by Jeff Abbott
They can make all the charges go away. Then who the hell were they?
He was going to have to be very careful. A plan began to form in his mind.
26
Manhattan
ON MY WALK TO THE SUBWAY I texted Leonie, told her that Jin Ming was really a guy named Jack Ming and to drive our rental car and meet me at the East 59th Street address. We were so close now.
If I didn’t find Daniel—well, that was an option I couldn’t face. Anna’s grim words I won’t sell him to nice people shivered in my blood, like a plucked wire. Daniel, with my eyes and his mother’s mouth, handed over to someone who would abuse him, use him, eventually kill him when his usefulness reached its end. Or, if he lived, would the horror he survived shape him into a person bent, wrong, broken? I had never held Daniel, never seen him with my own eyes, but I could never abandon him to such a fate. Never.
It was strange to ride the subway, knowing I was heading to kill someone. A guy who smelled of mints stood too close to me, a girl with purplish, lanky hair stared at my shoes, and through her earphones, just once, I could hear distant strains of Mozart, wandering into the train like a lost tourist. Two people across from me chatted in Portuguese and I eavesdropped on their gossip. You spend your childhood traveling the world, you pick up a little of a lot of languages. They were talking about a boyfriend, his pros and cons, his smile, his cheapness in picking restaurants, normal everyday talk, and I was sitting there thinking about how to kill a young man in cold blood.
Across from Sandra Ming’s apartment tower stood a sushi bar. It was decorated in a spare, minimalist style and in the background regrettable Japanese pop played, but at least at a whisper. The chef seemed very angry; he scowled as he chopped at the ahi, the sea urchin, the inoffensive salmon. He muttered in Japanese and I nearly told him in his own language that he might consider anger management classes. I could tell from his face that he liked chopping flesh apart. It was good that a man like him had a creative outlet.
I got my lunch and sat watching in the window. The fish, the rice, the wasabi, all had no flavor to me. Rain, heavier in the morning, had lightened. Now the day was gray, the wind carrying the scent of the unfallen storm. I had not seen any sign of Mrs. Ming or her son arriving at or leaving the building. I didn’t want to think of him as a Jack. Jack Ming sounded like the name of some kid I could have known in any of the American or Anglican schools I’d attended in fourteen different countries in my misspent youth, hauled around the globe by my parents, who worked for a relief agency. They were good people, but more concerned with fixing the world than paying more than five minutes’ attention to their own children. I loved them and they appeared to love me, and not much more else to say on that front. I’m sure the armchair psychologists would have a field day dissecting my youth and how it related to my stolen child. But it’s not like I could let any child be taken this way. My son or not. There are standards. You have to fight back.
Leonie slid onto the stool next to me. “You found him.”
“I did.”
“Without a database.” She made it sound like I had somehow cheated.
“Yes.”
She opened up her laptop. “And now what? We sit here and wait for him to show up and”—she lowered her voice—“you shoot him dead in the street?”
“No.” I swallowed the last bit of sushi on my plate. It offered only sustenance, not pleasure. Waiting to kill someone makes you feel dead inside.
“We’re only supposed to do what Anna told us,” she said and I wondered what she would do if I picked up the chopstick, oiled with soy sauce and wasabi, and shoved it into her ear.
“I have done both my job and a key part of your job so far,” I said. “You are rapidly losing your right to a vote in this.”
“Sam. Okay. You had resources I didn’t. But I found out about Jack Ming, something you didn’t know.”
“What?”
“I don’t think he will come to see his mother.”
“Why not?”
“She blames him for his father’s death.”
I glanced at her. “How would you know?”
“I built a network of names around Jack Ming,” she said. “Yes, he went to NYU, so I did searches on people that were in his Facebook account before he canceled it. I wanted to expand our search, see how many links I could find, people where he might hide.”
I didn’t ask how she’d gotten this information; she’d worked her stealthy, smoky fingers into the right database or paid off the people who could. “And?”
