She thought he had. Surely he hadn’t been just making conversation by mentioning he had a cruise missile for sale. But that was what had depressed her. He claimed to want five million dollars for it.
Five million dollars!
A serious buyer would surely bargain him down — if she remembered correctly, the rifles had sold for about half his initial asking price — but even so: who would be impressed by a few hundred thousand dollars when millions were needed?
A hole opened in her stomach as the taxi pulled up in front of the hotel. She must not lose hope, she told herself. The weight of history was on her side.
Coldwell gave the taxi driver a good tip. Inside the hotel, the short man at the desk smiled at her lasciviously. She forced herself to smile back.
A man trotted across the lobby toward her as the elevator arrived. She got in, then grabbed the door to hold it for him.
“Thank you,” said the man. He reached for the floor button and pressed five, even though she already had.
“The Pole is not a very reasonable man,” said the man as the doors closed. “But he is willing to bargain, which is a plus.”
Startled, Coldwell asked if he had been sent by Birk.
“No, not at all. But perhaps we can work together.”
“I’m not quite sure what you mean,” she said.
“Seven Angels?” said the man, Aaron Ravid.
“Yes,” managed Coldwell.
The door opened on her floor. Coldwell stayed frozen in place. When the door started to close, Ravid put his hand out to stop it. “We should find a place to talk. Your room is surely bugged.”
When they finally reached a part of the beach Ravid thought was safe from eavesdroppers, they stood together for a few moments without speaking. It was Coldwell who spoke first, suspicious yet feeling almost confident, as if she were an actress playing out a well-known part.
“Who are you?” she asked.
Ravid gave his cover name, Fazel al-Qiam.
“I am here for Benjamin Thatch,” said Coldwell. “To complete the arrangements.”
“Yes,” said Ravid.
He waited for her to continue, but she did not. Finally he saw no other choice to push the conversation but to admit that he was not the person she was apparently waiting to meet. As soon as he did, however, a frown appeared on her face. He volunteered that he had heard of Seven Angels and knew that the group was willing to help those “with the proper agenda” in the Middle East.
Coldwell listened to him carefully, believing that he was lying now about not being her contact. Benjamin would have presented the group as being sympathetic to the Islamic goals of jihad; it could be counterproductive to explain the true nature of what they wanted, though Coldwell believed most groups would take their money anyway. She was afraid that when she told him she had only two hundred thousand dollars, he would simply walk away.
After a few minutes, Ravid decided that he had gotten all the information from the woman that he was likely to get. She was an amateur at best, a poseur at worst, and if she had real money it would surely be fleeced off of her by one of the many snakes in the seaside hotels within a few days. He watched her face, thinking of how to best break this off. As he did, a light on the water caught Coldwell’s attention and she turned away. The sweep of her head took him by surprise: he saw not Coldwell but his wife. As Ravid pulled himself back to reality, back to the present, Coldwell turned her head back to him.
“I have little money,” she said, deciding to state the situation simply and get it over with. “I can get two hundred thousand, no more.”
“It’s not enough,” said Ravid. He thought of Khazaal’s gems. For a moment, only a moment, he inserted her into the plans he had thought of the other day.
“What would your target be?” Coldwell asked.
Ravid looked up at her. “Mecca.”
Coldwell didn’t understand. She thought she had heard wrong. Before she could say anything, Ravid flew at her. He gripped her blouse and pushed her down, his rage erupting. Two years of anger flashed into his hand as he pushed it against her chest. The suicide bomber, the Muslims, his keepers at Mossad — everything erupted.
Coldwell looked up at him, unable to speak, certain that she was to be killed. She put her hands against his chest, starting to push him off, knowing it would be futile but determined to have her last act on earth be one of courage.
“Yes,” said Ravid as she pushed against him. He let go and stood back. His wife would have fought that way, too.
The rage vanished. In its place was something logical and cold, another kind of wrath, one with a chance to be fulfilled.
“I want to destroy Mecca,” he told the woman. “And you can help me. In this way, both of us can benefit.”
26
A layer of thin clouds obscured the moon over the eastern Mediterranean. Water lapped against the side of the boat. The breeze made the air a bit chilly. It was a fairy-tale sort of night, the kind that makes you think nothing can go wrong anywhere in the world, the sort of night that makes even a cynic feel safe while slumbering in bed.
The two guards fell to the deck of the boat, paralyzed by Taser shots from fifteen feet away. As they hit, a man in a frogman’s suit leapt up the ladder of the boat they had been guarding. In his right hand he carried a weapon that looked like a rubberized M79 grenade launcher, which was more or less what it was. He leveled the launcher in the direction of the bow, where two other guards were sitting, and fired. A large shell sped from the barrel, striking the bulkhead just beyond them. As it hit, a nylon and metal mesh net mushroomed from the canister, along with a heavy dose of gas derived from the same chemical family as methadone. The victims struggled for a moment, but they had had a long day and had been close to sleep even before the attack; the effect of the gas was overwhelming.
The frogman bent to the two men who’d been hit by the Tasers. The men were still conscious though paralyzed. He pulled a hypodermic needle from the pouch at his belt, tore away the plastic guard and slammed it home in the first man’s leg. He repeated the process with the second man. The drug took effect within three and a half seconds of being administered. By that time, the frogman’s two comrades, Thera and Monsoon, were aboard. In their hands were weapons that looked like oversized spearguns covered in rubber: Tasers designed for working in water.
“Monsoon, you have the deck,” he said. “Thera, let’s go find Sleeping Beauty.”
Birk Ivanovich hated to be woken up before ten a.m., even if it was by a beautiful woman who looked as if she’d just stepped out of a dream.
A wet dream, as a matter of fact: she had on a tight-fitting diving suit, and her hair and upper body were still damp.
“Who are you?” he said, simultaneously trying to rise from the bed in his cabin on the
He wasn’t successful, because Ferguson had taken the precaution of restraining his hands before waking
