Escape (19 page)

Newbury had a firmer grip than one might have expected for a man his age. "Her name is Marie Smith," Jaxon said. "She works for our firm as a translator—English, French, and Arabic. We were told that Prince Esra and his people needed a translator and ..."

"We were expecting a man," Jabbar interrupted. "A woman's presence would not be appropriate."

Jaxon frowned. "The prince's people made no specific request, and it's our understanding that the prince considers himself
modem
in regards to his views on women." He knew that the word modem, much less the emphasis he'd placed on it, would irritate a conservative such as Jabbar. He watched Jabbar's face tighten. "She is our only translator at the moment with the requisite language skills—and she is familiar with business terminology, which will be of great assistance to the prince and his people when it comes to the financial issues he'll be conducting."

Releasing his gaze from the imam, whose eyes had begun to waver—from anger or a loss of confidence it was difficult to tell—Jaxon turned back to Newbury. "However, for the purpose of this meeting, it's obvious we won't need the services of a translator, so there is no need to apologize for Miss Smith's absence. The reason for my request to meet with Mr. Jabbar ..."

"Imam
Jabbar," Newbury insisted.

"My apologies," Jaxon said, trying to sound like he meant it. "Imam Jabbar ... is to discuss security issues regarding Prince Esra's visit to the Al-Aqsa mosque. As I'm sure you know, there are elements within the Muslim population that are antagonistic toward the Saudi royal family. There have been threats' of assassination in the past from terrorist organizations, and I just wanted to discuss with Imam Jabbar if he had concerns about any members of the mosque who might present a security problem. We're especially sensitive, given last month's bombing of the synagogue."

"We're Muslim, so I'm sure we're all guilty," Jabbar sneered.

"What my client means to say is that he, and his congregation, grow tired of these implications that all Muslims are terrorists," Newbury explained. "It's the same thing from the press, the public, and even law-enforcement officers who are sworn to protect
all
citizens equally. The old crime of 'driving while black' has now evolved to 'driving while black and Muslim.' Really, it's quite a civil liberties issue."

Jaxon bit his tongue on the reply he wanted to make. "I understand," he replied evenly. "And my company certainly does not want to harass anyone or abridge their civil liberties. I was merely asking if there was anybody he thought we should be aware of; after all, this is a big mosque with a lot of people from all sorts of places. He can't be expected to control everyone who might harbor violent urges."

"I am aware of no such person," Jabbar replied. "We, of course, abhor what occurred at the synagogue. Then again, violence begets violence, something the United States government might want to consider the next time it drops a bomb on an Iraqi street, or an Israeli tank demolishes a Palestinian's home."

"Not here to argue politics, or who's right and who's wrong," Jaxon responded. "I put in my time working for the government. Right now, I'm just trying to make enough to pay for my kids' college and maybe retire someday. But that means doing my job, and that job is making sure nothing happens to the prince. So I need to cover all my bases." He stood up and laid a business card on Jabbar's desk. "Give me a call if something comes up. And I'd like to speak to whoever runs security at the mosque—it's my understanding that you have your own team—so that we can coordinate."

The imam started to speak but Newbury silenced him with a look. Who's
the boss here?
Jaxon wondered.

"We understand," Newbury replied. "It is a big responsibility and a dangerous world out there. But the imam assures you he knows of no one in his congregation who would want to harm Prince Esra bin Aftaan Al-Saud. Quite the contrary, they are all excited about the visit and his gift that will help them build a fine, new school on the grounds. What happened was a horrible tragedy, but certainly had nothing to do with the Al-Aqsa Mosque. By the way, have they released the bomber's name yet?"

Jaxon was looking at Jabbar, who looked at him as Newbury made his remark. It seemed clear that the only "horrible tragedy" about the bombing in the mind of the imam was that more Jews weren't killed. "That's good to know," the agent said. "And I haven't heard about the name. Then again, I don't have access to all that information anymore."

"Well, then," Newbury said, escorting Jaxon to the door, "you'll have our full cooperation regarding the prince's visit. I'm quite sure that it will all go without incident. In the meantime, if you'd like to talk to Imam Jabbar again, please call me at my office, and we'll see what we can do to accommodate you."

A few minutes later, Jaxon and Lucy were back out on the street and on their way to the waiting car. "That was fast," she said.

"Yeah, I've been bum-rushed by bar bouncers who were more subtle about wanting me off the premises."

Lucy laughed. "Really? You'll have to tell me the story, or stories. My Uncle Espey battling bar bouncers."

Jaxon grinned. "If I told you, your dad wouldn't let you come out to play anymore."

