Andrew Kaplan - Scorpion Betrayal

Scorpion looked at the names and notations on some of the other males and one caught his eye. A Moroccan male named Issam Badoui, aged thirty-two, originally from Tangier. Apparently, he had been very religious and involved with the mosque until about a month ago. Suddenly, he stopped going and had not been back, not even for Friday services. He had been at work during the week before and during the Rome attack and was not considered a suspect. The guardia who interviewed him noted that when asked why he no longer went to services at the mosque, Badoui said that his wife “did not like him going to that masjid.”

Scorpion heard a whirring sound and looked out the caffe window. A tram was going by, its windows lit like a ship in the night. He glanced at his watch. It was after midnight. This man was devout, and all of a sudden it all changed? Because his wife was worried about something that was going on at the mosque? How the hell had the Carabinieri let that remark slip by? He decided to pay Badoui a visit.

Badoui’s apartment was in a run-down section of the Porta Palazzo district. The outer door to the apartment house was locked, but it only took Scorpion a second with a credit card to open it. He stepped into the entryway and using a little LED flashlight found Badoui’s handwritten name and apartment number on the wall next to one of the mailboxes. Scorpion went up the narrow stairs and stood outside the door to Badoui’s apartment, where he could hear a baby crying inside. He knocked on the door. There was no answer. He knocked again, harder, and when no one came, knocked again. Then he heard footsteps and the sound of the baby crying approaching the door.

“Chi e la? Che cosa volete?” Who’s there? What do you want, a woman asked, sounding frightened.

“E il Carabinieri. Apra il portello,” Scorpion said. It’s the Carabinieri. Open the door. He heard the woman whispering to someone and pounded on the door. The door opened suddenly and the woman stood there in a nightdress, winding a hijab on her head with one hand and holding the baby, still crying, with the other.

“Gia ho parlato con la polizia,” a thin, bearded man in pajama bottoms and an undershirt said, coming forward. Scorpion showed him his badge.

“I have just a few more questions. You are Issam Badoui?” Scorpion asked in Fusha Arabic.

“I have told the polizia everything I have to say,” the man answered in Arabic.

“No, you haven’t. Tell your wife to go into the next room.”

“I don’t know who you are, but I have nothing to say,” Badoui said.

“Tell her to take the baby and go into the next room,” Scorpion said, in a tone that in Arabic implied the whole issue of male-female relations and a man’s ability to be master in his own house.

“Go into the bedroom and close the door, and keep the baby quiet,” Badoui told the woman.

“You see what happens with that mosque. I told you this would happen,” she said fiercely.

“You told me nothing! Escoot! Shut up! Go inside and keep the baby quiet!” he snapped.

“I told you, but you would not listen,” she said, and went into the next room and closed the door behind her.

“The Carabinieri don’t come in the middle of the night. Who are you?” Badoui asked.

“You know this man?” Scorpion asked, showing Badoui the photograph of the Palestinian on his cell phone. Badoui pretended not to look at it and didn’t say anything. “I can see that you have seen him before.”

“I don’t know him. I told the guardia.”

“You lied to the guardia. Don’t be afraid of this man. He’s dead.”

“I’m not afraid. I don’t know him. Now get out. I have to go to work in the morning.”

“Does not the Sura, the Cow, say: ‘Be steadfast in prayer; practice regular charity; and bow down your heads with those who bow down,’” Scorpion said, quoting from the Qu’ran. “Yet you haven’t been to salat at the mosque in a month. What happened a month ago? It was this man, wasn’t it?” He tapped Hassani’s face on the cell phone screen.

“No, it wasn’t,” Badoui said in a strangled voice.

“What happened a month ago?”

“Nothing. My wife, she doesn’t like that mosque.”

“Why not? Should we call her in?”

“Leave her out of this,” Badoui said.

“He wanted shaheedin to commit terrorism,” Scorpion said, tapping the cell phone, “and you didn’t want to. Isn’t that right? He warned you to tell no one or he’d kill you. Did he threaten your family as well?”

“I don’t want any part of this.”

“You won’t be. I promise. And I will keep my word, as is the hadith of the Prophet, rasul sallahu alayhi wassalam, peace be upon him, ‘The Prophet ordered us to help others to fulfill oaths.’ What did you see? Did he kill someone?”

Badoui stared at him, his eyes wide.

“You saw it, didn’t you?”

Badoui nodded. “I saw him kill two men. One was only a boy. It meant nothing to him, like swatting a fly. He let me go and told me never to come back and to say nothing.”

“You were afraid. I understand. This was at the warehouse, wasn’t it? Did you ever go back?”

Badoui hesitated, then said, “No.”

“You went back, didn’t you?” Scorpion asked. Badoui didn’t say anything. Scorpion took out money and counted out ten hundred-euro notes and put them on the coffee table.

“What’s that?” Badoui asked.

“I want to help you, min fadlak, please. You have a baby. Keep the money. No one will know. In a minute I’ll go and you will never see me again. What happened?”

Badoui didn’t answer. He looked at the money and at Scorpion. Then he took the money. “My wife,” he said. “She is a friend of the wife of Jamal, one of those who was with this man. We called the man ‘Mejdan.’ Jamal hadn’t come home or called in days and she was worried. My wife was pestering me, as she does, talking about how maybe Jamal had a woman and was thinking of divorce. She was making me crazy, so I took an hour away from work and went to the warehouse last week. It was very strange.”

“What did you see?”

“Jamal was there with Hicham, another of the group. He is a sanitation worker. They were with a woman and they had a metal coffin. I thought it was to get rid of the body of one of the men Mejdan killed.”

Scorpion sat up. An aluminum coffin could be used to transport a uranium bomb. It would be perfect to house the gun mechanism that Professor Groesbeck had described to him in Utrecht. As for the woman, even before he asked the question, he knew what Badoui would say.

“Describe the woman.”

“Beautiful, like a supermodel. She was wearing a suit with a skirt. It looked expensive.”

“Was she an Arab?”

“Yes. Her hair was blond, but she was an Arab. If you saw her, believe me, you would remember her.” I believe you, Scorpion thought. I can’t get her out of my mind. The only change was that Najla had dyed her hair blond.

“Did they say anything?”

“They were startled when they saw me. I told Jamal to call or go see his wife because my wife was driving me crazy, and they laughed. I left quickly. I don’t think they wanted me there.”

“No, of course,” Scorpion said, getting up. “Shokran and don’t be afraid. Mejdan is dead. He was one of those killed in Rome. I’m sure you’ve seen it on the television. As for my visit tonight, this conversation never happened. I was never here.”

“Tell that to my wife,” Badoui said, walking Scorpion to the door.

In the taxi back to his hotel Scorpion called the Carabinieri lieutenant, Giorgio. He told Giorgio what he needed and to call him when they had something.

In the morning, after working out and cleaning up, he was having breakfast in the hotel, near a window overlooking the red-tiled roofs and the imposing spire of the Mole, the city’s landmark, when Giorgio called.