Chapter 37
Zinal
A month went by.
Ava didn’t know time could pass so slowly. She was reminded of Einstein’s adage about relativity: “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it feels like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute.” Where, she wondered, does waiting thirty days for a call about a pending terrorist attack fit on the spectrum?
Worse, it was the time of year in the mountains when each day brought a new season. Rain, sun, snow, but most often rain. It was hard to believe that April could be colder than January. Stem cells or no, the cold and damp ravaged her shoulder. She returned to St. Moritz and the Institut Alpinuum once. It was not TNT’s day for treatment. She did not visit the Chesa Grischuna. Dr. Lutz was likewise absent. She had a strong suspicion that he’d been told to avoid contact with her.
In Zinal it was off-peak season. The town was so quiet as to appear deserted. A two-lane road ran through the village, flanked by commercial stores: sporting goods, boutiques, a pharmacy, and a tearoom. Half were shuttered for vacation. She could stroll from one end of town to the other and not see a soul.
Each morning she’d walk with Katya to the tearoom and get apain au chocolatand a coffee. Often, they sat alone. The tearoom played canned music on a loop—music that dated to her parents’ era. If sheheard “Moon River” one more time, she swore she’d take a gun from Mac’s locker and blow the place apart.
And so, Mac . . .
Of all her missions, jobs, assignments, and ops, none was harder than hiding her investigation into TNT from Mackenzie Dekker. She went to bed thinking about Samson and TNT and what he was planning with Itmar Ben-Gold, and she woke up with the same terrifying thoughts, though no further along in her deliberations. No one had forbidden her from speaking to Mac. It was her own doing. She just assumed she mustn’t. It was experience gleaned from twenty years on the job. Keep your mouth shut.
Nearly two months earlier, after Lutz had initially told her about TNT, she’d returned home abuzz with her newly adopted mission. Practically a zealot. Lutz’s revelations had a life of their own and threatened to dance off the tip of her tongue ten times a day. Mac attributed her bright mood to the gains made in physical therapy and her accelerating recovery. He had started homeschooling Katya at the new year. He was too busy deciding which books to read and what history lessons to impart to read too much into her changed behavior. Independence was a trait he cherished. Respect for the other’s space a cornerstone of their relationship. But after stopping herself once, then twice, the urge to share her new mission lessened. A kind of shell formed around her interest in TNT. Instead of sharing it, she zealously kept it hidden. It had become her secret addiction.
It was Katya who knew something was different with her. Often Ava would catch her staring at her in the open, unashamed manner that children reserve for their loved ones. Ava would see the look and smile.
“My mommy used to smile at me like that too,” Katya would say.
“Like what?”
“When she had a secret she couldn’t tell me.”
“But I don’t have a secret,” said Ava.
“She said that too.”
Late at night, Ava would shut herself up in Mac’s man cave beneath the house, officially theLuftschutzraum, and scour the net for news about TNT. Mostly, this involved studying TNT’s posts on social media to see where his travels had taken him. Paris. St.-Tropez. Beverly Hills. Nothing nefarious there, unless the Bvlgari boutique on Rodeo Drive had of late become a hotbed of terrorist intrigue. The sales assistant, a lithe brunette modeling a ruby-and-diamond necklace, did not appear to be a member of ISIS.
One picture posted on the Qatari royal website bothered her. It showed TNT shaking hands with several Swiss bankers in front of a factory in Zug. The caption readVital investments in cutting-edge technology. The name of the factory was partially obscured, but with a little digging, Ava discovered it to be theKünzli Maschinen und Technikfabrik. The company name was innocuous enough. Its primary product was not: high-speed centrifuges used in the enrichment of uranium. Such a company would have little problem fabricating a transmitter.
She considered sending the picture to Zvi. She refrained. He had to have seen the picture already and drawn the same conclusion. So, why hadn’t he called? He knew how to evade surveillance. He was not one to let a brush with authority interfere with his labors. He had not made it to such a lofty position without breaking a few rules, offending the powers that be.
Gelber’s silence summoned her worst fears. She thought of TNT and Ben-Gold together. Together they were already powerful. What if they had recruited others to their cabal? What about the Saudis who’d been forced to pledge allegiance to Prince Mohammed bin Salman, MBS? Surely, a good many of them would be only too eager to join the cause. Backward, not forward. The past was the future. One Middle East divided under God forever.
Ava also took pains to find any mention of Jabr al-Sabah. She poured over Al Jazeera, the Gulf newspapers, and Qatari television. There could be little doubt that Jabr was the new face of Qatar. He wasin Abu Dhabi, in Ankara, in Riyadh. Often the visits were unofficial, with no mention made of meeting this or that government official. But Ava knew better. Jabr was shaking hands, building support, and changing minds.
Several times, Mac nearly caught her. She found herself so engrossed in her research she failed to hear him come down the stairs. When she at last spotted him, she rushed to close the browser and grew flustered.
“I think you’re looking at something naughty,” said Mac.
“That’s me,” Ava agreed, pasting on a smile. “The porn queen.”
“Come on, let me see,” said Mac. “What is it?”
“Too late,” she said, showing him the home screen. “You have to be faster than that.”
But beneath the banter, her heart was threatening to break free of her blouse. Why did she feel so guilty when she was just doing her job?
June arrived, and with it the sun. Temperatures soared. All over the mountainside, flowers blossomed. Streams overflowed their banks as the snow rapidly melted. The fine weather brought laughter and smiles. Ava, however, was not a party to the Chalet Ponderosa’s festive mood. Each day that passed without hearing from Zvi Gelber heightened her anxiety. She knew that he was every bit as concerned as she about TNT’s intentions. Yet after seven weeks, she still had not heard back from him. How long did it take to authenticate engineering schemas? Behind her impatience lay a scarier, more insidious worry. Someone or something was stymieing Gelber’s queries.
She could no longer wait.
Someone had to act.
