Countdown to Mecca (16 page)

“Not to mention hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Sol added.

Doc, his own smile widening, crossed his arms and sat on the table edge. “I'm guessing the money did not just go into soundproofing.”

Sol winked. “Boaz, was the Mossad involved in the assassination of Schoenberg?”

Boaz shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

“How would you know?” Jack asked dubiously.

Boaz looked to Sol. Sol looked at Jack. “Because Boaz is this region's central Mossad sleeper agent.” Sol motioned sweepingly. “My entire staff is comprised of them.”

Jack shook his head. “Sol, don't tell me—”

“Jack,” said the alleged mob boss, “you are the first people outside of my organization I've ever said this to. This facility is not a front for my crime activities. My crime activities are a front for these people.”

 

22

Doc acted as if he suspected it all along while Jack's face was infused with growing understanding.

“Genius,” Doc drawled. “You needed a position where you could seed sleeper agents all over the world, but also a base where both the underworld and Feds would be watching your criminal activities so closely they'd miss the real operations.”

“Hide in plain sight,” Jack said.

Sol nodded. “We needed a Mossad presence here, especially after the events you were involved with over the last few years, so I moved my headquarters from the East to the West Coast—to find my reputation had preceded me. The move started bearing almost immediate fruit.” He nodded at Jack, and then turned back to Boaz.

“The assassination of Schoenberg was not done by us,” his top agent repeated.

“CIA?” Jack asked.

“Definitely not.”

“No possibility?”

“Never say never, but we found no hint of it. And we're very good at finding hints.”

“Who would kill him then?” Jack asked.

“Someone who didn't want him talking about the very special switches he ‘sold' and shipped to Saudi Arabia.”

“You stressed ‘sold,'” Doc pointed out.

“The cost was so nominal as to be ridiculous,” Sol explained.

“Further,” Boaz added, “we found no evidence of even the bargain basement price having actually been paid.”

“Meanwhile, we now know that what was most likely a biological agent was stolen from a Russian depository a few weeks ago,” Jack said. “I'm guessing that the Russians had tracked it to an airliner that crashed in the Caspian Sea. They must have planted an agent on board to bring it down and reclaim the contraband.”

“They didn't,” Boaz corrected.

“Then who?” Jack challenged.

Boaz considered the question but said nothing.

“He doesn't answer unless he's sure,” Sol said. “Or unless I don't want him to.”

“Which is it now?” Jack asked Sol.

“I've got no secrets from my partners,” Sol replied.

“So the toxin is still out there somewhere and no one is entirely sure who's got it,” Jack said. “I thought Iran might be involved, but they are focused on uranium. So it wasn't a CIA operation, and neither the Mossad nor another Western intelligence was involved. That leaves the Muslims or the Russian mafia.”

Boaz frowned philosophically. “Why not both?”

Doc lowered, and shook, his head. “I've worked with the Russian mob on just this sort of thing for years,” he admitted. “They abhor the idea. None of them want anything to ruin their ‘fun,' especially something that can wipe a city off the map. They bring me in to help prevent that kind of thing, not cause it.”

“So,” Jack concluded. “Al Qaeda? Those guys can't blow their noses anymore without us knowing it.”

“I'm not sold on the Middle East being involved at all,” Doc said.

“Why not? You know as well as I do that they'd love nothing better than to get another crack at killing thousands like they tried here two years back,” Jack said.

“Saudi Arabia basically funded Pakistan's bomb. We looked the other way for a lot of reasons. The Saudis were allies, they weren't crazy about India being the only nuclear power in the region, and we needed Saudi oil. More importantly, the princes had an understanding that, if things got tough in the Middle East, they would borrow a few nukes from the Pakistanis to keep everyone honest. That lend-lease hasn't happened so obviously Riyadh isn't losing any sleep about the missing material.”

“Not yet,” Jack said. “Privately, they may be as concerned as we are. We don't know what's in motion there … or what they may know.”

Sol and Boaz shared a look. “I think we may know someone we can ask.”

