KARP WAS LOST IN THOUGHT as he arrived at the Criminal Courts Building. So engrossed was he in looking down at the sidewalk that he nearly bowled over the small man in the dirty stocking cap with the pointy nose and Coke-bottle-bottom-lens glasses who’d stepped in front of him.
“Hey, what . . . piss shit . . . do I look like a . . . whoop oh boy . . . tackling dummy?” Dirty Warren Bennett exclaimed, as only a man with Tourette’s syndrome could.
“Oh, sorry, Warren, I wasn’t watching where I was going,” Karp said to his friend, who owned the newsstand in front of the massive gray edifice, which housed the city lockup known as the Tombs, the grand jury rooms, clerical departments, the courts, the judges’ chambers, Legal Aid Offices, and the offices of the district attorney of New York County.
“Well, that’s . . . whoop whoop tits . . . obvious.” Dirty Warren laughed as he peered up at his much taller friend. Then he frowned. “Hey, Butch, you . . . whoop oh boy . . . okay?”
Karp looked into the magnified pale blue eyes of his worried companion. No, he thought, I’m not. My baby girl and her fiancé are missing in action in a far-off country and there’s nothing I can do about it. But he said, “Yes, thanks for asking. You got the Times and the Post?”
“Of course,” Dirty Warren said. “When . . . fucking-A . . . don’t I? Are you sure you’re . . . whoop whoop . . . okay?”
“Yeah, just a little preoccupied.”
“Good, good. Whoooooop. Hey, try this one out. In The Brothers Karamazov what is the verdict at Dmitri’s trial?”
Karp frowned. “Why’d you pick that movie?”
“Huh? I don’t know, I rented it . . . scratch my balls bitch . . . the other night from that classic video store on Bowery. It’s about . . .”
“I know what it’s about,” Karp replied.
“Well, my my somebody . . . tits and ass . . . got up on the wrong side of the bed,” Dirty Warren said slowly. “You sure you’re . . . whoop . . . okay?”
Karp patted his friend on the back. They’d been playing the movie trivia game ever since he’d met the little news vendor more than a decade earlier. He’d never lost a round either. But today he just had no heart for it. “Sorry, Warren, I’ve got a lot on my mind. Some other time, okay?”
“Yeah, sure. Here’s your . . . bullshit whoop . . . papers. Nah, keep your money, least I can . . . asswipe oh boy ohhhh boy . . . do for a friend who’s having a rough morning.”
“And you’re a good friend, Warren,” Karp responded. “We’ll catch up later. By the way, Dmitri was innocent, but the jury found him guilty.” He turned and walked away from the worried news vendor and headed for the main entrance of the courts building. He intended to go through a side entrance on Leonard Street where a private elevator reserved for himself and judges carried him up to his eighth-floor office. But he’d been so preoccupied with Lucy that, after inadvertently almost knocking Warren to the ground, he decided just to go in the front entrance at 100 Centre Street.
The building wasn’t open to the public for business until 8:00 a.m., a half hour away, but a security guard let him in. He crossed the lobby and pressed the button for the elevator before glancing at the front page of the New York Times. Most of the articles were related to the upcoming elections. The top story was about yet another gaffe the presidential challenger had made at a fundraiser. It was an ill-advised attempt at humor that had come off as insulting to women, and of course the Times—and, Karp suspected, the rest of the media would follow suit—had taken it out of context and blown it out of proportion to make it look as though the candidate had intended it in some callous way. The Times quoted the president’s bombastic campaign manager, Rod Fauhomme, as saying the challenger was “out of touch and out of time” with voters.
As he read, Karp shook his head. He’d met the president’s opponent and thought of him as a good family man and astute captain of industry, more interested in righting the ship of state with sound economic policy than in engaging in a war of empty words. He was overmatched when it came to rhetoric and disinclined to get into personal attacks, though he was consistently portrayed as “mean-spirited” and the pawn of corporations and Wall Street. Combine that with a cheerleading media that fawned all over the president without even the pretense of objectivity and it was a wonder that some pollsters still gave him a slugger’s chance at a come-from-behind victory.
