Choke Point

by Ridley Pearson

  “I’m listening,” he says.

  A figure lurks in a dark corner of a dismal bar in the heart of the red-light district. Knox holds off, eyeing things in the reflection of the bar mirror. The bar is peopled with men of every age, stoned and drunk and smoking cigarettes. The women, far fewer in number, are overweight and overly made up, with piercings and too much pale, pimpled skin showing. The bartender looks like he could hold his own in a fight. He nods at Knox, Knox taps the bar and another beer is delivered. Knox pays cash. No tabs are run in a place like this.

  He takes his beer over to the corner. Sonia Pangarkar is revealed out of the shadow. Knox sits down on a bench next to her.

  “Hello.”

  “Mr. Steele,” she says.

  “I can think of nicer places to meet.”

  “No one knows me in a place like this. My television work . . . it comes at a price.”

  “You don’t want to be seen in my company?”

  “It is dangerous, this work, Mr. Steele. We’ve discussed this.”

  “You’re afraid.”

  “I am careful.”

  “Can’t be too careful,” he says.

  “She’s a teacher. She knew the other one I told you about. She has a student who attends infrequently. She noticed the calluses I wrote about in my story. The girl’s father, or a man claiming to be her father, because the teacher has never met the father, showed up at school yesterday. The girl escaped out the window. She’s willing to talk—the teacher—if I keep her name out of it.”

  “Not much for me to work with. For you, yes, of course.”

  “There is, or I wouldn’t have contacted you.” Sonia is abrupt, verging on dismissive. He hears a new tension in her voice. She isn’t sleeping well, judging by her gloomy eyes. The gin in front of her isn’t her first.

  “Are you sure?” he asks. “Maybe you wanted the company.” He has a role to play; he has to fight to stay in character.

  She hangs her head. “Leave,” she says.

  “Time and place.” Knox upends the beer. He sets the half-empty bottle back on the table and stands. “Text or voice mail. Give me at least an hour advance notice.” He only checks his various SIM chips once an hour.

  She glances at her watch. “Forty minutes. You’ll need your camera, unless I’m mistaken.”

  Knox is surprised by the timing.

  “I’ll come with you to get it,” she says. “And I’ll take your phone until we’re finished.”

  “I thought we trusted each other.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “You’ve confided in me.”

  “Have I?”

  He thinks of her meeting with the scarf woman. “As far as I know you have.”

  “Stick to the arrangement.” She holds out her hand. “I will return it after our appointment.”

  “You’d better turn off your own first,” he says, passing her the iPhone. “It’s your phone these people would track, not mine. No one knows me.”

  She calls a number from memory and speaks Dutch, telling whoever’s on the other end that she’s on schedule. Knox smells a setup as he contemplates why Sonia Pangarkar would lead him into a trap. She turns off his phone and pockets it.

  “How do you know I don’t carry a second phone?” he asks.

  “Do you?”

  “No.”

  “Then we can go now.”

  She pulls a beige scarf up over her head and leads him out of the back of the pub, a door he should have known existed.

  Knox is hit by something hot below the ribs. He’s thrown back and his knees fail and he’s down on the cobblestone. Tourists and pedestrians make room around him, barely breaking stride. A second man grabs Sonia, pulling for her bag. Knox cracks this man’s knee with the sole of his shoe, causing him to cry out and let go of her.

  The first guy leads with the cattle prod, lunging at the fallen Knox like a swordsman. He wears a shiny black leather jacket and designer jeans. Knox rolls into the cobblestone lane and chops at the hand holding the cattle prod. He manages to force a miss, but fails to dislodge it. He’s hit in the right arm, and his arm goes instantly numb. His head spins. The device is designed to punish but not knock him unconscious. It’s riot gear, either stolen or bought on the black market, or the guy’s a cop.

  Knox has use of only his left arm.

  Sonia kicks the man who’s down.

  “Go!” Knox manages.

  She’s off at a run.

