Sons (26 page)

O
UTSIDE
the steel door, Jan reset the lock by entering the alphanumeric code Dragon4. It was Michael’s Chinese birth date. As he did so, Jan realized that in his haste he hadn’t seen Michael anywhere.

“Amal,” he said, “where’s Michael?”

“He is in Chinatown visiting his sister and her husband.”

Jan leaned his back against the wall. He needed a plan. The SST delta wing was one of Mundus’s biggest assets. He’d have some tall explaining to do when this was all over, but that would have to wait. Then his mind turned to personnel. Who should be involved? Marsha? Yes, he owed her and Tim that much at least. Joachim? Jan knew he needed muscle combined with brains. The ex-Mossad agent fit the bill perfectly. Michael? Absolutely. Whatever the outcome, he would need Michael’s loving arms to comfort him. Amal? Yes, he needed someone he could rely on to take care of the lesser details.

“Okay then, Amal, here is what you must do. Get Michael’s passport from his desk, and be sure to bring yours too. Pack bags with warm clothes. Have Guthrie drive you to Chinatown. Call ahead and tell Michael what has happened and that you will be coming to get him. After you get Michael, go to Rittenhouse Square and pick up Alexandra’s mother. I’m sure she will want to be with her daughter when we find her. I’ll call her and have her ready to meet you. From there, Guthrie will take you to hanger T-9. A jet will be waiting. I’ll phone ahead and have the plane ready. I want Michael and Alexandra’s mother to follow me to Iceland. You come too. Joachim will be coming with me. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Effendi, I understand,” Amal said solemnly.

“Good luck to us all, then,” Jan said as he and Joachim Nussbaum descended the spiral stairs.

“I need to go to my apartment and get some warm clothes,” Joachim said.

Jan glanced at his watch, mentally calculating the speed of the stealth plane.

“I’ll pick you up in half an hour.”

Joachim nodded. “I’ll be ready.”

Jan hurried into the bedroom where he snatched a parka from the closet. He sat on the edge of the bed and changed from street shoes to thick-soled hiking boots. He paused and looked at the phone.

You should call Victor Carew
, his angel said.

Screw that son of a bitch! He’s made his son what he is. You wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for that asshole
, Jan’s devil chided.

Jan drew his corporate phone book from the nightstand drawer and quickly found Victor Carew’s private phone number.

The conversation was brief and one sided. Jan explained the situation in detail, devoid of the hatred he felt toward Victor’s son, much in the form a lawyer would use in a brief. His better self resisted the urge to pile invectives on the man’s suddenly wounded spirit.

“If I can bring Louis back alive, Victor, I will, but I make no promises except one—if he harms my son, I’ll kill him!” Jan said.

“Phillips, wait! Please don’t hang up. Take me with you.”

“Are you crazy!”

“Please, I’m begging you as one father to another. Let me come with you. Please.”

“Victor, your son has kidnapped my boy. He’s involved in the Bocalora affair.
Jesu!
Carew, how can you defend him?”

Jan couldn’t see the tears, but he could hear the overwhelming sorrow in Victor’s voice.

“Do you think Judas’s father loved his son less than Joseph did Jesus?”

Son of a bitch! He always did know how to hit below the belt.

Jan’s heart softened, but not his tone. “Victor, do you know where Jerusalem Plaza is?”

“Yes, it’s a restricted area down by the river. I guess it has something to do with the government.”

“It is restricted but it’s not a Fed site. Go there. Stay in your car. I repeat, stay in your car. I’ll come to you when I arrive. I repeat, I’ll come to you. Do not approach me. You’ve got thirty minutes. I won’t wait. Victor, don’t forget your passport. Do you understand these instructions?”

“Yes, Thank yo—”

Victor spoke his gratitude into a dead line.

Jan calmed his anger long enough to phone his law firm’s airport hangar and arrange for the corporate jet to be made ready for a flight to Reykjavik. Just as he hung up, his phone rang. Marsha’s frantic scream assaulted Jan’s ear.

“Jan! It’s Marsha. Is Alexandra there? She wasn’t home when I got in. Nobody’s seen her. I thought about calling the police, but then I thought she might be there and….”

“Marsha, I was just going to call you. Colin and Alexandra have been kidnapped by Louis Carew.”

“Oh my God! Oh my God!”

“Calm down and listen. I know where he’s taken them. I’m sending my limo to get you. Pack some warm clothes and your passport.”

“My passport? Why?”

“You’re going to Iceland. Be ready when the car arrives.”

“Jan, you’ve got to save my baby,” Marsha said breathlessly.

“Yeah.”

Next, Jan went to a small table, drew open a tiny drawer, and grabbed his passport. As he did so, he noticed the barrel of a pistol protruding from underneath a sheaf of blank paper. Jan pulled the gun out and passed his hand over the weapon’s slick metal. Frowning, he returned the gun to its home in the drawer and left the room.

Forty-One

C
OLIN
felt the Beechcraft tip sharply to the left, level out, and begin a bumpy descent. He glanced at Ben. The Arab was reading a book and mumbling to himself.

Colin then looked over at Alexandra.

“Zan,
Zan
,” he whispered.

Alexandra’s eyes fluttered open.

“What?” she whispered.

“I think we’re gonna land soon. The plane feels like it’s dropping down.”

“Yeah, I thought I felt something too… where do you think we are?”

Colin’s voice trembled. “I don’t know.”

“Can’t we try to get away?”

“Do you want to get zapped again?” he said.

