The Last Minute sc-2

by Jeff Abbott

  ‘Where?’

  ‘He had an apartment… he paid cash for it. I think under a different name.’

  ‘Do you know where it is?’

  ‘Well, he never took me there,’ she said with some indignation. ‘But once… long ago, I followed him. He told me he’d quit, I wanted to be sure. It was like an addiction, you see.’

  The irony seemed lost on her. ‘So I followed him and I saw another man bring three teenage girls to his door… ’ She blinked. ‘I came home and I had a drink and… ’ She left the sentence unfinished. But he could guess that painful moment would have been when her drinking started in earnest.

  He said nothing for a long minute. He’d thought this woman a stupid old drunk and now he had an idea of what the knowledge of her son’s crimes had done to her.

  ‘He was my baby. Every person who does wrong in this world, they were once someone’s baby. Full of hope and promise. He was so smart. Where did I go wrong? Where did I bend him the wrong way?’

  ‘Nothing he did is your fault,’ Jack said. ‘Trust me on this one.’

  She heaved a deep sigh and it seemed to take an effort to tear the words out of her chest. ‘I can take you there.’ She got up and went to the kitchen drawer. She pulled it free and turned it over. Under it was a key, taped into place. ‘This is it,’ she said. ‘This is the only one we’ve got.’

  Jack was afraid to take the bus or the train with his face in the day’s papers so he’d borrowed Ricki’s little car.

  ‘He was such a smart boy. Like his father. Nic was always good at math, I was terrible at numbers. He got fired from his computer jobs, though. He was smarter than his bosses, they didn’t like him.’

  Jack didn’t respond to this hollow praise. He turned into a parking lot down from a series of apartment complexes. The neighborhood was bad, and graffiti in a half-dozen languages marred the walls. Jack felt sick. Nic traded filth. Jack didn’t want to be here. If he’d known this about Nic he never would have worked with him. But what was done was done, and so now he had to see this through.

  The address was an apartment in a section of De Pijp that retained the original gritty feel of the neighborhood, untouched by the gentrification that had pervaded this part of Amsterdam in recent years. The halls were clean, but they smelled of cigarette smoke and a heavy, delicious scent of Turkish food cooking. Jack and Mrs ten Boom walked up the stairs and found the door. Jack slid the key in and unlocked it and stepped inside, Mrs ten Boom following him, a slight humming noise coming from her throat.

  She was afraid of what they might see here.

  Jack did a quick survey of the small, cluttered apartment. In the kitchen were bottles of whisky. And cans of soda and bags of candy. Lures? Or bribes? The apartment made his skin itch with distaste.

  He poured Mrs ten Boom a generous shot of whisky and turned on the TV to distract her. It was hooked up to a DVD player, and a children’s show was already loaded, bright colored dancing flowers and music. Jack thought he would vomit. He quickly switched the television to a news network.

  ‘Here, Mrs ten Boom, have a seat.’ Best if he searched alone, he thought.

  Jack began a methodical search of the apartment. He started in the bedroom, going through every lining of clothing, every container in the closet, every box under the bed. Nic had weapons hidden in this place: a 9mm Glock, a Beretta pistol, a hunting knife with a wicked looking edge. Jack put those in a separate box.

  He tore apart the mattress, dismantled the bed, pulled the headboard free. In the bedroom closet was a set of expensive camera gear. He searched through the equipment bags. Nothing. He tore up the carpet. Nothing.

  A bubble of panic rose in his chest.

  He finished in the bedroom. He went into the bathroom, searched every inch. He found a thousand euros hidden in a large plastic aspirin bottle. He went and pushed the cash into Mrs ten Boom’s hands; she stared at it in surprise, then put it in her pocket.

  He went into the kitchen. There wasn’t much food inside the refrigerator: bottles of beer, sandwich meat, cheese furred with mold, jar of mustard. He closed the door on the rising smell. Then he pulled the refrigerator out from the wall. A layer of dust and grit lay on the floor. He began to search the cabinets and the drawers, removing dish towels, boxes of sugary cereal, bottles of hard liquor. Nothing. He pulled up the tatty lining paper to see if anything was hidden underneath. Zero luck. When the cabinets were empty he inspected them, tapping on them.

  The top cabinet sounded different.

  He tapped again. Then he stepped down and found a knife and worked it against the corner of the wood.

  It gave slightly. He stuck the knife in and the wood folded back; there was a hidden hinge.

  Wedged in the space was a red book, large, with a moleskin cover and an elastic band to keep it closed.

  He pulled the red notebook free. He sat down on the kitchen floor and flipped through the pages. In the den he could hear Mrs ten Boom dribbling more whisky into her glass, moaning, a soft keening of grief.

  The first few pages were numbers. Just numbers, in two columns. Maybe a code? Or maybe passwords? Or maybe account numbers. They were written in a neat, spare hand, as though they had been carefully copied.

  He flipped to where the columns of numbers stopped.

