The Last Minute

13

Las Vegas

It’s not everyday that you a) inspect a new business you own, and b) make plans to meet a kidnapper there. Happy partiers filled The Canyon Bar, escaping the tourist-swollen casino hotspots, searching for revelry and the next place you wanted to be seen.

I was planning how to capture a woman who’d stolen my child.

The Canyon was not a tourist trap bar like so much of the Vegas nightlife scene. I’d noticed in the first hour there this evening that the servers and bartenders were extremely capable; attentive, engaging, focused. Of course, when I’d come around and introduced myself to the staff they might all have switched to best behavior, but you can’t hide sloppiness in the running of a first-class drinking establishment.

I’d seen one server gently talk an indecisive customer out of ordering a chocolate martini and into a handcrafted Old-Fashioned: a real drink for a real person. The decor was high-dollar: carefully sculpted beams of wood undulated along the curving walls, the tables were of polished granite, the chairs covered with faux rare animal hides. The Canyon was a destination bar for those too cool for the Strip or who wanted a break from the casino nights and the nerve-numbing rattle of slots, dice, and chips. The crowd was youngish, a mix of more daring visitors and well-heeled locals. There was a dance floor, small, and the DJ was mashing classic Massive Attack with the latest hip-hop star’s word play and drum beat.

I watched all this from the security cameras mounted in my office on the second floor of the bar.

I scanned the crowd. I knew Anna’s face, from the security photo and the passport photo we’d acquired: tall, dark hair, a beauty mark near the curve of her mouth. But those were elements easily changed. I didn’t see anyone who fit her description in the crowded club.

But I did see a face I knew, apparently a recent arrival. There she was, Mila, sitting at a back table, her hair dyed auburn now (or wearing a good wig), flirting with some thick-shouldered guy who wore a well-tailored gray pinstripe suit. His face was familiar, and that worried me until I recognized him – a guy who once played tight end for the New York Giants. Dude probably thought he was about to get Vegas-lucky. Mila wowed him a champagne-fueled smile, although the wine in her flute appeared to be untouched. His was empty. He refilled and guzzled his twice while I watched. I guessed she was conducting her own surveillance, observing every face that came and left the bar. She had to be careful, now that the Company had resumed its interest in me.

I went downstairs to a corner booth that I’d reserved for myself. I wore my hosting clothes: a pinstripe suit, a white shirt, a gray-silver tie. In your own bar, you have to look better than a lawyer. Sharper. And the jacket hid my Browning pistol and my slacks hid my knife, strapped to my calf.

Mila got up, whispering something that was (I am sure) most promising to her male camouflage, but came over and sat at my table.

‘I understand I am to be your wife. Every time I play this role, there is trouble.’

She’d taken a later flight than me – best if we didn’t travel together. She flew under an assumed name. But no one tailed me at the Vegas airport; I made sure.

‘I like the auburn,’ I said.

‘Thank you.’

I could see the Giants ex glaring at me, waiting for her return. ‘Why did you sit with him?’

‘I generally ignore your American football. I thought maybe he was a bodyguard for Anna. I have talked to all the large, muscular men here.’ She surveyed the crowd. ‘Thin pickings. She might send a woman.’

‘You don’t have to work the crowd for long. We just need to get Anna up in the office, then we force her to tell us where my son is.’

‘Simple,’ Mila said.

‘I see no reason for this to be complicated.’

‘You are always such an optimist,’ Mila crossed her legs, inspected her fingernails. ‘This woman, Anna Tremaine, she tells you the name of the couple who bought your baby. Great. What do you do with her then? Lock her upstairs for a few days while we go collect your son?’

I raised an eyebrow.

‘You will have to kill her, Sam.’

‘Your bloodthirstiness is really not appealing.’

‘Truth is often very ugly, like the orange dress of that woman at the bar,’ Mila said. ‘An upstairs office is not built to keep a hostage for the long term. And you can’t let her go. She will warn whoever bought Daniel so they can run.’

‘You have Mr Bell stashed away back in New York.’

‘No. Mr Bell’s very small brain has been plucked. He is back with his family, and now he is in our pocket when we need him. He is a puppet on the string for me.’

‘He knows we killed two men.’

‘Yes, so he wants to stay on my good side.’

I let the sounds of the party rise and fall around us. ‘I have a plan.’

‘I am eager to hear this brilliant strategy.’

‘I’ll hand Anna over to the CIA. She can tell them all about her employers.’ It was certainly better than handing Mila over to them.

Mila seemed to sense the direction of my thoughts.

‘What would you do to get your son back?’

‘Anything.’

‘Anything covers so much.’ She glanced across the bar at her neglected conquest. ‘Oh, your American football player, I left him uncomfortable with anticipation. He does have a nice thick neck, though. I like a thick neck. Nice to hang onto.’

