The First Order

by Jeff Abbott

  “So, what particular superyacht did this go to?” He would have Firebird’s name then.

  “The IP address that took the e-mail off the Russian server is tied to a particular satellite modem. I got a buddy who’s a particular genius with satellite modems to hack it for me. He’s hopeful that if he can hack his way in, we can find where that boat is. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear. I will warn you now: he’s expensive.”

  “That’s fine. You are amazing. Thanks, Jack. Go get some sleep; send me the bill. Give Ricki a hug for me.”

  “Thank you, Sam.”

  Sam hung up. Mila watched him.

  “Is there something going on with you and Jimmy?” Sam asked. “Because I can tell when you’re upset.”

  “Jimmy? No. We’re fine.” She set down her coffee. “What did Jack say?”

  He explained and she listened without comment. He thought she would offer her interpretation of what the e-mail meant but she didn’t. Instead she said, “How can I help you today?”

  Sam studied her. She stared back. “This artist, Avril Claybourne,” he said. “I’d like for you to shadow her.”

  “You stole all her secrets already. I should come with you.”

  “I’d like to know where she goes, who she sees. Can you handle that?”

  “Of course.” She had already showered and she went to prepare gear for a surveillance. He had given her no warning but…he thought it best Mila not be with him. What if he found Danny at this apartment Avril kept? He didn’t know how his brother would react to being found. He might stay calm with Sam, but with a stranger there…best to keep Mila out of the way.

  The moment of reckoning. He finished packing what he needed and left.

  Please be there. Just be sitting on your couch, doing nothing, no trouble, and be happy to see me. What you’ve done won’t matter. Just be there. We can get past anything if you are just there.

  28

  Brooklyn

  SAM PARKED THREE blocks away from the apartment’s address. Sam had found, in his bar, generic-looking repairman’s overalls with an ID card from Metro Repair Services. A phone call to the number would reach a cell phone of Bertrand’s, who would answer with the name of the business. He got out a tool kit, put on the Pelican backpack he’d taken to Afghanistan, and walked down the street to the address.

  There was an electronic entry key. At the building’s front door, he fed the electronic key a swipe of a card that sent an override signal and opened the door.

  The account Jack Ming had found in Avril Claybourne’s records had paid the rent on apartment 1245. He stopped in front of the door, took a deep breath, and knocked.

  No answer.

  He picked the three locks, one after another, each one taking several minutes. High-quality equipment. Sweat poured down his back. He could hear music in a distant apartment and if someone came out and asked…The final lock opened beneath his picks. Calmly he stood and stepped inside and scanned the entryway for any sign of an electronic lock or alarm. He saw none.

  “Danny? It’s Sam,” he called, very quietly. “It’s Sam.”

  There was no answer. He didn’t draw his weapon. He moved through the apartment.

  No one was here. The kitchen had few utensils, and the refrigerator, while cold, contained nothing except some frozen pizzas and bottled waters. The trash had been emptied.

  Maybe this was just an apartment for artists.

  He went into the first bedroom. No laptop. But in a bureau drawer he found three guns and a box of ammunition. Sig Sauers. The numbers were filed off.

  In the second bedroom, taped to the wall, there were faces, printed on four-by-six-size photographic paper, arranged in a circle around the president.

  But that picture in the middle, the biggest one, was Dmitri Morozov. The Russian president.

  He felt his stomach twist. Judge accepts the assignment, written in Russian, for the offered twenty M.

  Jack had laughed that no one paid that kind of money. But what kind of job would command twenty million dollars?

  He took a picture of the arranged photos with his smartphone. Then he took a picture of each person. His hands were shaking and he made himself stop. Deep breath. Then he took the pictures again, to be sure the images were clear.

  He unpacked the same crime kit he’d taken with him to Afghanistan. He started dusting for prints on the doorknob.

  Nothing. Wiped clean. He tried the faucets, the refrigerator door handle. Nothing.

  He went to the bathroom and looked for hair that might have fallen to the floor from a comb. Nothing. He checked the bedroom. It had been vacuumed. The place had been scrubbed.

  But the pictures left up, like a calling card. Why? Why scrub the apartment and leave this?

  He sat down on the floor, facing the pictures.

  Had his brother been here?

  President Morozov, in the middle. Red ink circling his face, like a mark.

  Like a bull’s-eye. A target.

  Seaforth’s voice, talking to his team: What is Danny Capra now? What did they turn him into?

  The Hungarian guard: Two prisoners died while he was there.…Both…were hired killers.…I saw they had shooting targets set up in a room…mats on the floor, weights.…It looked like a training facility of some sort. But the only two people I saw were this big man and twenty-six. When he was over there, twenty-six didn’t wear chains.…He didn’t even look like a prisoner. Then he was gone.

  The Russian connection. Sergei Belinsky, who had hidden Danny away from the world, was dead. But he had worked for the Morozovs, supposedly eliminating their enemies. Maybe he had help. A protégé he had trained. A man the world believed was dead. Who would understand the Russian power structure, speak the language, perhaps know people who could get him close to…He touched the picture in the center.

  The Russian president, who was coming to America with his innermost circle in a week.

