The Terrorist's Holiday Read online

  As she walked up the street, she repeated the things that she was going to have to do as if they were all part of a prayer: I will cut down another five hundred calories; I will begin the morning with 75 sit-ups; I will jog a mile; I will rub in vitamin E cream every night; I will get my teeth cleaned; I will …

  She stopped before the boutique door and pulled in her stomach again, this time in preparation for the trying on of the new bathing suit.

  5

  Nessim and Yusuf walked to the corner of Ninety-Third and York as soon as they got off the bus.

  “This is the block,” Nessim said, studying the numbers. The entry in the classifieds under Lost and Found had given the address and they set out immediately to get there. Nessim was uncharacteristically quiet during their ride downtown, and this increased Yusuf’s nervousness.

  “I still don’t understand the reason for the roundabout way to tell you where to meet them,” he said. “Why couldn’t they just phone?”

  “Phones are tapped. You see what’s going on in America. Everyone’s bugging everyone. It’s become the national pastime here.”

  “But just to give a meeting …”

  “You’ve got to learn to respect caution; otherwise, you will be worthless to the organization. Somehow you’ve come to believe caution is weakness. Caution is strength.”

  “I still think we could have brought Abu along. He needs to be in on everything.”

  “The fewer who know everything, the better and more secure things are for those who do. We can tell him what he has to know when the time comes. If we need him, that is.”

  “Whaddaya mean, if we need him? I’ve been working with him ever since his father arrived in New York.”

  “We’ll see,” Nessim said. “It’s not for us to decide.”

  He was in no mood to argue now. They were at the address. He had waited months for this rendezvous. Although he didn’t betray his feelings, he was excited and anxious. Apartment 4D. He pressed the button under the slot assigned to that apartment. There was no name in the slot. They waited in the small entranceway. A long moment of silence worried Nessim, but the buzz came, permitting them to open the otherwise locked front door. They entered and took the small winding stairway up.

  When they got to 4D, they found the door slightly opened. Nessim hesitated and pushed Yusuf back against the hallway wall. He gestured for complete silence. Yusuf’s heart began beating madly. The cautious way his brother moved terrified him, but he could see now that Nessim was right. Every doorway, every phone call, every stranger on the corner presented potential danger to men like them. They lived on the brink of death. It was the currency of their lives now. The relatively quiet months spent in America were months of deception.

  Nessim fingered the .25-caliber pistol in his jacket pocket and approached the door. He pushed at it with his foot. It opened to an apparently empty room.

  “Go on in, Nessim,” a familiar voice said. Nessim spun around to face Hamid Zeid, a friend he had left back in Jordan. Hamid stood down the corridor in the doorway of another apartment.

  “You!” Nessim stood back to look at his old friend. Yusuf stepped forward, smiling. “You see what I mean by caution,” Nessim said to Yusuf.

  Yusuf nodded quickly as Hamid approached them. Nessim and he embraced, laughing.

  “What was it you said when we parted on the banks of the Jordan? Good-bye forever?” Hamid laughed.

  “You devil. How long have been with the organization?

  “Since the day you left.”

  Nessim turned to Yusuf.

  “Eh?” he said.

  “He’s bigger, much more mature. The traveling aged him.”

  “I’m a man ready to do a man’s work for the cause.”

  “Good,” Hamid said, his face growing serious. He placed his hands on Yusuf’s shoulders. “There is much that has to be done and much that will be done.”

  Hamid was only a year younger than Nessim, but he had a much older and worn look. His hair had grayed considerably, and his face and limbs were thinner. He looked tired and somewhat defeated. It brought a surge of anger into Nessim and he nodded. Hamid turned to him.

  “My cousin, Abdul, is dead. He was shot in the old city during a demonstration.”

  “Abdul?” Yusuf said.

  “It started peacefully, but someone threw a grenade into an Israeli jeep and they opened fire. They carried his body through the streets in protest.”

  “What was he, fourteen?” Nessim said.

  “Closer to twelve. Come, let’s meet El Yacoub,” he said proudly and indicated the apartment.

  “The Claw. He is here?” Yusuf said, eyes lighting up.

  “He is here,” Hamid said.

  Nessim touched his brother’s shoulder to indicate containment. He himself had only met the Claw once. He had stopped on his journey from Libya. In the bureaucracy of the organization, El Yacoub was equivalent to a CIA director. Few had access to him. He remained in the shadows, even to the members of the organization. To be incognito was always an advantage. He could infiltrate anywhere and everywhere. Nessim knew that El Yacoub’s showing of himself now indicated that this was going to be a very big assignment.

  When they looked back into the living room, the Claw was sitting in an easy chair in the corner. Nessim found it impossible to recall the man’s physical features. When he had come into Lebanon that night, the Claw had stayed in the shadows talking to other men. Nessim had tried to get a better look at him, but didn’t want to simply intrude on the conversations. When El Yacoub left, he turned and waved at the whole group. The light from their campfire danced around his face, distorting the features. All Nessim could really remember was that he was not a very tall man.

