Escape (54 page)

As he said it, Prince Esra bin Afraan al-Saud rang the Opening Bell to cheers and laughter and high-fives all around. "It's a frickin' house of cards."

"Mr. Karp, are you prepared to cross-examine this witness?" Dermondy asked, having just called the court back in session following the morning break.

"I am, Your Honor," Karp said, standing but remaining at the table as if to say
this will be short and sweet.

"Doctor, do you understand the law in regard to an insanity defense?"

"I have ... umm ... testified in more than ..."

"That's not what I asked," Karp interrupted. "I asked if you understood the law."

Nickles tilted her head to the side and blinked. "Yes," she replied curtly. "In order to be found criminally ... aah, umm ... responsible, the defendant must have been aware of the nature ... and ... consequences of his or her actions, and whether ... hmmm unnn ... those actions were wrong."

"In other words, did the defendant know what she was doing and that she shouldn't do it."

"That's how the law reads ... though, perhaps ... ummm hmmm ... there is room for revision."

"Well, we'll leave that for some other time, unless you want to instruct us on how the law should read and, perhaps, any others you don't care for." The psychiatrist's mouth opened in surprise as Lewis jumped to her feet. "I object," said the attorney.

"So do ... ummm ... I," Nickles protested, pushing her glasses back up her nose.

"Counsel is being unnecessarily aggressive with the witness," Lewis continued, "for the sole purpose of casting her in a bad light with the jury!" Dermondy looked at Karp. "How do you respond to that?"

"By apologizing, Your Honor. I'll try to be a kinder, gentler DA."

"I'd appreciate ... mmm nnnh ... that," Nickles sniffed.

Karp's smile disappeared. "Doctor, you're aware of the evidence that has been presented in this case?"

"I believe I've read ... umm hmmm ... just about everything in the defense files. Which I believe should include everything."

"Then you are aware that three days before the murders, Jessica Campbell drove her Volvo station wagon to Newark, where she purchased a footlocker and a padlock?"

"Yes, I am aware of... hmmm ... that."

"And the purpose of the footlocker was to remove and store the bodies of her three dead children?"

"I don't know if that's what she ... uh-huh ... bought it for, but that's what she used it for."

"She bought it three days before she murdered her children."

"The word 'murdered' is pejorative in this context, as it implies that a criminal... hummm nnhh ... act took place, when I... believe that this trial is about whether ... aaah hmm ... Jessica Campbell had the state of mind to form criminal intent."

Karp glanced down and gave Katz a "this is what I meant" look. "Then let's just say she bought the footlocker three days before she held her children under water and/or stabbed them until they were dead?"

"That's correct."

"And then used it to remove and hide their bodies."

"Again, Mr. Karp, the use of the word 'hide' implies that Mrs. Campbell was consciously trying ... hhhmm mnnh ... to avoid detection for fear ... aaah ... of punishment... aah mmm ... as opposed to simply 'following orders' from above."

Karp leaned forward with his knuckles on the table. "Fine. She bought the footlocker several days before she held her children under water or stabbed them until they were dead, and then used the footlocker to remove their bodies, and then to store those bodies, inside a car, submerged in a river. Correct?"

"I believe that's ... correct."

"Doctor, in arriving at your opinion that Jessica Campbell didn't know what she was doing, did you take into account that she purchased a footlocker and not a ... oh, I don't know ... say a large roll of toilet paper for this purpose?" The unexpected turn in his line of questioning woke up the spectators. Lewis, however, scowled and objected. "There's no mention of any toilet paper in the testimony. Counsel is just being facetious ... again."

"Mr. Karp?" Dermondy asked.

Karp held his hands out to the side. "There's nothing facetious about the question, Your Honor. We're talking about the defendant's state of mind—whether she knew what she was doing and why—and this witness has testified that the defendant was delusional and out of touch with reality. Therefore, why not wrap the bodies up in toilet paper and try to dispose of them that way, instead of in a sturdy footlocker?"

The judge considered. "I'll allow it." He looked at the witness and asked, "So I believe the question was, did you take all that into account?"