The president’s poor showing at the first debate had been met with open dismay and alarm by a shocked media, which then rallied to make excuses for their man. Many insisted that he was tired from the “unfortunate necessity” of attending fundraisers in Hollywood but coincidentally engaged in the day-to-day necessities of his job, and truly surprised by the “lies and half-truths” of his opponent’s debate points. The president had then come back in the second debate on foreign policy—a subject that the challenger admittedly had little experience in—by claiming to have almost singlehandedly destroyed Al Qaeda and the threat of Islamic extremists while negotiating for “a safer America than when I came into office four years ago.”
Easy, Butch, Karp cautioned himself, presidential politics will be what they are; you’ve got enough to deal with right here at home. He looked for news about what the media now referred to as the “Chechnya incident.” He found it relegated to the bottom of the page and there wasn’t much. A brief recap of what was known: that about 3:00 p.m. EST, a U.S. State Department compound in a remote area of Chechnya had been overrun by unknown assailants, who, according to some sources “in the administration who requested anonymity because they aren’t cleared to talk about the situation,” had been identified by Russian authorities as Chechen terrorists connected to “criminal elements.”
Karp’s heart skipped a beat when he read “there are no known survivors,” but he forced himself to read on. The remainder of the short story reported that the president was going to address the nation that morning from the Rose Garden. Except for a brief statement Sunday that he was “monitoring the situation” and keeping up with “a fluid and evolving situation,” the administration had declined to comment to that point, “preferring to wait until the facts come in.”
“Good morning, Butch.”
Karp was surprised to hear the familiar voice behind him. He turned. “Good morning, Espy,” he replied, searching the agent’s face for clues to whether he came bearing good tidings or bad. But there was nothing he could read in the blue-steel eyes or set jaw, so he asked, “Any news?”
Jaxon nodded toward the elevator door that had just opened. “Let’s go talk in your office, if you don’t mind.”
The men were alone on the ride up to the eighth floor, but they kept their conversation light except when Jaxon asked how Marlene was taking the situation. “Hard,” Karp replied. “She’s taking it hard. I don’t think she’s slept much since Sunday and paces around a lot. You and I both know how tough she is, but yesterday I found her in Lucy’s room sitting on the bed crying. I think the worst part is not being able to do anything about it; that’s bad enough for me, but Marlene’s first reaction to almost any stress is to take action. Not knowing and not being able to go rescue her baby girl has her on edge.”
Jaxon nodded. “Well, I may have some news that will help,” he said, but waited until they exited the elevator, walked down the hall, through his office’s reception area, and into Karp’s inner sanctum.
The office was a throwback to another time when Karp’s mentor, the legendary DA Francis Garrahy, sat behind the immense mahogany desk that dominated the shadowed room with its dark wood paneling, leather-upholstered seats, and a wall filled from floor to ceiling by a bookshelf lined with law books and classics. Even the window coverings were heavy green drapes that Karp now pulled back to let in the morning light before he sat down at the desk as Jaxon settled into a chair across from him. Although Karp didn’t himself partake, there was a faint odor of cigars and scotch lingering from days gone by.
“So what’s this life ring you’re tossing us?” Karp asked. He meant the question to sound more matter-of-fact than it came out, but Marlene wasn’t the only one whose nerves were frayed.
Part of the difficulty was there was no one to talk to about their fears. They explained their melancholy to the boys as an old friend having passed away. And the only person Karp had told about the situation was Fulton. Marlene had called Karp’s cousin, Ivgeny Karchovski, a former Russian army colonel and, more germane to the issue, the head of a criminal syndicate in Brooklyn’s Little Odessa. She hoped that his connections in Russia might be able to find out more than they were getting through official channels. She said he’d gotten back to her but other than reports that his former employer, the Russian army, was cracking down hard in Chechnya, there wasn’t much. I would not want to be associated with the separatist movement in Chechnya right now, Marlene quoted him. He also told her that it was possible that Al Qaeda in Chechnya was involved.
“I still don’t have a lot,” Jaxon said. “Those NSA pencil-necks and the CIA goons are playing this close to the vest. It’s ‘need to know’ basis and because they weren’t told about our mission—and are scratching their heads over reports that there may have been another agency in the area—I don’t have a way to ask a lot of questions. However, one thing that jumped out at me from the most recent report they cared to share was that the preliminary—and I emphasize preliminary—news from the Russians on scene is that there are no female victims among the dead. It’s not much . . .”
