Adrenaline

by Jeff Abbott

  94

  I CALLED HOWELL BACK three hours later.

  “What did you find?”

  His voice sounded grim. “The photos match a set of prototypical weapons being developed by the Company.”

  By the Company? Oh, my God. “Being developed for you by Bahjat Zaid.”

  God or nature or biological accident gives us these awesome brains and this is what we do with them. We think of better ways to kill. Ways that make murder as easy as taking a breath.

  These guns could change history. Kill a CEO, kill a president, kill a pope, kill a good guy, kill a bad guy, with total confidence that the bullet will find its mark.

  Howell said, “Sam, do you know what the goal is? Of this man having these guns? Why’s he doing this?”

  “Profit, I’m sure—he must be selling the guns to someone who has an agenda. He has the DNA of fifty people. One of my contacts, Piet, said there were fifty packages Edward was smuggling. Fifty. Fifty means something, but the fifty people aren’t famous.”

  “Would you recognize them if you saw them again?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.” My head pounded.

  The guns were a ticket back to having my life back. If the Company forgave me my sins, then I had a chance of getting back and keeping my son without looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life.

  “New York,” I said. “He’s shipping the guns to New York.” Piet had told me that.

  “Why? To who?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Silence. Then: “You listen to me. If you’re setting me up for another fall, then you will seriously regret it.”

  “I have bigger problems than you, Howell. I know you’re just doing a thankless job. I’m sorry I’m your headache. I really am.”

  “Sam—”

  “When I find out more I’ll call you.”

  “You are still a Company officer.”

  “I am not.”

  “You are—and I am ordering you to come in.”

  I hung up. I went downstairs and found Kenneth, the manager of Adrenaline. He came back up to the office with me. He sucked in his breath when he saw Yasmin’s body.

  “I didn’t kill her,” I said.

  “All right,” Kenneth said.

  I explained what had happened, without telling him about the specific nature of the weapons. Best to keep that to myself. When I told him Mila had been captured, he said, “How can I help?”

  “Kenneth, who runs this? Who do you work for?”

  “I work for Mila.”

  “Who does Mila work for? This technology, this level of resources—you folks have serious clout.”

  Kenneth said, “Mila should have told you.”

  “Mila may be dead.”

  He sat. “She works for the Round Table.”

  “Round Table? Like King Arthur’s Round Table?”

  “Mila likes to pretend they date back to a distant time, but it’s simply a name. They’re a group of powerful and wealthy people who have joined forces over many years, and I don’t know more than that. I do know I can make phone calls and certain resources are arranged for Mila, or for whoever is working for her.”

  “Okay, I am working for King Arthur.” I nearly laughed. With all the insanity of the day, I felt on edge.

  “No, sir.” Kenneth seemed alarmed that I believed this.

  “And the Round Table owns the bars? Adrenaline, De Rode Prins in Amsterdam?”

  He nodded. “Under a front company.”

  “Why do you work for them? What’s your background?”

  He studied me for a moment. Then he said, very formally, “Ten years ago I was accused of murdering a former girlfriend. I was innocent, but I was convicted and I went to prison. Mila’s employers helped me prove my innocence and they found the real killer. I owe them. And I have an interest in justice now I did not have before.”

  “Is that Mila’s background, too? Falsely accused and saved by the Round Table?” Just like me.

  “I cannot say because I do not know. Does it matter, right now? We must help Mila.”

  “All right. I need transport to the United States. For me and for a prisoner inside that room. I can’t cart her through first class in chains. Can you arrange that?”

  “Yes. I can put you on a private plane.” Kenneth went to a phone and picked it up to make a call. He hesitated. “Do you think Mila’s dead?”

  “I hope not. I hope I’m going to get her. Because I think whoever has her wants to know about this Round Table.”

  “They won’t break her.” He said this with certainty.

  Mila was Edward’s bonus. He knew that he and his employers were facing a formidable enemy in whoever Mila and I worked for. It was the only reason she’d been kept alive. Edward was, if anything, a constant opportunist.

  I stared down at Lucy. “We’re going to go get on a plane shortly. If you try and break away from me, or create a scene, I’ll shoot you. Do you understand me, sweetheart?”

  “Yes, monkey.” Lucy held up her wrists. “I understand you.”

  95

  THE CABIN WAS BARE BUT FUNCTIONAL. Me, Lucy and the pilot and copilot. They did not ask questions about our guest in chains.

  “They’ve been told that she’s a prisoner of the CIA,” Kenneth said. “I thought you would appreciate the irony.”

  “Thank you.”

  Lucy ate the sandwich that I gave her and drank from a bottle of water.

  The plane left England behind, soaring out over the dark heavy steel of the Atlantic.

  “I have a question for you. How exactly does the chip get the DNA?”

  “I could bore you with the detailed science, but you put a hair or a blood sample on the chip and it encodes the bullets with the target’s DNA. Then the bullet’s like a guided missile.”

  “But he shot at you and missed.”

  “He didn’t have my DNA on the chip. It acts as a normal gun without the DNA enhancement.”

  “Does he have a chip with your DNA?”

  She started to answer and then fell silent.

