The Last Minute

by Jeff Abbott

  Who was this guy? he wondered. He kept using my name. Like it was a point of pride that he knew it. He said I was a nice guy. Have I met him before? I thought I knew the voice. But now he wasn’t sure.

  Sam Capra might be paranoid about how deeply the criminal network’s claws reached into the government, but August Holdwine was not.

  He dialed his boss’s number. He had to report the offer. But he knew what the bureaucratic response would be. Why pay off an informant when you could fold him under your wing and keep him shuttered up until he was ready to talk for free?

  11

  Miami, Florida

  FOURTEEN MINUTES AND THIRTY-SEVEN SECONDS after August Holdwine said the phrase Novem Soles into his phone a text message appeared on another smart phone’s screen. Outside of intra-Company communications, there had been no mention of the phrase in the government’s phone and email monitoring database for weeks, since Sam Capra made his one and only statement for the CIA. The public did not know the phrase.

  A large percentage of the world’s communications were vacuumed into the data tanks of the National Security Agency, to be studied and filtered. In the never-ending torrent of words, Novem Soles was a distinct outlier. Novem Soles were two words so unusual, so unmistakable, that the small bit of software hidden on the servers was able to find, within a few hours, any mention of the phrase and identify the sender and the recipient and provide a text transcript of the conversation during which the magic words were uttered. This transcript was sent to one man’s cell phone; he knew then, any time, when anyone in the United States was discussing Novem Soles.

  It was, as the Watcher put it to his peers, an eye that never blinks.

  The Watcher stepped out from the thrum of a restaurant on South Beach, a place that supposedly provided the best gourmet breakfast in Miami, but the Watcher was unimpressed. He knew he could have done a better job in running it and he’d thought of buying it; how nice it would be to run a restaurant and have a simpler job. It was a cloudy, rainy day and in the morning haze he studied the readout: it was the transcript of the entire call from the Langley office to August Holdwine. Someone had information on Novem Soles to sell, someone who had called from an Amsterdam number, and had called the Central Intelligence Agency with an offer.

  He felt a jolt of nervous energy ride along his bones.

  The Watcher closed the phone. He thought: Sam Capra, now. As soon as he had it rang again. He studied the phone log and answered.

  “Bonjour,” a woman’s voice said. “We have a problem.”

  12

  Greenwich Village, New York City

  RICARDO BRAUN DIDN’T RETURN FROM LANGLEY to New York until mid-afternoon. The study in the Special Projects office smelled of fine cigars and exquisite coffee. August felt he should decline the coffee; he felt jittery enough. But you did not often say no to a legend, and Braun was a legend. So August sat down in a heavy leather armchair, a fragrant Brazilian brew steaming from his cup. He had only been to the study once before; Ricardo Braun was an early retiree from the CIA who’d come back into the fold a few weeks earlier when Special Projects needed mature, steady guidance after the disasters of the past few months. He made August feel like an ox; Braun was a spare, sleek man, bald, with a strong runner’s build, in his late fifties, with gray eyes and an air of unfailing confidence. He wore black slacks and a crisp white shirt. He had what appeared to August to be the world’s most elaborate coffee machine and he turned from it now, holding a thick mug of a brew that smelled amazingly rich, a curl of steam snaking from the porcelain.

  “What do you want me to do?” August asked.

  “Well, write the informant a check, of course,” Braun said. “Am I supposed to do all the thinking?”

  August realized it was a joke so he ventured a smile. “Above my pay grade. But not yours.”

  Ricardo Braun said, “We’re not paying this guy ten million dollars. Not someone who isn’t willing to come in. Not someone who wants to hand us off what might be worthless information and vanish before we can confirm it.” He sipped at his coffee.

  “He can’t vanish, he said he wanted protection from us.”

  “Exactly what I’d say if I planned to vanish.” Braun arched an eyebrow.

  “He can’t think he can hide from us.”

