Sons (5 page)

Dr. Kwon looked around the opulent room as if the book-filled walls could offer the wise words he needed to persuade this powerful man to change his mind and avenge his son.

“Mr. Phillips, do you have a son?”

“No, sir. I’m… no,” Jan said.

“Soo was my only son. My wife and I are beyond the time for making more sons. You understand.”

Jan nodded.

“I tell you this because you don’t know what the loss of a son means until you experience it yourself. You are still a young man, with power and position. Believe me when I tell you that even with all your power, the loss of a son would kill you inside, as it has me.”

Jan stood, bent over, and rested his hand on the broken man’s shoulder.

“Vengeance belongs to God. Your faith tells you so, Dr. Kwon. Leave vengeance to God. Take your son home.”

Mrs. Kwon took her husband’s hand and rested her head on his shoulder, but she stiffened as she observed a tall young Arab enter the study. Amal, dressed in a gold-threaded, flowing galabiya over a long white thawb, carefully placed a tray of sweet Moroccan mint tea on a low table of ebonized wood and looked at Jan.

“Is it permitted for me to speak?” he asked.

“Yes, of course,” Jan replied.

Turning to the murdered boy’s grieving parents, he averted his eyes and said, “Sir, madame, I want you to know I am very sorry for you. I know that your son died for his Jesus. Blessings be upon Him. Your son was a martyr. A special place will be made for him in paradise.
Enshallah
, if Allah wills it—I am sorry.”

Mrs. Kwon looked at Amal through tear-flooded eyes but said nothing. Her husband, stifling a sob, looked away and nodded a silent acknowledgement.

Amal bowed slightly and left quietly.

“Please excuse me a moment,” Jan said.

Jan followed Amal into the kitchen.

“Effendi, did I do wrong?”

“No, Amal, you did well. Thank you. My guests will be leaving soon. Ask René to bring the limousine around for them.”

S
HORTLY
after the Kwons left the apartment, Jan returned to his study and accessed the Mundus internal database on his computer. He checked the recognition code for the day before calling Sebastian Faust. The Mundus Master for the African continent was also responsible for the Middle East. Jan needed permission from Faust to phone a request to the Persia chapter. He was sure there would be no problem; however, Mundus’s protocol demanded this courtesy. After a brief conversation with Sebastian, Jan dialed a secure satellite connection, punching in the coded number for the Mundus operative in Persepolis.

A young voice with a thick accent answered on the second ring.

“The check is in the mail.”

“Are you sure it has the correct postage?” Jan replied.

There was a brief pause. Then the young voice asked, “How may I be of service?”

“A Korean man, murdered, beheaded two weeks ago in Mosul,” Jan said. “His name was Soo Kwon. Where is his body now?”

Another pause.

“His body is in Jordan waiting to be claimed. I am sorry to report his head was not recovered.”

Jan thought a moment, then said, “The man’s parents will claim his remains within two weeks. It is imperative that you find his head. I don’t care if you have to dig up every inch of the desert. Do you understand?”

After a short pause, the young voice replied, “Yes, I understand, but it will not be easy. Bribes must be paid. How much money may we spend?”

“Do whatever it takes,” Jan answered. “I don’t want his mother to see him mutilated. I’ll be sending over a reconstructive cosmetologist. I want personal confirmation when it’s done. I don’t have to tell you to make sure they have the right head.”

“Very well. It will be as you say.”

A soft click signaled the end of the conversation. Jan stepped to the fog-rimmed window and looked out over the river toward the shimmering cathedral. He shoved his shoulder into the window jamb and reflected on the irony of the Korean boy’s name. Soo. Long life.

Jan rested his forehead on the cool glass.

Tim, you never told me it would be this hard.

Amal stood at the open door to the study. He overheard Jan’s side of the phone conversation. He stepped back into the hallway and thought,
How could I not serve him?

