The Witness Read online

  “Suspect?” Goddard asked. “We don’t know anything about him yet—who he really is, why he was here, nothing.”

  “Then find out,” Lemieux insisted. “Issue a warrant for Accad’s arrest and alert the authorities from Milan to Marseille. I don’t want this guy getting away. Or I promise you, Monsieur Goddard, heads will roll, starting with yours.”

  13

  It began to rain. Marwan turned on the windshield wipers and prayed, to a God he didn’t believe in, that he wouldn’t suddenly go sliding off the highway. And why should I believe in you, he thought angrily. What have you given me other than loneliness and pain? And now this! When I was trying to help a man who had just lost his daughter and whose wife was missing? This is what you give me?

  The cell phone rang, shattering the silence and rattling his nerves.

  “Hello?”

  “Marwan, it’s Ramy. Are you there yet?”

  “No, not yet.”

  Marwan checked his watch and his map, and the knot in his stomach tightened. It was almost seven thirty, and he was only now approaching the outskirts of Marseille.

  “Ramy, I don’t think I can make it.”

  “You have to,” Ramy insisted. “You don’t have a choice. I can get you out of North Africa. But I can’t get you out of a French prison. How much farther?”

  “Five kilometers, maybe ten, but look at the time.”

  “I know, I know,” Ramy said. “But look, we have to go over some things before you get to the airport.”

  “Like what?”

  “Your phone, for starters. You said it was originally the taxi driver’s.”

  “Correct.”

  “But you called through our scrambler system in Prague, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then the cops probably can’t trace it back to me. But they’re going to try, so you can’t keep it, and you can’t use it again. As soon as you hang up with me, you need to ditch it immediately. You got it?”

  “I got it.”

  “When you get to Casa, buy a satellite phone,” Ramy continued. “Use cash. And don’t skimp. Get a good one. Something nobody can trace or tap.”

  “Right.”

  “But only use it to call me. No one else.”

  “Right, no one else.”

  “Marwan, I’m not kidding,” Ramy said. “You’re tired. You’re fighting off shock. You’re not yourself tonight. You’ve got to be extra careful. You can’t afford to make a single mistake. And until we figure this thing out, you need to get low, stay low. No friends. No old hangouts. Nothing familiar.”

  “That should be easy,” Marwan lied. “I don’t know anyone in Morocco.”

  “Good,” Ramy said. “Keep it that way.”

  Marwan knew Ramy had never liked Kadeen al-Wadhi, and with good reason. When they were all kids, Kadeen, Marwan’s best friend, seemed to feel an obligation to make the younger boy miserable. Sometimes, when things got out of hand, Marwan would step in. But mostly he just stood by and laughed as Ramy cried or tried to fight back.

  Age had changed everything. Kadeen moved away and found religion, and Ramy moved into that best friend position in Marwan’s life. Still, because of that history, although Marwan kept in regular contact with Kadeen, he never mentioned him to his younger brother. Those were wounds that he knew might never heal.

  “Now look,” Ramy continued, “one thing seems certain. Your instincts about Claudette Ramsey were right on the money. She’s alive. She’s in São Paulo. She’s making wire transfers. Which means she’s probably behind this whole thing. That’s the good news—we know that much already.”

  “And the bad news?” Marwan asked as the rain began to fall harder over Marseille and the throbbing in his shoulder worsened by the minute.

  “She and whoever she’s working with know you’re onto them.”

  “But that still doesn’t make sense,” Marwan said. “I’m the only person who could have known, plus my sources in Zurich and São Paulo.”

  “Might they have double-crossed you?”

  “I don’t see how,” Marwan said. “I’ve known those guys for fifteen years, at least.”

  “What if the phone in Ramsey’s place was bugged?” Ramy asked.

  “The one in Monte Carlo?”

  “No, the one in Paris,” Ramy said.

  “It’s possible,” Marwan said. “But by whom? The security company?”

  “Or the police,” Ramy said. “Didn’t you say he suspected someone in French intelligence was after him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well?”

