Blood Trust

TWENTY-THREE

THREE SIGNIFICANT things happened in the aftermath of the destruction of Arian Xhafa’s stronghold in Tetovo. First, Alli discovered that not all the students were orphans. Most of the young girls, in fact, either had been kidnapped or sold into slavery. Second, there was cell phone service in the area. As Jack’s cell buzzed to life, locking onto the signal, he saw Paull listening intently as Alli spoke with the children’s spokesperson, a beautiful girl with the most perfect skin he’d ever seen, whom Alli seemed to have bonded with immediately.

There were three messages from Naomi Wilde. Figuring that she had been trying to get in touch with him in order to update him on her progress, he listened with a sense of both shock and mounting alarm to the brief but succinct reports on her theories.

In the first, she spoke of her mounting suspicions concerning her partner, Peter McKinsey, and his possible connection with Fortress Securities. She also told him about the conflicting evidence against Alli, as if two opposing forces were at work countering each other, an occurrence that, frankly, had her baffled.

In the second message, she described her tailing McKinsey into Georgetown and the marina there along the Sequoia boardwalk. McKinsey had met an unknown man who, by Naomi’s detailed description, seemed most certainly an Arab of some sort. The Arab had driven McKinsey out to Theodore Roosevelt Island, where they had disembarked and vanished into the foliage. Naomi didn’t say how long they were on the island. Possibly, she hadn’t stuck around to find out.

The third and final message was a total bombshell that rattled Jack to his core. Naomi detailed her meeting with a woman who had taken her out to Roosevelt Island. There, the woman had shown Naomi the newly buried corpse of Arjeta Kraja. The implication was that the two men had buried her. Had the Arab killed her or had McKinsey? Impossible to tell. Naomi said the woman had mentioned Arjeta’s sisters, Edon and Liridona, both of whom, it appeared, she knew, and who seemed somehow important. The sisters knew a secret, most probably concerning Arian Xhafa or his network. The woman said the Krajas lived in the Albanian coastal city of Vlorë. Liridona was presumably still there, but Edon had run away, probably from Xhafa’s men.

Possibly to better allow him to absorb her news, Naomi left the identity of her mysterious benefactor until the end, but when Jack heard Annika’s name his blood ran cold. He sat down on a tree stump. His heart was racing; he felt icy hot, a sensation that threatened to annihilate his thought processes.

Annika had resurfaced, and, of all places, in Washington. Then he heard Naomi in her last line: “I think she’s behind everything, and she knows where you are.”

Jack, realizing that he’d been holding his breath, struggled to get oxygen into his lungs. He felt as if he were trapped underwater. He tried to calm himself, to figure out what the hell was going on, but it was as if his brain had shut down. Annika, the rogue Russian FSB agent whose life he had saved, only to find out that she was not FSB and the man he thought he’d saved her from was a confederate of hers. She had been working for her grandfather, Dyadya Gourdjiev, all along. He’d accepted that because for a brief time, at least, he and Gourdjiev were on the same side. He’d been powerfully attracted to Annika from the moment they’d first met in the bar of his Moscow hotel last year. And that attraction had turned into a love he’d believed was mutual until on his last day in Moscow he’d received an e-mail from her telling him that she had killed Senator Berns, a murder that had created a political firestorm and had been the starting point of Jack’s investigation into political corruption at the highest level in both the American and the Russian governments.

I neither regret what I did nor feel pride in it, she had written. In peace as in war sacrifices must be made, soldiers must fall in order for battles to be won—even, or perhaps especially, those that are waged sub rosa, in the shadows of a daylight only people like us notice.

So you hate me now, which is understandable and inevitable, but you know me, what I can’t stand is indifference, and now, no matter what, you’ll never be indifferent to me.

God damn her, he thought now. He put his head in his hands. Over the intervening months he had tried to put her out of his mind.

My grandfather warned me not to tell you, but I’m breaking protocol because there’s something you have to know; it’s the reason I haven’t come, why I won’t come no matter how long you wait, why I’m not being melodramatic when I say that we must never see each other again.

