Pursuit Of Honor (32 page)

Karim looked to the woman on the floor. Her robe had spilled partially open and he could see that she was not wearing any underwear. “Who is she?”

“A friend.”

Karim nodded, ran a few scenarios through his head, and made a quick decision. He looked at the man’s nervous eyes and said, “Allahu Akbar.”

“No,” the man pleaded. “I am a Saudi. I am a believer. I have contacts… very well-placed contacts. I…”

Karim raised his pistol and shot the man twice in the heart.

GEORGE Butler looked across the table and said, “You could have just paid him the million dollars.”

Rapp smiled, shrugged his shoulders, and said, “I suppose.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Dumond said as he pecked away at his laptop. “The guy was a world-class prick.”

Rapp laughed. It wasn’t like Dumond to offer such a harsh opinion. They were sitting in the Chairman’s Club at Graycliff, the eighteenth-century plantation house turned hotel and restaurant. The place was very private and very British. Rapp had suggested it knowing that Butler had a discreet agreement with the manager. A waiter came into the room with a large tray. He set down three plates and refilled the water and iced tea glasses.

When he was gone, Butler said to Rapp, “You almost lost him. Wouldn’t it have been easier to just pay him?”

Rapp shook his head. “Maybe, but I think a guy like that is just as likely to take your money and lie to you. He’s a thug. He gets his way by threatening people with violence.”

Butler set down his iced tea. “So you hit him with the only thing he really understands.”

“I suppose. It worked, didn’t it?”

“Yes, but you do know I would never have let you lay a finger on him. At least not while he was here.”

“I know,” Rapp said with a slight grin. “I would never put you in that position.”

“Yes you would,” Butler said with dry sincerity.

“Well… at least not intentionally.”

“That has always been your Achilles’ heel.”

“What?”

“Some people have the Midas touch… you, on the other hand… have all the grace of one of those American footballers who bashes the quarterback into submission.”

“Thank you,” Rapp said with a smile.

Butler’s phone vibrated. He didn’t bother to pick it up. He simply looked down at the screen, read the message, and said, “We have located our banker.”

“Christian?” Rapp said.

“Yes, his last name is Nelson. He has a flat over in the Grove not far from here.”

“Do your boys have eyes on him?” Rapp asked.

“Not yet. A car is on its way, but we have his mobile, work number, and email account all monitored.”

Rapp smiled. When it came to national security and secrecy the Brits could move five times faster than the Americans. “Do we know if he’s on the island?”

“According to customs… yes.”

“I’m in,” Dumond announced, raising his hands in the air as if he’d just won an Olympic medal.

“Where?” Butler asked.

“First Caribbean Bank.”

“Impossible.” Butler looked nervously back toward the door. “How did you do that so fast?”

Rapp leaned in and waved off Butler’s question. “If you really want to know, maybe you guys could take a walk on the beach later.”

“But…” Butler tried to press the question.

“No,” Rapp said, knowing where it would lead them. Butler was a techie at heart. “You two will start talking about all of your trapdoors and back doors and portals and hashes and injections and my eyes will glaze over and then I’ll get a headache. So you guys can go over all that later. For now,” Rapp said, turning all of his attention back to Dumond, “I want to hear about the financials of Adam Farhat.”

Dumond was the ultimate multitasker and had never stopped typing. “Sweet mother of Jesus!” he announced with his eyes still fixed on his laptop.

“What?” Rapp asked.

“He has over thirteen million dollars in this account. Almost ten of it deposited this week alone.”

“That would make sense,” Butler said. “Payments for the drugs.”

“What else?” Rapp asked.

“Looks like he runs some kind of coffee import company.”

“What about payments? Where has he been sending money?”

“Other than this hundred thousand dollar debit, which was probably to General Scumbag, there’s nothing. Only deposits.” Dumond squinted at the screen and pecked at a few keys. “He also has a safety deposit box.”

Butler’s phone started ringing. He glanced at the caller ID and then answered. “Hello.” He listened ten seconds, his eyes growing a touch more alert by the second. “And we have people in place?” He listened again for a few seconds and nodded enthusiastically. “Good. I’ll be back to you shortly.” Butler set the phone down and said, “Apparently Mr. Nelson just got off the phone with his superior at the bank.”

“And?” Rapp asked.

“One of his more important clients would like to access his safety deposit box this afternoon.”

“Is that normal for a Saturday?” Rapp asked.

Butler shrugged as if to say who knows. “These banks all make exceptions for their better clients.”

