Chapter Four
Over the breakfast table, Angelo made a show of formal introductions. “Sergeant Ariela Rios, Dr. RoseMarie diStephano. Rose, meet my best friend. As you’ve discovered, there’s nobody you’d rather count on to have your back.”
Frank’s chuckle announced his entry into the dining room. “Anybody need a warm-up?” he asked, holding the coffeepot toward them.
“Thanks,” Angelo said, accepting a top-off of his cup. “Settle in a minute, Frank.”
When Frank sat, Angelo continued, including him in the conversation. “This is the soldier who got me out of Fallujah. I owe her my life.”
Frank openly appraised Maji’s features. “Those bastards rearrange your face for you?”
Rose paled. “Frank!”
Maji waved her objection away.”S’all right. Actually, they did me a favor. I look enough like the old me not to scare my friends, and different enough that strangers don’t think to ask.” Seeing the compassion in Rose’s eyes, she felt guilty at the half-truth. How much of the truth was Angelo entrusting them with? Generally they protected civilians by telling them less, not more.
“Keeps the media off your ass, too,” Angelo added. “A mess of reporters went looking for Ariela Rios in Brooklyn, and not a one of them found you.”
So Iris had been on her trail. Message received.
Angelo turned back to Rose and Frank. “Anyway, get into the habit of calling her Ri, like I do.”
“Ri?”
“Short for both Ariela and Rios,” Maji explained with a weary note in her voice. “But Ang, nobody around here calls me that. They all know me from before the Army.”
“Well, my family don’t. So now the Army way is the Benedetti way, babe. The less they know about the private you, the better for you.”
Maji watched Rose and Frank nod in comprehension. She didn’t care what most people called her, but she was going to miss hearing Rose say her name.
Rose reached across the table and lightly touched the hand Maji had around her coffee mug. “Okay. Ri it is.”
“Call me anything but late to dinner,” Maji joked and was gratified to see the sparkle return to Rose’s eyes.
“Right. Dinner’s at six,” Angelo said. “Come a little early, so we can talk first.” To Rose and Frank, he added, “I’m going to ask Ri to help me with my little project here.”
Rose frowned, leaning back and crossing her arms. “Will that put her in any danger?”
“Not any more than she can handle. I promise.”
Maji wondered what line he’d fed Rose as his cover story. She stood to leave, anxious to go get a full briefing from Hannah.
Rose cleared her throat and waited until she had Maji’s attention. “Good luck with your big day. Ri.”
Maji met her gaze. “Thanks. You be around later?”
Rose’s eyes twinkled. “A pack of wild Vory couldn’t drag me away.”
When Maji opened the screen door to Hannah’s kitchen, her godmother paused in putting away her breakfast offerings. “Have you eaten?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry, I—”
“No need.” Hannah waved the apology away and turned toward the espresso maker on the counter. “Coffee?”
A cappuccino right after breakfast? I must look like I was up half the night. Fair enough. “Yes, please.”
Maji sprinkled cardamom over her foam and noticed Hannah’s wistful smile. The spice was a habit they’d both picked up from Ava. “So, I’m on the clock.” She stirred and sipped. “Angelo deferred the briefing to you.”
“Yes. I had planned to fill you in after your evening of reunions and introductions. We both wanted to give you a few hours to put your feet on the ground before breaking the news. In retrospect, perhaps I should have picked you up at the airport and briefed you first thing.”
Maji shrugged. “It was a very nice day off, all things considered.” It was surreal hearing Hannah’s thoughts on a mission, after years of being forbidden to talk shop. “Ang says the firewall was lifted. Are we really cleared to talk?”
“Angelo made a strong case that the situation warranted an exception. So, for the duration of this assignment, yes.”
