Downfall

by Jeff Abbott

  I guessed Holly Marchbanks’s worst nightmare was being exposed to her neighbors as a gun-wielding socialite/homeroom mother. If I was heading for a neighbor, they’d be desperate to cut me down before I could speak.

  I ran a long, hard straight run, hoping no bullet found me, doing a saut de chat over the river-rock fence, hands vaulting me over the rock, legs pulled in tight against chest, landing on my feet and running down across the back neighbor’s yard to my car.

  The final shot, as had been the bald man’s crash through the window, was audible; if any of the neighbors were at home, the police would surely be summoned. How would Holly explain that to her mother and the kids? Mommy tried to kill the intruder, kids; go watch some cartoons while I clean up the mess in your room.

  I glanced at myself in the rearview mirror. Blood touched the collar of my shirt, dirt smeared my face. I pulled along the turning streets, turning and turning, no idea if I was heading back to the main street. Finally I exited at the bottom of the hill, drove back toward the highway. I went past the Tiburon police station, no cars blasting out of the lot.

  Maybe no neighbors at home? No one to hear the noise of battle. Maybe it hadn’t been as loud as I thought.

  I got back onto the highway, thinking, Just get back to the bar, but I could feel the blood pulsing along my collar. My driving grew unsteady, and behind me I saw a highway patrol car. I couldn’t risk being pulled over and seen as injured. I jabbed the phone.

  “Yes?” Felix.

  “I need you now; bring a medical kit. And a change of clothes for me. A suit.”

  “Where are you?” His voice was calm and steady.

  “Sausalito.” I took the exit, headed toward the harbor, turning into a section of piers, driving past an armada of colorfully painted boats. I gave my location to Felix.

  I found a spot to park, a narrow stretch of road next to the water, a line of houseboats along a pier. And on one of the boats an older man watched me park, watched me not get out of my car. I put the phone to my ear and after a moment he turned away.

  Hurry, Felix, I thought.

  24

  Friday, November 5, morning

  THE MAN ON THE BOAT sipped coffee and watched me. I stayed on the phone. To a point, a cell phone against your ear is a camouflage; you can stop anywhere to make a phone call. I poked at the injury on the back of my neck. The wound wasn’t deep. A thick splinter of pine pierced my flesh like a thorn. I eased it free.

  My arteries didn’t empty, but it was a messy wound and I clamped my hand over it. My breathing steadied. I’d gone about this the wrong way. Felix had been right. I kept the phone up to my ear and after a bit the man on the boat went inside.

  I thought of Peter Marchbanks’s room, a child’s haven turned into a battleground, the shocked look on Holly’s face. As though she hadn’t ever expected the secrets and the violence of her hidden life to come and invade her child’s space.

  I thought of Daniel. I closed my eyes and kept the cell phone by my ear and thought of my son and him having a room full of superhero toys and drawings he’d made for me, and I would keep that room safe and untouched.

  Felix arrived twenty minutes later, parallel parking a van in front of me on the narrow road. I got out of the rental and eased into the back of the van.

  He shut the doors and hung a battery-operated light on a wire. He opened a first aid kit. I stripped off my shirt. Felix inspected my neck and began to clean the wound with antiseptic.

  “This looks worse than it is. A bit deep but only requires four stitches.”

  “Can you handle?”

  “I’m trained as a field medic. That’s a Jimmy and Mila requirement.” I could feel the cold comfort of Felix cleaning the wound: the antiseptic, then a chilling swab of local anesthetic. “So did you find our young woman?”

  “I learned Glenn Marchbanks is not your typical venture capitalist and his wife is a cross between a soccer mom and an assassin. As a plus, I was offered the world in exchange for joining them.”

  I explained. Felix finished stitching my skin and covered it with a bandage.

  “Like Faust,” he said when he was done. I started wiping all the blood and the cleanser off me. My hands felt steady and I sipped from a bottle of water.

  “Faust?”

  “Did you not get an education wandering the world, Sam? Faust. Star of poems and operas and novels. The brilliant but insanely ambitious man who wanted to know everything, so he sold his soul to the devil. Twenty years of bliss and complete knowledge in exchange for an eternity in hell.”

