Escape

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  "I don't know," Plaut said. "I know he wears that triskele ring. But he was also listening when we talked about the Sons of Man. I've been reading lawyers' faces in courtrooms for a long time, and I think I know when they're actually paying attention."

  "He could have been trying to find out what we actually know," Epstein pointed out. "Which isn't much more than we told him."

  "The worst scenario is that we warned the Sons of Bitches that someone out here—a crack team of secret agents—is aware of their existence," Gilbert said.

  "That can be a dangerous thing," Sunderland pointed out. "Two men are already dead ... at least."

  "Well, we had to take the risk," Plaut said. "And what's done's done. So, Bill, do you have that telephone number?"

  "Yeah," Florence replied. "I have to say, I'm a little uneasy about using my 'informant' in the DA's office for getting me this sort of information. Sooner or later, they're going to figure out that there's a leak."

  "I'd say sooner," Plaut replied. "Our Mr. Karp is pretty sharp. I'd be very surprised if he wasn't aware of it already."

  "All the more reason for her to lay low," Florence replied, dialing the telephone number he'd been given.

  20

  As promised, twenty minutes after his kidnappers left, V. T. heard someone fiddling with the lock on his apartment door. That was followed by a moment of silence, and then a crash. A moment later, an enormous man with a face that looked like a gargoyle on a European church rushed into the room with a gun.

  The big man was followed by Ray Guma, who took one look at his friend and started to laugh. "You can put the heat away, Gino," he said between fits of mirth. "I think Mr. Newbury is alone." He walked over and pulled the duct tape from V. T.'s mouth.

  "Ouch, dammit! Guma, you enjoyed that," V. T. complained. "Gino" moved around behind the chair, flipped open a switchblade, and cut through the tape binding him to the seat.

  Guma shrugged. "I was worried you couldn't breathe," he said. "But if you're going to whine, see if I ever come to your rescue again. And by the way, you're going to need a carpenter to fix your door. Gino tried his hand at picking the lock, but he doesn't have a great deal of patience. He sort of kicked it in."

  "How'd you know to come find me?"

  "Beats me," Guma replied. "There I was, minding my own business, playing chess with my cousin here when I get a call on my cell phone—a very private and unlisted number mind you—that says you're tied up in your apartment. This goomba warns me not to call the cops 'or else.' So here I am, and there you were ... tied up and gagged, just like the man says."

  V. T. rubbed his wrists to regain circulation. "Well, thanks. Say Gino, have we met before? You look familiar."

  "I wouldn't know nuttin' about dat," Cousin Gino replied, glancing at Guma and then turning to leave the room. "I'll be waitin' in the car. And just so you remember, ya rat, it's my move when we get back to da apartment."

  "Sulla vostra estremità!" Guma shouted after his cousin.

  "What's that mean?" V. T. asked, stretching his legs.

  "Up your ass. It's a Sicilian term of endearment."

  "He isn't one of the guys who ..."

  Guma held up his hand. "As my cousin would say, 'I wouldn't know nuttin' about dat,' and leave it at that. So what's with the bondage scene? You got a kinky girlfriend you haven't introduced me to?"

  "I have plenty of girlfriends I haven't introduced you to," V. T. said. "Which is why they remain my friends." He told Guma the story of his capture.

  Guma chuckled. "So a gang of senior citizens got the drop on V. T. Newbury, the scourge of the New York mob. Can't wait to tell the gang back at the office."

  "If you do, I'll wring your guinea neck."

  "You wouldn't dare. You want I should call my cousin back?" They both laughed, and then Guma turned serious. "So what's next?"

  Newbury thought about it for a moment. "I think it's time to have a face-to-face with the boss."

  "Tonight?"

  "Yeah. Whatever's going on, it seems to be moving rather quickly. Can you make the call for me from your place ... just in case?"

  "Sure," Guma replied. "What do I tell him?"

  "Just that Lewis Carroll would like to have a word with him at the usual spot. Say in about an hour."

  At the appointed time, V. T. arrived by taxi at Fifth Avenue and the Central Park side of East 76th Street. There were only a few people about on the sidewalk. A middle-aged, raggedly dressed woman raided a trash can for anything of value—cans, bottles, half-eaten sandwiches—while two well-heeled couples, decked out in a few thousand dollars' worth of evening wear, passed by laughing loudly while averting their eyes.