Maji felt her stomach uncoil. She could handle just about anything, if Hannah was at her side. She recognized the caution in Hannah’s voice. As a private consultant for the Joint Special Operations Command and also an ex-Mossad operator, her godmother had to be circumspect. If JSOC suspected either one of putting their personal relationship ahead of their commitment to US counterterrorism efforts, both would be discharged. Still, there were questions Maji had hoped to resolve while home this summer. “What about Fallujah?”
“As it pertains to this assignment, yes.”
“They’re connected? How?”
“Khodorov. He launders for al-Mashriki, as well as for the New York Families. And he has wanted a Benedetti alliance for some time.”
The Banker. Everyone in Brooklyn knew of him. Even as a stupid, fearless kid, she’d known enough to stay off his radar. Maji fought the urge to get up and walk out. Instead, she stood by the screen door, breathing deeply the scent of fresh-mown grass. “Were those Khodorov’s guys I jammed up last night?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“I changed my mind about breakfast. Can I swipe a bagel?”
“Help yourself. There’s cream cheese, and smoked trout, and some cut fruit as well.”
While she made herself a plate, the worst of it sank in. “My real name’s on the police report. By now, he knows who I am.” And who her folks were, and where they lived…
“Have a little faith in us. Angelo took care of the digital trail, and I took care of what Captain Andrews needed to know.”
“Look, send me someplace Khodorov can’t connect me to my family, and I’ll go toe to toe with him. But here?”
“I understand your concerns. But yes, here. Just for a few weeks. While you help me teach camp, as planned.”
Well, that was comforting, but… “How are we going to infiltrate Khodorov’s operation from Long Island?”
“You aren’t. Angelo is already inside the Benedetti Family, as close to its center as he can get. And Khodorov will come to him, via the son.”
Aleksander, if she remembered right. An out mobster, untouchable thanks to his father. “Quite a mark. Alek? Sasha?”
Hannah shook her head. “He prefers Sander. And yes, he is key. That’s why Angelo missed supper, and why Yuri Khodorov sent his men to collect some insurance.”
“What about Angelo’s dad, though? I thought he hated Khodorov. Last night won’t help any.”
“Oh. Angelo didn’t tell you anything at all?”
“No. He was too busy selling me as Ri and pushing me out the door.”
Hannah frowned. “I suppose he couldn’t say too much in front of others. Well, while you were still Mashriki’s hostage, Angelo’s father Max sent Gino to negotiate for his son’s life. A few days later, both Max and Angelo’s brother Carlo were killed. It was a well-staged accident, but the FBI has an informer.”
Maji pushed her empty plate away. “Shit. Ang couldn’t have seen that coming. Did his uncle take over the business?”
“Quite promptly.”
“And the FBI hasn’t moved on this?”
“No. They need more, especially for an international player of Khodorov’s stature. But Angelo did sell the FBI on the idea that he could get them proof to indict Gino and Khodorov on conspiracy for murder, and bring the other Families in under laundering charges at the same time.”
“He’s been home all this time?” All she had heard was that he was deployed and couldn’t be reached. “Downrange, alone, in effing Long Island?”
“You could put it that way. He put in a request for you, but I had JSOC delay until I was sure you were ready.”
“And I didn’t kill anybody in Spain, or flip out again, so I passed?” She rubbed her temples in the patient silence. “I’m sorry. It’s a lot to take in.”
“I realize you’ve never had a mission on home territory. They can be tricky, but you have my complete confidence. On the plus side, Angelo’s plan is simple enough, and you only have the FBI underfoot, this time.”
Maji nearly groaned. Well, the Feds were better than the CIA or NSA, who never seemed to play fair with the Army’s counterterrorism unit. “You call that the good news?”
Hannah smiled benignly. “Yes. The local FBI liaison is a good agent, and he has to play nice, since he married into my family.”
Holy shit. Special Agent Martinez. “Rey.” Maji set her cup down hard, spilling some. “Does Bubbles know?”
“That he’s on this case, no. And she will not.”
Maji sopped the coffee up with her napkin. “What does Rey think Ang and I are?”
