Veil of Civility: A Black Shuck Thriller (Declan McIver Series)

by Graham, Ian

  "Thank you," Zeva said softly. "We're taking him back to Israel to be buried in Jerusalem. While he spent much of his time overseas, Jerusalem was his home. That's where he would want to be."

  "And what about you? What will you and the children do now?"

  She looked down to the ground briefly before replying. "We will stay in America. David and Hanah have begun building their lives here and although they are adults now and can live on their own, it would make me sad to be so far away from them. Abaddon would not want that."

  Declan nodded as David Kafni arrived at his mother's side. A foot taller than either parent, David was an otherwise spitting image of his father, with the same thin-rimmed glasses and dark hair that receded to the very top of his head on which he wore a black yarmulke. David embraced Declan tightly as Zeva dabbed tears from her eyes with her scarf. Declan wiped away his own tears as he and David drew apart from their embrace and looked each other in the eye. Somewhere deep inside, each of them had known this day was coming. Declan supposed they had both hoped against hope that it would be many years hence and that Abaddon Kafni would have slipped away during an illness brought on by advanced age.

  "Tell me you know who did this and that they will be caught," David said.

  Declan looked quickly at Altair Nazari who was standing a few feet away. Had he and Osman neglected to tell Kafni's family that it was Baktayev who had taken Abe's life? The look on Nazari's face confirmed this and Declan looked back to David.

  "We don't know anything for sure. The FBI is investigating. They'll find out who it is and they'll catch them. It may take a while, but it will happen," he said, trying to sound as reassuring as possible.

  David looked at his shoes momentarily and when he finally raised his head and spoke his voice was angry. "Why are you keeping the truth from us?" he charged.

  "David!" Zeva Kafni said as her eyes bored into her son. "These men are your father's friends!"

  "I'm sorry, Mother. You may not choose to see it, but they know who killed Dad and they aren't telling us."

  Declan watched over David's shoulder as Okan Osman left the three suited men he had been standing with and joined them. Standing next to Declan, Osman looked at David with as soft an expression as his hardened soldier's soul could muster. "Would knowing make it any better? Your father's gone, David. There's nothing we can do about that."

  "I want to know," David answered through clenched teeth. "I have a right to know."

  Osman looked at Declan and nodded his permission.

  Declan placed a hand on David's shoulder and looked him in the eye. "I was there when your father was killed. I didn't see it happen, but I saw his killer afterwards. His name is Ruslan Baktayev."

  He continued to look the younger man in the eye as the name bounced around his head and finally sank in. "Baktayev," David said, "just like the man in Boston. The man you killed."

  Declan nodded. "Yes."

  "Then they finally got him, didn't they? The ones we ran from all those years ago. None of it did any good. They still got him."

  "None of it did any good?" Zeva repeated as her eyes narrowed at her son. "It did all the good in the world and I won't have you dishonoring your father's memory by saying otherwise! The hate-filled memories of Islam are long, you should know that better than anyone."

  Declan placed his other hand on David Kafni's shoulder. "We're limited as to what we can do here, but you have my word that I'm going to do everything I can to make sure this guy is caught and that he pays for his crimes."

  David nodded and wiped tears from his eyes. "They never pay for their crimes. They sit in prison living in luxury while the governments of the world debate endlessly about what to do with them. How do you punish a man who considers himself a martyr? You can't. All you can do is rid the world of him."

  Declan nodded. He agreed wholeheartedly. Still, he'd fulfill the promise he'd just made by not letting the police forget about Ruslan Baktayev.

  "It's time for us to get going," Osman said, looking at his watch and ushering the small group towards the three suited men standing near the plane's open cargo ramp.

  As they arrived Declan looked up and saw two large mahogany coffins strapped down in the center of the plane's cargo hold. Leaving the group, he slowly climbed the metal ramp and looked over the smoothly finished caskets. On top of the first one was a gold plated Star of David with an Israeli and American flag either side. This was the coffin that held the body of Abaddon Kafni, the other bearing the remains of Levi Levitt.

