Counterplay

off in the minds of women whenever they see you coming.”

“The only bells going off are the bells of ecstasy after a little time with Ray the Impaler,” Guma laughed. But the smile disappeared off his face as he sat forward and looked Karp in the eyes.

“I’ve been having a few minor glitches with my health lately,” he said. “Nothing major, but some days are better than others. I would hate to get into this trial with an inexperienced ADA and then have a couple of off days and have to leave it on his shoulders. Even if I was medically unable to go forward, and we could get the judge to declare a mistrial, we would be kissing Emil Stavros good-bye. The judge would simply continue his bond, and he’d skip the country even though we already froze his assets pending the trial. I got that court order based upon the submission that the dough was legitimately Zachary’s and looted from Teresa’s accounts. But he’s probably got plenty stashed somewhere, and I’ll bet it’s somewhere that we don’t have an extradition treaty with.”

“Then we’ll get one of the senior ADAs, or even a deputy chief, to be your co-counsel,” Karp said.

“You’re not getting it,” Guma said. “Look, it’s been a long time since you and I did one of these together… more than a decade…and, well, there won’t be many more chances.”

Karp scowled. “What kind of talk is that? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

Guma shook his head. “No. Like I said, someone cuts a few yards of your guts out of your body, it’s pretty hard to feel ‘normal.’ There’s a new normal. But as of my last checkup, I was still clean. But with the election coming up and another four years of getting the DAO back on track, you won’t have much time for trying cases with your old pal Goom. And I’m not sure how much longer I’ll keep practicing. Occasionally I get this instinctual Guinea urge to move to warmer climes, and I think about flying south to Miami to hang with the cousins, buy some big gold chains to hang around my neck, shave my back, get a tan, find some divorcee with…big assets…and settle down.”

“Doesn’t sound too bad,” Karp said.

“No, it doesn’t,” Guma agreed. “In fact, I swear sometimes when I fall asleep at night, I can hear waves and smell suntan lotion warming up on a pair of thirty-six double-Ds. So let’s do this trial together, for old times’ sake. Come on, it will be fun.”

Karp sat still for a moment, staring at his old friend, lost in thought. Did I fall asleep and wake up twenty years later? It all does pass in a blink of the eye. So this is it, the swan song trial. He shook his head and said, “Wow. Okay, okay. It will be fun to be ringside with the Italian Stallion back in the ring for another title bout. I’ll be proud to be in your corner, kiddo.”

When they invited Murrow back in and told him, he’d practically skipped around the office. “This is great. Cold Case Detectives is the hottest show on television,” he chortled. “And people just eat this forensic files stuff up. What can I tell the press?”

The look from Karp sent him scurrying out of the office.

12

Kane stabbed for Samira Azzam’s chest. But she parried the blow with her Bantay- Kamay, or guardian hand, and then countered with a slicing backhand that narrowly missed his eyes.

“Careful, Samira, my love,” he hissed. “Wouldn’t want to ruin this fine work by Dr. Buchwald, now would we?” He dropped to a knee and slashed at her thigh, but she’d anticipated the move and spun backward, delivering a kick to the side of his head.

The blow was glancing but still enough to daze him for a moment, so his mind didn’t quite follow the classic Lipat-Palit technique of an unexpected flip of her knife from right hand to left. It left him open for the fatal blow, the point of her knife pressed against the carotid artery in his neck. She wanted to plunge the knife in and feel his hot red blood gush over her hand. But now is not the time, she reminded herself, and probably never would be unless the al Qaeda leaders tired of the insane infidel and allowed her to go forward with “the plan” without him.

Samira felt something tickle her and looked down. Kane’s knife was poised with its tip ready to plunge into her crotch. “Hardly a lethal blow, as mine would have been.” She smiled sweetly.

“Ah, but nevertheless, you would have been worthless as a whore.” He was smiling, too, but the look in his eyes was cold, sneering. He withdrew his knife and backed away from her blade. “Of course, you know that if you had used yours, your next order would have been to blow yourself up in some meaningless little attack on a kibbutz that wouldn’t rate three inches in the newspapers.”

Samira kept the smile on her face though she seethed at the insulting insinuation that she was nothing but a whore to be used by al Qaeda. “I look forward to dying for Allah and Palestine in any way I am called upon,” she said. “Perhaps, you will martyr yourself with me…my love.”

Kane laughed. “I love it that you hate me so much, my dangerous little bitch,” he said. “It makes fucking you that much more pleasurable for me.”

Indeed, Samira wanted to kill him so much at that moment that tears came to her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. But she still kept up the pretense and pouted, “You say such cruel things.”

Again, Kane mocked her. “Ah, such a perfect assassin, but a lousy actress. You’re here doing whatever I say because your masters want to keep me happy and for some perverse reason, I’m sure, using you like a piece of meat gives me great pleasure and relieves the stresses of such a…pressure-filled life. It is so much fun watching you choke on the words you’d like to say.”

Samira studied his face, wishing she could carve it with her knife. He didn’t look like the Andrew Kane she’d first met, not anymore. Even she had to admit that the work of Dr. Buchwald, a plastic surgeon, was amazing. Gone was the formerly, rather effete-looking blond with the pale blue eyes. He’d been replaced by a more rugged- looking man with a cleft in his rounder chin, wider cheeks and fuller lips, as well as larger, crooked nose- presumably from some old injury. The hair was now chestnut; the eyes no longer blue but brown, thanks to contact lens. He even had a thin white scar beneath his right eye, evidence of a traffic accident that never happened…at least not to Andrew Kane.

Still, she knew that the real Andrew Kane had never been what she’d seen on the outside. In her mind, the real Kane merely wore the physical characteristics of a man as a disguise or cloak. He reminded her of childhood stories her parents had told her from Arabian folklore and the Quran regarding the jinn.

Allah created man from sounding clay like the clay of pottery, her father would begin, gathering his children around on cold winter nights in Palestine. And the jinn He created from a smokeless flame of fire.

The jinn were spirits-sometimes formless, sometimes inhabiting the bodies of men and animals-and there were different sorts. Some were essentially harmless, even helpful. But others were evil and dedicated to tormenting humans-deceiving and guiding them away from the true path.

The worst are called shayateen, her father had whispered, looking around and over his shoulder as though leery of eavesdroppers in the shadows. His children followed his gaze, half-expecting to see some furtive movement in the dark corners or a shadow pass across a doorway. They serve Iblis, the Evil One, and the strongest among them are called afreet.

Of course back then, in better times, such bedtime tales would end with her father jumping up with a shout to startle his boys and girl, who would shriek, then laugh and never seemed to grow tired of the game. The memory stirred a rare longing in Azzam, who blinked back the tears. She wondered if her father knew that the jinn were real and inhabited men like Andrew Kane. “Audhu billah,” she muttered.

“What was that, my darling?” Kane asked. “Did you say ‘I seek refuge in Allah’? Isn’t that something you superstitious desert folk say to ward off evil?”

“It is just a saying,” Azzam replied. “Like ‘bless you’ when someone sneezes.”

“Hmmm…could have sworn it was a little stronger than that,” Kane said, and then chuckled. “But I am doing rather well with my language lessons, don’t you think? Good thing, as it looks like I may have to spend some time in your part of the world after we’ve accomplished our task in New York.”