“Nothing, huh?”
“Nothing,” Yusuf said, his face screwed in confidence, his mind made up. Tandem saw it as a challenge. He did not understand Yusuf’s fanaticism. He eyed the knife and moved slightly to his left. Yusuf remained crouched; set to spring, Tandem thought. He imagined this was his intention.
“You go back,” Yusuf said and gestured with his knife.
“I’ll go back, sure,” Tandem said, and then he lashed out with a quick kick of his right foot. The boot caught Yusuf just under the chin, snapping his head back with such force that a thin line of blood ripped across his lower neck where the skin tore. His head smashed against the cement wall just behind him and he sat down hard. He still clutched his knife.
Tandem didn’t hesitate. He drove another kick into Yusuf’s ribs, feeling the bones give way. Yusuf groaned in surprise and pain and tried desperately to turn out of the path of the foot that was coming down toward his Adam’s apple. He put his left arm up and caught the heel against his elbow. The contact stunned his arm, sending a vibration through his body, but he was able to swing his right hand around fast enough to drive the knife into the top of Tandem’s boot. It caught his foot just above the ankle. The leather of the boot prevented the blade from going in too deeply, but the pain sent Tandem back.
Yusuf struggled to get to his feet before Tandem charged in again. He didn’t understand the reason for the attack or the viciousness of it, but he understood that he was suddenly battling for his life. A series of sharp, needlelike pains ripped down the side of his body where Tandem had kicked him, but he got to his feet anyway.
He crouched in readiness, knife out. Tandem began circling to his left and then to his right. Yusuf’s head was spinning. He fought the dizziness frantically, sensing that his mind was trying to turn off, black out, and retreat from the ugliness of the pain and the threat of death, but he refused to lose consciousness.
“What’s wrong … with you? Why are you … doing this?”
“You ain’t gonna stop me, you little bastard,” Tandem said. “It’s mine, mine.” He touched his shirt pocket, but Yusuf did not understand.
Suddenly Tandem launched at Yusuf, coming at him the way a ballplayer slides into base. It was the beginning of a scissors-grip takedown. His legs caught Yusuf’s left ankle between them and Tandem turned his body, holding the ankle. The effect was immediate and hard to resist. Yusuf had no alternative but to go with the pressure. He went over, slapping down hard on his right side. It drove excruciating pain into his body. The knife slipped out of his hand and rolled a few feet away. He reached for it in a futile act of desperation.
Tandem was on him immediately. Yusuf felt the weight of Tandem’s body forcing him against the floor of the basement. It was useless to fight it. Despite his great reluctance to do so, he knew now that he had to scream for help. He kept thinking it would mean the end of the project, but he had no alternative. It was, after all, a matter of life or death—and disappointingly, he chose life. He wasn’t the front fighter he dreamed of being. In his attempt to let out that howl, that scream for help, he instantly came to despise himself. His animal drive for life forced him to do it, but his thirst for meaning condemned him for it.
Just as Yusuf began to scream, Tandem caught him around the throat with his forearm. It had the effect of smothering the attempt. Now, with the man’s body pressing him down and the pain chasing him all over his body, Yusuf made his final effort. Tandem’s grip was viselike and the bone of his forearm like steel. Yusuf tried turning his neck to deflect the pressure onto a less vulnerable portion, but it was impossible.
The pressure soon began to cut off his air. He pulled at the arm with all his might, but it did not budge. It did not give a fraction of an inch. He began to choke and cough in little spurts. He thought he tasted his own blood popping out along the inside of his throat. His tongue got caught between his teeth and he bit into it spasmodically.
When he knew he was going to die and there was no longer any use to struggle, he released his fingers from Tandem’s arm. As the darkness began closing in, he wondered only one thing—why? He wanted to simply ask it—to have that one last favor. But it was not to be. His lips mouthed the word unseen and then his body went totally limp.
Tandem squeezed on for a few moments after Yusuf died. He knew he had killed him, but the muscles of his body had been launched into a frenzied pace and it was impossible to just call them to an immediate halt. His whole body, tensed and set, with all his strength driving toward the great hold on Yusuf’s neck, cooled slowly. He took his arm away and let Yusuf fall to the floor. Then he stood up and leaned against the wall. The muscles in his arm and shoulder twitched. It was only then that he began to feel the pain in his foot where Yusuf had managed to stab him. The great effort to kill had made him forget it.
He slipped his boot off and touched the spot. It was damp with his blood. He hopped into the light and looked at it. There was a small gash. The blood was deceptive. It wasn’t half as bad as it looked. He went back to Yusuf’s body and ripped a piece of material out of his shirt, using it to tie the wound on his foot. Then he put the boot back on, experiencing some annoying pain as he did so. He cursed and sat back against the wall, staring at Yusuf’s body.
What he would do now, he thought, was drag the body all the way back against the far girders and stuff it in behind one. No one would discover it before the great explosions and then it would join in with a few thousand others. He laughed at the irony in that.
Then he tapped his shirt pocket to make sure that the transmitter was still there. It wasn’t.
