All the Old Knives (9 page)

They're organized. They very quickly moved the children—nine of them, between the ages of five and twelve—into the front of the cabin to act as human shields against any forced entry, as well as leverage against anyone who wants to be a hero. “Each time someone attempts to interfere with our work,” they explained to the passengers, “one of these children will die.”

“That's brilliant,” I admit, realizing that they've now assured themselves a docile group of hostages.

“It's inhuman,” says Leslie.

Bill's hiding his face in his hands, a fresh wave of humiliation settling over him, for despite the Europol report on Ilyas Shishani's arrival in Europe, he didn't really believe TRIPWIRE's intel. Ernst, being Ernst, remains defiant, and I wonder, as I often have, just how deeply his childhood in Georgia scarred him. Was he teased mercilessly for his foreign background? Did he despise those Bible Belt children and vow to be as different from them as he possibly could? It doesn't matter, but I still wonder about it as he says with studied nonchalance, “It's unexpected, but not completely.”

“No,” says Vick, flashing a look at me, “because Celia already told us they might do this.”

By this hour, Owen's hand has moved from his mouth to his right ear, which he tugs and manhandles until it's crimson. The nails on his fingers are just slivers, chewed as far as possible without actually biting into bone. I imagine his depression is chemical in nature, though that doesn't make me very sympathetic. I have an urge to slap that hand.

Leslie seems to be the only one without an ounce of shame. This is the benefit of advertising your ignorance.

“Demands?” Bill says to no one in particular.

Vick has it all on a single sheet of paper—an e-mail sent over from the Interior Ministry. “Five prisoners—two in Austria, three in Germany. In forty-eight hours. The Austrians tell us we've got seventeen Americans on board—we're still verifying that.”

“And what's the likelihood?”

“That the Germans and Austrians will give in?” Vick scratches his nose. “There are twenty-nine Germans on board, and Angela Merkel's only been in office a few months. We don't know if that means she'll be accommodating or not, but I have a feeling she'll give in. Heinz Fischer is a different story. The right has been beating him and the Social Democrats for being weak on immigration, and giving in would play into their hands.”

“Election's done,” I point out, if only because the analysis is still fresh in my mind. “The coalition negotiations aren't going to make any difference for him now. He's freer than you think.”

Vick nods in my direction. “I bow to you on that, Cee. You're the expert.”

I'm not, but I appreciate the deference.

Ernst says, “EKO Cobra is on standby,” as if this should make us feel better. Having an Austrian assault team on standby only worries us.

Vick gives some background on Ilyas Shishani, our only real suspect outside the plane. “Chechen. Henry once knew him, and if he's in Vienna I expect Henry will be the one to find him. So he'll be spending a lot of time outdoors, sniffing around.”

“Are the Austrians in the loop?” Leslie asks.

“They will be,” Ernst says.

“Have the hijackers demanded fuel?” Bill asks.

Vick shakes his head, interested, then starts checking his computer for Airbus statistics. We eventually calculate about two thousand kilometers of fuel left in the tank, which doesn't leave many serious options. Among them: Tripoli. Vick promises to ask Langley to press its Libyan contacts, then raises his head to take in all of us. “We're awake, are we?”

We are.

“Good, because waiting around is not the American way. Henry's following his own leads, but we have to assume they've got other connections in town, so let's shake up our networks. Bill and Celia—that's you. Ernst, it's time to pull in favors with the Austrians. Owen. Owen—you with us?”

Owen, blinking morbidly, nods.

“I want you to talk to all our geeks around the world, but particularly in the Middle East. Comb through the chatter and tell us exactly who we're dealing with, and what they're planning next. Leslie,” he goes on, turning to the ignorant one among us, “brew us up some coffee. It's going to be an all-nighter.”

Leslie's head freezes in midnod. Eyes narrow.

“Kidding, Leslie. Please. I need a full sheet on each of the assholes who've taken over this plane. Find me every one of their relatives so that we can kidnap them, if feasible.”