"I'd sneak out." Her face grew serious as she told him about the possibility of Salafist leanings at the mosque. "And, Mr. Super Agent, I'll bet there's something I know that you don't."

"I'm quite sure there's a lot you know that I don't know. But what is this particular bit of intel?"

"Did you get a good look at the receptionist?"

Jaxon tried to recall the woman's face. Pretty eyes, dark skin ... but the hajib made it difficult to remember details. "Not really."

"She's the woman in the photograph," Lucy replied.

"What photograph?"

"The one you guys found in Khalifa's apartment, the woman holding the little boy. That's the thing about the hajib; it really does distract men. I didn't recognize her at first, either, until I saw her smile."

"Her smile?" Jaxon replied. "You're sure?"

"Positive. And she speaks Swahili, so I'm guessing she's an immigrant from East Africa.... I couldn't quite pick up which part—we only said one word each. But I'm guessing that she's Kikuyu from Kenya."

Jaxon shook his head. "You would make a hell of an FBI agent, Niece Lucy."

"Why, thank you." Lucy looked into the rearview mirror and saw that the driver was watching her and smiling. He has nice eyes, she thought, before hurriedly reminding herself that Ned had nice eyes, too. "I did think it was a rather nice catch."

The old men leaned back in their seats, soaking up the morning sunshine outside The Kitchenette. Soon they'd have to either retreat inside or head home to their wives and the air-conditioning. August in New York City could be pretty intimidating.

"Hey, you old farts gonna' sit here all day taking up space I could use for payin' customers, or what?" The forty-something waitress managed to spit the words out in classic Bronx vernacular and chomp gum noisily at the same time. She placed her hands on her hips, which caused her already tight blouse to strain against its buttons.

Ever hopeful for a miracle, the old men focused on her bustline. "What are you geezers lookin' at?" she snapped.

"I was trying to read your name tag," quipped Bill Florence.

"The name's Marjorie, which you've known for, oh, I don't know ... How long you geezers been hangin' around here ogling the goods? Eight years? So get a camera and take a picture, it'll last longer."

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever. John Keats must have been thinking about you when he wrote that."

Marjorie the Waitress's jaw stopped in mid chew, and then she laughed and shook her head. "Well, put it like that, Geoffrey, and
you
can look all you want," she said to the group's resident artist. "The rest of you mugs could learn a thing or two from Mr. Gilbert here about how to talk to a lady. If it's not too late to teach ancient dogs new tricks."

The reference to dogs caused several members of the group to start howling as Marjorie rolled her eyes and waited for the clamor to die down. It was all in good fun, the Sons of Liberty Breakfast Club, as they called themselves, were loyal customers and her most ardent fans.

"What do you say, gentlemen, another round of orange juice?" asked Murray Epstein, the round-faced former defense attorney.

"I dare say we could use the Vitamin C," replied Dennis Hall, the envy of the group because his boyishly curly hair was still full and more brown than gray. "Helps stave off colds and even avian flu, I've heard."

"Vitamin C, my sweet ass," Marjorie scoffed. "I know all about that little flask you senior citizens pass around to spike your juice. You're usually halfpotted by the time you totter out of here. I don't want none of you getting your wrinkly old derrieres run over by a cab and then have to listen to your wives blaming me for contributing to your sudden departure from the planet.... Though I expect half of them would thank me."

When Marjorie left, Saul Silverstein leaned forward to get back to the conversation they'd been having before the short siesta in the sun. A big, heavyset man with thick features, he was the oldest member of the group. "So where were we?"

"I believe in the process of trying to figure out how to locate and destroy the Sons of Man without being wiped off the face of the Earth like so many pesky gnats," said Gilbert, who understandably tended to be the most dramatic of the Breakfast Club members, as well as its only confirmed bachelor, though his friends carefully avoided discussing the reason why.

Father Jim Sunderland, who had stayed out of the waitress-ogling and sat quietly thinking while the others were having their fun, replied, "I think we need to take a chance and reach out to Vince Newbury's boy." He looked from face to face. "If what we suspect is true—that our friend and V. T. Newbury's father was murdered by Vince's own brother ... that scoundrel Dean Newbury ..."

"I still can't believe that V. T. and Butch Karp have had a falling-out and that he's gone over to the enemy's camp," Hall said.

Florence shrugged. "Well, that's the word from my source in the DAO. She overheard several arguments that were anything but friendly. When Karp announced V. T.'s resignation, there were no 'best of luck' wishes. More like 'don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.'"

