An only son in heaven. The parents would be proud.
Sahurah reached the intersection and turned right, pedaling more slowly now. The center of town was on the right. He took the turn and continued past the mosque, not daring to raise his eyes as he turned up the drive of an office building and pedaled around the dirt lot. There were no cars, and Sahurah saw no one. He rode back to the road, saw that the string was still tied to the post — a sign from the two men he had posted as lookouts that all was well. Then he turned right again and went to the end of the street, turning into the driveway of the last house and riding into the back.
The property had not been occupied for some time — it belonged to the mosque — and the jungle had begun to reclaim the yard, pushing close with large trees and brush. Sahurah put his bicycle down in the weeds where it could not be seen, then walked up the back steps into the house.
The recruit was in the back room as instructed, sitting in the middle of the floor.
He was smoking a cigarette. Incensed, Sahurah went to the young man and grabbed it from his mouth, throwing it against the wall.
“Where did you get that?” Sahurah demanded in Malaysian.
The recruit was so terrified he could not speak. Sahurah looked down at his face and again thought to himself, he is young.
Too young.
And yet some might have said that of Sahurah himself only a few years before.
“Stand, and let me look at you,” Sahurah said roughly.
The recruit rose and turned around. How old was he? Sixteen? Fourteen? Old enough to be a soldier in jihad?
But this was not Sahurah’s concern. The imam had already decided, and his own job was simple. He did not even need to know the boy’s name.
“Come with me,” he told the recruit, walking to the next room. He knelt at the side of the floor and removed two boards, then pulled up a small case. He unsnapped the lock and opened it. A small weapon sat inside.
The gun was an INDEP Lusa submachine gun. Made in Romania, the weapon fired nine-millimeter bullets. It measured only seventeen inches with its stock folded, and weighed barely five and a half pounds. The barrel could be removed to make it lighter and shorter, even easier to hide; Sahurah decided to do this.
He had three magazines. Two would be used for training. “Come,” he told the recruit. “We have much to do, and only a short time.”
Chapter 21
“So when are you coming home?” Zen asked Breanna when she called the apartment. It was just past 8 P.M. in Nevada; over in Brunei it was a little after eleven o’clock in the morning.
“Supposed to leave tomorrow,” she told him. “But it looks like I’m going to have to take a commercial flight to Japan. Since I’m going to be there anyway, I was thinking of staying in Tokyo for a day or two.”
“Why?” asked Zen.
“Because it’s Tokyo,” she said.
“Well, yeah, Tokyo.”
“Zen, sometimes I think you are the most boring person in the world. It’s Tokyo! There are temples there, museums, restaurants, sights — I’d even like to ride on the trains.”
“Like a sardine?”
“You wouldn’t want to look around Tokyo if you had a few days off?”
“Oh sure, if Godzilla was around.”
“What would you do?”
“Besides rushing home to the arms of my darling wife?” He took a sip of his beer.
“Don’t be a wise guy.”
“I’m not being a wise guy. If I were in Tokyo — I know what I’d do. I’d check out the Tokyo Giants. Supposed to be a great baseball team”
“Zen.”
“Well, not compared to American baseball, of course. But good for Japan”
Zen laughed as his wife made a flustered sound.
“All right, they could probably beat, say, the Cincinnati Reds. But not the Dodgers,” he added.
“Be serious.”
Speaking of baseball, the Dodgers should be on by now. He put his beer between his legs on his lap and bent his head to hold the phone on his shoulder as he rolled his wheelchair into the living room.
“So, I’ve been thinking,” Breanna continued. “What do you think about what we were talking about in Brunei?”
“What do I think about what?” he asked, stalling as he looked for the television remote. He knew what she was referring to. The game came on. The Dodgers were ahead of the New York Mets, two to zero, bottom of the second.
“I meant, about a family,” said Breanna.
They had spoken about a “family” — a euphemism for having a baby — for all of ten minutes in the car going over to the beach.
“I’m sorry, I was fiddling with the TV. What are you talking about?”
“Never mind. We’ll go over it when I get home.”
There was a certain tone in her voice that Zen called the “husband can’t win” tone.
“Maybe we should talk about it when you get home,” he said.
“We should,” she answered, a little too forcibly.
“So if you play tourist in Tokyo, when will you be back?”
“I don’t know.”
“I vote for straight home. I miss you,” he said.
“I miss you, too.”
“But if you want to stay,” he added, “I understand.”
“I’ll think about it, babe. You take care of yourself.”
“I always do” Zen smiled at her, though she couldn’t see him. “You take care, too. They figure out what those Sukhois were all about?”
“They’re still pretty baffled. Same with the ship. Jed seems to think the Islamic guerillas who have been fighting in Malaysia are looking for easier targets.”
“I could see that,” said Zen. He was glad she was getting the hell out of there, but saying that he was actually worried about her somehow seemed out of bounds. “How’s Mack doing? Come on to you yet today?”
“I told you, he hasn’t at all since I’ve been here,” said Breanna.
“Yeah, right.”
“No. He’s — you won’t believe this, but he’s changed. He’s more — I don’t know. More mature.”
Zen laughed so hard he nearly spilled his beer. “Right. Mack Smith, mature. What a concept”
“I’m not kidding.”
“You’ve been sitting in the sun too long, babe. Mack Smith?” He laughed even harder.
“All right, all right. Maybe I’m wrong. I’ll try to call before the plane takes off. It’ll be early afternoon your time.”
“Sounds good,” he told her, hanging up.
Mack Smith? Mature? Changed?
Mack Smith!
Zen began to laugh so hard tears formed in the corners of his eyes.
Chapter 22
She was beautiful, he had to give her that. Mack watched Ivana Keptrova turn heads as she walked across the restaurant toward his table. Tall and thin, with dark features and a simple strand of pearls as her only jewelry, she had a regal appearance. She wore a black business suit, with a skirt that stopped just at the knee; on someone else it might have seemed boring, even dowdy, but on Ivana Keptrova it seemed as sexy as a piece of lingerie.
Mack rose and took her hand. She swept down into her chair, smiling at the waiter, who faded toward the back for a moment and then reappeared with a bottle of champagne.
“It’s the only thing worth drinking while discussing business,” she told Mack, holding her glass up for a toast. “Or for pleasure.”
Mack played along, very careful about taking minute sips of wine. He listened to her talk about Prince bin Awg and the sultan as if they were all close personal friends; he feigned interest in her talk about the navy, which she was apparently supplying with new patrol boats.