THE WAVE: A John Decker Thriller (16 page)

“No. No, thank you,” Kunabi answered timidly in Kazak, the tortured Turkic dialect.

“This is Dr. Kunabi of the Kazakhstan Ministry of Nuclear Science and Technology. Dr. Kunabi, my business associates.” Gulzhan waved a hand about the room.

Dr. Kunabi finally noticed the two dead men in the corner. He looked at their bulging eyes, their open mouths and backed away.

“Please, pay no attention to those . . . men.”

Dr. Kunabi tried diligently not to stare at the bodies heaped together in the corner. Despite the cold, his forehead was covered with perspiration.

They made their way toward a door at the opposite end of the warehouse. As they walked, Kunabi kept on turning, kept on looking back behind him at the others. He smiled at them even as Gulzhan opened the door and gently pushed him in.

The room was filled with wooden crates, most of them opened, spewing yellow straw, newspaper clippings, or snow-white Styrofoam peanuts. Instruments had been set up on a wooden table: screens and pressure pumps; two electronic devices, like two small EKG machines, linked by a pipe. Nearly everything had been unpacked, assembled. Tubing was stacked against one wall, as high as a man. Several dozen large canisters of gas were propped up in the corner. Kunabi stepped excitedly into the room.

“It is all here,” Gulzhan said with pride. “You can start immediately. We have little time.”

Kunabi glanced about. “Everything?” He listed the instruments he’d requested, abandoning his Kazak dialect for Russian. Most business transactions took place in Russian anyway; Kazak had been outlawed during the Soviet era. But the main reason he’d switched to Russian was because the Kazak language simply couldn’t accommodate the terms. They were too technologically advanced. They had yet to be invented. Then he reverted back to Kazak, saying, “Including my money, of course.”

“Of course,” said Gulzhan with a laugh. “Although both you and I know you will never live to spend it.”

Kunabi slumped. He glanced back at the door, hugging his attaché case.

“Do not worry, Dr. Kunabi. Your secret’s safe with me. Let us speak frankly. You may be a devout Muslim, but were it not for the sacrifice you’ve already made for your country, you would not be here. Would you?”

Kunabi shook his head.

“I know that you are dying, Dr. Kunabi. I’ve known it all along. Since before our first meeting. A small exposure here. An accident there. It all adds up, does it not? And, suddenly, the world collapses. You may be a good scientist, but the safety record of the Kazakhstan Ministry of Nuclear Science and Technology has much to be desired. All this is known to me,” said Gulzhan. Then he smiled and added, “As is your love for your family.” He flicked a switch and the fluorescents crackled overhead.

There were four attaché cases on the table beside the instruments. Kunabi wandered over to them. Each case looked identical, covered by some kind of brushed aluminum – about a meter long, and half a meter wide. He stroked the nearest to him. He opened it and peeked inside.

The attaché case was cast into a single piece, like a computer terminal. There was a keyboard built into the lid. Within the case itself, across the lower half, was a raised area featuring several digital displays and buttons. Above the displays, on the right hand side, a bulbous protrusion – like the top half of a metal ball.

With a start, Kunabi turned toward Gulzhan Baqrah. “Why are there four cases?” he asked, suddenly on guard. He was a man used to precision instruments. “You told me there were three.”

Gulzhan shrugged. “A precaution, Dr. Kunabi.” He moved a step closer, smiling smoothly. “If I have learned anything over the years, it’s that it always pays to have a backup plan, a redundancy. Just in case.” He wrapped his arm about the scientist’s small shoulders. “Don’t you agree?”

Kunabi didn’t respond. He simply stared at the attaché cases on the table.

“You, for example, have two children. You could have stopped at one – your daughter. After all, she is beautiful and bright, and pregnant with your first grandchild, I am told. You must be very proud.” Gulzhan paused. Then he added, wagging his head, “But something told you to continue. You were driven. So you had another child – your son, Mohammed. A doctor. A pediatrician. He works not far from here, just north of Gurjev in the Children’s Hospital, does he not? You are a prudent man. You see,” he said, squeezing Kunabi tighter. “We have something in common. We both prepare for the contingency.”

