Chapter 8
The bomb that killed Benjamin Muzi on Thursday morning had been placed in the refrigerator 28 hours before by Muhammad Fasil, and it had almost cost Fasil his hand before a detonator was ever stuck into the plastic. For Fasil had made an error, not with the explosive, but with Lander.
It had been nearly midnight Tuesday when Lander, Fasil, and Dahlia secured the boat and it was almost 2 A.M. when they arrived at Lander's house with the plastic.
Dahlia could still feel the boat moving under her as she walked into the house. She fixed a quick hot meal and Fasil wolfed it down at the kitchen table, his face gray with fatigue. She had to take Lander's food into the garage. He would not leave the plastic. He had opened a bag and lined up six Madonnas on his workbench. Like a raccoon with a clam, he turned one in his hand and sniffed and tasted it. It must be Hexogen of Chinese or Russian manufacture mixed with TNT or kamnikite and some kind of synthetic rubber binder, he decided. The bluish-white substance had a faint smell that touched the back of the nasal passages, like the smell of a garden hose left in the sun, the smell of a body bag. Lander knew he must pace himself to get everything done in the remaining six weeks before the Super Bowl. He put down the statuette and forced himself to sip his soup until his hands were steady. He hardly glanced at Dahlia and Fasil as they came into the garage, Fasil popping an amphetamine tablet into his mouth. The guerrilla started for the workbench and the row of Madonnas, but Dahlia stopped him with a touch on the arm.
"Michael, I need a half-kilo of plastic, please," she said. "For what we were discussing." She spoke as a woman speaks to her lover, leaving things half-said in the presence of a third person.
"Why don't you shoot Muzi?"
Fasil had been under a strain for a week guarding that plastic on the ship, and his bloodshot eyes narrowed at Lander's indifferent tone. " 'Why don't you shoot Muzi?"' he mimicked. "You don't have to do anything, just give me the plastic." The Arab moved to the workbench. Lander's arm blurred with speed as he brought the electric saw off the bottom shelf and pulled the trigger, the shrieking blade a half-inch from Fasil's reaching hand.
Fasil stood very still. "I'm sorry, Mr. Lander. I meant no disrespect." Carefully, carefully. "We may not get a shot. I want to cover every eventuality. Your project must not be interrupted."
"All right," Lander said. He spoke so quietly Dahlia could not hear him over the sound of the saw. He released the trigger and the blade whirred to a stop, each black tooth distinct. Lander cut a Madonna in two with a knife. "You have a detonator and wire?"
"Yes, thank you."
"Will you need a battery? I have several."
"No, thank you."
Lander turned back to his work and did not look up as Dahlia and Fasil drove away in his car, heading north toward Brooklyn to arrange the death of Muzi.
WCBS "Newsradio 88" broadcast the first bulletin on the explosion at 8:30 A.M. Thursday and confirmed Muzi's identity by 9:45. Now the deed was done. The last possible connection between him and the plastic was cut. Thursday was beginning auspiciously. Lander heard Dahlia come into the workshop. She brought him a cup of coffee. "Good news," he said.
She listened carefully as the newscast recycled. She was eating a peach. "I wish they would identify the injured one. There's a fair chance it's the Greek."
"I'm not worried about the Greek," Lander said. "He only saw me once and he didn't hear what we said. Muzi showed no respect for him. I doubt if he trusted him at all."
Lander paused in his work to watch her as she leaned against the wall eating the peach. Dahlia relished fruit. He liked to see her absorbed in a simple pleasure. Displaying appetite. It made him feel that she was uncomplicated, unthreatening, that he moved around her unseen. He was the benign bear watching the camper unload the goodies in the firelight. When she first came to him, he had often turned suddenly to look at her, expecting to see malice or cunning or distaste. But she was always the same---insolence in her posture and welcome in her face.
Dahlia was aware of all this. She appeared to be watching with interest as he turned back to the wiring harness he was making. Actually she was worrying.
Fasil had slept most of yesterday and most of this morning. But soon he would awaken. He would be elated at the success of his device, and he must be restrained from showing it. Dahlia was sorry that Fasil had completed his training before 1969, when the Chinese instructors came to Lebanon. They could have taught him much about self-effacement, something he never learned in training in North Vietnam and certainly not in East Germany. She watched Lander's long fingers deftly moving the soldering iron. Fasil had made a near-fatal mistake with Lander, and she must make sure it did not happen again. She must make Fasil understand that if he were not very careful, the project might come to a bloody end here in Lander's house. The project needed Fasil's quick, savage mind, and his muscle and firepower would be essential at the penultimate moment, when the explosive was being attached to the blimp. But she had to keep him in line.
