The Devil's Banker (24 page)

Boubilas shuddered, nodding his head.

“Good,” said Leclerc.
“Alors, dors bien.”

Chapter 25

George Gabriel closed the door to his room, kicked off his tennis shoes, and flung himself onto his bed.

“No!” he shouted, burying his face in his pillow, his fist pounding the mattress.

He was leaving Paris tomorrow.
Forever.
After what his father had ordered him to do, he could never come back. The thought of fleeing terrified him. He felt like a small boy. He wanted to hide. To cry. He wanted to appeal to someone that it wasn’t fair, but there wasn’t anyone to listen to him. Not Amina, his father’s third wife. Not his real mother . . .
wherever she was.
Not his younger brothers or sisters. There was only Claudine, and she wasn’t family.

Claudine.
Calling her name to himself sent a melancholy shiver down his spine.
I won’t leave you,
he promised with a teenager’s violent passion.

Sitting up, he drew his knees to his chest and surveyed the densely furnished space he’d occupied for twelve years. Posters of Beckham, Ronaldo, Luis Figo, and the incomparable Zidane graced one wall; a single framed print of thousands of hajjis circumambulating the Ka’aba, another. Twin chrome towers displayed his CDs. Pearl Jam and Creed were sandwiched between Nusrah Fateh Ali Khan and Salif Keita. Wedged against the wall was his prayer rug, neatly rolled up. An autographed photo of the 1998 World Cup winners occupied pride of place on his dresser, next to the desk where he’d studied countless hours to make the grades his father expected of him. When he’d made perfect marks three years’ running, his dad had rewarded him with a Bang and Olufsen stereo. More meaningful was the hug that came with it. The pull to his father’s chest. The lasting embrace. The kiss on the cheeks. He would never forget the fierce light burning within his father’s eyes, or the palpable outpouring of his pride.

Abandoning the bed, George Gabriel picked up a pair of fifteen-kilo dumbbells and began pounding out a set of curls. He could feel the eyes upon him, still prideful, but watchful, too. Commanding him. George was no longer a son, but a soldier, with the same responsibilities, and the same punishment for failure. His breath came harder, his arms swelling with fatigue. No matter what, he could not fail his father. It was unthinkable.

After thirty repetitions, he laid the dumbbells on the ground and looked at himself in the mirror. His biceps quivered. He checked that the door was locked, then rummaged through his armoire. His stash was hidden in a sock deep on the second shelf. He took out a pipe and filled the bowl. The window was open a crack, admitting a cooling night breeze. He lit the bowl and held the hit in as long as possible. When he exhaled, only a wisp of smoke left his mouth. He slipped the weed back into the sock, smiling. He was sure Amina knew it was there, just as he was sure she’d never say a word to his dad. They were friends. They shared secrets. She knew about Claudine. She’d asked how Claudine’s father could allow her to date a boy she was not going to marry, and listened in awe as George related his girlfriend’s plans to study medicine and become a cardiovascular surgeon. He’d even shown Amina her picture.

A hand groped beneath the shelf, peeling away the tape until he freed the photograph. A glance at the door and he brought it into the light. She was blond and intelligent, with a cat’s green eyes. Born a Roman Catholic, at nineteen she was a devout atheist. On the back of the photo she’d penned the words “With all my heart to my forever man.”

There was no more dangerous contraband.

George smiled bitterly. Her “forever man” was booked on a flight to Dubai in less than twenty-four hours. Disconsolately, he replaced the photo. There were still a few things he hadn’t told Amina. He hadn’t revealed that the touch of Claudine’s hand made him happy for a week. Or that the hint of her smile filled him with an uncontrollable anticipation. He hadn’t told her that they were sometimes making love two times a day, and that, yes, he really did want to marry her. Some things even Amina wouldn’t understand.

Not long ago, he’d spoken to her about a woman’s rights. He told her she didn’t have to stay inside all day long, looking after the kids, cooking all the meals. She didn’t have to agree with his father’s every pronouncement. Later that night, he’d overheard her tell his dad she would be going shopping the next day with a friend she’d made, a
kuffar
like Claudine, a lady not of the faith. Sweetly and excitedly, she’d told him that she wouldn’t be home until later that evening, and asked if he might come home early to look after the kids and feed them their supper. There followed an ugly laugh, then a terrific slap that had made George wince. The ground floor shuddered when Amina hit the floor.

