by Drew Chapman
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Alexis said. “Thank you.”
A young woman took her by the hand. She was slight, with thick black hair and a tattoo on her arm. “Just take a deep breath. You’ll be okay. You need some air.” She led Alexis away from the crowd of gawkers and the twisted remains of what had once been a living person.
Alexis nodded, grateful for the human contact. “It’s so awful.”
“It is.” The young woman ushered Alexis off the sidewalk and onto the black pavement of Forty-Sixth Street. “Just awful. Why would someone do that?”
Alexis shook her head. “I don’t know.” She blinked in the morning sun.
“Come this way.”
Alexis, head still fuzzy, followed the woman down the block. But then something occurred to Alexis: Why was this woman leading her into the street? Alexis stopped walking. “What are you doing?”
“It’s okay. You can trust me.” Alexis stared at her. The young woman smiled. “You’re Alexis, right?”
Alexis froze with a jolt of sudden fear. She started to turn away, wanting to run, but pain exploded at the back of her head. She knew immediately that it was a blow from something hard, a gun maybe, and she tried to yell, but couldn’t produce any sound. The city spun around her, and the young woman and somebody else—a man, Alexis thought, with rough hands—dragged her a quick few steps to the open back door of a car. Had the man hit her, and where had he come from? How could she have missed him? They shoved her inside the car as she tried to regain the use of her arms, the pain spiraling outward from her brain, making black spots explode in the periphery of her vision, and then she heard the door close and an engine rumble and the world went dark as something was thrown over her head. It felt like an old blanket, crusted on her skin, and it stank of rotting food.
“Move and I’ll shoot you,” the young woman said. Alexis could feel the woman sitting next to her on the backseat of the car. “You dying is no big deal.” She yanked Alexis’s hands behind her back and then bound them with wire that cut into Alexis’s wrists. Her phone and wallet were quickly stripped from her pockets.
Alexis lay motionless, wishing the pain in her head would subside and trying to gather her thoughts. She quickly understood that she’d been tricked, conned by Ilya Markov and whomever he had working with him, and a wave of guilt and remorse washed over her. Had he been watching her the entire time, maybe from a car parked on Forty-Sixth Street, waiting for the moment to strike? As the ache in her skull morphed into a throbbing pain that reached down into her neck and back, she decided that he had, and that while she was a good soldier, and a perceptive intelligence officer, she was no match for an experienced con man. A con man was always on the lookout for distractions, mistakes, and weakness. Markov couldn’t have predicted that someone would jump from the building, but when he saw it happen, he’d made immediate use of the situation.
He had made Alexis his victim.
She lay there for what felt like hours, but was probably only minutes. She could hear traffic all around her, the honking of horns, and then a low, constant roar that made her think they were driving through a tunnel. She guessed that they were leaving Manhattan, going into New Jersey, perhaps, although her knowledge of the geography of the city was limited. Once they left the tunnel, given enough time, they could be anywhere. She supposed that was the point—nobody would figure out where they were headed.
She groaned with the realization that she no longer had any control of the situation. She was Ilya Markov’s hostage, and he could do with her as he pleased—a nightmare scenario for her. A bleak despair invaded her thoughts: all she could do was hope that he wasn’t going to kill her, and that if he did, he would be quick about it. She did not want to see it coming.
That seemed like a reasonable last request.
VANDERBILT FRINK, JUNE 25, 10:42 A.M.
Garrett sat on the rough tar-pebble roof, legs crossed under him, and felt the morning sun on his face. One of the steel huts protected him from the wind, but he could hear it rushing along the rooftop and over the air-conditioning fans that hummed behind him. Chaudry stood on a far corner, talking on her cell phone, while a half dozen other FBI agents looked over the rooftop, eyes peeled to the ground. What they were looking for Garrett couldn’t say—and he didn’t care.
