“The girl answered to Lana,” he said.
“Can I see her?” Quinn asked.
The receptionist spoke to the guard. Quinn couldn’t understand the language, but her tone indicated she was rooting for him, so he smiled at her.
The guard relented. “Follow me.” They took the elevator to the third floor.
The guard found the duty nurse. “This way,” she said to Quinn. She spoke English with an American accent, causing Quinn to reflect on the positive influence of American TV and movies.
He and the guard followed the nurse along a shiny hospital corridor that smelled of disinfectant — same the world over. She led them into a small ward with four beds, all occupied. They walked to the farthest one. The other patients, two old men and one middle-aged woman, wore headphones, watching CNN on a wall-mounted TV.
The fourth bed had screens pulled around. The nurse slid them back, and Quinn saw the girl, head swaddled in white dressings so only her eyes, nose and mouth were visible. The bedcovers were tented. Quinn had seen the setup before. A metal cage under the sheets kept the material from touching her burned skin.
When the nurse spoke to the girl, Quinn detected a different accent and guessed she must be speaking Arabic — English, Hebrew, and Arabic, impressive — the girl stared at Quinn for a few seconds before shaking her head.
The nurse straightened and her demeanor became less welcoming. “She doesn’t know you.”
“Please, show her this. Ask whether it’s her sister.” Quinn handed Adiba’s picture to the nurse, who held it in front of the girl’s face.
“Adiba… Adiba!” The girl became agitated and tried to sit up.
The nurse made calm-down motions with her hands.
“I think she’s the missing girl,” Quinn said. “Her father’s phone number is on the back. Call him. He’s frantic to find his daughter. Maybe she’ll tell her dad what happened.”
Quinn turned and nodded to the guard, who had relaxed his gun hand. The nurse punched the number into the bedside phone. After a long wait, she was connected and started speaking, using both girls’ names in the conversation. She listened for a few seconds, then put her hand over the mouthpiece. “Are you Quinnborne?” she asked. Quinn nodded.
The nurse held the phone to the girl’s ear.
“Baba!” Lana said. Tears trickled from her eyes.
The nurse glanced at the security guard, then at Quinn. “Her father says to thank you.” Quinn smiled. “This girl was dumped in the desert like a piece of garbage. We think she may have been abused, but she won’t talk to us.” Her voice was thick with anger. “We have to sedate her whenever the doctor comes. She goes crazy when she sees him. We thought because he is a man, but she didn’t react negatively to you.”
Quinn shrugged. He was glad he’d found Lana, but from his perspective, it was the wrong sister. He couldn’t imagine child abuse being in Ghazi’s playbook: too risky, too messy.
Suddenly, Lana began screaming and thrashing. She dropped the phone, jerked upright, and knocked the drip stand into the nurse’s face. The woman jumped back in fright and upset the water carafe, which smashed on the floor. Even wrapped like a mummy, the girl bounced her body, trying to get off the bed. The cords connected to her monitor yanked free, triggering a high-pitched alarm.
The security guard pulled his gun. Quinn wanted to hold the girl down, but didn’t dare touch her burned skin. He looked to the nurse for guidance. She was shouting the girl’s name, attempting to calm her.
“Lana! Lana!” Her father’s frantic voice squawked from the telephone, which lay abandoned on the bed.
Quinn read Lana’s eyes. The girl was terrified and staring straight at him.
No.
She was staring past him.
He spun around. The TV showed a CNN press conference. A bank of microphones pointed to a sallow-skinned man with silver hair, sparkling green eyes, and a neatly groomed beard. His smiling face filled the screen. The graphic at the bottom read, “Gas from Garbage.”
Quinn recognized Nazar Eudon.
And so, apparently, did Lana.
Chapter 22
In Jeddah, Imam Ali listened to the mellow drone of afternoon prayers coming from the mosque beyond his office door. With two chair legs on the floor, feet on the desk, and arms behind his head, Ali leaned back and spoke into the phone, “The Saudis failed to send the third installment. The contract is canceled.”
Ghazi sat on a grubby hospital cot in the abandoned wing of the West Bank medical facility in Israel, and replied to his friend. “They have no stomach for real warfare. They pretend to be Muslim, to care about our Palestinian brothers, but when a tough choice must be made, they cower before their American paymasters. No matter, I have the situation in hand.” Across the room, David Baker listened to Ghazi’s side of the conversation. “I sent the prisoner release demand again to the Londoners.”
“And?” Ali asked.
“No response yet, but be confident. The events in Seoul will change their thinking.” Ghazi faced David and raised his voice. “Thanks to Allah’s Revenge’s newest captain, Dawud Ferran, for the first time in fifteen hundred years the soldiers of Islam have a weapon to defeat the Crusaders.” Ghazi smiled at David. The young man’s face glowed with pride.
“And if they don’t?” Ali asked.
“We will use the weapon.”
“Firman is expensive, we will need money.”
“Don’t worry, brother. I will execute in parallel. We need money even if they do comply. This is only the beginning.”
“Allahu Akbar,” Ali said.
“Allahu Akbar,” Ghazi replied.
David repeated the words, like an echo.
Above, in Adiba’s room, Adiba and Abdul played their tenth game of chess. Ghazi had brought the board, and Abdul had yet to win. In fact, he had yet to cause her a problem. She moved her queen across the board to a protected square directly in front of his king.
“Checkmate again, Mr. Junior Middle East Correspondent.” She grinned with delight. Abdul didn’t know which would be more enjoyable; winning, or losing again and seeing her victory smile. He leaned over and kissed her full on the lips.
“What was that?” she said.
“My reward for letting you win again.”
With a crinkled brow, she wagged her finger at him in mock annoyance. He laughed. She looked so cute when she pulled that face.
The door opened, cutting short his laughter.
The terrorist who had snatched him from the hotel burst into the room. “Abdul-Haqq, you must come.”
Abdul and Adiba disliked the man, whom they assumed was Ghazi’s number two. He always smelled of stale sweat, and his narrow eyes and crooked mouth gave the appearance of a permanent sneer. Ironically, they both trusted Ghazi, despite the atrocity they knew he had perpetrated in London. Yet they feared this man.
Abdul stood, squeezed Adiba’s hand, and followed the terrorist across the landing and through the open door into his room. Ghazi sat in one of the plastic chairs.
“Sit.” Abdul took the chair opposite. The grim look on Ghazi’s face reminded Abdul of their first meeting in Jerusalem.
“How well do you know Nazar Eudon?” Ghazi asked.
If Abdul had been asked to guess the hundred most likely reasons for this meeting, Nazar Eudon wouldn’t make a reserve list. The question surprised him.
“We met in Eilat at a press briefing to clarify his announcement in London about shifting focus to alternative energy. He felt something of a kinship with me because our family backgrounds are similar. He invited me to supper.”