The Red Room

by Ridley Pearson

  With a half block to go, Knox’s pulse elevates as his body works to keep up with his mind. His senses heighten to a point at which every sight, sound and smell is analyzed in nanoseconds. Possible threats enter his mental hotbox, a quarterback’s read of a sudden change in defense by the opposing team.

  It’s four cigarette butts lying on the asphalt outside the driver’s door that alerts him to a man behind the wheel of a Fiat parked at the curb. The driver’s seat is cleverly laid back to take advantage of the frame between front and back window, and to position his head with a clear view of the apartment building now directly in front of Knox.

  Across the next intersection, Knox lifts his phone as if checking a text but uses its camera to snap a photo over his right shoulder that includes the parked car. At the next intersection, now twenty meters past Mashe Melemet’s apartment, Knox crosses to the west. Out of sight of the car, he enlarges the photo until he can see the last five digits of the license plate. Progress. Texts the partial plate and the vehicle model to Kamat. Circles around the block, a plan of action defining itself. Feels sure he’s the victim of a conspiracy, one that’s primarily the result of Dulwich’s autonomy.

  Rounding the final corner, Knox catches a wink of light in a passenger-side rearview mirror. The location of the car is consistent with what he’s observed. Whether it’s the driver or a second man in the passenger seat, it suggests the occupant of the car could be watching for him. This, in turn, indicates sophistication, a level of training that doesn’t match with a basic bodyguard or police. It kicks his opponent up a level to operative or agent, and reminds him of the surveillance conducted outside the Sisli Mosque and the tracked FedEx package.

  What the hell has Dulwich gotten him into?

  If these are operatives defending Mashe Okle, then the closer Knox draws, the more trouble will ensue. If he’s to play out his role as Knox the art dealer, he can’t be recognized as Knox the provocateur. The duality won’t work.

  On the other hand, if Mashe’s people grabbed Grace, then this person or persons, also connected to Mashe, can likely provide information. Currently, Grace’s recovery is all that matters. Her abduction possesses him. It’s personal. It’s wrong. More important: it’s urgent.

  Timing is everything.

  He lowers the brim of the cap to disguise his face. Closer now, he sees it’s just the driver. The wink of the mirror must have resulted from its adjustment on the driver’s side. It moves again. Knox slips through two parked cars, coming up on the car’s left.

  The agent will not anticipate Knox’s pick gun. Nor will he be prepared for Knox’s approach point. He may shoot Knox, but not if Knox is fast.

  And Knox can be very fast.

  The car’s trunk lock yields to the ingenuity of the pick gun—springs tripping tumbler keys at the squeeze of a trigger. Knox turns the device and the trunk pops open. His eyes go wide at the sight of the armory—Tavor assault rifle with nightscope, MP5 shotgun, stun grenades.

  The Tavor confuses: Israeli-made, it could as easily signal a Mossad agent as someone pretending to be Mossad. This flashes through Knox’s mind as he rears back and kicks down the car’s backseat. He dives through, pulls like a swimmer and comes up behind the driver. Knox’s invasion has caught him by surprise.

  Knox grabs the driver’s unclasped seat belt and pulls it tightly against the driver’s chest, pinning him to the seatback. Knox one-hands the seat belt and pats with his left hand, pinning the man’s hand as they both encounter the concealed handgun against the man’s hip and ribs. Knox briefly eases, giving the man a false sense of victory. Then Knox steals the gun from under the leather coat, drops the seat belt with his left hand and leans around to lock his forearm across the man’s throat. He grabs the man’s wrist and applies the chokehold. The driver bucks off his seat so hard he smashes his groin into the steering wheel. Knox feels him momentarily go limp.

  “Where is she?” Knox asks in Arabic. From his time in Kuwait, his accent is good enough to mask his country of origin. “The Chinese woman. Where . . . is . . . she?”

  The driver tries to shake his head. Knox releases long enough for a single gulp of air. “Do not know!”