  "Goodbye, my friend," Declan said. He kissed his hand and pressed it against the coffin in the center of the Star of David. "I'll miss you."

  "He will be missed by many," a deep, accented voice said from behind him.

  Declan stood quickly, unaware that anyone had been standing behind him. He turned to see a tall man with a head full of thinning gray hair, a chubby, rounded face and soft gray eyes that looked down on the coffin with the sadness of a father who had just lost a son. Declan recognized him as one of the three suited men who had been standing near the plane. On the left lapel of his suit coat, an Israeli flag pin glinted under the overhead lights in the cargo area.

  Declan regarded the man kindly for a moment and then moved to step away. He had no interest in getting into another discussion. As he started to walk away, the man caught him by the arm.

  "I'm sorry we are meeting for the first time under these circumstances," the man said.

  Declan stopped and turned towards the man. "I'm sorry, but I don't know who you are."

  The man smiled briefly. "No, you don't. My name is Asher Harel."

  Declan recognized the name immediately. Asher Harel had once been the Prime Minister of Israel and the man whom Kafni had worked under during his days with Mossad. It was Harel and his political connections that had seen to it that Declan was released from a Massachusetts prison after he'd saved Kafni's life in Boston. "I'm sorry. I had no idea. Forgive me for being so rude."

  The former prime minister waved off the apology. "It is not rude to be overcome by sadness at the loss of a friend. Abaddon Kafni will be missed by many, but that much more by those who knew him as we did. Such friends do not come along very often in life. You should know that Abaddon thought very highly of you. He was overjoyed at the life you've built for yourself and was very excited to be meeting your wife."

  Declan nodded vacantly as he felt an all too familiar feeling in the pit of his stomach. Up until now the events of the last two days had somehow seemed surreal, but now the reality was starting to creep up on him, the realization that he would never be able to speak to Kafni again and that this time he had been too late to save his friend's life.

  "He and I have had many conversations over the last month since I arrived in the United States on a diplomatic visit," Harel said, as he put a hand on Declan's shoulder and began walking towards the cargo ramp. "When he learned of the circumstances behind Ruslan Baktayev's escape from prison he was very concerned."

  "Last night when we talked he seemed to shrug off the idea of Baktayev coming after him. I should have seen this coming. In ninety-seven the Baktayevs showed remarkable tenacity to follow him all the way to the U.S. and then to try and kill him the way they did. It wasn't a hit and run on a street corner somewhere. It was well planned."

  "I know, but it was not the Baktayevs who were entirely responsible for that. That was the workings and connections of an Iranian named Sa'adi Nouri. Abaddon's concern wasn't for himself; it was for the others that Baktayev could harm."

  "Abe told me this guy was involved in some pretty heinous attacks. The Nord-Ost theatre, the Beslan school...I'm sure there were many others."

  "Yes, there were. Most of his attention was focused inward towards the conflict between Russia and Chechnya, but there are several video-taped messages from him where he openly threatens targets in Western Europe and the United States. It was one of these tapes that first tipped us off that he was interested in revenge on Abaddon."
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  Declan nodded. He'd seen such tapes before, both in person and on the nightly news programs.

  "The reason why I wanted to talk with you is because, as with the attempt in Boston," Harel said as they reached the edge of the ramp, "we cannot ignore the circumstances of this attack. It, too, was well planned and far beyond anything we have seen from this man outside of the Russian Caucasus."

  "What are you saying?"

  "I'm saying that Abaddon believed that whoever got Baktayev out of that prison had to be extremely wealthy and very influential. He believed that person had a reason for wanting Baktayev out besides just freeing a fellow warrior of Islam. Now, Abaddon had a long career in Mossad and crossed paths with many people of Islamic persuasion. I don't know if his death was that purpose or if it was something else, but Abaddon's greatest fear was a Beslan-like attack in the United States. Do you know much about what happened there?"

