The Blue Zone

The noise was terrifying—deafening. Bullets ricocheted everywhere, thudding into the cabinets and walls. The large Palladian window was gone. The house alarm was blaring. Everyone was screaming, faces pressed into the floor. The noise was so frightening and seemed so close, directly over them, Kate had the terrifying sense whoever was shooting had climbed into the room.

She was certain she was about to die.

Then suddenly she heard voices. Yelling. The same paralyzing thought occurred to everyone at once:

The kids. Upstairs.

Kate’s father arched up and shouted above the frenzy, “Em, Justin, don’t come down! Get on the floor!”

The barrage continued. Maybe twenty, thirty seconds, but it seemed like an eternity to Kate, huddled with her hands over her ears, her heart pounding out of control.

“Hold on, hold on,” Kate’s father kept repeating, blanketing them. She heard screaming, crying. She didn’t even know if it was hers. The window was wide open. Bullets were still flying in every direction. Kate just prayed: Whoever you are, whatever you want, please, God, please, just don’t come inside.

And then there was silence. As quickly as it had begun.

Kate heard footsteps retreating, an engine starting up, and a vehicle lurching away.

For a long time, they just clung to the floor. Too afraid to even look up. The silence was just as terrifying as the attack. Sharon was whimpering. Kate was too frozen to speak. There was a steady pounding very close by, loud, above the shrieking of the alarm.

Gradually, almost joyously, Kate realized that it was the sound of her own heart.

“They’re gone. They’re gone.” Her father finally exhaled, rolling off of them. “Sharon, Kate, are you all right?”

“I think so,” Kate’s mother muttered. Kate just nodded. She couldn’t believe it. There were bullet holes everywhere. Shattered glass all over the floor. The place looked like a war zone.

“Oh, my God, Ben, what the hell is going on?”

Then they heard voices coming down the stairs. “Mom … Dad …?”

Justin and Emily. They ran into the study. “Oh, thank God …” Sharon literally leaped up, throwing her arms around them, smothering them with kisses. Then Kate, too. Everyone was crying, sobbing, hugging each other in tearful relief. “Thank God you’re all all right.”

Slowly the panic began to recede, and in its place was the horrifying sight of what had happened. Sharon looked around at the devastation of their once-beautiful home. Everything was shattered. They were lucky to be alive.

Her eyes came back to her husband. There was no longer terror in them. There was something else—accusation.

“What the hell have you done to us, Ben?”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“The purpose of this meeting”—James Nardozzi, the U.S. Attorney, stared across the table, focusing on Mel—“is for you and your client to fully understand the seriousness of the charges facing him. And to determine a path of action that would be in his best interest. As well as the best interest of his family.”

The conference room in the U.S. Attorney’s office at Foley Square in lower Manhattan was glass-paneled and narrow, its white walls decorated with photos of George W. Bush and the attorney general. Booth and Ruiz were seated across from Mel and Raab. There was a stenographer at the far end of the table, who looked like a prim schoolteacher, taking everything down. Raab’s family was sequestered at the house, which was now cordoned off and being guarded by the FBI.

“First, Mr. Raab believes he has done nothing wrong,” Mel was quick to reply.

“Nothing wrong?” The U.S. Attorney ruffled his brow as if he hadn’t heard correctly.

“Yes. He denies ever knowingly being part of any scheme to launder money or defraud the U.S. government. He’s never once concealed any monies he’s made from these transactions. He’s even up-to-date in his taxes on them. Whatever business took place between Mr. Kornreich and Mr. Concerga was totally without my client’s consent.”

Special Agent Booth looked back at Mel, surprised. “Your client denies knowing that Paz Export Enterprises was a company set up to receive altered merchandise intended to launder money for the Mercado drug cartel? And that his actions did not serve to aid and abet these felonies when he introduced Paz to Argot Manufacturing?”

Raab stared nervously at Booth and Ruiz. Mel nodded at him.

“Yes.”

The U.S. Attorney sighed impatiently, as if this were wasting his time.

“What my client does admit to,” Mel explained, “is that he may have been foolish, if not even a bit misguided, not to suspect that something was afoot given the regular and generally lucrative result of Mr. Concerga’s business. But the mere acceptance of payment doesn’t constitute knowledge of who the end user was or what the finished product was being utilized for.”