‘That neck is not supporting a large brain.’

‘Ha, brains.’ Mila gave me a sideways glance. ‘Brains do not matter so much as heart, Sam.’ She pounded her chest with her little fist.

‘Look. We get Anna Tremaine upstairs to finalize our purchase. After she talks, I load her up with an anesthetic and we leave her locked up in the apartment. We find where Daniel is and I go get him and you keep an eye on her.’

‘And then what?’

‘We give her to August Holdwine and Special Projects and she can tell all she knows about Novem Soles.’

‘I have missed the exciting announcement where you have rejoined the Central Idiot Agency,’ Mila said. ‘I thought you worked for me.’

‘And what does the Round Table do with her, Mila? You just told me I’d have to murder her. Am I supposed to think you won’t?’

‘I’m hurt.’

‘The CIA won’t.’

‘Ah, yes. She will be their prisoner who goes on trial? No. They will make a deal with her. Protect her to talk. To tell what she knows. This is the way the world works. She sells your baby, she gets a plea bargain. A new life tucked away on the other side of the planet, in Sydney. I sometimes think half of Sydney must be people hiding from the rest of the world.’ She picked up my bottle of Pellegrino water, took a sip.

‘There’s a price on your head,’ I said.

She stopped mid-swig. She set down the bottle of mineral water. Her gaze met mine.

‘Is Mila short for a million? Because that’s the price tag. Huge for a hit on someone who says she’s a nobody.’

‘It’s gone up,’ she said. ‘The power of compound interest.’ Then she laughed. ‘Or compound hatred.’

‘Mila, who wants you dead?’

‘Besides you?’

‘Don’t joke. Don’t joke at all about this.’

She took another long drink from the Pellegrino bottle. ‘It doesn’t matter, Sam.’

‘I believe it has the slightest of bearings on working with you.’

She rolled her eyes.

‘I want to know who wants you dead.’

‘What? So you can help me kill my tormentor? I’m not going to kill him.’

‘Him.’

‘Someone beyond my reach,’ she said. ‘It’s an uncomfortable fact of life. Like the most beautiful shoes hurt your feet the most.’ She shrugged, as though my words, my concern, were nothing more than mist in the air.

‘If we’re working together, I deserve to know who’s hunting you.’

‘Just because there is a price on my head doesn’t mean there are takers.’

‘Have you killed everyone who’s come after you?’

‘You make me sound so bad.’

‘I know you perhaps were unfamiliar with capitalism growing up in Moldova’ – she answered my comment with a roll of her eyes – ‘but let me tell you, a million dollars on your head is going to lead to an endless supply of candidates stepping forward.’

‘They must find me. Then they must kill me.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s like the words at the end of a commercial for a contest: “Many will enter, few will win.” The many have failed. No winners so far.’

‘People have already been trying to kill you?’ I felt a creep of shock along my skin. I’d been worried about the CIA finding her. But they just wanted to talk to her. August didn’t want her dead.

She didn’t shrug again, because I think she read me and she knew pretend indifference would only make me mad. ‘Look. There is a man who is very angry at me. I humiliated him. It was worse than killing him.’

‘Who?’

‘Not anyone who you should care to know, Sam.’

‘Who, Mila?’

‘We get Daniel back first, then we will worry about my problems.’ She smiled. ‘I know how Daniel dominates your every thought. I am flattered you are concerned about me.’

I felt a sick mix of rage and annoyance and fear for her. Mila is not exactly my friend. She’s not exactly my boss. I don’t know what exactly she is but I could hardly let her be targeted and killed. If I wasn’t going to give her up to August I sure as hell wasn’t going to give her up to some hired killer.

‘And once you have Daniel, you will want a calmer, quieter life, Sam. This is only natural.’

‘There is no way that I am abandoning you.’

‘Life is a series of abandonings.’ She finished the Pellegrino. ‘Now. How did you know that my head had a price tag attached to it?’

‘August told me when I talked with him at The Last Minute.’

‘It’s flattering to be on his radar screen. I must have a file at the CIA now. How exciting. What percentage of the world has a file there? Minuscule. I feel special.’ She inspected her nails again. ‘Should I friend August on Facebook?’

‘He wants me to hand you over to them so you can tell them what you know about Novem Soles and who you work for. They are intensely interested in you.’

‘I am interested in August. In what he can find out. In how good he is. And in who will try and kill him when he finds out more about Novem Soles.’

‘You still think there are people working for Novem Soles inside the CIA.’

‘It’s a given.’ She watched the football player; he’d made friends with two blondes who looked like they’d missed the turn to the Playboy mansion. ‘If August is good at his job, likely he will die. If he is bad, he will retire and get a nice gold watch because he was never a threat to anyone.’

‘Do you know if there’s a mole?’

‘Of course not. And I am hurt you think I would keep such juicy gossip quiet. Plus, if I knew, I would sell his name to the CIA. I adore free markets.’

