THE WAVE: A John Decker Thriller (15 page)

“He’s a nut, Decker. I’ve seen him on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer. He’s a radical extremist, always bitching about how the Patriot’s Act is unconstitutional, that sort of thing. What makes you think he’ll talk to you? You’re the establishment, the enemy. And besides, Homeland Security considers him a risk.”

Decker turned. “He’ll talk to me,” he said.

Chapter 13

Saturday, January 29 – 1:34 AM

Kazakhstan

The truck pulled up beside a three-story brick warehouse on the outskirts of Gurjev on the Caspian Sea. Gulzhan and his men got out and stretched their legs. As they flexed and moved about the cobblestone courtyard, three men appeared in the headlights of the truck, emerging through a corrugated iron door. They approached Gulzhan and embraced him, one by one.

The first man was small, with a narrow face and frame, interminable black eyes and ebony hair. He had the body of a gymnast, supple and muscular. He wore a pair of green fatigues and a tatty brown turtleneck sweater.

“Salaam, Ali Hammel,” Gulzhan said.

“Salaam,” Hammel replied. He touched his hand to his heart and kissed his fingertips.

The second man stood in stark contrast to the first. He was huge, with a large melon-like head, thick wavy black hair, and a long bushy black beard. His eyes seemed perpetually in motion, ox-like, taking in the truck, the men, the moonlight on the black canal that winked at the far end of the alley, adjacent to the warehouse. When he was satisfied that nothing was amiss, the herd safe, he hugged Gulzhan with transparent glee.

“Salaam, Auwul,” said Gulzhan. He slapped him on the back. The large man grinned, his huge teeth glistening in the tangle of his beard. “It’s good to see you again. You’re looking fat, and happy.”

The third man stepped in from the side. He had a lean and predatory look, like a jackal, a thin henna-red beard, and piercing almost amber eyes. His head was shaved. He wore a camouflage jacket that hugged his narrow waist, a pair of green parachute pants, and thick black Army boots taped up around the ankles. “Where is the other truck?” he asked.

Gulzhan glanced about. “I have bad news,” he said. “Uhud is dead.”

The man’s eyes narrowed to the shape of almond shells. “How?” he replied.

“His truck was ambushed near Zhetybay. A’ in sh’Allah.” Gulzhan paused for a moment, glaring at the ground. “One of our informers called me.”

“Good, good.” Gulzhan looked over at the truck. He seemed distracted for a moment, as if he were checking the pressure of the tires. Then he turned and said, “Let us sit and eat.” He stretched his back, craning his neck with surprising dexterity. “It has been a long drive, and we are hungry.”

The men began to file back toward the warehouse, all save Ali Hammel, who hovered for a moment in the courtyard. When everyone else had disappeared, he turned toward Gulzhan, saying, “What happened to Uhud?”

“I told you,” Gulzhan said.

“Do not play games with me, Gulzhan Baqrah. I know you too well.”

Gulzhan shrugged. He studied the small man next to him. “Very well,” he said. “You knew him too, didn’t you, Ali? I’d almost forgotten. Friends, perhaps. And I’m sure El Aqrab will want to be informed.” He spat and started slowly down the alleyway that ran along the warehouse, back toward the canal. Hamel glided at his side. When they had reached the dock, Gulzhan stopped and stared up at the warehouse, blanched by the light of harbor cranes. It was a three-story brick structure with large frosted windows reinforced with chicken wire. A series of sliding doors ran almost the entire length of the ground floor facing the canal. At one end, an abandoned furnace chimney clung desperately to the side, illuminated by a streetlight.

The building had once been a manufacturing center for farm equipment – oxen plows and fencing, cisterns and windmills – before being converted into a warehouse. But following the collapse of the Soviet Union, business had fallen off. The warehouse was all but empty now. Only a clothing importer still used the facility from time to time.

Gulzhan stopped at the lip of the canal and looked down at the oily water. Pieces of plastic and paper floated on the surface. The canal ran a quarter of a mile or so along the quay before spilling out into the harbor and the Caspian Sea. It too was used infrequently these days. Most of the shipping now was handled by the container port in Gurjev’s western suburb. Somewhere a seagull cawed. Gulzhan looked up. It was clouding up again. Soon it would rain.

