by Andy Maslen
“Thank you so much,” he said. “You have no idea what this means to me.”
“Oh, maybe I have an inkling. You don’t love her, or why would you forget her address? But she clearly means a lot to you, if you came all this way and asked Tanya for help finding her. So I am guessing, if she’s not a friend, then given your job, she must be an enemy.”
She was watching him again. He wondered whether while her husband had been building his retail business up, Ayesha had been content to play the supportive wife, or whether she’d had a career of her own. As a detective.
“She is. Not of my employer’s. Just of mine.”
Ayesha took a sip of her old-fashioned.
“Then forgive an old woman offering a trained fighting man advice, but be careful. I heard she owns the entire building, not just the penthouse. People with that kind of money have power to go with it. Whatever you have planned, whatever wrong she’s done you, proceed with extreme caution. Now,” she checked her watch again. “It’s been ages since I had a handsome young man’s company. So I insist you take me to dinner.”
By 6.30 the following morning, Gabriel was stationed on the sidewalk opposite 1083 Fifth Avenue, wandering up and down and checking his watch as if waiting for a colleague or an Uber. He’d dressed in the suit again, figuring that on the Upper East Side, hiding in plain sight called for business attire. He carried his phone and stopped pacing every now and again, pretending to check the screen. Around him, early-rising corporate types were moving past, mainly heading downtown, the women noticeable for the pristine white sneakers on their feet, at odds with the crisp tailoring of their suits.
At no stage did he take his eye off the doorway beneath the bottle-green marquee shading the entrance to 1083. At one point near the start of his surveillance, the door opened, and his pulse jerked upwards as a woman emerged. But she was older than Ayesha Solomons and unlikely to be his target. Anything’s possible, Old Sport, a voice whispered inside his head, but he dismissed it.
Compared to some of the lurks he’d participated in – waist-deep in leech-infested South American rivers, or posing as a filth-encrusted tramp in Northern Ireland – hanging about one of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in the world dressed in expensive tailoring and handmade shoes was no hardship at all. He bought a hot dog and a coffee from a cart vendor and carried on ambling up and down the fifty or so yards of sidewalk. He was careful to keep one eye out for the two neighbourhood watchers, though he suspected they’d be at work. A girl in a white, spaghetti-strap dress came towards him, checked him out, and smiled. A slim blue tube clamped between her electric-blue lips emitted clouds of coconut-scented vapour that made him sneeze.
“Gesundheit!” she said, then laughed and walked on.
Gabriel spotted a bench just opposite the corner of Fifth Avenue and East Ninetieth Street, and he sat down for a while, crossing his right ankle over his left knee and pretending to study his phone. A beech tree cast dappled shade over his observation post and, as an added benefit, over his face.
Just after 11.00, when the tourist traffic was in full flow between him and the apartment building, he noticed the door opening. He moved to the edge of the sidewalk, facing downtown but looking out of the corner of his eye at the marquee. There! A man and a woman coming out of the door. From the glimpse he managed, the man was tall, with a muscular build, but it was the woman who was sending his spider sense into overdrive. What was it about her that was so familiar? Her face? The shape was regular, the features attractive in a generic way. No, it wasn’t her face. Something about her body language made him feel he’d seen her before. The way she placed her feet on the sidewalk, almost like a ballet dancer. Damn! Think, Wolfe. Where do you know her from? As he cursed his memory, the man turned and looked straight across the street. Gabriel turned with him, circling round a group of Japanese teenagers in the bright plumage he always associated with youngsters from East Asia. He emerged from the knot of selfie-snapping teens ten yards further down the street. Now he had an uninterrupted view of the man. And he recognised him.
Difference of Opinion
STARING just long enough to be sure before turning away for a second, Gabriel ground his teeth together. The man was Carl Mortensen. Or, as it seemed now, the hired muscle protecting a woman who in all probability was Erin Ayers. He decided to try an old trick. A clinical psychologist he’d once gone out with had been explaining a part of the brain called the reticular activating system.
