The First Order

by Jeff Abbott

  If Danny hadn’t been killed on video, if Sam hadn’t wanted to avenge him, what would he have done with his life?

  Would he ever have entered the CIA? Would he ever have met Lucy? Would he have Daniel, the whole center of his life?

  His parents mourned what they’d lost; he realized that he mourned the life he hadn’t chosen.

  What did they make Danny into was Seaforth’s question. Sam wondered instead what Danny had made him.

  No. He had no time to waste on what if. What was done was done and he had to find his brother. Not to ask him those questions.

  But to love him and forgive him and try to bring him home.

  He answered his father’s question. “I don’t know that they have any new leads based on finding Zalmay.”

  “Maybe…,” his mother started to say. “Maybe…”

  “Don’t, Simone,” his father said. He couldn’t deal with hope, the sudden awful curse of it brewing in his wife’s mind.

  “If his body wasn’t with Zalmay’s…he could be…alive…maybe still a prisoner somewhere…oh, Danny, Danny…” And Sam saw how this was its own fresh hell.

  “We don’t know that,” Alexander said. “The video…he died. We saw him die.”

  “Then where is his body?”

  “Mom,” Sam said, “we only know what we know.”

  Simone stared at Sam, as though his face had suddenly come into focus. Then she leaned forward and grabbed his head. She had very strong hands. Her fingers tightened in his hair.

  “And you! What were you thinking! You don’t ever, ever go back there. We lost one son there; I couldn’t bear to lose you, too. And what about Daniel! Did you think of him, if he lost you? You never go back there.”

  “Mom, please, let go…”

  “Samuel Clemens Capra, you promise me.” Her voice was a harsh whisper of fear and love.

  “I promise, Mom.”

  She kissed the top of his head and he felt her tears trickle onto his hair. She had never shown him such raw emotion. He sat back, staring at his dad, feeling a gentle touch on his cheek from his mother’s thumb. He was speechless in the wave of their love.

  He felt a fool. There had been times in the awful emptiness after Danny’s death when he could hardly talk to them. They were the walking wounded. He hadn’t tried hard enough—neither had they—to push past the pain. Now he helped his mother to her feet and put an arm around his father’s shoulders. They went into the kitchen to keep their hands and brains busy, to help Leonie finish fixing dinner, Daniel’s laughter a sweet refrain.

  He walked his parents home. Their residence was only five blocks distant, and Sam had bought his house to be close to them. They went inside and his father said, “I think I’m going to go to bed, son. Have a good trip to New York. I wish you were staying longer.”

  “Soon, Dad, I’m going to be giving up the bars. I’ll be home all the time then.”

  “What will you do?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “All right. Good night. Simone, don’t stay up all night.” Her insomnia was legendary.

  “I won’t,” she said. She went to the kitchen counter, picked up a wine bottle with a cork loose in its neck, and gushed pinot noir into a big glass. She raised the bottle at Sam. He nodded and she poured him a glass.

  He could hear the soft strains of music from upstairs. John Gary’s marvelous, haunting recording of “Danny Boy.” They’d played it at Danny’s memorial service. It had been a song that their parents sang to the boys when they were young, going to sleep and scared in the foreign lands they lived in, and Sam had once asked why there was no song called “Sammy Boy” to be sung.

  That’s dumb, Danny had said. It’s because I was here first.

  So Simone had taken the words to “Danny Boy” and made up new lyrics for “Sammy Boy,” tousling Sam’s hair as she sang, and Sam would smile to have a song he could share with his brother.

  Now Sam looked up at the ceiling, closing his eyes in memory.

  “He’ll put that on repeat until he falls asleep,” Simone said.

  Sam sipped at his wine. “Mom, you cannot tell anyone I worked for the CIA.”

  “Your father and I are like a bank for secrets,” she said. “We put them away and let them grow.” She sat across from him. “If they took his body away, it was for a reason. If they didn’t kill him…”

  “We have no reason to think he’s alive,” Sam said bluntly, trying to spare her the poison of hope.

