Brothers In Arms (23 page)

Youssef bin Hassan and Ahmad bin Faisal, brothers in arms in the struggle against the Great Satan, rambled along the pathway that paralleled the canal closest to the train station. They enjoyed a companionable silence for a time, and then the older Arab said, “How have you filled your days?”

Youssef shrugged and was silent for a time. Then he said, “I keep my days full with prayer and rehearsals. I walk and I have coffee. Sometimes I read. It is enough.”

“You’re young,” bin Faisal said. “You should enjoy yourself more.”

Youssef shrugged again, and bin Faisal thought how very young he looked in his baggy denim pants and T-shirt with the logo of an American music group, the Dave Mathews Band, on it, his courier bag hanging off one thin shoulder. The older Arab was struck by how harmless the most dangerous of men could appear.

It was time to launch him on his way.

“So have you contacted the Twins?” bin Faisal said.

“Yes,” Youssef said. “I checked my e-mail before I came here. They want a meeting right away.”

“What is their hurry?”

“I believe they wish to be done with us so they can move onto other projects.”

“What is your assessment of their position?”

Youssef stroked his jaw with one hand, and scratched at the day’s worth of beard stubble there. “I think they are right. They had their chance and it proved to be too difficult. We didn’t have enough information, and it was hastily done. I think the target has been hidden elsewhere. It’s possible that our people could find it eventually, but we don’t know that. It will take time in any instance. I would say let them go and if in the future we developed better information we could go to them, or to someone else. Surely there are others just as skilled?”

Bin Faisal nodded in appreciation. The young man had thought it through.

“So our meeting, then, is it necessary?” bin Faisal said.

“They want to meet you. I believe they want to make sure
that their position is clearly stated, and not merely passed on.”

“Where shall we meet them?”

Youssef noticed the compliment hidden in the remark; the senior man was deferring to the younger for operational details.

“I suggest a walking contact along one of the canals. It’s difficult to mount surveillance there. I haven’t seen any, and I believe we’re secure. But it pays to be careful.”

“How will you contact them?”

“They’ll be checking their e-mail every half hour. I’ll set up a meet for later today.”

“Yes, that will be good,” said bin Faisal. He thought of the woman he’d enjoyed last night, and wondered if he’d have enough time for another liaison tonight.

Isabelle dressed carefully for her meeting with the Arabs. Bare legs and clogs, a short black skirt with a white blouse worn out, and a black vest open over the blouse. That served to conceal the Sig-Sauer P-230 lightweight aluminum .380 pistol with a AWC suppressor mounted on the barrel. The suppressor effectively doubled the length of the weapon, making its balance awkward, but it holstered well enough in a thin sheath in the small of her back, the suppressor following the line of her spine into the swell of her buttocks. In the lining of her panties she clipped a Spyderco Co-Pilot, a folding knife with a two-inch razor-sharp blade.

She studied herself in the bathroom mirror, licked a finger, and brushed a stray eyelash out of the way. Her hair was pulled back in a businesslike ponytail and her face, as usual, was bare of makeup. She considered for a moment, then took the time to put mascara on her long lashes, and added a light coat of color to her full lips.

Now she was ready.

She went back out into the front room. The long shadows of late afternoon fell across the canal, cool where the sun was blocked by the tall row houses on both sides of the canal. Marie and Ilse sat at a table and toyed with a teapot and the remains of an afternoon tea.

“Where are you going, Mama?” Ilse said.

“I have to go out for a while, darling,” Isabelle said. “Would you like me to bring you something?”

“Sweets?” Ilse said hopefully.

Marie and Isabelle both laughed.

“I don’t know why we bother to ask,” Marie said. “You always say the same thing.”

“But it’s what I like,” Ilse protested.

“Of course,” Isabelle said. “I’ll bring you some sweets.”

Marie stood and came to Isabelle and hugged her, let her hands roam over her back and tap on the concealed weapon.

“Do you really need that?” Marie said.

“I may . . .”

“Please, Isabelle. Not that. Let the Americans have them. If we start with violence here, where will it end? We have no choice.”

Isabelle shrugged her shoulders stubbornly.

“I don’t like being forced,” she said. “And I don’t know what will happen. But I won’t be the one to start any violence.”

“Promise me you’ll be careful, Isabelle. Remember all the things we have to live for.”

“I know, my sweet,” Isabelle said. She kissed Marie gently on the lips. “I’ll be back later.”

“Isabelle is moving,” said the equipment operator. Dale, Charley, and Hans were sitting at a kitchen table littered with the remains of a crusty loaf of bread and cold cuts.

The radio crackled.

“Zero, Four, I have the eye on Isabelle.”

“Four, Zero, you have the eye.”

The streetwalkers stirred from their static posts and began to form up the box around Isabelle, who walked away from the houseboat, and let herself be carried along in the after-work rush of foot traffic.

“Marie and the kid are still in the boat?” Charley asked.

“Yes,” the cameraman said. “We’ve got a few extra people in case they go out.”

“I wonder where she’s going,” Dale mused. “She knows she’s under surveillance.”

“She’s not doing any overt countersurveillance,” said the equipment operator. “If anything, she seems to be going slow enough to give us time.”

“What is she up to?” Dale said.

“She could just be going out shopping,” Charley said.

“They normally do everything together,” Hans said. “All their daily activities, shopping, all that . . . they do it all together. The only time we’ve seen them go out alone, they meet someone.”

“She’s staying in the box,” Charley said. “Let’s get down there and work a little. I’m going crazy in here.”

“We have camera coverage from two of the streetwalkers, using the wireless transmitters and a repeater,” Hans said. “You could watch from here.”

“She knows she’s being watched, but she doesn’t give any indication of it,” Dale said. “Let’s go. Let’s work a little bit.”

Isabelle strolled and thought of her child. She’d borne Ilse, though Marie was as close to the girl as Isabelle was herself. They wanted so much for her, like all parents do for their children. The money they made went first into a special fund for Ilse, an insurance policy against a day like today, when something might come back at them, then into another fund to pay for her schooling. Only then did they provide for themselves, but it was enough. They did well on their jobs, and their reputation, carefully built over the years, sustained them in the lean times.

She stopped for a moment outside a tobacco shop, then went inside and bought a pack of American Marlboros. It had been years since she’d had a cigarette, but she had a sudden craving, and it gave her time to watch the surveillance box form up around her. The team was good, there was no doubt of that. She was reasonably sure that she had
made at least four operators, but there would be others. She hoped they were as good as they looked, in case the Arab was running countersurveillance. She asked for a lighter from the man at the counter, then stood outside and lit a cigarette and drew it gratefully in. She blew out a cloud of smoke and stood there, one arm hugging herself, and smoked her cigarette. Halfway through she dropped the cigarette and ground it out beneath her clogs and tucked the cigarettes into the pocket of her vest. Then she started out again.

It was a beautiful time of the day, when night and day were evenly balanced in the sky, and the air took on a certain crispness that was particular to the light; she loved the twilight. She walked along, her clogs loud on the pavement, the barrel of the suppressed pistol pressing against her back and buttocks with each step.

“Hans, move your gunfighters forward,” Dale said.

The gunfighters were the armed streetwalkers whose job it was to fight if the unit was compromised. They were thin and hard and competent and heavily armed, and they moved up in the formation. Ringing Isabelle was the loose cordon of surveillance walkers; inside the cordon were two gunfighters and Dale and Charley, who made four armed men inside the surveillance box.

“What are you seeing?” Hans said, his voice tinny in the tiny earpiece Dale wore.

“Nothing yet,” Dale said. “It’s just the way she’s acting. She’s leading us somewhere.”