Truth or Die

Chapter 1

Had it been anyone else, any other woman, the moment might have registered upward of a 7.6 on the Emasculation Scale, or whatever number it takes to rattle a man’s self-confidence until he crumbles.

But this wasn’t any other woman. This was Claire.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

Right in the middle of our having sex, she’d burst out laughing. I mean, really laughing. The whole bed was shaking.

“I’m sorry,” Claire said, trying to stop. That just made her laugh harder and do that little crinkle thing with her nose that in a weird and wonderful way always made her look even prettier.

“Damn, it’s the sex, isn’t it? I’m doing it all wrong again,” I joked. At least, I hoped I was joking.

As I propped an elbow on the mattress, she finally explained. “I was just remembering that time when you—”

“Really?” I said, immediately cutting her off. “That’s what you were thinking about?”

There was a certain something simpatico between Claire and me that allowed each of us to know what the other was about to say or do, based on nothing more than our shared history. For the record, that history was two years of officially dating, followed by the past two years, during which we were just friends (with benefits) because our respective careers had put a major strain on the officially dating thing.

Oddly enough — or maybe not — we’d never been happier together.

Claire wrapped her arms around me, smiling. “Just so you know, I always thought it was cute,” she said. “Endearing, even.”

“And just so you know, it happened over three years ago and I’m pretty sure I was drunk.”

“You weren’t drunk,” she said.

“Okay, but it was definitely over three years ago. Shouldn’t there be some kind of statute of limitations?”

“On a man’s first attempt to talk dirty in bed? I don’t think so.”

“How do you know it was my first time?”

She shot me a deadpan look. “I want to spank you like Santa Claus?”

All right, she had me there.

“Fair enough,” I said. “Rookie mistake. In my defense, though, it was right before Christmas.”

“Of course,” said Claire, “because that’s the first rule of talking dirty in bed. Keep it topical.”

“Okay, now you’re just mocking me.”

“No, I’m pretty sure I was mocking you before that,” she said. “Tell you what, though, I’m willing to give you a second chance.”

“No way.”

“Why not?”

“Charlie Brown and the football, that’s why,” I said.

“I promise I won’t laugh this time.”

“Sure thing, Lucy.”

“No, really.” Claire lifted her head off the pillow, gently kissing my lower lip. “Let’s see what you’ve got, Mr. Mann.”

I stared at her, waiting for her to say she was only kidding. Calling me by my last name was sometimes a tip-off. Not this time, though.

“You’re stalling,” she insisted.

“No, just stumped. Not a lot of holidays in June.”

Claire chuckled, playing along. She always played along. “You’ve got Flag Day next week,” she said. “Maybe something about your pole?”

“Very funny.”

“Speaking of half-mast, though.”

I glanced down beneath the sheets. “Well, whose fault is that?”

Claire suddenly grabbed my backside, rolling me like a kayak. Next thing I knew, she was on top and pushing her long auburn hair back from her eyes.

“Sometimes it just takes a woman,” she said.

She then leaned down to my ear and whispered a request that was easily the dirtiest thing I’d ever heard her say. Just filthy. X-rated. Obscene.

And I loved it.

But before I could show her just how much, we both froze to a horrible sound filling the room.

Now I really couldn’t believe my ears.

Chapter 2

Claire unattached herself from me, for lack of a more delicate way to describe it, and reached for “the Stopper” on my bedside table. That was my nickname for it. When it rang, everything else stopped.

“I’m sorry,” she said before taking the call.

“You and me both,” I said under my breath.

In all, Claire owned three cell phones. The first, her iPhone, was for personal use. Friends and family.

The second, a BlackBerry, was for work. Claire S. Parker, as her byline read, was a national affairs reporter for the New York Times.

Her third phone, an old Motorola, was also for work. Except this phone and its number were for a very small and select group. Her sources.

Which was another reason why the Stopper was a good name for this phone. The identity of these sources stopped with her, cold, end of story. Not her editor, not the executive editor, not even Judge Reginald McCabe had ever been told the name of a single source of Claire’s.

As far as that last guy, Judge McCabe of the United States District Court, was concerned, he went so far as to charge Claire with contempt when she refused to identify a source after being subpoenaed in a criminal homicide case involving an American military attaché assigned to the UN. That got her thirty-six days and nights at the Taconic Correctional Facility in Bedford Hills, New York. I have to say, she rocked the orange jumpsuit they made her wear.

“Hello?” Claire answered.

The unwritten ground rules for when she took these calls were simple. If I had been at her place downtown, I’d have gotten up and given her some privacy. Since we were at my place, though, I had squatter’s rights. If she needed privacy, she’d be the one leaving the bedroom.

But she remained sitting there on the edge of the bed. Naked, no less.

She listened for a few moments, the beat-up old flip phone pressed tight against her ear. Then, her voice high-pitched with surprise, she asked, “Wait, you’re here in the city?” Quickly, she began tapping her thumb and forefinger together, twisting her wrist in the air. If I’d been a waiter in a restaurant, I would’ve been bringing her the check. But I knew what she actually wanted.