  “Novem Soles certainly has hidden themselves well. What do we truly know about them? Nothing. Dead ends and nowheres.” Braun looked at the coffee in his cup but didn’t taste it.

  “Do I open a case file?” Special Projects operated by a unique set of rules, free from CIA bureaucracy. But records still had to be maintained, for the branch’s own reference. Special Projects could access and use Company databases, but it was not a two-way street. The branch had its own computer network, its own protocols for accessing information from police and corporate databases; some were illegal. It was this willingness to bend the rules that put Special Projects apart from the regular operations of the CIA.

  “Yes. Do. But we don’t report anything yet to the Company.” He got up and walked to the reinforced glass in the study. “We know this group penetrated the Company once already, more than once, through bribery. Well, not on my watch. I didn’t give up daily rounds of golf and marlin fishing to come back and fail.” He turned back with a stern stare at August. “We are not alerting any other traitors who are looking for a mention of Novem Soles in an email or a report or a conversation. I want this off the books, for now. Find this informant, bring him in, and we’ll see what he’s got.” Braun paused. “Did you get anywhere with Capra?”

  “He spotted our shadows, took out one who got too close, and then bought me a martini at a bar he now owns, over by Bryant Park. Called The Last Minute.”

  Braun smiled. “A bar. If I wasn’t so irritated with him I think I might get to like him.”

  “He won’t give any information on this Mila woman and he claims not to know anything more about Novem Soles. I get the sense he’s moved on with his life, well past us. He’s a businessman now, he’s wanting out of the game.”

  “And his kid?”

  “No news. So he says.”

  “I don’t believe he’s sitting around doing nothing,” Braun said. “You don’t twiddle your thumbs if there’s a chance of finding your kid.”

  August picked up his mug and tasted the rich brew within. The best coffee ever. It was so rich and perfectly roasted his tongue nearly went into shock. Braun gave him a smile.

  This is a guy, August thought, who appreciates caring for every detail.

  August knew Braun had read Sam’s file. “He may have run into the same walls we have.”

  “Could your informant know anything about the Capra baby?”

  “I have no idea. I did not ask.” Guilt surged up through his chest. “The conversation didn’t lend itself to detailed questioning.”

  “That child could be used as leverage.”

  “Only to a point. Sam wouldn’t act against us if ordered. He would tell us of any demand made against him for his child’s safety.”

  Braun raised an eyebrow. “Does your father love you, August?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Would he kill to save you, if push came to shove?”

  August said, “If I’m being honest, yes, my dad would.”

  “Sam might cut your throat to save his kid. Get the meeting. But be very careful.” Braun fixed him with a look. “Langley says this informant asked for you. That means he must know you’re running the task force. This could be a meeting just to kill you, or grab you to see what you know.”

  “You’ve made me eager to get back to work.” August stood. “Can I ask you something? It came up in talking with Sam.”

  “Yes?”

  “This Mila woman.” He slid the picture over to Braun. “She was with Sam again last night. We lost her.”

  Braun studied the picture. “I told you before, I don’t recognize her. I was out of the field for several years, though.”

  “W
e picked up some chatter. There is, and has been for the past three years, a million-dollar bounty on her head.”

  “I’ve never heard of a bounty that high funded by a crime ring. How on earth has she survived three years?”

  “Very good or very lucky.”

  “Maybe no one’s gotten close to finding her.” Braun studied the photo again. “She looks like an elf. Seriously, put pointed ears on her and she’d be the perfect Santa Claus line monitor at Christmas. This big a bounty, and no one even knows who she is? Incredible. Where was this chatter?”

  “It’s come up on a few discussion forums—usually of extremists looking for funding.”

  “Who posted the bounty?”

  “It leads to a Gmail account that’s never been accessed. Or, I should say, has only been accessed by a non-traceable computer.”

  “Are the details in your report?”

  “Yes, I’ll write it up for you tonight.”

  Braun handed him back the photo. “Make it happen, August. Get us this informant. Get us this woman.”

