Direct Action (35 page)

10:19
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. Reuven collapsed onto the steering wheel of Hamzi’s Mercedes and wiped sweat off his face with a handkerchief. It was cold in the car because there was no driver’s-side front window. They’d brushed the broken glass off the seat and removed as much of it as they could, but there were still shards on the floor by Tom’s feet. Even in the chill, Reuven’s collar was wet with perspiration. It was the only outward sign of the stress he’d been under.

They’d driven in silence for about eighteen minutes through northeast Paris, Reuven carefully observing all the traffic laws while Tom sat, arms crossed, fuming. At 10:17, they pulled up to a deserted garage just off the rue Simplon, about six blocks from the Gare du Nord.

Reuven obviously had a remote device in his pocket because the big roll-up door raised as they cruised up the street and drove straight inside.
The door descended behind them now, sealing them inside with an ominous thud that echoed inside the cavernous, empty space.
Reuven opened his door and rolled out onto the concrete. “Quick, Tom. Help me pull him out—but touch nothing except Hamzi.”
“He called you, didn’t he? Before he called me.” The two of them eased Hamzi’s inert form onto the ground.
“Pull off his coat and toss it in the car.”
“He called you, goddamnit. Shahram. He was your agent.”
“Not now, not now.” Reuven yanked the black satchel out of the Mercedes. “On the front wall, Tom—lights. Just at the left-hand side of the door. Turn them on.”
“Wasn’t he, Reuven?” Tom held fast. “Tell me.”
The Israeli gave Tom a long, forlorn stare. “Not my agent,” he said. “It was closer to a peer relationship—we shared information. Kaplan, my old boss at Gelilot, was his instructor in the 1960s. Kaplan introduced us. I never formally recruited Shahram. But we dealt with one another for twenty years. Almost twenty-one.”
“He contacted you. He had to. Because you told Amos Aricha about Ben Said’s explosives—how he made them in small batches.”
“Amos is a bigmouth.” The Israeli sighed. “Shahram called right after he’d come from your embassy—he realized he’d been targeted. He couldn’t talk on the open line, of course. But he said just enough to make me very anxious for him. I told him to call you.”
“Oh God.” Tom heaved a huge groan. He made his way across the smooth concrete and found the switch. He flipped it up and two sodium work lights came on, flooding the garage interior with sallow, greenish yellow light. Tom stood by the door, welcoming the draft chilling his ankles. He felt dizzy, light-headed, nauseated. Circles within circles. Jeezus H. Keerist. What if, what if, what if ...
Tom’s mind muddle was interrupted by Reuven’s voice. “Tom—come help me.” Reuven had rolled Hamzi onto his chest. “Here.” The Israeli slit the Moroccan’s bonds. “First, we take his jacket off.”
Tom complied on autopilot. “How long will he be out?”
“Depends. If he has a weak heart, forever. If not, maybe six, seven hours.”
“You never intended to interrogate him.”
“Not true, boychik. But the majority of the interrogation will be done... elsewhere.” They shifted Hamzi’s position. Reuven looked down at the inert Moroccan with disdain. “This guy needs to go on a diet.” He was right: moving Hamzi around was like trying to manipulate a sack of potatoes.
They struggled with the Moroccan’s arms. Tom pulled on a sleeve and heard the sound of ripping cloth.
“Careful, boychik,” Reuven said. “We’re going to need these clothes.”
“Sorry.” Tom adjusted his grip. Finally, they eased Hamzi out of his suit coat.
Reuven took it and began a methodical search. He checked each of the pockets carefully. One held a gold and tortoiseshell enamel Dupont lighter. Reuven opened the top and flicked it on to make sure it worked. Then he removed the fill plug to make sure nothing was concealed inside. The lighter went onto the floor. There was a glasses case in Hamzi’s breast pocket. That, too, was scrutinized without results. Then Reuven turned the suit coat inside out. He worked his hands up and down the sleeves inch by inch, his fingers probing for secret compartments or foreign materials sewn into the lining. He ran his hands around the shoulder pads. “Nothing.”
He looked over at Tom, who was watching. “Pull off his shoes.”
Tom eased the brown loafers off Hamzi’s feet. Reuven dropped the suit coat to the floor, undid the Moroccan’s belt, and began to pull Hamzi’s trousers off.
“Check the soles and heels. See if anything is stored there.”
Tom ran his finger around the edge of the thin sole on the right shoe. There was nothing untoward about the shoe’s construction. He checked the shank. It was flexible. He played with the heel. It was attached solidly. He repeated his actions with the left shoe. “Nothing.”
“Check the lining.”
“What are we looking for?” Tom held the shoe up to the light and peered inside. It looked normal. He examined the right shoe. “Nothing, Reuven.”