I leaned over to the bedside table closest to me, pulling out the drawer. After handing her a pen, I was about to offer up some paper when I saw her reach for a yellow legal pad that was sitting atop a tall stack of books on the floor, also known as my to-read pile. Mostly biographies. Some historical fiction mixed in as well.

As Claire scribbled something on the pad, I stared at the freckles on the curve of her shoulders, hundreds of them. My eyes drifted down her spine and I smiled, thinking of the trip we took to Block Island a few summers ago, when I rubbed suntan lotion on her bikinied back and sneakily left bare a small stretch of real estate spelling out my initials, TM.

“Trevor Mann!” she screamed later that afternoon when she caught a glimpse in the mirror as she stepped out of the shower. After delivering a punch to my shoulder — with more wallop than her thin frame would ever have suggested — she broke up laughing. “I’ve been trademarked!”

Even now, squinting a bit in the dimness of my bedroom, I could still sort of see most of the T and some of the M. Or so I’d convinced myself.

“Okay, don’t go anywhere,” Claire said into the phone.

Damn.

I was hoping she’d hang up, turn around, and say, “Now, where were we?” but I knew that was beyond wishful thinking. By the time she looked back at me over her shoulder and all those freckles, I already knew.

“You have to go, don’t you?” I said.

She leaned over and kissed me. “I’m sorry.”

Those same unwritten ground rules had it that I wasn’t supposed to pry. But as I watched her dress, and saw the bounce in her step, I couldn’t help myself.

“You’ve got something, don’t you?” I asked. “Something good.”

She nodded with a touch of giddiness.

I stared at her, waiting for something, anything that hinted at what it might be. I must have looked like a dog sitting at the edge of the dinner table, silently begging for scraps.

“I know,” she said finally. “But we have to keep some mystery between us, don’t we?”

Buttoning the last button on her navy-blue blouse, she returned to the side of the bed and kissed me one last time before leaving.

“Call me in the morning,” I said.

She smiled. “Promise.”

A little over two hours later, I was jolted awake by the sound of my phone. It was just shy of one a.m.

Claire’s older sister was calling from Boston. She was crying and couldn’t get the words out. She didn’t have to. It was as if I knew the second I picked up the phone. There was a certain something simpatico between Claire and me.

Something terrible had happened.

Chapter 3

Detective Dave Lamont shook my hand firmly in the front waiting area of the Midtown North Precinct on West Fifty-Fourth Street and led me upstairs to the far back corner of a squad room that was empty and silent, save for the baritone hum of the fluorescent lighting overhead.

“Have a seat,” he said, pointing to a folding metal chair in front of his desk. “You want some coffee?”

“No, I’m okay. Thanks.”

He grabbed a mug with a faded New York Giants logo on it that was sitting on top of some overstuffed folders. “I’ll be right back.”

I watched him as he walked off. Lamont was a tall man, filled out by age, but still with a build that suggested a degree of athleticism somewhere in his past. Given the Giants mug, I was thinking there was probably an old high school yearbook out there with the word linebacker next to his name.

Claire once showed me her high school yearbook. Her senior quote was from Andrew Marvell: “Had we but world enough and time...”

Christ, this is really happening, isn’t it? She’s really gone. Just like that. I feel numb. No, that’s not right. I feel everything. And it’s hurting like hell.

Claire’s sister, Ellen, had given me Detective Lamont’s name and number. He’d made the call to her up in Boston, breaking the news.

I wasn’t next of kin, husband or fiancé, or even the last person to see Claire alive, but when I’d told Lamont my name over the phone I’d been pretty sure he’d agree to see me right away.

“You were that ADA, weren’t you?” he asked.

“Yeah, that was me,” I answered.

Me, as in that former Manhattan assistant district attorney. Back when I played for the home team. Before I changed jerseys.

Before I got disbarred.

I knew he knew the story. Most every cop in the city did, at least the veterans. It was the kind of story they wouldn’t forget.

Lamont came back now and sat behind his desk with a full mug of coffee. He took a sip as he pulled Claire’s file in front of him, the steam momentarily fogging the bottom half of his drugstore-variety glasses.

Then he shook his head slowly and simply stared at me for a moment, unblinking.

“Fuckin’ random,” he said finally.

I nodded as he flipped open the file to his notes in anticipation of my questions. I had a lot of them.

Christ. The pain is only going to get worse, isn’t it?

Chapter 4

“Where exactly did it happen?” I asked.

“West End Avenue at Seventy-Third. The taxi was stopped at a red light,” said Lamont. “The assailant smashed the driver’s side window, pistol-whipped the driver until he was knocked out cold, and grabbed his money bag. He then robbed Ms. Parker at gunpoint.”

“Claire,” I said.

“Excuse me?”

“Please call her Claire.”

I knew it was a weird thing for me to say, but weirder still was hearing Lamont refer to Claire as Ms. Parker, not that I blamed him. Victims are always Mr., Mrs., or Ms. for a detective. He was supposed to call her that. I just wasn’t ready to hear it.

“I apologize,” I said. “It’s just that—”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said with a raised palm. He understood. He got it.

“So what happened next?” I asked. “What went wrong?”