Gulzhan looked back at the canal. “Indeed,” he said with a small shrug. Then he added, like an afterthought, “He was using his Swiss bank accounts to buy options, to short securities on the New York Stock Exchange.”

Hammel said nothing but Gulzhan could hear him catch his breath. “It was stupid,” Gulzhan continued. “It jeopardized the mission. And it cost him his life.”

“You are sure of this?”

Gulzhan looked at Hammel with a mixture of horror and disbelief. He felt a spasm of revulsion in his throat. “Of course I’m sure,” he said. “Do you think I wanted this? After everything I did? I loved him, like my own son. I loved him!” He could feel his coffee-colored eyes begin to water. He turned away, embarrassed.
What’s happening to me?
he thought.
I’m falling apart
.

“It was written,” Hammel said. Then, after a moment, he added, “I believe you, Gulzhan Baqrah. Uhud was a greedy man. Vain. Intemperate.” He kicked a stone into the canal, dimpling the surface of the water. “He liked his clothes too much. His ears bristled with rings. He reminded me of a Tuareg poem, a
heinena
,” he said. “
The insane son of Adam denies his death, forgets his way, loitering in darkness; his eye is full of fancy; he hears but never listens. If God looks into the mouth of he whose strident sound is empty, there will be pain. His walk is trained, his clothes refined; his neck rides stiffly on his chest; his lungs are filled with pride. The desert Djinn have gutted them within; they have no boundaries
. . .
But we Algerians are not the Lebanese,” he said, catching himself. He gripped Gulzhan with his eyes. “We’ve never had enough to miss.” Then he smiled and added blithely, “You did well to have him killed, Gulzhan. El Aqrab will be pleased.”

Gulzhan yanked his arm away. He stared with hatred at Hammel. “Of course he will. He’s always most pleased when I’m least happy.” With that he turned and walked away.

Ali Hammel followed him back along the alley to the courtyard. When they had reached the entrance to the warehouse, Gulzhan spun about and said, “I’ve done my job.” He pointed a thick finger at the small man’s chest. His great beard parted, glaring with a sudden gash of teeth. “Now make sure you do yours.”

Hammel stared at him and Gulzhan felt a chill creep though his groin. Not even his hatred of the Algerian could insulate him from the feelings he felt whenever he was around Hammel. Gulzhan surrounded himself with killers. Indeed, it was his job to manufacture them, to perfect them, to help them learn or hone their skills. But there was something about the Algerian that even he found disconcerting. It was his eyes, like the eyes of those little yellow snakes he used to crush with rocks as a small boy. Gulzhan had seen Hammel in action. The Algerian had that uncanny ability to freeze his enemies before he struck, to all but hypnotize them with a glance. It was as if he didn’t really kill them. He simply sucked them up into his sphere. He absorbed them into nothingness.

“With pleasure,” Hammel replied, but Gulzhan knew that he was lying. Unlike men who took pleasure in their work, no matter how perverse, Ali Hammel felt neither ecstasy nor pain. He was neither proud nor humble, unmotivated by greed or political ambition, by sex or power, nor by some denial of death; of that Gulzhan was convinced. No, the Algerian felt nothing. And this was why he feared him.

The men sat around on pillows on the floor, in a corner of the warehouse, beside their MB-814s. They ate in silence, intent on their chicken and couscous, seared lamb and disks of bread. Gulzhan watched them as they fed. The Egyptian, Auwal Al-Hakim, tore at the meat from the common plate, rending the flesh with sausage-like fingers, and then stuffing large chunks into his mouth. His greasy beard was speckled with skin. His ox-like eyes rolled back and forth in his head as he chewed.

The Lebanese known only as Ziad ate more delicately. He had stationed himself by the door. Every once in a while, he would pull himself up, stretch his right leg, and glance out of the window. Then he’d sit back down again. He picked at the food like a bird, a rust-colored vulture. He selected only the meatiest morsels, snatched them up, and then eyed them once again before popping them into his mouth.

