“That won’t be easy,” McKinsey said.
“If your assignment was easy,” Carson replied, “I’d have given it to a monkey.”
They kept still now as a priest appeared, crossed himself, then mounted the small dais to prepare the altar for the coming mass. They were seated on a pew in the last row; soon they would have to leave, but for the moment they were safe from prying eyes and ears.
“Listen, Peter, there’s another player in the field.”
McKinsey glanced at Carson for the first time. “Who?”
“If I knew that I wouldn’t need you. Go forth and find out who it is.”
“And when I do?”
“Neutralize it,” Carson said.
The door behind them opened and they bowed their heads as another penitent made his way down the aisle. When he had found a pew, McKinsey said, “I’m sorry about your niece.”
Carson stared at the priest, arranging his fetishistic symbols on the altar. “There will be consequences.”
McKinsey bit his lip. He was dying for a cigarette. “It doesn’t alter our plans?”
“Not in the least.” Carson took a breath and let it out. “Time for you to go, Peter.”
“Yessir.”
Carson stayed some time after McKinsey left. He stared at the symbols of privilege and power affixed to the walls. The Catholic Church was on a slow and painful march to irrelevance, strangling on its own misdeeds. Before he left, he determined not to follow that path.
* * *
“YOU SEE how it works?” Annika said. “You see how easy it is from this position to fracture the occipital bone?” She kept up the pressure just beneath Naomi’s left eye. “Both the zygomatic bone and, here, the foramen—the hole in the bone through which nerves and blood vessels pass—are vulnerable. Two deaths in one, one might say.”
She removed her arm and thumb, but Naomi’s heart could not stop racing. She had to hold down the reactive nausea that had risen up through her gut into her throat when Annika had come up behind her and locked her in the death grip the murderer had employed four times in the last thirty-six hours. An insane thought was still ricocheting like a pinball around her brain: Was Annika the murderer? She had killed Senator Berns; how many before him had she murdered?
Naomi swallowed heavily. Her eyes were tearing and her nose was running. Ignoring her own distress, she stared down at the head and hand of the young girl buried between the roots of the massive tree.
“Who is this?” Her voice was thick and her tongue seemed too large for her mouth. “Do you know her name?”
“Does it matter?”
Naomi whipped around. “Damn straight it matters.”
“Arjeta.” Annika was looking at Naomi, not the dead girl. “In Albanian, it means ‘golden life.’”
Naomi stood up. She felt light-headed. Her heart would not slow down. She tried to take deep breaths.
“You look pale,” Annika said. “Are you all right?”
What the hell do you care? Naomi wanted to say, but she just nodded.
“Did you kill her?”
Now Annika’s eyes sought the corpse. “It’s so sad, isn’t it? Such a waste of life.”
Naomi’s hands curled into fists. “I asked you a question.”
“I have been trying to protect Arjeta.” Her gaze swung back to Naomi’s face. “I know her two sisters, Edon and Liridona. They’re younger than Arjeta. Edon has been taken, but so far Liridona, the youngest, has been spared.”
“Spared what?”
“Arjeta’s parents sold her to Xhafa’s people. All three sisters are both beautiful and desirable. Unless something drastic is done, I fear Liridona and Edon will suffer the same fate as their older sister.”
“The fate of so many,” Naomi said sadly.
“Yes, but these girls are special. Their beauty makes them tremendously valuable to people like the Xhafa brothers. But their value is now exponentially greater. They possess important knowledge regarding, I’m assuming, Arian Xhafa. But that’s just a stab in the dark. Liridona was interrupted in her last call to me and I haven’t been able to reach her since.”
“Where are they now?” Naomi asked.
“Liridona called me from Albania. Vlorë, where the family lives. She doesn’t know where Edon was taken, though I strongly suspect that it’s out of the country.”
Naomi pressed her hand against the bole of the tree to steady herself. “It’s a sickness, a disease.”
“What is?”
“Greed.”
