Blood Of The Falcon

Six

Israeli intelligence has a twin-chambered heart. Mossad handles foreign operations. Internal security is the province of Sherut Habitachon, known as the Shin Bet, or SB.

SB personnel refer to their outfit as "the Institute." Heading the Institute's Counterforce Antiterrorism unit was Dr. Chaim Bar-Zohar. Bar-Zohar looked like an intellectual jazz musician.

"You're a very naughty fellow, Hawk," he said.

It was the middle of the afternoon following the café Etrog bloodbath. Bar-Zohar brought Hawk not to Institute headquarters, but to one of his unit's safe houses, an underground module located below an antiquarian bookseller's shop. The not overly large shelter maintained a permanent party of five, not including visitors and special guests.

Bar-Zohar went on, "Here we are, working together on a joint action, and then you elude my men to strike off on your own. Not very neighborly, I'd say."

"It wasn't very neighborly of you to have me followed in the first place," Hawk said.

"You didn't have much trouble shaking the tail. Besides, you know that when they're not spying on their enemies, friends spy on friends."

"How true."

"It's not that I object to your unauthorized sortie in my bailiwick. But imagine the consequences if you had been wounded or worse, God forbid. How would I have explained that to the Prime Minister? To your President?"

"He'd understand," Hawk said. "He likes initiative."

"So we've noticed," Bar-Zohar said dryly. "Well, you came out of it all right. It's too bad about Lemniak, though. We very much wanted to question him about his friend Avram Maltz."

"Who's he?" Hawk asked.

"Every organization has a key man, the fellow who really gets all the work done. In the Ministry of Maritime Trade, Maltz was that man. Unfortunately, he was working for someone besides the department.

"He abused his influence to fake a manifest for the Melina, allowing it to come right up to the coast. It looks like Maltz was the inside man for the ring which has been smuggling vast quantities of weapons and explosives into the country."

"From your use of the past tense, I assume Maltz is history," Hawk said.

"You're right. The most bizarre thing about his life was the way he left it." Bar-Zohar paused, savoring the suspense. "He was killed by a raptor."

"A what?"

"A raptor," Bar-Zohar repeated. "A bird of prey, such as an eagle, a falcon, or — a hawk. I'm surprised you didn't know that, considering your name."

"I was merely expressing astonishment at such a grotesque cause of death."

"It is grotesque, isn't it," Bar-Zohar said with a slight shudder. "Most unusual. Our specialists are still narrowing it down, but they're inclined to believe it was a peregrine falcon. A falcon trained to kill humans. Now, what do you make of that?"

"It might tie in with something Lemniak told me," Hawk said.

"Yes? Do go on."

"I'll tell you later."

"All right, be mysterious. Pity Lemniak didn't come to us. We could have protected him."

"I'm not so sure," Hawk said. "That fits in with something else Lemniak told me."

"Sounds like you two had quite a little chat."

"We did, until it was interrupted. I'll give you all the particulars…"

"Later. I'm sure you have your reasons for being so cryptic. As it happens, I have a surprise of my own for you. Come right this way, please," Bar-Zohar directed.

Hawk followed Bar-Zohar down a narrow hall to a door. Opening it, Bar-Zohar said, "This is our lost and found department. We have something that belongs to you."

Hawk looked quizzically at the Israeli.

"Go right in."

Bar-Zohar stepped aside, holding the door so Hawk could enter first. Hawk crossed the threshold, stopping dead in his tracks when he saw the room's occupant.

"Nick!"

Carter wore clean clothes and had a warm meal in his belly. He was refreshed and ready to take on the world. He stood up and said, "Good afternoon, sir."

"It is now. It's good to see you, Nick. Damned good." Hawk shook Carter's hand.

Hawk's shining eyes betrayed his pleasure at the unexpected reunion, but he remembered himself in time to recover his mask of steely sardonicism.

"Some folks had just about given you up for lost."

"But not you, sir."

"I knew better. I said you were probably off on some desert isle with a lovely lady, enjoying yourself at the outfit's expense."

"Actually, that's not too far off the mark, sir," Carter said. "I've been taking a sea cruise — but most definitely not for pleasure. And it turned out to be no fun at all for my shipmates. I'll tell you all about it."

Hawk held up a hand. "Save it for later, Nick." He addressed Bar-Zohar. "I want my aides to hear this too. Also, do you have a secure conference room?"

"My dear Hawk, I like to think that all our rooms are secure," Bar-Zohar said.

