by D S Kane
As their footsteps pounded down the staircase, she heard Lee say, “Sheesh.”
* * *
As Cassie dragged Ann by the hand down the stairs and out into the street, some of her anger dissipated. Ann kept up with her as she darted into the street. Cassie cried as she waved her arms at the cabs that either flashed their Off Duty lights or simply passed them by. When one finally did stop, they settled into it. Cassie said, “Mandarin Oriental Hotel, please.” She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and sat back, trying to force her face to a placid expression.
Ann tugged her sleeve. “Uh, wow, Cassie. Quite a show. We’ll be okay. Right?”
Her shoulders stiffened with resolve. “Uh-huh. Have faith. Everything will work out.”
Ann remained silent, but from her expression Cassie knew she hated Lee.
As the cab raced through the night, the thoughts ringing in her head were wild screams and shouts that nothing would be right. Ever again.
Cassie worried. What would happen to them?
CHAPTER 5
September 17, 1:32 p.m.
Houmaz family compound,
Al Madinah Sina Iyah
outskirts of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Abu Ghazi Al-Khiel stood against the bullet-ridden inside wall of the family compound, seeking shade from the horrific heat of midday. Once more, as he’d done so many times over the past week, he tried to contact Achmed Houmaz. Once more, he was routed to voicemail. He cursed.
For almost a week, Houmaz hadn’t taken his calls. But when Al-Khiel learned that the man was in mourning, not only for his brothers but also for his father, he decided to wait until the mourning period passed. But, a week had passed and Houmaz still hadn’t returned Al-Khiel’s phone calls.
He tossed his cigarette stub away and walked back to the Jeep, thinking the OPEC director might not have any desire to talk to the bodyguard who had taken a day off while his brothers were murdered. Al-Khiel decided to pack and leave, expecting he’d never get a reference for any job.
He drove to his squalid apartment in one of Riyadh’s slums. As he thought how Allah’s will was his curse, he packed his lone suitcase. Should he return to Jordan, where some of his relatives lived? Where else could he go? He walked to the door and stopped, hearing his cell phone ring. He pressed the Receive button. “Abu Ghazi Al-Khiel.”
“This is Achmed Houmaz. You’ve been trying to reach me. Why?”
“Uh, your Excellency, I was one of the security officers at the family compound. Your brothers were murdered on my day off. Please accept my condolences. Your grief is my own. Well, uh, after the Saudi police completed their investigation, I returned to the compound to clean it. The mess left by the murderers of your brothers was made much worse by the police. But, while I was there I found a notebook that belonged to your brother Pesi. Hidden under the remains of the conference table. Would you like to have it?”
* * *
Sitting behind his desk on the top floor of the OPEC Ministry’s building in downtown Riyadh, Achmed Houmaz thought about how he’d respond to the notebook’s contents. He feared having the thoughts and plans of his terrorist brother in his possession. He wondered if the contents could offer him some clue about who had murdered them, but he also worried if what his brother had written might contaminate his soul.
He considered the effect of such dangerous knowledge before he made his decision. “Yes, I’d very much like to have Pesi’s notebook. Please bring it by my office at the Ministry. If I’m at a meeting, tell my personal secretary, Shariff, to get me, wherever I am. No one else is to see this notebook. Do you know the address?”
“Yes, I do. I’ll deliver it straight away.”
* * *
Al-Khiel had read the notebook. He had found Mark McDougal’s name, address, phone numbers, and email address. Under the name he’d seen the dates and reasons why the brothers contacted him. Although not stated, from the column marked “Result” he knew McDougal worked for one of the intelligence agencies in Washington, DC. He had also read about the nuclear explosions the brothers intended in Washington. As he terminated the connection, he looked at the cover of the notebook as if it carried some contagious disease.
* * *
Lee sat on the threadbare couch, his hands empty, his mind full, spinning from Cassie’s parting words. He wanted to stay with the agency. But, now he knew she’d never compromise on this. He thought about Ann. There was something about her that troubled him. He adored Cassie, respected her. He wanted her in his life. Not Ann. But Cassie wanted Ann. He looked into his hands, no longer empty. Without knowing it, he’d picked the engagement ring from its velvet case. He was gripping it tight.