  An innermost circle made of billionaires. Who were among the very few people in the world who could afford a twenty-million-dollar fee for…killing a man.

  If this was an assassination plot, then Sam would expect the map on the wall to be describing motorcades, likely helicopter routes from Houston to the vice president’s ranch near the city, firing trajectories. A sniper would be working out the best approaches, the weather conditions, the security cordon, trying to find the weakest spot and strike there. Creating a kill nest, a place from which he could strike without detection.

  But this was…different. A map of relationships.

  He noticed a worn, used, thin paperback on the night table. He picked it up. Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.

  The book, with its cracked spine, fell open to the assassination scene. About a leader struck down by his closest circle. He nearly dropped the book in shock.

  Danny was navigating the circle. Finding a way inside the maze of loyalty, relationships, and money that marked the Russian elite.

  He took down the photos from the wall and dusted them.

  A few prints appeared. He scanned the dusted prints and ran an app on his smartphone. One print was a thumb. He compared it to the thumbprint that had been digitally stored when Danny got his American driver’s license; he’d gotten Jack Ming to get him the file from an archive.

  A match.

  Proof.

  He sat down on the floor, his legs weak.

  Your brother is still alive. And he is involved in a high-dollar plot involving the Russian president.

  The end of the e-mail: IT WILL HAPPEN ON AMERICAN SOIL.

  It had to be an assassination. At the summit, in a matter of days. A confirmation sent to a boat in the Caribbean, via a Russian Internet provider.

  If Sam went public with this knowledge, security forces around the world would be looking for Danny. The Russians would kill him on sight, and the CIA or FBI would alert the Russians to any threat against Morozov. But an anonymous tip with no details would not be taken seriously.

  Th
at left him one option.

  You could find Danny. Stop him before he kills Morozov. Before anyone else discovers this plot.

  To save him you have to stop him. The weight of what he had to do slammed into him like a bullet.

  First he had to find Danny, and there was one person close at hand who could tell him the truth. He took the pictures down and put them in the backpack. He locked the door behind him.

  The windows of the Claybourne gallery were darkened, as they had been for the party last night. A simple CLOSED sign was on display. Sam tried the doorknob. It turned, open.

  He stepped inside the cool of the gallery and closed the door behind him. The videos that played last night had started again, images of war, love, peace, and humanity moving across the floor and the walls. It must have been keyed to the door opening, or perhaps she’d turned them on for her own reasons.

  He listened and he could hear voices, two harsh ones.

  He moved past the first room into the much larger gallery space where the reception had been.

  Avril Claybourne had her back to him, images playing against her shoulders, her hair. Sam saw she held a Sig Sauer, mounted with a laser sight. She had it aimed across the room at…Bob Seaforth, who was aiming a Glock 9 millimeter at her. Standoff.

  Sam froze.

  “There’s someone behind you,” Seaforth said calmly. “So put the gun down and we’ll continue our conversation.”

  “Please, let’s not be that way,” she said. Sam saw her laser dot centered on Seaforth’s forehead.

  Sam ducked back around the wall and dug out his Beretta from the Pelican backpack. “I’d like you both to drop your weapons and we’ll have a nice calm chat.”

  He risked a glance around the corner. They hadn’t changed positions. But Claybourne recognized his voice. “You. Je suis Sam.”

  “Moi,” Sam said.

  “I can offer you a deal,” Seaforth said. “Whatever you’ve done.”

  “I’ve not done anything except protect my property against an intruder I discovered on the premises,” she said.

  “The laser sight on the gun will be a hard sell,” Seaforth said.

  Sam leveled his gun at Claybourne. “Lower it. Now.”

  She didn’t.

  “You,” she said, glancing back at Sam. Moving her position slightly so she could keep him in sight. “You lower yours. Or I shoot him.”

  “Not how it’s working today,” Sam said. “You can tell me about my brother. You will.”

  “Brother?” she asked.

  “In your artist hideaway here.”

  A sudden calm crossed her face. “I don’t think you’ll shoot me,” she said to Sam. “You need me.”

  “I could shoot you in the leg.”

  “I’d still shoot your friend.”

  “Let’s not shoot anyone,” Sam said. “Let’s put our guns down and talk calmly.”

  Her gun didn’t waver.

  “I know what’s happening,” Sam said. “What you’re planning. This isn’t going to work.”

  “I don’t think we need him to negotiate,” she said.

  He couldn’t negotiate in front of Seaforth. He couldn’t let the CIA—or whoever Seaforth was with—know about Danny’s assassination plot. It would most likely mean his brother’s death.

  “I won’t negotiate with you if you shoot him,” Sam said. “Where is he, right now?”

  She didn’t answer him. But he could see her gun waver for a moment, then center its aim again at Seaforth.

  “The man you call Philip Judge. Where is he?” Sam called.

  Her voice sounded ragged. “Fine, you shoot this man and I’ll tell you.”

  Shock crossed Seaforth’s face.

  “That’s not going to happen,” Sam said.

