The doors slammed shut as soon as he was secure, and the van took off, but they went only a short distance. Judging by how he and the guards rolled across the floor, they’d made three tight turns. As near as he could tell, the Palestinians had merely stashed the van behind the warehouse. The driver killed the ignition. A few minutes passed before Isphording felt the driver slam his door.

He and the guards were isolated from each other by the gags and ties, unable to hear because of the ear protectors. He could not imagine a worse feeling of deprivation, and while he was alive for the moment, he had no idea how long it would be before the van started up again and the four of them were taken away and killed.

Chairman Cabrillo had slammed the armored van’s door hard enough for the men inside to feel it, then tossed the keys onto the roof. He checked the street fronting the warehouse one more time. No one had seen him hide the vehicle behind the building. He twirled the spray bottle of bleach around his finger as he walked. Certain that no one had left behind fingerprints, he’d taken the precaution of dousing the inside of the cab with bleach to dilute any trace DNA.

Linc greeted him at the door. The ex-SEAL had unwound the kaffiyeh he’d worn to hide his black face and let the checkered head cloth drape around his wide shoulders. Artificial blood from when Julia had shot him dripped from the fringed edges.

“Well done,” Juan said, and the two men exchanged toothy grins.

“You must have a thing for playing Arab bad guys, Chairman,” the big man teased. “First you were Colonel Hourani of the Syrian Army, today you’re Palestinian terrorist leader Rafik. Who are you going to be tomorrow, Ali Baba?”

“Only if you play Scheherazade and do the Dance of the Seven Veils.”

Mike Trono, who’d taken over the role of Yuri Zayysev for Rudy Isphording’s benefit, was plucking the spent remains of devices called squibs from a special vest he wore under his shirt. The squibs were made of tiny explosive charges and an ounce or two of fake blood. These devices had been a staple of Hollywood effects wizards for years. A more sophisticated device had been placed inside Linc’s head scarf to make it appear that Julia had shot away half his skull. The office had also been rigged with small charges along the walls and on the furniture to further the illusion of bullets striking the plasterboard and metal. Of course all the weapons they’d used to stage the assault had fired blanks.