He was about to give up in disgust when he heard the sound of a heavy hatch creak open, then shut against the bulkhead. He struggled to his feet. The lights flicked on. It was the Gambian, Momodou. He was standing by the hatchway with a large knife in his hand. When he saw Hammel, he hesitated. Then he came forward, brandishing the knife.
Hammel leaned against the jukebox crate, nursing his knee, preparing. The Gambian drew closer. He was grinning now. Hammel could see his pink tongue dancing about in his mouth. The Gambian took another step, then two, and then — without warning, with uncanny strength and impossible agility — the Algerian was upon him. Momodou backed away but he was already too late. The knife tumbled from his hand. Hammel had wrapped an object round his neck. It whistled as it tightened, as it closed about his throat. The Algerian pulled and Momodou went down.
Hammel relieved the pressure. He did not want to kill the Gambian. It would arouse too much unwanted scrutiny, too much suspicion. He didn’t want the police boarding the freighter, with all manner of questions, as soon as they docked in New York. The Gambian coughed and fell onto his stomach. He tried to crawl away but the Algerian held him in place. Hammel swung and sat upon the Gambian’s back, pinning his flabby body to the floor, the garrote still wrapped about his throat. “You are an inquisitive man,” he said at last.
The Gambian could not answer. He couldn’t even breathe.
“But if I tell you what you want to know, I may have to kill you. You do not want that, do you? You don’t want to die.” He slackened the pressure and the Gambian took a breath. He coughed. He sputtered and choked. Then he took another breath. Hammel removed the wire from his neck. “I didn’t think so,” he said.
The Algerian stood, guarding his knee, and slipped the wire back around his waist. He leaned against the jukebox crate. The Gambian rolled onto his side, his back towards Hammel. His hands were wrapped about his throat. He was whimpering like a child.
“For if you were dead,” Hammel continued, “you wouldn’t be able to share in the profits from my cargo.”
The Gambian rolled over. He stared at Hammel, one hand still wrapped about his throat. “What cargo?” he croaked.
“From the poppy fields of Mazar e Shariff. New York is a city of addicts, my friend. What do you care? Let them destroy themselves. I will reward you for your silence.” He looked down at the Gambian with his impenetrable black eyes. He stretched his hand out with a smile. “Ten percent. Are we agreed?”
For a moment, the Gambian said nothing. Then, he smiled too. He reached for Hammel’s hand and said, “Fifteen.”
Chapter 28
It had been another worthless day. Decker had been tracking down leads about Moussa and the other suspects since seven o’clock that morning. But no matter how promising they appeared, no matter how solid, they always disintegrated in his hands at the last moment. He felt like a rat in a maze of dead ends. He returned to the office dejected and tired. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but he still wasn’t hungry. The entire team had been working double and triple shifts since Warhaftig had briefed them about the confession of the dying Egyptian, Al-Hakim. No one had any doubts now — New York was the destination. In fact, for all they knew, the device was already in place.
As Decker got up from his desk to fetch another cup of coffee, Warhaftig approached him from the side. He took him by the elbow and inquired, nonchalantly, if he had seen the videotape from Beersheba. Decker shook his head. Just snippets on TV, he answered glumly. What Gallagher had shown on WKXY. A moment later, they were sitting in the little office that SAC Johnson had assigned Warhaftig at the beginning of the investigation. Decker watched as the CIA operative popped a tape into his VCR. He played it in slow motion.
Decker was horrified by what he saw. At first, he could barely watch the grisly scene. But then, despite himself, despite the almost palpable combustion, he found himself drawn into each detail, like a reluctant medical student concentrating on a vein instead of the whole cadaver: the way the net hung from the ceiling, crushing the soldiers up against the wall; the color of the flames, unmasking chemical composition; and then the fiery script. He had seen this amaranth of arabesque before. It matched the phrase from Moussa’s notepad: Death Will Overtake You. But now, in living color, in active architecture, the words were even more distinct.
“What do you see?”
Decker struggled from his reverie. “What? What did you say?”
“In the flames. What do you see?” Warhaftig asked.
Decker smiled. He had been waiting for this moment. “What happened to my memory stick?” he said. “To those pictures I took of Moussa’s apartment?”
“Excuse me?”
“The other wallpaper, Otto?”
Warhaftig’s chin collapsed into his chest. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not following you.”
“I bet you’re not.” Decker scowled. “I didn’t forget to load the camera the day Bartolo died. And it wasn’t Moussa or anyone else who took the memory stick, was it? You and I were the only ones inside that surveillance squat, other than Bartolo.”
Warhaftig said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, John. Really, I don’t.”
“Don’t bullshit me,” Decker spat. He got to his feet. He towered over the desk. “You’d seen that design before, I know you had. In the work of El Aqrab. After some other killings. Like the ones in Tel Aviv.”
Warhaftig stared back at Decker with a cold, unflinching gaze. His lips were curled up in the corners. He wore a fearsome smile, well practiced and professional. Then he shrugged, the slightest movement of the shoulders, almost too subtle to be noticed. He looked back at the monitor, breaking the seal, and all the air rushed in.
Decker felt an undertow of anger ripple through him. He sat down on Warhaftig’s desk, leaned in and said, “You know, one hand washes the other, as my mother used to say.”
“Did she now?”
“Fuck you,” said Decker. He started for the door. Then he hesitated, turned and said, “Why did El Aqrab kill Miller? What was it about the Israeli furniture salesman that linked him to the terrorist?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t, John.”
“I’d like to get a list of all the prisoners with whom Miller had contact while he worked at Ansar II in Gaza.”
“We’ve looked at that already. There’s no connection.”
“Of course there is. You just haven’t found it.” Decker shook his head. “And while you’re at it, why don’t you contact passport control in the Canary Islands? See if there’s been an up-tick in tourist traffic from the Middle East, odd shipments from the Newly Independent States, any baffling thefts or murders.”
“The Canaries. Why, what’s up?”
“It could be nothing. Or it could mean everything.”
“I’d like to help, John, I really would. But Johnson’s got me running down every cab company in the city. I don’t have time to—”