Burned Bridges

by A. J. Stewart

  Flynn wondered if Beth was in one of the thousand apartments adjacent. He glanced up at the nearest building, spanning out in four directions like a plus sign. Even in that one building, she was a needle in a haystack. And that one building was itself just one haystack in a field of haystacks. He had narrowed down the options, but from here it got exponentially harder. To go searching would be fruitless. The best way to find a needle in a haystack was to use a metal detector. Draw them out. But to do that, he needed resources and he needed help. He could find both of those things in this big city. He just had to wait for daylight.

  Flynn wanted to stand watch all night, even if nothing happened. His gut told him that Beth was close and he should remain in place. But his head told him that nothing was going to happen tonight, and that his best move was a tactical retreat. Don’t just live to fight another day. Get some sleep and live to fight well. He pushed away from the wall and huffed out a visible breath. Then he turned down East 12th, looking for the subway.

  The driver let out a breath of his own. He realized he had been holding his air, watching the guy across the road. The guy was the only one on the street, the cold having driven even the night owls into their nooks. He had arrived on foot, with some kind of backpack, like he had been on an expedition and gotten horribly lost. The driver had watched him disappear into the dark shadows by the school, and he hadn’t seen him come out.

  When they had stopped with the girl’s phone to send their last text, they had noticed a blue bar across the top of the screen telling them that location tracking was activated. On tapping the bar, an app had opened showing that the phone was being tracked by something called Beth’s tablet, and the tablet was represented by a blue dot on a map. The map showed a close-up of lower Manhattan and the Hudson. The dot was pulsing in and out. It was in New Jersey and moving fast toward the river.

  They were ordered not to engage the man. They had been told he was good—very good. Good at what, the driver didn’t know. His information was not specific in that regard. But it was clear that the man had followed them. They turned off the phone and waited. His partner wanted to wait with him, to see if the guy actually turned up, but the driver told him to go. His partner was too twitchy for a stakeout. His constant movement might give them away, and if it didn’t, the driver knew it would eventually drive him crazy anyway. His partner wasn’t the most useful guy, but he was available and he worked cheap, and the driver didn’t have the luxury of time in putting a team together. It wasn’t Ocean’s damn eleven. So the driver stayed in the stolen minivan alone and waited. He left the engine off and the cabin grew cold, but he waited.

  And then the guy appeared. The driver couldn’t see his features at all, but there was no doubt it was him. The guy stood in the shadows for almost half an hour. Then the driver saw him venture from the shadows and turn away and head down 12th. The driver pulled out his cell phone. It was a basic burner, not a smartphone. Untraceable.

  “He’s here.”

  “What’s he doing?” asked the voice on the other end.

  “He waited a while, now he’s walking away. Down 12th.”

  “Can you follow him?”

  “No, it’s too quiet. He’ll notice the van.”

  “You need to dump the van anyway.”

  “It’s cold out,” said the driver.

  “Is that your final answer?”

  The driver sniffed and shifted in his seat. “I’m on it.”

  He got out of the minivan, leaving the keys in the ignition, and then stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets. The wind was coming in off the East River, along the canyons of buildings. The driver stepped across the empty avenue and followed along 12th Street. He kept his pace up, not running, but moving quickly to catch up. He figured it was the kind of pace a cold person might keep late at night. He walked two blocks, seeing nothing. The guy could have gone anywhere. It was a big city. The driver slowed his pace but kept walking, his mind flip-flopping the options. He didn’t see the point of chasing shadows, but he didn’t want to report in that he had lost the guy.

  He reached the halfway point between Avenue A and First Avenue. He stopped and watched the lights change at the intersection ahead. There he saw a man walking with the lights, turning north on First. A man with a pack on his back. The driver half walked, half jogged to the corner. There was some other foot traffic ahead, and he couldn’t discern the guy from anyone else, so he dropped into his brisk walk and headed north.

