Excerpt
“Please send him in.”
“Okay, Matt.”
John Calder sits in Matt’s office.
“What else have we learned in the last two days?” Matthew asks.
“Matthew, it becomes more and more interesting as the days go by. I
mentioned to you that Hakim is on his way to inherit everything the old man
has. Now that seems to be earlier rather than later. Ibrahim definitely has been
diagnosed with cancer; how long he’ll be around nobody knows. The word is he
has a slow-growing tumor; depending on whether they can get rid of the tumor
or not, he may be around two years years or longer. You never know.”
“How much is he worth?”
“The rough figure is in the vicinity of two to three billion.”
“Two-three billion U.S. dollars, figure that.”
“Yes, you could certainly do a few things with two-three billion bucks.”
“Absolutely!” What could a twenty-seven-year-old do with all that? What
could a person do with all that money when his wife cheats on him? But what if
things are not the way he imagines? Oh, so many bad thoughts!
John is about to go.
“Thanks a lot John, your help is always appreciated.”
“Don’t mention it, Matt. What goes around, comes around.”
“I agree, 100 percent. You know where I am, anytime.”
His buddy leaves and Matthew sits with his mind on the money. So much
money for one young Iraqi! What a person can do with all that money. All this
beautiful news and nobody to share it with…Loneliness overtakes him, and he
feels like he’s in the middle of a busy agora and yet no one is around to listen to
what he has to say, no one cares to hear his voice. Suddenly he feels angry, very
angry, but who is he angry with? He’s angry with Emily—where the hell is she
this time of the day? She’s supposed to be home, she’s supposed to be there for
him because he wants to tell her about all this money. Who else can he trust with
such good news? This time of day she should be at home waiting for his call, but
where is she?
Talal is in his apartment getting ready to go to Mario’s to meet Emily for lunch.
He talked to Ahmed earlier and gave him instructions to find the info he needs.
Sometimes he wonders who Ahmed’s contacts are and how he gets all his information—
who are these guys? Good, clear thinking tells him the less he knows
about that, the better off he is. So who cares where Ahmed gets his news, as long
as he gets it? He’s just on his way out when Hakim calls.
Libros Libertad 