Brothers In Arms (28 page)

Dale thought of bin Faisal as one of the sheltered bureaucrats of the terrorist world; they enjoyed fine living while their operators and trigger pullers risked themselves on the operations planned and funded by the men like bin Faisal. As much as he loathed terrorism and terrorists, he sometimes felt grudging respect for the street-level operators; they were at least akin to him as an operator. They worked the same streets, underwent the same stresses. Even though one for one the Americans and their allies were better trained and equipped, the terrorists they faced were highly motivated and within the limits of their resources highly dangerous.

And they probably nursed the same loathing of the bureaucrats who sent them out on their missions as did Dale.

He felt his emotions across his face, and took a deep breath to center himself. Charley had been right; it was too soon to show himself to bin Faisal since the coming operation in Athens might call for him to play a role in close quarters to the Saudi. Dale chided himself for his impatience, and settled in to make himself the gray man, just part of the Arab’s surroundings, as unnoticeable as the chair or the smartly dressed flight attendants. This was the hard part of the urban operator’s job. This wasn’t like the jungle or the mountains or the desert; the environment he had to fade into was often one that took him face to face with his opponent or his opponent’s allies. His camouflage was his demeanor and bearing as well as the clothes he wore and the places he went.

He settled in and waited for his flight to be called.

“All they need to do is finger him,” Ray Dalton said. “I’ve got a crew standing by in Italy. I can have them in place in hours. Once they’ve got him fixed, my boys can snatch him and we can have a leisurely debrief with Mr. Ahmad bin Faisal.”

Callan grinned at Dalton’s bloodthirsty eagerness. “They’ll be able to do that.”

“But we won’t move too hastily,” Dalton said, sitting back in his chair. “We’ll see who bin Faisal hooks up with . . . I’d love a link to November Seventeenth . . . we owe those bastards a few.”

“And then there’s Sad Holiday,” Callan said.

“Bin Faisal’s the link we’ve been looking for. Al-Bashir provided the money for the hit on Uday.”

Callan nodded, musing.

“We have the main paymaster in our sights,” Dalton said. “There won’t be any Sad Holiday as long as we keep bin Faisal right where we want him, which is out there running around on a very short rope, touching base with his operators and his support structure.”

“Bin Faisal’s a paymaster and finance expert for Al-Bashir; he’s not linked directly to operational planning. He’s not a fighter, he’s a finance man. At least that’s what he was at Dhofar and in Yemen.”

“It looks as though he’s doing more than that. He’s out in the
field getting face time with the Twins, who are as operational as they come, he’s meeting with his cutout in Amsterdam, and now he’s running to Athens instead of going home to Syria.”

“There’s more to this than meets the eye,” Callan said with the sigh of an old field hand. “I don’t think the story is going to end with bin Faisal.”

“What do you think?” Ray said.

“I don’t have enough to speculate and neither do you,” Callan said mildly. “Al-Bashir has us in their sights as well, and a biological warfare operation, especially if Iraq provided them with the material, would be within their capability.”

“Al-Bashir isn’t one of the organizations we’ve linked to an active search for biological weapons.”

“That doesn’t mean it hasn’t crossed their minds, Ray. As you well know. I know you’re eager to take this boy, but let’s not let this cloud the paucity of facts we have right now. You still don’t have anything on Sad Holiday, other than the bin Faisal connection. There’re still a lot of holes in the story we need to fill in.”

“We’ll fill them in when we have bin Faisal,” Dalton said. “We’ll take what we need right out of his head.”

“May I stay here for a few days?” Youssef asked Britta, whose face was buried in his chest, her hand lingering and plucking at the smooth, hairless slope of his pectoral muscles.

“Of course,” she said. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”

“Only a few days,” he said. “Then I must be on my way.”

“Would you like coffee?” Britta said, rolling away from him.

“Yes.”

“I’ll make some, then.”

Britta got out of bed and walked naked across the room to her tiny kitchenette, where she put water on to boil. Youssef enjoyed watching her heavy hips rolling easily with an unself-consciousness he found highly erotic. She took coffee grounds from the freezer of her small icebox and put them into a Melitta cone and filter, then put the cone onto a small carafe. She carefully poured the boiling water over the grounds and as the brew began to drip into the carafe, the powerful scent of coffee filled the studio apartment. Britta filled two big mugs from the carafe and said, “Tell me again what you like in your coffee?”

“Sugar and milk, please. Lots of both.”

“You have a sweet tooth.”

She took milk from the icebox and poured it into one mug and
added two heaping spoonfuls of sugar. She returned to the bed and handed him both mugs to hold while she slid beneath the sheets again, then reclaimed her mug.

