by M. A. Lawson
Almost as if he knew what she was thinking, Callahan said, “But why would Dolan do this?”
“For money. That’s the only reason I can think of. We need to . . .”
“Dolan’s richer than Midas,” Callahan said. “He wouldn’t have killed five people for money.”
“How do you know he’s rich?” Kay countered. “Everybody assumes he’s rich because he’s got a fancy place in Manhattan and worked in investment banking, but you don’t know for sure. He could be up to his neck in debt. He could have lost all his money during the meltdown. And if he’s working with somebody else to go after the lithium—some corporation or foreign government—we’re talking about billions of dollars, and a few billion dollars is enough motive for anyone.”
“I’m telling you, you’re wrong about Eli.”
“And I’m telling you that you need to start thinking like a cop instead of a spy.”
Kay could tell that Callahan wasn’t going to concede that she was right about Dolan, so she changed the subject. “What are the Afghans doing about all this?”
Callahan barked out a humorless laugh. “They’re going nuts, of course. One of their governors was just assassinated, and two of the people at the meeting—you and Eli—boogied out of the country before anyone could question you. They’ve been pestering the State Department for answers, and the State Department is telling them they have no idea why two private companies, the Callahan Group and Glardon Mining, were meeting with Sahid Khan.
“This is why the Callahan Group exists, Hamilton. The U.S. government can honestly state that it was not involved in anything we were doing over there. A guy who works for the Afghan ambassador here in Washington called me and I told him we were just having some preliminary discussions with the Khans over a private business venture with a Swiss company. I told him that’s what the Callahan Group does: We facilitate overseas business ventures. I told him to look at our website. I said it’s no different than if Starbucks went over there to set up a franchise, except my people just happened to be in the wrong place when a bomb went off, which happens about eight times a day in that fucking country. I also told the ambassador’s guy the reason you and Eli left the country is you were injured and I was afraid my employees had been targeted for assassination, and I’m not about to send you back there to talk to the Afghan cops.” Callahan sighed. “A lot of people aren’t very happy with me right now, and the least of my worries are the Afghans.”
“What’s Sterling telling them?”
“Nothing. He doesn’t know anything. His company was asked to provide security—which they obviously didn’t do very well—but he has no idea what the meeting was about. He’s also telling them the same thing I’ve been telling you: that the old man probably planted the bomb and Khan’s guards most likely assassinated their boss.”
“What about the money? The fifty million? I know the money was transferred before the bomb exploded, because I saw Dolan and Ara make the transfer.”
“Ah, now that’s a problem,” Callahan said, rubbing a hand over his pale face.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean the money is in a Swiss bank and I’m guessing the only people authorized to take money from the account are Sahid Khan and his daughter. So unless I can devise a way to rob a Swiss bank, that money may sit there until the end of time—or until the end of money, whichever comes first.”
Kay didn’t really care about the fifty million. That was Callahan’s problem. The only thing she cared about was tracking down the people who had killed Ara Khan. “So what are you going to do about Dolan?” she said.
“I don’t know that I’m going to do anything about him. I’m not convinced he did anything wrong.”
Kay stood up. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”
“You’re going to get to the bottom of it?” Callahan said.
“Yes. Somebody tried to kill me and they killed Ara Khan. I liked Ara. I liked her a lot. And I think, just like you said, she could have been one of the future female leaders of the Muslim world, but some son of a bitch blew her to pieces. I’m going to find out who it was.”
“And how exactly do you plan to conduct your own investigation if you’re not employed by me?”
“Are you saying you’re firing me?”
“Not yet.” Pointing a blunt finger at her face, he added, “But if you don’t start acting and talking like my employee, that’ll happen pretty fuckin’ quick.”
—
THREE HOURS LATER, Callahan found himself back in the apartment/safe house near Mount Vernon Square waiting for Smee. Smee was the one who’d called the meeting, and having a pretty good idea why Smee wanted to meet, this time Callahan didn’t keep him waiting.
When Smee entered the apartment, Callahan was drinking a beer, watching Notre Dame get its ass kicked by Penn State in basketball. Had he been a contributing alumnus, he would have stopped contributing. Smee just stood there looking at him until Callahan muted the sound of the game.
“Mr. Lincoln wants to meet tonight at seven p.m. Are you ready to write down the address?”
“Smee, couldn’t you have just written it down for me?”
Smee didn’t respond.
“Well, shit,” Callahan said. “Now I’m gonna have to find a pen and some paper.”
Smee handed Callahan a fountain pen—typical of Smee to use a fountain pen—then carefully tore a piece of paper out of a small leather-bound notebook.
“Ready,” Smee said, and then rattled off an address in Davidsonville, Maryland, including its nine-digit zip code. Although Callahan had never been to the address before, he knew it would be in an isolated setting with clear lines of sight for at least half a mile so anyone following him could be easily seen.
“Anything else?” Callahan said.
“My pen, please,” Smee said.
Callahan handed it to him, and Smee turned to leave the apartment. As he opened the door, Callahan said, “Hey, come on, Smee. Have a beer and watch the game with me.”
Smee left without responding.
