Fuse of Armageddon (10 page)

She stopped in front of Quinn.

“I’ve been watching you from that bar over there,” she said, pointing vaguely toward an outdoor bistro about fifty steps away. “My name is Kate Penner.”

Her accent confirmed his guess that she was American.

“I won’t be coy here,” she said. “I tell people I’m thirty-two, I’m on vacation, and I have enough self-confidence to handle it if you say no. How about dinner with me at sunset?” The question was accompanied by a great smile.

“You
tell
people you’re thirty-two?” Quinn was mildly surprised that he replied with something that could be construed as banter. It had been so long he didn’t know he still had the capability.

“I want to be up-front with you. I’m not going to start us off by lying to you about my age.”

“So you’re truthful to me about the lies you tell other people.”

“Exactly.”

“You’re not thirty-two,” he said.

“You don’t know me well enough to ask that question.” Another wide smile. “How about the Abu Cristo? Great seafood. Overlooks the bay.”

“No, but thanks.”

“Is it the restaurant you’re declining?” she asked.

“No.”

“Me, then.”

“Yes,” he said.

“I’m feeling better about this already. Doesn’t seem like you’d be much for conversation anyway.”

“Good assumption.”

“You’re not even trying to let me down easy here.”

He found himself returning the smile. “You said you had self-confidence.”

“Yeah,” she said wryly. “And pride.” She gave a little wave of her fingers and walked away.

Quinn watched her, admiring the grace in her stride, and admitted to himself that he was admiring a little more than that. He felt a twinge of guilt but found himself experiencing another unexpected emotion.

Regret.

Ad Duhayr, Egypt • 12:03 GMT


After the trucker had driven away, the platoon members had taken up ambush positions within a hundred yards of the shipping container with the Soviet arms still inside.

But not Patterson. He’d been Lieutenant Saxon’s obvious choice as caretaker. He had been instructed to find a safe place in the hills for the heifer and given an extra canteen of water and orders to put the animal’s life ahead of his own as he stood watch over it.

Leaving the platoon behind, Joe Patterson led the heifer by the halter away from the shipping container and farther up into the hills. He wanted to find the deepest shade possible. The heat was intense and whisked away his sweat. He was thirsty after only a hundred yards of crunching his boots on the dry, hard sand.

“But you’d complain too,” he said to Orphan Annie. The name fit, Joe thought. Except for the occasional patches of black, the heifer’s red hide almost gleamed in the sun.

Orphan Annie didn’t reply.

Joe rubbed his beard and squinted against the sun. Del Saxon’s words rang in his ears.
Put the heifer’s life ahead of your own.
He had no idea why. Only that it was hot, and he was supposed to give the bulk of his water to the animal.

It was going to be a long day.

Hadera, Israel • 12:04 GMT


The Holy Land Tours air-conditioned bus moved down Highway 65 toward Hadera on the coast of the Mediterranean. With smoked glass windows, leather seats, and a near hermetic seal around the windows, the luxury touring edition kept the road noise to a hum, and the knots of conversations inside the bus were barely more than frantic whispers. Jonathan Silver stood at the front of the bus, comforting a few of the rich, older women by praying with them.

Khaled Safady was at the back, still in his role as Dr. Joseph Marc.

“Where’s that ambulance?”

This question, directed at Safady, came from one of the American security men who’d been assigned to this bus. He was a bulky ex-marine in his midforties with the competent air of a man who had faced death and dealt death. There were six of them with the group, all regular employees of Silver’s Freedom Christian University, continually assuming point positions as the group moved through a Holy Land site. Jonathan Silver did not believe in taking chances, especially since most of the tour members were extremely wealthy, cherry-picked from his mailing list of contributors for the exclusive opportunity to tour Israel with the famous end-times television evangelist.

“The ambulance . . . ,” Safady answered. “That can only be a rhetorical question or a bad attempt at making conversation. The bus driver made ambulance arrangements, and as you can see, I’ve been busy.”

