Prime Target (16 page)

‘The trip could all be a big mistake, of course,' Whitlock said. ‘But I suppose wild goose chases are OK now and then.'

‘Of course.' Philpott's eyelid dropped a fraction, as near as he ever came to winking. ‘Time away from New York could work wonders for your domestic situation.' He stood and stretched carefully. ‘If I don't sleep soon, I'm going to collapse.'

‘Don't for pity's sake do that.' Whitlock had been
with Philpott when he suffered a myocardial infarction, two years before. ‘I'm under enough stress already.'

‘So the decision is taken?' Philpott got his coat. ‘We go to Texas and we do some prospecting.'

‘Whatever you say.'

‘I thought you might have put up some resistance.'

‘At another time, in different circumstances, maybe.' Whitlock switched off the computer and came to the door. ‘Right now it seems like a good plan. Besides, I couldn't really trust anyone else to keep an eye on you.'

Dusty beams of light had moved from high on the wall on Sabrina's right to low on the wall to her left. She had long since lost the power to shout. For a while she must have slept, though she could not be sure. It had grown hotter in the room but, ominously, she no longer felt thirsty. The handcuffs had chafed away the skin on both her wrists, and she was aware that her hip and buttock had gone completely numb where they touched the floor.

She tried to move now, and found that her body seemed too heavy to shift.

I've lost my strength.

Water was the answer. Even in near-death situations, a few ounces of water could revive a human being and trigger the faculties.

Water.

She looked up at the cracked and grimed sink above her head. It looked as if it hadn't held water in years, it was a derelict like the rest of
the place. Sabrina had realized, after the first hour of consciousness, that this was not the place where she had spoken to Maruf-al-Hakim. That had been a house and gave off a smell of habitation. This place smelled of decay. It was a neglected hovel.

She had heard no human sound here. Not even distant voices, or the shuffle of feet on a street. Once a rat had scuttled across the floor, but that was it; that was all the living nearness she had experienced.

Her knees were skinned, and so was the top of her left foot - the sandal thongs on that foot were scuffed, too. She had been dragged, roughly; some of the pain in her head felt displaced from the point where she had been hit. She could picture herself being unceremoniously dragged along a stinking alley and dumped in here to die.

Except they didn't want her to die. Not yet, or they would have killed her by now. They wanted her weak and despairing before they questioned her - with torture, she would bet -so they could find out what she knew about Yaqub Hisham's death.

The scenario wasn't new, although it was the first time for Sabrina. She had never been treated like this in the past, never made so weak. Before, people had simply tried to kill her. It was a dis-piriting thought that she had been jumped upon by more men trying to kill her than by men trying to make love to her.

She began to sink into a delirious slumber, then she heard a sound and felt her skin prickle. A chain rattled and a bolt slid. The door swung open.

A man came in. It was not Maruf. This one was shorter and thinner. As he came nearer Sabrina saw that although he was not old, his lack of teeth and his wispy hair gave him a seedy, crabbed look. She stared at him and mustered her loathing. In her position any chance for survival relied, among other things, on a clean wellspring of focused hatred.

The man carried an enamel jug and a plastic tumbler.

‘You wish water?'

‘Please,' she croaked.

He knelt beside her and poured water into the tumbler. It was fresh and she smelled its coldness. He put the tumbler to her lips and the small cool wave washed over her tongue. Her throat seemed to swell when she tried to swallow and the man drew back the tumbler. He knew what to expect. Sabrina coughed weakly, then he put the tumbler to her mouth again and she was able to take another sip. As the water went down it felt hard and sharp.

The man withdrew the tumbler and looked at her. ‘You must wait a few minutes,' he said. ‘Then you can drink more.' His English was accented, but perfectly distinct.

‘Why is this happening to me?'

‘Do not talk.'

‘But I'm afraid.' She managed a tremor in her lip. ‘Please tell me what's happening.'

‘I do not know anything.' He looked at her dis-passionately. ‘I am following instructions. Orders. You understand?'

‘But please…' She took a deep shaky breath and produced a semblance of tears. ‘I haven't done any harm. Can't you tell me anything?'

