“What about Dr. Faisal?” Brent asked, his voice hoarse with barely suppressed anger.
“One of those court orders is no doubt a gag order, forbidding you or anyone in the firm from communicating with your client until the FBI gives permission.”
“So we let them take his money, and we don’t even tell him it’s happened?”
“There’s nothing we can do,” McDonald said. “We’ll get our ducks in a row and then fight this in court. I’ll call you as soon as my meeting ends, and we’ll get together.”
Brent hung up and glared at Stewart, who paged through one of the documents and pointed to a red tape arrow. “We need your signature,” he said.
Brent’s neck swelled against his shirt collar, and he stared at the arrow.
“Sir?” Agent Stewart prodded after a minute.
Brent finally grabbed the paper and signed. Stewart flipped to the next arrow, and Brent continued until the stack was exhausted.
Stewart placed half the documents inside his briefcase and left duplicates for Brent. “One of the documents you signed—which by the way would have been binding in any case—is a court order forbidding any communication about this case with anyone outside or inside this firm. Failure to abide by that order is a felony. The other documents give us permission to transfer the account’s assets into a Federal holding account until this matter is adjudicated.”
“You didn’t need my signature on those, either, did you?”
Stewart gave him a tight smile. “No, but it makes everything neater and provides evidence of your firm’s willing cooperation.”
“I’m so glad we could be of service.”
Stewart ignored the sarcasm. “Willing support of your country is important,” he said evenly.
“We’ll be in touch with your superiors.”
“By the way, Mr. Biddle won’t have any problem with what we’ve done,” Agent Anderson interjected as he rose from the chair and jerked his cuffs down over his meaty wrists. “He is a patriot and an excellent Christian.”
“Good day, Mr. Lucas,” Stewart said with a quick nod. Brent caught the admonishing glance he shot Anderson on their way out.
TWENTY-TWO
NEW YORK, JUNE 29
AS THE VAN SWUNG ONTO the cross street and picked up speed, Naif Abdulaziz glanced into the dirt-streaked side mirror at where a rain-lashed Park Avenue lay behind them, snarled with endless lines of traffic. On the sidewalks pedestrians scurried as gusts of wind whipped at women’s skirts and tore umbrellas inside out. Naif nodded in satisfaction. Conditions were perfect for his task, which meant that once again Allah’s blessing would assure his success.
The van pulled to the curb in front of a fire hydrant, and the transmission clunked into park. The driver glanced over. He was a Christian holy man, only tonight he wore no collar, only a dirty coat and a tan rain hat whose wrinkled brim flopped down to obscure everything but a pair of wire-framed glasses, a broad jaw ringed with fat, and full lips. “It’s number twelve,” he said.
For several moments Naif studied the large four-story townhouse with a façade of white marble and a small portico over the front door. Then he sat back, closed his eyes, and pictured his mother and two little brothers standing before the schoolhouse where he once taught and dreamed of becoming a poet. He let the images harden and tasted the scarred emptiness in the part of his soul where gentle words had once made a garden. It was because of the Americans that he’d had to leave everything he loved—his family, his home, his students, and his books—and as he focused on his loss a flash of hatred raced through his body. This was the feeling he was looking for, the way he fortified himself at the prospect of spilling blood.
He opened his eyes and looked again at the elegant townhouse, thinking that these people who loved their lives and their luxuries were about to learn what it was like to meet a true martyr. He buttoned his long coat and tugged the collar up around his face. Pulling on a rain hat similar to the one his driver wore, he slid his silenced Makarov 9mm pistol into one pocket and his combat knife into the other.
Finally, he crawled into the back of the van, took the bouquet of long-stemmed roses from their box, held them high to hide whatever parts of his face the raised collar and hat didn’t conceal, and stepped out the back door into the downpour. Movement was like a release, and the ironbound strength of his purpose flooded his heart. He lowered his head like any poor deliveryman without an umbrella and dashed for the front door of number twelve. He crowded close, shoulders hunched against the rain that blew beneath the small portico. As he rang the buzzer, he pretended to be unaware of the security camera above his head.
A voice came over the intercom box beside the doorbell. “Can I help you?” a man’s voice asked, the accent European.
“Flower delivery,” Naif said.
A moment later, footsteps crossed what sounded like a marble floor, and Naif slipped the knife from his pocket and held it out of sight behind the roses. The door had a heavy metal frame inset with tall glass panels and fronted with protective metal bars. An inner door opened, and the gauze curtains showed a single silhouette.
A lock clicked and the door swung inward. A short man with a balding head, white shirt, and apron over dark trousers smiled up at him. He held out one hand for the flowers, while his other hand tendered a five-dollar bill. As Naif extended the bouquet he moved beyond the reach of the security camera. He released the flowers as he struck, shoving two fingers of his left hand into the butler’s nostrils, giving the man’s head a savage sideways jerk and slashing the knife along his exposed carotid artery and windpipe. Blood burst across the floor. Naif stepped to the butler’s other side and eased him to the floor. The kill had been soundless.
He turned, scanned the sidewalk to make sure it was still empty, and then quickly pushed the door closed. Once the lock clicked, he grabbed the butler and dragged him by the collar into a dimly lit dining room at the back of the house.
From here a thin slit of light and the faint sound of voices leaked beneath a swinging door. Naif crossed to the door and stopped to listen, recognizing the canned laughter of a television show. He inched the door open and saw a butler’s pantry and a kitchen beyond. A middle-aged woman stood at the kitchen’s center island with her back toward him, watching a television mounted high on the wall as she chopped vegetables.
Naif opened the door just enough to slide inside, his crepe soles soundless on the tile floor. He checked around the corner to assure himself the woman was alone, then with one quick step, he moved behind her, cupped her chin, forced her head back, and cut her throat. Afterward, he returned to the foyer where he stepped across the long smear of blood and started up the stairs.
The second floor landing opened into a large living room that went from the front to the back of the house. The room was mostly dark, but a shadowy illumination came through the tall windows, delineating ornate furniture and paintings in gilt frames. A triangle of bright light spilled through an open doorway at the back of the room, and Naif crept silently toward it until he could see into a library with wood-paneled walls and crowded floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.
Khaled Faisal sat in an oversized leather chair with a pair of glasses low on his nose and a book open on his lap. He had dozed off, and his chin touched his chest, which rose and fell peacefully.
Naif watched for several seconds then stepped into the room. “Traitor,” he said in Arabic.