The Reformers: A Matt Blake Novel (The Matt Blake legal thriller series Book 2) (20 page)

“I’m surprised Al Yamani or one of the other bombing defendants never mentioned his name to me,” I said.

“I’m sure they never heard of him,” Mike said. “Remember, my contacts came up through the corporate ranks with this guy. He’s secretive to a point of invisibility. Just Google him and you’ll see what I mean. Very little information is out there on this man, which is surprising for a CEO of a successful investment company.”

Mike,” Buster said, “can you tell us some more about this Bartholomew so I can try to wrap my head around this guy?”

“Besides secrecy, Bartholomew is obsessed with collecting data. He learned that at Amazon, a company famous for knowing everything about everything. He reprimands people when they express opinions, asking them instead for numbers to back up their assertions.”

“Do your contacts think he’s dangerous?” I asked. “I mean because they left him, are they afraid he’ll do something?”

“I wish I could be more specific, but my guys tell me that occasionally someone would simply disappear under strange circumstances, including Bartholomew’s fourth and most recent wife. From what they say, his tactics aren’t like ISIS, but he takes care of business with a hammer when he needs to.”

“Mike, talk to me about recruiting,” Buster said. “Over the years we’ve all become experts in how radical Islam recruits people. They look for young disaffected people without a purpose in life. Maybe they’re unemployed, but that’s not necessarily so. We’ve seen plenty of fresh-faced young jihadis who came from comfortable middle class families. Radical Islam gives them a purpose, a cause to live for. And they also throw in 72 virgins on the side to sweeten the deal. Most of their recruiting seems to come from radical websites, which we track carefully at the CIA.”

“Buster,” Mike said, “have you noticed recently that a lot of the radical websites have gone dark, like disappeared?”

“Godammit, you’re right. We’ve noticed a bunch of these sites disappearing over the past month or so. Are you saying that this NFL outfit could be taking them down? That would take a hell of a lot of technological know-how.”

“And they have a hell of a lot of technological know-how,” Mike said. “Remember I told you that they only recruit combat veterans for front line duty? Well, they also do heavy recruiting for back-office support.”

“Okay, let’s narrow this to an important point,” Bennie Weinberg said. “What is it that NFL can provide that the romanticism of radical Islam can’t?

“Two things, ideology and money.” Mike said. “First is the issue of ideology. NFL offers these young people a variation of what radical Islam does; a cause, a reason to live. The NFL people point to the jihadis and convince skeptical young minds that NFL provides a way to combat evil, the evil of strict Sharia law, and the evil of killing innocent people. It may not have the romantic appeal of an ideology from the Dark Ages, but it
is
a cause. And, unlike Sharia law, these young men aren’t told to keep their dicks in their pants. The second thing that the NFL offers these kids is money—a lot of money. Besides his vast hedge fund wealth, Bartholomew has been active in investing in oil production, refining, and sales. NFL has effective ownership of three large oil fields in Kurdistan, and a refining facility in good old New Jersey. They also own a few gold mines in Africa. The oil money alone supports the salaries of a huge number of recruits. Good money, regular money. I’m telling you guys, this Bartholomew is one smooth motherfucker.”

“So if I understand you, Mike,” Jack Logan said, “Bartholomew and the NFL want to gradually nudge out or kill radical Islam and replace it with themselves.”

“That pretty much sums it up, Jack. Soon we’re going to see political entities, actual states, run by Bartholomew and his NFL, although not under that name. And don’t expect those states to be liberal democracies,” said Mike. “More like fascist dictatorships. We’ll see one totalitarian regime replaced by another.”

“I’ve got to take this to the White House,” Jack Logan said. “Keep a toothbrush packed and ready guys.”

Chapter 43

A week after my meeting with Imam Mike, I spent a night in Dallas, Texas, where I went to take a deposition on one of my personal injury cases. I opened the door of our apartment at 6:15. Dee wasn’t there to greet me as usual.

“Hey, hon, I’m back from the Lone Star State,” I yelled.

She walked into the room holding her iPhone. She looked angry about something, angrier than I’d ever seen her.

“I’m forwarding a video to you,” she said as she tapped on her phone. “You may want to take a fucking look at it.”

Oh my God, I thought. This isn’t Dee. What the hell is going on?

