by J. B. Turner
Reznick signaled the waiter. He ordered another beer and a glass of wine. “You OK?”
Catherine was scrolling through messages on her cell phone. “I’ve felt better.”
The waiter served the drinks at the table.
Reznick waited until the guy was out of earshot. “What happened? Have you heard something?”
“I got a call about thirty minutes ago.”
“From who?”
“Military attaché in Madrid. British diplomat.”
Reznick recognized immediately the significance of a military expert attached to a diplomatic mission taking the lead. It showed the importance of the matter to the UK government. “Did they tell you what happened to him?”
“They—the Brits—have taken him to a secure location.”
“That’s what he said? I mean, was that the exact language he used?”
“Exact language. Secure location, that’s verbatim what he said.”
Reznick sighed and sipped his beer.
“What?”
“Your brother knows too much.”
Catherine nodded. “I know. It’s that fragment he found. It has them spooked.”
“So, did they say whether he’s still in Mallorca?”
“The military attaché said he couldn’t say.”
“Couldn’t or wouldn’t say?”
“Wouldn’t say, would be my guess.”
Reznick nodded. “I think you’re right.”
“All he said was my brother was safe.”
“I don’t want to get you worried, but that sounds ominous.”
“In what way?”
“Well, I’m operating under the assumption that the Brits and Americans are working closely on this. And I believe that the Brits are doing whatever they’re being told to do. Maybe they’ve handed your brother over to the Americans. Maybe they’re trying to find out what your brother really knows and pass it on. That’s what happens.”
Catherine picked up her glass and sipped some wine. “I reminded the attaché that under the European Convention of Human Rights, to which Spain and the United Kingdom are signatories, Article 5 guarantees the right to liberty and security.”
“Interesting.”
“In particular, I pointed out that I would be referring my brother’s case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.”
“How did he respond to that?”
“He said the Foreign Office was doing all they could to resolve, as he called it, a fiendishly complex situation.”
“He didn’t say anything about what country your brother was in?”
“Said he was being held legally within an EU country. Maybe Spain, I don’t know.”
“And that’s that? So, he’s just disappeared?”
“The military attaché assured me he was safe.”
“How does he know that?”
Catherine shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“What’s the attaché’s name?”
“Gerald Essenden.”
Reznick made a mental note. “You believe him?”
“Essenden?”
Reznick nodded.
“Maybe. The only problem is, I have to take him at his word.”
“They’re jumpy, knowing your brother knows something about what happened.”
“The problem is, so do we. Which means we might also get the same treatment.”
Reznick sighed, only too aware that they already knew too much. “There’s more to this than meets the eye. Way more.”
“More than an Islamist link?”
Reznick nodded. He hadn’t told her about the man who had broken into his hotel room or the mysterious American doctor who bore a striking resemblance. “The whole thing just feels off, you know what I mean?”
“You have no idea how off,” she said.
“I’m sorry, what do you mean? Do you mean what’s happened so far?”
Catherine shook her head. “I’m referring to what happened in the middle of the night.”
“What was that?”
“I got a call from a number I didn’t recognize. Which freaks me out, now that I think about it. Anyway, a man told me I needed to take great care. And that I really needed to go home and keep it all quiet.”
“Shit.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“So . . . what was it? A veiled threat?”
“More or less. But I don’t scare easily.”
Reznick grimaced. “Catherine, listen to me. I admire your spirit. But this isn’t a game.”
“I’m well aware of that.”
“My friend has been blown up. Your brother has been taken into custody, and we don’t know where he’s being held. Do I need to spell it out for you? You need to pay attention.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“This isn’t going to end well. I might be wrong, but we’re in the middle of a cover-up. This is a murky game. A game of mirrors, where nothing is what it seems. What is real, what is unreal? You might want to think about that.”
“Are you seriously telling me to get out of here?”
“That’s precisely what I’m saying.”
“What about my brother?”
“Your brother can look after himself. Besides, I doubt this is the end of it. Not by a long shot.”
Catherine gulped down her wine. “Do you think I should take the threat seriously?”
“You absolutely should. How did someone get your number? Who was it? Also, what kind of accent did he have?”
“American, I believe.”
Reznick wondered if it was the State Department guy who had threatened him in the bar and warned him to leave the island. “Heed the advice. Get out of here. Go home. Whatever is happening here will not end well. You don’t want to be around for that.”
Catherine was quiet for a few moments, as if contemplating her situation and that of her brother.
“Tell me, the British guy you spoke to, the diplomat who seemed to know about your brother?”
“Essenden. Gerald Essenden.”
“Yeah. Are you sure he is who he says he is?”
Catherine nodded. “I checked.”
Reznick made a mental note. “Do you know what a military attaché is?”
“He advises on military matters, I’m guessing, or security issues?”
“Exactly. They’re invariably senior military officers, sometimes with an intelligence background. So they’re aware of espionage, counterespionage, surveillance, terrorism, all those things that their government is involved in.”
“And he’ll be my link between Spain and the UK?”
“Spanish military intelligence and UK security services. He might be MI6. That wouldn’t be disclosed. But he’s clearly here to gather up whatever intelligence he can, liaise with the Spanish and also, crucially, with the Americans.”