  The man’s move is swift and decisive. The driver has freed the seat adjustment with one foot while driving the seat back with the other. He crushes Knox’s knees, pins Knox into the broken backseat, and drives his right elbow into the gap between the seats, catching Knox on the cheek. The driver rips the rearview mirror from its support and swings awkwardly for Knox’s head.

  Knox counters the blow with his forearm. His right hand goes numb, his arm wooden. The driver propels the back of the seat into Knox’s lap, pinning him further, and comes over in a reverse somersault, a move that has to be practiced. Knox doesn’t often find himself in over his head. He battles an unfamiliar surge of panic, pushes back the lactic acid that threatens to stiffen his joints. Pulls his right knee free. Feels something nearly lift his kneecap off the joint.

  The driver, inverted and leveraging his strength by pushing against the ceiling, wedges his weight into Knox’s chest. The effect is like a scissors lock—Knox cannot breathe.

  Knox scrabbles to find the man’s ear and pulls hard, like he’s trying to undo a stuck zipper. A scream, and blood.

  Through it all, Knox hears the click of metal. Recognizes it immediately. Struggles to shift right, reaches down and yanks the cigarette lighter from where his knee has punched it. Plants it into the driver’s palm as the man chops at him. Knox pulls it back and makes contact with his adversary’s neck.

  The screaming is deafening.

  Knox punches the man in the temple, dumps him off, pops open the car door and rolls outside. He’s up and gone, running down the street as fast as his legs will carry him. The man’s words, Do not know, reverberate in his head.

  Knox takes them as genuine.

  24

  Grace pieces together the events of the past few minutes. She’s blinded by the hood over her head, so must reconstruct what has happened without the benefit of sight.

  Upon being stuffed into the vehicle—a minivan, again—they took away her phone. The man closest to her was instructed by the driver, in heavily accented English, though the accent was not immediately revealing—to remove the SIM chip. The van took two immediate rights and a left, increased speed, and has remained on this street since.

  The driver swore—in Persian—complaining bitterly about his watch. This was followed by the rattle of a wristwatch’s metal band, then the sound of an object—the wristwatch?––hitting the floor.

  Interrupted, the man closest to Grace, who is now her interrogator, repeats himself—also in struggling English.

  “You are to tell me who is this that employs you.”

  Her wrists are bound by a plastic tie—in front of her body. A mistake on their part.

  Grace’s mother is overbearing, highly manipulative, not merely fast-talking but verbally dominating. Throughout her teen years, Grace deployed imitation to challenge her mother. As fast as her mother could dish it out, Grace could reciprocate. She and her brother would take turns mimicking their mother and playing her foil. Now, in response to her interrogator, Grace spews a stream of Mandarin from a verbal fire hose, drenching the man with a continuous high-pitched rage of indignity and offense. She levels a half-dozen curses on the man and his lineage while insulting the size of his sex organ and comparing his testicles to kidney beans.

  Once past the curses, still speaking Mandarin, Grace explains that she is but a humble accountant in service to a Westerner and that both are in Istanbul on business and that it is by no means any business of the men in this van.

  Not that her captor understands a word. The idea isn’t to be understood; it’s to take control of those trying to control you. To get away with as much as allowed. To test the boundaries and buy time and look for a quick way out. She has her best
chance of escape while in transit. Once locked down in a fixed location, her chances of survival sink quickly.

  Grace is further benefited by the van’s mechanical problems. Apparently the two men chose a lemon for an abduction vehicle; even as she continues her Mandarin assault, she hears the driver complaining. The engine misfires amid the storm of her cursing. The two men argue about what a poor job the driver is doing, taking the heat off Grace, who continues to protest her innocence defiantly.

  “Fucking yellowtail,” her interrogator complains. “Cannot shut her up.”

  “Fix it!” the driver says. “She spoke English when requesting the transcript. Get it out of her!”

