The Blood of Patriots by William W. Johnstone Page A

did not feel. He said something to no one in particular about that being the “crazy cop from New York” as he entered the room and shut the door, pushed the “in use” button, and with shaking fingers speed-dialed Aseel Gahrah on his cell phone.
    The smooth, familiar voice answered at once. “Good morning, Mr. Dickson.”
    â€œScott Randolph’s farm!” Dickson said through his teeth. “Did you do that?”
    There was a long, unsettling silence. “Why don’t you call me when you’re feeling better?”
    â€œWe need to talk about this now !” Dickson insisted. “I heard about it on the radio. I had a sick feeling in my gut but I didn’t want to believe you had anything to do with it.”
    â€œDo you know this man who came to see you?”
    â€œNo, not really.”
    â€œWho is he?”
    â€œJohn Ward,” Dickson said. “He’s the New York cop who was in the news for harassing a street vendor.”
    â€œSo Hamza thought when he observed him,” Gahrah said. “Another Muslim-hating, unemployed American. Why is he here?”
    â€œHe came to visit his daughter.”
    â€œWhy did he see you?”
    â€œHe said he wanted to invest in MRI,” Dickson said. “When he brought up pigs I told him to leave.”
    â€œDid he really want to invest with us?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œI’m told he was at the Randolph place last night. Did you ask if he did it?”
    Dickson frowned. “How do you know he was there?”
    Gahrah did not reply. The banker leaned back hard against a row of boxes. Despite the air conditioning he was perspiring.
    â€œListen, Aseel,” Dickson went on. “This whole thing was supposed to be a peaceful process, everything off the radar.”
    â€œNothing has changed. There is one troublemaker—”
    â€œ Plus what happened on the Randolph farm,” Dickson said. “Never mind the pigs—they assaulted someone, put him in the hospital!”
    â€œThat need not concern you,” Gahrah said.
    â€œIt need not but it does,” Dickson snapped. “Look I don’t know why Ward is snooping around but I don’t like it.”
    â€œDon’t worry about it,” Gahrah said. “Your job is to continue making acquisitions and relocating funds.”
    â€œâ€˜Relocating funds,’” Dickson laughed humorously. “My God, you make it sound clean.”
    â€œIf the purpose is pure the methods do not matter,” Gahrah said.
    Dickson was still leaning against the boxes. He shut his eyes. He wished he could undo all of this, had never gotten involved with these people. He told himself he didn’t have a choice. It was either that or the bank went under, and with it, himself. His family. His self-respect. He would have been just another of the unemployed locals—Earl Dickson, the man who pulled himself up from poor Auraria on the South Platte, went from a teller in Denver to a bank founder by the time he was thirty-four. Not a prodigious achievement, but he felt darn good about it until the economic collapse in 2008. And with that went his professional and personal wealth. The bank was crippled with toxic loans and tight money. Government loans were slow in coming and he refused to go back to poverty.
    That was when the MRI got in touch with him. They had been looking for a stand-alone bank, one without a diverse board of directors. He was it, and he grasped at the lifeline. He had survived, just barely, but then the big money had not even started coming in yet—the major construction funds for more faith-based buildings, the accounts for new residents, the expanding acquisitions. There wasn’t enough money to send Angie to school but at least the Muslims gave her a job for the semester she would be missing.
    A job . His gut knotted again. An unwitting accomplice , he later learned. And now a possible