“Shoot.”
“Does the name Gabriella Verdon mean anything to you?”
A moment of silence followed.
“Uh, no. Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“How about Gabriella Ripley?”
“Sorry.”
Coburn made eye contact with Sabrina and shook his head. She frowned.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
Coburn sighed. “OK, thanks anyway.”
“Wait a minute. Mitchell Goldman has a ranch outside of town,” Maggie said. “And his wife’s name is Gabriella, come to think of it, but I don’t know her. I don’t think I’ve ever even met her.”
Coburn was suddenly very awake.
“Do you know anything about her?”
“Not really. The Goldmans are very private people. He is some kind of Hollywood bigwig, and made his fortune producing stuff like Ghostbusters and Pirates of the Caribbean. He’s not out here very often, but he married a local. At least I think she’s from here. She wasn’t the first Mrs. Mitchell Goldman. She’s like number three or four. I’m sure he learned his lesson with the first few divorces. Their prenup has be thicker than the last Harry Potter book. He’s a good thirty years older than her.”
“How old would you guess she is?”
“No idea really.”
“Ballpark it.”
“Honestly, Coburn, I don’t know.”
“Had she been married before?”
“Coburn, you’re asking to me to pull answers out of thin air.”
“Sorry.”
“What’s this about?”
“It’s no big deal.”
“Why are you in New York anyway?”
“I’ve been asking myself that same question for two straight days.”
“You should come see me. The house I’m taking care of is on the market for twelve million dollars. The family comes out for Christmas and spring break, and I have the place to myself the rest of the year.”
“Who owns it?”
“An actor. Same as seventy-five percent of the rest of the part-time population of this town.”
“Tom Cruise?”
“Nope. Though the owner is into Scientology.”
“I’m intrigued.”
“Seriously, come see me. I’ll put you up and feed you.”
Coburn hesitated a beat, eyes on Sabrina.
“How about tomorrow?” he said into the phone.
“Are...are you serious?” Maggie said, shocked but clearly enthused at the notion.
“I’ll call you when I get there.”
50
“Can you crack it?” Smith asked.
“Of course I can crack it,” the kid replied.
Smith had the wheel of the Tahoe. His vision was beginning to blur from exhaustion. The lights of Manhattan swayed and shimmered around him. He had driven an aimless circuit through the city for the past three hours.
The kid’s name was Atticus. He was twenty years old and a grad student at MIT. His hair was long and stringy and his breath smelled like Red Bull. He had taken a train from Boston late that night and Smith had handed him a backpack full of cash. They were paying him ten grand to break into Caspian’s laptop.
Smith watched Atticus in the rearview mirror. He was seated in the second row with Caspian’s computer balanced on his knees. He had brought a laptop of his own, a thick heavy machine manufactured by a company called Alienware. It was ugly but blazing fast. The Alienware machine was filled with code that scrolled at high speed. Atticus monitored progress without expression.
“How close are you?” Smith asked.
Atticus had a patch of dyed-blue beard beneath his chin.
“Takes time, man,” he answered in a flat tone.
The laptop had made Smith nervous. He knew it would contain a gold mine. It was imperative that they crack it and get inside. But he was paranoid about screwing with the login window and tripping something within the security application that might cause the machine to permanently lock and meltdown.
Folston had made a call and found Atticus and bought the roundtrip train ticket. Atticus was a doctoral candidate with a crazy IQ. He had taken the offer and jumped on the train. He had to be back in Boston by 7:30 a.m. to meet with his student advisor.
Smith set a Glock on the console between the front seats to keep the kid focused.
“I should have asked for another five grand,” the kid said. “This encryption software is kicking my ass.”
“Beat that lock in the next hour and the additional five grand is yours.”
Atticus was hunched over the keyboard but Smith saw the whites of his beady eyes flash wide.
Then Smith added, “And if you don’t, I’ll drop you on the FDR and you’ll be walking back to Boston.”
The kid gave a nervous laugh.
Smith was serious.
51
Atticus boarded a train at Grand Central for Boston at dawn. His pack was loaded with the $10,000 in cash. The instant he hit the seat and put his head back, he was out like a light and snoring. Smith had paid him in full though Atticus had ultimately failed.
The kid had broken through the first three levels of security before hitting an impenetrable wall. He had slapped Caspian’s laptop shut and shaken his head in disgust.
“You can keep the money. I’ve never seen anything like this, and I’ve seen everything. I don’t know where you found this, but it’s the real deal, man.”
“How much more time would you need?”
“Time? Weeks. Months.”
Smith had glanced at him in the mirror.
“But time isn’t the only issue,” Atticus added. “I’d need to hack into a mainframe and bring in some help. This would be a 24/7 job. I know some hackers in Prague and Russia who might have the chops if you gave them a few weeks, but even then I’m not optimistic. My diagnostic is sitting here spitting out errors like it’s having a stroke.”
