dozen others seriously wounded, there’d been no sign of Kane. The official view, according to a briefing he got from Ellis, was that he’d died in the blast.
Crime scene technicians had found very little in the way of identifiable human remains, particularly from inside the house.
It was better than nothing, but Karp would have preferred a body-something along the lines of the Old West days when the local sheriff would pose next to the coffins and corpses of deceased outlaws. Not usually the bloodthirsty type, in Kane’s case, he’d been willing to make an exception.
The Saudi embassy had registered a complaint with the U.S. Department of State alleging that “law enforcement cowboys had, through their precipitate actions, negated the possibility of a peaceful resolution to the hostage situation, resulting in the tragic deaths of innocent members of the royal family.” The State Department, according to Jaxon who had a friend at State, had essentialy told the Saudis to “stick their complaint where the sun don’t shine” considering that the “innocent” royal family had been harboring armed terrorists and a fugitive on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” list.
Still, even the assumed death of Kane did not necessarily mean the long year was over. There was a chance that whatever plan he was working on was still in place. After all, Azzam had last been seen in New York, running away from a bombing at Brighton Beach, and there’d been no report of her having been in Aspen during the siege. Jaxon had told him that his agency, the FBI, and Homeland Security were going forward as if there were still a threat against the United Nations during Russian President Putin’s visit toward the end of the week.
When Karp told Jaxon that his source, “the same one that gave me the photograph of Azzam,” believed that the second woman accompanying Azzam was in fact a Russian agent named Nadya Malovo, the FBI agent grimaced. “Christ, that’s all we need,” he said, “Russians plotting with Islamic terrorists to commit crimes on U.S. soil. A little tough to believe considering the enormous ramifications, even for the former KGB, but not without merit either. Without going into areas that I’m not allowed to discuss, the concept that the Russians are looking for reasons to remain in Chechnya has been discussed in the highest circles.”
He’d asked Karp to keep the information under his hat for the time being, which he was only too happy to do. As far as he was concerned, with the exception of his friend Jaxon, all the spies, and agents, and terrorists were welcome to take their games out of Manhattan permanently.
Especially as there were plenty of other distractions that week, both in Manhattan and at home. As previously announced, the Pope would be attending the installment and celebratory mass for Cardinal Nicolas King as the new Archbishop of New York on Saturday. Even though the Vatican’s public relations office had gone to great lengths to note that the Pope’s visit would be short and limited to the events at St. Patrick’s, an estimated one hundred thousand more visitors than usual had deluged Manhattan hoping for a glimpse of the pontiff or to simply be in the same city.
Police Chief Denton and Jaxon had both assured Karp that security for the Pope’s visit would be every bit as tight as it would be for Putin’s speech the following Friday. “But the ‘chatter,’ at least according to Ellis, still focuses on the United Nations theory,” Jaxon said. “And if the Chechen nationalists are trying to make a point about Russian intervention in their country, attacking the Pope would seem counterproductive. An attack on the United Nations wouldn’t exactly be a public relations coup, especially if a lot of innocent people were killed. But at least the attack would be seen as political and might even garner some twisted understanding by people of the sort who sympathized with the Irish Republican Army’s tactics as the only way for so-called freedom fighters to defeat a military power. Not to mention, there are a few people in this country who wouldn’t be too terribly upset if the United Nations was bombed.”
“Either way,” Denton added. “We’ll be ready.”
Security measures were in place, or so it was believed, that assured Karp that everything that could be done had been done. Good thing, too, as he planned to attend the event at St. Patrick’s with his family, including Marlene, the twins, and Lucy, who’d returned to New York with her mother after Aspen, and Ned, who’d flown in to JFK that morning.
With the election only two months away, Murrow was working himself into a tizzy trying to line up speaking engagements and, as Guma and Newbury liked to tease, “baby- and ass-kissing events.” But Murrow was adamant that Karp needed to get “face time” on the television and in the newspapers.
The polls still showed Rachman running a distant second, though she continued to outspend Karp four to one in advertising and it was reflected in small gains she’d made, especially in neighborhoods where being seen on television was more important than what you said. However, the nearer the November election, the more desperate Rachman was becoming; her attacks were growing ever more virulent.
While touting her credentials from her time as head of the Sex Crimes Bureau, she did all she could to portray Karp as “soft on sexual predators.” She’d even managed to dredge up old allegations that Karp was a closet racist. And perhaps, she hinted, even anti-Catholic, as evidenced by his “personal investment” in the case against Archbishop Fey and other local parish priests who were part of the “Kane conspiracies.” She was smart enough not to come right out and say it was because he was a Jew-that wouldn’t have played well in New York-but left the idea swinging in the wind for the anti-Semitic crowd to grasp onto.
As Zachary Stavros was sworn in, Karp looked over at Emil Stavros, who actually caught his eye and smiled. The banker was dressed in a gray conservative two-thousand-dollar suit, his wavy pewter hair combed back in perfect rows from his tanned face. He oozed confidence and looked immaculate, like he just walked out of the dry cleaner’s.
I’m sure we look like chewed-up dog toys by comparison, Karp thought. Of course, Stavros was probably well rested and well fed, having been released to his home with a monitoring bracelet in early August.
The defense had made a motion to dismiss the indictment based on the proffered testimony of Dante Coletta. Skirting a fine line with Judge Lussman’s admonition to watch the pandering to the press, as well as attempts to poison the jury pool, Anderson had worded his argument in such a way as to infer that the DAO was not acting on Coletta’s story due to politics.
The judge dismissed the motion with a meaningful glare at Anderson. But the lawyer had not been cowed.
Barring the outright dismissal of the charges, Anderson argued, at the very least, his client should be allowed out on bail. “The unfortunate incident that led to his present state of incarceration was due to a momentary lapse in judgment,” he said. “Imagine, if you will, the shock of a body being discovered in your backyard when you had no idea it was there. I would remind Your Honor of his own words that Mr. Stavros is still presumed to be innocent and viewed in that light, one can understand why he got in a car and told his driver-a man who did know the truth-to ‘just drive.’ ”
Judge Lussman had agreed to let Stavros out on a substantial bail. However, he’d insisted that Stavros remain at his residence and that his movements be monitored with an electronic bracelet. If Stavros left his home, a signal would be sent via the telephone line to an officer with the probation department.
As Guma checked his notes one last time at the lectern, Karp looked down at the prosecution table. The calm before the storm, he thought. The witness the press has been falling all over themselves to interview with no success.
They’d made a decision to call Zachary to the stand immediately following Guma’s opening, which had kept the jurors riveted with their eyes following his every movement, many of them taking notes. All good signs.
The thought was that instead of saving Zachary for the emotional impact wrapping up the state’s case would have had, they would present his testimony as it fit into the chronology of events. After he testified about his childhood memory, he’d be followed by former detective Bassaline to describe the original efforts to investigate Teresa Stavros’s disappearance, including his interview with the now-accused gardener, Jeff Kaplan. Detective Fairbrother would then be called to describe the subsequent cold case investigation, taking particular care to note that the false credit card statements and reported “sightings” had all been part of an elaborate scheme-with emphasis on the idea that it was unlikely that a punchy ex-fighter-turned-gardener was able to pull it off.
At that point, Drs. Swanburg and Gates would be called to the stand to describe their roles in the discovery and identification of Teresa Stavros’s body. Then Fairbrother would be recalled to testify about the subsequent
