Escape

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  "But that's just it," Lucy said, stepping forward to give him a hug. "I've been trying to tell you for years that it's no accident that this family, including but not limited to me, has been in the epicenter of this storm—at least as far as New York City is concerned. I know you aren't into all the mysticism and apocalyptic signs, but I think it's for a reason that is a lot bigger than just our family's attraction to hot water." Lucy had always been headstrong, especially when she believed that she was on the moral high ground. The debate had ended as he'd known in his heart that it would; he had to accept that she was committed.

  But so was Muhammad Jamal Khalifa, Karp thought. He filled Jaxon in on what Guma had told him regarding the bombing. "So what do you think?" No longer officially a federal agent, Jaxon had no direct access to the investigation, nor was he invited to the briefing. There were people on the inside of the investigation who could be trusted, but they reported what they knew to the mysterious entity Jaxon worked for, who in turn passed it on to the agent. It was a cumbersome method and lacked detail.

  "What do I think?" Jaxon repeated the question. "Well, I think that was nice work by Mr. Guma and company here. My people didn't have the name change to Jamal Khalifa or his connection to the mosque, either; this misdemeanor assault conviction isn't on the National Crime Computer, although I couldn't tell you why not. Anyway, if this checks out with Jamal Khalifa it presents me with a whole new can of worms."

  "What's that?" Guma asked.

  "I've got a 'client' coming in from Saudi Arabia," Jaxon explained. "Some playboy prince with more money than the combined Gross National Product of South America. Somebody in the State Department put in a request that I babysit this guy, and my 'employer' thought it was a good idea for our own reasons. There's been a lot of Internet chatter about some character known only as 'The Sheik,' and something big going down here in Gotham."

  "Where else? Manhattan must look like a bull's-eye from the sky," Karp said dryly, then asked, "So you think the bombing was maybe a trial run, or a threat? These extremists don't like the Saudi royal family, and somebody with that kind of money and connections might make a good target. Maybe The Sheik is going to assassinate your guy."

  "We thought of that, but then why tip their hand with this bombing?" Jaxon countered. "Unless, like you say, it was meant as just a threat in order to keep the prince from showing up at all."

  "But why?"

  "I have a couple of theories. Both are connected to the prince's itinerary. First, the main reason he's coming is that he's the president of one of the world's largest hedge funds—without getting technical, that boils down to being in control of billions of dollars' worth of stock. So he's going to be wined and dined by all the big banks and brokerage houses competing for the right to take care of that money for him when he wants to buy or sell. And a lot of that money belongs to his extended family, along with their wealthiest friends. Maybe, The Sheik and his terrorist pals think that killing this guy and disrupting their business will destabilize the royal family."

  "Works for me," Karp noted again, taking up his pad and pencil. "And the second reason for his trip?"

  "Well, as you said, the Saudi royals aren't particularly popular with the poor people in their own country, which is why that assassination theory works. So the royals are constantly doing a high-wire act balancing their financial interests with keeping their own version of the Religious Right placated. The Wahabi sect is the most anti-West and anti-American brand of conservative Islam there is, and it's native to Saudi Arabia. In fact, the Saudi government, and their rich friends, support these Wahabi imams and their madrasah religious schools teaching jihad to keep them from inciting the masses, while out of the other corner of their mouths, they're talking about all their efforts in the 'War on Terrorism.' But the Saudi royals are one misstatement from inciting those imams, who could unleash an Islamic revolution on the Arabian Peninsula that will make the 1979 Iranian revolution look tame. The Saudi royals and friends stave it off by paying the imams to keep the Saudi public in check, while these same imams incite terrorism in other countries. Sort of like feeding the man-eating crocodile you keep in your bathtub, knowing someday that you're going to be what's for dinner."

  "What's this have to do with the prince?" Guma asked.

  "Well, the second publicized reason for his trip is that he plans to present a large check to fund the construction of a new madrasah on the grounds of a certain mosque in Harlem."

  Karp leaned back in his chair and whistled. "Let me guess, the lucky mosque sits at 126th and Madison?"

