The Identity Thief (29 page)

X ignored him and turned to The Chief.

"We must examine that laptop of his immediately. The hacker who attempted to find your assets may well be within these walls."

Hamid snapped his fingers. "That would explain why the cavern walls didn't shield against it."

"You did not answer my question, Brother Nazeer," Dr. Zawari said.

"Sometimes the right answer to a fool is silence," X said coldly.

Hamid pounded the table. "Better a thousand enemies outside your tent than one inside. Who-who-who-who-who-who-who-who-who knows what damage the Zionist has already done?"

"At the very least, the enemy knows the location of our base," agreed Fareek. "If he sent a message."

"How?" asked Hamid.

"Through his laptop."

"It's being checked, as we speak," Dr, Zawari said. "Taken apart piece by piece."

"What has he said?" X asked.

"He denies everything," said Hamid.

"Has he been tortured?"

"Don't worry. We won't waterboard your dear friend," Dr. Zawari said with a sneer. "That would violate the Geneva Conventions."

Hamid and Fareek laughed, elbowing each other, at the little joke.

"Let me interrogate him," X said. "What harsh means might not be able to gather from a hardened Mossad agent, wit perhaps can."

The Chief nodded. Dr. Zawari leaped to his feet.

"I wonder if it is wise, Chief," the good doctor objected. "He was the one who brought him here. He who has approved of wrongdoing is as guilty as he who has committed it."

The Chief stilled him with a raised hand. "Shall the gosling teach the goose to swim? I have been at this since before you could walk."

Dr Zawari sat down, wearing a sheepish expression.

But X said magnanimously, "Dr. Zawari is right. I have brought suspicion upon myself. I will send an order giving your contacts full access to all my files, to every contact in Kuwait, to my entire network. If you conclude that Ali Nazeer is in league with the Americans, I will personally supervise my own beheading."

This did not, X realized, entirely make sense, but it seemed to impress his host.

"Let it be so," The Chief said. "Come with me and you may use the phone in my office."

X turned to the other aides. "Once I have given this order, I will concern myself with this Jewish interloper. Bring me your cruelest instruments of torture. I want this spy who betrayed me to know that his suffering will be great if he does not cooperate."

* * *

As X watched coolly, The Chief opened the cigar box on his chest, where his phone was secured, and picked up the modified smart phone. X turned his back politely as The Chief punched in a four-digit security code.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

After speaking to a number of Ali Nazeer's subordinates, who verified that they were speaking to The Chief himself, he was put on the line with Ali Nazeer's chief aide in Kuwait. He then handed the phone to "Ali Nazeer."

X confirmed that he was indeed in The Chief's compound and ordered that agents of The Chief be given authority to probe all of the Jihadist Brotherhood's computer hard drives and allowed to grill its members. Their grilling, X suspected, might not be pleasant.

"I hope no unflattering memos about you are discovered," X joked after pressing the end call key.

The Chief rubbed his shoulder affectionately.

"This is only a precaution, my friend. By tomorrow we should have an answer."

"In the meantime, it is vital that we find out what the Jew knows," X said.

The Chief concurred.

* * *

When X entered Harry's cell, he found his comrade stripped to his underwear, hands and feet bound. His body was covered head to toe in bruises and he bore an oozing wound over his eyebrow. One eye was black. On the whole, not as bad as X expected.

"Why haven't they locked you up?" Harry demanded.

"Because they think you 'betrayed' me," X said.

"I'm sure you didn't do anything to give them that idea, to save your own chicken-shit neck," the Israeli spy said bitterly.

"We don't have much time," X said. "They know they've been hacked, and if I play it right they're going to let me into the system to transfer the funds. But I need the code to access the Committee account, and you need to tell me exactly what to do."

Harry shook his head. "No way. Only I'm supposed to make the transfer. Those are our orders."

"One thing you'll learn about a swindle is that you have to improvise when circumstances change," X said. "And from the looks of things, your circumstances have changed."

Harry remained dubious.

"How do I know you didn't send that email implicating me? You had access to my laptop."

"Now who's being paranoid?"

"Who else knows I'm Mossad?"

"How should I know? Maybe there's a mole in the Mossad."

"There are no moles in the Mossad," Harry growled angrily "We have the best intelligence agency in the world."

"Still, you're in here, trussed up like a Hanukkah turkey," X noted. "Haven't you broken your agency's Eleventh Commandment? I believe in Hebrew it's "Thou shall not get caught."

"You're not getting those codes."

"If you don't give me the codes, the mission is over. And the Warriors of Allah will have the dough for Weapon Z, or if that doesn't exist - and I still don't believe it does, for the record - at the very least a small tactical nuke. Now I wonder who they'll use it on? Mnn... Lithuania? French Polynesia maybe?"

Harry mulled that one over for about 20 seconds, then gave him the codes.

"Your funds are not secure," X informed The Chief. "The Americans have located them and they are going to seize them sometime within the next 72 hours. He also told me the Americans are coming. This cave will be overrun by Special Forces with two days."

"We must evacuate," Hamid said.

"We can fight them," Fareek argued fiercely.

"They tried that at Tora Bora."

"We will evacuate," The Chief decided.

Fareek tried to protest and The Chief silenced the hothead with a raised hand.

"He who fights and runs away may live to fight another day," he said. He winked at X. "You might appreciate that old English saying, given your fondness for proverbs."

