Killing Time (22 page)

All the same, I was not entirely
disappointed when Eshkol's gigantic Airbus, its two and a half passenger
levels stuffed with nearly a thousand trusting souls, lumbered into the sky and
began the flight southeast. The plane's four mammoth engines streamed great
trails of exhaust that made it impossible to see out of the turret of our ship
while we were flying in its wake, and during those tense minutes we very
narrowly avoided a collision with another overcrowded behemoth that was coming
in from Africa terribly off course, due to the fact that (as I learned while
monitoring air traffic control at the airport) none of the flight crew spoke
English or French. Using both computer guidance and her own skills, Larissa
soon got us out of that predicament and then to a safe distance just above and
alongside Eshkol's plane—although we were still close enough for me to be able
to see, through the plane's windows, how dismally cramped the conditions within
were and to observe the sudden emergence, from one of the overhead
compartments, of several live chickens, which appeared to give the flight crew
fits.

There were still more harrowing
moments as we plowed along through some of the world's most heavily congested
air lanes and across half a dozen time zones. Then, as we moved east and south
of India, the traffic mercifully began to thin out; but this respite proved
brief. During our approach to Kuala Lumpur the swarms of civilian aircraft were
replaced with military models: fighter-bombers, manned and unmanned, as well as
transports, radar craft, and refueling tankers were all in evidence. The sun
was setting behind us now, throwing a spectacular golden light forward to
reveal columns of smoke ascending from the West Malaysian jungle: apparently
the U.N. allies, in their zeal to keep the Malaysians from destroying the rain
forest, were willing to do the job themselves. Or perhaps their anger over
being shown up in battle by a supposedly weak country for what I calculated to
be the eleventh or twelfth time in three decades had simply blinded them to
logical considerations. Whatever the case, evidence of just how bitter the
conflict had become began to mount as we approached the capital's battered
Subang Airport alongside Eshkol's plane; and by the time that behemoth set
down, we were being forced to dodge not only other aircraft but long-range artillery
shells, which were being hurled at the capital from the same Genting Highlands
to which we would soon, in all likelihood, be forced to journey.

The sight of the destruction that
had been wrought at the airport during the war was not, on a comparative scale,
particularly disheartening, for Subang was one of those many twentieth-century
terminals designed by architects who had attempted to anticipate the future
with results that in that same future looked fairly silly. Nor did one
particularly mind seeing that many of Kuala Lumpur's famous but no less ugly
skyscrapers—including the Petronas Twin Towers, once the tallest buildings in
the world—had been damaged or even leveled. But the havoc wrought in the city's
historic district was not so easy to contemplate. During its colonial era Kuala
Lumpur had become home to some of the most beautiful late-Victorian architecture
ever built, particularly the old Secretariat Building and the famed Moorish
train station. Both were gone now and had been little mourned by a world
desperate for oxygen. Perhaps this was why, after I was deposited on a field to
the west of the airport in the company of Colonel Slayton, Larissa, and
Tarbell, my utter lack of sympathy with both sides in the conflict began to
take on an angry edge.

I soon discovered that this was
easily the most appropriate mood to be in when first laying eyes on Dov Eshkol.
We spotted our man right after he got through Subang customs, and although we
had all studied pictures of him in various guises and pored carefully over a
list of his vital statistics, the bearded, wild-eyed Eshkol gave the impression
of being far bigger and more deranged than any of us had expected. Dressed, as
Jonah had predicted he would be, in the uniform of a world relief organization
(Doctors Without Borders), Eshkol strode through the crowds of weeping Muslims
and Hindus who were waiting for other passengers on his plane, as well as the
many military personnel in the airport, as if he were untouchable— which he
was, of course, proving to be. None of us wondered at his not being stopped for
questioning—the watch for him here could not have been vigorous, for what kind
of fugitive would seek asylum in a war zone?—and before long we were inside a
beat-up, stinking old Lexus taxi, following Eshkol's similar conveyance into
the city.

