THE WAVE: A John Decker Thriller

by J. G. Sandom

  Gulzhan stopped at the lip of the canal and looked down at the oily water. Pieces of plastic and paper floated on the surface. The canal ran a quarter of a mile or so along the quay before spilling out into the harbor and the Caspian Sea. It too was used infrequently these days. Most of the shipping now was handled by the container port in Gurjev’s western suburb. Somewhere a seagull cawed. Gulzhan looked up. It was clouding up again. Soon it would rain.

  “I’m waiting,” Hammel said.

  Gulzhan turned and glared down at the man beside him. “I loved him,” he said. “You know that.”

  “Your love is legendary.”

  Gulzhan frowned. “I took him in when he had nothing. I fed him, Ali. I trained him. I put the clothes on his back.”

  “All this is known to me.”

  Gulzhan looked back at the canal. “Indeed,” he said with a small shrug. Then he added, like an afterthought, “He was using his Swiss bank accounts to buy options, to short securities on the New York Stock Exchange.”

  Hammel said nothing but Gulzhan could hear him catch his breath. “It was stupid,” Gulzhan continued. “It jeopardized the mission. And it cost him his life.”

  “You are sure of this?”

  Gulzhan looked at Hammel with a mixture of horror and disbelief. He felt a spasm of revulsion in his throat. “Of course I’m sure,” he said. “Do you think I wanted this? After everything I did? I loved him, like my own son. I loved him!” He could feel his coffee-colored eyes begin to water. He turned away, embarrassed. What’s happening to me? he thought. I’m falling apart.

  “It was written,” Hammel said. Then, after a moment, he added, “I believe you, Gulzhan Baqrah. Uhud was a greedy man. Vain. Intemperate.” He kicked a stone into the canal, dimpling the surface of the water. “He liked his clothes too much. His ears bristled with rings. He reminded me of a Tuareg poem, a heinena,” he said. “The insane son of Adam denies his death, forgets his way, loitering in darkness; his eye is full of fancy; he hears but never listens. If God looks into the mouth of he whose strident sound is empty, there will be pain. His walk is trained, his clothes refined; his neck rides stiffly on his chest; his lungs are filled with pride. The desert Djinn have gutted them within; they have no boundaries . . . But we Algerians are not the Lebanese,” he said, catching himself. He gripped Gulzhan with his eyes. “We’ve never had enough to miss.” Then he smiled and added blithely, “You did well to have him killed, Gulzhan. El Aqrab will be pleased.”

  Gulzhan yanked his arm away. He stared with hatred at Hammel. “Of course he will. He’s always most pleased when I’m least happy.” With that he turned and walked away.

  Ali Hammel followed him back along the alley to the courtyard. When they had reached the entrance to the warehouse, Gulzhan spun about and said, “I’ve done my job.” He pointed a thick finger at the small man’s chest. His great beard parted, glaring with a sudden gash of teeth. “Now make sure you do yours.”

  Hammel stared at him and Gulzhan felt a chill creep though his groin. Not even his hatred of the Algerian could insulate him from the feelings he felt whenever he was around Hammel. Gulzhan surrounded himself with killers. Indeed, it was his job to manufacture them, to perfect them, to help them learn or hone their skills. But there was something about the Algerian that even he found disconcerting. It was his eyes, like the eyes of those little yellow snakes he used to crush with rocks as a small boy. Gulzhan had seen Hammel in action. The Algerian had that uncanny ability to freeze his enemies before he struck, to all but hypnotize them with a glance. It was as if he didn’t really kill them. He simply sucked them up into his sphere. He absorbed them into nothingness.

  “With pleasure,” Hammel replied, but Gulzhan knew that he was lying. Unlike men who took pleasure in their work, no matter how perverse, Ali Hammel felt neither ecstasy nor pain. He was neither proud nor humble, unmotivated by greed or political ambition, by sex or power, nor by some denial of death; of that Gulzhan was convinced. No, the Algerian felt nothing. And this was why he feared him.

  The men sat around on pillows on the floor, in a corner of the warehouse, beside their MB-814s. They ate in silence, intent on their chicken and couscous, seared lamb and disks of bread. Gulzhan watched them as they fed. The Egyptian, Auwal Al-Hakim, tore at the meat from the common plate, rending the flesh with sausage-like fingers, and then stuffing large chunks into his mouth. His greasy beard was speckled with skin. His ox-like eyes rolled back and forth in his head as he chewed.

