Chapter 3 - A Name Buried in Damascus
Roman's home did not look like Nora expected.
There were gates.
There were cameras.
There were armed security guards.
But behind all of that stood a brownstone overlooking the Hudson, elegant rather than enormous, filled with books, old photographs, and furniture that looked chosen by people rather than decorators.
Nora noticed all of it.
She also noticed three exits from the first floor.
A security panel beside the kitchen.
Two men outside.
One upstairs.
Roman noticed her noticing.
"You always count exits?"
"No."
"How many?"
"Five."
Roman paused.
"There are four."
"There's a service tunnel beneath the garage."
For the first time that night, Roman looked genuinely surprised.
"How did you know?"
"Temperature difference near the basement door."
Roman stared at her.
Nora shrugged.
"Your floor is warmer over the tunnel."
"You're very strange."
"I was enjoying being a waitress until you ruined it."
"I believe you ruined it when you called me a coward."
"In two languages."
Roman's mouth twitched.
It was the closest thing to laughter she had seen from him.
He led her into a library.
Above the fireplace hung a black-and-white photograph of a stern man standing beside a teenage Roman.
"Your father?" Nora asked.
"Antonio Vescari."
"You looked unhappy."
"I was sixteen."
"Everyone looks unhappy at sixteen."
Roman opened a hidden compartment inside an antique writing desk.
Nora raised an eyebrow.
"Subtle."
"My father enjoyed drama."
He removed a leather notebook.
The pages were handwritten in Italian, English, and occasionally Arabic.
Roman opened to a marked section.
Nora read.
Names.
Amounts.
Port numbers.
Dates.
Then a phrase.
The white king opens every door.
Nora's breath caught.
Beside it was a set of initials.
K.D.
Kareem Dajani.
Below that:
S.H. confirmed transfer.
Samir Haddad.
Nora sat down.
For seven years she had believed Samir was dead.
For seven years she had blamed herself.
She could still remember the last time she saw him.
Damascus.
July.
Forty-three degrees Celsius outside.
Nora had been twenty-one and too confident.
Her unit had been monitoring financial communications linked to humanitarian shipments.
Nothing glamorous.
Mostly invoices.
Cargo lists.
Fragments of telephone calls.
Then Nora noticed a pattern.
Certain medical shipments were being billed twice.
Funds moved through charities, disappeared into shell companies, then reappeared in European accounts.
She told Captain Mercer.
He dismissed it.
"You're a linguist, Bennett. Translate. Let finance investigate finance."
But Nora kept looking.
Samir helped.
One night they intercepted a conversation involving Dajani.
The men discussed an American network.
A "white king."
Someone powerful enough to move money through legal businesses without attracting scrutiny.
Samir became frightened.
Not ordinary nervousness.
Fear.
He told Nora they should stop.
She refused.
Three days later, someone leaked their investigation.
A local source vanished.
Nora's access was restricted.
Samir allegedly died.
And Captain Mercer told Nora she had imagined connections that did not exist.
She had spent years wondering whether grief had made her reckless.
The notebook proved otherwise.
"Your father was the white king?" Nora asked.
Roman's expression hardened.
"No."
"Then why did he write the phrase?"
"Because he was investigating it."
"Your father was a criminal."
"He was."
Roman did not defend him.
That surprised Nora.
"He was also being robbed."
Roman turned several pages.
"Money disappeared from his companies. He thought someone inside the organization was using his network without permission."
"Dajani."
"Possibly."
"Samir."
Roman nodded.
Nora looked at another page.
There was a name she recognized.
Peter Ellis.
She frowned.
"Your restaurant manager."
Roman came closer.
"What?"
Nora pointed.
P. Ellis — hospitality accounts.
Roman stared at it.
"Peter worked for your father?"
"Not that I knew."
"How long has he managed Bellamy House?"
"Three years."
"This notebook is eight years old."
Roman's jaw tightened.
Nora continued reading.
The financial structure became clearer.
Hotels.
Restaurants.
Event companies.
Cash-heavy businesses.
Perfect places to wash money.
The white king was not one man.
It appeared to be a system.
"Roman."
He looked at her.
"Someone didn't just use your father's companies."
Nora turned the notebook toward him.
"They built themselves inside your organization."
Roman's phone rang.
He answered.
"What?"
His expression changed.
"Where?"
He walked toward the windows.
"When?"
Nora watched him.
Roman ended the call.
"My men checked your apartment."
"And?"
"They found a listening device."
Nora felt a chill.
"Old or new?"
"Installed weeks ago."
That was worse.
Someone had identified her before tonight.
Roman's insult had not exposed her.
It had only forced the people watching her to move sooner.
"There's something else," Roman said.
"What?"
"The two men who broke in weren't searching for you."
"What were they searching for?"
"My people found your place torn apart."
Nora immediately understood.
"The metal box."
Roman watched her.
"What was inside?"
"My passport. A photograph. Some old documents."
"Anything from Damascus?"
Nora thought.
Then her face changed.
Roman noticed.
"What?"
"A flash drive."
"You didn't mention a flash drive."
"Because I forgot it existed."
"What was on it?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"It belonged to Samir."
Roman became very still.