  I remembered the story now. “This isn’t the same. It can’t be.”

  “He offered you a similar deal, right? You said he calls himself Belias. That’s an old term for a devil. I’m guessing it’s not his real name. Look at the people he controls. One of the most powerful VCs in the country, a man who could break promising companies with a snap of his fingers. A man who if he backs you can make you a fortune. And then there’s Janice.”

  I’d started an Internet search on the word Belias on the smartphone and Felix was right. I looked up at him.

  “Janice and I never talked much about her business. We talked about being sick and how to cope with it. She’d made reference to being a CEO, but I didn’t ask how big her business was,” Felix said. “So I looked her up online. She is the sole owner of one of the most respected and influential public relations firms in the country. Strong ties to lobbyists, to leaders of industry, to celebrities. People beg to become her clients. She can help make or break a celebrity, a brand, a product launch, a proposed law.”

  I finished drinking the water and swallowed some ibuprofen.

  “Maybe Janice and Diana didn’t find out something bad about Glenn.” I put down the phone. “Maybe Janice is like the Marchbankses—under Belias’s thumb.”

  Felix began to put up his medic’s kit. “Janice struck me as a very capable, confident woman. Why would she need someone like Belias?”

  “Maybe she wasn’t always so confident, so capable. Glenn Marchbanks is one of the kings of investment here, and he needs Belias.”

  “You think the Marchbankses and Janice made a deal like Faust. Success in exchange for helping Belias with his crimes? And what crimes would those be?”

  “Kidnapping at least. And Holly would have killed me. So maybe murder.”

  “That’s just…” Felix didn’t finish.

  “Diana said no police in the middle of an attempted kidnapping. She must know now her mother is involved with Belias. Maybe this video they want is a confession. She’s sick; she might want to wrap up her affairs…or warn her daughter. If Diana goes to the police…”

  “…Her mother could face criminal charges,” Felix finished for me. “She’s running and trying not to implicate her mom. That’s brave.”

  I started getting dressed in the suit he’d brought for me, wincing against the pain in my neck.

  Felix said, “But he couldn’t affect their fates. He couldn’t give them what the devil gave Faust.”

  “Not their fates. Their fortunes,” I said.

  “How?”

  “Think about our lives. A series of conscious decisions, a series of chances. Maybe he puts the odds in their favor.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know yet. Through information, through blackmail, through threat. Coercion of a subtle sort.”

  “But how does he even have power over anyone?”

  “We find that out; maybe we find out how he does it and who he really is.”

  Felix bit his lip. “Janice is on an extended leave, according to her office.”

  “So we have to assume that Diana will keep hiding from Belias and keep looking for her mother. We need to find them. Now.” My hand touched my pocket. “Oh. This.” I held up the necklace I’d taken from Holly’s closet. “This matches the ring Belias wore last night. Does this symbol mean anything to you?”

  “It looks like a building,” I said. “With a window. A hou
se of sticks.”

  “I’ve seen it before,” Felix said slowly. “But can’t place it. Never mind symbols. We should head back to the Marchbanks house, guns blazing, and put these jerks down.”

  “No, you were right this morning. We find Diana. Her safety has to be the priority.”

  “But…”

  “We have zero idea what resources Belias has.” I shook my head. “Let’s say he does own the Marchbanks and Janice Keene. Do you think he stopped at three people?”

  Felix started to speak and then fell silent.

  “I went in blind, that was a mistake. I don’t make mistakes twice.” I pulled on a shirt and began to button it. “Your initial strategy was correct, Felix, and I should have listened to you. We find Diana, we find what he wants. She stole something of his. Something that can expose him. The only reason she’s not using it is because of her mom. If we can protect them both, then she’ll give us the information. Simple.”

  “Not so simple,” Felix said. “You’ll have to convince her that you won’t turn in her mom.”

  “Belias will be expecting me to come after him,” I said. “Because he already thinks I’m protecting Diana. So let’s do the unexpected. Let’s find Diana Keene. Have you been to Janice’s house before?”