I opened my iPad and clicked on my recent messages. There was the one Dee sent me, showing a video as an attachment. I clicked on it.

There I was, standing in front of a bar—with a bottle of Perrier in my hand—smiling and chatting with a blond, whose face was partially turned away from the camera. There was no sound, just video. As I watched the recording, Dee busied herself by shredding a couple of napkins.

“Who’s your friend?” Dee spit out.

“That’s Carolyn Jackson, the wife of Frank Jackson, the guy standing next to her. You can only see his shoulder in the video. He’s my co-counsel on the case I was there for.”

“I notice that you can’t seem to stop smiling at her,” Dee said, as she grabbed another napkin to shred.

“Dee, honey, I smile at women, I smile at men, I smile at boys and girls. I also smile at dogs, cats, parakeets, and goldfish. You constantly tell me that I’m always smiling. It’s a trait I got from you. You even call me ‘Smiley.’ But I’m not smiling now because you seem to be incredibly upset about something.”

“Keep watching,” Dee said, in a low voice that was almost a growl.

The next frame of the video was a couple having sex, filmed from overhead, showing a man on top of a blond. They were going at it quite enthusiastically.

Dee stopped shredding the napkins and flung the small bits of paper across the floor. She started to sob.

I stared at the video, backed it up, and stared some more. I didn’t find the porno scene titillating; I stared at it because it was obvious that Dee thought it was me having sex with another woman.

“May I make a couple of observations, honey?”

“Go right ahead,” she yelled, still crying.

“First, that blond on the bed, whose face is visible, is not Carolyn Jackson. In the first part of the video you could only see Carolyn from an angle. Carolyn is Frank’s law partner, and there’s a picture of her on the firm’s website, which I’ll show you in a minute. Secondly, please watch the video carefully.”

“How the hell do you expect me to look at that goddam thing?” she rasped. “I couldn’t stand watching it more than a couple of seconds.”

“Well, take a deep breath and watch please, especially the guy.”

I stood up. She blew her nose and sat in front of the iPad. At first she didn’t say anything. She stared at the video and then backed it up just like I did. She wiped the tears from her face, sniffled, and cleared her throat, staring at the video.

“Oh, my God,” she said softly, after she blew her nose, “where’s the shrapnel wound scar under your left shoulder blade? And where’s that adorable Marine Corps tattoo on your right butt cheek?”

“Keep looking, babe.”

“Hey, wait a minute. Matt, that’s not you!” she said loudly. “The guy has a nice build but he’s nothing compared to you.”

Dee realized that she had been tricked. She started to cry again, but this time it was different from her tears of a few minutes before. She stood up and wrapped her arms around me, her face buried in my chest, gripping me as if she was afraid to let go. She sobbed like I never heard her cry before. I stroked her hair.

“This is some kind of blackmail or frame-up, isn’t it Matt?” she said, looking up into my eyes.

I grabbed a napkin, one of the few that she hadn’t torn up, and wiped her tears away.

“That’s my analysis, honey.”

She hugged me again.

“Matt, baby, I’m so sorry. I cannot fucking believe that I mistrusted you. Will you please forgive me?” She buried her face in my shoulder and started crying again.

“Hey, Dee. You’re not the first person in the world who’s been tricked by a video. That’s the way con artists work, and that’s how extortion and black mail works. You received a video from an anonymous source. Then you see some truth—yes, that
was
me talking to Carolyn Jackson, a pretty blond. Your brain didn’t have the chance to go into editing mode, you simply assumed you were looking at the truth. You brain thought, ‘Hey, why would somebody film this if it wasn’t true?’ You didn’t give yourself the time to see that the man wasn’t me. I’m just glad that you realize that what you saw isn’t the reality you thought it was. I love you. You’re my one-and-only.”

We were both exhausted from the most emotional experience of our marriage. We sat next to each other on the couch and held hands. She put her head on my shoulder and I rested my face against her hair.”

“Matt, this is how we sat when we first fell in love, remember?”

“Remember? It was an experience that still lives with me.”

She took a deep breath and blew her nose.

“What do you think they want, Matt? Money? Publicity? Revenge?”

“I think they’re afraid of us, Dee. I think this was an attempt to drive a wedge between you and me. Hey, let’s just look at this horrible experience as a test of our marriage.”

