Jihad (20 page)

CHAPTER 56

DR. RAMIL SAT ON the chair in the narrow hallway above the steps, eyes closed. He felt as if he were falling into a narrow well, his body surrounded by thick walls of stone. The earth’s surface was many miles above.

You were a brave man once, Ramil. But now you have become a coward. Why? Because God spoke to you.

I’m losing my mind because of the pressure. It’s the stress that’s making me hear voices, not the other way around.

He’d been under much worse pressure in Vietnam several times. Once he’d come close to being shot by a South Vietnamese soldier gone mad, two or three other times he’d stayed in the operating room while the base was under a mortar attack. Those times were worse than now, far more dangerous.

But he was a kid then, young.

“Up,” whispered a voice above him.

Ramil opened his eyes and saw Lia.

“Ssshhh. Come on,” she said, taking him by the hand and grabbing the chair. “Down to the first floor. Quickly. They’re coming.”

“IT’S CLEAR,” SAID Asad’s bodyguard.

Dean went into the examining room. He gestured for Asad to sit on the table.

“Charlie? This is Dr. Goldstein. We’re going to begin with some standard questions. While you’re doing that, you should check for pupil reaction, then take his temperature and blood pressure. We’re especially interested in the blood pressure, so we’ll walk you through that slowly.”

Dean followed the doctor’s instructions, doing a rudimentary workup before examining the site where the bug had been implanted.

“Charlie, can you put a fly on one of the instruments so the doctors here can get a look at the wound?” asked Rubens.

Good idea, thought Dean—though the bodyguards complicated things. He went to the cabinet at the side of the room and, hands trembling, pulled it out to the stops. Then he dropped the tray on the floor.

“Give him some room,” Asad told the men in Arabic. “I don’t want him nervous.”

Dean knelt and picked up the instruments.

“You want the second drawer from the bottom,” said Chafetz. Dean opened it after he picked up the instruments he’d dropped. He took out the light, but there was no way he’d be able to get one of the bugs from his pocket, let alone install it without being noticed.

“I need a drink of water,” he told Asad. “Would you like some?”

Asad shook his head. One of the bodyguards followed him through the door, but he stayed near the threshold as Dean went to the cooler. He slipped the bug from his pocket, concealing it in his fingers. Back inside, he attached it and activated it as he pretended to adjust the light.

“The sutures are leaking a tiny, tiny bit,” said the doctor in the Art Room. “That’s normal. It’s not the problem. He doesn’t have a fever, so it’s unlikely he has an infection. Could you take his blood pressure again? Your last result was low and we just want to confirm it. Then listen to his heartbeat.”

Dean took Asad’s blood pressure, then used the stethoscope, asking his patient to breathe. He had a little trouble picking up his heart at first, slightly confused, but then he heard it, a dull thump that seemed to race for a few beats and then slow.

“Do you smoke?” he asked his patient, trying to think of a way to communicate the heartbeat to the Art Room. He had audio flies in his pocket, but no way of attaching them to the stethoscope.

“I don’t smoke,” said Asad. “Nor do I drink.”

“When his heart beat,” said the Art Room doctor, “did it sound steady, slow, or jump a bit?”

“Your heart sounded a little, what is the word, jumpy,” Dean told his patient. “Not a good steady beat. Sometimes weak, even. Different.”

Asad shrugged.

“He mentioned feeling faint,” said the doctor in the Art Room.

“Have you felt as if you would pass out?” Dean asked.

“Light-headed,” said Asad. “Even coming up the stairs.”

“Ask him if he has a heart condition,” said the doctor in the Art Room.

Dean walked back across the room. “I wonder,” he said, playing with his stethoscope. “Have you ever been tested—what are the words in English? Has anyone ever asked if you had a heart condition?”

“I have a headache, Doctor. What does that have to do with my heart?”

“Tell him his heartbeat is irregular, and you’re concerned about his health.”

Dean repeated what the doctor told him.

