“Yes, I have more calls to make.”
Mustafa, his hands folded at his chest, nodded and left the room.
Hassan sipped his drink and watched his wife’s profile for a moment or two as she gazed at the fire. After several futile attempts early in their marriage, Debra had given up trying to engage Mustafa. When she asked Hassan why his valet was so bloodless, his response—still a joke between them—was that Mustafa, a descendant of Salah ad-Din, did not want to get close to someone he might have to kill some day to protect his master. Hassan was sure that his wife was not thinking of Mustafa or her husband’s sense of humor tonight, or any night for the past three weeks.
“I have some news,” he said.
“Is it good or bad?” Debra replied, turning to face him. She had kicked off her high heels and curled her stockinged legs under her.
“I don’t know. Everett Stryker is looking into it.”
“What is it?”
“There was an robbery at the house in Locust Valley last night. Four people were killed.”
Hassan, still impeccable in the navy blue blazer, flannel slacks and Italian loafers he had worn all day, watched his wife slump in her seat, then reach to the bottle of Dow 1963 on the end table next to her and refill her empty glass. This morning a package had arrived from Stryker containing police reports, photographs, forensics and other material, what the defense lawyer referred to in his cover letter as the discovery in Michael’s case. Debra had spent the day poring over it in her room, her face ashen when she emerged for cocktails at six. Now it was more ashen.
“A robbery?” she said. “How can that be?”
“It was in the paper this morning. It’s very sketchy, but it appears it was what the Americans call a home invasion.”
“Are they dead, Adnan and Ali?”
“As I say, the news report is vague. Stryker has many contacts. He will get the full story. He knows how important they are to Michael’s defense.” Hassan had in fact spoken before dinner to Stryker, who, after a day of trying, could gather nothing further than what had been skimpily revealed in the press: four men dead by gunfire, one a cop, the local police involved, the mansion owned by Khalif Wahim, a high ranking Syrian diplomat, signs of a home invasion.
“How do we know it was them?”
“We don’t, but who else would be there? I spoke to Khalif. The place was locked tight. He had authorized no one to use it.”
“Four men dead… ,” Debra said. “What paper was it in?”
“Newsday. I will have Mustafa bring it to you.”
“The identities have to be revealed eventually, don’t they?”
“Not necessarily. According to Stryker, information concerning an ongoing investigation can be withheld.”
“He’s being paid a lot of money.”
“We must trust him.”
“Are there other ways to find out? I know you have other… other resources.”
“Other resources? Debra…”
“I am not as blind as you think, Basil. You go off to secret meetings without telling me details. You take phone calls in the middle of the night. You used to tell me everything. Something has changed in your life, and between us.”
“Do you think I am having an affair?”
“No, worse.”
“Worse? What could be worse?”
His wife of six years, who had been staring passively at the fire this whole time, now turned to face Basil, whose heartbeat quickened when he saw the whites of her once clear and beautiful eyes shot through with webs of blood, and the puffiness and rawness in the flesh around them.
“When this is over, Basil, can we go some place alone together? You are gone so often now…”
“There is an energy crisis at home. You know that is why I travel so much, why I must talk on the phone on a moment’s notice.”
“No, Basil, don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“No more lies.”
Basil stood, reached down, took his wife’s hands in his and pulled her gently but firmly to her feet. Facing her, he drew her closer and put his arms around her.
“Do you love me, Basil?” Debra said, before he could speak. Taken aback by the urgency, the near desperation in her voice, he held her tighter.
“Yes, I love you, Debra,” he replied. “As I always have.”
“I have never interfered with your business.”
“I know.”
“Are you in trouble?”
“Of course not.”
“I don’t mean to accuse you. I apologize. I am…”
“You are what?”
“Nothing. Forgive me.”
“There is nothing to forgive. When Michael is free, we will go away, just the two of us.”
“Thank you, Basil.”
“Debra.”
“Yes?”
Hassan hesitated for a second. His wife’s mental health was not good, and he did not want to make it worse. He was still holding her gently in his arms. Before he could speak Mustafa appeared at the room’s arched doorway, with his right fist to his ear. Telephone. Over Debra’s shoulder Basil nodded to his servant, and then, separating from her slightly, he extracted the silk handkerchief from the breast pocket of his blazer and handed it to his wife.
“I must take a call,” he said.
“Forgive me, Basil. Michael did not do this.”
“I know. You should rest.”
Debra returned to her chair. Basil turned to leave the room, but then turned back and put his hand on her shoulder. He had been about to suggest that perhaps it would be a good thing if Adnan and Ali were dead. Perhaps they could prove that they were elsewhere at the time of Yasmine’s murder. Feeling the trembling in her body, looking at her pressing her hand to her eyes, trying to hold back her tears, he was glad he had been interrupted by Mustafa. If Michael had indeed killed Yasmine Hayek, then he would soon enough lose his wife.
