Armageddon Conspiracy (12 page)

He turned, scanned the sidewalk to make sure it was still empty, and then quickly pushed the door closed. Once the lock clicked, he grabbed the butler and dragged him by the collar into a dimly lit dining room at the back of the house.

From here a thin slit of light and the faint sound of voices leaked beneath a swinging door. Naif crossed to the door and stopped to listen, recognizing the canned laughter of a television show. He inched the door open and saw a butler’s pantry and a kitchen beyond. A middle-aged woman stood at the kitchen’s center island with her back toward him, watching a television mounted high on the wall as she chopped vegetables.

Naif opened the door just enough to slide inside, his crepe soles soundless on the tile floor. He checked around the corner to assure himself the woman was alone, then with one quick step, he moved behind her, cupped her chin, forced her head back, and cut her throat. Afterward, he returned to the foyer where he stepped across the long smear of blood and started up the stairs.

The second floor landing opened into a large living room that went from the front to the back of the house. The room was mostly dark, but a shadowy illumination came through the tall windows, delineating ornate furniture and paintings in gilt frames. A triangle of bright light spilled through an open doorway at the back of the room, and Naif crept silently toward it until he could see into a library with wood-paneled walls and crowded floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.

Khaled Faisal sat in an oversized leather chair with a pair of glasses low on his nose and a book open on his lap. He had dozed off, and his chin touched his chest, which rose and fell peacefully.

Naif watched for several seconds then stepped into the room. “Traitor,” he said in Arabic.

Faisal’s head jerked up, and he blinked in surprise. As his eyes focused on Naif, a flash of fear glimmered, quickly replaced by anger. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“The Wahaddi Brotherhood sends its regards. You, the traitor who besmirches the greatness of Islam with your cowardly peace.”

“You are the traitor,” Faisal said.

Naif raised his pistol and pumped four bullets into the old man’s chest, the sound echoing off the walls in spite of the silencer. Faisal slumped over as though he had once again fallen asleep, and Naif
walked up to his chair, put the barrel an inch from his forehead and fired twice more.

Naif picked up his spent cartridges then went quickly through the rest of the house, making sure it was empty. Afterwards, he hurried down the stairs, and leaving the door slightly ajar as he had been instructed, walked outside.

He climbed into the passenger seat of the van, glanced at the driver, and jerked his head, “Go.”

“Successful?” the man asked.

Naif nodded.

“Good,” the man said.

As they pulled away from the curb, Naif put one hand against his ribcage where his heart bucked like a trapped beast. His arteries burned with the rocket fuel of his anger. At that moment, he felt feral, lethal as a Nile crocodile. He dropped his hand to his pocket and fingered the hilt of his combat knife. Once the killing started, it was so easy to keep going.

He took a shuddering breath. The man beside him had no idea. Christian, he wanted to say, only the restraining hand of Abu Sayeed lets you draw breath for one more day.

HAVING SIGNED THE DOCUMENTS, BRENT
was too full of anger to think clearly. He yearned to lash out, especially at the larger of the two agents. It took all his self-control not to slug the bastard, and he felt a burst of relief when Betty Dowager showed up at his office door. She offered to accompany the agents over to the custodian bank where they would complete the seizure of Dr. Faisal’s account.

He waited for them to leave then called Simmons. “They just appropriated my client’s account,” he said.

“Apparently they’re working some sort of terrorism case,” she said. “It takes precedence over any financial crimes, so there’s nothing I can do. Just go along with them and don’t blow your cover.”

Brent hung up then looked up the number of the Manhattan FBI office. His hope died completely when the receptionist there
transferred him to Darius Stewart’s line and he listened to Stewart’s voice mail announcement. Until that moment he’d harbored a wild hope that Stewart and Anderson were scam artists of some kind.

He slammed the phone into its cradle then marched down to Betty Dowager’s desk and waited for her to return. When she finally did, he told her to get Biddle on the phone.

“What do you think I’ve been trying to do,” she snapped. She dialed again then shook her head, saying his phone was still turned off. She tried to object, but Brent saw Biddle’s number on her computer screen and copied it onto a scrap of paper.

