The Genesis Key (5 page)

Chapter Five

Bethesda, Maryland.

K
athleen unlocked the door to her apartment, stepped inside, and locked it behind her. She kicked off her high heels and hung up her cashmere overcoat, all while replaying the night's events in her head.

Dinner had ended just after at ten o'clock. Afterward, Whittaker had waited outside the restaurant with her while the valet retrieved her car. She'd insisted on meeting him at the restaurant instead of having him pick her up at her apartment.
Just in case the date goes badly
, she'd reasoned.

When it came to relationships, Kathleen had long accepted one unchangeable fact in her life. Namely, despite her numerous accolades, including being a brilliant scientist and founder of a high-tech company, she had a terrible track record with men. “Book smart, man dumb,” one of her girlfriends had teased her in college. It was still true.

Kathleen recalled the precise moment at the end of the date, just as they were about to say good night, when Whittaker leaned into her car and surprised her with a quick peck on the lips. “Good night,” he said softly. Predictably, Kathleen froze and said nothing. She drove away without another word, leaving Whittaker standing befuddled in the street.

Like everything else in Kathleen's life, Bryce Whittaker had proven to be a mixture of good and bad. A bit
too
smooth for her taste, she decided. But, then again, he was handsome, smart, sophisticated, and funny—
not bad qualities in a man
, she reasoned.

These thoughts were all swirling in her head as she walked into her small galley kitchen for a bottle of water. The message light on her answering machine was blinking. She pushed “play” on her way to the refrigerator. The machine beeped loudly, then a man's voice began speaking in an odd accent—part British, part Middle Eastern. It was one of those vague, “international” accents that typically identified a person as highly educated and well traveled.

“This message is for Kathleen Sainsbury,” said the voice in a slow, deliberate meter. There was a long pause, as if the man were struggling for words. Meanwhile, Kathleen opened the refrigerator and searched for a bottle of water. “My name is Tariq Al-Fulani,” the voice continued. “I was a friend of . . . your parents.”

Kathleen stood upright and spun around, leaving the refrigerator door wide open.

“You may remember my daughter . . . Farhana.” Another pause. “You used to play with her at our house . . . on Rashid Street . . . in Baghdad.”

Kathleen raised a hand to her mouth. A vague memory flashed of her and an Iraqi girl playing with dolls in a large townhouse in Baghdad. She was six or seven years old then. Her parents were downstairs at a dinner party. She remembered the reassuring hum of adult conversation wafting upstairs, punctuated by laughter, as she and the little Iraqi girl enjoyed a game of make-believe house in two different languages.

“I have something . . .” The voice trailed off, followed by another long pause. It was clear the man was having difficulty choosing his words. “I have something for you,” he said finally. “It is very important. My address is . . . 1810 U Street . . . in northwest Washington. Please come tonight if you can.” There was another long pause. “It is
very urgent
. Thank you. Good-bye.”

Kathleen stood motionless as the answering machine beeped three times and turned off with a click. More than thirty seconds passed before she realized the refrigerator door was still open. When she finally regained her senses, she replayed the message and jotted down the address. Then she checked her caller ID to see if there was a phone number she could call back. But the incoming number was identified only as
UNLISTED, WASH DC
.

The digital clock above her oven read 10:33
P.M
. A dozen thoughts ran through her head at once.
Who is he? Why did he call me? What did he mean it was “urgent”?
She sat down on the sofa and tried to clear her head, which was now churning with thoughts of her childhood, her parents, and the mysterious voice on the answering machine. After several minutes of sitting and standing, she finally made a decision—at least a partial decision.

She would drive to U Street and decide what to do when she got there.

She stepped back into her high heels, put her overcoat on again, and left the apartment.

F
ive minutes later, Kathleen turned right out of her parking garage onto Sandalwood Street, paying no attention to the black Lincoln Navigator pulling away from the curb a block behind her at precisely the same moment.

Chapter Six

U Street Northwest,
Washington, D.C.

K
athleen
parked in front of 1810 U Street just after 11:00
P.M.
It was a three-story brick row house in a once rundown
neighborhood that was now gentrified, though still not free of the bums and
loiterers who had populated its street corners and parks for decades. The street
was relatively quiet at this hour, save for an occasional passing car and the
faint shouts of revelers several blocks away.

In its heyday, U Street had been known as Black
Broadway and was home to some of the most important jazz venues in the country,
including Club Bali, the Crystal Caverns, and the Howard Theatre. All the
greats—from Billie Holiday to Louis Armstrong—had played on U Street at one time
or another. The legendary Duke Ellington had grown up just a block away on T
Street. In the 1960s, however, the D.C. race riots and widespread economic
depression drove the U-Street corridor into shambles. It was not until the
mid–1990s that it finally began to reemerge as the premier artistic, musical,
and cultural center of the city. Today, U-Street was home to an eclectic mixture
of residential row houses, avant-garde galleries, jazz clubs, and numerous funky
bistros.