Special Agent Booth scratched his head for a second and nodded patiently. “As Mr. Nardozzi explained, Mr. Raab, what we’re trying to do is give you a chance to keep your family together—before we go at this another way.”

“The RICO statutes very specifically state,” Mel said, “that a suspect must willfully and knowingly contrive—”

“Mr. Kipstein,” Agent Ruiz cut Raab’s lawyer off in midsentence, “we know what the RICO statutes state. The man we introduced your client to yesterday is a special agent of the FBI. Agent Esposito identified himself as a business acquaintance of Luis Trujillo. Your client offered to do business with him in the same manner he assisted in the altering of gold for Paz. That’s money laundering, Mr. Kipstein. And conspiracy to commit fraud.”

“You set my client up,” Mel was quick to charge. “You lured him into an illicit act. You put his life, and the life of his family, in danger. That’s entrapment. It’s more than entrapment. It’s reckless endangerment in my view!”

Booth leaned back. “All I can say is, maybe your view’s a little cloudy over there, Counselor.” He had a face like someone concealing a winning poker hand.

Booth nodded to Ruiz, who reached inside his folder and came out with a cassette. “We have his voice on tape, Mr. Kipstein. Your client has made six visits to Colombia in the past eight years. Do you want me to play what was said?” He slid the tape across the table. “Or can we just get down to the business we came here for today, which is saving your client’s life?”

“Be my guest,” Mel Kipstein said.

The agent shrugged and reached forward for the recorder.

Raab put his hand on his lawyer’s arm. “Mel …”

The lawyer stared at him.

Raab always knew that one day this would happen. Even when he pretended every day that it would never come. That it would go on forever.

They had his relationship to Argot, the monies he’d received. They had his voice on tape. The RICO statutes only needed to establish a pattern of racketeering. Just the knowledge alone of such activity would be enough to get a conviction. Under the kingpin statute, they could put him away for twenty years.

He knew. He always knew. He just wasn’t prepared to feel so empty inside. He wasn’t prepared to have it hurt so much.

“What is it you want from me?” He nodded dully.

“You know what we want from you, Mr. Raab,” Booth replied. “We want you to testify. We want Trujillo. We want your friend. You tell us everything you know about Paz and Argot. We’ll see what Mr. Nardozzi is willing to do.”

They laid out in a very matter-of-fact way to Raab how they were going to seize his assets. The house. The bank accounts. The cars. They wanted him to turn on everyone—including his friend—otherwise they’d toss him in jail.

“Of course, if that bothers you, we could just do nothing.” Ruiz shrugged with a gloating smile. “Let you hang out on the street. Go about your business. Tell me, Mr. Raab, after what happened last night, how long do you think you’d last like that?”

Raab pushed away from the table. “All I did was buy the gold!” He glared at them. “I didn’t steal anything. I didn’t hurt anybody. I put two people together. All I did was what a thousand people would have done.”

“Look,” Mel said, his voice betraying a tone of desperation, “my client’s a well-respected member of the business and social community. He’s never been implicated in any crime before. Surely, even if his actions inadvertently assisted in the commission of a crime, it’s a stretch at best, these charges. He has no information you’re seeking. He’s not even the person you really want. That ought to count for something.”

“It does count for something, Mr. Kipstein,” Agent Booth replied. “It accounts for why we’re talking to you, Mr. Raab, and not to Harold Kornreich.”

Raab stared at him and touched Mel’s shoulder. It was over. No more. He suddenly saw all the consequences crashing in on him like the girders of a building caving in.

“You’re cutting out my heart, you know.” He stared at Booth. “My life, my family. You’ve killed it. It’s all gone.”

The FBI man crossed his legs and looked at Raab. “Frankly, Mr. Raab, considering last night, I think you’ve got even bigger things to worry about than that.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“We’re talking about the matter of your personal safety,” Agent Ruiz cut in.

“My safety …” Raab suddenly turned white, flashing back to the events of the previous night.

“Yeah, and that of your family, Mr. Raab.” The agent nodded.

