The Nylon Hand of God

by Steven Hartov

  Re-creating the wallet documents carried by U.S. residents was not very difficult, for Americans laminated by habit and therefore the paper stocks did not have to match the originals precisely. Nearly every municipal seal was available to the American public through over-the-counter clip art, and the laser was sufficient even for the forgery of a coroner’s death certificate.

  The passports, however, were another matter altogether, for one could never underestimate the enthusiasm of a U.S. Customs inspector. To duplicate the various stocks, fibers, water seals, and infrared cues, most intelligence agencies employed a full “art department.” Fahmi had neither the time nor the equipment for such a venture, so he had devised an alternate, albeit expensive plan for Yadd Allah’s extraction from U.S. soil.

  Over the course of the last month, they had arrived through New York and Miami in the prescribed manner of asylum seekers, using black market Afghan and Tunisian passports, which they promptly shredded into aircraft toilets. Each “refugee” had then walked happily past U.S. Immigration officials, clutching his signed promise to return for a hearing.

  Fahmi, on the other hand, came through as a well-dressed French tourist, using the legitimate papers of his Parisian residence. Sewn into the lining of his down coat were twelve genuine blank Maltese passports, each gold seal of twin dolphins having enriched a corrupt minister from Valletta by five hundred pounds sterling. Every member of the group now carried one, complete with a U.S. entry stamp of Fahmi’s design, in the jacket of the mourner’s suit that was to be his escape garb.

  Fahmi was grateful that he had overextended his budget and purchased an extra passport. For sure enough, Martina had found a need for it.

  He was perspiring now, despite the chilled house, as time was very short. He wiped his fingers on his fatigue trousers and checked the freshly affixed photo of the young woman. Mussa had done well, using a telephoto until he obtained a full frontal image with the eyes focused directly on the lens. Now for the final detail. Fahmi printed a duplicate of the U.S. Customs and Immigration stamp for entry into Kennedy Airport, after having first reversed all of the courier letters and matched the red hue of the month. He quickly rolled a film of alcohol across the warm typeface, placed it facedown over a blank page in the passport, and rubbed briskly with a marble stone. When he peeled the plotting paper away, the positive image was indistinguishable from the worn metal stampers used by officials. He filled in the space above “date” with a black pen, then waved the little booklet in the air to dry it as he turned and grinned at Mussa.

  Mussa bowed to his artisan, managed a deceptively calm smile, then walked back toward the foyer. He glanced again at his watch and winced. Two-twenty.

  The atmosphere in the large house was strangely dormant. All of the windows were heavily draped and further sealed with black darkroom cloth, which prevented their work lights from stirring curiosity but also hushed the house’s sounds to flat murmurs. The aluminum reflectors threw cones of yellow haze through which cigarette smoke twisted, and with the muted exhortations of Arabic as background, it all reminded Mussa of a Syrian field hospital, the kind of place for which he had no nostalgic longings.

  He started when a finger touched his forearm, and he whirled to find Nabil holding the naval jacket like a manservant. Mussa grunted, then offered his arms, moving slowly with concern for Nabil’s wiring. The engineer quickly enveloped him and closed the brass buttons.

  “We are almost ready,” Nabil murmured as he came up with a whisk broom and began to brush the blazer. “But again I must say, respectfully, that I believe we are more likely to martyr ourselves than to overcome a contingent of American Marines.”

  He lifted Mussa’s left arm and bent it at the elbow, turning the wrist and folding the cuff back. A small metal ring, like the arming pin of a hand grenade, protruded from the lining and was held in place by stitches of thread. “Once you throw the calculator switch, Mussa,” Nabil briefed in a cautionary tone, “the briefcase is armed. Then you must simply slip a finger inside the ring and pull very hard.” He reached up and patted the left breast pocket of the tunic, where Mussa felt a slim metal box press against his chest. “A steel cable will release a spring switch on the transmitter. It is soldered there and cannot slip out, but should you somehow dislodge the ring before you arm the case, when you do switch on the calculator . . .” He stopped, shrugged, and looked up at the ceiling.

