from Grafton’s liquor cabinet. I added an ice cube, then began sipping on it.
Callie came in, took the drink from my hand and kissed me on the cheek. Then she handed me back the drink, looked me in the eyes and said, “Thank you, Tommy.”
I nodded, trying to hold back the tears.
My cell phone rang. It was Jake Grafton.
“Maybe I’d better talk to him in the bathroom,” I said, and I went, taking my drink with me.
“It didn’t go well,” Khadr remarked to Abu Qasim, quite unnecessarily. They were watching CNN Headline News in Qasim’s hotel room in Greenwich, Connecticut. Khadr had a room on the floor below. “I didn’t know he was going to deliver the warriors,” Khadr added.
“Neither did I.” Qasim took a deep breath and let it out through his nose as he watched the camera pan across Grafton’s building. “It was always a long shot,” he murmured. “Jake Grafton is competent.”
“As is Carmellini,” Khadr admitted. “Al-Irani less so. Will he break under interrogation?”
“He knows nothing important.” Qasim used the remote to turn off the television. He had advised al-Irani to blow up Grafton’s building, but the Iranian objected. He lacked sufficient explosives, there was not enough glory in such a deed, and, finally, the real reason, the warriors wanted to enter Paradise with the blood of infidels on their hands. They wished to attack, to kill face-to-face. Qasim saw that he could not persuade al-Irani, so he stopped trying. “We all must serve Allah as we see best,” he admitted, which satisfied the Iranian.
Tonight he tried to forget what might have been. “Tomorrow we will drive to Winchester’s estate and look it over,” he said to Khadr. “It will be guarded by professionals every bit as good as Carmellini. They may have sensors deployed, and dogs. I want Winchester and Grafton.”
Khadr stood and adjusted his trousers. “We will see,” he said non-committally.
Qasim made eye contact. Khadr had no intention of trying the impossible; Qasim liked that. He wanted success, not glorious futile attempts.
“Indeed,” Qasim said. He nodded.
When he finally got off the telephone after talking to Callie, Tommy, his various bosses and Sal Molina, Jake Grafton went downstairs. Winchester, Smith, Marisa and Isolde were watching a television news show, which was airing an interview with a “terrorism expert.” The FBI had labeled the deceased and the lone survivor as armed terrorists making an attack on the family of a high-ranking government employee, whom they refused to identify. The reporters were frantic; even though it was two hours past midnight, they obtained a list of the building’s residents from someone, who of course refused to be identified. The “expert” on camera was consulting the list and making guesses.
Winchester used the remote to lower the volume as Jake went behind the bar to fix himself a drink.
“My telephone doesn’t work, Grafton,” Jerry Hay Smith said aggressively. “Neither does the landline or anyone else’s cell. Want to tell us about it?”
“About what?”
“About why you turned off the telephones.”
“I intend to get some sleep tonight and didn’t want to be interrupted by people reading me transcripts or playing recordings of your conversations. I know I could tell them to wait until tomorrow to call me, but I thought, if Smith makes his calls tomorrow, maybe they can all go home tonight and get a decent night’s sleep.”
“You bastard!”
“You want to go home and make your calls, you know where the door is. We’ll lock it behind you.”
“When this is over…” Smith whined, trying to sound ominous. It was a lost cause.
“I know,” Grafton muttered.
Jake brought his drink around and sat down beside Isolde. “How is Callie?” she asked, as if Jerry Hay Smith weren’t even there.
“Doing as well as can be expected, under the circumstances. She and Amy are coming tomorrow to visit with us for a few days.”
“They didn’t get Abu Qasim, did they?” Winchester asked.
Grafton shook his head no.
“He might be here tomorrow, too.”
“Or tonight. Or never.”
“Or he might be over at Cairnes’ house butchering him slowly,” Jerry Hay Smith said.
“Good point,” Grafton said cheerfully. “Or he might nave finished up with Mr. Cairnes and be waiting at your house for you to come home. One never knows.”
Smith stomped off, climbed the stairs and headed down the hall toward his bedroom.
“I think it’s time for me to retire also,” Isolde announced. She smiled at Jake and Winchester, glanced at Marisa and followed Smith.
Winchester finished his drink, then followed the others.
When only Jake and Marisa were left, Jake said, “Will he come here?”
“I don’t know,” she said thoughtfully. “I suspect he’ll send Khadr.”
“Still think he’ll try to kill the president?”
“Him, you, these others. The movement needs victories.”
“And martyrs,” Jake said, frowning into his drink.
“Those, too,” she said harshly. “The blood of martyrs is like perfume to Allah. It pleases and delights Him almost as much as the blood of infidels.” She rose and ascended the stairs.
“If you love me, die for me,” Jake muttered.
By nine the next morning we were rolling north up the interstate in Grafton’s SUV. I drove, and the women gabbled around me. Last night, before he went home, Willie and I had a few minutes alone. I thanked him for everything, including taking down the Saturn driver.
“Some cop tol’ me he’s an Iranian from Brooklyn,” Willie said. “I was hopin’ it was that Qasim dude, then I’d be a hero and get famous and meet hot women.”
“Next time.”
“You always say that, but there’d better not be a next time, Tommy. I’m too cold and too old, and that wine made me ’bout half sick. Had to nip at it, you understand, just to keep up appearances.”
“Right.”
After the women wound down and toddled off to bed about three, I tried to sleep on Grafton’s couch. The forensic guys were going to be working downstairs all night, but just in case, I had loaded my shotgun with Robin’s spare shells.
I had just gotten arranged on the couch when Grafton’s phone rang. I picked it up. Some enterprising television producer had obtained Grafton’s unlisted number. I rudely hung up on her, and then went into the kitchen and took the phone there off the hook. That way the beeping wouldn’t disturb me.
Back on the couch, I finally wound down and drifted off about four in the morning. Robin was up making coffee at five, waking me.
“Hey,” she said. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”
“That’s all right.”
“Want some coffee?”
“Please. Black.”
She brought me a cup. I sat up to drink it. “Thanks.”
She settled into the nearest chair and sipped at her cup of joe. Her hair was sticking out in every direction. I also noticed that she had a nice set of legs. “This isn’t going to become a regular thing,” she informed me as she tightened her robe around her.
“You mean coffee in bed in the morning?”
“Don’t want you to have any unrealistic expectations.”
“I’ll try to keep myself under control.”
I don’t think Robin had slept a wink, because she went to sleep in the back of the SUV as we rolled through New Jersey. Rain began falling from a featureless slate sky. At first it was just a sprinkle; then it became steady. When she woke up, I pulled over and we ran around the car, dashing through the drops, changing places. She hadn’t even gotten up to highway speed before I was asleep.
They were sitting in a rental car on a highway pull-off, a half mile from Winchester’s mansion. Just across the