George had been too scared to go downstairs and check how she was.

Strangely, Amina had thanked him the next day. It was better that she knew her place, she’d said. She hadn’t asked about Claudine since.

The room was suddenly quiet and he could hear his heart beating in his chest. The household was asleep. Not a sound lifted to him. He swallowed and found his mouth dry. He was smart enough to know that it was no ordinary case of cottonmouth.

“Hijira.” He whispered the word.
A new beginning.
George Gabriel had to pinch himself to remind himself he wasn’t dreaming.

Yet, the word stirred him. How could it not, when he’d been hearing of it his entire life, living it day in, day out, eating it, breathing it, sleeping it? The moment was upon him: the realization of his family’s destiny. And with it, the responsibility his father had thrust upon him.

The plane ticket lay on his desk, next to the dagger. It was an Italian blade, his father had told him. Made for the close kill. Unsheathing the knife, he caressed the tip. A bead of blood blossomed on his fingertip. He licked it, before spreading the plans of the Salpetitpierre Hospital out in front of him. Using the dagger, he traced his path from the parking lot to the third-floor burn unit. He found the exits and committed them to memory. He located the stairwells and the security stand and the nurses’ station. Getting in would not pose a problem. The hospital was a sprawling complex covering three city blocks with a dozen entrances, none of which boasted so much as a security guard. There were no metal detectors on the premises, no secret surveillance devices. It would be a question of moxie, of having the courage to get in and do the job, and get out, quickly, neatly, and efficiently.

Pushing aside the map, he opened the ticket jacket and removed a photograph of the man he was to kill. It looked like the reproduction of a passport shot. He was still young, but there was nothing boyish about him. The eyes were exacting. The mouth firmly set. The jaw wide. The neck well-muscled. He decided he would not want to fight this man, even if he had been badly burned by Taleel’s bomb. A blow to his shoulder would incapacitate him, but George should not be worried. The American would be unsuspecting, an easy target if George moved quickly and did not hesitate.

Dagger in hand, George Gabriel stood from the desk. Assuming the fighter’s stance, he executed the controlled movements he’d learned at the camp in the Bekaa, advancing, lunging, blocking, slashing, always grunting as he delivered the death blow. In the warm air, his bare skin glistened with sweat.

“I am a Utaybi,” he murmured to his reflection as he drove the blade home. “Hijira is my destiny. I am a Utaybi. The desert is my home.”

But as he repeated the words, his conviction faltered, weakened by the sinful smile of a passionate young woman with hair of gold and a generous figure. Dropping his hands to his side, he froze, knowing then fully, and for the first time, that he was no longer certain of anything. His name. His destiny. Or his home.

Chapter 26

The weight of the Virginia dusk struck Owen Glendenning like a velvet hammer as he poked his head through the doorway of the Lear jet. It was just after eight. In the distance over the army of bridged oaks and the picket of weeping willows, the sun retreated below the horizon. They had taxied to a far corner of the runway at Dulles International Airport. As the roar of a departing aircraft faded, a bullfrog’s contented croak reasserted itself in lovely counterpoint to a lazy cicada.

Allan Halsey was waiting at the base of the stairs. “Welcome back, Owen. How you feeling?”

“Trips are getting longer and the days are getting shorter. If that doesn’t sum it up, try this: like shit.”

Halsey led the way to the waiting automobile, opening the rear door for Glendenning. “I figured as much. I’ve got some chow set up for you in the war room. Sykes is in from the Bureau to take a look at the evidence you brought along.”

“If it’s a steak, I want it well-done,” said Glendenning. “Goddamn frogs gave me an entrecôte for lunch that I swear was still alive and quivering. They call it
’bleu’
and sneer at you if you don’t think it’s the damn best thing since Escoffier created béarnaise.”

“How’s chicken fried steak with buttered carrots and mashed potatoes sound?”

“As long as there’s a mug of coffee to go with it, why, just about perfect.”

“A mug? I’ve got the Mr. Coffee boiling over.”

“Maxwell House?”

“Nothing but the best.”

Glendenning chuckled for the first time that day. “I knew there was a good reason we transferred FTAT from Treasury.”