Well, it was inevitable that sooner or later someone would pick up on the fact that 75 percent of the words that came out of X's mouth were aphorisms. Thank goodness this old duffer took it as a verbal tic.

Dr. Zawari paced up and down the room. "How do we know this is true?" he demanded. "The captive might be spewing lies to save his skin."

X nodded. "Dr. Zawari is correct. We could leave the funds where they are and hope for the best."

Dr. Zawari glared at X, though The Chief seemed oblivious to his sarcasm.

The Chief stroked his beard. "It has taken 10 years to accumulate that money. We cannot risk it. Fareek, initiate emergency protocol 18."

Fareek nodded and hurried out of the room.

"How did you get the Jew to talk?" Hamid queried. "Those Mossad are said to be tough. Did you use ph-ph-ph-ph-ph-ph-ph-physical torture?"

The Mossad was the envy of spy agencies worldwide for its training in SERE - survival, evasion, resistance and escape - so it was a reasonable question.

"Let us just say he knows he's been interrogated," X said with the appropriate wicked grin. That garnered an appreciative chuckle from the tubby terrorist.

"No, let us hear," Dr. Zawari pressed him. "How did you learn in a single hour what our trained interrogators could not extract from him in five?"

"I told him simply that we had his wife and children and they would be executed if he did not cooperate. Sometimes a warrior must use brain, not brawn."

"And this worked?" Dr. Zawari said, raising one eyebrow. "With a Mossad agent?"

X smiled. "Just enough to gauge his reaction and assure me that he valued his family. Then I sprang on him the truth: That I had proof that he had committed the sin of sodomy while in prison."

Hamid covered his mouth in horror. "But he seemed so m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-"

This time Dr. Zawari interrupted him impatiently. "Masculine. And what was this proof?"

"A photo taken by one of my moles in the prison, showing him in the act with an older detainee from Yemin, a former wrestling champ."

The Chief was appalled. "You mean ..."

X nodded grimly. "Yes, he assumed the female role in the acts. Once he knew that proof of his disgrace would be circulated on all our Internet site, he began to sing like a Moroccan mockingbird."

"Well done!" exclaimed the Chief.

Dr. Zawari stroked his beard. "Something about this ..."

"Of course, under the circumstances, I gladly will provide you with proof of this," X assured them. "I will have the photos sent here, that clearly show the Jew being penetrated as well as - "

Dr. Zawari turned green. "No, er. That, er, won't be -"

The Chief stood up. "We must move our funds immediately." Clearly he understood the urgency of the situation. He was decked out in sweat clothes instead of pajamas.

Dr. Zawari reluctantly nodded. "At this point, we have no choice. Temporarily. Then we will put the money in a place of our own choosing."

"Very well," said X. "The funds can be electronically withdrawn from a branch of your bank in Tashkent
,
Uzbekistan in the form of a purchase of gold bullion. I can arrange to have the gold transported by gold by truck to a mountain cave there that the American dogs will never find. It will then be a simple matter to use the gold to pay those from whom you wish to buy that wondrous weapon."

"Yes, gold," said Hamid, his eyes glistening. "How fitting that we keep our treasure in a solid form, so it can be touched and held as it was in the days of the Prophet."

"Good," said X, clapping his hands. "Now all we have to do is - "

"Not so fast," Dr. Zawari said. "There is another place where the funds can be stored safely. The same place where you store your own assets."

X gulped. "I beg your pardon?"

"You bragged to The Chief that you have a secret place where your funds are concealed," the second-in-command said with sly smile. "Surely if it is good enough for you it is good enough for the Warriors of Allah?"

X turned to The Chief in annoyance. "We do not have time for this."

But he saw that the terror chief was staring at him solemnly.

"Dr. Zawari and I discussed our options at length the very first you arrived and mentioned our funds were at risk," The Chief said sternly. "I must now ask you to tell us where you are hiding your assets."

"My dear friend, I have told you that is impossible."

The Chief turned to Hamid and nodded. The henchman dug into his pocket.

"You are not the only one who knows the value a man puts on the lives of his family," the Chief said, finally adopting that arch tone X associated with movie villains. The gentle grandpa act appeared to be over.

X paled. "What are you saying?"

Hamid took out his cell phone and showed X a blurry image. An elderly woman and two younger ones huddled together in a corner, masked men surrounding them.

"If you cooperate, we swear no harm will come to them," Hamid said.

X turned to The Chief. "My mother? My wives? You would do such a thing to a brother in the Great Cause?"

"We must do what we must do, we must pay any price and bear any burden for the Jihad," The Chief intoned.

The last person you'd expect this maniac to steal lines from is JFK,
X thought.

"But they are in a secure location," he said, affecting a bewildered expression. "How ...?"

"You gave us full access to your people and your files," Dr. Zawari reminded him.

"And this is how you repay me - with such a grave betrayal?" X said bitterly.

The Chief patted his shoulder soothingly.

"They are safe and I will give the order to release them as soon as you do me this favor. Your funds will not be touched, you have my word of honor."

X paced about the room uncertainly. Then he threw up his arms in the air. "Very well, you win."

"Grand, grand," said The Chief. "Where are you hiding your assets?"

"Zimbabwe."

"Zimbabwe?" The Chief said, taken aback.

"Yes, I have made arrangements with the director of the national bank."

"Clever indeed, clever indeed." He turned his henchmen. "Dr. Zawari, why didn't you think of this? Who'd ever look in Zimbabwe?"

"I ... I ... er ..."

"We have no time to place blame," Hamid pointed out.