What now?
She’d taken a big risk trying to get him from Gitmo. A few days more and he was sure he’d have died. She’d saved him. Not the first time she’d done that. He was sure she loved him. His heart ached from wanting her.
Thinking through this was giving him a pounding headache. He got a cup of coffee and drank it with a handful of aspirin. Soon the physical pain subsided and he became more alert, but as the throbbing in his skull diminished, the aching in his heart grew.
Think, idiot! Can I forgo the life I’ve imagined for us? But what am I supposed to do with a teenaged pseudo-daughter? And what would I do after leaving the agency?
An hour passed while the same thoughts flew again and again through his mind, like a logic loop in a buggy computer program.
Only two options.
He’d have to choose sooner or later. When he was no longer able to take the ache in his heart, he chose.
* * *
Cassie and Ann exited the taxi at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, where she’d met up with Lee months ago to plan her escape from the Houmaz brothers. She walked with Ann close by, approaching the registration desk when her cell phone buzzed to alert her to an incoming email. She’d held Ann’s hand tightly and released it to open the phone. The screen displayed an email forwarded by the Swiftshadow Consulting Group website:
Cassie—
I’m sorry. Yeah, your crazy plan is worth trying if it will bring you back to me.
Ann can stay with us. But, I’m keeping my job. Director Greenfield told me to take some time off before I return to work, so I’ve spent the last hours on the Internet, looking for a bigger space. I found a three-bedroom. I can afford it with the promotion.
Please come back to me. I love you.
—Lee
Cassie smiled.
Ann asked, “Another message?” She pointed to the cell phone. Ann looked hopeful. “From Lee?”
Tears moistened Cassie’s cheeks as they fell. “Yes. We can go back. It will all be okay.” She pulled Ann to her and hugged her.
Ann reluctantly hugged Cassie back.
* * *
They walked up the stairs to Lee’s apartment. Cassie rang the bell but there was no answer. “He’s probably out looking for a bigger apartment.” She opened the door with the key Lee had given her and there was Gizmo’s tiny face in the doorway. The kitten mewed and then sat directly in front of them. Cassie picked it up and petted it, rewarded by a purr loud enough to cause Ann to smile at the kitten.
Cassie placed the kitten in Ann’s hands. She stroked the animal and Gizmo’s purr got even louder. She walked to the couch and sat. The cat curled in her lap.
Late in the evening, Ann heard a key placed into the front door’s lock. Lee entered. In obvious pain, he smiled and said, “Hi, Ann. Where’s Cassie?”
Ann pointed to the desk in the far corner. Due to the way the apartment was shaped, this desk had a view of the street outside, but no one seated there could see the door. Cassie had opened the window, and street noise kept her from noticing Lee as he approached her. He said in a voice just above a whisper, “I found us a place we can buy. Not an apartment, but a house, a big one. I had to get a real estate agent to leave dinner with her family to show me the few I’d short-listed.”
Cassie rose and hugged him gent
ly. “Kiss me, my sweet boy.”
* * *
They moved into the house ten days later, in Chevy Chase, Maryland, a short car ride from the office she rented on K Street for Swiftshadow Consulting Group. The English Tudor was two stories tall with a slate roof. The lot was enormous. There was a brick and mortar wall surrounding the property.
The real estate agent waited as Cassie wrote a check for the closing costs, and then the agent left them.
Ann said “The back yard is mag.”
Cassie found it ironic the house was two blocks away from Mark McDougal’s house.
They stood at the doorway watching the movers. Ann squinted from the bright sunshine. Cassie told them whether the furniture was destined for the lower or upper floor, and if for the lower floor, exactly where. Lee was upstairs directing the men, telling them where to place the beds and dressers.