“Greed and despair,” Annika said. “They’re epidemic.”
Naomi pulled out her cell phone.
“What are you doing?”
“What do you think? I’m calling this in.”
“Don’t.”
“Excuse me?” Naomi shook her head. “That sounded like an order.”
“Just a suggestion,” Annika said. “If you call it in, it will become public, and Mbreti will vanish into the shadows.”
Naomi put the cell up to her ear. “I have to do what I have to do.”
“Then you’ll never find him. This I can guarantee.”
Naomi looked off into the distance. The odor of Arjeta’s death clotted in her nostrils. Her pale, bony face haunted her. The line connected and she heard a querying voice in her ear, thin and electronic.
“These deaths will go on and on,” Annika said softly. “Is this what you want?”
Duty and desire, the two weights the cosmic scale held in balance, if not equilibrium, vied with each other for dominance.
At last, she took the phone away from her ear and killed the connection.
“All right,” she said to Annika. “Was it Mbreti who killed Arjeta? Was it Mbreti who tortured and killed Billy Warren, and the two men at Twilight?”
“No, not him, though he may have ordered it,” Annika said.
“Do you know the perp’s name?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The murderer.”
“Yes. A man named Blunt. I believe you’ve met him under the legend name of Willowicz.”
* * *
DOLNA ZHELINO was a tiny mountain village nestled in a finger of a valley dipping between two wooded hillsides high in the Korab mountains. At one end was a small watercourse, fed by the Vardar River; at the other was a wide, undulating, mostly cultivated valley, the gateway to Tetovo, Arian Xhafa’s stronghold fifteen miles to the northwest.
About an hour ago, they had forded the river at a fairly shallow spot. But the rocks on the riverbed were slippery and Alli had stumbled, hitting the water with a splash. Before Jack could get to her, her head was under the water. An instant later, she surfaced, drenched from head to toe, but otherwise unharmed.
Now, hunkered down in the midst of a dense forest, Dennis Paull checked his folding map against his GPS coordinates. Jack looked over his shoulder. From their elevation, they had an excellent view down the length of the finger. The red-tile roofs of the whitewashed houses looked like a jumble of dice, except for the soaring minarets of the mosque. This area of the country was predominantly Muslim, so a mosque in every town or village was to be expected.
Twilight was still at least an hour away. Alli leaned against a tree and gazed out at the town. She seemed lost in thought, and Jack wondered what was on her mind.
“We’re right on track,” Paull said.
Assuming this is the right track, Jack thought, but he kept his opinion to himself. Paull already knew where he stood on the subject.
Paull checked his watch. “The best time to make it through the valley without being spotted is at twilight. We’ll be able to see our way without lights, but for everyone else visibility will be poor. Looking at us will be like looking at clouds.”
He glanced around. “We have time to grab something to eat.” He jutted his chin. “Go tell Alli.”
Jack rose and went over to Alli. “Eat while we have the time,” he said.
She made no move.
�
�Alli, it’s liable to be a long night.”
She nodded, shrugged off her pack, and, squatting down, rummaged through it. Jack knelt beside her. When she offered him a protein bar, he took it. They ate in silence. Jack leaned back, then closed his eyes. He saw his Rubik’s Cube, the icon of puzzle solving. Then came a flood of images from the past couple of days, which he sorted, intuitively placing some on the cube, while discarding others. This mental task might have taken most people the better part of an hour, but Jack’s dyslexic brain accomplished it in a matter of minutes—as fast as he had solved the vexing riddle of the Rubik’s Cube when he was young.
What stood out for him was a kind of equation his mind had etched into the cube:
GRASI = THATË MBRETI = ?
He considered the equation, which was no real equation at all, and wondered what it meant. His subconscious knew, or was working on it, otherwise it would not have presented itself to him. Mbreti—king, in Albanian—was either a code name or a position rank of a major player in Arian Xhafa’s American operation. Mathis, the manager of Twilight, was bringing Mbreti’s money to the Stem. It must have been to deliver it to Dardan, which meant Mbreti was one of Arian Xhafa’s crew, perhaps Dardan himself. In any event, Mathis worked for Mbreti—the king.
