The Devil's Banker (46 page)

After the war, the medal had guaranteed a swift ascent through the naval ranks. He hit all the good billets: two stints at the Pentagon, commander of BUD/S School in San Diego, naval attaché to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a year as a White House fellow, and finally, a posting as director of Naval Intelligence. By the age of forty, he was a rear admiral, and all his efforts, his gilded connections and sheer moxie, couldn’t budge him a rung higher.

The lateral swing to the CIA was a natural. He welcomed the new responsibilities and the higher salary, but already the gnawing dissatisfaction that would come to plague him was making itself known. The early 1980s were a heady time. The economy was rumbling back to life, having survived a bare-knuckled, knock-down drag-out with inflation and unemployment. Up in New York, people were making barrels of money and flaunting it. This irked Glendenning. He didn’t like coming up short on the material side of things compared with his cronies in lobbying, law, and defense. Men who were less intelligent than he and didn’t possess his capacity for work, earned five times as much as he did. A salary of eighty grand a year didn’t go far in the rarefied air of Virginia hunt country.

At first, a rapid series of promotions stemmed his envy. He moved from regional director to deputy director of operations within five years. But the same stasis that ended his naval career shadowed him at Langley. Year after year, he guarded his post as deputy director of operations. Four directors came and went. Not once was he mentioned as a candidate. It was his time as a SEAL that did it. You simply could not have a proven assassin at the helm of a major government agency. The American people would not stand for it.

Resentment of the hypocrisy festered inside Glendenning, rankling him more with each passing year, and with every change of regime. The lack of generous pay spurred his ill will. There was no reason serving your country shouldn’t be a profitable endeavor. He viewed this as a structural flaw and decided he had every right to address it.

Omar al-Utaybi, or Marc Gabriel, as he called himself, provided the means.

He’d been watching Gabriel practically since the day the man had set up shop in Paris. He’d had a good reason, of course. During his posting to Riyadh, he’d come in contact with Gabriel’s older brother, Juhayman, then a headstrong lieutenant in the national guard making waves with his calls for religious reform. When Juhayman took over the Grand Mosque, Captain Owen Glendenning advised the King on tactics to storm the sacred area and overwhelm the rebels. Juhayman was captured and executed. The remainder of the Utaybi family was exiled shortly thereafter.

At first, he took only a professional interest in Gabriel’s activities. Gabriel’s contacts with radical elements in Saudi Arabia left no doubt that he wished to see his brother’s plans to fruition. Gabriel was building a shadow government to be run by men from the armed forces, national guard, and foreign ministry. To finance their activities, he was playing the market, making equity investments and trading in currencies with extraordinary success. It soon became clear that Gabriel had a knack not only for fomenting a coup, but for value investing.

With careful planning and forethought, Glendenning began copying the Saudi’s trades. If Gabriel bought ten thousand shares of Coca-Cola, Glendenning bought a hundred. If Gabriel purchased call options on IBM, Glendenning did the same. “Piggybacking” it was called in the business. Profits were in the hundreds, not thousands. But over time, the sums added up. His investments increased and so did his profits. After a few years, Glendenning boasted a hefty account at one of the more discreet offshore banks that the Agency liked to patronize.

He had made the decision to retire from the Company when Marc Gabriel called him.

It was blackmail pure and simple, and Glendenning couldn’t say no. Gabriel had known for some time about Glendenning’s activities. He, too, had friends in corner offices, and he was able to present Glendenning with a catalogue of his misdeeds. The sheer lack of options made Glendenning’s complicity an easy matter for his conscience to swallow. Gabriel didn’t ask for anything much, just that Glendenning keep an eye on the intelligence community and make sure no one got too close. It was a domestic matter, he promised. Strictly an internal Saudi affair.

But the events of September 11, 2001, magnified the scope and intensity of the intelligence world’s interest in Middle Eastern affairs one-hundred-fold. When Sarah Churchill had phoned from London saying she’d identified a new group calling itself Hijira, Glendenning could do little to impede her investigations without provoking questions about his commitment to stamp out terrorism in all its forms. Warnings that he’d sent had been largely ignored by Gabriel’s field operatives. But Gabriel pressed for more. During the past week, he had been relentless, demanding information about the inner workings of Blood Money, threatening to expose him to Gadbois, to frame him for the deaths of the three Treasury agents, if he refused to comply.

