have accessed his computer. Is there anything on it of you?”
“Wala haaga.” Nothing, he said, his thoughts racing. This plus the near capture of Salim Kassem in Beirut meant they were after him. Even if they didn’t know who or where he was, someone was getting closer.
“Are you sure?”
“Nothing,” he said, remembering the long walk he had taken with Dr. Abadi in the Bekaa Valley after the 2006 July war with the Israelis. You do not exist. It is the only way, Dr. Abadi had said. There would be nothing of him on Abadi’s computer, or anywhere for that matter. He was certain of it. He waited, and when the voice did not continue, finally said it: “Do we go on?”
“Allahu akhbar!” the voice said. God is great.
“Allahu akhbar!” the Palestinian replied and hung up. It was as they had agreed. No matter what, there would be no turning back.
Making sure he wasn’t watched, he pulled out the SIM cards, placed the two cell phones and SIMs just behind his front tire, and backed the Mercedes over them. He jumped out, picked up what was left of the phones and tossed the pieces at intervals into the brush along the autostrada to Turin.
It was getting warm, the sun glittering on the Po River and on the mountains as he drove into Turin and parked in a structure near the Porta Palazzo. It was a working-class area, and he passed warehouses and cheap couscous restaurants as he walked to the piazza and waited on the sidewalk near a cluster of market stalls. Within minutes a van pulled up. Two Moroccan men jumped out and shoved him into the back. One of the Moroccans started to put a hood on his head.
“U’af!” Stop! “No hood. I want to study the area,” the Palestinian said sharply in Arabic. One Moroccan looked at the other, who didn’t say anything. He kept the hood in his hand. “Where are we going?” the Palestinian asked the driver.
“Across the river. Make sure no one is following,” the driver said, weaving through the traffic, mostly Fiats, of course, from the big Fiat factory in the suburbs of the city, past the lush green of the Royal Gardens and the towering four-sided dome of the Mole Antonelliana, Turin’s signature landmark. Designed to be a synagogue, the Mole was now Italy’s National Movie Museum, and was said to be the tallest museum in the world. They drove across the bridge over the Po River, then cut illegally across the oncoming lane to a side street, turning back on the Via Bologna and recrossing to the western side of the river. After another ten minutes going back and forth on side streets to make sure no one was following, the driver pulled up to the loading dock of a small warehouse a few doors down from a garage that had been converted into a mosque. They got out and went inside the warehouse.
There were six young Moroccan and Albanian men in work clothes, two of them wearing the green coveralls of Italian sanitation workers, and two women in hijabs. They stood around or sat on metal chairs near a stack of crates in a corner of the warehouse. A bearded young Moroccan man sat behind a folding table in the front of the group, sipping a bottle of Orange Fanta. An older man in an embroidered taqiyah cap, who the Palestinian assumed was the imam, sat beside the bearded Moroccan.
“Salaam aleikem,” the imam said.
“Wa aleikem es-salaam,” the Palestinian replied, taking a seat and turning the chair sideways so he could see the two men at the table and the rest of the group. The bearded man put a Beretta pistol on the table.
“You are welcome, Brother,” the imam continued in Arabic. “We have been instructed to assist you in all possible ways.”
“Assist, yes. But in Torino we lead,” the bearded man said, his hand touching the gun.
“You are GICM?” the Palestinian asked, naming the terrorist Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group responsible for a series of deadly bombings and kidnappings across northern Italy.
The bearded man nodded.
“Give me your gun,” the Palestinian ordered, standing and holding out his hand. The bearded man picked up the pistol and pointed it at him.
“I give the orders here,” he said.
“Do you submit to Allah? Have you said the Shahadah?” the Palestinian demanded, his eyes burning. “We are the Al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya. Do you know there is a fatwa against any who would lift a hand against me because of my work in our holy cause?” He stepped closer to the table and held out his hand. “Either kill me now and burn forever in jahannam or give me the gun, Brother.”
The bearded man’s eyes darted around, looking at his friends and followers. Everyone was riveted on the confrontation. One of the Moroccans from the van started to pull his gun out of a shoulder holster, then stopped halfway. From outside the warehouse came the sound of a car honking in traffic. No one moved. The bearded man’s fingers tightened on the gun. The Palestinian could see specks of dust floating in the shafts of sunlight coming through the high warehouse window, and he wondered if it would be the last thing he ever saw. At last the bearded man exhaled. Without a word, he pushed the gun on the table toward the Palestinian.
“Allahu akbar,” God is great, the Palestinian said, picking up the gun. The others started to echo “Allahu akbar” when the Palestinian aimed the gun and shot the bearded man in the head, the shot ringing unbelievably loud in the silence. One of the women gave out a muffled cry as the body slumped to the side of the chair.
The Palestinian turned on the group and stared at them. “Our moment of truth has come. There can be only one leader here,” he said, and told them what he wanted them to do.
“W here do you want the delivery?” Francesca said, tossing her long blond hair, her dark roots showing only at the part. They were having dinner in a small exclusive restaurant in Milan, near Sempione Park.
“In Torino,” the Palestinian said, and told her the name of the street. He was eating the best Piedmontese veal battutu he’d ever tasted, washed down with an excellent Sagrantino wine. “Just deliver it and walk away.”
“And the money?”
“Before your men go two meters, they will have the rest of the money.”
“You understand with the Camorra, you don’t get two chances?” she said.
“You aren’t afraid to talk about the Camorra here?” he said, looking around at the well-dressed diners at nearby tables.
“Why not? I own this place.” She had a rough contralto laugh. “Many others too. You are surprised to find a woman capa, yes? Of the Camorra, it is the custom when the husband dies or is in the prigione, for the wife to take over. Good custom. We hold it close,” she said, touching her chest. “But you were surprised. I see it in your eyes.”
“Only at how attractive you were.” She was in her forties, her skin tan, with a good shape shown off by the red designer dress she wore, her breasts so perfect that only a world-class surgeon who was half in love with her could have done them.
“Non c’e male,” she said-not bad-licking a drop of spaghetti sauce from the corner of her mouth. “Listen. You want to take me to the bed? What job is this? You tell me and this will be the best night of your life.”
“Tempting. Also dangerous-in more ways than one,” he said, glancing at the two bodyguards she’d come in with, now standing on either side of the front door, their suit jackets unbuttoned.
“You are not afraid. I can see you are not a man who fears. You understand, we women are curious, like cats. Arouse a woman’s curiosity and you can have her.”
“Any woman?”
“Any woman on earth-and in heaven too,” she said, lighting a cigarette. “You want me?”
“I won’t tell you. Ever.”
“Maybe I don’t care,” she said, tossing her hair. “Maybe I want to make chiavare with you in the bed,” she said, leaning forward so he could see the swell of her breasts.
“Maybe you’d rather have the money. Sixty thousand now as agreed.”
“You see! You do understand women. Where is it?” she said, getting up.
“A package. I gave it to the maitre d’.”
She leaned over and kissed him, her tongue darting into his mouth, tasting of the lobster ragout from the spaghetti sauce. “Next time I fuck you so good, caro,” she whispered. She got up and left, stopping at the maitre d’, who handed the package to one of her bodyguards.
When the Palestinian left the restaurant, he doubled back for nearly an hour, zigzagging through the dark city streets and autostrada exits, anticipating that Francesca would have him followed. When he thought he was clear,
