He guided the car into the single lane and said a silent prayer to Allah that he still had time.
21
Emily stared at the computer screen, her mind fighting through a fog of fatigue. She’d spent the last several hours trying to dig up whatever she could on Mamoud Al Najaar but with few results. The young Arab didn’t have a lot of dirt to dig up. Sure, he had a questionable lifestyle, especially considering his Muslim upbringing. Finding anything criminal, however, was another matter altogether. Emily was surprised to learn that Al Najaar had attended Western schools, though the more she read, the more she realized that was far more common than she was aware. Although she did know that the king of Jordan had been educated in the West and seemed to love Western culture.
The more she stared at the computer screen and flipped through pages of notes, the more confusing the issue with Al Najaar became.
Was he working for someone? A terrorist organization perhaps? Or was he just an arms dealer trying to make a few million?
The latter didn’t make sense. The guy was beyond rich. The money he’d inherited from his father was more than some small countries had in their reserves. No, she thought. It definitely wasn’t for the money.
Al Najaar didn’t seem like the type to support a terrorist organization. Then again, a person really never could tell. She doubted that he was a middleman for another country. Unfortunately, there were more questions than answers at the moment — and the few answers she could muster simply didn’t add up.
It was difficult to move large quantities of anything anymore, especially weapons. Al Najaar had been trying to relocate a volume of weapons that made the word large vastly inadequate. Every few days, Emily received reports from her agent on the scene. Al Najaar was moving guns, ammunition, standard military explosive devices, and even some heavy machinery. There were some things, however, that he’d not been able to access.
Emily was most curious about what Al Najaar was storing in the forty-foot shipping containers. Her asset had been unable to gain access up until that point. He'd even tried breaking into one of the containers by picking the lock. Each time he tried, though, another guard always seemed to rear his head at the most inopportune moments. Then there were the cameras constantly watching the area. Even if he could disguise his motives, it would only be a matter of time until he was discovered.
The agent had basically told her there was nothing else he could do except wait.
“What are you up to?” Emily said to the screen. She enlarged one of the images and cropped out the others to get better resolution on the one she wanted.
It was a surveillance photo of Al Najaar, taken just a few days ago from one of the neighboring homes. He was standing on his rooftop patio looking out over the gulf. He didn’t have a care in the world, from the looks of it anyway, but that could have been a farce. Emily knew people like Al Najaar were snakes. They could sit there, hiding in the grass in plain sight, waiting for some unsuspecting person to come by, then suddenly snap and bite the intruder when they got too close to escape.
She stared at the screen a few seconds too long and was forced to pull back for a second, rubbing her burning eyes. When they felt better, she closed the image and opened another one. This particular photo featured Al Najaar speaking to one of his men, a guy named Sharouf Al Nasir. Finding information on Al Nasir had been somewhat difficult, even for a person in Emily’s position. She’d pulled in a few extra resources to get the information she needed, and even then, details were sketchy. There were a few items regarding some mercenary work, but for the most part, the guy was a ghost. Two accounts mentioned that he was an expert assassin, used by several governments in the Middle East for missions that required a certain level of discretion. Again, there was little evidence as to what exactly happened.
Emily rubbed both sides of her face and leaned back again. She looked up at the ceiling. What is this guy up to? In less than a day, she could have MI6, the CIA, and half a dozen other resources on the scene in Dubai to take down Al Najaar and shut down whatever it was he was doing. She needed more evidence, though. The guns and other items weren’t enough. Al Najaar could easily disavow all of it and pin it on one of his underlings. It was a game she’d seen play out more times than she cared to recall. Whenever the king was about to be taken, a pawn reared its head and took the fall.
With most of her resources exhausted, she picked up her cell phone and snapped a picture of the screen. She then sent a quick text message with the image attached. It was a short question, and one she doubted the recipient would have an answer for, but it was worth a shot.
She set the phone back down on the desk and resumed scanning the files. Someone had to have something on these guys.
22
Sharouf waited patiently for the other to arrive. He’d parked the stolen vehicle in the middle of a patch of tall grass in case the authorities happened to come by. There’d been little trouble getting back to the temple. Traffic was light at this time of day, as most of the tourists came during high visitation hours. The hotter the temperatures got, the more people retreated to cooler places.
He’d only been there for thirty minutes when he saw the black Mercedes SUV appear on the horizon. It was hardly an inconspicuous vehicle, especially considering the poverty that surrounded the city of Yogyakarta. In spite of that, their employer insisted on using luxury cars for transportation. Sharouf guessed it was to make some kind of a statement.
The SUV’s driver saw Sharouf standing alone in the shade, leaning against a tree, and steered the vehicle into the parking lot. The tires crunched on the gravel and came to a sudden stop. Sharouf quickly stepped over to the passenger-side rear door and flung it open.
Nehem looked out at him with an expression of irritation. “Where are the rest of your men?” he asked.
Sharouf didn’t appreciate the sarcasm and instantly responded, striking Nehem across the face with his palm.
The slap stung and sent a surge of anger through Nehem’s body, but he restrained himself. These men could kill him in seconds, no matter how hard he struggled and fought.
A fire blazed in Sharouf’s eyes. A dried trickle of blood stuck out on the side of his head, and the left side of his forehead had turned purple. Nehem thought better of mentioning whatever had happened to the man and instead asked as to the purpose of their little rendezvous.
“What am I doing here?”
Sharouf said nothing, instead grabbing the man by the wrist and yanking him out of the vehicle. The two men in the front seat got out as well and closed the doors, following the others toward the temple.
Nehem felt like a schoolboy being chastised by a teacher as Sharouf dragged him across the knoll. When they reached the stairs, the Arab continued up with Nehem in tow.
“Why are you taking me up there?” Nehem asked. There was a twinge of fear in his voice.
Sharouf motioned to his two men. One of them withdrew a pistol and shoved it into Nehem’s back.
“Do not make me carry you up these stairs. I am not in the mood.”
The cold, calculating tone of Sharouf’s voice sent a chill through Nehem’s spine. He nodded twice and obeyed, carefully making his way up the steps one at a time.
At the top, Nehem put his hand against one of the stupas and tried to catch his breath. Sharouf did not intend to let him do so. He grabbed the Israeli by the elbow again and pulled him along until they reached the central stupa. Sharouf gave a sweeping check of the area to make sure no one was looking before shoving Nehem into the big stupa’s entryway. The door was as he’d left it less than an hour ago. In their hurry, Sharouf and his men had barely made an effort to close the door on the way out.