The Time to Kill

by Mason Cross

  “Could have been worse,” I reminded him. “Is there anything saved on that? Search history? Email password?”

  Bryant shook his head. “It’s brand new. Just for the demo.”

  “Good. Leave it.”

  The rain had abated for the moment, but from the look of the sky, it was temporary. We turned the corner, and I looked up and down the road between the row of units. All were shuttered or boarded up, and there was nobody else in sight. I knew we had to keep moving, but there was something I had to do first that couldn’t wait. I asked for Bryant’s phone and he handed it over.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s clean—no contract. Untraceable.”

  “Nice idea,” I said. “If you hadn’t synced it to your personal Microsoft account.”

  I turned away from him as his jaw dropped. The ID we’d left at the United desk meant that our pursuers knew Bryant’s name. Eventually they would be able to trace devices registered to his online account and probably be able to use that information to locate this phone. But that would take them a while, and I’d make sure we left it here after I made one last call.

  “Everybody makes mistakes,” he said quietly, repeating my words from earlier.

  “Goddamn right they do,” I said, more to myself than him.

  I didn’t call Coop’s cell phone this time. Although it was part of our understanding that we didn’t know where each other was based, old habits die hard. I had spent some time a while back tracking down the specific hotel in Orlando in which he resided, even managing to pin down the name he stayed under.

  I found the number of the Sunset Apartments on Google and hit the button to call. The voice that answered sounded harassed, impatient. At first I mistook that for standard-issue snooty concierge behavior. But when I asked to speak to Mr. Gray in room 204, there was a full two seconds of silence.

  “Excuse me a moment, sir.”

  There was a pause as the receiver was cupped with a muffling hand, hushed voices relaying the information of whom I’d asked for. It sounded as though he was asking for direction.

  The voice was artificially bright when it came back on. “May I ask who’s calling, sir?”

  “Tell him it’s Mr. Kubert.”

  Bryant was watching with interest, and mouthed What’s up? I ignored it.

  Another pause, phone muffled again. I heard a scuffing sound as the phone was passed to someone else.

  “This is Detective Mike Malone, Orlando PD Homicide. Who’s speaking?”

  I felt as though I’d been delivered a gut punch. I hung up, turned the phone off, and removed the SIM and memory cards. I dropped the phone on the ground and stamped down on the screen with the heel of my shoe. Bryant opened his mouth to protest, then thought better of it when he saw the look on my face.

  All of a sudden, it looked like the clock was running down.

  The drizzle began again as we walked, lighter than it had been at the airport. We made our way back through the maze of units, taking a different route than the one we’d driven in by. As we got nearer the entrance, we found more places open for business: a cake supplies outlet, an auto parts store, a remaindered books warehouse. I was hoping there might be a used car lot, but no such luck. Finally, we found our way back to the main entrance just in time to hear sirens on the freeway a quarter mile back. I froze and watched as two police cars flew over the bridge crossing the road we were on and continued past the exit. That was a break: Either no one had seen us leave at the first exit, or the information hadn’t been conveyed to the cops on the ground yet.

  In truth, I wasn’t as concerned with the kind of cars that announced themselves with sirens and flashing lights as I was about the anonymous black SUV that might appear at any moment. The men at the airport had much more information about who we were and why we were running than the cops, and that would mean they’d stand a better chance of catching up with us.

  The road we were on was quiet, but I could see steady traffic passing at the next intersection, about another two hundred yards away in the opposite direction from the freeway bridge. We covered the distance quickly. All around were vacant lots and low buildings. Too open, too exposed. As we reached the corner of the intersection, I saw what I thought was a bus stop on the other side of the road. As we got closer, I realized it was a light-rail stop on the airport line and—a break at last—a northbound train was approaching. The sign above the windshield told me it was headed to downtown Seattle. Back to square one. I avoided eye contact with the driver, who paid almost no attention to either of us as we paid cash for two tickets into the city. Bryant sat down first, taking the closest empty seat to the front. He glanced around warily at the other passengers, as though expecting another attack.

  When the doors closed and the train moved smoothly off, he finally spoke.

  “So, what now?”

  “Now we get the hell out of town.”

  “We? You think I’m going anywhere with you after you almost got me killed? No way. Deal’s off.”

  I sighed. “This has nothing to do with the deal. They’re looking for us both now.”

  “What the hell do you mean? I never even met you before this morning. They don’t even know who I am.”

  “They saw you with me. That means you’re a potential lead to me. You don’t want to hear about what they’ll do to find out what you know.” He opened his mouth to protest, but I kept talking. “And they know exactly who you are now. We had to leave our ID at the ticket desk, remember?”

  He looked like he was trying to think of another argument, before shaking his head in frustration. “Shit.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “This is your fault, you know. I’m going to get killed because of you.”

  “Don’t look at me, Bryant. If you hadn’t swiped MeTime, they’d be shooting at me in an entirely different state right now.”

  The train slowed for the next stop. A couple of streets from us, we saw a police car run through an intersection, lights on. Bryant and I exchanged a glance.

