by Adam LeBor
Yael watched the bare landscape go by for a minute or so, the rain pattering against the windows, her right hand holding the Jericho in her pocket. If nothing else, it was a pleasure to sit in a car with an intact windshield. The radio was on, tuned to a local news channel, she guessed. A GPS mounted near the rearview mirror showed their location on Altnesvegur.
Yael took out the Jericho and pointed it at him. “Explain.”
Ortega glanced at her, kept his hands on the steering wheel. “No need for that, ma’am. You’re safe now.”
“Drop the ma’am. Who sent you, why are you here, and what do you want?”
She stared at him, focused but calm. Michael Ortega. Last seen on Friday evening on the corner of West Eighty-First and Riverside Drive, hailing a taxi for Yael and her mother to take them to the KZX reception. Three days later, here he was on Altnesvegur. A memory flashed through her mind: she had sensed a strange current between Ortega and Barbara, a glance, the subtlest of nods. At the time she had thought no more of it. Now he had the soldier’s look: wired, ready for action, but under control. The pieces began to fall into place.
Ortega said, “I was told to keep an eye on you, make sure you are safe.”
“You’ve been following me? Since when?”
Ortega smiled. “Since I was told to watch your back.”
Yael pushed Jericho’s muzzle against Ortega’s temple. “How long is that?”
Ortega winced. “Around a month. As I said, I’m here to help. Really.”
Yael did a rapid mental calculation. A month ago Michael Ortega had been living under the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument on Riverside Drive, a couple of blocks from her apartment. She looked in the rearview mirror, the passenger side mirror, then ahead. The road behind them was deserted, the road ahead also empty, wet tundra leading away on both sides, the wind gusting over the stubby grass.
She kept the gun against Ortega’s temple. “Who. Sent. You?” she asked again, although she already had a good idea what the answer was.
Ortega started to reply when the radio announcer suddenly broke off midsentence. A second of silence followed, a burst of Icelandic, the words “Al-Jazeera” and “Bessastadir.” The broadcast switched to English.
A male voice said, “Najwa, this is Faisal at Al-Jazeera in Washington. You are live, broadcasting on television and simultaneously on the Internet. Najwa, where are you and what is happening?”
Yael listened hard. Najwa. Whatever this was, it was not good. She glanced at Ortega’s face. It was remarkably calm, considering there was a gun pointed at his head. He was not a threat, she decided. For the next the few minutes at least, which was enough. Yael put the gun back in her pocket and turned up the volume.
“Thank you,” said Ortega.
Najwa said, “I am here at Bessastadir, the residence of the president of Iceland. The presidents of Iceland, the United States, and Iran have been taken hostage, together with Fareed Hussein, the secretary-general of the United Nations. We are in the front reception room of the residence, in the same room as the hostages and the captors. I can confirm that all four are alive and are unharmed. However, at least three members of President Freshwater’s security detail have been killed, together with Harald Ingmarsson, President Gunnarsdottir’s press secretary.”
A male American voice interrupted her. “No location or security details.”
Yael recognized him immediately: Kent Maxwell. Maxwell was a traitor, doubtless bought off. But Maxwell was a foot soldier, not a general. Who was running the operation? She had to get to Bessastadir immediately. Hostages. Dead bodies. A war in the making. This was her world. She felt the dark hunger, familiar, almost exhilarating, course through her. But first she needed to see herself what was happening. She turned to Ortega. “You have a smartphone?”
He reached inside the door compartment, handed Yael an iPhone. Yael quickly went online and found Al-Jazeera’s website. The station was running the same live feed from Bessastadir as the Icelandic radio station. Najwa was speaking to camera from Bessastadir. There was no sign of Fareed or the presidents. Yael switched off the radio and turned up the volume on the iPhone.
Najwa’s voice could be heard. “OK. Understood.”
Faisal asked, “Najwa, are you safe and well?”
“I am fine, but I am also being held hostage, together with my Icelandic colleagues Rafnhildur Eriksdottir and Ingilin Sigisdottir. ”
“Najwa, can you tell us who has captured you and what do they want?”