“I think it’s time we explain a few things.” Booth opened a file. “There’s a war going on right now, Mr. Raab. A war of control—between factions of the Colombian drug cartels. Between those operating in this country and those back home in South America. You’ve heard of Oscar Mercado—”

“Of course I’ve heard of Oscar Mercado.” Raab blanched. Everyone had.

Ruiz pushed a black-and-white photo across the table. The face was gaunt and hardened, the hair long, the eyes callous and empty. The chin was covered in a thick goatee. It brought to mind images of murdered judges and families who got in their way.

“Mercado’s been thought to be in hiding in the United States or Mexico now for several years,” Agent Booth started to explain. “No one knows. The people you were doing business with are part of the finance arm of his organization. These people are cold-blooded killers, Mr. Raab, and they protect to the death what they think of as theirs. In the past few years, their organization’s been rocked by some key defections from within. The family patriarch has died. There’s a war for control going on. They’re not going to let some ‘white-collar, Jewish, business-school type’ who’s been living high off their proceeds for several years take down the rest of it in a trial.”

“You’ve seen what these people do, Mr. Raab,” Ruiz put in. “They don’t just go after you, like in those Mafia movies. This is fraternidad, Mr. Raab. Mercado’s brotherhood. They kill your family. Your wife, your lovely kids. They’ll kill the fucking dog if it barks. You heard in the news about that whole family that was murdered in Bensonhurst last month? They left a six-month-old kid in a baby chair with a bullet through its head. Are you prepared for that? Is your wife prepared for that? Your kids? Let me ask you, Mr. Raab: Are you prepared not to have an easy night’s sleep for the rest of your life?”

Raab turned toward Mel, an ache widening in his gut. “We can fight this, right? We’ll take our chances in court.”

Booth’s tone intensified. “You’re not hearing us, Mr. Raab. You’re in danger. Your whole family’s in danger. Just by your being here.”

“And even if you choose to fight this,” Ruiz added, coyly, “they’re never really going to be entirely sure just what you might say, are they, Mr. Raab? Are you prepared to take that chance?”

The ache in Raab’s gut intensified, accompanied by a wave of nausea.

“You’re in bed with them, Mr. Raab,” the Hispanic agent chuckled. “I’m surprised you never thought about this stuff when you were driving around town in that fancy Ferrari of yours up there.”

Raab felt as if his insides were slowly sliding off a cliff. He was finished. No point in keeping up his defense. He had to do what had to be done now. He couldn’t stop the ball from rolling. From rolling over him. Twenty years of his life ripped away …

He looked forlornly at Mel.

“You have to take care of your family, Ben,” the lawyer advised, grasping his arm.

Raab closed his eyes and let out a painful breath. “I can give you Concerga,” he said to Booth when they opened again. “Trujillo, too. But I need you to protect my family.”

Booth nodded, glancing toward Ruiz and the U.S. Attorney with a triumphant stare.

“In return for your testimony,” Nardozzi said, “we can arrange for you to receive protective custody and move you and your family to a secure place. We can work it out so you’ll get to keep a percentage of your assets, so you can live in a manner not dissimilar to how you live now. You’ll serve about ten months someplace—until the trial. After that, you and your family will just disappear.”

“Disappear?” Raab gaped at him. “You mean like the Witness Protection Program? That’s for mobsters, criminals.…”

“The WITSEC Program has all kinds of people in it,” Booth corrected him. “The one thing they’ve got in common is a fear of reprisal as a result of their testimony. You’ll be safe there. And, more important, so will your family. It’s never been penetrated if you live by the rules. You can even pick an area of the country you want to live in.”

“It’s your only bet, Mr. Raab,” Ruiz urged. “Your life’s not worth a dime, on the street or in jail, whether you challenge these indictments or not. You dug this hole for yourself the day you took up with these people. Since then you’ve just been transferring the dirt.”

How are we going to deal with this? Raab thought, the agent’s words hitting him like hollow-point slugs. Sharon and the kids? Their life—everything they knew, counted on, gone! What could he possibly say to make them understand?

“When?” Raab nodded, defeated, eyes glazed. “When does all this begin?”

