His obsession with luxury was hard-earned. His work demanded a steady state of paranoia and forbade him friends. He had only associates and colleagues, and too many underlings to count. He enjoyed the company of women, but distrusted them on principle. Material possessions offered lasting tactile satisfaction while providing an ever-visible reminder of his success. He had sold chicken livers on the street once, too.
The convoy left the highway and followed a razor-straight two-lane road toward the rolling Margalla Hills. After a few kilometers, they approached an armed checkpoint. Guards clad in black utilities and Kevlar vests, with Heckler amp; Koch MP-5 submachine guns at their sides, ran to lift the barrier. The cars passed without slowing. A sign nearby read, “Private Property-No Trespassing” in Urdu, Hindi, and English. The skull and bones below needed no translation. The road continued dead straight for exactly two kilometers. Apple orchards gave way to oranges and then almond trees. Balfour rolled down his window to smell the sweetly scented air. His desire to leave Pakistan faded.
Ahead, he made out the stately gateposts that signaled the official entry to his property. A guard box painted with black-and-white diagonal stripes no different from those at Buckingham Palace stood to one side. No Queen’s Guard in a bearskin cap; just another member of his private army, clad in black head to toe, his machine gun at the ready. The ornate wrought-iron gate rolled back. Balfour waved to the guard, and the guard threw his best parade-ground salute in return.
The Range Rover drove for another two minutes before Balfour caught sight of the man-made lake. The cars crossed a plank bridge and swept into a gravel courtyard, continuing past the front entry and around the back to the stables.
Balfour had named his home Blenheim, in reference to the Duke of Marlborough’s grand palace in England. And Blenheim was a two-thousand-square-meter Palladian palace built to rival its namesake.
Mr. Medina was waiting beside the cross ties as a black stallion was being saddled. Medina was a thin, meticulous man with pince-nez glasses and hair swept off his forehead in a pompadour. Balfour had originally hired him as an accountant, only to be impressed by his near-photographic recall and his willingness to work all hours.
Balfour walked directly to Mr. Medina and handed him the copy of the shipping manifest. “Did you supply this to the Indian police?”
Medina examined the paper and his hand began to tremble. He glanced over his shoulder. Mr. Singh stood a few feet away, clad in immaculate white attire, except for his turban, which was maroon. Medina nodded.
“Why?” asked Balfour.
“A man from Delhi contacted me. A policeman. He paid me to get the information. I’m Hindu. When you fight against my countrymen, you fight against me.”
Balfour took back the manifest. “I will care for your family.”
Medina thanked him. With care, he took off his glasses and handed them to Balfour.
Mr. Singh bound Medina’s hands and feet. Two horses were brought from the stables, thoroughbreds rescued from the racetrack in Abu Dhabi. One cable was passed through the ropes binding the hands and another through the ropes binding Medina’s feet. Medina began to cry. Sensing death, the horses grew agitated, neighing and tugging at their bits. Each cable was attached to a saddle. Riders mounted the thoroughbreds and turned them in opposite directions. Balfour raised his hand, and the riders whipped their horses.
Medina was flung into the air. He remained horizontal for less than two seconds before falling back to the ground. The horses dragged his arms and legs for a half-mile. They were very spirited.
Medina lay on the ground, very much alive. Mr. Singh beheaded him with a kukri, the curved machete favored by Nepalese Gurkhas. Balfour regarded the head, then said to Singh, “Find the family. Kill them, too. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder.”
Mr. Singh strode away, the traitor’s head dangling by its hair. The head would be placed on a spear and displayed at the entrance to Balfour’s property. Fair warning to those who thought of following a similar course.
Satisfied that justice had been done, Balfour turned and looked behind him. Gazing down from a second-floor window stood a European woman with unruly auburn hair. He noted that her bruises had faded and the bandages were no longer on her cheeks. She would be ready to leave for the mountains any day.
The sooner, the better.
17
Jonathan had exchanged the blue of the Persian Gulf for the brown of the Negev Desert. The F-18/A landed at exactly twelve noon at Tel Nof Air Force Base south of Rehovot, Israel. The aircraft taxied past the control tower, past a squadron of F-16 Falcons, and past a dozen hangars, continuing to the farthest tip of the airfield. The pilot pushed back the canopy but did not kill the engine. A ground crew of one waited beside a white utility truck. Without delay, he positioned a ladder against the fuselage and helped Jonathan unbuckle and descend from the cockpit. The pilot slotted the canopy, pushed the plane through a tight 180-degree turn, and took off to the south. The ground crewman climbed back into his truck and drove away. Sixty seconds after setting foot on the tarmac, Jonathan stood alone, wind peppering his face with dust and grit.
And then, in the distance, a glint of blue beneath the midday sun. An automobile approached and stopped next to him. Two men got out.
“Welcome to Israel,” said the driver, who was short and stocky and had curly black hair.
The other man was short and stocky and bald, and reminded Jonathan of an artillery shell. He held open the rear door.
“Are you Frank Connor’s friends?” Jonathan asked.
The answer was an incline of the shaved head toward the open door. Jonathan got in.
They drove for an hour, climbing out of the desert on a series of long switchbacks, and then descending toward the coast and the Mediterranean Sea. Road signs read, “Tel Aviv,” “Haifa,” and “Herzliya.” Jonathan tried several more times to engage the men in conversation, but neither responded.
The car left the highway at the town of Herzliya. Five minutes later they pulled into the forecourt of a small, whitewashed building. A sign on the facade advertised it as the Hotel Beach Plaza, but there was no beach to speak of, rather a stone promontory plummeting into the sea and below, at water’s edge, a jetty of sharp, inhospitable rocks.
They passed through the lobby and went directly to the elevator. No one at the front desk uttered a word, or even glanced in his direction. Check-in had been taken care of. Jonathan’s room was on the third floor. In the hall, the men handed Jonathan the card key. The driver stood with crossed arms, looking Jonathan up and down. “Suit, forty-two long. Pants, thirty-four by thirty-four. Shoes, size twelve.”
“Thirteen,” said Jonathan.
“Boats,” said the artillery shell.
The men left without another word.
Jonathan noted that the door to his room was ajar. He knocked and pushed it open. “Hello?”
A cleaning maid was dusting the night table. “One moment,” she said in accented English. “Almost done.”
Jonathan entered the room, feeling strangely shy without any bags. “It’s fine,” he said. “You can go. I’d like to get some rest.”
The maid smiled and promptly ignored him, returning her attention to an already immaculate desk and countertop.
Jonathan sidestepped her and opened the glass doors that fed onto a narrow balcony. The temperature was a balmy seventy degrees. A few hundred meters up the coast, the rocks gave way to sand and he could see several sunbathers lying on colorful towels. A gull swooped by, cai -ing lustily. The wind was steady, and he observed a line of sailboats tacking against the current. He closed his eyes, enjoying the sun, and realized that he didn’t know what day it was. Friday? Saturday? The last week of his life had woven itself into a violent tapestry. He saw Amina stretched out on the table and Hamid drawing his blade across Abdul Haq’s throat. He saw the top of the Ranger’s head blown clean off and the hardened captain named Brewster shuddering as the machine-gun bullets stitched his chest, and then Hamid again, as he dropped from Jonathan’s grasp. Jonathan jolted, as if awakening from a nightmare. Opening his eyes, he saw that his arm was extended, his hand still searching for Hamid’s. Yet even as he stared out at the diamonds sparkling on the ocean, the pleasant breeze ruffling his hair, he felt a pair of black kohl-lined eyes challenging him from beyond the horizon, silently declaring him a coward and vowing revenge.