“Stuff. Anything. Everything.” The Israeli went over Hamzi’s belt inch by inch. He found nothing. The belt was dropped onto the floor and Reuven started unfastening Hamzi’s trousers. “Pull the linings out of his shoes.”
Tom used his fingernail to peel the faux leather back from the heel, then stripped the lining away from the last. The damn thing was cemented securely, and it took Tom some effort, but he finally removed it. There was nothing underneath. No secret compartment, no writing. He picked up the left shoe and began again.
Except this time the lining peeled back easily. It had been secured with rubber cement. And on the back side was a small yellow Post-it, on which were written numerals in Arabic: —30679.
“Reuven!” Tom held the lining up. “Safe combination?”
“Doubt it.” The Israeli was examining the contents of Hamzi’s wallet. “He’d know his safe combination by heart. I think it’s the punch code for the safe house. Ben Said’s a professional. He’d change the code weekly at a minimum—probably daily when he’s around.”
“And he’s around.”
Reuven jerked his thumb at the trunk of Hamzi’s car. “What do you think?”
Tom started to answer, but the big garage door jerked upward noisily. “Reuven?”
“Reinforcements.” Even so, the Israeli moved behind the Mercedes and Tom noticed that he’d picked up the black satchel and thrown it over his shoulder, and that his hand was inside the bag—probably holding the submachine gun.
A graphite-gray Citroën saloon with opaquely tinted windows eased into the garage. The heavy door dropped as soon as the car cleared the threshold.
Tom squinted, trying to see through the dark glass. The driver was uniformed—a chauffeur. Then he saw Salah pull himself out of the front seat of the car.
The Israeli smiled—obviously delighted—when he saw Tom. He gestured graciously with his good arm. “Salaam wallahkum, Tom,” he said in Arabic. “I am glad Reuven brought you. As it is written in the Koran, ‘God will bless the true believers.’ ”
Tom didn’t feel like a true anything.
“Salah,” he said. “What’s this all about?”
“Tawil balak—give it time.” The little man rushed past him and scampered behind the Mercedes, where he drew Reuven off to the side.
The trunk of the Citroën popped open. Then Salah’s driver stepped out of the big car. It was Milo. “Good evening,” he said to Tom.
Milo removed his chauffeur’s cap and laid it on top of the dash. “You will excuse me?”
The Corsican walked to the rear, extracted a big screwdriver and two white-and-black diplomatic license plates from the trunk, exchanged the car’s plates, and dropped the old ones into a garbage container. He pulled a pair of heavyweight black nylon satchels out of the Citroën’s trunk and set them on the garage floor. Then he walked to where Salah and Reuven were speaking and interrupted them long enough to ask a quick question.
Tom saw Reuven nod and toss Milo something from the bag that still hung from his shoulder. Then Milo went over to where Hamzi lay, rebound the Moroccan’s arms and legs, taped his mouth, then flipped him up onto his shoulder, carried him to the Citroën, eased him into the vehicle’s trunk, slammed the lid shut, and double-locked it.
Tom watched as Milo retrieved his chauffeur’s cap. “Where’s he going? Back to our warehouse?”
“For a few hours,” Salah said. “Your boss wants to know about several matters. And there are a few loose ends we’d like to tie up on our end.”
“And then?”
“And then? We’ll drop him off at the Moroccan embassy. The Mukhabarat will want to talk to Monsieur Hamzi, even though he hasn’t been to Morocco in years himself. We’ve alerted them to his... connections.”
“Rabat.” Milo smiled. “King Mohamad—he pay good, you know, right, Reuven?”
Tom was listening just hard enough to hear the sound of the second shoe dropping. He looked at Salah, then at Reuven, then back at Salah. “You’re retired, aren’t you?”
“Sometimes,” Salah said obliquely. “I work on contract basis for my old employers. Sometimes Reuven and I and some others do projects together. Like your 4627 Company.” He smiled slyly at Tom’s reaction. “What—you think CIA is the only agency that has to farm out what it can’t do itself?”
Reuven walked up. “Money, money, money is all these guys ever talk about. Nothing but the bottom line.” He tapped Milo’s chest. “Did you find me one?”
Milo said, “Yes, but there’s no time to make it work.”
“Just put it in,” Reuven said. “It doesn’t have to move.”
“It? What?” Tom looked at Milo, confused.
“New window,” Reuven said, jerking a thumb at Hamzi’s Mercedes as Milo put on a pair of work gloves and eased a curved piece of auto glass out of the rear of the Citroën. “Car needs a new window.”
The Israeli looked at Tom. “Salah brought you a change of clothes,” he said, switching into English. “And something for your head. But before that, we have to deal with the olive barrels. I don’t want to risk the explosive falling into the wrong hands.”

