Scorpion Betrayal by Andrew Kaplan Page B

gave it to the maître d’.”
    She leaned over and kissed him, her tongue darting into his mouth, tasting of the lobster ragout from the spaghetti sauce. “Next time I fuck you so good,
caro,”
she whispered. She got up and left, stopping at the maître d’, who handed the package to one of her bodyguards.
    When the Palestinian left the restaurant, he doubled back for nearly an hour, zigzagging through the dark city streets and autostrada exits, anticipating that Francesca would have him followed. When he thought he was clear, he drove to the Milan Central Station, where he caught the late night Red Arrow high-speed train to Rome. In the morning, he flew from Rome to Moscow.
    The Camorra were dangerous enough, and what he had to do in Russia even more so, he thought on the long flight. All the while, the shadow hunting him nagged at the Palestinian, an unknown killer without a face or a name, like a nightmare from his childhood. Except he wasn’t a child anymore. Now, he was the one to be feared. Looking through the airplane window at the snowcapped Alps below, he remembered an old Arab proverb his father had told him when he was a boy: “An army of sheep led by a lion will defeat an army of lions led by a sheep.”

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Hamburg, Germany
    S corpion first saw her on TV in the giant Saturn electronics store, her image repeated on hundreds of televisions tuned to the same German N-TV News channel like a kind of surreal electronic art exhibit, before he saw her in the flesh, standing in the middle of the street outside the large turquoise-colored mosque with a loudspeaker, demanding an end to “Islam’s imprisonment of women.” On the TV panel of talking head commentators, her looks were striking. Her skin was a smooth gold, her sleek black hair, cut short, a stunning contrast with her aquamarine blue eyes, a touch of mascara underlining them hinting of the Levant. She wore no head scarf, and although the credit at the bottom of the screen identified her as “Najla Kafoury,” everyone addressed her only as “Najla,” as if she had already achieved the one-name status that, as Harris once wryly remarked, denoted real celebrity nowadays. “You are either a one-name or a no-name,” he’d said.
    Now, seeing Najla Kafoury in the center of the demonstration outside the mosque, a slim figure in a belted Burberry raincoat, she was smaller than he had expected from her TV image. Her voice rang out in perfect German through the loudspeaker as she demanded that Islamic leaders stop
“behandlung von frauen wie sklaven,”
treating women as slaves. A line of helmeted Schutzpolizei stood between her and an angry crowd of Muslims, men and women, trying to shout her down, some carrying signs that read
Feinde des Islam,
Enemy of Islam; others,
Verräter,
Traitor, and
Haretiker,
Heretic.
    â€œThe Prophet said treat women well, but the only
sura
you know is the fourth
sura,
which tells you to beat women!” she shouted.
    â€œA good Muslim woman is obedient and does not need to be beaten,” someone in the crowd shouted in Farsi.
    â€œDas ist Europa,
not sixth century Arabia. Fourteen centuries of abuse is enough! No woman should ever be beaten!” she shouted back in German.
    Some in the crowd began to throw things at her, cushions, eggs, oranges. The line of Schutzpolizei started forward as she and the small band of men and women with her retreated, the TV cameramen edging forward to capture the shot.
    â€œShe got what she wanted,” a man near Scorpion in the crowd commented in German to a paparazzo photographer next to him. “She’ll be on
Heute
tonight,” he added, referring to the nightly TV news show.
    â€œNatürlich.
Najla delivers the only thing anyone cares about—ratings,” the paparazzo said, standing on his toes to try to get the shot of her holding a hand up to protect herself.