When he closed his eyes, morning prayers, gouged into his subconscious and unused for years, sprang to mind. Softly, under his breath, he spoke to Allah, asking His help. Never having prayed in a Christian church before, he wanted to blend in, so he mimicked the woman’s pose, palms together, fingers pointing to the sky.
Ten minutes passed. The woman rose to leave. As she turned, she caught his eye and nodded; one believer to another — if she only knew.
Footsteps sounded behind; someone walking down his aisle. They stopped before passing him. Abdul’s heart fluttered. He swallowed.
This was it.
The pew behind him creaked, and the edge of his seat touched his back as the newcomer’s weight pressed on the kneeling board behind.
The hairs on his neck stood on end. At the corner of his eye, he saw a bulky backpack placed on his seat. In one smooth movement the same hand, a man’s, lifted Abdul’s pack. The pew creaked again, and shoes scuffed as the man rose and left. The footsteps receded.
“Do not speak to the courier. Do not look at the courier, or our agreement is void,” Ghazi had warned.
The new backpack, unlike his, bulged and looked heavy. He lifted it off the bench — maybe twenty pounds. So that was how a million dollars felt. He checked his watch—11:35, and waited five more minutes before hefting the backpack onto both shoulders and leaving the church.
Now all he had to do was board the bus by two, return to the square in Jerusalem, and wait for Stinky to pick him up. Then he and Adiba would be free. Somehow, it seemed too easy.
He walked back through the renovated older part of Jaffa. The ancient stone buildings, sandblasted clean and gentrified by the Israelis, housed art galleries, bars, restaurants, and souvenir shops. He selected a café some distance from the marked tourist route, away from his fellow bus passengers who would be following their yellow umbrella and listening to the Israeli’s revisionist history of this once great Arab city. At a corner table, he ordered a sandwich and coffee.
With the backpack firmly lodged under his seat, a million dollars between his legs, and his passport in his pocket, why not go to the police? Explain what was happening. They could follow him to the medical building. Storm the place. Capture Ghazi and set him and Adiba free.
Who was he fooling? The police would lock him up. Question him for hours. Make calls to check his story. He would miss the bus. Stinky would go back to Ghazi empty handed, and Adiba would die.
Shakily, he sipped his coffee and tried to read a six-month-old Newsweek from the paper rack. But he couldn’t concentrate on the articles. Their content seemed alien and insignificant to him. The focus of his existence had narrowed to two small rooms in a bombed-out medical center in Jerusalem, where the first woman he had ever loved waited for him to set her free. Would Ghazi be true to his word? Abdul had no option but to trust the man. Ghazi had Adiba, and so he held all the cards.
Time dragged. At 1:45 p.m., he was the first back to the bus. The door hissed when the driver opened it, and Abdul took the same seat he had used on the outward journey. Sitting in silence, sweat cooling on his forehead in the air conditioning, he sandwiched the backpack next to the window and waited. To his relief, everyone returned, and the bus departed on time.
When he alighted in Jerusalem, backpack firmly secured on both shoulders, he looked around for Stinky’s vehicle. Panic took him: what if something went wrong on Ghazi’s end, what if he wasn’t picked up? Would that constitute a death sentence for Adiba? Alone, he could never find the medical building.
When he spotted the terrorist’s black sedan parked across the square, his heart rate tripled. Actually happy to see the terrorist, he quickened his pace, opened the passenger door, slung the backpack into the empty back seat, and got in.
“You’re early,” Stinky said.
He pulled away, driving at a more sedate pace than Abdul had seen from him on previous rides. “Put on your seat belt,” he barked.
Not for safety’s sake, Abdul realized. The man didn’t want to draw attention to the vehicle. A million dollars in a backpack would be difficult to explain. The drive to headquarters took thirty minutes.
While the driver opened the rear door and pulled out the backpack, Abdul waited. “Okay, come.” He followed the man to the office. Stinky dumped the backpack on the desk in front of Ghazi, who opened the straps and pulled out a brick of hundred-dollar bills. For the first time, Ghazi smiled.
“You have done well, Abdul.”
“Now fulfill your obligation,” Abdul tried to speak with authority, although he was unsure whether Ghazi would indeed deliver.
“First, I need your passport for one more night. Tomorrow we will facilitate your release. Just one more night, Abdul-Haqq. I promise. We must make arrangements so Allah’s Revenge will not be compromised.”
Abdul handed over his passport. “Tomorrow, then. May I see Adiba now?”
“Go.” Ghazi pointed to the stairwell door. Abdul walked up the stairs and into Adiba’s unlocked room without a guard; a small difference, but one that increased his confidence that Ghazi would fulfill his end of the bargain.
Chapter 30
As Quinn sat in Hassan’s car and observed the medical building, he opened the wrapper of a Subway sandwich, bought that morning in Jaffa. He savored a large bite, the first food since breakfast, and it was 4:30 p.m. Hassan’s Datsun, a piece of junk, made a perfect stakeout vehicle. His position, two blocks from the building, provided a clear view of the rear entrance Abdul had used when he returned from Jaffa.
When Quinn phoned Keisha from Hassan’s home that morning, she had directed him to collect a backpack from a tourist information booth in Jaffa. A note in the side pocket described the exchange procedure and told him in which direction to walk away from the church. Not until he rounded a corner, three blocks from the church, did he understand how the transaction would be completed. Mufeed, Nazar’s driver from Eilat, waited on the sidewalk next to Nazar’s black Mercedes.
“Hello again, Mr. Quinn. Is that for me?”
Quinn handed the bag to the driver.
“Just a moment.” Mufeed opened the trunk, lifted a false floor, placed the backpack inside, and grabbed a small parcel, which he handed to Quinn.
Once Mufeed left, Quinn checked the street — empty. The package was about an inch thick. He tore enough paper to see a bundle of hundred-dollar bills. After slipping the cash in his pocket, Quinn returned to the corner and watched the church entrance. When Abdul came out, he followed.
It had taken all his willpower not to tap Abdul on the shoulder in the church. But he didn’t know who might be watching, and Abdul was there under duress; at least so Quinn hoped. No wonder the authorities thought Abdul had joined Allah’s Revenge. You’d have to know the boy to believe how naive he was and how much Adiba meant to him.
As darkness fell, Quinn settled down in the driver’s seat, and prepared for a long, uncomfortable night.
Quinn wasn’t the only one watching Allah’s Revenge’s headquarters. Two hundred miles above him, high-resolution cameras on a US-military fixed-orbit satellite focused on the medical building and beamed the pictures to Vandenberg Air Force Base. The location had been under surveillance since Firman had revealed the address two days earlier in Aruba.