The drive to Langley took fifteen minutes. After clearing security, the two men took the staff elevator to the sixth floor and proceeded directly to a conference room at the end of the east wing. The table was set with place mats, cloth napkins, and silver cutlery. Silver warming trays adorned a sideboard. A lone man waited inside, cleaning off his plate with a last chunk of cornbread.

“Hey, Glen,” said Sheldon Sykes, shooting out of his chair, wiping his mouth with a sleeve. “Didn’t know when you’d get here, so I went ahead and helped myself.”

Sykes was the Bureau’s technical liaison to the Agency, half scientist, half bureaucrat, the kind of perpetually smiling face Glendenning could do without.

“No problem,” said Glendenning, though privately he was miffed at the Bureau man’s piss-poor manners. “You need to get moving anyway. Here’s what we got.” Opening his briefcase, he removed a DVD and explained that it held a copy of the video found in Mohammed al-Taleel’s apartment. “At the end of the tape there’s a chance these jokers inadvertently captured the image of a third party. It could be one of their buddies. As the speaker comes toward the camera, I want you to check his sunglasses. We’re fairly certain that there’s a reflection of someone standing inside the room. Enhance the images, do your magic, until you can tell me who or what it is.”

Sykes reached for the DVD, but Glendenning held it in his fingers a moment longer. “This is white-hot, you understand me. You are to personally supervise the men examining this. Not a word of its contents is to get out.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And, Sykes? It doesn’t do to keep the President waiting.”

As Sykes pulled on his coat and rushed from the room, Glendenning pondered the fact that his mere presence at Langley was a minor miracle. It had been a long time since the two agencies had worked hand in hand. As a result of the Church Commission’s investigations in the mid-1970s into abuses by the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover, and an endless string of CIA provocations abroad, laws had been put on the books preventing the two from anything more than a vestigial collaboration. FBI was domestic. CIA was foreign. And never the twain shall meet. The Patriot Act had changed that, and with the creation of a department of Homeland Security, it looked like cooperation might be institutionalized in the form of a new agency for domestic intelligence, something akin to Britain’s MI5.

When he was gone, Halsey took a seat on the edge of the table. “You staying much longer?”

“Another hour or so. Got a powwow with the barons of the banking committee tomorrow morning. The good Senator Leach wants to cut our purse strings in return for some of that ‘soft money’ we hear so much about these days from his benefactors at the money center banks. The old boy’ll have a heart attack when he hears how much Blood Money is costing us.”

“He’s serious about cutting back?”

“Serious? The man wants to halve our budget. Says the money’s better spent with the frontline troops. The Pentagon or Homeland Security’ll suit him and his pals just fine. They’re against everything we’re doing. Too much disclosure, they cry. Too much oversight. A violation of their customers’ rights. Truth is, they don’t give a damn about their customers’ rights. They’re just pissed about the extra cost of filling out all those SARs and CTRs. Don’t want to admit it’s their job as much as ours to keep an eye out for the bad guys.”

“You set ’em straight. Tell ’em to leave our funding alone. If Hijira turns out to be the pain in the ass I’m guessing, it’ll cost Leach’s money center banks a damn sight more than what they’re forking over now.” Halsey turned to leave, but hesitated at the doorway. “Say, Glen, mind if I ask you something? Off the record?”

“Shoot.”

“What the hell happened over there?”

Glendenning looked up uneasily. “Don’t know yet. On the surface, it looks like the Frenchies slipped up, called in the cavalry before the trap was set. Only one problem . . .”

“What’s that?”

“Doesn’t explain why Taleel didn’t have the money.”

If Halsey caught a whiff of Glendenning’s suspicions, he made no show of it. “Hijira’s a clever bunch, eh?”

The deputy director of operations for the Central Intelligence Agency felt himself drifting and strangely ill at ease. His eyes wandered the room, unable to settle anywhere for more than a second. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe more than that.”

Finally at home and ensconced in the warmth of his study, a second brandy in his hand, Glen Glendenning picked up a telephone and dialed a number in Geneva, Switzerland. For once, he was not thinking about Adam Chapel or Sarah Churchill or any member of the Blood Money task force currently searching for Hijira. It was one
A.M.
It was his private time.