Choke Point

by Ridley Pearson

  The door is unlocked. She passes an umbrella stand and a boot brush. Finds a two-person elevator and a door marked as fire stairs. The staircase holds the unpleasant aftereffects of curry and cigarettes. The space is well lighted, with no graffiti. Posters warn of AIDS.

  The man she confronted in the shisha café knew nothing of a newspaper reporter; had no bruises or signs of having been attacked. The man who’d checked into the hospital had provided a bogus address, but one that was registered to a man with his same name. Clever, yes. But also premeditated. He’d known how he would fill out the forms well before arriving at the emergency room. The beating had scared him. Finding such a cautious man will not be easy.

  She walks the second-floor hallway, past doors muting the sounds of music and television, conversation and radio. She stops, recalling the police report. She grins, amused. The address is apartment 9. There are only eight apartments.

  She retreats and knocks on the door. A Slavic woman answers, too pretty for such a place. She’s wearing a clean yet well-worn frock.

  Grace displays her EU credentials. She speaks Dutch slowly. The woman has no trouble understanding. There is no man named Fahiz, Grace is told. Not that she knows of. People come and go. It is hard to keep track. We don’t know each other well, the woman confesses.

  A second dead end from the elusive Kahil Fahiz, a man mistaken for another.

  Grace is about to inquire if the police have been around, but thinks better of it. She thanks the woman and compliments her on her child, asleep in a springed rocker. Grace’s attention lingers a little too long on the infant.

  “You have children of your own?” the woman asks.

  Grace offers a half-smile, reminded of the wedding ring she wears as part of her cover. Thanks the woman. Descends the stairs in something of a trance. She feels weary. Old. She has left her high school sweetheart behind in China for a second time. Twice she has felt the skin peeled from her body; twice she has been forced to heal. She calls Knox, wondering why this is the first thing she thinks to do.

  “Can you talk?”

  “And listen,” he says. “With pleasure.”

  She throws an internal switch: back to Grace the spy. “He provided a fake address. Twice, actually, but the second time to the cops.”

  “That’s ballsy.”

  “Afraid the police report would leak,” she says.

  “And it did. He was right about that. You and I should not forget.”

  “I’m going to try the mobile number he provided to the police. I thought you should know.”

  “First, can you get into billing records for the mobile carriers?”

  On their first job together, a kidnapping case in Shanghai, they had used a third-party hacker. It had bothered Grace to involve an outsider. Since their return to Hong Kong she had devoted herself to studying with the Data Sciences division at Rutherford Risk, a group that included a cadre of prepubescent freaks who kept their own hours and could drill into any server unobserved. Knox can tell by her silence that she takes offense at his asking.

  “To see if the number’s valid, et cetera, before dialing it yourself,” he says. “There could be more accurate billing information with the mobile carrier.”

  “Point taken,” Grace said. “And for the record, I had not planned to call from my own mobile.”

  “No. I didn’t mean to imply—”

  “Of course you did.”

  “I want to back you up.”

  “We’ll see,” she says.

  “Just as you helped me at Centraal.”

  “It is possible.”

  “It’s nonnegotiable.”

  “Did you connect with Pangarkar?”

  “In a manner of speaking. We were in the same room for a few minutes.”

  “We need her.”

  He returns the silent treatment.

  “I will check the carrier. Then I will call.” She hangs up. She finds a wireless connection in the lobby of the Hotel Pulitzer on Prinsengracht. The mobile’s number Fahiz supplied the police is a pay-as-you-go, rechargeable SIM card from SingTel, a Singapore cellular provider. The pay-as-you-go cards are not registered because there’s no billing; their owner remains anonymous. She and Knox carry several such cards, providing them different, untraceable numbers. But use of a SIM card from a faraway country is an interesting choice for an Amsterdam local. A foreign provider means far higher costs: ten times what one would pay using a local pay-as-you-go card. Fahiz’s use of a foreign SIM tells her that the increased cost doesn’t matter to him, and that distance—real anonymity—does. She wonders if he bought it after the assault to assure he can’t be easily found. But a second check reveals he’s been recharging the card for nearly three years. This takes her into interesting territory.