Chapter 11
Manhattan,
Wednesday, February 25, 2009,
9PM
After being excused by Basil, Mustafa retired to his office, a converted pantry off of the kitchen, where he listened for a few seconds to his employer’s conversation with a reporter from the Cambridge Business News. An innocuous conversation. One of many involving Basil and his American wife and stepson that Mustafa had listened to since he took his current position six years ago. He disconnected his listening device, which had also recorded the call, and sat back to think. Unlike the wealthy and pampered Basil al-Hassan, he had no window in his office, nowhere to look but inward. This he did, recalling in vivid detail the dark paneled, hushed room in the Lebanese consulate on Lexington Avenue where, in November, his efforts and his patience of the past six years had begun to bear fruit.
I think it is time, Mustafa, the colonel had said, that we bring our orphans to New York.
Is there work to be done here, sire?
No, but we are going to have new friends in Washington. We think they may want to help us with Monteverde.
Yes, sire.
When the time is right, we will show our good faith by offering them our orphans. They acted alone, you see. They are fanatics, angry at the west, at Lebanese secularism.
The case would be solved.
Yes, Mustafa. You and our war hero can keep them occupied until the moment is right. What safer place than right here in New York.
The Middle East is a very dangerous place, sire.
Yes, Mustafa, too dangerous to keep our orphans there.
Am I to still watch him? Our war hero?
Yes, and listen. He is up to something. Deir ez-Zour is drying up. If I catch him, no one will protect him.
I have some new information.
Yes?
He ordered a grave marker today.
A grave marker?
Yes, a replacement, from a stone mason in Latakia.
His home town.
Yes.
And the name of this stone mason?
It is in the envelope, with my report.
A grave marker?
Yes.
Mustafa had slipped out of a rear servant’s door at the consulate that night. On his way through an unused kitchen he had caught a glimpse of the party, the women in glittering gowns, the men in tuxedoes, the food and drink on silver platters, the lush furniture and carpeting, all softly lit from above by three massive crystal chandeliers, glowing like the planets he used to look at in the night sky from the roof of his tenement in Beirut when he was a boy. He did not see Hassan, but he saw his American wife, smiling her supremely confident smile, and her son, Michael, talking in a corner to Yasmine Hayek, the daughter of a politician in Lebanon that Mustafa knew well, a politician who was helping to destroy the country of his birth by westernizing it, a man who thought women should work and get divorced and vote. A man who allowed himself and his wife and daughter to be photographed for western newspapers.
And then there was the meeting, just a month ago, in the cold, on a bench in Battery Park, the Statute of Liberty shrouded in fog in the bay.
This is hard to believe, Mustafa.
Yes, sire.
I cannot tell Damascus. We have joined the family of peace-loving nations.
Yes, sire.
Temporarily.
Yes, sire.
I have learned our war hero’s secret. Damascus will blame him.
Yes, sire.
And you have her on video?
Yes, sire.
Then yes, go ahead.
And after?
They must both be killed.
I cannot tell Damascus, the colonel had said. Damascus will blame him. Smiling, Mustafa rose and laid out his mat in anticipation of Isha’, his last prayer before bed. So, he said to himself, my colonel will act alone in this matter, without the blessing of his superiors. Therefore so will I, and, Insha’Allah, I will have my revenge at last.
Chapter 12
Glen Cove,
Saturday, February 28, 2009,
10:00AM
The ground was snow covered but the sky a clear blue on the day of Nick Loh’s funeral. In addition to the hearse and the limousines carrying the family, there were some fifty cars in the motorcade from St. Rocco’s church in Glen Cove to Holy Rood Cemetery in Westbury. Included in these were the chiefs’ cars from a dozen towns on Long Island and spotless NYPD SUV’s carrying brass from the five boroughs. Arriving late to the funeral mass, Matt DeMarco had been lucky to find a seat at the back of the crowded church. Jade Lee sat a few pews in front of him, her raven black hair unmistakable. Next to her was a man who, even from behind, had the look and bearing of an athlete. At a slender six-five or six, he towered above the people around him when standing was required during the mass. Her new man, Matt thought, thinking of the Dutch dinner they were supposed to have. He couldn’t remember how they had left it, but he had not called her, and now knew why she hadn’t called him.
Afterward, Matt stood among a group of civilians on the crest of a low hill and watched as an honor guard consisting of five rows of blue-dress-uniformed policemen and women, about a hundred in total, lined up at attention and raised their right hands—clad in pristine white cotton dress gloves—to salute, while six others, including Bobby Davila at the right front, lifted Loh’s casket, draped with the American flag, to their shoulders. At least five hundred other uniformed police officers surrounded the gravesite, their gold jacket buttons, hat braids and insignia sparkling in the late morning sun. All came to attention as the pallbearers slowly walked their burden through the grassy corridor that separated the immediate family and friends, placing it gently on a low steel trestle next to the open grave. A bagpiper in kilts came to the last mournful note of Taps as they saluted and backed away.
Matt did not know Loh’s wife personally and thought better of trying to approach her through the crowd when the service was over. He had paid his respects to her the night before at the wake, where another sea of blue had washed in and around the small, overwhelmed funeral home in town. When he got to the parking lot he saw Jack McCann, his hands in his overcoat pockets, a cigarette in his mouth, standing next to his car.