“Yes, Faisal. Jaysh al-Arbaeen, the Army of Forty, the same group which claimed responsibility for the car bomb found last week in Washington, DC. We don’t yet know what they want. I am not in a position to speculate.”
Maxwell’s voice said, “Stop talking. Camera—right corner.”
Yael stared at the phone screen as the camera moved across the room. The three presidents and Fareed Hussein were gagged and plasti-cuffed to gilt chairs, Freshwater back-to-back with Kermanzade and Hussein with Gunnarsdottir. The chairs had been tied together. A block of plastic explosive was in Fareed Hussein’s lap. The attached timer showed 19 minutes and 53 seconds, counting down steadily. Hussein trembled, his face pale. Dave Reardon sat a few feet away, blood seeping down the side of his neck from a gash on his forehead. His arms were wrapped around his legs, his wrists plasti-cuffed to his ankles.
“Fuck,” said Yael.
Ortega looked at her. “How bad is it?”
“As bad as it gets. They are tied together. Fareed is wired. There’s a timer. Nineteen minutes. How far out are we?”
Ortega glanced at the GPS. “Five miles or so.”
“Speed up.”
Ortega put his foot down. The Lada was built for clambering up dirt tracks, not racing down wet motorways. The wind buffeted the vehicle as it hit eighty miles an hour, then nudged ninety.
Yael looked back at the iPhone screen.
“Najwa, our thoughts are very much with you,” Faisal said. “What do the terro—Jaysh al-Arbaeen actually want?”
“They have not issued any demands. However, our captors have made it clear that any attempt to storm the residence or free the hostages will result in the bomb being detonated. As will any helicopter overflights or the appearance of any vehicles within one kilometer. They say they have the residence completely surrounded. There are …”
Maxwell raised his hand. “Enough. I told you, no details.”
The screen split, one half showing the scene at Bessastadir, the other the Al-Jazeera studio in Washington, DC.
Now Yael understood. Eli and Michal were a diversion, tasked with getting Yael out of the way and taking her back to Israel. There was no Kidon team here, and there did not need to be. The threat was already inside the residence. It always had been. Kent Maxwell, taking care of the Americans. The silver-haired Iranian and his team were not Kermanzade’s security detail, either. They were the threat. For a moment she was back at Patsy’s Pizzeria on Second Avenue, with Joe-Don.
Yael stares closer at the photograph of the Iranian man. She points at the side of his right eyebrow where an inch or so of skin was ridged and puckered. “What’s that?”
Joe-Don looks down. “A scar, from the Iran-Iraq war. He was a commando. Three of his brothers were killed. He is the last one of his family. Apart from his son.”
The plump, silver-haired man she had seen at the Hotel Borg meeting was not really plump, nor did he have silver hair. He was Salim Massoud.
Ortega glanced at Yael. “What now?”
Yael said, “How many phones have you got?”
“Three. One iPhone, two burners.”
Yael held out her hand. “Give me a burner, please.” A plan was forming in her mind. She called Joe-Don, his number memorized, and this time it went through. He answered, and she sagged with relief as she spoke.
“Tell me you are not here,” he said. “Tell me you just got back to the hotel with some new additions to your shoe collection.”
Yael l
ooked at her Timberland boots, caked with mud and bird shit. “That’s next. Meanwhile, I’m heading your way.”
“Don’t do that. Turn around. There is a major terrorist incident here.”
“I know. I just saw Najwa on the net. She looked pretty calm, considering.”
“It’s the scoop of a lifetime. If she lives to tell it. Fareed is wired. If he goes, they all die.”
“I saw. Where are you?”
“Go back to the hotel.”
“You know I won’t. And you really don’t want me blundering around the site of a major terrorist incident without your help.”
“Hotel. You are not needed. They are mustering the Marines from the embassy. And what’s left of Freshwater’s Secret Service detail. The Viking Squad are giving them a chopper.”
“What use is that? They’ll blow the hostages to bits as soon as they hear it.”
“Hotel.” Joe-Don sounded less convinced each time he said the word.
