Saving Sophie: A Novel (44 page)

“So, go back. Testify.”

“She knows, damn it. I don’t know how she knows, but I can feel it. Maybe Darius talked to her.”

“She knows nothing. You’re a gambler. You go to basketball games. Big deal. You go to her office, you shut your mouth. You tell her you don’t know anything.”

“And if she asks me about Panama?”

“You shut your mouth!” Dmitri screamed. “Are you hard of hearing? You don’t know anything! Repeat after me:
I don’t know!
”

“I’m nervous. Can’t you do something?”

“Yeah. I can do something all right. Good-bye.”

Kelsen stared at the phone in his shaking hand. He didn’t like that last comment.

*   *   *

“I
THOUGHT YOU SAID
that Sophie and I were going to Amman this week,” Lubannah said.

“I changed my mind,” answered al-Zahani. “I need her here.”

“Need Sophie? Need her for what, Arif?”

“It’s my concern.”

“Arif, talk to me. Why do you need Sophie here?”

Al-Zahani started to walk away, thought better of it, and returned to Lubannah. “Sommers is coming here.”

Tears formed and streamed down Lubannah’s cheeks. “He’s coming to take her.”

Al-Zahani shook his head. “He will never take her from us. She will never go back to America. Do you understand me? She will never leave Palestine.”

“Then why, why, Arif? Why is he coming? Why are you letting him come here to our home? Let me take Sophie to Amman.”

Arif gently put his hands on Lubannah’s shoulders and smiled. “You know, you have been a good wife to me. And I haven’t always been patient with you. For that, I am sorry. He is coming because he thinks he is going to leave with Sophie. But I will not let that happen, and you must let me handle this my way.”

“Handle what, Arif? What is there to handle? Why does he think he can take our Sophie? You told me that would never happen.”

“He is bringing money. He is so foolish that he thinks we will accept money to part with Sophie.”

“Then we will lock him out,” she said firmly. “Bashir will not let him in the gates.”

Arif shook his head, but smiled kindly at her. “No, I must tell him myself. I will let him see Sophie. You will walk her into the room and then out. He will see her and then he will leave. It will be good closure for Sophie.”

“Arif, have you lost your mind? If Sophie sees him, she’ll be hysterical. She won’t leave the room.”

“You must let me do this my way. I will ask her to step out of the room just for a moment, and when she returns, Sommers will be gone. She will be told that he left without her, and we will be done with her pining. We will never hear from him again.”

Lubannah’s face grew serious and her lips taut. “I see through your plan. Do not take me for a child, Arif. You intend to take his money and—”

“Stop! Do not conjure up diabolical scenarios. It is simply as I have stated. We will do it my way and there will be no further discussions.”

With that, al-Zahani left the room.

*   *   *

K
ELSEN’S CHAUFFEUR ENTERED THE
dining room where Kelsen was eating a late dinner. His hat was in his hand and he stood sheepishly in his black wool coat.

“I am sorry, Mr. Kelsen, but I thought you would like to know.”

“Know what?”

“Evgeniy. I saw him drive by the house. I thought he was coming to pay you a visit, but he kept right on driving. I waved, but he did not wave back.”

“Impossible. Evgeniy is in Europe.”

“No, sir. He’s here in Chicago. I saw him quite plainly.”

Kelsen’s face rapidly lost its color. He stammered. “Wh-who was with him?”

“No, by himself. He was alone. He slowed down and then drove on.”

Kelsen stood quickly. “I need my coat.”

“Where are we going, sir?”

He shook his head. “I won’t need you tonight. Get me the keys to my wife’s car. I have something to do myself.”

Kelsen took his coat from his chauffeur, walked into his den, and closed the door. In a side cabinet, a key ring hung on a nail. He fished for a brass skeleton key and used it to unlock a desk drawer. Inside lay three handguns. He chose the Walther PPQ M2 and a 9mm magazine. He shoved the gun into his belt, locked the drawer, replaced the keys, and walked to the garage.

S
EVENTY
-O
NE

C
ATHERINE PAID THE TAXI DRIVER
who carried her heavy luggage up the stoop to her front door. She was tired after her ten-hour journey from Hawaii. She fumbled with her key, finally getting it into the lock. Suddenly, she felt a strong poke in her back and a voice said, “Don’t say a fuckin’ word, just open your door.”

She turned the lock, opened the door, and was pushed forward into her foyer. The door slammed behind her and she turned to see Victor Kelsen pointing a black handgun in her face.