His next stop was Fred Wofford’s assistant, who said that he, too, was out of touch and unreachable. The woman seemed anxious, and he suspected Wofford knew about the FBI’s visit but wanted no part of handling it. Typical Wofford, he thought, as he went back to his office, stared out at the rain, and thought again about the old man he’d met at Biddle’s party and all the money he’d spent for world peace. Records of his gifts were everywhere. Dr. Faisal was no more a terrorist than he was! Complicit bankers—bullshit! The longer he sat, the madder he became.

How was it possible that in the United States of America the Federal Government could seize a person’s property then threaten witnesses with jail if they reported it? To hell with them all—the FBI, Justice Department, and screw his cover. It was patently wrong, and he was equally at fault if he sat back and did nothing. With that, he stormed out of his office and burst through Owen Smythe’s door.

Smythe glanced up and shot him a questioning look. “Is the rumor true?” He studied Brent’s face a few seconds then nodded. “FBI?”

Brent slammed the door then collapsed into a chair. “The sons
of bitches!” He proceeded to tell Smythe everything about the FBI’s visit, his attempt to get Biddle, and his conversation with Spencer McDonald.

When he finished Smythe sat forward and put his elbows on the desk. “We just let the FBI take it?” He sounded shocked.

“Eight hundred and twenty million. All cash because we just sold him out of the market. Nice and neat.” Brent scowled and made a signing motion. “Poof, the whole thing just walks out the door with no argument.”

“Sounds like a movie,” Smythe said.

Brent was about to agree when there was a knock on Smythe’s door and Betty Dowager put her head inside. Her glance took in both men, and her expression became severe. “Mr. Biddle is on the phone,” she said in a cold voice, as if she knew he’d already violated the gag order. “The call is coming to your office.”

Brent felt Betty’s eyes burning into his back as he ran next door, but he didn’t care. “Give me the details,” Biddle barked as soon as he picked up the phone.

Brent filled him in on all of it.

“What did Spencer say?”

“To let them take it.”

“Then it was the right thing to do,” Biddle said without hesitation. “I trust his judgment implicitly.”

“I’m glad
you
do. We’ve let the government walk out with our client’s money without doing a thing.”

“I’m sure Spencer realized that now was not the time to fight.”

“Well, I want to know when it will be.”

“When Spencer tells us. I want you to sit down with him as soon
as he’s available and let him review the documents.”

Something in Biddle’s tone troubled him, a sound of finality, as if certain unfavorable conclusions had already been drawn. “I assume we’re going to support our client. Dr. Faisal is no terrorist.”

“The FBI will have to tell us that,” Biddle said.

“Dr. Faisal entrusted us with his money!” Brent said, feeling his temper begin to rise. “He deserves our full backing until the facts are in!”

“We also need to protect the firm,” Biddle said. “We will do what is right, but for now, the first thing is for you to meet with Spencer as soon as possible.”

There was a brief silence. Brent could hear the hissing of their sat-phone connection. “By the way,” Biddle added, “I’m sure there’s a gag order surrounding this, but in any case we don’t need it getting out. You haven’t told anybody, have you?”

“No,” Brent lied.

At exactly three o’clock, Brent stood at the bay window in Genesis Advisors’ first-floor reception room and watched a silver Mercedes S500 pull to the curb. He held his umbrella over his head, rushed out through the rain and opened the passenger side door.

“Brent Lucas?” the man behind the wheel asked. When Brent nodded, he reached out his hand. “Spencer McDonald.”

Brent guessed McDonald was in his late fifties. He had a pale complexion, a swelling stomach, and thinning gray hair that had once been light brown. His blue eyes hid their cleverness behind wire rim glasses, and a ring of soft fat at the neck almost camouflaged the stubbornness of his jaw.

“I hope you intend to fight this,” Brent fumed, “because I certainly do.”

McDonald pulled away from the curb. “I understand how you feel; however, the last thing we need right now is anger and irrationality.”

“I can be pissed off without being irrational,” Brent snapped.

