by M. A. Lawson
“You’re not ordering me to do anything. I’m your partner in this thing, not your employee. So fuck you and your order.”
—
THE FLIGHT TO GERMANY was made in a private jet that had a bedroom in the back and half a dozen first-class seats in the front. Kay was put in the bed and a middle-aged woman she assumed was a nurse fussed over her the entire flight, to the point where she became annoying. She took Kay’s temperature, blood pressure, and pulse a dozen times, examined her pupils repeatedly using a small flashlight, and fed her clear soup.
She asked to speak to Eli, but the nurse told her he was on the phone.
She suspected the nurse gave her a sedative after that, because she slept most of the flight. When the plane landed, guys dressed like hospital orderlies in white coats and pants loaded her onto a gurney and placed her in the back of an ambulance. Eli stepped into the ambulance and said, “I’m heading back to the U.S. to talk to Callahan, but Anna Mercer will be waiting for you at the hospital.”
“Goddamnit,” Kay said, “I want some answers. Is Ara alive? What about her father?”
“They’re dead, Kay. So is the Glardon engineer and the Afghan lawyer who came to the meeting with the Khans. They’re all dead.”
“But what happened?”
“It looks like a bomb was planted inside the credenza near the dining room table. We don’t know any more at this point, and we couldn’t stick around, because Callahan wanted us out of Ghazni. He didn’t want to give the local authorities a chance to grill us.
“If anyone asks about your injuries, tell them you were in a car accident and you don’t remember anything because of the blow to your head. We’ll get you back to D.C. as soon as the doctors in Germany say you’re okay to travel.”
All Kay could think about on the way to the hospital was the way Ara Khan had looked, not the last time she saw her in Ghazni but in New York: a beautiful, stylish, brilliant young woman drinking blue martinis with Kay and laughing about the guys hitting on them. That was the memory of Ara she would retain.
—
AS ELI HAD SAID, Anna Mercer was waiting at the hospital. She dealt with whatever admission procedures had to be dealt with and Kay was signed in as Ms. Smith and whisked off to an examining room in a wheelchair. She was never alone with Mercer, so she couldn’t ask her what she’d learned about what had happened in Ghazni Province. Before she was taken away, Mercer whispered into her ear, saying the same thing Eli had said: “You were in a traffic accident and don’t remember anything because of the blow to your head.”
Actually, that was one thing that surprised Kay: Her memory hadn’t been significantly affected. She remembered everything that happened in Ghazni Province until the time she stuck her head into the Sub-Zero and reached for a beer for Sahid Khan. What she couldn’t remember was what happened in the house after the bomb went off; she remembered nothing else that happened until she woke up in the doctor’s house.
They kept her in Germany for three days. Her primary physician was a young army captain, and under different circumstances Kay would have found him appealing. The first thing he did after a general exam and a few X-rays was fix her broken arm. The humerus had broken above the elbow, and a surgeon put in a little metal plate and a couple of pins. For guys used to dealing with arms and legs blown off by roadside bombs, fixing a broken arm must have been a walk in the park.
As for the wound in her thigh, she was told that the Afghan doc had done a good job and all her American doctor did was rebandage it. He also wrapped clean bandages around her torso, which was all he could do for her ribs. They kept her in the hospital for two more days after her arm was repaired, the doc saying he just wanted to keep her under observation for a short time because of her concussion. She figured a typical American HMO would have booted her out the door the same day her arm was fixed.
For two days, Kay lay in bed and took short walks around the hospital, unable to think of anything other than what had happened in Afghanistan. The longer she waited to be released, the madder she got. It pissed her off that no one was telling her anything about what had happened.
She had already called her daughter and said she’d be home in a couple of days, and Jessica knew better than to ask where she was and what she was doing. She didn’t tell Jessica that she’d been hurt; she didn’t want to worry the girl. She also tried to call Thomas Callahan, Eli Dolan, and Anna Mercer. None of them returned her calls. She was particularly pissed at Dolan, a man she thought would have shown a bit more concern for her health as he’d been sleeping with her.