“. . . but I’ll take it,” Karp finished the sentence for him. “Anything else?”
“Yeah, there’s one more item of note, though I hesitate to make too much out of it. If you add the people with the other team to ours, not counting Lucy, it would appear from the tally that several male bodies have not been recovered by the Russians either. Again, we need to view this with caution; there were apparently fires, explosions, and heavy weapons involved in the attack, and some bodies may not be . . . intact. But I guess what I’m saying is that there remains hope that Lucy survived and that there are male survivors, too.”
Karp closed his eyes and nodded. “Thanks for bringing me the news, and Marlene will be grateful, too. So if Lucy’s alive, and possibly these men, they may be hostages?”
“It’s a possibility,” Jaxon said. “In which case we can hope to negotiate their release.”
“I thought we didn’t negotiate with terrorists?” Karp said. Again his voice sounded harder than he intended.
“Normally it is the policy of the United States not to negotiate hostages for prisoner exchanges or untenable demands,” Jaxon agreed. “However, that’s not to say our government won’t make concessions on ‘humanitarian grounds’ with some backdoor bribes. And to be honest, there have been quiet prisoner exchanges handled through third parties in the past.”
Karp put his hands behind his neck and sat back as he regarded his old friend. “So you want to tell me what my daughter was doing in Chechnya?”
Jaxon held his gaze and then nodded. “I’m sure you understand that this is all highly classified,” he said, “but she was with a team trying to apprehend, or kill, Amir Al-Sistani.”
At the mention of the terrorist’s name, Karp’s eyes widened. Several years earlier, Al-Sistani had arrived in New York City ostensibly as the mild-mannered business manager of a Saudi prince who happened to own one of the largest hedge funds in the world. He knew his daughter had even met the man at a mosque in Harlem where she’d played the part of an interpreter for the prince’s visit.
Outwardly meek and obsequious, Al-Sistani had worked his way into the prince’s favor for the purpose of controlling the hedge fund in order to use it to destroy the U.S. economy. On the day that the prince rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange and began a tour of the facility, Al-Sistani set his plan into motion by first short-selling his employer’s holdings, causing the market to tumble. He then attempted to blow up the computer system that protected the New York Stock Exchange from crashes. He also tried to destroy the computer’s backup at a secure facility across the East River in Brooklyn.
The plan was a work of pure evil genius. If it had run its course, the market would have been unable to avoid the free fall and would collapse, which like a row of dominoes, would have then caused banks to fail, businesses to close, and rioting. Chaos and panic would have enveloped the United States and then the world as other markets and economies followed America over the precipice.
In the rubble of Western civilization, Al-Sistani apparently dreamed of a massive uprising in the Islamic world as secular governments were overthrown in favor of a one-world government run according to Islamic law. Armed with nuclear weapons from Pakistan and Iran, this unified Muslim world would step into the void to vanquish and subjugate the West. It would be the beginning of a modern Caliphate with Al-Sistani as the caliph. No small dream, and the dominoes all had to fall just right, but he’d come within seconds of succeeding with at least the initial phase of his plan. But the disaster was averted thanks to the courage of some of the mosque’s congregation, as well as well-timed intervention by others, including Karp, Marlene, Lucy, and Jaxon and his team, culminating in desperate gun battles in the bowels of the stock exchange and the building across the river.
After Al-Sistani’s subsequent apprehension, Karp had planned to charge him with murder. However, he’d been persuaded by Jaxon to wait on the indictment so that the feds could swing a deal with Al-Sistani to learn who in the U.S. government, and particularly its law enforcement and intelligence agencies, might have assisted him in the attack on the stock exchange. It was believed that a powerful, secret cabal of politicians, businessmen, and military leaders had been working with him to further their own plans to seize control of the U.S. government in the pandemonium of an economic meltdown.
However, Karp and Jaxon both were blindsided when the umbrella national security agency made a quick deal to extradite Al-Sistani to Saudi Arabia to stand trial for the murder of the Saudi prince he’d worked for and murdered in the stock exchange. The trial had been a farce. Al-Sistani was a hero in the Muslim world for his attempt to destroy the United States, and the Saudi government had caved in to public pressure and acquitted him of the charge. Instead, the public relations machine of the Kingdom had gone along with the lie that the prince had actually been killed by overzealous American law enforcement.