‘I can tell you my guess.'

Sabrina stared at him, looking pitiful.

‘I can guess that before tomorrow is over,' he said, ‘you will be found in the rubbish at the Guersa el Kebir market, with no hands and no head.'

She shuddered. ‘Can I have more water, please?'

‘Drink it slowly, then.'

When the cup touched her lip she sucked in water and swilled it around her mouth.

Focus,
she thought.

She let the water pass over her throat in tiny trickles, while with her lips she pretended to sip.

Focus.

When she had swallowed all the water in her mouth she deliberately coughed against the rim of the cup, pretending she was choking.

‘Please…' She whimpered as the cup was withdrawn. ‘Please, let me have one hand free, I can't swallow properly when you hold the cup.'

The Arab grunted but made no move.

‘Just for a moment,' Sabrina whined. ‘I'm so very thirsty.'

He grunted again and stood up. He fumbled in the pocket of his voluminous trousers and pulled out a bunch of keys on a chain anchored to his belt. He found a small shiny key and squatted beside Sabrina. The smell of his breath and his sweaty clothes assailed her. He undid the right bracelet then locked it round the waste-pipe.

Sabrina flexed her fingers, feeling them tingle as blood surged to her fingertips. She made a sad, grateful face.

Focus.

She held the man's eyes with hers as he handed her the cup.
He is between you and your freedom.

‘Thanks.'

She put the cup to her lips and revolved her wrist sharply forward, throwing the water in his eyes. As his hand came up to his face she caught his thumb, jerked it back and down, breaking it.

He screamed.

Still twisting the thumb, Sabrina lowered her head and butted him twice on the nose. He fell against her, howling, blood running from his nostrils. Sabrina wrapped her legs round his waist.

‘Cut the noise,' she said close to his ear.

He howled louder. She tightened the grip of her legs, pinching his kidneys. As he began to roar she thrust her head forward again, splitting his lips.

He stopped howling and began to gasp. Still holding him with her legs, Sabrina slid her hand quickly from his thumb to halfway along his hand. She took a tight grip, compressed her strength in
her shoulder and twisted his wrist past its limit, tearing the flexor tendons.

The man passed out.

She pushed him on to his back, got his keys and freed her left hand. She removed the cuffs from the waste-pipe, rolled him on his face, cuffed his hands behind him and rolled him on to his back again. Blood still trickled from his nose.

She stood up, stretching her legs carefully, flexing them, then she slowly raised her arms and stretched them above her head.

She stood in the middle of the floor, fingering the bump on her head as she slowly rotated her pelvis, feeling the bones of her spine line up. She shuffled round the room a few times until her circulation stabilized, then she drank more water.

It was getting dark, the sunlight turning deep gold. She peered through the slats at the window and saw a path leading away from the building, up past a stand of dusty trees that screened the place from the road. Fifty metres beyond the trees she could see the front end of an old Citroën 2CV.

She turned her attention to the man. He was still unconscious and breathing erratically. Blood oozed from his nose and down over his cheek, making a pool on the floor at the side of his head. She picked up the jug and threw the remaining water in his face.

He came round coughing and spitting, jerking
his head from side to side. Sabrina watched as the pain reasserted itself. His eyes opened wide.

‘How're you feeling, pal?'

‘Let me up!' he hissed at her.

‘Maybe.'

‘I will kill you!'

‘Not shackled like that, you won't.'

He shouted something in Arabic.

‘Was that an insult?'

‘My hand is injured! You must let me up! The pain is unbearable!'

Sabrina knelt and rolled him on his side. ‘Curl your knees, that'll stop you rolling over again.'

His relief was visible. Even so, Sabrina thought, the pain must still be severe, judging from the way his hand had swollen and the thumb hung down.

‘Tell me your name,' she said, bunching her skirt, cushioning her knees from the floorboards.

‘I am called Sayed.'

‘Well Sayed, I want to know all about Yaqub Hisham.'

‘I do not know the name.'

Sabrina reached out and jerked his arm. He roared with pain.