A surge of great fear shot through him. He panicked, stood up quickly, and began a wild search for the small device. Had they crushed it in the battle? Had it slid away, under something, never to be found? He got down on his hands and knees and began crawling in small circles around and around Yusuf’s body. He tried to keep his cool. I’ll do this scientifically, he thought, until I find it. I’ll make larger and larger circles gradually. I’ll look forever.
But he didn’t look long before he found it. When he did so, he sat up and inspected it carefully. It looked all right. If there was only a way to test it and be sure, he thought. He remembered that the battery had been in his pocket too. He felt for that. It was there. All was okay again. He breathed a sigh of relief and turned back to the problem of Yusuf’s body.
He was tired, nearly exhausted because of the great physical and emotional drain, but he had to get that body out of there now. He started dragging it by the feet. It was so heavy it took all his remaining strength to move it. When he finally got Yusuf’s body hidden behind the deepest girder, he collapsed beside it and tried to catch his breath. He was there for the longest time, and nearly fell asleep. When he looked at his watch, he was shocked to discover that more than an hour and a half had gone by since he first confronted Yusuf. It was just about sunrise.
He got up and made his way slowly back to the main corridor. From there he moved to the storage room. By the time he crawled up on the high shelf and made a place for himself, he was shaking with fatigue. He closed his eyes, holding the palm of his hand up against the transmitter in his pocket. It was all still his. They had tried, but they hadn’t taken it away. Now they would have to live with him in control. The thought comforted him and he was able to fall asleep with a smile on his face.
26
Although it was early morning, Nessim had been lying there with his eyes open for quite a while, so when the phone rang, it did not wake him. Clea stirred and wiped her eyes. He lifted the receiver and said hello. It was Hamid. Nessim sat up quickly and swung his feet out over the bed.
“Neither Tandem nor Yusuf came out of the hotel last night. Mr. Y. is very upset. Can you explain?”
“Only about Tandem. He … has the transmitter.”
“How?”
“I met him in my room afterward. There was no oth
er way.” His tone of voice told all.
“So that was why he was so anxious to bring Yusuf into the building.”
“Yes.”
“And now, where is he?”
“Somewhere below.”
“Yusuf?”
“Probably remained. Stubborn.”
“All was set then?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think Tandem will follow our schedule?”
“No way of knowing. Says he will.”
“About number 2. Do it as soon as you can now. The sooner the better, Mr. Y. says.”
“I know. Sometime before lunch, perhaps. Then I will search for Yusuf.”
“Is that wise?”
“I must do it.”
“Very well. I shall go on as planned and be where I am supposed to be.”
“Understood,” Nessim said. He heard Hamid hang up.
At first the thought of Yusuf being in the basement angered him, but then he realized he might very well have met up with Tandem, and Tandem was a crazed lunatic. If his brother discovered that Tandem had betrayed them, he would surely try to take him and get the transmitter back.
“What’s happening now?” Clea asked.
“Yusuf didn’t leave the hotel last night as he was supposed to.”
“What did he do?” She sat up, pushing her hair back.
“He must’ve stayed in the basement. I told him to go, but he was anxious to be right with me when I … detonated the explosives. He wants to be part of all of it.”
“Then he’ll be down there all day, waiting somewhere in the basement.” She shook her head and lay back.
“I’ll go down and look for him later.”
“What about Tandem?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will you try to stop him?”
“Stop him? I’ll try to get back control of things, that’s what I’ll do,” he said.
She turned over on her side, giving him her back. He took his pistol off the night table and inspected it.
“I won’t go down to breakfast,” she said. “Or lunch. I won’t leave this room.”
He considered it. He was wondering how to keep the two of them out of the dining room anyway. Thoughts of an anxious Tandem holding that transmitter worried him. Of course, he’d have to think of a way to get her out of the building itself during the meal hours. The whole structure should topple, and they were located above the dining room.
“Okay,” he said quickly. She turned around and looked at him.
“You don’t care?”
“If it’s what you want. We can eat in the luncheonette. Maybe go for a walk.”
She studied him for a moment. He was too easy about it, putting up no resistance. After all, she had been brought along to maintain a semblance of normalcy, harmlessness—just another Jewish couple on Passover. Why didn’t he complain?
“What if you don’t get back control of things?” she asked. He didn’t reply. “Tandem will do what he wants when he wants, is that it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then if we were in the dining room, we might be … He could explode it at any time—during breakfast or lunch, couldn’t he? Couldn’t he?”
“Yes,” he said. He slammed his fist against the mattress.
“Then I will go down.”
“What?” He turned quickly. “What if I don’t find him?”
“Then disconnect your bombs,” she said, her face solid with determination, “and make it impossible for him to do anything.”
He considered. There was a much greater risk of being seen down in the basement during the day and he hadn’t planted the backup bomb in the dining room yet. If someone saw him near the girders … Yet, it was the solution for the present. Actually, he thought, all I’d have to do is block the contact, so even if the switches were closed, there’d be no electrical impulse.