The large-bellied man was sitting upright on the last seat in the bus, eyes closed, mouth shut tight in pain. The bullet had struck the center of his belly. Safady had used the emergency first aid kit on the bus to clean and bandage the wound but knew the man would die from a slow internal hemorrhage unless he reached a hospital. Both the stomach wound and the prospect of the man’s slow death gave Safady satisfaction, for the bullet had gone exactly where Safady had specified.

“Every time I ask the driver, he rattles some answer in Jew language that I can’t understand.”

“That’s Hebrew,” Safady said. “He’s probably stressed out about all of this.”

“Yeah, well, he’d better have made the right call to the right place. We should have met that ambulance by now.”

Following the gunshot, there had been brief incomprehension, then the predictable screaming and rushing away from the sound as the tourists pieced together what had happened. The security men had fanned out, only to return a few minutes later with the comforting report that the sniper had fled. They’d found Safady kneeling beside the still-conscious tourist, compressing the wound with a rag hastily torn from his own shirt.

Safady had assured them the wound was not life threatening and suggested that the group return to the bus. There the driver had used his cell phone to make two calls. The first had been to a hospital in Hadera, arranging for an ambulance to meet the bus on its way to the city. The second call had been to Israeli police to notify them of the incident. Safady knew both calls had been faked. The bus would not be meeting an ambulance, and no police were en route.

“Ambulance or not, this man is in no immediate danger,” Safady lied to the security man.

The injured man opened his eyes and groaned. “It doesn’t feel that way.”

“Trust me,” Safady said, enjoying the opportunity to deceive the American. He stood in the aisle and spoke to the security man. “Could you watch him for a moment? I need to use the washroom.”

The security guard nodded.

Safady swayed with the movement of the bus as he took the few steps to the bus’s lavatory. Once the door was closed, he reached into a pocket for his cell phone and hit a speed dial number. Seconds later, his call was answered.

“Are you ready?” Safady asked in Arabic. He thought this was ironic. His outgoing cell transmission was probably traveling hundreds of miles, relayed from tower to tower, simply to return to the cell phone of the driver at the front of this bus. The man was Iranian and had been working closely with Safady in the last months to plan this operation. More importantly, the Iranian had been a funnel for money from Iran to Safady. But the man was a traitor, and Safady was looking forward to dealing with that in the next few hours.

“Ready,” came the answer from the bus driver.

“Thirty seconds,” Safady said, glancing at his watch. “Starting in five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one.”

Safady hung up.

He reached above him and tore off the false ceiling of the lavatory. Held in place by duct tape were a small oxygen tank and a ventilator. He ripped the tape loose and placed the ventilator over his face.

Safady watched the seconds tick by. When thirty seconds had passed, he switched open the valve of the oxygen tank.

Up front, he knew the bus driver had strapped on a ventilator and was flipping a switch that would add a gaseous mixture to the cold air hissing out of the air-conditioning vents.

By the time any of the passengers realized what was happening, it would be far, far too late for them.

Including the six security men.

Including the esteemed Jonathan Silver.

Acco Harbor, Israel • 12:08 GMT


Quinn watched the woman until she returned to her table at the bistro. Just before she sat, he turned his gaze on the harbor so she wouldn’t catch him looking.

It was stupid, he told himself, to allow this juvenile swirl of emotions, the thrill and confusion of a high school conversation with a pretty cheerleader. Yet even these emotions were mixed with sorrow, the woman’s smile and allure a mocking reminder of what he’d lost and how much he grieved that loss.

But Quinn couldn’t resist another emotion: curiosity. He turned his head slightly and caught her catching him looking.

She didn’t smile. He didn’t either.

Juvenile,
Quinn told himself. He turned his head back toward the water.

Seconds later, he heard the soft slap of high heels on cobblestone and smelled a trace of perfume on the breeze.

“I told myself that if you looked over, I’d try once more,” Kate said. She stood beside him, sharing his gaze across the water. “I want to believe there is something about you and me. I need to know if it’s my imagination.”

Quinn couldn’t think of anything to say. Since he wasn’t going to permit himself to act upon the attraction he felt for her, it would be wrong to give her any indication of it.

“You married?”

“No.”

“Divorced?”

“No.”

“Girlfriend?”