‘A brief word about me, Sayed.' She waited until his noise died to a groan. ‘I'm not the kind of woman you're familiar with. I'm not subservient. I don't find your maleness daunting. More to the point, I'm vindictive, irritable, pushy and given to excessive violence.' She leaned close
for emphasis. ‘Just so you understand the scale of things, I'll warn you I haven't started to hurt you yet.'

She sat back on her heels. ‘Now. One more time. Tell me about Yaqub Hisham.'

Sayed coughed, blowing a puff of dust across the floor. ‘He was a freedom fighter.'

‘A terrorist. I know that. Why did he go to England? Who was he working for?'

‘I am only a messenger, I do not know these things.'

‘Do you swear that?'

‘I swear.'

Sabrina took hold of his elbow and jiggled his arm up and down. He howled again and this time a tear ran along his cheek.

‘Do you still swear?'

‘He … he was here, in Tetuán. He had to hide, you see. Then a man came looking for him. An American.'

‘What was the American's name?'

‘I don't know. I swear it,' Sayed added hastily. ‘I never heard his name. But he had a letter of introduction from a senior officer of Hezbollah.'

‘Now tell me how you know that.'

‘I am a member of a freedom movement which Yaqub Hisham supported.'

‘He trained you, did he?'

‘Yes.' Sayed paused and took a painful breath. ‘He was our teacher, and also our cousin. We are a movement amassed from his family.'

‘Amassed? How many?'

‘Thirty, perhaps more. We are small, but our determination is great.' For a moment he looked defiant, turning his head to look up at Sabrina. ‘The strength of our will overcomes any oppression.'

‘Whatever gets you through the day, Sayed. Go ahead with the story. What did the American want with Yaqub?'

‘He wished to give him a professional commission. In England. Yaqub had strong doubts, but he needed money.'

‘And what was the commission?'

‘I swear, I do not know the details.'

Sabrina looked at him. ‘Sayed, that's not completely true, is it?' She moved his arm the smallest fraction. ‘Is it?'

‘The commission was to eliminate certain members of an organizaiton.'

Sabrina waited. ‘Well?'

‘I have told you.'

‘What
organization?'

‘The name was difficult, I do not -'

He cut off and clamped his mouth shut as Sabrina reached for his arm. She saw he was determined to stay quiet on this one. Using both hands she pushed him sharply on to his back, making him groan. She held his head steady with one hand, leaning her weight on his forehead. She pushed the forefinger of the other hand in under his eyelid. He whimpered and tried to twist away.

‘Bank on what I tell you, Sayed. If I don't get a believable answer in the next five seconds, I will pull your eye out.' She pressed hard against the eyeball, making him gasp with pain. ‘If that isn't enough, then I'll take out the other eye. Now again, what's the name of the organization Yaqub was gunning for?'

‘It… it is an emerging Jewish group, based in Germany. They are called
Juli Zwanzig.
It means July twentieth.'

Sabrina remembered the photograph from the strong-box, the initials
JZ
on the banner. She withdrew her finger from his eye and sat back. He blinked furiously.

‘Yaqub was given a - what is it called? - a paper with events he had to observe.'

‘A timetable.'

‘Timetable, yes. And first he had to go to London, and there he would stay for a time, and he would use credentials supplied by the American.'

‘So that's when Yaqub became Kamul Haidar?'

‘He had passport, visa, all necessary identifications. He was supplied with a gun, special model, easy to smuggle.' Sayed raised his head from the floor. ‘Can I turn on my side? My hand hurts like fire.'

Sabrina rolled him on to his side and stood up.

‘One more question. How many people was Yaqub supposed to kill?'

‘I swear by Allah, I do not know.'

‘Two? More than two?'

‘Yaqub was not told. The American would only say that leading members of
Juli Zwanzig
were to be his target. He would learn more when he reached England.' Sayed rolled his eyes sideways, trying to see Sabrina's face. ‘He believed the visit to Europe was bad luck.'

‘He was right on that one.' Sabrina rattled through the bunch of keys she had taken from Sayed and found one for a Citroën. I'll be leaving now.'