Andrew Kaplan - Scorpion Betrayal

“Meaning you want more money.”

She smiled. “I like you, caro. You are understanding me very good. A real man understands what a woman wants without her even having to say a word.”

“A real man doesn’t let a woman take advantage of him,” he said, crumpling his napkin and putting it on the table as if ready to leave. She put her hand on his.

“Don’t leave,” she said. She was smiling, but her eyes checked behind him to see that her bodyguards were in place near the door. “I want to go back with you to your hotel. But primo, business is, how we say, business.”

“What would Carmine ‘il brutto’ do if someone was trying to shake him down for more money?”

She frowned. “He does not like that name.”

“What would he do?”

“His first impulse would be to kill them. Per fortuna, most of the time he talks with me first or half of Italy would be dead. This matter is difficult. That’s why you came to us.”

“How much?”

“You see! I knew I liked you,” she said, putting her hand under the table and running it as far up his thigh as she could reach. “Double, caro. One hundred and twenty thousand more and you tell me what it’s for.”

“I don’t have that kind of cash.”

“But you can get it.”

“A bank. That’s the job,” he said.

“Which one?” she asked, giving his thigh a squeeze before withdrawing her hand.

“Does it matter?”

She thought for a moment. “Not really. Do you have sixty thousand now?”

He nodded and pushed a messenger bag toward her under the table with his foot. She bent down, opened the bag, glanced in and closed it. She patted her mouth with her napkin and put it down.

“Let’s go to the hotel now,” she said.

“When do I get my item?”

“A few days. I’ll let you know.”

“When I get it, we’ll celebrate,” he said, getting up and heading for the door.

An hour later he parked the car near the warehouse in Torino and went inside. Mourad, his friend Jamal, and two other Moroccans were holding guns on four young men, one of them still a teenager, sitting on the floor in the warehouse office. The Palestinian came in and sat on the desk, facing them.

“Where were you?” he said in Arabic to the first, a thin bearded Moroccan in a Windbreaker.

“My wife. She doesn’t know what I’m doing, just that it’s something to do with the mosque, but she doesn’t want me to be here. She says I need to be at home. We argued, the baby was crying, she said she would call the polizia if I left. I didn’t know what to do,” he said, rubbing his face with his hand.

“And you? You were ordered to be here and yet you weren’t here. Where were you?” he said to a curly-haired young Moroccan in a black Settlefish Band T-shirt.

“We were at the movies. Driss and me,” indicating the faintly cross-eyed long-haired teenage boy squatting next to him. “E chi se ne frega?” he sneered-What’s it to you? — looking around to see if his arrogance was being appreciated by the others.

“Why didn’t you come?”

“We figured finish the movie and then we come,” the curly-haired man said.

“Good movie?” the Palestinian asked.

“Pretty good. Lots of action. Explosions. When that guy was on fire, that was hajib.” He grinned, looking at the boy, Driss, for confirmation.

“That’s good,” the Palestinian said, and fired the Beretta into the curly-haired man’s head, the sound of the shot reverberating in the office. As the body toppled over, he aimed at the teenager.

“La!” Don’t, the teenager cried out, holding his hand protectively in front of his forehead. The Palestinian fired again, the bullet tearing through the teenager’s hand and into his face, killing him. When he was lying on the floor, the Palestinian fired again into his head, just to make sure.

“What about you?” the Palestinian asked the last man, a sanitation worker in his thirties still in uniform, his face shadowed with resignation like a stain on a statue.

“The capo at work. He makes us work late. Just the Moroccans. You shouldn’t kill me,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Not before I kill Italians,” he said, looking into the Palestinian’s eyes.

“Maashi,” the Palestinian said. Okay. “You,” he said to the bearded Moroccan. “You go home. Don’t come back. Say nothing. Not to your wife, not to anyone, even yourself. Here.” He reached into his pocket and handed him a fifty euro note. “Buy her something. Take her to someplace halal for dinner. But if she ever mentions the polizia again, come and tell me.”

The man nodded and left. The Palestinian ordered the others to pick up the two bodies and cram them into a refrigeration locker at the back of the warehouse, motioning to Mourad and the sanitation worker, whose name was Hicham, to stay behind. He told them they would be his lieutenants and would lead the others, who would be broken up into teams, with each team not knowing what the others were working on.

“They will be talking about this,” Hicham said, indicating the bodies.

“I want them to,” the Palestinian said.

He felt the buzz of a text message on the cell phone in his pocket. It was his emergency phone. Only one person in the world had the number and it was never to be used unless it was absolutely critical. He read the screen message, decoding the text with growing anger and disbelief. The message threatened the entire operation; everything he had worked for all this time. Either the world had turned upside down or it was a death trap.

He had no choice. He would have to leave Italy at once.

Kanaleneiland, Utrecht, Netherlands

“Do you like her?” Scorpion said in Arabic.

Abdelhakim stared at him from the chair, his eyes burning. He had tried to make a break for the apartment door, and Scorpion had to use the Kimura shoulder lock on him, taking him down and pushing the wrist till the pain was so intense the Moroccan had agreed to sit still in the chair. The woman, Anika, had gotten dressed and left. As she did, her hands were shaking and Scorpion had to whisper to her that there would be another thousand euros for her if she would just wait somewhere nearby for his cell phone call.

“I need you to listen,” Scorpion told the Moroccan.

“I don’t want to hear what you say. I am willing to die. Allahu akbar, God is great,” Abdelhakim said. He looked small and defiant in the chair, still in his undershirt.

“I’m from Damascus. Your help is needed.”

“If my help is needed, Imam Ali will tell me.”

“She’s pretty, isn’t she?” indicating the door where Anika had gone out.

“She lied. She said she was interested in Islamic culture,” Abdelhakim said sullenly, not looking at him.

“Does not the hadith of the Prophet, sallallahou alayhi wasallam, peace be upon him, say that a woman’s witness is only half that of a man? What she did was for you. Now you must do something.”

“Why should I?”

Before you sink the harpoon, you have to lead him into it, Koenig used to say. First surprise him with what you know. Then make the Joe come to you, so that when it comes, it’s right between the eyes and he absolutely understands the implication. The threat had to be something he feared more than death, because if he was a true acolyte and death was an option, he’d take it.

“How important is the imam to you, Brother? If you had to choose between your wife and two boys or Imam Ali, which would you choose?”

“What are you saying? Why would I have to choose?” Abdelhakim asked, and Scorpion could see by the look in his eyes that Abdelhakim was shocked that he knew about his family. “Inshallah, I would die before I betrayed the imam.”