by Fritz Galt
“What’s that?”
“This particular Khalid Slimane is alive, and we have him in our custody.”
Everett turned to his wife, who leaned exhausted against a spray-painted light pole. She had just cracked the case wide open.
Chapter 27
In Japan, rain beat on the pagoda-like roof of Nagoya-jo Castle, the original home of shogun warriors.
Yashito Konishi was back from his trip to Switzerland and stood facing the world’s ten major semiconductor manufacturers. Their expensive attire, worldly cologne and confident manner were a daunting force that belied the vulnerability of their industry.
Several stories below, their fleet of limousines waited, rain droplets collecting on the gleaming waxed surfaces, steam rising from the purring engines.
Yashito closed his eyes and inhaled. The musty, damp smell of the rafters overpowered the sophisticated scent of the foreigners.
Suddenly, he felt a primal rush of adrenaline, a momentary urge to oust the gai-jin.
He opened his eyes slightly and looked from face to face. The men no longer carried the expressions of adversaries. They were looking to him for help and guidance.
He was the coach.
In the previous meeting, he had made his appeal to them for permission to oust America from CERN any way possible, they had embraced his game plan and he had turned them into his confidants.
Now he would turn them into his accomplices.
He had no notes, but a speech was already outlined in his mind.
“Gentlemen, this will be our final meeting this year. I just returned from Switzerland and bring you news.”
“We already know the news,” the German chipmaker interrupted, his gold-plated teeth jutting out in anger. “CERN agreed to sign on the Yanks. All is lost.”
So much for the speech.
“Not necessarily,” Yashito said. He chose his words carefully. “It’s true that the Americans are scheduled to sign the CERN charter next Tuesday. But I’ve created two new strategies.”
The group seemed nervous, but ready to listen.
“Number one, it may be possible to obtain samples of the substrate onto which the thin film superconductors will be created.”
“How would you obtain the substrate?” the slightly built manufacturer from Taiwan interjected. “Aren’t the Americans keeping the experiment secret?”
“Yes, it’s still top secret. But I’ve instructed the Proteus Jihad to obtain the substrate using whatever means necessary.”
“Won’t it be obvious when we start producing chips that we’re using the American substrate?” the German asked.
“Gentlemen, look into the future,” Yashito said. “If we begin producing these chips from all corners of the world, no organization, no investigative body, no American Marines can stop us.”
“You’re begging the question,” the dignified manufacturer from Singapore said. “Won’t it be obvious?”
“Of course it’ll be obvious,” he said. “The only possible source of our chips would be the stolen substrate. If we have to, we’ll fight America’s monopoly at the World Trade Organization. In the meantime, we’ll have advanced our industries and saved our national economies.”
“What’s our other option?” the paunchy Frenchman sputtered.
“My instructions were as follows. If the Proteus Jihad can’t obtain the substrate, then I’ve given the jihad free rein to use whatever means necessary to stop the Americans from signing the CERN charter, including assassinating their president.”
The Frenchman clutched his chest and gasped. Men jumped to their feet in outrage.
Yashito let the group vent its rage.
When the executives were ready to listen again, he said, “Barbaric, yes. Avoidable, no. We must stop this mad American march toward world domination.”
“I want no part of this,” the silvery-haired South Korean said. “I did not hear this conversation.”
“My friend,” Yashito said. “There’s no record of our involvement. And the beauty of using the Proteus Jihad is that the world will attribute the assassination to political motives.”
The group studied each other.
The downpour against the castle’s roof sounded like hammers pounding the final nails in a coffin.
Rather than drive them apart, the issue had driven the competitors to the same conclusion. They would use the stolen substrate, and they would let the assassination proceed.
Besides, it was too late. Yashito bowed his head to conceal a triumphant smile.
He had already sent Proteus the new instructions.
Chapter 28
Natalie remembered landing in Casablanca, the long taxi ride through dry flatlands, and Khalid directing the cabbie through a village at nightfall.
It was morning now and sun streamed through the tall, arched windows of the room in which she lay. She still hadn’t found out who Proteus was. But she sensed she was getting closer.
She felt hot pools of sunshine on her pillow and listened to the soft, distant sounds of morning.
A donkey clopped downhill. An occasional horn tooted in the valley. A vendor called out “Huile” as he pushed a squeaky cart up the street. Birds chattered busily in the garden.
She rolled away from the light and opened her eyes to take in the room.
Several straw baskets threaded with a cross pattern of red and green hung against the far wall. Colored floor tiles formed an intricate zigzag design.
She sat up slowly and leaned back against the padded fabric headboard of her bed.
Out the window were pine trees and pink bougainvillea. Beyond those lay a white garden wall.
Slowly, events of the previous evening came back to her. It had been dusk when the taxi had dropped them off at a walled compound that belonged to Khalid’s mother.
Natalie was now in Khalid’s family guestroom, in Settat, Morocco.
Her stomach began to growl.
That night, Khalid’s mother had left her a bottle of Evian and a plate of fruit on her nightstand. So she slipped out of bed, touched the cold floor and poured herself a glass of water. It was refreshing.