  The Lebanese known only as Ziad ate more delicately. He had stationed himself by the door. Every once in a while, he would pull himself up, stretch his right leg, and glance out of the window. Then he’d sit back down again. He picked at the food like a bird, a rust-colored vulture. He selected only the meatiest morsels, snatched them up, and then eyed them once again before popping them into his mouth.

  The two men who’d helped Gulzhan hijack the train sat by themselves, tucked in the corner. They felt like outsiders, he knew. They were not only unsure of the strangers around them – the stuff of legend and cartoons all at once – but more so of themselves. They ate self-consciously, plucking off pieces and then stepping away, like bitches new to the pack.

  And Ali Hammel simply sat there. He never touched the food. In fact, now that he thought about it, Gulzhan had never seen the Algerian eat anything, and they had shared many a meal together. He sat quietly watching the others, cleaning his gun – a 9-millimeter Glock 18. At one point, when most of the food had been consumed, Hammel stood up and moved about the group, pouring out sweet green tea from a brass carafe. He acted like a graceful serving boy and this made Gulzhan wonder. Hammel was no one’s servant, not even El Aqrab’s. He was a force unto himself.

  The men leaned back upon their pillows. Gulzhan saw his opportunity and raised his glass, and quoted from Al-Waqi’ah, saying, “‘When the Event comes to pass, the coming of which no one can avert, some it will bring low and others it will exalt. When the earth is shaken violently, and the mountains are crumbled into dust and become like motes floating in the air, you will be divided into three groups: those on the right, those on the left, and those who are foremost. They will be the honored ones, dwelling in the Gardens of Bliss.’” He drank from his glass and the men followed suit. “You will be buried in your own clothes, covered in blood,” he editorialized. “You will need no threefold linen shroud, no winding cloth. You’ll be shahid – true witnesses. ‘Say not of those who are killed in the cause of Allah that they are dead; they are not dead but alive; only you perceive it not . . . Surely, to Allah we belong, and to Him shall we return.’”

  He put his glass back on the floor. Suddenly, without warning, Ali Hammel stood up and ambled over to the men who had arrived with Gulzhan in the truck. They glanced up at him with consternation, then at each other. One was about to speak when he realized that his throat no longer operated. He reached a hand up, grabbed at his neck. The other man leaned forward stiffly, toward his Kalashnikov. Hammel kicked it away. It clattered harmlessly across the warehouse floor. Then the Algerian squatted down in front of the two men and stared into their eyes. They began to wheeze. They couldn’t breathe. It was as if the air had been sucked out of them, first from their lungs, then from the building, then from the atmosphere itself. They began to panic. They glanced over at Gulzhan. They rolled their eyes, bloated with fear. They clenched their fists, opened their mouths as wide as they could go, and finally fell against each other in a heap. Within seconds they were still.

  Ali Hammel watched them for a moment longer, tilting his head to the side, looking deep into their eyes, trying to catch the wink of their extinction. Then it finally came, and he absorbed it soundlessly. When he was satisfied, he returned to the spot where he’d been sitting earlier, and continued to clean his gun.

  The rest of the men behaved as if nothing had happened. Gulzhan cleared his throat. He took another sip of tea. Then he said, “Arrangements have been made to take you across the Caspian to Rasht
. From Iran you will travel westward, separately, through Iraq and into Syria. Everything has been arranged.” He looked about the group. “There will be no trouble. When you reach the Mediterranean, you will journey under new directives, to different destinations.”

  Just then, Ziad clicked his tongue and everyone turned and stared at him. He pointed out the window. He raised a single digit, ducked and squatted down behind the corrugated iron door, drawing his gun. A moment later somebody knocked. Gulzhan wandered over nonchalantly. He peered out through the grimy window. He motioned toward Ziad to move, and opened the door.

  A small bald man with glasses and a large black attaché case hesitated by the entrance. When he saw Gulzhan, he smiled and bowed. He was wearing a large black coat over a Western suit. He was pale and sported a thin dark brown mustache, trimmed close to the lip. “Gulzhan?” he said.

