When They Come for You

by James W. Hall

  She’d arrived an hour early. Eager to see him again, to lay out the plan, nerves jittery from the extra cup of Jamaican coffee this morning. And now, the clear certainty that someone was shadowing her through the waves of airline passengers raised the pressure in her ears a few more degrees.

  Harper stopped abruptly, swung around, almost collided with a blue-suited man with a rolling suitcase. She apologized, and he replied gruffly and marched on. She stepped to the front window of a newspaper kiosk and pressed her back to the glass and scanned the flow of travelers. Not the multicultural mix you’d expect elsewhere in Europe. These were mostly white, mostly young to middle-aged, suits and tailored outfits, briefcases and Rolexes. Men on phones, women on phones.

  No one caught her eye. No one ducked away. Whoever was following her was more skilled than that. The flow continued to flow. And she rejoined it, resumed her leisurely pace, trying to hatch a plan, trying to recall some gambit from a long-ago spy film, a clever way to circle back and track the tracker, and once she had him in her sights, slide up beside him, embarrass him with some droll remark, and disarm him if necessary.

  Maybe it was only the flush of hubris, but Harper was convinced she could manhandle whomever they’d sent to tail her. Her long-dormant fighting skills were fully reactivated, and she was certainly angry enough, weary of the games, ready for a final confrontation, long past ready to blow this thing wide open.

  She used the window glass to keep a watch behind her. Still nothing caught her eye. Ahead she saw a women’s WC, sped up to a near trot, then, at the last second, cut into the entrance.

  She halted just inside the open doorway, watching the crowd stream past. Two women went by. A young couple pushing a baby stroller. A man passed. Black baseball cap, gray sweater, a briefcase. He seemed to slant his head in her direction, then kept going. A gang of Japanese businessmen came next, a red-haired family, two kids, two adults.

  No sign of a watcher. Except . . .

  She returned to the man in the gray sweater. His eyes angling ever so slightly toward her. It was nobody’s face she recognized. But those eyes. Dark and disinterested. A bland face with a slight frown, as if he were preoccupied with snaking through the crowd, avoiding the bumps and jostles of oncoming traffic. Much like anyone else.

  Except she recognized those eyes. She’d seen them before, first from the passport photos Sal had uncovered, and later she’d looked into their dark depths while jousting with him in the Albion building.

  That night, in a fleeting unguarded moment, Adrian Naff had revealed himself, appraising her with eyes that seemed toughened by too many wars in distant lands, harsh places he’d never completely left.

  It was Naff dogging her, hiding behind a facade of anonymity. Transformed into an unremarkable man, disappearing in plain sight. And if she hadn’t spent years apprenticing to Deena, studying the eyes of her photographic subjects, Harper would have fallen for his ruse.

  She swung back into the flow. There were still a dozen gates before the VIP lounge, maybe a ten-minute walk.

  She stretched taller, tried to catch sight of him above the mob of bobbing heads but saw no sign of the black baseball cap. Maybe she’d lost him. Maybe he’d aborted his mission or ducked into a concourse shop to give her time to catch up.

  Two more gates, still nothing. She was angling off into a random waiting area when she spotted the black baseball hat. It was twenty feet ahead, perched atop an aluminum waste can, an offering to any passerby. She approached it. She picked it up, briefly inspected it, then put it back.

  She found a slot in the river of people and kept pace. He must’ve known she’d spotted him, and though he might have simply discarded the hat in response, Harper had the feeling that leaving it behind was a cocky message to her. You’re in over your head, an amateur in the big leagues.

  Alert to any unusual movement around her, she continued without incident until she arrived at the VIP arrival lounge and halted at the entrance door. She was still a half hour early. If on schedule, Westfield would have landed already and started working his way through whatever passport control the rock stars of the world were subjected to.

  She looked back down the concourse, vaguely disappointed Naff had vanished.

  She stepped aside to let an elderly couple enter the smoked-glass doors and looked around for a café where she could sit and gather herself.