Three

Philadelphia

New Year’s Eve

J
AN
sat staring into the hot fireplace. A full day of heavy falling snow masked the normally bright lights that outlined the Ben Franklin and Walt Whitman suspension bridges spanning the broad Delaware River. A faint glow defined them against the black sky.

Inside, high above the swirling storm-tossed water of the river, all was peaceful and silent. Outside, howling wind flung sharp sheets of snow against the massive bulletproof glass windows that made up three of the four living room walls. The loft home Michael had decorated in Asian simplicity provided a muted refuge from nature’s fury. Harbor buoys strung along the ragged New Jersey shoreline were no match for the nor’easter pounding the river port. As a result, the Coast Guard, fearing errant buoys, would mislead the river pilots guiding ships into the Port of Philadelphia, ordered all shipping on the river stopped. The city of Philadelphia had placed powerful floodlights along the waterfront to aid the few tugboats that stood by in the event of a breakaway barge. The wind-driven snow shredded the strong light beams into pale, shifting phantoms.

Jan stood, walked to the window, and watched motionless as ice floes formed, broke apart, and reformed in the pitching waves. He gazed at a huge barge loaded with cargo as it rode out the storm, its bulky, rust-streaked hull straining against its heavy anchor chain.

Michael was returning from Hong Kong tonight. He had worked hard putting the final changes on an eight-year contract that would ensure him a lasting presence in the Asia-Pacific import business. Jan was miserable when they were apart, and they were apart much of the time. It was four o’clock. Michael would be home soon, but not soon enough. Jan ached for Michael’s body.

Returning to his leather club chair near the fire, Jan mulled over the phone call he had received earlier in the day from Sebastian Faust. Once again, what should have been a well-planned Mundus operation had gone awry. The search for Soo Kwon’s head not only succeeded, it also netted Hamid Al-Razi, an al Qâdi lieutenant. Revenge for the capture of Hamid Al-Razi, however, had been swift and horrifying in the execution style murder of the man with the thick accent Jan had spoken to from Paris. The young man, Jan learned, was just eighteen and engaged to be married in the spring. A note pinned to the man’s naked breast read, “We know who you are. Your house will be pulled down, and you will weep for your lost sons.”

“Jan,” Sebastian said in the recent phone conversation, “I wouldn’t put too much stock in that note. These desert terrorists are excitable types, don’t you know. They’re easy on threats but low on resources.”

Jan was not reassured by what he considered Faust’s cavalier attitude for his safety. After all, an assassin had tried to kill him once before. Still, ice-bound Philadelphia was worlds away from the sands of Arabia.

Amal, unaware of his master’s uneasy mind, busied himself cleaning the kitchen. He had been with Jan for many years, attaching himself like a protective barnacle. Shortly after project Scimitar nabbed the slave trader known as the Pasha, Jan hired Amal to drive him deep into the Israeli desert of Zin. There, Jan ascended four hundred feet to the Monastery of the Holy Angels while, unknown to him, Amal had remained below all through the blue, cold night, waiting for his return. For reasons he could not or would not admit, Amal felt bound to the strange, troubled man from America. Amal’s loyalty and commitment impressed Jan. When he returned to find Amal waiting in the parched wastes of Zin, he asked casually, “Amal, how would you like to come to America?”

Over time, Amal learned about Jan’s life as the sole owner of the prestigious Philadelphia law firm, the Templars of Law. He learned too, about Jan’s secret life as North American Master of the Mundus Society. Jan’s behind-closed-doors relationship with his lover, Michael Lin, also troubled Amal, yet he loved his master too well not to serve him. Although he had a room of his own in the sprawling loft, Amal chose instead to sleep on a cot just outside Jan’s bedroom door.
He never complained. Amal rarely spoke, and even now he remained silent as he placed a glass of Campari liqueur at Jan’s elbow, then stepped back into the shadows and watched as Jan lifted the glass to his lips, yet did not drink. Something was troubling his master.

