A perfect plan.
Kadir had never killed before, but he was ready for it. Never had he felt himself so filled with rage. Just yesterday U.S. forces had sent the Iraqi Republican Guard fleeing from Kuwait with their collective tails between their legs, then massacred them on the Highway of Death. Kadir was hardly a supporter of Saddam Hussein and his secular regime, but Saddam was an Arab, and humiliating him before the world was to humiliate all Arabs everywhere. Jihad against America, led by Sheikh Omar, was the only response, and Kadir was ready to vent his rage on whoever stood in the way. Mustafa Shalabi was one such person.
He peered into the dark, silent house. Had someone else—another of Sheikh Omar’s followers, perhaps—got here first? That seemed unlikely. Who else could know? Mahmoud, a friend of Shalabi, had used his cab to drive the traitor’s wife, Zanib, to the airport for her flight to Cairo. Mahmoud had overheard him tell her that he would be following in a day or two. No one else knew of his planned departure.
Kadir touched the door and it swung inward.
“He sleeps upstairs,” Mahmoud whispered. “Quickly.”
Flicking on his pencil flashlight, he slipped past Kadir and entered the house. As Kadir followed, he caught a reflected glint of light from the floor as they entered the kitchen. He turned on his own flashlight and saw a small puddle of thick red fluid.
“Mahmoud! Blood!”
Mahmoud turned and his flash beam joined Kadir’s on the floor.
Air hissed between his teeth. “Upstairs!”
He turned and ran. Kadir followed. They found the bedroom empty with two open suitcases on the bed, one full of clothes, the other empty.
No, not completely empty. As Kadir aimed his flash beam, he saw a piece of paper. A note?
He snatched it up for a closer look, then groaned when he recognized what it was.
“What’s wrong?” Mahmoud said.
He handed him the half of a hundred-dollar bill.
Mahmoud growled as he crumpled it in his hand. “Some gutless swine is laughing at us!”
“But who?”
“Not one of our people.”
“Someone from the refugee center, then?”
Mahmoud tugged on his red beard. “Perhaps. Perhaps someone else knew he had emptied the account.”
Kadir sat on the bed. The money had been the other reason for their presence here tonight.
They’d failed on both counts. How were they going to face Sheikh Omar?
Mahmoud tugged his arm. “Come. We can’t stay here.”
He rose and followed Mahmoud down the stairs. As they reached the first floor and started through the living room, Mahmoud stopped.
“We should make sure he’s gone. He could be hiding.”
The dark rectangle of a hallway beckoned from his right. He stepped toward it and his foot slipped; he went down, landing on one knee. As something wet soaked through his pants leg, he braced himself against the wall and his flashlight lit up a body lying in a pool of blood. Kadir cried out in shock and scrabbled back to his feet.
Mahmoud came up behind him. “Mustafa,” he whispered, his voice suddenly hoarse.
Kadir’s gorge rose. Shalabi was barely recognizable. His clothes were saturated in blood from his slit throat, and he’d been severely battered.
“Who … who did this?”
Kadir admitted to himself that he was relieved he wouldn’t have to kill Shalabi, even though he was a traitor to jihad.
After a pause, Mahmoud said, “We did.”
“What?”
“That is what we have to tell the imam.”
“Lie?”
To their spiritual leader?
“We cannot let him think we failed him.”
“But we were supposed to hide his body so no one would know.”
“Well, we cannot do that now. Look at all that blood. It’s everywhere. We cannot possibly clean it up and leave no trace.”
He was right … soaking through the carpet, splattering the walls …
Mahmoud added, “We need say only that Shalabi is dead. We will say there was no money in the house. Both are truths.”
Yes … yes they were. Kadir could live with that. But …
“What do we say when he asks us where the money is?”
“Another truth: We do not know.”
True, they didn’t.
“But who would do this? Who would strike such a blow against jihad?”
Mahmoud spat. “Only the vilest snake.”