  Knox pulls on a leg nearest him. A woman in her twenties falls across him and takes the brunt of the next burst of voltage. She tries to scream, but no sound comes out. Knox pulls his legs out from under her and drags himself across the cobbles.

  Two guys attack the man with the cattle prod. Friends of the fallen woman. They go at him with haymakers. They’re rugby types, and drunk enough to want the fight. Knox keeps back-pedaling, one-armed, awaiting any sensation in his legs. When the tingling arrives, he draws himself to his feet and limps off in the direction Sonia ran. By the wet, thumping sounds behind him, the ruggers are winning.

  Knox rounds the corner and nearly coldcocks Sonia as she grabs him by the arm. She leads him down into a waiting boat, the engine running, and they speed off in a water taxi.

  “What the hell?” Sonia shouts over the motor.

  John Steele can’t say what he’s thinking: police. The look of the guy, the leather jacket and jeans. The fact that he’d checked all three SIMs when just outside the bar, prior to the meeting. He’d given one of his numbers to Brower. He wants to trust the chief inspector, but he doesn’t trust the sergeant who first interviewed him, or the superintendent who busted him. John Steele can’t know any of this.

  “They must have been after you,” he says, “but wanted to neutralize me first.”

  “It didn’t seem that way.”

  “I don’t think you’re paying me enough.” She isn’t paying him anything.

  “If you want to quit, I understand.”

  “Are you kidding? We just confirmed this is a hot story. I’m in.”

  “I can talk to my editor. Maybe he can offer our per diem. Not that that helps all that much. Our paper is very cheap.”

  “They wanted your bag,” Knox says.

  She clutches it firmly.

  “You should back up to the cloud and you should erase stuff once you do. You can’t leave anything important on your laptop. They’re clearly coming after your laptop.” He hopes a photographer would say things like this. “I’m something of a tech nerd.”

  “I am not so good. You can show me how?”

  He contrasts this with Grace, who is capable of hacking high-level systems, who rarely admits her limitations. He’s concerned he should think of her, wonders why it’s happening.

  “Yes,” he says. “No problem.”

  The yellow water taxi works through the labyrinth of canals that expand out from city center like concentric ring roads. Knox requests a stop near his hotel. He leaves Sonia waiting in the water taxi. A historical plaque on the hotel doorway steals his thought. He’d rather not be reminded at a time like this of the city’s history. But one can’t pick such things. The city dates back eight hundred years to a bridge built by fishermen. They put doors on the bridge creating a dam, holding back the spring floods of the IJ. The protected town became important to the shipment of beer, and eventually grain from the north. But it was a religious miracle that made it a place of pilgrimage, elevating its population and importance. Now it is seen more as Europe’s city of sin; the turnabout strikes him as ironic and even sad.

  He retrieves his camera bag from the room. The windbreaker is disgusting from his rolling around the alley. He leaves it behind. Ten minutes later they’re under way again. Sonia returns his iPhone to him, her eyes apologetic.

  The water taxi driver makes turn after turn and soon Knox has lost track of their location. The narrow canal houses—their high gables designed to hold winches for hauling up prosperous merchants’ good
s and furniture—give way to the ubiquitous brick buildings of the outer neighborhoods, providing Knox with some indication of the distance they’ve made. Travel by water is so much faster than surface streets, further complicating his task. He would like a GPS fix. The current SIM card in the phone doesn’t allow for GPS; the other chips are in his jacket, back in the hotel.

  Sonia’s holding her hair out of her face and looking across the boat at him. Not exactly the way a reporter would. More like a woman. A curious woman at that.

  “Where’d you learn to fight like that? Back there?”

  “U.S. Army,” he lies.

  She studies him. “Thank you.”

  “I could say ‘My pleasure,’ but I’d be lying. Tell the truth,” says John Steele, the photographer, “I was scared shitless back there.”

  “Be careful, John. It will serve you well to not forget I have built my career on conducting interviews.” She leaves it there, but they never lose eye contact in the flickering streetlight that struggles to reach the canal through trees and bridges.

