by By Jon Land
Danielle dropped the sword and rejoined the crowd. Its flow heaved her to the right, then back to the left when another bull charged, coming straight for her. She was saved only when an unfortunate drunk, pushed into its path, was catapulted up and over the back of the rampaging beast.
Danielle spotted an opening in the crowd that had parted in the bull’s wake and surged forward, angling for the stalls at the far end of the Arena. They were built into the structure’s underbelly, promising escape. She gazed back long enough to assure herself the final pair of gunmen were hopelessly mired amidst the panicked crush of humanity, and then dashed the final stretch of the way to the stalls.
To her right, Danielle glimpsed a young girl, barely more than a toddler, emerge from a panicked throng into a clear patch of ground. A bull had sighted down on that section of the crowd and was now pawing the earth sixty feet in front of the little girl. The girl was crying, her face and clothes both dirty, her nose bloodied. One of her sleeves was torn.
The bull launched itself into motion.
And so did Danielle.
She rushed straight for the little girl, risking a headlong strike from the bull. In the last moment, she could smell the stench emanating from the enraged beast, see the steam rising off its sweat-soaked hide, hear its gravelly snorts. But her hands latched onto the little girl and scooped her up safely. Danielle twirled sideways, taking her from the path of a deadly strike while leaving her vulnerable to the horn that dug into her back.
The sudden burst of pain made Danielle’s spine arch and she placed the little girl down before staggering forward. She tried to twist back toward the stalls, but a numbness crept up her vertebrae, broken only by the sensation of something warm spilling out of her, as she collapsed.
* * * *
Chapter 66
T
he replies started coming in an hour ago,” Jake said before Delbert Fisher was through the door.
Fisher peered over the boy’s shoulder at the mishmash of data scrolling across the screen.
“Shouldn’t you call some of your tech experts in, let me explain it to them, too?” Jake asked him.
“Just tell me what this says.”
“Not much really. Just a designation, followed by the word ‘Confirmed,’ and ‘3/20.’”
“A date,” said Fisher.
“Four days from now,” Jake elaborated.
“How many confirmations total?”
“The same number as the original series of messages that brought your Gestapo to my dorm room: fifty.”
“The same fifty?”
“According to the designations, yes. Hey, Del, you ever smoke dope?”
“Not even once.”
“You should. It relaxes you. Soothes the stress.”
Fisher ignored the suggestion and ran his hand down across the screen in line with what Jake had called designations. “Any idea what these are?”
“Jumbled letters and numbers. Some kind of code.”
“I’ll get encryption people working on them right away.”
“Four days from now, Del. What’s going to happen?”
Fisher was still studying the information frozen on Jake’s screen. “That’s what we need to find out.”
“Shouldn’t you put an alert out or something? Isn’t that what you guys do?”
“About what exactly? What do we tell people?”
“Oh, I don’t know. How about calling for a holiday? National stay-at-home-and-board-up-your-windows day? Smoke some ganja, drink some beer. First day of spring, perfect time to chill.”
“We’d start a panic.”
“What’s the alternative?”
“Figuring out where the fifty cells are based, what their targets are.”
Jake glanced at the cryptic entries lining his screen. “I think your staff can handle that one.”
“Maybe. But you’re better. So keep working,” Fisher said, and then pointed at the screen. “I want to know what those designations mean.”
* * * *
* * * *
Chapter 67
B
en Kamal walked stiffly down Marseilles’s Rue du Bon Pasteur, the Street of the Good Shepherd, in the center of the city’s Old Port section, an area populated almost exclusively by Arab Muslims. Ben heard Arabic being spoken along the streets, no French whatsoever. All the women had their hair covered with scarves. Men in robes and sandals sat together in cafés watching Aljazeera or Al-Arabia news on satellite television. Kiosk-style newsstands sold dozens of Arab-language newspapers and magazines flown in on a daily basis. The Attaqwa Mosque in the middle of Rue du Bon Pasteur, he knew, was frequented by so many worshipers on Fridays that dozens are forced to kneel on prayer rugs laid out over the street in front of it.
In Baghdad the day before, with an astonished Colonel al-Asi standing by his side, Ben had contacted Israeli National Police Commissioner David Vordi from an American security station located on the ground floor of a walled former Republican Guard headquarters.
“Who’s controlling these men?” Vordi asked, after Ben explained the situation.
“According to Ibrahim al-Kursami, no one now.”
“You’re lying.”
“Who’s controlling them is my problem, Vordi. Finding and finishing the soldiers of Black Sands is yours. Al-Kursami claims that passage was secured for them out of Iraq to Marseilles.”