Alexandra pushed her forehead deep against the plane’s rough carpet.

“Colin, I think they’re going to kill us.”

“If they were going to kill us why would they take us flying?”

Colin’s clumsy humor only served to make Alexandra cry.

“Zan, please don’t cry. I’ll think of something.”

“Like what?”

“Well, we have to land someplace, there will be people around, so we can just make a lot of noise, and they will come, and we can explain what happened, and that will be that.”

Alexandra brightened. She turned toward Colin with a faint smile. “Hey, that just might work.”

Colin said, “Shh, he’s coming back.”

“We will be landing soon,” Ben said. “You will take a seat and strap yourself in. You will remain silent.”

Ben motioned with his stun gun. “You, boy, you first.”

Colin stood and slid into the plush leather seat and buckled the safety belt. Alexandra followed. She began to cry again.

Colin’s heart was breaking for her. He glared at their tormentor.

“Why are you doing this to us!” he demanded.

Ben’s answer was a backhand across the teen’s cheek.

“I do not answer to you!” he said.

A soft warning bell sounded throughout the plane, and the Arab took a seat facing the young lovers and strapped himself in.

Louis guided the Beechcraft to a bumpy landing on a small airstrip near the foot of the Murderküll glacier.

Colin and Alexandra looked out of the side windows, eager to see crowds of people at the airport, strangers who’d help them, who’d rescue them. Colin’s heart raced, first with expectation, then with panicked disappointment. He looked at Alexandra and shook his head. No airport. No crowds. No police. No rescue waited for them.

From his window, Colin saw a broad meadow of green turf and patches of loose shale-like rock that stretched far away to a ridge of hills. Looking across the aisle through the opposite window, he saw a wall of whitish-gray ice soaring high into the cloudy sky.

Louis cut the engines and set the brake. He quickly exited the plane to set the wheel chocks. He looked around at the barren landscape and spied a Jeep parked across a patch of ice and rock. He had seen the all-wheel drive vehicle as he brought the plane down for landing. There was no welcoming committee, but he assumed the Jeep was left for them. Louis breathed in the clean Icelandic air. He coughed and instantly regretted he had quit smoking.

Back in the plane, Ben kept watch on the teens. He spoke no words but sat transfixed. The final act would come soon. His mission as a loyal member of al-Qâdi was nearly completed.

Louis climbed back into the plane and said, “There’s a Jeep parked about a hundred yards off the tarmac.”

Ben smiled.

“My superior has seen to everything. We will take the Jeep to the glacier. There is a pass leading through the crevasse to the first plateau. It is a difficult climb but not a long one. My superior will meet us there. At that time your task will be completed, and you will return to your plane and leave.”

Louis added, “Yeah, well, it’s kinda cold. I have some warm jackets stowed in the overhead compartment. The kid can wear one, and I think I have one that will fit you.”

“I have no need for warmth,” Ben snarled ungratefully.

As Louis pulled the coats from the bin, he also grabbed the plane’s emergency flare gun. Furtively slipping it into his jacket, he thought,
This might come in handy
.

Louis looked almost apologetically at Colin as he handed him a down-filled jacket. To Alexandra he said, “Good thing you wore a coat. How’d you know you were going camping?”

“What kind of a man are you?” she spat.

“Just a guy tryin’ to make a living,” he joked.

Ben said, “Enough talk.”

Forty-Two

“
A
RE
you sure it is wise to involve Mundus in what is essentially a family problem? Personally, I do not think it is right for you to do this,” Joachim Nussbaum said.

Jan’s mute and immediate reply was to push the Ferrari’s supercharged engine harder as he forced a path through the late-night truck traffic that routinely shuttled between Philadelphia and the city’s airport. He was headed for a private hanger on the fringe of the airport complex where the delta winged supersonic aircraft, resembling a needle rather than a plane, waited, engines idling.

Jan wheeled the sleek sports car past warehouses stuffed with contraband confiscated by the US customs service, driving at breakneck speed toward the Mundus complex. As they approached the main gate, Jan stabbed the brake pedal causing the car to swirl around on the loose gravel that had collected on the parking pad. He looked around. Victor Carew sat in his limousine about fifty yards from the hanger’s security fence.

He turned to Joachim and said, “This is my son we’re talking about. For him, I would reach into the sky and with my bare hands pull the sun out of heaven—do you understand! If not, then stay behind. I’ll go alone.”

“So, it is
your
will that dictates here.”

Jan’s eyes bulged at Nussbaum’s audacious remark.

“How dare you!
You
of all people dare to quote Hitler to me! I would have thought better of you,” Jan said bitterly.

“I am only saying what others will say when they hear of this.”

“I am a man, not a machine, Joachim, and I’m certainly not a hero. If the other five Mundus Masters have a problem with me, then I can step down.”

“That will not happen, and you know it.”

“I know nothing of the kind,” Jan snapped.

Joachim made no reply.

Jan pushed the accelerator again, inching the car forward until it was parallel with a security pad identical to the one in his command center. He turned and eyed Joachim.

“Well, old friend, Reykjavik?”

“What do you think?”

Jan smiled. “I won’t forget this.”

Joachim looked past Jan and jerked his chin toward the driver-side window.

“We have company.”

Jan turned to see a man dressed in dark overalls approach the car.

Jan caught Joachim’s forearm as the ex-spy’s hand went for the gun holstered at his side.

“Easy, it’s just security. We have to show ID,” Jan said as he lowered the Ferrari’s driver-side window.