Fatal Conceit (4 page)

“Our story is that our peaceful trade mission was attacked by Chechen separatist terrorists, a cowardly betrayal of heroic Deputy Chief of Mission Huff and his brave security team, who were trying to offer the hand of friendship and instead were stabbed in the back,” Fauhomme said. “There were no survivors. I'll bet the Russians will back us on this, but they'll be bending us over a barrel for the next decade as payback.”

“Something's happening with the drone,” Baum said.

They all looked at the television screen just as it wavered and then went to black. At the same time, Lindsey's phone buzzed. “Yeah?” he answered, then cursed. “What the hell do you mean you lost contact? Get it back!”

A minute later, the screen blinked on again but all that could be seen were the buildings and vehicles, as well as a couple of bodies, now only slightly warmer than their surroundings, according to the drone's infrared electro-optical sensor. There was no sign of life.

“Where in the hell did they go?” Lindsey asked and got back on
his phone. “Goddammit, expand the search area,” he yelled. “Do I have to tell you everything?” He ended the call with an angry push of a button and looked at Fauhomme. “They're gone,” he said.

“And you, my friend, are a master of the obvious,” Fauhomme said and stubbed his cigar out. “Just make sure they stay gone.”

“O
N TWO, GO OUT ABOUT
five yards, stop, wait for my fake, then take off and hook around the lady with the baby carriage . . . after that go long.”

“You've had me go long the last two plays,” Giancarlo complained, “and Zak had me covered both times.”

“That's why he won't expect it again,” his dad, Butch Karp, said with a wink. “Sell the short route; then when he bites, use the baby carriage to brush him off. We'll burn him, baby.”

Giancarlo rolled his eyes and shook his head. He and his dad were down 28–0 to his mom, Marlene, and his twin brother, Isaac, better known as “Zak” or, as he was referring to himself during this Saturday afternoon family game of touch football in Central Park, “The Glue-meister.”

Zak was the main reason for the lopsided score. Although born only a few minutes before Giancarlo, the “older” sibling was bigger, stronger, faster. In fact, Zak was one of the better athletes in the New York City school system, the starting running back and middle linebacker on their high school football team and starting pitcher and center fielder for the baseball team.

All in all, Giancarlo didn't mind the accolades Zak garnered for his physical prowess. In fact, when they weren't battling over the
things teen-aged brothers squabble about, he was proud of his sibling. Early in their boyhoods, Giancarlo had seen the writing on the wall when it came to who was going to be the superior athlete, and he was cool with it. Not that Giancarlo was terrible, by any means—he'd made the varsity baseball team, though most of his game-day participation was spent riding the pine. Still, his brother was college athletic scholarship material and he clearly was not. However, Giancarlo more than compensated with his musical abilities on a half-dozen instruments and superiority in academics. Zak struggled with his grades, mostly because of inattention rooted in a firm belief that he was headed for a pro football or baseball career.

Both boys were movie-star handsome with the soulful brown eyes and black curly hair from their Italian mother's side of the family. Zak was a little more rugged and already waking up with a five o'clock shadow, while Giancarlo's features were more delicate. Neither had their father's height, or his Slavic facial characteristics and gray, gold-flecked eyes. There was even a long-running and mostly good-natured argument between their parents about whose athletic genes Zak inherited.

Back in the day, their father was a highly recruited high school basketball player who'd been compared to former Celtic great Bob Cousy when he starred in his freshman year at the University of California–Berkeley. However, a freak knee injury during practice ended his college, and potential pro, playing careers, relegating him from then on to pickup basketball games and first base for the New York County District Attorney's Office softball team. He worked out on weights and swam when his busy schedule allowed, which wasn't often, and tried to get in quick-paced walks when his bum knee cooperated. But even he admitted that his cardio conditioning wasn't all it should be.