Anyway, it was through between them. Glendenning had done the man his last favor. Gabriel had his bomb. He could blow up half of Saudi Arabia as far as the admiral was concerned.

Slipping on his dinner jacket, Glendenning grabbed his walking sticks and hobbled to the stairs. The first thing he’d do when he retired was build himself an elevator, he mused as he made his way to the bar and fixed himself a cocktail. He poured a liberal dose of Russian vodka into a highball glass, threw in a few ice cubes, and added a twist of lemon.

“Claire,” he called out. “Ready, love? It’s time we got moving. Can’t keep the President waiting.”

A whiff of perfume drifted from the bathroom, where she was changing, and he thought of the ways his life had changed since he’d met her. The decision to cast off a cloying wife and end a loveless marriage had been a vote for his future. He looked forward to helping Claire through her illness. After, they would marry. He would retire to an island in the Caribbean, where Gabriel would be just a bad dream and life a series of golden sunsets and passionate nights.

“Claire,” he called again. One thing was the same about all women. They took a helluva long time to get themselves pretty. Taking a long sip, he set the glass down on his coffee table, only to pick it right back up and search for a coaster. How many times had he heard about moisture rings on the antique Williamsburg table?

The doorbell rang.

Glendenning froze, caught between looking for a confounded coaster and answering the door. His eye fell on the invitation to the state dinner. Snatching it in his fingers, he laid it on the table and put his drink down on it. “There now, you happy?” he called to the shadow of his soon-to-be ex-wife. Walking to the door, he checked his watch. It was nearly seven. He wasn’t expecting a visitor.

“Yes,” said Owen Glendenning, opening the door. It was Sam Spencer, the eternally youthful technician who ran the FBI’s videotape enhancement unit.

“I’ve got it, Admiral,” the man blurted, waving a small cassette in his hand. “The woman in the videotape. I’ve identified her.”

“Have you? That’s wonderful news. Come in.”

“She’s a Saudi,” said Spencer. “From one of the ruling families.”

“That much I could have told you myself. Marc Gabriel, er . . . Omar al-Utaybi, the man we’re looking for in Paris, is also a Saudi. Get you a drink, Spencer? A thank-you for all your hard work.”

“A beer would be great, sir.”

“Sure thing.” Glendenning took a step toward the hall. “Claire, let’s go, sweetheart!” He smiled at Spencer. “State dinner at the White House. You couldn’t get me into this monkey suit for anything less. Come on in, then. Don’t be shy.”

As Spencer advanced into the foyer, there came the sound of a faucet being shut off. A door opened beneath the staircase, and a slim woman with thick black hair and fine features stepped from the bathroom. She was dressed in a black taffeta ball gown and white brocade evening jacket. At her neck she wore a stunning set of black pearls, but it was the bejeweled belt that captured Spencer’s attention. A rectangular buckle the size of two packs of cigarettes laid end to end and dusted with sparkling pavé diamonds.

“Here I am, Glen,” she said, then seeing Spencer: “Oh, I didn’t realize we had company.”

Spencer froze, his gaze jumping between Glendenning and the woman. “Admiral . . .” he said haltingly.

Glendenning turned, the open beer in his hand. “What is it, Spencer?”

The FBI agent stood as if nailed to the spot, his eyes unblinking. “Admiral, that’s her. That woman is Noor al-Utaybi. She’s the lady on the tape.”

Glendenning glanced at Claire. “Don’t be ridiculous. This is Miss Charisse from the World Health Organization. Miss Charisse is my date for this evening. Claire, say hello to Sam Spencer.”

“No, sir,” said Spencer, shaking his head, and it was clear that he would not be convinced otherwise. Stepping forward, he handed Glendenning the minicassette. “You’ll want to look at the tape.”

“Claire?” said Glendenning unsurely. Why wasn’t she denying it? Why wasn’t she smiling and telling Spencer in her lovely singsong voice that he was mistaken. Why was she just standing there looking every bit as scared as he felt? “Claire,” he said again, less certainly. “Is this true?” His throat tightened as the realization took hold. Spencer was right. Claire was Marc Gabriel’s sister.

