Authors: Kyle Mills
"How are you holding up, honey?"
"Hi, Mom. I'm fine."
"You don't sound fine. Have you been watching TV? It's horrible. Whe n are you going to get in there and straighten things out?"
"I can't, Mom. We talked about this already."
"I mean, of course, this incident is unfortunate, but that's no reaso n for people to get on TV and say these things about you."
Her mother was nothing if not incredibly civil. Her most powerfu l admonishment was "just plain rude." Adolph Hitler? Just plain rude.
Anything less got "unfortunate." Your entire team gunned down, leavin g their children fatherless? Unfortunate. She and Dad were bot h sweethearts and had done what they could to understand and suppor t their black sheep daughter, though it hadn't always made her lif e easier.
When Karen's already reticent colleagues had discovered that he r parents were not only multimillionaires but stalwart members of th e country club set, things had gotten even more complicated. Ther e hadn't been much she could do but take the snide comments with rolle d eyes and smirks. It was a little hard to protest too much the hous e she was standing in was a graduation present and the car she'd insiste d on buying herself had one day been miraculously paid off.
More complicated still was the fact that her folks didn't think muc h more of cops than cops thought of them. Neither her mother nor fathe r had thought this "police thing" would last more than a year or two. B
y then they assumed she would have sowed her wild oats, quit, found a nice man, and settled down. Sometimes she thought she was in danger o f being crushed by the weight of all the cliches.
"The TV says you're on administrative leave. Does that mean you'r e off?"
"In a way, I guess," Karen said, trying to pry some old pasta off a pan.
"Why don't we go to our place in Hawaii? Your father has some time.
You and he should sit down and talk."
"Don't start, Mom."
"Start what? He's your father and he wants to help you. But you kno w he won't do anything without you asking."
Her father had started life delivering cigarettes from the back of a pickup truck and built that into a mega million-dollar shipping compan y using nothing but his incredible intelligence, borderline ruthlessness , and innate political savvy. During his rise, he'd made sure that hi s money and other resources were always available to the Republica n Party, and to date he'd never backed a loser. That had left hi m extremely powerful and well connected, something she'd soundl y criticized him for during that idealistic phase everyone went throug h in college.
"I really can't, Mom."
"You can't go to Hawaii or you can't ask for his help?"
"Neither. I don't think I'd feel right lying on a beach while my me n are being buried and I can't ask for Dad's help because I was a complete bitch to him about this kind of stuff during school."
"Oh, he didn't take any of that seriously, honey. If you won't do i t for yourself, do it for him. It's killing him to just sit on hi s hands. All he does when he's not at the office is storm around th e house and mumble about coming down on people like the wrath of God.
Actually, you should do it for me. He's driving me crazy."
"I'll think about it."
"That's all I can ask."
Her call waiting beeped and while she wasn't sure she wanted to talk t o the person on the other line, it was a good excuse. Guilt about he r parents' position in all this was starting to set in and if there wa s one thing she didn't need, it was more guilt. It seemed certain tha t they were taking a serious social thrashing. It was bad enough to hav e a daughter who was an unmarried cop (with all the lesbian innuendo tha t inevitably followed) but having a daughter who was an incompeten t unmarried cop had to really suck.
"Look, Mom, I gotta run. I'll talk to you tomorrow, okay?"
"Okay. But think about Hawaii. You sound like you could use some tim e away."
"I will," Karen said and then switched lines. "Hello?"
"Hi, Karen. What's going on?"
It took her a moment to process the voice and when she did, sh e froze.
"Man, you're getting your ass kicked in the press. Have you eve r considered a good PR firm? And what about a makeover? With enoug h hair-spray, I'll bet you could have almost as good a bouffant as tha t bitch who's been dissing you."
"What do you want?"
The silence over the line lasted probably ten seconds. "I want to sa y I'm sorry about this .. ."
"About what, exactly? About killing my friends? Or about turning m e into the poster girl for government incompetence?"
It had never really occurred to her that Salam al Fayed would call he r at home and she was completely unprepared. How many times was this gu y going to catch her flat-footed?
"Both, I guess. But you're going to have a hard time convincing m e that all those guys were your friends. I thought being an Arab SEAL
w as tough, but I'll bet being a woman SWAT team leader really blows. A t least I didn't have people constantly questioning my ability and m y right to be where I was they were too busy wondering if I was going t o suddenly start screaming "Allah AkbarP and shoot them in the back."
"You don't know a goddamn thing about me and you sure as hell don'
t know anything about my men. I have nothing in common with you, Mr. a l Fayed. Do you understand me? Nothing."
"Jesus. You're the worst interrogator I've ever met. Aren't yo u supposed to be nice to me, gain my trust, and get me to slip up an d tell you something I shouldn't?"
Now that he mentioned it, that probably was what she was supposed to b e doing. "I wasn't trained by the Israelis, Mr. al Fayed."
"Yeah .. . I'm sorry about that, too. You must have been prett y scared."
She opened her mouth to shout something back at him but then stoppe d herself when she realized there wasn't even a hint of condescension i n the statement. His apologies had a strangely sincere ring to them.
"I swear to you that if I had even an inkling that you guys were cops , I would have never fired a shot."
"If not the police, then who? This Strand person?"
He laughed quietly over the phone. "You remember that, huh. I guess I m ustn't be as scary as I thought."
"I guess not."
"So who told the police about me, Karen?"
"I'm not at liberty to say."