“We need more specific information than that, Inspector.”
“We?”
“I have no agents in place capable of doing what must be done.”
“So you expect me to track them down?”
“Based on prior experience, we can assume they’re staying in a central location. We have intelligence assets who are quite adept at funneling tips to the Americans. Find that central location and I can have F-16s scrambled within an hour.”
“We may not have an hour, Commissioner.”
“I can push for an alert. That means they’ll be in the air over the south of France, no more than twenty minutes from striking once they receive the coordinates.”
“Furnished by me, of course.”
“You’ll have help, Inspector, technological as well as tangible assets.”
“I thought you said you had no one in place.”
“That’s not exactly what I said. You’ll understand in good time. For now, I’m going to give you the name of an Israeli colonel attached to the U.S. peacekeeping mission.”
“I wasn’t aware Israelis were part of it.”
“Our files on members of the Saddam regime are much more complete than the Americans’. We have been granted advisory status. Unofficially, of course.”
“I understand.”
“This man will furnish you with the equipment you need to call in the strike.”
“Assuming I’m able to find where these men of Black Sands are based.”
“We have someone in Marseilles who can help you with that much.”
“If that’s the case, what do you even need me for?”
“You’ll have to meet her to understand,” said Vordi.
The equipment Vordi had spoken of had been waiting in one of Saddam’s former royal palaces, now converted into the city’s primary U.S. military headquarters. An operative spent several hours familiarizing Ben with its use. He and Colonel al-Asi then drove back to Jordan where Ben boarded a flight bound from Amman to Marseilles through Paris on Air France.
Now, as the midafternoon sun burned hot and bright, Ben found himself walking the Arab quarter of the Mediterranean city, a leather satchel slung from his shoulder. The equipment inside would be considered innocuous to all but the most seasoned eye. A camcorder that was actually a laser directional spotter. A digital camera with telephoto lens that doubled as an ultrasophisticated hundred-power binocular. A pistol made totally of plastic contained within the false bottom of a guidebook.
The legendary street crime of Marseilles had him holding the dangling satchel in hand to discourage the kind of attack fo
r which tourists were prime fodder. He had no way of knowing if that crime extended into the port city’s Muslim neighborhood and wasn’t taking any chances.
The strange thing was how much he felt at home here in this enclave just north of the Old Harbor. The streets smelled of the grilled fish and meats so familiar to him from both the West Bank and Dearborn, Michigan. So, too, the lively street bazaars featuring energetic, friendly salesmen refusing to take no for an answer and loving to barter. But Marseilles bore some of the same painful scars as West Bank towns and cities as well. At Bellevue Pyat, a high-rise slum within easy view of the bustling markets, rising piles of fetid garbage attracted rats, roaches, and the kind of repetitive violence only poverty can bring.
Ben’s path steered him well clear of that neighborhood. Vordi’s cryptic instructions were to seek out a coffeehouse diagonally across from the Attaqwa Mosque on the Rue du Bon Pasteur. There he was to have his fortune told and all would become clear.
Ben could only wish that would be the case. He still hadn’t been able to reach Danielle and the situation for both of them had become increasingly dire as a result of the last words Ibrahim al-Kursami had spoken to him: The threat came from the soldiers of Black Sands and I made sure to tell one of my inquisitors everything I knew about them, which was everything that existed.
Ben shrank from believing the identity of the man al-Kursami had referred to as one of the high-level moles left stranded with the collapse of the Soviet Union, but he had no choice. Much of what he and Danielle, at least initially, had uncovered made perfect sense now, but it also magnified the desperation of their predicaments. Was that why he had been unable to reach her? Had she been caught unaware, just as he nearly had?
Ben dreaded the answers. He found the umbrella-shaded outdoor tables of the coffeehouse packed with locals sipping from cups and smoking from their water pipes. The inside was deserted, save for a table occupied by a single woman with a deck of cards aligned before her.
Get your fortune told, Vordi had instructed. Could this be what he’d been referring to?
Ben approached the table tentatively, waiting for the woman seated there to at least acknowledge him. As he drew closer, she gathered up her cards and began to shuffle them. Her empty eyes never glanced at Ben.
“Would you like to see your future?” she asked.
The woman was blind, Ben realized, explaining David Vordi’s cryptic references.
“Only if I’m in a position to change it,” he said.
“That depends.”
“On?”
“On what I’m able to see.”
“Black Sands,” Ben said.
