Haven, page 27
Her father would have said, "Stick with Nadia and Jazz because you know where they stand. They'll protect and guide you according to Islam. From your own mouth you don't think this woman is Muslim." But her mother who was not a Muslim herself...except in her heart where it counts...would say, "She's my kind of woman. Go for it, Aisha. Don't worry, your father and I will be near.”
And she did. She said that in Cherokee's mind. Her mother had answered her prayer.
TWENTY SIX
The Tuareg, Ozal, was nearly finished with his bomb when the boat was still a night out at sea.
The easiest part was the nitroglycerin that he made from the chemicals they bought in Las Palmas. Sulfuric acid mixed with nitric acid and then the glycerin added drop by drop. He used Bandari's galley for the mixing and measuring but his soldiers had to do the delicate siphoning because the fumes caused his ruined fingers to swell and they caused his good eye to run. Very gently they drained off the acids leaving only the nitrated glycerin remaining. This they mixed carefully with sawdust and an alkali which was ordinary baking soda. They tamped all this - lightly - into trays used for muffins. The trays then were packed in ice. One thing they forgot was litmus paper to test if the acids were completely withdrawn and they should have lit a drop or two to see how it burned. But Ozal wasn't worried. He'd done this before and the soldiers had made very good pupils.
The easiest part was the timing device which was made from a clock and some batteries. The hardest part was the artillery shell. The casing had to be scored very carefully so that it would fragment when the nitro is detonated and scatter the plutonium sleeve. This part was done while Bandari napped lest he realize that the bomb would be nuclear after all.
As it was, Bandari did nothing but complain. It made him half crazy if the soldier was whistling as he stirred the ingredients in a big copper pot. "Why is he whistling? Does he think he's making soup? He is going to kill us all with his whistling.”
He got even more crazy when the soldier was silent. "What's happening down there? What are you not telling me? Did he spill it and it's melting a hole in my hull?”
Ozal tried to calm him. He explained the whole process. He said there was almost no danger of explosion as long as they kept it from getting too hot and as long as Bandari kept his mind on navigation and does run into a tanker in the dark.
“Almost? What is almost? Why did you say almost?”
“Bandari...shut up and steer.”
“And how do you know you can get them with a bomb? You have guns. Why can't you just shoot them?”
“It's a bomb because I make bombs. Now shut up.”
“And that smell. It's practically peeling the paint. What if the Coast Guard should show up and board us? What will I say is that smell?”
Ozal was not greatly concerned about the Coast Guard. They would rarely board without probable cause and this yacht was one of hundreds that were coming this way. At most they might radio and ask what's aboard. What's aboard? Drugs, of course. And bubonic plague. Oh, and two atomic warheads, I almost forgot.
A ridiculous country. Its borders are a sieve. Any boat can sail in to almost any little port and no one will ask if you've stopped off at customs or if anyone aboard has a passport or visa. They will only ask, as Harbour Town, had asked, "What's the length of your vessel
and how long will you stay?”
“Three days," Bandari told them from ten miles out.
They assigned him a slip. That was all there was to it. Bandari told them he would be there by nine in the morning which was then still six hours away. He used those six hours to try to vent out the smell but it clung to his curtains and cushions.
“Why three days?" Ozal asked him. "What takes three days?”
“To find out where the girl and the woman are living.”
“What, you don't know this now? How come you don't know this already?”
“All Tarrant told me is it's a big place for tennis but also there are Muslims who live there. Muslim women on this island should be easy to spot.”
Ozal stared at him. "How? You think they play tennis in hijab? Or maybe they play with a racquet in one hand and the holy Koran in the other.”
“We will find them," Bandari insisted.
The motor yacht Alhambra had found its slip in the circular harbor at Harbour Town. Ozal was surprised at the number of tourists who were strolling the quays and gawking at boats. He had not imagined such crowds. He was pleased, however, to see many fine yachts even larger and grander than Bandari's. That was good. Their own boat would not attract too much attention.
The harbor was ringed by terraced apartments and by shops and a number of restaurants. At its entrance was a red and white candy-striped lighthouse whose function was entirely decorative. It was useless as a beacon because by the time a boat could see it the boat was practically there. But on top, reached by stairs, was an observation deck. Ozal could see tourists lining the railing. It put him in mind of a mosque's minaret.
“How is this for a plan?" he said to Bandari. "We send a muezzin to the top of that lighthouse and he calls the island's Muslims to prayer. Your lesbian niece shows up with her protector, then we follow them back home and kill them.”
Bandari blinked stupidly. He did not know it was a joke until he saw that the two soldiers were nudging each other. He was also troubled by so many people. "How will we find them?" he asked, his voice small.
“Leave that to me," said Ozal.
We don't need, thought Ozal, to know exactly where they live. All we need do is narrow it down. All we need do is find the big place. It's enough that they are there and downwind of the bomb.
“I am going ashore," he announced to Bandari. "I'll pick up some maps and a telephone book so we can locate this big place for tennis.”
“No, you'd better let me. I look more like a tourist.”