“Jack,” Matt said. “What’s up?”
“You resign and don’t call me, Matt? What the fuck?” McCann took a last drag on his cigarette after he said this, then threw the butt on the asphalt pavement, where it hissed itself out in the melting snow.
“I didn’t want to get you in any more trouble than you were already in.”
“I’m not in any trouble. The two cases are connected, so I reported it.”
“You reported it to me.”
“Fuck it.”
“Healy’s got more shit on more people, Jack,” Matt said. “You know that. And he holds a grudge. He can hurt you.”
“Clarke’s pissed too.”
Matt could see that his friend of fifteen years was not angry, just unable, or unwilling, to control his flare for the dramatic, the Irish volatility that he laid on friend and foe alike as he went through his day.
“I’ll call him.” Matt said.
“What did Healy say?”
“You haven’t heard?”
“No.”
“He thinks Diaz was coincidental,” Matt said, surprised. Healy had more than the usual control over his organization, but in an office with six hundred lawyers and three times the staff, news traveled very fast. “He’s not telling Stryker.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. I wish I were.”
“Is that why you quit?”
“Yes. I’m seeing Stryker on Monday.”
McCann nodded and was about to say something but was interrupted by the ringing of his cell phone. Matt watched as the detective extracted the phone from his coat pocket, flipped it open and looked at the screen. “Hold on,” he said, “it’s Clarke.”
“Yeah,” he said, putting the phone to his ear, and then listening for a few seconds.
“O.K… I’m with him right now,” McCann said, closing the phone and putting it away. “Something else you can tell Stryker,” he said, looking at Matt.
“What?”
“The security system in the Excelsior, the girl’s building, it looks like it was tampered with in some way.”
“How?”
“Technical assistance just went through it all. They’re not sure, a deletion maybe, editing of some kind.”
“It’s legit?”
“They say it’s very sophisticated, that whoever did it used software that only big players have, intelligence agencies.”
“Like the CIA?”
“Yes, million dollar software. They’re taking a hard look, calling people in the industry, in friendly agencies.”
“And Diaz is dead. The only witness.”
“There’s more,” McCann said. “Clarke went out to the company that operated the system, in Jersey. That’s where he was just now. They’re gone, closed up. The people next door said they vanished overnight.”
Matt shook his head.
“The neighbors said they were Arabs. Syrian. They had a black and red flag in the window.”
“Can someone be framing Michael? Is that possible?”
“Or just covering up for the real killer,” McCann said.
“Either way, Jon Healy doesn’t give a shit.”
“No, he wants to be governor or some other bullshit.”
“Thank you, Jack,” Matt said. “I really appreciate this. Stay out of it now. Don’t get yourself in t
rouble. I’ll tell Stryker. He’ll know how to handle it.”
“Don’t try to protect me,” McCann said. “I’m not staying out of it. Nick Loh was a good kid, a good cop. And your son is in a big jam.”
Matt looked at his friend of fifteen years. Jack and Clarke were the only people he had ever told the Johnny Taylor story to. Not Debra, certainly not Michael. Just them. And he knew about McCann’s small piece of hell as well: the wife and teenage daughter who he never saw, who had walked away from him because of his drinking, the AA meetings he made and the many he skipped.
“Sorry, Jack,” Matt said.
“I think the girl was executed,” said McCann, nodding slightly, acknowledging Matt’s apology.
“For political reasons, you mean?” Matt replied. He knew, as did Jack, that Yasmine’s father was a pro-West big shot in Lebanon, that a political assassination on U.S. soil was the last thing the new administration in Washington wanted. Hence the joy at the state department to learn that her killing was one of passion: the jilted boyfriend did it, thank God.
“Maybe just to frame Michael.”
“Jack, the kid’s an arrogant fool, but who would want to frame him for murder? What’s the motive?”
“Maybe it’s you, Matt,” McCann answered, his face grim, the perennial twinkle in his blue eyes gone for a second. “You’ve made some enemies. All D.A.’s do. Think about it.”
Chapter 13
Manhattan,
Saturday, February 28, 2009,
9:00PM
Hell’s Kitchen was no longer Hell’s Kitchen, but Rudy’s, the bar on Ninth Avenue where Matt had his first legal drink, had not changed. The faux Tiffany lamps above the bar and over the leather-cushioned booths still cast their mellow light, the wood floor was as scuffed as ever, and the unpretentious crowd—balding men in khakis and women who drank beer—chatted and watched the same small television that Matt watched with his friends in 1980. On the night of Nick Loh’s funeral, Matt, in jeans, a navy blue wool sweater, and Gore-Tex boots, walked the twenty blocks from his apartment to Rudy’s, his gloved hands stuffed in his overcoat pockets, a thick scarf around his neck to fend off Ninth Avenue’s whistling headwind. It was fifteen degrees out, but for the first time in three weeks he felt like getting out and moving around.
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