Callahan knew that what he was now supposed to do was memorize the address and burn the piece of paper, but as he didn’t have Smee’s memory, he had no intention of doing that. He put the paper in his shirt pocket and turned up the sound on the game, although he wasn’t really watching the game. He was thinking about what Kay Hamilton had said—and he’d come to the conclusion that Hamilton was probably right: The Khans hadn’t told anybody about the meeting, which meant that somebody working for him had most likely killed the Khans. He still didn’t believe it was Dolan but he couldn’t ignore Hamilton’s logic.
He turned off the television when Notre Dame was twenty points behind, wondering why in the hell they had a point guard who was only five-foot-nine.
20 | After she left Callahan’s office, Kay limped over to a restaurant on L Street and had lunch: a pastrami sandwich, a fat pickle, and iced tea. As she sat there, she thought again—for maybe the hundredth time—about the sequence of events prior to the bomb exploding.
They arrived at the compound outside Ghazni about ten a.m. Sterling’s men swept the house, making sure nobody was inside, but as far as Kay knew, they didn’t use any sort of bomb-detection equipment. Soon after they arrived, the old man, Yasir, prepared a lunch for her, Dolan, the Glardon mining engineer, and Nathan Sterling. The lunch was traditional Afghan fare, consisting of naan bread, steamed rice with carrots and raisins, and slivers of meat of an uncertain origin, possibly goat. They ate in the same dining room that was later used for the meeting. Sterling’s people ate whatever rations they brought with them from Kabul and stayed at their posts outside the house.
After lunch she took a nap, so for two hours she had no idea who was doing what. In particular, she had no idea what Dolan and Sterling had been up to while she was sleeping. After her nap, she saw Sterling as she wa
s coming down the stairs. He’d been coming from the direction of the kitchen, which was adjacent to the meeting room. She remembered thinking that he’d been surprised to see her and he said he’d been checking on the old man—and maybe he had been. On the other hand, maybe he was the one who’d planted the bomb.
She spent the next two hours talking with Eli and watching The Godfather. She recalled how Eli had seemed unusually tense. And while she was watching the movie, she again had no idea if Sterling or any of his men entered the house.
For dinner, the old man served a lamb stew and more naan, and a pot and bowls were taken outside for Sterling’s men. After dinner, the old man disappeared and he didn’t come near the kitchen or the dining room, where the meeting was being held. He apparently went to some other part of the large house, most likely the room where he slept.
As it was getting dark outside, Ara Khan and her father arrived with their security people. And, as far as Kay knew, none of Khan’s people entered the house; for sure, none of them came near the meeting room—she would have seen them if they had—and she imagined that Sterling’s people would have watched Khan’s bodyguards closely, treating them as potential hostiles, not allies.
The meeting started, and a couple hours later, Dolan transferred the money to Sahid Khan’s bank. A moment after that the power failed, and Dolan supposedly received a call from Sterling asking him to go find the old man, because Sterling’s guys couldn’t start the generator. A few seconds after Dolan left the room the bomb went off. And as she’d told Callahan, the only person who could have known that the Khans would be in the room, sitting in front of the credenza, when the bomb exploded was Dolan—the one person who’d survived the explosion unharmed.
But there was something Kay didn’t understand, and she hadn’t told this to Callahan: Why did Dolan wait until after the money was transferred before he killed the Khans? That was the one thing that didn’t make sense to her. Dolan could have stepped from the meeting any time he wanted, knowing the Khans were sitting at the table, and then he could have detonated the bomb. On the other hand, if there was a reason he’d waited until after the money was transferred, then Dolan again became her prime suspect. He was the only one who wasn’t killed—other than her—who knew when the transfer had been completed. But why did he wait? She didn’t know and she didn’t know how to find out. She also didn’t know how to look into Dolan’s finances to see if he was as rich as everyone thought he was.
So now what? What should she do next? Callahan had a valid point: How could she investigate Ara Khan’s death without some sort of organization to assist her?
Then it occurred to her that there was an organization that could assist her.
—
KAY DIDN’T KNOW if anyone was following her or listening to her phone calls. Most likely no one was, but she couldn’t take the chance. As the Prussian military theorist von Clausewitz once said: You have to plan for war based on your enemy’s capabilities, not his intentions. Or at least that’s what one of Kay’s old bosses at the DEA had once told her. Callahan may not have suspected her, but he certainly had the capability to follow her and monitor her phones.
Kay left the restaurant on L Street, then zipped in and out of buildings, made a brief trip on the Metro, then went in and out of a couple more buildings. Finally satisfied that she’d lost anyone tailing her—or would never lose them—she made a call from a pay phone. All the running around had made her leg ache even more.
“I need to see you tonight,” Kay said. “The organization I’m currently working for may have just killed five people and almost killed me. In other words, it’s a big fucking deal.”
There was a long pause. “I assume you’re calling from a secure phone.”
“You assume wrong. I’m calling from a pay phone and nobody knows I’m using this particular phone. I hope nobody is listening in on your phone.”
“Nobody is.”
“Good. Meet me tonight at eight at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church on Connecticut, and make sure you’re not followed.”