  Grace translates this from Persian while her tongue lashes out in Mandarin and her brain hears a translation in English. Mention of “the transcript” runs cold through her as she determines the nature of the house call. Points connect with vectors, arrows weave through her thoughts: these men are tied to her call to the university; the university connects her to the records of graduate Nawriz aka “Mashe” Melemet, who holds multiple degrees associating him with advance studies in particle physics.

  They will beat the English out of her, she thinks. Rape her, gladly. Share her with every man.

  She begins to fall down a tightening spiral of defeat. Too much knowledge can be dangerous. She has lived such outcomes through their clients, but always at a healthy distance.

  Grace clutches at the unrealistic: the van will quit; they will be forced to move her on foot. But where? Is there a destination planned, or is it to be an interrogation and dump? Get what they can, as quickly as they can. Kill her. Move on.

  “This fucking piece of shit!” the driver says, pounding the wheel.

  “English!” her interrogator roars, attempting to create a wedge in her tirade.

  “I am humble accountant,” Grace says suddenly in Mandarin-accented English, still breathless, “serving Westerner making sale of art. Due diligence. Background. Credit checks. No understand what you want.”

  She buys herself time as he processes her statement.

  “Simple background check,” she continues. “Do so dozen times. Banks. Investment. Education. What you want? What I do wrong? Simple phone call. No more. You have no reason treat me like this.”

  “Working for who?”

  “This my client!” Incensed.

  “Who is this client?”

  “I wish all things foul on you and your children. Your children’s children. This none of your business. This confidential.”

  There’s a foul smell of fuel; the engine’s choking continues. Maybe she’s going to get her wish after all. Maybe divine justice is real. Maybe all the incense-burning her mother does means something. A twenty-foot golden Buddha with fruit piled at its chipped feet swims across her mind.

  “What the fuck!” The driver keeps cursing—in English now. She wonders about a culture that apparently can’t come up with its own expletives.

  Flung off the floor by a sharp turn, Grace is thrown back against the side door. Had her hands been bound behind her, this would have been her moment; she might have found the recessed door handle and bought herself freedom. Instead, she smacks her head. Her head sack catches and, as she bounces back onto her bottom, a few threads snag and fray at the bridge of her nose. The van shudders to a stop, coughs and dies.

  Grace is thrown back, a forearm to her throat. The door comes open and she’s dragged out, held by her collar. She can see dark, looming shapes through the snag. It’s a parking garage.

  She’s led up concrete stairs to a landing, and then on to a higher floor.

  Her internal processor slowed by the blow to her throat and the adrenaline compromising her system, only now does she identify the square object mounted to the concrete block wall a level below. A fire alarm.

  She’s forced to climb higher. At level two, another fire alarm in the same location on the wall.

  Hands bound in front of her.

  She knew that would cost them.

  25

  The plaza across the street from the Alzer Hotel is an oasis of flagstone, immature trees and park benches, reminding Knox of a museum’s café courtyard, one where the coffee is overpriced and the quiche tastes store-bought. Well-dressed tourists and locals crisscross the space, their attention on the drama of the mosque to the east or the hum from the Parisian café tables in front of the Alzer to the west.

  A man sits unmoving amid the plaza’s activity, his shoulders as wide as a gate, his face as ordinary and uninteresting as that of any school’s gym teacher.

  David Dulwich might be a piece of urban art—Man on a Park Bench, sculpted from concrete. But his collar riffles in the breeze and he squints against the street dust and litter. Focused on the entrance to the Alzer, and now Knox, who has exited the building and is looking in his direction, Dulwich sits unmoving and stoic. Let the mountain come to Mohammed.

  “You bastard!” Knox stands, hands shoved deeply into his jean pockets, looking nine feet tall.

  “You want me to walk away, I will.”

  “Go ahead and try.”

  For a moment, as Dulwich shifts on the bench, it appears he might challenge Knox. But all he’s doing is making enough room for Knox to sit.

  Knox remains standing. “Takes a two-oh-seven to hear from you.”