“Being fat with short pants? This makes you a tourist?”
Bandari stuck out his lip. "What, you think you're more typical? Show me a tourist with one eye and such fingers. Why don't you wear a kaffiyeh while you're at it and walk with an assault rifle under your arm?”
Ozal grumbled at this but Bandari was right. He wished that he had thought to purchase an eye-patch. He retreated to the galley where he fashioned a head band, cutting strips from a clean terry dish cloth. He covered his hands with the thick yellow gloves which his soldiers had worn while they were cooking the nitro. They were stained and they stank but they helped him to look as if he might be a mechanic. He wiped the galley floor with a smelly old shirt, then wore it to complete the illusion. Bandari groaned when he appeared back on deck.
“Give me some dollars. I have only pesetas.”
“Now you look worse than ever. I order you to stay.”
“Give me dollars," he said, "and shut up.”
If Bandari had not tried to give him an order, Ozal might not have stayed ashore as long as he did. He might not have bought a newspaper along with his maps. He might not have sat down in a red rocking chair - such chairs are left out for the tourists to use - and would not have learned several important things.
The first was that the bodies of those first three had been found. It was still in the paper, even now a week later. The authorities, it seemed, still did not know their names but they could only be the Englishman, Pratt, and his helpers. Bandari didn't know this. How could he know? They have been out at sea for six days.
Bandari would faint if he knew how they died. Throats cut ear to ear and their tongues pulled down through. A few bullets holes added to their bodies for good measure, then fed to the crabs and the alligators. This woman who phoned him and made all those threats was more than just talk after all. Ozal, however, was not going to tell him. Telling him might put some steel in his spine but it also might turn him to jelly.
He would surely not tell him the second thing he learned. In the same newspaper item a sub-heading appeared. It said, "More Evidence Dredged From Murder Marsh Site" and there in a box was a picture. In the picture was a watch, a gold Rolex, it said. You couldn't see it was a Rolex because it only showed the back in order to display the inscription. And there, no mistake, written in Arabic, was the name of Gamal Bandari. "To Gamal Bandari - who has been a good friend." Very likely, the friends were that Libyan gang who were growing less friendly by the day. Ozal could not imagine how the watch got in that swamp but he knew without question how Bandari would react if he should see his own name in the Hilton Head paper.
The third thing he learned was why this place was so crowded. All the time he was ashore he heard cheering and clapping in the distance. It was not at all like the sounds of a soccer match. It was much more polite and refined. On an impulse he climbed the steps of the lighthouse to see where the sounds could be coming from. It was also to get the lay of the land and to see all the boats in the harbor.
He had plenty of room to take in the view because the tourists got a whiff of him and moved quickly away. He could see what looked like stadium seats and white tents and more milling crowds through the trees. An event so big must be in the paper. He opened his copy to the section marked Sports and there it was, page after page, describing what seemed to be an annual event. The Family Circle Tennis Classic. Even the name was polite, he thought. This must be because they're all women.
And then it struck him. It came like a thunderbolt. This had to be the big place for tennis.
The more he stared, the more perfect it seemed. The wind, to begin with, was steady from the west and the west was now at his back. It would blow gamma rays all over this Harbour Town and over the courts where the tennis is played. Every seat in the stadium would be filled when it came. They would hear the explosion but they would think it was thunder. They'd look up but then they'd go on with their clapping, not knowing that they all have already been killed. Every man, every woman, every child would be finished. Everyone in those apartments, everyone in those tents, everyone in those restaurants and shops. The only survivors would be those who were upwind. Even these, however, would soon die as well because downwind is the only way out of this place unless you go upwind by boat.
This was big. So big.
He would telephone first. He would tell them exactly what is going to happen but he'd let them have no more than ten minutes warning. He would tell them who did this and why. He has done it to show them that no place is safe, not even this haven called Hilton Head Island where the blood-sucking rich come to play in the sun. He has done it to show all the women of Islam that there is no place to hide if they run from their duties. He has done it to show all enemies of God that they cannot escape the revenge of the poor.
Which is pig shit, of course.
It's the kind of nonsense Bandari would spout thinking half the world's Muslims would applaud him.
What it is, is a war. It's a war against a world which, if God really existed, he would have had the good sense to destroy before this.
Above all, it is practice for Cairo.
TWENTY SEVEN
On that morning Lawrence Tarrant had swallowed a Valium. He could have done with two but he took only one because he needed his head to be clear.
His pilot had called from Washington National confirming that his plane had returned from Grand Cayman, had refueled and would be ready to depart at his pleasure. The pilot, who called on an unsecured phone, advised that his baggage was already on board. The baggage, in this case, was a certain associate whom Tarrant could no longer put off.
That call was followed by one from an attorney who announced that he had been retained by Clarisse who would that day be filing for divorce. The attorney would not tell him where his wife was then staying; he said that any contact would be solely through him. He proceeded to list the grounds she would cite and certain demands that she would make in the interim, among them that Tarrant should vacate her home taking nothing but his personal belongings.