"V. T. may not be aware of the Sons of Man or his uncle's connection," Epstein noted. "Not unless he's been a mole at the DAO for what? Thirty-plus years? Is he that good of an actor ... or spy, and now he's being brought in from the cold? Maybe this is just a midlife crisis, and he's decided he'd better go for the money while there's still the opportunity, now that his dad is dead."

"What if he is being groomed as Dean Newbury's heir apparent—not just at the firm but with the Sons of Manly Bitches?" Florence asked. "How do we know we can trust him not to just turn us over for summary execution? It wouldn't be the first time that money and power meant more than the death of a blood relative. What do you think, Frank?"

The judge rubbed his neck. "I think this reversal is completely out of character for young Mr. Newbury," he said at last. "I don't think he's been faking it all these years. He's been as able a prosecutor as the DAO has ever had, and until this apparent falling-out, I would have bet that he was cut from the same ethical cloth as our Mr. Karp."

"What about their arguing?" Florence asked.

"Troubling, I agree," Plaut said. "We've also heard that the beating he took left him a changed man. He also wouldn't be the first victim to let anger and fear change him."

"It might in some ways," Sunderland agreed. "But I don't think he'd have anything to do with someone who murdered his father. We all know those two loved each other."

"Perhaps," Hall said. "But we have no proof that Vince was murdered. According to the family doc, it was a massive heart attack ..."

"Yeah," Gilbert scoffed, "an hour after having dinner with his brother Dean."

"The medical examiner's findings concurred with the original diagnosis," Epstein noted.

"Maybe the ME didn't look much beyond a trusted physician's assessment," Hall replied.

"Which brings us back to the fact that we have no proof to back up going to V. T. Newbury and telling him, 'We think your father was murdered by your uncle because he stumbled upon a massive criminal syndicate that plans to take over the country ... and maybe the world.' Who is going to believe that without at least an offer of proof?" Hall said. "Not to mention, other than Dean Newbury, we have no idea who else might be involved with the Sons of Man. All we know is that they're one secretive, powerful, ruthless group of sons of bitches who'd stomp us into the ground without a second thought."

"All the more reason to think long and hard about telling V. T.," Gilbert suggested. "Even if we went to the authorities and the press, too, we'd just be the latest bunch of conspiracy nuts. Then when no one was watching anymore, they could bump us off one at a time. A half-dozen more 'massive heart attacks' or 'traffic accidents' or 'victims of random violent crime,' and who'd bother to look into it?"

"So what's the alternative?" the former Marine, Silverstein, argued. "Our friend Vince dies getting us that book on the Sons of Man, thinking we might know what to do with it. We send the tape to Jaxon, who brings in Lucy, who brings in Cian Magee, and it gets that poor fellow burned to death. But we're worried that someone might find out that we're on to them and take the last few years we have left away from us? What's the matter, you guys want to live forever?"

"I was considering the possibility," Gilbert quipped. They all laughed but grew somber when Gilbert spotted Butch Karp approaching from down the block.

"So gentlemen, what's the topic of conversation this morning?" Karp asked, pulling up a chair at the table. With a daughter playing spy with a real spy and infiltrating a mosque that might be affiliated with a suicide bomber, he'd decided that a trip to The Kitchenette was in order to distract him.

"Ah, we were just discussing our colleague Dennis Hall's appearance on the
Off the Hook Show with Barry Queen,"
Gilbert replied.

"I heard something about that," Karp said. "You discussed the Duke Lacrosse Team rape case, right?"

"I really feel for those kids who were charged," Dennis Hall mused, "and the torment that the prosecutor put their families through."

"I agree. From Day One at the DAO," Karp replied, "Garrahy drilled into us that the worst thing law enforcement could do was convict the unjustly accused."

The group was silent for a moment, then Gilbert blurted out, "We hear that you've been asked to appear on the
Off the Hook Show
regarding the Jessica Campbell case."

As usual, Karp was surprised that the group seemed to know so much about what was going on—often behind closed doors—in his office. It was only the night before that his aide-de-camp, Gilbert Murrow, had left a message on his cell phone saying that the show's producer had called and asked for him to be a guest. He'd heard the hopeful tone in Murrow's voice—the little man spent a lot more time worrying about Karp's public image than he did. But Murrow no doubt also knew what Karp's reaction would be, and that was probably why he had left the message on Karp's cell phone, which he rarely answered after he left work, rather than calling him at home. "Might ask where you heard that?" he asked the Breakfast Club.

"You'll never get it from me, copper," Florence retorted.

"Actually, I overheard that they were going to ask you on the show last night," Hall said.

"So you going to do it?" Sunderland asked quickly.