  The bag lady suddenly looked up at V. T., and her eyes narrowed. "What are you lookin' at, Fancy Pants?" she snarled, but then smiled when she added. "Maybe you want a blow job in the bushes? Twenty bucks and worth every penny."

  "Um, no thanks," V. T. replied.

  "Suit yourself. You look like the type who likes boys anyway."

  He entered the park and hurried down the path to the statue of a little girl sitting on a mushroom flanked by the March Hare and the Mad Hatter. Even in the yellow glow of streetlights, the bronze patina of Lewis Carroll's heroine, Alice, shone, thanks to the polishing of millions of small hands who had climbed about on its surface. The famous 1959 statue was abandoned at this time of night; no one was in sight except for a large bum who appeared to be nodding off on one of the nearby benches. V. T. walked over to the bum. "Mind if I have a seat?"

  "Free country," the bum replied, then leaned toward V. T. and held out a hand. "A bigshot, white-shoe lawyer like you wouldn't have any spare change on him would you?"

  V. T. reached for his wallet. "What's the matter? The County of New York bankrupt and failing to meet its payroll obligations?"

  The bum, Butch Karp, accepted the bill V. T. handed him. "A dollar? Hell, I can't buy a hot dog at Nathan's anymore for a buck."

  "Beggars can't be choosers, right?"

  "I guess not. I hope that you have something more than a George Washington to drag me away from hearth and home."

  V. T. frowned. "I'm not sure. Meaning, I'm not sure what it all means. But something's in the works that, when considered with other recent events, convinced me that you and I should chat. Besides, I could use another set of eyes and a brain; it's been enough for my simple mind to stay 'in character' when I loathe this role."

  "I know it's not easy, V. T." Karp kept his head down, as if "the bum" no longer cared about his bench-warming companion, in case anybody was watching.

  Picking up his cue, V. T. stared straight ahead at Alice and her friends. "Okay to talk here?"

  "I think so. Clay's got some of his folks running interference. They'll notice anybody who seems too interested. You might have seen Detective Barb DiBiasi on the sidewalk.... She makes a great homeless woman."

  V. T. chuckled. "Yeah, I think we met. She called me Fancy Pants and asked if I wanted a blow job for twenty bucks."

  "Hey, she told me it was twenty-five!"

  "I guess some of us have it, and some of us don't."

  "Yeah, I guess. But seriously, I know it's got to be wearing you down."

  "It's okay; I need to do this... for my dad, if nothing else, but maybe a whole lot of other people, too. I'm a regular Scaramouche, you know, 'born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world is mad.' I'll be okay."

  Karp stole a glance at V. T. He looks older, he thought. Even in this lighting, it's obvious that the lines around his eyes and mouth are deeper.

  "So how's Uncle Dean?" Karp asked.

  V. T. snorted. "Practically a father to me," he said sarcastically. "Heck, he's even insisted on taking me to a firing range with him so that I can pack a pistol for the next time 'some niggers try to jump you'—his words not mine. A real bonding experience, let me tell you. Nothing says love like a warm gun."

  The "falling-out" between Karp and V. T. had been a ruse. After the double-agent J
on Ellis tried to kill Karp in April, Lucy had seen the triskele-emblem ring on V. T.'s finger. "Where'd you get that?" she'd asked, horrified, as she knew it was the symbol for the Sons of Man, who'd murdered Cian Magee.

  V. T. had explained that the ring had belonged to his cousin, Quilliam, and had been given to him by his uncle, Dean Newbury, who wore a similar ring, as did a group of his business associates.

  It wasn't proof that they were the Sons of Man, but it was certainly a smoking gun. So they'd come up with a plan to get V. T. in with his uncle, who'd already been making overtures regarding him joining the family firm after his father's death. The first step had been coming up with a powerful enough reason for V. T. to change from public servant to Fifth Avenue lawyer.