Jack realized that if he solved that riddle, it still wouldn’t help him solve the riddle of the equation. Thatë’s nickname was Grasi—fat. But his real name—Thatë—meant skinny. The kid was neither fat nor skinny, so how did he come by the nickname? When things calmed down, Jack determined to ask him.
He opened his eyes. “How are you doing?” he said to Alli.
She looked at him and smiled thinly. “Better.”
The silence stretched on. He knew better than to start probing; she was sure to take it as an interrogation and he knew how negatively she’d react to that, even if it was only her perception.
“I miss music,” she said around a bite of food.
He took out Emma’s iPod and his earphones. “Can we listen to something together?”
“How about My Bloody Valentine’s ‘When You Sleep’?”
Jack scrolled through the listings. “One of Emma’s favorites. So it’s one of yours, as well.”
Alli swallowed and looked away for the moment.
Jack offered the iPod. “Do you want to do this yourself?”
She shook her head, and he plugged in the earbuds, then handed her one end. He pressed Play and they both listened to half the music. Jack disliked this form of listening so beloved of teenagers. He found it both ridiculous and useless, like listening to music on a cell phone at sixty-four kbps, so compressed the music might as well be spoken word. But, now, with MBV’s iconic wall of fuzzed-out electronics and buried vocals in his ear, knowing that Alli was enjoying the other half, he felt peculiarly close to her. Or perhaps it was because they were both sharing a vital part of Emma—sharing it and loving it.
He was interrupted by a tap on his shoulder.
“Time to saddle up,” Paull said.
The light was falling out of the sky like a sudden downpour. What was left of the sun was obscured by clouds. A few first-magnitude stars were just becoming visible, their remote glimmering foretelling a misty night.
Jack removed his earbud and Alli did the same. He rose, tucking the electronics securely away. Then he took out a pair of field glasses and went to a gap in the trees. After a moment, he sensed Paull approach.
“See anything?”
Jack shook his head. “But according to Thatë, Xhafa’s men are out there.”
Paull grunted.
“What’s our route through the valley?”
When Paull told him, Jack said, “I hope the geotechs know what they’re doing, because it seems to me that there’s no good way across.” He pointed through a gap in the trees. “See how the valley narrows down toward the far end? It’s like a huge funnel. I can see why Xhafa would position his men here and why Thatë didn’t want us to come this way.”
“I didn’t fall for one word that lying kid said.” Paull settled his backpack. “C’mon. We’re moving out.”
* * *
“IT’S JUST like threading a needle,” Paull whispered as they made their way to the edge of the forest. “The geotechs have plotted the path that gives us the lowest chance of being seen.”
“I feel better already,” Jack said.
Paull forged on, ignoring Jack’s remark. Farther ahead and below them lay the soft lights of Dolna Zhelino, nestled in its funnel, so inviting to its residents, so dangerous for their little group.
At the very edge of the trees, Paull stopped them for a moment. He pointed at two spots. “There and there are the two high points, the best place to station lookouts. The geotech boys saw that in their three-D renderings so they plotted our course accordingly.”
“Better and better,” Jack said.
“Button it,” Paull snapped. “We have superior resources and capabilities, and I plan on using all of them to get us inside Tetovo’s perimeter and blow Xhafa’s tin-pot empire to smithereens before he knows what hit him.”
They took up their ArmaLite assault rifles and struck out single file. Paull took the lead with Alli just behind him. Jack, as ever, was on rear guard.
The wastrel light had taken on the element peculiar to the dwindling of the day, when the sun has slipped below the horizon but night has not yet risen from its grave. There were no shadows; instead, there were, as Paull had pointed out, layers of illusion, within which they could safely make their way into the hammock and through it to the far end, where the watercourse tumbled down between enormous boulders.
