Fear City

His driver, Brajko Klarić, said, “They are—what is word? Unagreeable?”

  “Disagreeable.” Nasser had moved to the rear seat. “And they are indeed that.” He lowered the window to freshen the air. “What a stench.”

  “They are building bombs?”

  The question startled Nasser. Had he been listening? “You speak Egyptian?”

  The driver laughed. “No. I know smell.”

  “You’ve made bombs?”

  “In my spare time back home I blow up Serbs.”

  “I see.”

  Drexler had a cadre of East European and Baltic operatives he used, preferring them to Americans and Western Europeans. This Croat was proving more interesting than his predecessor, Kristof Szeto, who had been Drexler’s favored driver and operative for years.

  “By the way, what happened to Szeto?”

  “He goes home to get mother.”

  “Is she ill?”

  “No. Order brings her to city to work.”

  “To New York?”

  Women weren’t allowed in the Order. Why—?

  “She is to be housekeeper for special person on Fifth Avenue.”

  “Ah.”

  Now he understood. The Order owned a penthouse on Fifth Avenue overlooking Central Park. The One was going to be staying there. His staff would be connected to the Order, of course.

  He noticed a Nikon with a telephoto lens sitting on the front seat.

  “What have you been photographing?”

  “Remember man who follow us from mosque last week?”

  “Vaguely.”

  Nasser remembered Klarić saying they were being followed, but he’d managed to lose the tail before they’d left Jersey City.

  “He is there this morning in same car. I think he is watching mosque.”

  Nasser didn’t like that. The bomb-building jihadists weren’t the brightest he’d dealt with. Had they given themselves away?

  “Could be FBI.”

  “Is what I am thinking. I take pictures while you are outside talking to the disagreeable ones.”

  “Good thinking. We’ll pass them around when they’re developed.”

  “He have visitor today.”

  “In his car?”

  “Yes. I take picture of him when he get out just before we leave.”

  Nasser turned in the seat and peered through the rear window. “Is he following us?”

  “I do not know for sure. I did not see him drive up. He will be in unknown car. Is hard to tell, but I will watch.”

  Nasser settled back. “You do that.”

  He noticed an unusual fob hanging from the keys in the ignition—rectangular parchment with a strange symbol:

  “What does that mean?” Nasser said, pointing.

  Klarić shrugged. “I do not know. Is tattoo. I take it from whore.”

  Nasser’s stomach lurched. “Whore? Not Danaë—”

  “We learn is not real name. Is—”

  “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

  “I take from back of neck. We do not want her known, so I take and cure with salt.” He flicked it with his finger. “Is nice, no?”

  Nasser could not answer. He leaned back and fought his rising gorge.

  Last Wednesday, after Danaë had walked through their meeting at Trejador’s suite, he’d followed her to an apartment house in the East Seventies. He’d reported the address to Drexler, who then told him that Trejador had decided that it was too risky to let her go. Drexler gave him two names suggested by Trejador. Nasser was to instruct them to take the girl and find out what she’d heard about Rabin and D’Amato; if she knew something, find out who, if anyone, she’d told and go after them as well.

  The two names were Reggie—American white trash Nasser had dealt with before—and Brajko Klarić, the fellow sitting behind the wheel. Nasser would have much preferred to hire Danaë and gently inquire as to what she knew during the course of an intense sexual encounter. But orders were orders, especially when they came from Trejador.

  Reggie and Klarić eventually reported back that she knew nothing and that her body would never be found. Or if by some chance found, never identified.

  “And even if she is found and identified,” Klarić said, “who care? She is only whore. She is nobody.”

  She was someone to me, Nasser thought.

  Someone he’d wanted to bed.

  “I tell you what we did. Is very interesting man, that Reggie. First he—”

  “Stop. I don’t have time for this now. I have other things to think about.”