“Either I find you or I force you to come shoe-shopping with me.”
“This is it. The last time.”
Yael smiled. “You and me. Promise.”
“The road to Bessastadir is blocked by two Icelandic police cars. I’m sitting in one next to Magnus.”
“On my way,” said Yael, and hung up.
Next she needed a phone number. She tapped out a text message, added the prefix +90 697 before the number and pressed send. The Lada slowed down and she looked up to see that their car was approaching a roundabout. The turnoff on the right, to Bessastadir, was blocked by a line of police cars, their blue lights flashing under the darkening sky. Yael grabbed the GPS and expanded the digital map. The road ahead and to the left both led to housing estates.
They were almost at the roundabout when Ortega asked, “Where to?”
Now she had a chauffeur, it seemed. “Left at the crossroads.” Ortega may not be a threat, but she still needed to understand what was happening here.
Ortega did as he was instructed, and they drove for two minutes.
“Left again,” said Yael.
Ortega turned onto a side road leading to a housing estate. There were no other moving vehicles or people around.
“Pull over, please,” said Yael.
He parked by the side of the building. The phone beeped. She checked the message. The number started with +90 697. The text was two letters, SM, followed by a series of numbers. The phone beeped again. A photograph this time. She opened the picture file: Istanbul’s shoreline sparkled in the summer sunshine.
She smiled, for a moment thought of Yusuf, the way his black hair fell over his forehead. Soon, told herself. She forced herself to focus, and put the phone in her pocket. Her fingers curled around the Jericho. In an instant the barrel was pushing against the side of Ortega’s head.
He winced, his face twisted in pain. “There’s really no need—”
“I’ll decide that. Was it you?” she asked. “In my apartment, the tell on the coffee table?”
“Yes.”
“Who sent you?”
“Clairborne.”
“Why?”
“To bug your place.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“Because someone else told me not to. Someone even scarier.”
“Who?”
“I think you know that.”
“I like you, Michael. Something tells me I can even trust you. That’s why I got you the job as a doorman. And that’s why you are still alive.” Yael pushed the gun barrel harder against Ortega’s head. “But don’t get cute. Who?”
This time he did not flinch. “Your father.”
34
Kent Maxwell ripped the duct tape from President Freshwater’s mouth and held a sheet of paper in front of her.
“What is this?” she demanded. A trickle of blood seeped from her upper lip.
“Our demands. You are going to read them on television.”
Freshwater stared at him, her black eyes pulsing with fury, her body straining against her bonds. “You are a traitor. You will be taken alive. You will be put on trial. You will spend the rest of your life in a super-max prison with no visitors and the lights on in your bare, concrete ten feet by seven feet cell twenty-four hours a day.”
Maxwell smiled. “Read them, Madam President. Practice the sentences. Know the words, so you don’t stumble when the world is watching.”
She spat on the paper. Saliva and blood trickled down onto Maxwell’s shoe.
Maxwell turned slightly. He pointed his gun at Dave Reardon and pulled the trigger. Reardon slammed backward, his face contorting in agony, his ankle shattered.
Freshwater turned pale. “Bastard,” she said, her voice shaking.
Maxwell smiled. “The choice is yours. Read and we will get a medic to treat his foot. Refuse and I will shoot the other one. Then his knees.”
“Give me the paper,” she said.
Maxwell put the sheet on her lap. He gestured at Najwa and Ingilin. “Camerawoman, over here please. We are back on air.”
*
“Ortega’s news was no great revelation to Yael. She had sensed her father’s presence recently: in her apartment, perhaps in Central Park, on the roof of the bazaar in Istanbul. Her father, she was sure, had shot the gun out of Eli’s hand while he was chasing her. Nor was it a coincidence that her mother had reappeared in her life. “Is he here, in Iceland?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” replied Ortega. Yael pushed the gun back against his head. His eyes widened in alarm. “Really. I don’t know. Probably. He is a ghost. He appears, disappears, reappears. Can you put that down, please?”
