Fatal Conceit (23 page)

“Who are you looking for?” asked the constable, who was on the chubby side himself.

Stupenagel bit her lip. “Well, actually, I'm looking for just the cabin . . . my friend passed away recently . . . you may have heard about General Sam Allen?”

The couple exchanged glances, and the smile disappeared from the constable's face. “If you don't mind me asking, what's your interest in Sam's place? He was well-liked in this town; people respected his privacy and will continue to do so now that he's gone.”

Stupenagel tried to explain. “Like I said, I'm an old friend of Sam's. We used to come up to his family's cabin, and I just wanted to—”

“Hey, I remember you!” the postmistress exclaimed. “You were Sam's girlfriend, the big tall blonde with the red lipstick!”

Stupenagel smiled. “That's me.”

“I was a waitress at the Egg's Nest restaurant, and you two would come in for breakfast sometimes. Geez, what's it been? Twenty years?” the woman said.

“Longer. But I remember the Egg's Nest,” Stupenagel said with a laugh. “Is it still in business?”

“Yep. Still the same place with the crazy art on the wall and the same crazy owner. I'm Nancy Spooner—I run the post office—and this rotund Sherlock Holmes is my husband, Tom, the town constable, though there's not a whole lot of crime to keep him busy, so he's usually in here pestering me.”

“Why, that's not true! Just the other night I had to capture that raccoon that was getting into Mrs. Thatcher's garbage, and he was big and mean,” Tom Spooner said with a grin, and held out his fleshy, plump hand. “Tom Spooner.”

“Ariadne Stupenagel. And this is my friend, Marlene Ciampi.”

“Are you a friend of Sam's, too?” Nancy Spooner asked Marlene.

“No, I'm just along for the ride.”

“Terrible what happened,” Tom Spooner said. He shook his head. “Didn't seem the kind of man who would take that road out of here.”

“I agree,” Stupenagel replied.

“And now they're looking for that young woman,” Nancy Spooner said. “We saw her once with Sam at the Egg's Nest. Seemed nice and he doted on her—one of those spring/winter things, I guess. Tom here got a bulletin saying to be on the watch.”

“Have you seen her?”

Tom Spooner shook his head. “Nope, and not much of anybody else either. After we heard about Sam, we've been expecting the press to come snooping around like they always do, but I guess Sam kept the old family place a pretty good secret. You're the first outsiders I know about who've come looking.”

“Well, I was just thinking about Sam, and this is a good time of the year for a drive to see the fall colors, so I thought I'd come and say good-bye to some great memories,” Stupenagel said.

Marlene looked at her friend. She knew that Stupenagel was trying to get information without engaging the locals' curiosity. But she also knew that Ariadne was telling the truth; Sam's death had really hurt her.

“Well, it can be tough to find,” Tom Spooner admitted. “Nice piece of property with that little private lake, but isolated. Come on out to the car and I'll show you on a map. I'd take you out there myself, but I have a date with the missus and I'm hoping to get lucky!”

“In your dreams, old man,” Nancy Spooner said, laughing.

“I'm sure we'll do fine if you can point me in the right direction,” Stupenagel said. “It's still pretty light out, and I think I'll remember once I get on the right road.”

“Well, I can do that for you. But that road can get a little rough in the dark and there's essentially no cell service once you leave town, so you might want to get back before it's too late.”

•  •  •

Twenty minutes after looking at the constable's map and getting directions, Stupenagel and Marlene were bouncing along a dirt road through a dense forest. The area was sparsely populated with the occasional cabin and they saw few people.

“Was always more of a summer crowd out here, so a lot of these are vacation homes and get boarded up in the winter,” Stupenagel said.

“Good place to hide out,” Marlene said. “But for how long? If she's on the run, she'd have to figure that sooner or later somebody will look for her here.”

“I just hope we're the first,” Stupenagel said.

When five minutes later they pulled into the drive of an old cabin fronting a small, pretty lake, it appeared that no one was there. It was getting toward dusk and there were no lights on, and there were no vehicles parked outside.