Garrett sat there for an hour at least, maybe longer. He lost track of time. He felt awful, hollowed out and desperate. Watching Thomason go over the edge, fall all that way to his death, the slow-motion memory of it—Garrett knew it would haunt him for a long time. Maybe forever. He felt responsible. He had hunted for the man—and found him. Thomason had been guilty of a crime—a crime that was ongoing—and would have paid for it one way or the other. And yet . . .
Something nagged at Garrett. What was it? Markov was still out there, but he had been stopped, at least for the time being. Hadn’t he?
“We grabbed two other assistants trying to leave through the lobby,” Wells said as he strode across the rooftop, passing the FBI agents without even looking at them. “Jeffrey had just sent them both e-mails. One was on the derivatives desk; the other worked for my chief investment officer. Little prick infiltrated everything.”
Garrett unfolded his legs and stood up. He scratched at his face and turned away from the great urban vista that lay off the edge of the building. “What did they have in the works?”
“Not sure. It will take a while to untangle. They had passwords, account access. Probably had some investment vehicles loaded into the system, ready to blow up.”
“They’ll still do that. Blow up, that is. If they have derivative counterparties set up out there, those contracts will still be valid. They’ll still cost you money. Huge amounts of money.”
Wells shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong. You punched above your weight for a while, but now you’re playing in a league that even you don’t really understand.”
Garrett scowled at Wells. He hated the man—had hated him the moment he met him, the moment they first tried to warn Wells about his own bank. He was arrogant and vain, and the fantasy of head-butting him flashed into Garrett’s mind once again.
“The chairman of the Fed is on her way to New York,” Wells said. “I just spoke to her. I’ll meet with the other bank CEOs tonight. Whatever Thomason set up, we’ll just lay to rest. Make it go away.”
Garrett’s jaw slackened ever so slightly. “You can’t. They won’t agree.”
“Sure they will. We’ve done it before, we’ll do it again. You worked a trading desk. You know the drill. When it comes right down to it, we’re all on the same team. If we don’t look out for each other, the whole system goes in the crapper. Certain interests are too crucial to be crippled by rules.” Wells stepped away from Garrett toward the edge of the roof. He gazed out over the landscape. “The view is good, but I’d like better. I think we’re going to build a bigger building. Downtown. Get a real penthouse office suite going. You know, eighty stories up. So you can see the curvature of the earth. I want that.”
A pit opened in Garrett’s stomach. He let out a soft, involuntary grunt.
“Come on. Don’t act so surprised. That’s the way the machine works. A crisis, the news media panics, the public panics, things look like they’ve changed, but in the end—they don’t. You work on the Street, Reilly. You know the game.”
Garrett closed his eyes. A train of thoughts rushed into his mind, roaring as they came. Nothing was as it seemed. For every straightforward event of the last two weeks, there was an alternative explanation that either led Garrett in an entirely different direction, or betrayed something he believed true about the world. But if that were the case . . .
“It’s a sleight of hand,” Garrett said aloud, not to Wells, but to himself.
“What is?”
“This. Everything. He wants something else.”
“Who does?” Wells was looking ann
oyed, as if a fly that he couldn’t manage to swat were still circling his head and ruining his mood.
“Markov.”
Wells frowned at Garrett, confused, then shrugged and walked away. Garrett stared off into the distance. He didn’t care what Wells thought. He could go fuck himself. Garrett’s cell phone rang. He checked the number. Alexis was calling, probably to get an update. He’d left her without word down on the street.
“Hey,” he answered, distracted but trying to focus. “Sorry I didn’t call you earlier.”
Over the line came a male voice, calm, flatly unaccented, and seemingly coming from a quiet, remote location. “Captain Truffant is fine, but she won’t be forever.”
Garrett took in a sharp breath. Markov. Garrett knew it without thinking.
There was a moment’s silence on the other end of the line. “So listen very carefully to what I have to tell you. And then do it.”
MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, JUNE 25, 11:32 A.M.