  He reached the intersection with 13th Street and saw people walking in each direction. He couldn’t tell whether his guy was one of them. But people tended to walk in long straight lines in the city, rather than zigzag on diagonals. So the driver guessed his guy would be headed straight up First Avenue, so he crossed to the western side of First and headed across 13th Street to get a better look across the traffic.

  First Avenue was a busier thoroughfare, and the wind swept down it and stole the feeling from the driver’s nose. He picked up his pace and reached 14th Street, crossed it and stopped outside a hot dog joint. The smell of grease and fries made the driver realize he hadn’t eaten since the previous morning, and his stomach voiced its displeasure. The hot dog joint was doing a roaring trade. Most of the stores around it were closed, but people strode along the sidewalk, preferring the well-lit and open First Avenue to the darker, tighter streets to the east. The driver looked back and surveyed the intersection. A large delivery truck drove by, pulling the cold wind along, and the driver shivered, tucking his neck down into his jacket.

  Then he saw him. Kitty-corner, outside a closed-up bagel shop. He got the briefest glimpse of a man with something on his back. He caught just a fragment of it before the man disappeared down the steps and into the subway. The driver had marched past his quarry, and he thought to run diagonally back across the intersection, but even nearing 2:00 a.m. that was foolish. He crossed back over 14th Street and then dodged the blasts of taxi horns across First and dashed down the stairs of the subway.

  The rush of air and the unmistakable clatter of accelerating carriages hit him halfway down. There was a small concourse but no ticket booth. Just a closed flower stand and the turnstiles. The driver jumped a turnstile and raced to the platform. He got there in time to see the train move away. The silver carriages yawed and groaned and gained speed, and the driver watched them disappear into the depths of the tunnel. He caught his breath and walked back, jumping the turnstile the other way. He stood outside the closed bagel store and took out his phone. He paused with his finger over the button. It wasn’t a call he wanted to make, but he did.

  “He got away.”

  There was no answer.

  “He got on the subway. It took off before I could get there.”

  There was a pause, then, “Which subway?”

  “L train. Rockaway Parkway.”

  “Brooklyn?”

  “Aha.”

  “What’s in Brooklyn?”

  “Maybe he’s looking for your thing,” said the driver. His lips were getting cold. “Your shipment.”

  “I hope so. For your sake.”

  Chapter Five

  The New York subway system was the cheapest hotel in the city. It ran 24/7 and was more secure than people gave it credit for. Flynn waited until he heard the approaching train from the street and hustled down into the First Avenue station. He had put his East Coast cards in his wallet prior to the trip, so he pulled out an MTA MetroCard and slipped through the turnstiles as the train decelerated into the platform. It was a Brooklyn train, headed for Rockaway Parkway. The carriage was empty but for one guy snoozing at the other end. Flynn dropped his pack at his feet, checked the subway map and then sat down. He looped the strap of his pack around his foot and leaned back into the seat. It was no Four Seasons, but he had slept in worse places. It was warm and dry. The bright lights didn’t stop him from grabbing a power nap, and he woke twenty-five minutes later, shortly before arriving at Broadway Junction in Brooklyn.

  He
jumped off and wandered to the A train platform for the return trip to Manhattan. The A line was the longest in the New York system at thirty-one miles and around two hours’ duration between 207th Street and Far Rockaway. From Broadway Junction, he figured he’d get a decent hour. Over the years he had developed a technique for sleeping deeply but lightly. Lots of REM, but close to the surface should trouble arise. He didn’t expect any problems. The only people likely to rouse him from his slumber were the MTA police, who occasionally wandered through the carriages. If they were bored or otherwise so inclined, they would wake people sleeping on the train to check their tickets or to stop them from doing what Flynn was doing, using the subway as a hotel.

