"Who are you people?" Ruth asked.
The man who'd carried the Uzi shook his head. "It would be inadvisable to tell you that. Suffice it to say that it's not in our best interests to allow you to fall into the hands of those people."
"And who are they?" Ruth asked.
Gideon sat up. There was something vaguely familiar about these guys.
Now that he could see where the Lincoln was going, they were shooting north, weaving in and out of traffic. They blew through lights as yellow cabs blared horns at them.
Gideon noticed a livid bruise on the neck of the man with the Uzi. "You were at my house," Gideon said.
"You're worth keeping track of," said the driver. "We're not the only ones of that opinion."
"What's going on?" Ruth yelled with frustration bordering on hysteria.
"We'll explain what we can, when we can," the gunman told them as they tore through another intersection and made a screeching turn following signs toward the Holland Tunnel. While the one drove like a maniac, the other picked up a cellular phone and dialed someone. "Hi, Mom," the guy said. "Uncle had a bit of a breakdown. We had to pick him up. We got some groceries and we're heading to Abe's house. Yeah, I think you better call Triple-A." He hung up.
"Uncle?" Gideon said.
"We're going to take you to a safe house, check you both out for listening devices, then we'll see what we can talk about."
The Lincoln slid into the tunnel. Gideon raised his gun and said, "I'd like an explanation now."
"You better put that away," said the driver. "We don't want things to get ugly." The Lincoln started slowing down. "I could let you both out here. But neither of us is going to discuss anything before we get where we're going." The car was almost stopped, and behind them horns were blaring at them. "Now either put that away, or get out."
Gideon considered forcing the issue, but he didn't know if he wanted to. He would be putting Ruth in danger if he started pulling macho shit now. And whatever was going on, these guys seemed to be at least partially on his side.
He holstered the gun.
On the far side of the Hudson, they drove through Jersey City. They wove through so many twists and turns that Gideon was unsure exactly where they were when they entered a residential area and pulled into a weed-shot driveway. The house was in a run-down neighborhood, and looked as decrepit as the buildings to either side. The paint had once been red, but had faded to a chipped, weathered brown. Two windows were covered by sheets of plywood.
The garage didn't look all that safe. The walls were tilted to the left, as if the whole thing was about to collapse. Despite that, the door slid up silently on its own as the Lincoln drove up the broken driveway. The car slid into the broken-down garage and the door started closing immediately. Gideon looked outside and saw that there seemed to be a few new timbers bracing the garage upright in its awkward position.
The driver waited until the door was completely closed behind the Lincoln before he said, "Could we have the gun, please?"
Gideon didn't like the way things were going, but he decided that there was little to gain by not playing along. Ruth was looking at him as if she blamed him for what was happening. For all he knew, she might be right. He handed the butt of the gun to the driver.
The other man got out and opened the passenger door next to Gideon. "Come on," he said. As Gideon got out of the car, the man took a small wand from off of a shelf of old tools lining the wall of the garage. Unlike the rusty hacksaws and miscellaneous junk scattered on the shelf, this thing looked brand new. He flipped a switch on the thing and swept Gideon up and down as if it was a metal detector.
He did the same to Ruth as she stepped out of the car.
"You'll both be happy to know that neither of you have any transmitters on you." He put the device back on the shelf where it blended in with the rest of the junk. "Come with me."
He led them out of the garage and through a weed-filled backyard whose main feature was a stack of old tires piled next to the rear wall of the house. Their guide took them to the back door. The door had an iron security grate; the window behind the grate was covered by a sheet of plywood. Despite the security, their guide opened the door without a key.
From the outside, the place made Gideon feel uneasy. You found bodies inside this kind of place. Inside he expected to see mattresses and used needles scattered on the floor—a shooting gallery or a crack house.
The interior was different.
They stepped through into a kitchen and their guide hit a light switch, filling the room with bright white light from a brand-new fluorescent fixture. The place was clean, even though the plaster was cracked and a half-dozen tiles were missing from the walls. There wasn't a stove or a refrigerator, but a new microwave sat on one of the kitchen counters.
They stepped through the kitchen, and into the front of the house. The living room and dining room were both as clean and as empty as the kitchen. A card table and a few chairs sat in the dining room, and a lone futon sat in the living room. The futon faced a small television that sat on a small dorm fridge that was only slightly bigger than it was.
One of the folding chairs was occupied.
"Have a seat," said the man, waving at two of the other chairs. Their guide, who probably still had his Uzi, remained standing.
Gideon sat next to Ruth and studied this new person. He was probably in his eighties. His hair was snow white and somewhat wild. His eyes were hard and penetrating, but seemed to glimmer at some private joke.
"Gideon Malcolm," he nodded at Gideon, "Ruth Zimmerman."
"Who are you?" Gideon asked. "Why are we here?"
The man leaned back in his chair. "My name wouldn't be a prudent revelation. And I think you both know why you are here."
"What do you have to do with my sister's disappearance?" Ruth finally said.
Gideon could see her muscles tense, and sensed that she was on the verge of some sort of outburst.
She had been quiet most of the way here, all the tension building up. . .
Gideon put a hand on her shoulder and hoped that was enough to calm her.
"That," said the old man, "I can tell you. Neither I, nor the people I work with, have anything to do with your absent sister. If we had, your sister never would have disappeared."
"What do you mean by that?" Ruth said. "What's happened to her? Why are people shooting at me?"
Gideon squeezed Ruth's shoulder and asked his own question. "Why did you step between us and a bunch of gunmen? What do you get out of all this?"
The old man stood and started pacing around the table. "Dr. Zimmerman is a very dangerous person," he said. "Her flight has threatened a great many people. Including the people I work for, including your own government."
Ruth shook her head. "Julia wouldn't threaten anybody."
"What she knows is threatening, regardless of what her motives are. And the presence of those gunmen bring her motives into question."
"Who are they?" Gideon asked.
The old man ran his hands through his white mane of hair. "In the 1980s there were a number of states in the Middle East that sponsored—publicly and privately— various terrorist organizations. Back then there was a lot of financing by the Soviet Union and these groups had common training grounds in Lebanon, Libya, Angola. When the USSR split apart, the loose network of organizations remained, sharing intelligence, expertise, and occasionally personnel. What had begun as group of terrorist organizations soon became an independent multistate intelligence network with a Pan-Islamic agenda. It calls itself the International Unification Front. It stretches from Bosnia to Iran, from Kazakstahn to Angola. It represents a continual threat to your country and the European democracies."
"So these people are Arab terrorists?" Gideon asked.