Shattered Trust

by Leslie Esdaile Banks

  “What happened?” Laura asked, turning to peer at her elderly uncle over the seat.

  She glanced at James, who kept his eyes forward on the road, but had glimpsed Akhan in the rearview mirror, like a professional limo driver.

  “They’re coming for us,” Akhan stated flatly.

  “Who?” Laura waited, and watched her uncle rub the stubble on his jaw.

  “I don’t know. There are so many possibilities. The question of ‘why,’ is moot. We have ruffled a lot of feathers over the years, Laura.”

  “Then, let’s focus on the most likely candidates—namely those who have an unsettled debt and the resources to see that it’s collected.”

  Akhan chuckled. “Again, that would be many.”

  Laura dragged her fingers through her hair, knowing just how right the old man was. “We follow the money, then.”

  Akhan’s smile broadened. “Again, Laura—”

  “I know, I know,” she said, growing frustrated. “That’s a lot of sources.”

  “So, you two figured out how you’re gonna break this to Pops?” Jamal said, clearly taking delight in Steve and Najira’s case of nerves.

  Najira spun in her seat, straining the seatbelt while Steve kept his eyes straight ahead on the road, his jaw tight.

  “Nooooo, and don’t start no signifying mess when we get to Laura’s, okay? Dad has been through a lot of drama, he’s elderly, exhausted, and ran out of his home to come here like a refugee—so don’t start no shit, Jamal.”

  Jamal raised both hands in front of his chest, laughing. “Yo, I was only asking, because sooner or later he’s gonna figure out the deal. Thought it might be best if you hit him with it straight, instead of playing games. You know Pop.”

  Najira turned around and slumped in her seat without responding.

  “If it’s gonna be a problem,” Steve said quietly, I can maybe go crash at Laura and James’s place ... until this gets sorted out.”

  “Yeah,” Jamal chimed in, uninvited. “Pop beat getting shot, dealt with a mad-crazy flight, and whoever knows what else. No sense in giving him a heart attack now that he’s safe.”

  “Oh, shut up, Jamal,” Najira practically yelled. “It’s gonna be fine. Besides, there are much more important things to worry about than all of that. Just let it alone.”

  Steve discreetly reached over and squeezed her hand. “First things first. Let your Dad settle in, get his bearings, calm down, we develop a strategy—then you two can talk ... only when the time is right. I’m cool with it.”

  Najira nodded and stared out the passenger window as everyone fell silent for the rest of the ride home.

  When both vehicles pulled up into Laura and James’s driveway, by instinct James and Steve jumped out first and cased the house. No one had to be informed of the process, it went like clockwork. Each person knew their roles, who would stay, who would get out, and when to move once the coast was called clear.

  A nod from James once the house had been swept made Laura climb out and assist her uncle, while Jamal took up his father’s backpack. The fivesome trudged into the house like soldiers, and headed for the real meeting room—the kitchen. Akhan sat and the others slowly joined the table with him. Laura found water, fresh juice, and fruit to place before Akhan, already knowing he had to be hungry, tired, and, at his age, in need of immediate attention to his physical being. Once Akhan had begun to refuel his body, Laura turned on the teakettle and waited.

  “I have a guest room all ready for you, some fresh towels, and in the nightstand you’ll find something to make you feel safe.”

  Laura glanced at James as Akhan searched her face.

  “Glock nine-millimeter,” James said flatly. “Clip is in it, safety on. I’ll do a quick run-through on how to use it, once you’ve showered.”

  “Thank you,” Akhan said quietly, and then briefly closed his eyes.

  It was in that moment that Laura realized just how shaken her uncle had been. Never a complainer, and always seeming to have a steely handle on all circumstances, her uncle had been terrified for the first time she’d ever witnessed in her life. Just his quiet expulsion of air, the way his shoulders dropped with relief to be in safe company, her house a haven, unnerved her, because what if it wasn’t.