Kathleen sat behind the wheel of her car, debating
in silent anguish for nearly five minutes. Twice, she put the car in gear to
drive away but changed her mind each time. Eventually, she turned the ignition
off and got out of the car. Her pulse was racing, her palms damp despite the
chilly air. She looked both ways and saw no one on the sidewalk. Then she
cautiously climbed the brick steps leading to the front porch of the house,
ascending slowly until she stood in the yellow glow of the house's solitary
porch light. It was a clear, breezeless night. The faint aroma of burning
firewood from a nearby tandoori restaurant hung in the air.

The front door to the house was shiny and black. A
polished-brass plaque beside it read:

D
R
. T
ARIQ
K
HALID
A
L
-F
ULANI

T
URKISH AND
M
IDDLE
E
ASTERN
A
NTIQUES

B
Y
A
PPOINTMENT
O
NLY

There were no lights on inside the house, and no
sound. Kathleen took a deep breath, held it tightly in her lungs, and rang the
doorbell.

A half-minute passed without any sign of life
inside the house. With every passing second, Kathleen's anxiety grew more
intense until it was nearly unbearable. She glanced repeatedly at her car on the
street, reassuring herself that it was still there. Then, just as she was about
to leave, the foyer light flicked on. Seconds later, the doorknob rattled, and
she watched with breathless anticipation as the shiny black door swung slowly
open.

The elderly man behind the door was thin and frail.
He wore a crisp white Oxford shirt and dark blue slacks with black socks and no
shoes. He was a short man of about eighty, his head nearly entirely bald except
for a crescent of thin, silver hair around the back. His face was deeply
wrinkled and covered with silver whiskers—too thick to be called stubble but not
quite a beard. His shoulders drooped forward slightly, giving him a disarming
and somewhat servile demeanor.

“Good evening,” said the man in the same vague
accent Kathleen had heard on her answering machine. His breathing was heavy and
labored, as if the simple act of greeting her had taken great physical exertion.
“I am . . . Tariq Al-Fulani.” He bowed his head as he said his
name.

Kathleen nodded slightly. “Kathleen Sainsbury.”

“Yes, of course.” Still breathing heavily, the
elderly man made a sweeping gesture with his hand, as if to usher her into his
home. “Please, come in.”

Kathleen did not move.

“Ahhh . . . I'm sure you don't remember
me. You were much too young.” He flashed a toothy smile. “But I remember
you
. . . when you were just a little girl.”
He paused to catch his breath. “And now I see you have grown to be such a
beautiful woman.”

None of this made Kathleen feel any more
comfortable. She stood motionless on the front porch, studying the man's sad
eyes and odd expression.

“Please, come in,” said the man insistently,
motioning again with his hand. “I have something very important to give
you.”

With trepidation, Kathleen entered the house,
glancing back at her car one last time as she entered the foyer. The car
disappeared from view when the old man closed the door softly behind them. He
offered to take Kathleen's coat, but she declined, stating that she preferred to
wear it. Then he motioned for her to follow him to a large, rectangular room
just off the foyer. She followed cautiously.

Stepping into the room, Kathleen felt as if she had
been instantly transported to a different place and time. The room smelled of
dust and old wool. Its walls were covered from floor to ceiling with antique
Persian rugs, their stunning colors—deep crimson, cobalt blue, and dark
gold—evoking the atmosphere of a Moroccan bazaar. The rugs obscured the only
windows in the room and one of the two doorways, giving the room an enclosed,
intimate feeling. It reminded Kathleen of a
suradeq
,
the beautiful, embroidered traveling tents of Arabia, which she vaguely
remembered from her childhood travels.

A large oval table dominated the center of the
room, draped with a lavish “tree of life” medallion tablecloth in rust red and
black velvet. A pair of Moorish table lamps—dancing metal figurines topped with
fringed silk shades—bathed the room in soft yellow light. Surrounding the lamps
was an array of rare and unusual objects, which Kathleen surmised were Middle
Eastern antiques. A white alabaster head immediately caught her eye. It was a
life-sized depiction of a stern, bearded man with small holes carved into its
eyes and long, curly beard.

“That is from the fourth century
BC
,” the elderly man explained, noticing
Kathleen's interest. He stood a few feet away, near the corner of the room.
“Found in southern Iraq. Most likely part of a funerary niche. The holes would
have contained precious stones, or perhaps glass or shell inlays.”

Kathleen nodded in appreciation and continued
surveying the astounding collection of artifacts. There was a pair of ancient
Syrian mosaics, a second-century bust from Palmyra wearing a Romanesque tunic,
Egyptian Pharaonic funerary pots, several gleaming pottery pieces from
Persia—their blue, red, and gold patterns as brilliant today as they were in the
twelfth century—and dozens of mosque lamps and other intricate glasswork from
twelfth- and thirteenth-century Syria. Kathleen also noticed six or seven
ornately sculpted silver boxes, some decorated with small stones and beads. She
ran her fingertips across one of them.