  He didn’t want any details, especially the taking of such a grisly trophy. What sort of person even thinks of that, let alone does it? Really, the things he had to do and the people he had to deal with in the course of trying to change the world …

  He’d managed to block the whole episode from his consciousness, but that grisly key fob brought it all back.

  He didn’t say another word until the Croat pulled to a stop on Second Avenue outside his building.

  “Get that film to a one-hour developer and have the photos dropped off at my apartment. I want to waste no time identifying these two men.”

  As he strode toward his building’s entrance, the giant headline of the New York Post, on prominent display at the corner newsstand, caught his eye.

  DD

  ID’d!

  DD? That had to mean the so-called Ditmars Dahlia that had so dominated the news recently. He hadn’t been interested but the story proved inescapable. Now that she’d been identified, perhaps they’d move on to something else.

  A yearbook photo of a pretty brunette occupied the lower right corner. Nasser walked over for a closer look and almost tumbled over when he recognized Danaë. Only this said her name was Cristin Ott.

  Reggie and Klarić had said her body would never be found! And if found, never identified. Yet here she was for all to see.

  Cristin Ott … a beautiful young woman tortured and mutilated … all upon his order. And for what? For something she’d never overheard in the first place.

  His gorge rose again and this time he could not hold it down.

  4

  Jack had pulled to the curb by a fire hydrant when the Mercedes stopped near the corner of Second and East 51st.

  Following had been easy. Assuming they’d be heading for Manhattan he’d hung far back. When a light went wrong for him, he waited it out and then hustled toward the Holland Tunnel. Eventually he caught up to them and trailed them into the city and here to Turtle Bay.

  Mystery Arab exited the car across the street and Jack expected him to enter the apartment building there. But first he wandered over to the newsstand and stared at the papers. Then, instead of buying anything, he lurched to the curb and vomited.

  Some bad hummus for breakfast, maybe?

  Here was a chance to play Good Samaritan and find out who he was. He left the truck illegally parked and tried to cross the street, but a surge of traffic held him up. The guy had recovered and was moving toward the front door of the building by the time Jack trotted across.

  Okay. Next best thing: follow him inside.

  But again he was too late. Jack was hurrying toward the entrance as Mystery Arab tapped in the entry code, but the man slipped inside and let the door close behind him before Jack could scoot through.

  He resisted kicking the glass door and peered through it instead. Across the vestibule, the elevator sat open and waiting. He ducked back as Mystery Arab stepped inside. No sense in being seen if it wasn’t necessary. He counted to five, then returned to the door. He watched the red LED display above the call button count up from L to 9. After 9, it began counting down again.

  Probably not a risky guess to assume that Mystery Arab lived on the ninth floor. Jack checked the call buttons to the right of the door. Only one Arab name on nine: N. al-Thani.

  Had to be him. Mystery Arab now had a name. Jack was pretty sure it hadn’t been on the list Rebecca had given him, but he’d had time for onl
y a quick scan.

  He spotted a pay phone near the corner newsstand. He dropped a quarter and called the number Burkes had given him.

  Watch it be a wrong number, he thought. But a familiar voice answered.

  “Burkes.”

  “It’s Jack from last night. Got that list handy?”

  A heartbeat’s hesitation, then, “Right here.”

  “Is the name al-Thani on it?” He spelled it.

  “That’s Arab, and there’s no Arabs on the list.”

  “Just checking. When do I get it back?”

  “I’ve already run off a Xerox. Where are you?”

  “Turtle Bay.”

  “Brilliant. Right in the neighborhood. Got a car?”

  “Got a pickup.”

  “Swing by One Dag Hammarskjold Plaza—Second Avenue between Forty-sixth and Forty-seventh—and I’ll have Rob out front with the copy.”

  “Got it. Be right there.”

  As he headed back to the truck, he wondered how Bertel was doing on his end. Too bad he didn’t have a cellular phone so they could check in whenever they needed. Maybe he should think about joining the 1990s.