" "I'm not at liberty to say,"" he mocked and then laughed again. "I l ove the way cops talk. Do they teach you that stuff at the academy?
Come on, I have the right to face my accuser. All you patriots haven'
t carved that out of the Constitution yet, have you?"
She didn't respond.
"You don't know, do you, Karen? You have no idea why you were eve n there."
"We've already been through this, haven't we? You're involved with th e Colombian drug cartels and you killed the Ramirez brothers."
"Was involved with the Colombian cartels. Was. But that was year s ago."
"And the Ramirezes?"
"Look, I've killed a lot of people in my life, but not so many that I f orget them."
"So you're saying you're innocent."
"Innocent .. . Your word, not mine. But I am saying that I didn't kil l these Ramirez guys. And I'm guessing that you believe me because afte r wiping out an entire SWAT team, there's not much of a reason for me t o split hairs on the subject."
Karen dried her hands on a towel and sat down behind a small dinin g table. He was right. She did believe him.
"A very unfortunate mistake," she said, grimacing at her use of he r mother's favorite word. Then, suddenly, she stood again, trying t o shake off the confused haze she was in. She needed to pull hersel f together and stop letting him control the conversation. "But you di d work for the cartels. Isn't that right? What did you do for them?"
"I, uh, thinned out Castel Vela's competition. But only in Colombia.
Never in the States. Now I build furniture. You wouldn't happen t o need a nice hope chest, would you? I doubt the woman I built it for i s going to want it now that I'm public enemy number one."
"My marriage prospects aren't at the point that I would have a whol e hell of a lot of use for a hope chest."
"Keep your newspaper clippings in it."
"Screw you."
"Right."
"So who is Strand?"
"A little obvious, but I guess you are new at this .. ."
"Is he an enemy you made when you were working in Colombia?"
"No, they're pretty much all dead. He's a more recent addition to m y list."
"Come on, Mr. al Fayed. Why on earth wouldn't you want to tell m e this? If you had reason to believe that someone was trying to kil l you, that might mitigate the charges against you. Hell, maybe thi s Strand person called us on purpose to set you up. That kind o f information could give your lawyer a lot to work with .. ."
"I don't think that I really need to worry about my case ever going t o trial. But I appreciate the thought."
His tone suggested that the conversation was over, leaving Kare n scrambling to come up with a way to keep him on the line.
"Why don't we meet? Talk more about this .. ." She smacked hersel f silently in the forehead before the statement was even fully out of he r mouth. Smooth. Very smooth.
He was polite enough to ignore the statement entirely. "So, anyway , the real reason I called was to tell you something .. ."
"Yes?"
"I know what it's like to lose men and I know what it's like to b e abandoned by the people who should be standing behind you. But thi s wasn't your fault. You were put in an impossible situation. Just tr y to remember that while you can't always control what other people thin k of you, you can control what you think of yourself."
She wasn't sure how to respond. After thirty seconds of silence sh e could still hear him breathing.
"Mr. al Fayed?"
"Call me Fade."
"Why did you really call me?"
Another one of those easygoing laughs. "I guess because I don't hav e anyone else to talk to."
The line went dead and she stared at the handset for a few second s before dialing the police.
Chapter
Twenty.
The large rolling chalkboard he'd bought took up almost all th e available floor space and forced Egan to lie sideways on the hotel be d in order to read what he'd written on it. Heavy curtains were pulle d against the cloudless day outside, adding to the claustrophobia an d giving the worn-out room the feel and smell of a damp cave.
He'd read through all the files on Fade as well as the ones on the me n Fade had fought with essentially, everything the government had tha t even remotely related to Salam al Fayed. The results had been les s than overwhelming. About half the chalkboard was still completel y blank and the other half was covered with ideas that seemed shaky a t best. He tried to focus on them, but instead found himself starin g blankly at the beer bottle balanced on his chest.
It didn't take long for thoughts of Elise and Kali to start to crow d his mind. He tried to push them away, but they weren't easil y defeated. After about half an hour of getting nothing done, he pulle d out his cell and dialed his home number.
"Hello?"
"What are you doing?"
"Hey, Matt. I just hung up with Charlie. We were talking about th e release."
Charlie was the head of Elise's record label, a pretty good guy who wa s inexplicably devoted to her less-than-profitable career.
"Are you still going to be able to make the date?"
"Shouldn't be a problem. We're going to have to start rehearsing har d and get into the studio pretty quick, though. I'm hoping we can get a few songs together for the show in D
. C
. next week. Try 'em out i n front of real people."
"Sorry I can't be there to help with Kali."
"It's not a big deal. I'll manage. When are you coming home?"
"It's turned out to be a lot more than I expected. It'll probably be a while."
"Oppressing the masses is a demanding profession."
"I knew you'd understand."
"Well, I'm going to get my revenge. It looks like Charlie wants me t o expand my tour schedule. Maybe as many as thirty cities."
"I guess that's good, though," Egan mumbled. "He must recognize tha t the songs are strong."
"You seem kind of down, Matt. Are you all right?"
"Just sitting in a hotel, looking forward to endless, boring meetings , you know?"
"Are you sure that's all it is?"
The purpose of this call wasn't to practice his dismal ability t o deceive his wife. Actually, what was the purpose? To remind himsel f that he was probably never going to see her again?
"Hey, there's someone at my door," he lied. "I've got to run."
"Kali's jumping up and down trying to grab the phone. Say hello t o her."