“A test?” Dee said, starting to cry again. “If this was a test I failed it pretty fucking miserably, didn’t I? I looked at a few seconds of a video and assumed the worst. I always tell my students that jumping to conclusions is the worst form of mental exercise, and that’s exactly what I did. I’m sorry, honey. I know I said it before, but I’m sorry. Oh, my God, I’m so sorry.”

She buried her face in the crook of my neck and cried softly. We sat, her head on my shoulder and my face against her hair, still holding hands just like the first time we fell in love. We both fell fast asleep. I woke up and looked at the clock. It was 1:30 a.m. We had been asleep next to each other for three hours. I leaned over and kissed her.

“Oh, my God,” Dee said. “We fell asleep on the couch just like the night we fell in love.”

She pointed to the scraps of tissue strewn across the floor. “I’m glad I didn’t pick that up last night,” she said. “It reminds me what a fool I was. I need a shower.”

“Want company?”

“Yes.”

Chapter 44

They call me Ali Yamani, which is fair enough given that’s the name I was born with. I’m also known as Al Yamani, which I prefer. But recently, during my stay in the Witness Protection Program, I was also known as George Rudden. But, whatever the hell you call me, what just happened I did not expect, and neither did my fellow writers and denizens of the WPP, Mickey Sidduq and Jake Almeth.

We’d been kidnapped. Yes, fucking kidnapped, from the FBI’s Witness Protection Program. I thought the whole idea behind the WPP was to prevent shit like that from happening. Guess not.

Mickey, Jake, and I were sitting in the den of the “secret undisclosed location” in Tenafly, New Jersey, playing cards. We often do this after our daily writing routine. We all love to write and don’t consider it a chore. We also love to play cards. We’ve become close friends since we all lived through being accused of mass bombings and then our new lives in the WPP.

Suddenly, we all started to yawn. I noticed that Jake fell fast asleep, and Mickey started to nod off. I remember feeling extremely tired. That’s the last thing I recall, until this morning.

Where the fuck are we? We sat in a large room, which was tastefully decorated with burgundy leather furniture. If I could describe the décor it would be “modern American money.” The walls were light colored, some shade of taupe I think. The bare wood floors appeared to be mahogany or some other expensive wood. Beautiful paintings adorned the walls. All were pastoral scenes from of the Hudson River School, my favorite school of art. I’m no expert, but they looked original. Couldn’t be. Could they? The three of us all came out of our slumber around the same time. I noticed that I wore different clothes from what I fell asleep in. Jake and Mickey wore different clothing as well. Light music, I think it was Sinatra, played over the expensive sound system. I looked at Jake and Mickey.

“Are you guys okay?” I said, wondering the same thing about myself.

They both said they felt fine, rubbing the sleep from their faces. I felt the same. A tall man in a black uniform of some sort walked in wheeling a cart laden with food. I say that he wore a uniform “of some sort” because it bore no insignia on the sleeves or front, but the black shirt and black trousers were freshly ironed with sharp creases. His hair was jet black and he had an athletic build.

“Chow down, guys,” the man said in a Midwestern American accent. “My name is Phillip. Call me on this device if you need anything.” He put a remote of some sort on the table next to my seat. “You’ll be having a meeting in about an hour, when everything will be explained to you.”

“Phillip,” I said. “Where are we?”

“You’re in beautiful Kurdistan, my friend. You’ll find out more detail later.”

So we fell asleep in Tenafly, New Jersey and woke up in Kurdistan. Did I mention that my life has been kind of weird of late? At least the food was excellent, the taste heightened because we were all hungry after our long, sleepy trip. We were served a typical American breakfast with a choice of scrambled or fried eggs with all the usual trimmings including bacon, ham, and sausage. The sliced potatoes were the tastiest I can ever recall eating, no mean feat with something as simple as a potato. We had a choice of rye, white, or whole wheat toast, as well as fresh bagels and lox. Kurdistan?

“Anybody have a guess as to what the fuck is going on?” I said.

“I think we’re prisoners,” said Jake. “We didn’t ask to come here but we were obviously drugged and taken here without our knowledge. That’s my definition of being a prisoner.”

