“For whatever reason, Jamal trusted you. So I trust you. And that is why I’m asking you this favor: Help me find the man who took my child away from me.”
“I honestly don’t know what I can do.”
“Please,” she said. “Help me.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to. But I’m a lawyer, and the sad fact of the matter is that my client is dead. I’m not a private investigator.”
“You missed the operative words,” said Hassan. “Jamal trusted you, so we trust you.”
“Right now,” said Maryam, “we don’t trust a lot of people.”
Jack wasn’t sure where this was headed, but it would have taken a heart of stone not to at least listen.
“All right,” he said. “What is it that you want me to do?”
Chapter Thirty-three
Jack took a seat at the bar in Cy’s Place, where Theo was mixing cocktails for a jazz-loving crowd. Neil had agreed to meet him after work, and Jack wanted to bounce Maryam’s request off him. For once, Jack was the one to arrive early, and he had a little time to kill.
He ordered a beer and updated his Facebook status again-his fourth update in the two hours that had passed since he’d said good-bye to Maryam Wakefield. He hoped that Andie-wherever she was-would see it and call him. He didn’t want her to worry about his safety, but he felt she should know about the threat against his grandfather.
“Until you have a wife and children…”
Jack had driven from the hotel with plenty on his mind, but Maryam’s tears had triggered some very serious thoughts… about children. Specifically, about the teachings of Muhammad and the short list of things that may be of benefit after death-charity, knowledge, and a child who prays for you. A child. Maybe even more than one. Jack was an only child. Andie was adopted. Funny how little they’d talked about how those experiences might shape their own family after marriage. The last time-the only time, really-that they had seriously discussed children was right before Andie left for her latest undercover assignment. In fact, it had happened at this very spot in Theo’s bar.
Now, with the buzz of Cy’s Place in the background, Jack was thinking about how awkward it had been.
“Do you want kids?”
The question left Andie coughing on her vodka tonic. “What brought that on?”
“I sort of sprang the engagement ring on you at my surprise birthday party. You said yes on the spot. But looking back on it, we’ve never had a serious talk about kids.”
“We’ve been engaged for only three weeks.”
“Most people discuss it before they even get engaged. Probably we would have, too, if the leap from dating to a marriage proposal hadn’t been so spontaneous. Maybe it’s the reason we still haven’t gotten around to picking a wedding date.”
Jack hadn’t intended to put a chill on the night, but the awkward silence that gripped their conversation was unlike any Jack had felt with Andie.
“Do I want kids?” she said, teeing up the question once more. “Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Really? How many?”
“At least one. Maybe two.”
“Really?”
Really. What a word. What a response. I like my coffee black. Really? The Sox are going to the World Series this year. Really? I’d like to saw off your right hand and superglue it to your chin. Really?
“Yes. Really.”
Andie’s cell rang. Their conversation ended right there. The call was from the assistant special agent in charge of the Miami Field Office, telling her to pack her bags and report for her assignment. Two minutes later she was out the door, seemingly relieved to leave Jack alone with the seven-pound, eight-ounce elephant in the room.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” said Neil as he pulled up the stool beside Jack.
He was actually right on time and had dropped everything at the office to meet Jack on a moment’s notice. Now he was apologizing for having kept Jack waiting. Classic Neil Goderich.
“No problem,” said Jack.
Theo came over and wiped down the countertop. “What are you drinking, Mr. Goodwrench?”
It was just Theo’s way; “Goderich” had been “Goodwrench” as long as Jack could remember.
“Do you have milk shakes?”
“Do you have testicles?” said Theo.
“So… yes?” said Neil.
Jack translated. “Actually, he means ‘no.’ ”
“Bummer,” said Neil, letting it roll right off his back. “How about hot tea?”
It was happy hour, but apparently hot tea was something Theo could tolerate at his bar. He headed for the kitchen, and Jack picked up where his voice-mail message to Neil had left off.
“Maryam Wakefield wants to sue Chuck Mays.”
“That much I gathered from your message,” said Neil. “What for?”
“Money. A wrongful-death theory, I presume. She thinks Jamal was set up.”
“How?”
Jack emptied the rest of his bottle into his beer glass. “Mays has been working for a few years now on something called Project Round Up.”
“Yeah, Jamal mentioned that. But he didn’t seem to know much about it.”
“No one does, except for Chuck. Jamal’s mother thinks it was something illegal, or at the very least not totally on the up-and-up.”
“All these guys in the data-mining business push the envelope,” said Neil.
“True. But what makes this situation a little different is that after McKenna was killed and Jamal disappeared, the FBI actually came in and found encrypted messages on Jamal’s computer. Even Andie confirmed that those messages exist, but I can’t get anything more than the fact that they relate in some way to terrorist organizations.”
“And Mom refuses to believe that her son was in any way connected to terrorists.”
“Beyond that. She thinks Chuck Mays needed a pawn to venture into a forbidden area of cyberspace as part of the research and development for Project Round Up. That way, if the shit hit the fan and the FBI swooped in with a search warrant, Chuck Mays had his own in-house Muslim to point the terrorist finger at.”
“Chuck used him as the fall guy.”
“That’s the theory.”
Theo was back. “One hot tea,” he said as he placed the cup in front of Neil.
Jack’s cell rang. The display read PRIVATE. “This could be Andie,” he said.
“Go ahead and take it,” said Neil.
Jack answered with anticipation, but it wasn’t Andie. It was Dr. Spigelman.
“I’m sorry, who?”
“The doctor who gave CPR to Ethan Chang at Lincoln Road Mall. Do you have a minute?”
Jack glanced at Neil, who was multitasking between the list of tapas on the bar menu and the e-mails on his BlackBerry.
“Sure, go ahead,” Jack told the doctor.
“I’ve been following your case for Jamal Wakefield in the newspaper, and I know that the police have been looking into a possible connection to Mr. Chang’s death. Anyway, you may or may not know this, but the medical examiner’s office just released the toxicology report a few hours ago.”
“I did not know that,” said Jack. “What did it show?”
“That’s the reason for my call. It’s extremely vague.”
