Land, Jon

by [Kamal

  “Kamal. Call me Ben.”

  “An American name ...”

  “I lived here for a while before going back home,” Ben said.

  “Is good country. I find I don’t miss home at all.”

  “You’re lucky.”

  “In my old country you can only go so far. I hear the stories of us taking over, making billions, trying to run things. Ha! There’s nothing to run. So I come here. Don’t have to run something to have power. Here a man can be anything he wants. You agree?”

  “If I didn’t, I probably wouldn’t be here.”

  Krechensky sat back, the chair creaking again, and uttered a contented sigh. “This is wonderful country, I tell you that much.” He stood up. “What do you say, my new friend? Let’s go down and see the ship off.”

  * * * *

  D

  anielle hadto keepfighting backthe fiercetemptation toenter Max Peacock’s when Ben had not reemerged by 11:20. All sorts of terrible scenarios entered her mind. What if the surrogate he went in to replace had gotten the better of him? What if the four men she had watched enter—the Russians he was expecting, certainly—had uncovered Ben’s true identity? There were unquestionably more exits and very likely private rooms inside the bar where they could be interrogating Ben now, torturing or even killing him.

  Only the awareness of what an anomaly a fully clothed woman in such a bar would be had kept her from entering so far; that and the sure knowledge Ben would need her when and if he emerged. Her patience had nearly reached its limit when the front door burst open and Ben exited in the company of the four huge Russians she had watched go inside just a few minutes before. He and the stockiest of the four trailed slightly behind the human wall formed by the other three. The stocky Russian was smiling and laughing, slapping Ben on the back as they moved toward a black Lincoln Town Car. Ben was laughing too. But Danielle could tell the gesture was forced. He looked very uncomfortable, not gazing her way even once as the group led him to the Town Car.

  She felt certain he wasn’t a prisoner. Clearly, though, they were taking him somewhere, perhaps to where the real delivery was to take place.

  Danielle watched the three hulks squeeze into the backseat. She could see their shoulders pressed right up against each other even through the window. Ben climbed into the front seat between the driver and the stocky Russian.

  She stepped out to hail a cab as soon as the black car pulled away from the curb. An agonizing minute followed in which there were none to be had, and she began to fear the Town Car and Ben would both be lost to her.

  Finally Danielle saw a taxi come to a halt just before her. She had started toward it when the back door was thrust open and a familiar face peered up at her.

  “Get in,” said Frank Brickland. “We got problems.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 61

  Y

  ou are prepared to handle distribution?” the Russian asked as the Town Car threaded its way west along Forty-second Street.

  Ben hesitated before answering. He didn’t dare say too much or too little.

  “Everything is in place,” he ventured noncomittally.

  That seemed enough for the Russian. “There will be problems at first, kinks to work out—there always are. You are new at this sort of game, you must remember.”

  Ben waited, as the Town Car turned onto the West Side Highway. “We’re fast learners.”

  “Just make sure you learn how to count money, because it will be coming in faster than you can imagine.”

  * * * *

  S

  eems like yourIsraeli friendsdidn’t likeme voidingthe termsof my contract,” Brickland said after their taxi turned onto the West Side Highway after the Town Car. “I go looking for some people to help us finish this mess and—wouldn’t you know it?—I find people are looking for me. I’m shut out.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “In the short term, it means we got no backup and two whole pistols for firepower. In the long term, it means, even if the three of us can pull this off by ourselves, home for you won’t exist anymore. You went against them. You broke the rules, maybe the only rule.”

  Danielle had tried not to think of that before, but she knew Brickland was right: she had gone too far, stepped over a line that would cause her to face the consequences if she was lucky to live that long.

  Suddenly the winding road ahead seemed like a tunnel in which she was trapped. Her entire life, everything she had worked for, might well be gone, stripped from her. Her father had sensed the risks from the beginning, had warned her in the broken language of his keyboard.

  DON’T TRUST THEM.

  The sadness had been so profound in his eyes during her last visit, she thought because he feared the imminence of his own death. Now she realized the sadness he felt came from the fear that he would never see her again.

  “Jesus Christ,” Brickland said suddenly, when the Town Car turned east, heading toward the Brooklyn Bridge.

  * * * *

  T

  he Town car surged into Brooklyn with a thump that jostled Ben against Krechensky and the driver. The driver muttered something in Russian and continued onto the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. He stayed in the right-hand lane and kept his speed down, a signal to Ben that they were getting close to wherever they were going. He gazed to his right at the East River and then the Buttermilk Channel, which ran between Brooklyn and Governors Island, past a succession of piers. Freighters waited patiently against the concrete berths, either on- or off-loading their cargos.

