INDONESIA
JUBA POPPED A VALIUM and slugged back a stiff Cragganmore single-malt Scotch, hating himself for being weak. It was not really a weakness of the ravaged body, but an invisible curse: He was claustrophobic.
In his home on the mountain, the windows were always open to usher in steady breezes, even on the hottest days. Overhead fans and plenty of shade trees kept the place cool. Long, overhanging eaves blocked the rain out except during typhoon blows. Air-conditioning was allowed only in the servants’ quarters and the hot kitchen, because maintaining a chilled temperature meant closing doors and windows. Wide doorways led into spacious rooms and onto the open verandah. The light and airiness kept him calm. In the house, he could work and exercise and eat proper food and feel good.
So there was an unusual tightness in his throat and chest as he climbed into the small executive helicopter for the journey to Jakarta. When the hatch closed, Juba felt chained, and as the bird lifted away from the ground, the feeling grew into one of total imprisonment. He broke into a sweat and released his knuckles from the grips of the seat only long enough to take another Valium. It did little good. He was glad to be alone in the passenger compartment so no one would hear him groan as the panic pecked at him.
In the British Army, he had learned to control his nerves, and by the time he became a terrorist, his heart had grown too hard to accept emotion. That singular ability had abandoned him in his new life. He looked out the window of the helicopter, through the rolls of clouds and down to the verdant green of the islands and the sun-stroked waters, wishing there was some way out of the buzzing bubble that confined him in the sky. He no longer held any belief at all in any Higher Power of any name, so there would be no spiritual comfort. He felt truly alone.
On the mountain, Juba did not even own an automobile. To squeeze into one made him feel like he was climbing into his own coffin. Now he was faced with a monstrous endurance test, flying 4,500 miles from Indonesia to Saudi Arabia, trapped inside a tight little cocoon of an airplane for hours on end. Juba bit his lip.
His manner was already curt when the helicopter reached the private terminal in Jakarta and he was immediately shuffled aboard a luxurious Bombardier Challenger 604 twin jet. It was larger than he thought and he was surrounded by comfort and treated with respect by the three crew members. Still, Juba could think of nothing but the ordeal that lay ahead and he seized up, feeling old and crippled.
When the slim hostess pulled the door closed and the tube shut around him, it was as if he was being held in a fist. There was no space, no room to move, no ocean vista, no air, no way out, and no real air to breathe.
“Get me a drink,” he snarled. “Not any of that piss in a bottle in your bar. Some good gin out of my valise. Ice and a slice.”
The uniformed young woman found the bottle, made a double martini with a slice of fresh lemon and gave it to him. The passenger had a mane of totally white hair, was horribly scarred, and wore a white patch over his left eye. He shot her a defiant glare.
“Why are you staring, you ugly cow? Go away!” Juba took a deep swallow and fished around in his shirt pocket for the green plastic bottle of medicines. He hurt, dammit! The mental fear was changing into sharp physical manifestations. The tunnel! Oh, it hurts. Somebody help me! He gobbled two Percocet and drank some more of the strong martini as the engines whined. His stomach churned as the plane lifted into the air.
The nervous hostess called the flight cabin and a tall, neat man in dark trousers and a starched white shirt bearing golden wings above his left chest pocket came down the aisle and sat across from the lone passenger. The flier had a look of concern on his face. The one-eyed man looked like hell and for a moment, the copilot thought they might have to return to the terminal and get him to a hospital. “Are you all right, sir?”
“No, I am not all right!” The single eye rolled wildly. “Get me another damned drink, bitch.”
“Sir, please. Calm yourself.” The copilot reached out his left hand to touch the man’s shoulder in sympathy. Juba grabbed the wrist in a lightning-quick move and twisted over hard, pulling the flier out of the seat and throwing him into the aisle.
“Try to touch me again and I’ll kill you. I’m stuck up here with you fools and you will do only what I tell you. You get your ass back into that flight cabin and I want to hear the door lock behind you. Then fly the fucking plane and if I want you, I’ll call.” He twisted harder on the wrist and jammed his thumbnail into a pressure point.
The copilot screamed in agony.
Juba laughed and stomped the ribs before releasing the arm. “Get out of here. And you. Get my drink!”
IT WAS NOT A straight line trip, for the aircraft had been forced to take a more circuitous route to stay out of harm’s way and avoid discovery. Hour after hour droned past in the sky and there were three refueling stops at strategic points along the way. At each one, the crew crept silently out onto the tarmac to take a breather from the plane which seemed to crackle with a horrible menace from the passenger that had grown obnoxious under the influence of booze and narcotics. They watched in silent disgust through a cabin camera as he drank himself into oblivion, with a detour into roaring anger, until he passed out somewhere over Pakistan.
JUBA WAS IN THE tunnel, his body and face torn by a sniper’s big bullet and the tight hideaway collapsing beneath the thundering explosion of a huge bomb. Blinded and unable to breathe, the weight of the falling dirt crushing the final sparks of life from him, lost in blood and pain and darkness, badly wounded and trapped underground with dirt in his mouth and eyes. Oh, it hurts.
He had lived several lives and despaired that this was the way it would all end, dying slowly in an underground tomb.
The plane hit an air pocket, dropped momentarily, and the sudden jolt caused the passenger to moan loudly and shift in his seat until the aircraft steadied and droned on. His mind spun with a mixture of hallucinations and true memories as the drugs and booze played him-letting the British army train him to be a terrorist, fighting for al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Iraq before going out on his own with deadly biochemical weapons that he used to strike both London and San Francisco. Those acts had made him the most dangerous man in the world, a terrorist with a price on his head, a fortune in the bank, and a secret weapon that commanded respect and support from political and religious fanatics.
Then everything had been taken away in an instant. Juba still tried to convince himself that it had been only a fluke shot, an unfortunate accident, just bad luck, one of life’s more unfair moments, for no other man possessed his rare skill with a rifle. He changed positions in his seat again. Could not get comfortable. Heard noises. Even felt the wrinkles in his trousers, hard as rocks.
He remembered it all-the duel of single sniper bullets, the explosion, being buried alive in the suffocating tunnel, and, after giving up all hope, pinpoints of light breaking through the dirt. Frantic Iraqi villagers digging with their hands freed him from the grave. That bastard Kyle Swanson somehow got off that lucky shot. Tears leaked from his right eye and creased his face.
Two strong men came aboard the plane when it landed in Saudi Arabia and propped the limp, sniffling passenger between them, got him down the short staircase and into the rear of a waiting limousine. The copilot followed with the valise and threw it into the vehicle’s trunk, slammed it closed, and stalked away, glad to be done with him.
A young man in a dark suit and a white shirt open at the neck was also in the rear of the stretch limo as it drove away toward downtown Jeddah. He studied the figure plopped across from him. The man was disheveled, stinking and grunting like a filthy animal. This is the hero to whom we have paid so much? This lump is the mastermind? He extended his index finger and pushed a button to open the window beside him. It was still humid and hot, but he needed to flush out the foul odor.