Fatal Conceit (5 page)

Karp felt a chill run down his spine. Over the years, his family had been the target of a wide assortment of violent criminals, from sociopathic serial killers to paid assassins to vicious terrorists of many persuasions. “Does this have to do with Lucy?”

The pause on the other end of the line told him all he needed to know. “Yes,” Jaxon replied. “But I don't want you to assume the worst. I do need to tell you some things that are best said in person. When will you be home?”

“Can we meet at the loft in twenty?” Karp asked. He glanced over at Marlene, who was standing thirty feet away studying his face while the boys continued to argue about the game.

“I'll see you then,” Jaxon replied. “And, Butch, it might be best if the twins were doing something outside of the apartment. What I have to say is for you and Marlene only, and you might want a chance to process it all after I leave before the boys start asking questions.”

“I understand. See you in twenty,” Karp replied, and pressed the button to end the call. Marlene's serious expression hadn't changed but the boys were used to their dad getting urgent calls and hardly noticed. He called them over and said, “Duty calls; your mom and I need to meet Espy back at the loft. Apparently, he wants to go over an old case and it can't wait.”

“But I thought we were going to get cherry cheese coffeecake and see the Sobelmans at Il Buon Pane,” Zak complained.

Golda and Moishe Sobelman, the proprietors of Il Buon Pane bakery on 29th and Third, made the best cherry cheese coffeecake in the Five Boroughs, and quite possibly the world. So good, as was the conversation with the Sobelmans, that it wasn't something Karp passed up lightly. “Sorry, guys,” he said with genuine regret while getting into the daypack they'd brought and fishing out his wallet. “Tell you what, how about you guys grab a cab over to Il Buon Pane and gorge yourselves on me. And take in a movie afterward.”

Zak pouted. “Nah, I think I'll just go home and raid the fridge. Maybe play some Xbox.”

However, Giancarlo, the more perceptive of the two, had been studying the interplay between his parents' faces and nudged his brother. “C'mon, it'll be fun. And we can go to a movie or a museum.”

Zak started to grouse again but he looked from his brother's face to his dad's and nodded. “But I'm not going to the stupid Museum of Modern Art again. I don't get how most of that stuff got in a museum in the first place.”

“I love you, bro.” Giancarlo laughed. “The best stuff's on the top floors of MOMA but it wouldn't hurt you to see something new. If it's not a painting of some guys hacking at each other with swords, it's not art to you.”

“We all have our own tastes,” Zak sniffed, and snatched the cash his dad was offering. “There's a new
Die Hard
movie playing at the Turtle Bay Theater. So how about some cherry cheese coffeecake and a little Bruce Willis ‘yippee-ki-yay'?”

With that the boys were off and running for a taxi. Marlene waited until they were out of earshot and turned back to her husband. “Okay, what gives?”

“Espy wants to talk to us, alone. It's about Lucy, but he said not to worry,” Karp said, fudging a little bit on the difference between “don't assume” and “don't worry.”

Marlene blinked back the fear he'd seen leap into her eyes and nodded. “Let's go.”

At Karp's request, Officer Murphy hit the lights and siren and they made it back to the old brick warehouse building on the corner of Grand and Crosby Street in ten minutes. But they still didn't beat a black sedan already parked across the street and the man who got out of the front passenger seat.

For the most part, Jaxon looked his usual secret agent self, with his crew-cut pewter-gray hair, tan, chiseled face, and icy blue eyes. But the customary perfect smile was missing and the silver stubble on his face and dark circles beneath those eyes suggested that he hadn't had much sleep or time to freshen up when he awoke.

Seeing the grim look on his friend's face, Karp didn't wait for him but turned and stepped up on the landing outside the steel security door on the building's Crosby Street side and punched in the entry code. The bottom floor of the building was allegedly occupied by a Chinese import-export business, though there rarely seemed to be any customers, or workers, for that matter. And they knew that it was actually owned by Tran Vinh Do, a former Viet Cong leader and Vietnamese gangster who had befriended Marlene
and due to a few odd twists of fate now worked with Jaxon and his agency.

The Karp-Ciampi family loft was on the top floor of the building, accessible strictly by a keyed elevator that ran from the secure entryway inside the steel outside door only to their floor. There was a fire escape on the outside of the building, but it was only accessible from a small deck off their living room.