Fasil nominally was her superior in the terrorist organization, but this mission had been acknowledged as hers by no less than Hafez Najeer himself. Further, she was the key to Lander and Lander was irreplaceable. On the other hand, Hafez Najeer was dead and Fasil no longer feared his wrath. And Fasil was not very progressive in his view of women. It would be so much easier if they all spoke French. That simple difference would have been invaluable, she thought.
Like many educated Arabs, Fasil practiced two sets of social behavior. In Western-style social situations, speaking French, his treatment of women was as gracious and egalitarian as anyone could wish. Back among traditional Arabs, his ingrained sexual chauvinism reasserted itself strongly. A woman was a vessel, a servant, a draft animal with no control over her sexual urges, a sow perpetually in heat.
Fasil might be cosmopolitan in his manners and radical in his politics, but Dahlia could tell that in the send and ebb of his emotions he was not greatly removed from the time of his grandfather, the time of female circumcision, clitoridectomy and infibulation, the bloody rites which ensured that female children would not bring dishonor on their houses. She always detected a faint sneer in his voice when he called her comrade.
"Dahlia." Lander's voice shifted her attention back to him. The change did not register in her face at all. It was a trick she had. "Hand me the needle-nosed pliers." His voice was calm, his hands steady. Good omens for what might be a difficult day. She was determined there would be no wasteful squabbling. Dahlia had confidence in Fasil's basic intelligence and dedication, if not in his attitude. She had confidence in the strength of her own will. She believed in the genuine understanding and affection she shared with Lander, and she believed in the 50 milligrams of chlorpromazine she had dissolved in his coffee.
Chapter 9
Kabakov struggled back to consciousness like a desperate diver thrashing upward to the air. He felt the fire in his chest and tried to raise his hands to his burning throat, but his wrists were held with a grip like padded iron. He realized that he was in a hospital. He felt the rough-dried hospital sheet under him and felt the loom of someone standing beside the bed. He did not want to open his smarting eyes. His body was seized by his will.
He would relax. He would not struggle and bleed.
It was not the first time he had regained consciousness in a hospital.
Moshevsky, towering over the bed, relaxed his grip on Kabakov's wrists and turned to an orderly at the door of the room. He used his softest growl. "He's coming around. Tell the doctor to get in here. Move!"
Kabakov opened and shut one hand, then the other. He moved his right leg, then his left. Moshevsky nearly smiled with relief. He knew what Kabakov was doing. He was taking inventory. Moshevsky had done it himself on several occasions.
Minutes passed as Kabakov drifted back and forth between the darkness and the hospital room. Moshevsky, swearing softly, had started for the door when the doctor came in with a nurse following him. The doctor was a slight young man with sideburns.
He glanced at the chart while the nurse opened the oxygen tent and peeled back the top sheet, suspended tentlike on a metal frame to keep it from touching the patient. The doctor shined a penlight into each of Kabakov's eyes. The eyes were red and tears welled out when he opened them. The nurse administered eyedrops and shook down a thermometer while the doctor listened to Kabakov's breathing.
The skin quivered under the cold stethoscope and the doctor was inconvenienced by the tape covering the left side of the rib cage. The emergency room had done a neat job. The doctor looked with some professional curiosity at the old scars that dotted and seamed Kabakov's body. "Do you mind standing out of the light?" he said to Moshevsky.
Moshevsky shifted from one foot to the other. Finally, in a position that resembled parade rest, he stared fixedly out the window until the examination was completed. He followed the doctor outside.
Sam Corley was waiting in the hall. "Well?"
The young doctor raised his eyebrows and looked annoyed. "Oh, yes. You're the FBI." He might have been identifying a plant. "He has a mild concussion. The X-rays look good. Three fractured ribs. Second-degree burns on the left thigh. Smoke inhalation has him very raw in the throat and lungs. He's got a ruptured sinus that may require a drain. An ENT man will be in this afternoon. His eyes and ears appear to be okay, but I expect his ears are ringing. It's not unusual."
"The hospital administrator spoke to you about listing him as very critical?"
"The administrator can list him any way he pleases. I would call his condition fair or even good. He has a remarkably tough body, but he's battered it around a lot."
"But you'll---"
"Mr. Corley, the administrator can tell the public he's pregnant for all I care. I won't contradict him. How did this happen, or may I ask?"