  Mussa was not particularly alarmed, for he had full confidence in Nabil’s failsafe abilities. He was more concerned with the engineer’s preamble of doubts.

  “You must have faith,” he said, placing a hand on Nabil’s shoulder. “With a bit of luck, the Americans are now focusing their protective efforts on Boston.”

  “If they found Iyad’s decoy,” said Nabil doubtfully as he plucked a wayward thread from the tunic.

  “They did. And they must follow it up.”

  “But the young fool lost the motorcycle.”

  “Yes, but it will take time to trace it. And we will be gone.”

  “One way or another.” Nabil smiled at his own gallows humor. Then his eyebrows drew together. “So where is she, Mussa? Why this digression of hers? I do not understand, and neither do the others.”

  Mussa looked over at the other men, who were systematically destroying remaining articles: mannequin parts, extra uniforms, and maps whose courses had been memorized.

  “Leila has her reasons for following this path,” he said, though he himself disagreed with many of her methods. “Besides, we cannot lose.” He smiled down at the engineer. “If we martyr ourselves, we will be called to Paradise. If we succeed, the results are the same.”

  “In sh’Allah,” said Nabil.

  Mussa patted the engineer’s cheek, a signal that the time for introspection was past. Nabil nodded, sighed, and returned to his work. There was a powder-blue baby carriage standing near his worktable, and he threaded a needle and bent into the pram.

  Mussa looked down at his body, the sharp creases of the uniform and his incongruously bare feet below the trousers. In truth, he did not have much faith in his own words of reassurance. Martina’s cold professionalism had been supplanted by something else, an obsession that seemed purely personal. She had some sort of need to avenge a past wrong, and her aplomb had been contaminated by the presence of this Israeli AMAN officer. Until the bombing at the consulate, she had never mentioned him to Mussa, and since he was privy to most of her history, this skeleton emerging from her closet unsettled him. He shook his head as he raised his watch once more. Well, he thought, at least the cause is pure. His eyes widened with alarm when he saw the time, and he snatched up the Motorola and was about to key the button when it crackled with Muhammed’s voice.

  “She is here!”

  With a ragged exhalation of relief, Mussa strode to the dining table, picked up a Beretta 92-F, and held it behind his back—the arrival of a comrade could always be followed by that of the foe. The far kitchen door leading to the garage portico swung open, and she strode through the galley and into the salon, followed by the burly Youssef and Riyad.

  For a moment the men froze as they stared at their lioness. She was every bit the American male: blond hair cropped and gelled against her skull, aviator glasses, and even a small mustache. She was wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap, a dark woolen jacket with leather arms, and a mechanic’s coverall. Had she found herself aboard an aircraft carrier, Mussa was sure that no deck crew would have stopped her from taking off in a fighter plane.

  She stood in the archway, then swept off her glasses and snapped, “Zurück an die Arbeit! Back to work!”

  The men recovered from their brief lapse, their limbs moving in jerky haste as Martina growled again. “We have to be on the road. In thirty minutes!”

  She removed the cap and came at Mussa, tearing off the mustache in a swift motion that made him wince. She stopped very close to his face, then retreated a full step and looked him over.

  “Very nice.” She sp
un him around like a head tailor examining the work of an apprentice. “Where are the shoes?”

  “We were going to pray,” said Mussa, facing her again.

  “Pray in your heads. There isn’t time.”

  She moved away, taking off the baseball jacket and dropping it to the floor as she found the marked bag that held her Marine uniform. No one but Mussa dared glance at her as she unzipped the coverall, stepped out of it wearing only a running bra and briefs, and began to don the fatigues.

  She buttoned the fly of the trousers, frowning at the gap between her stomach and the waistband. The agitation of the past four days had stripped her of kilograms she could not afford to lose. When she tried to insert the tongue of her web belt through the brass buckle, her fingers foiled her. “Scheißer.” She cursed herself until she finally succeeded, then yanked the belt so hard the cinching pained her.