“I don't think we really need to kidnap anyone,” Ernst says. “But the Austrians might want that information.”

Vick shrugs. “Bring everything direct to me. Hopefully between us all we'll get some satisfaction.”

The meeting breaks up, and Bill and I move to his office, calling agents and making spreadsheets of sources. We receive a call from the front desk—the Golden Dragon has delivered our lunch, and we have that sent up. I've got two women from the Muslim community to talk to, and I make appointments with each of them. Aighar Mansur can meet me in the next few hours, while Sabina Hussain pushes me off until the evening. Then I call Henry. Five rings and no answer, so I hang up, then a few minutes later he calls back. I step outside of Bill's office to answer it, saying, “You've heard.”

“Of course. It's a mess.”

“Maybe not so much. There's still time.” I pause, remembering the open line. “We'll talk about it later.”

“Dinner?”

“Maybe. My schedule's suddenly backed up. Will you be in the office?”

“Later,” he says. “Probably.”

“Then we'll see.”

When I hang up, I find Bill looking at me through his window, almost dreamily, his mind on other things. I go back inside and ask if he's heard anything from Sally, and instead of answering he just smiles.

“What?”

“I just realized that for about an hour, I haven't thought of her.” He picks up his phone. “I'll find out.”

She is, of course, just fine. We finally sit down to our lunch.

 

6

Repeating the same procedure we used when I recruited her two years ago, I meet Aighar Mansur inside the Leopold Museum, where I find her sitting on a bench near a wall of Egon Schiele paintings, her head covered in a simple violet hijab, hands crossed on one knee. Her rationale behind this sort of meeting place lies in Islam's denial of representational art, aniconism. “No good Muslim will find himself in this temple of the body,” she told me once. “We are safe.”

Whether or not this is true, the fact is that Aighar has grown used to the painted presence of sentient beings, and although during our early meetings I would find her gazing awkwardly at the end of her skirt and the toes of her shoes, by now she's gathered the courage to crane her neck to take in the particulars of Schiele's fascination with the angular parts of the female anatomy.

I wonder, as I've wondered before, if this has been her desire from the beginning, this gradual descent into blasphemy, which—as she converted for marriage—is not so much a visit to someplace new as a regression into her infidel youth, when she was called Martina, and she drank and smoked dope and lived, briefly, on the streets of Vienna before finding salvation in an Iranian student's beliefs.

“It's beautiful,” I say in German, settling beside her. Right now, her attention is on Schiele's
Mother and Daughter,
a woman and a girl embracing. Aighar has two daughters.

She shrugs, aware of her transgressions, and turns back to me, her voice low. “I told you, Lara, I don't know anything about it.”

Lara is the name she knows me by. “I never said you did. I just wanted to find out what the community's thinking right now.”

She reaches up and tugs the corners of her hijab, so as to better cover her cheeks. “What do you think? We can say, until we're blue from lack of air, that Islam is a religion of peace, but every time we start to convince someone, something like this happens. We're back to square one.”

Aighar and her husband, Labib, are part of the Shia strain that was reenergized by the 1979 Iranian revolution, and because of this I tend to doubt her nonviolent claims. But I'm no expert. “What's the conversation at the mosque now?”

“You want to hear that people are taking sides? Yes, Lara. People are taking sides. Sometimes Labib says he respects hijackers like these for their unwavering faith. It's something he respects because he doesn't share it. We all respect those who are more pure.”

“Does that mean he agrees with them?”

She could choose to be insulted by that question, but she doesn't. “He praises their faith, not their actions. Their interpretation of their faith is what has gotten them into trouble.”

“And the others?”

She inhales, locks onto my eyes with hers. “I could give you a list of people who are praising these men, but trust me for once: They are armchair revolutionaries. Every one of them. They offer nothing to the Islamist cause beyond a few words at the mosque and the teahouses. They aren't even praying for revolutionary successes. Do you know why? Because they're afraid. Why do you think they've moved to Vienna? Do you think they've come to establish some caliphate? No.” She shakes her head. “They're terrified of sharia law. They know they wouldn't last twenty-four hours in a proper sharia state. They love our Western decadence too much.”

