Trojan Horse (32 page)

Daryl leaped away from the doorway, kicking over the chair as she did. She backed up, keeping an eye on Karim, who came straight at her.

Daryl had never taken a course in self-defense though a friend at the office had once urged her to join her in one. But she’d played soccer growing up and the moment he was in range she kicked him in the side of his face, striking him so hard he almost fell over. Before he could recover she kicked again, this time going for his torso. Karim grabbed at her leg but she jerked it free.

He backed up, then scowled and came running at her. This time, with all her strength, she drop-kicked him in the groin. The man fell to his knees. Daryl ran to the door and gripped the knob.

Saliha had wanted to fall back asleep once Ahmed was gone. She was exhausted. She suspected it came from having to deal with Ahmed now that she’d decided what he was really up to and what he had her involved in.

The building had turned quiet now that the rush of residents to leave for work had slowed. She lay back down rather than dress, but the sun shone directly into her eyes and it was impossible to sleep even a little. Plus, she knew she had to get moving. The plane was leaving that morning and she still had to hurry to her apartment to pack.

She’d sensed that Ahmed was going to do something he found distasteful. He’d been sharp with her before when he’d had something unpleasant to do. Men were like that, taking it out on their women.

At some level, she decided, Ahmed also seemed to have sensed the change in her and was responding. Maybe that was it. His behavior frightened her and once again she wondered just what information she was carrying. Though he’d always impressed upon her the urgency of his business, he’d never before treated her like this.

Perhaps she was being paranoid and his reaction had nothing to do with any of that. Maybe it was what she carried that had him so on edge. Something very important was happening and she was a central player in it.

For the first time Saliha wondered if she had more to fear from Ahmed and those who worked with him than she did the CIA or Mossad.
I should just vanish,
she thought.
I can dye my hair, change the name I use, move to another country. He’d never find me.
It was a great temptation.

She picked up the key-chain thumb drive and held it in her hand as she reviewed her options. Just
how
valuable was it? And to whom? Maybe that was a better course. Iran’s enemies might pay a great deal for what she had, much more than Ahmed promised for this trip.

She realized she’d made a mistake telling him this would be the last one. Once she came back there was no reason for him to give her the rest of her money. That had been foolish. It was time she started considering Ahmed as he really was and not as her lover, certainly not as someone she could trust.

Who could she contact about the key chain? The idea all but overwhelmed her in its audacity. In the movies it was always so easy to attempt something daring and the actors knew just where to go. But she realized she had not the slightest idea how to go about it. And once she had, once the situation was out of her control, they’d have her, in a way Ahmed never had.

Who could she trust? The CIA? The Mossad? Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization, the Milli Istihbarat Teşkilati . . . MIT? No, she was nothing to them. And the last was a joke. They had no money and would most likely simply toss her into a prison brothel.

She put the drive into her purse. At least she was something to Ahmed. Maybe not what she’d once thought but something. He was a tender lover and until that morning he’d always been kind to her. No, she’d stick with Ahmed despite her fears and complete this final mission.

Saliha sighed, stood up, and began dressing. At that instant there was a loud noise at the door, then another, then a third, and suddenly it sprang open and a wild-eyed, disheveled man charged into the apartment.

Daryl found that the knob was impossible to turn. Worn by years of use it was slippery in her sweaty hands. She grappled with it repeatedly as with horror she watched the man slowly gather himself, then stagger to his feet as if drunk. Spotting Daryl at the door he all but dove at her.

Daryl darted away, avoiding his grasp as she savagely worked at her bound wrists. She was sucking air through her nostrils while her tongue pushed against the gag. She was desperate to scream for help and to draw an unimpeded breath of air. As it was, the fight took place in all but dead silence except for the scuffle of their feet on the hardwood floor, and the rattle and scrape of furniture as one of them bumped against it.

Karim came at her with a lethal look in his eye. She kicked him again, this time with her weaker left leg, hoping to catch him off guard, but instead he grabbed the slower and less-powerful limb. Only by falling to the floor and twisting away was she able to pull it from his grasp. Even then, she did not expect to be so fortunate next time. He was still woozy from her first hard blow.

Karim dove at her again as she rolled away, then managed to awkwardly get to her feet, kicking him once hard in the face when she stood erect. Getting up had been difficult. She mustn’t go down again. He was nearly against the door so she backed toward the tiny kitchen. She knew this couldn’t last much longer. She’d been lucky so far but that luck wouldn’t hold, she knew.

As she feared there was no rear door. The only way out was through the front. She grimly turned to face the man as he came at her, more slowly this time, with greater respect, his nose bleeding profusely, a stream of blood pouring down his shirt. He was angry now, muttering what could only be obscenities in his native language.

Daryl slid along the short counter but there was nowhere to go. She doubted she could find a way by him, and even if she did she wouldn’t be able to open the door before he got to her again. This was hopeless.

“Get out!” Saliha snapped in Czech, clutching her blouse to her breasts.

Jeff looked about the small studio, moved quickly to the bathroom, glanced in, and saw they were alone. “Where’s the woman?” he asked in English.

Saliha wrinkled her brow. American? “What woman?” she answered in English. “Get out of here or I’ll scream.”

“Is Ahmed your husband? Your lover? Where is he?”

She looked at him quizzically. “What do you know about Ahmed? Is he seeing your wife?”

Jeff backed away from the woman so she wouldn’t feel so threatened, taking a careful look as he did. Most women would have already screamed by now. She was a cool one.

“No, no, nothing like that. Ahmed kidnapped my wife,” he said, simplifying his relationship with Daryl. “He’s got her in Prague somewhere. I thought she might be here. I’m sorry to have startled you. But I think he’s going to kill her.”

