Zuabi considered this. “Do you know who they were?”
Haddad shook his head. “A Turk and a woman, that’s all I can tell you. I thought she was a Gypsy, but now I’m not so certain.”
Haddad saw no point in mentioning their night together. The whore lingered in his memory as an effigy of dangerous lust and blind, stupid, dangerous trust. The pleasures he had enjoyed, and they were considerable, were swallowed in a swamp of disgust and self-reproach.
Zuabi frowned. “This is a concern, Hassan. If someone knows about our plans, they could destroy everything we’ve built. I assume you took care of the matter?”
“The woman,” Haddad said. “But the Turk got away. And I can’t be certain how much he knows.”
Zuabi’s frown deepened. “Our friends won’t be happy about this. They’ll want assurances that we haven’t been compromised. Our relationship is already on shaky ground after the incident with Abdal.”
Zuabi often spoke of their “friends,” but had never bothered to give Haddad details about who they were. The Hand of Allah had several sources of revenue, much of it funneled through charities around the world, but these particular friends—or benefactors—continued to remain anonymous to Haddad, an endless source of frustration for him. Did Zuabi not trust him? Was he not, after all, one of the Hand of Allah’s most dedicated soldiers?
But like any good soldier, he remained silent, not allowing himself to ask the questions that so plagued him.
Instead he said, “Is it necessary for them to know?”
Zuabi thought about this a moment. “I don’t suppose there’s any point in raising an alarm until we understand who we’re dealing with. You continue as before and I’ll look into the matter. If you see this Turk again, find out what you can and then kill him.”
“What about Abdal? Have you decided what to do with that fool?”
Haddad had only learned about the disaster in San Francisco upon his return to London, and had been relieved to hear that the Americans believed the incident had originated locally. Abdal al-Fida had recently returned to London himself, and if it had been up to Haddad he would have killed him within moments of his arrival.
But Zuabi was apparently leaning toward benevolence.
“He’s quite contrite about the whole incident,” the old cleric said. “He has promised to do anything he can to remain in our favor.”
“He’s a liability,” Haddad said. The words were softer than he had intended, since he himself had made a few bad calls of late.
Zuabi nodded. “But I see no reason to let him believe that. Fear has a way of loosening a man’s tongue. If he continues to believe he is safe with us, he’ll remain faithful to the cause.” He paused. “And he is the son of one of my dearest friends. I’ve known him since he was a boy.”
“Is it wise to let sentiment guide us?” Haddad pressed. “We could arrange an accident—”
Zaubi’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Do not worry. Abdal will be dealt with when the time is right.”
“And the woman he’s been seeing? Will she be dealt with, too?”
“We’re not savages, Haddad. Abdal may be impulsive, impatient, but he’s not stupid. The woman is a mere distraction. A Yemeni girl. I’ve looked into her and she knows nothing about us.”
“And if you are mistaken?”
Anger flashed in the man’s eyes. “Are you questioning my judgment?”
Haddad made it a habit to question everyone’s judgment, including his own, but he immediately backed down.
“No,” he said softly. “Of course not.”
The anger was gone as quickly as it had appeared, and Zuabi rose from behind his desk. “Then I believe we’re done here.” He gestured for Haddad to accompany him to the door. “There’s much to do before you travel, my brother. This Turk aside, I trust everything else is in order?”
“Yes. It’s all falling into place. I’ll be leaving again in a few days.”
“Good,” Zuabi said, then smiled. “I look forward to the moment we can stand here together and celebrate the defeat of the infidels.”
“As do I,” Haddad told him. “As do I.”
* * *
He was waiting for his train when he thought he saw the Turk again.
Haddad stood close to the tracks at the Westminster Underground Station, listening to the voices of waiting passengers reverberate against the walls, when he caught a glimpse of movement at the far edge of the crowd.
Small. Dark hair. Flash of a beard.
Nothing particularly noteworthy, of course. There were at least half a dozen such people here. But the figure he saw had a way of carrying himself that reminded him of the man he’d spotted on the train from Belgrade and in that hotel lobby.
An instant later the man was gone, swallowed by the crowd, and Haddad wondered if his imagination were getting the better of him. He’d barely seen a face, and what he had seen could be anyone. Anyone at all.
But he didn’t think so.
His instincts may have failed him somewhat in Bulgaria, but he had the same feeling now that he had then: that he was once again being watched.
And he knew who the watcher was.
He didn’t take a second look, however, instead keeping his eyes on the tunnel, waiting for his train to arrive. If the Turk remained in that same general area he’d be entering just three cars down.
Haddad wasn’t foolish enough to make the same mistake twice. He assumed the Turk wasn’t working alone. The Gypsy whore had been replaced by someone new. Someone who would also be on this platform, a rooks-on-king move modeled after the game of chess: one rook could be blocked, lost, or avoided by the king but not without remaining vulnerable to the other.
The woman standing next to him, perhaps? The old man stooped over the water fountain? The curly-headed college student with an e-book reader?
It could be any of them. Or none. The only way to find out was to leave this place and see who followed.