Kadir couldn’t see one of Shalabi’s followers doing this to him. It had to be someone else.
“The FBI perhaps?”
“Perhaps. They may have wiretaps on the phones at the refugee center. They could have done this in an attempt to shock and silence Sheikh Omar. When we take over the center, we shall ensure the removal of any surveillance. And our leader will make fools of the FBI when he brings jihad to America.”
Kadir imagined an explosion in the base of one of the Trade Towers, saw it tipping into the second, and both going down in plumes of smoke and rubble.
“I pray to Allah to make it so.”
“Allāhu Akbar.”
“Allāhu Akbar.”
Leaving Mustafa Shalabi where he lay, they fled the house and Sea Gate.
2
Kadir stepped into his dark apartment and closed the door behind him. He yawned as he turned on the light. He felt jittery and a little depressed about Shalabi’s death. Certainly he had deserved to die, but not in such a manner. The FBI was ruthless, yes, but to mutilate him so—
“Kadir?”
He cried out and spun at the sound of his name, then pressed a hand over his galloping heart as he recognized his sister.
“Hadya! You frightened me!”
She had been here less than three days and he wasn’t yet used to having someone else in the apartment. She stood in the bedroom doorway dressed in an ankle-length abaya; a blue scarf dangled from her hand. Her dark hair was parted in the middle and fell to perhaps an inch below her ears.
“I’m sorry. I’ve been worried about you. You didn’t come home last night, and when I arose and found no sign of you on the couch, I didn’t know what to think.”
He wasn’t used to anyone questioning his movements either, and had not thought to prepare a cover story, so he turned the conversation toward her.
“What are you doing up so early?”
“I’m going to work.”
Oh, yes. The bakery. Uncle Ferran fired up his bread ovens well before dawn. He’d wasted no time putting her to work. Every new hire, family or not, started on the early shift.
“Of course. You’d better get going, then. But be careful out on the street. Do you want me to walk you over?”
She smiled as she began wrapping her scarf around her head. “I met a woman from the bakery. Her name is Jala and she lives in the building next door. She’s going to meet me out front and we’ll walk over together. It’s only three blocks and the streetlights—Kadir! Your leg!”
He looked down and saw the bloodstain over his left knee from when he’d slipped in Shalabi’s blood.
“It’s—it’s nothing. I cut my knee.”
She bent toward him. “Let me—”
“It’s nothing, Hadya.” He backed away. “I’ll take care of it.”
“But—”
“Go. You’ll be late for work. You don’t want Uncle Ferran to think you are lazy.”
With obvious reluctance she tightened the scarf and hurried out.
When she was gone, he dropped onto the couch and leaned back, closing his eyes with a sigh.
Hadya meant well, but she asked too many questions.
3
“Do you think today is too soon to approach our little jihadists with the new deal?” Nasser said.
After catching up on his sleep and changing into a thobe, he’d brought Shalabi’s cash to Roman Trejador’s suite. Drexler had joined them for lunch. The remnants of a sandwich platter lay scatt
ered around the table.
Trejador glanced at Drexler. “What do you think, Ernst?”
The request surprised Nasser—Drexler, too, from his expression. The two had been at odds for months over the stolen money. What was Trejador up to? Disarming him? Or using an available resource? Ernst Drexler had gained a reputation as a very capable actuator—a position Nasser envied.
“Well…” He cleared his throat. “I believe they’ll be reeling in shock for a while—good work, by the way,” he added with a glance at Nasser.
Aren’t we all so collegial today, Nasser thought with a nod of acceptance.
“Undoubtedly,” Trejador said, “but they won’t feel any repercussions until Shalabi’s corpse is discovered. The brutality of his passing should create a backlash, causing a drop-off in donations to the center, leaving our friends with severely diminished prospects of collecting the funds they need.”
Nasser remembered thinking last night that it could be a long time before the body was found.