  All eyes were on him, as though each person in the room had come to the same conclusion at the same moment. New tension filled their expressions, as though it had been silently transferred from Akhan to everyone else in a matter of telepathic seconds.

  Najira glimpsed Steve from the corner of her eye, which brought her father’s attention first to her, and then it settled on Steve.

  “Welcome to the family,” Akhan said calmly, taking a slow sip of his juice.

  Steve simply stared at him. No one spoke. Akhan didn’t smile or avert his eyes, but set his glass down very precisely.

  “At my age, one becomes very philosophical,” the elderly man said, his tone neutral. “One may be old, but do not assume blindness.”

  “Dad, see—”

  Akhan held up his hand, stopping Najira’s words while everyone else held their breath. “No need to explain. I saw it at Laura’s wedding.” He nodded toward Steve, who gave a quick, nervous nod back. Akhan’s gaze slid to James. “He was your partner for years, watched your back, and stood as your best man. I take that as an endorsement from a man whom I respect.”

  James nodded. “We go back a lotta years, and dude’s always been righteous.”

  Akhan nodded, sighed, and pushed back in his chair, folding his hands over his stomach. He then looked at Jamal. “My son hung with you, has been living with his sister for a year or so now.” He kept his penetrating gaze on Jamal. “My son, like me, has good discernment in character—a necessary thing for survival in the streets. There would have been a falling-out, if things were not as they should be. Jamal is still here, therefore I can only assume that things are correct.”

  “Yeah, Pop,” Jamal said quickly, glancing at the others. “It’s all good.”

  Akhan again nodded, and then turned his attention on Laura. “With all that is at stake, and all the unspoken business that must be conducted, I know my dear niece would not have you as a part of her inner circle, if you could not be trusted. Of all those I know, Laura is the shrewdest most skilled strategist.”

  He let his gaze linger on Laura. Warmth and pride filled her at the most profound compliment her uncle had given her. Yet it also sent a chill through her, as his small speech had the ring of a eulogy to it—someone unburdening his spirit so he could make his peace and go home to glory.

  “He’s been with us since it all started,” Laura said, resting her hand on Akhan’s shoulder.

  Akhan briefly covered the touch with a rough hewn palm and then both their hands fell away. He fixed his gaze on Najira, who was looking down, until her eyes met his.

  “Daughter ... he makes your eyes smile and also become shy. He has the endorsement of those I most cherish and trust in the world. Why wouldn’t you come to me and let me know? Haven’t I always taught you that a house united will stand, a house divided will fall?”

  She nodded, her eyes glistening with myriad emotions, and that’s when Akhan finally smiled.

  “Then, given what we have to face, I thought it best to go into the challenges united. We do not have time for old prejudices to divide what has become our house.” Akhan looked up at Steve’s stricken expression. “Ashé?”

  Steve nodded, still seeming unsure.

  “You pass inspection,” Akhan said with a soft chuckle. “Laura, make some tea. We pour some libations to honor the ancestors and call it a day. I’m tired.”

  “Just like that, Pop? You cool?” Jamal, incredulous, stood and walked to the stove to make tea, when Laura’s legs couldn’t push her to stand fast enough.

  “At my age, you don’t waste time. You observe, accept or decline, and then move on. I accept.”

  Steve almost toppled Akhan’s juice and water glasses, quickly reaching over t
he table to shake his hand. “I’m not playing games with her, sir, and will do right by her.”

  Akhan shook Steve’s hand and chuckled. “I know, because otherwise I’d have to kill you.”

  James looked away and swallowed a smile, as his partner sat back very slowly and raked his hair. Laura was on her feet.

  “Uhmmm, why don’t I show you to the shower, and I’ll make some broiled fish and something more substantial for you to eat—the fruit was just to take the edge off.”

  Akhan stood slowly with a wry smile. “Yes ... and then James can show me the fine points of how to use his gun.”

  No one said a word as Akhan and Laura left the room. They just simply stared after them, rendered mute.

  “You all right, man?” James said, landing a heavy hand on Steve’s shoulders.

