by Jeff Abbott
“Has the order been issued?”
“It won’t be an order. Nothing written. Just a wish made and a wish granted. Like King Henry talking about Thomas Becket: ‘Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?’ ” He finished his beer. “Watch your back, turbulent.”
“I’ll be fine.”
He pulled two phones out of his pocket, handed one to me. “Here. Only you have this number. If someone comes after you—call me. I’ll help you.”
My only friend. I didn’t want him to see the heavy swallow in my throat. “Thank you, August.”
I watched him leave, and then I went to bed. I think best in bed. I cleared my mind by paging through the thick bar book Ollie had loaned me. Every success in life was like a cocktail: a careful blending of elements in exact proportions, done in correct order.
I put the bar book down and I lay watching the ceiling, hatching a plan.
13
I AWOKE TO THE BAREST SOUND. I didn’t move. It was a footstep and then the slightest click of a door closing.
I was bait, and someone was hooked.
I could lay still. I could get up and see who it was. I could wait for one of Howell’s rookies to crash in the door and save my ass. But Howell, for all his warm words to me, didn’t need me alive after the bait was taken. If this was someone from the scarred man, he could dispatch me and the watchers could catch him later. I wasn’t sure the shadows were even listening to me since I’d tossed them their bugs.
Or maybe it was someone like August had said, ridding the Company of their great embarrassment.
I listened for the next footfall. Didn’t hear it. I got up from the bed with enormous care, scooted the pillow where I should be, moved on cat feet to the corner of the room behind the door.
I heard nothing else. Maybe I had dreamed the footfall. I stood in the darkness and a crazy thought wormed its way into my head: It’s Lucy, come home, finally she’s gotten away and she’s found me. It was lunacy to think it, but I did.
The air conditioner kicked on. The soft, somnolent hum masked the intruder’s movements. I had no weapons. Nothing. I waited.
I expected the intruder to kick in the door and lay a round of fire into the bed.
Didn’t happen.
Slowly—as slowly as a door opens in a nightmare that floods you with dread—the door opened. The hinges moved in silence. I waited.
No convenient glow of moonlight lit the stage for killer or victim; the dark in my bedroom was nearly total.
Then a tiny flash of light sparked, seeking the bed. A snap of silenced bullet hitting the mattress.
I slammed the door into the intruder. Hard. I heard him fall back onto the floor and in the thin gleam of light from the den window he swiveled the gun toward me. I powered my foot into his wrist and the bullet skimmed along the expensive hardwood. I kicked the gun loose, then away.
The intruder stayed as silent as his gun. No yell, no cry out. He was taller than me, and I felt hard muscle power into my chest as he drove me back into the bedroom. We landed on the bed and he, with crisp efficiency, yanked a length of sheet around my throat. I hardly heard his breathing increase in heaviness from the exertion.
He started strangling me and I seized the pillow and pressed it hard into his face. Silent standoff as the oxygen deprivation kicked in for both of us. The darkness deepened. I let go of the pillow and he tightened the sheet around me with a renewed vigor. I pile-drove fists hard and sharp into rib cage. Harder. Sixth blow I felt bone crack, and the intruder gasped and eased on the strangulation. I was sick and dizzy, struggling to breathe, but I launched myself free of the sheets and aimed a shattering kick into his face.
The intruder fell off the bed and I grabbed at the lamp. I missed, and my hand closed on the bartender’s book Ollie had given me. I slammed its five-hundred-page hardcover spine hard against the intruder’s throat and pressed downward as he struggled on the floor. He tried to kick me loose, but now I had breath and I had fury; there is a primal flutter about killing someone who comes into your house intending you harm. Awful atavistic shudders; I could feel waves of energy pouring from the ganglia at the base of my spine, that ancient seat of instinct. I gritted my teeth.
Harder. His struggles grew more frantic. I put all my weight onto the bartender’s book. I pressed my knees against him. I wanted him unconscious so he could wake up bound and answer my questions. But then I felt his windpipe break and the crack sent a sick tremble up my arms.
The kicking stopped and I yanked the book off him. The intruder said his first words, just a gurgle of breath. Maybe he called for his mama; maybe he called me a bad name; maybe he cursed whatever boss sent him to his death.
I expected Howell’s rookies to crash in if they’d eavesdropped on murder but no, no one was coming. They hadn’t put in replacement listening devices. I went and stood in the corner on my bedroom and looked at the splayed body and considered the problem. After a few moments my head was clear.
I had a dead body in my apartment. I dragged him into the bathroom, shut the door, and turned on the light. I eased him into the bathtub; easier to clean. Dead bodies release stuff.
I had never killed a man before. Ever. The body count on my jobs had been, well, zero. I fooled people into telling me things and then I left them. I did not kill them. I never had need.
I am a killer now, I thought, and another calming voice rose in my head: Stop it. You did what you had to do. Keep doing what you have to do.
Killing slices your life into a before and after. I was firm in the after, because the alternative was to be the body lying in the cool porcelain tub.
