“So where is this Haddad guy now?”
She quickly refocused. “We’re not sure. We lost him here in London, after he killed another one of our agents.”
“Jeez. The guy sounds like a one-man jihad.”
“Well said. That’s why we think he’s the point man on whatever Zuabi’s planning in San Francisco, and we’re assuming he’ll be headed there soon.”
“On a diplomatic passport, no doubt.”
She nodded. “Bob Copeland was our man on the ground over there, but with him gone we’re not sure who we can trust.”
Jack wondered why Copeland hadn’t been more forthcoming. Then again, the way things were looking back in San Francisco, Sara was right. If Zuabi’s people had managed to infiltrate the British government, who was to say they weren’t working on the Americans as well. So Copeland had to play it sly, as he always did.
As if reading his thoughts, Sara said, “He told us about you. Copeland.”
“It would have been nice if he’d told me about you. ”
“We instructed him to be cautious,” she replied. “You’re a journalist. We did not know whether you would put a story, a scoop, above a principle.”
“I remember when those two went hand in hand, when members of my profession kept D-day a secret and hit the beaches with the first wave,” Jack said.
“That’s the reason I’m telling you all this now. Copeland insisted that you might be a valuable asset down the line.”
“Down to the wire, you mean.”
“That, too. And it may not be far off.” She eased herself forward wearing a grave expression. It was as though she were telling herself she had rested enough. More than anything, that gesture told Jack how little time might be left. “Abdal al-Fida thought I was just like him, a die-hard extremist. He may not have told me much, but he once said that the infidels would soon see destruction that would dwarf 9/11.”
“You’re talking nukes.”
“I am. You’re aware of the recent leak of diplomatic documents revealing that al Qaeda was sourcing nuclear materials and hiring scientists to build dirty bombs for use against Americans. Jack, al Qaeda isn’t nearly as well connected and well funded as the Hand of Allah.”
“Operation Roadshow,” Jack said ominously.
She nodded. “Coming to a city near you.”
26
Eurostar, London to France
It was late afternoon and they were aboard the Eurostar, a high-speed train that connected London to Paris through the Channel Tunnel.
Once they’d gathered their strength and left the hotel, Sara had taken Jack to an old boxing gym near the Tower Bridge where the task force kept private lockers-both men’s and women’s-in case of an emergency.
The men’s locker contained identification documents, money, and prepaid cell phones, along with a toiletry kit and several changes of clothes. The IDs were useless to Jack-he still had his Israeli passport with him, and it would have to do. He found a pair of slacks and a shirt that fit, and a suede leather jacket that was much like the one he’d left with Rabbi Neershum in Tel Aviv.
He also found a small theatrical makeup kit, a savvy addition to the provisions. There was a passable beard inside. That would save him having to explain why his passport showed him with a beard while he had just a stubble. He would put it on at the terminal; it wasn’t something he just wanted to spring on Sara.
After a hot shower, he put on the new clothes then retrieved his father’s watch from his old pants pocket and strapped it to his wrist.
He found Sara in the gym, watching a couple of over-the-hill boxers jab at each other in the ring. She had also showered and changed, now wearing dark jeans, a tight gray T-shirt, and a black leather jacket, her hair pulled back in a neat ponytail-every bit the modern woman.
The gym was crowded and several of the men were staring at her. As Jack approached her, he didn’t need them to remind him how stunning she was, and it was difficult for him to look at her without wanting her. Especially now that he knew she was on the right side of this fight. He wasn’t sure if he was imagining it, or it was just wishful thinking, but she seemed to appreciate what she saw in front of her as well.
She continued to be all business, however. After they left the gym, she called Brendan Lapworth to let him know she was still alive.
“Who?” Jack asked as they took a cab to the terminal.
She quietly explained that the man Jack had seen Sara talking to at the rave-Curly-was a hardened former Central Scotland Police constable named Brendan Lapworth who had been working antiterror for at least a dozen years. He was Sara’s task force leader, and had been on the other end of the line when she made her call outside of al-Fida’s flat.
“There’s a problem. We need to talk.”
“When I realized I was being followed,” she told Jack, “I knew I had to warn him off. Too many of us have been getting ourselves killed. We were supposed to rendezvous again after I either lost you or took care of the situation. But that obviously didn’t happen.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “Took care of the situation? You mean shoot me?”
“If it came to that, yes.”
His brain didn’t know if that should excite him or be a deal-breaker. Fortunately, his body didn’t give a damn.
“When you said you were in Abdal’s flat I thought you might be working for Zuabi,” she told him. “A homegrown terrorist. Of course, I didn’t know who you were, then.”
“Believe me, I didn’t know what to make of you, either. That little crying act was quite a show. You were very convincing.”
“I’ve had a lot of practice,” she said softly.
Without having said a word, Sara and Jack adopted the roles of lovers on holiday. They boarded the Eurostar to Paris and spent the nearly three-hour ride trying to get as much sleep as possible. They both still felt the lingering effects of the ape’s magic wand, and Jack only wished he’d been a little more thorough with the guy and put him out for good.
Maybe that’s the difference between us and them, he thought. People like us were raised to be empathetic and understanding, to use violence as a last option, always looking for reasons not to kill. But mercenaries like Swain and his men, or extremists like Zuabi, looked at people as nothing more than a way to earn a buck, gain power, make a political point, or achieve some false religious nirvana that really had nothing to do with God at all. They used greed and faith as weapons, their concern for humanity never stretching beyond the limits of their own selfish interests.
Jack remembered what the Reb had said about al-Fida at Cousin Ohad’s dining table.
“He’d just as soon see people like you and me buried under a pile of rubble.”
Thugs like Swain and Zuabi and al-Fida and Haddad had no qualms about killing. Why, Jack thought, should he?
Because that’s one of the only things that separates human beings from animals, he reminded himself. And if that didn’t matter, then the bad guys had already won.
As it said in Jeremiah, “In truth, in justice, and in righteousness; then shall the nations bless themselves by him…”
Paris, France
“Good to see your bonnie face again,” Lapworth said to Sara, with only a hint of the rolled r s that signaled a Scottish burr. “We were afraid we lost you.”
“You nearly did,” she told him. “If it weren’t for Jack, I’d be rotting in a chair right now.”
Brendan Lapworth had picked them up at the Paris train station, the Gare du Nord, in a battered Citroen Berlingo panel van. Up close, Jack noted that the curly hair was flecked with gray, and there were lines in Lapworth’s ruddy face-the roadmap of a hard life. But his eyes were clear and blue and unflinching.
Jack sat in the backseat, watching the sun drop below the horizon as he absently wound his watch. Ironically, his last visit to Paris had been for a story, when the city was plagued by Muslim riots. It occurred to him that, except for the trip to London with Rachel, most of his world travel had been accompanied by war or political upheaval.