He swung the door open.
The hallway had photographs of different sizes hung on the wall, black-and-white pictures of locations from around the world. Tranthan glanced at the pictures, many different sizes but in perfect order.
He stared at the framed photos, some small, some large, but in a row.
No, that can’t be it.
Robert Tranthan turned and raced back into the office. He turned on the lamp without taking off his overcoat and took out the photo again.
Oh, my God. It showed Maggie’s hand on one of the shelves.
Tranthan pulled out a pen and pad of paper.
If the volumes on that particular bookshelf had been arranged in any order, it seemed to be by size. No, that wasn’t it. But here was something: Each of the books was a volume from a different series, all showing their volume number on the spine. He started with the book just above her hand and followed the row. The first book was volume ten, but it was upside down. Likewise, the sixth book was volume ten upside down.
Ingenious!
011 966 01 435 9456
That can’t be correct.
He double-checked it. Each number was correct. If he weren’t mistaken, Maggie had been quite clear with her message.
A phone number in Riyadh.
CHAPTER 60
The auto-rickshaw slammed on its brakes, causing the tail end to jump up off the street, throwing its passengers into the driver. The mule cart ahead ignored them.
William Parker awoke from a light doze and shook off the sleep. Liaquat was wedged tightly next to him on the bench seat in the back of the small taxi.
It was nearing dawn. The sky was still dark; the clouds were a griseous blue-gray. But the lights of the Khyber bazaar lit up the street with lurid red-yellows and white and fluorescent tubes of artificial light.
The taxi driver passed the mule cart with only an inch or two to spare between it and a green three-wheeled taxi heading in the opposite direction. Parker pulled his arms in as the two carts passed by close enough that he felt the draft caused by the two moving objects.
The bazaar was full of men of all sizes and shapes, but virtually all were dressed in long white shawls that went down to their knees. Most wore small white caps on top of long, stringy heads of black hair. Occasionally, one would pass with a black-and-white turban.
Parker studied Liaquat’s face as they moved through the traffic. Liaquat was dozing off again in a contorted, odd position, with one hand holding on to the bar in front of him and the other holding up his head. He had a chiseled nose. In an exotic way, Liaquat and his people were quite handsome-looking, with noses and eyes and chins all in balance with the shapes of their faces.
Above the street, odd-looking signs were stacked, one above the other, with oversized paintings of red-and-white dentures marking a dentist’s office. Legal scales with Arabic script underneath marked a lawyer’s office. The main street of the Khyber bazaar was the main street for the professionals of the city. Poles with wires lined up one on top of the other, string after string, paralleled the main road.
What’s that smell?
Peshawar exuded an ever-changing combination of smells and scents. Some were typical of a city. The charcoal-burned smell of barbecued meat stood out. But there was another…
Not meat on a spit. Something else.
Parker’s mind was wondering.
Sharp. Like ginger, but different.
He rubbed his face with his one free hand. The other held tightly onto the edge of the roof of the scooter.
Cardamom, that’s it. The Arabic name?
“Hayl?” Parker meant to ask the question of only himself, but he spoke it aloud.
“Yes, I think so. It gives coffee a special taste.” Liaquat also apparently slept extremely lightly. He tapped the driver on his shoulder. “Over there.” He pointed to an alleyway. It was a tiny, dark side passage with barely any light. On the corner next to it was a shop crammed and stuffed with blankets and shawls like the ones on the old man’s cart. The blankets were hung from the ceiling. The shop was brightly lit, but the alleyway beyond looked like an entrance to a cave.
The Qingqi scooter stopped just short of the alleyway.
“Thank you, brother. May Allah be with you.” Liaquat handed the driver ten rupees. “You see that over there?”
Parker looked across the street. The windows were boarded up. The face of the building was burned, and twisted rebar stuck out from torn cement.
“Yes.”
“Our brother sent a message to this government. Over forty were killed.” The bomb had been ignited in the middle of the busy street just as a bus passed by. Well over a hundred were seriously injured.
“Why?” Parker regretted the question as soon as he said it.
Liaquat looked at him oddly. “A true soldier. The government had killed a leader of the Taliban the week before.”
“Who was he?”
“The Taliban leader?”
“No. The bomber.”
“I don’t know, an orphan, a street worker. Does it matter?”
Parker looked at him with confusion.
“He is now respected. He has regained his karam.”
His self-respect, his dignity. It depended upon the respect given to a man by others. It was what the others thought. But what good did it do him now?
“Allahu Akbar.” Parker repeated the phrase. “Give us victory over the unbelievers!”
“Indeed!” Liaquat led him up the alleyway in the dark.
Parker could barely see. As he followed Liaquat, he noticed a shape in the dark corner of a building from its movement.
“Hello, brother!”
A man dressed in the long white shawl, with the same painter’s cap, stepped out of the darkness. Parker could see the shape of an AK-47 automatic rifle.
“Welcome back.”
Liaquat turned into a smaller alleyway. A dim lightbulb marked a stairway at the end. The stairs went up the side of a two-story building. Liaquat climbed the steps two at a time. It seemed that he had gained energy from being back.
At the top of the stairs a door was open to an apartment. Liaquat disappeared inside. Parker followed.
Inside, several men grabbed Parker and threw him against the wall. One stood in front of him.
“So, is this Sadik Zabara?” The man with a rough red beard stood in front of Parker. He had a deep, long scar that crossed the upper part of his cheek down to his neck.
“I am Abu Umarov.”
It was black, but Parker sensed daylight beyond the rough linen hood that was over his head. As he turned, the ropes cut into his wrists. There were men talking in another room.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I followed him like we planned. I have no doubts.”
The last voice was Liaquat’s.
Footsteps. The hands of a strong man grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him up.
Umarov yanked the hood from his head. The sunlight blinded him. The room looked plain, barren, and small. A simple green wooden table was in one corner. Two windows marked the southern wall. The sunlight came, unrestricted, in the room.
Umarov pulled a knife from his side. It reminded Parker of the Marine KA-BAR knife, a sharp tongue of black steel the length of a man’s hand from the wrist up. He sliced the rope around Parker’s wrists.
The knife didn’t cause him to jump. Something did, however. Parker noticed the small tattoo on the inside of Umarov’s wrist. It was a sign of the Crni Labudovi.