Steven Gore - Absolute Risk

Nothing.

Whoever had been hired to replace Gilbert hadn’t gotten on to him yet. He knew they would, and could, anytime they felt like it. All they had to do was wait for him to show up at the few places connected with Ibrahim, Abrams, or Hennessy-assuming they were following him because he’d met with Abrams, and assuming that they were following Abrams because of Hennessy.

Gage walked the circumference of the garage, scanning the cars parked around the sculpture garden next to the street below and along the front of the Whole Foods Market. His phone rang again as he surveyed the parking places that had a view of the garage exit. If someone was set up to follow him when he left, that’s where they would’ve parked to be ready.

“Bugs everywhere, boss,” Viz said.

It was Hector McBride, Gage’s surveillance chief. Gage had nicknamed him Viz, for the same reason fat people were named Slim and slim people were named Fats. Despite being six-four and two hundred and thirty pounds, he was invisible to his targets. Even after a decade of working together, Gage still didn’t understand his magic.

“Where are you now?” Gage asked.

“I’m freezing my ass off in Central Park by the reservoir, and Abrams is at his office at the Fed. He doesn’t know yet.”

“How bad is it?”

“It doesn’t get much worse than this. There were multiple devices in every room, but not for fail-safe reasons. I think they were installed by different groups.”

“That means that whoever got there second has got to know about whoever got there first, and left the bugs installed.”

“That’s what I’m thinking. But they may not know who installed them.”

“And the second group couldn’t disable the original ones without giving themselves away or provoking the first group to come back and reinstall other devices.”

Viz laughed. “It’s game theory in practice. I should’ve paid more attention in college.”

Gage turned away from the street and walked back toward his car. There were too many possibilities for who’d installed the bugs. Foreign governments. Hedge funds looking for inside information. Those looking for Ibrahim. Maybe even Abrams’s estranged wife-and he didn’t yet know enough to exclude any of them.

“Interesting thing,” Viz said. “One set of devices are modified cell phones. The other set is hooked into his cable system. Both are connected into the electrical system and use lithium ion batteries. That means they’re always powered on and can be accessed from anywhere in the world, either by calling into the phones or through the Internet.”

“Any way to follow the signals to whoever is listening?”

“I could probably abstract some information out of the SIM cards-at least the numbers that have been called-and maybe Alex Z could backtrack the Internet traffic.”

Gage paused next to his rental car and scanned the rest of the vehicles on the floor, then climbed in.

“Call Abrams,” Gage said. “Tell him you need him at the apartment. Be cryptic in case they’ve also got his phones bugged. Meet him out front. Let’s assume they’ve broken into his computer, too. Have him give you access so you can get whatever information you need. DNS. Gateway. IP address. Then go with him to check his office and pass on whatever you learn there to Alex Z. Once he’s done with whatever tracing he can do, go back into the apartment and make a show of switching him from cable to satellite and set up something to interfere with cell service in the apartment. Once we figure out who they are, we can switch everything back on and feed them bum leads.”

The salesman’s smile on Abdul Rahmani’s face flamed out when Gage introduced himself as a private investigator. He got up from his desk behind the counter at Ijara Automobiles along Boston’s Soldier’s Field Road, yanked his pants up an inch, and waddled over. “Why can’t you guys leave me alone?” “Who is ‘you guys'?”

“FBI. IRS. That good-for-nothing Hennessy. And for the last couple of weeks, PIs.”

“Like Tony Gilbert?”

Rahmani nodded.

“He won’t be coming by anymore.”

“You his replacement?”

“Not exactly. We’re on different sides.” Gage shrugged. “But I’m not quite sure what all the sides are.”

Rahmani’s smile returned. “Join the club.”

“All I know is that the spokes of the wheel revolve around Hani Ibrahim.”

Rahmani spread his hands and raised his eyes toward the ceiling. “May Allah grant my wish that I never hear that name again.”

“How about I’ll refer to him as Fred,” Gage said.

Rahmani looked back at Gage. “And how about you tell me why you’re interested in Fred and I’ll tell you if I want to talk to you.”

“Can I buy you a cup of coffee while I try?”

Rahmani stared at Gage for a few seconds, his head rocking side to side, then said, “Let me get my coat and close up shop. Nobody’s car shopping today anyway.”

After Rahmani locked the front door behind them, Gage gestured toward the empty lot. “Where are the cars?”

“It’s kind of complicated.”

Rahmani led Gage past storefront real estate and insurance offices and a liquor store and pawnshop to a Turkish halal cafe. He waved to the owner as he escorted Gage to a booth at the rear of the empty restaurant. The owner brought over coffee without waiting for their order.

Gage leaned over the table in order to talk without the owner overhearing.

Rahmani shook his head. “No reason for secrecy.” He pointed at the owner. “Ilkay got snagged, too.”

Gage sat back and said, “From what I’ve been told, Hennessy-”

“You mean the lunatic.”

“Maybe, maybe not. He seemed to believe that Fred was innocent.”

“So he told me, but it didn’t help me with my tax bill.” Rahmani pointed at Gage. “You know what they dinged me for? Sixty thousand dollars in penalties and interest. And what I spent on lawyers, you wouldn’t fucking believe. I had to get a loan to pay for everything.”

“For using the hybrid company? ”

“And for proving that I wasn’t guilty by association with a guy-Fred-who wasn’t guilty at all. Terrorist financing? Fred hated those people. Hated-hated-hated. He was barely even a Muslim, much less a radical one. The only reason he participated in the discussion group we had was so that he could tell us every week what hypocrites we were, and he never missed a chance.”

“I thought the whole point of the hybrid was Islamic financing.”

Rahmani laughed. “Fred meant it as a joke. He only went through with it as an object lesson for us.”

Gage shook his head. “You’ve completely lost me.”

“An example.” Rahmani laid his forearms on the table, palms up. “You know how Orthodox Jews aren’t allowed to turn light switches on or off on the Sabbath?”

Gage nodded.

“The way they get around it is to use a shade that you can rotate so that it blocks the light. They flip the switch on before sundown on Friday and leave it on until sundown on Saturday. By rotating the shade, they get light when they want. Ingenious. They also have elevators that stop on every single floor on Saturdays so nobody has to push a button.”

“They invented ways to get around the rules.”

“In fact, but not in spirit. It’s all bullshit.”

Rahmani glanced at Ilkay standing at the counter reading a newspaper, and then lowered his voice.

“Like my business. Muslims aren’t supposed to pay interest- riba — so instead of the customer financing the car through a bank, I buy it, lease it to them, and at the end of the lease, they give me a little extra and they then own the car.” He pointed in the direction of his office. “That’s what ijara means in my company’s name. Lease.”