  "Aye," Declan said, thinking back to news reports he'd seen and books he'd read on the atrocity. He remembered thinking that in all likelihood, he had probably known some of the soldiers involved. The Black Shuck unit of the IRA had been trained by a Russian Special Forces team known as Vympel, or Vega in English. He'd spent two full years with them, and though they'd never totally warmed up to each other, the two teams had developed a teacher-student relationship and garnered each other's respect. "In Beslan there were nearly five dozen, well-armed terrorists holding over one thousand hostages, most of them children," he said. "Russian Special Forces stormed the building three days into the standoff when an explosion went off inside. A massive gunfight ensued with the hostages caught in the crossfire. It redefines the word 'tragedy', if you ask me."

  "Correct," Harel said, giving a somber nod. "But what you probably do not know is that in the latter part of September 2004, only a few weeks after the crisis in Beslan ended, a group of twelve Islamists linked to the Chechens crossed the Mexican border into this country. A week later they were followed by another group of twelve. It was feared at the time that these men had come here to do the same thing that had been done in Beslan. Mossad worked tirelessly with the CIA for months, but none of them were ever found. They just vanished. All of them were linked to Baktayev and to a Chechen extremist group called the Crescent Vanguard."

  They stood in silence for several moments as Declan allowed the information to sink in. The thought of a hostage crisis inside of a school was something that had kept American counterterrorism officials awake at night for nearly a decade.

  Finally Harel spoke again. "If these men were who Mossad believed them to be, then they were waiting for Baktayev to join them here in the U.S. before they attacked. Once they found out he'd been captured and was in jail, they went into sleeper mode and have been waiting ever since."

  "And you think whoever was responsible for getting Baktayev out of prison did so because they want him to finish what he started?"

  "That was Abaddon's fear, yes. I'm not telling you any of this to scare you or because I expect you to do anything about it. I am telling you because I feel that if Abaddon were here now and he knew what we now know after last night's attack, he would tell you himself. He would tell you that he didn't like the way the investigation was unfolding or that his friends, yourself included, were being handled in such a disdainful way by law enforcement officials. He might even go so far as to say that it seemed like these officials didn't care about finding the truth."

  "You're referring to the FBI agent in charge, Castellano," Declan said.

  Harel nodded. "Osman and Nazari shared their experience with me and I share their concerns. If Abaddon was correct and there is someone else more powerful than Baktayev at work, well, the possibilities are frightening."

  "Yesterday afternoon I'd have said that it was a stretch to even believe Baktayev could make it into the States, but now, now anything seems possible."

  "If the events of last night are any indication, I'm afraid we'll be seeing Ruslan Baktayev again, and soon."

  Declan nodded his agreement and extended his hand. The notion that Baktayev might not be done yet was one that he had thought of himself and had shared with Osman and Nazari. All around, everyone seemed to think that it was at least possible that there could be another attack, everyone except the lead investigator at the FBI who had seemed very ready to accept the idea that Baktayev was dead.

  Harel took Declan's hand and gripped it firmly before walking away towards the other two suited men, who Declan now understood were bodyguards. As he stepped off the aircraft's ramp and onto the paved runway he looked around at the vehicles surrounding the plane. Inside each of them he could make out the faces of stern men. It was obvious that they were there to protect the former prime minister as he visited Kafni's family.

  Shivering slightly as a cold wind blew over the runway from the south, Declan rejoined Osman and Nazari, who were standing with David and Zeva Kafni.

  "I want you to come and visit us, Declan," Zeva said. "I want to meet your wife."

  Declan nodded. "You will. Let us know when you're home again and we'll come."

  She placed a hand on his arm and smiled. "Thank you for everything you've done over the years."

  "Take care of yourself," Okan Osman said, as he slapped Declan on the shoulder and gave him a serious look. Altair Nazari gave a nod before he and Osman guided Kafni's family onto the plane for what would be a long journey back to Israel. Declan leaned against a fence bordering the airport property and watched.