“And one of his friends wrote a blog post about Jack’s situation. Apparently his father died of a heart attack when he found out that Jack was wanted by the FBI for questioning for hacking copiers and stealing proprietary information from a number of law firms and software companies. He died… here. At Jack’s feet.”
“His friend wrote about this?” Honestly. People will say things on the internet now that they might once not have told their parents. A little secrecy is not a bad thing. I will confess I don’t get the whole need to Twitter and Facebook and share my every reaction to a TV show or to bad service at lunch or to post every news article I find remotely interesting. I’d spent five minutes looking at Twitter once and felt I’d wandered into a poker game where everyone immediately displayed their hands against the cool green of the felt. I suppose an ex-spy cannot get over his or her innate quiet, the need to keep thoughts and secrets close. But Jack Ming was a kid, and he’d left electronic breadcrumbs at the feet of his friends.
There is always a trace, she’d said, and now she’d found it.
“His friend wrote about Jack’s mother.” She opened the laptop, turned it toward me so I could read:
I understand grief, I think, because my grandparents died when I was young, and my dog died last year. Death is part of life. But what I do not understand is blame. My friend Jack’s father died because he got a shock over something Jack is accused of doing, not anything proven. And even if Jack did do this, to blame him for killing his father? What kind of mother says that to her son?
I am thankful for my mom right now.
Good Lord, I thought. What did we do before blogs? Would anyone have written this up and sent it into the newspaper’s letters’ section or stood on a tottery soapbox at the corner of the park and brayed out their thoughts about a private family matter while still somehow making it all about themselves? Jack must’ve confided in the friend after his father’s death.
I turned my gaze back onto Mrs. Ming’s building doorway. The doorman stood there, watching the rain. “So our Jack and Mama Ming are not close.”
“But he’s desperate. Truly desperate. And…”
“And what?”
“If he’s turning himself into the CIA, then he’s planning to vanish. Maybe he wants his mother to go with him. Or maybe he’s coming here to say goodbye to her. A final goodbye.”
“I don’t know.” I didn’t want to know this about Jack Ming. I didn’t want to know him as, you know, a person. I wanted to know where he stood at a certain moment and where I could kill him without getting caught. I closed my eyes. Novem Soles was going to form me into a monster, sure as Dr. Frankenstein stitching together the quilt of corpses’ castoffs and blasting wasted vein and muscle with electricity. I didn’t know what I would be when I arose from the laboratory table, except I hoped I’d be a father with his child back.
But I didn’t want to know about Jack Ming’s… problems. His problems were all going to go away very soon.
Jack Ming’s dad dying at his feet. It made me think of Danny. My brother, not my son.
My brother. He’d died in an awful, humiliating way, gone to Afghanistan as part of a relief team. He’d pushed past the boundaries of common sense in his drive to help people, ventured with a college friend into the scrubby hills beyond Kandahar, gotten grabbed. No one heard from him for three weeks and then the video flickered into monstrous life, viraled by YouTube: Danny my brother kneeling on a drie
d mud floor, surrounded by ski-masked thugs who made him spout nonsense in a voice so quavering it was hardly his own, then spoke their own sacrificial junk, then cut off his head while the camera ticked off every final second. Then they cut his friend’s throat.
You think murder splinters a family or brings it closer together? I don’t know; depends on how thick the glue has already been laid. But execution is a different kind of murder. When your brother is decapitated with an arm-sized knife because he went to help people, and anyone in the free world can see his final moments courtesy of the unthinking, unblinking internet, then it is your family’s worst nightmare made public, made entertainment, made eternal. You can never block the memory of it; the horror is just a few clicks away.
Would you believe people emailed me the link to the video? They did. I don’t know why they would, what kink of cruelty drove them, but they did.
“Do you think he could turn to one of these old friends?” I asked.
“He’s still wanted for questioning by the FBI. So, he might not get a warm reception from a friend who doesn’t want to be made an accessory.”
“Those charges will go away if he gets his meet with the CIA,” I said. “It’ll be part of the surrender deal, guaranteed.”