Saliha stared into his eyes intently, then sat abruptly on the bed. This was terrible—everything she’d feared about Ahmed was true. The man before her was clearly desperate and also obviously not a criminal. “He’s my boyfriend,” she said. “Or was. I’m . . . Anyway, it’s over between us now.”

Jeff drew a deep breath to calm himself. “I have to find him. It’s my only hope.”

“Where did he kidnap your wife?”

“In Geneva.”

“So far? How did you find him? Why aren’t the police here?” She looked at the door as if expecting them to barge in.

“I don’t have much time.”

“Tell me.”

“I used a computer, traced the vehicle he was in, found the forged passport he used, got this address from his student records. Please. Please.” He said the last imploringly, forced to beg as a final resort.

“And the police?”

There was no time for this, but what choice did he have? “They were moving too slowly in Geneva so I got the information myself. I used friends with access and couldn’t share the data with the police without getting them in trouble. I have to do this on my own.”

That made perfect sense to Saliha. The police were slow and, in her experience, corrupt. In Turkey you never went to the police to solve anything. You summoned the men of the family and they took care of it to the extent they could. She looked at Jeff more closely, saw his anguish and his commitment. She wondered if any man would ever love her enough to do what this man was doing.

“I don’t know where he went. He just left. I’m surprised you didn’t see him in the hallway. He’s doing something important.” She paused. “Something I think he doesn’t like very much. He’s not a bad man. But he is”—she searched for the word in English—“devoted, I think.”

Jeff was panicked. He could search the apartment but how long would it take? And in the end would the terrorist have been so foolish as to leave the address he needed here. No. Think. Think!

Karim moved slowly, filling the kitchen, it seemed, to Daryl. With every passing second he was gathering himself and she knew this short altercation was going to end very quickly. She worked along the counter until her hands encountered something hard, which she latched onto, having no idea what it was. She reached the back wall and could go no farther. She tried moving whatever she’d grabbed around to scrape at the binding on her wrists.

Just then the man rushed Daryl, seizing her and encircling her with his arms, then holding her fiercely against him. “Stop it,” he said with a thick accent. “Stop this. Or I will hurt you.”

Daryl squirmed in his grasp, but he held her like a vise, his breath rushing across her face. She twisted and turned, but it did no good. Then she reared her head back, and with all her might butted her head into Karim’s nose. With a yowl Karim released her and pulled away as she fell to the floor. Karim jumped up and down and continued to yowl, his hand pressed against his bleeding nose.

Daryl struggled to get to her feet, her hand holding on to the hard object she’d taken from the counter. She was certain it was a knife. One end was sharp and she realized that she’d cut herself in the fall. Her feet slipped repeatedly on the slick floor as she pushed herself against the wall, trying to edge up, to obtain the leverage she needed to stand erect without the use of her hands.

Karim was cursing in a foreign language. Now he met her eye and said in English, “I will kill you for this, you whore. You hear me? I will kill you slowly, and enjoy every second of it.” He came at her now, more cautiously, one hand to his bleeding nose, blood streaming down his chest.

Daryl was on the floor and realized she’d never get to her feet now. There was no room and no time. Just then he did a belly flop on her, forcing the air from her lungs, his two hands now around her neck.

Daryl twisted away, then back toward the wall, trying to pin him against it so she could keep turning and force his hands away. He was squeezing her so tightly she couldn’t draw a breath through her nose and with the exertion of the fight she was becoming light-headed.

But Karim was having none of it. He released her throat just long enough to grab her shoulders and press her flat to the floor, then moved up to use his body weight and knees to hold her down. Then he deliberately took her neck again in his bloody hands and squeezed, blood dripping from his nose in a near stream, falling on her face, into her eyes.

“What’s this?” Jeff said, pointing to a laptop sitting on the desk beside Ahmed’s computer.

“Ahmed brought it back from his trip. I’ve never seen it before. He was trying to work on it but was frustrated with it.” Her voice became more forceful. “I have to leave. I’m going on a trip and have a plane reservation. Okay?”

Jeff opened the computer. It was Daryl’s. “Sit down,” he said sharply. “This is my wife’s computer! You can leave shortly but right now I need you. My wife’s life is at stake.”

Saliha didn’t sit. She glanced at the door and wondered if she could make it. Perhaps. She started putting on her clothes.

What to do? “His phone!” Jeff snapped. “He has a cell phone and you have the number.” She nodded. “Give it to me.”

“Why?”

“Because I can find him with it. Hurry.”

She gave him the number and he scribbled on a sheet of paper. There were ways to trace the cell phone’s location, he knew, but he immediately thought of Frank and Bridget. Either or both of them might have or could obtain access to the cell towers in Prague and triangulate the location of the cell phone. The police did it routinely, so did the cell-phone companies to track the areas of greatest demand. Most cell phones even had a GPS component which made finding their location very precise. They might very well be able to go directly into one of those systems but how long would it take? Were either of them available?

“You’re certain you don’t know where he was going?” Jeff demanded.

“I already told you that,” Saliha answered angrily. She was slowly collecting her things. “I’m leaving,” she said.

“No,” Jeff answered, standing and quickly moving to block her way. “I already told you that I need you to stay with me. I need your help and I can’t have you warning Ahmed.”

She laughed. “We’re finished. I won’t warn him. I believe you. I really do.”

“I need you to stay with me and not use your phone. Once I’ve located him you can go. I promise.”

Saliha thought about that a moment, then looked at her wristwatch. She had some time. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she lit a cigarette as she watched the man open his own laptop and begin typing.