"Well, yes, I knew she purchased a footlocker ... and not a roll of toilet paper... and used it to ... ummm hmmm ... remove and store the bodies." Karp walked over to the evidence table. "And doctor, you are aware that on that same shopping trip, the defendant left the store where she purchased the footlocker and drove 3.8 miles farther down the road to a sporting goods store where she bought a hunting knife?" He picked up the weapon. "This knife."

"Yes. That is what she did, and I'll take your word for it that that is the knife."

"Thank you for that. And she bought this knife for the purpose of killing her children?"

"That is what she used it for in one case I believe."

"You'd be correct. So then, doctor, when you arrived at your opinion about her state of mind, did you take into account the fact that she purchased a hunting knife instead of, say, a banana with which to stab her child?"

Nickles looked over to see if Lewis was going to object. When no objection was forthcoming, Nickles answered peevishly. "I guess that ... umm, yes, hmm ... I knew that she used a knife to stab her daughter."

"And not a banana?"

"I don't see what bananas have to do with this?"

"Only that you've testified that the defendant was so delusional she didn't know what she was doing when she murdered her children.... So why not use a banana?... Or beat them with a head of lettuce?"

The spectators and even the jurors laughed. Lewis jumped to her feet, but the judge was already on it. "Mr. Karp, I believe counsel is about to object on the grounds that you are being argumentative. I'd have to concur. So I'll sustain the objection she was going to make."

Karp bowed. "Again, I apologize. But I'd just like a yes or no answer to my question." He turned again to Nickles. "In reaching your conclusion, did you take into account that Jessica Campbell used a knife, not a banana, to stab Hillary Campbell?"

Nickles blinked twice and worked her jaw. "Yes."

"Thank you so much. And did you take into account that the defendant-filled the bathtub with a deadly weapon, in this case water, and not potato chips, for the purpose of drowning her children?"

Lewis didn't waste her breath with an objection, so Nickles answered. "Yes. She filled the bathtub with water, not potato chips."

"And, doctor, did you take into account the fact that the defendant waited until her husband had left their home before she began killing her children, instead of proceeding while he was there?"

"Yes."

"Why would you suppose she waited?"

"Objection," Lewis said. "Calls for conjecture. Dr. Nickles could not possibly know what Mrs. Campbell was thinking at that moment."

Karp took a step back as if surprised. "No? Her entire testimony has been about what was going on in the defendant's mind. This is merely another question along those same lines."

"You're quite correct, Mr. Karp," Dermondy ruled. "Dr. Nickles, please answer."

Nickles was beginning to look like an animal who sensed a trap but didn't know if leaping to the left or the right would increase her chances of falling in. "I suppose she thought he might ... um, ah, yes ... try to stop her. But again, she was in a disassociative state and was in a sense a ... ummm ... spectator watching this unfold."

"I see," Karp said in a manner that meant he didn't see it at all. "But I thought that you testified that with schizophrenia, there aren't really two personalities. There is the personality that exists first, and then a sort of deterioration into a different personality?"

"That is, basically, true."

"Well, then are you saying that the 'real' Jessica Campbell—who three days earlier had purchased a footlocker and a hunting knife—that morning fixed breakfast, carried on a normal conversation, kissed her husband goodbye, and only then slid downhill into a Mr. Hyde personality and murdered her children?"

"Well, uh ... mmm hmmm ... actually, she was probably schizophrenic and changing before then."

"So the new personality showed up sometime earlier?"

"Well, it's a gradual thing."

"I see. And did you take into account the fact that this new personality called the nanny and told her not to come in to work that day?"

"Yes."

"And in fact, the defendant came up with a logical reason for that. She was going to take care of the kids herself?"

"Yes."

"She didn't tell the nanny, 'I'm going to send the children to God now.'"

"No."

"And would it be fair to say that she wanted the nanny to stay home because the nanny might try to stop her from killing her children?"

"Yes, that... would be true, too."

"And the nanny and her husband would have stopped Jessica Campbell because ..."

Nickles felt the jaws of the trap close, but there was nothing she could do. "Because it's wrong to ... ummm hnn ... kill other human beings."

"So she was aware that it was wrong?"

"Well, she thought that what ... aah hnnnh ... she was doing was morally right. She was trying to ... hmmm mmm ... save their souls."