Jaxon caught up with Karp and Marlene at the elevator and they rode it to the fourth-floor loft without saying anything beyond a quick greeting. They stepped into a small vestibule outside the front door while Butch fumbled at his keys as he tried to calm himself for whatever he was about to hear from Jaxon.

During the car ride over, he and Marlene had held hands but otherwise didn't talk much and looked out of their respective windows lost in thought. They knew Lucy's job held risks that had nearly cost her her life before, and that someday they might receive a call that no parent with a child in harm's way wanted to hear. But Lucy was a patriot and when asked by Jaxon to join his team as an interpreter, believed that she was doing her part for her country and that in some way was also tied to the larger apocalyptic struggle against evil.

When the key finally slid home, Karp opened the door and led the way into the apartment that opened up into one large area that comprised the living room and a kitchen, exposed brick walls, and hardwood floors, obstructed only by big wooden posts that ran eighteen feet between the floor and the rough wooden beams across the ceiling. On the far side of the room was a hallway leading to three bedrooms—the master, another large room with bunks occupied by the twins since birth, and Lucy's room, painted pink and populated by dolls as if a little girl still lived there.

Karp walked into the living room area and sat down near the window in the overstuffed leather chair the kids referred to as “dad's throne” and pointed to a large matching couch around the corner of a glass coffee table. “Have a seat, Espy, you look like you could use a nap.”

Meanwhile, Marlene had walked into the kitchen. “Can I get you something to drink?” she called over.

“Water would be great,” Jaxon replied.

Marlene returned with three glasses of water and placed them on the coffee table as she sat down on the couch next to Jaxon. She tried to smile but her hand trembled as she picked up a glass and took a small nervous sip.

“I'll get right to the point,” Jaxon said, leaning forward and looking at each of his friends. “Last night, a U.S. State Department compound in Chechnya was overrun by a heavily armed force in what was apparently a fast-moving, well-coordinated attack.”

Karp furrowed his brow. “I didn't see anything on the television this morning,” he said, pointing to the large flatscreen attached to a wall opposite the couch.

Jaxon rubbed his eyes and face tiredly before nodding. “We just got word a few hours ago; not much detail, and what we're hearing is all over the board. We got a quick briefing, but if State and the CIA know more than I just told you, they're not telling us, which wouldn't be unheard of. The White House is expected to make some sort of announcement in a couple of hours. I'm told it will be short and won't have a lot of details . . .”

“So what's this got to do with Lucy?” Marlene interjected, unable to control her fear.

Jaxon reached over and placed a hand on her shoulder. “We think she and Ned were in the compound when it was overrun.”

“A
RE YOU READY
?”

Lucy Karp picked up her head at the sound of the woman's voice in front of her. She could not see who spoke but knew her. Even if she hadn't worn a heavy cloth sack over her head, the woman wasn't . . . she groped for the right word in her foggy mind . . .
“real” isn't the right word, she's real enough, maybe “corporeal” would be better
.

“Have you prepared yourself for what's ahead?”

Taking a series of rapid breaths in and out, Lucy tried to clear her head. She was exhausted—physically, mentally, emotionally. She couldn't remember the last thing she'd eaten or, as she licked her parched lips, her last drink of water. She hadn't slept in . . .
How long has it been? More than one night. Two? . . .
The bare lightbulb that hung above the chair to which she was tied had not been turned off since she was first brought to the room from the compound outside Zandaq.

Trying to recall the events that led to her current predicament, she was reminded of a terrible loss. “Ned,” she croaked. “What happened to Ned?”

“He's in the hands of God now,” the woman in the room with her replied, “and no longer your concern.”

Lucy sobbed. “No . . . please.”

“Lucy!” the woman snapped. “Focus! It's important that you listen, remember, and survive what's to come.”

“Please forgive me, St. Teresa, but I don't want to survive,” Lucy cried quietly. “If he's gone, there's no point.” She tried to remember what happened, searching for any reason to hope.