  When he looked at him now, he was surprised at how old El Yacoub was. Somehow, he had believed that a man who moved about with ease and had the reputation the Claw had would have to be a young, vibrant man. El Yacoub appeared to be in his late sixties. His hair was quite thin and all gray. Heavy wrinkles permeated his forehead, cheeks, and neck. He had the face of a man who came from the desert. His skin was very dark and leathery in texture. He peered at them with small eyes, open slightly like those of a snake.

  To Nessim, the man’s face registered tremendous insecurity and caution. Everything threatened. He looked and sat as though he could crawl under a rock at the least provocation. He was, after all, a hit-and-run soldier. All his strategies, and those of all who worked under him, were built on that premise. To stand and fight was a luxury only rich armies could afford. His was an army of scorpions, snakes, and lizards. His weapons were the darkness, the unknown, the momentary advantage.

  It suddenly struck Nessim that at another time in history, he, Hamid, El Yacoub, all of them, would be considered cowardly soldiers. But the nature of their battle and the forces that they were up against made any other kind of warfare impossible. Someday, he wanted to fight in an open field, face-to-face with the man he called the enemy. The dark-skinned boys of Semitic heritage who sang songs and loved around campfires sometimes seemed strikingly similar to him. Many of them spoke his language well. Perhaps this was a deeper reason why they had to fight in the fashion men like El Yacoub, the Claw, designed. As long as the enemy was a generalized Them, it was easy to be lethal and ruthless. These men whom he called his leaders were experts in the delivery of massive and indiscriminate death. And he had become one of their best soldiers.

  A tall, stout young man was sitting at El Yacoub’s right. He had a bull-like neck and gross facial features. Sitting at the edge of his seat, he appeared prepared to jump up instantly and strangle any foe to death in moments. Yusuf, especially, was unnerved by the way the man stared into his face.

  Nessim was more intrigued by the woman to El Yacoub’s left. She looked to be in her forties and very American. Her light brown hair was cut just below the ears and
came down straight in the back. She wore a tight blouse opened at the collar and a long, dark blue skirt. There was something altogether pleasing about the peacefulness in her eyes and the slight, almost angelic smile she wore on her face. Her pierced ears were filled with little gold dots. On a street in New York, in any restaurant, almost anywhere in this city, she would be as unobtrusive and as ordinary as could be, but sitting next to the Claw, in the midst of all this intrigue, she was mysterious.

  “Sit, Nessim,” El Yacoub said and made a small gesture toward the couch and chairs. Then, nodding at Yusuf, he asked, “This is your brother?”

  “Yusuf,” Nessim said.

  “Hamid has told me many personal details about both of you. I, of course, know you in a more professional sense. This is my personal bodyguard, Amaril; and this is a very dear friend, Miss Brenda Casewell. Her grandfather was a man I idolized,” he said, smiling. She patted his hand. “She is loyal to his memory,” he added. It was his way of explaining her presence.

  Nessim only nodded. He and Yusuf sat on the couch. Hamid remained standing near the doorway.

  “We’re honored to meet you, El Yacoub,” Nessim said. “Your name and reputation drives courage and dedication into all our hearts.”

  El Yacoub nodded and smiled; then he sat forward.

  “You’re still living with this woman you met in Athens?”

  “Yes.” Nessim was about to add that it had presented no problems, but El Yacoub immediately said, “Good. It will be necessary for you to have a woman with you for this assignment.”

  “Necessary?”

  “Yes, but first, let me ask you about the killing of a Jew boy in your neighborhood. He was a member of the JDL.”

  Nessim sat back and took a breath.

  “It was my brother’s work.”

  Yusuf sat forward, ready to relate the whole incident.

  “You were told big orders would be coming, were you not?”

  “Yes,” Nessim said. He knew what was to follow.

  “Why such a foolish risk now, over the life of one JDL member? We brought you here for important work.”

  “I didn’t authorize nor participate in the killing. My … my brother took that action on his own. He was anxious to prove himself.”

  “This does not prove your value,” the Claw said, looking directly at Yusuf. “It makes you a liability to us. We must move as one no matter how eager we might be to strike out for the cause.” He turned to Nessim. “Does he understand this now?” Nessim nodded. Then the Claw asked Yusuf, “Did you do it alone?”

  “There was a boy,” Yusuf said, surprised at how weak his voice sounded.

  “What boy?” the Claw looked up at Hamid.

  “Abu Munze. I’ve been training him,” Yusuf said.

  “The blind leading the blind,” the Claw said.

  Brenda Casewell smiled and nodded. For the first time, Nessim noticed something cold in her eyes. Her look of quiet was deceptive. She was a calculating woman. Her type disconcerted him. Such women were impossible to read because they changed moods and expressions so quickly.

  “My brother has great enthusiasm,” Nessim said.

  “But it’s misplaced, wasted if it cannot be channeled correctly. We are in a war, not a series of skirmishes.”

  “It won’t happen again,” Nessim said.

  “It can’t. What did you do with the weapon?” he asked, turning to Yusuf again.

  “The weapon?” Yusuf looked confused.

  “The ice pick,” Nessim said quickly.

  “I … It must have fallen when we ran.”

  “It wasn’t mentioned in the news story,” Nessim said.

  “If they find it,” El Yacoub said, “can it be traced to you?”