Sol motioned for the others to join him behind Boaz, whose fingers were already flying over the computer keyboard. Like the room itself, the computer was deceptively simple-looking. But by the way it responded to Boaz's prodding, it was exceptionally powerful. The screen quickly filled with a face and a name. “Riad al-Saud.”

“Member of the House of Saud, a small clan that runs Saudi Arabia,” Boaz informed them. “He's the nephew of Prince Tirki al-Faisal, the ambassador to the United States and the country's spy chief, who publicly said in 2011 that Saudi Arabia would do more than borrow Pakistani weapons if Iran exploded its bomb. They'd make their own.”

“And it wasn't an idle threat,” Sol continued. “Interstrat, a website that tracks international relations, had published an article six months before ticking off a number of steps the country had already taken, including establishing bunkers and underground development areas. There was even the skeleton of an organization, known to Western analysts as the ‘bomb committee.'”

“Riad al-Saud was a member of that committee,” Boaz went on. “As the only one with family connections to the country's rulers—he had the right to be called prince—it was logical to conclude that he was the one in charge. He was also a government minister, whose portfolio included the ministry of minerals and resources, giving him ready access to funding and considerable power.”

“Saudi Arabia with oil and nukes,” Jack said. “Remember when we thought the Cold War was scary?”

“The spawning ground of Osama bin Laden armed with cash, weapons, influence, and idealogues,” Boaz agreed. “And the United States dares to call Israel paranoid?”

“The problem we've had until now,” Sol interceded, “was not who to ask or what to ask, but how to ask. As you can imagine, al-Saud wouldn't be interested in talking to me or the Mossad.”

The light dawned on Jack's face. “My documentary.”

“Exactly,” Sol smiled. “The Saudis have a vested interest in assuring America that we have nothing to fear from them. They at least have to pretend to be an ally.”

But the light faded quickly. “I don't know,” Jack said. “Wouldn't my reputation for mistrusting Muslims proceed me?”

“Mistrusting?” Doc sniffed. “You issued a call to arms that got you thrown off TV!”

“All the better,” Sol assured him. “To convince the great American devil of their sincerity would be a coup indeed.”

“But what about General Montgomery and his cronies?” Jack asked. “How are they involved, and, maybe more importantly, why?”

“Oh,” Doc said, elbowing Jack. “So now we're putting all our chips on our hooker again?”

“I believe whole-heartedly in the bullets that were shot at her, and me,” Jack stressed.

By the time he looked back at the computer screen, Boaz had hacked Morton's office PC.

“How did you do that?” Jack marveled.

“No miracle,” Boaz said humbly. “The day-to-day office computers are far less fire-walled than the interoffice communication devices.”

Sol shook his head at his agent's false modesty. “We're hacked in now, and it only took us two weeks to get this far.”

“Mr. Minsky,” Boaz interrupted. “Look. We've got something new.”

They all stared at what Morton had typed in before the end of the workday. It was General Thomas Brooks's “farewell tour” schedule.

“Well, that explains that,” Jack said, his eyes on the glowing screen.

“What explains what?” Doc asked.

“General Thomas Brooks is due to leave his command in a few weeks. Maybe that's why he's been so willing to speak his mind.”

Doc shook his head, his glower darkening. “No, Jack, that's not how it works. A retiring general protects his pension. The only sort of military man who acts the way Brooks did is one with nothing to lose.”

Jack was struck by the gravity of his veteran military friend's words and was only distracted when Sol spoke.

“Look at Brooks's venues, Jack.”

Jack looked. The general was going to the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, Israel, and then the city of Hejaz, in the capital of Makkah Province, in Saudi Arabia. “Mecca,” he breathed.

Their realizations were like an elaborate domino maze clicking into place. All the disparate pieces came together in a nearly unbelievable whole.

“Jack,” Doc asked slowly. “If you were Brooks, and you had a bomb, what would you do with it?”

It took a moment for his words to sink in. Then each of them, in turn, took the next step.

