“Wasn’t his office locked at night?” Alex asked. “I would think it would have been.”
Ahmet managed a rare laugh. “That was the beauty of it,” he said. “The Dutch girl helped us steal the keys too. You know, when he had his pants off. And just overnight so we could get in and out. It worked perfectly.”
“Brilliant,” said Alex, watching him sweat and noting where his brilliance had landed him.
From there, according to Ahmet’s recollection, it was all smooth sailing. Ahmet did the work on the compartment, and Hassam helped with the tools and watched the door. They were both shocked when they got to the burlap bag and opened it.
“We thought it was drugs. Heroin or cocaine. It was a white substance in individual bricks. But both of us had worked light construction and demolition in Sicily. So when we examined it, we knew it was explosives.”
“What?” Alex murmured, looking up from her notes.
“Top of the line stuff. The type the Americans use in Iraq. The type they’re always using and then getting used against them. Chemicals,” he said. He made an expansive gesture with his large dirty hands. “Boom!” he said.
If it was an attempt to add levity to the evening and win new friends, it failed miserably.
Alex put down her pen and leaned back. She took a minute to re-track Ahmet’s testimony so far and summarize everything in English for Peter. There had been a whole skein of loose logic that had been hanging together with a few strings. And now the strings were being pulled into place and the logic was emerging.
Ahmet sat on the hot seat and continued to dab at his cheek. He was obviously in considerable pain. Alex guessed that Federov’s first punch had fractured the Arab’s cheekbone and the second punch had redesigned it.
“I did some further checking on things this afternoon before I left Rome,” Rizzo then announced slowly. He spoke English so as to conveniently include everyone except Ahmet. “This man has a long police record in Italy. So did his brother. I ran background computer checks on both of them, then cross-referenced his activities with other investigations involving the national police in Italy. One detail that came immediately to the surface was where Ahmet had worked recently. Aboard El Fuguero. This was a ship that was on our list as a possible conduit for some explosives that were stolen from an Iraqi military supply depot after the American invasion. Our intelligence tells us the cache was broken up several times and shipped to the West. Through Cyprus and Sardinia. That’s consistent with this ship.”
“And consistent with this man’s story,” Peter said.
“Exactly what type of explosives?” Alex asked.
“HMX combined with RDX,” Rizzo said. “We think they can be traced directly to a warehouse in Iraq and to a manufacturer in Serbia.”
There was an echo somewhere in Alex’s memory of the substance. She put it on hold for later when she was back with her laptop. “How much of this HMX are we talking about?” she asked.
“About ten kilos. Or twenty pounds.”
She turned back to Ahmet and asked in Italian. “And that’s the size of the shipment you saw?” she asked.
“It was about ten kilos,” he said. “Ten bricks.”
“And so you put a honing device on it,” she said.
He nodded.
“Where was it taken ashore from El Fuguero?” she asked.
“In Barcelona,” he said.
“So we know that the explosives entered Spain?” she said. “We know that for a fact?”
“Yes,” Ahmet said. Rizzo was nodding at the same time.
“And what was the date of that?”
“I’m not sure,” he said.
“July twentieth or twenty-first,” Rizzo said. “The ship was only in port two days. That’s when it came ashore.”
“Forgive me for a naive question, but exactly how did it get through port security?” Alex asked.
Ahmet snorted. “For a few dollars, anyone can disembark anything,” he said.
“Yes, of course,” she said.
From there it continued its journey, Ahmet said. Probably by private car, but who knew? His brother tracked it via the homing device, then used a public computer in a café to get the coordinates of the location. One thing led to another. He established the place where the stash was being held. Then he traveled to Madrid.
“Madrid?” she asked.
“Madrid.”
“And how did your brother make contact with the people who were holding the explosives?”
“The coordinates were very precise,” Ahmet said. “My brother knew all the ways to do those computer things. So he tracked it to a building and-”
“Do you know what building?”
“No. Hassan did all of this.”
“Did he tell you anything about the building?”
“No. I was never even in Spain.”
“Please, go on,” Alex said.
“My brother kept the house under surveillance for a few days. Figured out who was going in and out. He narrowed it down. Ended up leaving a note on the Vespa of a man who was his target. He guessed right. My brother left a phone number and went back to France. We have relatives in Marseilles. He suggested a meeting there.”
Ahmet’s voice tailed off.
“And?” she asked.
“Apparently, Hassan overstepped,” Federov said, almost happily. “When he arrived to pick up his baksheesh, his tender young throat got caught in some piano wire.”
Ahmet gave an involuntary shudder.
“Nonetheless,” Alex said. “The explosives are still out there. Correct?”
“Correct. And worse,” Rizzo said. “I assume the tracker is gone.”
“Yes. It’s gone,” Ahmet said.
“These people are bloody amateurs!” Rizzo snapped with contempt, still in Italian. “The whole lot of them. No wonder they get killed or caught or both.”
“That’s my brother you’re talking about!” Ahmet said in Italian.
“Yes, of course it is,” Rizzo said. “Hard to tell which of you was dumber. You for being here tonight or him for getting decapitated.”
The tension on Ahmet’s face was suddenly great. And a sweat broke as he glared at Rizzo. Federov’s gaze was frozen on him, but Rizzo was still focused on payback for the needle in his backside.
“He wasn’t included very well when the brains were handed out, though, was he, your stupid dead brother? Imagine going to pick up a payoff and not bringing a backup. Typical Arab, really. Plenty of desire, plenty of firepower, but not much between the Muzzy ears. That’s why the ears ended up lying on the sidewalk, along with most of the head. Sort of like one of those pig’s or goat’s heads you see in a butcher’s window, revolving on the skewer.”
“My brother!” snapped Ahmet.
“You show me a happy Islamic fanatic,” growled Rizzo, “and I’ll show you a gay corpse.”
Ahmet made a sudden openhanded lunge toward Rizzo, who started to laugh.
Alex made a move away from the table, but it was Federov who once again reacted and intercepted. Ahmet’s chair retreated and tumbled to the floor and Federov, rising, slammed the Arab down hard onto the floor, breaking the legs of the chair as he threw Ahmet on top of it. Ahmet stayed on the floor and began sobbing. Federov kicked him.
“That’s pretty much all of it,” Federov said, turning back to his guests. “Does it help?”
Alex flipped her notebook shut. “I think it does,” she said. “And I think it will take me back to Madrid first thing tomorrow.”
“Then we’re finished here,” Federov said.
He turned to his guard at the door. “Take care of things, Grisha,” he said flatly. Ahmet started sobbing louder.
A few minutes later, the group of visitors was back downstairs, moving toward the door, Dmitri preceding them as they stepped out into the night. There were still stars. The moon had traveled a great distance across the sky.
Dmitri had drawn his pistol again and stood guard at the end of the driveway. Peter, Alex, Rizzo, and Federov moved toward the car under a bright night sky.