by Sean Black
‘Of course not. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.’
‘Good. So no telling anyone else. Especially not the FBI. If they find out, they’ll block it, and your son will likely die.’
‘How can we be sure he’s still alive?’
‘Proof of life?’
Richard nodded.
Stafford reached back into his smart leather attaché case and retrieved a clear plastic bag with a bright blue Ziploc sealer at the top. Inside were four locks of brown hair. ‘We’ve had it analysed using our own labs. It’s definitely Josh’s. And they sent us this.’
Aware that a Polaroid avoided any suspicion that the image had been doctored, Stafford produced a white-edged snap, and passed it to Richard. In it, Josh stood, blinking against the flash, hair shorn and coloured, holding a two-day-old copy of the New York Post.
‘Oh Jesus. My son. What have they done to him?’ said Richard, breaking down at last.
Thirty-seven
Close to midnight, lights still shone from inside the Korean deli. A pool of hard commercial reality illuminating the ‘For Lease’ sign.
‘This’ll only take a minute,’ Lock said, pushing open the door.
‘You could just send a card,’ Ty objected.
On the way back to headquarters they’d got word from Carrie that the old Korean man hadn’t made it, that his heart had stopped working.
His daughter was behind the counter. She stiffened as Lock walked in. Even more so when Ty followed in his wake. Lock sighed: some things in the city never changed.
He took off his ball cap and held it against his chest. ‘I’m sorry about your father.’
She looked away, grief still catching her unawares. Tears welled. Ty studied the ground.
‘That’s all we came to say, really.’
‘Thank you.’
They started back to the door.
‘Wait,’ she said, moving from behind the counter. ‘My father thought you were a hero. You know we’d been robbed once before. And people did nothing. Just stood there and watched it happen.’
‘Have the police said anything about the men who broke in?’
‘They’ve asked about the people who were doing the protests down the street.’
‘That figures.’
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘Doesn’t matter. When the shooters came in, what did they say?’
‘They didn’t say anything.’
‘Nothing at all? Not even “get down” or “don’t move”?’
‘They gave us each a note.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Instructions on a piece of paper. The one they gave my father was in Korean.’
Lock felt suddenly wide awake. Ty, who had picked up a newspaper to kill time, put it back on the rack.
‘And what did it say?’
‘Just told us what to do.’
‘And the notes were definitely written out in Korean?’
‘And English. Yes.’
‘Did you tell the police this?’
‘Of course.’
‘And what did they say?’
‘Nothing. Why?’
‘Did you give them the notes?’
‘The men didn’t leave them behind.’
Lock looked at Ty, both thinking the same thing. They told her again how sorry they were to hear about her father’s passing and left.
A civilian cop wouldn’t have made the connection. To him or her it would just have been a neat trick, perhaps a way of making sure that the victim didn’t pick out an accent. But to Lock and Ty the written instructions meant something else. Something heavy.
In Iraq, when military patrols conducted raids on houses where they didn’t have access to a local interpreter, they used cards written out in all the local dialects. They relied on the fact that the Iraqi population was an educated one, and that although literacy levels were high, it wasn’t guaranteed that people could speak English. They also knew that a failure to understand instructions led to misunderstanding, and misunderstandings led to death. So the cards were brought in.
Lock felt a jolt of adrenalin. Whoever had taken over the store had been military, or ex-military.
Speed-walking along the sidewalk, they made it to the entrance of the Meditech building in under a minute. They spoke only once they’d reached the elevator.
‘Cody Parker have any service?’
‘Don’t think so.’
‘Don Stokes?’
‘Are you shitting me? With that kid’s attitude he’d last about two seconds.’
Brand was sitting behind a desk as they filtered into the makeshift ops room. Above Brand’s head a huge poster-size blowup of Josh Hulme gazed down on them.
Brand pushed back his chair, put his hands behind his head. ‘The wanderers return.’
Lock leaned over the desk so his face was inches from Brand’s. ‘Where’s Hulme?’
‘Safe.’
Lock took a step back, lifted his boot and used it to roll back Brand’s chair into the wall. ‘I said where, not how.’
‘I know what you said, Lock. But while you’ve been trawling the titty bars of the five boroughs for fresh skank, the situation’s moved on. He’s up at the Bay, if you must know.’
‘Brand, cut the shit. What’s going on?’
‘Relax, it’s all being taken care of.’
‘I’m in charge here, and you know it. When things happen, I need to be told.’
‘Correction. You were in charge.’
Brand stood up and picked up two white business envelopes from the desk. One was addressed to Lock, the other to Ty. He passed them over.
Lock ripped his open. The single line in bold upper case beneath the letterhead left no room for interpretation: NOTICE OF TERMINATION.
Thirty-eight
Stafford stood on the deck of the family’s Shinnecock Bay compound, phone in hand. Ten thousand square feet of property porn with nothing between it and Europe, save the Atlantic. New money fronting the old world.