They moved through the dense foliage of the western slope in a winding path that several times seemed to fold back on itself, though that couldn’t possibly be right. As they progressed, Jack had to admit to himself that the course was a good one, complicated enough to keep potential sight lines to them constantly changing.
They trekked up a steep rise, then down into a shallow dell dotted with saplings and vigorous understory growth, as if a fire had torn through here in years past, burning off the older, established trees. Paull used hand signals to keep them crouched low to the ground as they passed through this relatively open patch.
Jack breathed a sigh of relief when they reached the far side and slipped in among the tall trees again. Shadows moved with them through the forest. For a time, they lost sight of both the valley and the village as the path took them higher onto the western slope, into denser, first-growth trees, which towered over them like titans.
Keeping one eye out for movement behind them and the other on Alli, Jack felt Paull step up the pace. It was at that moment that they began to take fire from the left. As one, they dropped to their bellies and, following Paull’s hand signals, began to creep down the slope where it fell off on their right. Then more firing targeted them from the right. Jack crabbed his way over to Alli but she had already sought shelter in a thicket of underbrush. He stuck his head up, searching for Paull, but the withering fire almost took off the top of his skull.
They were trapped in a merciless cross fire.
SEVENTEEN
THE PRESIDENT met with Carson in the Rose Garden. It was well known that they were friends. Friends met in open, pleasant places, not behind closed doors, places where tongues could wag and create problems for both of them.
“I don’t think giving Dennis Paull permission to take Alli away was a smart move,” Carson said.
“That remains to be seen.” The president, walking without an overcoat, hunched his shoulders against the wind. “But I had no choice. I couldn’t give him any reason to think I was micromanaging his assignment or undermining his authority.”
“I understand that, but—”
“No buts, Hank, we can’t have him looking our way.”
“You mean McClure.”
“Of course I mean McClure,” the president said. “But it would be the height of folly to underestimate Dennis.”
They came to the end of a row and turned into the adjacent one. Across the lawn, the daffodils were up, and tulips had already opened their colored bells.
Carson sniffed the warmth of spring in the air. “I can take care of him, if it comes to that.”
Crawford glanced at his security detail. “Damnit, what have I told you about that kind of talk?”
“My arrogance has gotten me where I am today.”
The POTUS shook his head. “Can’t dispute that.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “I am concerned about Gunn.”
“He’s the best in the private security business, Arlen. The Pentagon uses him all the time.”
“In Iraq,” Crawford pointed out. “Gunn is the kind of guy who thinks the whole world is Iraq and acts accordingly.”
“I can’t get any clarity on what happened at my house,” Carson said. “Gunn claims that Alli became increasingly agitated and then attacked one of his men when he went into the study to check up on her.”
“She looks like she’s sixteen years old, for the love of Mike!”
Carson nodded. “Her physical expertise was a surprise, I must admit.”
“But not her emotional state. Hank, it must have occurred to you that Gunn might be right, that after her incarceration and brainwashing that she … that she’ll never be the same.”
Carson looked like he’d bitten into a rancid peanut. “I don’t want to hear that.”
“Still, Gunn might be right about what happened.”
“And if he’s not?”
The president turned toward his companion and leaned in. “Am I hearing you right?” When Carson made no reply, he said, “Jesus, Hank, you’re as much of a cowboy as Gunn is. Forget him. Keep the plan in sight, would you? Forget about personal vendettas and concentrate. We’re on schedule. I did my part. I sailed your takeover of Middle Bay Bancorp through the SEC and antitrust briar patch without a hitch. Now focus on the integration. Without Middle Bay we’re dead in the water.”
Carson kept his mouth shut. He despised being spoken to like that by anyone, including the president of the United States. Carson was from Texas, he was a self-made man, and now, with immense wealth and power, he considered himself a force of nature, an island-state unto himself. Not for him the laws of the common man—he was beyond all that.
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