Her involvement all but paralyzed him. It threw the entire scenario into another arena entirely, and all at once, pieces, tiny and disparate, began to fall into place. Another murder that set an entire group of people into motion, most notably him—and Alli. Could this be another elaborately staged setup choreographed by Annika? It had her hallmarks, certainly, but there were marked differences, not the least of which was the brutal torture of Billy Warren. That wasn’t Annika at all. Her rage at her father had exploded quickly and definitively. Annika had been the victim of physical abuse; there was no circumstance under which Jack could imagine her torturing someone, unless the person had done grievous bodily harm to her or to someone she loved. This was not Billy Warren’s profile.

All at once, he became aware that Paull had broken away from Alli and the girl, and was standing beside him.

“Everything all right?”

“Fine,” Jack muttered.

“You look as if someone just walked over your grave.”

All Jack could manage was a wan smile.

Paull cleared his throat. “Listen, I’m useless here,” he said. “If I’m being perfectly honest with myself, worse than useless. I almost got us all killed.”

“Could have happened to anyone,” Jack said.

Paull smiled and clapped Jack on the shoulder. “You’re a good friend. I appreciate the support, but you’ll have to continue on without me.” His eyes cut away for a moment. “The truth is my field days are behind me. I’ve lost the feel. Wet work takes a different kind of person than I’ve become. My years behind a desk have changed me, Jack. Like it or not, my expertise is now in lending my people tactical support and protecting the missions against political meddling. Believe me when I tell you that I can be of more help to you in D.C.”

Jack nodded. It was difficult to argue against his friend’s assessment.

Paull indicated the girl with the porcelain skin. “I think you’d best take a listen to what Edon has to say.”

Instantly, Jack pricked up his ears. “What did you say her name was?”

“Edon.” Paull looked perplexed. “Edon Kraja.”

THE BEST way to lead a man unwittingly to his death is with a beautiful girl. This was a motto Gunn had lived by during the time he’d toiled in the spook shadows. It was a method old as time, but that was what made it virtually infallible. Occasionally, he’d had to substitute a beautiful boy for a beautiful girl, but the mechanism remained the same.

Vera Bard was still a day away from returning to Fearington from her weeklong medical leave, and he called her. Of course she said yes, this venture was right up Vera’s twisted little alley. He gave her her instructions.

“How long will it take you?” he said.

“I’m not far away,” Vera said. “Forty minutes max.”

Forty minutes later, he took the stairs down from the official Fortress offices to the auxiliary office used by Blunt between assignments. Try as he might, he could never get used to Blunt’s new legend name, Willowicz.

Blunt was making coffee, or what passed for it in this stinking hole.

“I’ve got a job for you and O’Banion.”

“It had better pay well,” Blunt said, “I’ve got gambling debts up the wazoo.”

“As a matter of fact, it does,” Gunn said. “It’s a rush job—gotta be done today.”

“I don’t like rush jobs—they have a nasty habit of turning out messy.”

Gunn was anticipating his answer. “How’s triple your fee grab you?”

“Right in the nuts. Who, where, and when?”

Gunn gave him the particulars and left. He couldn’t get out of there fast enough, but he didn’t go back to his office. He had another destination. He had pondered his plan in agonizing detail ever since his thoroughly unpleasant meeting with Pawnhill. He was dealing with ghosts—very dangerous ghosts who between them had been responsible for twenty kills, possibly more. He wondered fleetingly whether Pawnhill had any idea of what a difficult assignment he’d given him. Knowing the bastard, he didn’t give a shit. Pawnhill wanted what he wanted; Pawnhill knew he was in no position to defy him.

Someday, he thought, he was going to get out from under Pawnhill’s thumb. But, sadly, that day was not today.

“THE SCHOOL was nothing more than a front,” Edon said. “There are six orphans here—enough to keep the illusion going. The rest of us are like me—girls sold into slavery by their parents, or snatched off the streets. Either way, no one is looking for us.”

They had taken the children down from the burning, ruined school, out of Tetovo, and into the deepest part of the first-growth woods to the northwest, where, safely far enough from civilization, they made temporary camp in a small clearing. Thatë sent his remaining men out to gather wood for a fire. Restless, he put himself on guard duty, walking the perimeter.

Edon’s eyes searched Jack’s. “This is how it is, no danger to Xhafa or his people.”

“How about when he moves the girls around?”

