The Last Minute

by Jeff Abbott

  The food arrived: two omelets, bacon, bagels, hash browns, juice, coffee. A New York room service breakfast only costs a fraction of the national debt. I signed the check and then knocked on her door.

  “Bring it here, it’s going to be a working meal,” she said.

  She held the door for me while I carried in the big trays.

  The walls were covered with white sheets of paper, big ones, as though torn from a presentation pad, and scarred with heavy marker. The laptop lay open and it looked like she was in a chat room. An ashtray, full, sat next to it.

  “I didn’t know you smoked,” I said.

  “I’d quit. When Taylor was born. Now I’ve started again and I hate it.”

  Leonie sat down and began to shovel the cheese and mushroom omelet into her mouth. “I hate cold food,” she said. She ate with concentration for a long minute while I drank a cup of coffee, which I needed like oxygen. “Okay. First things first. Jin Ming did not exist before he arrived at Delft.”

  “False identity.” I raised an eyebrow, reached for my own plate of food.

  “His student records are almost perfect.”

  “You broke into the university’s server?”

  She shrugged. “Universities are easy to hack; they have to maintain large networks with lots of unsophisticated users—even at a technical university. Think of a college as one giant coffee shop, everyone with a laptop. It’s not hard.” She ate some more, so fast I thought she wasn’t tasting the food. “All his documentation points to him being from Hong Kong. Makes it easy then to explain his excellent English. But I dug deeper. There is a Jin Ming from Hong Kong who shares his birthday on the university records; he died at the age of five, drowned in Repulse Bay.”

  “Our target hijacked an identity.”

  “Yes. And filled in the back details. He supposedly attended Hong Kong International School there, falsified transcripts. The actual prep school has no record of him.”

  “Did you break into their computer database?”

  “Oh, no. I called, pretending to be from New York University.”

  I sat down. “Why would Jin Ming pretend to be from China so he could go to grad school? I mean, people fake IDs so they can clean money, so they can cross borders. Who the hell steals an identity so that he can go to graduate school in Holland? And pretends to be Chinese? What if he got deported? He’d totally be screwed.”

  Leonie smiled. “So if you see someone with a Chinese passport, you don’t entertain the notion that he’s not Chinese. He can’t be who you’re looking for.”

  “Brilliant,” I said slowly.

  “Jin Ming means ‘golden name.’ A legitimate name, yes, but I think there’s even a sense of purpose behind his selection. A golden name, one perfect for him to hide behind.”

  I rubbed my forehead. “This is not an ordinary kid, is he?” Dumb people are easy to hunt; smart people are a challenge.

  “I think he’s a fugitive.” Leonie crossed her arms. “Someone who is hiding but badly wants to continue his education, and especially at a prestigious technical university. And not very many people would think to falsify Chinese documents because they’re afraid of being deported to China and then not getting out. It’s actually very smart. Right now when I see a Belgian or a Costa Rican passport I straightaway start to think it’s been faked; they’re the most popular nationalities for people who want to disappear. I think he picked Hong Kong because he’d been there before, maybe he could pass as a native. But my guess is he’s American or Canadian or English or Australian.”

  “Surrendering to the CIA in New York? He must be American.”

  She shrugged. “Don’t make assumptions. For all their faults, the CIA is still the most powerful intelligence agency in the world, and our mysterious Mr. Jin may just want to deal with the biggest.”

  “For all their faults?” I said. “You sound like a veteran.”

  A blush spread across her cheeks, up to her auburn hair. “Don’t. I’m not. I don’t have anything to do with the CIA.”

  “So what now? You look for criminal computer science students of Chinese descent who have gone missing?”

  “Yes, actually, I do,” she said. “But here’s the other thing, Sam. New York. If Jin Ming wants to surrender to the CIA, why isn’t he doing it in Amsterdam? There are agents there. They could easily pick him up. Why does he need to run?”

  “You ask like you know the answer.”

  “I do. Right now he’s wanted in Amsterdam.” She pulled up a web page of the Amsterdam English language paper. “He left a hospital where he was a patient. A man was found dead there, beaten to death with a metal pole. The dead man has a criminal history as hired muscle.”