As the moving truck unloaded their meager possessions, she thought how McDougal had ruined her life, and how much she had once wanted him dead. But Avram Shimmel, one of Cassie’s friends and a member of the board of directors of the newly formed Swiftshadow Consulting Group, had convinced her to blackmail McDougal instead. Shimmel’s suggestion had worked, and if McDougal ever tried betraying her again, Cassie would use the evidence she had hacked to send him to prison and make him and his family targets of terrorists. She remembered Shimmel saying he’d rather have his enemies in his tent, pissing out, than outside his tent, pissing in. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. But moving into her enemy’s neighborhood isn’t what she had in mind.
The house consisted of three large bedrooms and two baths upstairs, a family room, half bath, and kitchen and dining room downstairs, with an attached two-car garage. The brick wall surrounding the back yard was six feet high.
Though Lee claimed the price was astronomical, Cassie knew she had more than enough money to pay for it a thousand times over. But Lee had insisted that it fit within his own budget since they weren’t married and he worked at the agency. Cassie bought the house and sold it to him for a tiny fraction of what she’d paid. She then wrote the mortgage loan for the house to Lee, so he owned it, paying the loan back to her.
As the movers rode off in their empty truck, Ann entered the kitchen where Cassie had been putting some of their possessions into place. “I’ve thought about this. I promised to tell you, so here goes.”
Cassie braced for bad news.
Ann looked away from her. “First, I still don’t know. I’m not sure if I trust you. But, I like you. Just a bit. As for your boyfriend, no. I hate him. So, I’ll stay here with you. For now at least. But he’s such a—”
Cassie nodded, grimacing. “I get it. Ann, some men are like that. Most men are pull toys. But trust me. Lee has more to offer. You guys seem to have somehow started at odds. Give it time.”
“Yeah, well, it was his fault.” Cassie watched the glare Ann shot at her. “Look, I’ll give him another chance. He better not blow it.” She turned and marched to the room she’d claimed on the top floor at the opposite end from the master suite.
Cassie searched for Lee. She found him lying on his back in their bed in the master. Perspiration leaked through his sweatshirt. His expression said it all. She closed the door behind her. He raised his head. “Hey, Cassie, all the stuff is in place. We’re done.”
“No, we’re not. You need to listen.”
“Now what?”
“Ann just told me she hates you. I don’t want her running back to the tunnels. Think hard. Find a way to connect. And don’t you dare piss her off. Even in close families shit sometimes happens between teens and their parents. But we’re barely family.”
“Sheesh. Okay. I’ll back off. Lemme think about this.”
She opened the door and vanished.
Long after the sun set, the three gathered in their living room. Lee wired the television and the desktop computer in their tiny den.
He smiled, “I feel stronger. If I could survive this move, I’ll be okay.
* * *
Cassie dressed in a suit and took Ann with her to meet with Child Protective Services. The woman—a squat, butt-ugly bureaucrat—asked her, “Tell me, Ms. Sashakovich, what do you do for a living?”
Cassie replied, “I own a consulting firm, a preferred vendor for the feds.”
The older woman wrote something on the notepad on her desk and asked, “How much money do you make?”
Cassie said, “As I noted on the application, I’m independently wealthy and only work part-time. I work because I want to. I’ll be available for Ann whenever she needs or wants me.”
The social worker’s bureaucratic expression showed doubt as she wrote something down and the interview continued. Cassie had already answered all these questions on the application form.
Ann shifted restlessly in her seat, as if she found the experience tedious. She sat quietly, saying nothing until the social worker asked her, “How do you feel about this woman becoming your legal guardian?”
Ann’s face perked up. “This woman, as you refer to her, is someone I like a lot. I want this.” Lee had coached Ann to never offer more of an answer than the most obvious reply required.
The social worker said, “Well, that’s all I have. We’ll contact you with our decision in about a week.”
Cassie didn’t wait for approval as a foster parent. It might not go her way.
After they returned home that afternoon, she hacked into the CPS computer network, and found and modified the record for Ann the social worker had created. She placed Ann in her custody and then sealed the record.