“Quran boxes,” the man explained from the corner of
the room. “From eastern Turkey.”

Kathleen nodded politely.

On the far side of the room was a low, wide sofa,
upholstered in bright red velvet with gold fringed trim. A collection of
embroidered pillows was scattered across the sofa. Behind the sofa, next to the
wall, was a massive, hand-carved Turkish screen, its gleaming gold-leaf floral
design reflecting the soft light of the table lamps. Mounted on the screen were
two sixteenth-century Persian sabers, their crescent blades crossed. It reminded
Kathleen of the Saudi royal seal.

“Please, sit down,” the man urged, gesturing to a
spot on the sofa directly below the swords.

Kathleen did not move. Something about the old
man's voice and mannerisms seemed overly anxious, almost . . .
desperate
. She didn't like it.

“May I offer you some tea?”

Kathleen grew more uncomfortable by the second
until, finally, she could no longer ignore the alarm bells in her head. “I
should go,” she announced, turning quickly toward the foyer.

“No!” the old man exclaimed. “Please don't go.”

Kathleen ignored him and walked briskly toward the
front door.

The man followed her into the foyer. “Please, this
is very important!”

Kathleen turned suddenly to face him. “
What
is very important? Who
are
you, and what is so damned important?”

A tense moment passed as the old man obviously
struggled to find the appropriate words. When none came, Kathleen turned once
more to leave.

“Wait
,
” said the man
softly. He released a heavy sigh. “My
real
name is
. . . Hakeem Abdul Sargon.”

Kathleen stood motionless, facing the door.

“I was the Director of Antiquities in Iraq under
Ahmed Hassan Al-Bakr until 1979, when he was ousted by Saddam Hussein. I knew
your parents well. They were . . . great scholars.
And friends.
”

Kathleen turned slowly to face him.

“I remember you, too,” Dr. Sargon continued. “You
sometimes played with my daughter, Farhana.” At the mention of his daughter's
name, he looked down, evidently disturbed by some distant, haunting memory.
“Please, stay and allow me to explain.” He once again motioned with a sweep of
his hand toward the living room.

Kathleen stood with her back to the door, her coat
still on, car keys gripped tightly in her hand. If she wanted to go, she had
only to turn around and walk out the door. She stared into Dr. Sargon's eyes for
several seconds, uncertain of what to do.

Suddenly, her cell phone rang, piercing the uneasy
silence. She fished it out of her purse and answered on the second ring.
“Hello?” she whispered.

“Are you okay?” Carlos Guiterez asked in a
concerned voice. Kathleen had called him earlier, while she was sitting in the
car in front of the house, and had asked him to call her back in ten minutes.
She hadn't explained why.

With the phone still pressed to her ear, Kathleen
studied Sargon's face carefully. He seemed frail and sincere.
Or was it desperation and fear she sensed?
Either way,
she decided she could trust him.
For now.
She
whispered into the phone, “I'm fine, Carlos, thanks. See you on Monday.” Then
she tucked the phone back into her purse and gave Sargon a thin, nervous smile.
“I
will
have some tea,” she said finally, removing
her coat.

Dr. Hakeem Abdul Sargon smiled eagerly and took her
coat. Then he hurried off to the kitchen to fix some tea.

“I
'm fine, Carlos, thanks. See you on
Monday.
”

Semion Zafer closed his eyes and listened intently
to Kathleen Sainsbury's voice emanating from a pair of noise-cancelling
headphones secured tightly over his ears. The headphones had the effect of
putting her feminine voice directly in his head, a sensation he found very
pleasant. He turned up the volume on the specialized scanner/receiver to which
the headphones were connected.

From Zafer's location at 16th and U, the modified
Watkins-Johnson HF1000A scanner/receiver had no problem picking up Kathleen's
cell-phone signal as she conversed briefly with her office manager, Carlos
Guiterez.

Zafer jotted down some quick notes about the call
and then settled back into the plush leather seat of his Lincoln Navigator.

He needed a drink.
Badly.
But then he thought about his boss, the man he knew only as
“Joe,” and recalled what Joe had told him nine months ago when he'd first
entered his employ. “You're a drunk,” Joe had said. “I've known plenty of men
like you, and they usually end up dead. If I catch you drinking on the job, I'll
cut your throat myself and dump your body in the Anacostia River.
Understand?
”

Zafer understood. And believed him. After nine
months of working for “Joe”—the perquisites of which included a rent-free
apartment, unlimited use of the Lincoln Navigator, and bi-monthly envelopes of
cash delivered to a Mail Boxes Etc. mailbox—all he knew of his mysterious boss
was a single prepaid cell-phone number and an anonymous e-mail address.

And that's all he
wanted
to know.