Our destination, it soon became
clear, was the battered Islamic-style tower called the Dayabumi Complex, where
Eshkol apparently had an appointment. As we drove, our taxi driver began to
complain about the questionable ethics of following another cab in a manner
that indicated he wanted more money; and listening to him rattle on I found
myself once again thinking of Max and laughing quietly as I thought of how
summarily he would have dealt with the grousing little man at the wheel. I
wondered, too, what he would have made of my recent adventures; but I didn't
much care for the answers that I soon gave myself. Although I had no doubt that
Max would have greatly appreciated Larissa and abusively condemned Dov Eshkol,
the Malaysian situation, and many other things I'd come across and through, I
couldn't imagine him actually approving of our current job. I tried to tell
myself that such an attitude would have been a product of Max's endless
cynicism, of his unwillingness—hardened by years on the New York police
force—to believe that anyone actually had a lofty or principled motive for
doing anything. Yet this self-serving disparagement of my dead friend's
philosophy and motivations only disturbed me further, and by the time we
pulled up in front of the Dayabumi Complex I found that it was necessary to
force his image from my mind altogether.

We scarcely had time to enter the
Dayabumi Complex before we saw Eshkol going back out, now in the company of a
man who seemed, from his dress and features, to be a Muslim Malaysian. Most of
the country's Hindu and Buddhist minorities, originally of Indian and Chinese
origin, had sided with the Allies during the war as retribution for years of
mistreatment at the hands of the primarily Muslim government. Eshkol's choice
of companion, therefore, was at least a fair indication that he did indeed
intend to make a run for the loyalist-controlled mountains. When we returned to
the crowded plaza outside the building, we waited until we saw Eshkol and his
guide disappear in an old Japanese four-by-four up the Karak Highway toward
the mile-high peak beyond the front lines that was the site of the Genting
Highlands resort. Larissa then signaled her brother, and we all made quickly for
a dark, fairly deserted area beyond the National Mosque to rendezvous with our
ship, aboard which Eli was already keeping careful satellite track of Eshkol's
vehicle.

We conducted our slow pursuit in
a somewhat somber mood. Ahead of us lay what was arguably the greatest center
of illegal trade and unbridled hedonism on the planet, a place that could not
have had a more fitting title than the "Las Vegas of Malaysia"; but
before we reached it still more horror lay in wait for us. We found Eshkol's
car and its driver at the start of the eleven-mile, bomb-pitted thoroughfare
that led to the resort from the main highway: the unidentified Muslim man,
having guided Eshkol through the Allied checkpoints below, had been rewarded
with a savage slash to the throat, after which Eshkol had apparently continued
his passage on foot. He was evidently determined to leave no witnesses behind, a
conclusion from which I actually drew encouragement: it at least indicated that
he intended to survive whatever event he was planning, which ruled out a
suicide bombing, still the only truly foolproof method of committing a
terrorist act.

Had I adequately considered the
second possibility inherent in his actions—that he simply enjoyed killing when
he could—I would have heeded the voice that I had attributed to poor Max, and
urged my comrades to turn back.

Long before the outbreak of the
Malaysian war, the group of large white hotels centered around an expansive
casino known as the Genting Highlands Resort had established itself as the most
luxurious and popular gambling venue in all of Southeast Asia. Over time
recreational attractions other than the casino were built at the resort in an
attempt to create the illusion of a family vacation spot; but this veil never
really achieved opacity, and the gaming tables remained the obvious attraction,
as evidenced by the fact that they were mobbed twenty-four hours a day. And
though several of the hotels had been damaged during the war and an
understandable bite had been taken out of Malaysian tourism, many determined
sporting souls continued to make the pilgrimage to the Highlands from abroad.
Together with the non-Muslim members of the Malaysian army garrison (Muslims
being forbidden to enter the casino), these loyal patrons kept the action at
the tables going strong, simultaneously supporting those ancillary
industries—prostitution, liquor, drug dealing, and thievery—that generally
spring up in places where people exhibit an irrational determination to be
separated from their money.