  Or, August thought sourly, get another job.

  The internet café was near the NYU campus. He walked there an hour after August left; he did not wish to use a CIA-owned computer. He also wanted to finish the exquisite pot of coffee he’d made. Ricardo Braun went inside and ordered a decaf with little hope that it would match his palate’s demands and sat at an internet terminal situated far from any other patrons. He opened an email account he had established six years before and that he only checked very infrequently. It was a hidey-hole for him on the web, and he remembered a message he’d seen two years ago. There were only a couple of dozen messages in the account, all old, but kept squirreled away for when they could be useful. Requests for information. Offers of payment. CIA pensions were not what they should be, and, although he’d had family money, Braun felt that more cash was never to be turned down. As long as his small, creative side jobs did not hurt the country he loved, he saw nothing wrong with it. He was simply careful to clean it through investments; the CIA did watch the incomes of its former agents.

  The message had held a picture of the woman called Mila. He’d seen her face then for the first time. That fine, elfin face.

  He checked the photo stashed in the email address. It might well be the same woman. The cut of her hair was different but the bones were the same in her cheeks, the turn of the mouth, the sharp, haunted eyes. Mila. The photo of her was one with a gun in her hand, wearing a leather jacket and leather pants, glancing about a room. The sort of photo that looked like it had been lifted from a private security camera.

  He reread the message. Text to 45899 to get details on job. High dollar. He wondered if the job was still open. He texted, on a phone that the CIA did not know that he owned.

  He got an autoresponse, directing him to a private website, providing him with a password.

  Braun jumped to the site. Its URL was a wild mix of numbers and letters, not the kind of site that someone would ever accidentally stumble upon. He entered the password.

  The site opened. It showed more pictures of Mila, shot from the same camera. And the text, in five different languages: $1 MILLION US FOR THIS BITCH. I WANT HER ALIVE. Braun stared. This was the gold standard of contracts. A million dollars was usually a sum reserved for leaders of state, heads of organizations. Braun himself had spent CIA dollars to kill a Rwandan warlord for Special Projects for a hundred thousand. A drug kingpin in Ecuador for twice that amount. Braun had his own address book he could call upon when regular CIA personnel were not an option.

  Who was this woman and who had the deep pockets? He glanced at the last update: a month ago, a single message. Contract is still open. An email address, another blind one.

  He sent an email: Is contract still open? I have a lead on an associate of hers but I need to know I’m dealing with someone who can guarantee payment.

  He closed the email account, the website. He erased the browser history. He left the internet café and went and ate lunch, standing up in a narrow student-geared pizza joint, chewing on a thick slice, drinking a Coke.

  A million dollars. The terms of the reward preferred that she be alive. That complicated things.

  Braun ate his lonely pizza, then walked home and sat in his leather chair, and thought about Novem Soles, and Mila, and how he could collect that million dollars.

  13

  Las Vegas

  IT’S NOT EVERY DAY THAT YOU a) inspect a new business you own, and b) make plans to meet a kidnapper there. Happy partiers filled The Canyon Bar, escaping the tourist-swollen casino hot spots, searching for revelry and the next place you wanted to be seen.

  I was planning how to capture a woman who’d stolen my child.

  The Canyon was not a tourist trap bar like so much of the Vegas nightlife scene. I’d noticed in the first hour there this evening that the servers and bartenders were extremely capable; attentive, engaging, focused. Of course, when I’d come around and introduced myself to the staff they might all have switched to best behavior, but you can’t hide sloppiness in the running of a first-class drinking establishment.

  I’d seen one server gently talk an indecisive customer out of ordering a chocolate martini and into a handcrafted Old-Fashioned: a real drink for a real person. The décor was high-dollar: carefully sculpted beams of wood undulated along the curving walls, the tables were of polished granite, the chairs covered with faux rare animal hides. The Canyon was a destination bar for those too cool for the Strip or who wanted a break from the casino nights and the nerve-numbing rattle of slots, dice, and chips. The crowd was youngish, a mix of more daring visitors and well-heeled locals. There was a dance floor, small, and the DJ was mashing classic Massive Attack with the latest hip-hop star’s wordplay and drumbeat.