A ghost. It was as good a description of her father as any. Yael glanced in the rearview mirror. There were no other cars passing by or entering the housing estate. If Ortega wanted to kill her he would have done it by now. He couldn’t kidnap her on his own. Clairborne would have sent a team, in multiple vehicles. Who else would have sent him but her father? She lowered the Jericho. Ortega exhaled with relief.
Yael stared across the road. A white split-level villa stood surrounded by a well-maintained garden. The walls were freshly painted, the windows shining. She could see inside the kitchen, a packet of breakfast cereal still on the table. Two cars were parked in the drive, and a children’s bicycle lay on its side on the path. Normality. Meals eaten in company. Holidays. Trips to the beach. What did her father want? And why was he back now?
Yael picked up Ortega’s phone, glanced again at the number on the screen. “I need to get into Bessastadir.”
“It’s sealed off. They have boats patrolling the coast, police on every road. How are you going to do that?”
“Through the front door,” said Yael, as she dialed a number.
*
Salim Massoud watched the Iranian agent with hooded eyes skillfully apply a dressing to Reardon’s foot, tie it in place with a fresh bandage, and give him a morphine shot. The American sat on the floor, leaning back against the wall. His forehead was still beaded with sweat but he had stopped shaking. He would die soon, like all of them, but not from his wound.
Massoud then looked at the three journalists. All were as composed as could be expected. Forcing them to broadcast from inside the residence kept them busy, focused their minds and stopped their imaginations from running wild. He looked at the clock on the bomb strapped to Fareed Hussein’s chest. Fourteen minutes and seven seconds.
Maxwell turned to Ingilin. “Freshwater.” She nodded and moved the camera toward the president. He looked at Rafnhildur. “Are we good to go?” Rafnhildur nodded. “Live in ten.”
Massoud nodded at Maxwell. The demands were irrelevant, a diversion. The point was to have Freshwater calmly looking at the camera when it happened, live on global television. She would read them every five minutes. At least the end would be instantaneous. Unlike the Sunni barbarians and their beheadings.
Maxwell was tense, sweating, kept glancing at the clock on the bomb, Massoud saw. He had believe
d Massoud’s promise of a negotiated passage, of a speedboat to a waiting freighter and five million dollars in a numbered account in the Cayman Islands. There was no speedboat and no freighter. This was a one-way trip. The money was real, however, but it would soon be returned to its source, a subaccount of Nuristan Holdings. War would be inevitable, and with it, the toppling of Kermanzade’s government. Massoud was proud to be a martyr for his faith. His family traced its lineage back to the battle of Karbala. He had no fear of joining his ancestors. His only regrets were that he was leaving his son behind, and that he would not see the new Islamic order arise again in his homeland.
Rafnhildur had begun the countdown when Massoud’s phone rang.
Massoud frowned. Nobody had this number except Clairborne and a handful of people in Tehran, all of whom knew not to call in the middle of an ongoing operation. He looked at the screen. Unknown number.
He took the call. “Yes?”
“Salim Massoud?”
“Who is this? How did you get this number?”
“I think you want to talk to me.”
Massoud’s tone changed as he recognized Yael’s voice. “About what?”
“Farzad.”
*
“No,” said Joe-Don. “No, no, and no.”
Yael watched the emotions play out: anger, exasperation, flashes of something much softer. She was sitting in the rear passenger seat of the police car next to him, with Magnus in front. The vehicle was one of two parked across the black stone road in a V-shape, the edges of their front bumpers touching, the blue lights on the roof slowly turning.
She looked out of the window for a moment. The sky was still almost black, the rain hurling against the windshield, thin tendrils of water draining down the glass. She handed Ortega’s iPhone to Joe-Don. Its screen showed Al-Jazeera’s news feed, and the channel was now broadcasting nonstop from the residence. The camera showed the four hostages sideways on, still sitting in their chairs, bound together. Fareed Hussein sat staring, as though oblivious of the bomb on his lap. The timer showed 12:57, the seconds ticking down. Freshwater remained straight-backed. Kermanzade and Gunnarsdottir stared ahead, as though determined to show no emotion.