Chapter 14

Friday, January 28 – 3:15 PM

New York City

The Number One was practically deserted: only a brace of out-of-sync commuters; a scattering of women returning home from shopping; a herd of teenagers dressed in baggy jeans and puffy goose down jackets, laughing and speaking too loud. Decker leaned back in his seat. He could see his face reflected in the window across the subway car. He looked spent. Despite the familiar blazer and red tie, the navy blue overcoat, he looked like a stranger to himself. And then the glass burst into light as the train entered the One Hundred and Sixteenth Street Station, and his face was gone.

Decker picked up his gym bag and got out. As he climbed the stairs, he felt the weight of that piece of paper in his pocket. For some reason, he hadn’t told Warhaftig or Kazinski about what he’d found in Salim Moussa’s locker, and this troubled him. Kazinski may have acted like an asshole that morning, but no matter what they thought about each other, they were still on the same side. Decker turned and climbed another flight of stairs. He hadn’t told anyone and he couldn’t for the life of him say why. Perhaps because he didn’t know yet if the wallpapers meant anything or not. Perhaps because he simply didn’t want to raise another flag, just to have Johnson pull it down again as something silly and irrelevant, or poisoned fruit. Better to be sure first, Decker thought, but he knew that he was lying to himself. He didn’t care what Johnson thought. Not really. He sighed. Truth was, he didn’t play well with other people, and never had. He coveted this lead. It was a puzzle that led directly through the mind of El Aqrab. It was his, and he was going to solve it.

“Excuse me?” Decker said. “Professor Hassan? You are Dr. Jusef Hassan, right?” Decker hesitated in the open doorway. Hassan was just finishing up his office hours and a few students still milled about in the hall.

Professor Hassan looked up. He was reviewing what appeared to be a paper with some hirsute undergraduate. “May I help you?”

Decker stepped into the room, approached the desk, and plucked out his ID. “My name is Decker,” he said. “Agent John Decker. I’m with the FBI.”

Hassan examined the badge for several seconds. He was wearing a black four-button cashmere suit, with thin lapels, a startlingly white dress shirt, well starched around his cocoa neck, and a silk blue necktie sprinkled with scallop shells and seahorses. Decker guessed he was in his mid-fifties. His black hair was still thick and full, and slightly oiled. His dreamy brown eyes twinkled in the harsh fluorescent light through a pair of almost invisible wire-rimmed glasses. “Am I supposed to be impressed?” he said.

Hassan looked over his glasses. “To read me my rights? Or has Attorney General Oakfield forced Miranda into early retirement too?” Then he turned toward the hirsute student and said, “Let’s pick this up tomorrow, Robert, after class. Okay?”

Decker considered the question for a moment. Jusef Hassan was the progeny of an ancient line of Egyptian merchant bankers, who – despite a brief flirtation with Islamic Socialism in the ’70s – had discovered that abandoning their appreciation for fine clothes, Western classical music and Continental food was, in the end, too great a price to pay for their political ideals. Hassan had come to the United States for four years of university . . . and ended up staying for the next thirty-five. He had married and become a U.S. citizen. In his unconstructed four-button cashmere jacket, it was clear that he wasn’t one to emulate his academic peers – not these faux cosmopolitans in their ill-fitting Euro knock-offs. Dr. Jusef Hassan wasn’t poor, so why did he have to dress that way? It would be hypocritical. Decker smiled to himself. “Because you’re an American,” he said.

“Tell that to your fellow agents, as they harass and arrest my people, as they lock them up without legal representation, as they hold them indefinitely without charge.”

“Your people?” Decker smiled. “You were in New York when the towers fell, weren’t you?” He pulled the sketch he’d found in Moussa’s locker from his pocket and laid it gently on the professor’s desk.

Hassan glanced at it momentarily and said, “Is that meant to make me feel all patriotic, all mushy and sentimental inside?”