  “They tried to kill him once before.”

  “Yes. And the supposedly helpless hacker killed the thug.” Leonie sounded almost proud of him. “The police seem to think Jin’s in danger, and running, and are trying to get him to surrender.”

  “But he could still surrender to the CIA there. In fact, he has even more reason to because he’s being hunted. But he’s not turning himself in to the closest CIA office. What’s here? What’s in New York?” I said. I hadn’t thought of this. The kid had to have a compelling reason to take the risk to come to New York.

  “Two reasons,” I said. “He knows a CIA contact here.” August had dealt with him in Amsterdam; maybe while in their care he’d heard something that tied August to New York, and wanted to meet him specifically. I didn’t know the whole story of what had gone on between them when August grabbed Jin Ming from the coffee shop.

  Leonie waited.

  “Or he’s from here, and he’s running home.”

  “Why run home?” she asked. “He’s been very smart as to how he hid himself. Very. If he’s a fugitive from here, it implies he’s wanted here. Huge risk to return.”

  “Maybe he has family he wants to collect and protect. Maybe he needs to say goodbye to them if he’s going to vanish.”

  “I assume that if he was living in Holland under a false name he’s already vanished once before.” Exhaustion crept into her voice. We couldn’t let the toxic mix of lack of sleep and emotional turmoil derail us. “If he was already hiding, then why does he come home? That seems to be a bigger risk than he needs to take.”

  I shrugged. “I’ve heard of people in witness protection coming home. They just get tired of living a lie.”

  “My clients don’t do that. Once I hide them they stay hidden.”

  I don’t know what possessed me. “Nice. I mean, you shelter people fleeing murder raps. Scum that Novem Soles needs protected. Nice.”

  “You don’t know a single thing about what I do or who I help.”

  “As if you’d tell.” She knew more about me than I knew about her. Whose fault was that?

  She raised an eyebrow at me, took a long drink of coffee to let the tension melt in the room. I felt mad at myself for provoking her. I needed her right now; moral judgments had to be saved for later. “If he’s from New York, then that narrows down the possibilities considerably.”

  I leaned forward and looked into her computer screen, studying the chat room, with nested columns of comments to show threads of conversation. “What is this site?”

  “DarkHand. A hacker community.” She started to type. “That’s how I found out about Jin Ming. I found hackers who had existing back doors into the systems I needed to access. By the way, you’re paying them for their time.”

  “How much?”

  “You’ll launder some money for them. Both are Chinese, they want to clean about fifty thousand bucks into U.S. accounts. You’ll make that happen.”

  “How, exactly?”

  “Through your bar in Las Vegas.”

  She knew about The Canyon Bar. Not just that it was where I’d met Anna but that I owned it. “Your hacker friends are not washing their dirty money through my bar.” God only knew what the money might be. Hackers might have cracked open ATMs for cash, might have committed ex
tortion not to bring company websites down. She was involving me in new crimes. She seemed almost amused at my outrage.

  “You can’t refuse. The deal is done. It’s for the children.”

  She was, of course, absolutely right. “For the children”: the three most powerful words in the language. Fine, I thought. I’d deal with that problem later. “Don’t make any more promises you can’t keep.”

  “Do you want to find this guy or not?” She stood up, rage bright in her eyes. “You’ll do what I say. No argument.”

  “Calm down,” I said. “I have every right to know if you’re dragging me and my business into criminal activity.”

  “And I have every right not to care.”

  I let five beats pass in peace. “So. Let’s operate under the proposition he has a personal tie back to New York.”

  She nodded. “We find the tie, we find him.” She turned back to the laptop. “Let me get back to work. Thanks for breakfast.”

  “And, what? I wait? No.”

  “Do you have any idea on how to be useful?” Her voice had taken on a hard edge to it. “I find him, you kill him, bullet. You have the easier job.”

  “I don’t get to ask my crooked friends for help,” I said. Which was a lie. I had resources, through the Round Table, that I had no intention of sharing with her. I gave her my cell phone number. She didn’t write it down but she repeated it back to me.

  “Where are you going?” she asked as I headed for the door.

