The Darkest Day

TWENTY-THREE

Before leaving the island, Victor called Halleck from his hotel room in San Domingo and read out the aliases Marte had supplied to Raven in the last twelve months.

‘I’ve got a hit,’ Halleck said when he called back. ‘Angelica Margolis flew into LAX three days ago on a flight from Paris.’

‘That doesn’t help me a whole lot,’ Victor replied. ‘The US is a big place. She could be anywhere by now.’

‘There’s more. A private landlord in New York ran a credit check on Miss Margolis three months ago.’

Victor said, ‘Tell me the address.’

It took two whole days to reach New York. Flying direct would have taken a little over five hours, from San Domingo to Miami, Miami to New York. But Victor didn’t travel in straight lines, least of all when entering the United States. He caught a flight from the Dominican Republic to Jamaica, and then to Nicaragua and then Mexico. He crossed the border into the US in a rental car. Then domestic flights bounced him across the country until he disembarked in Newark, New Jersey.

He walked through the airport terminal. People saw him, but they didn’t see him. They went about their business, not paying attention to the man in the charcoal suit who walked among them. His height would have made him stand out a little, but the lowered chin and lax posture shrank him enough not to be noticeable. The bland clothes, pale skin, cheap haircut and non-prescription glasses meant features that might otherwise be considered appealing seemed ordinary. He neither walked fast enough to catch the eye nor slow enough to generate annoyance. His expression was neutral. No one would wonder what he was thinking. No one would smile at him.

The only thing that could be considered notable were his eyes, which never stopped moving.

Outside, while waiting for a cab, he stood near a professional couple in sharp suits and lots of hair product as they argued with obvious passion about nothing Victor could understand. In his experience, relationships made people miserable. He didn’t understand what kept people together when they were unhappy. He was used to being alone. He reminded himself that wasn’t the same as being used to loneliness.

The cab driver wanted to talk about baseball. Victor was no sports fan. They settled on politics as a middle ground. To make the ride as smooth as possible Victor agreed with everything the driver said.

By the time they had passed through the Lincoln Tunnel the weariness of two days spent travelling was catching up with Victor. He had the driver drop him off outside a hotel, waited until the cab had turned off the street, and walked for three blocks until he found a hotel that felt right. They had plenty of rooms available. Victor asked for one on the second floor.

He placed his attaché case on the bed and performed a sweep of the room, looking for anything out of the ordinary and memorising the layout, position of furniture and objects that might be useful as improvised weapons, should they be needed. The window opened a fraction and he let in cold, polluted air. Sirens sounded somewhere in the distance in a muted, half-strangled whine. A thousand lit windows stared back at him.

He would have lingered to enjoy the view, but a sniper could be at any one of those windows.

The wardrobe was set into the wall and could not be positioned in front of the door. Instead, Victor used the heavy desk as a barricade. It wouldn’t stop a determined assault, but it would buy him time to slip out of the window. Two storeys up wasn’t a long way down; high enough so someone could not heave themselves up with any degree of ease, but not so high that Victor would have to spend a significant amount of time scaling down when his life depended on it.

He lay on top of the cover, still wearing his suit and shoes, and slept.

When he awoke, it would be time to go to work.