Andrew Kaplan - Scorpion Betrayal

“Here zijn we. Dit is mijn appartement,” he heard Anika say as the door opened.

Turin, Italy

They drove the Autostrada dei Fiori along the coast between the hills and the sea. Past Voltri the A10 narrowed, the road running parallel to the railroad tracks across the green slope of the hills. The Palestinian wore an armored car guard’s uniform. He sat next to the Moroccan from the van, who was driving.

“Once we get past Savona, we take the A6 to Torino,” the Moroccan said in Darija, the Moroccan form of Arabic. “We haven’t eaten. Maybe we could stop at an Autogrill?”

“Speak Fusha,” meaning standard Arabic, the Palestinian said. “What’s your name?”

“Mourad. Mourad Ran-”

“First names only!” the Palestinian said, cutting him off. “Call me Mejdan. We don’t stop for anything. Armored bank trucks should never stop for anything anyway. It might be a robbery.”

“Mejdan is an Algerian name,” Mourad said, not looking at him.

“Many Algerians have Italian names. It’s good cover for Italia.”

The truck slowed as they climbed the hills above Cogoleto. Looking down, the Palestinian could see the buildings of the town stacked below on the hillside, and below that the sea. He checked the side mirror. Behind them the second armored truck had fallen back. He glanced at Mourad.

“The bearded one, the one I killed? You were his friend?”

“Cousin,” Mourad said, not looking at him. The engine labored as the truck climbed higher into the hills. The Palestinian hesitated, his hand resting on his leg near his armored truck guard’s pistol. If the Moroccan considered it a matter of ikram — honor-it would be best to kill him as soon as possible. The truck went into a tunnel in the hill, and he thought inside a tunnel would be a good place to do it, but it would make everything more difficult. He decided to wait. They came out into the sunlight on the other side.

“You came to work with us,” the Palestinian said. “You’re still here. So either you stayed to try to kill me or because you believe in jihad. Which is it?”

“Mos zibbi,” Mourad said, using the Arabic vulgarity to tell the Palestinian what part of him to suck. “What do you think?”

“I think you are a martyr. One of Allah’s chosen. But there can be only one capo. Adil did not accept this. I had to kill him.”

“He was of much pride,” Mourad muttered. “I told him his mouth would get him killed.”

Past Savona, they headed north on the A6 toward Torino. He told Mourad to idle the truck by the side of the road till the second armored truck caught up. When it lumbered into view and stopped behind them, they started up again through the pass in the mountains. Just before Priero they had to slow for a police roadblock.

“What’s this?” the Palestinian asked.

“I don’t know. It wasn’t here when we came through this morning,” Mourad said nervously.

“Call the other truck. Tell them if the polizia stop us and try to look inside either truck, we kill them and get out of here. Understood?”

Mourad nodded, pulled out his cell phone and told the other truck. The Palestinian took the safety off the gun, but kept it below the window level, so it could not be seen. Mourad pulled a gun from beneath the dashboard. A policeman stood beside the barrier, looking at each car as it stopped and then waited until he waved them toward the barrier. Behind the policeman were two police cars.

“Is he carabiniere?”

“No, guardia, Polizia di Stato,” Mourad said.

The Palestinian felt a slight lessening of tension. The Carabinieri were the best of the Italian forces, and a roadblock here might have meant a security alert. It was why he purchased the armored trucks and had them painted with the BANCA POPOLARE DI MILANO logo. In theory, that should get them through. Police didn’t like to stop armored trucks, which were presumably carrying a lot of money; nobody wanted the responsibility of something being splashed all over the evening news. Still, he could feel the sweat breaking all over his body as they approached the barrier. A handgun wasn’t sufficient, he told himself. He needed something that would take out the policemen from both cars, plus any bystanders who got in the way. From now on, anywhere they went, they would be better armed, he decided.

They stopped next to the barrier. The policemen looked at the Palestinian through the window’s bulletproof glass, and for a moment their eyes met and the Palestinian was glad he was wearing an armored truck guard’s uniform. Neither of them smiled. The policeman looked at Mourad, and his eyes ran over both armored trucks, engines idling at the barrier. After a long moment he waved them on.

As the truck rumbled past the barrier, the Palestinian saw a car, smashed at an angle and overturned in the ditch beside the road. It was just an accident, he told himself, but he didn’t relax or speak till they drove into Turin and to the warehouse they had taken him to the previous week. He was glad to see they had followed his orders and put up a sign over the door, COMPAGNIA BOLOGNA PARTES DI CAMIONS ALL’INGROSSO, a truck parts company, to help explain the comings and goings of people and trucks at the warehouse. Although he couldn’t see it, he knew there was a security camera hidden behind the sign and other cameras at the corners of the roof. Mourad honked the horn twice and then twice again, and the loading door opened and they drove inside, followed by the second truck.

By evening the Palestinian had organized the teams and set up the workshops, labs, and dormitory spaces. He set up a separate closed-off space to work on the uranium. They unloaded and stored the steel drums, sheathing, explosives, and other materials from the armored trucks and then he called a meeting in the lunch area, two rows of metal tables set next to a small kitchen that smelled of lamb fat and cumin. He counted ten of them, eight young men and two women wearing black hijabs. There were supposed to be fourteen.

“Where are the missing four?” he asked Mourad in Fusha Arabic.

“I will find out,” Mourad said.

“This is unacceptable. Our biggest danger is security,” he told them, putting a Beretta 9mm handgun on the table in front of him. “All of you are shaheedin volunteers for martyrdom, but none of you knows what the operation is. You will not be told your assignment until the last moment. Keep any thoughts, any guesses, to yourself.

“If you have any suspicion about someone, anything at all, you must tell me at once,” he said, picking up the Beretta. “If I believe there is any danger, that person dies. From this moment none of you will leave here alone. You will always be with another, and each time, who that person is will change so there can be no plotting among you. You may plot, but as the Sura says, ‘waAllahu khayru almakireena.’ Allah is the best of plotters. As for the four who are missing, bring them here and keep them under guard. I’ll deal with them later tonight.”

T hat evening, after working on the uranium, he met Francesca Bartolo at her restaurant in Milan. She ordered Negronis and an antipasto for both of them.

“So there was no trouble with the dogana?” she said. The Customs.

“It was good,” he said. “The Camorra should run Italy.”

“Bene,” she laughed. “We would do a better job than this coglione government we have now.” She leaned forward, beckoning him closer. She was wearing a low-cut grape-colored designer dress that enabled her to show off her designer cleavage. “Listen, caro, where is the second sixty thousand?”

“Where’s the remaining item I requested?”

“There’s been a problem,” she said, biting off the tip of a strip of nervetti meat like a guillotine. “It’s not so simple.”