  “Fahiz is something of a curiosity.”

  “Aren’t we all.”

  She fills him in on the man’s use of a SingTel SIM card, pointing out the added expense, the implication of long-distance travel. She juxtaposes this with the false address he supplied to the police, and his listing his employment as “consultant.”

  “You and I, it’s much the same,” Knox says. “Three different cards, three different numbers, three different uses.”

  “But an average person?”

  “None of us is average,” Knox says. “He could owe child support. He could be a closet billionaire who just wants his privacy. Doesn’t make him a person of interest in and of itself. Maybe he has five wives and five different families.”

  “Whose fantasy are we talking about here?”

  “It would explain,” he says, “why he gives the police a false address, but a working phone number. He wants to be contacted; he doesn’t want to be able to be found.”

  She doesn’t like it when Knox outthinks her. She loses her train of thought.

  “All we care about,” Knox says, “is that someone beat the snot out of him in a case of mistaken identity.”

  “For safety’s sake, I will call him from a landline. A hotel over on Prinsengracht,” she tells Knox.

  “Good idea,” Knox says.

  “You wanted to know when I was going to call him.”

  “If you make arrangements to meet with him, I want in on that.”

  The call is placed from the hotel lounge, brown faux-leather chairs and couches grouped around black marble coffee tables on stainless-steel legs. Grace leaves a credit card with the desk to pay for the call. An automated voice tells her to leave a message. She does so.

  Twenty minutes later, she receives a call.

  “Ms. Chu?”

  “Speaking.”

  “Fahiz, here.”

  She reintroduces herself as an EU official investigating hate crimes. The police report implied he’d been beaten for something he may have said. She would like to speak with him, if possible.

  “The police were not to share my information,” the man protests.

  “I am afraid in instances such as yours they have no choice. Brussels is always notified in the case of hate crimes.”

  “I was . . . It was a mistake. It was an attack aimed at someone else.”

  “Yes. The man quoted in the newspaper article. Similar names. It is horrible.” He says nothing. She continues. “This man, this other Fahiz, has left the city, along with the other sources quoted in the article. It might be wise for you to do the same.”

  “Impossible at the moment. I told the police, I want nothing more to do with it beyond being notified prior to whatever arrests may be made. Should they miss someone, I do not want to bear the brunt of their reprisals.”

  “Then please, help us.”

  “Please, do not call me again.”

  Hearing his soothing and melodic voice, she’s reminded of fantasies she had believed long buried.

  “I found you,” she says. “Others could as well. We should talk.”

  A protracted silence results. “Are you there?” she finally asks. “A few minutes is all. A few questions and yo
u are done with me.” You called me back, she wants to shout.

  There’s a steadily approaching sound in the background of the call. At first, she can’t place it, but then she knows what it is: a tram. Fahiz is in the inner city.

  “Hate crimes?” he asks. “To them, we all look the same.”

  To them, she notes. Plural.

  “Your attackers were Dutch? European?”

  She expects he may have hung up. When she hears his breathing, she says, “A few minutes is all.” She gives him time to think. “You pick the time and place.”

  A long silence hangs over the line. Finally, he says, “Number fifty-four ferry to Noord. Alone. If I don’t contact you onboard, then walk straight up the promenade. Stay on that road. The first departure after the top of the hour. You have forty minutes.” Fahiz ends the call.

  Grace stares down at the screen of the phone, her thumbs poised to send Knox a text message. Alone. She follows through with the text ending in all caps:

  Agreed to meet: #54 ferry to Noord. 40 mins. Alone! YOU CANNOT BE ON FERRY

  She wishes she could trust Knox.

