Twenty

by James Grippando

  “How do I get in touch with you?”

  “You don’t. Ever.”

  “I could tell the FBI we talked. Maybe they know who you are.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “That would be a very big mistake.”

  She walked away, and only then did Jack notice the taxi waiting across the street. The driver started the engine. Jack followed her to the end of the driveway, and then, suddenly, she whirled around to face him.

  “Don’t follow me.”

  Jack froze. Her hand was inside the gym bag, and he couldn’t tell if the protrusion from inside was her finger or a gun.

  “Please,” he said. “Let’s talk again.”

  She backed away slowly, then hurried to the taxi and climbed in the back seat. The door slammed, and as the driver sped away, Jack raised his cell phone, snapped a quick photograph, and enlarged the image on the screen.

  “Got it,” he said, looking at a clear string of six characters on the rear license plate.

  Chapter 36

  “Maritza” caught her breath as the cab pulled away.

  “Where to?” asked the driver.

  She gave him the address and settled back in the seat.

  It had been a bold move, confronting Jack Swyteck. She’d gone back and forth on it, having chickened out at the courthouse, deciding at the last minute not to go through with it. That blunder had left her no choice. He’d obviously recognized her, or thought he had. Why else would he have followed her out of the courtroom, only to have lost her in the crowd? The real danger was not the encounter. The risk was that Swyteck would tell the FBI about it. She was somewhat confident that she’d discouraged him from doing so. Hopefully, he understood that the bulge in the gym bag was no bluff.

  “Belt, por favor,” said the driver.

  “Excuse me?”

  He apologized for his English, then reverted to his native tongue to ask that she fasten her seat belt. She knew the accent well. Her father, an engineer in the petroleum industry, had moved the family to oil-rich western Venezuela when she was six years old, and they’d lived in Maracaibo almost four years.

  “You are from Venezuela, no?” she asked in Spanish.

  “Sí. Caracas. Y usted? De dónde es usted?” And you? Where are you from?

  She smiled back at him but chose not to answer. The driver let the conversation drop. He probably figured that she’d exhausted her knowledge of the Spanish language with one simple sentence that she’d practiced for a visit to Miami. He surely would have been surprised to know that Spanish was only one of four languages she spoke fluently.

  It was getting dark outside, and her shadowy reflection appeared in the side window. The cabdriver’s question returned to her, but only in her thoughts:

  Where are you from?

  She didn’t answer, and she didn’t even want to think about it. But riding in the back seat of a taxi, staring at her ghostly reflection in the window, brought the memories flooding back. She was fourteen years old. The man sitting beside her was probably forty. His name was Abdul. They’d met ten minutes before they’d climbed into the back seat of a taxi near the market in central Baghdad, a place called Kadhimiya, one of Shiite Islam’s most important pilgrimage sites. The man driving the taxi said he was a cleric. His title, sayyid, meant that he claimed descent from the prophet Muhammad. Maritza—Rusul—had her doubts.

  “What is your name, girl?” asked the cleric.

  He made eye contact with her in the rearview mirror, as the cab pulled away from the busy market and into early evening traffic.

  “Rusul.”

  She was wearing a black chador, a full-body cloak with a hood that covered all but her face, and beneath it a niqab, a scarf that covered her face below the eyes. The men didn’t seem to notice how she was trembling beneath the garments.

  “Your uncle tells me you are a virgin,” said the cleric.

  Rusul had been living with her uncle in Baghdad for almost a year, driven from her home in Mosul by ISIS militants, lucky to have survived the eighty-seven-hour trek on foot. Her father, an American expat, was shot in the face after bribing the wrong man to smuggle his family to Kurd-controlled Ebril in northern Iraq. He’d left Rusul with perfect English and Spanish, but not much hope. Last she’d heard, her mother was trapped in west Mosul with thousands of other civilians—the human shields ISIS used to conquer the city.

  “Yes, I am a virgin.”

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw a smile crease Abdul’s lips. She looked out the window at the passing cars, clenching her fists into tight, tense balls.

  The driver continued, steering with one hand and smoking a cigarette with the other. “Rusul, be assured that I am licensed to perform the ceremony of marriage by the Iraqi Ministry of Justice. What we are about to do is permitted under religious sharia law. Mut’ah is an ancient custom that allows a man to help a woman in need. By doing so, Abdul is getting closer to God.” He took a long drag from his cigarette, then exhaled. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “You must never tell anyone about this. Iraqi law is in conflict with religious law. We do not want trouble with the militia, do we, Rusul?”

  “No.”

  Another long drag on his cigarette. The smoke was so thick that Rusul was beginning to feel nauseated. It poured from the cleric’s lips as he spoke.

  “Rusul, do you agree to the marriage?”

  “Yes,” she answered in a timid voice.

  “A temporary marriage, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Open your hands and pray with me.”

  Her fingers ached as she opened her fists, she’d been clenching so tightly.

  “Do you, Rusul, give me your consent to do this marriage? Abdul will pay a dowry of one hundred fifty thousand dinars for one day. If you agree, say, ‘Yes, I give my consent.’”