"You just might have to rethink that. We need a room that is certified free of all surveillance and recording devices. Where do you go when you want to make a statement that you're positive will be off the record?"

"That'll be Room Five."

"Room Five it is," Hawk said.

"I'll go make the arrangements," Bar-Zohar said, and walked out.

Room 5 was spare, stark, sterile, and small. The white-walled box held an oblong table, chairs, and the machinery of debugging monitors, which now certified that the room was free and clear of any sort of electromagnetic surveillance.

"I just can't credit Lemniak's statement that we've been penetrated," Bar-Zohar said.

"Somebody got to Maltz," Hawk pointed out.

"Yes, but that's the Ministry of Maritime Trade, not the Shin Bet. I can't believe it. It sounds like part of a disinformation plot to sow dissension and distrust between allies and in our own Institute. Suppose he had told you that AXE was penetrated. Would you have believed that?"

"That slaughterhouse at the café did give Lemniak's story a certain credibility," Hawk said.

Bar-Zohar was unhappy. "In any case, this room is secure, and I'll take personal responsibility for my aides."

"Ml vouch for my personnel," Hawk said.

"Then we can begin."

Present at the meeting, besides the two chiefs, were Carter, Griff, Stanton, and two of Bar-Zohar's most trusted assistants, Berger and Tigdal.

Berger was slight, sallow, cadaverous. Lieutenant Avi Tigdal's military background was evident right to the knife-sharp creases in his pants. He was big, bluff, tough, efficient.

Griff and Stanton were less inhibited than their boss in showing their pleasure at Carter's return. Griff ribbed Carter, "You sure picked a fine time to quit goofing off and come back to work."

Carter only smiled.

A message was delivered to Bar-Zohar, who gave the group the gist of it. "The four men who came to kill Lemniak have been identified."

"Who were they?"

"His bodyguards."

Hawk snorted. "Looks like someone made them a better offer."

"See what happens when you underpay your key personnel?" Stanton said.

"I think we can dispense with the jokes, Stanton."

"Uh, right. Sorry, sir."

"Any sign of the blond woman who escaped with the driver?" Griff asked.

"None," Bar-Zohar replied. "The taxi was found not far from the café. They must have switched to a second car. We're hunting high and low for them, but there are no leads as yet."

He turned to Carter. "I believe you have some background for us on the Melina incident?"

"Yes."

Carter quickly sketched a broad outline of the twisted trail he'd been following for months.

Posing as Solano, he worked the Italian beat, where the once dormant Red Brigade had been reborn with a vengeance. Infiltrating that limbo where the criminal and political underworlds intersect, he'd come to the attention of the top bosses of Italian terror, who recruited him for a very special action taking place outside that country: Operation Ifrit.

In Moslem lore, an ifrit was a demonic being similar to the genies of the Arabian Nights. Operation Ifrit would unleash the demon of destruction on the United States by punishing her allies.

The action was sponsored and paid for by the radical Militant Islam group. But carrying out the multinational terrorist offensive was the handiwork of one man, a shadowy master criminal who drew on a far-flung pool of murderous talent.

"I haven't been able to pin down his identity yet…"

"I may be able to help you on that, Nick," Hawk cut in. "But go on."

"I do have someone almost as good, though," Carter continued. "The big wheel who personally recruited me in Italy — the talent scout, you might call him — happens to be 'vacationing' right now at his villa in Lulav. I have a date with a lady friend in his entourage."

"Who is he?"

"Gianni Girotti," Carter said.

"Girotti?" Tigdal said. "That playboy? I don't believe it! Why, his idea of a revolutionary act is to go to dinner without a necktie!"

"You don't have to believe it," Carter said. "I know it's true. That dilettantish pose of his has fooled a lot of people."

"What are we waiting for? Let's pick him up and sweat him!" Berger said.

"He's tougher than he looks. You'll never get anything out of him by force," Carter cautioned.

"Have you got a better way?"

"As a matter of fact, yes," Carter said. "A plan that will not only net us Girotti and his pals, but which could lead us right to the top man."

"Now I'll throw in my two cents," Hawk said. "Before he died, Lemniak gave me a name, the mysterious Mr. Big behind Operation Ifrit. It didn't ring a bell with me, but maybe one of you can do better."

"Try us," Bar-Zohar said.

"Reguiba."

The name was met with a round of puzzled shrugs and head shakings.