  Ben felt his heart begin to hammer even faster against his ribs, sensing they were almost at their destination. The Town Car slowed to a crawl at a sign reading “Port of New York Authority Piers,” and eased off the expressway where the Hudson River joined with Upper Gravesend Bay. He could see the piers more clearly now, as well as the freighters rising over the scene with their sterns facing him.

  The Town Car pulled to a halt between the pair of concrete storage sheds outfitted with what looked a dozen garage-style doors on their left sides closest to the mooring slips.

  “Here we are,” Krechensky said, thrusting a meaty arm across Ben’s chest to indicate a massive freighter moored diagonally across from them. “See it?”

  Ben could see only its stern bobbing slightly atop the water. “Yes.”

  “Come. We go inside,” Krechensky said, urging Ben out excitedly.

  Ben climbed from the front seat of the car at the same time the three hulks emerged from the back.

  “I will show you a sight you remember forever, eh?” the bearlike Krechensky promised, and led the way through the shed’s open front end.

  It was like stepping into a huge, tunnel-like bunker. Lamps dangling from the ceiling did little to break the darkness splintered by shafts of light spraying in through the open bay doors. The shed held heat like an oven and the result was stifling temperatures even though the hottest part of the day was yet to come. Krechensky led Ben on a weaving trail through neatly stacked, innocuous-looking cargo, until they reached the final third of the structure, where another pair of his men stood guard ominously.

  The men smiled as Krechensky’s entourage swept past them into the light cast through four open garage-type doors. The section of the shed beyond was two-thirds empty, drawing loud echoes from their heels clacking against the cement floor. Outside, the moored freighter was taking on what must have been the last of its shipment. Forklifts and loaders adroitly negotiated the narrow confines of the cluttered loading shed, handling sharp turns and narrow-miss collisions without a loss of speed or cargo.

  The cargo . . .

  Bags and bags of what looked to Ben like lawn fertilizer were being packed into one of those trailer-sized containers prior to each container’s being lowered into one of the freighter’s cargo holds.

  “We reserve second ship to handle the overflow still in shed,” Krechensky explained to him, referring to the bags remaining in neatly stacked rows. “Second fre
ighter has same name, same Algerian registry as first, same serial numbers. No one know any different. It set sail in five days. Once at sea, no one ever know your freighter existed.”

  My freighter, Ben thought, meaning Fasil’s freighter—Hamas’s freighter.

  They headed along the length of the berth past the open doors. Krechensky swung left at the last one, into the sunshine, where the rusted ship was taking on its cargo. Ben could see crewmen frantic with final preparations to make the freighter ready to sail. Departure looked to be only minutes away.

  Still, a pair of heavy cargo forklifts carrying the last bags of the load slid forward toward the ship. They stopped just outside the door next to a tall, thin man holding a clipboard. Krechensky left Ben long enough to move toward him, listened briefly, then issued some instructions.

  “The freighter is packed solid,” he said, returning to Ben’s side. “No sense wasting another container on such a small amount, eh? We will load these bags somewhere safe on the second freighter.”

  Krechensky had stopped between the two packed forklifts and stroked one of the remaining fertilizer bags almost lovingly.

  “A wonderful sight,” he said, starting to tear into the bag with a beefy hand. “It is good to make history, eh, my new friend?”

  The bag gave way in a jagged tear, allowing Krechensky to plunge his hand inside, emerging with a palmful of a fine white powder Ben recognized instantly. He tried not to show any surprise.

  It was pure, uncut cocaine!

  “The biggest shipment of drugs the world has ever seen,” the Russian continued, smiling broadly and tapping his chest with his free hand. “And it is ours.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 62

  H

  owmuch exactly?” Ben dared to ask.

  “Fifty tons, mostly cocaine, like this,” Krechensky said, spooning it through his palm. “The rest heroin.” Then, with a twinkle in his eyes, he added, “I got a good buy.”

  Ben tried his best to smile back at the Russian, wasn’t sure if he managed it. His head grew light and he felt almost dreamy. The huge freighter undulated against the pier and blew its horn mightily to announce its coming departure, assaulting Ben’s ears and snapping him alert.

  He was looking at the unthinkable! Palestinian terrorists entering into a drug distribution deal with a Russian underworld that was already allied with powerful drug cartels out of Colombia. An unholy trinity if ever there was one, in an arrangement that made a twisted kind of sense from the terrorists’ perspective. After all, with the gradual progress of peace through the Middle East, most of the primary sources of funding for militant groups had evaporated. Without money, they could not adequately train their guerrillas, could not equip them properly, and, even more, could not expand their numbers through campaigns of propaganda and intimidation. To succeed took considerable funds.

  The marketing of drugs through the region would ensure a steady stream of those funds, guaranteeing a perpetuation of terror for generations to come. The contents of this freighter could keep real peace away forever. The violence would be incredible, unprecedented.

