Kingdom of the Seven [Mass Market Paperback]

NEW YORK CITY: MONDAY; 3:00 P.M.

"Hey, mister, you gonna get in or what?"

Ahmed El-Salarabi moved away from the open window of the cab and clutched his briefcase against his thighs.

"In or out, okay?" the driver pestered.

El-Salarabi noted the driver's eyes drifting to the briefcase and backed quickly away from the cab.

"The hell with ya then!"

And the cab screeched off.

El-Salarabi's first thought when he saw the cab slowing toward the curb was that there had been a change in plans. But the driver must simply have mistaken the shifting of his briefcase from one hand to the other as a hailing signal. El-Salarabi quickly composed himself and began weaving his way south down a Lexington Avenue cluttered with pedestrian traffic toward Fifty-ninth Street. He had emerged from Bloomingdale's main entrance just moments before after spending the better part of the afternoon strolling the floors with apparent aimlessness. In reality, of course, his actions were anything but.

Ahmed El-Salarabi had been sent to New York with a specific task in mind: select and destroy a symbol of American opulence and power. Another group had tried to blow up the World Trade Center and failed miserably. Their failure was laughable. Only six dead ... If El-Salarabi had been in charge, the outcome would have been vastly different. Successful demolitions required specialized knowledge of where to plant explosives to achieve maximum damage and effect. And his degree in engineering would have guaranteed that the charges were placed at the proper stress points to insure that the entire building collapsed. Any target could be brought down.

El-Salarabi's superiors had suggested the Statue of Liberty as that target, but he had persuaded them that to destroy such a symbol would only produce anger. To provoke true fear and terror, the target selected must be a highly visible part of everyday existence. El-Salarabi had spent four days last month considering various target options.

Office buildings.

High-rise apartments.

A Broadway theater maybe.

But every bystander he passed during that initial reconnaissance seemed to be holding a shopping bag. His inspiration had come when a rank, pockmarked vagrant with a Bloomingdale's bag clutched in his hand asked El-Salarabi for his spare change.

Bloomingdale's ...

The perfect symbol of the opulence and decadence of Western society. In London the IRA had gone after Harrod's once with a similar notion in mind. Their mistake had been to leave the building standing.

Now, one month after his first trip, El-Salarabi had returned to New York determined not to repeat it.

Almost to Fifty-ninth Street, he fumed at the obtrusive presence of sidewalk salesmen hawking knockoff designer wares piled upon asphalt or tables, which further slowed his pace. El-Salarabi was thankful at least for the tintedglasses that kept the bright sun from burning into his eyes. Three straight hours strolling the floors of Bloomingdale's and mapping out the store's interior had turned them sensitive.

El-Salarabi forced himself to be patient and clutched his brown leather Gurkha briefcase closer to his side, as he prepared to follow the next stage of the plan. The briefcase contained twenty pages of jottings and sketches, scrawled hurriedly but accurately while he was sequestered in a number of rest room stalls. El-Salarabi had learned not to trust such crucial planning to memory, getting everything down while the building's layout and construction were fresh in his mind. Once his briefcase had been delivered to his liaison, his part in the scheme was finished. Others would carry out the actual bombing according to the specifications his pages detailed. Such men and women were interchangeable. They came and went. He alone was indispensable.

El-Salarabi grasped the case's handle even tighter.

He had phoned his liaison from inside Bloomingdale's itself. His instructions were to proceed south down Lexington across East Fifty-ninth Street to an outdoor fruit stand set up in front of the abandoned Alexander's department store just before Fifty-eighth Street. Rest the briefcase against his leg while he inspected the produce and his liaison would stealthily lift it away. Simple as that.

The force of sidewalk traffic shoving up uneasily against his back led El-Salarabi to disregard the DON'T WALK signal at East Fifty-ninth. He dashed across dodging traffic toward a cavalcade of hucksters pitching replicas of Louis Vuitton handbags, Gucci watches, and Armani ties.

Pedestrian traffic had thinned enough for him to slow his pace to a casual gait. The fruit stand was directly before him. The collection of oranges, grapefruits, apples, and grapes looked tempting even from this distance. Maybe he'd fill up a bag to improve his cover. Distract the clerk, if nothing else.

