The Last Minute

by Jeff Abbott

  Then I took the rental and swung by my bar, The Last Minute. I looked like a wreck going in and Bertrand raised an eyebrow at me. I went straight upstairs. There was an apartment up there but I didn’t dare bring Leonie to it. She already knew I owned The Canyon in Las Vegas but she didn’t need to know more of my business. And I didn’t need Mila knowing what I was doing.

  But when I opened the door, there Mila was. Sitting at the computer, a neat Glenfiddich at her elbow.

  She was typing something. She looked up at me and wiped her hand back across her eyes.

  Seeing Mila cry? Never in my lifetime, I thought. But I actually hadn’t seen a tear.

  “You look like hell,” she said.

  “I know. Are you okay?”

  “Fine. What’s going on?”

  “I need some gear.”

  “What are you doing, Sam?”

  “I am getting my son back. I need you not to ask questions, okay.”

  She stared at me. It was weird to have Mila stare at me. She knew so much about me, and I knew so little about her.

  “But you asked me a question. I get to ask back,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You wanted to know why there is such a high price on my head. I am writing you my detailed answer.”

  “You’re not exactly the essayist type.” Mila was a woman of few words.

  “Please know I won awards for my essays in school.” She put her fingers back on the keyboard but kept her stare locked on me.

  “So, in Moldova, a school prize is probably a goat?”

  “Not always. Once I won a copy of A Wrinkle in Time. The message of the book stayed with me. Never give up against darkness.”

  “And love conquers all.”

  “Yes, Samuil. Love conquers all. Or at least it tries.” Now she looked back at the screen.

  “And when do I get to read your true confessions?”

  “I am sure publishers will fight to the death, gladiator-style, for my story. But you can read it first. And when you tell me what you’re doing and how I can help you.”

  “Help me by staying out of this.” I went into the storage closet. I put two pairs of binoculars, a pair of small flashlights, and a Glock in my bag. I selected a Beretta for Leonie, for her protection. Picked out rounds of ammunition. I packed a Burberry Prorsum suit I’d liked, shirt, tie, and shoes to go with it. I might have to play a part to lure Jack close.

  Mila stood in the doorway. “You don’t have to fight your war alone.”

  “I’m not alone.”

  “Why reject my help?”

  “Because you are in danger. Stay out of this. Get out of New York, Mila, now.”

  “I do not worry about muggers.”

  “I’m serious. I killed a man tonight who specifically wanted to find you, wanted me to give you to him, and he has a boss who wants you. Someone in the CIA.”

  She made a dismissive wave. “They want me for questioning.”

  “I don’t think that’s it at all. I think someone’s after the bounty on you.”

  “Then for my own safety,” she coughed, “I should stick with you. Help you. We will take the fight to them together.”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you want this informant alive. The guy who could give you Novem Soles.”

  “Of course he could give us Novem Soles. And maybe he in turn could give me the guy who posted the bounty,” she said.

  I let her words settle. “Novem Soles has posted the reward for you.”

  She nodded. “One of them is behind it, yes. If I can kill the man who wants me dead, no one will fund his revenge. They won’t care. This is his private vendetta.”

  “Then why hasn’t this guy in Novem Soles asked me for you in exchange for my son?”

  “They don’t know we know each other,” she said. “No one who could tell them that is still alive.” She paused. “Except August, and whoever he has told inside the CIA.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She was quiet for a long moment. “Because you have to kill the informant. For your son.”

  “The informant may know nothing about how to find the man who wants you dead.”

  She shrugged. “You pick up a thread, unwind it, it can pull apart the entire blanket. My aunt always says so and she is right.”

  “Who wants you dead?”

  “He is a man called Zviman. He hides from me like I hide from him.”

  “Zviman?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why does he want you dead?”

  “It will be easier for you to read than for me to tell you. I have told my story only to one other person. I don’t normally talk about it.” Mila’s voice went quiet.

