The Last Minute

by Jeff Abbott

  If the situation was reversed, what would I want her to do? Leave me to die? Absolutely. Go save the kids, lady, what happens to me is nothing. Go.

  We hadn’t anticipated an enemy beyond Special Projects. Caught up in the mad rush to find Jack Ming, I had not planned for this contingency. It was on me.

  I went outside, stood on the sidewalk in the warming humidity, and I started to shudder. It felt like every nerve in my body was wired to open current. I gave myself thirty seconds of weakness and I stopped shivering then I put the decision aside. Leonie was in the greatest danger right now. I could no more leave her to die than I could anyone else.

  I started to walk. I needed a car.

  A couple of turns later I saw a parking garage, four suited men coming down the ramp to merge into the river of pedestrians. I maneuvered carefully, bumping directly into the one who’d had his hand in his right front pocket as he had turned from the ramp onto the sidewalk.

  “Jesus, watch where you’re going, jerkwad,” he snapped at me.

  “My bad, I’m very sorry,” I said. I turned into the parking ramp and hurried up the stairs. I didn’t even glance to see which keys I’d pickpocketed off him until I was on the second level. A Mercedes logo on the keychain. I ran along the parked cars, testing the automatic unlock, until headlights on an SE flashed at me.

  One minute later I was heading toward the Lincoln Tunnel.

  If you save her and Jack Ming gets away…

  I had to get a grip. Focus. I wanted to make good time. The limo driver apparently had and I thought, please, don’t let there be bad traffic or an accident. Don’t let the guy whose car I’m stealing realize his keys are gone. Let the doorman and the guard be okay after I punched them. Forgive me everything I do to save my son.

  Don’t let me fail.

  29

  Along Highway 206, New Jersey

  THE GARDEN STATE. You tend to forget that New Jersey deserves that name when you’re stuck driving through an endless unfurling of suburbia. I drove at top speed and the rain that had hurried in from the Atlantic passed through here. The rain was like a hand cleaning a slate. The air smelled wet and fresh and new.

  I drove. I disabled the car’s GPS—if it had been reported stolen by now, I didn’t want the system tracking where I was.

  Okay. Now: who had Leonie and Mrs. Ming? Jack’s mom had called someone. And then the limo driver had collected Mrs. Ming. Now, I would not put it past Special Projects if they figured out like I had that Jack Ming was their new best buddy—Fagin might have tattled—to scoop up Mrs. Ming for her own protection against Novem Soles. And they might even, to lure me in close, pretend-threaten Leonie’s life. If August was at this house, fine, we’d talk, and maybe he’d let me take some photos of Jack Ming looking dead, if his people had already nabbed Jack.

  But. But. If August was involved in this operation, the limo driver wouldn’t have been on the phone. It would have been August. Right?

  I was not optimistic that Special Projects had Leonie. It had to be the dreaded “Someone Else.” An enemy I didn’t know.

  The phone Anna gave me rang again as I turned into the address. “Yes?” I said, sounding impatient.

  “Hello, Sam.” Anna Tremaine.

  “What?”

  “I would like to know your status.”

  “I’ll call you when the job’s done.”

  “Has Leonie found the informant?”

  “I’ll call you when the job is done.” I made the words short, clipped.

  “You know,” she said, “I don’t think you’ve heard your baby cry. He’s been rather fussy today. Well, both these babies are unhappy. I wonder, do you think they can sense their… precariousness?”

  I don’t know how to describe the dark surge over my heart. I don’t have the words for it. It was a blackness. I hadn’t felt it in my worst moments, when I saw my brother die on a scratchy video, when my wife was kidnapped in a street of fire, when I was tortured and accused of being a traitor, choking to death when I couldn’t give the Company answers I didn’t know. I’ve had more than my share of really bad moments. This was even darker. This was reaching into me and smearing something foul on my soul. It took all my will to keep my breath steady. “I am doing what you asked. You don’t hurt him. You do not hurt either of them.”

  “But the job’s not done yet and you won’t tell me what’s happening.” She sighed. “I’m playing with his little fingers right now, Sam. They’re more delicate than bone china.”