"I think a stove exploded."
"Yes, I'm sure it did." The doctor snorted through his nose and walked off down the hall.
"What's an ENT man?" Moshevsky asked Corley.
"An ear, nose, and throat specialist. By the way, I thought you didn't speak English."
"Poorly, if at all," Moshevsky said, hurriedly reentering the room with Coney staring balefully at his back.
Kabakov slept through most of the afternoon. As his sedative wore off, his eyes began to twitch beneath the lids and he dreamed, the colors in his dreams drug-bright. He was in his apartment in Tel Aviv and the red telephone was ringing. He could not reach it. He was entangled in a pile of clothing on the floor, and the clothing stank of cordite.
Kabakov's hands clutched the hospital sheet. Moshevsky heard the cloth rip and came out of his chair with the speed of a Cape buffalo. He unclenched Kabakov's fists and put them back at his sides, relieved to see that only the sheet was torn and not the bandage.
Kabakov woke remembering. The events at Muzi's house did not come back to him in order, and it was maddening to have to rearrange the pieces as he recalled them. By nightfall the oxygen tent had been removed and the ringing in his ears had subsided enough for him to listen while Moshevsky filled him in on the aftermath of the explosion---the ambulance, the cameramen, the press temporarily deceived but suspicious.
And Kabakov had no trouble hearing Corley when he was admitted to the room.
"What about Muzi?" Corley was pale with anger.
Kabakov did not want to talk. Talking made him cough and coughing aggravated the fire in his chest. He nodded to Moshevsky. "Tell him," he croaked.
Moshevsky's accent showed marked improvement. "Muzi was an importer---"
"Jesus Christ, I know all that. I've got the paper on him. Tell me what you saw and heard."
Moshevsky cut his eyes toward Kabakov and received a slight nod. He began with the questioning of Fawzi, the discovery of the Madonna, and the examination of the ship's papers. Kabakov filled in the scene in Muzi's apartment. When they had finished, Corley picked up Kabakov's bedside telephone and issued a rapid series of orders---warrants for the
Leticia
and crew, a lab team for the ship. Kabakov interrupted him once.
"Tell them to abuse Fawzi in front of the crew."
"What?" Corley's hand was over the mouthpiece.
"Say he's being arrested for not cooperating. Shove him around a little. I owe him a favor. He has relatives in Beirut."
"It's our ass if he complains."
"He won't."
Corley turned back to the telephone and continued his instructions for several minutes. "...yeah, Pearson, and call Fawzi a---"
"Pig-eating crotch cannibal," prompted Moshevsky.
"...yeah, that's what I said call him," Corley said finally. "When you advise him of his rights, yeah. Don't ask questions, Pearson, just do it." He hung up the receiver.
"Okay, Kabakov. You were dragged out of that house by two guys with golf bags who just
happened
to be passing by, the fire department's report says. Some
golfers.
" Corley stood in the middle of the room in his rumpled suit, flipping his keys. "These fellows just
happened
to leave the scene in a panel truck as soon as the ambulance arrived. What was the truck---a shuttle to some golf club where everybody talks funny? I quote to you from the police 'aided card': 'They both talked funny.' Like you talk funny. What are you running here, Kabakov? Are you gonna shit me or what?"
"I would have called you when I knew something." Kabakov's faint croak carried no apology.
"You would have sent me a postcard from fucking Tel Aviv. 'Sorry about the crater and the tidal wave.' " Corey looked out the window for a full minute. When he turned back to the bed, the anger had gone out of him. He had beaten the anger and he was ready to go again. It was a capacity Kabakov appreciated. "An American," Corley muttered. "Muzi said an American. Muzi was very clean, by the way. The police yellow sheet listed only one arrest. Assault and battery and disorderly conduct in a French restaurant. Charges dropped.
"We didn't get much from the house. The bomb was plastic, a little over a pound. We think it was wired into the light bulb socket inside the refrigerator. Someone unplugged the box, wired it up, closed the refrigerator door and plugged it back again. Unusual."
"I have heard of it once before," Kabakov said quietly, too quietly.
"I'm having you transferred to Bethesda Naval Hospital first thing tomorrow. We can set up adequate security there."
"I'm not staying---"
"Oh, yes you are." Corley took the late edition of the New York
Post
from his jacket pocket and held it up. Kabakov's picture was on page 3. It had been shot over the shoulder of an ambulance attendant as Kabakov was carried into the emergency room. The face was smoke-stained but the features were distinct. "They have your name as 'Kabov,' no address or occupation. We put the lid on the police community news unit before your identity was cleared up. Washington is climbing my ass. The director thinks the Arabs might recognize this picture and hit you."
