The Devil's Banker

Chapter 54

The lock groaned as a key was inserted. Tumblers fell. Adam Chapel huddled against the bone-cold wall, knees drawn to his chest, chin tucked in as if he were expecting a good pummeling and was determined to absorb the blows. He’d known they would return. As best he could, he steeled himself for another round of their stubborn, futile questioning. He willed his rational mind dead. He divorced his extremities. He withdrew to a black corner where a heartbeat signaled his survival and pain did not exist.

A few hours ago, they’d chucked in a soggy, moth-eaten mattress, and he’d collapsed onto it. His last thoughts before he fell into a dead sleep had been about what he could tell them that might draw them off. What precious salve he could offer to prove his innocence once and for all, and secure his immediate freedom. Some all-purpose solvent to erase the stain on his name. Gabriel’s stain. But no answer came. How could he combat evidence he’d never seen? What did words matter when no one was listening?

The door swung open, banging against the wall. Squinting, he raised a hand to shield his eyes and waited for the first impossible request.

“Been tough on you, have they?”

Chapel raised his head. The voice… the dry English accent… its promise of affection and sympathy and a return to sanity. “Not exactly the Plaza.”

Her arms engulfed him. He smelled her hair, and a current of relief rushed over him. Sarah was alive. She’d made it out of Cléopatre, after all. He wanted to smile, but he knew that if he did, he would break, so he held her hands and tried to gather his breath.

“How?” he began. “What hap-”

A finger silenced his lips. “Ssshhh. Have something to eat. Then we’ll get you showered and shaved.”

A soldier followed close behind and set down a tray of steaming food on the bench. Spaghetti bolognese. Steamed spinach. Bread and butter. Two bottles of Orangina. The rich smells awoke a gnawing hunger. Ripping off a chunk of bread, he doused it in meat sauce and chewed contentedly.

“I saw him,” he said after he’d caught his breath. “On the second floor. He was trying to get out of a fire exit but it was locked.”

“So did I,” said Sarah.

“He got out.”

“Yes, I know. Now eat up. We’ve got to go.”

“We’re leaving?” Already he could feel a change in her manner.

“Oh, yes,” she responded, as if it had been planned all along. “Air France’s noon flight out of Roissy. We’re flying home, Adam. Back to D.C.”

The plane was full, every seat, every luggage bin, every square inch of available space taken by the usual summer bandits. They sat in the rear of the aircraft and talked as mothers and infants strolled the aisles and restless children climbed the seats and the cabin lights were extinguished and the second-rate movies played one after the other.

“It was Leclerc,” she explained after they’d eaten their plastic dinners and purchased a Courvoisier to get the taste out of their mouths. “He took the hard drive that was found in Taleel’s apartment to a friend of his. Name doesn’t matter. A pro on the outs with the service. The hard drive was a mess, shattered into three pieces, but he was able to dredge up the ghost of some E-mails. There was the usual coded garble. You know, ‘going to beach tomorrow. Meet for ice cream.’ Chatter. Stuff we could decode, but it would take us weeks. And then there was something more personal. Something that was sent ‘in the clear.’ Correspondence between Taleel and a woman named ‘Noor.’ ” Sarah polished off the last drops of cognac and set down her glass. “Ready for this?”

“Shoot.”

“Noor was Gabriel’s younger sister. She and Taleel were in a relationship. A regular Romeo and Juliet. Seems Taleel was Gabriel’s cousin. Bad enough having an operative diddling your sis, isn’t it? Imagine if he’s your cousin, too. Gabriel would not have been pleased.”

“Was she in on it, too?”

“Noor? Given the Arab prejudices against women, I doubt it. But she knew something was going on. Noor mentioned that her brother was leaving this weekend. She said she would never see him again.”

“That jibes with what George told us, the apartment being deserted. Gabriel’s doing the dirty deed himself.”

Sarah nodded. “Taleel was supposed to accompany him. In one of his letters, he talked about needing to buy a ticket to go along. He was pleased that he didn’t need a visa to go to America. Noor was upset and tried to talk him out of it.”

“Ah, dissension in the ranks.”

“Love,” said Sarah pointedly, as if dismissing a bad habit.

Chapel reached out for her hand, but she was staring out the window and couldn’t be bothered. He had the feeling that they weren’t really partners in this; that they would never be. Sarah was always a step ahead, playing all the angles, while he worked with his feet planted firmly on the ground.

“Sarah, what happened to you back there?”

“I saw Leclerc in the dressing room,” she said, her eyes fixed on some faraway target. “He was with Kahn. There was a case on the bench between them. A satchel. Leclerc told me to get out. To clear the building. He knew it was a bomb. I closed the door. I didn’t want to leave without you, so I went upstairs. Gabriel was coming out of one of the sex rooms. He fit George’s description to a T. I knew it was him. They’d made the exchange. I realize that now. He had whatever Kahn had sold him.” Anger tightened her eyes, puckered her mouth. “It was so easy, Adam,” she said, imploring him to forgive her. “All I had to do was shoot him. He was right there, ten feet away. But I froze. I hesitated. I don’t know what I was thinking. And then, just as I was gathering my wits, the place went up. It was Semtex again, if you didn’t know. Same signature as Taleel used, just more of it. They’re saying two pounds of the stuff. The next thing I knew, I was sitting on the ground floor with the whole building on fire around me. Not a scratch. I took a step out the front door, and that’s when I saw you, all bundled up like Jean Valjean on the way to doing his twenty years. I got the hell out of there. Time to make my own queries, if you know what I mean. All that nonsense you’d been spewing about moles and spies got to me. Wheels within wheels, Adam. I was scared. I’ll admit it.”

“What happened?” said Chapel. “I mean, what did you do to get me out? Did you talk to Glen? Did you explain that it had to be Gabriel who framed me?”

Sarah answered with her Cheshire cat’s grin. “Something like that.”

“So who’s waiting?” he went on. He was already working out the next steps. Word that a terrorist was trying to enter the United States in possession of a rogue nuclear weapon-whatever the size-would have local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies on maximum alert. Manpower at all major points of entry would be strengthened. Photographs of Gabriel, or rather, of Omar al-Utaybi, would be printed and circulated. The Nuclear Emergency Search Teams (NEST) would be out in full force.

Chapel had his own plans. George Gabriel had spoken of his father’s trip to South America earlier in the week. A check of the flight manifests had, indeed, shown a first-class passenger, Claude François, Belgian national. It was crucial that Chapel forward the passport number to the Immigration and Naturalization Service to put a watch alert on François. If Gabriel had traveled to the States before under the same name, there was a good chance that somewhere there was a record of his arrival, perhaps even a mention of where he stayed.

“Who’s waiting on the other end?” he asked again. “Halsey? Glen? I’ll need a ride to FinCEN right away. In fact, I’d like to call ahead.”

“No one,” Sarah responded.

For a moment, Chapel thought she was joking. “No, really? Who’d you call?”

“No one,” she repeated.

“That can’t be. I mean, I’d rank this situation as fairly urgent. You mean to tell me that Admiral Glendenning isn’t pulling out all the stops right now.”

“As far as Glen is concerned, you’re still at Mortier Caserne.”

Chapel unbuckled his seat belt and began to stand. “They have a phone in the back. I’ll call him myself.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

It was a new tone of voice. Earnest, uncomplicated, and frighteningly honest. It was the real Sarah. Sarah before the intelligence services had gotten ahold of her. Sarah the teenage watcher. Sarah stripped clean of her hard-earned artifice.

Chapel settled in his seat and listened as she unburdened herself of her suspicions.