Garrett told no one that he had received a phone call from Ilya Markov. He walked off the roof without another word to Wells or Chaudry, found Mitty and Patmore downstairs in the lobby, and said he was going back to his apartment to catch up on some sleep. He asked, as an aside, if either of them had seen Alexis in the lobby or on the street, but both said they hadn’t.
“Did you try calling her?” Mitty asked.
Garrett shrugged. “No. I will.”
“Maybe she booked a hotel room,” Patmore said. “Gonna catch some shut-eye like you.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
Mitty grabbed Garrett by the arm and whispered, “Is it true a dude jumped from the—”
“It’s true.” Garrett cut her off, brushed her hand from his arm, and walked out of the lobby.
Over the phone, Markov had told Garrett to go into the Au Bon Pain bakery on the corner of Forty-Seventh and Madison and reach under the table closest to the back bathroom. A brand-new cell phone was taped to the bottom of the table, an iPhone 6. Garrett slipped it in his pocket, then gave his two burner cell phones to the busboy, as Ilya had instructed. The busboy took them without saying a word, and Garrett watched him toss them into a garbage can behind the cash register. Garrett’s new phone rang half a minute after he walked out of Au Bon Pain.
“Walk to Forty-Second and Lex.” Ilya’s side of the conversation had little ambient noise. “Take the five train south to the Bowling Green station. Walk to Battery Park and I’ll call you again.”
“Listen, I need to know—”
“Your phone has GPS tracking turned on. If you turn it off, she dies.” Markov hung up.
Garrett tried to come up with an alternate plan, but couldn’t think of one. The streets of the city were still tense: pedestrians were scarce, and pairs of police men and women stood on most corners. Garrett walked to Lexington and Forty-Second Street. He thought about approaching a cop, then decided against it. On the train, sitting by himself in the last car, he let his mind run through the possibilities. Clearly, Markov had found a way to abduct Alexis, but how? She was an army officer, well trained, and on the lookout for suspicious activity. She, more than anyone else, would have been alert to a stranger coming at her. And she knew what Markov looked like.
Yet he had gotten her. Undoubtedly, Garrett decided, Markov did it with another trick, an illusion or a come-on; that was his play, over and over again.
Garrett got off at the Bowling Green station and walked into Battery Park. The air was hot and damp. His gray T-shirt clung to his body. Only a handful of people strolled through the park; tourists had abandoned the city. New York was a ghost town.
His phone rang and he answered quickly.
“Sit on the bench on the near side of the Castle Clinton Monument. Don’t talk to anyone, don’t make a phone call. You are being watched. If you do any of those things, she dies.”
“I want to talk to Alexis.”
“No.” Markov hung up.
Garrett cursed the air. He could see the monument in the distance, a one-story sandstone fortress. Garrett sat on a wooden bench. He let out a long breath and waited, staring straight ahead, not using his phone or looking anyone in the eye. The summer sun beat down on him. His head had begun to ache again, and he cursed himself for throwing away all his meds. He sat for half an hour, then stood up to stretch his legs, figuring that was safe, then sat again for another thirty minutes. Why was this taking so long? He sat for another hour, his skin baking in the sun, and then his phone rang. He answered immediately.
“Walk to the ferry building, get on the three-thirty ferry to Staten Island. You’ll be called when you arrive. Talk to no one. If you do, she dies. You are being watched.” Markov hung up without another word.
Garrett walked into the ferry building. Was he really going to do this? Shouldn’t he try to find a way to call Chaudry? He suspected he should, but he also felt, instinctively, that whatever he was traveling toward was some part of the answer to this entire mystery, and that he needed to travel to it alone. The FBI and the American financial system were only a part of the answer, not the totality of it. And anyway, if he notified the police or the FBI, he calculated a pretty high probability that Alexis would end up dead.
Garrett boarded the waiting ferry and sat inside, by a window on the middle deck, then turned his body away from the window so he could see the other passengers. There weren’t many: a few commuters, some families, people coming back to the island with shopping bags. No one seemed to be paying Garrett much attention. Who was watching him? Nothing was out of the ordinary in the patterns of people moving about the deck, talking on their cell phones, eating snacks, and looking out the window.