  Marwan considered that for a moment. Perhaps Ramy was right.

  “What did you say when you called Ramsey the other day?” his brother asked. “Did you tell him about the photo? Did you mention São Paulo?”

  “No, no, of course not,” Marwan said. “I just said I had urgent news that couldn’t wait. I told him I needed to see him in person, but not in Paris.”

  “Did you suggest Monte Carlo?”

  “No, he did.”

  “And he gave you all the details of where and when to meet over the phone right then?”

  “Right.”

  “Then that’s got to be it,” Ramy said. “That phone was bugged.”

  “Whoever was listening in didn’t have to know what I had,” Marwan realized aloud. “They just knew I had something big, and whatever it was, it couldn’t be good for them. Claudette and her people must have panicked. They must have decided to shut down the whole operation.”

  “Exactly,” Ramy said. “Which meant not only taking out Ramsey, but taking out you, as well.”

  “Then they have to know I’m still alive,” Marwan said, “that all their attacks in Monte Carlo failed.”

  “Which means they’ve got to be scared,” Ramy added. “They won’t give up until they find you and kill you.”

  “Then we’d better find them before they find us.”

  “How?” Ramy asked.

  “First, put a team on the next plane to São Paulo,” Marwan said. “We need to find Claudette before she runs. If we find her, she’ll lead us to the others.”

  “I’m on it,” Ramy said.

  “Second, find out who’s doing the investigation back in Monte Carlo. Find out if he’s in on this thing or if he’s somebody we can trust.”

  “Got it. What else?”

  “Who do you know in Paris?”

  “I’ve got a good friend in French intelligence,” Ramy said. “I met him when you sent me to open the Paris office, before you moved up there. He’s pretty high up. Knows everybody. And he owes me a favor.”

  “Good, see if he’s heard anything,” Marwan ordered. “But be careful, Ramy. We still don’t know exactly what we’re up against.”

  “Don’t worry. My friend will be discreet.”

  “He’d better be,” Marwan said.

  The rain was coming down still harder, and the temperature was dropping quickly. But he saw a sign for the airport. It was just ahead.

  “I’d better go,” he said. “I’m almost there.”

  “Good,” Ramy said. “Stay safe, and call me in three days.”

  “Three days,” Marwan confirmed, then said, “Ramy?”

  “Yes, Marwan?”

  “Thanks.”

  “What are little brothers for?”

  14

  Marwan pulled into the airport parking lot. It was exactly 8:00. He found a deserted little section near the back and turned off the engine. Then he wiped the rental car clean of all fingerprints, grabbed the garment bag out of the backseat, and dumped the keys, the pistol, and the cell phone into various trash cans as he ran to make his flight.

  By 8:12, he was inside the main terminal. Walking as quickly as he could without drawing attention, he found his rented locker. He unlocked it and he fished out a small stack of fake passports and a dozen credit cards, two per alias. He also grabbed a change of clothes, a pair of contact lenses that made his eyes look green
rather than brown, a small backpack, and several stacks of euros in small denominations. He slammed the door shut and tossed the photo of Claudette Ramsey in a trash can before ducking into a nearby men’s room.

  At 8:21, he stepped up to the Royal Air Maroc counter and paid for his ticket.

  “You’d better hurry, Monsieur Cardell,” the blonde behind the counter said as she handed him his boarding card. “They are already boarding.”

  Marwan bolted for security and passport control. There were still a few passengers ahead of him. But police and plainclothes agents were everywhere. It seemed the place was crawling with them. Marwan entered the queue and tried to act casual, but his heart was racing. He needed to get his mind off the prospect of imminent arrest and interrogation. He needed to find a way to calm down and become the alias he had just assumed.

  He surreptitiously tried some breathing techniques, but to little avail. How would the APB list him—as a witness or as a man wanted for multiple homicides? Had every airport, seaport, train station, and hotel in France and Italy been alerted, or just those within a hundred kilometers or so of Monte Carlo? More to the point, had he slipped the noose, or was it being tightened around his neck even now?