  They drank the pinot noir in silence. Finally Simone said, “He could survive. Zalmay, he was more American than Danny. He was a suburban kid. Danny saw suffering. Danny…and you grew up knowing how cruel the world could be. You saw disaster and mayhem and death. And I’m sorry for that, but in a way I’m not. It made you strong.”

  He set down his wineglass. A suburban childhood didn’t sound like a bad thing at all to him—he wanted a saner, calmer childhood for Daniel. But to say so would hurt her, and so he stayed silent.

  “I want you to have something,” she said. “Your brother wrote it. Read it when you’re alone. I’ve kept it for you. I thought I might never give it to you, but I think you should see it. Because if anyone could survive there…it’s Danny.”

  She got up and vanished for five minutes, in the back of the house, and then returned with a large brown envelope. It was sealed, signed by his parents, marked “To be opened by Sam when the time is right.”

  “We sealed it up after Danny died. We don’t need to read it again. Read it and then keep it or burn it.”

  “Burn something Danny wrote? Mom, I couldn’t.” It was unthinkable.

  “It’s not a memento I care to keep. Go home and spend some time with your little boy before you go, Sam. You will never get those hours back.”

  He looked at the envelope. The song, repeating, drifted from upstairs. “In sunshine or in shadow…”

  “That song fit not only his name, but it’s about a boy going off to war, and Danny was that. We just didn’t accept it.” She touched Sam’s shoulder. “If I had known his death would make you join the CIA and put yourself in harm’s way”—her voice trembled—“I would have made you read what he wrote. But I had no idea. I thought you were safe from knowing about him. I’m sorry, Sam. I’m so sorry.”

  The song, from upstairs: “If I am dead, as dead I well may be…”

  Sam walked home under the moaning branches of the trees overhanging the street, the damp air of New Orleans pressing against his skin like an unwanted hug. The envelope felt heavy as iron in his hand. He was afraid of what was inside.

  Daniel was still awake, a treat since his daddy was home, so Sam lay on the floor and played with Daniel, let himself relax, let himself be a father again. Let himself remember those ties of blood. He laughed. He let himself smile.

  It felt like an act.

  The envelope lay unopened at his feet. Daniel picked it up, tossed it aside onto the couch.

  Danny let you think he was dead. Danny walked away from you all. Maybe he didn’t have a choice. Maybe not at first. But it’s been nearly six years. He left you. You could leave him. You have Daniel. You have a friend in Leonie. You’ll be free of Jimmy. He decided not to think about Mila, but she drifted at the edges of his thoughts. He pushed her image away; Daniel eclipsed all.

  But still. You want to know why. What if he’s in trouble? What if he’s trapped in a life he doesn’t want?

  Or he just wanted a new life. One without you.

  Sam had hold of Daniel’s foot, much to Daniel’s delight. “Mmmm,” Sam said. “Toeberries. I love me some toeberries.” And he pretended to pluck the toes, like ripe fruit, and made a gobbling noise. Daniel laughed and screamed and said, “Toeberries, Daddy!”

  He picked up Daniel and held him close. Daniel grabbed at his nose and his mouth, giggling hysterically. It made Sam’s heart full; the times he didn’t call, the guilt of those moments fell on his shoulders. He had to do better by his child.


  Sam let Daniel giggle and nuzzle against his chin. He was growing fast, so fast, too fast. Sam wasn’t ready for it. “I’m getting out of the business.” To say it, with Daniel on his lap, was a relief.

  Leonie looked hard at him. “Which business?”

  “Both of them.” Being the bar owner, and being the pocket spy for the Round Table.

  Relief crossed her face. “So. Are you going back to work for the CIA?” Her voice got quiet. He knew the question she was asking. Do you still need me to take care of Daniel, a baby I love more than life itself? A child I think of as my own?

  “No.”

  He saw her sudden, bright fear. He wouldn’t need her anymore.

