“You went to his home?”
Abdul suspected Ghazi was testing the verity of his story. “Yes, Adiba and I stayed the night.”
“Can you contact him?”
“He gave me a business card.”
“Give it to me.” Ghazi held out his hand. Abdul fished out his wallet and handed the card to his captor.
“You must call this Keisha.”
“What’s this about?”
Ghazi’s face hardened and he stared Abdul down. Abdul’s head began to tremble under the man’s fierce glare. For the past two days, the smelly man had delivered their food, and Abdul had spent every waking hour with Adiba, talking and playing chess. The fact that they were captives had slipped from top-of-mind. Ghazi’s angry face brought their predicament back into focus.
“I can call. What do you want me to say?”
Ghazi slammed a sheet of paper on the table in front of Abdul, handwritten in Arabic. “Can you read it?”
“Yes, but I don’t understand what it means.”
“Come.” Ghazi snatched up the note, stood, and walked toward the door. Abdul followed him down the stairs and into the office.
Two men he hadn’t seen before sat at a small table, smoking and playing cards. They looked up when he came in the room. The terrorist they disliked was absent. Abdul worried that he might be upstairs bothering Adiba.
Ghazi pointed to a chair beside his desk. Abdul sat, and Ghazi handed the business card to the younger of the two men, who stopped his game, pulled a cell phone from his inside pocket, and made a call. Ghazi placed the note on the desk in front of Abdul. The man with the phone entered a long series of numbers, perhaps using a calling card to disguise the call origin. Finally, he spoke in Arabic. “Is this Mr. Nazar Eudon’s office?” he waited for a reply, and then, “Please hold for Abdul Ahmed.” He passed the phone to Abdul.
“Hello?” Abdul said.
“I am Keisha, Nazar Eudon’s personal assistant. Mr. Eudon mentioned you, Abdul, but we understood you had been abducted. How may I be of assistance?”
“Hello, Keisha, I’m—” Before Abdul could complete the thought, Ghazi’s calloused hand struck him hard across the face. The suddenness and ferocity of the blow knocked the phone from his hand and left his face throbbing. His heart slammed against his ribs, and he stared wide-eyed at Ghazi’s furious face. The terrorist jabbed a finger at the notepaper. Abdul picked up the phone. Hand trembling, he read with a quavering voice and through tearing eyes.
“Ms. Keisha, I have a message to deliver.”
“I am recording the call. Please continue.”
“Allah’s Revenge possesses the only viable virginbots in existence. They are for sale. We require one million dollars in cash. I will call in two hours with details of the exchange conditions.”
Ghazi snatched the phone from Abdul, ended the call, and barked across at the two thugs.
“Take him upstairs.”
Abdul’s face ached. Ghazi had hit him hard, and he hadn’t been ready. He felt sick to his stomach. The older of the two card players frog-marched him up the stairs and locked him in his room. He worried about Adiba. He wanted to shout across, to check if she was okay. But fear of angering Ghazi prevented him. He’d experienced the man’s temper: quick, ugly, and painful.
In the bathroom, he checked in the mirror. Ghazi’s handprint stood out, white and red, on his cheek. He filled the sink with cold water, soaked a hand towel, and pressed it to his face to prevent swelling. Obviously, Ghazi’s change of mood was the result of a funding issue. Everything always seemed to end up being about money.
Keisha had received the call from Abdul in Nazar’s plane, waiting on the tarmac at New York’s JFK airport. They had flown there from Phoenix after the grand opening. When Nazar returned from his meetings in Manhattan, they would fly to Washington, DC where Nazar would meet with the Senate’s Sub-Committee on Energy. Abdul’s call might change those plans, so she sent a text to Nazar.
On the thirty-fifth floor of the Oppenheim building in the heart of Manhattan’s financial district, Nazar strategized with his underwriters about Eudon Alternative Energy’s planned public offering of stock. When his phone vibrated, he glanced down and immediately reacted to Keisha’s emergency code.
“Gentlemen and lady. Please excuse me, I must make a call.”
The attractive executive assistant responsible for managing the meeting, the only woman in the room, showed him to an empty office next door. Keisha dictated the message she’d received from Allah’s Revenge. How could anyone outside Phoenix know about virginbots? But the information was too specific to ignore. He told Keisha to stay by the phone, and called Professor Farjohn at the lab in Arizona.
“Professor, do you have any issues with the virginbots?”
“Issues, n… n… no, I… I… I…”
When he heard the stammering, Nazar knew he had a problem. He cut the man off in mid-stutter. “Let me put it another way professor. What is the problem with the virginbots?”
“W… w… we’re working o… o…”
Nazar cupped a hand around the mouthpiece of his phone and lowered his voice. The underwriters might be listening in the next room. “In less than one hour I must decide whether to purchase new virginbots from another source. Find me someone who can speak without stammering!”
“I… I… I…”
“Professor, let me speak to David.”
“N… not… here.”
“Damnit, man!” he hissed, “what’s wrong with the virginbots!”
Nazar dug nails into his palm. He shook with anger. His empire could be crumbling and the person with the key information was incapable of speaking a sentence. The more he pressed the less likely the professor would get a word out. Nazar waited. The professor took a series of deep breaths then blurted his words in fast, short, spurts as he exhaled.
“David never returned from his vacation in February.”
Nazar was staggered by this news. Why hadn’t he been told? He suppressed the tempest of anger he felt toward this pompous idiot. More panting preceded the professor’s next block of speech.
“He’s contaminated our virginbots stock, so they will auto-destruct at midnight on July 31st.”
Nazar’s legs buckled, forcing him to perch on the edge of the desk and wait for the next stream of information.
“He stole one vial of virginbots.”
Nazar whispered into the mouthpiece. “So ethanol production will stop on July 31st unless we get new virginbots.”
“Y… y… y…”
Nazar hung up and called Keisha.
“Send my car immediately.”
He composed himself, made his excuses to the bankers, and left the building. His driver was outside when he exited the lobby, and he called Keisha before they’d pulled into traffic.
“Who made the call?”
“Abdul, the journalist from the Times.”
“Are you sure it was him?”
“Yes, but he sounded under duress. I could tell he was reading the message. I tried to ask about his safety, but the line went dead.”
“Tell the pilot we’re returning to Phoenix. Call Senator Isley, make my apologies, we’ll call next week to re-schedule. When Abdul phones back, tell him we want to make a deal. Phone me immediately after you’ve spoken to him.” Nazar hung up and called his banker in Tel Aviv.
He would need to find a million dollars in cash overnight? It had to be done; Nazar needed to buy time.
Abdul sat on his bed with a cold cloth pressed against his throbbing cheek. Time dragged. Eventually, the older terrorist fetched him downstairs again and pointed to the desk. Abdul sat and waited. The room was silent except for the click of playing cards. Ghazi paced and checked his watch. Finally, he instructed the younger terrorist to make the call. Ghazi laid the phone on the desk in front of Abdul and turned on the speaker.