the money.”
“All of it?”
“All of it.”
“Are we leaving, Jamil?”
“We must. Hurry!” Al-Fulan hung up.
And Asim Massri wasted no time in doing what he’d been told.
Twenty minutes later, and ten meters shy of his destination, three females rounded the corner in front of him. Their clothing was too tight, their voices too self-assured, their laughter too loud. Not whores, no, but they might as well have been. They were looking at him as if he was a piece of meat, a male creature created for their pleasure. And one was drunk. She was carrying a large paper cup and slurring her speech. They were coming toward him, occupying the full width of the sidewalk as if they owned it.
Asim’s lip curled in disdain. They were, like most Brazilian females, beneath contempt. Flaunting their sexuality. By no means subservient. He would not step into the gutter to avoid them. They would have to avoid him.
He put his head down and quickened his pace, charging at them like a bull. One stepped off the curb. He elbowed his way through the narrow gap between the other two.
That’s when they grabbed him.
Hard hands gripped his forearms and twisted them behind his back. A steel-tipped shoe connected with his knee, causing his leg to collapse. While he hung there, supported between two of them, the third, the one he’d thought was drunk, put the cup she’d been holding over his nose and mouth.
“Don’t fight us, Mullah. Just take a deep breath, and go to sleep.”
She said it without a slur—and in perfect Arabic.
THE MULLAH awoke naked and tied to a chair. His mouth had been taped shut. They’d stuck some kind of a gag behind his teeth. The space around him was damp and smelled of mold.
A cellar?
What illumination there was came from a dim bulb mounted within a conical shade. It dangled slightly in front of him and a mere ten centimeters above his head. He couldn’t see walls, or furniture, or any other details. The extremities of the space were in darkness.
He heard rustling and low voices.
What is this? Where am I? How many of them are out there?
A man stepped into the pool of light, a tall man with piercing blue eyes.
He ripped off the tape. It hurt. He plucked out the gag. It was a blessed relief. Asim’s mouth was as dry as the desert, his throat parched.
They’d anticipated that. A hand reached out of the darkness. It was holding a tumbler of water.
“Drink,” the tall man said, “and you’ll be able to talk.”
He took the glass and held it to Asim’s mouth. The mullah swallowed greedily, spilling a good deal onto his chest and belly in the process.
“Who are you?” he managed to croak when the glass was empty. He said it in Portuguese. The answer came back in flawless Arabic.
“My name is Amzi Ben-Meir.”
A Jew! he thought.
“What do you want with me?” he said.
“I think you know.”
“I do not. And you have no right, no right to do this to me. You’re in Brazil.”
“Don’t you talk to me about rights, you butcher. If you lived in Israel, you’d have rights. You’d have the right to a trial and an execution. Here, we intend to give you as many rights as you gave your victims.”
“I have no victims. I’m a teacher and a scholar of the Holy Qur’an.”
“And four things more: a terrorist, a bomb maker, a corrupter of young minds, and a man who preaches and practices violent jihad.”
“You lie! I’m a man of peace.”
“You’re the one who’s lying, Asim. We know you brainwashed Salem Nabulsi into going to São Paulo and blowing himself up. We know you personally placed a bomb in that synagogue in Buenos Aires. We know you were the mastermind behind both bombs, and that you intended to build another one. We even know where you intended to use it.”
The man was bluffing. They couldn’t possibly know! “No,” Asim said.
“Yes,” Ben-Meir said. “You were going to use it to blow up the Cristo Redentor.”
The Cristo Redentor, a great statue of Jesus Christ with his arms outstretched, stands high on a peak overlooking the City of Rio de Janeiro. It is probably the best-known of all of Brazil’s man-made icons.
And what Ben-Meir was saying was true. They had planned to blow it up.
But aside from Asim, there was only one man in the world who knew that.
They must have tortured Jamil, he thought.
“Thank God he escaped you,” he said.
“Jamil? He didn’t.”
Asim’s mouth opened in surprise. He couldn’t believe his ears. “You mean the call I received, the one from Jamil was …”
“A trap? Yes, Asim, he set you up, sold you out. But, before he did, he told us everything he knew.”
“Damn him!”
“On that point we agree. And I’m sure you’d like to tell him that to his face. We’ll give you that chance. But, first, we have some questions.”
“If it’s true what you’re saying, there’s no need for questions. The traitor Jamil has already told you everything.”
“Everything he could. But there are things he doesn’t know.”
“It’s not true. What I know, he also knows.”
“He doesn’t know where you received your education in bomb making. He doesn’t know who taught you. He doesn’t know who your fellow students were. He doesn’t know the names of all the other terrorists you’re acquainted with.”
“I know no terrorists, I only know freedom fighters. As to the other matters, I will tell you nothing.”
“You will. You will tell us everything.”
“Never!”
Ben-Meir scratched his chin, shook his head and looked at someone beyond the range of the light. “Begin,” he said.
Chapter Forty-Four
WHEN ASIM FAILED TO appear for classes, the father of one of his younger students, a man who shared the mullah’s radical views, went to look for him.
The door of the Escola Al-Imam was locked, but when he knocked it was answered by Ghalib, one of the mullah’s servants. He was a recent immigrant from Palestine, a man of an indefinable age with teeth as crooked as the gravestones in an ancient cemetery.
No, he said, he had no idea where the mullah was. Yes
, he agreed, his absence was most noteworthy. No, he had no idea when Asim might be back. Yes, he would contact the head of the parents’ association straightaway if he received a message from the mullah.
On the following day, when the cleric still hadn’t appeared, Ghalib went to the police and reported him missing.
It was noted, on both sides of the river, that Asim’s patron, Jamil Al-Fulan, had also disappeared. This provoked some consternation in the Muslim community, but also a great deal of clandestine satisfaction.
As for the Israelis, they were not surprised when Asim turned out to be more resilient than Jamil had been. Fanatics, they had long ago learned, were reluctant to part with their secrets.
But Lev, Ben-Meir’s interrogation expert, had cracked harder nuts. And when Asim started talking, he held nothing back.
He told them about the training camp he’d attended in the mountains of northwest Pakistan, a graduate school for bomb makers. His recall of the surroundings was absolute. Ben-Meir was confident his description would enable the Americans to pinpoint the location—and take appropriate action.
He furnished them with the names of other students. One was in Madrid, another in London. Emails went out, immediately, to the security services in Spain and the UK.
He told them, in detail, of his participation in the bombings. How he’d rigged the timer for the bomb in Buenos Aires. How he’d placed it. How he and Salem had rehearsed the assembly of the one destined for São Paulo, using pencils instead of detonators and modeling clay instead of plastic explosive. How he’d demonstrated the technique of cutting a throat. How they’d practiced on a pig.
The baby, he revealed, had suffered an injection to ensure that it wouldn’t cry. The drug was propofol, provided by a veterinarian, a co-religionist in Ciudad del Este.
The remainder of the C4 was in a cache under the floor of his office.
Zivah, Amzi’s bomb specialist, was sent to recover it. Some members of the team were in favor of using it to blow up the madrasa, but Amzi forbade it.
“The building isn’t the problem,” he’d said. “The mullah is the problem. Let’s give them a chance to replace him with someone better.”
AUTOMOBILES HEADING west across the Friendship Bridge are never searched. No one has any interest in smuggling anything into Paraguay.
Perfect Hatred Page 23
