"Well, I'm making an exception for you. Don't make me wrong."
He gave her a long look, then said, "I hope I won't."
"I prefer the last two words over the first two," she said with annoyance. "Why can't you make the promise?"
"Promises can't always be kept, even when you want to."
There was a heaviness behind his words, and the shift in his gaze seemed to move into the past. He wasn't thinking about the promise he couldn't quite make to her anymore; he was thinking about someone else.
"Did you break a promise to someone you cared about?" she asked.
"I need to get to work, and so do you." He got to his feet. "Be careful, Kara."
"You, too," she said, but she wasn't sure he'd heard her because he was already out the door.
His actions reminded her how little she actually knew about him, and also how much she wanted to know more. But Max Malone was not the puzzle she needed to figure out right now. She needed to check on Whitney, then get to the office. The race to stop another bombing was on…
Max arrived at Tompkins Square Park in the East Village a little before noon. This meeting shouldn't be dangerous, but he had learned a long time ago to expect the unexpected. His gaze swept across the park. Everything looked normal—dog walkers, parents and nannies with kids, a few homeless people on benches, a couple of young lovers making out on a blanket. The day was warmer than the past few, with sun streaking through the tree branches, creating a more optimistic feel, one he'd like to hang on to for a while.
But he doubted that was going to happen. Things were escalating, building in intensity, and he doubted the attacker was done. He was afraid he or she was just getting started.
A man walked into the park wearing a Yankees cap, a navy-blue windbreaker, and jeans. He was lean and wiry and moved with a careless purpose that had always been his trademark. Reza Barech looked the same as he had the last time Max had seen him in Istanbul nine months ago. He was in his late thirties, olive-skinned, with dark hair and a beard. He was handsome enough to be charming, but his attractive face and easygoing manner made him easy to underestimate.
Reza walked over to the water fountain a few feet away from him and took a drink. Then he lifted his head and gave him a smile as he moved closer. "You look better than the last time I saw you," he said. "New York agrees with you."
"It's only a temporary stop."
"So I've heard. You're working for Dominic Ashford now. And you'll be back where you shouldn't be in a month."
"As his private security," he said, knowing Reza didn't believe him for a second.
"Sure. If you reached out because of Qadir?—"
"I didn't," he said, cutting him off.
Reza looked surprised. "You didn't?"
"No. I'm working on something here in the city. Ashford's girlfriend was critically injured in a bomb blast on Monday."
Reza nodded. "I read about that. And yesterday there was another bomb. Related?"
"Absolutely."
"And connected to Ashford?"
"Still to be determined. There's a man who goes by the name Cal, well over six feet tall, black hair, black eyes, described as having a Middle Eastern accent. He works jobs for Elias Costa, who runs Forge Fitness, and possibly the Novik brothers, who run the Crimson Club. He's connected to a murder and a hit on a witness to the bombing yesterday. Anything about him sound familiar?"
"You said this wasn't about Qadir."
He looked at Reza in surprise. "It's not."
"Caleb Azrani fits the description you just gave me. He's the younger brother of?—"
"Malik Azrani," he finished, one of Qadir's best friends. "But how could Caleb be here? The Azranis have been on the watch list for years."
"Only Malik. Caleb is his much younger brother. He came to the US with his mother when he was a child. Malik stayed with the father. Do you have a photo?"
"There's a sketch, but I don't have it with me." A dozen thoughts raced through his mind. If Cal was Caleb Azrani, the brother of one of Qadir's best friends, it seemed likely that Qadir was involved in this. But there was no way he would set foot on US soil. However, that didn't mean he wasn't running things from afar. But the bombings weren't his signature, his style. Qadir liked chaos, mass hysteria, and explosions on a much larger scale. He wanted mass destruction, not single targets. "The two bombs don't sound like Qadir."
