by Andy Maslen
On the way to the hotel from JFK, he’d broken his journey to buy a pair of Bushnell 10 x 42 Legend Ultra HD compact binoculars. They were good out to a thousand yards and small enough to fit in a pocket – perfect for his needs. He raised them to his eyes now and scanned the rooflines of the apartment buildings across the park from him. Each of the penthouses featured floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows. He worked his way along from left to right. In one or two, he could see people moving about inside, and on one roof terrace he even spotted a woman at the balcony. But the distance was too great to make out any facial features and besides, he didn’t know what Erin Ayers looked like.
Squinting against the sun, Gabriel added shades to his mental shopping list. His phone rang. It was Amos Peled.
“Good morning, Gabriel, how are you?”
“Good, thanks, Amos. How are you?”
“Very well, thank you. We old men must be careful not to use that question as an invitation to share every ache and pain.”
“What can I do for you?”
“It is more a question of what I can do for you. I thought you might like to know that your bearer bonds were indeed the genuine article. You are now a wealthy man. If you would like me to, I can arrange a cheque book and credit card on your account with us.”
“That would be really helpful. Yes, please.”
“Do you need funds right now?”
Gabriel thought about the credit cards in his wallet. Was Erin Ayers well connected enough to hack into his accounts? He doubted it. But why risk it?
“Could you wire me some money?”
“But of course? How much do you need?”
“Ten thousand dollars?”
“That won’t be a problem. Text me details of your bank in the UK, and I will set up a transfer to a correspondent bank in Manhattan. Now, I have other news for you too. My handler in Tel Aviv was delighted with the intelligence you provided about Das Haus der Tochter. He was also not displeased with the way you handled yourself in there. He asked me to relay this message to you.” Gabriel heard Peled clear his throat. “Mossad is grateful. We remember our friends. We are in your debt.”
Half an hour after texting his bank details to Amos, he received a text back instructing him to call in on a branch of Wells Fargo at 1156 Sixth Avenue. Having called in at the bank and collected his cash, he walked down Sixth, turned left into West Forty-Second Street, and six minutes later arrived at the Oakley store at 560 Fifth Avenue. He emerged five minutes later with a pair of M2 shooting glasses with smoked lenses and a firm grip from the black bows.
He headed back up Fifth to 611, the home of Saks Fifth Avenue, trying to ignore the noise: sirens blaring, drivers hitting their horns at people jay walking. Given more time, Gabriel would have shopped for his clothes at more distinctive outlets, searching out tailors and shirt makers in out-of-the-way streets. But time was against him.
Inside the men’s department, he picked out a petrol-blue, two-piece Paul Smith suit in lightweight wool and a plain, knitted, navy silk tie from hook + Albert. Shirts next. Normally, he’d opt for French cuffs, but the business of fastening cufflinks seemed unbelievably pointless given what was happening in his life, so he bought shirts with barrel cuffs instead. The young woman serving him, a plump African American in her twenties with deep-red lipstick and her hair tied back in a sleek pony tail, smiled at his choices.
“I like to see a man who knows what he wants,” she said. “You know, a lot of our customers – the men, I mean – they leave it to their wives or girlfriends. But the ones who come in on their own, they’re generally the ones I like serving the most.”
Gabriel smiled back at her, thinking of the irony that here he was, shopping for clothes while his future wife was God knows where.
A pair of Bally black Oxfords, black cotton Falke socks, black Paul Smith cotton briefs, and a stone waterproof coat from Engineered for Motion completed his purchases.
“That’s it?” the assistant, whose name was Lily, asked.
“I think so. Have I missed anything?”
“Well, unless you’re planning on attending the opera, I’d say you’re all set.”
At the sales desk, Gabriel proffered his credit card, and found he was holding his breath as Lily took it. The transaction went through without any alarm bells sounding or uniformed security guards grabbing him by the biceps, and he let out the air trapped in his lungs with a quiet sigh.
He had to return to the hotel to dump the new clothes. Outside again, this time heading for a couple of Army surplus outlets and one of the few gun shops he’d been able to locate in Manhattan.
The gun store – Ralph Robins Sporting Goods – was on a narrow, rundown street on the Lower East Side, sandwiched between a computer repair store and a firehouse. Gabriel glanced into the shadows and saw a handful of firefighters cleaning the big red-and-chrome truck. The windscreen strip bore the legend, “We Support U.S. Armed Forces.” The air around him was rank with the sour-sweet smell of rotting garbage.
He turned and pushed through the door, setting a brass bell jangling on its spring over the door. The place was poorly lit. Gabriel recognised the smell – a woolly, oily, musty reek that said ‘old military gear.’ Most of the floor space was taken up with circular chrome racks of camouflage jackets, combat trousers and various hoodies, fleeces and shell jackets. He threaded his way through the clothing to the counter at the back of the store.
The man standing behind the counter was overweight, balding, unshaven and had a sheen of sweat on his hairy shoulders, which were exposed by the dirty white singlet he was wearing. It inspired confidence in Gabriel. Not the “won’t rip-me-off” kind of confidence that any nervous tourist would enjoy, but confidence that he would be open to Gabriel’s proposal.