  She blinked, eyelashes fluttering nervously as she recited the words her uncle had practiced with her. “Yes, Saddir, I give you my consent to marry me.”

  “Abdul, do you agree to marry Rusul for one day and that you will pay her one hundred fifty thousand dinars? If you agree, say yes.”

  “Yes.”

  “Now you are both married and it is halal to be together.”

  Halal. Holy.

  The cab stopped. They were outside an inexpensive hotel. Abdul reached across and opened Rusul’s door. She climbed out first and waited on the sidewalk. The driver had final words for Abdul as they settled up the bill, and Rusul was standing close enough to overhear.

  “The girl is a virgin, Abdul. You must not penetrate her from the front.”

  “What about the back?”

  “The back is fine.”

  “What if something happens and she loses her virginity?”

  “Then her uncle can come after you and force you to marry her. Then she is your responsibility, not his.”

  “There is no way to get rid of her?”

  “Does her uncle know where you live?”

  “No.”

  The cleric crushed out his cigarette in the ashtray, breathing out one last cloud of smoke. “Then no problem at all.”

  “Señorita, estamos aquí,” said the driver. We’re here.

  The way he’d said it, as if repeating himself, she must not have heard him the first time. “Sorry.”

  She paid in cash, which made him more than happy. She had yet to meet a Miami cabdriver who didn’t get pissed off by customers with a credit card. Fine by her. Cash was a way of life. No paper trail.

  She gathered her bag, climbed out, and stepped onto the sidewalk. The cab pulled away. Rusul slung the strap over her shoulder and started walking along the street. Home.

  Chapter 37

  Jack got in his car but didn’t back out of the driveway until the taxi was out of sight. Tailing Maritza home was not his plan. He was no James Bond. Surely she would have noticed and led him to a random place. The only way to find her actual destination was to let her go there and follow up w
ith the driver. He dialed the cab company and gave the dispatcher the license plate number. She put him on hold for several minutes before coming back on the line.

  “Sorry, that’s not one of our drivers.”

  Jack had never really paid attention, but apparently the Yellow Cab Company did not have a monopoly over yellow taxis in Miami. Not until the fourth call did he get a match on the license plate, but the dispatcher would not give up the driver’s cell-phone number.

  “All I can do is ask him to call you,” she said. “What’s this about?”

  Good question. “Tell him it’s about his reward. A hundred dollars. I would like to hand it to him personally.”

  She promised to deliver the message, but Jack suddenly realized that Maritza might still be in the cab and overhear the conversation. “Wait. Tell him not to call me. Only text.”

  “Our drivers are not allowed to text and drive.”

  Right. And college students aren’t allowed to drink at parties. “Tell him to text me as soon as he can,” said Jack, and he gave her his number.

  Two minutes later, Jack’s cell phone chimed with an incoming text. It was in Spanish. There were times when that C minus in Spanish from Abuela was kind of funny. This was not one of them. Fortunately, this translation was relatively simple:

  You say you have money for me?

  Jack tried texting back, but he was losing precious time fighting with the autocorrect function on his phone, which kept “correcting” his Spanish with nonsensical English. He finally typed the English words into Google Translate, and then copied and pasted the entire Spanish block into the text bubble.

  My friend got in your cab on 9th Court. Tell me where you dropped her and I will Venmo you $100.

  He texted back with his Venmo address and a demand: Money first.

  Jack wired him fifty dollars from the Venmo app with this message: The other 50 after I get the address.

  The address popped up on Jack’s screen, along with a little blackmail: Send 200 or I tell her you asked.

  Nice guy. For all that driver knew, he was giving up a battered wife or girlfriend, which made Jack worry for the next woman. He sent no more money but texted back: Shame on you if you didn’t tell her already.

  Jack made a quick call to Theo, who agreed to check out the address. Jack had other plans. Attorney-client visits at the Miami-Dade Detention Center were allowed twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Jack called ahead to let them know he was coming, as he drove along the river toward the justice center.

  Einstein is credited with defining “insanity” as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” Perhaps Jack was insane to think that things would be different this time and Xavier would talk to him. Or maybe he was a little like Max, his ever-optimistic golden retriever, who woke up every morning convinced that “This is it, today is the day Jack is going to make me pancakes for breakfast!” Either way, instinct told him to take Maritza at her word: “You don’t need me to figure this out. I’ve told you enough. It’s all there. Find it.”

  Jack parked in the visitor lot, which had plenty of empty spaces. Dusk had turned to darkness. Traffic on the nearby expressway, which Jack never really noticed during daylight, was like the sound of running water at night. Another car pulled up beneath a glowing streetlamp. A car door slammed shut. Then another. Behind Jack, quick footfalls on the pavement became louder and even quicker as two men followed him toward the building. Either they were in a hurry or they were trying to catch up. Jack stopped outside the entrance door and turned to face them.

  “I need five minutes of your time, Mr. Swyteck.”

  The bigger of the two men was doing the talking. Jack didn’t recognize the voice or either face. “Who are you?”

  He flashed a badge. “Agent Carter. Joint Terrorism Task Force.”

  Jack looked at it carefully. “Nice shield. How do I know you fellas are for real?”