  Next page was a photo. A lean whippet of a man he’d never seen before, older, Caucasian, in a gray suit, walking with another man and a woman. The woman was Asian, striking, in her twenties. The other man was tall, heavy-set, black, also in a fine looking suit, scowling. Behind them was a rather grand house, with a huge porch and columns, with a curving driveway in its front.

  He had no idea who these people were. Were these three of the Nine Suns? He realized he didn’t know if Nine Suns referred to nine specific people, or if it were simply a dumb code name. Written below the picture, in the same precise handwriting, First Day at The Nursery, 2001.

  The Nursery. But there were no children in the picture.

  He flipped through the rest of the book. It seemed that Nic had printed out an image from the computer screen capture and just taped it into the book. The red notebook was fat with paper. He studied. Photos of people: sometimes what appeared to be family photos, or people in meetings, talking together, in a range of settings: street plazas, sidewalks, office buildings. He did not recognize any of the faces.

  Next were printouts of what appeared to be emails and transcriptions of phone conversations: ones where secret, illegal deals were struck between competitive companies, where bribes were subtly offered, where threats were made. The email addresses included government offices in the US, across Europe, and in Japan and Brazil, across Africa. And some of the world’s most powerful corporations. It was like a jigsaw of high-powered, white-collar crime: many pieces, and Jack couldn’t see how they all fit together.

  Then a series of photos that looked like passport pictures, a dozen people, and in the top left of each photo a small notation: eliminated, and a date.

  People that Novem Soles had killed? He flipped through the photos: he didn’t know who any of the people were. There were no identifiers.

  Spreadsheets, partial, with items bought and prices paid: office rental in London, purchase of C-4 for London bomb, bribes to police inspector in Oslo. Jack’s stomach churned.

  This is what his hidden programs had plucked for Nic: financial information that could gut or elevate markets, corporate secrets, a money trail of death, leverage for blackmail. If this was how Novem Soles was going to control people in key positions, and these were the people they used as levers, then one could deduce what their intentions and their targets were, and what their next major plot would be.

  He read through the mass of stolen gems but no pattern formed. Maybe this was simply a way to control people in powerful positions who had troublesome secrets and could be manipulated. Other pages were filled with code, with more numbers that meant nothing to him.

  But here was his shield; here was his sword.
If he could not make full sense of it then he knew who could.

  He found a landline phone in the apartment. He picked it up and was relieved to hear a dial tone. It hadn’t yet been disconnected. He unplugged the phone and plugged its cord into the MacBook Pro that Ricki had loaned him. He activated a cheap, throwaway dial-up account. Getting through to the CIA would not be easy. He would have to write a vivid note that would seize their attention, past all the cranks and weirdos who saw a conspiracy in every shadow and emailed their theories to the Agency. He needed to jump to the front of the line of incoming emails. On the CIA’s website he found a standard email form for people to share information or comments with the Agency.

  He typed in the message page:

  I have critical information for a CIA officer named August who was in Amsterdam several weeks ago. I offer serious, actionable dirt on the group called Novem Soles. This offer is only good for three days.

  He entered in a prepaid cell phone number he’d bought after leaving Ricki’s apartment. He did not sign his name.

  He reread the message. If he got too specific August might figure out who he was. This was tantalizing enough, he decided. He would talk to August and only August. August had kept him from being hurt worse; August had argued to leave him in the van, safe from danger.

  He pressed Send. He stood, closed the laptop.

  ‘Mrs ten Boom, we should go.’

  ‘No. Nic will be here soon, won’t he?’ She was drunk again, a crooked smile back on her face. She’d refilled from one of the whisky bottles. ‘Nic will be here soon.’

  Oh, God, Jack thought, he couldn’t leave her. But now that he’d contacted the CIA, he had to move quickly. He couldn’t be anchored with the old drunk woman. But he couldn’t leave her here either, in the horrible place of her son’s worst crimes.

  ‘Let’s go back to your place, Mrs ten Boom.’

  She hit on the whisky bottle again and she lay down on the couch. ‘I want to stay here. Please.’

  He stood watching her, and then he said, ‘Goodbye. Thanks for your help.’

  She was asleep, holding onto the last shred of her son.

  Jack Ming stumbled down the darkened stairs, clutching the most important book in the world to his chest.

  10

  NoLita, Manhattan

  August Holdwine took the subway to NoLita, the neighborhood North of Little Italy. He walked under the bright morning sky. The safe house sat above a clothing boutique off Mott Street. He went inside and in the kitchen he found his trackers waiting for him. The guy who Sam had manhandled sat at the wooden table, sourly drinking a caffe latte, ignoring Cuban pastries they’d picked up from August’s favorite neighborhood cafe. Instead of eating he pecked on a laptop keyboard.

  ‘Writing up a report on how you got played last night?’ August asked.

  ‘A complaint against you for not taking Sam Capra into custody after he attacked me.’

  ‘Be smarter next time,’ August said. ‘Email that to me and my supervisor, if you must, but why don’t you think about it some more?’

  ‘You should have grabbed him,’ the tracker said. ‘We got you breakfast, by the way.’