  Steve rubbed his palms down his face and blew out a long breath. “Oh ... shit ...”

  “Yeah,” Jamal said, fixing a cup of tea to take into the next room. “Pop don’t play. But once you’re in, you’re in, unless you do something to fuck that up.” Jamal glanced at Najira. “He means what he says. He will shoot your ass, if you yank my sister around.”

  Najira grasped Steve’s hand and squeezed it hard, glaring at Jamal. “He’s not like that, and you know it.”

  “I feel you. I’m just saying.”

  “All right, y’all,” James said, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes. “Crisis number two for the day averted. Let the old man sip his tea in his room, eat, get some shut-eye, and then we’ve gotta make some decisions on how to move forward.”

  A vibration on James’s hip made him open his eyes, sit forward, and bring his cell phone to his ear. All eyes were on him as he took the call.

  “Yeah, Cap. Good to hear from you. What’s up?”

  “Got a delivery of some really interesting equipment, with ID that hit a brick wall when we tried to do a database search on it.”

  “What kind of brick wall?” James said, cautiously.

  “A federal brick wall,” Cap replied, lowering his voice. “A you-do-not-want-to-fuck-with-this brick wall.”

  “Then you know that me and Laura ain’t in it, right?”

  A long silence filled the receiver.

  “My hunch as a detective says you’re clean,” Cap finally replied.

  “You got anybody local that can do a hack, on the DL?”

  “Maybe,” Cap said, not committing.

  “You already did it, didn’t you?”

  Nervous laughter filled the receiver.

  “Call me curious,” Cap muttered. “This guy has an international rap sheet, and did a lot of ‘special projects’ for the feds. He’s Russian. Names too many and too hard to spell to give you on the phone. Suffice to say, this ain’t some local, regular vendetta shit. But with a senator dead and a trail leading to an old federal black ops pro, won’t be long before I have to give up the evidence and turn this over to higher authorities—you know what I’m saying. It’ll be outta my hands. You all just stay safe.”

  “I hear you,” James muttered back. “Thanks for the heads-up, Cap. I owe you.”

  Cap chuckled. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s what they all say.”

  By the time the call disconnected, Laura had returned to the kitchen. She was greeted by blank stares of pure disbelief.

  “What happened?’ she asked quietly.

  “Got a call,” James said, standing. “I’ll tell you about it while you fix Akhan’s fish.”

  They all sat around the dining room table, barely picking at the broiled sea bass and steamed vegetables that Laura had prepared in a zombie state. Akhan ate slowly, methodically, as though measuring each bite of food with the slow recount of each witness’s words, thinking.

  “James and I need to resurface and draw the fire our way,” Laura finally said, taking a careful sip of her herbal, mango tea.

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” Steve said, shaking his head. “Splitting up the team is too risky.”

  “If there’s some paperwork, thus money, at the root of this, then most likely it was something I’ve orchestrated. James is top gun on security. He and I can cover much more ground without risking any family as targets,” Laura argued. “As it is, my sisters and their kids are still in the states. If they came for uncle, they’ll eventually go for them in an attempt to smoke me out of hiding.”

  “We do this thing as one family, Laura,” Jamal argued.

  “Yeah. We’re all in this together,” Najira contended, standing to go get a bottle of wine.

  James and Akhan had remained strangely silent. The dissenters looked at them. Akhan broke the silence first.

  “Let’s study the pattern,” he said, slowly pushing his finished plate away from him so that he could make a tent before him with his fingers. “This all began with a transfer of power by the late Donald Haines, correct? What part of that had federal ties?”

  Laura nodded. “Yes. You and I gave him a slate of approved programs that he sanctioned. We set up those programs on abandoned old factory lands earmarked for redevelopment. But it was city- and state-owned land, any federal money was sent down from Washington, hit state coffers, and then trickled down to the city. We got our apportionment from state and city budgets.”

  “Ah,” Akhan said, nodding. “And we have a dead state senator, and a dead son of a state senator.”

