Robert Tanenbaum - Counterplay

“Pops?” Guma asked.

“Yeah, I’d say like gunshots, I guess, ‘pow, pow,’ except muffled-one right after the other. And I think…this isn’t quite as clear and who knows, maybe this is my subconscious mind working, but I can’t get it out of my head-”

“What’s that?” Karp asked when the young man hesitated.

“Well, my bedroom was right above the backyard where we used to have these beautiful rose gardens. What I can’t get out of my head, is the sound that night of someone digging.”

Five minutes later, Zachary was gone from the room, but the ADAs were still quiet, lost in thought. “Well, what do you think?” Guma said. “I could wait and keep trying to find a way to search Stavros’s backyard. But that might not happen, and even if he killed her, she might not be buried there. Or I can try to get an indictment, throw the dice, see if I crap out.”

No one else spoke. Then Kipman cleared his throat. Of all the ADAs there, chief of the appeals bureau “Hotspur”-so named because of a surprisingly quick temper-Kipman knew best the hurdles the case would have to overcome. “Even a conviction won’t end this, Ray,” he said. “But I say you roll the dice. If we can get him on the stand, that kid might just do it for you.”

All the ADAs agreed. Several stopped to pat Guma on the back and wish him luck on their way out. Then only Guma, Murrow, and Karp were in the room.

“If we go after Emil Stavros, you know all hell is going to break loose on the political front,” Murrow said miserably. He was running Karp’s campaign for district attorney and looked like someone had just told him that they’d booked the victory party on the Titanic.

Karp understood where he was coming from. Part of him wanted to put off the move for an indictment until after the election. What are another few months after fourteen years? said the little voice in his head. But another side of him was recalling the image of a young man still grieving for a lost mother. “I know,” he said.

“Want to put it on a back burner until after the election?” Guma asked.

Murrow didn’t bother to look up from where he was doodling the word Doomed on his yellow legal pad. He knew his boss and knew what the answer would be.

“Nah, if what Zachary says is true, Teresa Aiello Stavros has already waited fourteen years too long for justice,” Karp said. “Let’s take it to the grand jury and see what they have to say.”

Guma grinned like a wolf contemplating which little pig to eat first. “That’s my guy,” he said. “Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead.”

“Yeah, well, I hope we don’t get blown out of the water on this one,” Murrow said.

To which Karp added, “Let’s figure out a way to find her body, Ray. Also, check with forensics and see if they can make a match with her signature or any other handwriting we have that she allegedly signed off on during that period after she disappeared. Let’s hope it works, because right now this case is as thin as it gets.”

April

Samira Azzam’s heart was light as she walked down the breezeway connecting the mansion in Aspen, Colorado, to the “guest cottage” where he waited. It was a good day…the plan was in motion, martyrdom assured.

She was sneeringly aware that the two bodyguards poised at the door ahead couldn’t take their eyes off her bouncing breasts and the promising swing of her hips wrapped as they were in tight blue jeans. She knew that fundamentalist Islamic men like the two at the door viewed women dressed like she was as whores-to be used, perhaps, but not respected. But these two also knew to keep their mouths shut as she drew close; Samira Azzam was a dangerous woman to insult.

As a modern Palestinian woman, she believed that the traditional roles between Muslim men and women were outdated and would have to change someday. But not until the Zionists and their puppets, the Americans, had been cast out of Palestine, and one Islamic State, a caliphate, established to rule the world. In sha’ Allah, she murmured to herself… God willing. Not that she planned to be around for either the cultural revolution in the Muslim world or the final defeat of the enemy. She sought istish-haad, heroic martyrdom, and she’d been promised that the moment was near at hand.

She was well aware of her effect on men and used it to full advantage as an al Qaeda field leader and assassin. Personally, she preferred women in bed-they were so much more civilized in their sexual desires than the gruntings and groanings of men. She especially despised it when men made their infantile inquiries as to whether they had “pleased” her. Depending on her mission, she might coo, “Oh yes, like no other,” and ply them for information. Or, her preference, she’d snarl “no” and kill them. Her current love, Ajmaani, a Chechen, was a strong woman like herself; tall, beautiful, and blond, the result of some holdover DNA from ancient Thracian incursions into the area. She’d also proven to be invaluable as a strategist, a Russian translator, and a guide who had led Azzam into and out of the sieges of the theater and the school. They’d sworn their eternal love for one another and promised to die in martyrdom by each other’s side so that they could enter paradise together. Their sexual appetite for each other had made them stronger, more impassioned for their work.

Sex, however, weakened the men she dealt with. They were all molding clay in her hands, even those of her masters who had used her for their own pleasure without realizing that she was using them as well. She could manipulate any man, except for him, the man in the room beyond the guarded door. He never asked whether he had pleased her, he knew he had not, nor did he care. Sex was a brutal, savage way to please himself, anyone else be damned.

Still, Azzam pretended to enjoy his attentions. His narcissism demanded it, and her al Qaeda masters seemed to consider him an important asset in the struggle and, therefore, she had been ordered to do whatever he wanted.

Of course, he’d been more beneficial before being exposed by the Jew Karp and his rabble of family and friends… the targets. That al Qaeda’s ally Kane might otherwise have become the next mayor of New York had been so very Arabic in its irony. It was disappointing that it had not come to pass, but the man was still valuable. He had a network of arms dealers and banking institutions that had survived his fall. And, more importantly, he’d conceived the plan that would at once satisfy his requirements, as well as strike a blow that would make the infidels tremble.

It had been up to her and Ajmaani to plan and carry out the operation to free Andrew Kane. Since then, she hadn’t given the murdered children or other victims a second thought, any more than she had the schoolchildren at Beslan. If ever she had been troubled by such embers of a dying conscience, it was long before and short-lived, giving way to the mantra, There are casualties in every war.

The subterfuge with her “lover” Kane was not difficult. Even her name, Samira Azzam, was not her own. She had been born Nathalie Habibi, the child of Palestinians living on the West Bank. Her father had driven a taxi-an ancient, dilapidated Volkswagen van he kept running with scavenged parts, curses, and constant prayers to Allah-while her mother crossed to the Israeli side every day to work in a factory that made parts for irrigation machines. They didn’t own much, just their simple cinderblock home, a few changes of clothing, and family heirlooms, like the old and somewhat tattered Quran that had been handed down for generations. But there’d been food on the table, as well as love and laughter, especially if the laughter came at the expense of the “damned Israelis” as the butt of some joke.