LITMIR.BIZ

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from his seat at the table, as did his men. From the corner of his eye, he saw a couple of his boys with itchy fingers – they were anxious, ready to reach inside their jackets and pull their guns.

      “Steady,” he said. “This is a friendly visit.”

      The leader of the men came straight to Eddie. He was short and thin, with a long, thick beard that was showing streaks of gray. His skin was deep black and the skin of his face was lined with creases and furrows. This man had spent a lot of his time in the great Sahel, the sun beating down on him.

      “Yisrael Abdul Salaam,” Eddie said, extending his arms outward. “Welcome to my home.”

      “As-Salaam-Alaikum,” the man said.

      Eddie shook his head and grinned. “Whatever you say, man.”

      “Edward,” the smaller man said, “I’ve known you since you were a boy, and you’ve always been trouble. But this…” He gestured at their surroundings. He eyes were sharp and he was not smiling. “This is the devil’s work. I should kill you for causing me to walk through a den of immorality such as this.”

      Now Eddie stopped smiling. The last thing he wanted was a lecture from a religious fanatic. “The world is changing,” he said. “This is the new Nigeria. Fast money, fast life, beautiful places, beautiful women. You and your god are relics of the past. And the clock is ticking.”

      Yisrael’s eyes never wavered. “Before you die, may Allah cause your dirty tongue to be severed from your mouth.”

      Now that the pleasantries were out of the way, Eddie gestured at the table. “Shall we sit and talk for a moment?”

      Yisrael nodded. He sat at the table and Eddie sat across from him. The rest of the men stood. Eddie didn’t even bother to offer Yisrael a flute of champagne. He was no longer in a funny mood. He glanced around. The men were tense. Could a five-minute meeting take place without a gunfight? That was the major concern. Yisrael, of course, was no suicide bomber. He was too important for that.

      “I understand you stole something today,” he said.

      Eddie shook his head. “I found something.”

      “And you don’t even know what it is.”

      That was true. There was no sense denying it. “And you do?”

      Yisrael nodded. “Of course. It belongs to friends of ours.”

      Now Eddie did smile, a ghost of a grin. “Oh? My understanding was you no longer had friends.”

      Yisrael slammed his small fist on the table. All around them, the startled gunmen jumped. And twitched. But did not pull their guns.

      “Why did you invite me here?” Yisrael said.

      “To personally offer you this thing that I found. Because I’m sentimental and you are my countryman and my tribal brother, after all. But if you don’t want it, I’m sure I can strike a deal with these friends of yours.”

      “These friends of mine will put your head on a pike.”

      Eddie nodded slowly. “Yeah. I see that. But do you want this thing or not?”

      Yisrael’s hard, deep-set eyes stared at him. They seemed to become everything. The soft pastel colors of the club, the flashing lights, the thumping bass, even the gunmen standing nearby – all of it seemed to drop away.

      “I do. Very much.”

      “It will cost you a million dollars in cash,” Eddie said. “Can you manage that amount? I know your friends can do that and much more. It is an expensive item. I lost two friends today acquiring it.”

      Yisrael smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “A pity. They died for money.”

      “Better than your men,” Eddie said. “Who die for a fairy tale.”

      Suddenly, a tall man in a white kaftan had a gun in his hand. He was a broad man, very dark, with very big hands. He pointed the gun directly at Eddie’s head.

      “Allah forbids this talk!” he shouted, and for an instant Eddie thought he might really pull the trigger. Words. The man would kill and die for mere words. Well, if it happened, at least it would be… abrupt.

      But a second later, all of Eddie’s men had their guns out. The barrel of one was an inch from Yisrael’s scalp. And Yisrael’s men had their guns out. Guns pointed everywhere in the room, a forest of guns. That’s what Eddie got for even trying to talk to these people.

      “Can you pay the money or not?” he said.

      Yisrael sat back and smiled. Now he seemed relaxed. Perhaps he couldn’t relax unless murder was in the air. “I think we are not so poorly off as you suppose. Three hundred and fifty million naira, and you get to keep your head for the time being. It sounds like a wonderful deal for you. You would not enjoy meeting my friends.”

      Eddie shook his head. “Dollars,” he said. “A million American dollars.” He smiled again, but it didn’t feel authentic. People like Yisrael could really ruin a good mood.

      “I’m a citizen of the world. What good are naira to a man like me?”

      CHAPTER TEN

      2:05 p.m. Eastern Standard Time

      The Oval Office

      The White House, Washington, DC

      “I can’t believe we’re about to take this meeting,” Susan said.

      She didn’t say what she thought inside: I want to wring Stone’s neck.

      Instead, she looked at Kat Lopez, who was perched in a high-backed chair across the Oval Office sitting area from her. Kat looked fresh and relaxed. Like Kurt Kimball, Kat was an Energizer bunny – she just kept going and going and going.

      “Give me the details,” Susan said.

      “ARTS,” Kat said. “A Return To Sanity. More than thirty thousand members across the United States, and growing. Their headquarters are here in Washington, and they have a committed pool of donors across the United States, especially among wealthy people in the Bible Belt. They were founded and originally funded by Midwest corn magnate Nathan Davis. As a lobbying organization they are growing in influence, especially among conservatives in Congress. They raised and spent over fifteen million dollars in the last fiscal year, not counting another five to ten million raised by their nonprofit arm, the American Family Education Foundation.”

      “And Lucy?” Susan said.

      “Lucy Pilgrim,” Kat said without hesitating. “Current president of ARTS. Sixty-seven years old. Lucy was a hippie and a political activist from her earliest days – birth control, environmentalism, anti-nukes. In the mid-1970s, she and a group of her followers used to go topless in Central Park every Sunday for three straight summers. If men could do it, so could women.”

      Kat paused.

      “What’s good for the gander…” she said.

      “Right,” Susan said, almost laughing. “Is good for the goose. That was clever. Do you even know about that, or is it just on your cheat sheet there?”

      Kat shrugged. “I learned all about Lucy while I was in college. Women’s studies. She came and spoke one time.”

      Susan shook her head. “She’s something else.”

      Kat raised a hand. “At some point, Lucy must have gotten religion. Or maybe it was always there, and she wasn’t eager to talk about it. In any case, she’s been president of ARTS for eight years. There is some talk that she is going to step down in the near future. She was diagnosed with an aggressive form of Parkinson’s disease two years ago. It hasn’t seemed to slow her down any, but you should realize that we may be dealing with a lame duck.”

      Susan leveled her sternest gaze at Kat. “We’re not going to deal at all, Kat. What deal are we going to make? This is an organization that wants American women to stay home and have more children, am I right? Because of some misguided idea about

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