Bloodmoney Read Online Free PDF Page B

the glare of the streetlights, the merchants and beggars were shouting for attention, and the car drivers were squawking their horns. But in the lee of the traffic, in the old shop stalls, there was a muffled quiet and you could hide yourself, as if in the folds of time.
    The briefcase was heavy on Egan’s shoulder, and he was beginning to sweat through his shirt. That wouldn’t do. He sat in an air-conditioned coffeehouse on Jinnah Road until he had cooled off. At six-thirty he hailed a cab and traveled down Chundrigar Road to the Habib Bank Tower. Once, this had been Pakistan’s tallest building; but after thirty years of baking in the sun while other giant buildings sprouted nearby, it had become just another ziggurat of bleached concrete.
    Egan sat in the air-conditioned lobby to cool off, and a few minutes before seven, he took the elevator to the eighteenth floor. Hamid Akbar’s secretary nodded in humble recognition. Egan had visited only a few months before. Akbar came out of the office to greet him.
    “How do you do? How do you do?” Akbar took the American’s hand. “Beastly weather.”
    Akbar was sweating, too. There were damp crescents under the arms of his tan suit, and the top of his shirt collar was moist. Well, why not? It was June. His face was soft and pudgy in the cheeks. He didn’t wear a mustache. He looked like the sort of ambitious young man who might join the Karachi chapter of the Young Presidents Organization: a man who wanted to meet foreigners, exchange business cards. He was a generation removed from the heat and dust.
    Egan began his patter about Alphabet Capital’s new fund. It was called Oak Leaf II. Its predecessor, Oak Leaf I, was doing splendidly. Second-quarter returns could top 30 percent, on an annualized basis. It was an excellent new opportunity for clients such as Mr. Akbar.
    “Tip-top,” said the Pakistani. “Very impressive, I am sure.”
    Akbar listened politely to the rest of the presentation, but he was distracted. When Egan finished, there was an awkward pause.
    “It’s just that I am a bit strapped now,” said Akbar. “It’s not possible.”
    Akbar cleared his throat. He opened his desk drawer and removed a piece of paper, which he pushed across the teak desktop toward Egan. It had an address in a suburban district of northwest Karachi. “11-22 Gilani Buildings, Sector 2, Baldia Town.” Below that was a time. “2100.”
    Egan studied the paper and committed the information to memory. He took his pen from his coat pocket and wrote on the note:
    “Tonight?”
    Akbar nodded. He let the paper sit. He didn’t want to touch it. Egan pointed toward the message and crossed his hands in an X. Get rid of it . Akbar took the note and excused himself. Thirty seconds later there was the sound of a flush, and the Pakistani emerged from the toilet adjoining his office. He had combed his hair, but you could see the beads of sweat on his scalp.
    Egan went back to his investment pitch. He talked about flexible minimums and alternative investments, just to finish out the time for anyone who might be listening. The Pakistani looked relieved when it was over.

    Egan took the first taxi in the queue outside Habib Tower Plaza. He settled into the musty cabin of the Hyundai and pulled his BlackBerry from the briefcase. He sent the rendezvous address to the operations room in Los Angeles. They wouldn’t like that neighborhood. It skirted Ittehad Town, the district where migrants from the tribal areas had settled.
    Gertz’s people wouldn’t have time to organize surveillance, but at least they would know where he was. Egan typed the coordinates into his BlackBerry and obtained a Google map. The address was thirty minutes away in evening traffic, not counting the surveillance detection run. He would just make it by nine.
    The safe house where he would meet Uncle Azim was in a different district, to the east of downtown, near the university. If everything went right, he and the