  “Don’t joke.”

  “I hurt his pride.” Mila smiled. “Where are you going?”

  “Let me do this. If I can find where Zviman is from Jack, I will.”

  “That’s a sweet lie, Sam.” She held the whiskey glass. “Do you want me to tend to your eye?”

  “No.”

  “Good luck then.” And then Mila did something she had never done before. She embraced me. I was holding the clothes bag and a backpack with the guns. Not really in hugging mode. Her hands ran down my back, then she patted the front of my shirt. “Be careful. I hope you get your son back.”

  “Thank you.” I smiled. “Why are you in New York?”

  “Shoes,” she said.

  “Ah. Don’t get killed, Mila. I would miss you.”

  “Do not get killed, Sam. I would miss you.”

  I left without another word. My insides felt knotted. I went out into the cloud-smeared, starless night.

  I was going to get my son back, and nobody, nobody, was going to kill Mila.

  High expectations.

  I patted my shirt pocket. She’d slid in a small chip, thin as paper, when she gave me my hug. I held it up to the streetlight. Tracker, like a modified phone SIM card. She wished me well but she wanted to know where I was going. To help me or to fight her own battle? I didn’t know. I tried not to care.

  Two customers were leaving the bar and I thoughtfully hailed them a cab. A bit bleary from The Last Minute’s excellent martinis, they thanked me and as I opened the door for them I flicked Mila’s tracker onto the cab floor.

  Let it take her where it would, out of the battle, into safety, perhaps.

  I headed back to Leonie, and the long night of waiting.

  34

  Morris County, New Jersey

  IT IS A VERY SMALL WORLD, and getting smaller, he thought.

  Ricardo Braun stood above the speared body of the limo driver. He muttered a curse under his breath. He took his gun and with care shot off the man’s face. He had to do this by flashlight, with the moonless sky, and he was careful to avoid getting any blood or tissue on his shoes or his jeans. He reloaded and then blasted off the ten fingertips. This would buy him at most a few days if the body was found, but even a narrow margin of time had saved him in the past. Then he removed the limo’s plates and stripped out the forged registration and insurance papers. Its vehicle identification number had long ago been filed off. He dumped the corpse in the trunk, then put in Sandra Ming’s body.

  There was a large pond on the property. He found a rock and put it on the accelerator and watched as the water settled over the limo. It took surprisingly little time for the car to sink. He waited until the water was still, the last ripple smooth.

  Then he got into his Mercedes and he drove back to his apartment in Greenwich Village. It was very late now and he sat and drank coffee and watched the stars and wondered how much in danger he was. If anyone knew what he was doing, and why.

  Sam Capra. He could have stopped him, if he had not had to meet with the assholes from Langley who’d insisted on a quick report. Special Projects was a beehive; and only he and August knew about the Jack Ming affair. Well, and now Fagin, but Fagin would never speak. Eliminating Fagin would create far too many ques
tions; he was golden, untouchable. But a healthy deposit in Fagin’s account would ensure silence, and, hell, most of the Company had no idea Sam Capra had saved the CIA inconceivable humiliation in the Yankee Stadium incident. Most of them, if they knew who he was at all, thought he was still a suspect character, untrustworthy.

  He felt a slight rage that he had allowed this to spin out of control. Right now he sat at his laptop and accessed a private website, within the Special Projects computer network, and clicked on an icon that read BANISH. That was the code word August had set up for the Jack Ming case. The only two people who could access this folder were August and Braun.

  He read: heard from target via phone call, he will call me again at 12 ET tomorrow with instructions for meet

  Tomorrow, then, this would all be settled. If Ming wasn’t dead before tomorrow’s meeting, then he would take custody of Jack Ming, tell him that his mother was already secure in a Special Projects safe house, seize whatever evidence he had, and he would make Jack disappear forever. The only way to be safe, the only way to be sure.

