Blood Trust (35 page)

Opening the toilet door, Annika was aware that she didn’t really want to do this, but her body was so conditioned that it was working on its own momentum. She did not stop Tim or Tom or Phil when he stepped into the toilet after her and awkwardly closed the door. Nor did she stop him when his hand groped beneath her skirt, the hem rising up his forearm as he found what he was grasping for.

Through it all, she clung to him. She felt unmoored, as if she weren’t here on this plane, or over dark and troubled water, deeper even than the void in her chest. She was wherever Jack was at this moment. Her mind was filled with him.

She was oblivious to Tim or Tom or Phil’s grunts, his bull-like lunges, the pain cutting across her buttocks as they rhythmically struck the sink edge.

She barely heard herself moaning she was weeping so copiously.

*   *   *

“H
E
’
S NOT
here. The fucker’s not here!”

Thatë was in a state. They were inside what was left of Xhafa’s stronghold. Burned bodies lay everywhere. The stench of roasted flesh was nauseating. Here and there in the corners of what had once been rooms, flames still flickered and danced. Otherwise, all was black ash, but that didn’t stop the kid from kicking every corpse he came across, turning the ones on their stomachs over so he could examine the faces.

“What the fuck? What the fuck?” His equilibrium had shattered at the bitter taste of Pyrrhic victory. They had won everything, but had lost the only prize any of them cared about: Arian Xhafa.

Jack and Alli were examining a laptop computer, twisted out of shape by the explosion and resultant fire, when Thatë began screaming.

“Tell me! Tell me!”

Jack ran over and pulled him away from a badly wounded guerilla. There was spittle on Thatë’s face; he was virtually frothing at the mouth. For his part, the guerilla slid to the floor. His body was a mass of deep burns and his face was bloody and distorted out of all proportion.

Paull tried to hold the kid back, but he just shook the older man away. Jack looked at Alli and she went over and took Thatë by the arm. It was a restraint, the only one he would tolerate at the moment. He gave the guerilla a venomous glare over her shoulder.

Jack squatted beside the guerilla. He could see at a glance that his wounds were mortal. “What’s your name?”

One bloodshot eye stared back at him. “Bek … Bekir.” The other eye was swollen closed, so heavily bruised it looked like a fist.

“Where is Arian Xhafa?”

“He isn’t here.”

Jack sat back on his haunches. He gave Thatë a querying look, but the kid was still livid with rage.

“Give me five minutes with him,” Thatë said.

“The poor bastard doesn’t have five minutes,” Jack told him. “Besides, what can you do to him that hasn’t already been done?” Turning back to Bekir, he said, “Where is Xhafa? Where did he go?”

“In … into the wind.” Bekir’s mouth was red and black, the lips so distorted it was unclear whether even his mother would recognize him. “He left a little while ago.”

“How little?” Jack pressed.

“Twenty minutes, maybe fifteen.”

“Christ, we just missed the fuck,” Paull said.

Bekir started coughing. His condition was clearly declining rapidly.

With time running out, Jack tried another tack. If Bekir couldn’t solve the mystery of where Arian Xhafa went, maybe he could solve another mystery. “Bekir, were you here when the American unit tried its assault?”

Bekir nodded. His eye could not stop rolling in its socket. He must be in terrible pain, Jack thought. But it was too late to do anything to save him.

“For God’s sake help him,” Alli said from over Jack’s shoulder. “Give him water, at least.”

“His lungs are filling,” Jack told her. “He’ll drown in even a tablespoon of water.”

He returned his attention to Bekir. “How did Xhafa defeat the American unit?”

“Fast.” Bekir’s voice was thick with phlegm and blood. “Very fast.”

“Not like with us.”

The one eye stared at him.

“See, this is what I don’t understand.” Jack edged closer. “I know you had sophisticated weaponry, but so did the American unit.”

Bekir’s eye stared at Jack for what seemed a long time. Then his lips moved, as if of their own volition, and the voice came out, hollow as a drum. “The weaponry helped. How could it not? But Xhafa had an edge that meant the Americans’ certain death.”

Jack’s insides went cold. Then he felt Paull leaning closely in.

“And what was that?” Paull said.

Bekir’s lips curled up into a smile, which began another coughing fit that produced a prodigious flow of blood from his mouth. When he calmed somewhat, he spoke. “He knew they were coming. He’s got an American informant.”

“That’s a fucking lie,” Paull said dismissively.

Jack rocked back on his heels. “Bekir, my friend, here’s my problem with what you claim. Even with his newfound money and links to international arms dealers, Xhafa is unlikely to have that kind of political or military connection. Very, very few people do.”

There was a peculiar light in Bekir’s good eye, and Jack knew he was preparing himself to die. During the interview, his breathing had become shallow. Now it was irregular. Blood drooled out of one ruined ear. And yet he was determined to persevere for at least one more moment, at least long enough for him to deliver his farewell message.

“Then whoever is funneling money and arms his way is one of those elite people.”

*   *   *

J
OHN
P
AWNHILL
smiled a magnetic smile that momentarily caused Naomi’s knees to feel as if they’d turned to jelly.

“How may I be of assistance?”

“Agent McKinsey and I are investigating the murder of Billy Warren, a loan analyst at the bank.” For any number of reasons, the torture aspect of Billy’s murder had not yet been made public.

“Yes, I’ve been through some of his work.” Pawnhill gestured. “Very talented young man. Pity he’s no longer with us.”

“We need to see the files that were taken from his office.”