Edon gave a bitter laugh. “He uses bribes and payoffs to local officials. You have to admire the machine Xhafa has put together. And he’s got something on everyone. The officials are taped taking their bribes—money, or sex from the little girls. I’ve seen some of the tapes because Xhafa would play them for his men while they drank and laughed. They were awful, disgusting—impossible to describe. Animals behave better. Afterward, Xhafa’s men would rape us, over and over.

“For the girls, this was nothing new. The idea is to break their spirit. They’re treated like trash, used and beaten. They’re starved if they resist, and God help them if they rebel. They’re tied up in a lightless room, beaten, drugged, and gang-raped. The real hard cases are shot up with heroin. Once hooked, they become instantly compliant; they’ll do anything for their next fix.”

She recited this litany of horror with an eerily detached voice, as if she were talking about a movie she had seen. But Alli was white-faced with rage. Jack could feel her trembling beside him.

“This happened to you?” Alli said in a hoarse voice.

“I was smarter than them,” Edon said. “I did what was asked of me, I ingratiated myself with them, just as Arjeta had done. I became a favorite, they fell in love with my face instead of my body. Oh, occasionally one of them would try to rape me, but Arian always stopped them. Once, he beat his own man to a bloody pulp and no one came near me again.”

Alli let out a long-held breath, but her fists were still tightly clenched and her eyes seemed to throw out sparks.

“Speaking of Xhafa,” Jack said, “when did you last see him?”

“Days ago,” Edon replied, “a week or more.”

“But one of his men said he’d left the school only a half hour or so before the attack.”

“He’s lying,” Edon said. “I saw him leave.”

There was no mistaking her certainty. Jack admired her core of inner strength. He wondered whether that was a trait all three sisters possessed. And that thought brought him to the question of whether or not this was the right moment to tell Edon that one of her sisters had been murdered. Deciding that there was no good time for that kind of news, he determined to tell her. But first he needed to ask her a question.

“Alli and I are friends of Annika’s.” He sensed Alli’s instant consternation, but she had the good sense to keep her mouth shut. “She’s mentioned your name.”

Edon’s face lit up. “You know Annika? That’s fantastic. My sisters and I love her.”

“How do you know her?”

Edon frowned. “Arjeta met her first, I think. Father has a terrible sickness—he can’t stop gambling. We were always in debt, sometimes horribly so. One time a representative of Xhafa’s came to him. He paid off his debt by selling Arjeta. Then it was my turn. By that time, Arjeta had become Dardan Xhafa’s favorite, and when Dardan was sent to America, Arjeta went with him.”

That explained a lot, Jack thought. More pieces of the puzzle falling into place, bringing with them a new and expanded view of the picture. Annika had been in Washington recently. A coincidence? He didn’t think so.

“Why did Annika contact Arjeta?”

“She wanted her to spy on Xhafa. If she did, Annika said, she’d make sure Arjeta would be free of Xhafa forever.”

And now Arjeta was, Jack thought, though not in the way Annika must have meant. And all at once, another possible piece slipped into place and he excused himself, went off alone, took out the cell phone Alli had taken from the locked drawer in Henry Holt Carson’s desk, and fired it up. Only two numbers in the directory, one marked A, the other D. Neither were U.S. numbers.

Could it be? he wondered. He pressed the key to dial the number attributed to A. After what seemed like an eternity, the connection went through and he heard it ring three, four, five times. No voice mail was engaged.

He was about to hang up when he heard her voice, and with his heart in his throat, said, “Hello, Annika.”

THE MOMENT Gunn left, Willowicz contacted O’Banion. He had finished brewing the coffee. It looked like sludge, but with six teaspoons of sugar, it tasted fine.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting laid,” O’Banion barked. “What the fuck d’you want?”

“Gunn.” He gulped down the coffee, savoring the intense sweetness along with the acid bite. “We have a job.”

“I told you.” O’Banion let out a series of rhythmic grunts. “I’m busy.”

Willowicz put the mug in the stainless-steel sink. The incriminating substances that had gone down its drain, he thought. “Triple our usual fee.”

“That should’ve been your lead.” O’Banion was breathing hard. “I’m in.”

“And now you need to get out.”

O’Banion wheezed a laugh, then let out a long, drawn-out groan. Willowicz heard a loud noise, then nothing.

