“Again? Judith and I went over there yesterday.”
“Why not? You’ll have more fun with me along.”
“Ha! Don’t be so egotistical.” They turned the corner and began walking toward the ferry terminal.
“What did you and Judith talk about all morning?”
“Well, we discussed young American naval officers and their distressing attitude toward women. And how they must be handled so delicately to avoid bruising their fragile egos. And we discussed our education and careers, and I told her about meeting you in Hong Kong seventeen years ago, and …”
When she stopped speaking Jake glanced at her. She was chewing her lower lip.
“And what?”
“There was something troubling about the whole conversation.”
Callie slipped her hand from his and hugged herself as she thought aloud. “She’s the perfect American career girl, living a fantasy life in Paris. She doesn’t let it go to her head, isn’t celebrity-conscious, spends her money wisely, never drops names.”
“Where is she from anyway?”
Callie stopped dead and turned to face him. “That’s it! She’s a nonnative speaker! She says she’s from New England and has a slight accent to prove it. But she isn’t.”
“Does that mean English is not her first language?”
“Precisely. She acquired English as a youngster, but there are still subtle traces of her first language — the way she articulates certain syllables, for instance — that she hasn’t eradicated, I could hear them but it didn’t register.” She gestured impatiently. “I accepted her as an American, so I didn’t listen.”
“What was her first language?”
Callie the linguist walked along deep in thought. “I’ll have to think about it,” she said at last.
“Perhaps her parents were immigrants who didn’t speak English.”
“That’s rare these days, unless you’re Chicano. But no, she didn’t learn English at age six when she started school. I think she started later, as a teenager perhaps. The later in life you acquire a language, the more difficult the old patterns of articulation are to change. Many people can never rid themselves of an accent.”
They queued for ferry tickets, then stood in the holding area and watched the ferry glide in past the quay where passenger liners and launches for the
The ferry was halfway to Capri, and Jake and Callie were standing on the bow with the wind in their faces when she said, “It’s a Semitic language, I think. Arabic or Hebrew.”
It was noon when Ali came to the terrace where Qazi was sitting. He had been watching the squirrels on the lawn.
“Jarvis says the trigger is ready.”
“Take him back to his room and lock him in. Keep someone in front of his door.”
“Of course.”
“Are Youssef and his men resting quietly?” They had been at the villa for three days now, and Qazi insisted they remain awake all night and sleep during the day. The first day, they had slept little. Yesterday they had slept better.
“They appear to be asleep. I think the lack of sleep finally caught up with them.”
“Then they will be rested for tonight. And the pilots?”
“Resting.”
“Very well. Check the guards on the perimeter. They must report any — and I mean
When Ali was out of sight, Colonel Qazi walked the hundred paces to the villa’s garage. The man lounging in front of the door nodded to him as he went in. Qazi closed the door behind him and shot the bolt.
He walked slowly around the interior of the building, checking the windows to see that they were properly curtained, ensuring the other door was locked and the loft apartment was empty. Three vans sat in the garage bay.
Qazi extracted a small tool pouch from his pocket and opened it on the workbench. The trigger device was housed in an oblong gray box that sat on the floor by the bench. He quickly unscrewed the four screws on the face of the timer, which was a remnant of a modern electric clock, complete with liquid-crystal display. The faceplate came off easily, exposing a circuit board and an amazing amount of small wires.
Three small screws held the circuit board, and when they were removed, the board slid partially out of the timer to the limit of the attached wires. He stared at it a moment, then took a piece of paper from his wallet and consulted it Using a small pair of wire cutters, he snipped two wires and a diode from the circuit board. Two months ago he had destroyed eight clocks trying to identify this diode. Not trusting his memory, he had sketched a diagram. He had already performed this little operation upon the other six triggers, which were still in North Africa.
He carefully returned the board to its position inside the timer and inserted the three little screws. In less than a minute he had the faceplate back on.
He stood on the workbench and felt along the top of the interior wall, where the plasterboard ended and the rafters sat on top of the studs. Yes, the drywall extended a few inches above the stud. He placed the tool kit there and climbed down, then used a handy automobile polishing rag to obliterate the faint heel mark on the workbench.
He climbed the stairs to the loft apartment. The scrap of paper from his wallet, the diode, and the bits of wire went into the toilet. As the water closet was refilling he heard noises in the garage. Someone was downstairs.
“Colonel.” It was Ali.
The diode was still in the bottom of the toilet bowl. “I’m up here.” Qazi reached into the water and retrieved it. No towels! Ali was running up the stairs. Qazi wiped his hand on the back of his trousers, dropped them, and sat down on the toilet seat.
“In here.”
Ali’s head popped through the door. “A car has driven slowly by the access road twice. Four men. They were looking.”
“Put four men on the rooftops, out of sight.”
Ali disappeared back down the steps. Qazi wrapped the diode in toilet paper and dropped it in the water. It swirled away as the toilet gurgled.
Ali was pointing out the rooftop positions to four men armed with assault rifles as Qazi approached the terrace. “No shooting until you see their weapons,” he told them. One man climbed a tree to get on top of the parking garage. Two more went through the villa to the attic exit to the roof. The fourth used a ladder to reach the top of the guesthouse directly across from the villa, then Ali took the ladder away.
Colonel Qazi sat on the terrace and Noora brought him a pistol, a silencer, and a glass of iced tea, then went back inside. Her station was with Jarvis. The rest of the men were still sleeping with their weapons beside them.
Qazi pushed the button and the magazine slipped from the grip of the Browning Hi-Power. It was full. He screwed the silencer to the barrel and replaced the magazine, then chambered a round. After lowering the hammer, he tucked the weapon into his belt behind him. Then he adjusted the volume on his two-way radio and laid it on the table. The guards and Ali also had radios and would use them in an emergency.
It is pleasant here in the dappled shade of the giant trees, Qazi reflected, with the short lawn grass stirring ever so gently to the breeze. The air smelled of flowers, which were still blooming in the beds around the house and walks. He filled his lungs and exhaled slowly. Very pleasant.
Even the pervasive traffic sounds were absent in this pastoral setting. All he could hear were leaves rustling under the wind’s caress.
A large yellow-and-black butterfly settled on the toe of his shoe and gently stirred its wings. A shaft of sunlight fell upon the shoe, making the insect’s wings appear luminous, almost transparent.
Such a place the Prophet must have envisioned when he described paradise—“a garden beneath which a river flows.” And his listeners in their tents under the merciless sun, amid the sand and rock, had known the truth of his
