She kissed him on both cheeks and walked quickly to the Renault under the leering eyes of the two men.
“She is a bitch,” one of them said, “but a beautiful bitch.” His comrade grunted his endorsement and they both headed to their car.
Once again, Zach felt agitated with pain and anxiety as the Jeep bounced over unpaved roads, yet somehow he managed to pass out, waking up just as they pulled into a small airport. If they had been stopped at the border, which he doubted, he had slept right through it. Two hours later he was on the first flight out, to Johannesburg and, after a six-hour layover, also sleep-filled, the long flight to New York.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31
Chapter 63
Julian awoke early Saturday morning, as was his custom. The New York Times was waiting for him in the breakfast room, along with a carafe of coffee. The front page of the paper noted that the election was now a dead heat, with the usual disclaimers about margin of error, the importance of turnout, and, he was gratified to read, “any sort of unpredictable event that could tip this close race in either direction.” It was also noted that the contest in certain key states was tightening up.
He drank a cup of coffee and, feeling unaccountably anxious, decided to forego his usual second. He never felt such tension. Anxiety was counterproductive; it led to errors of judgment.
At seven fifteen his cell phone rang.
“Mr. Mellow? It’s Mr. Franklin. The plane from Johannesburg just landed.”
• • •
Zach had downed two vodkas after takeoff from Johannesburg International Airport Friday night and had slept for most of the flight. Earlier, he’d spent hours at the Joburg airport, dozing on and off while waiting for his flight to New York. As the plane made its slow descent into JFK he formulated a plan, which began with a visit to an emergency room to have his left hand looked at. Then he was going to take what he knew about Julian Mellow and the presidential election and go public. He’d start with the New York Times; he had a vague recollection of a business reporter there who would probably give him a hearing based on his former relationship with Mellow Partners. If he couldn’t get the Times to listen—or believe—he’d move to broadcast networks. He’d distribute leaflets on street corners if he had to. His motivation wasn’t to derail Julian; it was to protect himself and Sarah. Once he’d gone public with his information he’d cease to be a threat to Julian. He’d be safe, in fact. Once the world knew what he and Sarah knew they would be safe—it didn’t matter if anyone believed him or not.
He joined a long line at US customs, praying that Richard Legard would not be stopped at passport control. He’d take a cab directly from JFK to an emergency room, in Queens, perhaps, then he’d go right to the Times on Eighth Avenue. A scoop on the reclusive Julian Mellow would lure any journalist to the office on a Saturday, particularly one who—
He felt hands clutching both arms. On either side of him stood two men in dark suits. He didn’t recognize them but easily guessed who they were.
“Secret Service. Please come with us,” one of them said quietly.
They didn’t wait for him to answer, practically lifting him from the floor and half dragging, half carrying him away. They took him to a small, windowless room that contained a table and four chairs, shoved him into one of the chairs, and left him. He immediately got up and tried the door, which was locked. Several minutes later the door opened and Billy Sandifer walked in.
“You’re in luck,” he said. “The Secret Service is releasing you. I told them they had the wrong guy.”
Zach headed for the door, but Billy grabbed his arm before he got to it. “You’re coming with me.”
“Like hell.”
“We have Sarah.”
Zach froze. He hadn’t spoken to Sarah since leaving for Africa. Could they have found her? How?
“I don’t believe you.”
“Then walk out of here.” Sandifer shrugged. “You’ll never see her again.”
“What do you want?”
“Mr. Mellow wants to speak to you.”
“Prove to me that you have Sarah.”
“Mr. Mellow will give you proof. I can’t.”
“Tell Mr. Mellow to call me.”
“I don’t tell him what to do. Neither do you. Either come with me or I tell the feds out there that you are the right person after all. You’ll be locked up for a long time, my friend. And Sarah will die.”