“O’Banion?”

After a moment: “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I dropped the fucking phone.”

“That good, huh?”

“Meet?”

Willowicz gave him his instructions. “One hour,” he concluded. “Don’t be late.”

“When am I ever?”

Willowicz cut the connection, grabbed the paraphernalia he’d need, jammed it into the voluminous inside pockets of his custom-made overcoat, and went out into the hallway. As he pressed the call button for the elevator he thought about his partnership with O’Banion. It went back many years. Sometimes it seemed as if they had plowed through every shithole backwater of the Middle East, had climbed every dust-strewn mountain, stuck their necks out in every cave, and blown up half the Taliban. And still they came, like cockroaches overrunning an open box of sugar. He and O’Banion shared everything, there were no secrets in the mountains of Afghanistan and Western Pakistan where they had plied their bloody trade. They were closer than brothers; there wasn’t anything they wouldn’t do for each other.

But all bloody things come to an abrupt end. At some point, he and O’Banion had said fuck it. They had salted away enough money and they were tired of offing ignorant fanatics. Time for a change of scene. Which was when they’d come home, and almost immediately had hooked up with Gunn. He had shit for brains, just like all the ex-Marines who were now milking the government for millions. What they were doing wasn’t exactly rocket science. All you needed to do was produce torture and death, no questions asked, and the money showered down like manna. Oh, yeah, you needed the one thing he and O’Banion didn’t have—political connections. Gunn had them in spades, example in point: Henry Holt Carson’s patronage. On the other hand, as shit-for-brains bosses went, they could’ve done a lot worse than Gunn. At least he paid them top dollar, and he’d always been straight with them.

The elevator was still on the top floor. Cursing under his breath, he turned to the stairs door, pulled it open, and started down. Swinging around the landing, he saw a woman on the floor below. She was bending over, after having cracked off a heel of her lace-up boots. She was wearing a breathtakingly short skirt under which he could see that she was wearing nothing at all. Immediately, his second brain—the tiny, reptilian thing low down in his body—was activated. He felt a stirring in his trousers and, licking his lips, he strolled down the stairs.

She heard him coming and whipped upright. As she turned around to face him, he saw that her cheeks were flaming. She was hot—dark and exotic-looking. He thought she might be Eurasian.

“Good Lord,” she said, “how long have you been there?”

“Don’t worry.” He grinned. “Your secrets are safe with me.”

At which her cheeks continued to redden, which inflamed him all the more.

“Can I help you?” he asked before she could reply.

“Damn five-inch heels.” She held out the one that had broken off.

“I think you’d better take off your boots,” he said. And then with a wry smile, “Or I could carry you down.”

“That’s all right,” she said hastily. And, unlacing the boots, she handed them to him. “Would you be a gentleman?”

The moment he took them from her, the door to the hallway opened, Gunn came silently through, armed with a handgun fitted with a noise suppressor. Maybe Willowicz saw something in Vera’s eyes, but he was too besotted with her, and his reflexes failed him. He was in the process of turning when Gunn shot him twice; once in the back, once in the head.

Vera’s fuck-me boots clattered to the raw concrete. Stepping over the corpse, she picked them up. As she brushed past Gunn, she said, “You owe me a new pair of Louboutins.”

SOMETHING, PERHAPS his reptilian brain, remained alive after the girl and his murderer had left. His heart was barely beating and he lacked any sense of where he was. Nevertheless, the organism knew it was dying. This is, in the end, what separates man from beast. The foreknowledge of death.

Blunt or Willowicz or whatever his name really was became dimly aware of his cell phone lying against his cheek. It must have dropped out of his pocket when he fell. The shot to his back had severed major nerves. His legs felt paralyzed. He could scarcely move a muscle, yet he had just enough life left in him to move one finger. Trembling, it struck the side of the phone. As if on its own, it moved a fraction to the left and hit the autodial key.

The call went through and O’Banion’s voice echoed in the staircase.

“Willowicz? Hello? Willowicz?”

Blunt’s lips moved, forming pink bubbles that looked like membranes. Three times he tried to speak and failed. Then, at last, as the light began to fade, as even he lost his desperate hold on life, he managed two agonized words.

“He’s coming.”