  “Did you recognize them?”

  “No. But it was dark. They were dressed well for a pair of thugs.”

  “How do thugs dress?”

  “Better than I thought, apparently.”

  Another turn and the taxi slows. It pulls up to a dock that rocks in the wake. The driver holds on to a cleat while they climb off amid the slap of water against the canal wall. Sonia pays him. The boat pulls away.

  “Are you coming?” she asks.

  But Knox is keeping his eye on the driver, whose cell phone is already out and to his ear. “We’re here to interview the teacher?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “We have ten minutes to get out of this neighborhood. Maybe less. I hope the house is close by.”

  “That’s ridiculous. How can you know that?” Nervous. Apprehensive.

  He wishes she wouldn’t do that. Appreciates Grace for her levelheadedness.

  “The driver. The boat operator. I think he may have recognized you. He was on his mobile phone the moment he pulled away.”

  “So?” She leads the way across the street and to the right.

  Knox looks for a landmark or street sign. These neighborhoods all appear the same.

  “It’s common enough practice for certain elements to seek outside assistance when trying to find someone like you,” he says.

  “The police? I have nothing to hide from the police.”

  But she walks faster, pulling away from him. He gives her the space, gives her time to think about it. She stops abruptly and turns to face him. “Do not patronize me. I confess I’m unfamiliar with being someone’s target, but that does not give you the excuse to take advantage of me. If you are implying what I think you are implying, I do not accept this at all! The entire city is looking for me? Who is the naïve one?”

  “Seven minutes,” he says. “Maybe less.”

  “You’re the big expert.”

  “I’m the big expert. In this, yes. I may not have many useful skills.” He glances down at his camera bag to make the point. “But I’ve done some things I’m not so proud of, and I know the streets—evidently better than you. This would be the wrong time to doubt me.”

  “Only the police have that kind of reach.”

  “Six and a half minutes.”

  “It’s going to go longer.”

  “Then we need an exit strategy. We can’t be walking the streets. No taxis. No trams.”

  “You are overreacting.”

  “The Fiat across the street. I’ll need a tennis ball.”

  “What?”

  “Better if you ask her for it. And I’ll need you to stall her long enough for me to get a knife out of the kitchen.”

  “This is part of that street savvy of yours, I suppose?”

  “You suppose right. Six minutes.”

  At the next door, she lets them inside. Her finger roams the board and rings an apartment one flight up although there’s no inner door to breach. Knox remains two steps below her as they climb, his attention divided to include the door to the street. He can move his arm, though it’s numb. His side hurts where he was zapped. He would like to believe he’s thinking clearly, but knows better. It leaves him paranoid and prone to overreact. A door coming open above them sparks a wave of adrenaline.

  The woman who awaits them is in her early forties, with tired eyes and crooked eyebrows. The apartment is modest. Two tweens study at the kitchen table. There is no sign of the husband, but there’s evidence of him—an extra-large sweatshirt draped over the arm of the couch, a hunting magazine next to the well-used television remote. She shows them inside. They decline the offer of something to drink. Knox checks his watch, making sure that Sonia sees him.

  The conversation starts awkwardly with the teacher issuing concerns and denials. This is not something she would usually do. She would typically consult with a parent first. She doesn’t hold the press in high regard, and yet is quick to make Sonia an exception. She is understandably nervous.

  Sonia is an adept interviewer. Knox takes mental notes. His wrist is angled on his lap so he can see the watch face. Two minutes. While Sonia works the woman, Knox excuses himself to the washroom. He passes through the kitchen in order to say hello to the kids. He steals a knife.

  By the time he returns, they are into the crux of the interview.

  “. . . only occasionally,” says the teacher, in Dutch.

  Sonia recaps for Knox, also in Dutch. “Elizabeth was just telling me that this student of hers, Maja, misses more days than she attends, but is an eager student when in attendance.”

  “Truancy is often just like this. Yes?”