  —

  THE NOORD DISTRICT, with its postcard villages of Ransdorp and Durgerdam is separated from the touristy central district by the brown turbid waters of the IJ harbor. Pedestrians, bicycle and scooter riders, as well as any commuters using Centraal Station forgo the various traffic tunnels, riding the three free ferries that roundtrip in ten minutes. The Venice of the Netherlands, Amsterdam is home to ferries, water taxis and myriad private canal boats, lending the city a romantic, historical seductiveness.

  The easiest way to reach the Noord ferries is to cut through Centraal Station. It’s late afternoon—nine minutes remain until his deadline at the top of the hour—and the always busy station is bedlam. The coffee and news shops bulge with customers, choking foot traffic on the concourse. A woman’s voice over a loudspeaker grumbles train numbers and track numbers and times and destinations to where it sounds like a quiz show. There is every form of life here, from the stoned vagabond youth attracted by the city’s open pot cafés, to well-heeled businessmen and -women, mothers pushing strollers, gray-bearded seniors struggling to place their canes into the sea of shoe leather. Grace holds herself back to move with the pace of the crowd, not wanting to stand out. She wonders not if, but from where, Knox is watching. She hates to admit that along with the anxiety of having included him, there is an underlying sense of comfort that he’s likely nearby.

  Outside the station, she crosses with pedestrians and turns left to the ferries. Electronic signs announce the Noord destinations and the countdown to departures. Grace slows, but does not stop completely on her approach. Uninterested in the destinations, it’s the numbers painted on the ferry pilot cabins that register with her: 55, 59, 71 . . . There’s an enormous two-level barge tied up to the wharf that contains thousands of chained and locked bicycles. It’s a bicycle parking lot for commuters who use Centraal Station. Sight of it stops Grace and she chastises herself for appearing the tourist.

  54

  The dock’s electric timer counts down from 3:46. Bicyclists and scooter drivers push into a tangle on the right of the vessel. Pedestrians enter through doors to the left and move forward in a knot as the clock is down to under two minutes and there’s a final rush to board. It’s jammed, only inches separating people. There’s the smell of humanity—perfumes, soaps, sweat, tobacco and wine breath. The stern gangway raises automatically and the ferry’s under way. She is stalwart in her refusal to scan the faces of the passengers, to search for a man studying her. She doesn’t want to spot Knox breaking promises. She can’t allow anger to poison her. She must remain calm and objective. A low-level EU bureaucrat following up on something she’d rather not.

  The crossing is fast. Five minutes, tops. The air fills with blue motor oil vapor as the scooters start. The cyclists and pedestrians mix. It’s an orderly off-loading. People fan out. Bikes are mounted, backpacks slung on. Grace joins a flow of pedestrians walking straight ahead on a wide, tree-lined artery with pavement for cars, a substantial bike lane and a sidewalk for pedestrians. The transition to pastoral from the concrete of downtown is immediate. Lawns. Freestanding homes with wrought-iron fences. Birdsong. The air tastes cleaner. A different city, five minutes from Centraal Station.

  Still no contact.

  “We will turn around now,” speaks a male voice from behind. “I will take your phone.”

  Grace hesitates. It’s like handing over her weapon.

  “I’ll put it in airplane mode but there is no—”

  “Shut if off.” His voice is sharp and icy, causing the opposite reaction in her: a spike of heat. He reaches for her. She pulls away.

  “Easy!” she barks. The phone powers down. She shows it to him.

  He holds out his hand, expecting its delivery. “No phone, no discussion,” he says.

  “Such cloak and dagger,” Grace says.

  He pockets her phone, turns her toward the ferry dock. “Walk.” He stays at her side, a quarter-stride behind. In the distance, two electronic ferry signs.

  She has yet to get a decent look at him. In profile, he’s strong-featured, tall and unshaven. His left eye is swollen and he’s sporting three stitches above the cheekbone. He has lost a layer of skin. Confident this is finally the Fahiz she’s sought, she doesn’t allow herself a sense of satisfaction. His preparedness is a warning. If he wants to come across as an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances, he has failed.

