NOW NASIJI AND THE CONTAINER had arrived in Hamburg.
In the courtyard on the Reeperbahn, one of the whores finally found a customer, a young man in a denim jacket. She wrapped her arm in his and they walked toward the little streets where love hotels provided cheap beds by the hour. The man’s eyes slid over Nasiji as they walked past, but he didn’t break stride. No surprise. Nasiji could hang out in the courtyard all night and no one, not even the whores, would bother him. Strangely enough, despite the noise and constant traffic, he found the Reeperbahn a good place to think.
Nasiji wondered when the Russians would publicly disclose the theft. Ahmed Faisal, who had connections in the Saudi intelligence agency, had told him that the FSB had issued a bulletin asking Interpol and the United States to detain the Farzadov cousins. Still, Nasiji believed he was well ahead of his enemies. Grigory and Tajid were no longer around to spill their secrets. Now only three men knew exactly where the bombs were: Nasiji himself, Yusuf, and the man he was about to meet. And so even the cold Hamburg drizzle couldn’t dampen his mood as he waited for his contact, a man who called himself Bernard.
Bernard’s real name was Bassim Kygeli. He’d emigrated from Turkey in 1979 and quickly realized that Germans preferred to do business with Bernard, not Bassim. So he was Bernard on his business cards and in his corporate records. Starting with rugs and trinkets, he built a successful import-export business. Over the years, he progressed to furniture and then machine tools. He brought a bride from Istanbul and together they had three children. They lived in a two-story white house in Hamburg’s wealthy northern district, halfway between the airport and downtown.
Yet as the years progressed and his wealth grew, Bernard became more angry, not less, at the United States and Germany. The Americans kept Muslims down and then congratulated themselves for their humanity. The Germans had been American lapdogs for so long that they had no opinions of their own anymore.
In the late 1990s, Bernard realized he would be more valuable to the jihadi cause if he kept a low profile. He donated thousands of euros a year to the relief organizations that supported Palestinian refugees. That wasn’t illegal and there was no harm in it. But he stayed out of Hamburg’s radical mosques, and he never gave money directly to jihadi charities. As a result, his name didn’t show up on any terrorist watch lists. The CIA and the FBI; the French DGSE; MI-5 and -6; even the BND, the German intelligence agency — none had ever heard of Bernard Kygeli.
And so Bernard was incredibly valuable to Sayyid Nasiji. Sure, Nasiji sometimes grew frustrated with the man, who had no idea of the risks Nasiji took. Still, he always felt better after a night in the guest room at Bernard’s house, drinking sweet tea and eating the delicious dinners that Bernard’s wife made, kebobs and hummus and grape leaves stuffed with rice.
The thought of dinner reminded Nasiji that he hadn’t eaten all day, and he was more than happy to see Bernard’s black Mercedes sedan pull up to the curb in front of the whores, who quickly swarmed the car. Nasiji pushed through them and slipped inside the car, ignoring the whores’ backtalk.
Bernard eased the Mercedes away from the curb. “Tell me again why we must meet on the Reeperbahn, Sayyid?”
“Because our friends at the BND would never expect it.”
“Maybe you just like the girls.”
“Hardly. How are you, my friend?”
“The same. Watching the Kurds make fools of us Turks.”
“While the Americans laugh.”
“Yes. Meanwhile, Helmut”—Bernard’s oldest child and only son—“spends his nights at cafes. Says his screenplay is almost finished.” Helmut had quit the University of Hamburg a year before, supposedly to make movies. Nasiji had met him twice. He was a foppish manchild who stank of sweet cologne.
“You ought to kick him out.”
“I have. Last week. I hope it’s not too late. My fault, you know. I never should have named him Helmut. It was the old days. I was trying to pass.”
Nasiji had heard these laments before. “How are your other two?”
“The girls? Like all women.” Bernard steered the Mercedes into one of the tunnels that cut under the Elbe River. The Elbe had been the source of Hamburg’s wealth for centuries, the waterway that linked Germany to the North Sea and the rest of the world. Most of the city lay north of the river, while the giant port complex was located to the south.
“How’s Zaineb?” After Helmut, Bernard had gone back to traditional Muslim names for his kids. Zaineb was the older of Bernard’s two daughters. Nasiji had only met her once. She was petite, with fine dark hair and a throaty laugh like a bus engine, a laugh that seemed to indicate she found the world impossibly funny. In another life Nasiji would have married her.
“She’s fine.”
“Is she around this evening?”
“Visiting a cousin.”
“Away again.” Bernard wanted Zaineb to have nothing to do with him, Nasiji thought. Though he couldn’t blame the man. “Maybe one day I’ll get to see her again.”
“Of course.”
“You Turks are such liars.”
“No worse than you Iraqis.”
They emerged from the tunnel on the south side of the river, to the port zone, block-long docks crosscut by canals, as much water as land. On the wharves, shipping containers were stacked in five-high piles. Cranes towered hundreds of feet overhead. Giant container ships, among the largest structures ever built, rested silently in the canals, gleaming under high-intensity spotlights. The biggest ships were a quarter-mile and could carry 200,000 tons of cargo — the equivalent of 100,000 cars.
“It’s like a race of giants has taken over,” Nasiji said. “And then left again.” Indeed, aside from an occasional security guard, the wharves were empty.
“The boats have gotten bigger and bigger,” Bernard said. “After a while you don’t think about it.” They passed over a bridge, to the southern half of the port. Here the canals were narrower, the ships and cranes slightly smaller. Bernard turned right and drove beside a high wall until he reached a guardhouse. The guardhouse’s window opened and a fiftyish man with long hair leaned out.
“Yes?” Bernard lowered his window and the guard nodded. “Oh, hello, Bernard. Good evening.”
“Georg.”
The gate swung open.
“He knows you,” Nasiji said.
“He should. I’ve owned this warehouse for fifteen years.”
Bernard turned down a dead-end road that led to a locked fence. Behind it was a brick warehouse and a parking lot littered with a half-dozen containers. High on the building, a red-lettered sign proclaimed: “Tukham GmBH, Bernard Kygeli, Prop.” Bernard unlocked the fence and parked outside the warehouse. He keyed in an alarm code and stepped inside. Nasiji followed.
“No one’s watching it?”
“My men would wonder if I asked them to guard a shipment of cabinets, Sayyid. Don’t worry. It’s fine.” Indeed the long padlock on the end of the container was still locked. Bernard picked up a crowbar and broke it off with a flick of his wrist.
TEN MINUTES LATER, they’d dragged out crates 301 and 303. Nasiji popped them open, opened the tool cabinets inside, and. there they were.
“May I touch?” Bernard said. He reached down—
Bernard jumped back. “What?” He scuttled backward, away from the warheads, a hand raised protectively.
Nasiji laughed. “Sorry, Bernard. I couldn’t resist. It’s perfectly safe. Touch them, kick them, run them over. Doesn’t matter. They can’t go off.”
Bernard closed his eyes and ran a limp hand over his forehead. “Damn you, Sayyid. My heart. my doctor says—” Bernard leaned against a crate and waited for the spasm to pass. “So, the ship goes in two days. You’re