  “American?” Elizabeth asks.

  “My father was an American serviceman,” Knox lies, staying with the spoken Dutch.

  “Elizabeth has a picture the girl, Maja, drew in class. Perhaps you could set up for that over there,” Sonia suggests, pointing to the other side of the small room. She indicates the pen and ink watercolor on the coffee table. It shows several young girls around another piece of colorful art—a rug? One of the girls has what looks like a rope coming out from beneath her crossed legs. Sonia is right: it’s a compelling visual.

  “So this girl, Maja, attends only intermittently.” It’s a statement.

  “Yes. Just yesterday a man who identified himself as the father showed up with the intention of bringing her home. However, Maja fled out the window before he could take her.”

  “You contacted me because . . . ?”

  “Well, the artwork, of course. And the man as well. And her reaction, of course. She isn’t the only girl, I can tell you that much. But the teachers don’t talk about it amongst themselves, and there’s very little done about it, and I’m not sure why that is. But I have a niece, you see? Your article, and of course the bombing . . . if I called the police I would have no choice but to be involved. With you it is different.”

  “It most certainly is,” Sonia says, attempting to reassure her. “These other girls you refer to . . . do you have names?”

  “No.”

  “Your colleagues, then.”

  “Carefully, please. I can ask. Yes, of course.”

  “But the more names, the more sources for my story, the more credible.”

  “You do not believe me?” Her eyebrows join above her nose as she expresses her offense. She’s turned toward Knox in distrust.

  John Steele is preparing his camera by testing the flash and adjusting exposure for the close distance, using a magazine cover as his subject matter. He retrieves the artwork from the coffee table.

  “It is not that at all,” says Sonia, “merely the ways of journalism, as I’m sure you can appreciate.”

  “Yes. I see.” The woman’s anxiety has given way to vulnerability. She’s leaning forward now and on the attack. “You want me to spy for you, I suppose? You want me to put others at risk as I’ve done for myself. My principal will most certainly not tolerate my
addressing the press this way. I am not about to involve others without their consent.”

  “As I’ve already promised, you will be an unnamed source.”

  “We all know how that works out,” she says sarcastically and clearly afraid.

  Knox is incapable of remaining quiet any longer. “There is a degree of sensitivity to this story, of security risk, that we are well aware of, believe me. Ms. Pangarkar and I have no intention of seeing anyone else hurt. Least of all, the children.”

  She tightens with the word.

  “We all want the same thing,” Sonia says.

  The woman repositions her chair to include Knox, who’s firing off shots of the watercolor. “I will ask my colleagues. It is all that I can do.”

  Sonia passes her a business card. “In the short term, I would appreciate a chat with Maja’s mother.”

  “No. I do not have that information. Besides, it is impossible.”

  “I will be discreet. A good reporter is a good storyteller, Elizabeth. She will never know I started first at the school.”

  A television is playing through the wall. A teakettle sings farther away. “I will try,” Elizabeth says.

  Knox is about to warn her that should anyone come knocking on her door in the next thirty minutes, she should remain silent and avoid answering. But she’s slipped into a fragility that dictates otherwise.

  “This might seem like an odd request, but I was wondering if you might have a tennis ball I could take with me?” Uncomfortable about asking the question, Sonia does a poor job of it, making it sound too serious.

  “It’s for me actually,” Knox says. “A dog I must contend with. Better the ball than my leg.” He winces a grin.

  The woman is befuddled. “Around here somewhere, I suppose.” She calls out to her son and puts him on the task. The boy returns in short order with a bald tennis ball. Knox thanks him and pockets the ball. With Sonia looking his way, he taps his wristwatch.

  She thanks Elizabeth and manages some mindless chatter as they find their way out. As the apartment door shuts, Knox feels a profound sense of relief.

  “Tricky,” he says in English. “You were good in there.”

  “You don’t have to sound so surprised.” She adjusts her scarf to slightly below her hairline. They are nearing the stairs when she adds, “You could use a little work on your accent.”