  “We saw you talking with Maritza Cruz in the driveway outside your office,” said Carter.

  “Did you follow me here?”

  “Didn’t have to. A corrections officer calls us every time you come here to meet with your client. Go inside and ask her, if you don’t believe us.”

  That didn’t seem necessary, and it was more than enough to convince Jack that Carter was the real deal. “What’s on your mind?”

  “Here’s the way it is,” said Carter. “Save the ‘my client is innocent’ bullshit. Your client did it. Somebody helped him. We don’t know who it was, but we need to know.”

  “You’re not telling me anything I haven’t heard from Sylvia Gonzalez at DOJ.”

  “This you haven’t heard: if we don’t get a name, there’s going to be another shooting. And another. And another. Riverside Day School was the first of more to come.”

  It was sobering news. “How do you know that?” asked Jack.

  “It’s our job to know it.”

  Jack took a moment to wrap his head around this one. “Let’s see if I understand the problem. Here’s one situation. If I was sure my client was guilty, and if I knew ten schoolchildren were going to die tomorrow if Xavier didn’t give me the name of his accomplice, I’d go upstairs, lock the door to the attorney-client conference room, and beat the living shit out of him until he told me.”

  “We’re not asking you to get disbarred.”

  “That’s good. Because I’m not a hundred percent sure he’s guilty.”

  “We are,” said Carter. “But let’s get real. Your client is in jail. If we wanted to beat this information out of him, we’d have an operative in there right now shoving his face into a prison toilet until he talks. If our intelligence tells us that the next shooting is imminent, it may come to that—which I will deny having said if you ever repeat it. Just like this meeting never happened.”

  It was suddenly clear to Jack why this discussion was taking place with two agents in the dark, outside the detention center, rather than in a roomful of higher-ups in Washington, DC. This meeting never happened.

  “If I hear you correctly, your intelligence isn’t telling you that the next shooting is right around the corner.”

  “On the color code, I’d say we’re somewhere between orange and red. But that could change quickly. This is no time to screw around.”

  “Then exactly what are you asking me to do?”

  “We want the name of everyone involved in the Riverside shooting, we want your client to be the star witness against them at their trial, and we want his testimony to be clean enough to get the death penalty for every single one of those bastards. Do all you can, but do it by the book.”

  “I get it. But I wasn’t blowing smoke when I told Sylvia Gonzalez that he doesn’t talk to me.”

  “That’s why you need to focus one hundred percent of your energy on your client. Stay away from Maritza. She can’t help you make Xavier talk. You can make Xavier talk. We got Maritza covered.”

  Jack wasn’t exactly eager to come face-to-face again with a woman who’d just threatened him with a concealed weapon, but any meeting with the government was an exercise in horse trading. “I’m happy to let you cover Maritza, if you’re willing to give me your 302s on her.”

  The Form 302 was the federal agent’s written record of a witness interview.

  “That’s impossible,” said Carter.

  “It’s required, if you’re serious about my doing this ‘by the book.’”

  “That decision is way above my pay grade. I will make sure your request lands on the appropriate desk.”

  “Thank you.”

  “One more thing,” said Carter. “Tell no one we talked.”

  “Again, if you’re serious about my doing this ‘by the book,’ I have to tell my client.”

  “Fine. No one else. Not even your wife.”

  Not telling Andie about a break in one of his active cases was consistent with the way they’d always done things, but coming from one of her fellow federal agents, it di
dn’t sit well with Jack. “Why not Andie?”

  Carter only repeated the directive. “No one.”

  Jack made no promise. He opened the door and went inside to see his client.

  Chapter 38

  Molly was alone at her kitchen table. Amir didn’t seem to notice her or the stack of mail in front of her as he entered from the hallway.

  “Then we need a different lender,” he said sharply.

  His voice startled Molly, but he was holding his smartphone and she noticed the cordless earbuds in each ear. He continued on about the need to get this deal done, speaking not to her but to whoever was on the line, as he grabbed a can of diet soda from the refrigerator. Molly waited for the words that signaled the end of a call from Amir to his subordinates at the office.

  “Get it done,” he said.

  Molly seized the opening. “Can we talk?”

  The question snagged him from somewhere deep in his thoughts. “Now?”

  “Yes. It’s important.”

  Amir checked his messages on his phone, not even looking at her. “Sure.”

  “Amir!”

  He looked up from his phone and seemed poised to say something about her yelling at him, but the worried expression on her face must have put him in check.

  “Who died?” he asked.

  “Nobody died. I opened the mail today.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Molly. I told you not to do that. It’s filled with hate.”

  “I have to open it.”

  “Why?”

  “For Talitha.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Riverside had not officially expelled Xavier’s siblings, but Molly knew they weren’t welcome. She’d been homeschooling Talitha and her older brother since the shooting. Talitha missed her friends.

  “Most of the parents have cut us off,” said Molly. “But Rachel’s mother lets her write to Talitha.”

  “Who’s Rachel?”

  Rachel had been Talitha’s best friend since they were toddlers. “Forget it, all right? This isn’t about a letter from Rachel.” She pushed an oversized envelope toward the edge of the table. It was opened on one end. “It’s about this.”