  5

  When Kadir returned from calling Salameh on the phone inside the mosque, he found Mahmoud and Yousef in a heated discussion. They stood in front of the Chinese takeout storefront—closed at this hour—gesticulating wildly as they argued in Arabic.

  “I still think I should call my uncle,” Yousef was saying. “He went to much trouble and expense to bring me here. Ajaj is still paying the price.”

  This was true. Last September, Yousef’s uncle, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, had sent Ahmad Ajaj through JFK immigration at the same time as Yousef with a deliberately sloppy passport forgery. The resultant commotion allowed Yousef’s passport—also forged, but a much better job—to pass muster. Ajaj was still in jail.

  “Call your uncle,” Mahmoud said, “but no matter what he says, the plan is changed.” He jabbed a finger into Yousef’s bony chest. “And if you don’t help us, you will be a traitor to jihad. And if I tell Sheikh Omar, you will soon hear of a fatwah telling everyone of your treachery.”

  Yousef stiffened. Everyone knew that people named in Sheikh Omar’s fatwahs did not have long for this world. President Anwar Sadat was a prime example. And Kadir knew Yousef was well aware that Omar had been plotting a double assassination against his fellow Egyptians, Mubarak and Boutros-Ghali. The UN bombing fit beautifully into the imam’s plans. One could almost see the hand of Allah Himself in this.

  “Why tell your uncle anything?” Kadir said. “The fewer who know of our plans, the better.”

  “I agree,” Mahmoud said.

  Yousef was silent for a moment. “I will have to think on this.”

  “Don’t think too long,” Kadir said. “We take the Qatari’s money tomorrow. And if we don’t have our”—a quick glance around—“preparations completed, we will have to let the opportunity of a lifetime slip past.”

  A toot drew their attention: Salameh’s car was pulling to the curb.

  “Where to from here?” Salameh said as they climbed in.

  “The storage space,” Mahmoud said. “We might as well bring more supplies back to the garage while we are out.”

  “We’ll have only the trunk,” Kadir said.

  He wasn’t about to drive with a container of nitric acid on his lap.

  “We’ll fill it with whatever we can and make another trip later. We’ve got to speed this up if we’re to have two bombs by Friday.”

  “Two?” Salameh said.

  “We’ll explain along the way,” Kadir told him.

  Salameh hit the gas and they roared onto Kennedy Boulevard.

  6

  As Dane watched the jihadists standing on the sidewalk, he wondered if Jack was having better luck following the mystery Arab than he’d had last week. It looked like these three were arguing. About what? Then an old Chevy Nova pulled up and they all piled in. Dane started his Plymouth and had it moving by the time they took off.

  He hadn’t identified the guy behind the wheel yet, but he would. Only a matter of time. Whoever he was he drove like a drunk, weaving back and forth and drifting over his lane lines.

  The Nova led him on a meandering path down Kennedy to Communipaw Avenue, then onto Mallory where they turned into the driveway of a storage locker place called the Space Station. The driver hopped out and punched in a code. As the gate slid back, they drove in and pulled around to the back. Even if Dane had the code, following them in would be pushing his luck way past its tensile strength. So he cruised past, turned around, and found a spot with a good view of the place.

  From what he’d seen, the facility consisted of a huge, two-story U-shaped building lined with roll-up doors; the base of the U looped around the back end of its lot. A single long, straight building—also two stories—ran up the valley of the U, leaving wide driveways on each side.

  Twenty minutes later they pulled out and headed back the way they had come. Dane followed, wondering what the hell they’d done in there—drop-off or pickup? He didn’t know if it was his imagination, but the back of the Nova seemed to be riding a bit lower.

  He tried to stay as close as he could without being obvious, allowing only one car between his and theirs as they made their way back to Kennedy. But then the light ahead turned amber. The Nova sped up while the car ahead of him stopped. Again! Dane wanted to get out and throttle the driver. Instead he sat and watched the Nova sail away. This was getting to be a habit.