“You believe this attaché knows more?”
“Way, way more than he’s letting on.”
“With regards to my brother?”
“With regards to your brother and the people on the yacht. With regards to everything. He’ll know the big picture. He might even know who threatened you.”
Catherine sighed. “Look, for what it’s worth, I’ve got a meeting with the attaché tomorrow morning in Palma. He’s hoping to have an update for me. And once I get that, maybe I’ll heed your advice and return to Scotland.”
Reznick nodded. “Let me know how it goes before you leave Mallorca. Maybe call me when you’re at the airport. The attaché knows far more than he’s letting on. And I want to know what.”
Nineteen
Reznick was floating in a sea of darkness. He felt the water on his skin, endless black sky above. Not a star in the sky. Not one. The sound of whispered voices carried on the wind. He detected an ominous tone. He sensed someone was speaking to him. Talking to him. Maybe they were close. Maybe he was alone. Like in a fevered dream. Dark whispers. Foreboding. He thought he could discern Martha’s voice. In the dista
nce, carrying on the breeze.
He awoke, bolt upright, bathed in a cold sweat.
Reznick was breathing hard, heart pounding fast. He took a few moments to get his bearings. It was only a nightmare. The kind he had experienced a thousand times before. Malarial dreams. Torment. The sense he was suffocating.
He reached over and checked his watch on his bedside table. The luminous dial showed it was only four thirty. Still dark. But not long till dawn.
Reznick sat up on the edge of the bed, head in hands. A waking nightmare. No end in sight. His mind was still coming to as he sat in silence. The loss was unbearable. He thought of his father on the day his mother passed away. His blue eyes, haunted at the best of times by ghosts of Vietnam, booze, and having seen too much suffering, seemed frozen, as if knowing things would never be the same. And the thing was, things never were the same. His father, a man he revered, seemed to have an air of resignation about him from that day on. A little bit of his father had died, too, that day. As the doctor arrived to tell him the time of death, as they took her body from the house, a terrifying sadness crossed his face, as if her passing was worse than anything he had witnessed. Reznick saw it. But to a casual observer, his father merely looked stoic.
And he was. Even the day after his wife was buried, Reznick’s father got himself dressed, still stinking of booze, and went to work at a place he loathed, the sardine packing plant in Rockland. He didn’t moan. He just endured. He was a workingman till the day he died.
Reznick snapped out of his morbid introspection and got up from the bed. He went to the bathroom, took a piss. Then washed his hands before splashing cold water on his face to wake himself up.
He went back to the bedroom and pulled out his running gear: a Dri-FIT running top, shorts, and socks. He laced up his old sneakers, took a bottle of chilled spring water from the minibar, checking the seal carefully. Then he drank it in one gulp.
It was still dark when he walked out of the hotel. He crossed the street and stood on the sidewalk overlooking the small sandy beach, Cala Molins. Waves crashed off the cliffs, and the moon bathed the water in a ghostly white glow.
Reznick breathed in the salty air as he gathered his thoughts. He thought of Martha and all she meant to him. He thought also of what Catherine had said about the threatening phone call she had received, warning her to leave. He pondered that as he began some stretching exercises for a few minutes. He felt as if he was getting drawn deeper into a murky shadow world. A world he knew all too well. A world he had long inhabited. But a world that was conspiring to conceal what had really happened.
He felt a strong temptation to head back home. Get back to Rockland. Stare out over Penobscot Bay, lost in his thoughts. But he knew that deep down he wasn’t going to back off, even if he wanted to. It wasn’t in his nature. Semper fidelis. The motto of the US Marines he always carried in his soul. Engrained in his very being. It meant always faithful, always loyal. He was loyal. He was dutiful. He would see this through.
Reznick sighed long and hard. He needed to clear his head. He ran down the sidewalk, which snaked its way around a road that fringed the beachside town. Higher and higher, sweat already sticking to his shirt. On and on he ran, the humidity eased slightly by a gentle offshore breeze.
Reznick’s arms were pumping hard as he ran faster. Harder. Past hotels, an early-morning bakery with its lights on, a Civil Guard cruiser, two cops watching his every move while drinking bottles of water. He jogged on, feeling himself getting stronger. He felt his head beginning to clear. He was thinking clearer. The endorphins were kicking in.
He pressed on until he hit the edge of the town, along a dusty road that led to Puerto Pollensa. Then he turned left and headed down an even narrower road as he doubled back through a sleepy part of town. Past isolated villas with imposing old wooden doors with state-of-the-art video entry phones. Past more modest houses. And then past an occasional bar and restaurant until he was back to the seafront.
It had taken him nearly an hour.
Reznick jumped down onto the sandy beach and walked to the water’s edge. He sat down in the soft, warm sand and gazed out over the dark waters lapping at the shore. He felt better now. More centered.
He listened to the waves. Their hypnotic quality. He closed his eyes, listening to his breathing, his beating heart. He sat for what seemed like an eternity, cloaked in the predawn darkness, wondering what lay ahead that day.