  “He could and you don’t know.”

  “If he’s smart he does. Edward won’t let anyone betray him.”

  “I’ve been thinking hard about why you turned traitor, trying to see how someone like Edward, a psychopath, could lure you away from your life with me.”

  “Well, when you were investigating these criminal networks, I used to see the numbers you crunched. You look at these crime rings, you see how much money they make. Billions and billions. Twenty percent of the world’s economy comes from illicit goods now. It’s easy money. You just need the right mix of skills. Smugglers, hit men, hackers. The right network. And then…” She looked at me coolly. “I’m a businessperson. They offered me some money. I knew I could clean it through Company accounts and make it vanish. At least, I thought I could. It wasn’t going to hurt anyone, giving them the files.”

  “Tell me about Novem Soles.”

  “I have a contact. He got me my money, but I’ve never met him.” She finished her sandwich. “I don’t even know how they got their name. But I found an old legend about nine suns on the Internet. Chinese. It says that there were once ten suns, but they wouldn’t come out just one at a time during the day. All ten would come and their heat and power would incinerate the world.” Her voice had grown very soft. “The emperor asked the father of the ten suns, Di Jun, to ask the suns to appear just one at a time, so the earth would not be remade in heat and flame. But the suns refused. So Di Jun sent an archer named Yi, with a magical bow and arrow, to frighten the suns, to make them obey. Instead Yi shot nine of them, so only one sun would remain.” She risked a smile. “Because the nine suns, returning, would destroy the world, annihilate whoever tried to tame them. I don’t even know if that story has anything to do with the Nine Suns, or why they use a Latin name if it’s based on a Chinese legend.” She smiled but there was no joy in it. “Nine people who could remake the world, that’s how they thin
k of themselves.”

  “Is Edward one of the nine? Or is he a flunky?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “These fifty people. What’s special about them?”

  “I said I don’t know.”

  “That’s a lie.”

  “No, it’s not.” Lucy drew her knees up to her chin. She peered at me above them. “When you asked me to marry you, I almost said no. Not because I didn’t want to marry you. I did. But I felt like you wouldn’t be enough. I wanted a lot from life. I wanted money. I wanted respect. I wanted to work hard for ten years and then have enough to live on. Not work my fingers to the bone clawing up some male-run bureaucracy, not putting my life in danger for a bunch of ideals.” She slid her legs out in front of her and for a moment we were back in London, drinking lager in our apartment, talking about our future. “I knew you didn’t care about that. And for a time I thought I could live without the money. I couldn’t.”

  I didn’t say anything. She was quiet for nearly forty minutes and I thought she’d fallen asleep. Then she said, “I think I will tell you a little bit about who I work for.”

  “Why the change of heart?”

  “Because do you think the Company’s really going to welcome you back? Even if you help them? Maybe they’ll give you a pardon. Maybe. But they’ll never, ever, let you work for them again. They won’t trust you. They won’t think you can follow orders. Orders trump all.”

  “Are you telling me this to offer me a job?”

  She stretched out a leg. “Consider it a lifeline. I think the Company will simply kill both of us when they’re done.”

  “No.”

  “Oh, not them officially. But there are rogue groups running inside.”

  I looked hard at her. Could I have been so wrong for so long? The thought was a fist in my chest, in my brain. “I wasn’t enough for you. Marrying me wasn’t enough,” I said.

  “Marrying you was… Marrying you was the right thing to do. I loved you. It was an act of optimism.”

  “I don’t believe you loved me.”

  She raised an arm, slid up the sleeve, and I saw a trio of round, brutal burns on her upper arm. “That was the price of making that phone call that got you out of the office. Edward thought I’d betrayed them, leaving you alive. A dead patsy is more valuable than a live one who can deny and possibly disprove the frame.”

  “But you did frame me.”

  “You were alive. I knew they might let you go, that there was a chance. Better prison than a grave.”

  “Why wasn’t I enough? Wasn’t I a good husband?”

  “You cannot possibly care about my opinion.”

  I started to answer and she raised a hand. “No, you don’t care about me. I see through all this talk. This is about the baby.” She smiled and then the smile went away. “My trump card.”

  “Don’t talk about Daniel that way.”

  “I know. He’s a person. Who grew inside me for nine months.” She wiped a hand against her lip. “When we found out I was pregnant, do you remember…” It was a sign of her psychosis, I thought, that she even had to ask.

  “I remember.” It had been right after dinner; she’d taken the test without telling me of her suspicions. And brought me the test, with its little affirmative plus, and I’d whooped and hollered and she’d worn a stunned smile on her face.

  “Well, I thought, that’s that. I won’t work for Novem Soles any-more. I will walk away. I will cover my tracks and I will stop and no one will ever know that I ever sold bits and pieces of information. I will have this baby and I will love Sam and that will be my real life.” She rubbed at her lip and she dropped her gaze from mine. “But they don’t let you walk away. You don’t submit a letter of resignation. They told me they would kill you.”