  I told her briefly what I knew, and what I was doing. For several moments she was silent.

  Then she said, “Listen, Sam. Listen to your son. I’m going to put the phone right by him.” And I could hear the phone, a hiss of breath, a gurgle. My son. I had never heard him. A soft ahhhhhh, all baby breath, all happy, toothless mumble.

  Then choked, frustrated gurgling; he wasn’t happy. Bored or annoyed at the phone resting next to his face.

  “Daniel. Daniel, this is Daddy.” Like he could understand. Like my voice would mean anything to him; my soft baritone was as alien to him as any other sound he’d never heard. My words, my voice, could give him no comfort. I’d never thought about what I’d say to him: he was a baby, what would he understand? I’d never been around babies. I was the youngest in my family. “Daniel. It’s Daddy. I’m coming to get you.”

  He fussed, he squawked, he cried. Maybe he wanted Anna to pick him up again. He wanted Anna. The idea made me want to vomit. He wanted a woman who would hurt him. That was true innocence.

  “I’m going to be there soon, son, we’ll be together. Okay? This is Daddy. I love you, Daniel. I love you.” I did love him. I loved him, sight unseen. “I love you. I love…”

  “Sam.” Anna’s voice was back. “Tell him goodbye. For now.”

  30

  Morris County, New Jersey

  LEONIE LOOKED UP from staring at the floor. The driver hadn’t planned on two victims, she supposed; he only had the one set of handcuffs and he’d chained Mrs. Ming to another wooden chair. He’d bound Leonie with rope from a closet in the house. The living room was small, the wallpaper old and twenty years out of fashion, musty with grime. The house carried the feel of a way station, a place used infrequently. Leonie sat, her knees folded beneath her, watching the driver pace the floor.

  The driver had moved into the front rooms, to watch the windows for Sam.

  “Help me,” Mrs. Ming whispered to her.

  Leonie glanced at her. “I’m curious as to what you expect me to do.”

  It wasn’t the answer Mrs. Ming was looking for. “He’s not from the CIA. He’s not. They said they would send someone.”

  “The CIA?”

  “Yes!” Mrs. Ming said.

  Leonie inched closer to her. “The CIA is looking for your son.”

  “A man who said he was from the CIA called me this morning. They said Jack might be coming home. To call them if he did. I… I didn’t know whether or not to believe him, but I went to the grocery, in case. I got Jack’s favorite things to eat.” Her voice sounded lost.

  Leonie looked at her. “Where is your son?”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Tell me.”

  “He left, I don’t…”

  Leonie leaned back and head-butted the woman. “Tell me where he is!”

  Mrs. Ming howled in anger and pain.

  “Hey! Hey!” the limo driver said, hurrying into the room, kicking Leonie onto her back. “Stop it!” He murmured again into his open phone, too low to hear, and then clicked it off.

  “You’re not from the CIA!” Mrs. Ming said, blood oozing from the corner of her mouth, her forehead vivid with the imprint of Leonie’s head. “You cannot keep me here. You cannot. They will look for me.”

  “You,” he said to Leonie. “You’re with Sam Capra.”

  She said nothing and he responded, in his accented English, “Bitch, I am short on patience,” and he began to kick her. Hard. The first blow sent her across t
he room.

  Then he asked her a question, received hazily through the pain, that made no sense to her at all. “Where is the woman called Mila?”

  31

  Morris County, New Jersey

  I SAW THE RENTAL PRIUS, nosed into a grove of trees. I turned in and climbed a wall and headed down a long, paved road. A sign read PRIVATE DRIVE. NO TRESPASSING. Ahead was a long, curving driveway and a house that looked like it might once have been a grand home or summer retreat from the start of the twentieth century. She’d tried to sneak in, but I was expected. Zero point in anything except walking straight into the house.

  My phone rang again. “Come to the front door. Nothing funny or the redhead dies and you get to watch.” Short and sweet.

  I made my way to the front door, across a grand porch. I opened the door and stepped into a large foyer.