  Gulzhan smiled and motioned for the man to enter. He stepped inside uncertainly. As soon as he saw the other men, he lifted the briefcase to his chest as if it were a shield. Then he pulled back, thought better of it, and took another step. “Salaam,” he said, pitching his voice at no one in particular. His glasses twinkled in the light. “Salaam,” he repeated. The men stared back at him without a word.

  “Good evening,” Gulzhan said. “Please, come in, Dr. Kunabi.” He urged the small man forward. “Would you like something to eat, to drink?”

  “No. No, thank you,” Kunabi answered timidly in Kazak, the tortured Turkic dialect.

  “This is Dr. Kunabi of the Kazakhstan Ministry of Nuclear Science and Technology. Dr. Kunabi, my business associates.” Gulzhan waved a hand about the room.

  Dr. Kunabi finally noticed the two dead men in the corner. He looked at their bulging eyes, their open mouths and backed away.

  “Please, pay no attention to those . . . men.”

  Dr. Kunabi tried diligently not to stare at the bodies heaped together in the corner. Despite the cold, his forehead was covered with perspiration.

  “Dr. Kunabi here is one of our country’s foremost nuclear scientists. He is here to help us, aren’t you Dr. Kunabi.”

  “If I can,” Kunabi said.

  Gulzhan took the small man by the elbow. “Of course you can. Please,” he added. “Follow me.”

  They made their way toward a door at the opposite end of the warehouse. As they walked, Kunabi kept on turning, kept on looking back behind him at the others. He smiled at them even as Gulzhan opened the door and gently pushed him in.

  The room was filled with wooden crates, most of them opened, spewing yellow straw, newspaper clippings, or snow-white Styrofoam peanuts. Instruments had been set up on a wooden table: screens and pressure pumps; two electronic devices, like two small EKG machines, linked by a pipe. Nearly everything had been unpacked, assembled. Tubing was stacked against one wall, as high as a man. Several dozen large canisters of gas were propped up in the corner. Kunabi stepped excitedly into the room.

  “It is all here,” Gulzhan said with pride. “You can start immediately. We have little time.”

  Kunabi glanced about. “Everything?” He listed the instruments he’d requested, abandoning his Kazak dialect for Russian. Most business transactions took place in Russian anyway; Kazak had been outlawed during the Soviet era. But the main reason he’d switched to Russian was because the Kazak language simply couldn’t accommodate the terms. They were too technologically advanced. They had yet to be invented. Then he reverted back to Kazak, saying, “Including my money, of course.”

  “Of course,” said Gulzhan with a laugh. “Although both you and I know you will never live to spend it.”

  Kunabi slumped. He glanced back at the door, hugging his attaché case.

  “Do not worry, Dr. Kunabi. Your secret’s safe with me. Let us speak frankly. You may be a devout Muslim, but were it not for the sacrifice you’ve already made for your country, you would not be here. Would you?”

  Kunabi shook his head.

  “I know that you are dying, Dr. Kunabi. I’ve known it all along. Since before our first meeting. A small exposure here. An accident there. It all adds up, does it not? And, suddenly, the world collapses. You may be a good scientist, but the safety record of the Kazakhstan Ministry of Nuclear Science and Technology has much to be desired. All this is known to me,” said Gulzhan. Then he smiled and added, “As is your love for your family.” He flicked a switch and the fluorescents crackled overhead.

  There were four attaché cases on the table beside the instruments. Kunabi wandered over to them. Each case looked identical, covered by some kind of brushed aluminum – about a meter long, and half a meter wide. He stroked the nearest to him. He opened it and peeked inside.

  The attaché case was cast into a single piece, like a computer terminal. There was a keyboard built into the lid. Within the case itself, across the lower half, was a raised area featuring several digital displays and buttons. Above the displays, on the right hand side, a bulbous protrusion – like the top half of a metal ball.

  With a start, Kunabi turned toward Gulzhan Baqrah. “Why are there four cases?” he asked, suddenly on guard. He was a man used to precision instruments. “You told me there were three.”

  Gulzhan shrugged. “A precaution, Dr. Kunabi.” He moved a step closer, smiling smoothly. “If I have learned anything over the years, it’s that it always pays to have a backup plan, a redundancy. Just in case.” He wrapped his arm about the scientist’s small shoulders. “Don’t you agree?”

  Kunabi didn’t respond. He simply stared at the attaché cases on the table.