Nardozzi drew out some papers and slid them across the table in front of Raab. An official-looking sheet headed “U.S. Department of Justice. Form 5-K. Cooperating Witness Agreement.” He flicked the cap of a ballpoint pen.

“Today, Mr. Raab. As soon as you sign.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Everyone was gathered at the house. Kate and Sharon were trimming some hydrangeas in the kitchen, trying to keep their nerves at bay, when a dark blue sedan accompanied by a black Jeep turned into the drive.

Ben had called an hour earlier. He told them he had something very important to discuss. He wouldn’t say how the meeting with the FBI had gone. No one had left the house all day. The kids hadn’t gone to school. Cops and FBI agents had been all around their house constantly.

A man and a woman dressed in suits stepped out of the sedan, then Raab. The Jeep pulled around in the circle and blocked the head of the drive.

“I don’t have a good feeling about this.” Sharon put down her shears.

Kate nodded back, holding her breath. This time neither did she.

Her father stepped into the house and took off his coat, ashen. He gave Kate a halfhearted wink, then Sharon a stiff hug.

“Who are those people, Ben?”

He merely shrugged. “We’ve got some things to talk over as a family, Sharon.”

They sat around the dining room table, which didn’t exactly make anyone feel relaxed, because they never sat in the dining room. Ben asked for a glass of water. He could barely look any of them in the eyes. A day before, they’d been thinking about Em’s SATs and planning their winter trip. Kate had never felt such tension in the house.

Sharon looked at him, uneasily. “Ben, I think you’re scaring everyone a bit.”

He nodded. “There was something I didn’t quite go into last night,” he said. “There was someone else who came to me at the office, who I introduced to Harold as well. Someone who was looking for the same arrangement as the guy I told you about, from Paz. Convert some cash into gold. Get it out of the country.…”

Sharon shook her head. “Who?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter anyway. Maybe he proposed a few things I shouldn’t have agreed to.” He took a sip of water. “Maybe they got some things I said on tape.”

“On tape …?” Sharon’s eyes widened. “What kinds of things are you talking about, Ben?”

“I don’t know.…” He stared ahead blankly, still avoiding everybody’s gaze. “Nothing very specific. But just enough that, combined with the payments I received, it really complicates things. It makes it all look pretty bad.”

“Bad …?” Sharon was growing alarmed. Kate, too. They’d been shot at the night before! Just the fact that the conversations had been recorded was insane.

“What are you saying, Ben?”

He cleared his throat. “This other guy …” He finally looked up, pallid. “He was FBI, Sharon.”

It was like a deadweight had crashed into the center of the room. At first no one spoke, only looked in horror.

“Oh my God, Ben, what have you done?”

He started to unravel it in front of them, in a low, cracking monotone. How all the money in the past few years—the money that paid for the house, their trips, the cars—was all dirty. Drug money. How he knew it but just kept doing it. Getting deeper. He couldn’t pull out. Now they had him. They had his voice on tape offering the same arrangements to an undercover agent. They had the monies he’d received, the fact that he’d set up the connection.

Kate couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Her father was going to jail.

“We can fight this, can’t we?” her mother said. “I mean, Mel’s a good lawyer. My friend Maryanne, at the club, she knows someone who’s defended people for securities fraud. Those Logotech people. He got them a deal.”

“No, we can’t fight this, Sharon.” Ben shook his head. “This isn’t securities fraud. They have me dead to rights. I had to cut a deal. I may have to go to jail for a while.”

“Jail!”

He nodded. “Then I’ll have to testify. But that’s not even it. It’s deeper than that. A lot deeper.”

“Deeper?” Sharon stood up. She still had her apron on. “What could be deeper than that, Ben? We were almost killed! My husband just told me he’s going to jail! Deeper …? You plead. You pay a fine. You give back whatever you took unfairly. What the hell do these people want from you, Ben—your life …?”

Raab jumped up. “You’re not seeing it, Sharon.” He went over to the window. “This isn’t a bad stock trade. These are Colombians, Sharon! I can hurt them. You saw what they did last night. These are bad people. Killers! They’re never going to let me go to trial.”