She selected a red apple, polished it against her chemise and took a bite. An image of the Garden of Eden passed through her mind, but she fought it off.
She remembered what Khalid had said before bedtime. He would be busy preparing his friend’s body for the funeral. “My mother will leave you food in the refrigerator. Make yourself at home.”
So she did.
She wandered into the kitchen, pulled the American refrigerator open and found, among other things, freshly squeezed orange juice. Then she remembered that she was near Tangiers, home of the tangerine.
She poured herself a glass and drank it in one gulp.
Then she found a fresh baguette in a breadbasket. She pulled it out, and slowly munched through the hard crust to the soft interior. As she leaned against the tiny sink, she studied the pink tile wall painted with white teapots.
It was definitely a mother’s kitchen, and a far cry from Khalid’s minibar.
Illuminated by flickering candlelight, Khalid had entered Natalie’s bedroom that night and dropped some coins in her hand.
“Here are fifty dirhams,” he had said, and leaned over to kiss her as she sat on the edge of the bed. For a moment, she felt like he was paying her in advance for services rendered.
“What’s this for?” she had said, avoiding his kiss.
“I won’t be back until mid-day,” he replied. “Explore the town and buy something for yourself.”
“Fine. Now take that candle and leave,” she had told him.
“Who said I’m leaving?”
His mother was clanging pots around the kitchen as she prepared food for the funeral.
“Want to give your own mother a heart attack?” she had said. “Now leave.”
And he had grudgingly complied.
Natalie had locked the door and fallen asleep thinking that whatever
Khalid’s mother was cooking smelled awfully good. And whatever her son had in mind stunk.
She took a long shower that morning and developed a plan for the day. She would use her free time to learn more about the town, about Khalid and about the people who associated with him. Was this place a hotbed for terrorists? Was Khalid well known?
She put on her conservative green cotton dress and a shawl over her hair. She looked in the mirror at the peculiar sight she made, complete with blue eyes, auburn eyebrows, and no makeup. She sighed. This was as good as it would get.
On her first step outside, she froze in her tracks. Something was moving at her feet.
She looked down and saw a baby snake slither across her path.
“Move along, little guy,” she said, and waited until he was in the grass.
Looking around the compound, she saw no obvious way out. On the driveway, she noticed a metal pole jammed diagonally between the ground and the gate.
She pried up the pole and was able to open the gate.
A turbaned man sat on a chair just outside. He waved at her, but didn’t try to prevent her from leaving.
As she recalled, she could reach town by walking downhill.
At the first intersection, she came to a red octagonal sign. It needed no translation. Although the Arabic characters looked like two people paddling a canoe, it was clear that the sign meant “Stop.”
Just as she took her first step into the street, a motorbike roared up from behind her and turned right in front of her.
Maybe the sign meant nothing at all.
She looked in all directions, then hurried across the street.
Safe again, she strolled down the sidewalk alongside a wide boulevard that would eventually lead to the town of Settat.
Along the empty stretch of road, she palled a crumbling wall that encircled a vast, shaded cemetery. She took a moment to lean over the waist-high wall to read the headstones.
There were crosses and the names of French soldiers and officers.
An old man in a white skullcap sat asleep in the shade beside his hoe. Although the military cemetery wasn’t intentionally neglected, it had clearly deteriorated over time. The newest gravestones were dated 1956. She guessed that was the approximate year of Morocco’s independence from France.
In the dry, stony vista beyond the cemetery, she saw a tin village perched on the hilltop. Apparently, Morocco was a country of many have nots, and there wasn’t much to have in the first place.
Finally she came to a street with some activity. The traffic consisted of two white donkeys pulling a creaking cart.
“Hi, buddies,” she said.
Ears flat and heads down, they pulled two men, with a woman in a black djellabah walking behind.
As Natalie neared the center of town, she heard jackhammers clattering from every direction. Kids kicked a soccer ball up and down the street.
In the middle of the desert, an oasis of life had sprung up.
She passed young women with long black hair flowing over silky blue caftans that reached from shoulder to ankle. A slit in the fabric below their knees revealed pants underneath. She wondered how they kept from boiling to death under the sun.
A young man in a black leather jacket swaggered across the street in front of her.
Another donkey with black ear tips and a white muzzle carried a sagging double bag of supplies slung over its flanks. A proud man in white haik headgear swayed on the animal’s rear haunches.
The central streets in town were wide, paved, had curbs and were full of human and animal traffic. Short, scrubby trees lined the packed dirt sidewalks. One day they might be tall enough to shade pedestrians. Until such time, people walked in the street.
Natalie heard the chug of a motor and jumped onto the curb. An ancient truck rumbled past, prodding people out of its path.
She passed under a green awning that rippled in the breeze. It was an open-air restaurant that specialized in liver and onion sandwiches. Liver and onions? The thought of greasy food reminded her that she desperately needed a store that sold toothbrushes.
She began to look for such a place.
Goods spilled from each establishment onto the street for all to see. None of them seemed to sell general goods.