His part in the mission was about to come to an end.

 

 

"Shit!"

Blaine McCracken shielded his ear, as if afraid a passerby might have heard the gravelly voice of Sal Belamo.

"Something wrong, Sal?"

"That fucker Salami just crossed Fifty-ninth against the signal, you believe that."

"Salarabi."

"Salami, bologna--it's all the same to me. Just splash on the mustard between some seeded rye and give me a pickle on the side."

"Where is he now?"

"Heading toward East Fifty-eighth, boss. Hold on, light just changed. I'm going across."

"Keep him in sight, Sal."

"He's slowing down."

"Where?"

"Fruit stand on the sidewalk at Alexander's. Just stopped in front of it," Belamo added, as he stepped back up on the Lexington Avenue sidewalk.

"Indian," McCracken called, from his position three blocks away on the west side of the block in front of a fountain.

"Moving now, Blainey," returned Johnny Wareagle, who was waiting in front of a combination deli and casual clothing shop between Fifty-seventh and Fifty-eighth Streets called Boogie's.

"Hang back, Sal. Keep your eyes on the briefcase. It's the man who picks it up we want."

"I played this game before too, MacBalls."

"Never the same way twice," McCracken cautioned. "Whoever picks up the case has got to come toward one of you."

The knowledge that El-Salarabi would surely recognize him from their last encounter forced him to keep back for now. Eighteen months before, he had been asked by a friend in Egyptian intelligence to help that organization stem the tide of terrorism that had been launched againsttourists. Just hours after arriving, a report that El-Salarabi had been sighted drew him and his Egyptian escorts to Luxor. The terrorist emerged unexpectedly from a crowded mosque and came face-to-face with Blaine. Before McCracken could get a single shot off, El-Salarabi turned into a wild animal. His randomly fired bullets created a panicked rampage amidst the crowd as he bounced from hostage to hostage to keep McCracken from chancing a shot of his own. A repeat of that in the streets of New York today had to be avoided at all costs.

Two days earlier, McCracken had been contacted by an Arab informant with news that El-Salarabi had paid one visit to New York City a month before and was en route back for a second. The informant knew a major strike was about to be carried out according to the terrorist's specifications, but insisted he had no knowledge of the specifics. The only thing he did know was that El-Salarabi was staying at the Pierre Hotel. So Blaine had summoned Sal Belamo and Johnny Wareagle to New York to aid him in preempting the strike and apprehending all the parties working with El-Salarabi. Normally a dozen men would be required for such a complex task. Blaine figured the three of them together was close enough.

Belamo, the ex-middleweight boxer whose primary claim to fame was having his nose broken both times he lost to Carlos Monzon. Wareagle, the mystical seven-foot Indian with whom Blaine had fought in Vietnam and now summoned from his backwoods Maine home whenever the situation warranted. Belamo until recent years had still been active in the intelligence community, but he had freelanced once too often and been banished as a result. Fortunately for McCracken, he managed to take his contacts, which remained the best in the business, with him. Wareagle, meanwhile, never wavered from his stoic, leathery self. In the more than twenty years they had known each other, it seemed to Blaine that the big Indian hadn't changed at all.

El-Salarabi had emerged from the Pierre just beforenoon and come straight to Bloomingdale's. His presence inside for over three hours made the target for the coming strike clear. El-Salarabi's briefcase would now contain the building's structural layout and instructions on where to plant the explosives for optimum effect. The plan at this point was to wait for the pickup to be made and then entrap the courier in a classic bubble. If he headed north, Johnny would move in from the rear while Belamo closed and brought up the front. If the pickup chose south, the roles would be reversed. Meanwhile, McCracken would handle El-Salarabi personally after the exchange was complete.

"Salami just put the case down, boss," Belamo reported. "Got it resting against his leg."

"Indian?"

"I'm coming up on Fifty-eighth Street now, Blainey."

"Talk to me, Sal," McCracken said into the miniature microphone wired down his sleeve, frustrated at being detached from the action. The Motorola unit was a step above those used by the Secret Service, featuring an independent earphone that used the jawbone as a pickup mike. No wires that way. Secret Service men didn't care if they stood out; McCracken could seldom a...