  Since a young age she’s been drawn to the irrepressible overconfidence and swarthy looks of Turks. She finds their penetrating eyes hypnotic and their words carefully chosen. Appreciates that, as with Italian men, there’s no ambiguity about what it is they are after. Conquest is all that matters to them, and she controls them because she controls access. She’s never slept with a Turk. Can’t say the same about Italians.

  Is Knox watching? she wonders.

  The walk back to the ferry takes only a minute. The approaching vessel is mid-river and closing fast.

  Several cyclists arrive and queue up, standing alongside their bikes. It takes her a moment to recognize the man wearing the beret. His bike has to be twenty years old. He’s stolen it. He will call it borrowing.

  “After what has happened . . . someone with your particular credentials . . . the car bombing. My being assaulted. You must be half mad to investigate this.”

  “Only half?”

  “You joke? A man was killed.”

  “Assistant deputy directors are allocated five minutes of humor a month.”

  “Again,” he says.

  The return ferry arrives. She repeats the boarding process, and there’s Knox chatting up a blonde while eating a candy bar and laughing into the gray mist that’s thick as teapot steam. He’s so deeply in character she wonders if he remembers why he’s here.

  “Your . . . the people who assaulted you . . .” she says, “did they condemn you, make any kind of racial slur or—”

  “My mother was a Turk. My father, Chechen. I no longer hear such things when they’re said. My ears filter them out.” He lights a cigarette, savors the first inhale. Barely any smoke escapes as he exhales, or maybe the wind caused by the movement of the ferry carries it away.

  She does not quote the police file directly. She wants him to volunteer the same information a second time. People say strange things—incorrect things—when in shock and under duress. People will blurt things out to the police, invented on the spot, having no idea why.

  Give me what you gave the police. Convince me.

  “What can anyone do about such hate crimes?” he asks.

  “I’m a civil servant. Trained as an accountant. I’m not much of an investigator. I ask questions I am told to ask. I write reports. We build statistics.”

  “I’m a statistic.”

  “Soon. Yes. Of course.”

  “Earlier you said you were investigating.”

  “Following orders.
”

  “The police report. I would not have filed in the first place, except for my attackers’ comment about me keeping my mouth shut.”

  Thank you.

  “How many?” she asks.

  “It is this Kabril Fahiz they were after. I know that now. You should be speaking to him, not me.”

  “He is on my list, of course. But he was not attacked. He is not the victim.”

  “Victim,” he repeats. “So you are investigating.”

  “I am doing what I am told. Seriously. No more, no less.”

  “I’m not sleeping. If I am to see even my close friends,” he said, meeting eyes with her for the first time, “it’s like this.” He motions out to the river. The ferry is pulling up to the dock. “Precautions. Paranoia.”

  “What exactly did they say?”

  “You have read the report.”

  “Can you give me some descriptions? We often remember more a day or two later. Hmm?”

  “Not I. I want to forget, not remember.”

  “We don’t control our memories. They control us.”

  “A philosopher?” he says, mocking her. Again, eye contact. “What I ask is simple enough. This is not my fight. But they brought it to me. They know my face. My habits. How would I know until it’s too late? You . . . and the police . . . you owe it to me to let me know what’s going on ahead of time so I am not made a victim a second time.” He touches the fresh scar on his cheek. It’s an angry red. “You owe me.”

  “I need more,” she says. “If I am to—”

  She’s cut off as the gangway begins its groaning descent. The passengers surge forward as a unit.

  “Listen, from what I experienced, you should not pursue these people. They will hurt you. Worse. Go back to your superiors and tell them it was a dead end. Give this up.”

  “Height? Weight? You must remember something.”

  She sees Fahiz trying to time his next comment, his eyes shifting toward the lowering gangway.

  “Three of them. One who spoke Dutch, but like a German speaks Dutch.”

  She says, “You did not tell this to the police.”

  He doesn’t look at her, seems not to have heard her. “I have your number. If I should remember more . . .”