"Reguiba," Bar-Zohar mused. "Reguiba, Reguiba, Reguiba." He looked up. "Who the devil is Reguiba?"

"I'm hurt," Petra Kelly whimpered. "Oh God, I'm hurt!"

"Shut up!" the taxi driver snapped. He no longer drove the taxi. They had ditched it a few blocks from the café, at the prearranged site where the second, getaway car waited. Now he drove that car, while Petra bled all over the back seat. They were one short jump ahead of the fast-tightening dragnet.

Petra pressed a wadded red rag to her shoulder wound to stem the flow of blood. The rag was yellow before she put it to use. Enough shock had worn off for her to feel pain, pain the likes of which she'd never known.

What went wrong? This couldn't be happening to her. It was unthinkable. A simple execution had turned into a rout, a massacre. She was outraged. The victims weren't supposed to shoot back; that wasn't how the game was played.

"God! I'm going to bleed to death!"

"Shut up!" the driver shouted again. It was difficult enough to thread the dockside streets and alleys of old Jaffa without that Irish bitch shrieking her fool head off. Too bad it hadn't been blown off.

The driver was Dieter Ten Eyck, a Boer mercenary who'd signed on for Operation Ifrit, looking for big money and fast action. The money wasn't bad — though not nearly enough for what he'd just undergone — and the action was too fast. He could have been knocked over with a feather when that black guy had come out of nowhere to gun down two of Lemniak's treacherous bodyguards. After that, everything had gone to hell.

Ten Eyck couldn't take much more of Petra's wailing. If she didn't shut up, he'd —

But he didn't have to. They had arrived at the hideout, an abandoned warehouse on the waterfront.

Except it wasn't abandoned. Ten Eyck hit the horn with the heel of his hand, knocking out a snappy pattern of short and long honks that comprised the recognition code. The honking salute had a bright jauntiness that he found singularly inappropriate, considering the circumstances.

Moaning, Petra sat up. "Hurry! I'm bleeding to death!"

"Good."

"You lousy shit!"

Before she could get rolling on her tirade of abuse, a segmented steel door rolled ponderously upward, opening on the warehouse's dim interior.

Ten Eyck drove inside the sprawling, barnlike structure. The door rolled down behind him, slamming shut, locking the interior into semidarkness fitfully broken by small square windows set high, just under the eaves.

Ten Eyck and Petra were temporarily blinded by the sudden transition from light to dark. Others within were not so incapacitated.

Swift footsteps rushed the car from all sides. Figures surrounded the car.

Ten Eyck slid out of the front seat. "Am I glad to see you fellows! We ran into a — ugh!"

He was pistol-whipped across the face, a stunning blow that felt like it broke his jaw. A second blow struck the side of his head with a crunching sound. He dropped.

His assailant didn't stop there, but stood over Ten Eyck, kicking him in the belly. Other hands tore open the back door and grabbed Petra.

"What are you doing?" she screeched. "Are you insane? We're on your side!"

"Slut!"

She screamed, and screamed again as she was hauled out of the car. Her wounded arm was wrenched so hard it felt dislocated. She nearly fainted, and wished she had. She was thrown down to the hard floor.

Somebody laughed.

Somebody else chuckled, a sound rich in sadistic relish.

The man kicking Ten Eyck in the belly jumped back to avoid the South African's spewing stream of vomit. "You pig!"

From overhead came the beat of heavy, fluttering wings. There was a pause in the violence. Petra stared at her circle of tormentors. She knew them better than she cared to, these members of the master's entourage.

Mansour was an Arab with a thin, mean face and a wiry, supple body. He was turned out like a fashion plate in a lightweight, beautifully tailored suit. Thin black leather gloves covered his hands, one of which gripped the pistol he'd used to club down Ten Eyck.

It was no mystery how the Camel had won his name. His resemblance to that beast was extraordinary. Elongated, gawky, he wore a red fez with a black tassel, and clutched a silenced pistol.

Idir was short, squat, solid, phlegmatic. Knife work was his specialty and his delight. He held one now, a wickedly curved and gleaming dagger, idly toying with it. He looked coy, almost flirtatious.

Lotah was Senegalese, a strapping coal-black giant whom a childhood ailment had left utterly hairless. Prior to joining the master, he'd worked as the royal executioner for various Mauritanian sheiks. He could lop off any head with a one-handed stroke from his scimitar. His hands were empty now; in and of themselves, they were lethal weapons.

Petra sobbed. "I don't understand! Why are you doing this?"