  “All right,” James finally said, entering the conversation. “But those boys aren’t feds.”

  “But they used to go back and forth to Washington all the time,” Laura added, her gaze never leaving Akhan.

  “And our dear friend Donald met an untimely demise ... which may have unsettled deals he had to repay those federal connections—a scratch-your-back arrangement to make it lucrative for certain monies to be released, so that those who gave up thirty-year land leases at the state level could be renumerated.”

  Laura closed her eyes and let out a hard breath. “With Senator Scott getting screwed and losing power, who knows who at the federal level didn’t get their itch scratched.” She opened her eyes to Akhan’s wise gaze.

  “It’s always a very delicate balance, Laura,” he said, no emotion or judgment in his tone. “I had oversight, locally, over those program lands—given your shutdown of Rainmaker’s, Inc. With Scott gone ...”

  “There’s no way for them to wrest back the leases or get a cut off the program funds,” she said with a groan.

  “Precisely,” Akhan said.

  She stood and began to pace. “OK, then we have to find out who Scott was dealing with. Who would have stood to benefit in some way in exchange for him funding the city to do the programs?”

  “Ashé,” Akhan said quietly, taking up his tea again. “Or, what will most likely happen is, you’ll witness an erosion of those programs. Good grassroots organizations discredited for fiscal mismanagement, programs not getting funding the following year, thus the land leases voided, somehow, and the monies redirected to new ventures and new so-called priorities.”

  “Damn, that’s some crazy shit,” Jamal muttered, shaking his head.

  “Indeed, son. Nothing is stable. All of this is built on shifting sands.”

  “I’ll go with the theory,” James said. “But why a hit? That part of it is personal. They could shake the programs out from under your or Laura’s control, and get back whatever money they felt they were owed. However, when bodies start dropping ...”

  “It’s real personal,” Steve said. “Sending a message.”

  Both James and Steve nodded.

  “Yeah ...” Laura said slowly. “That’s why I need to get stateside with James, do some on-the-street digging, and find out who has a personal axe to grind in relation to the programs that got transferred to Akhan.”

  “You may not be able to fix this, Laura,” Akhan warned, taking a way-too-calm sip of his tea. “This may be a wake-up call to simply remove you and anyone else associated with you permanently from the equation, given how dangerous yo
u’ve been to them in the past.”

  “Then that’s all the more reason for me and James to go. If I can find out who’s been wronged, I can perhaps shield those program directors locally from a media or fiscal beat down, transfer what can be salvaged to some compromise agencies that can absorb the innocent without too much fallout, and then wait for them to try to off me ... and have something waiting for them.”

  “Still the Scorpion, I see, my young queen sister.” Akhan set down his tea and smiled a very strained smile. “My concern is that, this time, it may not be that simplistic.”

  Chapter 6

  “We’re deeply concerned.”

  Vladimir Chertoff glanced around at the waning lunchtime political crowd within the Watergate Hotel, and then settled a lethal gaze on the two men before him. The one wearing dark aviator sunglasses with a communications wire discreetly tucked behind his ear troubled him, but not as much as his older contact who kept a blank expression on his alcohol-puffed face as he spoke in a low warning tone.

  “There is no cause for worry,” Vladimir grumbled. “It was a slight detour, but I will deliver as promised.”

  “Here’s our dilemma,” his contact said evenly. “When you lost your bag, local Philadelphia police acquired it.”

  “I didn’t lose my bag. Junkies—”

  “You lost your bag,” his contact said quietly, leaning forward and cutting off his explanation. “We pay you well not to lose your bag. You’ve done work for us in some of the worst ghettos in the world, from Bosnia to the Sudan ... and you’ve never lost your bag. This concerns those above me who think you may be getting sloppy. A ghetto in North Central Philadelphia cannot be as daunting as those in central Afghanistan, can it?”

  Vladimir didn’t answer the charge, but simply glared back at the beady blue eyes that challenged his.