“I think these stitches should come out,” said Asad. “That’s why I have a headache.”

“It has nothing to do with that,” said the doctor.

“I can take them out if you wish,” said Dean. “But they’re not the cause of your problem.”

CHAPTER 57

“HIS HEARTBEAT is erratic and he has a low blood pressure,” the doctor told Rubens. “He should get a full workup at a hospital.”

“I’m afraid that would be very inconvenient,” Rubens told him.

“Look, this guy is sick. I’m five thousand miles away, but I’d guess that he has a pretty severe heart condition. That CAT scan from the other day should be reviewed to look for signs of a TIA,” said the doctor, using the specialist’s abbreviation for transient ischemic attacks. They were precursors to strokes and a sign of heart disease. “I’ll bet you’ll find plenty.”

Rubens looked to the screen at the front of the room, where Dean was preparing to take out Asad’s stitches.

“I have a responsibility as a doctor to do something for this man,” added the doctor.

Ruben pressed his lips together; this wasn’t an argument he cared to get into just now.

“What will a stroke do to your mission?” added the doctor. “Or a coronary?”

“I understand that you have a duty to a person in medical need,” said Rubens. “When the subject is taken into custody, we’ll have a team address his disease. In the meantime, please continue to work with Mr. Dean.”

CHAPTER 58

DEAN’S FINGERS SLIPPED as he tried to cut the end of the stitches.

“Problem?” asked Asad.

“Please don’t move,” said Dean. He pushed the scissors back and snipped. Then he reached to the nearby tray and took the tweezers, pulling the stitches out.

“Good work,” said the doctor coaching him. “From what I can see, frankly, the wound is fine; it’s healed quicker than expected. The blood he saw is old, probably from the first few hours and he didn’t notice. Clean it a little bit and use one of the suture strips, the butterfly bandages in the top drawer. Honestly, his problems have nothing to do with that.”

“You’re sweating,” said Asad as Dean followed the doctor’s directions.

“Am I?”

“You were worried about doing a good job.”

Dean shrugged.

“My men are just overzealous,” said Asad. “I trusted Allah to guide your hands.”

“It’s not always easy to follow His guidance,” said Dean.

“A very true statement. You are very wise.”

“Just experienced.”

“Don’t push it, Charlie,” said Rockman. “Just get him out of there.”

Dean went to the sink and washed his hands. Asad was the perfect picture of a wise man, knowledge leavened by the wear on his face, his beard streaked with lines of silver. His soft voice would have been equally at home in a library, or the hushed precincts of a mosque or other holy place. When he spoke of God, he did so not just with confidence but with a touch of humility, the tone of his voice conveying the sense of wonderment that he had been allowed to experience faith and its accompanying grace so completely.

The Devil wears a three-piece suit, his grandmother used to say. And speaks with a silver tongue.

“What happened to the doctor who saw me at the hospital?” said Asad, getting up from the chair. “I was told I would have him.”

Dean shrugged, barely understanding the question through Asad’s accent.

“He doesn’t get out of bed this early?” Asad added.

“Yes. Well, that is the assistant’s job.”

“I am glad that you could help me. My head feels better already.”

“You should try some aspirin.”

“Allah is my aspirin. My men will pay you.”

“I need no fee.”

Asad bowed his head slightly, then left the room. One of his men threw a hundred-lira note on the floor as he left.

WHEN LIA GOT Dr. Ramil into the car, she saw that his hands were trembling. She pulled out of her parking space and drove around the block, anxious about leaving Dean but not wanting to be too close when Asad and his bodyguards came out. The doctor sat like a mannequin in the Renault’s passenger seat, staring straight out the front window.

“They’re leaving,” Rockman told her finally. “Take Ramil back to the hotel.”

“No,” said Lia. “Get Dr. Ramil a plane ticket. I’ll take him to the airport.”

“We may still need him.”