11:34
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. The trousers were about two inches too short for the Israeli and the waist was at least three inches too big. But at any distance more than six feet away, even in daylight, Tom had to admit Reuven Ayalon would pass for Yahia Hamzi’s twin.

That was because the Israeli understood two of the basic principles of disguise. First, he understood that the object of disguise is to play a trompe l’oeil with the mind of the observer by allowing the observer’s mind to think it sees what it is seeing. Reuven had studied enough psychology to understand that the human mind views the world in patterns; patterns that allow every one of us to make the scores of intuitive shortcuts we make on a daily basis. These patterns are because one particular memory section of the brain has the ability to draw a firm conclusion based on experience and patterns without having to go through endless comparisons. Thus, when someone is asked to identify a photograph of a mustached man in a bowler hat and striped baggy trousers who is holding a cane, the brain skips the intermediate steps of trying to identify every single person with a mustache we’ve ever seen because the memory section remembers watching The Gold Rush and tells the mouth to say “Charlie Chaplin.”

Why? Because that’s the pattern the mind has been programmed to accept. The pattern is preconditioned by prior experience, prior exposure.
Reuven understood that if a disguise reinforces the key elements of appearance, it will fool the brain into jumping to the right—which will be the wrong—conclusion. Two and two will equal four. In Hamzi’s case, the key elements were the Moroccan’s curly, pseudo-Afro hairstyle, his heavyframed, rose-tinted eyeglasses, and his habitual light-colored suit. All three of those elements had stuck, Tom remembered, in Dianne Lamb’s memory.
So even if Reuven was a few centimeters taller than Hamzi and twelve kilos lighter, if he built his disguise around that basic trio of key elements, the brains of anyone who knew Hamzi would instantaneously fill in the blanks and send the Yahia Hamzi recognition signal into that person’s consciousness.
Second, Reuven understood the quacks-like-a-duck rule. If he looked like Yahia Hamzi, and he drove Yahia Hamzi’s car, and he was schlepping barrels of Yahia Hamzi’s Boissons Maghreb olives, then he had to be— quack-quack—Yahia Hamzi.
Tom watched as the Israeli squatted and arranged the hairpiece’s ringlets in the Citroën’s rearview mirror. Then Reuven stood up and theatrically whipped Hamzi’s overcoat around his shoulders just the way the Moroccan did. Reuven struck a pose. “Not bad for quick-and-dirty, eh?”
He pulled two pairs of flesh-colored latex gloves out of the satchel Milo had brought, pulled one pair on, and handed the other to Tom. “You’ll need these.” Reuven put two fingers into his mouth and gave a shrill whistle. “Time to move, boys.”

11 NOVEMBER 2003
12:09
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RUE LAMBERT

REUVEN PULLED THE MERCEDES up onto the curb in front of L’Étrier. The bistro was shut down for the night. The street was empty—no watchers visible, although both men understood they were probably being surveilled. The Israeli switched the headlights off and popped the trunk. He swiveled toward Tom and spoke in soft French. “You remember the number?”

