Gods and Fathers

by Lepore, James

  “Can you tell me anything else about Mustafa? How old is he?”

  “He’s fifty-five.”

  “Is he married?”

  “No. That is, he’s never mentioned a wife.”

  “What does he do for you?”

  “He runs my household, answers my phone when I’m not at home, makes travel arrangements, schedules meetings, appointments.”

  “Have you ever had any reason to mistrust him?”

  “He told me he did not know Haq, but I saw them talking once at a reception.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I can tell you one more thing.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “After he left yesterday, I went through his office. It was emptied out. Last night, when I was going through Debra’s things, I found a dossier on Mustafa in her desk. I don’t know where she got it. I think it was given to me when I was asked to hire him.”

  “And?”

  “Two things I had forgotten, or more likely did not think remarkable at the time. Mustafa had once lived in New York, in the early nineties. And he had a different name then.”

  “What was it?”

  “Hakimi, Mustafa al-Hakimi.”

  Chapter 39

  Manhattan,

  Thursday, March 5, 2009,

  9PM

  You fucked up.

  Do you still want him?

  We’ll let you know.

  I earned my fee.

  Not the second half.

  The father will go to Hatch. It’ll be all over the news. Don’t take long.

  Silence. Crow smiled, thinking, killing Hatch is crossing this guy’s mind.

  I can still find him and kill him.

  People are asking about your prints.

  What people?

  Not your friends.

  Do you want me to finish the job? You told me to take care of it, remember?

  That can’t be, I’ve never spoken to you before tonight. We’re not even talking now.

  I had help.

  I don’t know what you’re talking about.

  He said the NYPD has my back. I thought they were out of it.

  They are. But we can’t control everyone.

  I can track you down.

  Laughter. I’m just a voice. I might just be a machine.

  I can’t wait long.

  You’re exposed, we may have to use someone else.

  I earned my fee. The money better be there.

  Click.

  Bill Crow pushed the red end button on his cell phone and settled back in his easy chair. Out of the window next to him he could see First Avenue rushing by. His new hotel’s neon sign, two stories below, above the sagging canopy that marked the front entrance, shone a sick yellow-green. Some of its glare licked toward him on his third floor perch.

  It was almost time for him to leave, to disappear into the mountains, but not quite. He had not earned his full fee, a first for him. And then there was, of course, the matter of Matt DeMarco and his NYPD friends. They had his lens cover, with his prints on it. This was another first: the first mistake he had made in fifteen years. His prints were not in any database, except the one with the CIA’s huge wall around it. But they could easily give him up. Hand something to DeMarco or his friends through a small hole in the wall. Unless he finished the job. Then he could, he realized, smiling his crooked smile, solve this fingerprint problem, earn the second half of his Farah fee, and earn the bonus from Mustafa. Did Haq, the mysterious mastermind, the slaughterer of innocents, know what his servant was doing? Probably not, but did it matter? Not really. Haq would have to go. That would be a pleasure.

  He didn’t think he’d been followed, but Manhattan wasn’t the desert or the mountains. There, he would know for sure. But not here. He would have to change rooms. The junkie at the end of the hall had a window in his room with access to a fire escape. He would be happy to swap. A hundred bucks would get him high for a day or two. One more night, perhaps two, then he could disappear for good.

  These thoughts were interrupted by the buzzing sound of his phone that meant he had received the text message he was waiting for. He opened the text screen and read what was there: Abu Dhabi dep has arvd. He looked at his watch. Nine PM; six AM in Zurich.

  He closed the screen, pushed a button, put the phone to his ear, and waited.

  This is Jade Lee, he heard a female voice say. I’m not available right now. Please leave a message.

  “Miss Lee,” Crow said. “This is Charles Hall. Could you meet me at my office tomorrow morning at eight? I gave you the address. It’s on the second floor of my warehouse in Queens. I received a subpoena for thousands of documents. I want to go over them with you.”

  Crow ended the call and dialed another number. When a male voice answered, he said, “Eight AM,” and clicked off.

  Chapter 40

  Manhattan,

  Thursday, March 5,

  10PM

  Matt and Michael stood with Jack McCann behind Clarke Goode, who was sitting at the dinette table in Matt’s apartment, working Matt’s laptop. On the screen was an image labeled Lucky’s 14 from a series of fifty or so taken by the Counterterrorism unit tailing Alec Mason on the night he was killed. It was of the two men whom Rex the bartender had gone over to talk to while Jack and Clarke were questioning him. The light was bad, but they looked Arab and one had an inverted-spade beard.

  “It’s the same beard,” said Jack McCann.

  Earlier they had reviewed stills from the security camera at Mason’s hotel, which revealed clear shots of a young Arab man with the same shaped beard entering the Englishman’s room.

  “It’s dark,” Goode said.

  “I’m betting it’s him,” McCann said.

  “I agree,” Goode replied.

  “After you left, Mustafa came out and spoke to those two,” Matt said.

