Exit Strategy

by Charlton Pettus

  Stephanie slept badly. No dreams—at least, not any she remembered. Just a nagging sense that something was wrong, or missing. Something vital was dangling just out of reach. She woke up early. It was still dark. Distant chains on dry snow and the hum of the streetlight. Just after four. Stephanie was wide-awake; her eyes seemed too open, as if she could neither blink nor fully relax the muscles of her forehead. Simon had said the sequence was ATG, CTG, GTG repeated sixty times exactly. M, L, V. At first she had thought that he must have been mistaken, but then she had realized that ATG, in addition to coding for methionine, was the start codon for almost every gene in the genome; it was the sequence that initiates transcription. So, maybe, she had theorized, starting with the M was just an artifact of the steps Jordan had taken to copy the sequence and introduce it into his DNA. But now, in the predawn stillness, that explanation didn’t sit well. Jordan was a meticulous scientist, OCD if she was honest; his experimental work was always clean and elegant. It wasn’t a coding gene; it could start however he wanted. He would have gotten it right.

  In her twenties, before motherhood had drained the selfish hours from her Sundays, she had been an obsessive crossword solver. She had done the New York Times Magazine puzzle over coffee in pen and then lounged away the rest of the day in faded blue Andover sweatpants and wooly socks, wrestling with the London Guardian’s cryptic. She still had an app on her phone called Crosswits. It was her cheat of last resort when she got stymied. You entered the letters you knew and question marks where the missing letters were and the program spat out the words and phrases that matched.

  Stephanie turned on her bedside lamp—one click, a soft yellow light just strong enough to push through the darkness in a compressed bubble that spilled off her side of the bed and across the carpeted floor to the window. She retrieved her phone from the floor.

  She entered “M?L?V?” and the screen immediately offered, “My Love,” “Me Love” and “Molave” (which it went on to explain was a municipality in the Philippines). She started moving the wildcards. “M?LV?” yielded “Molvi,” no definition suggested. For most of the arrangements the program replied, “I’m sorry, no results matched your query.” But one—“?M?L?V?”—gave four. The first suggestion was the rather poetic “O, my love.” There were links given to a song by the Cloud Room and “Oh My Love” by John Lennon. Next was “Emil Ivy,” a name Google had no citations for. Then the program suggested the rather narcissistic and grammatically dubious “I me love.” When her eyes reached the fourth suggestion, Stephanie felt the walls of the room rip suddenly away as her focus tunneled to the letters on the screen. She couldn’t breathe. She had exhaled but despite the empty pressure of her lungs it seemed inconceivably complicated to reverse the process, to realign the valves in her throat and sinuses, to compel her diaphragm to drop and create the partial vacuum that would draw the air in and replenish the supply of oxygen to her brain. The cursor blinked patiently next to the words her husband had written in his DNA, had repeated sixty times over and over as if screaming to be heard, and as she read it she knew with an absolute certainty it was true.

  “I’m alive.”

  56

  FRANS MAAS

  The man came in to Le Vieux Puits, stooping slightly to avoid striking his head on the low beam that divided the bar area from the dining room. The relais was quiet; most of the truckers and tour operators had been and gone. It was the late-afternoon lull; a couple lone motorists had stopped for a coffee to get them to Saint-Malo, and there was one French truck driver talking on his cell phone and marching briskly through a second liter bottle of the local cider. Neil made a note to let that drunk bastard get a good head start before he hit the road again. The man was looking around hesitantly as his eyes adjusted to the dim light. It had to be him. Neil raised a hand and pushed back his chair with a grunt. “Oi, you William?” he said with the deep sigh of a man who could do with four or five stone less bulk on him.

  “Yes, Neil?” the man said, putting out his hand. Decent grip. American, it sounded like, okay-looking guy. Didn’t look like a poof—white-collar hands, though.

  “Yeah. Good to meet you. Have a seat.” Jordan took the opposite chair. “Sorry I didn’t wait,” Neil said with an apologetic half smile, glancing at his nearly empty plate. “Calves’ feet,” he added with a little jerk of his chin, acknowledging the anatomically explicit remains. He didn’t mention that he’d actually arrived two hours before the arranged meet to make sure there were no unwelcome guests from any of the several potentially interested gendarmeries. It had looked clean.