  “No, but I know where it is. I doubt Diana is hiding there.”

  “But maybe we can find where she is hiding. The Marchbanks had a safe full of secrets. Maybe Janice has the same.” From my pocket I pulled the symbol necklace I’d stolen from Holly. “And this. This means something. I need to find out what.”

  25

  Friday, November 5, morning

  HOLLY MARCHBANKS STOOD, shaking, aware of a hard painful knot under her foot, and then she looked down to see a broken action figure, its decapitated head under her heel. She’d bought it and several others for Peter last Christmas. He’d played with it for hours, ignoring the video games that Glenn gave him that were probably too advanced for him and the books he’d gotten from Nana. She knelt and picked up the pieces.

  She’d missed. Two shots at Sam Capra—one through the window, the other as he went over the fence—and both times she’d missed. Maybe, she thought, I don’t want my home to be a killing ground.

  Belias had gone out on the roof and pulled Roger back inside. Roger looked beaten and both his eyes were bruised, and he huffed and breathed in what she recognized as a barely controlled fury. “He’s dead when I get him. He’s dead.”

  “No, he’s not,” Belias said. “Your neighbors, Holly, they might call the police.” Belias didn’t look at her; he looked at the distant stone wall where Sam Capra had vanished.

  “Ones on the left are in Europe for two weeks. The ones on the right both work in the city. The other neighbor’s house is for sale, it’s vacant.” She managed to pull herself together, and when she spoke again, her voice was maternal steel. “This is my son’s room. His room. You said the trouble would never, ever come back to us. You promised…”

  “The gunfire wasn’t loud. Or long.” Belias gestured to her. “But if the police arrive, you’ll have to answer questions. You have bullet holes in the house and a broken chandelier and a shattered window. We’ll have to create a plausible explanation.”

  Holly imagined trying to explain this to her mom or to the kids. Even if no one reported shots, Peter’s room was a wreck, the chandelier downstairs was a ruin…It would be in the papers if she filed a police report, so obviously she would have to lie to the kids on that front…She must send them and Mom to stay with her aunt in Alameda until this was over. Yes. Not at Glenn’s. It might be dangerous there, and she didn’t want Audrey asking more questions.

  “He beat you,” Belias said, glancing at Roger.

  “He did not. He ran.” Roger’s gaze flared. “But he’s trained. Either CIA or another intelligence service. He went for my carotid to subdue me; that is decidedly an intel service approach. But if he’s owning bars, then he’s former service. He wasn’t armed with a weapon he brought here.”

  “He’s in his midtwenties. He must not have had a long record with any agency. I wonder why.” Belias absently plucked at the bullet hole in Han Solo’s face. “Young and maybe already a career ended due to a setback that can be blamed on others. That’s who I look for.”

  “Who cares?” It made Holly uncomfortable to hear Belias analyzing Sam Capra, to think he might have said similar words about her and Glenn long ago. “Get out of here before the police arrive. Why are you still here?” She stayed on her knees, gathering up the broken toys, the shattered lamp. Trying not to cry.

  Belias cocked his head. “I hear no approach of sirens.”

  Holly said, “Just go.” Then she blinked. “Who’s taking care of Glenn?”

  “Holly. About Glenn.” Belias came closer to her, and he put one of his hands—always cold—on her shoulder. He brought her to her feet. “I have terrible news. Glenn died last night, Holly. I’m sorry.”

  The words seemed to hang in the air before his blank face. She heard the wind in the trees, the caw of birds, and the words made no sense. The broken action figures slipped through her fingers.

  “No, that can’t be right.”

  “The head wound Sam Capra inflicted on him…it was worse than we thought. A brain hemorrhage. It was very sudden. He did not suffer.”

  Holly Marchbanks pressed her fist to her chest in a shuddering gasp.

  “He did not suffer,” Belias repeated.

