Dead on Arrival

Post’s sportswriters had already started doing playoff math scenarios. If the Redskins won all their remaining games, and if teams A, B, and C won the next five games, and if Teams D, E, and F lost the next five games, the Skins could get a wild-card spot. Yes, it was mathematically possible that Washington would make the playoffs — just like a hole-in-one and a basket from the half-court line are mathematically possible.

Sports news consumed and digested, he turned to the front page but gave up after a few minutes, unable to focus. He couldn’t stop thinking about his ex-wife and the conversation they’d had yesterday morning.

Marie DeMarco had been his first love. He’d met her when he was sixteen and she was fourteen. She’d been the first girl he’d kissed, the first woman he’d made love to. They’d dated throughout high school, broke up briefly when DeMarco went off to college, then connected again and married after he had completed law school.

He had wanted kids. She hadn’t.

Marie was, without a doubt, the sexiest woman he had ever known. She was pretty, of course, and an absolute knockout when she dressed up. She had big expressive eyes, large wonderful breasts, a trim little butt, and good legs — but it wasn’t just her looks that made her so desirable. Some women just ooze sex appeal. Take the young Elizabeth Taylor or Sharon Stone: There are dozens of Hollywood starlets just as beautiful as either woman, but nowhere near as sexy. Why? God only knew. Or maybe God had nothing to do with it.

Sex appeal aside, Marie DeMarco was hugely flawed: vain, selfish, shallow — and unfaithful. DeMarco suspected, after the fact, that his cousin wasn’t the only man she’d slept with while they were married, but it was the affair with Danny that had hurt the most. Danny had been his best friend when they were kids, and Marie’s infidelity had shredded his ego and pierced his heart and almost destroyed him financially — and yet here the damn woman was asking for his help. She was unbelievable.

She’d told DeMarco what had happened. Danny and a leg-breaker named Vince Merlino who worked for Tony Benedetto had been assigned to collect an overdue debt from a gambling junkie — and Vince had killed the junkie. Danny had been seen fleeing the scene by a witness and was now residing in a cell on Riker’s Island. The police knew Danny hadn’t killed the gambler; they knew it, but they wouldn’t admit it. Danny was primarily a fence, a man who was very good at moving stolen goods, more like a charming retail salesman than a thug. The cops knew he didn’t carry a gun, and he didn’t have any violence on his sheet. But Danny refused to give up his partner, so the cops had no choice: Danny was going to swing for the gambler’s murder.

‘So why the hell doesn’t he just tell them this Vince guy did it?’ DeMarco had asked his ex.

‘Because he’d be a rat,’ Marie had said.

‘He is a rat,’ DeMarco said.

‘And because Vince is Mr Benedetto’s nephew.’

Oh, man, that wasn’t good.

‘So what in the hell do you want from me, Marie?’ he had asked her. ‘If you’re expecting me to pay for his lawyer or put up his bail, you’re out of your mind.’

‘I don’t expect you to pay for anything. They won’t give him bail and Mr Benedetto’s springing for the lawyer.’

‘So then what’s the problem?’

‘The problem is Mr Benedetto expects him to do the time, that’s what the damn problem is. The lawyer will get him the best deal he can, but if Danny gives up anybody, Vince or anyone else in Tony’s crew, Tony will have him killed.’ She had started crying. ‘They’re gonna put him away for fifteen years, Joe, maybe longer.’

‘But what do you want me to do, Marie?’

‘I want you to get Mr Mahoney to get him a pardon.’

DeMarco had laughed out loud. He hadn’t been able to stop himself. ‘Marie’ — he almost added you fuckin’ moron — ‘first of all, the speaker of the House can’t give pardons to convicted criminals in the State of New York. And second, there’s no way in hell he’s going to ask the president to give Danny one.’

‘But-’

‘Marie, I hate you and I hate Danny, but even if I didn’t, you gotta believe me when I tell you there’s no way he’s gonna get a pardon, not from anyone, and there’s nothing I can do to make such a thing happen.’

When he hung up, she was crying, and for some damn reason he felt bad. To hell with her, he said to himself — a phrase he’d used many times since she’d left him.

At 8:30 A.M., burping a bit from his corned beef hash and eggs — calories and cholesterol be damned — DeMarco strolled back into Homeland Security and five minutes later was sitting in Jerry Hansen’s office.

Hansen looked so much like Andy Banks physically — short gray hair, trim and in good condition, wire-rimmed glasses — that DeMarco figured he was probably an ex-marine, just like his boss. Maybe a retired colonel, DeMarco thought, Banks’s trusted right-hand guy when they had served together in the corps.

DeMarco decided to see if his instincts were on the mark. ‘Were you in the marines with General Banks, Mr Hansen?’ DeMarco asked.

‘Call me Jerry, and hell, no,’ Hansen said. ‘I was never in the service and never wanted to be. When they formed up Homeland Security they pulled all these government departments together. I was a supervisor over in ICE, that’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but in this job I got now I just keep track of things. This terrorist shit, you’ve got the FBI involved, local cops, and sometimes CIA, NSA, and DIA. And internal to Homeland Security, you got ICE, TSA, Coast Guard, and maybe Secret Service. You need a damn spreadsheet — I can show you one — just to keep track of who’s who and who’s doing what. So that’s my job. I try to make sure I know what all the players are doing and keep the general informed. And man, what a hard-ass he is.’

‘Got it,’ DeMarco said.

‘So,’ Hansen said. ‘The general left me a message saying you worked for Congress and I’m supposed to fill you in on Reza Zarif.’

The ‘worked for Congress’ part was good, DeMarco thought. That made it sound like whatever he was doing had been officially sanctioned.

‘So what do you wanna know?’ Hansen said. ‘Most everything’s been reported in the papers, and for the most part the news guys got it right.’

‘One thing I’m curious about is this link to al-Qaeda the Bureau says they found.’

‘Well, that’s classified,’ Hansen said.

‘Come on, Hansen. I’ve got a security clearance and I’m from Congress. And your boss told you to talk to me.’

Hansen screwed up his face as he debated giving up national secrets to a complete stranger, but he finally relented.

‘They found a letter in Zarif’s house that came from a mosque in Atlanta. The letter was thanking Zarif for a donation he sent them.’

‘So?’

‘Well — and this is the classified part — this particular mosque funnels money to al-Qaeda and the FBI follows the money. But they don’t want any mention of this mosque in the papers because this will tell the bad guys what the Bureau’s doing in case they haven’t figured it out already.’

‘And they think because Zarif got a thank-you note from a mosque that he has al-Qaeda connections?’

‘Possible connections, just like they told the press.’

‘Did the Bureau find any evidence that Zarif actually sent these folks money?’

‘They didn’t find a canceled check or an electronic transfer, anything like that. But he could have mailed them cash.’

‘Not exactly a smoking gun,’ DeMarco said.

‘Hey, you don’t need a smoking gun when you find what’s left of the guy’s body in the plane you shot down.’

DeMarco had to concede that point.

‘Another thing I was kinda curious about,’ DeMarco said. ‘Was there any evidence that Zarif was under psychiatric care or taking antidepressants? You know, Valium, Prozac, anything like that?’

‘Why would you be curious about that?’ Hansen said.

‘Well, according to the Bureau, the guy just went nuts. I’m wonderin’ if there was any prior indication of