"Would you agree, doctor, that at the time she submerged her children beneath the water, she appreciated that it would cause their deaths?"

"Appreciated?"

"In the 'understood' sense of the word. Did she believe that holding her children's heads under water—and in the case of Hillary, also stabbing her repeatedly in the chest—would cause their deaths?"

"Well, no, I don't think ... mmm nnnn ... that's how she saw it. She was 'sending them to God,' and this was how ... she ... was going to do that."

"Isn't 'send them to God' just a euphemism for murder?"

"No. It is a statement of reality such ... hmmm nnnn ... as she saw it." Karp picked up one of the photographs taken of Jessica Campbell's scratched and bruised forearms. He showed it again to the jurors and then to the witness.

"Doctor, taking into account that the two older children, Hillary and Chelsea, fought to stay alive to the point of scratching their mother's arms, as this photograph demonstrates, was Mrs. Campbell so out of touch that she thought that they were playing a game?"

"I don't know what she thought ... umm, uh-huh ... they were doing. She was just complying with God's will... as she understood it."

"Just 'following orders,' right?"

"Yes, essentially."

"And when she pulled the first limp body out of the bathtub, did she realize then that she'd killed her child?"

"I ... um ha ... would assume that she thought she'd sent the child to God."

"The child was dead."

"Yes."

"Then she held the next child under water. Same result, right?"

"Yes."

"And then a third time. Same thing."

"Yes."

"Well then, doctor, please tell us at what point Jessica Campbell failed to know and appreciate the nature and consequences of her actions. After the first child? The second? The third?"

"I don't think she appreciated the nature and consequences of her actions at any time during this episode."

Karp's hand with the photograph dropped to his side. "Doctor, when you reached your conclusion that Jessica Campbell did not know that her actions were wrong, did you take into account that she purchased the footlocker and knife in Newark rather than Manhattan?"

"Yes, I knew that."

"Did she do that to avoid being recognized?"

"She told me that," the psychiatrist admitted. "But once again it was ... hmmm aaah ... so that no one would prevent her from doing God's will." Karp looked at the jurors and wondered if they thought this was as much bullshit as he did. They were certainly taking a lot of notes, whatever that meant.

"Doctor, did you take into account when rendering your opinion on whether Jessica Campbell understood the wrongfulness of her actions that the defendant cleaned the murder scene until it was spotless, placed the bodies in a footlocker, secured it with a padlock, placed the footlocker in her car, and drove the car one hundred miles to Staatsburg? There she carefully wedged a stick between the seat and accelerator pedal, started the car, put it in drive, and watched it plunge into the Hudson River."

"I was ... hmm ... aware of all that."

"But if she didn't understand that what she had done was wrong, then why did she make such an effort to remove all trace that it occurred? Why not just leave the bodies in the bathroom and explain why it was all necessary when her husband got home?"

"Because God told her to do it."

"Oh, so it is God who knew that pushing these children under water and stabbing them would kill them, and since God knew it was wrong, He told Jessica to hide the evidence."

"In a sense, yes."

"Well, then excuse me. Your Honor, I'd like to move for a mistrial. We have the wrong person sitting at the defense table. It's God who should be sitting over there, not Jessica Campbell."

"Objection. Your Honor, would you instruct the district attorney to save the dramatics for his closing arguments?"

"Counsel, please save your dramatics for closing arguments," the judge repeated after Lewis.

"I withdraw the question and ask God's forgiveness." Karp turned his back to Nickles. "I have nothing further for this witness."

After the Opening Bell ceremony, Eric introduced the twins to various people around the stock exchange. As usual, their favorite place was with the guys who had the guns and fancy equipment—this time up in the security office, where the officer sitting in front of the monitors, a short, heavy Puerto Rican woman named Angela Flores, demonstrated how they could see into every corner of the building.

"Including the supply room, Mr. Eliaso," Flores laughed. "Yes, we see you trying to get away with shit down there.... Oh, 'scuse my language, boys. No more putting your coat over the camera, or I'm gonna come down there and take Poloroids of your white ass up to no good."

"I have no idea what you mean."

As they left the security office, the boys nearly bowled over two NYPD officers coming up the stairs. "Whoa, whoa, where's the fire?" one of the officers said, grabbing a rail with one hand and Zak with the other to keep them both from falling.