“By all means.” Pawnhill went to the table and, counting out stacks, slid one to a spot in front of an empty chair. “Knock yourself out, Agent Wilde.” He nodded as she sat down. “If you need any deciphering, don’t hesitate to ask.”

“Believe me, I won’t.” She pulled the first folder off the top of the pile and opened it. “Are these in alphabetical order?”

“No,” Pawnhill said. “They’re in chronological order with the latest loan on top.”

The others hung back, but there was no conversation from behind her. She scanned the documents inside the folder, then set it aside and picked up the next on the pile. This process went on for perhaps forty minutes.

Pawnhill pointed. “That particular loan was never consummated. Mr. Warren discovered a problem with the applicant’s financials.”

Naomi ran her finger down the sheet. “Did he often find such problems?”

“No, he didn’t.” This from Evrette. “When it comes to its loan applicants, the bank employs a rigorous vetting process.”

Naomi turned a page. “But sometimes—like here—something slips through the cracks.”

“Well, no system is foolproof,” Evrette admitted. “That’s one of the talents that made Mr. Warren so valuable. He could sniff out even the faintest whiff of an applicant’s shaky finances.”

“What about off-the-books loans?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Evrette came around into her line of vision and she could feel McKinsey take a protective step close behind her.

Naomi gave him a steady look. “I think you heard me, Mr. Evrette. Did Billy Warren discover any off-the-books loans that hadn’t been reported?”

“This is preposterous. Of course he didn’t.”

Pawnhill intervened. “Agent Wilde, if I may, had there been any such machinations I and my team would have found them.”

“But—and correct me if I’m wrong—you’re not finished with your forensic audit.”

“Almost,” he said. “But not quite.”

“Hmmm.” She tapped her fingertip against a line on the page. “Then perhaps you can explain to me why this company—Gemini Holdings—showed up in one of Mr. Warren’s case files on his computer.”

“That’s hardly surprising,” Evrette said. “He was just doing his due diligence. The loan was denied.”

“I see.” Naomi nodded. “But what’s curious was that Mr. Warren continued to follow the activities of Gemini Holdings after he recommended that their loan application be turned down.”

“I don’t know what you’re getting at,” Evrette said.

Naomi’s finger swept down the page. “According to the information in Mr. Warren’s electronic file, Gemini never went to another bank.” Her eyes were fixed on Evrette. Sensing that she had struck a nerve, she pressed on. “Not only that, but it seems that Gemini Holdings got their loan money not ten days after they were turned down here.”

Evrette shrugged. “That’s none of my concern.”

“Really?” Her lips pursed in admonishment. “I think Billy Warren discovered that it was very much your concern. I think that’s why he was keeping an eye on Gemini long after their loan was turned down.”

That was when she heard the soft metallic click. As she began to rise from her chair, McKinsey’s firm hand pushed her back down hard. Then the cold metallic press of a gun at the base of her neck.

Behind her, McKinsey pulled the trigger, and she was slammed forward. Immediately, blood spurted, warm and cherry red.

P
ART
T
HREE

CHERRY BOMB

Two Days Ago

Don’t fall in love, don’t fall in love, she seemed to be trying to say to me.

—The Skating Rink,
R
OBERTO
B
OLAÑO

T
WENTY
-
TWO

A
RIAN
X
HAFA
stepped off the military air transport at Vlorë Air Base in southwest Albania into a driving rain. The dark, fulminating sky seemed as low as the treetops, and a filthy wind battered him.

An armored car pulled up and he got in. He was carrying no luggage; none had been needed. At once, the armored car pulled away, exiting the base without going through either immigration or customs.

“Good to be home?” the Syrian said.

Arian Xhafa nodded. “Always.” He was a man of swarthy skin, dark curling hair, which merged with his full beard. His face seemed chiseled by wind and sun, the deep-set eyes, the high cheekbones, the hawk’s-bill nose. He might be Albanian by birth, but his aggressively Middle Eastern blood had forged his physiognomy.

The Syrian sighed. “I have no home.”

“A long-held dream, soon to be realized, my friend.”

Even next to Xhafa, the Syrian was a big man, tall, his shoulders and arms knotted with muscle, as if he had been a hod carrier or a bricklayer all his life. His hands were big and square, calloused, their backs ropy, dark as coffee. But his eyes had in them the talent of a sculptor. It was, of course, his eyes that were most remarked upon. One green, the other blue, each seemed to be buried in a different head or, more accurately, connected to a different brain.

People were terrified of the Syrian, and with good reason. You never knew what he was thinking or how he would react. He had a real name, of course, the one his parents had given him, but it had been so long since he had used it that it had been all but forgotten. Xhafa, for instance, had never known it.

“So,” the Syrian said now, “how was Washington?”

“I despise that city,” Xhafa said, “and it despises me. Dardan has been killed.”

“Is that such a tragedy?” The Syrian was not one to mince words or care who he defamed. “I warned you about him. He was weak.”

“He was family,” Xhafa said stiffly.

The Syrian grunted. “Sentiment is itself a weakness.”

Xhafa fought to swallow the rebuke. He feared the Syrian as much as everyone else, he simply refused to show it. It would do no good, he knew, to remind his companion that he had lost all his family to war. The Syrian never invoked their names; it was as if they had never existed. While in Washington, Xhafa had read of a recent DNA study that proved, genetically, at least, there wasn’t much difference between the Arabs and the Jews. Something else he dare not mention to his dour companion. On the other hand, losses were much on his mind.

“It’s not only Dardan,” he said now, “but my men in Tetovo. The entire fortress was destroyed.”