  Guma had happily arranged to have "a couple of associates" rough up V. T. They'd been told to make it look good, but maybe relished a little too much the free pass to put it to an assistant district attorney. The broken nose and ribs, as well as the rest of his beat, went a long way toward convincing Dean of the reasons behind his nephew's change of heart. The fair-minded V. T. had felt guilty about laying the rap on "two black guys," but it was a matter of playing to his uncle's worldview. The man was a racist, and the image of black muggers conformed to what he believed the world to be like. That had been followed by the public "falling-out" between Karp and V. T.

  They'd recognized early on that Dean Newbury had at least one spy in the DAO, and they were sure the loud arguments, the insults, and the erosion of respect would get back to him. But Karp had seen to it that they'd also taken their time to set the trap. Instead of V. T. leaving the hospital after the assault and joining the family law firm, he suggested that V. T. waver, as if tom by the decision.

  "Let's force the old man to woo you into the fold, rather than you jumping in," Karp had said in a meeting with V. T., Guma, and Jaxon—the only people except Marlene from whom there were no secrets. "Then it's all his idea. Just be increasingly receptive. In the meantime, you and I are going to go through a nasty divorce."

  However, from the beginning there'd been little more than the triskele rings to connect Dean Newbury to the Sons of Man. The first indication of a possible link to anything unusual had actually come from Guma, when he noted that Khalifa had been represented by William White in the assault case. Karp had written it down on his notepad to bring up with V. T. during one of their "angry" meetings that so upset Mrs. Milquetost.

  It did seem unusual that Newbury, Newbury and White—a firm not exactly known for its pro bono work, especially after V. T.'s father, Vincent, died—had represented a black Muslim with no resources. But it had since become clear that Khalifa had been working as a bodyguard for Imam Jabbar and that Jabbar and the Al-Aqsa mosque had plenty of Saudi money for engaging a high-priced law firm.

  As V. T. had pointed out during that meeting, it still did not draw a line between Dean Newbury's role with the Sons of Man and any plots connected to Khalifa's bombing of the Third Avenue Synagogue. "Still, something's fishy," V. T. pointed out. "The country's supposedly foremost federal anti-terrorism agencies ... apparently ... haven't discovered that Rondell James changed his name, or that the man also known as Muhammad Jamal Khalifa was a member of a mosque founded by a radical anti-American cleric. It's either gross ineptitude, a cover-up, or someone with powerful enough connections to keep it quiet."

  Later, Jaxon told Karp about The Sheik and the possibility of terrorist activity, perhaps involving Prince Esra bin Afraan Al-Saud, and the prince's intended visit to the Al-Aqsa mosque. Again, Karp had made notations on his legal pad and then discussed the information with V. T. and Guma after the bureau chiefs meeting in which he'd announced V. T.'s resignation.

  When V. T. was introduced to his new client, Prince Esra, they wondered if he might now learn something of importance to the investigation. But again, there was nothing to link Dean Newbury or the Sons of Man to any illegal plots or the synagogue bombing. Even V. T.'s wine-and-dine responsibilities with the prince had all been aboveboard, if boring and distasteful.

  Not until that night, when V. T. saw his uncle accept the envelope at the reception, and then later when he saw the envelope and the note with "STM-17" written on it, did he think he was on to something. "I didn't even know he could speak Russian," he said to Karp. "What do you make of it?" Karp pretended to be nodding off, letting his head sag onto his chest. "To be honest, I don't know," he responded quietly. "It could be innocent ... though I'm like you ... your uncle gets this secret envelope with some sort of coded message which he passes on to someone speaking Russian. What grabs my attention is his demand that whoever he's talking to prevent anyone from inspecting 'the contents' or bothering 'the visitors.' What contents and what visitors?"

  "He didn't like it that I saw that note. I could tell. The guy normally radiates suspicion, but tonight it was oozing out of him."

  Karp thought about it. "I think this is something I should pass on to our Russian friends in Brooklyn. Maybe it'll make sense to them."

  V. T. knew about Karp's great-uncle and cousin, the Karchovskis, but it was not one of those things they brought up. "Good idea."

  Changing the subject, Karp asked, "What's this I heard about you being kidnapped tonight? Guma told me a little, but it seemed a bit strange."