Aighar is not a speechmaker, so all of this is a surprise. I thought I could come in here with a list of urgent questions and get my answers quickly, but something has happened to her. This is not uncommon in long-term assets. They grow weary of lies and giving their secrets to a stranger who cares nothing for them. But this feels like something different. It feels like defiance. “And you?” I ask. “Do you love our Western decadence?”

A tight grin. She looks across the room at another Schiele,
Self-Portrait with Physalis,
the artist's mottled face looking like it's in the late stages of disease. She says, “I adore it. Which is why I must leave it behind.” She stands, gives me a wan smile, and adds, “But I would never allow anyone to destroy it.”

Then she's gone.

It's twilight by the time I return to the embassy, and the strain is palpable. It's in the silence, everyone digging into files and making quiet calls behind cupped hands, as if by raising their voices they might draw attention to their incompetence. I'm much the same. I nod at a few faces and escape to Bill's office, which is empty, still smelling of Chinese food. Through his window I see Vick walking around the station, leaning over chairs and chatting with analysts, working to keep up morale. I have to admit, he's good at what he does. He demands and receives loyalty from his minions, and in the lofty air of his office he does an admirable job making sure our strong personalities don't clash destructively. He stops in the doorway and gives me a nod as I settle at Bill's desk. “What's the word from the street?”

“My source is being aloof, but I don't think she's hiding anything. It's the typical mixed reactions from the peanut gallery.”

“Maybe we should ask the Austrians to break down some doors.”

“Is that your idea, or Henry's?”

“Uncle Sam's,” he says with a grin, then heads back to his own office.

There follows one of those moments when you step out of your world, just briefly, all the distractions falling away, and you see with clarity what's happening at that moment. We're sitting in our hermetically sealed embassy, making jokes about how to deal with a terrorist threat, while in an Airbus 319 parked at Vienna Airport a hundred and twenty sweating people are facing the possibility that they will die very soon. That is real; this office is not.

I pick up Bill's phone and call Henry.

“M'lady,” he says.

“How are things coming?”

“Dismal. But you're looking very well.”

I raise my head, and there he is, phone to ear, weaving his way between desks toward me. I hang up, and he lowers his phone as he comes in. He even steps around the desk and kisses me on the lips, fully, in full view of the embassy's CIA presence. “Well,” I say.

He returns to the visitor's side of the desk and sits down, rubbing his face. He looks tired.

“Anything of interest?”

He shakes his head. “I've talked to eight people in the last four hours, and all the same. No one knows anything.”

“Ilyas Shishani?”

He hesitates then, frowning. “No one's seen or heard.”

“Do you believe them?”

“Sometimes you have to.” He leans forward, reaching an arm across the desk toward me. The smile is back. “How about Restaurant Bauer tonight?”

We've been talking about Walter Bauer's restaurant for weeks, ever since it got a splashy write-up in the
Wiener Zeitung,
though the opportunities have slipped past us. Usually, he's the one who doesn't have the time, but now I'm the one who says, “I don't know. I've got another meet in not too long.”

“Then call me when you're done. I'll make the reservations.”

As I'm mulling over the good humor in Henry's face—so out of place on a day like this, but not unwelcome—I spot Bill heading toward us, in a rush, a piece of paper flapping in his hand. He looks twenty years younger. I nod in his direction, and Henry turns to watch as Bill enters and closes the door behind himself.

“Mr. Right, Ms. Right,” he says by way of greeting. “We have contact!”

 

7

It's a single text message, sent five hours after the hijacking began, from one Ahmed Najjar to an emergency Langley number, from which it was forwarded on to Vick.

4 attackers, 2 guns. Children in 1st class. Rest in econ—Muslims starboard, rest opposite. Am with Muslims, aft. Two women in critical. Water running out. No power
=
no cameras. Suggest rear-undercarriage attack.