The two men who’d helped Gulzhan hijack the train sat by themselves, tucked in the corner. They felt like outsiders, he knew. They were not only unsure of the strangers around them – the stuff of legend and cartoons all at once – but more so of themselves. They ate self-consciously, plucking off pieces and then stepping away, like bitches new to the pack.

And Ali Hammel simply sat there. He never touched the food. In fact, now that he thought about it, Gulzhan had never seen the Algerian eat anything, and they had shared many a meal together. He sat quietly watching the others, cleaning his gun – a 9-millimeter Glock 18. At one point, when most of the food had been consumed, Hammel stood up and moved about the group, pouring out sweet green tea from a brass carafe. He acted like a graceful serving boy and this made Gulzhan wonder. Hammel was no one’s servant, not even El Aqrab’s. He was a force unto himself.

The men leaned back upon their pillows. Gulzhan saw his opportunity and raised his glass, and quoted from
Al-Waqi’ah
, saying, “‘When the Event comes to pass, the coming of which no one can avert, some it will bring low and others it will exalt. When the earth is shaken violently, and the mountains are crumbled into dust and become like motes floating in the air, you will be divided into three groups: those on the right, those on the left, and those who are foremost. They will be the honored ones, dwelling in the Gardens of Bliss.’” He drank from his glass and the men followed suit. “You will be buried in your own clothes, covered in blood,” he editorialized. “You will need no threefold linen shroud, no winding cloth. You’ll be
shahid
– true witnesses. ‘Say not of those who are killed in the cause of Allah that they are dead; they are not dead but alive; only you perceive it not . . . Surely, to Allah we belong, and to Him shall we return.’”

He put his glass back on the floor. Suddenly, without warning, Ali Hammel stood up and ambled over to the men who had arrived with Gulzhan in the truck. They glanced up at him with consternation, then at each other. One was about to speak when he realized that his throat no longer operated. He reached a hand up, grabbed at his neck. The other man leaned forward stiffly, toward his Kalashnikov. Hammel kicked it away. It clattered harmlessly across the warehouse floor. Then the Algerian squatted down in front of the two men and stared into their eyes. They began to wheeze. They couldn’t breathe. It was as if the air had been sucked out of them, first from their lungs, then from the building, then from the atmosphere itself. They began to panic. They glanced over at Gulzhan. They rolled their eyes, bloated with fear. They clenched their fists, opened their mouths as wide as they could go, and finally fell against each other in a heap. Within seconds they were still.

Ali Hammel watched them for a moment longer, tilting his head to the side, looking deep into their eyes, trying to catch the wink of their extinction. Then it finally came, and he absorbed it soundlessly. When he was satisfied, he returned to the spot where he’d been sitting earlier, and continued to clean his gun.

The rest of the men behaved as if nothing had happened. Gulzhan cleared his throat. He took another sip of tea. Then he said, “Arrangements have been made to take you across the Caspian to Rasht. From Iran you will travel westward, separately, through Iraq and into Syria. Everything has been arranged.” He looked about the group. “There will be no trouble. When you reach the Mediterranean, you will journey under new directives, to different destinations.”

Just then, Ziad clicked his tongue and everyone turned and stared at him. He pointed out the window. He raised a single digit, ducked and squatted down behind the corrugated iron door, drawing his gun. A moment later somebody knocked. Gulzhan wandered over nonchalantly. He peered out through the grimy window. He motioned toward Ziad to move, and opened the door.

A small bald man with glasses and a large black attaché case hesitated by the entrance. When he saw Gulzhan, he smiled and bowed. He was wearing a large black coat over a Western suit. He was pale and sported a thin dark brown mustache, trimmed close to the lip. “Gulzhan?” he said.

Gulzhan smiled and motioned for the man to enter. He stepped inside uncertainly. As soon as he saw the other men, he lifted the briefcase to his chest as if it were a shield. Then he pulled back, thought better of it, and took another step. “Salaam,” he said, pitching his voice at no one in particular. His glasses twinkled in the light. “Salaam,” he repeated. The men stared back at him without a word.

“Good evening,” Gulzhan said. “Please, come in, Dr. Kunabi.” He urged the small man forward. “Would you like something to eat, to drink?”