  “Here,” a voice called.

  I headed back from the front of the house and went to my left and entered what might once have been a library or study. The limo driver must have been a Boy Scout. He was extremely well prepared. He aimed a gun at me, and held another pressed against Leonie’s temple. He had a Taser tucked into the side of his pants. Leonie’s face was bruised along the jawline.

  “Hi,” he said. “You heal fast, bumper boy.”

  “Vitamins and milk.”

  “But those are not brain food,” he said. He tapped Leonie’s head with the gun for emphasis. “I’m thinking you know the drill.”

  “I’m not armed,” I said.

  “Liar. If I check you and you have a gun, I’m going to shoot off this bitch’s thumbs.”

  I produced the security guard’s gun from the back of my pants and dropped it on the floor.

  “Kick it over,” he said.

  I did as he said.

  “Who are you with?” he asked me.

  “Me, myself, and I,” I said.

  He switched the gun over to Mrs. Ming’s head and she began to wail. “I don’t believe you. I’m not sure who you’re more interested in—your partner here or your target.”

  “I don’t want anyone hurt.”

  “Then who are you with?”

  “I’m with nobody,” I said. “We’re looking for Mrs. Ming’s son.”

  “And you thought I was bringing her to him?”

  “I did. Not now.”

  He gave a twisted little laugh. Now that I was unarmed he put a gun up against each of their heads. Toying with me.

  “I’m not sure which one you want alive the most,” he said.

  “Both of them.” Ten feet separated us, plenty of time for him to shoot me if I made a move.

  I knew at least that with Mrs. Ming he was bluffing. He’d brought her here to hold her or to question her, on someone’s orders.

  “Are you with Novem Soles? Because we’re on the same side, then, and this is a misunderstanding.” The thought that Anna could have opened up a bounty on Jack Ming occurred to me. They just wanted him dead; they wouldn’t care if it was by my hand.

  “Novem what?”

  “Nine Suns.”

  “Sounds like a slant restaurant.” He seemed to be taking my measure with his gaze. Mrs. Ming stared at him with hate in her eyes. “You’re the one answering questions, not me. Who’s your friend?”

  “Her name is Leonie.”

  “And where would I find Mila? I gave your friend a roughing up and she didn’t know.”

  Not a question I was expecting at all. What the hell just happened? “I have no idea.”

  He eased the gun over toward Leonie’s eye. “I want you to tell me how to find Mila.”

  “Mila contacts me when it suits her,” I said.

  “You’re going to tell me how I can find Mila, or I’m going to kill one of them.” He shoved the guns hard against their skulls; Mrs. Ming let out a twisted moan; Leonie bit her lip and her gaze locked with mine. “Not sure which. Guess we’ll know when I pull the trigger. On five. One. Two. Three.”

  “She sometimes meets me at a bar,” I said in a rush. “She calls, she picks the bar.”

  “And define sometimes.”

  “Once a week, when I’m in New York,” I lied. “But it’s on her schedule, not mine.”

  He studied my face. “Sit down on the floor. Keep your hands behind your back.”

  I obeyed. He took the gun off Sandra Ming and holstered it, and then he produced a cell phone from his pocket. He tapped buttons. And in Russian he said: “Yes, sir. I have him now. He says the woman will meet him at a bar every week, but she calls him.” He listened for thirty seconds. “Yes. All right.” He closed the phone.

  It’s hard to keep three prisoners when one is unsecured. Right now he wanted me talking. But he hadn’t secured me; he’d used the women as hostages, but he was keeping his distance from me. The women were my bonds.

  But his bonds were that he wasn’t master of his own fate. He had to call someone. Someone he called sir. He had to take orders from someone, and, speaking Russian into the phone, he hadn’t wanted me to know that. He hadn’t wanted me to know he was, well, not the top of the totem pole.

  But he didn’t draw the second gun again. He felt very much in control. I watched him. He watched me. A minute ticked by. Then another. He didn’t shoot any of us or ask any questions or say what was going to happen next.

  “I find silences awkward,” I said.

  He clearly didn’t.