  “I’ve had contact with Chu prior to this. You know that.”

  “They’ve got her. And you’re sitting over here singing a chorus of ‘Feed the Birds’ like you haven’t got a care in the world.” Knox takes a step closer, a drunk begging for a bar fight.

  Dulwich sits up taller, though he clearly doesn’t mean to give Knox the power in the conversation. “It’s what we do,” Dulwich says. “We’re good at this.”

  “For our clients. We do this for our clients. Not our own people. Not like this.”

  “Clete Danner,” Dulwich says, reminding Knox of the Shanghai op and why Knox took it in the first place.

  “Fuck off.”

  “You can’t contact our company directly.”

  “I did, didn’t I? Apparently I’m on leave. You said ‘an in-and-out.’ Wait around in a hotel room. What happened to that?”

  “Grace is the company contact, not you. We can’t risk losing your cover. Grace can be replaced. You’re too important.”

  “She’s indisposed, so I texted you.”

  “And I handled it. We’re on it. What part of the assignment did you not understand?”

  “They’ve abducted her!”

  “Keep your voice down. Sit.” Dulwich indicates the space next to him. “Tone it down. Or I’m gone.”

  “You say you’re ‘on it.’ How? What’s the plan?”

  Impassive.

  “What are you doing for her?” Knox closes the distance, putting his face an inch from Dulwich’s. “What the hell am I into? The Red Room? ‘On leave’? Some spook watching Grace, who’s monitoring FedEx shipments of medical devices?”

  Dulwich is so well trained he has few tells, but Knox picks up a change of pulse in the flesh near the burn scar. “Digital Services has your video,” Dulwich says calmly. “They’re monitoring Istanbul police radio traffic and CCTV available cameras as you suggested—quick thinking on your part, for what it’s worth. If we’re lucky, we pick up some scraps. I’m here for your debrief.”

  Knox hands over his phone, cued to the video. Dulwich produces earbuds. Knox doesn’t need to hear. He remembers nearly every word.

  He cringes as he tries to read Grace’s lips.

  “He studied abroad eleven years. Returned to Iran. Taught for eight months and then goes off the grid.”

  “Mashe Okle surfaces.”

  “I love puzzles.”

  Her abduction feels faster this time. Knox wonders how time can condense and expand as it does in these moments.
/>   “You know one of those guys,” Knox says, astonished, studying Dulwich in profile. “Who is he?”

  “There’s a methodology, a science to it. You know that, Knox.”

  “There’s not going to be a ransom.”

  “No.” Dulwich’s first concession. One that Knox does not want. “What is she doing talking to you about the POI’s education? Where the fuck does it say she takes a flyer to dig into this guy?”

  “It’s Grace, Sarge. You assigned her his finances—”

  “But his education? You know who these people are?”

  “That’s rhetorical, I trust.”

  “Christ almighty! She hacked an Iranian university? What kind of response did she expect?”

  “Not this. I guaran-fuckin’-tee you that. This thing is nine layers deeper than you let on. Surveillance on Grace. Hostiles chasing me and the Obama. Package intercepts. Sick people who maybe aren’t. Well people who may be sick.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You’re not here. You don’t want to know.”

  “Let me be the judge of that.”

  “I don’t think so. It’s Grace’s intel. You recover Grace, she’ll download you.” Knox hopes that if Dulwich didn’t have enough motivation to throw everything at this extraction before, the fire’s lit now.

  Dulwich stabs the bench. His fingers look like big pieces of broken sticks, most, but not all, with full fingernails. “This thing . . .” He shakes his head. Bears down on Knox with intensely angry eyes. A conversation passes between them, a dust devil dropping pieces of friendship, frustration, fear. “You are to sell the Harmodius. You and Grace spend five minutes in the room with the mark. You get the fuck out and go home to Tommy. What was not clear about that?”

  Knox knows better than to answer. He has Dulwich right where he wants him: in need.

  “What is this about the mark’s health?” Dulwich asks.