‘You told me when we met that you’d seen the tapes of when the Company interrogated me,’ I said. ‘You have your own mole inside.’

Again the sideways glance. ‘Well, I didn’t find the tapes on YouTube, Sam. If you must know I stole them off the server.’

‘You stole data off a CIA server.’ I didn’t want to know more.

‘I am making you nervous,’ Mila said. ‘I’ll go upstairs and wait for our friend to arrive. I’ll keep an eye on the cameras.’ I watched her go up the stairs at the back of the bar.

Anna Tremaine was coming.

The crowd had filled out, the bartenders moving in a constant blur of service. The music pulsed. I scanned the crowd, looking for anyone suspicious who might be here backing Anna. But maybe she didn’t need or want security. Maybe this would be easy. She didn’t know she was coming onto my turf. For me, the bar was both public and private. So many potential witnesses around would tie her hands but I could get her upstairs and then I’d have the truth.

But I felt haunted by the person who’d been watching me do the parkour run. Maybe the driver had just been curious. Maybe it was nothing more. Maybe I hadn’t made a mistake.

What would you do to get your son back?

It was the simplest question in the world, with the simplest answer. But if I made the wrong move, I could easily end up dead, or in prison, or with Daniel no safer than he was now.

Right now, somewhere, a husband and a wife were holding my child, calling him their own. Did they even know he was stolen? Did they care? Did they love him as much as I did, though I’d never even held him?

Here she came.

Anna Tremaine. I recognized her from the video in the French clinic. She was a tall woman, with wide shoulders and the bearing of an athlete. Graceful. Men noticed her as she walked through the crowd; you could see gazes flickering to her as she moved. She was dressed in black fitted jeans and a colorful shirt and an aquamarine and silver choker covered her ivory throat. She was coming, though not from the front door but from the back, where the restrooms were. Maybe she’d slipped in a back entrance. She looked about thirty, raven-dark hair, a hard, cold face that was beautiful in technical proportions, but not because of warmth or kindness.

I stayed perfectly still as she sat down across from me. I didn’t stand.

This was the woman who’d stolen my child. All I wanted to do was to fling the table aside and close my hands around that bejeweled throat and force her to tell me where Daniel was. That time would come. Now I had to prime the trap.

‘Mr Derwatt?’

‘Yes, hello. Ms Tremaine?’

‘Yes.’

‘Your drink.’ I gestured at the martini she’d asked to have ready as a sign. It sat, a bit warm, three olives. She could choke on them as soon as I made her tell me where Daniel was.

‘That was only for an identifier. A bottle of Amstel Light, and please tell the waiter to open it at the table.’

Very cautious. She didn’t want to risk a drug being slipped into her drink. I waved over a waiter, repeated the order. I kept my voice steady. This was a business meeting and she was treating it like a potential trap. Which it was, of course.

‘Your wife isn’t here?’ Her voice was soft. I suppose you think a woman who steals and peddles babies would sound like the creaking crone from a fairy tale. She sounded educated. A French accent, but very slight, as though she spent most of her time conversing in English.

‘My wife is considerably nervous about this arrangement. She’s upstairs. She wants to continue to pursue conventional adoption but… ’ I shrugged. I felt sweat trickle down my spine, dampen my armpits. I didn’t get this nervous in a fight. Then my mind shut clear and I knew what I would have to do. This was worse than crossing a minefield. But she was here in my bar, my home ground, and she wasn’t leaving without telling me where my son was.

The waiter returned with her bottle of Amstel. He opened it for her at the table, she thanked him, he left, and then she took a long sip. ‘Your wife isn’t upstairs. Your wife, technically your ex-wife, is in a CIA-run hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, in a coma from which she is unlikely ever to recover. She’s your ex not because you are an asshole who divorced a critically ill wife but because she’s a traitor who saved your life and then tried to kill you when you came after her. She picked the wrong side and she paid the price.’

I kept my gaze locked on hers. Well. Anna Tremaine was no fool.

‘Your name isn’t Frank Derwatt, it’s Sam Capra.’ She took a dainty sip of beer. ‘You enjoy playing monkey in empty buildings when you’re not creating trouble for us.’

Fine. Who needs masks? ‘Where’s my son, Anna?’

‘See, I know more about you than you do about me. Anna’s not my real name.’

‘Where’s my son?’ I leaned forward. I could produce the Browning under my jacket in one second. I didn’t care if I set off a panic in The Canyon. She was going to tell me.

‘An hour ago, a friend of mine left a half-pound of C-4 explosive in the ladies’ room.’ Her smile went coy. She uttered her threat in the same tone as you might say I love what you’ve done with the place . ‘The trigger is under my control. You raise a hand against me and this bar burns, with everyone in it.’ She glanced at the partiers, the light pulsing in time to the music, laughing, drinking, oblivious. ‘I can’t say they’d be a real loss. These people are nothing, they serve no purpose.’