  She was not going to collapse in front of him. She could stop the sudden tremble in her jaw. Glenn. Gone. Her whole life with him—dating, marriage, happiness, worry, fear, danger, the children, him divorcing her when she convinced herself he still loved her and his fling with Audrey had to be temporary insanity—spun through her mind like a breath of madness. He might have left her and she didn’t love him the way she had once, but he could not be…he could not be gone.

  Belias and Roger watched her.

  She sat slowly among the toys, picked up one, twisted it in her hands.

  “It’s a loss for us all,” Belias said. As if he could feel grief. She wanted to slap him.

  “The hospital…we should have taken him to the hospital,” she managed to whisper.

  “They could have done nothing. Roger did everything possible.”

  That was a lie. Roger knew more about fighting and shooting than helping an injured man. It had to be a lie. She thought for a second, Kill them. Kill them, free yourself.

  But Belias now had a gun in his hand, and she didn’t. She held a toy. And killing Roger was no easy feat. He’d trained her to fight, to steal, to shoot. If she tried and failed, they would kill her, and her children would have nothing.

  She dropped the action figure, stood, and moved past him, back into the hallway, as if sleepwalking. Belias followed her.

  “What can I do for you, Holly?”

  She took a step toward her bedroom. “I just need a moment…alone. Please.”

  “Your grief, I get that. But time is short; we have to act now or we’ll all be undone.”

  Her hands began to shake, but she clenched them into fists. She just wanted him to leave. But that wasn’t going to happen. If he thought she was a risk now, he would kill her. For her sake, for her children’s sake, she pushed the swell of grief under control.

  He took her hands gently, and she forced herself not to flinch. “We say you were gone, running errands. But then forgot something and came home, were surprised, tied up, put into the pantry; you cut your bonds, heard random gunshots, escaped to find the house vandalized. And we will make that tie into Glenn’s disappearing. We’ll invent an enemy for him.”

  “Invent? Throw this Sam Capra under that bus.” A bolt of anger rocked her body. The bartender. Coming into her home, going through their belongings, talking about her kids, supposedly offering her a way out of this nightmare—and the whole while, he had killed Glenn. She found herself tamping down the grief with rage. She was going to kill Sam Capra. She knew it wi
th certainty in her heart.

  It was as if she hadn’t spoken. He cocked an ear against the breeze. “Still no sirens. We must keep the story simple…The police will not find his body, ever. I will arrange that.” Belias’s voice was soft, sympathetic, like he was a funeral director highlighting the amenities of the nicer coffins.

  “His…his kids should have a grave to visit.”

  “And I so wish they could. Now. Sam Capra. Did you tell him my name? He knew it.”

  “He found a phone message from Glenn that I hadn’t erased.” Holly suddenly found it nearly impossible to steady her voice. Her entire world was breaking, as it had before when Glenn told her he was leaving her, snapping, crumbling to dust like ancient walls caving in during an earthquake. She told him what had happened: Audrey’s visit, Sam Capra’s arrival.

  “I know you’ve had a shock, but I need you to go to Glenn and Audrey’s house and clean up after him. Make sure there is nothing about me or you or any of our activities there.”

  “But he told me he didn’t want anything about his work for you near her. He kept all that stuff in a safe here. In my closet.”

  He seemed to study her. As if measuring the truth of what she said. Glenn, what have you done? she thought. Something else has happened. “Do you doubt me?” she asked.

  He studied her face and she almost wished that she would hear sirens in the air, so he’d leave. “No, Holly, I don’t doubt you. Never give me a reason to, please.”

  Belias went down the hall to the safe and she followed him.

  “Capra asked me for the combination. He figured out the numbers but not the right order. But there was a second code. Same numbers, different order.”

  Belias knelt by the keypad. “He improvised fingerprint powder. Very smart.”

  “He also improvised on weapons,” Roger said, following them. “Which meant he was trained to fight at any moment, when a gun might not be at hand. I’m telling you that he was CIA.”

  Belias entered in the two codes that Holly told him, using the tip of a pencil. He opened the door and smoke and heat rose from it. Inside were ashes of paper, contorted plastic. “I wonder if this was where Glenn…” and then he stopped.