He ended the call and turned to the two men standing behind him. One was his father, the second Richard Hulme. ‘It’s agreed,’ he said.
Richard’s shoulders slumped, gravity seeming to return to normal for him. ‘Tell me he’s OK. Tell me my son’s safe.’
‘He’s fine, Richard.’
‘So when can we-’
‘If everything goes smoothly, this’ll all be over in less than twenty-four hours.’
Richard nodded to himself, desperate to believe this, as Stafford knew he would be.
Nicholas Van Straten walked to the edge of the deck, arms still folded. ‘How much?’
‘Three million.’
Nicholas’s eyes narrowed as he stared beyond the swimming pool beneath them to the ocean. ‘A small price to pay.’
‘Especially when we have someone else picking up most of the tab,’ added Stafford.
‘Richard, would you allow me a moment with my son?’
‘Of course.’
Nicholas waited until Richard was out of sight.
‘Well done, Stafford.’
It was the first unqualified piece of praise Stafford could recall his father ever giving him. Even as a child, any compliment had always been tempered by an immediate addendum that while he’d done well it was the least that could be expected given the advantages of his birth.
He wanted to savour it. But all he felt was resentment.
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Perhaps I should have involved you earlier.’
‘Perhaps you should have.’
And then it came, the ubiquitous qualification: ‘Let’s just hope the handover goes smoothly, shall we?’
Thirty-nine
The room snapped to darkness. Josh felt his way on his hands and knees over to the TV set and pushed the power button, but nothing happened. The fear he’d pushed away over the past few days was back as a pounding in his chest, and a dryness in his mouth.
The absence of
light was total. The room was so dark that he could feel his hand against his face but he couldn’t see it. He shouted for help, but no one came.
Then, maybe a minute later, maybe five minutes, he heard the door being opened. Outside the door was dark as well. Then a sharp blinding light burst on, directed at his face. He squinted into it, black shapes edged in yellow swimming in front of him. He sensed someone behind the light. Then a bag was thrown into the room, landing at his feet.
‘Merry Christmas,’ a man’s voice said.
Josh stared down at the bag.
‘Go ahead, Josh. Open it.’
He reached down and undid the zip. His hands shook.Don’t be a baby, he said to himself.
Inside were a pair of sneakers.
‘Put them on.’
He sat down on the floor and hurriedly threw them on to his feet, fumbling with the Velcro fasteners.
‘OK, now turn round so you’re facing the other way.’
He did as he was told.
‘Now, I’m going to put a hat on you. A big hat so you won’t be able to see anything. But I’m not going to hurt you. Do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ Josh said. His voice sounded strange to him. Then he remembered he hadn’t spoken in days.
He turned round and the man pulled the hat down over his face.
‘OK, do you promise not to peek?’
‘I promise.’
‘Good, because if you do, you can’t go home ever again. Do you understand me?’
‘Yes.’
‘OK, I’m going to hold your hand and show you where to go.’
Josh felt rough skin against his hand as the man led him out of the room. The air was colder, and he could hear the echo of the man’s shoes as he walked next to him. There was a click, like a door being opened. The man pushed Josh forward and then there was another click. He guessed that was the door closing again. Then the man took his hand again and they kept walking forward. Josh struggled a little to keep up, rushing every few steps to stay level. The last thing he wanted to do was make the man mad.
There was a buzz and the click of another door opening, and then an icy blast of cold air.
‘Watch your step,’ the man said, almost hauling Josh off his feet. ‘This way.’
There was the sound of a heavy car door being opened, and then he was shoved inside, bundled into the back.
‘Here, sit down.’
He felt a pressure against his chest as the man forced him back down. The seat felt soft, cold and smooth against his bare hands. There was the sharp clip of a seatbelt.
‘Keep the hat on. I’ll be watching you.’
A moment or two later the engine started. Josh placed his hands in his lap. He could feel the wool of the hat tickling his skin but resisted the urge to scratch. He dug his fingernails, which had grown since he’d been taken, into the palms of his hands, to distract himself.
The car smelled the same as the one he and Natalya had got into after the party, what seemed like an eternity ago. It brought back memories of things he’d tried not to think about. The panic he’d felt as they drove away. The smell of the river. The spine-stiffening crack of the gun. He clenched his hands tighter, his nails pressing deeper into his flesh, the pain pushing it all away.
In the front seat, the driver made the first of three phone calls. The first one worried him the most because he had no idea if the person he needed to reach would answer. He was relieved to hear the voice on the other end of the line. He’d spent hours familiarizing himself with it, listening over and over to the threats made by the man who possessed the voice.
‘Yeah?’
‘I know what happened to Stokes, and why.’
‘Who is this? How’d you get this number?’
‘If you want to find out, you need to meet me in one hour,’ the driver said. Then he gave him the address and ended the call.
Human nature would do the rest.
Forty
Ty and Lock slid into a booth. Opposite them, Tiffany stirred a hole in the bottom of her coffee cup with a spoon.