The women got out of the car and walked around the cabin looking in the windows. Then they went up on the front porch, where Stupenagel knocked on the door. There was no answer nor sounds coming from within.

Marlene tried the door and to their surprise, it opened. “I guess it won't hurt to look around inside,” she said.

Inside the cabin was dark. But then Marlene pointed to something; a laptop computer case lying on the dining room table. The computer was missing.

Walking as quietly as they could, they made their way to what appeared to be an office. This time it was Stupenagel who noticed the open wall safe set into the bookshelf. Then Marlene pointed to a laptop open on the desk next to a small pile of papers and two DVD cases. There was also a small jewelry box off to one side. But then a voice behind them warned, “Stop . . . don't make me shoot you!”

K
ARP WAS WAITING ON THE
subway platform at the Whitehall Street station near Battery Park when he was suddenly aware of a horrible odor. He looked behind him and immediately recognized its source—a hulking man who waved at him with one hand while a finger on the other hand probed his nose. “Oh, hello, Booger,” he said. “I didn't know you were going to be meeting me tonight.”

As tall as Karp and outweighing him by at least a hundred pounds—it was difficult to say as he wore many layers of cast-off undergarments and coats—the Walking Booger, as this particular street denizen was known, resembled a dirty bear. Every visible inch of him, and there wasn't much that was, from his hands to his filthy face and massive head was covered with thick wiry hair; two small brown eyes glinted out of the tangled fur, completing the bruin analogy.

“ 'Ello, 'utch,” the giant replied pleasantly, though the nasal excavating hindered his speech. “ 'Irty 'arren ask me 'oo 'elp.”

Karp smiled. Despite his appearance and lack of personal hygiene, the Walking Booger was another of the homeless people frequently seen around the Criminal Courts Building who seemed to watch out for him and his family like some sort of ragtag guardian
angels. The citizens of New York City had no idea about the many times when Dirty Warren and the Walking Booger, as well as their other sidewalk compatriots, had helped thwart the aims of criminals and terrorists. Most “normal” citizens pretended not to see the street people, or gave them a wide berth, but over the years he'd met many who except for their circumstances were as upstanding as any of their fellow New Yorkers.

Although it was early evening, there weren't many other people on the platform, and those who were kept their distance from Karp and his odiferous companion. So they were alone when the train slid up to the platform and they entered the last car, as Karp had been instructed an hour earlier.

•  •  •

This latest adventure began shortly after Karp spoke to Marlene about her quest up north, when Espy Jaxon had arrived at the office. He came bearing the proverbial good and bad news in the form of a DVD he held up to Karp and then walked over to the entertainment center and inserted the disc.

“I received this via government courier a couple of hours ago,” the agent said. “I have no idea who sent it but apparently someone in either the State Department or the CIA doesn't like what's going on. I'll warn you, some of it's pretty tough to watch, but it also gives us reason to hope.”

Jaxon picked up the remote control from Karp's desk, turned on the television, and hit the play button. A face Karp recognized with revulsion appeared on the screen.

“
Allahu akbar
, I am Sheik Amir Al-Sistani. I am sure you are familiar with the name. Your plan to stop me has failed, as has your attempt to arm the heretic separatists who resist Allah's will that I establish the Islamic Republic of Chechnya. It doesn't matter to me that you intended to bring down the apostate government of
Syria, except that it is further proof to my Muslim brothers that you Americans will do anything in your hatred of Islam. But hasn't that always been the way in your arrogance and conceit?”

Jaxon paused the recording. “So apparently we now have an idea of what the other group was doing at the compound. Some sort of arms deal with the separatists and connected to a plan to topple the government of Syria.” He pushed the play button again.

Karp could not contain the gasp that escaped his lips when the camera panned back, revealing his daughter sitting next to a man Jaxon explained was David Huff from the U.S. embassy in Grozny. He hardly heard Al-Sistani's taunts and felt hot tears come into his eyes as the bare-chested man put a knife to Lucy's throat.