Garrett tried to keep his mind blank and open, so that he would be receptive to whatever was coming, but a steady drumbeat of anxiety was just at the periphery of his thinking. Was Alexis okay? Was she even with Markov? This was all certainly a setup, but why?
The ferry took less than half an hour to cross the bay, and Garrett disembarked into the St. George Ferry Terminal. His phone rang and he answered quickly.
“Go to the Staten Island Railway station. Don’t get on the train until I call you.”
The line was dead before Garrett had a chance to speak. He was hungry now and realized that he hadn’t eaten since the morning. Staten Island seemed like another planet, overgrown and unkempt, slightly run-down and in need of a makeover. The streets were empty of pedestrians. The Staten Island Railway station was easy to find, located right outside the ferry terminal. He swiped his MetroCard and stood on the platform. One train left, then another, and another. Passengers got on and off, and Garrett just stood there, waiting. He watched everyone carefully, but no one seemed to be watching him.
His phone rang. “Get on this train. You’ll be getting off at the Oakwood Heights station.”
Garrett got on the last car. As he waited for the train to leave, he watched the other riders as they made their way to seats. The pattern seemed much the same as on the ferry: commuters, families, shoppers. But now, Garrett felt a pulse of something else around him, a slight variation in the norm. He wasn’t sure what it was. Someone Markov had sent to watch him? That would make sense. When the doors closed, Garrett settled in to wait out the ride.
He watched out the window as Staten Island rushed past the train—a parade of two-story brick buildings, storefronts, and wooden houses. At first, he could see the water on the left-hand side of the train, but then the tracks cut inland, and all Garrett saw were neighborhoods stuffed with small homes and yards cluttered with toys and lawn furniture. The conductor called out for Oakwood Heights, and Garrett got off the train. On the platform, there was only a mother pushing a stroller. He waited until she cleared the station, and then his phone rang.
“Walk east on Guyon Street. Keep walking until you hit a dead end.” Markov hung up immediately.
Garrett walked out of the station and
surveyed the neighborhood. The sun was setting in the west. The city was growing dark, and Garrett suddenly understood that all his waiting around was simply Markov wanting the cover of darkness for whatever was about to transpire. That realization did not comfort Garrett; it scared him.
There was a liquor store across the street, lit up in white neon, and Garrett desperately wanted to stop inside and buy some food—and a beer to wash it down—but thought better of it.
He walked past block after block of small houses with economy cars and minivans parked in their driveways. He didn’t like Staten Island, not because it was so awful, but because it reminded him of Long Beach, California, where he had grown up. Both places were working-class suburbs of fabulous culture capitals. Garrett guessed that the people who lived on Staten Island made the city run, but that they never got paid what they deserved for it. Janitors, bookkeepers, teachers, cops, firemen. Garrett could see this in the living rooms and kitchens that he passed, rooms filled with threadbare couches and framed prints of museum art on the wall.
After ten minutes he came to a street with a DEAD END sign. A few houses lined the street, interspersed with a stretch of vacant lots that he could just make out in the darkness. His phone rang.
“Turn left, and then take the first right. Keep walking.” Markov hung up.
Garrett took a look back down the street he had just walked. It was empty, with no movement, but something was telling him that he was not alone. The sky was black. Did Markov have people all through the neighborhood? Or was this another sleight of hand?
He turned left on a street whose name he couldn’t see, then right on a street called Kissam. Vacant lots lined the road. Beyond the vacant lots were stands of marsh grass, reaching over his head, eight feet tall at least. In the distance, Garrett could hear waves breaking, and the howl of the wind off the bay, and it suddenly occurred to him that he was in a neighborhood that had been devastated by Hurricane Sandy—the vacant lots, the destroyed homes, the suburban landscape being reclaimed by nature.
