“We’re behind you, whatever that is.”
There was a shuffling of feet. Sharon looked in at the door. She was in her bathrobe, holding a cup of tea. She stared at Ben a little blankly. “I’m going to bed.”
That was when they heard the click of a car door being opened out front. Footsteps coming up the drive.
“Who’s that?” Kate’s mother turned.
Her father exhaled. “Probably the fucking New York Times.”
Suddenly the windows exploded in gunfire.
There was an ear-shattering barrage—glass splintering everywhere, bullets shrieking over their heads, flashing in the night.
Raab hurled himself on top of Kate. For a second, Sharon just stood there, paralyzed, until he reached over and grabbed her by the robe, dragging her onto the floor, and pressed his body tightly over both of them.
“Stay down! Stay down!” he screamed.
“Jesus Christ, Ben, what’s going on?”
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?”
“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