Nora remembered the day Samir gave it to her.
He had slipped the drive into her hand outside their office.
"If something happens to me, don't trust anyone who asks for this."
She had thought he was being dramatic.
After his supposed death, Nora tried opening it.
Encrypted.
Military technicians could not crack it without raising questions, and by then she trusted no one.
Eventually, she buried it with the rest of her past.
"Where is it now?" Roman asked.
"If they found the box, they have it."
Roman cursed softly.
Nora stood.
"We have to go back."
"No."
"Roman—"
"Whoever installed the listening device knows you survived tonight."
"Exactly."
"Which means they'll expect you to return."
"I know."
"And you still want to go?"
Nora met his eyes.
"That drive might contain the evidence Samir died trying to protect."
Roman stared at her.
Then he smiled faintly.
"You're impossible."
"So I've been told."
Twenty minutes later, they were traveling back toward Queens in an armored SUV.
Nora sat beside Roman.
Two security vehicles followed.
"You said Samir was alive six years ago," Nora said.
"Yes."
"What was he like?"
"Nervous."
"That's not how I remember him."
"He kept looking over his shoulder."
Roman stared out the window.
"Dajani treated him like property."
"Did Samir see you?"
"Yes."
"Did he know your name?"
Roman nodded.
Nora thought about it.
"Why didn't he contact me?"
"Maybe he thought you were safer believing he was dead."
That possibility hurt more than she expected.
They reached her building at 1:42 a.m.
The apartment looked as if a storm had passed through it.
Drawers emptied.
Mattress cut.
Books scattered.
The metal box was gone.
Nora stood in the middle of the room.
She had owned little.
Seeing even that violated felt strangely personal.
Roman's men searched.
One called from the bedroom.
"Mr. Vescari."
Roman entered.
Nora followed.
On the bedroom mirror, someone had written a message in black marker.
Arabic.
Roman read it.
His face hardened.
Nora translated softly.
You should have forgotten Damascus.
Roman looked at her.
"Still think this isn't my problem?"
Nora approached the mirror.
Below the message was a symbol.
A small crown.
Painted white.
"The white king," Roman said.
Nora nodded.
Then she noticed something else.
A tiny line beneath the crown.
Numbers.
6-14-23.
Roman frowned.
"A date?"
"No."
Nora leaned closer.
"Coordinates aren't formatted like that."
She thought about Samir.
His habits.
His jokes.
His obsession with books.
Then she understood.
"It's a reference."
"To what?"
Nora walked to the bookshelf.
Most books had been thrown to the floor.
One remained untouched.
A battered copy of The Count of Monte Cristo.
Samir's favorite novel.
Nora opened it.
Page 614.
Line 23.
Nothing.
Roman waited.
Nora smiled faintly.
"Samir always counted from the back."
She turned to the corresponding page.
There, lightly underlined in pencil, was a sentence.
Not meaningful by itself.
But tucked into the binding was a tiny key.
Roman stared.
"You've had that here for seven years?"
"I've had the book for seven years."
"What does the key open?"
"I don't know."
A sound came from the hallway.
Roman's security team immediately moved.
A young guard entered.
"Police downstairs."
Nora frowned.
"Police?"
"They got an anonymous call about a burglary."
Roman looked at Nora.
Neither had called.
That meant someone else had.
Seconds later another man appeared.
"Roman."
He held up a tablet.
"You need to see this."
Security footage from the building lobby filled the screen.
Peter Ellis.
Bellamy House's manager.
He had entered Nora's building two weeks earlier.
He carried a small maintenance bag.
Nora stared.
"That's when the listening device was installed."
Roman's expression became dangerous.
"Peter works for Dajani."
Nora shook her head slowly.
"No."
Roman looked at her.
"If Peter wanted me dead, I would already be dead."
"Then what does he want?"
Nora looked at the key in her palm.
"The same thing everyone wants."
"The drive?"
"No."
She closed her fingers around the key.
"Whatever Samir hid before he disappeared."
The police knocked.
Roman's men exchanged glances.
Nora suddenly remembered something.
Peter had been terrified when she insulted Roman.
Not merely worried about his job.
Terrified.
And when Roman ordered Nora to continue serving, Peter had looked at her as though she had just survived something she was never supposed to survive.
"Roman."
"What?"
"Peter didn't plant that listening device."
"Footage says otherwise."
"He entered the building."
"Exactly."
"Maybe he was checking it."
Roman frowned.
Nora looked at him.
"I think Peter is scared of the same people we are."
Before Roman could respond, every light inside the apartment went out.
Darkness swallowed the room.
A second later, the building's fire alarm began screaming.
Roman's hand found Nora's arm.
"Stay behind me."
Nora pulled free.
"I spent five years being told that."
She moved toward the hallway.
"I'm done."
Smoke began rising from the stairwell.
Not enough for a real building fire.
Enough to cause confusion.
Enough to make everyone leave.
Nora understood immediately.
"It's not an attack."
Roman looked at her.
"It's an extraction."
"Of who?"
Nora looked toward the stairs where frightened residents were pouring into the hallway.
"Us."
May you like
And somewhere inside the crowd, a man Nora had believed dead for six years was waiting for his chance to be seen.
---
