Killer Instinct (Instinct #2)(11)

Annabelle buried her face in my shoulder. “As you can see she’s not terribly good with strangers,” I said. I didn’t actually punch the word strangers, nor did I have to. The word itself did the trick.

“Oh, yes, of course. My apologies,” he said, reaching inside his suit jacket, which was clearly custom-tailored. He handed me his card. “I’m Benjamin Al-Kazaz.”

Different cultures have different etiquette when it comes to giving someone a business card. The Chinese always use two hands. In India, you use the right hand and only the right hand to extend a card.

But what we all do once we get the card is universal. It’s human nature. We all look at the card.

BENJAMIN AL-KAZAZ, ATTORNEY AT LAW. No address, just a phone number.

I looked back up at him, catching his stare. He was around my age, maybe a few years older. Clean-cut, no beard.

What I noticed most, though, was the furrowed brow above his very dark eyes. It spoke volumes. He was not the bearer of good news.

“I’m afraid to ask,” I said.

“I’m here regarding an old friend of yours. Ahmed Al-Hamdah?”

He could’ve stopped right there. I knew what was coming. The only question in my mind was When did it happen? But I couldn’t ask that because that would be revealing too much. About me. About my past.

So instead I said what I was supposed to say. I said what Ahmed would say if a stranger had asked him about me.

“I’m sorry, who?” I asked.

Al-Kazaz nodded with a hint of a smile. “He told me that’s what you’d say.” The smile then disappeared. “I’m afraid your friend, Mr. Al-Hamdah, is dead.”





CHAPTER 13


“COME IN,” I said, stepping back from the doorway.

“Thank you,” said Al-Kazaz.

I led him into the living room, offering him a seat in one of the armchairs opposite the sofa. Annabelle was still playing shy, so I put her down beside her pink pop-up tent, which she absolutely adores, and then grabbed her Baby Stella doll. She smiled wide as I handed it to her. All was good in her world.

My world was less so. A lot less.

I’d first met Ahmed Al-Hamdah as a field operative in London. My cover was a research fellowship at Cambridge. His was as a ThM candidate at Oxford—a master of theology. He’d been recruited by MI6 to be their eyes and ears in the Baitul Futuh Mosque in South London, the largest mosque in Great Britain. Our paths crossed during a joint CIA and MI6 operation to foil a bombing at Westminster Abbey. We foiled it, all right, but it nearly got me killed. One chilly night in November, when my cover was blown, Ahmed saved my life.

“Can I get you something to drink?” I asked Al-Kazaz. “Coffee?”

“No, thank you,” he said.

I sat down on the sofa, grabbed a knee with each hand, and stared for a moment at the stranger I’d just invited into my home. The only things I knew about him were what he’d told me. In other words, I knew nothing about him.

He, however, knew my name and where I lived. He also knew that Ahmed was at the very least a friend of mine. I couldn’t help but wonder: did this stranger know my past?

“It’s been years since I’ve seen or talked to Ahmed,” I said. “Was there an accident? Had he been sick?”

Fat chance. Ahmed had still been an operative, although now with the CIA. The Agency doesn’t exactly promote this fact in their recruiting pamphlets, but the probability of an operative dying in the line of duty is 28 percent. If you happen to be a Muslim operative, it jumps to 44 percent.

Al-Kazaz shook his head. “Ahmed was killed in the Times Square bombings yesterday.”

I didn’t have to fake my surprise. “How do you know?” I asked.

“I know.”

“How do you know?”

“I have to be honest with you, Dr. Reinhart. I’m not privy to what Ahmed really did for a living. I have my suspicions, but it wasn’t my place to ask,” said Al-Kazaz. “Ahmed told me he was an insurance executive when he hired me years ago, although I haven’t known many insurance executives who wanted to exchange a text every day in order to confirm they’re still alive.”

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“It was an unusual arrangement, and it’s what ultimately led me to you,” said Al-Kazaz. “Every day, precisely at noon, I sent Ahmed a one-word text. If he responded in a certain way, I knew it was him and that he was alive.”

“May I ask what the one word was?”

“It was actually a name. Gary.”

“Gary?”

“Yes. And every day for the last three years, without fail, Ahmed texted back the same response within sixty seconds.”

“Cooper,” I said. It was pure reflex. Ahmed loved westerns. His favorite movie was High Noon. He used to talk my ear off over pints of Guinness about how cool Gary Cooper was.

Al-Kazaz nodded. “Only yesterday, there was no Cooper,” he said. “I immediately had a bad feeling given what happened in Times Square. I called a friend of mine with the police. Ahmed’s wallet had been found on one of the bodies.”

“I’m confused,” I said, which wasn’t entirely a lie. “Was my name in his wallet or something?”

I knew that wasn’t a possibility, but the dots still weren’t connected. How did this attorney get to me via Ahmed?