The sun was peeking over the horizon as Reznick sat on his room’s terrace, enjoying an early breakfast of scrambled eggs, buttered toast, orange juice, and a cup of black coffee with a couple of Dexedrine, when his cell phone began to vibrate on the table.
Reznick answered. “Yeah, Jon speaking.”
“Hope you don’t mind me calling you so early,” Catherine McCafferty said.
Reznick detected a note of tension in her voice. “You OK?”
“I’m on the road to Palma. I think—I think someone is following me.”
Reznick’s blood ran cold. “Listen to me,” he said. “Don’t panic.”
“He’s still there.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. It’s a Nissan pickup; I can’t make out the driver. But I’m scared.”
“Can you slow down?”
“That’s just the thing.” Her voice cracked, a sign of acute stress. “Every time I tap the brakes to slow down to get off the road, the RPMs rise. It’s like I’m not in control.”
Reznick’s heart sank. He understood exactly what was happening. “Can you pull on the hand brake?”
“Tried. And it failed. It’s like I can’t control it. It’s like the car’s got a mind of its own.”
“Can you carefully veer into a ditch?”
“I’ve tried that. I don’t think I’m controlling the vehicle. Jon, I’m really freaking out. It’s like it’s been hijacked by someone else remotely.”
Reznick’s mind was racing. He left the terrace, locked up his room, and strode out of the hotel. “What speed are you doing?”
“Sixty-five. I can’t slow down. I can’t jump out or I’m dead.”
“Catherine, I am on my way. I’ve got a GPS fix on your location. Stay on the line.”
“Jon, please, I don’t know what to do.”
Reznick headed across the street to the bar by the beach.
“Jon, are you still there?”
Reznick spotted the owner clearing a table and quickly explained the situation. He gave the guy one hundred euros and borrowed his Ducati. “I’m on my way. Do you copy that?”
“Yes, I do, Jon. I’m very scared. I don’t like this.”
Reznick put on the helmet. “I will get there as soon as I can. I promise you.”
“Don’t be long. I’m scared, Jon. It seems to be getting faster. I’m doing seventy-five now, but I haven’t touched the accelerator.”
Reznick ended the call and burned rubber on the way out of town. He negotiated a few winding roads before he hit the highway that led to Palma. He thought about calling the police, warning them about a runaway car. But whoever had rigged Catherine’s vehicle—probably whoever was following her in the pickup—might choose to do something drastic in response.
He opened up the throttle to the max and hurtled down the freeway, a terrible sense of foreboding washing over him.
The minutes seemed like hours as Reznick sped down the highway, hoping and praying he would get there in time to help. But only a few minutes later, he spotted the flashing lights of fire trucks and police cars visible on the horizon. A sense of dread enveloped him as he snaked through the gridlocked traffic until he reached the crash scene.
Reznick flipped up his visor. Ahead of him was the mangled, smoking wreckage of the car Catherine McCafferty had been driving.
He got off the bike and ran to the scene. “Señor,” he said to a fireman, “she was a friend of mine.”
The guy shook his head. “It’s too late. She was badly burned by the time we got here.”
/> Reznick stared at the smoking, twisted metal. “Where is her body?”
“She is in an ambulance. Taken to the hospital morgue. I’m sorry. She’s dead.”
Reznick’s mind was racing, a rage building up within him, ready to explode. “Did she have ID on her?”
The firefighter nodded. “British. She had her passport on her.” He patted Reznick on the back. “I’m so sorry, señor.”
Twenty
Reznick stood by the side of the road, head bowed, as he contemplated the terrible chain of events. “Motherfucker!”
The firefighter nodded as if he understood Reznick’s grief.
Reznick turned and stared at the blackened, mangled car, the smell of gasoline and burnt metal filling the air. He thought back to Catherine McCafferty’s call only a short while earlier. A Nissan pickup had been following her. At least she thought it was following her. And she was struggling to control the steering. He knew what that pointed to. He knew exactly what had happened. It was a Boston Brakes job. An assassination technique believed to have been pioneered by the CIA. It involved planting an electronic device in the target car, which could then be remotely controlled by a following car. It was known to be used by governments. But it was also a technique that Special Forces operatives could master, given training.
“Señor?”
Reznick looked at the backed-up traffic as dawn broke across the Palma expressway. The Nissan pickup was long gone. He was tempted to ride into Palma to speak to the diplomat Catherine McCafferty was set to meet. But after a few short moments, he let that slide. Instead, another idea had already begun to form in his head.
He knew that a knee-jerk reaction wasn’t the smart move. The smart move was to take the time to get the response right. A gut reaction might compound the problem. He needed to slow down and try and figure out his next steps.
“Señor, do you need medical treatment?”
Reznick shook his head. He walked over to the motorcycle, turned it around, and turned the key in the ignition. He accelerated fast past the gridlocked traffic on the freeway as he headed back to Cala San Vicente.
Think, goddamn it, think.
Reznick’s mind was swirling with ideas. Overloaded with a thirst for revenge. But he knew from his training and experience that a measured response was needed. He needed space to fully process what had happened. The easiest thing in the world would have been to lash out. But the smart thing to do was to strategize. To figure out what he should do next.
