“There was no connection,” said Schoen with a laugh. “That was the point. They were background noise that Philippe could be lost in. They were randomly selected to keep anyone in your government’s intelligence services who might come investigating, guessing.”
“And the plot with the children?”
“An unfortunate, but extremely effective motivator. When I discovered I had a grandson, I reached out to him, but our relationship was understandably strained. He wanted very little to do with me, but somewhere inside him he understood that we were the only family each other had.
“When he was captured and taken to Gitmo, I decided I would do anything to get him back.”
Slowly, all of the madness was beginning to make sense. “I want the names of your people who kidnapped and killed the school bus driver. I also want to know all of the other bus routes you had targeted.”
Schoen looked at him for a moment and then said, “The school bus we hijacked in South Carolina was the only one. There are no others. The photos of other buses were ploys to gain your government’s acquiescence, nothing more.”
His face was a mass of twitches and spasms, which made him nearly impossible to read. “How do I know you’re not lying?” asked Harvath.
“You don’t,” replied Schoen. “Only time will tell.”
“What about the names of the operatives who hijacked the bus?”
“I will take them to my grave,” said the man.
Harvath wasn’t surprised, but that would be for someone else to take up. He had other questions at this point. Glancing at the silver-framed photographs positioned on an adjacent console table, he asked, “So why me? Why my family and the people I care about?”
“Because Philippe wanted the man responsible for his mother’s death.”
“Which was his uncle, Hashim.”
“But his uncle was dead,” said Schoen. “The very idea of your being responsible for it all filled him with rage. Rage is a very powerful emotion. If a man has enough of it he loses his self-control. And when a man loses his self-control he is much more susceptible to the control of another.”
“So you pinned it on me,” responded Harvath.
“As I said. It was nothing personal.”
Harvath looked at him. “What was in all of this for you?”
Schoen sat up from his bed and spat, “Revenge!”
Chapter 123
“Revenge against whom?” demanded Harvath. “Against me?”
“No,” hissed Schoen. “Against Philippe’s mother.”
“For what? The first time a Nidal blew you up, or the second?”
“It was for taking my son away from me,” he replied as he sank back into his bed.
“But Adara Nidal was dead,” said Harvath who was beginning to wonder if Roussard’s warped psychopathology was a condition inherited not from his mother, but rather from his paternal grandfather.
“It made no difference to me. Stealing her son from her and turning him to my cause would have been the ultimate act of revenge.”
“How could you expect an Arab, a Palestinian Arab at that, to renounce Islam and pick up the Israeli cause?”
“You forget that after my Daniel died I studied everything I could about Abu Nidal, his organization, and most important, his family. I knew more about them than they even knew about themselves. Philippe lacked a masculine role model.”
“And that was going to be you?” said Harvath facetiously.
“Half of my blood, my Daniel’s blood, ran through his body. He was half Israeli and I believed I could appeal to that side of him. But before he would listen to anything I had to say-”
“He wanted me dead,” stated Harvath, finishing Schoen’s sentence for him.
“Precisely. But he didn’t only want you dead. He wanted you to suffer. He wanted you to feel the pain he had felt at losing his mother. I knew I could use this incredible rage to draw him closer to me.”
“And the plagues and running them in reverse order?”
Schoen was wheezing, and stopped for a moment to catch his breath. Finally he said, “The plagues were a tribute to his mother, who devoted her career as a terrorist to igniting a true holy war against Israel. Her attacks were often tinged with Jewish symbolism.
“As for running the plagues in reverse, you must already comprehend what a disturbed individual Philippe was. In his mind, the first plague was the most shocking and dramatic, so he ran the plagues backward, conducting himself as God’s opposite, the devil, if you will, who was saving his favorite plague for last.”
“And you thought you could reprogram this monster?” said Harvath.
“For a while, yes. If I could convince him to follow my orders, I would not only have beaten Adara, but in a small way, I would have regained my son. But I realized eventually that he was out of control and likely would have come after me. Which is why I left the hospital in Italy and returned here.”
The man was absolutely pitiful, and Harvath shook his head and turned to walk away.
“Where are you going?” demanded Schoen.
“Home,” replied Harvath, who hoped to never gaze upon Ari Schoen’s hideous face again.
Schoen laughed. “You don’t even have the courage to pull out your gun and shoot me.”
“Why should I?” replied Harvath as he turned back to face him. “As far as I’m concerned, a bullet is too good for you. And as for courage, if you had any you would have already shot yourself. The worst thing I can do for you is to wish you a long life and walk right out that door.”
And that was exactly what Harvath did.
As he exited the shop he noticed a black SUV with heavily tinted windows parked across the street. It was strangely out of place.
Reaching beneath his jacket, Harvath’s hand hovered just above the butt of his pistol.
The SUV’s rear window rolled partway down and in the sea of black, there was suddenly a flash of white. It belonged to a long white nose and was followed by a pair of dark eyes and two long white ears.
Harvath crossed the street and held his hand up for the dog to smell. As he scratched Argos behind his ear, the SUV’s window rolled the rest of the way down.
“Did you have a nice visit?” asked the Troll, who was sitting inside between his two Caucasian Ovcharkas.
“Hello, Nicholas,” replied Harvath. “Why am I not surprised to see you here?”
“We have unfinished business between us.”
Harvath removed his hand from the dog’s head and said, “No we don’t. I made good on my promise to you. You cooperated and I didn’t kill you.”
“I want my data and the rest of my money back,” responded the Troll. “All of it.”
The man had balls, big ones. “And I want my friend Bob and the other Americans killed in New York back,” stated Harvath. “All of them.”
The Troll leaned back and conceded. “Touché.” Slowly, the little man’s eyes drifted up to the apartment above the antique store. “What about Schoen?” he asked. “Did you kill him?”
Harvath shook his head. “No, I didn’t.”
“After everything he did to you. Why not?”
Harvath thought about it for a moment and then replied, “Death would have been too good for him.”
“Really?” stated the Troll, raising an eyebrow. “I’m surprised you feel that way.”
“If you could see what he’s been reduced to,” said Harvath, “you’d understand. Life is a much crueler punishment for Schoen. He’s already been blown up on two occasions.”
The Troll withdrew a small beige box, extended its antenna, and depressing its lone red button replied, “Then maybe the third time’s the charm.”
The explosion blew the windows out of the top-floor apartment and shook the entire block. Shards of broken glass and flaming debris rained down onto the street.
Harvath picked himself up off the ground just in time to see the Troll’s SUV recede into the distance.