“How did you know?” he said.

“Know what?”

“Don’t. Fuck. With. Me!” he screamed. “How did you know?”

“I’m not going to talk to anyone who holds a gun in my face.”

Kelsen waved the gun in the direction of the living room. “Move.” He directed her to sit on the couch, and he sat opposite her on a wingback chair.

“Now. Now talk. Tell me how you knew about me and Dmitri.”

“Why does it matter?”

Kelsen nervously waved the gun around. “It matters to me!” he shouted. “We had it all worked out.”

Catherine bit her bottom lip. “Son of a bitch. It was both of you. The two of you arranged for the kidnapping and stole the money. Committing multiple murders and embezzling millions? That’s what you call having it all worked out?”

“It was perfect. Perfect, until
you
figured it out. How did you know?”

“Perfect?” She shook her head. “I have to tell you, before you do anything crazy tonight, there are others who know what I know. The FBI knows. Killing me won’t help. It won’t go away. It will only make it worse for you.”

“It was Darius, wasn’t it? He told you.”

“It doesn’t matter how I found out. It’s over for you.”

“I know that.” Kelsen lowered the gun and his voice. “I didn’t come here to kill you. I may be a lot of things, but I’m not a killer. I want you to get me a deal.”

“I’m listening.”

“I know everything. I know where the money is. I can be a witness against everyone involved. Dmitri. Evgeniy. Gregor. Yuri. All of them. I want witness protection and I want a deal. You know who to call. My lawyer is an idiot.”

“They’re after you, aren’t they? You’re the loose end. You’re the next target.”

He nodded. “He didn’t say it, but I heard it in Dmitri’s voice tonight. Evgeniy’s returned to town. There can be no other reason.”

“Is the money still in Panama?”

He shook his head. “Caymans.”

Catherine sat silently for a moment, then pointed her finger. “The gun.”

Kelsen slipped the magazine out and slid the gun across the table. Catherine took her cell phone out of her purse, searched for a number, and dialed.

“Hello?” a whispered voice answered.

“Tom, it’s Catherine Lockhart. Sorry to wake you. I guess I have a habit of calling you in the middle of the night.”

“Tell me that you don’t have another Nazi SS guard,” the assistant U.S. Attorney said.

She smiled. “I have Victor Kelsen sitting in my house. He has information about the embezzlement and the murders that he’d like to share with you. He wants to talk a deal. And he needs protection.”

“I’ll send a car over.”

She hung up the phone. “You didn’t need the money, Mr. Kelsen. Why did you do it?”

“Well, everyone needs money, but it’s about leverage. Taxes on eighty-eight million would take almost half of my money away. If it’s stolen and no one knows I have it, there’s no taxes. I split the stolen money with Dmitri, I get forty-four million dollars tax-free. Then I still have my lawsuit against Jenkins for another eighty-eight million dollars. Simple math. I’m forty-four million dollars ahead.”

“And that was worth the lives of several men?”

“I never knew he’d kill anyone. That wasn’t the plan. Ellis and Harrington were each supposed to get a million. Sommers, well, Dmitri was running a number on him.”

“Whose idea was it to kidnap Sommers’s daughter?”

“Totally Dmitri’s. Brilliant, I must say. We knew Sommers was essential to the plan. We also knew he was too honest to take a payoff. So Dmitri said, ‘Everyone’s got a soft spot somewhere. I’ll find his.’ And he did. He flew the grandparents and the daughter to Palestine and then told Sommers he could ransom her back. Fuckin’ brilliant. Would’ve worked too, if it wasn’t for you.”

Catherine shook her head. “It would not have worked.”

“It was Darius, wasn’t it? All I did for that kid. That son of a bitch.”

“You didn’t give a damn about him or his career. All those years he and his mother sacrificed to get him to the top. You tantalized him with chump change and tried to ruin him.”

“You think he’s so innocent? He and his friends were the ones who came to
me
. I’ve been a Deacons booster for years. They found out I paid for points in the past and they wanted to cash in. Darius and Marcus came to me after a preseason dinner and told me they could keep the next game within the spread. They wanted five hundred dollars apiece.” Kelsen shrugged. “Easy money.”

Headlights illuminated the living room and there was a knock on the door. Catherine let the two agents in. On his way out, Kelsen said, “It would’ve worked.”

“You’re an asshole,” she said.