“Crap,” Jack blurted. “Let's get Ana. She may have ladies who are on the tour route. Maybe they can help.”

The four men barreled from the safe house panic room with Jack thinking that there was no way he would be able to convince any of his FBI or CIA contacts of what had occurred to all of them. Not in the short time before Brooks arrived in Mecca. Even he still didn't want to believe it, though it all now made perfect, albeit insane, sense. Still, they had to try.

Ritu looked up and her expression changed from kindness to worry at the sight of Boaz's grim visage. He came over to assure her everything was all right as Jack, Sol, and Doc headed for the stairs.

They all but burst into the loft apartment, only to find it empty.

“Ana?” Jack called. “Sammy?”

Sol was about to call their caretaker Ric when the man appeared in the door of the bathroom, soaking wet, a towel around his waist.

“Where are Anastasia and Jack's half brother?” Sol asked his assistant.

Ric looked around the room, blinking, as if expecting to see them there.

“Don't tell me they're gone!”

“I don't know, Mr. Minsky. We were doing research on the computer, then I took a break—”

Sol started, before shouting, “A break? We don't take breaks here!”

“Sorry, sir.”

“Did you lose the Asian girl, too?” Sol yelled. “This isn't Hebrew school where you push and shove and knock a yamulka off the other kid's head! These bastards play to kill.”

But then Miwa was there, also soaking wet, standing sheepishly behind Ric.

Sol looked from one to the other. “Screwing? On my dime?”

Jack was in no mood to reprimand. He just had to know that the others were okay. “Miwa, do you know where Ana is?”

“They were there just a minute ago,” she maintained, gripping Ric's shoulders. “I swear.”

“What kind of research were you doing?” Jack asked Ric.

“The generals. We found a way into a computer. Got information about their private lives. Sammy said something about a function this afternoon.”

Jack looked from one face to the other, as each tried to figure out what had happened. Jack felt like his head might explode. “Ric, show me the computer they were working on. And I better find out he was looking to buy a clown nose with a gas filter built-in!”

 

23

Montgomery Morton slid his cell phone into his pocket as he got out of his car. Shoulders hunched, he continued across the lawn to his front door, moving as swiftly as he could without running. The sun was hurting his eyes, and he could taste metal in his mouth—sure signs of an impending migraine.

He had no time for that now. The general would accept no excuse for not accomplishing his orders. There'd be no relief afterward, either—Morton had a long daily list of things that needed to be done. The private contractor he was using in San Francisco to transport items had asked too many questions, for starters.

It all came back to the decision to relieve the general of his position three months earlier than originally scheduled. It had forced them all to scramble—a mad rush after years of methodical planning. And now he wants to go to Israel and Riyadh for the show? Why not just drive a tank personally into the Kaaba and be done with it?

Because Brooks has his own way of doing things, that's why,
he reminded himself.

Morton quickened his pace to the door. He had a new bottle of Sumatriptan inside. Relief. The outside door was locked. He pushed down on the latch, confused.
Wasn't Cynthia home?
Damn
. Morton fumbled in his pockets for his keys, but when he couldn't grab them in a second, he suddenly started marching around the side of the house, the anger in his throat, and the pressure in his head, building with every step.

He was about to chew out the first person he came to, be it spouse or offspring, when he stepped around the corner into their well-manicured backyard. It was as if he had stepped into a circus. The music, which he had thought was just additional pounding in his head, leaped laughing into his ears, and the sight of streamers, balloons, and banners assailed his vision. Had it been a few years before, it might have even set off Afghan flashbacks. His son's birthday party, of course! Hadn't he been racing back to get to it in time? All his other responsibilities and worries had crowded that priority out, but now it all came back to him. Even through the pain, he felt his lips widening in a smile. Cynthia had really gone all out on the event. There was a bouncy castle, a Slip'N Slide, a big table of food, another for desserts, and another for presents. People in outfits depicting popular cartoon characters were walking around, and there were lines for places where kids could have their faces painted, caricatures of themselves drawn, and even a roving clown making balloon animals.