Numbered Account (40 page)

Kaiser closed his eyes and willed himself not to feel, but to be. He was the bank. Its granite walls and impenetrable vaults; its quiet salons and frenetic trading floor; its imperious directors and ambitious trainees. He was the bank. His blood flowed in its veins and his soul was mortgaged on its behalf.

“The Adler Bank shall not pass,” he declared aloud, taking the words of another embattled general. “They shall not pass.”

“I am positively sated,” declared Ali Mevlevi, allowing a last forkful of braised lamb to fall to his plate. “And you, my darling?”

Lina puffed her cheeks. “I feel like a balloon filled with too much air.”

Mevlevi examined her plate. Most of her midday meal had gone uneaten. “You did not enjoy it? I thought lamb was your favorite.”

“It was very good. I am simply not hungry.”

“Not hungry? How is that? Not enough exercise, perhaps?”

Lina smiled wickedly. “Perhaps too much exercise.”

“For a young woman like you? I think not.” Mevlevi slid his chair back from the table and walked to the broad picture window. He had devoured her that morning. Acted like a man just released from prison. One last time, he had told himself. One last moment in her arms.

Outside, an army of clouds surrounded his compound. A weak storm from the Mediterranean advanced over the Lebanese coastal plain, gathering against the low foothills. Pockets of wind swept rain across the terrace and rattled the windows.

Lina joined him, locking her arms around his stomach and rubbing her head against his back. Normally, he enjoyed her attentions. But the time for such enjoyment was past. He unclasped her hands. “I can see clearly now,” he declared. “The way ahead is shown to me. The path illuminated.”

“What do you see, Al-Mevlevi?”

“The future.”

“And?” Once more, Lina laid her head against his back.

He turned and pushed her arms to her sides. “Surely you know what it must bring.”

Lina met his eyes. He could see she thought his behavior odd. Her innocence was disarming. Almost.

“What?” she asked. “Do
you
know what it will bring?”

But Mevlevi was no longer listening. His ears were attuned to the staccato snap of Joseph’s footsteps, sounding from a distant hallway. He checked his watch, then walked out of the dining room and through the house to his office. “Do join us, Lina,” he called over his shoulder. “Your company would be most welcome.”

Mevlevi entered his study and brought himself face-to-face with his chief of security. Joseph stood at attention, eyes drilled to the fore. My proud desert hawk, thought Mevlevi.

Lina padded in a moment later and settled herself on the sofa.

“News?” Mevlevi asked Joseph.

“Everything is as according to plan. Sergeant Rodenko has two companies training on the south pitch. They are working with live grenades. Ivlov is giving a lecture on the deployment and detonation of antipersonnel claymore mines. Sentries report no activity.”

“All quiet on the western front,” said Mevlevi. “Very good.” He sidestepped the soldier and began pacing the room. He clutched the back of his chair, then straightened a few papers on his desk. He moved to the bookshelf, where he selected a novel, examined its cover, frowned, then replaced it. Finally, he placed himself directly behind Joseph. “Has your affection for me waned?” he asked.

Lina began to answer, but a quickly raised hand stopped her. He repeated the question, this time as a whisper in Joseph’s ear. “Has your affection for me waned? Answer me.”

“No, sir,” the desert hawk replied. “I love and respect you as I would my father.”

“Liar.” A sharp blow to the kidneys.

Joseph fell to one knee.

Mevlevi wrenched his ear and lifted him to his feet. “No father could be more ill served by a son. No man more disappointed. How could you fail me so? Once you would have given your life for me.” A finger traced the crooked scar that creased the hawk’s cheek. An open palm slapped the hawk’s face. “Would you still?”

“Yes, Al-Mevlevi. Always.”

A fist fired into the stomach.

Mevlevi glared at his retainer. “Stand up. You’re a soldier. Once you protected me. Saved me from a suicide raid by Mong’s killers. Once you were proud and hungry to serve. And now? Can you not defend me?”

Lina grabbed a pillow and clutched it to her chest.

Mevlevi placed his hands on the bodyguard’s shoulders. “Can you not save me from an asp in my household? One so close to my bosom?”

“I shall always do my best.”

“You
will never betray me.”

“Never,” said the desert hawk.