“There,” she said with satisfaction. “That’s better.”

Youssef was quiet and drank his coffee in silence. It wasn’t a heavy silence. It was the companionable quiet of two people who had no need to talk. Part of him was amazed at how comfortable he felt with this woman, only the third woman he had ever had sex with. Britta exuded comfort and warmth, and he felt himself opening to her like a flower to the sun. For a moment he considered telling her, unburdening himself about his mission, but that momentary madness passed and he found himself concentrating on staying in this moment, right now.

“This is very good,” he said.

“Yes, it is, all of it, isn’t it?” Britta said. “You, me, the coffee . . . what a wonderful time it is.”

“How are you so happy all the time?” Youssef said in wonder. “Are you ever sad, or confused?”

“Of course,” she said. She laughed. “All human beings are sad or confused sometimes. I think the key is not to hang onto it, to learn to let things go.”

“Yes,” Youssef said. “I believe you are right.”

“It’s important to pay attention to what is happening right now, instead of a week from now,” Britta said. “So you can stay here. A week from now you’ll leave, but I won’t think about that. I have you here right now.”

Youssef looked around the apartment. Despite its tiny size, it was full of homey touches: a colorful slipcover on the armchair; framed flowers on the walls; a board-and-brick bookcase overflowing with paperbacks, mostly novels, some in English; pillows stacked to overflowing on the bed, now all knocked in a colorful disarray on the carpeted floor.

“You have no boyfriend?” he asked.

“No one now,” Britta said. She nudged him with her hip, causing her coffee to slop dangerously in the big mug. “Would you like to
be my boyfriend? For the next week or until you must go?”

“Yes,” Youssef said, seriously. “I would like that very much.”

Later, Britta went to work at the homeless shelter, and Youssef stayed in the apartment. It was raining, and the sudden gloom in the middle of summer took him by surprise. But it was Amsterdam weather, and soon the gray skies began to part and let the blue of the summer sky back through again. He had placed the armchair directly in front of the window and sat there, bare-chested, and let the sun beat through the window onto his thin frame. He was confused by the turn of events; he had a plan that he needed to stick to, but for some reason he no longer felt as though he had a plan, but that he was part of someone else’s plan. He took out his courier bag and opened it up. Beneath his few items of clothing were the Pelican case and its deadly vials of virus, and a small cloth bag that held the three dispersion devices and the two aerosol canisters. He opened the Pelican case and took out one of the vials, held it between his thumb and forefinger and held it up to the light streaming through the window. It looked so harmless, but it swarmed with enough pathogen to wipe out a city.

He felt a strange sensation in the pit of his stomach, as though he were on a roller-coaster and preparing for the sudden drop. He had a mission to do. He’d been entrusted with a great responsibility and the great honor to exact a killing blow against the foe. He needed to remember that, he reminded himself. What had happened last night and today was only coincidence, and useful to him operationally.

Youssef didn’t want to think about using Britta operationally.

He replaced the vial in the case with its companions and gently closed it. He made sure the latches were in place and then replaced the Pelican case at the bottom of his satchel along with the dispersion devices, then put his clothing and his shaving kit in on top of it. The bag was bulky but sufficiently compressible so that he could still carry it slung over his shoulder. He took a change of underwear out and then closed the bag and went to the tiny bathroom and took a
long, hot shower in the tub ringed with its curtain. Afterward he carefully shaved, then dressed and went out. There was a W. H. Smith bookstore they’d passed on the walk last night; he went there and then to the travel section. He bought a guidebook to Washington, DC and its environs. A detailed scale map was enclosed that showed the downtown area in great detail.

Youssef went to a coffee shop and ordered a small espresso and sweetened it with two spoonfuls of sugar and drank it while he looked over the guidebook.

There was a lot to do in Washington, DC.

The final approach to the Athens airport is over the sea, and Dale Miller sat in his seat and watched the cerulean blue of the Mediterranean give way to the sandy brown of the shore and then the gray of the runway asphalt beneath him. The wheels of the 747 touched down once, then again with a slight bump, and then the plane began to slow. The aircraft taxied toward the terminal parking area, and stopped well short of the building where several passenger buses waited. Dale glanced over at Charley, who was boneless and relaxed in his seat, comfortable as a big cat. The tall man looked up and caught his eye and dropped a casual wink. Dale nodded and looked around the business-class section; no one had noticed the exchange. He leaned out into the aisle and looked forward in first-class but didn’t see Ahmad bin Faisal.