  Daniel was getting older. He would require explanations. He called Leonie “Mommy” now. She had tried once, her heart breaking, to tell him to call her “Leonie,” but he was around other children with mommies, and she was the sole caretaker in his daily life. She was Mommy now. And they had to find a way to make that work, although Sam was the one with the full legal rights.

  He picked up Daniel and went into the kitchen. She followed. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do for a living. I’ll figure something out. But I have to finish something first. I didn’t tell my parents everything,” he said. “I couldn’t.”

  “What?”

  “What!” Daniel bellowed.

  Sam explained about the prison, finding Danny’s photo, what the Hungarian guard said. He clutched Daniel to him and told her, and she took Daniel from him. “Sam. You’re squeezing him too hard.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He sank into the chair.

  “I cannot believe you just had dinner with them and kept this from them…”

  “I think we had enough revelations tonight.”

  “Why would he do this? Not tell you he was alive?”

  “He must not have had a choice.” Sam looked at her. “I mean, look, the CIA loved me. Kid who grew up all over the Third World, spoke several languages, contacts and friends in dozens of countries, quick study, athletic. Danny was the same. Someone other than the CIA could have found him…useful. This man, likely a Russian, who took him from Afghanistan to Brazil and trained him.”

  For a long moment the only sound was the tick of the grandfather clock in the hallway.

  “You won’t give this up, will you? Ever. Even if Danny doesn’t want to be found.”

  “No.”

  “He can’t matter more than this little boy, Sam. He just can’t. You’re putting yourself in a prison. You’re…”

  Sam looked at her. “You’re in a prison. We’re not a couple. Daniel’s not your child. But you stay here. Why do you stay?”

  “Because I can’t leave this child with you chasing shadows. He needs me. He needs you. He cries for you. But what do you care, Sam? You’re not here to hear it.”

  She got up and left the room.

  Daniel had fallen asleep, the hours catching up to him. Sam carried him to his bedroom and laid him down. His light hair, starting to darken into the Capra brownish-blond, curled around his face. He had Sam’s nose, but Lucy’s mouth, her eyes. He stared at him for a moment, this center of their lives. Danny Boy. He thought of singing the song to his child; he had a clear, bright baritone voice. He knew all the words. He thought of the last line: “I shall sleep in peace until you come to me.” Was Danny sleeping in peace somewhere? He kissed his sleeping son’s forehead and turned out the light.

  Leonie was drinking a glass of whiskey in the kitchen. “And what happens when you find Danny?” She finished off her whiskey with a toss, and when he didn’t answer she set the glass down. “Bring him home to play uncle to his namesake? Have your parents over for dinner so he can unbreak their hearts and explain where he’s been for six years? Has it occurred to you that whoever he’s working with, whoever has shielded him, might kill you? That he doesn’t want to be found?”

  “I remade my life after he ‘died.’ Everything went wrong, and I did all this for him.”

  “Because of him. Not for him. You think choices are forced on you. You made your choices, Sam; live with them.”

  “Wouldn’t you want to know, in my shoes?”

  Her expression softened. “Of course I would. You love him. Of course I’d want to know. But I’d let other people find him. Not you. Stay out of it.”

  “I can’t,” he said. “I have to find him. I’m flying back to New York tomorrow morning. I’m meeting with a retired CIA analyst tomorrow night. She might be able to help me.”

  “I just think,” Leonie said, “you might not like what you find.”

  12

  London

  WHEN HE LANDED in London, Judge went to an apartment he kept under a different name. He made a strong cup of tea and dialed a phone number, to ring a mobile phone deep in Russia. He left a voice mail, with his own phone number, and strict instructions to return the call.

  He waited five minutes. His phone rang.

  “Yes?” a man’s voice said.

  Judge said, in Russian, “The bol’shoy chelovek requires your services again.”

  “I don’t know what you mean. He’s dead.”

  “I am the heir, so to speak, of bol’shoy chelovek. Should you not recall our arrangements previously, I have the financial documents to outline your earlier dealings with my friend.”