“Well, you know how oblique JSOC can be about its covert operations. Rey assumes from what they don’t say that Angelo is Delta, or at least Special Forces.”
“And me?” They would never tell an FBI agent that Delta had started using female operators. No way in hell.
“He knows you were assigned to Civil Affairs, and that you served with Angelo at times. Of course he knows why the Army altered your name and image to protect your family. He’s even met your mother—Bubbles invited Sal and Neda to the wedding.”
Of course Bubbles had. And how convenient a cover for why Maji used two names, one for home and one for work. That would totally fly here at home, where so many people knew that Neda Kamiri was her mother. For the first time, a mission in her own backyard seemed almost feasible. Almost.
She would have to help keep Bubbles in the dark. And lie some more to Rose, too. Maji frowned at the last dregs of her cappuccino. She could have sworn the dregs frowned back.
Maji looked at Hannah. “All right. So where do I fit in?”
“As Ri, the woman who went through hell with her boyfriend in Iraq and has finally come home to look him up. That will work for Gino and the Italian side of the equation.”
“And what will Khodorov see? He may think I’m Ri, but he’ll know what I did last night. And I bet he knows by now that I’m not really Ang’s type.”
“Indeed. The Khodorovs will understand why Angelo needs you as his beard. And less obviously, as Rose’s protector.”
“So I’m at his house? Where Rose is staying?”
Hannah rose, kissed the top of Maji’s head, and started clearing their dishes. “She’s only here a few more days. Monday the family observes Memorial Day in style for Max and Carlo, and then she flies out for fieldwork in Peru. Surely you can manage that long?”
You haven’t met Rose. “Yeah. I can keep it professional for a whole six days.”
“No need to take a tone.”
“What about the ramp-up for camp?” Starting tomorrow.
“Hmm. Best bring her to the dojo.”
Rose floated in the pool, staring up at the drifting clouds through her oversized sunglasses. The sky was the perfect blue of New York in late May, not yet hazed by humidity, and the leaves on the maple trees nearby seemed to sparkle as the light breeze stirred them. The salt water supported and caressed her, awakening her body’s recall of the night before. She wanted to bathe in those memories, to relive the delicious moments before Angelo and his brutal reality had barged into her room.
Rose felt a shadow fall across her. She opened her eyes behind the big sunglasses and looked up at Ricky Antonopoulos lazily taking in every line of her body. He was so much like Carlo used to be, right down to aping his mannerisms. Ricky had married his best friend’s sister, his boss’s daughter, and seemed since Carlo’s death to be trying to replace him, one creepy word or gesture at a time. She suppressed a shiver, and the urge to duck under the water.
Cousin Carlo had made adolescent sport of Rose right here in this very pool, when she was a shy eleven-year-old. After two summers of ignoring her altogether, he had seen her swimming and made fun of her prepubescent breasts, obviously tiny under her one-piece. She had fumed and icily ignored him, until he tried to touch them. Catching him in the act, scrawny little Angelo had gone after his brother like a rabid raccoon. Carlo just laughed, until one blow caught him in the face and knocked him into the pool. He came up bloody, not laughing.
Rose avoided Carlo the rest of that summer, and the next. And Carlo went back to treating her like Gino’s nine-year-old daughter, Sienna: too little to be bothered with.
By the next year, however, no one could overlook the signs of her being a young woman. Her uncles made oblique comments about her taking after her mother, until Grandpa Stephano loudly declared “Basta!” and all joking ceased. The silence made her more conscious that she was the reason for her unwed mother’s exile to California, thirteen years before.
Carlo, with only one year left in high school, spent his days out with the wiseguys, learning the rackets like a summer intern at a corporation. He drove, he drank, and he hit people who didn’t dare hit him back. Worst of all, he picked up groupies like Ricky Octopus, wannabe gangsters in muscle shirts and Air Jordans.
