He was thin, wiry, with a narrow face. His eyes were dark, beguiling. He had a wispy black beard, thin as an adolescent’s. It was El Aqrab, Decker was sure of it.
The Arab smiled a wolfish grin, stretched out his arms, and said, “Welcome to the Canary Islands, Agent Decker.” He laughed. “It’s good to finally meet you, after all this time. In truth, I feel like I already know you.” He pointed down at Emily. “And we’ve already met your friend.”
“Let her go,” said Decker.
“I’d be happy to. Why don’t you throw your weapon down and I’ll release her.”
“An agent never gives up his gun. That’s the first rule,” Decker said. “Give up your gun and you’re dead. Where’s the bomb?”
El Aqrab laughed. “Always the professional,” he said. “Don’t you care about Ms. Swenson? I was told you did.”
“The only way out of here is through me.”
“You really didn’t know that, did you?” El Aqrab said whimsically. “But it’s true. I concede that point to you. You stand between us and the only exit. That’s what makes it so… interesting.” He said something to his partner in a low voice.
The other man pulled Swenson by the hair. Then he kicked her with his knee so that she rolled onto her stomach. She tried to crawl away but he kicked her again. Her body arched and slammed against a crate. The man reached down and grabbed her by the collar of her blouse. He lifted her off the ground. There was a loud rip as the material gave way. He began to tear it from her back. She tried to move, to get away, but he grabbed her by the jeans. He ripped them down, exposing her white panties underneath. Slowly and methodically, he took her jeans off. Then he pulled her by the hair again and made her stand before him. She was crying now. She was mumbling incoherently. The man stuffed one hand into her bra. Then, with the other, he pulled the bra up, and Emily’s breasts fell free, exposed and vulnerable.
Decker fired a shot above the large man’s head but he didn’t even move. He simply stood there, holding Emily. El Aqrab said something in Arabic that Decker couldn’t hear. Decker aimed his gun. He fixed the figure in his sights. A bead of sweat dripped in his eye. He hesitated. He wiped his face with his sleeve, and suddenly withdrew.
He was afraid to shoot. He was afraid of hitting Emily.
The man pushed Emily into a nearby folding chair. He took his belt off. At first, Decker was convinced that he was going to beat her. Then he noticed he was using it to tie her hands. The man moved back behind the chair. As he looked at Decker, as he stared directly at him, he snagged her panties in his fingers and pulled them down along her long brown legs. Swenson sat there, naked, barely awake, her head tilted to the side. El Aqrab stepped up beside her.
“Give me your weapon, Agent Decker.”
Decker ducked behind the crate. He couldn’t bear watching. He knew exactly what was coming. He sat on the ground, his back to the crate, and pressed the barrel of his gun against his face. He closed his eyes. He could feel tears coursing down his cheeks. He cleared his throat and breathed. He breathed again. When he finally shifted back onto his knees and peeked over the crate, El Aqrab had already started wrapping Emily in tendrils of metal ribbon. Decker watched him as he worked.
He was punctilious. He was so careful, almost dainty in his movements. I can’t give up my gun, Decker thought. If I give up my gun, I’m dead. And if I’m dead, she’s dead. I can’t give up my gun. No matter what they do to her. She’s just one person. There are forty million lives at stake.
“Is it not written?” Decker shouted. “I say, is it not written? ‘It is He Who hath made you His vicegerent on the earth. He hath raised you in ranks, some above others, that He may try you in the gifts He hath given you?’ How then can you destroy the world, set off this mega-tsunami? Is it not unlawful to assail the environment? And the Ahadith say—”
“Don’t speak to me of sullying the earth. The West has polluted the planet for countless generations, through your destruction of the ozone layer, through global warming. Your cars and smokestacks, your lifestyle chokes the world. A little at a time, to be sure. A decade here, a decade there. A languorous strangulation.” He laughed. “What I will do will cleanse the planet of your filth. Now, give me your weapon, Agent Decker. I’m warning you for the last time. Give it to me, or your woman burns.”
“Then burn her,” Decker shouted back.
He started to worm his way along the ground. If he could outflank them, he might just have a chance. There was no cover to his left, but to his right… to his right ran a series of crates and boxes for a good ten yards, or more. If he could get around them, find more cover, he might just cut them down before they had a chance to fire back. As long as El Aqrab kept talking.
“Did you hear me? Burn her. The girl means nothing to me. Isn’t that what you do, burn people? Isn’t that the ultimate aesthetic of Mohammed Hussein, the infamous El Aqrab? Or should I call you Jamal ben Saad today?”
The name seemed to dangle in the air. It seemed to linger for a moment, echoing.
“What did you say?” El Aqrab’s voice faltered for the first time.
“Don’t you know your own name? But I guess that’s always been your problem, hasn’t it, Jamal? You don’t know who you are. Perhaps there was so little there to begin with that you had to assume somebody else’s name and background, some real persona, someone of substance. But you can’t rent bravery, Jamal.” Decker squirmed behind the first box in the line. “Tell me,” he said. “What happened to you after your father and brother cooperated with the Israelis? What happened to you at Ansar II?”
“Nothing,” said ben Saad. “Absolutely nothing.” He laughed.
And it was only then, with that one simple response, that Decker realized what had happened. “It was you,” he said. The truth exploded in his head. “It wasn’t your father, or your brother,” he continued. “It was you who cut a deal with the Israelis! And then you set them up — your own father and brother and stepmother — set them up so that Amal would kill them.” Decker poked his head out from around a crate, for just a second.
El Aqrab had finished tying Emily. She was dressed from head to foot in magnesium ribbon linked to tiny bladders of explosives. The sight of her tanned skin bulging through the bright metallic sheen burned itself into his eyes.
Decker leaned his back against the crate. He tried to block it out. His heart was racing. He was sweating uncontrollably. He wiped the perspiration from his eyes with his left sleeve. Then he shouted, “It was all about revenge.” Decker dropped onto his hands and knees, and started crawling forward once again. Keep him talking. Keep him talking and you have a chance.
El Aqrab did not respond. Decker peeked around a box. The terrorist was walking away. No, toward some other crate. He stopped. He bent over suddenly and picked up an object from the floor. Decker couldn’t see what it was; El Aqrab’s back was to him. Then the terrorist turned. He reached out and opened what appeared to be the top of a silver attaché case.
El Aqrab looked over at where Decker had been moments earlier, and reached into the case. “I’m starting the sequence, Agent Decker. Just in case. Just to let you know.” Then he shouted suddenly, “Where are you, anyway?” He swiveled his body about, like some heron hunting. “I can’t hear you anymore,” he said. He looked directly at Decker. “You’re not trying to outflank us, are you?”
The words reverberated in the air. Then he shrugged and said, “It doesn’t matter. In a few minutes, it will all be over. The bomb will explode, the volcano will erupt, and the mega-tsunami will stream across the ocean to the West. And there is nothing, absolutely nothing you or anyone else can do about it. The game is over, Agent Decker, and I’m afraid you’ve lost.”