Ty slid a picture of Cody Parker across the table. Tiffany glanced at it for less than a New York second and shook her head.
Lock leaned across the table towards her. ‘But that’s him, that’s Cody Parker.’
‘He didn’t look nothing like that.’
Lock used his hand to crop the top of Cody’s head, reasoning that for all he knew Cody’s long flowing locks could have been a disguise, grown at a later date. ‘Look again.’
She kept stirring her coffee. Lock reached across and plucked the spoon from her hand. She went to snatch it back but he held it out of reach.
‘I said, look again.’
‘I don’t have to. That looks nothing like him.’
Lock handed her back the spoon and she resumed her stirring.
‘OK, so what did the Cody Parker that Natalya was seeing look like, then? And if you say “not like the picture” I’ll take that spoon from you and wedge it up your ass.’
Tiffany glanced at Ty. ‘Your buddy’s really intense.’
‘I know,’ said Ty, ‘and that’s one of his better qualities.’
‘Let’s start with height,’ said Lock.
‘Like his height,’ she said, indicating a squat Hispanic busboy who was clearing the detritus from a nearby table.
‘Around five eight?’
‘If that’s what that guy is, then yes.’
‘White? Black? Hispanic?’
‘White, but his skin was all messed up. Like he’d had really bad acne when he was younger.’
‘What kind of hair?’
‘Brown with some white. Cut short.’
‘Like mine?’
She put the spoon down on the table, a tiny slick of coffee clinging to its bowl. She looked up at Lock like she’d only just noticed him. ‘Yeah. Kind of.’
‘How old?’
‘Forties. Maybe fifty.’
‘But he said his name was Cody?’
She regarded Lock like a particularly impatient teacher might look at a defiantly obtuse pupil. ‘Yeah.’
‘You stay with her for five minutes,’ Lock said to Ty. ‘Make sure she doesn’t go anywhere.’
‘Why? Where are you going?’
‘To get some more pictures.’
Forty-one
The town car bumped across the rough ground of the abandoned lot. The driver parked, killed the engine, got out and walked away, across the street. He then made two more calls. The first was to Meditech headquarters. The second, a full ten minutes later, was to the FBI.
When he finished the last call he switched off his cell phone. He crossed back to an abandoned building next to the vacant lot. At the back of the building was a previously boarded-up door. He stepped inside and made his way through the garbage which littered the hallway to a set of stairs and began the climb to his observation post. From there he could see the lot with the town car parked in the middle of it.
Fifteen minutes later two hulking GMC Yukons screeched to a halt at the edge of the vacant lot. They sat there, engines ticking over, as if unsure about what to do next.
Brand sat in the front passenger seat of the lead vehicle, the fingertips of his right hand tracing the mini craters on his face. Hizzard sat in the driver’s seat. Brand had chosen him specially when they had got the call barely ten minutes ago.
Richard Hulme sat in the rear. As they came to a halt, he sprang forward, his hands clasping the back of Brand’s seat. ‘What are we waiting for?’
‘It’s not that simple. We verify he’s there first. Then we make the transfer. When that’s validated,then we can get him out.’
‘Why not just grab him?’
‘I already told you why. These people aren’t fooling around here.’
‘Let me go look,’ Richard said.
‘He might get upset if he sees you. Once it’s done you can get him out, I promise you.’
‘What if he’s not even in that car?
What if this is some kind of sick joke?’
Brand twisted round to face him. ‘Hizzard, you go.’
Hizzard opened the door, exited the car and jogged over to the town car. When he got within ten feet he slowed and knelt down, taking a long, hard look underneath. Then he crossed to the rear passenger door nearest to him. He touched the handle, took a deep breath and opened the door. There was a little boy inside. He was sitting almost casually, his legs swinging over the edge, a hat pulled down over his face.
‘Hello?’ he said, his voice hoarse, the question tentative.
‘Josh?’
‘Yes.’ The voice was a whisper.
‘I’ve come to take you to your dad. But I need you to be patient for just a little while longer. Can you do that for me?’
‘I think so.’
‘Good. You’re being really brave. Now, I’m going to reach in and take off this hat so you can see.’
‘OK.’
Hizzard reached in and peeled off the hat. Josh stared back at him, recognizable, just, from the pictures he’d seen. They’d cut his hair, and dyed it, but it was definitely him.
‘Now, I have to go for a few minutes. But I’ll be back real soon. You have to do one thing for me, OK? You have to stay here until I come back for you. Whatever you do, do not leave this car.’
He closed the door, leaving Josh on his own. He jogged the whole way back and climbed back into the lead Yukon.
Richard grabbed at him as he sat back down. ‘Is it him? Is he OK? Have they hurt him?’ His voice was cracking, the questions stacking on top of each other.
‘It’s him. He’s fine, Dr Hulme.’
Brand hit speed dial on his phone. There was a second’s pause before his call was answered by their assigned lead at the insurance company.
‘This is Brand. We have a positive ID.’