“Sit down,” the blind woman said, continuing her endless shuffling. After Ben did as he was told and slid his chair under the table, she spoke again. “Now, place twenty dollars to my side of the table in case anyone is watching.”
Again Ben obliged.
The blind woman retrieved the bill quickly, folded it up, and stuffed it in her pocket. “You are Bayan Kamal?”
Ben started to nod, adding, “Yes. I was told you may have information for me.”
“Indeed I do, Inspector, about the future. Now pay attention, so we can do our best to change it.”
* * * *
Chapter 68
T
he woman began to lay cards out in the pattern of a five-pointed star. “My name is Jamila Lalliou and it’s been quite some time since I’ve been contacted by my control officer, for obvious reasons, of course.”
“When did you lose your sight?”
“A few years ago. Let’s say it has severely cramped my value as an asset. I stay here because after so many years, where else would I go?”
“You’ve been briefed as to what I’m after, I assume.”
“You’re looking for a hefty complement of Iraqi agents who managed to flee their nation before last year’s war started. Part of a plot known as Al Awdah. I’d like to tell you that I’ve seen them, but, well. . .”
“I’ll settle for any information you may have.”
“I’ve heard talk. That’s what I do these days—I hear things. All you have to do is to know what to listen to. I’ve trained myself to tune into certain conversations while tuning out others.”
“Important skill.”
“Unnecessary for the most part if you can see. Are you familiar with the Iles du Frioul?”
“No.”
“Common name for the neighboring islands of Ratonneau and Pomeques located a few hundred meters west of the Chateau d’If. But, unlike the Chateau, Pomeques has been conveniently closed to all tourist traffic since some stray ordnance, left over from World War Two, was found in the remnants of German fortifications that dot the island.”
“You think somebody put the ordnance there to chase potential visitors away?
The old woman nodded, continued shifting the cards about until the ace of diamonds was faceup in the center.
“That’s a good sign,” Jamila Lalliou said, feeling along the edges of the card to make sure she had chosen the right one.
“I can use it. What else can you tell me about Pomeques?”
“I’ve heard talk from several local boat captains about ferrying men to and from the island on a regular basis.”
“Exactly what’s on that island that makes it stand out?”
“The largest German fortification in the region, just a stone relic now but originally a walled fortress built to accommodate hundreds of troops. You’ll never be able to get inside.”
“That’s not the plan anyway. I’ll need a reliable boatman, someone you trust.”
“This is Marseilles, Inspector Kamal. Trust exists only in a relative sense.”
“Then that’ll have to do.”
“I think I can accommodate you.”
* * * *
Chapter 69
J
amal Jefferson approached the bench where Franklin Winters was sitting in the center of Rock Creek Park, not far from the offices of the State Department.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Ambassador.”
“You said it was important, Major.”
Jefferson stopped directly in front of Winters, shoulders square with the sun.
“It concerns your son, sir.”
Winters shifted uneasily on the bench. “Go on.”
“Are you familiar with the role of a procurement officer?”
“They handle the supply line.”
“And in war their contribution is crucial. They’re the ones responsible for making sure there are enough tankers to keep the vehicles gassed and enough transport trucks to keep the troops fed. A misjudgment in either case and you’ve got men stranded hundreds of miles from the nearest depot with their tanks, or their stomachs, empty.”
“This is all out of the manual, Major.”
Jefferson stiffened. “Procurement officers are also responsible for arranging KIA transfers.”
“Killed in action ...”
“That’s right, sir. A sad business no one likes to talk about much, but I don’t have to tell you how important it is.”
Winters rose to his feet to look Jefferson in the eye. “What exactly are you telling me, Major?”
“I’ve been doing some checking. My office has access to confidential memos, requisition forms, flight manifests—all dealing with shipments in and out of the theater.”
“The Iraqi theater in this case.”
“There’s an anomaly, Mr. Ambassador,” Jefferson continued, “in a shipment of KIA transfers from the siege of Baghdad. Specifically, eleven more sealed crates were signed for than were listed on the manifest out of Brandenberg.”
“Coffins,” Winters realized.
“I did some checking but apparently the anomaly only showed up that one time in transit.”
“You’re saying eleven unidentified bodies were shipped home.”
“Unidentified and unreported as KIA.”
“Something not in the manual.”
&n
bsp; Jefferson hesitated, choosing his next words carefully. “Assuming, just assuming, a Special Forces A-team was wiped out while on a secret mission behind enemy lines. The army would want to bury that at all costs. It might go unreported. The dead soldiers might continue to be listed as MIA. Kept off the books so far as the world was concerned.”