  August might be a problem but a quick reassignment to another division would solve that dilemma. He was a good soldier; he’d take his orders. In a few months Braun would go out and visit him, treat him to a steak dinner, and tell him Novem Soles had been wrapped up, neat as a napkin.

  And no one would ever know.

  Ricardo Braun considered the one hint that he had for his other agenda: Mila. Sam had told the driver, who had relayed it to him, that she sometimes met Sam Capra at a bar. Not exactly actionable information to find Mila.

  Unless Sam Capra wanted to be followed, wanted to see who it flushed out into the open.

  It wouldn’t matter, though, would it, if Sam Capra was dead by tomorrow?

  The whole incident was a shame. He had studied the Capra file. The world still did not know that the bombing of a London office was an attack against a Special Projects team; did not know that a CIA officer, pregnant by another officer, committed a grievous treason; did not know that more than one traitor, bought not by ideology or disaffection but by cold cash, had been flushed out of the Company. Did not know that a man scorned by the Company as a traitor had been its savior. Capra had done his duty.

  Duty. It was the red in Braun’s blood, the oxygen that he breathed. Duty was all. Duty was what forced you to push boundaries, take chances, give your life to something and still have the bravery to reap the rewards from it.

  Once Braun had written essays and poems on duty in his journal, to try to understand his own feelings about it, but finally he had burned them all.

  If Capra had come back to Special Projects when the job was offered—if he had stuck to his duty—then this would not have to happen. It was a shame. He didn’t want Capra dead. At the least he wouldn’t be an enemy, but a sacrifice. That was somehow nobler, Braun thought.

  With Andris the limo driver dead and floating in eternal company with Mrs. Ming, he was going to need someone else to handle Capra and Jack Ming. The best thing about Special Projects was that, since it was supposed to be separate and deniable from the Company, he was allowed, when needed, to use non-Company personnel. And keep them out of the record. Like Andris and his limo company, funded by Company dollars that had been washed by Special Projects.

  Or the sisters. Yes, the sisters would be a good choice for tomorrow. They always brightened his day.

  35

  Brooklyn

  JACK MING SAT in a movie theater. He was on his fourth feature film of the day. The theaters were nice, dark and quiet, and he could think. Right now a romantic comedy, indifferently written and acted, played in front of him. He didn’t really want to see or hear anything violent or twisted. He didn’t like movies with gunfire, not since Rotterdam. Right now the movie’s hero thought his girlfriend’s mom had the hots for him, which wasn’t true, but, you know, was just hilarious. Not. His dinner had been a hot dog and a soda he bought at the theater, and he rattled the ice in a jumbo cup.

  His mother’s betrayal had stopped itching at him. He could not be surprised. She would never let him do as he wanted; the only freedom he’d had in his life was when he had run away and worn another name, in another country.

  The notebook sat in a square, taped to his back. Earlier, in a Starbucks, he’d sat down in a lonely corner and paged through its mysteries again. Account numbers, pictures, email addresses. He studied the photo of the three people that had the words The Nursery written underneath. The word Nursery was suggestive: a place where something was born, or something was protected and grown. Just a photo of three people. But clearly three people who, by virtue of being together, revealed a secret about themselves. If Nine Suns meant nine people, then this was a third of them, and if you could take down a third, perhaps you could find out who the other six were. Perhaps you could cripple them.

  He thought about trying to contact any of the people being blackmailed, but he decided against it. If he frightened them, they might vanish, and what would make the notebook valuable was if the people corrupted were still in place. If they took off running or hiding, then they would not be useful. On one page he’d found a single phone number. He was so tempted to call it, and fear and curiosity played over his heart.

  More than ever, the notebook was his ticket.

  But. He wondered why, if his mother had called the CIA, they weren’t already there when he arrived. Why not snatch him up at home? Had they just figured out it was him? If they waited for him to show up, and lounge around at home, they could take him with less fuss, perhaps.