"Sorry, so sorry," Marlene apologized. "If you'd loan me your handcuffs, I'll see to it that they're brought under control. And maybe your pepper spray, too."

The officers laughed and continued on to the security office, while Marlene and all the boys headed down to the cafeteria for lunch. As Eric had promised, the room was full of NYPD officers enjoying free food, courtesy of the NYSE.

Marlene made sure that lunch was a leisurely affair. She'd noticed that Mariano wasn't talking much. Too
many stairs,
she thought. She decided that after lunch, she'd find a place to sit with him up in the visitor's gallery and let the boys follow Eric around.

She'd had to twist her father's arm to get him to come with them that morning. "I'll just be in the way," he groused. "And I'll slow you down."

"Ah, come on, Grandpa," Zak had insisted. "It's no fun when it's just Mom."

"Gee, thanks," Marlene had complained, giving her son a wink. Zak was a great kid no matter what his teachers, the neighbors, the mothers of teenaged girls, and his brother said about him.

"Well, lived here most of my life, and I guess that's the one place I've never been," Mariano had said. "Tell you what, I'll go if you let me buy all of you cherry cheese coffee-cake at Il Buon Pane afterward. I haven't seen Alfredo in months!"

"Moishe, Pops, Moishe Sobelman owns it now."

"I know that. Well, maybe I forgot for a moment. Gee, can't I have a senior moment without somebody making a big deal?"

"Have all you want, Pops. You earned them. And we'll take you up on the cherry cheese coffee-cake."

Most of the crowd had cleared out of the cafeteria by the time Eric looked at his watch. "Okay, I still have a few minutes before I have to go make some money. So how much do you know about the history of the stock exchange?"

Giancarlo's hand shot up. "It started in 1792 when twenty-four stockbrokers met under a buttonwood tree to come up with a way to make it easier to buy and sell stock in companies. They signed the 'Buttonwood Agreement' to only trade with each other. And the first company listed was Bank of New York."

"That's right," Eric nodded. "This all started under a tree. Even when they started working out of a building, the traders would be up on a balcony yelling back and forth, making trades with people down on the street. That evolved into the scenario you guys have all seen in the movies, with guys frantically jumping around with pieces of paper, which are actually orders to buy or sell, yelling up at guys. We still have some days like that, but they're becoming fewer and further between."

"You've hinted that the Exchange is changing, maybe downsizing?" Marlene noted. "And I know it's been a while since I've been here, but there really doesn't seem to be as much activity as in the past."

"Yeah, to tell you the truth, the New York Stock Exchange as everybody pictures it may not exist much longer. In December 2005, the Exchange went public and electronic; you don't have to buy a seat on the Exchange to trade anymore. In fact, you don't have to be here at all."

"You mean like people who buy stock on the Internet?" Zak asked. "Well, that has a little to do with it. But really, individuals who dabble online in the stock market don't account for much in the grand scheme of things. I'm talking about guys who buy and sell millions of shares at a time. They can do it instantaneously over the computer without going through a stockbroker."

"I guess if you can do it, it makes sense," Giancarlo said.

"Yeah, maybe. You don't have to pay some guy like me a commission. But I think that it will be a real shame when stock trading loses that human factor—some guy who can work a deal and get a better price for the buyer or seller. With a computer, the price is what it is. That's kind of sad for guys like me. It might surprise you, seeing as how I'm so smart and all, but a lot of us don't have much formal education. We're Italian and Irish kids from Brooklyn and Queens who started off working for the Exchange in the summer and on school holidays. We weren't too look smart, but we had street smarts and knew how to wheel and deal, which is really what the stock market is all about. We even manage to make a decent living ... and there's always that really big deal out there just waiting to happen, like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I love it; every day is different. Sometimes the market goes crazy, up or down, and it's like being on the rollercoaster at Coney Island, only you don't know what's coming around the next bend."

Eric took a sip of his coffee. "Remember those guys you saw sitting at the trading posts, looking up at the monitors? And how there wasn't even guys at some places? It wasn't too long ago when there'd be three or four queued up at every one of those seats, waiting to get on. There'd be a lot of pushing and shoving, and even the occasional fistfight. And tell you what...nothing but nothing stopped the trading."