“Justement.” He cracked his door, turned to Tom, and snapped his fingers. “Nazuz, habibi.”
Tom nodded and exited, went to the rear of the car, which was directly opposite the front door of the safe-house building, undid the bungee cord, retrieved two of the blue plastic barrels, and hefted them into his arms. They were cumbersome, not to mention the fact that they weighed fifteen kilos each. Salah had given Tom a short black leather jacket, a black mock T-neck sweater, a pair of dark trousers that almost fit around the waist, and a light prosthetic that altered Tom’s appearance and hairstyle. Since it was one of those one-size-fits-all apparatuses, Tom felt conspicuous wearing it. But Reuven had insisted.
They’d discussed the plan on the way over. Tom would help carry the barrels upstairs. Then he’d leave, drive Hamzi’s car away, stash it close by but out of sight, and return to the safe house by clambering up the damnable water pipe. Only this time Reuven would have dropped a climbing rope to make the ascent easier.
Reuven slammed the driver’s-side door. The Israeli had all of Hamzi’s pocket litter—including his fist-size clump of keys. He followed Tom to the trunk, picked up one of the barrels and his black satchel, then slammed the trunk shut and hit the remote. The Mercedes’s lights blinked twice. With his head, Reuven signaled Tom to follow him. The Israeli cradled the barrel in his left arm. In his right was Hamzi’s key chain.
There were two dozen keys on the big ring. But Reuven had decided that only three could be the safe-house front-door key. Because the building was being renovated, the original wood door had been removed. In its place was a utilitarian steel slab with sprung hinges, wide enough for wheelbarrows to move through, and a big, industrial-strength latch-bolt lock.
Since Ben Said would have the safe house under surveillance, everything Reuven did had to be self-assured. No fumbling, no awkwardness. He’d rearranged the keys so that the three prime candidates were right on top of the pile.
With Tom in tow, Reuven went up the two steps to the door and inserted a key. It didn’t fit. He cursed in Arabic, hefted the barrel, shook the key ring in obvious frustration, selected a second key, and slid it into the lock.
The cylinder ratcheted as it turned, making more noise than Tom would have liked. Reuven scowled, pulled the door open, held it while Tom went through into the entryway, then followed, pulling the metal-reinforced wood shut firmly behind him. “Mahmoud, you wait,” Reuven said in Moroccan-accented Arabic. “I’ll get the minuterie.” He fumbled slightly, then found the button and pressed it. “Come,” he growled. “Follow me.” The building was a wreck. The ground-floor walls had been demolished. There was plaster and dust everywhere. Bare bulbs hanging from exposed wires provided the illumination. The hallway smelled of stale cigarette smoke and old cooking oil. “The French,” Reuven said, continuing his Arabic monologue. “They live like dogs.”
He led the way to a narrow stairway, the marble treads concave with age and thick with plaster and wood shavings. “Up,” he said, reverting into French, “deuxième étage.”
12:13. Tom’s shoulders were burning by the time they reached the third floor, but happy to be past the construction that clogged the ground and first floors. At the landing, Reuven stopped long enough to let the lights go out. Then he pressed the minuterie.
Reuven peered down the hallway. It was deserted. He scanned the black-and-white tile flooring, saw something, tapped Tom’s arm, and pointed. There were footprints in the fine dust.
Reuven’s hand instructed Tom to stay where he was. The Israeli crept forward. Then he straightened up and signaled for Tom to follow.
12:14. They stood in front of the safe-house door. Tom leaned against the wall, eased into a squatting position, and let the olive barrels slide down gently onto the corridor’s tiled surface. “Heavy, Yahia,” he said, wiping at his face with the patterned handkerchief that Salah had pre-positioned in his right-hand trouser pocket.
Reuven grunted. He’d placed the blue barrel on the floor next to his leg, although the black satchel still hung over his shoulder.
Now he produced a tiny LED flashlight in his left hand. Where it had come from Tom had no idea. The Israeli cast his eye down at the keys in his hand, looked at the single lock on the door, and selected the one he hoped would fit.
Tom watched as the Israeli shone the red light on the door lock. The door itself was nothing special—solid wood, with a brass escutcheon and a single-cylinder dead-bolt lock of the most common type. He glanced up and down the door frame. There was no keypad for the security device. And then he took a quick glimpse up and down the hallway and understood Ben Said’s thinking. Every door had only one lock. And there were no burglar alarms visible anywhere.