"I wouldn't count on it. I don't believe in trying cases in public." Karp didn't mean to lecture these men, all of them smart and well-respected in their own right, so he smiled to let them know that it was okay that they asked. "Besides, I've been told that I have a face meant for radio, not television." The others applauded. "Come now, gentlemen," Judge Plaut said. "I think we all know that OUR district attorney, unlike others elsewhere, will not be pandering to the press, or even answering our questions regarding an ongoing case."

"If I was going to talk to anyone," Karp said, "it would be my friends with the Sons of Liberty Breakfast Club. If I can't trust you, who can I trust?"

"Absolutely, hear, hear," they cheered, clinking their glasses of spiked orange juice.

"However," Plaut said, "we were discussing something earlier that I believe has some relevance to our last discussion on Muslim complaints about their portrayal in the media. Bill, perhaps you could bring Mr. Karp up to speed?" Florence nodded and picked up the
Times,
thumbing through until he found the article he was looking for. "This is a story out of Colorado. Apparently, law-enforcement authorities in Denver arrested and charged a wealthy Saudi Arabian citizen and his wife for their treatment of an Indonesian maid they'd brought with them into the country. According to the story, they treated her as a slave, confiscated her passport so that she couldn't travel, or escape, and kept her locked in the basement when she wasn't toiling away in their house in an upper-crust neighborhood. They generously paid her all of $2 a day, which she rarely saw, and it seems the man of the house regularly sexually assaulted her."

"Nice folks," Karp responded.

"It gets worse," Florence said. "The wife pleaded guilty to unlawful detention and kidnapping and was deported. The husband was charged with the same crimes, as well as sexual assault. Apparently, this guy had the best lawyers money could buy. He immediately posted a half-million-dollar bail—all of it paid for by the Saudi government. According to the story, the man's family has a great deal of influence in Saudi Arabia, especially with an important imam, who has a lot of clout with the state-run press over there. But here's the rub ... during his trial, the man and his lawyers raised a big stink about how he was being persecuted because he was Muslim."

"The fact that he was keeping someone as a slave and sexually assaulting her had nothing to do with it," Karp scoffed.

"Yeah, right," Florence nodded. "Anyway, the jury didn't buy it and convicted him of the charges, which carried a sentence of twenty years to life. But rather than apologize and throw himself on the mercy of the court at his sentencing hearing, this arrogant joker contended that he shouldn't be penalized for, and I quote, 'traditional Muslim behaviors.'"

"So there you have it," Sunderland interjected. "We now have it on authority that slavery, kidnapping, and sexual assault on housemaids are all traditional Muslim behaviors."

"You'd think Muslims would object to that," Gilbert noted.

"Well, yes, you'd think so, bat then you'd be wrong, at least overseas," Florence said. "Apparently, the man's conviction set off quite the international furor in Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia ... the usual angry protests outside U.S. embassies and flag burnings. But the Muslim reaction isn't the worst of it. According to the story, the U.S. State Department called the Colorado attorney general and asked him to go to Saudi Arabia to 'explain the American justice system,' as if rape and slavery being crimes need an explanation."

"What a bunch of hooey," Silverstein snorted with disgust. "Now these jokers are 'summoning' our law enforcement to explain why we prosecute criminals. I would have sent them a telegram saying, 'Go fuck yourself'— pardon my French—'but despite what we hear about certain Muslim countries, we haven't allowed people to keep slaves in this country since the Emancipation Proclamation. Oh, and by the way, rape was never legal.'"

"Now, now, Saul," Plaut replied. "We have to be understanding. After all, slavery has only been outlawed in Saudi Arabia since 1962, and according to a human rights organization that I have some association with, there are apparently quite a number of slaves still kept in the countryside and behind closed doors, most of them women. Big surprise there."

"Oh, but wait," Gilbert protested. "I thought the United States was the Great Satan who oppressed poor people?"

Hall scoffed. "You've been watching too much CNN. They agree with whatever criticism is leveled at this country without question."

"Unfair, we're a sitting duck on this one," Epstein protested.

"More fair than CNN and her sister station Al Jazeera," Hall retorted. "The liberal press's double standards when it comes to reporting on Muslim countries is laughable. Osama bin Laden and his ilk rail about modem Crusaders, and CNN does a thirty-minute special on the history of Muslim anger at the Western world. But does anybody note that the Prophet Muhammad himself fought some seventy wars of aggression to spread the Muslim faith? Or that the slaughter went on for hundreds of years until Islam had been crammed down the throats—often throats without heads—of people from Spain to China? The number of people murdered in the name of Allah makes the Crusaders look like Girl Scouts. But, of course, that fact of history is ignored by the press and never tossed back at these Islamic extremists and their idiotic pronouncements."