“As you know, Al-Sistani’s release from prison was greeted with wild jubilation by Muslims worldwide,” Jaxon said. “However, he knew we’d be coming after him again and he went into hiding. We’ve been looking for him for years, hoping to hand him back over to you. We followed a trail of rumors from Yemen to Libya and the tribal regions of Pakistan. Then about six months ago, we started getting reports that he’d shown up in Chechnya to take over Al Qaeda operations there. Our intel was that he is planning to create an Islamic state from which to rebuild his megalomaniacal dreams.”
“Which is why my daughter . . .”
“. . . as the team’s interpreter . . .”
“. . . and Ned . . .”
“. . . and four others, all good men . . .”
“. . . were in Chechnya the same time as Huff and his trade mission.”
“That was purely coincidental, though we don’t know the ‘trade mission’s’ real purpose—I suspect it was more than a cultural exchange. For that matter, we don’t know why Lucy and her team were in Zandaq and can only assume it was connected to their mission. For security reasons, we’d had no communications with them since they crossed the border from Dagestan.”
“So did they know where Al-Sistani is hiding?”
“All we had was that he’d been seen quite a bit in the southeast region of Chechnya, near the border with Dagestan,” Jaxon replied. “But the plan was to try to make contact with a separatist guerilla leader named Lom Daudov and persuade him to help them find Al-Sistani.”
“Why him? Aren’t these the guys the Russians are saying were behind the attack?”
“The Russians would blame Christ’s crucifixion on Chechen separatists if they could, and to be honest, some groups associated with the independence movement have committed some pretty heinous acts,” Jaxon said. “But the movement is made up of many different groups, each with their own agendas. In truth, it’s a civil war and there’s been a lot of brutality on both sides. But the worst of the atrocities—a school massacre in Grozny and a theater takeover in Moscow that ended badly, both of which by the way we know our friend Nadya Malovo was involved with—seem to have been committed by the Islamic hardliners, most of them foreign fighters committed to jihad, and possibly the Russians themselves to justify occupying Chechnya.”
“So what’s the difference between the extremists and this Daudov?”
“He’s a devout Muslim in his spiritual practices,” Jaxon said, “but from what little we know of his politics, he and others like him—all of them Chechen—want to establish a secular democracy. Apparently, as Al Qaeda’s influence has grown in Chechnya with the influx of foreign fighters, he got alarmed that the bid for independence was being co-opted by extremists trying to create an Islamic state. We don’t know much about Daudov, he’s sort of an enigma, but we’re told that his basic philosophy is ‘Chechnya for Chechens; everybody else get the hell out!’ In particular there is no love lost between him and Al Qaeda, which is suspected of having tried to assassinate him in the past. Which brings us to why we wanted to meet with him and see what he might ask in exchange for helping us bring Al-Sistani back to the States for trial.”
“But the president said at the debate that Al Qaeda doesn’t exist as a viable threat anymore.”
“That’s politics. Centralized leadership in Al Qaeda was always more philosophical than tactical; Al Qaeda operates as semiautonomous groups dedicated to one goal, creating a world Islamic state. As such they are alive and well, if under pressure from our attacks.”
“It all sounds like risky business to me, this mission to enlist Daudov’s help,” Karp noted.
Jaxon looked down and then up again. “You’re right,” he said. “It was. Very little isn’t anymore, it seems.” He paused and his voice grew husky. “I wasn’t going to let Lucy go on this one, but I’ve got a small agency and nobody else who spoke Chechen. The success of the mission would depend on being able to negotiate with this Daudov and she knew it, so she insisted. Of course, now I wish . . .”
As Jaxon’s voice faltered, Karp felt sorry for his friend. Jaxon was Lucy’s godfather and sure to hold himself responsible for what had happened. “I know this weighs on you. But Lucy is a strong-willed young woman. She told me on more than one occasion how proud she was to be working for you. She said she felt she was really making a difference.”
Jaxon looked up, his eyes brimming with tears. “Thanks, Butch. I guess the best thing to do right now is hope and say our prayers.”