  The man on the other end of the line made a gasp like he was dying. “Please. No.”

  “I will pay you one million American dollars for what I need.”

  The gasp faded into a greedy steeliness. “What is it you think you need?”

  Judge answered with a word, and a number.

  “I must be honest with you. I am not sure I can acquire it again,” the man said.

  “You can. Tomorrow I will arrive.”

  The man’s voice cracked. “Impossible! Zheleznogorsk is a forbidden city.” His tone went frantic, the sound of a person certain he is dealing with a dangerous fool or a madman. “You cannot simply arrive here, idiot! You must submit first a request to the Ministry, and they can take two months to approve it. The security agencies must also approve. Then you must have a formal letter of invitation to go with your visa—that can take another week, another month. Impossible.”

  “The paperwork was lost. You will fix the problems with it before tomorrow. Bribe well, bribe efficiently. I travel under a Belgian passport, the name on it is Jean-Claude Cerf, and I have visited the city before.” He spelled out the name, the passport number. “I am a software consultant here to discuss a proposal to enhance your satellites. My company is called CDF. You will find my website; it has my photo, my details.” The Cerf alias was one he had used many times.

  “You ask too much.”

  “And I will pay you too much. But I have little time.”

  “It cannot be done.”

  “You know what can be done? A leak, to Pravda, or the New York Times, or the Guardian, about your previous dealings.”

  “That would destroy you as well.”

  “No. Just you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  13

  Manhattan

  MARGARET GRANGER’S SON owned an apartment in the same building as his mother, and she had told Sam to meet her at a cocktail party there. “His place will be full of TV stars, though,” she told Sam on the phone.

  The Magpie was a small, slightly heavy woman, in her mid-seventies, with a pageboy of gray hair, wearing a khaki skirt and a green sweater. The chattering beautiful people in her son’s Manhattan apartment were all dressed in far greater finery than Margaret or Sam. They all worked on a TV show Margaret’s son starred in, and Sam had never heard of it. This did not seem a diplomatic truth to admit, so he didn’t speak to anyone. The men looked refined and spotless and Sam still imagined the grainy dust of the katchi abadis and the Hindu Kush in his hair. He and Margaret lasted ten awkward minutes, standing in the corner, until Margaret, studying him, decided she would talk to him.

  “I understand you own a bar here in Ma
nhattan, Sam.” Margaret Granger gestured dismissively at the crowd. “Take me out of here for a real drink and we can talk.”

  Sam helped her up from her chair and she walked over to a thin, tall man in his forties and announced, “My guest and I are leaving, sweet pea, because no one will talk to us, and I thank you for that.”

  The younger man rolled his eyes and kissed the top of her head and told Sam it was nice to have met him and he hoped Sam enjoyed watching the rest of the season. Margaret sighed and turned away, gesturing Sam out into the hallway and shutting the door on the party.

  “Season?”

  “The TV season. My God, you’d think time was measured no other way. Where’s this bar of yours?” Margaret Granger’s apartment wasn’t far from the Guggenheim Museum of Art, near Central Park.

  A cab soon deposited them in front of The Last Minute. Sam steered her toward a private room, where they could talk alone. Margaret asked for whiskey and soda. Sam had the same.

  “The Magpie,” Sam said. “That’s an interesting nickname.”

  Her eyes widened. “Did you not know you weren’t supposed to call me that to my face?” Her voice rose.

  Sam froze and then she burst out laughing. “I kid. I was very good at finding shiny objects, bringing them back to my nest, putting them in order…” and then she stopped.

  “The shiny objects being useful information and sources that no other intelligence officer could get.”

  “Information on its own is nothing,” she said. “The patterns created by information are everything.” She sipped the whiskey.

  “You were a field officer in charge of the Hindu Kush area during the time my brother was kidnapped. I want to know what you know. Seaforth said you’re a walking library.”

  “The question is: What do you know?” Her gaze was avid on his face. He thought: She wants something back for whatever she gives. Little bits of information she can squirrel away herself? Why, if she’s retired?