  “He comes up soon,” said Goode.

  “Keep scrolling.”

  Goode resumed bringing up the amazingly high quality pictures one at a time, keeping each on the screen a few seconds before moving on. Rex and the doorman were in several, as were the young men watching basketball. He stopped longer at image forty-nine.

  “Is that him, Dad?” Michael asked.

  “I think so,” Matt answered.

  On the screen was a picture of Mustafa al-Rahim, aka Mustafa al-Hakimi, at the doorway to the back room at the Queens bar. His face was visible over the shoulder of a man with his back to the camera. Mustafa was holding the door open for this man, the light from the bar’s valance illuminating his face.

  “That’s Mason going in,” Goode said.

  “It was sixteen years ago,” Matt said, “and he didn’t wear a beard then, but I think it’s him. He was at the trial on the first day and the last day. When do you think you’ll hear from your guy at DCS?”

  “He said he’d try to get back to me tonight.”

  “Let’s go through the rest.”

  “Who’s that?” said Matt when an image of the man in the hooded jacket playing pool by himself appeared.

  “We don’t know,” Clarke replied. “A guy playing pool. He went into the back room and came out a few minutes later, but the bathrooms are back there.”

  “Was Mason in back at the time?” Matt asked.

  “Yes, he was.”

  “Any more pictures of him?”

  “No, why?”

  “He looks familiar.”

  “His face is in shadow, Matt.”

  “Can you zoom in?”

  Goode zoomed in on the hooded man’s face.

  “Nothing,” said Goode. The man was leaning forward, directly under the lone green-shaded lamp over the table, extending the cue stic
k as he lined up a shot. His face was in profile, the hood covering the top half, the shadow it cast covering the bottom half.

  “The Grim Reaper,” said Michael.

  “Wait a second,” said Matt, as he saw Clarke hovering the cursor over the next button. “Can you zoom in on his hand, the one forming the bridge?” Goode complied, sliding the cursor arrow down to the hand and closing in on it, the resolution still good, the light bright from the lamp overhead. The hand was rough hewn, like gritty sand paper. Its middle finger was resting on the smooth green felt of the pool table, the index finger on top of it. The thin end of the cue stick was nestled between the index finger and the thumb, its blue-powdered tip poised as it pointed to the white cue ball an inch away.

  “Can you see the other two fingers?” Matt said. “Can you zoom in again?”

  Goode zoomed closer. The middle finger was virtually laid flat on the tabletop. It seemed to extend almost back to the wrist in one straight line.

  “They’re not there,” Matt said. “It’s fucking Crow.”

  Goode nodded and was about to say something, but was interrupted by the ringing of his cell phone. He reached into the inside pocket of his beat up brown corduroy sport coat and fished it out.

  “Goode,” he said, the sharpness of his usually soft voice matching the grim, edgy vibe in the room. He listened for a few seconds, then clicked off and put the phone down on the table.

  “That was the latent print unit,” he said. “There’s one partial match, not enough ridge minutiae.”

  “He must not have wiped it good enough,” said Jack.

  “What’s that mean?” Michael asked. “Not enough ridges.”

  “It means statistically it’s not admissible in court,” Matt replied.

  “Is there a but?” said Michael.

  “Yes,” said Jack, “when we see this as cops we know it’s our guy, but we need corroboration, more proof.”

  The four men, two cops, an ex-prosecutor and his young son accused of murder, redirected their gazes to the image of Bill Crow—good guy, terrorist, double agent, triple agent, madman, what?—on the computer screen.

  “Could Crow be involved in Loh and Davila?” Matt asked, breaking the silence. “Is that possible?”

  “Who the fuck’s he working for?” Jack said.

  “It looks like Mason reported to both him and Rahim on Monday night,” said Goode.

  “Are there more pictures of him?” Matt asked.

  “No,” Goode replied. “That’s the only one. In fact it’s the last picture.”

  “Why don’t I call him?” said Matt.

  They were all sitting at the table by now, Michael and Matt across from Clarke and Jack, who looked sideways at each other when Matt said this.

  “Why?” Jack said. “You want to go on a date?”

  “He’ll come,” Matt said. “He hates me.”

  “And then what?”

  “I’ll kill him.”

  “You’ll kill him?”

  “Yes.”

  “How does that help Michael?”

  “Crow threatened to kill Michael.”

  Silence, as all three men stared at Matt.

  “What did he say exactly?” McCann asked.

  “He said if Michael was dead, Healy could close his file, not have to pursue anyone else.”

  Goode and McCann looked at each other, silent for a long moment. In this moment, Matt glanced at Michael just as a light appeared in his son’s dark eyes. What was he thinking?

  “He meant the bad guys would kill Michael,” said McCann. “Rahim.”

  “There’s a partial match, Jack,” Matt said. “Crow blew up the house in Stone Ridge. He probably killed Fuchs. He’s one of the bad guys.”

  “What about the trade for Farah?” Goode said.