  “You want to order something? Food’s better than you’d think.”

  “No, thank you, I’m fine,” the man said.

  “Suit yourself,” Neil said, pushing his plate away and refilling his glass from the pitcher of cider.

  “Did you bring the ante?”

  Jordan took a brown paper bag from inside his coat and pushed it across the table. Neil peered inside; a couple stacks of lavender-tinted five-hundred-euro notes hunkered smugly in the bottom of the sack. The bills smelled new. He let his eyes linger an extra moment before rolling the top of the bag shut and stuffing it in his coat pocket. Neil loved money for its own sake. Pat was always on him about that, trying to make him admit that it was the things you could get—cars, houses, women, respect, security—that mattered but Neil could give a fuck about all that. He had what he needed and could take what he didn’t. No, it was the money itself, the paper and ink, that he loved. Made no sense but true just the same.

  “May I see the truck?”

  “Oh, yeah, yeah, of course,” Neil said, draining the glass and laboring to his feet again. Not big on chitchat was he. Fair enough; Neil got that. He dug a couple crumpled notes from his pants and left them on the table. “This way.”

  * * *

  Jordan followed the trucker out the back door of the restaurant. Christ, he’s big, he thought. His leg’s the size of my waist. And yet he didn’t seem to have any fat on him, just big and solid. Even his head was massive, jutting jaw, piercing blue eyes and brows permanently cocked in ironic amusement.

  The cab was an older white Mercedes Actros, flat nose, slight curve at the sides. The trailer was covered with a fitted blue tarp with the logo Frans Maas printed on the side in large yellow letters. Neil lifted the tarp in the back to expose a heavy padlock. He opened it with a key at his belt and slid the door open. He stepped up into the trailer and held the tarp for Jordan.

  The inside was empty. The trailer was covered but the sides were open slats so a dim blue light filtered through. “So they don’t have to open us up,” Neil said. “They can shove the end of the detector right up under the tarp. That’s how they do it, you know. It’s all CO2 detectors now. Quick and easy. That’s why they catch most of ’em.

  “Illegals sneak into the back of half the trucks making the crossing. They’d never find them back in the day, but now they got these detectors. If you’re breathing, you’re busted.” He liked that line.

  “So how do we avoid them?”

  Neil smiled broadly. “We don’t, we want ’em to check us. Half the time they’ll catch one that’s hitched a ride without me knowing. But they have never found one of my customers.” He beamed, thick arms crossed over his chest.

  Jordan’s eyes swung around the empty trailer. Finally he shrugged. “Okay, I’ll bite.”

  Neil nodded smugly and motioned Jordan to follow him to the back of the trailer. He took a short screwdriver from his coat pocket and pried up a section of the floor. It swung open and Jordan saw a pair of shallow compartments, each just high enough to hold a man lying down. At the head of each compartment was something that looked like a scuba regulator connected to a hose.

  “You breathe through there—CO2 gets blown out with the exhaust. Come see the outside.” He lowered the floor back into place. From the outside Jordan couldn’t see where the compartment
s could be; the trailer floor was only a couple of inches thick.

  “Nice, right?” Neil said. “The floor inside slopes gradually up—you can’t tell but it does. By the back of the truck you have an extra foot and a half. Pretty good, eh? Guy who built her out was a fucking magician.”

  Jordan nodded appreciatively, though he thought drug smuggler a more likely occupation for the previous owner.

  “Don’t worry, Billy. We’ll get you to Dover safe and sound,” Neil said, clapping Jordan heavily on the back. For what he was paying, they better, Jordan thought.

  57

  A NICE FUCKING DAY

  Trahon had come through. The lieutenant had gotten a warrant for the Viceroy mail drop and Prenn’s apartment, including any computers and files on the premises. It was all tied to the insider trading angle so it wasn’t going to make the security camera footage any more usable, but it was a start. Herron pressed the penthouse buzzer and waited. He nodded at the security guard, who gave him a quick glance before returning to his book. Probably the Bryce kid’s cousin, Herron thought. The video screen came to life, the image swelling like a bubble, then settling on the face of a clearly just-awakened Alex Prenn.