“Then perhaps we shall have to speed discovery,” he said. “I’ll put on a thick Egyptian accent, call one of his neighbors, and say he’s not answering his phone and I’m worried about him.”
Trejador nodded. “That should set things in motion.”
Since he had the floor, Nasser decided to press his case. “Might I also suggest that I go to the Al-Farooq Mosque this afternoon and ask for Shalabi? He will not be available, of course.”
“Why deal with the mosque when we have access to the sole survivor of the robbery?” Drexler said.
“Kadir Allawi? He is my ultimate target, but I wish to appear ignorant of the infighting over the mosque and the refugee center. I cannot ask for Tachus, because he was gunned down by the men we are after. That will leave me with no one but Kadir. And Kadir will put me in touch with the jihadists.”
Trejador was nodding. “Yes, I think an indirect approach is best. Sheikh Omar’s jihadists supplied most of the men who were killed by the hijackers. They will want revenge. Your motive will be clear to them: You want your money back.”
“I can offer them financial incentive as well.” He pointed to the cash-stuffed backpack. “Say, two hundred thousand dollars?”
Even Drexler smiled. “Pay them with what would have been their own money had they gotten to Shalabi first? I like it.”
“I do too,” Trejador said. “Go to Brooklyn today. Then call one of Shalabi’s neighbors tomorrow. Tighten the financial screws and they’ll do exactly what we want.”
Nasser leaned back, satisfied. He was beginning to be accepted as an equal with these two. They liked his plan for trapping the hijackers—a reverse on the Trojan horse ploy—because it risked no further investment from the Order. If his scheme worked, it would result in return of the Order’s stolen millions.
And the next step after that, he hoped, would be appointment as the Order’s newest actuator.
A knock on the door. As the junior member of the group, Nasser instinctively rose to answer, but Trejador waved him back.
“I’ll get that.”
He sauntered to the door and opened it, admitting a young, attractive brunette Nasser immediately recognized. He’d met this one before, even remembered her name: Danaë.
One of Trejador’s whores—he was notorious for them. The High Council disapproved, but he explained that he was too involved in the Order’s business to spare time for an ongoing relationship. Therefore he rented his women—they arrived, earned their fee, and left. A business transaction, no more, no less. But apparently he had recurring favorites, and this Danaë appeared to be one of them.
He escorted her down the short hallway to the bedroom. On the way, she made eye contact with Nasser and winked. She remembered him too.
Drexler leaned close and whispered, “I don’t like this. She has seen us. I don’t like harlots knowing my face. He is too reckless, too careless about who he consorts with. It’s going to backfire on him—on all of us—someday.”
Nasser didn’t know about that, and was spared the need for a reply by Trejador’s return from the bedroom.
Drexler rose. “The meeting is adjourned.”
“Is it?” Trejador said with a smile and raised eyebrows.
“I’m certainly not discussing the Order’s business with an outsider around.”
“As you wish.”
Nasser nodded a good-bye and headed for the door. Instead of thinking about his visit to the mosque, his head was filled with visions of Danaë. He liked that she recognized him, and her wink set his loins astir. He imagined her without her clothes, her legs coiled around him.
Someday, when he was chief actuator, he’d make a point of being reckless and careless too, and have his own Danaë.
4
Jack bottled his frustration as he watched Zalesky leave the Filardo house alone—again. His second visit in as many days. What had gone down in there? Jack knew no more about the workings of Zalesky’s scam than when he’d started.
Patience, patience, patience.
When he and Julio had followed the hijo de puta last fall, Zalesky had driven his old lady mark to a bank—her bank, Jack assumed—on a Saturday. Why a Saturday? Had it simply happened to work out that way, or because banks closed early on Saturdays? If that was part of his method, then Jack had to figure on waiting another couple of days before Zalesky zeroed in for the kill.
He followed Zalesky out of Carroll Gardens back to the BQE. He watched him go up the northbound ramp, then dropped him. He wasn’t interested in whatever else the guy did, only in his relationship with Mrs. Filardo.