"Not even some guy croaking?" Zak asked.

"Leave it to you to find some way to throw a little death into this," Marlene said.

"Actually, Zak's right." Eric lowered his voice. "They've had guys die in here and they fixed it so that the trading didn't stop, not even for a second. In fact, I was here a few winters ago when some guy who'd been shoveling snow at his house in Yonkers came to work and dropped dead at one of the monitors. Fell right off his seat onto the floor. But did that stop anybody? Hell no, other guys were stepping over him to get to his chair. They had some security guys drag him out the front door before the cops or ambulance could get here and interrupt business."

"Oh come on, that's an urban myth," Marlene scoffed.

"No, God's truth, cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my guinea eye. If the cops had found him dead on the floor, they might have taped the area off and had a big investigation. But nothing shuts down the stock exchange if they can help it... except maybe blowing up the World Trade Center. That did it for four days, and the country lost more than a trillion dollars in capital."

Suddenly, Mariano stood up. "I need to find the restroom," he announced. "Need me to go with you, Pops?" Marlene asked.

"What, you going to take me into the ladies room, or something?" he replied. "I'm perfectly capable of unzipping my own pants and washing my hands, thank you very much."

"You got two choices, Mr. Ciampi," Eric said. "You can go up the stairs and you'll find one. Or you can go back in the direction we came, and you'll find one just past the computer room."

As Mariano turned to go, Marlene nodded to the twins, who got the message and jumped up. "We need to go, too," Giancarlo said.

"Well, come on, you two," Mariano said. "At least we can use the same room. The Three Amigos pissing together, right?"

"Right."

Mariano started to leave, then seemed to remember something and turned back. "Don't be getting my daughter in no more trouble, Enrique!"

"No sir, I wouldn't dream of it." When the old man was out of range, he looked at his cousin. "Think he'll ever forgive me? That was thirty years ago, for chrissake."

"Sorry, Enrique. He can't remember where he lives half the time, but he will never, ever forgive you for getting me tossed in the slammer."

The three black NYPD officers sipped at their coffees as they waited for the noontime crowd to filter out of the stock exchange cafeteria. Finally, it got down to a couple of traders, a half-dozen food-service employees, a couple of other cops, and the woman and the guy with the Gotham City Bank jacket who'd been with the two boys and old guy they'd seen when they entered the building that morning.

The kids and the old man had been gone a while, and the woman was apparently getting agitated because they weren't back yet. She got up and walked past them to look out the door, then came back shaking her head and shrugging her shoulders. The guy in the jacket got up, and they left the cafeteria, heading for the stairs to the upper floors.

When the last of the other customers left, except for two other officers, the first set of officers got up and walked over to the table where the others were, apparently in no hurry to get back to their beat. "How ya doin'?" said one of the seated cops, a beefy Italian-looking guy about fifty years old with salt-and-pepper hair.

"About to head out," the leader of the three replied. "Just stopped in for the free lunch."

"Yeah? I ain't seen you guys around before. What precinct you with?" asked the other seated cop, a prototypical Irish officer with red hair and a round face covered with freckles.

"The 23rd."

"Shit... all the way down from Harlem just for cafeteria food?" the Italian officer laughed, rolling his eyes at his partner. "At least we're only from the First—Battery Park substation."

"Hey, I got a kid in college. If it's free, I'm there," the black officer laughed. Actually, he didn't have a kid and had never been married. He had been a sergeant in the United States Army before he'd been dishonorably discharged because he'd refused to fight against other Muslims in Iraq.

The Irish cop nodded. "I'm hearing you, brother," he said. "I got two in school and another one living in my basement, no job, eats like a horse. But whaddya gonna do? Old lady says he stays, or I'm sleeping on the couch."

"This is the best deal going," said the Italian cop. "It ain't like the old days when my dad was walking a beat and could count on a free meal wherever he wanted. In them days, the restaurant owners liked having cops in their joints. Kept the riffraff and robbers out. Even in Little Italy, all the mobbed-up guys was the first to insist that you eat and drink as much as you wanted. They knew that none of their competitors was going to shoot the place up with a cop on the premises."