S
EVENTY
-T
WO

F
AKHIR BRUSHED HIS HANDS
on his apron and finished counting his money. It had been a lucrative day at the bakery. He was bushed. He ambled back to his sitting room and plopped down hard on his couch. He heard a sound, as though something small had dropped to the floor. He thought it was a coin. For the moment, he thought,
Let it be
. But then, a coin is a coin. He looked under the couch and on the floor beneath saw a small, black plastic square. He picked it up. It had no markings. Then it came to him. “The fucking IDF!” he said aloud. He called Fa’iz and demanded an immediate meeting of the group.

Al-Zahani received a text message calling for an emergency meeting at Fa’iz’s house. As his gates opened and his Mercedes pulled out onto the street, a young man on a bicycle took a cell phone out of his pocket and made a call. A light blue Ford picked up al-Zahani’s trail two blocks later. Numerous photos of the members of the Sons of Canaan entering Fa’iz’s residence were taken and simultaneously e-mailed to Mossad headquarters.

“Why have you called us all here to your home, Fa’iz?” said Ahmed when the group had assembled.

“I’ll let Fakhir explain.”

With a shaking hand, Fakhir held up a plastic bag for all to see. It was filled with the remains of the small listening device he had smashed with a hammer. “You all laughed at me when I said the IDF knew about us. That they knew about the meetings in the bakery. Now you see, you are all fools. I was right.”

“It is indeed a listening device,” Rami concurred. “It’s safe to assume that the IDF or the Shin Bet now know of our plans.”

“What do they know?” Nizar said sharply. “That we meet? That we hate Israel and wish its demise. Does that make us unique?”

Fa’iz held up his index finger. “We’ve only met at the bakery once in the past few weeks. If the device was there for our last meeting, they know what we discussed. It was a very short session, as I recall. What did we say?”

Nizar responded, “We said we have two thousand bags. That they’re in a warehouse in Jerusalem. I don’t recall our being specific. Arif talked about his laboratory, that he can produce forty bags a day. Did we say what was in the bags?”

Al-Zahani shook his head. “That information was discussed at the apartment. We only said that we should forgo the extra three hundred bags, that there would be three hundred victims.”

“And we said it was set for April sixteenth,” Fakhir added.

“That’s true. We revealed the date.”

“So what?” Fa’iz said. “They lack the essential details to defeat the plan.”

“I agree with Fa’iz,” al-Zahani said. “If they knew the details, if they knew who the participants were, they would have picked us up by now. They would have already stormed Arif’s compound. They would have seized the Jerusalem warehouse. Have they done any of that? No. The bags are still safely stored. Sami is still making his daily runs. We are all still here.”

“Nevertheless, we should postpone our mission,” Rami said. “They are alerted to the date. They will take extra precautions on the sixteenth.”

“Reluctantly, I must agree,” Fa’iz said quietly. “We’ll have to reschedule after the summer.”

Nizar stood defiantly. “Well, I do not agree. Where will they take extra precautions, Rami? Do they know of the hospitals? Today, they know nothing. Next month, they may learn more. Every day presents an opportunity for them to investigate, to spy, to overhear. For one of us to make a mistake. I say we act immediately. Tomorrow. Why wait? We are poised to strike and they are not ready.”

Fa’iz stroked his beard. “Is this something we can do? Can we put it together that quickly?”

The members looked at one another and nodded their agreement. “Why not?”

“Then call Sami. We move tomorrow. The tenth.”

Fakhir held up his hand. “Fa’iz, when the attack occurs, what becomes of all of us? One by one, we will be captured and jailed. Or worse. They know who we are. They have surely seen us come and go from my bakery.”

Fa’iz folded his hands and leaned back. “Myself, I will stay here. You may all do what you think is best. You will find safe harbors in our neighboring countries, if that is what you wish.”

“I will never leave Canaan,” al-Zahani said. “It is in my blood. But why would any of you have to leave? I assure you, they will never prove a connection between us and the deaths that will take place in Jerusalem. I have told you, again and again, this is a foolproof plan. The bacteria spread undetected throughout the system for days. One by one, the victims will start to fall sick. Maybe after a while they will enter a hospital. Two thousand will die a horrible death. Then we will post a message online claiming responsibility, but
not
from the Sons of Canaan. From some random Gaza group. We will tell them that the deaths were caused by freedom fighters, but nobody will be able to tie them to our group. They are looking for us to act on the sixteenth, not the tenth. In fact, I predict we will repeat this very operation in Tel Aviv and Haifa later this summer.”