  Ever since strangling Spider, she’d been battling a deep disquiet. In slack, unexpected moments, she’d felt her moral certainty unraveling. Even her desire for vengeance seemed to be losing thrust. She’d spent hours second-guessing herself, recycling the same nagging complaint: killing Spider was wrong and needless.

  He might have been made to confess all he knew and simplify her quest. At the very least, she’d left a grossly untidy murder scene. A desk clerk had seen her face. Her fingerprints were everywhere. Security cameras almost certainly had recorded her coming and going. She would be caught. She would never be able to mount a respectable defense. She could barely defend her actions to herself.

  From Jamal Fakhri and the street thugs and guerillas she’d cut down in the Ivory Coast and now to Spider Combs, she’d left a trail of broken men, and the guilt was beginning to cloud her clarity of purpose.

  She spotted a café two gates down and headed that way, settling in behind a cluster of tall, young men in matching athletic gear. As she cut left across the oncoming flow of travelers, she glimpsed a figure breaking loose from the approaching crowd.

  He was a thick-bodied man wearing dark trousers, a cream leather coat, his hair hidden beneath a blue knit cap tugged low across his forehead nearly to the brim of his black framed glasses. He was striding directly toward her, shoulders wide, hands buried in the pockets of his coat.

  It was, she realized as he closed in, Ross’s blond accounting professor.

  She slipped left through a knot of teenagers blocking the entrance to the café and, once inside, scanned the space and took a sharp right to position herself behind a wide steel column. Hidden from the doorway.

  A moment later the hostess saw her and headed in her direction with an armload of menus. Behind the hostess, the back wall of the café was a floor-to-ceiling mirror, which gave her an unobstructed view of the entrance while shielding her from the entrance.

  Another customer entered the restaurant and halted. Ruger Guy pushed in behind him and, over the shorter man’s shoulder, swept the café with a glance.

  “May I seat you, madam?”

  The hostess stood nearby and smiled uneasily at this strange woman tucked behind a steel column.

  In the mirror, Harper watched as Ruger Guy’s gaze caught the hostess and read the situation. He shoved the smaller man out of his way and headed her way.

  In a quiet voice, Harper told the hostess, “Appelez la police dès maintenant.” Though she doubted the police could possibly arrive in time to intercede.

  Ruger Guy pressed against the hostess’s shoulder and hissed in German, telling her to get the hell back to work. Then he took hold of Harper’s arm and yanked her toward the door. She was about to break his grip with a windmill sweep when he prodded her in the ribs with a blade so sharp it took her breath away. With ghastly ease, the point of the blade pierced the layers of her jacket and the wool of her sweater and pricked her flesh, releasing a warm track of blood down her hip.

  “No ninja bullshit this time, understand, or I will couper votre foie en deux.”

  If there was a blade that could cut her liver in half in a single swipe, she felt certain this was it. Far sharper than the one she’d used on Jamal Fakhri.

  He walked her across the concourse, the blade’s point digging into the flesh just below her rib cage. Blocking the pain, Harper mapped out a countermove. But this time she wasn’t going to execute it too early. With her takedown of Spider still fresh in her mind, she was determined not to make that mistake again but instead to mine this moment for everything she could, even though it meant enduring the hard
sting of the knife and risking serious injury.

  “Who sent you?”

  “What?”

  “Your boss, who is it?”

  “No one. I work only for myself.”

  “Is it Lester Albion?”

  He jerked her to a stop, kept the tip needling into the meat of her waist.

  “Lester Albion is a worthless mauviette.”

  “A wimp? Unlike you, monsieur macho.”

  The crowd flowed around them, no curious looks, an orderly, impassive mob.

  “You believe you are a humorist, but there is nothing funny here.”

  “Adrian Naff?”

  He mimicked a spit.

  “Larissa Bixel, then. You work for her. Boss lady.”

  His silence lasted a second too long. Then a loose smile came to his lips, and his eyes disconnected from her and swept the far end of the concourse as if he were readying himself for the plunge of the knife.