  “Let me guess. Your boss said not to ask us any questions.”

  He looked at me.

  “I’m sure he doesn’t want you to know what the information we have is worth. You might cut a slice for yourself.”

  “Shut up,” he said. “You bore me. You didn’t even try to fight. Coward.”

  “Did he tell you how much the bounty on Mila is?”

  “Shut up,” he said again, but after a pause.

  “I presume once he gets here, all you do is dig the graves,” I said. “I bet he doesn’t even give you one percent of the cut on Mila. What are you, paid by the hour? I’m sure that was why you came to the land of opportunity, to dust grave dirt off your hands while your boss collects an insane amount of money he wouldn’t get without your help.”

  He stared at me. His mouth opened and I could see a little strand of spit bridge his lips.

  “He told you to sit on us, he’d be out here soon. Or she.” I was quiet for a minute. “He didn’t tell you how much Mrs. Ming’s son is worth, either?”

  He stared at me, but he swallowed at the same time.

  I had a noose around his neck now, so to speak, so I gave it a hard tug. “Mila presently has the highest price on her head in the world, for someone who isn’t a head of state or terrorist. And I know how to get her, and you’re just going to hand over that information to your bosses and let them score the profit. But that’s okay, I guess you get to wash the limo at the end of the day.”

  “I would like to know who the hell Mila is,” Leonie said.

  “Shut up,” the driver said to her. He looked back at me and laughed. “Why would you want me to profit more than my boss? It makes no difference as to whether you live or die.”

  “I’ve been screwed over by a boss before,” I said. “Very badly. I don’t much like bosses because I always did the hard, dangerous work and they got all the credit. Mila’s my boss and I’m not about to die for her.” Then I played the trump. “A million. That’s what the bounty is. And I know some people who will pay at least a million, probably double, for Mrs. Ming’s son. He stole something from them, they want it back. Your boss will be taking that money to the bank as well.” Watch me tap dance, I love to improvise.

  He said nothing, he just stared.

  His cell phone rang again. He opened it and said, in Russian, “Yes?” He listened. “Yes, I can stay longer. Of course. Is… is there anything you want me to find out from them?” Silence. “Yes, sir.” He clicked off.

  “Let me guess. He doesn’t want you talking to us,” I said. “I love being right.” />
  “He’s been delayed.”

  “And he doesn’t want you knowing what we know. You might decide that you could profit.”

  “I don’t want this man mad at me,” he said.

  “Of course not,” I said. “He has all the power. What do you have? He’s going to have three million dollars. A million for Mila, a million for the kid, a million for what the kid stole.”

  His mouth worked.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Leonie said. “Shut up.” She stared at me, the barrel of the driver’s gun still indenting her hair.

  “You and I could cut a deal,” I said. “You let these two go, and you and I collect the bounties. Together.”

  He laughed. “And I trust you why?”

  “Because I’ve told you the truth, and you suspect I’m right, and your boss hasn’t told you squat except spit out a bunch of orders and let you take all the risk.” I put a heaviness on those final words. “You’re the errand boy. You’re not a player. I guess you’re not ready.”

  “Shut up,” Leonie said.

  “You be quiet,” the driver said. “I let them go, they go to the police.”

  It’s always delicious when a not-bright person begins studying the angles.

  “No. The people paying the bounties have their kids,” I said. “They’ve got control over them. They will go home and cry for their kids.”

  Sometimes the unexpected happens. Sometimes a word is a bomb. Leonie’s eyes went wide with shock, her jaw trembled. She turned her head and the driver’s gun lay square in her forehead. She stared up past the gun at him, coiled. He glanced at her. Then he made his mistake. He looked up at me. “How do I know that any of what you said is true?”

  Lying is not hard. I don’t know why the psychologists pronounce it as difficult. Lying is the easiest thing in the world. Truths are far more difficult. “Call your boss and tell him what I’ve told you,” I said. “Tell him you know where Mila is, right now, and you know she’s worth a million. See how he reacts. See what he tells you to do.”

  “What if I kill the two of them and you and I work out a deal?” he said. Testing me.