  He snuck a glance at himself in a window as he passed. The snakeskin boots added a good two inches to his height. Then, of course, there were the ripped blue jeans, the black T-shirt, the faded jean jacket with a huge Grateful Dead logo stitched on the back. These and the dark sunglasses and the backpack and the iPod blaring the Dead’s greatest hits made him look more like some American college kid hitchhiking through Europe than a bodyguard to former presidents and prime ministers. He barely recognized himself. And that, of course, was the point.

  No fewer than eight French policemen were checking passports and faces and luggage and running the metal detectors. It felt as if every eye were on him. It had been a long time since he had bluffed his way through European security. Did he still know how? He vowed then and there that if he somehow made it through all this, he would spend a lot more time out of his office and in the field.

  It was finally his turn. He tossed his backpack and the garment bag—the one he had stolen from the honeymooners in Monte Carlo—on the conveyor belt to be x-rayed. Then he handed over his fake American passport, his airline ticket, and his boarding pass.

  The lead gendarme was a short bulldog of a man with a close haircut, a tight-fitting French border police uniform, and a severe look upon his face. He examined the documents closely. Too closely.

  Marwan’s pulse quickened.

  The man asked something in French.

  “Huh?” Marwan asked, peeling off his iPod and looking thoroughly confused.

  The man switched to English.

  “Monsieur Cardell, where are you traveling tonight?”

  “Heading to Casa, dude,” Marwan said in a nearly flawless Southern Californian accent. “Actually, Rabat, if I can find me some wheels.”

  He was just glad he was not hooked up to a polygraph.

  “Alone?” the man asked.

  Marwan looked around himself, then faced the gendarme with a shrug and a smile. “Unfortunately.”

  “Business or pleasure?”

  “Pure pleasure, bro—at least I hope,” Marwan laughed, hoping to elicit a bit of warmth, something—anything—he could work with to get this guy to lighten up a bit and wave him through.

  He got nothing. Instead, the man’s eyes bored more deeply into his.

  “Are you carrying any weapons?”

  “No,” he said, though he almost wished he were.

  “Drugs?”

  That one was easy. He had never used them in his life. But he had to stay in character.

  “Not today,” he quipped with a wink.

  The gendarme did not look amused.

  “Are you traveling with more than ten thousand euros?”

  Marwan did a quick calculation. As best he remembered, he had a little less than two thousand. He laughed again. “Dude, you’re kidding, right?”

  He saw the man’s eyebrows rise.

  “I had to sell my Harley to get over here,” Marwan continued. “Blew most of it already! Who knew France was so expensive?”

  “Where are you staying in Rabat?”

  Marwan paused for a moment. He didn’t recall ever being asked such questions upon leaving France. Were they onto him? Why not just grab him? His mouth went dry.

  “Hostel Rabat,” he said at last. “If I can get myself there. If not, it’s going to be a cold night.”

  The pain from his shoulder was beginning to cloud his mind. Please, just get this over with!

  “So no drugs?” the gendarme asked again.

  “Yeah, I got some right in my pocket. You want a hit?” Quickly realizing that sarcasm was probably not the best tack to take, he resorted to pleading. “Come on, bro, my plane’s leaving any minute.”

  “May I look in your bag?” the man asked, obviously unconvinced.

  Marwan said yes, but no sooner had the words come out of his mouth than he realized that in his haste he had never checked to see what was in the garment bag he’d taken from the honeymoon suite in Monte Carlo. He had no earthly idea if it was the bride’s or the groom’s. And he was about to find out in the sight of eight well-armed men.

  The gendarme began with Marwan’s backpack.

  More blue jeans. A couple of old T-shirts, desperately in need of some laundry soap. A few pairs of dirty underwear—a few clean pairs as well. A charger cable for the iPod. A dog-eared paperback of John Grisham’s novel The Firm. A half-eaten bag of M&M’s. A small shaving kit. An old toothbrush. A half-empty tube of Crest. Some deodorant. And a small velvet box with a small gold ring.

  “Getting engaged?” the gendarme asked.