"Hell, Geno, half of them wiseguys was your dad's cousins anyway," the Irish cop laughed.

"Yeah, what do you know, O'Toole, ya frickin' Mick," Geno replied. "I heard your old man had a pint in every saloon on his beat."

"Man, were them the days," O'Toole sighed.

The black cop, whose name was Kareem Mousawi, smiled. "You got that right ... it ain't like the old days," he replied. Nor
will it ever be again,
Inshallah.

The Italian cop looked at his watch. "Shit, running late. Eat up O'Toole, we got to get back." He looked up at the three black cops, who didn't seem to be going anywhere. "I guess you boys up in the Two-Three are pretty lax about long lunch hours, eh?"

"Now that the temperatures have cooled some, the brothers are pretty quiet," one of the younger black cops said.

"Well, we were just heading out," Mousawi added. With that he turned and walked out the door followed by his two companions.

They'd just reached the hallway when two large Middle Eastern-looking men in dark suits and dark glasses appeared from the direction of the stairs. Advance security men for Prince Esra, they exchanged nods with the police officers as they passed by.

A few seconds later, the prince and his entourage arrived from the same direction, escorted by a stock exchange official, who was giving a running dialogue like a guide at a theme park. "This is the cafeteria, nothing too exciting there, and I take it we all ate enough at that lovely luncheon upstairs. Just ahead are the 'brains' of our little endeavor."

The prince was accompanied by other Middle Eastern men, as well as two white guys in suits and a white woman. They all walked on down the hall and around the corner, headed for the computer room.

Mousawi adjusted his Kevlar vest. It was uncomfortable under the tight-fitting uniform shirt. Then again, beggars can't be choosers. It was hard enough to steal three NYPD uniforms and badges—five if you counted the two guys upstairs—much less get a perfect fit.

And you've been chowing pretty well lately, Mousawi,
he thought. This was the third "free lunch" he and his companions had eaten over the past two weeks. The first two had been trial runs to see if it would be as easy to walk in with their weapons as their informant had told them. The first time, he'd braced for the worst and was prepared to run if the security guards so much as sniffed in his direction. But the guards had hardly given him a second glance, and the other cops ignored them, too, except to say hi.

Now, everything seemed to be moving right on schedule. "It's time," Mousawi said to the two officers accompanying him. "With Allah's blessing, tonight we enter Paradise as martyrs." He reached inside his vest for the silencer and unholstered the 9mm, while his accomplices did the same. When they were ready, he nodded in the direction the prince had come from. "Go to the end and set up. Make sure no one gets through," he said and then turned and reentered the cafeteria.

Without hesitation he walked up to the two police officers still lingering over their coffee. The Irish cop had his back to him, but the Italian cop saw him coming, first with a smile and then a frown when he saw the gun and silencer.

"What the fuh..." he shouted as he went for his gun. He died instantly when the bullet entered his brain through his left eye socket.

It took the Irish cop longer to realize that something wasn't right. Even then he didn't try to reach his gun until he saw his partner's brains hit the wall behind their table. He turned just in time for a bullet to blast away his jaw, slamming his head to the table; a second bullet in his temple finished him.

Mousawi looked up and saw a young Hispanic man standing twenty feet away holding a mop. He'd stopped in mid-swipe to watch the unusual event between the police officers, and realized too late that he was in danger. He shoved his mop handle in Mousawi's direction and turned to run. A moment later, he lay dying on the floor with two bullets in his back. ¿
Cómo mi esposa y cabritos sobrevivirán?
he wondered as the third bullet crashed into his head.

The Jamaican woman replenishing the fruit offerings Mousawi shot twice in the chest. The bored Puerto Rican girl at the cash register managed to scream when she saw her co-worker drop an orange and fall to the ground with bright red flowers growing on the front of her white uniform shirt. But her scream was cut short by the bullet that struck her in the throat. She sat down on a stool that had been provided for her at her register and tried futilely to keep the blood from gushing out of the wound. She shook her head no when the killer aimed his gun at her, and thought maybe she'd won a reprieve when he pulled the trigger and there was only an empty click.