On impulse, he headed for Queens and that used car dealership in Jamaica he and Cristin had visited on Sunday.
The showroom was open, so this time he went in. He ambled over to the ’63 Corvair convertible. He ran his fingers over the glossy white of the vented rear hood—that was where they placed the engine in these babies. The black top was down and hidden under a snap-on cover behind the rear seat.
“‘The poor man’s Porsche,’” said a voice behind him.
It belonged to a chubby guy in a white shirt who could have been related to Abe—except for the comb-over.
“Sorry?”
“That was what they used to call the Corvair, because both had rear-mounted engines.”
“It looks new.”
He grinned. “Yeah, she’s in cherry condition. Interested?”
“I’ve got a friend who might be. He likes to tinker with old cars.”
“Well, this one needs no tinkering. She’s got barely ten thousand miles on her, and the original air-cooled, two-point-four liter, aluminum flat-six engine purrs. Even has the famous two-speed Powerglide automatic transmission lever.”
Remembering Cristin’s question as soon as she saw it, Jack said, “Okay, I gotta ask—”
“Unsafe at Any Speed, right?” The salesman grimaced. “Everybody asks about that.”
Ralph Nader’s book had damned the Corvair’s handling so thoroughly that it had had to cease production.
“Well?”
“A trumped-up hatchet job,” the guy said with real vehemence. “Nader made his consumerist bones on a lie. The NHTSA did tests later that completely vindicated the Corvair, but by then it was too late. The model was deader than the Edsel.”
The handling issue didn’t matter much to Jack. Not like he intended to take it on cross-country trips. And he figured if he could handle a Harley, he could handle a Corvair. But on to the most important question.
“What’s the damage?”
“I can let you drive it out of here for ninety-nine ninety-nine.”
Ten grand?
“For a thirty-year-old car?”
“Twenty-eight. A classic car that’s been garaged for most of those years. Check out that finish—it’s the original.”
Jack had to admit it looked good.
“Want to take it for a ride?”
Did he ever, but he wanted to keep up the “friend” barrier.
>
“I’ll tell my friend the price and see if he wants to take a look.”
As Jack turned to go, the salesman said, “I can let it go for nine even, but that’s rock bottom.”
Jack waved. “I’ll tell him.” Then he turned back to the salesman. He couldn’t resist. “Maybe I’d better take that test drive. I mean, just to let my friend know it still works.”
The salesman grinned. “Let me go get the keys and we’ll back it out the rear doors.”
Jack didn’t know why, but he wanted this car. He knew it was stupid to buy a vehicle nearing the end of its third decade, and yet, something about it called to him. The simplicity of its lines, maybe. He couldn’t say. He figured sometimes you just want something and this was one of those times.
But if it drove any way less than perfectly, he’d take an immediate pass. He was no mechanic. Looking under the hood was like looking at a space shuttle cockpit—he had no idea what anything did, and didn’t care to learn.
While he waited, he ran over possible purchase scenarios, and then had a brainstorm: Why not put up the money and let Julio buy and register the car under his name?
If he’d do it.
5
Kadir had been listening to Sheikh Omar speak in the mosque when Mahmoud pulled him away.
“The man from Qatar is back,” he said in Arabic. “Asking for Shalabi.”
Kadir’s mouth went dry. He’d had no sleep since sneaking out of Sea Gate early this morning and his back ached from sleeping on his couch after the unaccustomed labor of digging Shalabi’s unused grave yesterday.
“Why now? Why today? Do you think he knows?”
“How could he? No, he says he has a plan to regain the money that was stolen when Tachus and the others were killed.”
That was all well and good, but why had Mahmoud come to him?
“What can I do?”
“It seems he knows you. And if he can’t talk to Shalabi, he wants to talk to you.” He gave Kadir a hard look. “How does he know you?”