She and Ned, along with a four-man team, all former military and hand-selected by Espy Jaxon, had surreptitiously crossed the border into Chechnya from Dagestan more than a week earlier. The plan was to meet with a Chechen separatist leader named Lom Daudov to enlist his aid in hunting down an Al Qaeda terrorist mastermind named Amir Al-Sistani, otherwise known to his followers as The Sheik.

Daudov had no great love for Americans; it didn't help that they looked the other way when Russia sent tanks and troops into Chechnya to stamp out the republic. However, according to Jaxon's sources, Daudov hated the Islamic extremists who'd come to Chechnya to fight for their own reasons and saw them as trying to usurp the nationalist movement for a theocracy, to say nothing of their brutal acts against civilians, which hurt the separatist cause in the court of world opinion.

In Dagestan, the country to the east of Chechnya, the team had been met by a young woman, Deshi Zakayev, who said she would be their guide in Chechnya. However, the first week after they crossed the border had been spent moving from place to place only to learn that when they arrived at each new destination Daudov had already been there and gone, or had never showed up at all. Zakayev explained that “Lom” was one of the most wanted men in Chechnya and being difficult to track was what kept him safe.

“The Russians have a large price on his head,” she said. “But being a ghost is also part of his strategy, by convincing spies that he will be in one place when he is striking in another. Did you know that his name, Lom, translates to ‘lion'? He is the lion and
the hope of a free Chechnya. Don't worry, he will meet with us, but we must keep moving until he feels it is safe.”

Traveling mostly at night, always on little-used rural back roads or even trails through the heavily wooded, mountainous region, sometimes on horseback, as well as on foot and in the occasional borrowed truck, they continued the game of cat and mouse. Then on Thursday evening, a week after they first crossed the border, the team assembled in a clearing where they'd camped to discuss whether to declare the mission a failure and return to the States. Lucy, as the team's interpreter, had gone to Zakayev with their decision to pack it in.

“Not yet, please. I was just about to tell you,” Zakayev, who had been to a nearby town to get her next instructions, said. “Tomorrow we will be taken by a lorry to a location where in two days' time, on Saturday evening, Lom Daudov will meet with you.”

“Why two days?” Lucy asked.

Zakayev shrugged. “Because that is how long it will be.”

Lucy reported back to the others, who decided to make one more attempt to rendezvous with the separatist guerilla leader. “If he doesn't show, we're done,” she went back and told the young woman.

Riding in an old Russian transport, the team arrived the next night at a walled and gated compound near the town of Zandaq. Hustled inside, out of sight of any prying eyes, they'd been surprised to learn that another group of Americans was already there, Deputy Chief of Mission David Huff from the U.S. embassy in Grozny and his security detachment. The tall, middle-aged diplomat had not been particularly forthcoming about his purpose other than to say he was there on a “trade mission to better our relations with the locals and help them normalize relations with Moscow and the West.”

“I must say, we've been waiting here for more than a day but so far the man we're trying to meet with hasn't showed,” Huff complained. “Now we're told it's going to be Saturday evening.”
He said he was just as surprised to see them but seemed to know enough to not ask questions, and Lucy didn't volunteer any information.

So they waited, risking discovery. The Russians were apparently aware of Huff's presence and purported reason for his visit to the region. But Lucy, Ned, and the rest of their team were in Chechnya without permission, even if their purpose was to apprehend, or kill, a terrorist. Like some old
Mission: Impossible
episode, Jaxon had told the team that if they were caught by the Russians, the American government would deny sending them.
And all for one man,
Lucy thought,
Amir Al-Sistani
.

The situation was shaky. After their arrival, the other members of Lucy's team had met with Huff's men and weren't happy about the security situation. For one thing, they were surprised that the men traveling with Huff were so lightly armed—nothing heavier than M4 carbines—in such a dangerous part of the world. The U.S. State Department had long ago warned American citizens against visiting the region. There were a multitude of factions fighting the Russians in Chechnya. Some were no more than organized crime syndicates and warlords intent on plundering the country; others fought to create an Islamic state; and still others were Chechen patriots who wanted a secular government that wasn't under the control of Moscow, though even they came in many guises, from socialists, to moderate Muslims, to republicans. When the factions weren't battling the Russians, they were often warring among themselves. The wisdom of traveling about such a country with only a small, lightly armed security team was questionable.