But he didn’t leave immediately. Instead he waited several minutes until his train finally glided up to the platform, its brakes hissing. The doors opened and the crowd began pushing through them, anxious to find seats.
Haddad moved along with the other passengers, then hung back suddenly and turned, heading for the stairs.
He didn’t wait to see if he was followed.
* * *
When he reached the street, Haddad immediately ducked into a nearby pub—the Old Town Brewery—and stood near the front window, watching the underground steps less than two hundred yards away.
A moment later a man emerged from the stairwell and bounded to the top of the steps, out of breath, his head swiveling, his eyes frantically searching the crowded sidewalk. There was no question about it now.
It was the Turk.
As the man’s gaze shifted to the pub, Haddad stepped back from the window to avoid being seen. The place was dimly lit and the shadows hid him well.
But the Turk must have had instincts, too. He knew that Haddad couldn’t have disappeared that fast unless he’d taken refuge in one of the nearby stores. And the darkness of the Old Town Brewery was the most likely candidate. Fixing his gaze on the front doorway, the Turk headed straight for it.
That was Haddad’s cue to move.
The pub was sparsely populated with ruddy-faced businessmen and their whorish companions. Haddad weaved his way through them to the back, counting the seconds it took, then ducked through a doorway marked TOILETS and found himself in a dim hallway lined with old black-and-white photographs of London.
The men’s room door was less than two meters away.
Haddad knew that the Turk would check back here. It made sense. He immediately flattened against the wall and waited, mentally calculating the time it would take his pursuer to step inside and cross to the back. It had taken Haddad about twenty seconds, and the Turk was moving as quickly, with purpose.
In less than fifteen seconds the Turk stepped into the hallway, apparently expecting
his quarry to be in one of the rooms, behind a locked door, perhaps trying to get out through a window.
He wasn’t. Haddad was facing the hallway door.
As the door swung outward Haddad lunged, grabbing the Turk by the collar. Spinning the smaller man around, he shoved him to the left so that he crashed through the men’s room doorway. The Turk’s eyes went wide in the grimy white light as he stumbled back and slammed against a stall door. Haddad pinned him there with a forearm pressed hard across his exposed throat.
“Who are you?” Haddad demanded in Turkish. “Why are you following me?”
The Turk made a sound in his throat but nothing came out. Haddad released the pressure and the man spat at him. Haddad spun him around again and shoved him hard against the door. The Turk couldn’t get out and now no one—including his partner—could come in. With one fluid motion, Haddad pulled a butterfly knife from his back pocket and flicked it open. The two metal pieces that sheathed the double-edged blade rotated around their pivot pins and snapped together, forming the hilt.
He pressed it to the Turk’s Adam’s apple. “Answer me or you’ll bleed out on a dirty bathroom floor. Who are you working for?”
“N-no one,” the Turk sputtered. “I—I wasn’t following you, I only came here to use the—”
Haddad pushed the knife into the soft flesh of the man’s throat. Blood began to trickle around the steel blade.
“You think I’m a fool?” Haddad hissed. “I saw you in Sofia, sitting in the hotel lobby. And on the train before that. How do you think your whore wound up with a plastic bag over her head?”
“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Stop insulting me with lies!”
Haddad withdrew the knife, grabbed him by the collar again, and jerked him onto his knees. The Turk cried in pain as his kneecaps slammed into the bathroom tile. Haddad again put the knife to his throat.
“I won’t ask again,” Haddad said. “Who are you and why are you following me?”
But the Turk said nothing and that was the wrong strategy to employ. Haddad had no qualms about making good on his threat. The only question was how much of his head would still be attached to his body when Haddad was done.
“You’ve made your choice,” Haddad said under his breath. He put a thumb and index finger into the man’s eyes, pressed back so his head was against the door and his throat was exposed, then pressed the blade to flesh.
The Turk stiffened. “Wait! Wait!”
Haddad stopped. Waited.
The Turk’s voice trembled. “I was telling the truth. I … I don’t work for anyone. I was following you because I want to join you.”
That surprised Haddad. “What are you talking about?”
“I want to join your cause.”
“Why didn’t you say so back in the hotel? Why did you hesitate with a knife to your throat?”
“I wanted to be sure in Sofia. Here, I wanted you to see I had courage.”
Haddad laughed. “And what about the woman in Sofia? Did she want to join me, as well?”
“She was no one. A simple whore. I saw her go to your room so I hired her to follow you from the hotel.”
“More lies,” Haddad said.
“No … no, I’m telling the truth! I know all about the Hand of Allah. I know all about your operation.”
Haddad hesitated. “And what operation would that be?”
The Turk paused a moment, lowering his voice almost reverentially as he suddenly spoke English. “Roadshow.”
Haddad stared at him for a long moment. He had no idea what the Turk was talking about. He had his orders, but he knew of no operation by that name.
But what startled him was that he’d heard the word before. Spoken by Imam Zuabi during a telephone conversation several weeks ago as Haddad had waited outside his doorway. He could remember nothing else about what had been said; it hadn’t seemed important. But that word—now that he’d heard it again—came back to him with clarity. And it troubled him.