  I didn’t answer her. She didn’t need to know. Her way was going to take too long.

  22

  Chelsea, New York City

  MOST CODE NAMES IN THE COMPANY are not jokes, but his was: Fagin. Charles Dickens’s master of thieves from Oliver Twist, who pulled in the wayward children of London to shape them into pickpockets. The Fagin I knew put his own modern take on the identity.

  I took the subway south to Chelsea. It was mid-morning now, and shoppers walked the streets, eyeing the art in the many gallery windows. I walked down to the last address I knew for Fagin. I hoped he hadn’t moved. I went up to the top floor of his building, knocked, listened. I picked the lock and went inside.

  It was a large apartment (I didn’t even want to think about how much it cost) and still his place. A picture of Fagin and his wife hung on the wall, smiling, tropical forest behind them. He was thin and wore a reddish beard and had very dark brown eyes, the color of coffee. Dirty breakfast dishes stood stacked in the sink; a coffee mug half full. I lived in spare apartments/offices above bars; I was starting to forget what it was like to live in an actual home. Lucy and I had owned a beautiful place in London, not far from the British Museum. A home that was a comfort to return to in the evening, full of touches of the life we were building together. Best not to dwell on that right now. You might guess that a person named for the Fagin in Oliver Twist would not respond to a sentimental plea to help me save my poor child.

  It was a four-bedroom apartment. One bedroom had an IKEA bed, a scattering of men’s and women’s clothes on the furniture and the floor. Fagin was a bit of a slob. The second bedroom had six computers in it, all along a table, a bean bag chair, a TV with an elaborate game station attached. Fagin—still up to his old tricks.

  Two young Oliver Twists—maybe sixteen or so—sat at the computers, plugged into their iPods. In their envelope of music they hadn’t noticed me. So I went back to the kitchen, got an apple from Fagin’s fridge, and washed it. I took a knife from a drawer because I didn’t know these sixteen-year-olds and I went back to the computer room.

  I bit into my apple and came up behind the first Oliver Twist. He was a thin kid, brown, curly hair, a scattering of pimples on his cheeks. He was intent on what he was doing on the computer screen, fingers hammering on the keyboard.

  I glanced at the screen over his shoulder. Computer code, but with comments written in Russian. I scanned them. Interesting mischief the Oliver Twists were conjuring.

  I popped out an earplug and said, “Hi, whatcha doing?”

  He jumped out of his chair. His eyes widened at the knife in my hand.

  “Uh… uh.”

  The other kid—African American, a bit older, wearing a New Orleans Saints T-shirt, jeans, and the ugliest yellow sneakers I’d ever seen—bolted out of his chair. I showed him the knife and he stopped.

  “What. Are. You. Doing?” I asked again.

  Neither answered. “Hacking into China or Russia today, boys?” I pretended like I hadn’t read over their shoulders and took another bite of the apple. “Or perhaps another country? Fagin loves putting the screws on Egypt and Pakistan.”

  Again, neither answered. They glanced at each other.

  “Silence bores me,” I said. “It makes me want to play knife games.” Aren’t I nice, threatening teenagers?

  “Russia,” the Saints fan said after a moment. “We’re laying data bombs into their power grid.”

  “Sounds very patriotic,” I said. “Is Fagin due here soon?”

  The Saints fan nodded. “Yes. He went to go get snacks.”

  “You poor, deprived things didn’t run out of Red Bull, did you?”

  “Um, actually, we ran out of Pepsi,” the thin kid said.

  “Well, far be it from me to interfere,” I said. “Fagin’s an old friend. I’m just going to wait for him.”

  Slowly they sat back down and put their hands on their computer keyboards and resumed their work, typing at a much slower level. But neither slipped their earbuds back into place.

  I ate my apple and watched them and waited.

  Fagin showed up ten minutes later, opening his door, holding a paper bag of groceries. He dropped the bag when he saw me. An orange tumbled from the depths and rolled to my foot.

  “What the hell. Sam Capra.”

  “Hi, Fagin.”

  His mouth shut tight. I picked up the orange and tossed it to him. He caught it.