“Where’s Nelson right now?”

“Leaving his flat. We assume on his way to the bank.”

Rapp looked at Butler for a long moment and then without saying a word both men stood.

Dumond looked up. “Where are you guys going? Our sandwiches just got here.”

“Bring it with,” Rapp said. “You can eat in the car.”

THE match was a blowout. McLean was up 14-1 over their hated rivals the Langley Saxons. The difference this year was Rory Nash and everyone knew it. The thirteen-year-old had eight of his team’s points. Nash watched intently as Rory sliced through the Saxons’ defense. Any other game he’d be on the bench at this point, but McLean’s coach wanted retribution for last year’s blowout. Langley had one big defender whom Nash had been watching all game. He had reminded his son before the game to keep an eye out for him. The kid was a head taller than every other player on the field and was known to lay out at least one opponent per game. As Nash looked out on the field Rory was moving from right to left cradling the ball. He sliced between two defenders and it looked as if the big kid from Langley was finally going to get his shot at Rory. At the last second, though, Rory slammed on the brakes and pulled off a perfect roll dodge. The big kid sailed past Rory with an angry grunt as he tried to command his large frame to do the impossible. Rory closed on the goal, moving to his left as he went. He faked once and froze the goalie and then again as he closed the gap. His feet were dancing along the edge of the crease. He faked low to get the goalie to bite and then the stick snapped around the back of his head, the ball arching softly through the air to the opposite side of the crease, where one of his teammates snatched it and snapped it into the open net.

“Sweet!” Jack yelled.

“Yeah,” Nash agreed with some relief. “Your brother shouldn’t even be in there right now.” Nash looked farther down the sideline in search of his wife. She was standing about twenty yards away talking to two of the other mothers. She smiled at her husband and pointed at him. The other two mothers turned and waved at Nash. They were smiling and nodding as Maggie whispered something to them. Nash cringed. He was not used to all this attention. From the moment he had arrived at the field, people had been talking and pointing.

“Dad,” Jack said, as he looked up, “are you famous?”

The comment hit Nash like a slap in the face. He felt himself getting angry, but told himself to take a deep breath. It wasn’t Jack’s fault. He was only ten. “No, Jack, I’m not famous.”

“Well… you kind of are. Your photo was on the front page of the paper this morning and you were all over the news last night.”

“Just because you get your picture in the paper doesn’t mean you’re famous.”

“That’s not what my friend Scott said.”

“I really don’t want to talk about it, Jack. I’m not famous, all right?”

Maggie walked up just in time. She slid her arms around his waist and gave him a big hug. “You’re quite the topic around here.”

“Oh… God…” he moaned.

“Why can’t you just relax and enjoy it?”

“Because it’s not who I am. I haven’t changed. I’m the same guy who’s been going to these games for I don’t even know how many years. The only thing that’s changed is everyone’s perception of me.”

“A perception that’s based on the truth. These people now know who you work for and what you’ve been doing, and I have to tell you,” Maggie said as she lowered her voice, “some of these ladies, like Stacy and Claudia, it’s a huge turn-on for them. Very sexy that I’m married to a spy.”

“I heard that,” Jack said without taking his eyes off the field. “Gross.”

Maggie grabbed him and pulled him in for a group hug. A second later the whistle blew and the game was over. As the two teams lined up to shake hands, Nash began looking around the park for his daughter.

“Where’s Shannon?”

“Not sure.” Maggie looked toward the playground. “There she is- pushing Charlie in the swing.”

Nash watched her push the green bucket that her baby brother was in. He felt a pang of anxiety and asked, “Do I have to let her drive home?”

“Yes,” Maggie said.

“She’s not very good. I mean, don’t get me wrong… she’s a great kid, but she can’t drive.”

“Michael, she just got her permit this morning. Do you expect her to be a great driver on her first day?”

“I don’t expect her to be perfect, but…”

“But what?”

“She sucks, Mom,” Jack said.

Maggie grabbed his cheeks. “Oh… Jack, sometimes, I swear.”

“Mom,” Jack said while shaking free of her grip, “I’m not saying she’s stupid or a bad person. I’m just telling you the truth. She’s a bad driver.”

“Well, maybe you and your father can walk home.”

Jack took a step back to get out of his mom’s range and said, “Can we, Dad? Do you know how funny that would be…”

“Jack Nash.” Maggie reached for him, but he was too quick. He scampered onto the field in search of his brother. “He takes after you,” she said to her husband.

“I think he has more than a little of his mother in him.”