  ‘Did you spit in it?’

  ‘Thought about it. Thought you’d make him come back here and talk.’

  ‘Detention hasn’t much worked with him in the past,’ August said.

  ‘So, finding this Mila woman, what do we do now?’ the woman tracker asked.

  August considered. That thought had kept him awake much of the night. He was charged with finding Mila; but what if, despite Sam’s protestations, this Mila was helping Sam find his son? Was he going to interfere with that? Duty and friendship were often uneasy partners. But duty had to come first.

  Didn’t it?

  His phone rang. He answered and listened and hung up, then he went upstairs to a makeshift office and locked the doors. Then he called the CIA headquarters back.

  We have a phone-in, Langley had told him on his secured phone. Asking specifically for you, to call him at this number. It’s an Amsterdam exchange. Prepaid phone, no record of owner. That only meant the phone had been purchased in Amsterdam; the caller could be anywhere.

  It rang. Nine times. Nine. Novem. Did that mean something? Then a male voice came onto the phone. ‘Hello?’

  The tracking would begin immediately, August thought. The phone was connected to a laptop, showing on its screen a map of the world. Numbers began to flash across the top as the software traced the caller’s location. ‘Yes. My name is August. I understand you’ve been trying to reach me.’

  ‘Yes. I have.’ Male, American. No discernible regional accent.

  ‘About a subject of mutual interest.’

  ‘Oh, my God, you sound like a bad movie,’ the voice said. Young, August thought, younger than me. ‘Novem Soles. You’re one of the guys looking for them, aren’t you?’ A slight shaking in the voice.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well. I can give Novem Soles to you.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I have information for sale.’

  ‘Information for sale,’ August repeated. He would be repeating much of what the caller said. It was a standard ploy to extend the call, simplify the trace.

  ‘The price is ten million dollars.’

  ‘I can’t pay that amount.’

  The laptop screen’s map trimmed down where the call was originating from. Europe. Then western Europe.

  ‘They’ve got their fingers and reach into governments around the world. I think I am giving you a bargain.’

  ‘Let’s say I agree to the price. What are your terms?’

  ‘I will deliver the information to you and you will place the funds in a numbered account in the Caymans. I want immunity from prosecution for any crimes I may have committed. Then the CIA gives me a new identity. I want sanctuary where they can never find me, in an English-speaking country.’

  August listened carefully. Did he know this voice? Its tone tugged on the frail strings of memory in his mind. ‘I can’t commit that kind of money without seeing what the proof is.’

  ‘I have the proof.’

  ‘What is it? Names? Locations? Operations?’

  ‘It’s a notebook.’

  ‘A notebook.’

  ‘Full of details on the people in government and business that Novem Soles owns.’

  ‘Scan the pages and email it to me.’

  The call searcher narrowed. The Netherlands/Belgium/ Luxembourg glowed bright green on the map.

  ‘And once I’ve done that, then you have the proof, August, and I’m left out in the cold without money or immunity.’

  ‘What’s in the notebook?’

  ‘Everything you need to decapitate Novem Soles. They’re not just a criminal ring. They’re worse, a lot worse. It’ll be the best ten million you ever spent.’

  ‘How did you know my name?’

  ‘I have the information and I can either sell it to you or I can sell it to any other number of interested buyers.’ Not an answer to the question.

  ‘Well, I’d have to see the notebook, you understand that.’

  ‘I am willing to meet.’

  ‘Where? When?’

  ‘I’ll call you back. Give me a number.’

  ‘I’d prefer to call you again.’

  ‘Oh, no. Not how I play, August. Give me a number or I vanish.’

  August fed him his cell phone number. ‘I can’t get you any funds, or any promises, until I know what evidence you have. Until I see it. Tell me your name.’

  ‘Now knowing my name would be dangerous for you, and since we’re just getting to know each other, and you’re going to get me my beautiful ten million, I don’t want you getting yourself killed. We’re going to enjoy doing business together, August, you’re going to make your career and I’m going to buy my safety and my future. I’ll meet you in New York in two days.’

  ‘Where and when exactly in New York?’

  ‘I’ll let you kn
ow.’ The line went dead.

  August sat and studied the laptop readout. The call had come from Amsterdam. The city where Sam had wrecked the Novem Soles plot.

  Novem Soles. In English, the Nine Suns. The name for the criminal syndicate that had been behind the London bombing that had branded Sam Capra a traitor. Their reach was unknown but they had co-opted at least one high government official in the United States and had attempted to deliver a shattering blow to American society. Their ambitions, Sam had claimed, were limitless.

  A criminal organization, not terrorist in its ideology, but one that had tried to destroy a CIA office and wreak political havoc in the United States.

  What kind of criminals were these?

  He had no answer. The entire Novem Soles cell in Amsterdam had been killed. The only survivor was Lucy Capra, caught in that comatose netherworld between life and death. Lucy knew some of the secrets of the group. But she was beyond helping him.

  August replayed his recording of the conversation.

  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.