“It's okay,” Jaxon assured him. “Nothing happens. He's using them—as well as his threat to embarrass the administration—as hostages to barter for Abdel-Rahman's release.”

“That doesn't mean he won't eventually kill them,” Karp said, trying to keep the emotion out of his voice. “Particularly if the administration won't ‘deal with terrorists,' as we discussed before.”

“I won't sugarcoat it, you're right,” Jaxon said. “And to be honest, I don't think the administration wants them back. Al-Sistani is right about the embarrassment it would cause, especially with less than a week to go before the election.”

“So what do we do? Give this to the press?”

“I thought about it,” Jaxon replied. “The American people certainly deserve to know the truth. But even if the media would follow up—and that's a big question, the way they pander to this administration—it could backfire and we'd lose Lucy and Huff. The congressional hearings on Chechnya were postponed because of Allen's death and there's no way they'd reconvene before the election, so there's no one on the other side of the aisle to get at the facts. The administration and its lackeys would deny deny deny until after next Tuesday, and then stonewall and say it was a national security issue. And as we've discussed, they could fall back on the public policy that the U.S. does not make deals with
terrorists, while expressing great remorse—at least when the cameras are rolling—about the ‘brave Americans' sacrificed for the cause of freedom. In the meantime, Al-Sistani might carry out his threats to kill the hostages to prove he was serious and give him standing in Al Qaeda.”

Karp bowed his head. “So there's nothing we can do?”

“I didn't say that. I want you to watch part of the recording again from when Lucy screams.”

Reluctantly, Karp kept his eyes on the screen as “Raad” placed his knife at Lucy's throat.

“Watch her hands,” Jaxon said as Lucy cried out.

“Please help us! O lion of God, save me!”

A moment later, Karp knew what Jaxon was alluding to. There had been something about her desperate scream that had struck him as so not like Lucy; she'd faced danger before, and because of her deep faith had always accepted the possibility of death with an amazing degree of calm. Now as he watched her, he knew why this was different. “She screamed to distract Al-Sistani from what she was really doing,” he said.

Jaxon smiled. “That's our girl. Nerves of steel, and it's not just any sign language that could be picked up by whoever watched that tape. It's Native American sign language. I didn't even know that she was conversant in it. But when I saw this, I was sure she was trying to say something; I know some American Sign Language, but it wasn't until I showed it to John Jojola that we found out what she was doing. He, of course, recognized it right away. Smart girl; apparently, she didn't want the usual intelligence agencies who saw this to know what she was saying—she doesn't trust them any more than we do—and was hoping that somehow I, or I should say, Jojola, would see this.”

Shaking his head over his daughter's courage and quick thinking, Karp realized that she'd placed her faith in a slim chance that it would pay off. A former Special Forces guerilla fighter during
the Vietnam War, Jojola had been the chief of police at his home on the Taos Indian Reservation in New Mexico when he met Marlene and Lucy several years earlier. Marlene and Lucy had gone to New Mexico on a sabbatical, where they became involved with Jojola, who was trying to catch a serial child killer. A deeply spiritual man in the ways of his people, Jojola had shared his beliefs with the women and educated them in the customs and rituals of his people. As their friendship grew, he met Jaxon and joined the team with Lucy and Ned Blanchett.

“So what did she say?” Karp asked.

“Well, as you might imagine, Native American sign language does not translate as literally as American Sign Language, but the gist is that she's being held in a ‘holy building,' or site, near ‘big water' to ‘the east of the battle.' Putting it together as best we can, we think that means she's being held in a mosque near the Caspian Sea, probably in Dagestan, which is a hotbed of Islamic extremism and an easy place for Al-Sistani to hide out.”

“Sounds like a big place to start looking,” Karp noted. “I take it there are a lot of mosques in Dagestan.”

“There are, but it's a relatively small population, most of which is clustered in urban areas. We think she mentioned ‘big water' because she is aware of her proximity to the Caspian. There's one more thing. Did you find her comment, ‘O lion of God, save me,' to be odd, even for our young spiritualist?”