"Splendid. We can take one alive and discuss it with him.
"Oh, no. Not in this hospital we can't. The whole wing would have to be evacuated first. Besides, they might succeed. You're no good to me dead. We don't want you to be another Yosef Alon."
Colonel Alon, the Israeli air attaché in Washington, was shot down in his driveway in Chevy Chase, Md., by guerrilla assassins in 1973. Kabakov had known and liked Alon, had stood beside Moshe Dayan at Lod Airport when his body was carried off the plane, wind rippling the flag that draped his casket.
"Possibly they would send the same people who killed Colonel Alon," Moshevsky said with the smile of a crocodile.
Corley shook his head wearily. "They'd send goons and you know it. No. We're not going to have a hospital shot up. Later, if you want to, you can make a speech on the steps of the UAR mission in a red jumpssuit for all I care. My orders are to keep you alive. The doctor says you must be flat on your back for a week, minimum. In the morning, pack your bedpan. You're moving to Bethesda. The press will be told you're transferred to the Brooke Army burn unit in San Antonio."
Kabakov closed his eyes for several seconds. If he were in Bethesda, he would be in the hands of the bureaucrats. They would have him looking at pictures of suspicious Arab pita bakers for the next six months.
But he had no intention of going to Bethesda. He needed a little medical attention, absolute privacy, and a place to rest for a day or two, with nobody giving orders about his convalescence. And he knew where he might get these things. "Corley, I can make better arrangements for myself. Did they tell you specifically Bethseda?"
"They said it was my responsibility to see that you were safe. You
will
be safe." The unspoken threat was there. If Kabakov did not cooperate, the State Department would see to it that he was ordered back to Israel.
"All right, look. By morning I'll have things set up. You can check it out until you're satisfied."
"I'll promise nothing."
"But you'll keep an open mind?" Kabakov hated to wheedle.
"We'll see. Meanwhile, I'm keeping five men on this floor. It really burns you to lose a round, doesn't it?"
Kabakov looked at him, and suddenly Corley was reminded of a badger he had trapped in Michigan as a boy. The badger had come at him dragging the trap, the broken end of his femur furrowing the dirt. His eyes had looked like Kabakov's.
As soon as the FBI agent had left the room, Kabakov tried to sit up, then fell back dizzy with the effort.
"Moshevsky, call Rachel Bauman," he said.
Bauman, Rachel, M.D., was in the medical listings of the Manhattan Telephone Directory. Moshevsky dialed the number with his little finger, the only finger that would go in the holes, and got an answering service. Dr. Bauman was away for three days.
He found "Bauman, R." in the Manhattan residence listing. The same answering service operator replied. Yes, she said, Dr. Bauman might check in, but she wasn't sure. Did she have a number where Dr. Bauman might be reached? Sorry, but she couldn't give out that information.
Moshevsky got one of the federal marshals on guard in the corridor to speak to the answering service. They waited while the operator checked his identification and called back.
"Dr. Bauman's at Mt. Murray Lodge in the Pocono Mountains," the marshal said at last. "She told the answering service she'd call with the room number later. That was yesterday. She hasn't called yet. If she planned to call back with the room number, she knew she wouldn't be registering in her own name."
"Yes, yes," Kabakov croaked.
"Shacked up, probably." The man would not be quiet.
Well, Kabakov was thinking, what can you expect when you don't call somebody for seven years? "How far away is this place?"
"About three hours."
"Moshevsky, go get her."
__________
Seventy miles from the hospital, in Lakehurst, N.J., Michael Lander fiddled with the controls on his television set. It had an excellent picture---all of his appliances worked flawlessly---but he was never satisfied. Dahlia and Fasil gave no sign of their impatience. The 6 P.M. newscast was well underway before Lander finally left the set alone.
"An explosion in Brooklyn early today took the life of importer Benjamin Muzi. A second man was critically injured," the newscaster was saying. "Here's Frank Frizzell with an on-the-scene report.
The newscaster stared into the camera for an awkward moment before the film rolled. There was Frank Frizzell standing in a tangle of fire hoses on the sidewalk in front of Muzi's house.
"...blew out the kitchen wall and caused minor damage to the house next door. Thirty-five firemen with six pieces of equipment battled the fire for more than half an hour before bringing it under control. Six firemen were treated for smoke inhalation."