“Help you?” the man asked, leaning against the glass display case behind him, which was packed, haphazardly, with knives, torches, leather holsters and a handful of tatty-looking revolvers and pistols.
“I hope so. I need a pistol.”
“You live in New York?”
“England.”
“A Brit, huh? You know, we got the Second Amendment because of you guys?”
Gabriel smiled. “I do.”
“Well, you oughta know that to buy a gun in New York, you’re gonna need a whole buncha stuff you ain’t got. For example,” the man pushed himself away from the display case, clearly beginning to enjoy himself, “your birth certificate, and I mean your American birth certificate, and proof of residence – in New York City. You got any of that?”
“I think you can work out that I haven’t.”
“Then I think you can work out that you’re outta luck, buddy. I can do you a nice combat jacket if you wanna play soldiers.”
Gabriel leaned a little closer and lowered his voice.
“Look, I respect your position and believe me, as a former soldier, I also respect your Second Amendment rights. But I really do need a gun. Take that Ruger there. The ticket on it says a hundred and eighty dollars. Supposing I were to offer you eighteen hundred for it with a full mag. Would that alter things at all?”
The man stared at Gabriel.
Gabriel stared back, keeping a pleasant but not overly wide smile plastered onto his face.
Finally, the man looked over at the door then back at Gabriel. He spoke, quietly.
“Listen. I’m originally from New Hampshire. You know our state motto?”
Gabriel shook his head. “Tell me.”
“‘Live free or die.’ The only gun control I believe in is a safety catch and a steady hand. And I’m not even sure about the safety catch. But here’s the thing. The law’s the law. I don’t know if you’re really Lord Snooty from England or a Fed trying to entrap me, but either way, unless you got the paperwork I mentioned and about six months to kill, you ain’t walking out of here with squat. Am I making myself clear?”
Gabriel shrugged. “Crystal. Thanks for your time.”
He left the shop, hailed a c
ab and gave the driver the address of the first of the army surplus stores he’d identified.
An hour later, he was standing in his room looking down at his latest set of purchases. Two full tactical outfits – one black, one in mossy oak camouflage pattern – multi-pocketed trousers, mesh vest, T-shirts, hoodies and shell jackets. Plus: a two-inch leather belt with D-rings and trigger clips for accessories; a black, vinyl, all-purpose holster; caps; gloves; backpacks; and two pairs of SWAT-branded boots, one in sand, one all black.
The hardware would make most NYPD officers, not to mention survivalists, smile in recognition of a man who knew the importance of high-quality equipment. Whether or not he managed to source a firearm, Gabriel knew he could always rely on a knife. He’d picked out, to the store owner’s approval, a BÖKER Magnum Black Spear. The blade had a solid locking mechanism and deep finger grooves. Knife-fighting was second nature to Gabriel, and he’d probably despatched as many adversaries with blades as bullets. His second blade was a twelve-inch machete. In the SAS, they’d called them “gollocks,” after the Indonesian golok. If he went in under cover of darkness, then the 5.11 Tactical light would be his friend. A Suunto A-10 compass and a TacMed tactical first-aid kit, augmented with a more basic set of antiseptics and sticking plasters, completed his purchases.
In the SAS, he’d been taught the importance of understanding not just how every piece of kit worked, but why it worked the way it did, and what to do if it failed. Soldiers in the regular army might be happy pressing the on button or flicking the safety lever. But what if the on button or the safety failed? You didn’t just return to base and collect a new one from the stores. You were a hundred miles behind enemy lines, or sitting waist-deep in a swamp, or halfway up a mountain. No. You took apart every new piece of kit and studied how its designers had put it together. You read the manual. You played with it and tinkered with it until you knew it intimately. Then you used it. And if it failed, you found a new way to get it working. Your life, and those of your comrades, depended on it.
So now he was sitting at the desk, the second of two mugs of the hotel’s coffee cooling in front of him, unscrewing the lens cover on the tactical light, and pulling the innards out. His phone vibrated next to his left elbow and he swivelled it round to check the screen. It was a text from Eli.
How are things?
Good question. How are things? He tapped out a short reply.
Not sure. Ready to go but lots of buildings face reservoir. You?
Been stood down. Bored.
He didn’t have time for this anymore. His head was buzzing with adrenaline and caffeine. He tapped a single letter and put his phone aside.
K
He finished reassembling the torch and pushed it away. The knife would be fun to play with, but he realised what was troubling him. His so-called lead might work for a team of NYPD detectives with time, money and resources on hand, but he only had one of those three things at his disposal. He’d counted at least twenty apartment blocks on Fifth with a view across the reservoir. It would take weeks to surveil them all thoroughly, and even then, there was no guarantee he’d see Ayers. He needed to find a way to narrow it down. He turned back to his phone and called Eli.
Cocktails
“OH, it’s you,” she said. “After that last text, I thought I was getting the brush-off.”
“Sorry, Eli. I’m just, you know, time’s not on my side, and I need someone to bounce ideas off.”