“The RAS is mainly there to regulate sleep and wakefulness,” Petra had explained over dinner in Taormina in Sicily. “But it also plays a role in attention. Say you’re at a party—”
“I’m at a party,” Gabriel said, happily drunk on the local organic red wine and smiling sweetly.
“Funny. Someone calls out ‘Dave.’ Do you look round?”
“No, of course not.”
“Exactly. What if someone calls out Gabriel?”
“Then I look round.”
“And that’s your RAS, waking up and telling you something important’s happening in your immediate environment.”
He sank back behind a tour party of Midwesterners, dressed for the season in voluminous pastel shorts and tops bearing Chicago Bears logos, and called across the street.
“Erin!”
The tourists nearest to him turned round in surprise, but through a gap between their well upholstered frames, he observed something that brought forth a tight-lipped smile from the ex-Special Forces man.
The woman whipped her head round.
“Got you,” Gabriel whispered, keeping pace with the waddling tour party and his eyes fixed to Erin Ayers and her bodyguard.
Leaving the party and tagging on behind a group of businesspeople walking towards the southeast corner of the park, Gabriel watched as the woman shook her head to a question from the goon and reached into her handbag for her phone.
Moments later, a bright-red Ferrari Testarossa roared around the corner and stopped beside them with a brief squeal from the fat tyres. A young man in a pale-blue blazer – a valet, Gabriel assumed – jumped out of the driver’s seat, was rewarded with a bill, and trotted back the way he’d come.
Ayers slid into the driver’s seat, and the goon dropped his bulk, with some difficulty, into the seat to her right. With a louder squeal of tyres and a blast from the exhausts, the strake-sided sports car took off, heading downtown.
Something was seriously interfering with Gabriel’s wiring. It felt as if two parts of his brain were arguing with each other, thoughts meshing then spinning apart like a gearbox thrown into neutral.
I know you.I can’t know you.
Who are you?I know who you are.
That walk.What walk?
The car.What about it?
He returned to his bench and closed his eyes, pressing his fingertips to his forehead and frowning with the effort of remembering something that didn’t want to be remembered. With an effort, he relaxed, keeping his eyes closed and slowing his heartbeat, searching for that quiet internal space where he could access his subconscious thoughts.
“Excuse me, sir, are you all right?”
Gabriel opened his eyes. He had no idea how long he’d been sitting there.
Looking down at him, her hands on her knees, was a black police officer, a wary smile on her face. He glanced beyond her compact frame to see an NYPD cruiser pulled up, with her male partner leaning across the seats to monitor the situation.
“Yes, officer,” he read her name badge, “Harris. I must have just dozed off for a minute.”
“Oh, OK. You British?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“So, listen, strictly speaking you’re not supposed to sleep on the sidewalk. But you’re our guest, so I’m just going to suggest maybe you get some rest at your hotel.”
He nodded, stood up and turned to go, after giving her a smile and a salute. Identifying Erin Ayers would have to wait. He needed to figure out his next move. Entering the building wouldn’t be that d
ifficult, and now he had a visual on his two targets, nor would taking them out. But with Britta still missing, they were his only link to her.
What Gabriel needed more than anything was certainty.
He didn’t have long to wait.
Baiting the Trap
AYERS put her phone back in her bag. She looked at Guy, and smiled.
“That was Sasha. Torossian’s people just came through. Falskog is at the house in Ithaca.”
“Secure?”
“What do you think? The super-Swede may be ex-Special Forces, but I bet she’s never met anyone like Sasha Beck before.”
“What now, then?”
Ayers sat in one of the low leather armchairs in the living room, and pushed one of her shoes half off. She enjoyed the way Guy struggled to keep his eyes on hers, and off her legs, which she crossed at the thigh to further discomfort him. She knew all about his stupid crush on her, and it amused her to toy with this big, dumb Dutchman. She angled her right foot to one side, admiring the sheen of the emerald-green snakeskin loafer dangling from her toes.