‘Unlike selling children.’ I battled the rage rising in my chest. The rage was like a strange heat. I had killed before, for the first time a few weeks earlier, and in normal circumstances it wasn’t ever anything you wanted to do again. But her. I could kill her.

She smiled, the cat’s smile at the mouse wriggling under its paw. ‘I sell happiness, Mr Capra. I give desperate parents exactly what they want.’

‘Where is my son?’

‘You keep asking like I’m actually going to tell you.’ She took another swig of her beer, scooted a bit closer in her chair like she had a cute story or a joke to tell me as we sat enjoying our evening in the primo bar. ‘I won’t tell you where your son is. I will tell you how you can get him back.’

‘How?’

‘I want you to kill a man for me.’ She enunciated each word carefully, as though I were impaired.

When I didn’t respond, she said, ‘It’s not like you haven’t killed before.’

‘Not in cold blood.’

‘Will it make it easier to swallow if I assure you he deserves it?’

‘Who?’

‘My employer has a traitor. We want him dead.’ She smiled. ‘We have your son, so I think what we want is what you want.’

‘Kill him yourself.’

‘He’s not under our control at the moment. I think you are particularly placed to be able to find him and reach him. You kill him for us and we’ll give you back your son, alive and unharmed.’

‘And I should believe you why?’

‘Why? If we wanted you and your son dead, you would both be dead.’ She smiled, tasted her beer again. ‘Because you have no choice, Sam. That seems to me to be common sense. You must do as we say. We own you.’ She leaned back a little. ‘Your child is cute. He favors you in the eyes, he has his mother’s mouth.’

‘You sold him.’

‘So you were told. But we didn’t. We kept Daniel close, in case he was useful to us. I think it was a smart move.’

‘You want me to kill a man.’ My mind felt clouded. There must be something very special about this man. He must be hard to kill, or hard to reach, or hard to find.

‘And failure, as they say, is not an option. If you don’t kill him maybe we won’t kill Daniel – you will never know – but we won’t sell him to a sweet and kind family. There are all sorts of unappealing people… who will buy a baby.’

I wanted to fling the heavy table into her face. But I bottled the rage. Stuffed it down. Not the time. But I was going to make those words taste like ash in her mouth.

‘Uh, uh,’ Anna said. ‘Anger is destructive. Here is what happens now. Nod if you understand me – I’ve grown tired of your voice.’

Slowly I nodded.

‘Your target will be in New York tomorrow. You’ll have a partner in your hunt; a woman who’s a wizard at finding people who don’t want to be found, she’s gifted. And motivated, just like you.’ Anna gave a smug laugh, she sounded like a bird chirping. ‘So. Get to New York, find him and kill him.’

‘I need a guarantee that you will give me Daniel.’

She pulled a photo from her jacket and slid it across the table to me.

I knew it was Daniel. I knew it just like a soldier long separated from his child, by distance and normality, gets a picture and can see both himself and his wife in the baby’s face. He was wrapped in a blue blanket, green eyes looking up at the camera, not a smile on his face but he wasn’t crying, intrigued with the contraption above his head that was taking his picture. One arm reaching up, his mouth a toothless curl, cheeks full and fat. He looked good. He looked loved. Thin, blond hair crowned his head, like mine when I was a baby before it darkened, like his mother’s.

I gritted my teeth.

‘Now. When you’ve killed the target, and Daniel is returned to you, we are done. You don’t keep coming after us. You don’t help the CIA or the FBI or anyone else in pursuing us. You retire from the grand game. Go be a good daddy.’

‘I want the protocol for the exchange.’

‘When the target is dead, you will phone a number that I give you. When we have confirmed that you’ve completed your side of the bargain, then the child will be left, with a note with your contact information, at a church. A DNA test will confirm that the child is yours. Simple.’

‘No. You’re asking me to trust you far too much.’

‘You do not have a choice, Sam.’

‘If I can’t kill or find the target?’

She made a slow little wave with her hand. ‘Then I guess you’ll have that picture of him as your only memory. Would you like to keep it? Put it under your pillow?’

‘If you hurt or sell my son, I’ll kill you.’

‘Shut up. Do you really think you should threaten me right now? He could get by with nine toes as easily as ten.’

My mind went blank, in the way not of shock but of the way of calculation. I didn’t believe in a truce, not now. They were not going to threaten my child and go unpunished. But I didn’t let the decision show on my face.

‘So. Who is this target you want dead?’

She slid another photo from her jacket to me. ‘Him. His name is Jin Ming. At least that’s the name he used. I think it’s an assumed name.’

I studied the face. I recognized him, although I’d only seen him for a few moments. ‘I think you’ve made a serious mistake.’