It was pinched at the bridge and shaped like an hourglass. Naomi made an effort not to stare at it as she stood up and accepted the proffered hand.
“Ms. Kharmai? Or is it Agent Kharmai?” The man grinned. “Sorry, but I still haven’t figured that out. As you can probably imagine, I don’t have a lot of interaction with you people.”
She tried to return the smile, but it wasn’t easy, given her recent epiphany. It felt like the weight of the world was resting on her shoulders. “You can call me Naomi.”
“I’m Special Agent Foster, but call me Matt. Sorry you had to wait.”
“That’s fine,” she said. “I got here only a minute ago.”
They started toward the elevator. Matt Foster. Something about the name seemed familiar, but she couldn’t place it. Where had she heard it before? She was still thinking about it as the elevator stopped on the twenty-third floor and the doors slid open. They stepped into a reception area. There was a desk near the far wall, the FBI seal displayed prominently behind the secretary’s blond head. Trailing behind, Naomi couldn’t see Foster’s face as they passed the desk, but he must have done something, because the secretary blushed and looked away. For some reason, the harmless flirting annoyed her deeply. She no longer felt like wasting a second; all she wanted was to find and stop Will Vanderveen, and that meant getting the truth out of Hakim Rudaki.
The bullpen was incredibly noisy, the open space filled with agents talking on phones and working on computers. Crossing the room, they came to a glass-enclosed office. The door was open, so Foster tapped on the frame and was told to enter. Aware that she was probably about to have a very unpleasant conversation, Naomi tried to adopt her most stoic expression. She wanted to appear unflappable, which was a lot to aspire to, given the situation. She took a deep breath and felt some of the fear and apprehension slip away. Then she stepped through the door.
CHAPTER 49
NEW YORK CITY
Vyse Avenue, between East 173rd and East 176th Street, was symptomatic of the cheap, surface-deep changes that greedy developers had forced upon the South Bronx community in recent years. During the seventies, the city, in a disastrous policy move, opted to relocate a large number of welfare households to the area between 152nd and the Cross-Bronx Expressway. The results were predictable: crime shot up, working-class families moved out, and the neighborhood was left worse off than it had been to start with. In truth, not much had changed since then, despite successive mayoral claims of extensive urban renewal. According to statistics compiled in the 2000 census, the South Bronx belonged to one of the poorest congressional districts in the nation.
In short, it was just about the last place one would expect to find an FBI safe house. As Ryan Kealey moved down the irregular sidewalk on foot, his attention was not focused on the redbrick housing units wedged tightly against the road, but on the few cars lined up at the curb. He’d rented a Honda Accord at the airport, and he’d used it to check the length of Vyse Avenue before proceeding on foot. While he was slightly impressed with the Bureau’s decision to keep this safe house in such an unlikely area, he didn’t think the New York ADIC would go so far as to purchase vehicles that blended into the neighborhood. That kind of thing just wasn’t in the budget. Government vehicles were typically easy to spot, and he’d already come up with a likely candidate. Now he wanted to see it close up, which explained why he was moving on foot.
The car was a dark blue Crown Victoria, a typical Bureau vehicle. He checked the license plate first. They weren’t government tags, but that wasn’t surprising; even the FBI — one of the government’s more arrogant agencies — knew how to keep a low profile when circumstances dictated. Next, he looked in through the window. The interior was abnormally clean, at least, abnormally clean for this neighborhood. He checked the front. He didn’t see any type of radio, but again, that wasn’t really surprising. The Bureau didn’t use vehiclemounted radios to the same extent that local law enforcement did. There wasn’t a light bar in the back window, either. He still couldn’t be sure — it could be an NYPD detective’s unmarked car — but if Harper’s contact at the Bureau was right about the location of the safe house, this was probably his best bet.
Kealey turned away from the car and checked his surroundings. The street was strangely empty. He’d parked the Accord a few blocks away, and during the brief walk, he’d only passed a few kids playing baseball in the middle of the road. The housing units on either side of Vyse Avenue were three-story duplexes: redbrick facades on the first floor, cheap vinyl siding above that. The buildings looked innocuous enough, but a closer inspection revealed bars on the firststory windows, and the short driveways were blocked off by black-iron fences that rose to chest height. There was very little vegetation, a scrap of grass here and there, a few scraggly trees rising out of the sidewalk. A few empty lots were filled with nothing but bare soil, rubble, litter, and milkweed.
He turned and walked back the way he had come, thinking about it. Even if he was right about the car, the problem was obvious: he had no way of knowing which unit was being used by the Bureau. More to the point, he had no way of getting inside. If Samantha Crane was in one of these buildings with Rudaki, she would probably have at least one other agent with her. If Kealey tried to force his way inside, he would quickly find himself at a disadvantage.
He was still thinking about it when he reached the Accord a minute later. A few Latino teenagers in baggy clothes were standing nearby. One was drinking from a bottle wrapped in a paper sack; another was sitting on the hood of the rental car. Kealey thought he knew why; aside from the Crown Vic, the Accord was easily the nicest vehicle in a four-block radius. They were probably just looking for someone to fuck with. As Kealey approached, one of the youths standing said something to the one sitting on the car. The teenager grinned and waited; he seemed to be relishing the upcoming confrontation.
Kealey stopped and studied them each in turn. Finally, the kid perched on the hood said, “This yours, man?”
Kealey nodded. “Yeah.”
“It’s nice. Wouldn’t mind a ride like this myself. Could use some twenties, though.” The kid bounced up and down once, testing the shocks. Then he kicked his heels against the front fender, leaving a mark. “Maybe some new paint. White people always go for the same old shit.”
The others snickered; clearly, they were waiting for him to react. Instead of protesting, Kealey walked a few steps closer, stopping about 5 feet away from the nearest youth. He looked them over quickly. He didn’t think they had anything larger than a knife between them, but he had to be sure.
The guy on the car looked to be the oldest and, therefore, the de facto leader, but the teenagers standing nearby were the greater threat. Turning to the one who had both hands free, Kealey said, “I’m going to show you something, and I don’t want you to panic, okay?”
They laughed again, but it was slightly forced, and he knew he had their attention. Dropping his gaze to their hands, he lifted the right side of his long-sleeve T-shirt, revealing the Beretta 92FS holstered on his right hip. He didn’t look up, but he could tell that seeing the gun had sobered them up. The youth on the car slid off and backed up immediately, muttering something in Spanish. Kealey assumed they thought he was a cop or something similar, since he wasn’t brandishing the weapon like a maniac.
Still watching their hands, he said, “I want you all to do something for me. Lift your shirts slowly. Come on, you too.”
They did as he asked. Just as he’d expected, they didn’t appear to be carrying. “Turn around,” he ordered. “Keep your shirts up.”
Still nothing. Relaxing slightly, Kealey said, “Okay, drop ’em and face me.” When they turned back around, he finally looked at their faces. He could see that the two younger men were nervous, but the leader appeared unfazed. Kealey knew he had guessed right from the start. These young men were far from hardened criminals, but they weren’t exactly Boy Scouts, either. In short, they were exactly what he was looking for.
He lowered his shirt back over the butt of the Beretta. Then he smiled and showed them his open hands.
“You guys feel like making some money?”
Terry Best, the assistant director in charge of the New York field office, was fifty-three years old, a large man with ruddy features, heavy jowls, and a fringe of coppery hair. When Naomi followed Matt Foster into the room, Best half-stood and shook her hand perfunctorily, then waved her into a seat. She looked around the office quickly,