“The smartass part comes from you.”

“And the psycho stubborn part… who do you suppose he gets that from, you?”

Maggie was on the verge of upping the ante when an elderly couple approached them. “Excuse me,” the man said, “Mike and Maggie Nash?”

The Nashes nodded.

“I’m Charlie Kelly. This is my wife, Mary.”

“Nice to meet you,” Nash said as he shook the man’s hand.

“My grandson plays for Langley.”

“Ohh… great,” Maggie said.

“Not today. Your boy pounded us. Pretty damn good player,” he added gruffly.

“Thank you,” Nash said.

Kelly looked across the field, his cloudy blue eyes unfocused, his bottom lip trembling ever so slightly. “I just wanted to say hello.” He couldn’t look at Nash. His wife hung close to his side. “And thank you. I was in the Navy and then I put in forty years at Langley. Clandestine service… operations… spent most of my time in Europe. What you did,” he finally looked at Nash, “it made a lot of us proud… and there’s not many of us left.” He shook his head and then said, “I just thought you should know that.”

Nash was caught off guard. He stammered for a second and then said, “Thank you, sir.”

“Charlie,” the old man said, “please call me Charlie.”

“I will. Thank you, Charlie.”

“Well…” he said as he looked toward the cars. “We’ll see you around.”

“Sure,” Nash said.

“Very nice to meet you,” Maggie said. As the older couple moved toward the parking lot, Maggie said, “That was nice.”

“Yeah. We don’t do enough to celebrate those guys.”

Jack returned from the middle of the field with Rory and a couple of his teammates. “Mom,” Jack said as he came speeding up, “are you really going to let Shannon drive?”

“I don’t think it’s any of your business, young man.”

“Well, if she is,” Jack suddenly produced Rory’s lacrosse helmet, “I’m wearing this.”

“Okay, that’s it…” Maggie took a step and reached out to grab the sleeve of his sweatshirt but again he was too quick. He darted off across the field. Maggie composed herself as she came face to face with Rory and his two friends. “Nice game, honey.”

“Thanks,” Rory said. “Can Will and Ben sleep over?”

“Well,” Maggie said, caught a little off guard, “your father and I are going to dinner, so Shannon is going to be in charge…” Her voice trailed off and she turned to her husband to see if it was okay.

“Nice game, boys,” Nash said.

“Thanks, Mr. Nash,” the two boys said in unison.

“I’m fine with you guys staying over. Have you asked your parents?”

Both boys said they would and ran off to find their parents.

“We’re going to dinner tonight?” Nash asked his wife.

“Yes,” she said with a big smile. “I haven’t spent five minutes alone with you in the past week. Do you have a problem with that?”

“Not at all.” He put his arm around her shoulder. “We’ll eat someplace close by.”

“Wherever you want, honey.”

“Italian?” They started walking toward the cars. Rory ran ahead to see what Charlie and Shannon were doing.

“Sure.”

“And then when we get home?” Nash asked with a hopeful tone.

“We can play spy and you can show me your gun.”

Nash laughed. He looked at Shannon pushing Charlie in the swing. Watched him scream as his brother ran up with his arms out as if he were Frankenstein. Charlie cut loose an earsplitting shriek of terror and then began laughing. Nash smiled and thought to himself, This is the way it’s supposed to be.

HAKIM decided to walk to the bank. It wasn’t far and he needed the time to think. Just as he feared, the barn had not burned down. Karim was an idiot, all the more so because he actually thought himself smart. He was an intolerable ass. Hakim kept asking himself if there had been anything else in the barn that could put the FBI on his trail. He had been lucky that he had packed his bag in the RV’s storage compartment months earlier. Karim’s and Ahmed’s packs were hidden under a tarp in the barn just as Karim had ordered. Something about wanting to personally inspect them. It served the fool right that his need to control every detail had led to his own downfall.

As he exited the hotel into the sunny afternoon he was positive that his only link to Iowa was the conservancy trust that he’d set up to purchase the farm itself. He would have time, though, before they could get to the bottom of that tangled web, and when they did they would find nothing more than a dead-end. The Royal Bank of Nassau was nearly a mile away and he had never set foot in the place. Everything had been handled over the phone. There was approximately twenty thousand dollars in the account to handle expenses and taxes, pocket change compared to his deposits at First Caribbean. They could have it all. Hakim moved up the sidewalk, confident that he was out in front of the coming storm. Besides, Christian was not a good actor. That was one of the reasons he had chosen him to be his personal banker.