  She quickly pulled an olive T-shirt over her head, glanced at her watch, and tried to push the panic down. But they had so much to do yet, so far to go. She wanted desperately to be on the road, for she had no one stationed at the target area who could contact her with calming assurances. There would be one chance only. The timing had to be divine.

  “Nabil, is Mussa’s coat ready?” She sat down on the floor and pulled on a pair of green military socks.

  “He is wearing it,” Nabil replied, his voice muffled, as his head was still inside the baby pram.

  “Just answer!” Martina snapped, betraying her agitation.

  He looked up and blinked. “Yes, Leila.”

  “And the power sources?”

  “Fresh batteries in everything.”

  “And it all works?”

  “Perfectly,” he declared without hesitation.

  “Gott helfe dir,” Martina warned, although she knew the threat was hollow. If Nabil’s equipment failed, the reactions would be instantaneous and deadly, with far more impact than her wrath. God help me, she thought. She was used to working carefully, methodically, anticipating moves and countermoves. Yet now she felt trapped into discarding essential cautions.

  “Where is Fahmi?” she asked as she laced a pair of Vietnam-style jungle boots.

  “I am here,” replied a voice from behind her.

  “The documents?”

  “Everything is done.”

  “Where?”

  “The licenses and registrations are in the glove boxes. Passports are in the pockets of travel clothes.”

  “Mine?”

  “In your coat. It hangs with the skirt and blouse on a peg in the truck.”

  “And the plates?”

  “On all the vehicles, plus switch sets in the boots.”

  She turned her head and looked up at the spindly boy. His face exuded faith in his own professionalism, and she wanted to rise and hug him. Instead, she nodded her approval, even though she longed for a strong caress. Her insecurity could not be quelled by any checklist.

  She was absolutely certain now that she had been set up as the patsy for the consular bombing and that Benjamin Baum played a pivotal role in that ambush party. Her mother’s safety and future were in question, while with the Americans and Israelis snapping at her heels, there was little she could do to parry them. She had only one card up her sleeve, yet this ploy seemed so weak to her now, so desperate, that as she roughly pulled on a mottled fatigue jacket, she found herself struggling against a threat of tears. No! She stopped herself. Never! I will not let them see that.

  “Mussa?” She controlled her tone. “The aircraft.”

  “Booked and waiting.”

  “And you are sure the package arrived?”

  “I sent it by special courier. And since your ‘friend’ has headed for Washington, you can be sure he is not going to visit the monuments.”

  Martina stopped fiddling with her clothes and looked at him: so young, so brave, ready to follow his brother’s fate. Wearing the stolen uniform of an American officer who had no doubt expired by now, an act that would certainly mean the electric chair if he was taken prisoner. She had to rise to that, to match that courage. If her mother’s welfare was to be assured, she had to survive this episode outside prison walls. She had been paid, the funds committed. Her only choice was to execute Skorpion successfully and leave its victims cursing as Yadd Allah flew.

  “And did you take the pearl?” Mussa asked, although he hoped Martina had abandoned this wild insurance policy.

  “The jewel is on ice.” For the first time since her arrival, something like a smile crossed her lips. At least that improvisation had worked sublimely.

  Mussa frowned. “What do you mean, ‘on ice’?”

  “In the limousine.”

  “Alone?”

  “Fouad is baby-sitting.” She turned now to the men who had gathered near the rifles at the far end of the salon. As Youssef and Riyad had just arrived with her, Ali, Jaweed, Yaccub, and Salim were roughly dressing the two large men in their uniforms.

  “Salim!” Martina shouted, and the tall Lebanese whirled his head around. “Why do you answer to that name?” she challenged, as he stared at her. “Are there American Marines named Salim?”

  “No, ma’am,” Salim drawled in a southern accent he had practiced while watching Heartbreak Ridge. “Thought you said Gyrene.”

  “And you?” She pointed at Yaccub, a wide, muscular twenty-six-year-old of Syrian birth.

  “Fazio, Anthony. Three-two-five, seven-six, one-seven-oh-one.” Yaccub spat the words in a hoarse growl. “Second platoon, Bravo Company, First of the Third. Security.”

  The rest of the men had drawn themselves to attention.