On the day she was to be discharged, Henry—the large Callahan Group receptionist with the prosthetic leg—showed up at the hospital. He was there to escort her back to Washington and to provide security for her during the trip. She doubted she needed security at this point; if she did, she hoped Henry would be able to do a better job than Nathan Sterling’s men had done in Ghazni.
She flew back to D.C. in the same jet that had taken her out of Afghanistan. She and Henry were the only passengers, and Henry claimed not to know anything about anything.
19 | When Jessica walked into the apartment, Kay was sitting on the sofa, wearing a T-shirt and shorts, her bad leg up on the coffee table with an ice pack on her thigh.
Jessica stopped, dropped her book bag on the floor, and her eyes grew wide. She took in the cast on Kay’s arm, the bandage wrapped around her thigh, the small bandage on her bruised forehead. Fortunately, she couldn’t see the elastic bands around Kay’s rib cage.
“My God, what happened to you?” Jessica said.
“A stupid car accident,” Kay lied. She’d told Jessica the company was sending her out of town for training, never mentioning that by out of town she meant Afghanistan. “I was in a van with some other people attending this class, and some idiot playing on his cell phone crossed the centerline. The guy driving the van overreacted and we went off the shoulder and the van rolled. Fortunately, everybody was wearing seat belts and no one was badly hurt.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I didn’t want to worry you. Really, I’m all right. Got a broken arm that’s healing fine, a couple cracked ribs, and a little cut on my leg.”
“You could have been killed,” Jessica said, and then her eyes welled up with tears.
Kay suddenly felt horrible. She’d always thought of her daughter as being self-sufficient and independent, and it had never occurred to her that Jessica would react this way. But she could see now that her daughter wasn’t just concerned for her; Jessica was scared. She had already lost two people she loved—her adoptive parents—and the thought of losing Kay, too, had hit her hard—harder than Kay would have ever expected. Jessica may have been intellectually capable of taking care of herself if she had to, but her daughter was still a kid—a kid who didn’t want to be completely on her own and wanted someone in her life who cared for her. Kay felt like kicking herself for being so insensitive.
Making it appear easier than it really was, Kay got to her feet and said, “See, I’m fine. And I’ve got an appointment with the doc tomorrow for a checkup.”
When Jessica just stood there—she was actually trembling a bit—Kay limped forward and took her in her arms. “Hey. Everything’s all right. It’s going to take more than a dumb car accident for you to get rid of me. Now, tell me what you’ve been up to while I was gone.”
—
THE DAY AFTER returning to D.C., Kay limped into Callahan’s office, her left arm in a soft cast above the elbow. All her injuries appeared to be healing okay, but her leg ached due to muscle damage caused by the shrapnel.
Callahan looked as he always did—rumpled, tired, bloodshot eyes—but he also looked as if he’d aged ten years since the last time Kay had seen him. She wondered if any of his other operations had gone as badly as the one in Afghanistan. Before he could say anything, Kay said, “I want to know wha
t the hell happened, and so far you and Mercer have blown me off. You wouldn’t even return my calls.”
“Aw, calm down,” Callahan said. “And sit down. You wanna cup of coffee?”
“No. I want answers.” Kay swept the newspapers off the brown couch in front of Callahan’s desk onto the floor and sat.
“Okay,” Callahan said. “Here’s what we know. Ara Khan, her father, the Glardon engineer, and that Afghan professor, lawyer, whoever the hell he was, were killed by a bomb placed in a credenza in the dining room where the meeting was held. The type of explosive used and the design of the bomb were similar to other Taliban bombs we’ve encountered over there, and a cell phone was most likely used to detonate the bomb.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Because I have connections over there, and because Sterling is still there and has been talking to the Afghan cops investigating the bombing.”
“Sterling?” Kay said. “You’re getting information from him?”
“Yeah.”
“Where’s Cannon?”