Jan put the untouched drink on a rosewood side table and in a worried voice said, “Amal, I’m expecting a visitor before Michael arrives home, around five thirty or so. A woman. When she arrives, please make her comfortable.”

“I will make her Turkish coffee, Effendi. A warm drink would be most welcome in this weather.”

Jan thought of what he knew of this woman. “Better make it scotch.”

Jan returned to the window and studied the barge moored in the river channel. His mind wasn’t on the battered craft. He hadn’t spoken to his ex-wife, Angela, for almost fifteen years. Now, her sister, Elaine, was on her way to see him, in a blizzard no less. What could she possibly want? She wouldn’t say over the phone, only stating that it was urgent. He had never liked the woman. Elaine was prone to melodrama, so in her mind, urgent could mean anything from a house fire to a hangnail. Still, she sounded serious.

A
SOFT
buzzing sound pulsed at regular intervals in each room of the loft apartment. Someone or something had tripped the intruder alarm. Amal went to the house security monitors and watched a tall woman and what looked like a small man hurrying from the parking pad, across the frozen lawn, through heavy snow, and up to the arched doors leading to the ground floor entry. This must be the woman. He wondered if he should tell his master that the woman was not alone.
Better be safe
.

Returning to where Jan stood sipping his drink, Amal said, “Effendi, your guest is here. The woman is not alone.”

Jan thought a moment.
Now what?
Then said, “All right, Amal, let them in.”

The young Arab turned on a silent heel and left his master deep in thought.

Jan walked to the fireplace and stood close to the flames. He had suddenly grown cold. In a few minutes, he would face his past once again. His mind flooded with the memory of his ex-wife Angela and her last words to him, words strung out in a fury of reproach
. You son of a bitch! Tim Morris! That’s who you’ve been running off to, isn’t it? You’re breaking my heart. Why did you marry me if you’re gay? You bastard! I hate you!

Jan turned as Amal entered with Angela’s sister, Elaine. His ex-sister-in-law was once an elegant, tall, and slender woman. Now she was merely tall. She had aged in a way women who covet looks often do. She wore make-up in quantities good taste would have forbidden. Her swing coat of Siberian Fox, while chic, was cut for a much younger figure. Jan mused that this must be a special occasion because she sported a red shoulder-length wig that the unkind wind had blown askew. Elaine had a young boy with her.

“Sir, Mrs. Brogan to see you.”

Before Jan could speak, Elaine pranced across the long room dragging the boy toward him. She had her shoulders thrown back, and her feet pointed out in a strut that she clearly thought attractive. All that was lacking was a pair of twirling batons and an accompanying marching band. Jan offered a wondering smile as he looked at the snow-covered boy shedding water on the gleaming oak floor, a mirror image of himself at that age.

“Elaine, I….”

“Well, Jan, it’s just like you to have me announced like you’re some Persian potentate.”

Gesturing to Amal, who was dressed in his galabiya, she asked sarcastically, “Where’d you find Ali Baba?”

Jan set his jaw and narrowed his eyes, trying hard not to break the tranquility of his home. He spoke to Elaine, but his eyes were fixed on the boy, who kept his head down as he dripped melted snow from long blond lashes.

Exasperated with the woman and the intrusion, he asked, “Elaine, what do you want? We haven’t seen each other in years. Couldn’t we have kept it that way?”

“No.”

She slipped behind the boy and grabbed his shoulders. Pushing him forward, she snapped, “This is your kid. He’s yours. You take care of him.”

As if on cue, the boy looked up at Jan, staring with the same startling cobalt-blue eyes Jan’s mother once had.

Past and present collided in one single look. Jan began to shake.

What is she saying? This can’t be!

Seconds ticked away as Jan stared at the boy.

Fearing his master’s reaction, Amal stood very still, ready to intervene if the woman became abusive.

Suddenly, the youngster shuddered with a stifled cry as Elaine shoved him into Jan’s arms. Jan gently shifted the boy aside and grabbed Elaine’s arm as she turned to leave.