  A tracker … he needed to attach a tracking transceiver to that damn car. Trouble was, he didn’t know where they parked it. And if he knew where they parked it, he probably wouldn’t need a tracker.

  Besides, the only tracker he had was taped to a brick of C4.

  7

  “For some strange reason,” Drexler said, staring at the photo, “I feel I’ve seen this one before.”

  After Klarić dropped off the photos, Nasser had called Drexler to set up a meeting where he and Trejador could have a look at them. Normally he would have called Trejador directly but he didn’t want to speak to the man who had ordered Danaë’s death. Not yet. He was afraid he might betray his warring emotions.

  More than anything in his life, Nasser wanted the High Council to appoint him an actuator. As an actuator, he often would be called on to put all his personal feelings and priorities aside and act in the best interests of the Order. Nasser understood that. He was ready to assume that responsibility.

  But he didn’t know if he could have ordered the torture and murder of Danaë. Yes, she was a prostitute, a call girl, a whore. She sold her body to pleasure men. A nobody, as Klarić had called her. But she was a beautiful nobody who’d shared Trejador’s bed. Many times. To dispose of her like so much trash … Nasser didn’t know if he had that in him.

  But no one could know that. If Trejador or Drexler suspected that he might put his emotions before the Order, they would not recommend him for actuator. If the subject of Danaë arose, Nasser might have trouble hiding his emotions. Not from Drexler. No worry about a man who didn’t seem to have any emotions except anger, and even that was icy on the rare occasions he let it show. He was too self-absorbed to notice anything as subtle as conflicted emotions. But Trejador … Roman Trejador was another story. He would see through whatever façade Nasser erected.

  And so he was relieved when Drexler had called back to say that Trejador had other business that required his personal supervision for the next few days and could not attend. So the two of them would meet at Drexler’s place.

  “Who?” Nasser said.

  Drexler turned the photo around. “The young one.”

  Nasser had studied the photos on the way over. The older bearded man in the driver’s seat had been photographed through the windshield, and so his face was somewhat indistinct. But Klarić had caught the younger one as he’d exited the car and his features were sharp and clear.

  “Your driver thinks they might b
e FBI.”

  Drexler’s smile was tolerant. “Yes. So Klarić told me. He showed initiative in bringing his camera. Do you see why I choose the operatives I do? An American never would have thought of that.”

  “Yes. He’s quite innovative.”

  Nasser wondered if an American operative would have thought to slice off Danaë’s tattoo, cure the skin like animal hide, and use it as a key fob.

  “Not innovative enough, I fear. Did you see the papers?”

  Nasser fought to keep the wave of revulsion from showing on his face. He chose his words carefully.

  “You mean about the … whore?”

  “Yes. Didn’t they assure us that she’d never be identified?”

  “They did.”

  “It’s that Reggie, I’ll bet. Burning her face and cutting off her hands were good ideas, but throwing her in the river? They had to know she’d wash up somewhere. Simply burying her would have been better.”

  Nasser wanted to scream, Simply leaving her alone would have been best! Because she knew nothing!

  Instead he said, “Why do you keep that Reggie around anyway? He’s not in the Order.”

  “That is exactly why I keep him around. It costs the Order nothing to house him and a meager stipend keeps him fed and clothed. The important thing is he’ll do anything I tell him and has no direct connection to us.”

  “I don’t trust him.”

  Drexler laughed. “Do you think I do? Do you remember that story he cooked up a couple of years ago about seeing the supposedly dead Tony in a taxi?”

  Nasser nodded. Reggie had gone on and on about how tracking down this miraculously alive Tony fellow—who was listed by the North Carolina police as a murder victim—would lead them to the hijacked millions. Nasser and Drexler had wasted a lot of time and effort toward that end with no results.

  “I think he was afraid of becoming disposable and thought he had to come up with something to justify his continued existence.”

  “I do trust Klarić, however,” Drexler said. “But as much as I appreciate his enthusiasm, his opinion as to these observers’ identity is quite another matter.”