“I agree with Jake,” Mickey said. “I can’t bitch about the surroundings, but something tells me that we don’t have much to say in the matter. According to that beautiful grandfather clock, it’s been almost an hour since we were served. Our friend—I hope he’s our friend—Phillip, said that we would be in a meeting about now.”

At precisely 11:30 a.m. (local time, according to the clock) we heard a knock on the door. A tall guy, about 6’2” walked in smiling. He had short-cropped brown hair and deep blue eyes, which for some reason I found intimidating. I figured he was in his late 30s, maybe 38. He wore the same black outfit or “uniform” as Phillip. The guy simply looked like a man in charge.

“Good morning, gentlemen, my name is Bartholomew,” he said, with a surprisingly soft voice.

We introduced ourselves by the nicknames we always went by.

“So,” Bartholomew said, “it’s Al, Jake, and Mickey. You will find around here that we are in the habit of referring to ourselves by our full first names, so I shall call you Albert, Jacob, and Michael.

How nice. I swallowed hard. The fucker’s renaming us. There was something about this dude that gripped me in my stomach.

“I hope that you enjoyed your breakfast. Before I begin, do you have any questions for me?”

The man was amazingly soft spoken, despite his rugged build and military bearing. He sat down at the head of the table.

Jake and Mickey looked at me. For some reason they treated me as the “leader” of our small group.

“Yes, sir…”

“My name is Bartholomew, not sir.”

“Yes, Bartholomew,” I said. “The three of us were in an FBI safe house in New Jersey when we fell asleep—that was some time yesterday. When we woke up we found out that we are in Kurdistan. Would you please explain what happened to us and what we’re doing here?”

“Certainly, Albert, I’ll be happy to explain,” Bartholomew said, focusing on me with his intense eyes. I reached for a glass of ice water.

“We know quite a bit about you folks,” He said. “Actually, we know everything about you. We know that you were framed by ISIS and almost prosecuted in those mall bombing cases. We also know all about your books and your reform ideas. And congratulations, Albert, on your recent book deal with Random House. Having that talented couple, Diana and Matthew Blake, on your side was a big help, I’m sure. We regard you folks highly and respect you. That’s why you’re here. The FBI gave you security in its Witness Protection Program, but you’re far safer here. Beyond safety, you will have a great deal of freedom. You will see that in our ‘community’ we have hundreds of young people like you, and many of them are attractive young women. You are free to write, to read, to listen to music, to dance, and yes, to have sex to your heart’s content, provided of course that you observe rules of polite behavior.”

Did he say “have sex?” Jake, Mickey, and I looked at each other with raised eyebrows. The boss man may be a bit weird, but this place was starting to look better than Tenafly, New Jersey.

“And this may surprise you,” Bartholomew continued, “you are free to go whenever you wish. But I should warn you about something you already know. Radical Islam has a target on your backs. Here you are safe. If you leave us, your lives will be in serious danger. We know that the three of you have achieved a bit of wealth with your settlement against that radical billionaire. I congratulate you on your success, and on your excellent choice of a lawyer, Matthew Blake. We have made arrangements for you to access your financial accounts from here, with top security of course.”

“Bartholomew,” I said, still feeling intimidated by this guy, “you keep referring to ‘we.’ Could you please explain who ‘we’ are?’ ”

“Certainly, Albert. ‘We’ are NFL,
Not For Long
. We are a vast and wealthy organization of people who intend to bring an end to the senseless scourge of radical Islam.
Not For Long
means just that. It won’t take long. The subjugation of people under the murderous thumb of the jihadis will soon end. After we have brought it to its knees, we shall enjoy the spoils of what’s left behind, including the oil and mineral wealth. And you are part of our plan.”

Oh shit. Here it comes, I thought. I’m sure he didn’t fly us to Kurdistan just to serve us breakfast.

“Bartholomew,” I said, “I can speak for the three of us when I say that we have heard reference over the past few months to an organization called NFL, although we never heard of you specifically. None of us are soldiers. I don’t even know how to fire a gun. Can you tell us how we fit into NFL’s plans?”

“You have all heard the adage ‘the pen is mightier than the sword.’ The maxim is true, and the three of you, with your talent for writing and your refreshing ideas on reform, will become the true might of NFL. The age of radical Islam is
Not For Long
.”