When she and Ann met with the Assistant Principal of the Stinson School the next day, they accepted Ann. The fifty-thousand-dollar gift Cassie made to the school didn’t hurt. On the way home, Ann asked, “Why do they all wear the same clothes? Are uniforms required? I never wore one to PS 109 in Brooklyn.”
Cassie drove their rental car from its parking space, looking at the traffic. “It’s a form of discipline. One that may help you adjust, since no one will look better or worse than you.”
Ann remained quiet after that, but Cassie could see than she wasn’t happy about the school.
When the mail came the next day, she sat at the new dining room table and opened everything. Three envelopes. There were Ann’s medical reports, a negative report from the doctor who’d tested Ann for sexually transmitted diseases, and a confirmation notice from the private school she’d be attending. Cassie smiled, reading the papers providing her with guardianship for Ann.
* * *
Within a month of Lee’s return from Guantanamo Bay, they looked like the ideal family. Their neighbors seemed friendly enough.
No one knew their dirty secrets.
Ann found it all quite unbelievable.
Early one evening about a week after they moved in, Cassie told Ann they’d be having guests. The teen was to be on her best behavior and dress appropriately.
The doorbell rang just after the sun set. Ann turned on the house outside lights as she walked to the door. “Who’s there?”
“Avram,” came the reply from outside. “You must be Ann. I work for your mother. Please tell Cassie I’m here.” Ann looked through the tiny peephole in the door. Standing in front of her, the man was a giant, a well over six feet tall, with the broadest shoulders she’d ever seen, and silhouetted by the setting sun, she couldn’t make out his face. She gasped. “Cassie told me never to open the door. For anyone. Ever. Hold on, I’ll get her.”
The man outside laughed quietly. “I’ll wait.”
As she walked toward the stairs, she heard a car door slam. A man’s voice called out, “Hey, Avram. She invited you, too?”
Ann went up the stairs and down the hall to the master bedroom, where Cassie was putting on earrings. Cassie was wearing a charcoal gray business suit that covered a white button-down collared shirt. Ann’s eyes bulged. She thought, she’s mag! She watched for a private moment before saying, “Cassie, there are
some men downstairs. I left them waiting outside.”
* * *
Cassie smiled at Ann. She looked in the mirror as she hummed “Midnight Hour,” a blues song written by Leroy Carr, then adjusted the necktie she was wearing, a rep tie in black and red. “Good. Thanks for not opening the door. Lee, let them in and offer them something to drink. There’s some single malt Scotch and wine in the cabinet by the fireplace in the living room. There’s beer in the fridge. Ann, you can have a soda. Ask the guys to sit at the dining room table.”
Lee completed dressing in a white shirt, bow tie, and business suit. “I’ll come down with you, Ann.” They glared at each other. “Cassie almost never dresses for business so she’s a bit slow trying to figure it out.” Lee led her down the stairs.
He opened the door.
Ann was unsure whether she should stay so she returned back to the bedroom and met Cassie on her way out. “Cassie, should I sit in or should I go to my room and do homework?”
Cassie thought for a second. She nodded. “You should listen. I’d like you to know what we do. But don’t ask questions. Speak only if someone asks you a question. This is a business meeting and it’ll take about an hour. After it’s over I expect you’ll have lots of questions, and Lee and I will answer them after Avram, Adam, and William leave.”
Ann nodded and found a seat on the living room couch where she could listen unobtrusively. Gizmo launched herself into Ann’s lap. Ann smiled and petted the purring kitten.
Lee placed various bottles of single malt, including his beloved sixteen-year-old Lagavulin, on the counter. He added arak, a liqueur native to Israel, similar to ouzo. On the bar were several brandy snifters, beer and wine glasses, and a corkscrew.
Avram poured some arak into a snifter and rolled a taste of it around his mouth. He inhaled and sighed. William sipped a glass of 2014 Sokol Blosser Chardonnay. Adam held a bottle of Chimay Belgian beer in his hand. Lee stuck his nose into a snifter containing a bit of the Lagavulin.
Cassie walked downstairs and the others looked up. Each man smiled at her. She poured some white wine into her glass.