He threw back the curtains. Two agents were leaning on the Jeep at the head of the driveway. A police car blocked the entrance up by the pillars. “These people, Sharon … they’re not here to drive me home. They’re federal agents. They’re here to protect us. That’s exactly what these bastards want from me.” His eyes filled with tears and his voice rose to a harried pitch.

“They want my life!”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Sharon sank back into her chair, her glassy gaze remote and uncomprehending. A heavy silence settled over the room.

Kate stared at her dad. He looked different to her suddenly. She saw it now. There was no hiding it anymore. He knew. Every night when he walked through the door. Every wonderful trip they took together. Even when he held her last night, and promised her he would never go to jail …

He was lying.

He knew.

“What are you saying, Dad?” Justin gaped. “These people want to kill you?”

“You saw it, Just! You saw it last night. I can unravel part of their organization. I can expose them in a trial. These are dangerous people, son.” He sat back down. “The FBI … they don’t think we can go back to a regular life.”

“We …?” Emily leaped up, straining to understand. “You mean all of us? We’re all in danger?”

“You saw what happened last night, honey. I don’t see how any of us can take that chance.”

“So by ‘a regular life,’ you’re saying what, Dad? That these guards’ll be with us when we go to school for a while? Or into town? That we’re basically, like, going to be prisoners …?”

“No, that’s not what I mean.” Raab sat, shaking his head. “I’m afraid it’s a whole lot more than that, Em.”

There was a pause, as if an earthquake had shaken the roof and they were sitting there watching it about to collapse. Except it wasn’t the roof but their lives that were suddenly imploding. Everyone stared at him, trying to figure out just what that meant.

“We’re going to have to move away, Ben,” Sharon uttered somberly. “Aren’t we?”

It wasn’t even a question. A glaze of tears filled her eyes. “We’re going to have to hide, like criminals. Those people out there, that’s what they’re here for, isn’t it, Ben? They’re going to take us from our home.”

Kate’s father pressed his lips flat and nodded. “I think so, Shar.”

Tears ran down her face freely now.

“Take us where, Dad?” Emily shouted in frustration. “You mean like somewhere else around here? Another school, nearby?” This was her life that was suddenly being ripped from under her. School, friends. Her squash. Everything she knew.

“I don’t think so, Em. And I’m afraid you won’t be able to let anyone know where you are.”

“Move away!” She turned to her mother, then Kate, waiting for someone to say this was all some kind of joke. “When?”

“Soon.” Her father shrugged. “Tomorrow, the day after …”

“This is fucking crazy!” Emily screamed. “Oh, my God!”

It was as though he’d come home and told them that all the people they knew, all the things they did, had been wiped out in some terrible accident. Except it was more like they were the ones wiped out. Everyone they knew. Their history. Their life up to this point would be blank, dead.

Left behind.

“I’m not going anywhere!” Emily shouted. “I’m staying. You go. You’re the one who did this to us. What the hell have you done, Daddy …?”

She tore out of the dining room, footsteps pounding on the stairs. The door to her room slammed.

“She’s right.” Kate stared at her father. “What have you done, Daddy?”

It was one thing to see him like this. Not the strong, respected person she always thought he was but someone who was weak, beaten. She could deal with that. People cheat on their wife or lose their bearings, steal from their company. Some even go to jail.

But this … That he had put them all at risk. Made them all targets. All the people he supposedly loved. Kate couldn’t believe it. Her family was being torn apart in front of her eyes.

“What about Ruthie, Ben?” Sharon looked at him glassily. Her mother. “We can’t just leave her. She’s not well.”

Raab just shrugged helplessly. “I’m sorry, Shar.…”

“I don’t understand,” Justin said. “Why can’t we just live here? Why can’t they just protect us? This is our house.”

“Our house …” His father blew out a breath. “It won’t belong to us anymore. The government’s going to take it. I may have to go to prison until the trial. They think they can get my sentence commuted to time served. Then, afterward, I’ll join you—”

“Join us …?” Kate’s mother gasped. Her eyes stretched wide, and there was a trembling, unforgiving look in them. “Join us exactly where, Ben?”

He shook his head. His face was blank. “I don’t know, Shar.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN