Reckoning

by J. B. Turner

  “Hold on, sir. I’ll see if she’s available.”

  Mantovani strings played for a few moments. Eventually, a woman’s voice came on the line. “Good evening, sir, my name is Patricia Hyatt, director of the hospital. How can I help?”

  Nathan introduced himself. “I’m calling to check my sister is back in the hospital.”

  “I’ve just come from her room. She’s fine. And in good spirits. Do you want to talk to her?”

  “Not right now. Let her relax. I’m glad she’s back. But I’m wondering what the hell happened.”

  “Mr. Stone, I can only apologize. Our initial finding from our internal investigation is that false papers were presented to my staff giving the go-ahead for a transfer to another hospital in Florida. We have no idea what the purpose of this was.”

  “I want assurance that this will never happen again.”

  “I can give you my personal assurance. I’ve overhauled all our systems, and this will not happen again. There would, in the future, be a series of checks and balances to make sure there has been express permission for a transfer. For example, the hospital would call a senior member of staff to ensure that the transfer is going ahead. But as a secondary check, no transfer can go ahead without my written permission. And I can assure you your sister will not be leaving here again without your verbal and written permission.”

  “Excellent. I want her to stay there. She likes it there.”

  “I appreciate that, thank you. We do our best. But on this occasion it was our internal systems that were at fault. We are just grateful she was returned unharmed.”

  “Were the police informed of this?”

  “Yes, they were, as is protocol.”

  “So I can rest assured that this will never, ever happen again.”

  “You have my word.”

  “That’s good enough for me.”

  “Are you planning to visit your sister, Mr. Stone?”

  “I’m out of the country on business, but I hope to be back within the next week. I appreciate the update and the reassurance. Pass on my love to her.”

  “Will do, Mr. Stone.”

  Nathan ended the call, drove off, and got onto the nearest highway. He headed northwest to Cleveland and left the car in a downtown parking garage. Then he walked half a mile to the bus station. Panhandlers and homeless men milled around. He used the filthy bathroom, charged his phone, and then caught the last Greyhound to Buffalo.

  He sat near the back as the bus pulled away.

  Half an hour later, as he dozed, his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He didn’t recognize the caller ID.

  “Who’s this?” he asked.

  “Nathan, it’s Mark.”

  Nathan sat up in his seat. He kept his voice low. “Yeah.”

  “Is it OK to talk?”

  “Sure.”

  “I just want to say thank you.”

  Nathan felt uncomfortable with the praise. He cleared his throat. “How’s your family?”

  “They’re alive. We all needed oxygen and some observation at the hospital.”

  “Where are you calling from?”

  “I’m in New York.”

  “And your family?”

  “They’re in protective custody.”

  “Smart. Why not you?”

  “My first priority is to make sure they’re safe.”

  “Mark, you need to know that what happened changes nothing. They will still be looking for you. Do you understand?”

  “I do. But I need to get this story out.”

  “Is that wise?”

  “It’s too important not to write. Besides . . .”

  Nathan’s voice was a whisper. “Besides what?”

  “I got a guy I know, a computer forensics expert, and he’s analyzed the data on the cell phone you handed me from the . . . guy from, you know, the facility.”

  “What did it contain?”

  “One piece of information.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Encrypted messages that were sent between the guy who died and an unidentified person.”

  Nathan closed his eyes, wishing Mahoney would get to the point.

  “We’re still trying to decipher some of the messages. But one thing’s clear. There’s something going on.”

  “Something going on? . . . What kind of something?”

  “We don’t know. The forensics guy is still looking into it.”

  “So why are you calling me?”

  “They say they’re going to kill you. No matter what.”

  Fifty-Seven

  It was just after one in the morning, and Mark Mahoney, having been discharged from the hospital the day before, was sitting at his desk in the New York Times’s newsroom on the West Side of Manhattan. He had a bizarrely early meeting at six with the executive editor, who wanted to see the “fundamentals” of the story. He was three-quarters of the way through completing the narrative of what he knew so far.

  It would take several more weeks of double- and triple-checking what he’d gathered before it would be ready for publication. But for the first time in a long time, after days of gut-wrenching terror for him and his family, he was excited by what he’d learned.

  Mahoney sipped the rest of the cold coffee and washed it down with a bottle of water as he scanned the last couple of pages. The details of his own life being put at risk, and how he’d only been able to survive through the intervention of the man who had first been sent to kill him, not only unsettled him but put the fear of God into him.

  His mind flashed back to that night.

  The smell of the smoke, being trapped in the choking basement as the assassin tried to break in—it had left his sanity hanging by a thread. And following so soon after Nathan had entered his life, he felt lucky not only that he’d escaped unscathed—physically at least—and his family were alive, safe, and well, but that the trauma had slightly abated in the last few hours.

  He could function. The decision not to hide and instead to commit to writing the story was something both he and his wife thought was the right call. It was hard to believe it had all begun with the assassination by Nathan Stone of Senator Brad Crichton and the revelation of the secret black site in the Outer Hebrides in Scotland. It was shocking and had taken up all his time for the last few months.

  His wife agreed he had to write the story. They both knew he couldn’t conceal what he knew. It was in the public interest. And besides, he was an investigative journalist. He was aware the job wasn’t all sunshine and roses. The fact that his family was in FBI protective custody was all he needed to know. He missed them. He felt slightly conflicted, if he was being honest. He didn’t know if the Feds had been compromised in some way by the Commission. He wondered if their tentacles extended to those at the very top of the Hoover Building. He had, after all, reached out to the FBI just a few months back, not long after Stone first sent him the list. But they hadn’t gotten back to him. That gave him pause.

  Mahoney pushed any negative thoughts to one side. This was the only thing he could do. He would continue to miss his family. But if he had to do the story properly, he needed to be on the ground, so to speak, and not hidden away in a safe house.

  He needed to communicate, talk, and be here, in the building, with his fellow journalists, talking about the story. There would be tough meetings, grillings, and discussions as they went over the story with a fine-tooth comb before it was published.

  It would first go to what they called the backfielder, who would go over the story and do the most significant edit, reviewing sources, identifying holes. Then it would go to a copyeditor to check grammar, punctuation, spelling. And then to the head of the copy desk. But that would only be the start of the story’s journey. Senior editors would be getting involved in this story for sure. And the executive editor had a personal hand from the outset, and he would want to have his input.

  The more Mark thought about what he’d uncovered, the more excited he got about the story, the ra
mifications, the fallout.

  Mahoney was going to tell this story without fear or favor. He wanted the world to know about this cabal. Men who operated in the shadows. Outside the law.

  He leaned back in his seat and stretched his arms up in the air.

  The business section’s night editor, Ron McEvoy, walked up to him and smiled. “Sorry to hear about what happened out in the Hamptons,” he said. “You sure you’re OK to be back here?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  McEvoy glanced over his shoulder. “What you working on?”

  “Not able to talk about it just yet. When I can, I’ll let you know, don’t worry.”

  McEvoy patted him on the back. “Take it easy, Mark. And I look forward to reading your story.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Mahoney watched McEvoy get himself a cup of water and head back to his desk, glancing up at the Bloomberg channel on one of the TVs. He knew there would be a lot more inquisitive journalists asking what he was up to first thing in the morning. But he couldn’t say anything until the story was ready. As it was, it was a work in progress. He couldn’t risk any leaks. The story was too important. Even the slightest bit of information in a competing paper would be bad news.

  It might be that the Feds themselves would leak part of what they knew after speaking to Mahoney before taking his family to a safe location. He thought of them now. His wife and kids, safe and sound somewhere in America. He hadn’t been told where. He thought of his children being reassured and cuddled by their mother before bed. The stories. The bedtime routine she’d instilled in them.

  He thought of them all gasping for air down in the fetid, smoke-filled basement, terror in their teary eyes, his wife screaming after being hit by the ricocheted bullet.

  The doctors had thankfully gotten the fragments of the bullet out of her thigh; apparently, it had narrowly missed a major artery.

  His cell phone rang, startling him. The FBI had told him not to answer with his name when he spoke on the phone.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “I got something.” The voice of the computer forensics expert.

  “Sure thing.”

  “I’ll put this information into a full report and send it to you later today. But the cell phone you sent me that we’ve been decrypting—well, we finally deciphered the messages.”

  “Did you have to call in the Israelis?”

  “A guy who works for us was trained by them. He was one of the team that unlocked the messages.”

  “So what’ve we got?”

  “You’ve got a problem, that’s what you’ve got.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The guy whose phone this was . . .”

  “Yeah.”

  “He was communicating with a woman.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “The woman had a cell phone moniker—Crazy Chick.”

  “Crazy Chick?”

  “Right. And the messages contain information that appears to indicate—and I stress the word appears—that there is indeed something big about to go down.”

  Mahoney scribbled everything down in shorthand. “When? Where?”

  “Later today.”

  Mahoney took a few moments to process the information. “Are you kidding me? Where?”

  “The messages indicate that it’s—and this is their words—‘going down imminent in 416.’”

  “416? What the hell?”

  “We’ve thought about it. And we think we’ve got it. It’s pretty cute. Even though they were encrypted, they still wanted to conceal the name. The number 416 refers to the original telephone area code for Toronto. I’m ninety-nine percent certain of an impending terrorist attack or assassination in that city.”

  Fifty-Eight

  Nathan’s bus pulled up in the dead of night in downtown Buffalo. He saw a cop car parked nearby. When he filed out along with the other passengers, two cops stopped him.

  “Got any ID, buddy?” one of the cops asked.

  Nathan nodded. “Sure, Officer.” He handed over the fake ID. “Everything OK?”

  The cop looked over it for a few moments, then handed it back to Nathan. “Thank you. So, you mind explaining why you’re in Buffalo?”

  “Don’t mind at all, Officer. Hoping to find some work. Construction. I do general labor, almost anything.”

  The cop showed him a photo of a young Latino boy, late teens. “You ever seen this boy before?”

  Nathan looked at the photo and shook his head. “No, I haven’t. Why?”

  “Name’s Charles Gomez. The kid’s a runaway. Last seen getting off this bus a week ago. We’re wondering if any passengers recognize this face or have seen the boy.”

  “Sorry, Officer, no idea. Hope you find him, though.”

  The cop nodded.

  Nathan forced a smile.

  “And best of luck with the job hunting,” the cop said.

  Nathan watched as the cops got back in their car and drove off. He headed inside the bus station and got himself a coffee from a vending machine. A handful of homeless were hanging around. One of the guys, an old man with a burst lip, was eyeing Nathan with suspicion.

  “What you looking at, son?” the man asked.

  Nathan ignored the man and drank his coffee as he looked at the timetables.

  “You want some weed. Is that what it is? You think I’ve got weed? Well, let me tell you, I ain’t got no fucking weed. Because if I had, I wouldn’t be walking around here, do you understand? Fucking people always wanting stuff. Shit.”

  Nathan saw there was a Megabus to Toronto at 4:10 a.m. He brushed past the homeless man and bought his ticket, showing the fake ID again. He got himself a hot dog from a vendor and a Coke. He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around.

  The old man was pointing a knife at him. “Not so tough now, huh? How you like this? Gimme your money. Wallet.”

  Nathan stared at the man for a few moments. He was aware there were people in his peripheral vision who were watching the whole scene. He dropped the drink and hot dog and quickly parried the man’s knife hand away. Then he smashed the old man’s jaw hard with his other fist. The old man crumpled in a heap and fell backward, blood spilling out of his mouth. The knife was still in his hand.

  Nathan stood on the man’s arm until he released his grip, screaming. He picked up the knife and tossed it in a trash can.

  “Motherfucker!” the man snarled.

  Nathan looked down at him. “You need to watch that temper, old man. It’s gonna get you into trouble someday.”

  He stepped over him and headed for his bus, which had just pulled up. A few passengers looked rattled at the scene. But they all climbed on board. He followed close behind, showing his fake ID and bus ticket. The driver nodded, and Nathan headed to the back of the bus.

  A few minutes later, the bus pulled away, negotiating the near-deserted streets of downtown Buffalo. He was now on his way back to Toronto. He wondered why he hadn’t just disappeared somewhere in America. Iowa was nice. Texas was so huge it could hide anything and anybody. It was easy. He’d done it many times before.

  The more he thought about it, critically analyzing why he was doing what he was doing, the more he couldn’t see that it made much sense. He’d gotten his sister back. He’d destroyed the Commission. Single-handed. And he’d even wound up taking out another one of their operatives.

  Nathan wondered how it had gotten so crazy. His usual way was to get in, get the job done, and get the hell out. He’d gotten out and now he was actually going back to Toronto.

  His mind flashed a succession of searing images. The dead intelligence operative lying in the kitchen. The drunk girl lying on Mahoney’s sofa, covered in cocaine. The Mahoney family cowering in the basement. More than anything he remembered the look of fear in Mark Mahoney’s eyes. He didn’t feel anything anymore. Had he zoned out so much there was no feeling left in his soul? The excitement and thrill of the kill were still there. But he felt something in
him, deep within his being, that he had learned to switch off many years ago.

  Nathan thought of what Mahoney had said. The message on the dead operative’s phone said Nathan was going to be killed. Was it being organized from within the facility? It was as if he was being drawn back to Toronto without even thinking. Like he needed to be there.

  Nathan knew he had benefited from the element of surprise when he assaulted the Scottish facility. But they would be looking for him at the Canadian facility. They wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

  He wondered if Berenger was the weak link in the organization. Away from the facility, but almost certainly connected to it in some capacity.

  Nathan stared out of the window, realizing he was going to have to kill again, come what may.

  Fifty-Nine

  Just after six in the morning, Mahoney was called into the office of the executive editor, Mort Weiss. An hour earlier, he had emailed Weiss a summary of what he knew with the “fundamentals” of the story.

  “Take a load off, Mark,” he said.

  Mahoney slumped in the chair and stifled a yawn.

  “You look like shit,” Weiss said.

  Mahoney smiled. “Yeah, morning to you too, Mort.”

  “Nice to have you back in the city.”

  “Good to be back. Early start for you?”

  “Heading out of town on business for a couple of days. So needed to get a few bits and pieces out of the way first. And I thought it was important we touched base.”

  “Sure.”

  “So, hell of a business out in the Hamptons.”

  Mahoney sighed. “This whole investigation is so monumentally fucked up it’s unreal.”

  Weiss leafed through the pages of what Mahoney had sent him an hour earlier. “Mark, I’m gonna level with you, and you’re not going to like this.”

  Mahoney shrugged, wondering what he was going to say.

  “I’m going to play devil’s advocate on this.”

  “Sure, whatever.”

  Weiss took a few moments before he spoke. “I can see these original documents Nathan sent you from Scotland got this whole ball rolling.”