“No.”

This Kate Penner woman wouldn’t let up. Once again he found himself enjoying the back-and-forth.

“Girlfriends?” she asked, emphasized the plural.

“No.”

“Suffer from phobias? lack of self-confidence?”

“No.”

“You sure? You’re holding yourself in a funny way. Or maybe it’s just the heavy clothing you’re wearing. It’s hot and you’re wearing a sweatshirt.”

“Need to hide a Kevlar vest.”

“Good-looking and a sense of humor,” she said. “Are you too broke to buy my dinner?”

“I thought you were offering.”

“Not at all. What I asked is whether you were interested in dinner at sunset. I wasn’t going to pick up the tab. I do have pride.”

“Interesting.”

“That’s me. Which is why I’d be a great dinner date. Let me ask again. You broke?”

“No.”

“Why not join me for dinner then? I’ve just now discovered I don’t have quite enough self-confidence to take the rejection without a good excuse.”

“How about I’m naturally suspicious and it seems odd that a beautiful woman would make such a great offer.”

“So you think I’m beautiful, and you think it’s a great offer. See, you are able to let me down easy.”

“That’s me,” Quinn said. “A gentleman.”

“I’m not giving up easy here. No reason for you to be suspicious.”

“Generally a beautiful woman making the offer you did has serious issues, is on the rebound, or has an ulterior motive that differs from what the man expects or hopes.”

“Sexist. Men come on to women all the time, and women aren’t suspicious of their motives.”

“Men are a lot easier to figure out,” Quinn said. How long had it been since he’d had to stay on his toes around a woman in casual conversation? “Women know exactly what men want. They might not like the man’s motives, but at least there’s no mystery. Me—I like my kidneys where they are.”

Kate snorted. “Maybe you don’t know much about the birds and the bees. Kidneys are rarely involved.”

“Aren’t you into urban myths? Like the one about the American tourist who got himself picked up by a woman in Tel Aviv. Date rape drug put him out. He woke up the next morning minus a kidney, which by the way is worth ten grand on the black market.”

“That myth.” Kate paused. “I’m not interested in your kidneys, I don’t have issues, I’m five thousand miles and three years clear of my ex-husband, and this is the first time I’ve asked a man out for dinner. You’re out of reasons to turn down a beautiful woman and a great offer.”

“There could be a business conflict.”

“Pick another night then,” she said. “I’m here for at least a week.”

“Or maybe . . .” Quinn discovered it wasn’t going to come out in a light, bantering way and didn’t want her to hear a catch in his voice.

“Maybe . . . ?” she echoed. Her smile was teasing.

He felt bad because he knew it would bring her down, but he didn’t see any other way to say it and still be true to himself and the memories. “Maybe I come here once a year on the anniversary of the last vacation weekend I had with my wife and my daughter, because a day later they shared a bus ride with a Palestinian suicide bomber in Tel Aviv who didn’t want to make it to the next stop.”

He stopped for a breath, unable to avoid the memory. On that horrible day in Tel Aviv, he’d jumped off to get coffee and something to eat. One stop later, the bus exploded. He’d seen the fireball from the cafe. Seen it countless times in his nightmares after that. “Hard to fight the memories.”

“You’re serious. I don’t even need to ask you that.”

“I’m sorry,” Quinn said. He had to look away. It had been five years, and he still couldn’t tell people about it without finding somewhere else to look out of fear they’d see into his soul. “She’d be ten now. But that’s not your burden.”

“I’m the one who should be sorry,” Kate said. “I should have guessed by the way you were standing out here lost in thought.”

“It’s not your fault. Not by a long shot.”

“You had it right the first time,” she said. “A simple no should have been good enough. Now I can’t walk away thinking you’re a jerk.”

It
wasn’t
her fault, Quinn thought. And he could have found a way to decline without bringing the mood down. At least that’s why he justified returning to the banter that he’d enjoyed with guilt. “Going to dinner with me probably would have proved it.”

“Catch-22 of sorts,” she said.

“Yossarian can’t prove he’s crazy enough to get out of the war because concern for his own life proves he’s not crazy.”