  Sleep was a mixed blessing. His batteries were recharging, but his mind took him to places he didn't want to go. With a clear mission and actions to follow, he could control his thoughts during his waking hours. Compartmentalize. Keep focused. But in sleep he had no such control. He knew it would be so. He saw Beth. She was sitting on the grass at Crissy Field in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge. It was summer. Despite that, a cool breeze came through the gap in the coastline via the marine layer that blanketed the ocean beyond. Her blond hair was tied back under a blue ball cap. Cal in yellow script on the front. She was smiling at him, as if he were behind a video camera. She sat on a picnic rug. Red tartan. Beth blew him a kiss. The Golden Gate Bridge glowed orange behind her. Then the bridge began pulsing. Orange and yellow. Beth blew him another kiss. Then the bridge exploded in a ball of flame. Beth didn't seem to react at all. She looked at him, tilted her head, and smiled. Then she exploded. Like a bullet piercing an apple.

  Flynn woke as the carriage shuddered to a stop at its terminus at 207th Street in Harlem. He rubbed his eyes and checked his watch. It was a little before 4:00 a.m. and well before banking hours, so he left the warmth of the carriage and ventured out onto Broadway. New York might be the city that never sleeps, but some parts stay up later than others, and the sidewalks had been well and truly rolled up this far north. He walked by shuttered stores and brickwork covered in bill posters. The only place open was McDonald’s, which fit Flynn’s budget. He had only a few dollars left in his wallet and no desire to use a credit card.

  He sat on the hard plastic seat in the McDonald’s over a cup of coffee that certainly wasn’t good but wasn’t as bad as expected. He thought about his situation. He had been involved in investigating a few kidnappings in his previous life, and he knew time was the critical factor. Every passing hour saw the percentages drop for the victim. There was usually little incentive for the kidnappers to keep their hostage alive. Hostages were baggage; they slowed things down. They had voices that could yell for help. They had eyes that could see and remember and report and testify. In Flynn’s experience, there were only two reasons to keep a hostage alive: proof of life and propaganda.

  Proof of life was tenuous and could be faked. And even if it wasn’t, once the kidnappers had gotten what they wanted, the need for POL was gone, and so were the chances for the hostage. Propaganda was a different beast, an animal Flynn had more experience with. In such cases the hostage was a tool, a device to attract attention or instill fear. The time frame was still a huge factor. For propagandists, the hostage’s death was often the whole point of the exercise.

  Therein lay his dilemma. This was not a propaganda operation. It was an old-fashioned extortion. Do this thing or we’ll kill your girlfriend. But the troubling factor was the time. This wasn’t a case of extorting money that required a trip to the bank in the morning. This was bigger. This was asking Flynn to find something that he hadn’t thought about in years, something that he had hoped was lost. Something that, even if he could locate it, would take a hell of an effort to find. And time. Time that Beth didn’t have. It might take weeks or even months, if it could be found at all. And kidnappers who didn’t want to use the hostage for propaganda wouldn’t want to keep the hostage for that long. Weeks or months of food and water and risk of escape and discovery. Too much risk. The hostage would quickly become a liability. So Flynn knew the objective wasn’t to find the shipment. The objective was to find Beth. And he had a talent for finding people.

  The A line made its way down the western spine of Manhattan before cutting to the southeast near the financial district. Then it banked east and headed off the island and onward to Queens. Flynn sat over his coffee for a good long time and then took the forty-minute ride and got off on the last stop before the river.

  He walked up from the station onto Fulton. The street was busy with Wall Street workers charging to their desks like army ants. Their movements looked random, but a pattern quickly emerged. The flow favored the direction of Broadway. Flynn walked against it toward the sun rising in the distance over Brooklyn. The weak sunlight felt good on his face. Unlike the foot traffic around him, he kept a casual pace.

  He knew exactly where he was going but took a circuitous route. He let the energy of one of the world’s great cities seep into him. It didn't feel good to be back. Not under the circumstances. But it did feel energizing. He had spent time in Paris and walked its boulevards in the early morning and found it invigorating in a very different way. It was like a patchwork quilt, inspired and comfortable. New York wore a blanket that was electric. The city buzzed, even in cold autumnal light.