Chapter 64
He felt as if he’d been traveling for weeks, months. The boat from Saint Sebastian. The flight to Miami, then to Saint Louis, then to New York, Johannesburg, Kamalia, and back. He’d lost a full day between the attack in Villeneuve and landing at JFK. And now, arms handcuffed behind him, in the back seat of Billy Sandifer’s car, heading upstate. His injured left hand throbbed and his head felt heavy, but he forced himself to stay awake, watching the passing signs, concentrating on remembering the route: George Washington Bridge, Palisades Parkway, Route 17. They were headed toward the Catskill Mountains. A few exits north of Monticello they turned off the highway. He’d already tried to engage Sandifer in conversation, to no avail.
Almost three hours after leaving JFK they turned into a dirt driveway that ran for nearly a half mile through very deep woods, ending at a small, ramshackle cottage.
“One of Mr. Mellow’s estates?” Zach said, just to see if he could get a reaction. Sandifer opened the back door and nodded to indicate that Zach should get out.
The air was cold and smelled of pine trees and rotting leaves. Zach was shivering by the time Sandifer unlocked the cabin door and shoved him inside. The cabin was low-ceilinged and dark. The walls were painted brown and covered with posters whose edges were curled and yellowed with age: they were broadsheets for demonstrations—in Geneva, Seattle, Buenos Aires. The scant furniture appeared to be relics of the seventies: a sagging sofa, beanbag chair, small plastic tables in gumdrop colors.
“Is this your place?” Zach asked.
“It’s no one’s place,” Sandifer answered. He walked over to Zach, who stepped back. “I need to empty your pockets.”
As Sandifer went through his pants and jacket pockets, removing cash, change, his cell phone and boarding pass, Zach quickly considered his options. With his hands locked behind his back he wasn’t much of a threat. He could throw himself at him, perhaps knock him over. But unless he somehow managed to render him unconscious the move would do no good, and might even cause Sandifer to take revenge. He didn’t think he could stand more punishment. His best bet seemed to be to get Sandifer talking, perhaps coax some information from him.
“Someone must own this place,” he said while Sandifer rooted through his pockets. “I mean, even if this was some sort of commune, someone pays the taxes.”
“No one knows it exists,” he said. “Not a penny of taxes has been paid on this place.” He sounded proud, boastful.
“The perfect anticorporate hideout.” Zach looked around at the posters announcing marches and concerts. Neighboring cabins probably had antlered deer heads mounted over the fireplace; these posters were Billy Sandifer’s trophies.
“Doesn’t it kill you, working for Julian Mellow, after this?” He nodded at the various trophies.
“That was then,” Sandifer said. He piled all of Zach’s things on a table.
“Do you know what his companies do, Billy? I know, because I worked for him. I helped him buy those companies. One of them, the DeQuan Corporation, is the largest polluter of the Susquehanna River. They get more fines each year from the EPA than any other company in America, and they don’t care, they don’t even fight them, because it’s worth it, Billy, it’s worth choking off the river and paying the fines because the company is so fucking profitable. Pollution and fines are a cost of doing business, like rent and telephone. Another company, Alston Enterprises, ever heard of them? No one has, but they make the shoes that Walmart and Sears still sell under their own name. You know who sews those shoes and glues on the soles that fall
off after a few weeks? Children, Billy, in Central America and Southeast Asia, children making twenty-five cents an hour so Julian Mellow, who owns 100 percent of Alston, can take out ninety-five million a year in profits from the company, and that was three years ago when I last saw the company’s books. Who knows how much he’s taking out now, and I’ll bet those kids haven’t had a raise in all that time. Doesn’t that kill you a little bit, Billy, to be working for a man like that? You used to march against people like Mellow.”
Sandifer turned on Zach’s cell phone and clicked through his recent calls. Thank God he hadn’t called Sarah from it.
“These children, Billy, they’re ten, eleven, twelve years old. Younger than Rebecca, Billy, they’re younger than your—”
Sandifer dropped the phone and charged at him, his right fist slamming into Zach’s gut and sending him sprawling onto the floor. Arms cuffed behind his back, Zach couldn’t break his fall and his head hit the floor with a force that temporarily blinded him. He wondered if he might be unconscious, but then heard Sandifer talking to someone. “I’ll pick you up in a half hour,” Sandifer said into the cell phone, then clicked off.