I leaned against the wall and let my gaze focus on the intruder’s face. He was around my age, midtwenties. Olive-skinned, with dark, short hair. Big ears, a wide mouth, a Roman nose that I’d broken with my kick. He wore black jeans, a black T-shirt, a black denim jacket. Dark, heavy boots. I searched him. A heavy knife in the boot he’d never had a chance to go for, of Swiss manufacture. An extra clip for his gun in the jacket pocket. A cell phone, small, light, not packed with features, just a plain, cheap model that was practically disposable. No passport, no ID, so presumably he’d left those stashed someplace. On his upper arm there was a small, delicately crafted tattoo. A stylized blue nine, in a curving beauty. The top curve of the nine was an orange sun, with short spiky rays.
Nine and sun. Nine suns. Novem Soles. My head felt a little swimmy.
I checked his wallet. A wad of dollars, another wad of euros. Wedged in the folded corner of one of the euro bills I found a rail ticket, used, from Paris to Amsterdam.
The ticket was three days old. He’d come to Amsterdam from Paris and then here, one could presume.
A man, sent from Europe, to kill me.
I had a problem. Someone had taken the bait. Howell would want to know. But given August’s warning, maybe this guy wasn’t from the scarred man. He could be Company, stationed in Europe, dispatched by one of my detractors who still thought me a traitor.
I opened his phone. The only referenced activity was a text, sent from the phone six hours earlier. The text read: Arrived at JFK. I recognized the country code for the Netherlands. I pressed the number to send another text. What the hell.
Let’s play, I thought.
Capra done, I typed. But problem. Followed by surveillance. Clear now but they may have seen face.
Within one minute the phone vibrated in my hand.
14
THE TEXT MESSAGE DISPLAYED: Do not return now. Lay low. Destroy this phone and I will destroy mine. Call backup number in three days. Good luck.
Well, that was not helpful. English sent to a Dutch phone number meant little. Practically everyone in Holland spoke English; including any Company operatives there who might consider me a traitor worth killing. And if the person on the other side decided to call this number and saw that the phone still received calls or texts—hmm, he’d realize his buddy had disobeyed orders and figure out that said buddy might be dead.
Understood, I texted back, hoping to get more.
I hope he suffered, was the answer.
Wow.
He did, I texted back. I knew this was a huge risk; it might raise suspicion that I wasn’t following orders.
The call failed. The other end had broken or dismantled the phone; I was texting to ether.
I turned on the lights in the apartment. I found the bullet buried in the bookcase; it had sliced into a copy of Great Expectations. I pocketed the bullet and threw the shredded book in the trash under the kitchen sink.
I went and stared at the body. How was I going to get it out of here? There was not only the matter of the neighbors, but Howell’s watchers might check the apartment at any time when I was at work, and I wasn’t inclined to call Howell and say someone took the bait until I knew who this someone was.
My link to Novem Soles, whatever it was, was that someone in Amsterdam wanted me dead and thought they had gotten their wish.
I could call August. But what could he do?
For the next hour, I retrieved the bullet from the mattress, made the bed, tidied the apartment, then sat and paced and thought about what to do with this dead body.
There was a quiet knock at the door. It was four in the morning. I took the intruder’s gun and went to the side of the door.
Howell’s soft voice came through the wood. “Sam?”
“Yes.” I wasn’t sure I wanted to open it.
“Are you okay? I got a report your lights have been on for a while.”
“I can’t sleep.”
“Open the door.”
I tucked the silencer-capped gun in the back of my pajama pants and made sure the T-shirt covered it. I opened the door. Howell stood there, in jeans and a black sweatshirt. “Is everything okay?”
I let him step inside and then I shut the door. I hoped he didn’t have to use the bathroom.
“You get a call if I leave my lights on?”
“Yes. Especially on a day like today. When you tried to run.”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“You’re not up thinking about a new way to run?”
“No. It’s just standard-grade insomnia that is the curse of accused traitors. I hope to get an Ambien endorsement next week.” I kept my voice steady, so unbelievably I-am-a-statue steady.
“You’re tense.”
“You showing in the middle of the night reminds me that I’m basically still your prisoner. Tension is a by-product.” I shook my head. “Honestly. I can’t believe you get up out of bed in the night to come check on me.”
“You matter to me, Sam. I know you want to believe the whole world is your enemy, but I’m not.”
I wanted to believe him. I could hand over the intruder’s phone and, you know, validate Howell. Show him the Novem Soles tattoo and say, well, you asked if I’d heard of it and now I have. Make him happy. But Howell and his peers had been so ready to believe the worst of me for so long, I had no reason to trust them. And whoever was gunning for me thought that I was dead. I had to take advantage of that temporary illusion.
I had to move. Quickly.
Howell said, “Well, if you’re all right.”
“I appreciate the concern.” I didn’t look at him. It just occurred to me that maybe I had marks on my throat from the intruder’s attack or bruises on my face. I hadn’t looked in a mirror. “I think now I can sleep. I mean, knowing that your team is watching over me. You all are better than a night light.”
He shook his head at my sarcasm.