  Flynn turned right down Water Street, using the chill and buzz and the people to clear his head. He walked as far as Hanover Square, turned right, and then right again. Backtracked up Pearl Street. Where Water Street was a main traffic thoroughfare, Pearl was not much more than an alley. Less pedestrian traffic. Easy to spot a tail. He didn’t expect to see one, but it was time to recall old habits.

  He walked past the Killarney Rose bar and stopped where Pearl crossed Wall Street. People bustled along the sidewalk. The smell of coffee, and salt from the river. He stood before a sandstone building. Not tall by Manhattan standards. Twenty floors. The financial district was lower than most of the island. Apart from the buildings around the new World Trade Center, the Wall Street firms mostly preferred squat and strong to tall and grand. The building before Flynn had shopfront windows along its Wall Street side. On Pearl, there was a solitary entrance. Brass handles on a plain wooden door. No name. Flynn looked at his palms. He had hoped he would never be here again. Back when Colonel Laporte had told him to prepare in such a way, he had said, Hope for roses, prepare for thorns. There were no roses in this building.

  On the wall was a small, cheap-looking plastic intercom. Black with a single white button. Flynn pressed the button once. He heard a small metallic clunk. Not a buzz, not like an apartment building. He pulled the door open and stepped into the small lobby. White tile floor with yellow flecks in it. An old wooden chair with a high back and intricate carvings sat against the wall. Too wide to get through the door and too heavy for one man to lift. Opposite the entrance was a revolving door. The sort of thing one found in a fancy hotel, but very different. Black matte metal like a shotgun barrel.

  The lobby looked old and a little beyond its prime. As if a low-level accountant or third-tier lawyer worked here and paid too much for location and had nothing left for the interior. Flynn knew better. The white tile was Italian marble. The flecks in it were pure gold. And the chair had belonged to Louis XIV.

  Beside the revolving door was a small box. It looked like a speaker. It was the opposite. The box was placed at chest height and Flynn had to lean down to it.

  "My voice is my key," he said. For a moment, nothing. Then the revolving door slid open and a green light came on above it. Flynn stepped through the door. It slid closed behind him. It was a tube rather than a revolving door. The other side remained closed. For the moment Flynn was fully enclosed in glass. Bulletproof. And then some.

  The light inside the tube went red. Another small box was at hip height. It had a glass plate on top. Flynn placed his right palm on the glass. It was cool to the touch. A green LED lit up on the box. Flynn looked up. A small camera shot his face.
For a few seconds, he waited while he was watched and checked and the protocols were passed. Then the light inside turned from red to green. The door on the far side slid open. Another small lobby. Or perhaps a continuation of the previous one, divided by the secure door. Flynn walked toward two elevators. One door opened. He stepped in and waited. Twenty floors were above him.

  The elevator went down.

  The doors opened to a much larger lobby. More marble. Softened by plush fabrics on the furniture. Reds and yellows. A tapestry on the wall. Not Flynn’s area of expertise, but it looked old. Pictures of knights in armor and chain mail. A woman sat beneath the tapestry behind a dark wood desk. She was almost consumed by it. She did not look up. A man in a dark tailored suit approached.

  "Monsieur Fontaine,” said the man with a tight smile. His accent was mixed. Flynn guessed he was from Austria but had perfected his English in New England. Maybe Rhode Island. He spent a lot of money on grooming and smelled like the ground floor of a department store.

  "It is our pleasure to see you. How may we assist?"

  "I'd like to access my box, please." Flynn found his accent softening as he spoke. Hints of Belgian French.

  "Of course, sir. Follow me to the drawing room."

  The man led Flynn to another room, designed to look like a library in an old European stately home. Long velvet drapes hung from ceiling to floor. Dark-stained shelves held leather volumes. A round teak table sat in the middle of the room. Candles were lit on it, long and thin. The light was muted. It seemed to emanate from one side of the room, as if streaming through a window on a cold cloudy day in Marseilles. Flynn knew they were underground, so there were no windows, but no lighting fixtures were visible. It was a well-executed effect.