“He’s useless.” Lia glanced at her passenger. His eyes were fixed on the windshield. His hands were shaking violently, even though they were resting on his lap.

“Lia, this is Marie. What’s the situation with Dr. Ramil?”

“Totally freaked. He’s no good, Marie. I’ll put him on a plane and you collect him on the other end.”

“Get out the satphone and let me talk to him.”

“Suit yourself.” Lia reached down into her bag and took out the satphone. She hotkeyed to the Art Room, then gave the phone to Ramil. The doctor stared at it a moment, then put it to his ear. He listened without speaking, then handed the phone back.

“Convinced?” Lia asked.

The Art Room supervisor didn’t answer. Lia spotted the old city wall ahead; though slightly hazy on where she was, she turned left, knowing the highway out to the airport would be in that direction. She had just found it when Telach got back to her.

“We have him on a plane that leaves at six. It’s a direct flight to New York.”

“We’ll be at the airport in fifteen minutes.”

CHAPTER 59

THE OWNER OF the number one bait shop in Karlsruhe, Germany, was not particularly happy about being woken up at two in the morning, especially when he found out why. But he agreed to go immediately to the police station for more details on the break-in at his store. There was a bit of confusion when he arrived, since the police seemed to think that he had reported the break-in, and he thought they had discovered it. This was soon sorted out, however, and a patrolman accompanied him to the shop to identify what was missing. The latch had been pried from the fence, the burglars apparently stymied by the lock; it was a real hack job, in contrast to the rest of the operation, which had been so smooth only the owner would have noticed that anything had been taken—six small oxygen tanks used in scuba setups ordinarily stored around the side.

“There’s been a crime, which means you can investigate,” said Tommy Karr when he met Hess at the airport in Baden.

“Robbery is not terrorism.”

“You should check and see if Dabir took scuba classes. Maybe see who else took them with him.”

“As if we don’t have anything better to do,” said Hess.

“Hey, if you want help, just holler.”

“With that, you can help,” she said sarcastically.

“Good going, Tommy,” Rockman told him. “We’re downloading the names and addresses to your PDA right now. Two of them look like real possibilities.”

FLOODLIGHTS HAD BEEN set up on the land side of the lagoon at the MiRO petroleum plant, covering the large bay ships used to load and unload at the facility. Two helicopters were circling overhead, playing their searchlights on the surface. Sharpshooters were spread out along the shoreline, ready to plaster anything or anyone that came out of the water.

Out on the river, two patrol boats had moved in to close off access to the plant. MiRO I—the half of the plant near the water—had been shut down; the police were sweeping through to see if the terrorists were already inside. A NATO helicopter was en route from a base on the Baltic with hydro-phonic gear sensitive enough to detect the breathing apparatus that would be fitted to the stolen tanks.

“Cripes, there’s a creek down there,” said Karr, looking out the window from Hess’s helicopter as they overflew the massive complex.

“Yes?” said Hess.

The Alb Creek split the plant in two. It fed into a large pond at the north—a pond very close to a road and sheltered from the air by a patch of woods.

“Alert the security people. The terrorists are probably already inside,” Karr told Hess. “They’ll be in the eastern end of the plant, MiRO 2, not MiRO 1. Have the security teams check that creek.”

CHAPTER 60

DEAN WENT THROUGH the clinic carefully after Asad had left, looking for anything the bodyguards might have left behind. All he saw was the money; though it would be difficult at best to get any useful DNA from it, he picked the notes up with a pair of forceps and put them into a plastic bag. Then he shut everything down.

“Charlie, Lia is taking Dr. Ramil out to the airport,” Rockman told him when he was ready to leave. “Can you swing by the hotel and pick up his suitcase? We’ll send a taxi to meet you out front.”

“Who’s going to follow Asad?”

“He’s heading back toward the safe house. It sounds like he’s going back to bed for a while. He told his bodyguards he was tired. Don’t worry; we already have one of the CIA backup teams near the house. I’ll update you when you have his bag.”