Mevlevi grasped Joseph’s jaw with his right hand and with his left caressed his minion’s closely shorn hair. He kissed him on the lips — a hard, sexless embrace. “Yes, in my heart I know this.
Now I know this
.” He released him and walked with measured steps to the couch where Lina sat. “And you,
cherie
? When will you betray me?”

Wide-eyed, she stared at him.

“When?” Mevlevi whispered.

Lina jumped to her feet and ran past him into the hallway.

“Joseph,” the Pasha ordered. “Suleiman’s Pool!”

Fifty yards from Ali Mevlevi’s principal residence stood a low rectangular building, unremarkable in all aspects. Its cement walls had recently been whitewashed. Its terra-cotta roof was common to the region. Trellises laced with dormant bougainvillaea decorated its bland facade. A quick inspection, however, would yield several curious observations. No approach was cut from the manicured lawn surrounding the building. No door interrupted its plain exterior. Blackout curtains were drawn inside double-paned, soundproof windows permanently secured by a row of four-inch nails. But nothing was stranger or more inescapable than the odor that seeped from the house. It was an invasive smell that caused the eyes to water and the throat to burn. “An astringent or a cleanser?” one might ask. “A detoxicant?”

Not exactly. Just the nastiest bits of all three.

As he walked through the subterranean passageway, Ali Mevlevi kept his head bowed and his step pious. He wore a white
dishdasha
, thonged slippers, and an embroidered Muslim prayer cap, inlaid with pearls and golden thread. In his hand he carried the Koran. The holy book was opened to a prayer appropriate for the occasion — the Exaltation of Life — and he read aloud from it. After a single verse, he approached the end of the tiled passageway. His eyes began to tear — a natural reflex to the abrasive odor that stung his nasal passages — and he stopped reading. He dismissed his discomfort as necessary to further the work of almighty God, Allah, and climbed the concrete steps leading to the hall.

Before him lay Suleiman’s Pool: legacy of the greatest of Ottoman rulers, Suleiman the Magnificent. Thirty yards long and fifteen wide, the pool was filled with a brackish mixture of water, formaldehyde, and sodium triphosphate. For centuries, Turkish rulers had enjoyed preserving for months, even years, the youthful bodies of particularly treasured concubines. Somewhere during the twists and turns of history, the vagaries of corrupt Eastern rulers had turned from worship to torture, and from torture to murder. One was but a hop, skip, and jump from the other.

“Al-Mevlevi,” Lina shrieked upon seeing him enter the pavilion. “I beg you. You are mistaken. Please . . .”

Mevlevi guarded his devout pace and walked slowly to Lina, who was seated nude in a high-backed rattan chair. Her hands and feet were bound with sisal. He stroked her fine black hair. “Tsk, tsk, my child. No need to explain. You asked of your future. Behold it now.”

Mevlevi averted his gaze from Lina and looked at the pool. He could make out the outline of a dozen heads below the surface. Hair meandered from the corpses like undersea plant life on a tropical reef. He followed the bloated shapes downward to where bound feet were attached to dark oblong stones.

Lina gasped and began anew. “Al-Mevlevi, I do not work for the Makdisis. Yes, they brought me to the club. But I never spied on you. I never told them anything. I love you.”

Mevlevi laughed mirthlessly. He relegated his heart to a far corner of his soul. Devotion to a higher calling replaced it. “You love me? The Makdisis would be disappointed. I, though, am charmed. Should I believe you?”

“Yes, yes. You must.” Her tears stopped. She was pleading desperately for her life. Sincerity remained her sole currency.

“Tell me the truth, dear Lina. Only the truth. I must know everything.” Normally, Mevlevi enjoyed these last moments. The teasing and taunting. The luring of last hopes. But not today. He kissed her and found her lips hard and dry. He removed a handkerchief from his caftan and wiped the tears from her cheeks.

“Tell me the truth,” he said again, this time softly, as if lulling her to sleep.

“Yes, yes. I swear it.” Lina nodded her head furiously. “The Makdisis found me in Jounieh. They spoke first with my mother. They offered her much money. One thousand dollars American. My mother took me aside and told me of their offer. “What do such men wish me to do?’ I asked her. One of the Makdisis answered. He was a short, fat man with gray hair and very big eyes, eyes like oysters. “Lina, we want you only to look. To watch. To learn.’ “What am I to learn?’ I asked. “Just watch,’ he said. “We will contact you.’

“They wanted nothing specific?”

“No. Just for me to watch you.”

“And?”

