two of them boarded an Aerosvit flight to Odessa. Three hours later they were having lunch at the largest of the eight commercial terminals in the Odessa port. Through the window, they could see gantry cranes loading ships along the quay.
“Dobryaky mafia same like Uralmash,” Khmelnitsky said. “All time, we do business, but Ukraina truly stupid huesos. Best thing about whole Ukraina country is that Dobryaky is same as Verkhovna Rada-how you say, Ukraina government. Whole country is corrupt. You do business at one counter.”
“Good for business,” the Palestinian agreed.
“Listen, druk, you-me, we do kharasho business. You tell me what you need: guns, bombs, drugs, women. We do business. Come through Ukraina. No problem customs, militsiya police, SBU. Everything taken care of.”
“If this works out, why not?” the Palestinian said.
After lunch they followed the Ukrainian freight forwarder as he handled the paperwork for the port and the ship. They walked out to the berth to inspect the MV Zaina, a mid-size Ukrainian 26,000 ton cargo vessel flying a Belize flag of convenience. The Palestinian knew she was owned by FIMAX Shipping, a legitimate Ukrainian company, and member of FIATA, that could stand up to scrutiny by the Ukrainian SBU, the Russian FSB, or the CIA.
The paperwork took most of the day. At one point the freight forwarder-Khmelnitsky called him Mikhailo- came to them.
“The customs man, that one,” glancing toward an agent behind the counter in a blue uniform, “wants another fifty thousand hryvnia,” Mikhailo said. The Palestinian did a quick mental calculation. It was about five thousand euros.
“Hooy tebe v zhopu! I cut his huesos eyes out!” Khmelnitsky cursed. The Palestinian put a hand on his arm.
“This customs huesos,” he said to Mikhailo, using the slang. “Is he reliable or does he always ask for more?”
“Always.”
“What you want to do?” Khmelnitsky said to the Palestinian.
“Pay him now,” the Palestinian said. “I’ll give you the money in the men’s toilet. After the ship sails, kill him. I’ll give you another thousand euros.”
“I kill him,” Khmelnitsky said. “But for only one euro. This is all this huesos is worth.”
By late afternoon the big rig arrived carrying the steel drums and ingots. Before they loaded the cargo, the Palestinian inspected the steel drums marked SPECIAL ORDER for the hairs from his head he had glued from the tops to the sides. They were unbroken. They hadn’t been tampered with. He used his laptop to send the authorization for the bank transfer and waited till Khmelnitsky came back after checking it out.
“Money kharasho. Everything kharasho. You see, we do kharasho good business,” the Russian said, clapping the Palestinian on the shoulder.
“Da svidaniya,” the Palestinian replied, shaking Khmelnitsky’s hand. The Russian was smiling so broadly, he thought, you could almost forget he was called “Kolbasa.”
The Palestinian walked up the gangplank onto the ship, pulling his carry-on behind him. A Turkish crewman pointed him to the bridge, where he showed his papers to a man named Chernovetsky, a bearded Ukrainian in a soiled white captain’s cap. The papers identified him as a Moroccan seaman named Hassan Lababi. The captain squinted closely at the photograph on his papers then handed them back.
“New crewman takes midnight watch,” Chernovetsky said in a heavily accented English.
“Oui, Capitaine,” the Palestinian replied, using French to reinforce his Moroccan nationality.
The Palestinian went below and stowed his gear in the crew’s quarters, then went out on deck. He watched the crewmen toss the hawsers and felt the shudder of the engines as the ship left its berth. The Zaina cleared the breakwater and began an easy pitching as it headed out into the deeper water of the Black Sea. The ship was bound through the Bosphorus and the Dardenelles for its next port, Marseilles, where the steel drums were to be unloaded. The Palestinian leaned on the rail and smoked a cigarette and watched the sun as it set behind the western hills of Odessa, the sky a vivid purple and red. As the lights of the city receded in the darkness, he smiled in the knowledge that the Zaina would never reach Marseilles.
CHAPTER NINE
Amsterdam, Netherlands
“Now that you have me, what are you going to do with me?” she asked. They were sitting in a brown bar just off the Prinsengracht, not far from the Anne Frank House.
“Why were you following me?” he said, poking at a fritte mayonnaise.
“I told you, I’m following a story,” she said, putting down her witte beer and lighting a cigarette. It gave her a chance to study his face. It was a strong face, with dark tousled hair and shadows under gray eyes that gave nothing away. There was a scar over one of his eyes that she suspected wasn’t a sports injury. His hands looked strong enough that she knew if he wanted to, he could tear her apart, and it made something shiver inside her.
“You’re doing it again,” he said.
“Doing what?”
“Lying when you don’t have to. Whatever you were following me for, it wasn’t for the TV news.”
“How do you know?”
“You’re Najla Kafoury, a one-name talking head on TV. You’re national in Deutschland. You don’t do local breaking-and-entering stories, and nobody stakes out a mosque at night on the off chance the alarm’ll go off. Why were you there and why did you follow me?”
She exhaled cigarette smoke at him and didn’t say anything.
“Last chance,” he said.
“Or else what? What’ll you do if I don’t say? Tie me up? Spank me?”
“I wish I could. Sounds like fun,” he said, sipping his pils beer.
“What will you do?” she said, suddenly serious.
“Introduce you to people less willing to let you lie than I am. Trust me, you won’t like it.”
“I believe you,” she said. She exhaled a stream of smoke and looked around the bar. It was dark, crowded, and noisy, and a number of football fans were arguing loudly about the upcoming match between the leading Dutch rivals, Ajax and Feyenoord. “I could make a scene.”
“Not a good idea.”
She looked into his gray eyes, and whatever she saw made her go cold inside.
“You’re right,” she said. “It wasn’t a story. Islamic extremism is my enemy. You know that. You were at the demonstration, weren’t you?”
He nodded.
“I thought I had seen you,” she said. “There was something going on at the mosque. For weeks I’d been getting hints, e-mails, tweets, Muslims not from Hamburg coming and going. Something was about to happen. I could feel it. I was thinking maybe a terroristischen attack. Then tonight the alarm went off and you came out and I decided to follow. I thought you were a terrorist. When you first grabbed me, I thought you were going to kill me. Maybe you still are,” she added softly.
“Ja — and if Ajax loses Suarez as striker?! Then what?” a red-faced Dutchman at the bar wearing the Ajax team colors, red and white, demanded loudly.
“That call I made before,” Scorpion said, referring to a cell phone call he had made earlier, while they were still driving to Amsterdam. “I’m waiting to hear.”
“You’ll let me go?”
“I don’t know. We’ll have to see.”
“You could let me go right now. You could let me just stand up and walk out the door and no harm. You could do it,” she said, her hand resting on her handbag as if she were getting ready to leave.
“Drink your beer. Don’t do anything stupid,” he said.