  She slipped to the left, a simple glissade, and chopped her hand at his wrist. His grip held firm, but he was a half second late in recovery, and his knife swiped through empty air, the force of his swing bringing him forward. She landed her right fist in his throat, and he coughed hard and stumbled backward against a passing electric cart and was thrown to the ground.

  “Nice work.”

  Adrian Naff, in a yellow sweater and his reclaimed black baseball cap, stood beside her. A few feet away, the commotion with Ruger Guy was escalating as he pushed aside an elderly woman in a flowered dress, who’d stopped to offer assistance.

  “I wondered how long you’d give him before you put him down,” said Naff. “Are you hurt?”

  “Not your concern.”

  “That was a nasty-looking blade.”

  “What’s his name?”

  Naff gestured for her to follow, and he turned away and cut through the crowd, halting at the doorway of a bar. He took a longing look into the cheery atmosphere of the lounge done up in a soft golden decor.

  “An ice-cold pilsner would be good about now. You up for a drink?”

  “I want to know his name.”

  “You always this pushy?”

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “You made me, didn’t you?”

  “You’re good, but you can’t mask your eyes.”

  “I came back to see if I could help. It’s my fault this happened, the guy with the knife. I mentioned to someone that I knew where you were staying, said it was a posh hotel, but I didn’t tell them it was the Widder. They must’ve called around, figured it out, got on your trail today. That was pretty reckless, you know, not using an alias to sign in.”

  “What’s that man’s name?”

  “Okay, okay. The man with the knife was Helmut Mullen. I don’t know if that’s a pseudonym or what. I do know he’s a blackhearted bastard with dubious credentials.”

  “He works for Bixel.”

  Holding her gaze, Naff smiled at her shrewdness. “Well, yes, it’s true Ms. Bixel uses Helmut’s services from time to time. But I wouldn’t dignify the arrangement as work.”

  “Where do you fit in?”

  “Excellent question. I’ve been trying to get a fix on that myself.”

  “You said you’re supposed to kill me. Why?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me that.”

  “You still planning to try it?”

  “Sure you don’t want a drink? Have a nice, civilized discussion.”

  “I’m meeting someone.” She glanced at her watch. “I’m late already.”

  “Rain check, then.”

  “Not likely,” she said and headed into the crowd.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Mid-March, Widder Hotel, Zurich, Switzerland

  Ben Westfield’s penthouse at the Widder Hotel had a white marble fireplace, white leather couches, a Rauschenberg silk screen on the living room wall, a sumptuous white bedroom with intricate woodworking on the cabinets and around the transom windows, and a balcony that occupied the entire roof of the hotel and provided a 360-degree view of Zurich and the distant mountains.

  Sal said, “At six thousand a night, I was expecting dancing girls.”

  “They arrive after midnight,” Ben said. “You’re welcome to stay.”

  “Past my bedtime. Anyway, my dancing-girl days are long gone.”

  It was seven thirty, and the four of them had finished their in-room dining. Her appetite dulled by the knife-wound throb in her side, Harper dabbled with the cauliflower soup, then pushed it away.

  Westfield wore a skintight white turtleneck and faded jeans and scuffed-up hiking boots. He was a few inches over six feet, unbowed by age, lean with ropy muscles and the powerful hands and wiry body of a climber who masters sheer rock faces without ropes or pitons. There was a vigorous glow shining through his tan, and his noble face showed the honest weathering of a lifelong devotee of outdoor sports. His gray eyes were younger than the rest of him, with the clarity and penetrating focus of the world-class marksman he was reputed to be.

  From his earliest days, he’d no doubt been the kid picked first for every sandlot team. And today, Westfield was still the man you wanted on your side. After a round of brandy, the men settled back in the plush furniture and turned to her expectantly.

  “As I said on the phone, Ben, you’re describing a movie to them. You’re pretending you need their help with your research on cacao farming and the chocolate industry. To fill in the holes in your story.”

  “And the real purpose is?”

  “I want to look each of them in the face, see whose eyes I recognize.”

  “That’s it? That’s your plan?”

  Harper rose, walked to the fireplace, brushed her hand along the mantel.

  “I’ll explain the rest of it,” she said. “But first you need to see some of the evidence.”