No
matter,
Mousawi thought.
I've got more.
He ejected the empty clip, slammed in a new one, and then shot the girl between the eyes. Walking back into the kitchen, he shot a short-order cook from the Dominican Republic and then the cook's brother and first cousin, who were washing dishes.

Mousawi bolted shut the Emergency Exit door that was to "remain open during business hours," and then went back out into the cafeteria. His two comrades, Ali and Farak, were dragging in the body of a fat man in a business suit and trader's jacket that read "Bank of America" on the back. "He wanted a cup of coffee and a donut, and refused to go back upstairs," Ali explained.

They left the cafeteria and stood looking down at the long smear of blood that trailed off down the hall.
"Inshallah,"
Mousawi shrugged. "No sense worrying about it now. Take up your new posts, and from now on, don't ask questions, just shoot."

The trio walked to the intersection with another hall. The two younger men turned right and took up positions behind filing cabinets moved there earlier, so they could get the drop on anyone who came down the hall. Ali reached into one of the filing cabinets and pulled out two martyr's vests.

Mousawi turned left in the direction of the brains of the New York Stock Exchange and The Sheik. An
d
my
destiny,
he thought.

Behind him, the younger men put on their vests and shouted, "
Allah-u-Akbar! Allah-u-Akbar!"

"Allah-u-Akbar!"
he yelled back. "Tonight we will feast in the garden of
bayt al-ridwan!"

Marlene guessed that her dad and the twins had gone upstairs. But Eric checked the bathrooms on the floors and then the visitor's gallery for her; they were nowhere in sight.

"They must have gone back down," Eric said.

"Sorry about that. I know they're supposed to stick close by."

"Don't sweat it. They're not getting out down there. I can hang for a few more minutes, then I got to get back to work."

As they waited, Marlene asked him about something that had been bugging her about their earlier conversation. "What if the market started to crash but something happened to the computer downstairs that prevented its circuit breakers from kicking in?"

"That's another reason for the backup system. It has its own set of circuit breakers, so if the main computer didn't shut the place down, the secondary computer would."

"What if somebody blew up both computers?"

"Geez, is this what you think about all day? Blowing shit up?"

"Sometimes," Marlene shrugged. "But humor me, what if terrorists blew up both computers?"

"Nice try, Osama," Eric said. "If they blew up the backup computer, of course nothing happens. This computer keeps whirring away, and if necessary its circuit breakers kick in. But if both computers suddenly go offline—i.e., somebody blows them both up—there's no trading. Might as well have flipped the circuit breakers. Don't get me wrong, it would be a hell of a mess to pick up the pieces, which they'd have to do by reconstructing the data from those computers—by using data from computers with other stock exchanges—and of course, closing the stock exchange during trading hours hurts financially. But in the end, they couldn't keep the circuit breakers open and crash the market by blowing up both computers."

"So where's this backup computer?" Marlene asked. "Or is that a state secret?"

"Now I'm starting to get a little suspicious. We had a guy here from the Department of Homeland Security and he said to be wary of people who ask a lot of questions about blowing shit up."

"So it's a secret," Marlene said.

"Nah. They don't talk much about it, but it's not too hush-hush if I know about it. It's at MetroTech."

Marlene's eyes narrowed. "MetroTech? The urban renewal project in Brooklyn?"

"Yeah. A lot of the heavy hitters in the financial community have moved over there, like JP Morgan and Bear Stearns. Guess they figure Manhattan has a big target painted on it. That place is supposed to be a fortress—bomb-proof, high-tech security ... the works."

"And that's where the backup system is located?"

"Yeah, same building where they put NYPD's dispatch center, so you know security's tighter than an Irishman on St. Patrick's Day. They even got some special company working security. Specialized Applications Integrated Corporation. I hear they do a lot of top-secret anti-terrorism stuff."

"Specialized Applications Integrated Corporation?" Marlene said. "Never heard of them.... Then again, I've been out of the security biz for a while."

"I hear them Say-ick guys are the real thing. Bet they get paid beaucoup bucks.... What? What did I say?"

Marlene's face had turned white. "What did you just call them?"