  I closed my eyes and felt a corner of my heart die. I could never know the truth of anything Lucy said. She had saved me in London; but why, I could never know. Maybe even she didn’t know. Love? Guilt? A more selfish reason, to use me in the future? It didn’t matter. She lied like other people breathed, so that when she told the truth you had no way to recognize it.

  I said nothing.

  “So. My choices were let you die and then be faced with a life I didn’t want, with a child, or to keep working for them and figure out a way to cut loose and to set you free.”

  “You could have come and told us that you were in trouble. Cooperated with us. You’ve used me, you’ve used our kid.”

  “I couldn’t come back after the bomb. I couldn’t do prison.”

  “There are worse things than prison.”

  “Is that a threat? You won’t hurt me.” A half smile played on her face. “You won’t. You’re the good guy. I’m the mother of your child.”

  “Where did you have the baby?” I said. “You owe me this, Lucy. Tell me.”

  “I owe you nothing. I saved your life. We’re square.”

  “There is a Company airfield in Maine, near Damariscotta. If I tell the pilots to land there, they will.”

  “I thought we were going to New York.”

  “No. I think I should give you back to the Company.”

  “Sam, we had a deal. You stop Edward, I walk.”

  “But you don’t know where he is, you say. I’ll bet you’ll tell the Company. I bet they’ll make you talk.”

  “But the guns—”

  “My son takes precedence. Maybe these people haven’t even fixed their targets yet. Maybe the fifty people are just to see if they can encode a chip; they may not be targets at all, just DNA samples that they stole somehow.” I crossed my arms. “I can’t wait to see what Howell does when he gets his hands on you. Oh, I was just the warm-up, sweetheart. You’re the main course. You made him look very bad. Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat screwed.”

  “He’ll kill you, too.”

  “No, I’ll get forgiven. He’ll say he authorized me in secret or some bull. He’ll be clean. He’ll have his traitor in his pocket.”

  “The Company won’t let you land at their airfield,” she said.

  I stood up. “I can be talking with Howell in five minutes. I’ll have clearance.”

  “You weren’t always so stubborn.”

  “Where did you have the baby? Tell me and we’ll keep going on to New York.”

  She decided to believe me. “Strasbourg. A private clinic called Les Saintes. On the tenth of January. He was given the name of Julien Daniel Besson.”

  “Who took him?”

  “A woman.” I’d been told the broker was a woman.

  “Who does Daniel look like?”

  “Babies all look like Winston Churchill at first. But he has your eyes, Sam.”

  “What is this baby broker’s name?”

  “Edward didn’t tell me. I don’t know. That’s how they kept me in their pocket. It was insurance.”

  “And they gave you money for my son?”

  “Our—”

  “You just lost the right to call him yours, Lucy. Don’t you ever call him yours again.”

  “No, don’t say that.”

  “You let them take him to sell him. Jesus.”

  She stared at me and she knew the deal between us was dead, that I was never going to let her go without having my child.

  “What’s going to happen to me?” she said.

  “You tell me everything and then you tell the Company everything. I want my name cleared.”

  “Your name is never, ever, going to be cleared. Sam, there will always be someone in power who believes you knew. That maybe you didn’t do anything wrong, but you knew what I was doing and you kept your mouth shut. Either hoping that I would stop, or I would never be caught. You’re a good husband. That made you a bad agent.”

  “Then I’ll focus on being good at my job. Where is Edward delivering the gun chips? Where in New York? You cooperate with me and I’ll be your advocate with the Company.”

  She considered this and for several long seconds there was only the whine of the en
gines. “At the new Yankee Stadium. Since Edward tried to kill me I’m assuming he thought that you were going to capture me and he wanted the plan protected. He won’t change it if he thinks I’m dead.”

  “What time is this meeting?”

  “At eight tonight. As the game starts. The season’s just begun.”

  I stared at her. I thought of our last morning together, our lives so normal, our lives such a lie that it clenched the air in my lungs.

  She said, very softly: “Do you remember once that I asked you, if we knew a day was our final day together, what you would say to me?”

  I remembered. “I’d say anything but good-bye. I never wanted to say good-bye to you.”

  She looked at me and I couldn’t tell if there were tears in her eyes or if it was the dim light of the cabin. “I think I’ll say my good-byes now, Sam.”

  96

  LUCY AND I WALKED free of the private plane. Our papers had been stamped and the custom official waved us through. Thank you, Kenneth and flight crew. Borders. Do they even matter anymore?

  We exited the airport and walked along the short service road. A car pulled up, and I pushed her into the backseat and then followed. I’d phoned ahead.

  “Hello,” August Holdwine said.

  “Mr. Nice Guy. You just committed professional suicide,” Lucy said, as he pulled the car away from the curb.

  “Career advice from you is rich,” he said. “How are you, Lucy?”

  “I should have married you. Not him,” Lucy said.

  “Be nice. August is going to get the credit for your capture,” I said.

  “You’re not surrendering to the Company?” Lucy jerked her head to look at me.

  “No. I’m going to go get our kid. Thanks again, August.”

  August glanced at Lucy in the rearview. “I always thought it was iffy to trust you. I hate being right so often.”

  I could feel the defensiveness rising in her. “You’re betraying the Company yourself, going out of bounds to help Sam.”