Smith had gripped the wheel until his knuckles flushed white. They didn’t have weeks or months. He returned to Caspian’s apartment at sunup and found Miller asleep in an armchair. He didn’t wake him. He stood in the doorway to Caspian’s hidden wall space and looked in at the work he’d done. They still knew no more about Caspian than when they’d begun.
He sat on the floor with his back to the wall and closed his eyes. He was asleep within seconds.
52
About the time Smith closed his eyes, Coburn’s snapped open. He had no idea how long he had slept, but he could tell by the position of the sun that it was just now dawn.
Coburn rubbed his hands over his face. His vision was fuzzy from sleep. He ran a trickle of water in the kitchen sink and splashed his face. He blinked and turned to face the windows. Lower Manhattan stood dark and jagged against the fiery colors of morning.
The apartment was quiet. Coburn made coffee and the women stirred. They staggered downstairs one at a time. Clover was the first to appear. She stood at the counter with a glass of water and began her daily regimen of medication. Coburn watched her go down the line forcing pills and tablets down her swollen throat.
“When did you get the diagnosis?” Coburn asked.
“It’s been eighteen months.”
“How is Chaz handling it?” he said.
She shrugged.
“But she knows?”
“She understands that her mother has an expiration date.”
“I’d say you’ve battled the disease admirably.”
“What’s it matter? I won’t be around to see the New Year. I should have swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills a year ago. It would have saved me a lot of pain and depression. Chaz is the only reason I’m still around.”
Clover went quiet for several minutes. The way her face had drawn up made her teeth look too big for her mouth. She held her mug with both hands and raised it to take a sip.
Coburn was still dressed in the clothes from the night before, minus the donated shoes.
&nbs
p; Clover looked him up and down.
“You are welcome to the shower.”
“That sounds fabulous, actually,” he said.
“Clean towels are on the shelf above the toilet.”
He was in and out of the shower in five minutes and put on the same clothes. Sabrina paid for the cab to the airport.
53
Coburn gave her a headset to put on. She had sunglasses clipped to her shirt. When the plane turned and leveled off, a glare cut through the windscreen. She pushed the sunglasses onto her nose and stared ahead at the propeller blur. They settled in and watched as the landscape slowly changed. Rivers and highway systems and forests merged one into another. The motor hummed and they listened to the sounds of air traffic in their headsets.
Sabrina turned in her seat. “What do you think Courtney was involved in?”
“It’s all I thought about all night,” he said.
“She was a smart girl, and she was cautious. I always believed she was a good judge of character, so whatever happened, it had to have snuck up on her.”
“Addison told me that Courtney was getting out of the business.”
She cut a look at him, eyes cloaked by her tinted lenses. “She said that?”
“Yes.”
“She’s lying.”
“I don’t think so. She said Courtney was stupid to give up the easy money. She claimed she tried to talk her out of it. It that’s true, if Courtney was walking away from good money, she had to have had something else lined up.”
Sabrina pushed a hand through her long hair and shifted in her seat. “No way.”
“Courtney never mentioned it to you?”
“No. Addison is lying.”
“There could be things about your sister you don’t know. Are you at least willing to acknowledge that?”
He could tell the idea bothered her from her subtle physical reaction to his question.
“I can tell you for sure she wasn’t at that bar to meet a client for sex. And it wasn’t a date. Whatever it was, it looked a lot like business,” he said.
Coburn sat the plane down a few minutes after 9 a.m. They refueled at General Downing in Peoria and grabbed breakfast burritos at a diner at the airport. Both of them ordered tall coffees in Styrofoam cups with snap-on lids and were back in the air by 9:50.
“Could it have been drugs?” Sabrina suggested.
“I don’t see it. Not unless she went to work for your friend Clover, but I think if that were the case you’d have known it.”
“Two reasons that’s not possible. Clover and Courtney rarely got along, and Clover would never allow either of us to get involved. That was her way of protecting us if she ever got busted.”
“Ok, so drugs are probably out.”
“What could have been so secretive that she would have cut me out of the loop?”
“She was protecting you. Just like Clover.”
“Protecting me from what?”
“From Smith,” Coburn said.
54
Caspian had remained awake during almost the entire flight from Zurich, then he dozed for the last hour before landing. He awoke the instant the landing gear touched down. His eyes blinked open and something pinged deep down in his gut as if something was not right.
His only bag was a briefcase. He retrieved it from overhead. He was third off the plane and he made his way to the taxi stand outside JFK. He grabbed a cab and watched the skyline of Manhattan through the filthy windshield.
Caspian was a paranoid man by nature and couldn’t shake the feeling of unease.
They crossed the bridge into Midtown and followed a stream of shifting traffic north on Park Avenue. He felt nothing toward America, but he was pleased to be back in New York. He enjoyed any city where he could get lost and disappear at a moment’s notice. He had grown up in a small community and had always despised everyone knowing his name and his every move. His most prized possession in life was his anonymity.
Traffic turned into a snarl and the cab moved in intermittent spurts. Caspian ignored the driver’s annoying attempts at conversation.