"Specialized Applications Integrated Corporation? Oh, you mean the acronym ... S-A-I-C.... Everybody calls them 'Sayick.' Why? What's up?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe nothing. But please, do me a favor, go to the security office and ask if they see anything out of the ordinary. You might have them give SAIC a call and say there's been a credible terrorist threat and to take precautions."

Eric smirked. "You're kidding, right?"

"No. I'm hoping I'm wrong—considering everything you've said today about what would happen if the market suddenly crashed—and I don't know how they'd pull it off. But I'm not kidding. Just do this for me."

Her cousin looked at her for a moment. "What the fuck, why not? I don't mind being the boy who cried wolf. They'll just lock me up and take away my security badge for letting you talk me into this."

"Please."

"All right, all right, I said I'm going. What are you going to do in the meantime?"

"Go find my kids, what else?"

In the bowels of the New York Stock Exchange, Prince Esra bin Afraan Al-Saud paused politely outside the glassed-in computer room as the vice president in charge of technology for the stock exchange boasted about the Cray XT4, "one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world."

"If people are the heart of the New York Stock Exchange," recited the VP from a speech he'd given a thousand times before, "this is the brain, capable of tracking millions of transactions all over the world and adjusting market values faster than you can say 'blue chip.'"

"Blue chip," said the prince and laughed at his cleverness.

"Ha ha," the VP joined in. "Anyway, we keep this baby locked up in this airtight, temperature-controlled, and, I might add, bulletproof room."

"Je
veux entrer. Je veux voir cet ordinateur 'superbe. '"

The vice president in charge of technology turned to Amir Al-Sistani, who'd spoken in French. The little man had a face that appeared to have been created from different animals—the eyes of a basset hound and an eagle's nose that might have fit better on a larger head. The VP had dismissed Al-Sistani as a flunky with his store-bought suit and Yassar Arafat headgear until he was informed that the little man was the hedge-fund manager.

In other words, he was the brains behind Kingdom Investments, Inc. Several years earlier, he'd earned the market's respect by purchasing $10 billion in U.S. government bonds and then using a little-known provision in bond regulations that allowed Kingdom Investments to borrow ten times that amount from the U.S. government. Al-Sistani had then sunk that $100 billion loan into unsecured equities.

It made NYSE and other stock-market administrators nervous because of the potential for disaster if Prince Esra's company failed. Like Marlene's cousin Eric Eliaso, the experts feared a situation where too many stocks were concentrated in a single entity. But hedge funds were unregulated, nobody was watching, and nobody dared say anything that might cause the prince—or his little manager—to take all that money and put it elsewhere.

"I'm sorry," the VP apologized. "My French is a bit rusty. No
parlez-vous,
eh?" He looked over at the young woman, Marie Smith.

"He asked if he can go in," she said. "He'd like to look at the supercomputer."

The VP shook his head. "I'm afraid we don't let anybody go in there except the techies. All the climate control and such. Isn't that right, Omar?"

Everybody looked at Omar Al-Hassan, who had been introduced when they'd arrived at the stock market that morning. He was somehow or another related to Al-Sistani, distant cousins or something, and worked at the stock exchange in technical support.

"Yes, that is usually correct," Al-Hassan said, "though we have occasionally allowed special guests."

Lucy Karp translated this, which caused Al-Sistani to complain to the prince in Arabic. "I'm sure that if we were some white American or European investors there would be no problem. But I guess we're just filthy brown Muslims."

"Oh, I'm sure that's not what he's saying," Prince Esra replied in Arabic. "I'm better dressed than he is. Why do you want to go look at boxes with blinking lights, anyway? It's not like you can see anything."

"Because I'm curious about this supercomputer. Maybe we should purchase one," Al-Sistani argued. "And also because we asked and they should do what we say.... Who is the one controlling one hundred billion American dollars?"

"Sometimes I wonder," the prince replied with an amused smile. "You or me? Huh, my little Iraqi pest?" The prince turned to Lucy and said, in French, "My chief financial officer wants to see the pretty machines up close. Tell this tiresome bureaucrat that we insist."

Lucy translated what had been said to the vice president, leaving out "tiresome bureaucrat." There were certainly more worrisome problems than whether some little techno-junkie money manager got close to a Cray supercomputer. Her concerns were fifty blocks to the north at Grand Central Terminal with S. P. Jaxon.