  The Lockheed C-130 Hercules bore Hebrew markings next to the blue Star of David. Moments later the engines came to life with a deafening whine and the plane rolled to the end of the furthest runway. Declan gripped the fence tightly and breathed heavily as a wave of anger rushed through him. Images of Ruslan Baktayev's knife cleaving the air towards Kafni's head raced through his mind, his own hollow attempt at a rescue cutting his consciousness like shards of glass. The plane's engines roared and drowned out the sounds around him as it sped down the runway. In seconds, the craft had faded to a small spot on the darkening horizon and with it, Declan knew that Abaddon Kafni was gone from his life forever; fading into the shadows of the night much like he had the first time they'd met.

  Chapter Seventeen

  6:56 p.m. Eastern Time – Saturday

  Westbound on Route 460

  Lynchburg, Virginia

  Having been given a ride back to his truck by Asher Harel's security detail, Declan stepped into the vehicle and started the ignition. Backing out of the parking space and driving through the sparsely populated lot, he stopped at the front gate and paid the attendant. Driving around the perimeter of the property to get back to the interstate that would take him home, he watched as several planes took off and disappeared into the dark sky, engines roaring.

  A few minutes later he passed the expansive campus of Liberty University. To his left he could see the remains of the C.H. Barton Center for International Relations and Politics, the entrance to its rectangular parking lot blocked by a row of Jersey barriers. In the low light provided by the street lamps he could see that the front of the building had been nearly torn off by the bomb blast. All that remained of the once magnificent architecture were two of the four front columns, which still stood erect but now held nothing, and the statue of Thomas Jefferson, which had somehow escaped any serious damage, the shrubbery around it burned away by a fire that was still smoldering despite the seasonal rainfall. In the grassy area on the left side of the building's entrance was an immense crater, roped off by orange cones and police warning tape. Two white sedans marked with police emblems were parked side by side in the lot, the drivers obviously having a conversation as they watched the area for anyone attempting to get close, whether for pictures or any other reason.

  Looking at the two vehicles Declan thought about what he'd seen as he and Constance had left the building the previous night. He was certain it had been one of the security vehicles that had exploded and that the size of the blast meant a bomb too
big to have been placed outside of the vehicle. Being familiar with similar devices he knew that for the explosion to have done the damage it did, the bomb had to have been located in the trunk and had probably been manufactured using several hundred pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer. He mulled over several questions as he drove west on the four lane highway, but decided it was best to focus on something else. The only thing he could do, though he wished he could do more, was tell the truth about what he'd seen and let the men and women who dealt with these kinds of things for a living handle the rest. Hopefully they would handle it in time to stop any more attacks.

  A shrill ring jarred his thoughts back to the present as the LED on his company cell phone, which he'd placed on the dashboard, lit up. Reaching for the phone and touching the screen, he brought the device to his ear and said, "Hello?"

  "Hey," a sweet southern accent on the other end said.

  Declan smiled at the sound of his wife. "Hi," he answered.

  "I'm just calling to tell you that I made it home safely," she said, sounding tired. "It took a while. There was a wreck on interstate eighty-one."

  "Eighty-one," he said. "Why did you take eighty-one? You should have used route eleven."

  "I did," she said intently. "The wreck on the interstate caused eleven to back up, too. I had to sit through every stoplight like, three times. It took forever."

  "Okay, okay," he said in submission, although he was confident that, had he been there, he could've found a side street that would have gotten them through and had them home in half the time. "You sound tired. You should get some sleep."

  "What time are you going to be home?"

  "I'm on my way now. I should be there in forty-five minutes, an hour at the most. Get some rest."

  "Declan, it's just—I don't know, never mind."

  He knew what she was getting at. She had never seen or experienced anything like this before. Raised in the mountains of western North Carolina, she had never seen the aftermath of car bombs and sectarian murders. He felt bad, as though it was his fault she had to witness it at all. It was his past that had brought her into contact with such things. Where he'd grown up, bombings had been an almost daily occurrence and a lot of times there just weren't words to express the associated feelings.