  "You got it," the agent nodded. "The Al-Aqsa mosque."

  Flipping to a blank sheet on his legal pad, Karp said, "So let's do the math: If Jamal Khalifa is connected to this mosque; and if some person or persons also connected to the mosque want to assassinate this prince; then why does Khalifa blow himself up in a synagogue and bring all this attention to his comrades?"

  Jaxon shrugged. "Dissension in the ranks? Some splintering? Maybe it's a warning that if the Saudi royals don't do something, perhaps an agreement with Al Qaeda, then the prince is going to get it here?"

  "Or," Guma pointed out, "maybe the locals were making a demonstration of their abilities and commitment to their friends overseas."

  The three men were silent for a minute, then Karp tossed his pencil onto the pad. "We're not seeing something here."

  "I agree," Jaxon said. "But thanks to Guma, I've got a little bit of a heads-up. I think I'll be paying a visit to the mosque—routine security for the prince's visit. Oh, and I agree that we should keep this to ourselves for now. I'm like you, something doesn't quite smell right with this investigation, or maybe it's just the usual floundering around that troubles me."

  "No problem," Karp replied. "I never have liked it when you snotty G-men come to my town and take over my cases."

  Jaxon held up his hands. "You don't have to tell this cowboy who the sheriff is around these here parts."

  "So is that it for this morning?" Guma asked.

  Karp opened the middle drawer of his desk. "Nope. I was going to get to this when Jaxon knocked on the door. It has to do with your sleuthing regarding the cab driver."

  "About what?"

  "About Khalifa paying with food stamps." Karp tossed the crumpled food-stamp certificate that he'd found on the street outside the police perimeter. "I picked this up off the street outside the synagogue. I didn't give it much thought. I was going to give it to one of the street people, but maybe you guys can use it."

  Jaxon picked up the certificate and spread it out. "There are registration numbers on these things," he said. "Maybe they keep track of who they give these to."

  With their meeting over, the three men shook hands. Jaxon went back out the side door for the private elevator while Karp and Guma walked out into the receptionist area.

  "Good morning, Mrs. Milquetost," Guma said pleasantly, pronouncing her name correctly. "Forgive my abruptness this morning. I'm afraid my mind was elsewhere."

  Darla Milquetost looked like she might fall off her chair. She gave an appreciative glance toward Karp and sniffed. "That's quite all right, Mr. Guma. I'm just trying to treat everyone equally ... no special favors." Guma gave a little bow. "And I would never ask for any ... special favors ... from you, Darla."

  A confused look passed over Mrs. Milquetost's face. She'd have to tell her new boyfriend, Bill, about this—he was interested in everything about her job, and so good at counseling her to not let Mr. Ray Guma get to her.

  Karp used the moment to hustle Guma out of the office. They walked down the hall to the large staff meeting room where every Monday morning, in the tradition of his mentor Garrahy, Karp met with his bureau chiefs and a select few other assistant district attorneys. It was a chance for up-and-comers among the ADAs to present their cases and have older hands attempt to rip them to shreds to find any hole a defense attorney might exploit and get it plugged before trial. Rigorous preparation was a hallmark of a prosecutor
trained by Garrahy—or now by Karp.

  When Karp entered, the attorneys quieted; those who were standing quickly found seats. Some of the rookie ADAs hovered over the case files on the table in front of them like college students doing last-minute cramming before a final exam. Careers had been made, and lost, based on how a young prosecutor fared in these staff meetings.

  As everybody else found their seats, Karp quickly noted that a lot of eyes were flicking back and forth between him and V. T. Newbury, who sat alone about halfway down the table with no one on either side of him. V. T. twirled a fountain pen—one of his blueblood eccentricities—in his fingers as he stared straight ahead.

  Just as cancer seemed to have reduced Ray Guma to a shell, the assault seemed to have affected Newbury's physical presence. He wasn't a big man, but he'd been a rowing champion at Yale, and he'd previously never lacked for self-confidence.

  "All right, everybody, let's get this party started," proclaimed a high-pitched male voice to Karp's right. "Take your seats—and that includes you, Guma.... Thank you very much for showing me your middle finger, Ray, but I've seen it before."