  He didn’t know what to believe.

  He needed a place to sleep. Hostels were out of the question; he didn’t know who his mother would have looking for him, much less Novem Soles. If homeless people could sleep on the streets, he could as well. Just for one night.

  He left the movie theater and ducked into another coffee shop. Lots of people his age, on laptops, chatting, pretending to write the next great American novel while they idled away their creative time on social networking sites. He got a decaf and sat in the corner and opened up the notebook, staring at the one phone number on the last page.

  36

  The Last Minute Bar, Manhattan

  MILA ORDERED ANOTHER GLENFIDDICH from Bertrand and a bacon sandwich from The Last Minute’s small kitchen. She put aside her confessions for Sam; the story of herself that she had only told one person before—and she opened up the tracking software on the laptop, which would tell her where Sam was going.

  She studied the route. From The Last Minute to a hotel in Greenwich Village to a nightclub to another hotel. She didn’t believe he was nightclubbing. And she didn’t believe whoever he was tracking was out nightclubbing either. He’d found the tracker she’d planted on him and put it in a cab. She smiled. Sam was no fool. And now he knew she’d tricked him. For a moment she considered deleting the confession; she was mad at him, unreasonably, she knew, but mad all the same. She was alive and she felt sure his baby was probably dead or lost forever to him, no matter what promises Anna made. Novem Soles had no honor, no sense of justice, no kindness. They would never give him his child back and she knew it and she wished he could know it as well. She could not make him understand; she could not force him to abandon hope.

  She could not do to him what had been done to her.

  She took a long sip of the whisky and put her fingertips back to the keyboard, the letters on the electronic screen hanging like small, curved ghosts before her eyes.

  37

  JFK Airport

  THE WATCHER STEPPED OFF THE PLANE. His mouth tasted sour from his in-flight doze. His suit wasn’t as clean as he’d like for it to be. He waited for the press of folks off first class to pass (to his great annoyance he couldn’t get a first-class seat) and then he obediently followed the rest of the coach passengers off the jet. The flight attendants gave him robotic nods and thanks.

  He waited in the line at customs for non-U.S. citizens and finally presented his Dut
ch passport. It passed muster without a hesitation, and he even managed a smile for the customs clerk who wished him a pleasant stay in the United States.

  He stepped out into the city—one of the greatest dining cities in the world; he dreamed of a vacation where he did nothing but eat and talk with chefs here, but he could not think of food now. Novem Soles had found the record of Jack’s alias taking a flight out of Brussels; Ricki had lied to him. She would pay when he had time to focus on her. Jack Ming was in this city now, with his book of secrets. Sam Capra and Leonie Jones were going to kill Jack Ming and then they would die. It would close a book on the CIA’s own investigation of Novem Soles, once a former CIA agent had been identified as Jack Ming’s murderer. And then the circle would be closed, and the circle would be safe.

  His phone rang. “Yes?”

  Silence on the other end.

  “Yes?” the Watcher said impatiently.

  “Yes, hello,” a voice said, and it was one he’d listened to in the recording of the CIA conversation before, a voice he knew by heart. Jack Ming.

  “Hello,” Jack Ming said again into the sudden silence.

  The Watcher froze. “Who is this?”

  “You don’t know me,” Jack Ming said, “but your phone number is in a book I found. May I ask who this is?”

  “Well, no, because I don’t know who you are,” the Watcher said.

  “I think you are being blackmailed,” Jack said. “Are you? Because if you are, maybe I can help stop the people who are hurting you.”

  “You… you,” the Watcher said. “Who are you?”

  “Since you didn’t say no, I’ll assume you’re being blackmailed.”

  The Watcher’s mind spun. What exactly was in this notebook? A cold chill inched up his spine. “Listen. Okay. I don’t know who you are, this could be a trick to get me to say something I shouldn’t.” Play the victim, draw him close. “Tell me exactly how you got my number.”