“You know,” he said, smiling at her. “You’ve got an idea.”
“Then you’ll do it?”
“I’ll do it right now,” he said and reached for his shirt and pants.
Two chambermaids, both at least in their late fifties, spoke in low voices as they approached Nessim in the basement. He tried looking as casual as he could. No one would know he didn’t belong down here if he kept his cool, he thought. I can always say I have some business with the stagecraft people or the laundry. The chambermaids did stare at him as they passed in the corridor, but they didn’t stop to talk. He didn’t look back, imagining they might be doing the same thing and it would look too suspicious. A custodian came down the corridor, walking very quickly. Nessim continued at his same pace; the man, muttering to himself, didn’t even look at Nessim as they passed each other.
There was no one else in the basement corridor for the moment. He stopped and looked around. The doorway to one of the storage rooms was wide open. Where would either of them hide? He wondered. It would have to be in one of these rooms. He approached the doorway slowly, listening attentively for voices or sounds. There were none, and when he looked inside, he saw that it was simply a room for cleaning equipment—powders, brooms, mops. It smelled of ammonia. He walked on.
He approached the girder area slowly, thinking as he did so that if someone came down the corridor now, he’d just walk past and return afterward. He couldn’t risk being seen going into the belly of the building. That would look too suspicious, especially to a custodial person. He heard women talking some distance behind him, but when he turned, they weren’t yet in sight. Without any further hesitation, he scurried in between the first girder and the wall to disappear within the protection of the now very familiar shadows.
He waited as the women, more chambermaids, passed the area, and then he began work on the first detonator. If Tandem triggered them, they would close, permitting a point to touch the positive side of each penlight battery, thus completing the circuit. He placed a small piece of cardboard against the little batteries securely. There’d be no contact and therefore no detonation until he removed each. He would also be able to tell whether or not Tandem had indeed triggered the transmitter prematurely—for if he did, the switches would have been thrown.
He moved quickly, covering each detonator as he came to it. He reached the last two and, cursing to himself, crawled in to get at the one on the left first. That done, he came out of the area and crossed the belly of the building to take care of the one final detonator remaining on the right.
Seeing Yusuf’s hand immediately upon approaching the girder, he jerked back with surprise. When he touched it, he felt the cold skin, and the shock of recognition became a surge of terrible fear. He tugged at the arm and his brother’s body slid out toward him, the eyes still opened, the face stuck in an expression of intense pain.
“Yusuf,” he said. He brought his fingers to his brother’s face. During the last few years, Nessim had grown accustomed to the feel of death. It had become an all too familiar acquaintance. He looked for signs of blood, wounds, or blows on his brother’s body. Yusuf stared at him with a glazed look of accusation now. Nessim was repulsed. He had, after all, brought him in to all this. He reached up and closed his brother’s eyes.
His feelings weren’t all that clear yet. After the surprise and shock came the indifference built in him for experiencing death so often in the recent past. Slowly, that was followed by a great sense of indignation and anger. His brother had been murdered by the madman, the same man who might yet steal the glory of his work. He wanted to yell, to swing about wildly, to pound something, but he could only sit and stare at the body of his brother.
Then his mood changed radically. The sadness and the sorrow seized him. He had to mourn for everyone, do the mourning for his parents as well as for himself. He felt Yusuf’s deep embrace again, and even though he hadn’t done much of it for a long time, he heard the sound of his
laughter. He thought of the quickness in his eyes, the moodiness of his temperament. All the small things about him paraded through Nessim’s mind, but most of all Nessim remembered how much Yusuf had idolized him.
He swallowed hard and sat limply for a while, fighting back tears. There was no time to cry now. Later, in the quietude of respite, he would do his crying. As much as he hated the idea, he would have to leave Yusuf’s body just where it was. There would be no burial. His remains would be lost in the rubble, and suddenly he longed for that. Bring on the explosions and the death, he thought. Let it come.
Keeping track of his mission, he deadened the final switch and then sat his brother’s body up straight again. He looked at him once more. “I’ll see you one more time, my brother; when I return to activate the switches, I’ll say our final good-bye then.” He turned away and crawled to where he could listen for voices and footsteps. Then he moved out and dusted himself off. He got back to the corridor quickly and for a fleeting moment he thought about going after Tandem right then, searching the basement completely until he found him and killed him. But then he realized he couldn’t risk the battle. First he had to consider his mission. The secondary bomb must be planted. When that was done, he would have his time and he would have his revenge.
Barry Wintraub woke with a start. Shirley was still asleep beside him. Some part of his brain, working like an alarm clock, signaled the morning. As he sat up, he realized this wasn’t just another morning. This was the day Chaim Eban was to arrive. This was the third day. They were into the countdown. Things had to be done quickly and efficiently.
As usual, the boys were up arguing with each other. Their verbal battle built and built until one struck the other and the sound of crying began the symphony of noise Barry called “Family Togetherness.” A little more impatient than usual, Barry seized them both by the backs of their necks and shook them a lot more fiercely than they were used to. They grew silent immediately.
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