“But surely his own mother would be the least likely person to turn him in.”
“True. She’s a career diplomat. She has a lot to lose if he resurfaces; he could be an embarrassment.”
“So what? We sit here and wait and scarf California rolls all day like private eyes on surveillance? He could have already been here and gone.” The desperation painted her voice.
“No,” I said. “We go in and, if he’s there, well, that’s done, and if he’s not, we find out where he is.”
A limo slid up to the curb. A uniformed man with a strong build got out, spoke to the doorman.
A few moments later, Sandra Ming stepped outside.
“Where’s the rental car?” I said.
“Around the corner, in a garage.”
“I want you to follow that limo, I want to know where she’s going.”
Leonie slammed the laptop shut. Mrs. Ming spoke with the driver; he appeared to be showing her some sort of ID. The doorman had taken a careful step back toward his usual perch. “It’ll be gone before I can catch up,” Leonie said.
“Just go, wheel around, she’ll still be here. I’ll make sure.”
“I don’t know how to tail a car.”
“Follow where it goes and don’t get caught. It’s for the children.”
“Thanks.” Leonie sprinted out of the sushi bar, the angry chef glaring at her like she was dodging the bill. I threw ample dollars at the wasabi bowl.
As I came out onto 59th, into the humid curtain of the day, the limo driver closed the rear passenger door behind Mrs. Ming and ducked back behind the wheel. I had to time this as carefully as a shot. Get across the street without being hit by either a cab or a bicycle or another car; time it so I got a word with that driver.
I pulled my phone from my pocket, placed it before my eyes, the modern electronic blinder. My thumbs scrabbled on the touchscreen like I was writing the most urgent message in the history of humanity. I kept my gaze down, hung back from the car, trying to move fast enough and also not veer out of the driver’s blind spot. I risked a glance. A taxi barreled toward me, but I still had room. He was clearly expecting me to jog, pick up the pace. New York cabbies are reincarnated kamikaze pilots and they subscribe to the inarguable theory that it’s best that you get out of their way. It’s the food chain at work.
The limo yanked out from the curb, and I stepped right in its way. The right front fender clipped my leg, a nice hard tap that would register not only in my pain centers but inside the limo itself. I yelped and fell, sprawling back into the street, diving like a soccer player hoping for a red card against the opposition, and the cab stopped about a foot from my head; I could see the reflection of my face, carnival-house bent, in the gleam of its newly washed fender.
The driver and the cabbie both burst from their cars, the limo driver saying nothing, which made him very unusual. You might expect protestations of innocence, or of concern. The limo driver just looked at me with eyes carved from the same indifferent chrome as the cabbie’s fender. The cabbie practically brayed at me in English, accented with a sharp Hebrew.
The doorman, though, he was golden. He bolted forward, knelt by me. “Sir? You okay?”
“Ohhhh,” I moaned. “My leg.”
“You stepped out in front of me,” the limo driver said. “It’s your fault. Watch where you’re walking.” He spoke with a mild eastern European accent.
Sandra Ming, I saw, remained in the limo.
“You’re right,” I said. Shakily, the doorman helped me to my feet. “I… I think I’m okay.”
The limo driver, the doorman, they exchanged a glance. Pure unease. The doorman’s said I don’t think this is the kind of guy who’s gonna sue if we help him. The driver’s said I don’t care. He looked like he’d just as soon run over me as he would a speed bump.
The cabbie hovered, uncertain. “Good you were paying attention,” I said to the cabbie. “Unlike some others.”
There: I threw down the gauntlet. The limo driver slid his steely stare back onto me as the doorman forced me toward the curb. Traffic began to back up behind the cabbie, horns jeering in the infinitely patient way of New Yorkers. The cabbie saw I was now the doorman’s problem. He started to slide back into his taxi.
And, four cars behind him, I could see Leonie, in a silver Prius. She wore an expression on her face that mixed nervousness with the determination only a parent can have.