  “Where did you get it?” Nessim asked.

  “Pelham Fish Market. I work there part-time,” Yusuf explained to the Claw.

  “Are there markings on it?”

  “Yes,” Yusuf said weakly. He looked down.

  “You fool,” Nessim said.

  “I am glad we have decided to move you today,” El Yacoub said. “At this moment, some of our people are helping your woman gather necessary things together. You are to be moved out of that apartment. You will be taken to a house in Monroe, New York. That is on the way upstate. We can’t afford to take the chance of the police investigating you. Not now.”

  “Why upstate?”

  “It’s on the way to the Seder Project.”

  “Seder Project?”

  “That’s our code name for this assignment,” the Claw said. He smiled again at the woman. “Brenda made that contribution.”

  “It seems so appropriate and so poetically just. I’m sure you know the word seder refers to the Jewish Passover meals,” she said.

  “Yes, but …”

  “You know,” the Claw said, growing serious again, “that the main thrust of our work in the United States is designed to hurt the Jewish power structure that influences the American government so much and sends such direct aid to Israel. We will have an opportunity, a golden one at that, to strike a double blow for the cause.” He added, “And you have been chosen to do it.”

  “Very good,” Nessim said. “In Monroe?”

  “Oh no. Give me that brochure,” the Claw said to Brenda. She took a folder out of her pocketbook and handed it to him.

  Nessim reached forward to take the advertisement from El Yacoub.

  “A Catskill Mountains hotel? The New Prospect?”

  “You’ve heard of it?”

  “I think so, but what does it have to do with the Seder Project?”

  “Hamid will explain many of the details on your trip to Monroe. I’ll join you there before you go off for your Passover holiday.”

  “Holiday?” Yusuf said.

  “Oh yes,” Brenda said, smiling, “but instead of a holiday for the Jews, it’ll be a holiday for us.”

  The Claw laughed.

  “See,” he said, “she has a very good sense of humor.”

  Nessim looked up at Hamid and saw that his face was filled with excitement. He had the eyes of one who could see great death.

  6

  Lieutenant Barry Wintraub had just completed his final bar mitzvah rehearsal in the dream again and his uncle Morris was holding up the keys to the go-cart, waving them like a proud dog owner waving a bone before his show dog, when the phone rang and blew the redundant nightmare to bits. He was relieved, but his wife, Shirley, was poking him in the rib with that damn pointed elbow of hers and going, “Barry, Barry, answer the phone. For God sakes, Barry …”

  “All right, all right. Stop it, will ya. I’ll develop a cancer in that spot, for Christ sakes.” He rubbed his side and lifted the receiver. “Wintraub.”

  “Come and get it, motherfucker. It’s Baker.”

  “What? What?” he whined. It was twelve thirty.

  “Homicide on Wallace Avenue. You’re walking distance. Might be near your synagogue, come to think of it.”

  “I’m Reformed. Reformed, I told you. I musta told you a thousand times, you black bastard.”

  “Barry, what is it? Who is it?” Shirley said, half asleep.

  “Just a minute, Shirl,” Barry said. Then to Baker, “Where should I meet ya?”

  “I’ll pick ya up in fifteen minutes,” Baker said. “And Wintraub, brush your teeth, will ya? I know you had onions for supper. It’s Wednesday.”

  “Drop dead.”

  He hung up the phone and groaned as he lay back against the pillow.

  “What was it, Barry?” Shirley kept her face right in the pillow.

  “Homicide on Wallace Avenue.”

  “Our Wallace Avenue?” she said, turning quickly and sitting up.

  “Wallace Avenue, Wallace Avenue. Whaddaya mean, ‘our’ Wallace Avenue?
What, do we own the avenue?”

  “It’s our neighborhood practically.”

  “So? Homicides occur all over the city. That’s why I’m a homicide detective.”

  “My mother thought you were going to be a narcotics detective. I thought you were going to be a narcotics detective.”

  “So they have it better?”

  “You know what my mother thought.”

  “Your mother. She had a brother who was a corrupt narcotics detective with two homes, a boat, three cars, and two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar suits; and she figured that was the whole story.”

  “She read Serpico.”

  “Leave me alone, Shirl. I don’t want to get into that. I’m trying to wake myself up so I can go investigate a homicide,” he said and stood up.

  “Who was killed?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t even know who was killed?”

  “You heard the whole conversation practically, didn’t ya? I’m going out to investigate.”

  “All I heard was a lot of stupid cursing. I meant to talk to you about that, Barry. I know it comes with the job, but Jason and Keith are starting to use dirty language. You’ve got to watch your mouth around them—eight- and seven-year-olds are very alert nowadays.”

  “Right, Shirl.”

  “You comin’ back for breakfast?”

  “For Christ sakes, Shirl,” he said, slipping into his pants, “how the hell do I know? I’m just getting started.”

  “Maybe you shoulda gone on to be a rabbi,” she said, turning over. “At least then we would have had some semblance of a regular life.”

  “Thanks for tellin’ me now.”

  Barry finished getting dressed and rushed for the door. Then he remembered that he did have onions for supper and went back to brush his teeth quickly.