Decker reached into his gym bag on the floor. He removed his notebook and plopped it on the desk. “But you are a naturalized citizen, are you not?” He opened the notebook casually, revealing the sketch he had made of the PC wallpaper.

“I was during Vietnam and Watergate as well,” Hassan said. “And when you lied to us about WMDs in Iraq.” He looked down at the notebook on his desk. Decker noticed his eyes grow wide. “There is a higher calling associated with being an American than just towing the party line, Agent Decker. Wasn’t that the lesson of McCarthy? It may be considered old-fashioned, even sentimental these days, but I still believe in personal rights and freedoms.” He craned his neck to get a better look at the drawing from the jukebox dealer. “So did the Founding Fathers. I wonder how they’d fare today in our political environment. Patriot’s Act indeed! I’m sure they would have had their phones tapped by the current administration, and . . . where did you get these drawings?” he inquired.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you that.”

Hassan scowled. “I’m a busy man, Agent Decker. In fact, I’m late for a meeting as it is.” He stood, brushed the wrinkles from his suit, and started toward the door. A few students still lingered in the hallway.

Decker turned his notebook so that it faced Hassan. “I’m curious. What did you feel exactly when the towers fell?” he asked. The professor stopped in his tracks. “Did you know anyone who died there? Did you lose a friend, a loved one?” Decker pointed at the sketches before him. “My partner died helping me get these illustrations. I came here to ask you for your help in interpreting them. All of the official channels, our so-called Islamic experts and intelligence resources, have drawn a blank. Professor Hassan, like it or not, you’re my only hope. I believe there may be other lives at stake here.”

Hassan leaned forward, resting his fists on the surface of the desk. “Shall I tell you what Nine Eleven reminds me of, Agent Decker? I have a son. His name is Malik. He was on his way to school one day, not long after . . . the tragedy. Anyway, he was riding the subway and the train stopped and this gang of teenagers got on – white kids – and they saw him standing in the back. They began to make fun of him, to call him names. They said he looked like an Arab; that he was probably from Afghanistan, a member of the Taliban; that he and his kind were responsible for what had happened to the World Trade Towers; that he had no business being in America. The boys began to egg each other on. ‘If you hate America so much,’ one of them said as he approached Malik, ‘why don’t you just leave?’ He said this to my son, who was born in St. Vincent’s Hospital in the Village, mind you. And someone else said, ‘He deserves to suffer, just like those people in the towers suffered.’ That’s exactly what he said. And then a third one added, and this is the best of all, ‘This is what it feels like, towel head, when you know you’re about to die, and there ain’t nothin’ you can do about it, except watch.’” Hassan shook his head. “He was only twelve,” he added. “Twelve! They kicked him over and over again, until he lost consciousness. He would have probably died there too if a stranger hadn’t come along and scared the boys away. So why, exactly, should I help you?”

Decker nodded, trying not to feel the car begin to slide, to spin, to feel the hit, the grim concussion as the other vehicle plowed into them again. And there had been nothing he could do. Nothing! He closed his eyes. “So that it doesn’t happen again,” he said in Arabic. “To Malik, or someone else’s son.”

“What?” Hassan took a step back. He cocked his head “What did you say?”

“I came to learn,” continued Decker. His Arabic was fluent, with the trilling accent of north Egypt. He could have been born in Al Iskandariyah. “I need your help, Professor. Like your son did on that subway train, when that stranger came to his assistance.”

Professor Hassan looked at Decker for several seconds. He took in the pale face, the thick black hair, the pale gray eyes that stared back with imponderable sadness. “I’m sure I’m not on your approved list of Islamic experts, Agent Decker.”

Decker shrugged.

“That doesn’t worry you?”

Decker shook his head. “‘There will come to you a guidance from Me, then whoever follows My guidance, no fear shall come upon them.’”

“‘Nor shall they grieve.’” Hassan smiled a little smile. He glanced down at the illustrations on the table. Then he closed the notebook and pushed it back across the desk. “I’m sorry, Agent Decker. But I cannot help you.”