“He’s back in the U.S. Anyway, the bomb in the credenza was detonated right after the power in the house went off, and the reason the power went off was because a transformer at a substation five miles away exploded. At first folks thought lightning struck the transformer, but it was later determined that the transformer was destroyed by another cell phone bomb. In addition to the casualties from the bomb, an old man who was some sort of servant was found inside the house with his throat cut.”
“Ah, jeez. They killed that little old man?” Kay said.
“Yeah. So here’s what I think happened,” Callahan said. “There are a lot of people who would have wanted to stop us from making a deal with Sahid Khan. The Taliban, because they oppose every fucking thing. Politicians in Kabul who may have wanted to cut their own deal over the mining operation. The Chinese, the Russians, and anybody else who wants the lithium.”
Callahan lit a cigarette and blew smoke at the ceiling before he continued. “I think somebody found out about the meeting. The Khans probably talked to the wrong person, like the professor they brought with them. Or whoever did this had a spy in Khan’s administration. Or the owner of the house where the meeting was held told somebody else about the meeting. Whatever the case, somebody found out the Khans were making a deal with us and decided to stop it.”
Kay started shaking her head, but Callahan ignored the gesture.
“Then what they did,” Callahan said, “was turn one of Khan’s bodyguards, one of the guys he took with him to the meeting, and this was the guy who detonated the bomb. I also think they paid or forced the old man to plant the bomb; he had unlimited access to the house and was the best person to hide the bomb in the credenza before the meeting. The other thing is, Sterling and his guys were watching Khan’s security people and Sterling said that none of Khan’s people ever went inside the house. So the old man planted the bomb. Maybe they threatened his family, or maybe they just paid him. Whatever the case, he was the one who planted the bomb, and the other reason I think this, besides his access to the house, is because they killed him.”
“Callahan, I don’t believe for one minute . . .”
But Callahan kept talking. “After the meeting started, somebody working for whoever wanted the Khans gone, blew up the transformer. That was the signal to detonate the bomb in the house, because now the compound is in total darkness, making it easy for one of Khan’s bodyguards to sneak into the house and cut the old man’s throat.”
“But why kill the old man?” Kay asked.
“So he wouldn’t be able to give up whoever forced him to plant the bomb.”
Kay didn’t say anything for a long moment. She finally broke the silence, saying, “Callahan, I’m trying to figure out if you really believe all that bullshit you just told me or if you just expect me to believe it.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Callahan, Ara Khan and her father lived in a world where you had to be able to keep a secret if you wanted to live. I don’t believe for one damn minute that she or her dad told anyone about the meeting other than the professor who came with them, and they wouldn’t have told him unless they trusted him completely. They didn’t want anyone in Afghanistan to know they were about to come into fifty million bucks and cutting a deal to give away a good chunk of Afghanistan’s natural resources. Hell, half the meeting was about how to keep the mining operation a secret for as long as possible.”
“What are you saying? That you think somebody working for me did this?”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying.” Kay paused a beat, then said, “And I think it was Eli Dolan. And I think Sterling could be involved, too.”
“That’s absurd,” Callahan said.
“Listen to me, Callahan. Whoever detonated the bomb had to know that everybody was going to be sitting at the table, in front of the credenza, when the bomb went off. Somebody outside the house wouldn’t have known if we’d decided to take a break or if Sahid or Ara had to use the bathroom or stepped out of the room to make a call. And none of Sahid Khan’s security guys came near the meeting room when the meeting was going on, which is the same thing Sterling told you.”
Now it was Kay’s turn to plow ahead before Callahan could interrupt her. “Dolan obviously didn’t do this by himself. Somebody blew up the transformer, and I don’t think Dolan would have known how to make a cell phone bomb. But Cannon and Sterling’s ex-soldiers would know how to make a bomb. So I think this is what happened: Dolan—it could only have been Dolan—sent a text to somebody—I don’t know who—telling a guy to blow the transformer. What I’m saying is, Dolan put his hand in his pocket and pressed a button on his phone and nobody saw him send the text. When the power went off, that gave Dolan an excuse to leave the room, knowing everyone was sitting at the table and not walking around a blacked-out house.”
