“Were you afraid Ozan would try to sell information about the drone pilot party as a way to save his remaining daughters?”
“For that and for more money and to strike at America. I think it was all these things. He found other people who were not the kidnappers who said they would pay for the information and pay the kidnappers too.”
“Did Ozan tell you that?”
“No.”
“How do you know that?”
The lawyer cut in. “He doesn’t know that.”
Smith’s fingers worked at the left cuff of his shirt.
“I wired money on June 12 as an act of good faith to save the two girls.”
“How much?”
“Fifty thousand dollars. The kidnappers got the money and told us that was good but not enough. Yet there was no hurry. Now they were willing to negotiate. I could feel Ozan was not as worried. So I became frightened that something was working in the background. We were very close to agreeing on a final price. Then for more than a week I heard nothing before something incredible. They would send someone to America and collect the money in person. Can you imagine?”
“Did you believe them?”
“Of course not.”
I looked hard at him, at his calculated decisions, at what he knew and held back. I felt a cold anger.
“You’d figured out they were waiting for the Fourth of July.”
“No, I did not.”
But he had.
“You are wrong,” he said. “It was arranged in this way. A man would come to the Alagara. I would pay him and he would call the kidnappers from my office. The money for this was in the safe.”
The lawyer’s chair scraped back. He stood and said, “I need to talk to my client.”
Smith shook his head. He waved his lawyer off.
“I insist,” the lawyer said.
“I was to meet this man on July 4 at 10:00 p.m. at the Alagara.”
“The night of the party.”
“Yes, the night of the party. The party rental ended at 9:30. They knew this from my computer files, and I thought it was 10:00 so that it was after the party. Now I know this was to keep me quiet until the bombs went off.” He gave a small shrug. “But I was relieved we were making a deal.”
“What is the name of the man you were to meet?”
“Mansur, only one word. I would know him by that name and he would come at 10:00 the night of the Fourth, but I was to call him earlier in the day.”
“Did you?”
“I have the phone number I called. You will have no record of it.” He turned to the lawyer. “Give it to them.”
The lawyer stalled finding the number. Smith checked it before it was slid across.
“You were going to be at the Alagara at 10:00 the night of July 4 to pay the ransom to a man named Mansur?”
“Three hundred thousand dollars. I called that phone number from Houston and he said the meeting time had changed and to call him as soon as I returned to Las Vegas. When he said that, I became frightened. I didn’t know why it frightened me, but it did.”
I took it the next step. The drone party information got sold and the kidnappers got more than they were going to get haggling with Smith. I asked Smith, “When did you find out the girls were dead?”
That caught him off-balance. I may have seen fear in his eyes.
“This afternoon. How did you know they are dead?”
I looked at him, remembering Melissa saying she liked Smith so much that they’d become Facebook friends. On her Facebook page she wrote about the upcoming party.
“We’re going to be here awhile,” I said. “I need a few minutes before we continue. Do you want tea or something to eat?”
“I wish only to die.”
“Agent Ruiz and I are going to step out a few minutes and then we’ll be back.”
I walked out with Carlo Ruiz, the other agent in the room with me. I needed to sit alone for a few minutes. Ruiz went to find Venuti and Thorpe.
50
Near dawn Omar Smith asked to pray and rest. His expression said, Read nothing into my prayers. They are not because of or for you. When I left him I left the office and drove to the Alagara and walked around as Smith prayed and rested. I looked at the building where so many had died and thought about things Smith had said in the night, reliving the decisions he’d made. It wasn’t religion. It was survival. It was money. It was thinking he was smarter than the bombers, but he wasn’t. A hollowed sadness flooded me as I looked at the ruined building. Then some voice inside, and I would like to think it was Melissa, said, Walk away, walk toward the sunrise and the first light on the fields of flowers draping and laid with notes and cards on the Alagara lot. I knew I was looking at what connects us, what joins us. I needed that this morning.
An hour later, Smith was brought back to the interview room. He picked up the sketch of Garod Hurin I placed in front of him before asking him, “When did you last speak with Ozan?”