Meanwhile, the boys' mother, Marlene Ciampi, was no slouch as an athlete. A fit, lithe woman even into middle age, she'd grown up wrestling and boxing with her brothers, as well as running track
and playing basketball and tennis for the women's teams at Sacred Heart High School in Queens and then in college at Smith. After quitting the District Attorney's Office, she kept herself in shape throughout motherhood and beyond, when her career path led to creating a security firm for VIP clients, as well as working as a sometimes confrontational advocate for abused women. Now as a defense attorney and private investigator, she still put in fifteen to twenty miles of running per week, swam, and played tennis and racquetball. Several times this afternoon she'd easily sidestepped her husband's rush attempts (after he'd counted “one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi”) and passed the ball to Zak, who did the rest by eluding his brother on his way to four touchdowns.

Giancarlo had resigned himself to there being no hope of winning the game, which meant listening to his brother gloat for the rest of the afternoon and evening. Still, Zak was so competitive that one score would dampen his enthusiasm for rubbing it in, and he might even take it so hard that he'd go into a sulk and not speak for hours. So with that one small hope to cling to, Giancarlo turned back to where the football lay on the grass waiting for him to hike it to his dad.

“Come on over here, Butta-fingas,” Zak taunted his brother in his best faux Bronx accent.

“Yeah, let's see whatcha got there, Noodle Arm!” Marlene yelled at Karp.

The boys squared off. Marlene got into a sprinter's pose, ready to run her husband down like a dog as soon as she counted off her third Mississippi. Karp looked around as if he was Joe Namath looking over the Baltimore Colts defense. He noticed the plainclothes cop, J. P. Murphy, an unwanted but necessary accoutrement of being the district attorney of New York County, standing over on the sideline, watchful but enjoying the warmth of an Indian Summer day. All around the edges of the Central Park meadow, elms, maples, and oaks were hitting their stride with
the season's vibrant display of reds, yellows, oranges, purples, and golds. But the grass was still green and slightly in need of mowing, and the temperature beneath the bright blue sky was more reminiscent of early summer than the chill gray of approaching winter.

This was Karp's favorite time of year, especially when playing a game of touch football with his family in the park. The October games had been a tradition since the twins were young boys, and the only thing missing was his daughter, Lucy. But she was a grown woman living in New Mexico with her fiancé, Ned Blanchett, both of them working for a covert antiterrorism agency. They hadn't heard from her in a while but that wasn't unusual when she was on assignment, and all he knew was that her family missed her.

“You're mine, Karp,” Marlene snarled.

“Don't bet on it, Ciampi,” Karp growled back. “By the way, next score wins.”

“What! No way,” yelled Zak. “You're down twenty-eight–zip.”

“Oh, let the babies have their way, Zak,” Marlene said. “We'll shut these pansies out, then run the ball down their throats. The taste of victory will be that much sweeter.”

Zak laughed. “Yeah, you're right, Mom. Go ahead,
losers
; we'll spot you the twenty-eight points!”

“Down, set, hut one, hut two . . .” Karp barked out the signals.

Giancarlo snapped the ball and began his route with Zak backpedaling to stay with him. Marlene began her count. “One Mississippi, two Mississippi . . .”

Karp cocked his arm as Giancarlo stopped and turned to face him. Smiling, Zak began to move to get in front of his brother to intercept the throw. At the same time, Marlene reached her third Mississippi, and with a primal scream, ran for her husband.

Anticipating the fast but undisciplined attack of his opponents, and using it against them, Karp faked the throw to Giancarlo. Marlene stopped charging and jumped in the air with both arms up to block it; meanwhile, with a shout of triumph, Zak cut under
Giancarlo's route. But instead Karp held on to the ball and took two steps forward while his wife's momentum carried her past him.

Giancarlo then turned and streaked toward where a young woman was sitting on the grass next to a baby carriage and texting on her cell phone. Yelling in surprise, Zak turned to follow his brother, who waited until the last moment before cutting hard to the right and around the woman and her infant. Zak suddenly found himself facing the choice of either running through or leaping over the baby carriage. When the young woman looked up, surprised to see a nearly two-hundred-pound teen-aged boy bearing down on her precious infant, she screamed, which brought Zak to a complete halt while his brother ran on.

