and profitable, surely — to hate the French. This white woman with her dog, slowing him now as she crossed the street near the Musee Picasso: he hated her with her upturned nose and her snooty expression. Their eyes met and a frown came to her lips as she saw a dusky face in the big BMW.
All his life, Mussa had seen such frowns. Soon he would have his revenge, striking a blow that would resound through Europe.
A man was waiting for him around the corner from the museum. The man was not in Mussa’s employ but a Yemeni whose interests overlapped his own. Mussa pulled over to the curb and made as if he were asking directions. The man came over and, after pointing vaguely to the north, bent down to talk.
“The brothers are ready to strike, but they need more material,” said the man.
“The material is not easy to obtain,” said Mussa. “My technical adviser had commitments that could not be avoided.”
“They need more material according to the plan you outlined.”
The material they needed was plastic explosive. Mussa had supplied them with a new type that he had manufactured himself; the material was slightly more powerful than the American C-4 and somewhat more stable, but it was expensive and difficult to manufacture. He needed his own store for the Chunnel project. Still, the brothers’ “project” was an important one and he would have to find them more material.
“They are devout,” said the man. “And ready.”
“It is important that they act when I tell them,” said Mussa. “Vitally important.”
“An hour here, a half hour there — what is the difference?”
“The difference is everything,” said Mussa sharply.
“Then they will do as they are told,” said the other man.
“I will find what they need,” said Mussa. “They are wise enough to follow the instructions explicitly?”
“We have been over this.”
“Explicitly? The number of packages is very critical.”
“Explicitly,” said the Yemeni, a note of surrender in his voice.
“It will be done, with God’s will.” Mussa saw someone on the street and raised his voice. “And where can one find good knishes?”
The Yemeni was used to Mussa’s provocations. “Around the corner and to the left.”
“I’ll tell the rabbi you sent me,” said Mussa, putting his car into gear.
9
The words came at her from somewhere above, blurring together like a murmur that sounded more like a hum than a sentence.
Lia bolted upright, consciousness flooding back. Her head quickly began throbbing.
Where was she? What had happened?
“I am intensely sorry,” said a man’s voice in Korean. “Very sorry.”
She glanced down. She was sitting on a couch, wearing different clothes, baggy trousers and a blouse much too big for her. Army clothes, a uniform of some sort.
What had happened to her? She felt dazed. She’d been smashed in the head, beaten, and for a few moments had blacked out.
More than a few moments?
“Where am I?” she asked in Chinese.
“I do not understand,” said the man in Korean. He said something else; Lia had trouble deciphering. When he finally stopped speaking, she answered haltingly in Korean that she was thankful for his kindness but was OK now and could be left alone. The man responded with something else she couldn’t understand.
The pain in her head moved from the back to the front. It felt as if a large vibrating sander was being pulled back and across her skull.
The man was telling her about an airplane. He paused finally and asked if she was all right.
The man shook his head at the obvious lie.
Yes. She was still at the airport.
Lia blinked, pushing her hand over her eyes, squeezing her eyelids closed. When she opened them, he was gone.
She knew who she was; she knew she was on a mission to North Korea and that it had gone reasonably well. But she didn’t know what had happened since she arrived at the terminal.
She did, though.
Oh yes, she did.
Her body ached; her legs felt as if they had been pummeled. Her neck hurt and her cheek and eye felt swollen.
That wasn’t the half of it.
She knew.
Rage surged in her, then fear, then rage again.
Out. She had to get out.
Where were her clothes and her suitcase? She needed her belt — it enabled her com system.
Lia got up and took a few unsteady steps toward the closed door. The pain seemed to run to the right side of her head, as if it were water that might slosh around under the effect of gravity. As she reached for the doorknob she sensed that she would find the door locked; she was surprised to find it wasn’t.
The hallway was empty. As Lia stepped out, she realized that she had no shoes on. She continued anyway, padding across the cold concrete. There were two other doors along the hall; when she reached the far end she entered the reception area of the airport. Across from her was the small metal desk the local authorities had been using as a customs station when she arrived. There was no other furniture in the room.
The terminal had two small windows next to the doorway on the right; the door led out to the tarmac area. Her pain increased as she walked toward it, and she felt her eyelids pressing down from above, weighted by the pain and the fatigue from her struggle.
Something seemed to smack against her forehead as she reached the door. Lia froze, almost dazed again, then realized she was hearing the sound of an aircraft landing-not a jet but a twin-engined turboprop with its loud, waspy roar. She pulled open the door and stepped outside. An aircraft had turned off the runway and was heading toward the terminal.
“Is that my plane?” she said in Chinese, though there was no one to ask except herself.
This was just as well. The words came out in the Cantonese she had first learned as a girl.
Lia remembered a lesson she’d had as a five-year-old with Dr. Lau, a Hong Kong native who’d come to America many years before. Trained as a medical doctor, Lau had never practiced medicine in the United States; he made his living mostly by giving Chinese lessons to his well-heeled Connecticut neighbors. Lia had been adopted by an American couple as a baby; they’d done as much as they could to teach her about her culture, even starting her on Chinese as a three-year-old. Dr. Lau became a family friend as well as an instructor, visiting often until he passed away when she was in high school.
The lessons with Dr. Lau seemed more real to her now than the aircraft taxiing toward her. Just as she took a step back it curled around sharply and stopped a few yards away. Lia began walking forward, ignoring the engines’ roar. She had just about reached the wing when she realized someone was shouting behind her. She