A block before the bank he stopped and checked his watch. He had ten minutes before he was to meet Christian. The wise thing to do would be to spend that time checking for any surveillance, so he crossed the street and casually strolled down the block. Every so often he would stop and pretend to look in a window. He was actually looking in the reflection to see if anyone was watching him. No one was, and he was getting a little giddy at the new life that awaited him. He would go to Brazil. Over 200 million people and a landscape as diverse as that of any country on the planet. The population spoke Portuguese, English, and a little Spanish, and most important, accents were very hard to detect. Bloodlines from all over the Mediterranean, Spain, and Portugal had been mixing together with the natives for several hundred years. His naturally dark skin would be no more out of place than it would be in his native Saudi Arabia.

Hakim had traveled the coast and found dozens of places where he could simply disappear and start a new life. His only requirement was that he be on the water. He would buy a boat and live on it for the first year, moving from port to port, establishing an identity and making friends. Maybe someday in the not-so-distant future he would settle down and start a family. He wondered about his faith, though. Brazil was not exactly a place where a Muslim could still practice his beliefs and not stand out. For now he would have to keep that part of his life very private.

Hakim was so immersed in thought that he didn’t hear his name being called until Christian was crossing the street. He glanced up to see the look of deep concern on his banker’s face.

“Oh, my gosh… look at you! What happened?”

“A bad car accident.”

“Did the airbag do that to your face? I’ve heard they can really screw your face up.”

“Yes, but it saved my life.”

Christian stood there for a moment, looking him over. “Other than that, how do you feel?”

“Okay… Some broken ribs, but I’ll survive.”

“Well, I’m sorry you had to go through that. Let’s get you inside and get you taken care of.”

Christian led Hakim across the street to the front door of the bank, where a security guard was waiting on the other side of the glass doors. The guard waved to Christian, inserted a key in the door, and opened it. Once inside, the banker thanked the guard and led Hakim through the lobby to his office, where he stopped to grab his own set of keys and pull up his client’s safety deposit box information on the computer.

“Before we head down, can I get you anything to drink… tea, water?”

“No, thank you. I’m fine.”

“Do you have your key?”

“Yes.” Hakim couldn’t believe how calm he was. He supposed it had to do with his familiarity with Christian. Still, it would be a huge relief once he got what he needed from the box and disappeared.

They took the elevator to the basement. Christian put him into one of the private rooms with two chairs and a desk and left to get the box itself. Less than a minute later he returned, placed the box on top of the desk, and left. Hakim pulled out his key, inserted it into the lock, and turned it 180 degrees to the left. The lock disengaged and he lifted up the long-hinged cover. Inside were a fresh set of documents, including a credit card with a $25,000 limit, a money belt containing $100,000, and sheaf of corporate bearer bonds totaling $1 million in value. Hakim lifted his shirt and strapped the money belt around his waist. He placed the new credit card and passport in his front right pocket, and then glanced in the large manila envelope to verify that the bearer bonds were in fact inside.

He closed the box, put the key back in his pocket, and told Christian he was done. After the banker put the box away they took the elevator back up to the first floor and then exited the building. Back out on the street, Christian insisted that they get a drink, but Hakim told him he wasn’t feeling up to it. The banker then suggested that he give him a ride back to his hotel, but Hakim got out of it by telling him he needed the air, promising that he would meet him for dinner later, even though that was highly unlikely. They parted ways with a set time and location for dinner. Hakim walked back to his hotel with a bounce in his step that he hadn’t had in some time. He was already thinking about the sailboat he would buy. He knew the exact length and make and knew where he could buy a nice used one. That was if it hadn’t sold in the last couple months.

As he walked down the sidewalk Hakim began to refine the next part of his plan, mainly, how he would island-hop his way to his destination. The boat was in Farmer’s Hill, a little over a hundred miles to the south. There was no direct ferry and he desperately wanted to avoid airports for a while and maybe forever. He was so fixated on solving this problem and leaving tonight if possible that he didn’t notice the car slowing next to him. Suddenly the side door of the minivan opened and then he felt a jabbing pain in the back of his neck and a strong pair of hands grabbing him from behind. He was both lifted and shoved at the same time. He felt completely out of control and overpowered as he was folded and stuffed into the bench seat and the waiting arms of a man he did not recognize. He noted the pain from his ribs, but it was somehow muted. He thought of screaming but couldn’t. Nothing was responding. Not his mouth, not his arms, not his legs. Even his eyes were closing against his will, and then everything went black.