Tarrant listened long enough to be satisfied that her grounds were all of a personal nature and made no allegations of criminal activity. No longer interested, he broke the connection. His primary reason for abruptly hanging up was the arrival of a messenger in his driveway. The envelope that the messenger carried would contain the file that his overly ambitious young friend had promised him. The file on the German named Kessler.
That in hand, he buzzed his chauffeur to say that he'd be leaving for the airport in fifteen minutes. He used that time to make copies of the file and to scan its contents as he did so. The copies would go to Lester Loomis and his men who were to meet him on Hilton Head Island. They were four, including Loomis, all good at their work. If Kessler is there, they would find him and kill him more slowly than Kessler killed Pratt. They would also be watching for Bandari's boat because that island, Tarrant could no longer doubt, is where the damned fool must be going. He would see to Bandari himself.
But first must come that meeting he dreaded. The man who was waiting aboard his plane was at least of his own sort, not a Libyan colonel. This man was an American, a powerful banker, the product of excellent breeding and family. But his breeding wouldn't stop him from making a phone call if what Tarrant had to say didn't satisfy him. It would do him no good to lay the blame on Bandari. That phone call would tell the two Libyan colonels that Lawrence J. Tarrant could not be relied upon. Such a call, if he made it, would cost Tarrant a fortune to say nothing of making it extremely unlikely that Clarisse would have need of a lawyer.
Outside, his chauffeur pulled up and signaled. It was time to leave for the airport. Tarrant made one more call on the unsecured line, this one to the offices of Tarrant Associates in downtown Washington, D.C. He informed his receptionist that he would not be coming in; he would be leaving for Grand Cayman immediately. There, and for at least the next several days , he would be in conference with a Mr. Bandari. He would be taking no calls until their business was concluded.
“Bandari," he repeated. He spelled the name for her. "We'll be meeting on his yacht when it gets there.”
The receptionist was a decorative if rather dim woman who knew nothing at all about his business. The call, in any case, was not really for her. It was to tell whoever had a tap on this phone that Grand Cayman must be where Bandari is headed and that that's where he himself is headed as well. The flight plan that his pilot had filed did not mention a stop on Hilton Head Island. That's where he would deplane. The banker would go on. This banker, tall and thin like himself, would pass as Lawrence Tarrant to anyone watching when the plane arrived at Grand Cayman.
In his car Lawrence Tarrant could now take the time to examine Kessler's file more closely. The more he read, the comics included, the less he was sure what to make of this man. Parts made perfect sense to him. Others did not.
Kessler's father, it seems, had been third in command of East German Counter-Intelligence. The father, during World War II, had done the same work as a Nazi. Captured by the Russians at the end of the war, he then spent six years in a Soviet prison camp before being released and repatriated. He promptly joined the Communist Party for, one assumes, exactly the same reasons that had led him to become a Nazi before that. A smart man does not swim against the current. His alternatives to joining the party in power would have been to remain a political neutral - and therefore live a life with neither travel nor privilege - or to become, if he were stupid, a critic of the system and end up as a trash collector in Leipzig.
The father died of cancer in 1985 but not before bringing up his son in his footsteps. The son, who grew up knowing only one system, was apparently a good deal less cynical at first. He believed - it says here - in the Marxist ideal but became disillusioned over time. A slow learner. He saw that an essentially humanistic philosophy had evolved over time into a self-serving racket for the party elite. Even so, he stayed in counter-intelligence. His file says he stayed because he enjoyed the game. More likely, thought Tarrant, his father pointed out that he, the son, was now one of the elite so shut up and don't rock the boat. In any event the son stayed on until the system disintegrated under his feet. After that, together with a former Israeli agent - a note says "See Stride" but there's nothing on him here - Kessler helped himself to a share of its leavings and pursued the good life with new vigor.
A renegade after my own heart, thought Tarrant. As to why such a man would want to help female Muslims...even assuming he'd eventually run short of funds...the answer has to be that he would not. The answer has to be that Pratt was quite right when he said he was concerned about attracting competition. This Kessler clearly wants the million dollars himself that's been offered for that other woman down there. Well, Kessler could have had it and welcome to it if he hadn't made that call to Clarisse.
Tarrant's jet was airborne. It was over Virginia headed Southwest and climbing. Very soon, somewhere over the Carolinas, his pilot would discover an electrical problem and would make an unscheduled landing on Hilton Head. Tarrant had until then to try to satisfy this man that their project was able to proceed.
He thought it best to tell him about the German named Kessler on the chance that the banker had sources of his own. This Kessler, he assured him, was about to be silenced. He was, however, no immediate threat because his interest was solely in collecting a bounty now that Pratt was out of his way.
“Pratt told him about you? And your business with the Libyans?”
“He was trying to bargain for his life. He failed.”
“Yes, but how did Pratt know in the first place?" asked the banker. "And why in God's name would you have told him a thing?”
“I didn't," he answered. "Bandari must have boasted. Bandari is a man who needs to feel important, even in the eyes of a creature like Pratt.”
“But not you, you'll assure me. You said nothing yourself?”