  While Nick and Sal moved away to a respectful distance, Harper showed Ben Westfield the three videos, narrating as little as possible. First Yacou’s betrayal of the two aid workers, the man named Helmut Mullen bulling through the jungle foliage, the brown-haired woman slamming to the ground, throat slit. Then she played the short hostage tape with Naff, Sharp, and Spider crowded onto a bench backed by an Arabic tapestry. And last she ran the video of the final hours of the McDaniel family. She didn’t skip the scene of Ross and Harper’s lovemaking, but played it without comment straight through to the end. She watched over Ben’s shoulder as Spider entered and the masked man followed him inside and fired the fatal shots.

  When the scene was done and the laptop screen went black, Ben tipped his head back, stared up at the ceiling, then shut his eyes hard, as if trying to erase the barbarity he’d just witnessed.

  With his eyes still closed, he said, “I’ll do whatever you want.”

  He shut the laptop, rose, and walked to the fireplace. Harper glanced back at the sitting room. Either Nick or Sal had shut the door, giving the movie star and Harper a little privacy. She watched Ben Westfield as he paced in front of the fabricated fire, shadows flitting in his eyes like the tattered remains of gloomy memories.

  “Listen, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  He stopped pacing, turned to face her.

  “I know already,” she said.

  “Do you?”

  “Nick told me. You and Deena were lovers. I’m not surprised. The two of you are a lot alike.”

  “We were, yes. But there’s more.”

  He cleared his throat, and his eyes looked inward, as if searching for another way to proceed. Finally, he sighed to himself and came to sit beside her on the couch. He reached out and took her right hand and turned it over as a fortune-teller might, or a suitor about to propose.

  “Deena was always terrified of what was swimming in her veins. She meant Sal, of course, his shadowy background, the violence he committed as a boy. It frightened her that some of that might be lurking in her own bloodstream and might surface any moment. And she was scared to death she would pass on Sal�
��s tendencies to her offspring. It’s why she planned on never having a child. Warren wanted a family, but he couldn’t convince Deena. Maybe some small part of her hesitation was because of her career. She didn’t see how children fit in the life she was living. But more than that, she was frightened of what her children might become. She simply couldn’t bring herself to do it.”

  Harper looked at her upturned hand cradled in Ben Westfield’s. The unreality of the moment sent her mind hurtling off into some airless, woozy void. Deena was so indomitably secure in her beliefs it never occurred to Harper that she might have floundered over anything.

  “But when you came along,” Ben said, “she was ecstatic.”

  “Was she?”

  Westfield bent forward, lowering his eyes to the level of hers. “Nothing but the truth for you,” he said.

  “It’s easier than navigating a trail of lies.”

  He considered that for several moments, looking toward a darkened window.

  “Truth is Deena had a rough postpartum. From the very start, she loved you passionately, but it was a bewildering time for her. Ecstatic one minute, terrified the next. Poor Warren was no help.”

  His straightened, and his eyes swept the room, ticking over each piece of furniture and item of decor as if all of it had just then solidified around him.

  “When I met your mother, she’d come to Hollywood to shoot a portrait of my first wife. Margie Seybold. You’ve heard of her.”

  “Of course.” Mansfield, Monroe, Seybold.

  “Margie was the star with the big studio contract. I was a two-bit nobody in cowboy shoot-’em-ups. Margie was resolved to have a Deena Roberts photo of herself hanging alongside Mick Jagger and John Lennon and the others in some art gallery back East. For two solid weeks, Deena spent every waking hour with her, and in all that time Deena couldn’t get the shot she wanted. She said she couldn’t get Margie to reveal her true nature. I think the reason was Margie didn’t have a true nature.

  “She’d been a knockout since she was a kid, and from ten, eleven years old, she was put on display, day in, day out, and never learned to do anything but smile and pout and strike a pose. So there was nothing below the surface to reveal. During those two weeks, Deena took a couple of random shots of me, and one of them came out okay, and lo and behold, she wound up using that one in an exhibition at some trendy LA gallery.