Was this something else Zuabi was keeping from him?
He looked at the Turk. “This is nonsense. There is no Operation Roadshow.”
“Why would I lie? You have my life in your hands.”
Haddad pressed the knife against the Turk’s throat again as if to prove that point. “Then where did you hear about it?”
“I … I don’t remember. On the street. People talk…”
“What people?”
“I told you, I don’t remember.”
“And I don’t believe you,” Haddad said. “Tell me now or I swear to Allah—”
Suddenly, the Turk brought his left elbow up hard, digging it into Haddad’s chin. Pain tunneled through Haddad as he stumbled back, loosening his grip on the knife. Before he could recover, the Turk jumped to his feet and shot a hand out, grabbing hold of the bigger man’s wrist, twisting so that the joint was bent with the force of the Turk on one side, the weight of Haddad’s body on the other. It was a basic combat technique, simple and debilitating.
The nerves inside Haddad’s arm caught fire and the knife fell free, clattering on the floor.
The Turk may have been small, but that was an advantage in the confined space. Throwing another elbow, he connected with Haddad’s temple, causing both ears to ring. Then he squirmed around him, kicked Haddad from behind—sending him belly-down on the floor—and made a mistake. Instead of running out the door, the Turk looked for the knife.
It was under Haddad.
Scooping it up and scrambling to his feet, Haddad spun and tackled the Turk by the legs, taking him down just short of the door. Rolling the Turk over, he straddled the man, pinning his arms with his knees as he pressed the knife against the smaller man’s jugular.
“Why were you following me?”
“Die in hell!” the Turk spat, struggling beneath him.
Haddad smacked him across the face. “You first! Tell me who you work for!”
Suddenly, to Haddad’s surprise, the Turk stopped fighting. There was a quiet rage in his eyes and Haddad knew he would get nothing from him.
Nothing at all.
The Turk said softly, “May Allah condemn you for what you are about to—”
Haddad didn’t let him finish the sentence.
He uttered a prayer as he thrust the knife into the man’s throat, dragging it deeply along the jawline.
10
San Francisco, California
“So what is this, Jack? Some kind of black thing?”
Maxine no longer had stitches in the side of her face, but the mark they’d left behind still looked raw and painful. She was driving at a fairly good clip, headed south on Van Ness, Jack in the passenger seat.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“You think because I look like everyone else in the hood, I’ve got the key to the kingdom?”
Jack could tell by the tone of her voice that she was only half serious, but now that she’d put it out there he had to respond.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” he said, “but you did grow up in the Dale, right?”
Max stopped at a red light. “Fourteen years of hell before my mom got a job that paid her enough money to move us out of that dung heap.”
“So what’s the problem? This is more about knowing the territory than anything else. Although you have to admit this Jamal kid is more likely to talk to you than me.”
She gestured to the side of her face. “You almost got me killed once. Isn’t that enough?”
Jack smiled. “We run into any trouble, I figure they’ll be too mesmerized by your beauty to do anything stupid.”
“They call that a bulletproof marshmallow,” she said.
“Say again?”
“Someone soft and tasty that they’re not going to hurt.”
“I like that,” Jack said. “Besides, you know how to handle yourself.”
Max had proven that more than once. Most recently, when she was shooting footage of the dock worker
s’ strike, one of the union apes had threatened to hurt her and break her camera. The moment the goon made his move, Max sidestepped him and drove the ridge side of her hand into his exposed Adam’s apple without skipping a beat—or losing a frame.
She shot Jack a look. “You’re on crack, you know that? Have you ever even been to Sunnydale?”
“It’s not part of my usual routine, no.”
“So you really have no idea what you’re asking me to do here.”
Jack had to admit he didn’t. He’d heard stories about the place. But he’d also spent time on the streets of Baghdad so how bad could it really be?
“Besides, what makes you think the kid will be up and about?” she asked. “Hasn’t he got a couple of busted limbs?”
“Yes, and that’s why he’ll be out struttin’.”
“I’ll bite. How do you figure that?”
“The kid was obviously trying to impress a gang,” Jack said. “He blew it, totaled the jacked car and didn’t waste the owner. Two strikes. So how does he save face?”
“By sucking up the pain and showing off his injuries.”
“Exactly,” Jack said.
Max shook her head. Jack didn’t know if she admired his thinking or just thought he was crazy.
“You didn’t have to come along, you know,” he reminded her. “You could’ve stayed home.”
Max sighed. “Somebody’s gotta protect you from yourself. And when have I ever told you no?”
“I can think of a couple times.”
The light turned green and Jack saw a flicker of a smile on Max’s lips as she rolled her eyes, then faced forward and hit the gas. “You’re lucky I did, Casanova. You wouldn’t know how to handle me.”
Jack grinned. “Neither will the gangstas in Sunnydale.”
* * *
It was less than half an hour before sunset when Max turned onto Sunnydale Avenue. Jack immediately understood her trepidation and started having second thoughts about asking her to come along.
The place was a lot worse than he had expected.
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