“What about Harry Lightstone, Billy?” Zach’s voice sounded, even to his own ears, weak and unsteady. “How do your comrades feel about your working for a guy who wants to roll back pollution controls, eliminate import duties on goods from Central America and Southeast Asia?”
“I don’t have comrades,” Billy sneered, and left the cabin. He returned a minute with a length of coiled rope, which he proceeded to wrap around Zach’s upper body and legs. Still on the floor, dazed, his vision blurred, Zach was in no shape to resist. His head throbbed, along with his left hand, and his shoulders screamed with pain from having his arms pinned behind him. Sandifer stood up, surveyed his handiwork, turned, and left the cabin.
A minute later Zach heard the car start.
He flexed his arms and legs to test the ropes; they were secure. He resigned himself to waiting for Sandifer to return with the person he was picking up. To keep his mind off what would happen when he returned he focused on one thought: Sarah was alive. If they had killed her they wouldn’t be keeping him alive—he’d be of no use to them. So Sarah was alive and they didn’t have her. He repeated this to himself, mostly silently but occasionally aloud, just to make sure he was still conscious, as he waited for Sandifer to return.
Chapter 65
The helicopter first appeared as a speck on the horizon, a tiny blemish against the pale late autumn sky. As it approached it grew larger and noisier, and when it finally landed on the parking lot of the Jefferson Elementary School it seemed to suck the air from the entire area; Billy Sandifer actually grabbed the car door handle lest he be drawn into its vortex. The door opened the instant the chopper touched ground. From a distance, Julian Mellow looked almost ludicrously inconsequential next to the mass of gyrating steel. He walked quickly to the car, regaining his usual stature as he got closer.
“How far?” he shouted over the helicopter’s din.
“Ten minutes.”
“Good, let’s go.” He got into the passenger side of the car.
• • •
The cabin door opened slowly. There was a momentary pause before Julian Mellow entered. He had on a blue windbreaker, a checked shirt, and khaki pants—a country gentlemen inspecting the stables. After two years spent tracking him from a distance, following his every move, Zach was surprised by how average he looked. He’d once known that face very well, but in the intervening years it had morphed in Zach’s mind into something grotesque—surely the evil inside him had to manifest itself on the outside. But Mellow looked handsome and composed and even benign. Only his eyes, avoiding Zach as they scanned the small room from one end to the other and back again, betrayed a hint of anxiety.
He stood at the center of the room, a few feet from where Zach was still trussed on the floor. Strangely, after all that had happened, Zach didn’t know what to say and felt an odd reluctance to break the silence. Julian must have been feeling similarly, for he seemed paralyzed, his bottom lip turned inward. Only his hands moved, twitching inside his pants pockets like trapped mice. Finally, after what felt like an hour but was perhaps only a few minutes, Julian took his hands from his pockets and moved closer to Zach. He’s going to untie me, Zach thought, and then Julian kicked him in the stomach with such force it sent Julian staggering back several feet.
Zach felt a surge of air rush upward through his chest and out his mouth. He couldn’t even cry out or moan because there was no wind left inside him.
“How dare you?” Julian said, panting from the attack. He stepped forward, and Zach braced himself for a second assault. But Julian stopped, the effort at self-control visible in a stiffening of his arms and face.
“You thought you were indispensable. You were nothing.” For once, words were failing Julian as he tried to express not only the contempt but that most unfamiliar of emotions, frustration.
“There was at least one time I was indispensable,” Zach managed to say, pressing his back against the cabin wall and shimmying up to a seated position. “Finnegan. With Finnegan I saved your ass.”
“It had to be done.”
“That’s rich, Julian, it really is. It had to be done. You did it, Julian, not it. You set me up, you ruined my life.”
“There was no choice.”