  “Yes?” Voice low and raspy with sleep.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Prenn. Detective Herron. Mind if I come up?”

  His face was close to the camera, as if he was leaning against the wall. “Actually, this is not a great time, Detective. Would you mind coming back in a couple of hours?”

  “Sorry, sir. I’m afraid it has to be now.” He held the folded document up to the camera. “I have a warrant.”

  Alex didn’t react to this bit of information except to nod slightly and say, “I see. I suppose you’d better come up, then.” The door to Herron’s left buzzed and he walked through it to the elevator bank.

  Prenn answered the door in a thick belted hotel robe and socks. He read quickly through the warrant as he led the way to the U-shaped sofa in the sunken living room. “What would you like to discuss today, Detective?”

  “Why don’t we start with Viceroy Interests?”

  “Okay, when we went public Viceroy was an active early investor. When things started to go badly they bought up most of the outstanding shares. They basically own Genometry now. Stuck with it. Other than that I’m afraid I can’t tell you much.” Alex met Herron’s eyes levelly.

  “Really? That surprises me, Mr. Prenn. You would think you’d have done more research on your largest investor.”

  “I tried. It turned out to be very difficult to identify the principals.”

  “How far did you get?”

  “Hong Kong. That seems to be where they’re based.”

  Herron pulled a distressed little notepad from his jacket pocket and started flipping through it. It was an absurd little display, like something out of an old Columbo episode, but it gave him a minute to watch Prenn sweat.

  “Right, I thought that, too, at first.”

  “At first? So you found something that suggested otherwise?”

  Herron pretended to read from the notebook. “Yes. I traced the ownership of the Hong Kong company to something in Lichtenstein called—” here he fumbled through pages again...wait for it “—here it is. Session? No, Hessians Global, that’s it. Any bells, sir?”

  Alex pursed his lips and affected a thoughtful gaze, eyes up and left, just where they ought to be if he was searching his midterm memory. A rueful shake of the head. “Sorry, I don’t recognize it.” Cool as a cucumber.

  Herron decided to let that one dangle for a bit. He shut the notebook and put it back into his pocket. “Would you mind showing me your office, sir?”

  “Of course,” Alex said, standing and leading the way. His office took up almost a third of the upper floor and had probably originally been the master bedroom, Herron thought. Floor-to-ceiling windows took up two walls of the corner room. One side looked out across the Fens and the other down Pond Avenue as it snaked slushily down and around the park, shadowing the stream that bisected it, invisible beyond snowy banks.

  An antique table of dark cherry with three large monitors presided over one side of the room while the other was devoted to a wall-mounted plasma, a worn leather sofa and two armchairs. Herron sat down at the computer. The monitors displayed real-time data on several exchanges: New York, London, Hong Kong, Tokyo and a couple he didn’t recognize. He opened a browser window and entered an IP address. The direct socket connection was established and the tech guys downtown took control.

  “Mr. Prenn, my people are going to go through your system now. Are there any encrypted or password-protected files?”

  “I don’t think so. If there are, the code would be 78374, probably.” He seemed incredibly relaxed. More awake now, almost smirking. They weren’t going to find shit.

  “Do you have another computer or a laptop here, sir?”

  “Yes, my laptop is downstairs. Shall I get it for you?”

  “I’ll come with you, if you don’t mind, sir.”

  Alex laughed. “I’m not sure you want to do that, Detective. I promise you I’m not going to erase anything.”

  “Just the same.”

  Alex led the way down the spiral staircase to the lower level. The downstairs was dark and still, no natural light, just a dull orange aura from recessed lighting in the ceiling, which was lower than Herron had expected. He knew he wasn’t really going to hit his head but felt himself involuntarily stooping nonetheless. There was a hallway with a couple of doors at the far end and long sliding doors all the way along one wall. Serious closet space.