An orange canopy flapped in the wind over an almond store. Next to that, fat-marbled legs and carcasses hung from the open window of a meat stand. Beside that, a vendor sold bananas, dates, melons, cactus fruit, eggplants, potatoes and huge chunks of orange-colored squash.
One store looked promising. It sold only plastic goods, all imports. There were buckets and shelf organizers, but no toothbrushes.
Who could she ask to find a general store? Sinister-looking brown-hooded djellabahs crisscrossed the street before her like monks during the Spanish Inquisition.
Then she heard someone clanking on metal inside a stall. She poked her head in the double doorway. It was a bicycle repair shop. The owner sat on the floor drinking tea with his customer while a young man battled a dented bicycle fender beside them.
“Pardonez-moi,” she said. “Where can I find a toothbrush?”
The owner and a customer stared at each other, and at first Natalie wondered if they didn’t understand English.
Eventually, the owner stood up and gave her specific directions to a store he called “The Hajj.”
She followed his directions and finally found the store. It didn’t carry much, but it did sell toothbrushes. She pulled out five dirhams and paid for one.
She headed home with a proud feeling of accomplishment. On her way, she passed under the same green awning.
The marquee read “King Snacks.” How bad could liver and onions be?
Sitting on a high stool, a young man in a green apron and white fez grinned at her and handed her a menu.
She studied the humming flies, the single table, the sizzling stove and the sweating chef.
In the end, she ordered a fries and liver sandwich…for Khalid.
“Are you staying in Settat?” the young man inquired casually while the overweight chef fried up the meat. Apparently, visitors were a curiosity there.
“Just visiting,” she said. “I’m here for a funeral.”
The young man’s eyes darted up and down the street. “You knew Mustapha Skah?”
Now she did.
“Do you know Khalid Slimane?” she returned.
He shook his head. “Never heard of him.”
“Khalid lives up there,” she said, and pointed to the affluent area adjacent to the French cemetery.
The young man asked the chef, and the chef didn’t know the name.
That was strange. His mother lived up there, and it seemed like a small enough town. “He’s an engineer in Switzerland.”
“There are no engineers living there,” he said. “You must be mistaken.”
“Do you know his mother?”
He continued to shake his head. “Believe me,” he said. “I would know.”
Great. She was staying with someone who didn’t exist.
She paid the young man ten dirhams and left with the lunch in a rolled up newspaper.
Starting up the empty street, she looked at the wrapper. A photo of Khalid was staring at her. He appeared under the main headline, except the caption had a different name.
It read “Brahim Abbad.”
And the headline was chilling.
“Son of Killer Returns.”
Chapter 29
Alec Pierce waited for Khalid Slimane to hand off a package on the steps of the Sorbonne in Paris. Waiting for over an hour, he nibbled at his croque monsieur, a grilled ham and cheese breakfast sandwich.
Seated beside Alec inside the university café was his girlfriend, Anaïs. She squirmed in her seat, unable to endure long periods of waiting. Minutes passed with neither of them saying a word. She leaned over and sucked what remained of the grapefruit on her plate. Several more minutes passed and Khalid was nowhere in sight.
Alec lo
oked around the café. Students sat at the tables sipping coffee, absorbed in their books. A tepid sun had already climbed over the Sorbonne’s library and fell flat and white on his face.
“Damn it,” he said at last. “He was supposed to appear at sunrise.”
“I told you last night that he’s still in Geneva,” she said. “He never left.”
Alec reached over and patted her on the hand. She might be right. And that disturbed him.
For the past three days, he had trained his eyes on the same stone plaza. Each night, he had moved to a different hotel. The rooms were all dreary and reeked of cigarette smoke. Each morning, he had tried out a different café that faced the square.
Last night, just as the sinking feeling had come over him that his vigil was for naught, Anaïs had arrived. She was both angry that he had left Geneva and relieved to have found him safe and alive.
He splurged and they checked into the glitzy Select Hôtel. The night had gone well, except for a disconcerting incident when she jettisoned his colorful briefs out the hotel window and onto the moonlit plaza.
He smiled at the memory. It had been some night.
Young men used the sunken plaza as their personal skateboard park. They climbed out of the square and then rolled back down the steps, creating an irritating series of metallic plops. Alec had had to endure the sound for three straight days.
“Why do you insist that he’s coming?” she said. “He’s busy at the laboratory.”
That morning, it looked like Khalid would fail to materialize once again. Omar Naftir, Alec’s engineering friend, had either been poorly informed or duped by someone when he told Alec that Khalid would be there. Either way, Omar had died in the process of passing that piece of misinformation on to him, and that made for a poor reason to die.
“I’ll give Khalid one more day to show up,” he decided.
“Did he do something wrong?”
Alec took a sip of his third café au lait. “‘I’ll explain it to you in good time.”
“Is he involved in espionage?”
“You have some imagination,” he said. He admired her broad face with its distinctive, unkempt crop of blonde hair and her innocent young blue eyes. She blushed under his intense scrutiny.