  Gilbert Murrow narrowed his eyes to show the unrepentant Guma that he was serious. He adjusted his round, wire-rimmed glasses on his nose, tugged at the edges of his ubiquitous bow tie, and cleared his throat. He was ready.

  Although hired as an assistant district attorney, Murrow had never parked his five-foot-eight-inch, egg-shaped body much in a courtroom. Instead, he was one of those attorneys whose best asset is their ability to run an office full of other attorneys. Some did it for big law firms; Murrow did it for Butch Karp, and he excelled at it. As such, he kept the boss's calendar, intercepted press inquiries, and made sure he was where he was supposed to be when he was supposed to be there. If Mrs. Milquetost was the guardian at the gate, Murrow was the counselor behind the throne. He'd also run Karp's political campaign for the district attorney's seat in the last election, and only recently gotten over the post-campaign blues.

  This morning, Murrow's job was to call the meeting to order and then keep it on schedule. "First to bat, ladies and gentlemen," he announced with all the verve of a circus ringmaster, "I give you the young and audacious Mr. Kenny Katz, who as you all know is propping up the boss on the Jessica Campbell case. Kenny, the floor is yours."

  There was a smattering of applause, which Kenny acknowledged with a gap-toothed smile below a large nose that appeared to have been broken in several different directions. He was another of the new young hotshot ADAs, a recent appointment to the homicide bureau after working for Narcotics and Vice.

  "Can somebody tear this guy a new one for me?" Karp asked.

  "Let 'em try, I ain't afraid of none of youse guys," Katz said, laying on his native Queens accent extra thick. When the laughter stopped, he quickly gave a synopsis of the case: Husband leaves for work, defendant waits until he's gone, defendant kills couple's three young children, husband comes home, children are missing, wife tells him that God told her to save their souls by sending them to heaven.

  "Jessica Campbell is charged with three counts of murder," Katz concluded. "That's pretty much it in a nutshell."

  "Have they found the children yet?" someone asked.

  "No, the bodies have not been located. Nor the family station wagon." He gave Karp a meaningful look, then added, "However, my co-counsel has been in contact with a few magicians who have agreed to accomplish what the best detectives in the state have not."

  Karp smiled. He understood where Katz's remarks regarding the 221b Baker Street Irregulars came from; he'd had much the same reaction when introduced to the volunteer organization whose members, he thought originally, just wanted to play detective. However, the Baker Street gang specialized in finding the clandestine graves of murder victims through applications of various scientific methods, and now several successful cases later, he was a firm believer in their abilities.

  "For those of you, like my young but misinformed co-counsel, who don't know, the 221b Baker Street Irregulars—a name taken from the address of Sherlock Holmes—are scientists, as well as a few folks already involved in law-enforcement specialties," Karp said. "They've provided an excellent service to this and other law-enforcement offices, as well as a case my wife, Marlene, was working on in which they located a car that had been buried in a gravel pit and were able to exhume the body of a murder victim from its interior. All defendants in the case have either pled guilty or are being tried and convicted."

  "I stand corrected," Kenny said. "And look forward to whatever assistance the Baker Street Highly Irregulars can give us."

  "Sticks and stones, my boy," Karp said.

  "So what's next?" asked a voice to Karp's immediate left. Second-in-command at the DAO, Harry "Hotspur" Kipman was the office's appellate bureau chief, and as such he knew more about the minutia of the law than any five men in the room, including Karp. He was the guy, along with his team, who handled any appeals. He tended to pay more attention at these meetings than most; after all, he would have to deal with any fuckups they, or the judge, made at trial. His motto was that an ounce of prevention was worth a case coming back for retrial.

  "The competency hearing is on for tomorrow," Katz replied. Normally a quick wit—read smartass—with anyone else, he held Kipman in reverential awe for his knowledge of the law. "We, of course, expect them to argue that she's not competent to stand trial. But the shrinks say she is and so will the judge."

  "So we're still going forward with the murder charges?" The voice came from the far end of the table, where Joanie Kem, the newly appointed bureau chief of the sex crimes unit, sat.