  “The FBI will send someone else,” Matt said. “If they want the deal, they’ll call me.”

  “We can’t trust the FBI now,” Goode replied. “I mean, you called the field office and they sent Crow.”

  “He’s right, Dad,” Michael said. “Think about it. We don’t know who our friends are.”

  Matt looked at his son. Think about it, Dad, he had said. Softly, no emphasis. But there it was: stop being a hot head. That was the light in Michael’s eyes: recognition, insight, and something else, separation. Unlike his father, he could stay cool.

  Chapter 41

  Manhattan,

  Friday, March 6, 2009,

  1AM

  “So what now?” Jade asked.

  “We wait,” Matt replied, “for Crow to tell me if he wants to make the deal.”

  “Do you trust him?”

  “I won’t give him Farah until the indictment’s dismissed.”

  “What about double jeopardy?”

  “I’ll get a representation from Healy that he won’t be re-indicted.”

  “And Farah is unreachable?”

  “Yes, Josef and Wilem have him.”

  “Where?”

  “You don’t need to know more.” The less Jade knew about Farah the better. Matt had already put her in danger, simply by involving her in Michael’s defense and all of the nastiness that came with it.

  “How are they, those two boys?”

  “Ready to kill.”

  “I could imagine.”

  “They’ll do anything Jack and I and Clarke say.”

  Matt and Jade were drinking cognac at her dining room table. The three candles Jade had lit while Matt was pouring their drinks were reflected in their glasses, three bright yellow tear drops floating in burnt orange, tilting on the same axis as they lifted, sipped and set the fat, round snifters down. Matt had left Michael at his apartment after their picture review and walked to Ninth Avenue, where he had begun to fill Jade in on the events of the day.

  “There’s more,” Matt said.

  “What?”

  “Basil’s going to call you. He’s firing Stryker and hiring you.”

  “Good, the first thing I’ll do is serve the UN report. I’ll worry about admissibility later. Then I’ll ask for the Diaz file, I’ll raise the Brady issue.”

  “What are you doing tomorrow?”

  “I’m meeting a client early, eight o’clock.”

  “What’s that about?”

  “He’s a guy about to be indicted for stealing from his partner. Allegedly stealing from his partner. He’s been served with a subpoena for records. I’m meeting him to go over the response. What about you? Are you going to the funeral?”

  Matt had never thought of who would die first, him or Debra, or, if it were Debra, if he would attend her wake and burial. He had paid his respects tonight but now realized that wasn’t enough. His son’s mother, whose vindictive treatment of him he now ascribed to near psychosis, had died. He had to go to the funeral. He had to see her put into the ground.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “What time is it?”

  “Ten AM.”

  “Call me. I’ll fill you in.”

  “You mean about Antonio?”

  “Yes. I’m picking him up at noon at the school.”

  “Picking him up?” Regis was not that far away from Jade’s apartment and Jade did not have a car.

  “We’ll walk. We’ll stop for lunch.”

  “And talk.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Thank you. Matt?”

  “Yes?”

  Matt watched as Jade put her glass down and looked at him with a blank face, a blankness that was, he quickly realized, a mask, a sort of deliberate expressionlessness—if that was a word—as if she were about to negotiate something and was looking at a screen in her head, calculating, mapping out her tactics in
advance. Something’s coming. Outside, it had started to rain and the wind had picked up and Matt could hear tapping somewhere in the apartment as the wind pushed the rain against a window, the tapping sound softening the noise of traffic on Ninth Avenue, now noticeable because of its near absence. It was not unlike the tapping he had heard in Erhard Fuchs’s apartment just two days ago. A light above the stove in the kitchen was on, but the apartment was dark otherwise, the darkness covering its smallness, its sadness.

  “Yes?” he said again.

  “Why are you so angry?”

  “I’m not angry.”

  Jade did not respond. Her expression, or rather lack of expression, did not change. I will see this mask again, Matt thought. I should get used to it.

  “Did something happen?” Jade asked.

  “You mean in my past?”

  “Yes.”

  “I killed a guy in the Marines.”

  “You mean in war? In combat?”

  “No. He was a monster, a drill instructor.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “And you got away with it?”

  “Yes. I said it was an accident. My buddies backed me up.”

  Silence again. Some glimmer of something in Jade’s beautiful eyes, a softness, a peek beneath the Chinese mask.

  “You’re always fighting monsters, aren’t you?” she said. “That’s why you became a prosecutor. To fight all those monsters.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  “But why?”

  Matt put his right thumb and index finger to his eyes and pressed, using the bone, the zygomatic arch, for leverage and then squeezing in from the sides.

  “My father used to tell me that he died in the war. When I would ask him what he did, he would say that Matteo DeMarco died on Iwo Jima, that the person I saw before me was not him.”

  “He retreated.”

  “Retreated?”

  “Into himself.”

  “Yes.”

  “You didn’t do that to Michael, did you?”

  “No.”