With the proverbial eye in the back of his head, Karp knew that his wife was bearing down on him. He lofted the ball toward what, in his best estimation, was the point Giancarlo would reach on the other end of the trajectory; a moment later, he felt Marlene's hands push him just below the waist. They both stood watching as the ball sailed in a perfect arc to settle into Giancarlo's outstretched hands as he raced on to the end zone; he crossed it with the ball held aloft in celebration.

“TOUCHDOWN!” Karp and Giancarlo shouted at the same time. “WE WIN!”

“PENALTY!” Zak protested. “Not fair! You can't use a lady and her baby to set a pick!”

“Really, Butch, what kind of a human being uses a baby . . . a
baby
, for God's sake . . . just to score in a football game?” scolded Marlene.

“I was sure Zak would stop in time,” Karp said with a smile and a shrug. “Besides, all's fair in love and football. Now let's see, what did we bet on the game?”

“Win or lose you were going to treat us all to cherry cheese coffeecake at Il Buon Pane,” Marlene answered.

Karp's response was interrupted by the approach of their quarreling sons. “That was pass interference!” Zak complained.

“The lady and her baby weren't on our team, I had to go around them, too,” Giancarlo countered. “Face it, you lost, we won.”

“No way, we get a chance to tie you!”

Giancarlo shook his head. “I believe the rule was ‘Next score wins.' It was sudden death. Game over.”

Zak turned to his mother. “Mom!”

Marlene shrugged. “Sorry, Zak, but we agreed. It was pretty low and they'll have to live with the shame, and besides, we know who really won this game.”

The answer didn't satisfy Zak. He frowned at his dad. “Aren't you supposed to be a role model or something?”

Karp smiled. “Consider that a good life lesson. Don't let your ego get in the way of making smart decisions. And once you got your opponent on the ropes, keep him there until he goes down; let him off and all it takes is one lucky punch.”

“Doesn't sound like much of a role model speech to me,” Zak grumbled.

Laughing, Karp was about to goad his son some more when Officer Murphy shouted and waved, “Uh, Mr. Karp! I have a call, says it's urgent!”

“Who is it, J.P.?” Karp asked. Rare were the calls that weren't “urgent,” though in reality most could wait for him to enjoy a couple of uninterrupted hours with his family.

“It's Mr. Jaxon,” Murphy replied, walking toward them.

Karp and Marlene stared at each other with frowns. S. P. “Espy” Jaxon was an old family friend and had once been an assistant district attorney with the New York office, which was where they'd met. But Jaxon had grown tired of dealing with criminals on that end of the justice system and, saying he wanted to be “more proactive,” joined the FBI. He'd eventually risen to the rank of special agent in charge of the New York City office, where he'd been when the World Trade Center was attacked on 9/11. Soon after, he'd been asked by someone apparently so high up in the federal government that Jaxon reported only to him, or her—Karp
had never asked or been told who—to head up a small, covert antiterrorism group whose main objective was rooting out sleeper cells that had infiltrated the nation's major law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Unlike those agencies, Jaxon's had not been placed under the umbrella of the United States National Security Agency, created in the aftermath of 9/11, and operated quietly behind the scenes.

Given a free hand to form his team, Jaxon had been careful to choose men and women from the FBI and other agencies that he knew personally and trusted implicitly. He was also looking for “outsiders” who didn't have a federal “jacket” and therefore were below the radar of enemies foreign and domestic. These had included several friends of Karp and Marlene, as well as their daughter, Lucy, a “polyglot” capable of fluently speaking more than sixty languages, and her fiancé, Ned Blanchett, a simple ranch hand when he met Lucy but whose natural abilities as a sharpshooter and cool head in perilous situations had made him a perfect fit for Jaxon's team. It was a dangerous job, and the mention of Jaxon's name in the context of an “urgent” message wasn't something Karp and Marlene wanted to hear.

Karp trotted over to meet Murphy, who handed him his cell phone. “Thanks, J.P.,” he said. “Hey, Espy, what's up?”

“Where are you?”

The abruptness of the response warned Karp that this was not a social call. “In Central Park with Marlene and the boys.”

“I need to see you, and Marlene, right away.”