Robert Tanenbaum - Bad Faith

Karp looked at his wife, who gave him a knowing smile. He shook his head and glanced over at Rottingham, who stood with his mouth agape, and then up at LaFontaine. For the first time since he’d met the man, he saw fear in his eyes.

“Your Honor,” Karp said, “I’d suggest that this might be a good time to adjourn so that we can sort this out.”

Judge Temple closed his mouth, which had fallen open when Nonie Ellis shouted. He now recovered and banged his gavel. “Mr. Karp, I couldn’t agree with you more. Court is adjourned. Uh, and happy Halloween.”

Nadya Malovo smiled at Federal Agent Michael Rolles as they waited on the northwest corner of Sixth Avenue and 8th Street and watched the revelers pass them by tooting horns, beating drums, dancing, shouting, and laughing. “You make a good wolf; nice fangs,” she said.

For once Rolles smiled back at her. “The better to eat you with, my dear,” he growled.

“Promise, promises,” Malovo replied as she adjusted her red hood and switched her picnic basket from one hand to the other, the folds of her cape hiding the fact that her wrists were cuffed with plastic ties.

They were both feeling good about the evening. She because her plan-for all its complexity and potential pitfalls-was coming to fruition. He because she’d finally let him in on her plan the night before, after she’d met with the men in Bedford-Stuyvesant, and he realized that it was going to work. All that he wanted-power and money-would soon be his.

Only outwardly was Rolles an agent for the National Inter-Departmental Security Administration. In reality, he worked for the Sons of Man, another one of its legion of foot soldiers who had been assigned to infiltrate the political, military, law enforcement, and business establishments of the United States. Many years earlier, he’d begun his double-agent life working for the Central Intelligence Agency until the World Trade Center attacks of 9/11. In the rush to consolidate and expand national security under one umbrella, the hierarchy of the Sons of Man had seen an opportunity and ordered Rolles and many others like him to switch agencies.

That past spring he’d been given the assignment of a lifetime. Malovo, whom the Sons of Man had used in the past for a variety of their nefarious plans, had gotten word out of her federal cell that she could deliver a very valuable prize. Her asking price was her freedom and enough money to live like a queen for the rest of her life, and not in some crummy witness protection program.

At least that was what she’d told Rolles when he showed up at the maximum-security federal penitentiary, ostensibly to try his hand at questioning her. When they’d agreed on the deal, they played it cool. At first she pretended that she was no more interested in talking to him about sleeper cells than she had been with any of the other federal agents, like Espey Jaxon. But over time, she had started to “divulge information” that led to the destruction and apprehension of some of the cells, including the one she goaded into attacking the Liberty Island ferry, and then let it be known that she was only going to cooperate with Rolles.

Even Rolles admitted to her that afternoon as they prepared for the final phase that her plan was brilliant. It incorporated three objectives that all fit in with the goals of his organization.

The first would be the terrorist act. If all went right hundreds of people would die that night and thousands more would be maimed. All of which would be televised around the country and the world. Most importantly, the fear and paranoia generated by such easily accomplished suicide attacks would be overwhelming. The comfort zone Americans were finally settling back into in the post-9/11 world would be destroyed in a moment of death and destruction. What little faith they had in their current leaders would evaporate and create a vacuum into which powerful, confident, and determined men would step, even if it required martial law and the suspension of certain constitutional protections.

The second facet of Malovo’s plan was the assassination of Roger Karp, the district attorney of New York County. For too long he and his cursed family and friends had foiled the well-laid plans of the Sons of Man. Sometimes it was beyond all understanding how they had stopped the organization from accomplishing its goals, but enough was enough; it was time for him to die. That this fit with Malovo’s desire for revenge made it all the sweeter to her.

However, it was the third part of her plan that truly mattered. The prize she had dangled in front of the Sons of Man was Andrew Kane, formerly the group’s most powerful member. As she told Rolles when he was sent to find out if she could deliver what she promised, Kane was alive and being held captive by the madman David Grale. One of her trusted men on the outside, one of the Russians she’d met with the night before, had been approached by a traitor who told him about Kane and said he could help locate him.

She could only imagine the ripple of both excitement and fear that the news of Kane’s whereabouts had sent through the clandestine organization. When he was in power, Kane had seen to it that billions of dollars of the organization’s finances were shifted into accounts that only he could access. The Sons of Man had lost billions more due to Karp and his friends, while the organization was not bankrupt, the financial blows had crippled its ability to push its agenda. Getting access to the money Kane had squirreled away would put them again in the driver’s seat.

However, even billions of dollars wasn’t the most important reason that Malovo’s plan to find Kane was so vital to the Sons of Man. Kane knew the identities of those members of the group who had yet to be discovered by Jaxon and his agency, one of the few agencies the Sons of Man had been unable to make any inroads into, mostly because of its small size.

As such, there were two possible outcomes for Kane if Malovo’s plan worked. Hopefully, he could be “rescued” from Grale and then forced to divulge the information regarding the secret bank accounts. After that, he would be disposed of. However, if Kane couldn’t be removed from Grale’s lair, it was up to Rolles and his two men, as well as Malovo, to kill Kane and silence him forever.

Malovo was quite certain that Rolles was also supposed to kill her, too. She was a loose end. She knew too much. Of course, she had not told him all of her plan. The image of her former mentor lying in the blood-red snow flashed in her mind and the thought made her happy.

Fortunately, Rolles was as weak as any other man. She couldn’t seduce him with her sexuality, but she played to his ambition. She looked up at him again, seeing past the fake canine nose and fangs, through the gray fur headpiece and floppy ears. He was thinking about all the rungs he would be jumping past on the Sons of Man ladder. Maybe right into the inner circle and a seat at its table .

As she watched a marching band of bare-breasted women covered in body paint dance past, Malovo smiled again. Knowing your enemy’s plan allows you to make the first move . This advice from her mentor had saved her many times, even if it had not saved him.

Waiting for word that the next phase had been completed, Malovo took in the scene around her. For more than a mile the sidewalks were packed with people, most of them in costume watching the parade. She knew that the marchers had begun lining up early that afternoon, an amazing collection of some of the most outlandish and outrageous costumes. Skeletons and vampires. Satyrs and clowns. Giants on stilts strode by as drag queens in their element proudly posed for photographs with tourists. And at the tail end of the parade was the grand marshal’s float-a cemetery with gravestones and ghosts, all presided over by the Grim Reaper.