Lina licked her lips and opened her eyes as wide as they might stretch. “Yes, I watched you. I know you begin work at seven in the morning and that often you remain in your office until I go to sleep. Sometimes, you do not recite the mid-morning prayers. I think it is because they bore you, not because you forget. On the rest day, you watch the TV. Soccer all day.”

Mevlevi was surprised at the alacrity with which she revealed her crimes. The girl actually believed herself innocent.

She said, “Once, I swear only once, I looked through your desk when you were not at home. I am sorry. But I found nothing. Nothing at all. I do not understand so many numbers. What I saw meant nothing to me.”

Mevlevi brought his hands together as if to pray. “An honest child,” he exclaimed. “Thanks be to Allah. You spoke of numbers. Please go on.”

“I do not understand so many numbers. What is there to see? You work, work, work. On the telephone all the day long.”

Mevlevi smiled as if her confession pleased him. “Now, Lina, you must tell exactly what you reported to the Makdisis.”

“Nothing, I swear.” She cast her eyes to the floor. “Only a little. Sometimes on Sundays, when I visited my mother, he would call.”

“Who?”

“Mr. Makdisi. He wanted to know what you do all day long. What time you get up, when you eat, if you go out. Nothing else. I swear.”

“And this, of course, you told him,” Mevlevi suggested as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world.

“Yes, of course. He paid my mother so much money. What harm could it do?”

“Of course, darling. I understand.” He stroked Lina’s soft tresses. “Tell me now, did he ask you about my money? About banks? About how I pay my partners?”

“No, no, he never asked that. Never.”

Mevlevi frowned. He was certain that it was Albert Makdisi who had fed information about his transfers to the American DEA. Makdisi had long wanted to go direct to Mong. Eliminate the middleman. “Lina, I prefer it when you tell me the truth.”

“Please, Al-Mevlevi, you must believe me. No questions about money. He only wants to know about where you spend the day. If you travel. Nothing about money.”

Mevlevi pulled a silver Minox camera from his pocket. He passed the camera before Lina’s eyes, then under her nose as if it were a fine cigar. “And so darling, what is this?”

“I don’t know. A small camera? Maybe I have seen one in stores.”

“No,
cherie
. You have never seen one like this in any store.”

“It is not mine.”

“Of course not,” he cooed. “And this charming little device?” He presented for her inspection a casing of matte black metal, no larger than a deck of cards. From one end he pulled a blunt rubber antenna.

Lina stared at the metal object. “I do not know what this is,” she said indignantly. “You tell me.”

“Me tell you?” Mevlevi peered over his shoulder at Joseph. “She wants us to tell her?”

Joseph looked on impassively.

Mevlevi said, “I’ll let you in on a secret. When Max Rothstein told me that Albert Makdisi had brought you to Little Maxim’s, I went with Joseph to search your quarters. You see, my dear, Max’s word simply wasn’t good enough. Not to condemn you, it wasn’t. I had to be sure for myself. We found this pretty device — it’s a radio, actually — along with the camera in that clever hole you fashioned in the flooring under your bed.” Mevlevi held the small transmitter beneath her eyes. “Tell me about your radio. So petite, so compact. Frankly, I’d have thought such a toy far beyond the Makdisis’ clumsy grasp.”

Lina grew agitated. She fumbled with her hands and ground her ankles together. “Stop it!” she screamed. “There is no hole in my room. That camera doesn’t belong to me. Neither does the radio. I’ve never seen them before. I swear it.”

“The truth, Lina.” Mevlevi’s voice assumed a velvety monotone. “Here we speak only the truth. Come now. You were doing so well just a few moments ago.”

“I am no spy. I never listened to that radio. I own no camera.”

Mevlevi drew nearer Lina. “What did you say?” His voice was filled with an urgency until now absent, his posture suddenly rigid.

“I never listened to the radio,” moaned Lina. “If I want music, I go to the living room. Why would I need a transistor radio?”

Mevlevi regarded her anew. “A
transistor
radio,” he said appreciatively. “
She never listened to the transistor radio
.” He glanced at Joseph, then back at Lina, as if momentarily unsure with whom to speak. The device he held in his hand was as far from a transistor radio as modern science allowed. It was an ultra-high-frequency single-band two-way radio capable of plucking from the ether the faintest cobweb of a signal — but only one sent on its preset frequency. It could not be used to find commercial radio transmissions.