But by 2023 such comparatively
ordinary, even quaint pursuits were no longer the biggest businesses in the
Genting Highlands, as became clear from the moment Slayton, Larissa, Tarbell,
and I were dropped off atop the old Theme Park Hotel, which had been repeatedly
bombed during the war and had finally been abandoned. The Highlands'
rubble-strewn yet undauntedly merry streets were buzzing with commerce that I
can only describe as a kind of doomsday bazaar. Stands of weapons, some of
them quite advanced, stood in concrete basins that had once been fountains,
their sellers hawking them aggressively to bands of Malaysian soldiers, as well
as to visiting dealers and terrorists. Seeing that we were foreigners,
tradespeople continually approached our party to find out if we wished to purchase
and take home any "servants"—a clear euphemism for what amounted to
slaves—while subtler men and women engaged us in quiet conversations concerning
any and every imaginable piece of high-tech equipment. Great crowds cheered,
drank, smoked, fired off guns as well as fireworks, and had at each other
sexually on top of anything that seemed marginally less garbage-strewn than the
ground. Through all of these activities the artillery batteries that ringed the
resort kept up an incessant fire on Kuala Lumpur, while a giant portable radar
dish swept the skies for any sign of Allied planes. It was an utterly
stupefying scene, all the more so because of its underlying cause: the rest of
the world's simple desire to keep breathing.

The extent of the confusion in
the resort did not concern us unduly as we made our way into it, for though we
had temporarily lost visual contact with Eshkol, we knew enough about how and
why he'd come to the Genting Highlands to be relatively sure that we would be
able to relocate him. After making inquiries concerning the purchase of
weapons-grade plutonium—inquiries that didn't seem to alarm or surprise the
dealers we approached in the slightest—we were told that such transactions were
the strict province of General Tunku Said, whose headquarters were in a bowling
alley adjacent to the casino, a place that resembled, from the outside, what it
had effectively become: a windowless concrete bomb shelter. Said, who had
apparently assumed warlord powers over the area since the escalation of the
war, also oversaw the casino's business; but it was from the sale of the very
rarest types of merchandise that he made his truly serious profits. Larissa
had, of course, brought along her handheld rail gun, and after a quick
conference we decided among ourselves to demonstrate it for Said in the hope
that his desire to acquire such valuable technology would persuade him to share
any information he had about Eshkol.

As we approached the guards
outside the bowling alley, I noted that my heart rate was remarkably steady; I
felt that I now had enough experience of violent situations under my
belt—particularly, after Afghanistan, those involving Muslim extremists—to be
able to cope with whatever collection of fanatics we might find inside. (Of
course, this bravado was fortified by the knowledge that Larissa would be
watching my back.) The soldiers standing guard at the entrance to the
structure, however, were wholly unlike the terrorists we had encountered during
the Afghan episode; indeed, their natty dress and punctilious behavior made
them seem singularly out of place amid the madness of the resort. After we
identified ourselves in order to establish our credibility, one of the men sent
word for a senior officer, a Major Samad, who soon appeared with several more
soldiers and, after upbraiding the guards for failing to stand at attention continuously,
heard our offer. He pulled out a small communicator and quietly proceeded to
have a conversation with someone I could only suppose to have been General
Said; and several minutes later we found ourselves walking through a dark
corridor alongside the major.

"Please excuse the men
outside," he said earnestly and in unbroken English. "In a place such
as this, it is difficult to maintain discipline."

"That's
understandable," Colonel Slayton replied. "Doesn't it ever occur to
your commander to clean up the city?"

"Constantly," Samad
sighed, "but our government needs the money, you see. We are down to the
last of our F-117s, which, as you know, Colonel, are badly outdated to begin
with. The casino has provided us with enough money to buy advanced antiaircraft
weapons and artillery from the French, but new aircraft purchases will require
more than mere gambling receipts. And so we tolerate that offense to Allah out
there"—he pointed back toward the center of town—"and pray that the
Prophet—may his name be blessed and his soul enjoy peace—will forgive us, for
we fight in his name, and for the triumph of the true faith in Malaysia."