  “So where do we go until the heat’s off?” he asked quietly once we were moving again.

  “The heat’s never going off.”

  “Goddamn it, Blake. Do you have anything good to say?”

  “Sure. The good news is, I have a plan.”

  FIVE YEARS AGO

  NEW YORK CITY

  Carol had arranged to pick me up at one o’clock that afternoon, but there was a conversation I needed to have with her boss first.

  I contacted the senator via the prepay cell phone I had been using for this purpose, and asked for a meeting. He paused, then said he would shuffle his diary around a little and suggested meeting in Battery Park in a couple of hours. I got to the meeting point at Pier A ten minutes early, but Carlson had beaten me there. He was dressed in a long winter coat and hat. For a guy able to project his personality so forcefully on television, he was doing a creditable job of blending in.

  I didn’t waste time on pleasantries. “I want out.”

  Carlson stared back at me, his face betraying no emotion. After a second, he nodded his head to the side, indicating that we should walk and talk.

  “What do you mean?” he asked after we had walked a few paces.

  “I mean out of all of it. You, them, everything. I’m not going back.”

  He took a moment to let that sink in. The temperature had plummeted in the last few days, and the wind blowing off the harbor was freezing. Small groups of tourists and couples wandered past, on their way to the Liberty Island ferry.

  “Are you going to say something, or are you just here for the exercise?” I said when we had covered a couple hundred yards without him saying anything else. Carlson stopped and looked across the harbor.

  “Seems to me that choice isn’t one that’s open to you.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “You told me yourself. People don’t leave Winterlong. My other contact tells me they’re starting to get suspicious.”


  “What makes him think that?” I had long since stopped trying to get a name out of Carlson.

  “Little things. Nothing dramatic. They’re taking a few more precautions. Codes being changed more regularly. More meetings of the senior staff.”

  “Does your guy think they’re onto him?” I caught myself just in time before I had said “us.” I still wasn’t sure there was an “us.”

  Carlson shook his head. “No. He doesn’t think they know anything specific. But that doesn’t alter my point—you don’t just walk away from Winterlong.”

  “I’ve made arrangements,” I said. “Not just because of this. On some level, I think I’ve been preparing for this for a long time.”

  Carlson turned his head to look at me, saying nothing.

  “I have an apartment where I can lie low for a while. I know a guy who can set me up with everything I need. Driver’s license, employment and financial history, passport if I need it.”

  “You would need money.”

  “I have money. I could walk away from you right now and five minutes later I wouldn’t exist. Winterlong helps on that. Everything about me is classified anyway, from my record to my medical history to my fingerprints. They’ve done the work for me: I’m no one. Easy enough to be a different no one.”

  “Is it?” He turned away again. “I need you on this.”

  “You have another guy.”

  “And what do you think will happen to him if you disappear? That kernel of suspicion is going to pop. Best-case scenario, his hands will be tied. Worst case …”

  “It’s not my problem.”

  He paused and started walking again. I thought about turning and walking in the other direction, but in the end I followed.

  “You’ve been seeing Carol, I understand.”

  “She told you that?”

  “Not directly, but it’s obvious to anyone who knows her she’s seeing someone. She’s … happier. Are you going to walk away from her, too?”

  “Who says she can’t come with me?”

  He gave me a look of disappointment. “You aren’t really that naive, are you? Besides, it wouldn’t be much of a life for her. Leaving everything behind, always looking over her shoulder. I believe you when you say you could do it, but Carol?” He shook his head.

  I said nothing. After a moment, Carlson continued.

  “And if you leave her, how do you know they won’t try to trace you through her?”

  “Because nobody knows about me and her.” The second it was out I realized that wasn’t true. Carlson knew, and if he knew, maybe other people did, too.

  “How sure are you about that?”

  Carol arrived at one o’clock on the dot, in a car she had rented for the weekend. Her idea—she had taken a couple of rare vacation days, and we decided it would be nice to get in the car and drive out to Long Island, with no particular plans in mind. Carol was enjoying the novelty of driving, and I was happy to let her take us the whole way. It gave me time to think about everything. We took Route 27, deciding after we got going to press on all the way to Montauk. We arrived a little after six, and took a walk along one of the white sandy beaches before dinner. The view would have been clearer in the summer, but the gray skies and the rough sea had a rugged beauty all their own.

  I was thinking about everything Carlson had said earlier. And one thing in particular. She’s happier. Carlson was a politician, of course. Manipulating people to get his own way was his stock in trade, and yet I couldn’t quite get it out of my mind. She did seem happy. We both did. And that was something I should have avoided.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  I smiled. “Actually, I was thinking about you.”

  She didn’t return the smile. “You’ve been quiet today. The whole drive up here. Something’s different.”

  “Nothing’s different,” I said. Perhaps a little too quickly.

  She looked down at the sand, and I could tell she was about to say something she had been building up to. Rehearsing in her head all day, perhaps. She had been quiet, too, on the drive out.

  “What has he asked you to do?”