  Hamas would have what they wanted.

  “What’s it mean,” Krechensky wondered, “Muna Zarifa?”

  Ben followed the Russian’s gaze to the freighter’s name printed in tall, peeling letters across its bow. “Muna is a woman’s name. Zarifa means beautiful.”

  “Oh,” from Krechensky. “What you say we go on board and see something really beautiful?”

  * * * *

  B

  rickland hadthe cabdrop Danielleand himoff justpast the spot between the twin piers where the Town Car had parked illegally. They loitered, pretending to watch the sea, until all six figures, including the driver and Ben, had disappeared inside the concrete loading shed.

  Brickland moved out ahead of Danielle, slid past the Town Car, and then stopped casually at its trunk.

  “The release is just under the steering wheel. Pop it for me,” he directed.

  The door and windows had all been left open. She simply reached in and pressed the button. Danielle heard a soft click and turned to see Brickland raising the lid. When she joined him at the rear, he was already yanking the black carpet lining away to expose a hidden compartment.

  “Just like I figured,” he said, reaching in to make his choice from the cache of weapons revealed. “Fucking Russian scum think they own this city, do anything they please.” He slid a submachine gun, a twelve-gauge shotgun, and a nine-millimeter pistol up to the trunk’s sill, concealed for the time being. “Good thing for us.”

  He moved aside, turning his back to the car so he could keep watch.

  “Your turn,” he told Danielle. “Take your pick.”

  * * * *

  T

  he tugboat that would guide the Muna Zarifa south out into the open waters had just squeezed against its starboard side when Krechensky began Ben’s tour of the freighter, dodging a massive crane at the outset. He seemed especially proud of the fact that the cargo holds containing the drugs were actually hidden discreetly behind false walls in the legitimate holds, brilliantly camouflaged to look like the inner hull right down to the proper angle. On the chance the Muna Zarifa was boarded at sea or subjected to a surprise inspection in port, the secret bays would survive even the closest scrutiny.

  Ben had never been on board a ship this large before; the slippery decks seeming to stretch forever. The freighter boasted not only an Algerian charter but also a crew composed almost entirely of Arabs. He wondered if these crew members had any idea how much the contents of their ship could change their world, perhaps even eventually destroy it. Not only would these drugs provide an infinite supply of funds to promote murder, mayhem, and destruction, but also they would be a means by which the terrorist leaders could better control the people they claimed to represent. They no doubt intended to turn them into addicts, dependent on the Hamas network for their drugs. As a man, Ben was sickened. As a Palestinian, he was enraged.

  He was careful to hang on Krechensky’s every word, wanting to be able to provide as complete a description as possible to the Coast Guard. He had no plans to do anything foolish or rash, considering himself lucky indeed to have made it this far without incident.

  The Muna Zarifa’s horn blew loudly again, three quick blasts signaling the crew to make ready for the tow.

  “I guess we’d better be going,” Ben said to Krechensky as they reached the entrance to one of the hidden holds.

  “No rush. Still plenty of time,” the Russian replied, feeling the wall for the secret door. One of his behemoths had to come forward with a flashlight to help him find it. “You must see this first.”

  He located the door and pushed. The steel parted effortlessly, and Krechensky led the way in, ducking through. Ben followed.

  “We should have done business before,” the Russian said happily. “We may have different agendas, but together we can accomplish far more than alone. A few more deals like this, we bring more like us together, we could run the world, eh? Think about it!”

  Ben was trying very hard not to when a pair of men he recognized from the cargo hangar appeared at the secret doorway.

  “You’d better come out here,” one of them said.

  “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

  “There is something—”

  “Bring it in here. Now.”

  The two men looked at each other and shrugged. One turned back around as if to reach for something while the other ducked through the doorway and waited. Ben watched as a figure was dragged through, between the two men now as they faced Krechensky.

  “We found this woman in the hangar,” the man said.

  It was Danielle.

  * * * *

  R

  eady?” Brickland hadasked herminutes earlierafter shehad selected a pistol and submachine gun from the secret cache in the Town Car’s trunk.

  Danielle wasn’t looking forward to the battle she suspected was in store, but
she nodded anyway. She knew Brickland was enjoying this because she understood the man well. Oh, not him specifically, but others in Israel who were no different. Men like this, who were lucky enough to survive their youth, grew to understand the narrow line between life and death and how to walk it. They weren’t as fast or strong as they used to be, and they couldn’t splash blood with every shot. But what they lacked in speed they made up for in experience and cunning.

  They had entered the loading shed together, slicing a path through the clutter of cargo and continuing until the pair of men guarding the final section of the shed came into view. Brickland stopped and checked his weapons: the twelve-gauge short-handled pump in one hand, the submachine gun with double clip in the other, pistol jammed through the front of his belt.