  Alex opened the door on the left at the end of the hallway and Herron followed him in. It was even darker in the bedroom, almost black except for a sliver of light coming through the heavy drapes. The room was several degrees warmer than the rest of the apartment and there was a heavy, musky smell. Alex touched a smooth metal plate by the door and the ceiling fixtures came on with a gentle hum, gradually rising to a preset golden glow.

  Herron hadn’t realized the girl was there until she sighed drowsily and rolled on her side. She was sprawled on top of the duvet, completely naked except for a black leather strap around her left ankle that was still attached by a steel ring to a length of chain that disappeared under the sheet at the corner of the bed. She propped herself up on one elbow and met Herron’s eyes for a moment before lazily swinging her gaze to Prenn.

  “What time is it?”

  Eastern European, almost Russian but not quite. Herron was pretty sure she was the blonde from the security video. She was exquisite and utterly unselfconscious. Herron saw the other ankle cuff on the floor at the foot of the bed, attached to a steel rod with some kind of hardware he couldn’t really figure out. She had a series of angry welts across her ass and upper thighs and what looked like faded burn marks on her breast and arm. No track marks, he noticed.

  Prenn unplugged a MacBook Air from the bedside table and ran his fingers lightly over the small of her back while smiling at Herron like the cat who just fucked the canary. “It’s early. Go back to sleep. I won’t be long.”

  “Good,” she murmured, pulling one of the pillows into her belly and curling up, hair fanned around her head and one leg straight out, pulling on its restraint. Prenn tapped the wall plate again on the way out and the lights dimmed and extinguished.

  Upstairs he handed Herron the laptop. “There you go, Detective. Knock yourself out.”

  “Thank you. I won’t need it more than a day or two.”

  “Good, my whole life is in there.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Yes, well, was there anything else you wanted to discuss? I did have some things I really should get back to.” With that smug smirk again.

  “Have you seen much of Mrs., rather, Dr. Parrish lately?” Two could play, asshole.

  “I speak to Stephanie often. She’s h
ad a bad year and we’re very old friends.”

  “I’m sure you’ve been a great comfort.”

  Prenn’s eyes blazed for a split second before he regained control. “I’m certain my friendship with Stephanie Parrish is outside the purview of your warrant, Detective. If you’ll excuse me, I am rather tired.”

  “Of course, of course.” Herron followed Alex to the front door. He tapped the laptop. “I’ll be sure to get this back to you as soon as possible.”

  Prenn didn’t answer but pressed the elevator button and leaned against the doorframe, fully back in character, the louche rake, Teflon. As the elevator door slid shut, Herron stopped it with his hand. He knew he shouldn’t but he couldn’t resist.

  “By the way, I met your stepmom the other day. She’s a piece of work, isn’t she?” He pulled back his hand and the door slid shut. Have a nice fucking day.

  58

  HAYSTACKS

  The broker didn’t understand; she thought the Canadian wanted to renegotiate the terms and was trying to explain the absolute impossibility of such a thing. “I am so sorry, Mr. Butler, I thought I made it clear. The price you paid was for a year in advance and as you have already signed the contrat and taken possession... I don’t understand—”

  Jordan interrupted with a soft smile, “No, Claire, it’s all right. I’m not trying to back out of the deal. It’s fine. I am asking if you will find a tenant for me. A sublet. You understand? My work situation has changed and I will no longer be staying in Rennes. However, there are—” he paused and struggled to find the words “—certain tax implications and residence requirements... You understand, I am sure. So I wish to sublet the house. I am willing to rent it for well below what I paid if you can find a tenant who can offer cash. In advance.”

  He raised his eyebrows as if to say, yes, this is all flirting with the boundaries of strict legality but we are all adults here, people of the world who know how life works. And, of course, as in all such things, there would be financial rewards for facilitating such an arrangement. Best not to speak too directly lest one be obliged as a result to lie to the authorities at some future date... Claire seemed to grasp immediately all the subtext his arched brows meant to convey and instantly brightened, regaining her customary brisk, professional demeanor. And he was certainly not unattractive in a somewhat serious, unfashionable way. And he clearly had money; his bank approval had come through instantly.