If they’d watched everyone enter the building, then they’d notice on their logs that a guy in dark clothes who’d entered at some point hadn’t left. Questions would be asked, probably by the morning. I didn’t have much time. I met Howell’s gaze.
Howell looked at me and he tried, God help him, a smile. “I know this is a pressure cooker. Just be patient, Sam. The truth will come out.”
“I’m sure of that, Howell. I’m all about the results.” The results were in the tub. And I smiled at him, the tentative way you do when you want a job and you’re not sure the interview went well.
He left. I went back into the bathroom and I looked at the dead guy for a minute. I looked at the useless phone number on his cell and then I took apart the phone. I didn’t want whoever wanted me dead to be the least bit suspicious. I went next door to an apartment under renovation and I picked the lock, then I carried the body there and put it in the bathtub. I cranked the air-conditioning to its highest setting. The body would start to stink in the next day, which was Saturday, but the remodelers didn’t work weekends so as not to disturb the current tenants, so I might have two days before the body was found, if I was extremely lucky. Fine. I would be gone by then.
I put the pieces of the cell phone into a plastic bag I could throw away after I left the apartment. I didn’t want the Company finding it after I was gone; I didn’t want them on my trail.
I went back to bed, and I thought that having killed, I would never sleep again. But I slept the deep and restful slumber that comes after making a hard decision.
15
MY SPARK OF INSPIRATION CAME from a complaint Ollie had made about some missing imported whisky. Because there are thousands of containers holding crates of fine whiskies shipped from Ireland and Scotland, and nearly nine billion metric tons of all sorts of cargo shipped on the seas every year. These goods are mostly carried in two hundred million containers—twenty-foot- or forty-foot-long steel coffins you can fill with whisky or shoes or computers or frozen meat or whatever. Even me.
Many cargo ships carry six thousand containers or more. Almost none of these containers are inspected for contraband. A busy port may see thirty thousand containers a day enter and then be loaded onto rail and trucks. As the ships arrive to deliver their cargo—whether in New York or Boston or Los Angeles or Houston—they are met by a fleet of trucks. Stop the containers to conduct detailed inspections, which involves offloading a container onto a truck, hauling it to a scanner, having bureaucrats complete paperwork and watch the inspection, unpack and then repack if any anomalies are found, and then reload and return to a truck, and you get a logistical and financial nightmare. Any inspected container creates a delay, strains a link in the surprisingly delicate economic chain. Trucks bring cargo or empty containers to the port and they take away cargo from the port. Stop for inspections, and the trucks and the trains moving the raw goods and finished products stop. The stores don’t have necessities on their shelves. The shoppers complain, the stores lose profits, the shareholders scream bloody murder, the politicians listen.
This is the big, gaping hole in our armor.
The security people brag that six percent of containers get inspected. That math means ninety-four percent don’t. But that number lies. Six percent at a major port would be nearly two thousand containers a day. It simply doesn’t happen.
I could get to Europe if I could get inside a container. The odds of being caught in an inspection were very low. Hide in the steel box for seven to ten days, get spit out in London or more likely Rotterdam, the biggest European port. Then hitch a boat into London. Start looking for Lucy and my son.
All I had to do was smuggle myself.
16
Amsterdam
EDWARD LOVED FEAR. The smell of it in the skin, the taste of it in the saliva, the feel of it in the drumming heartbeat. Fear was the most powerful force in the world. Edward knew fear was the engine for religion, the spark for war, even the kindling for love—because all people are afraid to be alone.
Fear had been the key to breaking the young woman’s soul.
Edward sipped his coffee at the kitchen table and considered the past three weeks. His experiment had proved to the malcontents and low-level criminals he’d formed into a loose gang that a careful application of abuse, drugs, and isolation, coupled with a consistent dose of rape and frequent threats of execution, could produce desired effects. He could tell each morning that the group’s ner
vousness about the kidnapping had lessened: the ransoms were paid, and the young woman had begun to drift into their circle. It wasn’t so different from his student days as an actor: you created a character and stepped into the skin. Now he’d done that for the young woman. He had remade her into a new character.
Edward made it clear to the others that no one else was to touch her; no one else was to speak to her without his permission. She was his clay. He knew, though, that they listened at the closed door as he told her of her evils, and the evils that she and her father had done, while he held the knife to her throat and pushed himself inside her. He knew they eavesdropped on the disintegration of another human being. And he’d told her they were listening, and it made her more afraid.
It was lunchtime, and most of the group had gone for a walk around Amsterdam to enjoy the sunny cool of the day. The others were eating in the main room.
He could talk to her alone now. Alone was best. He opened the knapsack and looked at the most interesting gear that she had rigged for him. It had taken a long while to get all the materials, but now it was done and there was only the final step. His only worry was Simon, who had to lay low in Brooklyn now that Sam Capra was dead but would be in touch, no doubt, in a few days.
He put down his coffee cup and went upstairs. She was kept in a small closet in the corner. He told the gang she was frightened of enclosed places, and her claustrophobia had played a critical role in her unraveling. Research was so important. He unlocked the door and inched it open.