“Eli said the reason he left the room was that Sterling called him and told him to find the old man because they couldn’t start the generator.”
“I was there, Callahan,” Kay said. “Somebody called Dolan after the power went off, but I don’t know who called for sure or what was said. All I know is that Dolan said Sterling called him and told him to go find the old man. But did that really happen? I don’t know and neither do you. I only heard Dolan’s side of the conversation. What I do know is that Dolan left the room and one minute later the bomb went off. And like I already told you, Sterling could have been in on this thing.”
“Yeah, well, you also left the room before the bomb went off.”
“Are you joking, Callahan? I have a broken arm, four cracked ribs, a concussion, and a piece of glass like a stiletto was driven halfway through my leg. Do you think I decided to hide behind a fucking refrigerator knowing a bomb big enough to flatten a house was going to explode?”
“So you miscalculated.”
Kay couldn’t tell if Callahan was serious or not, and before she could ask him, he said, “If your theory is correct, why would Dolan kill the old man or have him killed? For that matter, why blow up the transformer? Dolan could have just made up an excuse for leaving the room at any time during the meeting and detonated the bomb.”
“They cut the power to cause confusion. With the power out, it would have been easy to get rid of the phone they used to detonate the bomb, but the main reason for cutting the power was to kill the old man. What I’m saying is, they killed the old man to make people believe, like you seem to believe, that the old man was the one who planted the bomb. In other words, killing the old man was misdirection, part of a charade to make people believe it was one of Khan’s rivals who killed the old man and not Dolan or Sterling or one of Sterling’s people.”
“Hamilton, can you even imagine Eli Dolan cutting a man’s throat? He’s a banker, not an assassin.”
“No, I can’t imagine him doing that,
but you have to at least consider the possibility that Dolan was involved.”
This was a conclusion Kay had come to with great reluctance and only after a lot of thought. Her natural inclination had been to dismiss Dolan as a suspect, not only because of her feelings toward him but also because of the kind of person he appeared to be: He didn’t seem capable of mass murder. But Kay was an ex-cop and there was one thing all cops learned quickly: You can’t determine if a person is a criminal based on the way he looks or how he normally acts or whatever character witnesses might say about him. The serial killer was always the guy the neighbors never suspected, because he seemed so nice and normal; the con man who bilked grandmothers out of their life savings was the most likable fellow you ever met. Kay had known drug dealers who gave to charities and were kind to children, dogs, and old ladies—and who wouldn’t hesitate for an instant to kill a snitch or a rival.
So Kay forced herself to ignore her feelings toward Dolan and based her decision on the traditional triad: means, motive, and opportunity. Dolan certainly had the opportunity to commit the crime: He could have placed the bomb while she’d been napping, then killed the old man after the power went out. All he would have needed was a knife he filched from the kitchen—and he was certainly strong enough to overpower an eighty-year-old man. Or, as she’d told Callahan, he conspired with one or more of Sterling’s men, or Sterling himself, and one of them killed the old man. But she also remembered the blood on Dolan’s shirt; he’d said it was her blood, but it could have been the old man’s.
As for means, one of Sterling’s mercenaries could have constructed the bombs; then all it would have taken was a cell phone to communicate with the substation bomber and detonate the bombs. But her main reasons for suspecting Dolan were the ones she’d given Callahan: He was the only one who knew when everybody would be in the dining room, sitting at the table, and he was the only one at the meeting—except for her—who survived the explosion.
Motive was a problem, however. Would a rich guy like Dolan kill five people for money? And the fifty million given to the Khans couldn’t have been the motive, since Kay—and Ara Khan—had witnessed Dolan transfer the money to Sahid Khan’s bank. Kay supposed the motive could be something political or ideological, but she doubted this was the case. What political motive could Dolan have? No, this had to be about money, because ninety percent of the time when a crime is committed—and it isn’t a spontaneous act of passion—money is the motive. And in a case involving billions of dollars’ worth of lithium, there was a whole lot of potential motive.