McDonald said nothing as he turned left on Fifth Avenue and followed the flow of traffic downtown. They turned right on Sixty-Fifth and headed across Central Park, then turned south again. Brent assumed they were headed to an office somewhere on the West Side, but then McDonald surprised him by turning into the Lincoln Tunnel. “Where are we going?” he demanded.

“My house.”

“Why?”

McDonald drew a ragged breath as he slowed behind the line of barely moving cars. When Brent glanced over he could see a line of sweat along McDonald’s hairline. The man smelled as if he’d just run several miles. McDonald seemed to sense the examination. “I’ve had a very bad day,” he said tersely.

“So have I,” Brent shot back.

“Look, if this case involves the war on terrorism, I don’t trust the walls of my office.”

“Come on,” Brent scoffed. “You can’t believe the government’s bugging us!”

McDonald shrugged, his eyes on the traffic ahead. “Better safe than sorry.”

Out the other end of the tunnel, they drove south on the New Jersey Turnpike then west on Route 280 to the Oranges. The real estate became fancier and the properties larger as they headed into West
Orange, and McDonald finally turned between two brick gateposts into the long driveway of a multi-acre estate. They parked on a graveled circle in front of a large house with white columns.

McDonald led the way through the front door then down a long hall to a paneled library. He sat behind an antique desk and pointed Brent to an overstuffed chair. In spite of the grandness of the house, Brent found its atmosphere oddly sterile. The desk held a scattering of papers but no mementos or family photographs, nothing of an idiosyncratic or personal nature.

Also, the room had a stuffy odor, as though it had been closed up too long. The bookshelves held expensive leather bound volumes, the kind people liked to show off but never seemed to read. The paintings on the walls were bland as hotel art, suggesting nothing of what Spencer McDonald loved or did in his spare hours. Brent envisioned a guy who’d spent too many years working the brutal hours of a Manhattan attorney, who’d created enough wealth to buy this impressive house but never had the time to build a life.

Brent waited while McDonald studied the FBI’s seizure documents. His hands shook noticeably as he read, as though he suffered from Parkinson’s disease. Finally, he looked up and scowled. “Well, it’s tight. They did their homework.”

“What’s it based on?”

“Secret testimony.”

“Come off it! Not in America!”

“Welcome to the war on terrorism.”

“We have to fight it!”

McDonald said nothing.

“We have to fight it,” Brent repeated.

“Not if Prescott Biddle says we don’t,” McDonald said at last.

“Did you talk to him? Is that what he said?”

“If it became public that one of your largest international accounts has been seized by the government, other international accounts might consider pulling out.” McDonald looked at him and blinked slowly. “The loss could be significant.”

“Let me tell you what would be a whole lot worse,” Brent shot back. “That people find out we didn’t lift a finger to stop it!”

McDonald rubbed a finger across his chin then folded his hands together in a gesture of finality. “That won’t happen, assuming we can trust the discretion of everyone involved.”

“So you and Biddle want to walk away from my client?” Brent said in a stinging tone.

“Well . . . I don’t know if I’d call it walking away.”

Brent turned and looked through the window. He didn’t know if McDonald was still talking because there was a noise in his head like a hive of angry bees. “I need to get back to my office.”

“One last thing, Mr. Lucas.”

Brent turned slowly and saw that McDonald had fixed him with a harsh stare. “What?” he snapped.

“You’re making it very clear that you don’t agree with Mr. Biddle’s decision on this matter. Regardless of your personal feelings, there
is
the government’s gag order to consider.” McDonald paused, pursing his lips.

“What about it?”

“You need to obey it.”

Brent shrugged. “I’ll try.”

McDonald’s voice took on a warning note. “You need to do better than try.”

AGENT JENKINS PACED THE FLOOR
of her tiny office, her heels catching on the frayed polyester carpet each time she turned. She’d been arguing with herself for the past twenty minutes, dying to pick up the phone and call her boss, but resisting because it had only been six days since the poor bastard’s open-heart surgery.

Finally, deciding to spare him, she called FBI headquarters in Washington. She waited to get through to the Executive Assistant Director in charge of Counterterrorism and Counterintelligence, and then told the man in no uncertain terms that she needed her people off the POTUS assignment and back on port security. She cited the CIA memo, saying she had to assume it was serious and accurate.