“The way you talk about it, it’s like you weren’t even involved. You had a choice. You chose to destroy me. But it was all through lawyers then. You always have someone on hand to do your dirty work. You wanted Finnegan so badly that when you couldn’t have it you did a stupid, reckless thing, buying those shares. You risked everything because you couldn’t handle losing. And you know what? Your latest scheme won’t work, either.”
“It is working.”
“I know all about all of it, beginning with the murder of Danielle Bruneau in San Francisco. And maybe Harry Lightstone will win on Tuesday. But you’re still going to lose, Julian. Because nothing is going to bring Matthew back.”
Julian charged at him, frantically kicking him in the leg and waist as if defending himself against an attack dog.
“Nothing will bring him back,” Zach gasped as Julian continued to flail at him. “Nothing can change how you practically ignored him when he was alive.”
The kicking stopped. Julian was breathing hard. “You’re wrong,” he said.
“You’ve been sending money to Sophie DuVal in Kamalia, because you want the government overthrown. But she’s going to fail, the woman your son loved is going to die. It’s all for nothing, Julian.”
“Harry Lightstone will look like a genius when the fighting breaks out. He’s been warning of it for weeks.”
“And Sophie will die. Do you think that’s what Matthew would have wanted?”
“You have no right even speaking his name.”
“Did it gnaw at you, the fact that he kept five thousand miles between him and Mellow Partners? Your son was the one thing you couldn’t take over. And now he’s gone.”
Julian kicked him, but the blow lacked conviction.
“Do you ever stop to ask yourself if it’s worth it? Are you so full of hate that you really don’t care who dies, that you’re perverting an election?”
“Perverting an election? I gave you more credit, frankly. Every election is stolen, it’s only a question of which thief gets away with the prize.” His voice had firmed up now that he’d left the subject of Matthew. “Every politician is bought and paid for. Evangelicals, gay rights advocates, this minority group, that minority group, oil companies, Wall Street, steelmakers, importers, exporters, gun owners, SUV owners. They bid for the services of our politicians like dealers at an auction. I’m no different. I’m just smarter. And richer. And I want very little out of it, which is more than you can say for the others.”
“What exactly do you want?”
“Revenge,” he said so softly it was almost a whisper.
“The insurgency in Kamalia is going to fail. The man responsible for killing Matthew, Laurent Boymond, will survive.”
“I will have my revenge.”
“And what if it doesn’t work?”
“It will.”
“That’s not what I meant. What if you get your revenge and that hole inside you is still there?”
He stared down at him for a few moments while Zach prepared for more abuse. “Where’s Sarah?”
For a moment the pain in his head, his back, his legs, and abdomen vanished, replaced by one consoling thought: his assumption had been confirmed—they didn’t have Sarah.
“I don’t know.”
“I will ask you once more, and if you still don’t answer I will ask for Mr. Sandifer’s help in getting the information.”
“You’re going to ask him to torture the information out of me? Why don’t you do it yourself?”
“One last chance.”
“Fuck you, you pathetic coward.”
Julian took a deep breath, his hands balled into fists. He let it out slowly and headed for the door. Zach heard Julian and Billy talking outside. He tried hard not to think of what Billy was about to do. He feared the pain. He feared his own weakness. He tried to clear his mind but her location only burned brighter, like a flashing sign: Nassau Hotel, Miami, Nassau Hotel, Miami. What if the words leapt from his lips on their own, an instinctive attempt at self-preservation, dooming him and Sarah? How much more pain could he endure?
The cabin door opened and both men walked in. Julian stood as far from Zach as the small room permitted, but Billy walked right over to him, a pistol in his right hand.
“All I have is this gun,” he said. “Six bullets. The first one goes into your right knee. Then the left knee. I haven’t decided where the third one goes. You can save yourself a lot of trouble by telling us where she is.”
“Are you going to watch?” Zach said to Julian, who glanced away but otherwise made no move. “Do you think you can handle it, Julian?”
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