  "Yes," Katz replied. "But we've decided against seeking the death penalty.... Too tough a row to hoe, obviously because of the mitigating circumstances of her mental illness."

  "I should say so," the woman answered.

  "Is there a reason we shouldn't, Mrs. Kem?" Karp asked.

  "You mean other than the fact that she's incompetent to stand trial?"

  "I see," Karp replied. "By 'incompetent' do you mean that she's unable to assist her attorney with her defense and doesn't understand the nature and consequences of the charges against her? If so, that's what the competency hearing is for. If she's judged incompetent, she goes back to the mental ward at Bellevue and then to an upstate locked mental institution until such time as she's deemed competent."

  "Uh, no, actually I was referring to any criminal trial, and the fact that she's crazy and probably belongs in a mental institution, not a prison," Kem replied. "I mean, she thinks God told her to murder her children. She 'hears' God talking to her like I'm talking to you."

  Karp liked Kem. She was everything he wanted in the leader of the sex crimes unit—a unit his wife, Marlene, had created and run for a while— tough, committed, and thorough. But like many women who worked sex crimes, she was likely to take the woman's side automatically. He looked over at Kenny Katz. "That's certain to be the defense argument. You want to respond?"

  Some of the old hands leaned forward in anticipation. It could be fun when the boss started stirring the pot.

  Kenny pursed his lips. "Sure." He turned to Kem and shrugged. "No argument, Jessica Campbell is nuts, bonkers, cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. However, that doesn't mean that she is not criminally responsible for her actions."

  "Wait a second, you just said she's crazy."

  "The legal question isn't whether we—as in so-called normal people— consider what she did to be crazy. Of course it's crazy to murder your children because you think God told you to do it. But it's also crazy to rob a liquor store, stick a shotgun in some poor Korean's face, and blow his brains all over the wall just because you need money for your heroin addiction.

  Different people answer to different gods. So, do we not prosecute the guy with the shotgun?"

  "Of course," Kem said with disdain. "But I'll bet the shrink will say that Jessica Campbell suffers from a mental defect. The guy with the shotgun is a drug addict."

&nb
sp; "And probably a sociopath—at least 80 percent of everybody in prison has anti-social personality disorder," Katz argued. "That's a mental defect, too. In fact, Ted Bundy had a mental defect—he was a psycho—but they still fried his ass. Maybe he should have been put in a mental hospital, too."

  "But she did whatever she did because she has a mental illness," Kem replied, though her resolve seemed to be weakening. "She likely suffers from postpartum depression, which can be pretty heavy-duty. A lot of people with it commit suicide."

  "Yes, many women suffer from postpartum depression," Katz noted. "But very few murder their children. Jessica Campbell didn't commit suicide, she acted out a violent impulse."

  "Under orders from God," Kem shot back.

  "But God's not on trial here. The legal question is whether Jessica Campbell understood the nature and consequences of her actions, and did she know that what she did was wrong."

  Kem was silent, so Karp used the moment to call off the dog. "Okay, okay," he interjected. "I think we've heard from both sides. Thank you, Mrs. Kem and Mr. Katz. Let's move on so we can spend some time throwing bad guys in the pokey."

  Next in line was the homicide bureau chief, who reported on the status of sundry shootings, stabbings, stranglings, bludgeonings, and deaths by other methods. He ended on what for a homicide prosecutor was a bright note. A murder mystery. A skull had been found on the shore at the north end of Manhattan Island by a turbulent stretch of water where the Hudson and East rivers met called Spuyten Duyvil. As he intended when he said the name—"In Spite of the Devil" in old Dutch—everyone in the room swiveled to look at him.

  Andrew Kane, the former mayoral candidate who turned out to be a murderous sociopath, had tried to escape capture by diving into those waters. But he'd been followed by David Grale, the "mad monk" who lived with his army of Mole People in the tunnels and caves beneath the city, hunting "evil" men. Grale had told Karp that the two had fought with knives beneath the surface and that he thought he'd given Kane a mortal wound. However, the body had never been recovered.