  “You, for example, have two children. You could have stopped at one – your daughter. After all, she is beautiful and bright, and pregnant with your first grandchild, I am told. You must be very proud.” Gulzhan paused. Then he added, wagging his head, “But something told you to continue. You were driven. So you had another child – your son, Mohammed. A doctor. A pediatrician. He works not far from here, just north of Gurjev in the Children’s Hospital, does he not? You are a prudent man. You see,” he said, squeezing Kunabi tighter. “We have something in common. We both prepare for the contingency.”

  Chapter 14

  Friday, January 28 – 3:15 PM

  New York City

  The Number One was practically deserted: only a brace of out-of-sync commuters; a scattering of women returning home from shopping; a herd of teenagers dressed in baggy jeans and puffy goose down jackets, laughing and speaking too loud. Decker leaned back in his seat. He could see his face reflected in the window across the subway car. He looked spent. Despite the familiar blazer and red tie, the navy blue overcoat, he looked like a stranger to himself. And then the glass burst into light as the train entered the One Hundred and Sixteenth Street Station, and his face was gone.

  Decker picked up his gym bag and got out. As he climbed the stairs, he felt the weight of that piece of paper in his pocket. For some reason, he hadn’t told Warhaftig or Kazinski about what he’d found in Salim Moussa’s locker, and this troubled him. Kazinski may have acted like an asshole that morning, but no matter what they thought about each other, they were still on the same side. Decker turned and climbed another flight of stairs. He hadn’t told anyone and he couldn’t for the life of him say why. Perhaps because he didn’t know yet if the wallpapers meant anything or not. Perhaps because he simply didn’t want to raise another flag, just to have Johnson pull it down again as something silly and irrelevant, or poisoned fruit. Better to be sure first, Decker thought, but he knew that he was lying to himself. He didn’t care what Johnson thought. Not really. He sighed. Truth was, he didn’t play well with other people, and never had. He coveted this lead. It was a puzzle that led directly through the mind of El Aqrab. It was his, and he was going to solve it.

  “Excuse me?” Decker said. “Professor Hassan? You are Dr. Jusef Hassan, right?” Decker hesitated in the open doorway. Hassan was just finishing up his office hours and a few students still milled about in the hall.

  Professor Hassan
looked up. He was reviewing what appeared to be a paper with some hirsute undergraduate. “May I help you?”

  Decker stepped into the room, approached the desk, and plucked out his ID. “My name is Decker,” he said. “Agent John Decker. I’m with the FBI.”

  Hassan examined the badge for several seconds. He was wearing a black four-button cashmere suit, with thin lapels, a startlingly white dress shirt, well starched around his cocoa neck, and a silk blue necktie sprinkled with scallop shells and seahorses. Decker guessed he was in his mid-fifties. His black hair was still thick and full, and slightly oiled. His dreamy brown eyes twinkled in the harsh fluorescent light through a pair of almost invisible wire-rimmed glasses. “Am I supposed to be impressed?” he said.

  “Not particularly.”

  “Good. Because I’m not.”

  “I wonder if I could have a moment of your time?” Decker continued.

  Hassan looked over his glasses. “To read me my rights? Or has Attorney General Oakfield forced Miranda into early retirement too?” Then he turned toward the hirsute student and said, “Let’s pick this up tomorrow, Robert, after class. Okay?”

  The student had climbed to his feet as soon as he saw Decker’s badge. “No problem,” he said, and vanished through the door.

  “You’re the fellow who’s been hounding me,” Hassan said. “On the phone.”

  Decker nodded.

  “And why, exactly, should I help the FBI?”

  Decker considered the question for a moment. Jusef Hassan was the progeny of an ancient line of Egyptian merchant bankers, who – despite a brief flirtation with Islamic Socialism in the ’70s – had discovered that abandoning their appreciation for fine clothes, Western classical music and Continental food was, in the end, too great a price to pay for their political ideals. Hassan had come to the United States for four years of university . . . and ended up staying for the next thirty-five. He had married and become a U.S. citizen. In his unconstructed four-button cashmere jacket, it was clear that he wasn’t one to emulate his academic peers – not these faux cosmopolitans in their ill-fitting Euro knock-offs. Dr. Jusef Hassan wasn’t poor, so why did he have to dress that way? It would be hypocritical. Decker smiled to himself. “Because you’re an American,” he said.