  “I can’t talk about it,” I said. It was the first time I had said that straight out, rather than deflecting her subtle inquiries. But she had never asked the question so directly until now.

  “It’s dangerous, isn’t it? It’s to do with … whatever it is that you do.”

  “When it’s all over, I’ll be able to tell you everything. I promise.”

  “Assuming I stick around that long.” Her expression said she wasn’t kidding.

  “Will you?”

  We held eye contact for a long moment, and then she broke into a smile. But it was hard to read the smile. “I hate you.”

  “Normally it takes people a lot less time to say those three words to me. You’re exceptional.”

  She rolled her eyes, and I felt a little of the tension dissipate. She reached for my hand and took it in both of hers. “Seriously. You won’t do anything to put yourself in danger?”

  “No more than usual.”

  She nodded, as though that would have to be good enough, for now. I doubted this conversation would get any easier the next time it came up.

  It was deep into the off-season now, so there were plenty of accommodation options. We took a room in an inn within walking distance of the beach. Neither of us felt like going out for dinner, so I picked up sandwiches and cold beer and brought them back, just missing the rain as it started up. We ate in the room, talking about everything that wasn’t the senator or what I did for a living. Afterward, we sat on the couch and watched the rain shower down on the wooden deck outside. Carol put on some music on her phone, a Sam Cooke record again.

  “You’ll be careful,” she said again.

  “I know what I’m doing.”

  She stared past me, out at the rain for a while. “That’s the thing, though. There’s always something you don’t know.”

  I was roused by the buzzing of my cell phone. Reluctantly opening my eyes, I saw that it was still dark outside and the rain was still falling. The buzzing continued. I knew what the call meant. Very few people had my number. In a second I would have to break this spell and go back to the world. Back to Winterlong. I looked at Carol, still dozing, her head on the pillow beside mine, a lock of blond hair trailing down over one eye, the corner of her mouth curled up in a smile as though she was having a pleasant dream. More than anything, I wanted to let the phone ring out. I wanted to hurl the phone out of the nearest window and forget all about Winterlong.

  It buzzed again. I moved my arm out from under Carol’s head gently. She opened her eyes partway and murmured a sleepy, “Hey.”

  “Hey back.”

  I got up and dug the phone out of my pants pocket. The screen showed a withheld number, of course. I walked across to the window and hit the button to pick up.

  “What’s going on?”

  “This is your wake-up call. Do you require a newspaper?” The voice belonged to Murphy. My voice must have given away the fact that I had just woken up. I sighed.

  “Just tell me when and where.”

  “Three hours, the usual place. Pack your toothbrush.”

  I looked back into the bedroom. Carol was sitting up in bed, smiling back at me. “Everything okay?”

  I hung up on Murphy. Nothing was okay. Nothing at all.

  25

  I had told Bryant I had a plan. In retrospect, maybe “a plan” was stretching it. Plans rely on detail, reflection, the weighing up of risk. What I had was a goal: to keep moving and to stay out of my pursuers’ way long enough to retrieve the one thing I might be able to use against them.

  I began to tense up on the ride back into the city as more and more passengers joined the train. So far none had given us a second look, but I wondered if our faces had been released to the news. There was no way to access the Internet to check. All of a sudden I was really feeling the lack of a phone—it was hampering for
ward planning in a strange city, giving me no way to look up maps or transit options as we traveled. I consoled myself with the thought that, had I not ditched the phone, my forward planning might have been hampered permanently. Briefly I thought about Stafford—he would not be pleased when I failed to deliver Bryant at the appointed time. I reminded myself that an aggravated client was pretty close to the bottom of my worry list.

  As a precaution, we sat apart for the last few stops, so as not to present a matched pair. The next step was to make some effort to alter our appearances. In particular, I wanted to ditch the two raincoats as fast as possible. The only reason I hadn’t already was that we would be far more conspicuous not wearing coats on a typically rainy Seattle afternoon in early January.

  We left the train at University Street, the second-from-the last stop. We turned onto Third Avenue, and I spotted a branch of Macy’s a couple blocks away. A department store was ideal for our purposes, and not just because of the range of goods. There would be lots of different exits, lots of ways to thwart surveillance.

  I asked Bryant if he was carrying any cash. He was, since he had already been on the run for a day longer than I had, and with more prep time. I gave him instructions and told him to meet me at the exit at the opposite side of the ground floor in fifteen minutes. The in-store signs told me those doors would bring us out on Fourth Avenue.

  He nodded, and we split up. I realized that this was the first time I’d given him a real option about whether to stick with me or pull a fade, and wondered if he’d be dumb enough to run. In all honesty, it would make things easier for me. Who knew—perhaps my pursuers would leave Bryant alone, correctly assuming that he knew nothing. Then I thought about the gun pointed at Jessica Allen’s head in LA. The man with the glasses didn’t like loose ends. He might try to get information out of Bryant, or he might simply put a bullet in his head to tidy up. Either way, they would find him, and he would have no chance to defend himself, if he even saw them coming.