Ten Eyck, semiconscious, writhed and retched.

Into view came the man whom Idir, Mansour, the Camel, and Lotah acknowledged as their supreme master:

Reguiba.

Tall and thin, with the aquiline features and weathered skin of the desert-born, Reguiba was dressed all in black, deliberate in his movements, ominous. Sinister.

He wore a high-collared military-style tunic, trimmed at the collar and cuffs with gold braid. Baggy black cotton trousers were tucked into knee-high soft leather boots. Holstered on both hips were twin Colt.45s.

When he went abroad, on the street, he wore more conventional attire, of course. But here, in his domain of darkness, he dressed — and did — as he pleased.

"Say the word, O perfect master, and these dogs are dead," Mansour said.

"Were they followed?" Reguiba asked.

"We weren't followed!" Petra cried. "I swear, we weren't followed!"

She cowered as Mansour moved to kick her. Reguiba halted him with a slight nod. His men were most attentive to his every wish.

Again, he asked if the pair were followed. Lotah shook his head. That satisfied Reguiba.

Ten Eyck was in no condition to talk. Reguiba went to Petra. "Do not rise. I prefer to look down at you. Your handling of the Lemniak kill was, let us say, less than competent."

"But we got him!" Petra protested.

"But he almost escaped. I sent six to kill one. Two came back."

"The target was supposed to be soft! We didn't know he was protected!"

"I will tell you something else you did not know. The man Lemniak met at the café is an American spy."

That information made Petra feel even sicker. "How — how do you know that?"

"It does not matter how I know it, so long as I know it," Reguiba said.

"The night has a thousand eyes. Reguiba has ten thousand eyes!" Mansour announced. He was a great flatterer.

"Had you the wit to slay the spy along with Lemniak, I might have let you live," Reguiba said. "But as it is…"

He did not complete the sentence, nor did he need to. Not all his men spoke English, but all knew when their master had decreed death. They were all smiles, like whorehouse patrons waiting in the parlor for their turn to come up.

"Why me?" Petra sobbed. "It's not my fault! What about the others?"

"They have paid the price of failure. So will you." Reguiba indicated Ten Eyck, jackknifed on the floor. "So will he."

Reguiba's men disputed the method of dispatch. Mansour said, "Why not shoot them?"

"Why waste bullets on the likes of them?" Lotah wanted to know. "These hands will snap their pale, thin necks."

"Our way was ever the way of the knife!" Idir maintained. "Cut their throats and be done with it."

"Too simple," the Camel said. "Too easy."

Reguiba tended to agree with the Camel. Between the botched Lemniak kill, and the Melina's harmless destruction at sea, he was in an ill humor and required some amusing diversion.

Handling a length of rope, Reguiba remarked, "How thin is the cord which binds us to life!"

He knotted a pair of nooses at the ends of the rope. The rope was tossed over a rafter beam, the nooses dangling level with one another. Benches were set under each noose.

Petra and Ten Eyck were set on the benches, facing each other, their hands tied behind their backs. The nooses were fixed around their necks with loving care.

Idir tied a heavy cement block to Petra's ankles, resting it on the bench. It would offset Ten Eyck's heavier weight. The victims had to be evenly balanced for the game to succeed.

The Camel pointed out that Petra was wounded, while Ten Eyck had two good arms.

"That is true." Reguiba drew his pistol and shot Ten Eyck in the arm. The booming report knocked dust down from the rafters.

Ten Eyck was knocked off the bench, which fell to the floor. Petra's support was kicked out from under her. Thanks to the block tied to her ankles, she and the Boer were more or less evenly matched in weight. They were hanged face to face on the same rope.

Reguiba pulled a hawking glove on his right hand, and whistled. His falcon fluttered down from the roof beams, alighting on his outstretched arm. He stroked the bird's head while watching the fun.

An exquisite refinement of cruelty was added after a minute had passed. The hands of the victims were cut free from their bonds, injecting the torture of hope, the hope that they might hoist themselves up and somehow relieve the suffocating pressure of the noose.

A false hope, but no less tantalizing for that.

Reguiba's men had a hilarious time savoring the death struggles, as did their master. It was the first bright spot in an otherwise dismal day of setbacks.

Much later, when the authorities finally discovered the warehouse, they were confronted with the victims of the dual hanging. By then, the lawmen were already so numbed by the violence that had previously gone down, that they hardly batted an eye at the bizarre execution.