So the security device would be inside. The question was, where had Ben Said put it—and if they didn’t get to the damn thing in time, where would the alarm go off?
Well, they’d find out soon enough.
12:14:41. Reuven turned the key. Tom heard the dead bolt click three times. That was unusual. Most dead bolts opened on two turns of the key.
Reuven pressed the handle down and pushed the door inward.
Tom heard a muted but unmistakable electronic squeal from inside the safe house—as if an infrared beam had tripped an alarm box.
12:14:50. Reuven stepped across the threshold. Tom followed. The Israeli closed the door behind them and panned the light, moving it quickly but evenly left to right, right to left.
Tom followed the light as it played back and forth. In the corners of the foyer, he glimpsed an infrared beam projector. The receiver base would be just opposite. If the door was even cracked, the beam would be interrupted.
They were in a narrow foyer perhaps eight feet square. To Tom’s left was a short corridor. Straight ahead was a long, narrow room, the entrance to which was blocked by a sheet of clear plastic attached to the wall by wide, dark tape. It didn’t take Tom more than a millisecond to get his bearings. The drainpipe he’d climbed was straight ahead and to his right. Beyond the plastic sheeting were the tables with the backpacks, detonators, and the pasta machine that Ben Said used to roll out his explosives.
12:14:53. Reuven hissed, breaking Tom’s concentration. The Israeli was shining his light on the floor molding to their right. Taped to it was a four-inch block of plastic explosive. Wires from the explosive led to what looked like a cell phone.
The beam from Reuven’s light played on the left-hand floor molding, revealing a second, identical IED.
12:14:55. Reuven shifted the light. Straight ahead, on a small wood table—the kind that flanks sofas and holds a lamp—sat a rectangular dark box about the size and thickness of a paperback book. There was a calculator keypad embedded into the top of the box.
12:14:57. Reuven went to the box, picked it up, and punched the fivenumber code onto the keypad. The wailing, which was coming from somewhere beyond the plastic sheeting, stopped, and Tom reveled in the sudden silence. He inhaled deeply—realizing at that instant that he hadn’t taken a breath since they’d crossed the threshold.
12:15:02. Reuven flipped Tom the keys to Hamzi’s Mercedes. Using his hands, the Israeli signaled Tom to go back downstairs, get the last of the olive containers, and bring them all into the safe house, but not to close the door until he’d finished.
12:15:44. Reuven examined the box. The keypad indeed belonged to a cheap calculator—the kind you could find at any office-supply store for less than five euros. The box itself weighed about half a pound. It was made of some sort of injection-molded carbon fiber or preformed Kydexlike material. The seams were bonded—invisible. Reuven guessed that there was either a self-destruct or a doomsday device inside, which would go off if any attempt was made to get inside.
He dropped the box into the pocket of Hamzi’s suit coat and went to the explosive charge, dropped to one knee, checked it, and removed the detonator, rendering the IED safe.
Next, Reuven took a look at the safe-house door. He focused his light on the bolt hole and peered inside. The hole had been chiseled out much deeper than usual. At its rearmost point, Reuven could see a metal contact plate to which a pair of black wires had been soldered.
Obviously, when the dead bolt was turned three times a contact was made and the keypad box armed itself.
Reuven closed the door then searched the short corridor, his LED probing the floor and walls inch by inch. There was a bathroom on the righthand side. He entered it and found nothing untoward. Next to the bathroom was another door. Carefully, the Israeli opened it. When he shone the light down, he discovered another infrared-triggered IED, which he disarmed.
When Reuven was confident there were no more active booby traps, he returned to the foyer and focused his attention on the plastic sheeting. Carefully, he went to the left-hand corner of the arch leading to the next room, pried the end of the tape that sealed the sheeting to the floor, and gently pulled it free. Carefully, he worked his way across the six-foot opening until the entire bottom flap of plastic had been unfastened.
He repeated his action with the left-hand-side vertical strip, pulling just over four feet of tape free of the wall, turning when he heard Tom’s shoes scrape across the floor as the American carried the first of the blue olive barrels into the safe house.
Reuven stood. “Bring that second barrel at once, Mahmoud,” he said. “Don’t dawdle like an Egyptian.”
Tom gave the Israeli a dirty look.