I staggered to the curb, waving off help. “I’m all right,” I said. Normally a person might ask the driver for his license, or his phone number, in case there was a further injury. And I thought about it, but I weighed that it might send his suspicions soaring. I didn’t like the vibe from him at all; he was watching me in the way that the interviewers did years ago when I applied at Special Projects. Measuring me, solely as an enemy. I didn’t know who he was and I decided it was best to play nice now that Leonie was in position. I raised a hand. “It was my fault, you’re right, I wasn’t watching what I was doing. Sorry.” I put my phone down at my side and powered it off.
The driver inspected me with a studied glance.
“What? What the hell now?” I said, earning an Oscar nomination for my role as Irritated New Yorker.
The limo driver got back into the car without another word and he inched away from the curb. Other cars caught in the jam had filtered past him, but, when he merged into the stop and start traffic, Leonie in the rented Prius was two cars behind him. She looked like she intended to cement herself to his bumper. I noticed she’d put on large, heavy sunglasses big and dark enough that she could have done welding wearing them, and her lush auburn hair was pulled back and covered with a Mets baseball cap. Something about her look was vaguely familiar.
I was nervous for her. She wasn’t trained to shadow someone, she’d been up most of the night and was running on excitement and fear. The driver looked like a tough customer. She was clearly smart, book-smart, and if she was used to dealing with criminals she must have developed her own toughness. She had to follow him.
“You sure you’re all right?” the doorman said.
“My leg’s hurting and I think my phone’s broken. I just need to sit down for a minute.” I was careful not to ask him to let me inside the building. Let it be his idea.
“Sir, come here, why don’t you sit inside for a minute. Or at least wash the grit off your hands. Is there someone I can call for you?”
The air inside felt nice after the humid squeeze of the afternoon. The doorman pointed to a bathroom where I could rinse my bloodied knuckles and I thanked him.
“I’m sure I’m okay, I don’t want to be any trouble. I’ll just wash up and let myself back out.” I limped extra hard as I walked to the men’s room. Another residen
t, a heavy-set man pushing an older woman in a wheelchair, exited the elevator and the doorman moved to open the door for them. The heavy man was busy convincing the wheelchair lady that going for an outing, even with the chance of rain, was a good idea, his words running over the protestations of the woman like water gushing in a stream.
I washed my hands, quickly. Then I glanced out the bathroom door. The doorman was busy hailing the pair a cab. I had gotten very few lucky breaks since my pregnant wife vanished but this was one of them. I ducked into the elevator.
Sandra Ming was on the fourth floor.
The doorman would likely look for me, or he might assume I slipped out when he was hailing cabs or providing directions to confused tourists. So I didn’t have much time.
No answer to the knock at the Mings’ door. I dropped to my knees and brought out the lock picks. Thirty seconds later the door was open. Now, I had time for a careful, thorough search.
I shut it behind me and listened to the hush. No one was here. I didn’t have a gun with me and I moved through the rooms. Den, decorated with objets d’art from China, from Africa, from South America. A Mayan mask frowned at me from the wall. A kitchen. The coffee maker was on, the scent of dark French roast a caress in the air. A length of hallway, and a master bedroom. Immaculate. A woman’s room—it held a woman’s scent, a subtle mix of irises and Dior perfume. My wife had worn the same scent and for a moment grief overwhelmed my caution. Nothing like a memory of your wife’s skin to bring down the avalanche. I pushed it away.
Back down the hallway. Past a study, where I glanced into the doorway. A large desk, one with a masculine weight that didn’t quite match the feel of the rest of the apartment.
I stepped into a bedroom, frozen in post-collegiate amber. Jack Ming’s room. A framed diploma from NYU. A collection of books, but not textbooks: these were books he liked to read. A well-worn history of Hong Kong—had he been happy there? Biographies about computer pioneers like Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace, and Steve Jobs. George R. R. Martin’s epic fantasies. A bound collection of graphic novels, of Iron Man, Spider-Man, the Avengers.