Another long pause. “Okay.”
21 | Callahan arrived at the address in Davidsonville at seven-thirty p.m.; he was supposed to be there at seven. He hadn’t intended to be late, as he knew that would just piss them off, but traffic leaving Washington was heavier than he’d expected. The damn rush hour was twenty hours long these days. As he had expected, the meeting place was a farmhouse sitting on four or five fallow acres; it looked as if it had been built back when they still used mules to plow.
He knocked, and Prescott answered the door. Prescott was as tall as he was—five-foot-ten—skinny and with a chest as flat as an ironing board. Her hair was short and wavy and dyed platinum blond, which he’d always found incongruent with Prescott’s personality. He’d never thought of her caring in any way about the way she looked; she certainly didn’t dress as if she cared. She was wearing a drab brown skirt, white stockings with penny loafers, and a white cardigan sweater that should have been placed in a Goodwill bin a decade ago. But for some reason she dyed and styled her hair like a 1920s flapper, and she’d even applied a film of red lipstick over lips so thin it was hard to think of them as lips.
Prescott led him into an old farmhouse kitchen. There were Mason jars filled with pickled vegetables sitting on shelves, a big, battered wooden table made from six-inch-wide planks, and a gas oven that looked three decades old. The oven could prove useful if Lincoln and his two pals ordered him to stick his head inside it as his penalty for fucking up.
Lincoln was sitting at the head of the table, a mug of coffee in his right hand. He was a big man, six-foot-four, and probably weighed two hundred fifty pounds. He was big enough to have played football in college, but Callahan knew Lincoln had never played sports, unless you considered chess a sport. He had short gray hair and a big-nosed, craggy face, like it had been chipped out of granite by an incompetent sculptor. Not a handsome man, but an impressive- and intimidating-looking one. He was wearing a black suit and almost certainly had come straight from work. Lincoln rarely left his office before eight or nine p.m. On his meaty left hand was a wedding ring; Callahan had never met Lincoln’s wife, but he couldn’t imagine anyone being married to him.
Sitting to Lincoln’s right was Grayson. Like Prescott, Grayson was tall and lanky. His hair was white and softer than goose down, and he wore wire-rimmed aviator classes. He was the only one of the three that looked as if he might actually possess a sense of humor, although Callahan had never heard him say anything the least bit funny. He favored tweed suits, and he reminded Callahan of a history professor he’d had at Notre Dame, but Callahan knew that three decades ago Grayson had been a Delta Force soldier and had literally cut a few people’s throats. Grayson was still cutting throats, but now he didn’t do it personally. The rumor was that Grayson was gay.
Prescott took the chair on Lincoln’s left, and Lincoln gestured for Callahan to take the seat at the opposite end of the table from him. If Callahan took that seat it would have the appearance of the three of them sitting at one end of the table like a tribunal, with Callahan at the other end, like a guy applying for a job—or like a guy about to get his ass chewed out by his bosses for the job he’d just done.
“Hey, sorry I’m late,” Callahan said, making no attempt to sound sincere, then he walked over to the stove, where there was a blue metal percolator-type coffeepot. In a cupboard he found a chipped cup with a picture of an Irish setter on it, and he took a seat at the table on the same side as Grayson, a seat away from Grayson. He wasn’t going to sit at the end of the goddamned table.
“What the fuck happened over there?” Prescott said. Of the three of them, she was definitely the most vulgar, and Callahan actually liked her for that. He couldn’t remember Lincoln ever swearing; Lincoln looked scary enough that he didn’t need to swear.
“I don’t know,” Callahan said. “But I have the awful feeling th
at one of my own people was involved.” He didn’t bother to tell them that it was Kay Hamilton who led him to this conclusion. One of the privileges of being the boss was taking credit for your employees’ ideas.
“Jesus!” Prescott said. “My God,” Grayson moaned. Lincoln didn’t bother to invoke the name of a deity. He just closed his eyes.
“Explain,” Lincoln said, and Callahan did. He basically told them what Hamilton had told him. “I’ve obviously got a lot of work to do to prove this, and I’m going to need your help resource-wise.”
The resources Lincoln, Grayson, and Prescott had at their disposal in terms of equipment, money, and personnel were vast, and the personnel were extremely competent. And were it not for the money they controlled, the Callahan Group would not have existed.
“Do you think there’s any other way we can get there first with regard to the lithium?” Lincoln asked.
“I doubt it,” Callahan said. “Without Sahid Khan in Ghazni and us having some kind of special relationship with him, it’s just going to be the usual scramble. We’ll have to get the lithium the same way we’ve done it in the past for other precious metals.”
No one said anything for a long, uncomfortable moment as they all stared glumly at Callahan. And there was a lot to be glum about: Their plan to control the lithium mining, place the man they wanted in the presidential palace in Kabul, and eventually get an enlightened female in a position of power was all gone. Gone, too, was fifty million U.S. dollars. They’d all known from the beginning that their scheme had been ambitious—maybe overly ambitious—and fraught with potential problems, but they’d believed it was possible. Now nothing they’d envisioned was possible.