  “All right. Fine.” She started to lower her gun with a pronounced sigh and then she swung it up, her finger tightening on the trigger, and Sam fired. He’d meant to hit her upper arm to keep her from shooting Seaforth, but she stepped forward into her turn just as he fired and the bullet caught her in the throat. She dropped.

  Sam screamed out a “no.” He hurried to Claybourne. “Where is he?” As though asking could give her a will to live. He tried to find a pulse: throat, wrist, chest. She was gone. Her gun lay on the floor, images from the ceiling projectors playing across the spreading spill of her dark blood.

  He had killed the only person who could have taken him to his brother.

  Rage fired in his chest. He glared at Seaforth. “This is your fault. Why are you here, interfering?”

  Seaforth had lowered his weapon as well. “Thank you,” he said. “She was going to shoot me.”

  “She…”

  “Get ahold of yourself,” Seaforth said. He pulled a phone from his pocket, dialed, gave instructions. Sam stared at Claybourne. When I thought Danny was dead, he was with you. Why did he pick you over his family? Over life?

  “We’ll take care of this,” he said, ending his call. “My team will be here in minutes. We’ve been watching her today.”

  Mila was supposed to be watching her, too. Sam hoped she hadn’t followed him into the gallery. He didn’t want Seaforth to know about Mila. “We who?” Sam asked. “Why are you here?”

  “You came here last night.”

  “You followed me.”

  “Yes. We believed Avril Claybourne might have useful information on your brother’s whereabouts.”

  “Because I came here.”

  “Because you passed an item to an accomplice after leaving here.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Sam, don’t insult me when I’ve helped you. I was searching Claybourne’s office when she arrived. I chose to confront her directly. She was prepared for trouble.”

  Sam looked at the suitcase that stood against the wall. “She was leaving town.”

  “She’s connected to your brother. You said Philip Judge is a name he’s using?”

  Oh, hell. He was in a race with Seaforth and his team now. If they found out, via Claybourne’s records, what Danny was planning…he had to hope that Jack Ming was faster and better than Seaforth’s crew. “I don’t know. It might be an old one.”

  “How did you come across it? Whatever you found last night?”

  Sam said, “I had a source.”

  “I searched her office. Her computer equipment, all of it, is gone.”

  That would slow them down, but not for long. “The CIA doesn’t operate on American soil. So what are you?” He knew they were called the Church. That meant nothing to him, but he couldn’t risk them finding the bug he’d put on Seaforth’s phone. Not now.

  “I’ll tell you that when you tell me everything you’re not telling me about your brother.”

  He heard movement in the back of the gallery, from an alley entrance, and brought up the gun, but Seaforth said, “They’re with me.” Two people—a woman in her early thirties, dark haired, with a slight build, and a young man in his late twenties—came into the back of the room.

  “We need to scrub this place,” Seaforth said. “Make Claybourne vanish. Use her phone, text her staff not to come in this afternoon, say she’s on an emergency business trip. Secure the building, get rid of the body, bleach the floor. Find her Internet provider, search the mail servers, see what you can find. I want her bank accounts audited and checked. Wipe any surveillance systems. Check her purse—why did she have the suitcase; where was she heading? Her computers are already gone.”

  It was an impressive list of demands. Sam watched as the two—he guessed the woman was Romy and the young man was Prakash, both of whom he’d overheard on the eavesdropping app—began to work to secure the scene. Romy shot him a curious look and he wanted to say, Yeah, I’m the crazy one, I’m the one you called radioactive.

  “I need to go,” Sam said. He steadied the backpack on his shoulder. “Lock the front door after me.”

  “No, just wait. Let us get this dealt with”—dealt with, Sam thought, like it was spilled
juice—“and we can talk about your brother and why this woman wanted me dead rather than talk to me.”

  “No,” Sam said.

  “Here’s a phone number where you can reach me.” He said it once and Sam memorized it, against his better judgment. Then he turned and walked out of the gallery. The sunlight was bright in his face.

  He texted Jack:

  Can u wipe AC’s digital traces? I need that all gone.

  Then he turned on the eavesdropping app that was tied to Seaforth’s phone. The phone was on.

  Seaforth: “I want eyes on him.”

  Prakash (sounding stressed): “Bob, I’m not sure we can do half of what you just ordered us to do.”

  Seaforth: “I wanted to make an impression on Sam that he could trust us.”

  Prakash: “We don’t have anyone. You can watch him or clean this up. Your choice. I vote we deal with the dead body in case a buyer or employee shows up in the next few.”

  Seaforth (hesitating): “We clean this first. I know what name he’ll travel under.”

  No you don’t, Sam thought.

  And then he thought, Where was Mila? She should have been close to the gallery. Watching it, at least, seeing that Sam had entered.

  He stood on the street corner, waiting for her to show herself. She didn’t.

  It was so unlike Mila that he grew scared. Something had happened to her. Perhaps that was why Claybourne was leaving. She’d seen Mila, hurt her, killed her—it was a roiling dark thought, a knife of dread in his brain.

  No. Couldn’t be it. It couldn’t.

  He walked on. He walked to the subway and headed back into Manhattan.

  Danny took a next step when he left that apartment. He went somewhere. The answer was in the photos he’d left behind. Sam just had to figure it out.

  29