“No, I’m sorry. You’re the one facing some madwoman and her paid hitter. What do you want to talk about?”
Gabriel sighed and looked up at the ceiling as he spoke.
“I have to narrow the search down. At the moment, I know she lives in a penthouse with a view of the reservoir, but it’s a big body of water. There are too many buildings.”
Eli paused before answering.
“OK, you dress up like a hobo, or a wino, or whatever they call the homeless over there, and you hang around seeing who comes and goes.”
He shook his head, even though he knew she couldn’t see him.
“Can’t you see? That’s the problem. I could dress up like Uncle Sam, but it would still leave me with too many buildings to check out. Plus up here? The cops would move me on in seconds. I’ve been out today, and everyone is in business suits or out for a day’s sightseeing.”
“Hide in plain sight, then.”
“That’s where I’ve got to. I have a suit, but that doesn’t solve the problem.”
“What about real estate agents? Go in and say you’re looking for a penthouse. You’re a British millionaire, and you fancy a pad in Manhattan.”
“Go on.”
“Hang on, I’m making this up as I go along. Right, you say you want it on one of the blocks facing the reservoir.”
“That’s between East Eighty-Fifth and East Ninety-Seventh Streets.”
“Good. So then you say you know this super-rich woman called Erin Ayers has one, and you want one like hers. They assume you know her and they’re bound to know about all the big purchases. Then you do your best Hugh Grant, floppy-fringe English accent and charm her address out of the agent.”
“That’s not bad. But what if they just clam up or don’t know her? I had another thought.”
“Uh huh.”
“I go into Tiffany’s and say I want to buy a gift for a friend. I’m new in town and forgot my address book. Does she have an account with them? I mean, she’s bound to, right? Then I just get the address off their computer.”
“More holes than a colander. She might buy her bling somewhere else. She might pay cash. They might be as tight with their customer data as the realtor.”
“Who is strictly imaginary at this stage, remember?” Gabriel said, turning the knife this way and that so the razor-sharp edge caught the sunlight, sending little flickers into his eyes.
“None of these work. Hey, try this. Do you have any friends in New York? People who read the gossip columns, go to charity balls, things like that?”
Blinking away the blue afterimages dancing on his retinas, Gabriel tried to think. But he could feel the beginnings of a headache squeezing his brain right behind his eyeballs, and his thoughts were as undisciplined as raw recruits fresh off the train.
“Nobody. Not here, anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’ve met a couple of one-percenters, but they don’t live in Manhattan.”
“Like who?”
Gabriel thought about Tiffany’s. About diamonds and precious metals. A face and a name swam into view.
“Tatyana Garin.”
“Who’s she? Russian? A spook?”
“No. She’s a businesswoman. Precious metals and diamonds, among other things. We helped each other out last year.”
“Call her. Ask her if she knows anyone in Manhattan. People like that all know each other. Different countries are like different streets to them.”
The pain behind his eyes was worsening. Gabriel thanked Eli – it was the best idea either of them had had – and hung up. He looked down at his phone, then groaned, rushed to the bathroom and threw up into the lavatory. When he’d finished retching, he splashed cold water on his face and stumbled to the bed. He set an alarm on his phone for an hour.
Why didn’t I think of this earlier? Gabriel smiled at his brother and tossed the rugby ball to him. Central Park was bathed in dusty sunlight, and their patch of grass near the reservoir was the perfect spot for some practice. Michael tossed the ball back to him, spinning it expertly so it arrowed through the twenty yards of air between them in a shallow arc. The beard suits him, Gabriel thought, as he lobbed a high pass back to Michael.
Laughing, Michael caught the ball and returned it with interest: an even higher throw.
“Drop it, Gable!” he shouted, just as Gabriel crouched under the descending ball.
He glanced sideways, just for a moment, but it was enough. The ball shot through his hands and hit the grass point-down, before reb
ounding at a sharp angle and bobbling away to a group of people who’d stopped to watch.
Conscious of the audience, Gabriel drop-kicked the ball back to Michael, aiming for the lazy but effective style his games teacher had always praised him for at school. The ball looped over a young tree and straight into Michael’s arms, who was trotting backwards, positioning himself directly beneath its flight path.
“Catch this one or the beers are on you,” Michael shouted back.
Then he took a couple of steps forward, the ball balanced on his outstretched left palm, dropped it and gave it a mighty kick that sent it high into the air, over Gabriel’s head towards the water.
Keeping his eyes fixed on the ball, Gabriel ran backwards, twisting and turning to keep it in sight as it arched over his head. A woman screamed from the crowd of onlookers.
“Look out!”
The ground disappeared from under his feet as he toppled backwards off the bank and the ice-cold water swallowed him.
Looking up, he could see the ball floating on the surface above his head. The bubbles escaping his lips shimmied up through the green water and clung momentarily to the underside of the ball before wobbling around its sides and bursting on the surface.
He kicked out, a strong swimmer, already planning how best to deflect Michael’s pisstaking when he got back to shore.
The hand that closed round his right ankle sent a searing pain through his rugby sock and into his skin. He yelled, releasing more bubbles from his wide-open mouth, and looked down.