  “You.” She pointed at Jaweed. “Get a uniform and gear to our man in the limo.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Jaweed as he scrambled for the bag with the name Foster marked on it.

  “And I did not see the staff car.” She wondered if there was something they had actually missed, one correction she might make to remind them of whose mind was superior.

  “I parked it two blocks away,” said Nabil.

  Martina spun on him. “Two blocks away? Are you mad?”

  “It was my decision alone,” he declared bravely as he threw his shoulders back. “It is the one car that should not be seen pulling into or away from this house.”

  “And if it is stolen?” She advanced on him.

  “There is a Club on the wheel.”

  “And if the tires are slashed?” She was nearly nose-to-nose with him now.

  “Four spares in the garage.” He did not dare move, a man with a tarantula crawling on his neck.

  Martina looked at him, then reached up with her right hand and touched the side of his face. Mussa winced, expecting Nabil to receive a blow for his independent efforts, but Martina suddenly placed her lips to his cheek and kissed him. Then she pulled back and smiled, an expression matched by all those around her.

  “There are no better,” she whispered. She stopped herself from expressing further sentiments and turned away. “My first coat and the galoshes, please?”

  “In a valise,” said Nabil, still holding a flush of pride in his cheeks. “I will place it on the back seat of the staff car. I did not want it to be stolen.”

  “Of course,” said Martina. She looked around the sitting room once more, and as her gaze fell on the gleaming coffin, and she slowly walked to it, the spines of her men stiffened. She raised the heavy lid, held it open for a moment, then gently closed it. She stood staring at the polished wood as she asked, almost inaudibly, “Where is the head?”

  No one answered her, the house itself as silent as a grave. She raised a hand and slammed it onto the coffin.

  “Where is the head?!” she shouted. “Where is it? And where is that idiot Iyad?”

  “He will come.” Mussa tried to assuage her. “He is late.”

  “Late?” She turned on Mussa. “Late?” She lifted her arms and then slapped the sides of her trousers. That accursed simpleton, she yelled inside her mind as she began to pace
. He meets us in the open, prattles in Arabic, nearly fucks up the decoy, then loses the bloody motorcycle. She cursed herself for keeping him on after his first acts of buffoonery. Not only had he delivered a stolen bike to authorities who could run it down; now he had failed to deliver the key to Yadd Allah’s escape. She put her fingers in her cropped hair and tried to think.

  Just then, Muhammed’s Motorola signaled Mussa’s, the crackling whisper followed by an urgent rap on the front door. Mussa ran to it, turned the knob, and Iyad nearly fell into the foyer.

  His hair was slick with rivulets of rain and sweat. He was breathing very hard, and though he surely felt the stab of Martina’s glare, he avoided her eyes and pleaded to his comrades instead.

  “I am sorry.” Iyad shook his head and looked jerkily around. “I am sorry.” He placed a black physician’s satchel on the floor and stripped off his raincoat, revealing the green scrubs of a hospital orderly. “I could not do it.” His hands trembled at the ends of his arms, the palms turned up in supplication. “The autopsy room was overflowing with doctors,” he whined. “The morgue was like a train station.” He fumbled in a breast pocket for a cigarette, then lit it with a wavering match, trying to delay the flurry of curses that he knew would shortly follow. “These New York drivers are worse than Lebanese. So many accidents tonight.”

  Martina walked to him, her eyes skipping over his worthless form as she focused on the black satchel and snatched it up. She opened it. It was gaping. Empty. Nothing.

  She dropped the bag and turned away, her fists clutching at the air as if pumping the black balloons of blood pressure gauges. Her eyes flicked from the coffin to Nabil’s worktable and his power saws, and on into the distant kitchen. There, on the Formica cutting surface embracing two large sinks, she could see the empty metal colander Nabil had welded to a small steel tripod. The mortician’s kit was there, the makeup, the alcohol and embalming fluids. The macabre tools gleamed back at her in the harsh light of the galley.

  If the coffin charade was not complete, the ruse imperfect in any way, they would never get off the ground. They would never leave the shores of America.