  I watched all this from the security cameras mounted in my office on the second floor of the bar.

  I scanned the crowd. I knew Anna’s face, from the security photo and the passport photo we’d acquired: tall, dark hair, a beauty mark near the curve of her mouth. But those were elements easily changed. I didn’t see anyone who fit her description in the crowded club.

  But I did see a face I knew, apparently a recent arrival. There she was, Mila, sitting at a back table, her hair dyed auburn now (or wearing a good wig), flirting with some thick-shouldered guy who wore a well-tailored gray pinstripe suit. His face was familiar, and that worried me until I recognized him—a guy who once played tight end for the New York Giants. Dude probably thought he was about to get Vegas-lucky. Mila wowed him with a champagne-fueled smile, although the wine in her flute appeared to be untouched. His was empty. He refilled and guzzled his twice while I watched. I guessed she was conducting her own surveillance, observing every face that came and left the bar. She had to be careful, now that the Company had resumed its interest in me.

  I went downstairs to a corner booth that I’d reserved for myself. I wore my hosting clothes: a pinstripe suit, a white shirt, a gray-silver tie. In your own bar, you have to look better than a lawyer. Sharper. And the jacket hid my Browning pistol and my slacks hid my knife, strapped to my calf.

  Mila got up, whispering something that was (I am sure) most promising to her male camouflage, but came over and sat at my table.

  “I understand I am to be your wife. Every time I play this role, there is trouble.”

  She’d taken a later flight than me—best if we didn’t travel together. She flew under an assumed name. But no one tailed me at the Vegas airport; I made sure.

  “I like the auburn,” I said.

  “Thank you.”

  I could see the Giants ex glaring at me, waiting for her return. “Why did you sit with him?”

  “I generally ignore your American football. I thought maybe he was a bodyguard for Anna. I have talked to all the large, muscular men here.” She surveyed the crowd. “Thin pickings. She might send a woman.”

  “You don’t have to work the crowd for long. We just need to get Anna up in the off
ice, then we force her to tell us where my son is.”

  “Simple,” Mila said.

  “I see no reason for this to be complicated.”

  “You are always such an optimist.” Mila crossed her legs, inspected her fingernails. “This woman, Anna Tremaine, she tells you the name of the couple who bought your baby. Great. What do you do with her then? Lock her upstairs for a few days while we go collect your son?”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “You will have to kill her, Sam.”

  “Your bloodthirstiness is really not appealing.”

  “Truth is often very ugly, like the orange dress of that woman at the bar,” Mila said. “An upstairs office is not built to keep a hostage for the long term. And you can’t let her go. She will warn whoever bought Daniel so they can run.”

  “You have Mr. Bell stashed away back in New York.”

  “No. Mr. Bell’s very small brain has been plucked. He is back with his family, and now he is in our pocket when we need him. He is a puppet on the string for me.”

  “He knows we killed two men.”

  “Yes, so he wants to stay on my good side.”

  I let the sounds of the party rise and fall around us. “I have a plan.”

  “I am eager to hear this brilliant strategy.”

  “I’ll hand Anna over to the CIA. She can tell them all about her employers.” It was certainly better than handing Mila over to them.

  Mila seemed to sense the direction of my thoughts.

  “What would you do to get your son back?”

  “Anything.”

  “Anything covers so much.” She glanced across the bar at her neglected conquest. “Oh, your American football player, I left him uncomfortable with anticipation. He does have a nice thick neck, though. I like a thick neck. Nice to hang on to.”

  “That neck is not supporting a large brain.”

  “Ha, brains.” Mila gave me a sideways glance. “Brains do not matter so much as heart, Sam.” She pounded her chest with her little fist.