“I’m going up to Ithaca. I want you to set up at the motel in Scranton. I’ll send him to you; you disarm him, then bring him to me. Then the fun begins.”
“I’m worried, boss. I know you say Beck is a pro hitter, but I’ve been with this guy in Kazakhstan. He’s tough. Please can’t I just do him myself? You can still kill his girlfriend. Get Sasha to video it and send it to him. You’ll still get the pleasure of knowing you’ve destroyed his life.”
“No!” Ayers’s eyes flashed with anger. “I’m going to kill him. I am! Not you, not Sasha, not anybody but me.”
“Please, boss. It’s not a job for a woman.”
At his words, Ayers sprang at him and slapped him viciously across the face. Then again, just as hard.
“Don’t you ever, EVER patronise me!” she shouted, her face just inches from his, which was now reddening from the two blows as much as the embarrassment at breaking rule number one. “Jesus! I ought to put a bullet in that thick skull of yours.”
With amazement, she realised that Guy was crying. Tears were creeping over his cheeks, magnifying the open pores each side of his nose as they rolled towards the corners of his mouth.
“I’m sorry, boss. It won’t happen again. I was just, I don’t want you to get hurt, that’s all.”
She sighed, patted his arm and returned to her chair. Oh, God, please don’t tell me I’m feeling sorry for the big ox.
“I’m sorry, Guy. For hitting you. It’s getting close now, and I suppose I might be a teensy bit tense. I’ll be careful, I promise. Now, go and get ready to receive our guest. Take the Range Rover.”
She watched as Guy left the apartment, swiping a meaty forearm across his eyes.
With Guy gone, she fetched a saddle-tan leather holdall from a closet, placed it on her bed, and began packing for her trip. As she packed, she hummed a tune – “Rule Britannia,” her father’s favourite little ditty while he was working – then began itemising the objects she was placing into the holdall.
“Jeans, check. T-shirts, check. Undies, check. Socks, check. Fleece, check. Boots, check. Washbag, check. Makeup bag check. Book, check. Walther CCP,” – she swung her right arm out and aimed the pistol’s ArmaLaser sight at a spot on the wall – “check. Fiocchi nine-millimetre rounds, check.” The last item had been a gift from an Italian countess, the great-granddaughter of a friend of Mussolini’s.
Before leaving the penthouse, Ayers sent a text to the number Sasha had provided.
From his balcony, Gabriel kept the binoculars trained on the windows of the penthouse. He could see Ayers inside, speaking to the man he’d known as Carl Mortensen. Then she jumped up from her chair and slapped him twice. Hard blows that moved the man’s head sideways both times. An argument? That could be helpful.
The man left, and Ayers disappeared into another room.
His phone rang. It was Kenneth Lao.
After the pleasantries were exchanged, Lao came to his point.
“Zhao’s will has been probated. You are now the official owner of his house, investments and property. When you can, please come to see me. I need your signature on a few documents.”
Gabriel thanked him and rang off. Shaking his head to clear the memory of Master Zhao’s bloodied body, he resumed his surveillance of the apartment building.
Ten minutes later, having seen no further sign of Ayers, his phone vibrated. Thinking it was a follow-up text from Lao, he ignored it for a few more minutes. Eventually tiring of watching an empty apartment, he swiped up the text.
His heart stuttered when he read the message and he felt that old familiar squirm of anxiety curling its way around his insides.
If you want to see your girlfriend alive, be at Liberty Motor Court, Scranton by noon tomorrow. Sound horn twice. She loses a finger for every minute you’re late. EA.
He texted back.
Need to know she’s alive.
A few seconds passed. His phone buzzed again.
You’re wasting time. Here’s a pic.
The photo showed Britta, looking tired but with that familiar hint of defiance in her gaze into the lens. She was holding up a copy of that day’s New York Times.
Welcome to Scranton
AFTER paying for a further week, Gabriel left the hotel wearing the black tactical outfit and carrying the camouflage version and all his materiel in his holdall.