The moment was interrupted by a knock on the door. “Come in,” Karp called.
The door opened and the beehive hairdo and heavily made-up face of his receptionist, the widow Darla Milquetost, appeared. “Oh, sorry, Mr. Karp,” she said. “I knew you were here because the light was on, but I didn’t know you had a guest so early. Good morning, Mr. Jaxon.”
“Good morning, Darla,” both men said at the same time. “What can I do for you?” Karp added.
“I was just going to tell you that the president is about to go on television to talk about this terrible thing in Chechnya.”
Karp looked at his watch and then sat up, grabbing the remote control from his desk and pointing it at the television across the room. “You’re absolutely right. Thank you for the reminder.”
Milquetost disappeared and the television blinked on just as the president approached the lectern in the Rose Garden. “My fellow Americans,” he began, “I come to you today with both a heavy heart as well as firm resolve. As we all know by now, on what was a pleasant Saturday afternoon for most of us, a peaceful U.S. trade mission in Chechnya was overrun in the dead of night by what our friends in Russia have identified as a loosely organized group of criminals and extremists bent on preventing the normalization of the natural relationship between these two peoples. This attack was carried out quickly, without warning or provocation, and in brutal fashion, and brave Americans, there to offer the hand of peaceful cooperation, were murdered. Our Russian friends have secured the site and have launched a vigorous investigation into this terrible event. Unfortunately, at this point, we must report that there are no known survivors, including the mission’s leader, Deputy Chief of Mission David Huff, who was stationed at the U.S. embassy in Grozny.”
The president paused as he looked out over the assembled media to allow the cameras to capture the very presidential moment. “These murderers,” he continued at last, “paint themselves as peace-loving Muslims in search of independence. But do not let their rhetoric fool you, they are little more than thugs and vicious criminals who hide their deeds beneath a cloak of Chechen patriotism and use terror to bully and intimidate the majority of citizens in Chechnya who want nothing to do with them. Our friends in Russia have known the truth for many years, and suffered horrible atrocities at the hands of these cowards. Unfortunately Sunday morning in Chechnya, we learned their truth the hard way. But let me be clear, with the help of the Russian authorities, we will leave no stone unturned, no effort short of the maximum, until the perpetrators are caught and brought to justice.”
The president then opened the floor to questions from the media. Picked to begin was a talking head for one of the major networks. “Mr. President,” the man asked in his best “I’m a serious journalist” voice, “you said the attack was carried out quickly. How fast are we talking about and could our people have been saved?”
“Well, Dave, we’re still sorting through the reports,” the president replied, “but our best information is that it was over from start to finish in a half hour, maybe less. We scrambled an unmanned aerial vehicle, a fully-armed drone, as soon as we had any indication of trouble, and had two fighters standing by at an airfield in Turkey. But by the time the drone arrived, our people were dead and the killers were gone. The attack occurred in the early morning hours and apparently caught our people off-guard; I’m sure they gave a good account of themselves, but they were overwhelmed in very short order. The Russians also sent a tactical assault squad—I should point out that Chechnya is a Russian state and under their authority—to help, but again, it was already too late.”
Another member of the media, the White House reporter for the New York Times, waved his hand in the air like a schoolboy who thinks he has the right answer. He knew he was going to be called as it had already been worked out with the president’s press secretary, Rosemary Hilb, but he was excited just the same when the president pointed to him.
“Yes, Josh?”
“Is there anything to the possibility that the Iranians may have been involved?”
The president frowned as if he’d been hit by a tough question he hadn’t anticipated, much less one that had been planted by Hilb. “Let me say this about that . . . we have no direct evidence that the government of Iran was involved in the attack. We do know, however, that as a matter of policy, they are a rogue nation that believes in meddling in the affairs of other countries and in terrorism as a means of achieving their political ends.”
The president had hardly reached the end of his sentence when a tall female reporter with a mane of blond hair, wearing a bright red dress that matched her lipstick, raised her hand and shouted for attention.
“Is that who I think it is?” Jaxon asked.
Karp nodded. “The inimitable Ariadne Stupenagel. But it doesn’t look like the president is going to call on her.”