Caspian was a tall, slender man with broad shoulders. He had the physical build of a swimmer. His hair was silver and thick. His eyes were the color of seawater in a Norwegian fjord and his skin was tanned to perfection. The suit was Armani, the shoes Italian, and the briefcase cost as much as a small American car. He had degrees from various European universities and had made valuable business contacts while in school. Upon entering the banking world he had discovered an untapped niche within the world of high finance. He realized that even the most dangerous criminals in the world needed someone to protect and manage their money. It was only by chance and good fortune that he had crossed paths with Joseph Gordon Naddar back when they were both students. Later, when Naddar became Mohammad Al-Islam, he realized he needed a skilled and trustworthy advisor. He chose Caspian.
Al-Islam trusted Caspian with his life. They rarely spoke, and met face to face only once every few years. They communicated through a complex network of codes and scrambled telephone conversations. But Caspian was aware of Al-Islam’s every move.
Currently, Al-Islam was living in a cave in the mountains of Afghanistan. Caspian had spent three days in a lake house in Geneva strategizing with the terrorist via satellite telephone, assembling his latest batch of directives. Even sitting in the cave with snow whipping about outside, Al-Islam was growing more wealthy and powerful by the day.
The most expensive retail space in the world flashed past the windows on either side of the car. The taxi turned east and Caspian watched his building shift into view. Again he felt the twist in his gut.
“Keep driving,” he told the driver. “Circle the block.”
The driver nodded.
Caspian was skilled at listening to his instincts. He watched the front of the building as they drove past. He glanced at the cars on either side of the street. He turned in his seat to look through the back window and spotted a man with white hair standing on the sidewalk opposite his apartment building. It had been only a glimpse, but it was enough to add to Caspian’s growing unease.
“Keep driving,” he told the driver.
The taxi made a left, followed by three more left turns, which brought them back to the spot where he had noticed the man with white hair holding a cup of coffee and staring at the entrance to Caspian’s building. When he saw him again his mind went to work. He’d gotten a better view this time. He ran the face through his memory but found nothing.
“Take another left at the light and pull to the curb,” he said.
The driver arced through the turn and was forced to double park. He paid the driver and grabbed his briefcase. He crossed traffic on foot and turned south onto the driveway to the side entrance of the building. A floral shop was at the corner by the light. The window had arrangements of roses and lilies on display. The door was open to the street and he smelled the sweet aroma of petals in full bloom. The sun was bright in his face and the glare was severe. He crossed at the light and stood in a storefront and spotted him again.
Caspian entered a bank branch and stood at a table covered in wealth management brochures. He stood with his briefcase at his side, simply taking a moment to evaluate the possible threat level. He burned five minutes in the A/C, spinning the variables through his mind. He waited through a ten-count, letting his courage build. He went out again but failed to find the man with white hair. He crossed again at the light and turned up the driveway to the parking structure and swiped his card key through the lock but hesitated. The twist in his gut felt deep and heavy. He walked away from the door, hurried back toward the street. Then he heard footsteps behind him. He turned and saw someone emerging from the shadows. There was a man dressed in black coming toward him. Caspian walked faster, his grip tightening around his briefcase. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the man still coming. Caspian was halfway to the street when he panicked and broke into a run.
• • •
Brown saw the move. He was already dialing his cell. Smith answered.
“Caspian is here,” Brown said. “He saw me and he’s making a run for it.”
55
Smith was on his cell as he made his way down in the elevator. He activated the troops. He put out the order to converge on the street behind the parking structure. Brown had given a clipped description of a white male, approximately six-two or six-three, with silver hair and glasses, dressed in a suit and carrying a briefcase. Smith could feel his pulse quicken.
The elevator opened at the garage level and Smith emerged with his gun held at his side. Then he thought better of it and put the gun away. They had to take Caspian alive. He was useless to them dead.
A call came in from Brown.
“He’s headed north on 84th.”
“No weapons,” Smith said. “Take him alive.”
• • •
Caspian was still moving at a full sprint, but he wasn’t putting any ground between himself and the man in black. Who are these people? he kept wondering. He had a window of maybe thirty yards. The pursuit had already covered two full blocks and his legs were on fire. He couldn’t maintain the pace forever. Did they intend to kill him? He couldn’t afford to slow down and find out.
At Fifth Avenue and 85th, he dodged between parked cars at the curb and cut through traffic. There was a steady stream of yellow cabs and he threw himself in front of one. The driver slammed on the brakes and the car fishtailed wildly, tires squealing. The antilock brakes made the suspension shudder and vibrate. The car had too much momentum to stop in time and Caspian made no attempt to step out of its path. It hit his legs and he rolled up on the hood, the briefcase swinging in an arc across his body and slapping against the windshield.
Brown witnessed the entire episode as he pursued Caspian across traffic on Fifth. He saw him collide with the car and thump against the hood. The impact was hard but he watched Caspian scramble off and drop to the ground. Caspian looked across the cab and spotted his pursuer closing and grabbed at the door handle of the driver’s side door. The driver opened his door to make sure the pedestrian he’d hit was uninjured.
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