He found a car rental place on Columbus and was driving away in a grey metallic Ford Taurus shortly afterwards. The car had a 3.5-litre V6 engine, so plenty of power for any kind of pursuit he might need to engage in.
Inside, he was half-elated, half-terrified. He’d worked on plenty of hostage rescues in The Regiment, and knew that despite the way moviemakers portrayed Special Forces ops, there was always a high risk that the hostage-takers would decide to cut their losses. You’d gain entry to the compound, or hotel, or office building, only to find the perpetrators long-gone and only bullet-riddled, at best, corpses remaining. Britta was alive. Probably. That meant he had a chance to save her.
As he drove down Henry Hudson Parkway heading for the George Washington Bridge, he began working the mission, beginning with how he’d do it from the enemy’s side.
“I’d pick up the rescuer at a third location. Not his and not the hostage’s. They’d be at a safe house. Take his weapons, blindfold him. Chuck him in the boot and drive him to the safe house. Torture them both in front of each other. Kill the woman. Kill the man. Exfil.”
Yes. That was definitely how he’d do it. So what’s the response? How are you going to rescue Britta and kill Ayers, Beck and the goon?
As the miles rolled under the wheels, Gabriel worked the angles. After three and a half hours’ hard driving on I-80, he pulled into a parking spot behind a single-storey, brick-built diner five miles outside Scranton. The car park was screened from the road by trees, which were just coming into leaf. He ordered coffee and a grilled cheese sandwich and ate while consulting a map he’d bought at a gas station further up the Scranton Expressway. Cross-checking with the motel’s location on his phone, he plotted a cross-country route from the diner to the motel in Scranton. This wasn’t jungle-country, just meadows, woods and tracks, so the going would be good. He saw no obvious geographical features to slow him down; an hour to reach the motel looked perfectly achievable.
He changed in the car, slithering around on the rear seats as he swapped his black tactical outfit for the camouflaged version. The knife and compass went into pockets, the first-aid kit, gollock and gloves went into the backpack, and the HK 45 he seated firmly in his belt holster. Blipping the key fob over his shoulder, he struck out eastwards, planning to tab across the intervening five or so miles of country and be at the motel by 11.30.
Forty-five minutes into the journey, which he alternately walked and jogged, he stopped at a stand of trees. He could see the tall sign of the motel, the word LIBERTY picked out in red-white-and-blue, with a
large white star above the I, stark against the sharp blue of the sky. The terrain between his position and the motel was a mixture of low scrub and more stands of trees. Excellent cover for a covert approach, even without three more members of a patrol.
The adrenaline was flowing freely in his veins as he reached the two-hundred-yard point. But this was the purposeful flow of the performance-enhancing chemical, not the stomach-churning anxiety-driver. He felt sharper than he had done for days, ready to tackle Mortensen, as he still thought of him. He circled around, crossing both carriageways of I-81, and the stone ramparts to each side, and settling into a patch of scrub.
He scanned the motel through the binoculars, noting the number of cabins extending in two wings from the office in the centre – twenty – and the layout of the parking – chevrons in front of the cabins. Half of the spaces were empty. Of the remaining ten, four held mid-sized sedans of varying makes and colours from shit-brown to the grey of his own Taurus; two had full-size sedans, a white Crown Vic and a silver Lincoln Town Car; one had a cobalt-blue metallic Corvette, an early-eighties model judging from the shark nose; one held a forest-green Ford F150 pickup with a logo for a tree surgery business; one bulged with a black Chevy Suburban, the SUV’s massive bulk casting a shadow over the Vette; and one played host to a highly polished Range Rover. In British Racing Green. A British car, in a signature British colour. Why did that make him tense his muscles?
People in the States drive Rangies, don’t they? Yes. But how many drive their £160,000 imported luxury SUVS to a crappy motor-court in Scranton, NY?
He heard Don’s voice in his head.
Which one would you choose to transport an unwilling guest, Old Sport?