  "You're telling me. Essentially, I was tied up by a squad of geriatric gangsters. They kind of bumbled around, but I think they were telling the truth—at least as far as they know it."

  V. T. explained what had happened from start to finish. Karp had to stop himself from chuckling. But the kidnappers had confirmed what Karp and Jaxon already believed—that the Celtic bookstore owner, Cian Magee, had been murdered by the Sons of Man to destroy the book about the group and prevent Magee from discussing it more with Lucy.

  Of course, there was another murder they had implicated Dean Newbury with ... the fratricide of Vincent Newbury. "Do you think they're right about that, too?" Karp asked.

  "I think there's a good chance."

  "Any ideas on how to prove it?"

  V. T. twisted the triskele ring around on his finger. "I'm not sure. Who do you know at the medical examiner's office who owes you a favor and can be trusted to keep a secret?"

  "I have a few chits I can call in. What should they be looking for?"

  "Anything in the medical report that's out of order, but I'd particularly like to know about the levels of digitalis in his system. If this doesn't work, we may have to exhume his body, but as that would certainly tip my uncle off, I want to keep it quiet for now."

  "You bet," Karp said, stifling a real yawn behind his hand. "Anything else?"

  "Any idea on who the Senior Avengers are and how they're involved in all this?"

  "I have a hunch," Karp replied. "I'll check it out and let you know.... You want to leave first?"

  "Sure, I'm about wiped out and want to be home asleep." With that V. T. got up and walked over to the statue where he patted the Mad Hatter on his hat. '"Yes,"' he whispered. "'You can always take more than nothing.'"

  21

  The blonde woman sitting in the window booth of the Khartoum Restaurant across the street from the Al-Aqsa mosque ignored the dark looks she was getting from the mostly Muslim male patrons and staff. She was the only white person in the crowded cafe—famous for its shorba, a puree of lamb, served with warm kisra bread—as well as the only female not wearing a hajib.

  In fact, she was dressed in tight, black leather pants, a form-fitting white T-shirt, a black leather coat and beret, and large, white-framed sunglasses, despite the early evening. She wore the outfit for three reasons: to deliver a slap in the face to the locals, whom she regarded with contempt; to drive her "date" crazy with lust later that night; and, as she'd explained to her black male companion, to disguise her identity from someone who had only seen her wearing loose-fitting robes and a head covering.

  When they walked into the restaurant, the owner insisted to her accomplice, a homegrown jihadi named Ali Hazzan,
that she leave. Hazzan had explained that she was a "special guest" of Imam Jabbar's and not to be trifled with. The owner glared at her for a moment, but then retreated to the kitchen. The patrons overheard the reference to the imam and did not express their displeasure either—the imam's inner circle of bodyguards played rough.

  Nadya Malovo could not have cared less what they thought. Even her companion was beginning to irritate her. She certainly didn't need his protection—she could have killed him and several more like him without much trouble—but he knew his way around the city and its subways; otherwise she would have acted alone.

  Hazzan and the others she had been training at the "Phase Two" site in Vermont called her "Ajmaani" and thought she was Chechen, fighting to establish an Islamic state in the former southern state of the Soviet Union. They'd heard about the Beslan school massacre that she'd helped to engineer, and they'd seen enough of her violent personality on a firsthand basis to be scared to death of her.

  Malovo was actually a former KGB agent, recruited as a teenager off the streets of Moscow and trained as an assassin, and she'd first plied her trade in Afghanistan during and after the Soviet invasion. When the USSR crumbled, she'd gone into private practice, working for a coalition of crooked politicians, mob bosses, and corrupt military men.

  Her orders in Chechnya and other former satellite states on the southern border were to carry out "Islamic terrorist" actions to discredit legitimate nationalist movements by Muslims. By publicly aligning herself with the nationalists, who didn't want her help, she gave the Russians a reason to send in troops to quash the "Islamic extremists." Of course, Russia's real purpose was to keep the area's oil resources, as well as unfettered access to warm-water ports on the Black Sea. The true Islamic extremists, mostly foreigners fighting to establish Islamic fundamentalist states ruled by religious law, didn't know her true purpose and welcomed her as one of their own. And as it turned out, her employers saw the value of allying themselves with the group represented by Dean Newbury.