  For the first time, Marwan saw a glimmer of humanity in the man’s eyes. A flicker of sadness, rapidly turning back to steel.

  Use that, he told himself. “Dude, that’s why I’m here. I put three years into her, and she turned me down flat. Said I had no ambition. Said I couldn’t support her lifestyle. Can you believe that?”

  The gendarme cracked an ever-so-faint smile and shook his head. Then he repacked the backpack and opened the garment bag. Marwan’s heart almost stopped.

  To his horror, the bag was filled with women’s clothes and cosmetics. Dresses. Halter tops. Tight jeans. High heels and flats. And lingerie that left little to the imagination. They were all new—some articles still had store price tags dangling from them. They were all expensive. And they all begged for an explanation that Marwan Accad—aka Jack Cardell—did not have.

  Marwan wondered if he looked as surprised as he felt.

  “Perhaps I should call you Jacqueline Cardell, instead of Jacques, non?” the gendarme asked.

  The man began to laugh, as did his colleagues, most of whom seemed to have become intrigued by this California beach bum.

  Marwan forced himself to laugh too. “Nah, stuff she left in our apartment. I’ve had this vision of building me a bonfire out of this stuff one night on the beach, then surfing her out of my system until sunrise.”

  The gendarme stared hard at Marwan for a moment, but his face softened. “Amour. It is not always an easy thing.”

  To Marwan’s surprise and relief, he zipped up the bag and waved him through.

  15

  The Skeleton had arrived.

  That’s what Goddard and DuVall had dubbed Lemieux. He was all bones and no heart, they said, and he would be joining them any moment.

  Goddard watched from the balcony of Ramsey’s flat as Lemieux’s jet helicopter landed at the public heliport below, and the rather tall and lanky fellow disembarked, got into the unmarked sedan Goddard had sent for him, and made the short drive to the front door. The heliport was less than a hundred meters from Sovereign Plaza, the luxury apartment complex that the Ramsey family (as well as one of the princesses of Monaco) occasionally called home.

  The Ramseys owned four other homes besides t
his one, Goddard had learned since arriving. One was in Alexandria, on the southern shores of the Mediterranean, where Rafeeq had been raised. Another was a sumptuous urban town house in Maadi, an exclusive suburb of Cairo, not far from the corporate offices of Blue Nile Holdings. Yet another was a pricey ski chalet in Davos, Switzerland, which Rafeeq often lent out to clients, since he had long passed the age he could safely ski. And of course, there was their opulent forty-acre estate just outside of Paris—the city of Claudette’s birth—where they had spent most of their time recently.

  Buying the flat in Monte Carlo had been Claudette’s idea, Goddard had gathered from their private cook, who had been in his guest quarters when the shooting began. Claudette was the ultimate socialite, he said, and desperately wanted a place where she could wine and dine her rich friends, a place she could see and be seen by the glitterati that came each summer to play.

  The phone rang. Goddard answered it immediately, then hung up and announced, “He’s coming. Everyone out.”

  Goddard’s team didn’t need to be told twice. No one wanted to be around when the Skeleton arrived. They had all worked with him before. So the crime scene photographers, the detectives dusting for fingerprints, the officers taking measurements, and those finding and marking shell casings all finished their work, packed up their equipment, and exited the flat as quickly and quietly as they could. They were essentially finished anyway. The bodies had been removed. They were just wrapping up loose ends. If they were needed again, they would return. For now, they were more than happy to leave, Colette DuVall included.

  A few minutes after they had all departed, the elevator door opened, and Lemieux stepped off.

  “Inspector, welcome,” Goddard said.

  Lemieux didn’t nod. He didn’t speak. He didn’t smile. He did not even take Goddard’s outstretched hand. Rather, he immediately began moving through the living room—slowly and methodically—stopping occasionally to bend down and examine certain numbered evidence markers and bloodstains. He seemed particularly interested in studying the angles from which the shots had been fired.

  “When you’re ready, I can show you the apartment across the way, the one the assassin—or assassins—used,” Goddard offered. “My men have recovered the rifle and a scope.”