In fact, the president turned away from Stupenagel and pointed to a young woman who wrote a column for a lightweight online news agency. “It’s Diane, right?” he asked with his famously charming smile.
The reporter blushed at the familiarity and seemed to forget her question for a moment before remembering. “Do we have any specific idea of who these killers might be?” she asked coquettishly.
“Well, Diane, that’s a good question,” he said with another smile. “Again, the information is frustratingly limited, but one name has emerged as a ‘person of interest.’ Lom Daudov. He’s one of these extremists masquerading as a patriot that I talked about before. Our understanding is that he was seen in the area that day. He is already wanted by the Russians, and the legitimate, duly elected government of Chechnya, for previous violent, criminal acts. As an American, I believe that this man has the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty, but he’s certainly a suspect and we’re very interested in his quick apprehension.”
At the mention of Daudov, Karp had looked at Jaxon, who furrowed his brow but said nothing.
The president held up his hand as if he was going to end the press conference.
“MR. PRESIDENT! Is it possible that the attackers were not separatists but foreign fighters linked to Al Qaeda in Chechnya?” It was Stupenagel again, this time shouting so loud into the television camera microphones that the president couldn’t ignore her without its being too obvious.
The president scowled. “We have received no reports of any kind, that I am aware of, suggesting that Al Qaeda played any part in this attack. As I stated clearly during the debate more than a week ago, Al Qaeda as a viable terrorist organization doesn’t exist anymore. At my direction, we chopped the head off the snake, and without the head, the body dies. I think sometimes, some people—or political parties—like to trot Al Qaeda out as some sort of bogeyman to frighten the American people. But the days of that terrorist organization being a real threat came to an end after I came into office. I understand there are always rumors—their genesis, well, I think we all know who has something to gain by trying to discredit this administration—but just because Chechnya is predominantly Muslim, and these killers may in fact be Muslim, at least in name, that doesn’t make them Al Qaeda. And perhaps, Ms. Stupenagel, we should be sure of our facts before repeating them in a public forum.”
The brash reporter ignored the public scolding. “Mr. President, would you care to comment on reports that the Russians, and their puppet government in Chechnya, are using this as a pretext to crack down on a popular uprising?”
“I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to comment on how the Russians, and the legitimate government of Chechnya, go about the business of apprehending criminals,” the president snapped. “We’ve had no credible reports of any human rights violations, and as I think even you, Ms. Stupenagel, would have to agree, this administration has repeatedly gone to bat for oppressed people all over this world. Now, thank you all for coming. I believe Ms. Rosemary Hilb will take a few more questions.”
With that the president turned and left the podium. A short, fierce-looking woman with jet black hair, pale skin, a gray pantsuit, and a “don’t fuck with me” look took his place. Hilb answered questions in short, clipped, safe sentences and then announced that the press conference was over like a sergeant dismissing a company of new recruits.
Karp turned off the television. “What do you think?” he said.
Jaxon looked troubled. “Something doesn’t smell right,” he said. “I still have to wonder why Daudov would attack a ‘peaceful trade mission,’ not to mention my team, when we were there to talk to him about getting rid of one of his enemies. If anything, he’s been cultivating world public opinion in his battle with the Russians.”
“I can’t say how I know,” Karp added, “but Stupenagel’s comment about the Russians’ using this as an excuse to crack down on separatists fits what I’ve heard from a very reputable source on the region. So was her remark about Al Qaeda.”
“I believe it,” Jaxon said, then smiled. “So the long arm of Butch Karp stretches halfway around the globe, eh?”
Karp, thinking about his wife and his cousin, Ivgeny Karchovski, simply replied, “I just happen to know someone who knows someone.”
“Well, Ariadne seemed certain of herself,” Jaxon noted. “I mean, the girl has never lacked for sources. I wonder how concrete her information is and where she got it.”
“Might be worth asking her,” Karp said. “But she has this thing about protecting her sources and gets her back up when asked. She is a sucker for a good-looking guy, however, in spite of being betrothed to my office manager, Gilbert Murrow, so you might turn on the old Jaxon charm.”
“I tried that a few years ago with her, hoping she’d reveal a source.” Jaxon laughed. “But all I got out of it was a big bar bill and a proposition that I’m still not sure is physically possible.”