Rose managed to stay off his radar until the night he came home high, mixing drinks for his loudmouth high school friends in the living room. Hearing their laughter, she ducked from the pool down the back hall to the bathroom. As she came out, he reached for the knob to go in, and stood in her way with a leer.
“Hey, youse should come join us.” He grabbed her wrist, and she pulled back, to no avail. “C’mon, don’t be such a tight-ass. I got some blow’ll loosen you up. Come do a line with us.”
“I don’t want to loosen up, Carlo—let me go or I’ll—”
He laughed. “Loose as a goose!” He pulled her toward him and put a hand on her crotch. “Loose as your mama.” He breathed on her, stinking of tequila.
She grabbed his long dark curls with her free hand and yanked hard. He jerked sideways, yelping and swearing, and she drove her knee into his groin. He doubled over, wheezing, as she shoved past him, tears streaming down her livid face.
Coming down the hall, Frank caught sight of her, and the man’s back leaning on the wall behind her. He shot past before she could open her mouth to speak. Without pausing to see who it was, Frank lifted Carlo up and slammed him against the hallway so hard the plaster shuddered.
“Did you hurt her?” the big man bellowed. Carlo merely stammered. Frank turned his head toward Rose and asked almost gently, “Did he hurt you?”
Stunned, she stared at him. She’d never thought of Frank as dangerous before. “I’m—I’m okay,” she managed. “Really.”
Carlo had found time to regain his breath, and his attitude. “Get off me, you fuckin’ idiot!”
His friends, drawn by the noise, gaped from the foyer. Ricky looked ready to step in, the rest unsure.
Still holding Carlo up with one hand, Frank reached under his jacket and pulled out a pistol. He didn’t point it, just palmed it, and barked at the group, “Get the fuck outta here, all a’youse—now.” They scrambled for the door.
He set Carlo on his feet, raised a hand as if to belt him. “Go. To. Bed. Now.”
Carlo backed away, shaken. Frank turned and put an arm around Rose, who had started to shake lightly.
“I could have you killed, you fuckin’ moron!” Carlo spat in their direction.
“Yeah, yeah,” Frank replied and kept on walking.
Where was Frank right now? Probably home in his apartment over the garage, enjoying a few hours off. Not that Ricky was afraid of him anymore. Still, she wished she knew if Frank was within range of her voice, at least.
Dammit, anyway. She was a grown woman. Rose eyed Ricky back, trying to picture him as just another frat boy swaggering into her Introduction to Anthropology class, mistakenly expecting an easy A. She abruptly stood up in the middle of the pool, water cascading off her torso as her feet settled on the tiled bottom. “What do you want, Ricky?”
“I came for Ang, but I could make do with you.” A light breeze carried both his voice and a funk of cologne. His gaze remained appraising, targeted down at the rivulets between her bikini-wrapped breasts.
“He’s out,” Rose stated, keeping her eyes on the chaise with her wrap on it as she walked calmly up the steps at the shallow end.
Ricky met her by the chaise, not obviously blocking her but close enough that she’d have to lean around him to get her cover-up. He wasn’t as tall as the gunman at Mona’s last night, maybe only five ten or eleven. But he was bulky, and used to taking up all the extra space around himself. She wondered for a second how Maji would see him. Surely her pulse would not be racing like this.
“Hand me that, would you?” she said, keeping her voice neutral with some effort.
He followed her hand to the wrap and slowly reached for it, pausing before holding it out to her. “Pity. Body like yours, going to waste.”
She grabbed the wrap, trying to formulate a comeback through her anger.
“Ay, Ricky!” Frank’s voice came from the kitchen doorway. “’Sup?”
Rose wrapped herself in the terry cloth as the two men exchanged a few words, and walked into the kitchen. She looked back through the screen door and knew from Frank’s body language that he wanted Ricky gone as much as she did. She’d never seen that explosive side of Frank again, but she imagined with some satisfaction that Ricky had not forgotten it, either.