Yet, even as Glendenning began to have the first inkling of why, the bottle of beer shattered in his hand. Struck in the chest by a blunt, immensely powerful force, he staggered backward and collapsed to the floor.

Noor al-Utaybi turned and fired a single shot into Sam Spencer’s uncomprehending face.

She would be certain to express the admiral’s apologies to the President of the United States herself.

Chapter 58

Adam Chapel had been gone barely a week, but already he’d forgotten the oppressive, richly scented cloak that was a Virginia’s summer eve. At six-forty, the sky blushed with the first hint of night. Crickets sawed frantically. Farther off, a lawn mower coughed sporadically. The thermometer attached to the rearview mirror read ninety-seven degrees.

“Park up the block,” said Sarah as they passed Owen Glendenning’s home and noted the Ford Taurus parked in the driveway. “I want to have a look around before we enact the Chapel Doctrine.”

“When did it become a doctrine?” he asked. “A few minutes ago, you were calling it a ‘cheeky gambit.’ ”

The Chapel Doctrine was the equivalent of a frontal military assault. He had decided to confront Admiral Owen Glendenning with the chain of evidence linking him to Marc Gabriel, in hopes of making him reveal Gabriel’s plan. There was a corollary to the Doctrine, which he might call the Churchill Defense. While he was speaking with Glendenning, Sarah would gain entrance to his home through a back door or window and search the premises for concrete evidence of his complicity, and, Chapel hoped, be ready to lend a hand in case Glendenning was less than cooperative.

Chapel continued on a hundred yards, then pulled the Ford Explorer to the curb and killed the engine. Sarah climbed out and shook out her legs. “Let me have a quick look-see,” she said, and before he could protest, she jogged across a grassy knoll toward the thick beech forest that backed all the houses on Chain Bridge Road.

The suburb of McLean, Virginia, looked as if it hadn’t changed in fifty years, he thought, as he eyed the redbrick colonials set back from the road on leafy, rolling two-acre parcels. The phone lines had been laid underground, but otherwise, McLean had been spared the indignities of modernization. There were no corner 7-Elevens, no gas stations and minimarts, no stoplights within miles. The boys and girls madly pedaling their bicycles might have been hurrying home to eat their usual Saturday supper of fried chicken and okra before sitting down to watch Buffalo Bob and Howdy Doody on their fifteen-inch black-and-white televisions.

Sarah arrived back at the car, her face flushed, but her breathing as calm as if she’d only gone for an evening stroll. “Didn’t see him,” she reported. “Lights are on and I can hear some music. There’s a second car parked up the driveway that might interest you.”

“A Beemer?”

“M3 Cabriolet. Very snazzy set of wheels for a man on a government salary.”

“All right then, let’s go have a chat with the good admiral.”

“Adam, be careful. You’re going to shock the hell out of him. There’s no telling what he’s capable of.”

“I’ll have you ‘watching my six,’ right? Isn’t that what they teach you to say in spy school?”

“I think we preferred ‘covering my ass.’ ” She took a breath. “Give me a minute to get round the back.”

As she started to leave, he clutched her hand and pulled her toward him. “Sarah,” he asked. “Mortier Caserne. I want to know how you got me out of there.” He had other questions, but if she answered the big one, she’d answer them all. How had she convinced Gadbois to free him and not keep his bosom buddy, Owen Glendenning, in the loop? How had she known about Leclerc’s private contacts?

“Later,” she said. “When we have more time.”

And then she was gone, running like a doe seeking the safer confines of the forest.

Chapel rang the doorbell and took a step back, clasping his hands over his stomach. The sound of light jazz tickled his ear. Waiting for Glendenning, he rehearsed his words. “Admiral, I believe we have a problem,” he would say calmly. The heat, the jet travel, the enduring lack of sleep had robbed him of his anger. He didn’t favor dramatics, just a straightforward recounting of the facts. Glendenning would realize that if Chapel knew this much, so would others. The past week’s stress had to have been playing on the man. “It’s time for this to stop,” Chapel would say. “Enough men had—”

Just then, Chapel heard a moan coming from inside the house.

Rushing forward, he put his ear to the door. Hearing nothing more, he trampled the flower beds in his haste to peer through the front window. Lace curtains obscured his view. He could see the outline of furniture, but no sign of a man or woman.