  “Are you going to run or shut the door?” I asked.

  He shut the door. He set the small bag of groceries down on the counter. He went to the door and made sure the two Oliver Twists were fine.

  “Please,” I said. “I wouldn’t hurt your kids.”

  “He stole an apple,” said the Saints fan.

  “Really? Did he interfere with your work?”

  “No,” they both said.

  “Back to it.”

  Almost as one, the Oliver Twists put their earbuds back in place. Fagin set a can of cold soda by each of them. The typing speed on the keyboards increased.

  Fagin crossed his arms and said, “Whatever you want, the answer is no.”

  “That’s a harsh hello,” I said.

  I had met Fagin back in my days working on the CIA’s task force on global crime aka Special Projects aka The Dirty Down Jobs We Gotta Do But No One Is Supposed to Know. Our purview covered everything from human trafficking to arms dealing to corporate espionage, in the aspect of when it threatened national security. Crime at this level, hand in hand with terrorism, is a threat to the stability of the West. It reaches inside and poisons government, it undermines the basic social contract down to the bone of civilization. Twenty percent of the economy is now illicit. The criminals are becoming more mainstream.

  But in stopping this crime we sometimes committed crimes ourselves. Fagin was an example. Remember reading in the news, when Russia and its much smaller neighbor, Georgia, got into that brief war a while back? The Russians launched not only bullets and missiles at Georgia, they took down all of Georgia’s internet access. With a massive cyber attack against critical servers, the Russians managed to cut off an entire nation of four million people from the internet. If you were inside Georgia, and you tried to access CNN or the BBC web pages, you got served Russian propaganda. If you tried to withdraw money from Georgian banks, your funds stayed put. If you tried to email people in other parts of the country, you sat and stared at your unsent message still warming your mailbox. The cyber attack, the Russians claimed, was not done by g
overnment hackers, but rather by patriotic, good-hearted, milk-drinking Russians acting independently who wanted to help fight the enemy. After the war, NATO and the highly irritated Georgians determined that some of the hackers who launched the internet attack were tied to some of the most notorious criminal rings inside Russia. If this vigilante hacker corps wasn’t an official part of the government, they were at least protected by the government, and their presence gave the Russian leadership necessary and plausible deniability.

  The best hackers are not always on government payrolls. Sometimes you need your hackers to not be connected to you, when you spend days breaking laws and flouting treaties.

  Fagin was our back pocket, our deniable warrior. He and his digital Oliver Twists. When we needed things broken or stolen and there was no way it could be tied to the CIA, ever, then Special Projects and Fagin stepped in to pick the pocket and scurry away.

  “You don’t work for Special Projects anymore, Sam,” he said. “Get out.”

  “I’m a freelance consultant, like you. Not exactly on the formal benefits package.”

  “Really? Really?” Fagin’s favorite word, delivered with a sneer. I had once counted how many times Fagin uttered Really? in a meeting and stopped at fifty.

  “I am here to ask you for a favor.”

  “Really? I repeat. Get out.”

  “I’m pressed for time. Tell me what I want to know or I’ll tell the North Koreans about you and your crew. And the Russians. And the Chinese. And the Iranians.” Fagin and his cadre of hackers spied on and created hassles for a variety of enemies. Maybe even some friends. Let me just say the French, the Brazilians, and the Japanese also all have reason to hate Fagin. They just don’t know it.

  “You really wouldn’t dare.”

  “My child’s life is really at stake, Fagin, so, yeah, I would. Sit down. We’re going to talk.”

  He sat. He still looked like the computer teacher he’d once been, in a New York high school. On the back wall was a Teacher of the Year award he’d gotten years before, back when he still taught, smelling of chalk, dry-erase pens, and fusty computer labs. Of course. Fagin had been so talented at encouraging young talent and honing minds. Unfortunately he encouraged them to hack into banks and government databases, usually as a prank. Special Projects had recruited him when he and his keyboarding artful dodgers tried to delve (unwittingly) into a front company for the CIA, kept him and his iPodded foundlings from a prison sentence, and guided him toward more constructive pursuits. To the outside world he worked as a software design consultant.