“We’re not sure, exactly. Best we can tell, she fully cooperated, didn’t put up a fight.”

That made sense. Claire might have been your prototypical “tough” New Yorker, but she was also no fool. She didn’t own anything she’d risk her life to keep. Does anyone?

No, she definitely knew the drill. Never be a statistic. If your taxi gets jacked, you do exactly as told.

“And you said the driver was knocked out, right? He didn’t hear anything?” I asked.

“Not even the gunshots,” said Lamont. “In fact, he didn’t actually regain consciousness until after the first two officers arrived at the scene.”

“Who called it in?”

“An older couple walking nearby.”

“What did they see?”

“The shooter running back to his car, which was behind the taxi. They were thirty or forty yards away; they didn’t get a good look.”

“Any other witnesses?”

“You’d think, but no. Then again, residential block... after midnight,” he said. “We’ll obviously follow up in the area tomorrow. Talk to the driver, too. He was taken to St. Luke’s before we arrived.”

I leaned back in my chair, a metal hinge somewhere below the seat creaking its age. I must have had a dozen more questions for Lamont, each one trying to get me that much closer to being in the taxi with Claire, to knowing what had really happened.

To knowing whether or not it truly was... fuckin’ random.

But I wasn’t fooling anyone. Not Lamont, and especially not myself. All I was doing was procrastinating, trying hopelessly to avoid asking the one question I was truly dreading.

I couldn’t avoid it any longer.

Chapter 5

“For the record, you were never in here,” said Lamont, pausing at a closed door toward the back corner of the precinct house.

I stared at him blankly as if I were some chronic sufferer of short-term memory loss. “In where?” I asked.

He smirked. Then he opened the door.

The windowless room I followed him into was only slightly bigger than claustrophobic. After closing the door behind us, Lamont introduced me to his partner, Detective Mike McGeary, who was at the helm of what looked like one of those video arcade games where you sit in a captain’s chair shooting at alien spaceships on a large screen. He was even holding what looked like a joystick.

McGeary, square-jawed and bald, gave Lamont a sideways glance that all but screamed, What the hell is he doing in here?

“Mr. Mann was a close acquaintance of the victim,” said Lamont. He added a slight emphasis on my last name, as if to jog his partner’s memory.

McGeary studied me in the dim light of the room until he put my face and name together. Perhaps he was remembering the cover of the New York Post a couple of years back. An Honest Mann, read the headline.

“Yeah, fine,” McGeary said finally.

It wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement, but it was enough to consider the issue of my being there resolved. I could stay. I could see the recording.

I could watch, frame by frame, the murder of the woman I loved.

Lamont hadn’t had to tell me there was a surveillance camera in the taxi. I’d known right away, given how he’d described the shooting over the phone, some of the details he had. There were little things no eyewitnesses could ever provide. Had there been any eyewitnesses, that is.

Lamont removed his glasses, wearily pinching the bridge of his nose. No one ever truly gets used to the graveyard shift. “Any matches so far?” he asked his partner.

McGeary shook his head.

I glanced at the large monitor, which had shifted into screen saver mode, an NYPD logo floating about. Lamont, I could tell, was waiting for me to ask him about the space-age console, the reason I wasn’t supposed to be in the room. The machine obviously did a little more than just digital playback.

But I didn’t ask. I already knew.

I’m sure the thing had an official name, something ultra-high-tech sounding, but back when I was in the DA’s office I’d only ever heard it referred to by its nickname, CrackerJack. What it did was combine every known recognition software program into one giant cross-referencing “decoder” that was linked to practically every criminal database in the country, as well as those from twenty-three other countries, or basically all of our official allies in the “war on terror.”

In short, given any image at any angle of any suspected terrorist, CrackerJack could source a litany of identifying characteristics, be it an exposed mole or tattoo; the exact measurements between the suspect’s eyes, ears, nose, and mouth; or even a piece of jewelry. Clothing, too. Apparently, for all the precautions terrorists take in their planning, it rarely occurs to them that wearing the same polyester shirt in London, Cairo, and Islamabad might be a bad idea.

Of course, it didn’t take long for law enforcement in major cities — where CrackerJacks were heavily deployed by the Department of Homeland Security — to realize that these machines didn’t have to identify just terrorists. Anyone with a criminal record was fair game.

So here was McGeary going through the recording sent over by the New York Taxi & Limousine Commission to see if any image of the shooter triggered a match. And here was me, having asked if I could watch it, too.

“Mike, cue it up from the beginning, will you?” said Lamont.

McGeary punched a button and then another until the screen lit up with the first frame, the taxi having pulled over to pick Claire up. The image was grainy, black-and-white, like on an old tube television with a set of rabbit ears. But what little I could see was still way too much.

It was exactly as Lamont had described it. The shooter smashes the driver’s side window, beating the driver senseless with the butt of his gun. He’s wearing a dark turtleneck and a ski mask with holes for the eyes, nose, and mouth. His gloves are tight, like those Isotoners that O. J. Simpson pretended didn’t fit.

So far, Claire is barely visible. Not once can I see her face. Then I do.

It’s right after the shooter snatches the driver’s money bag. He swings his gun, aiming it at Claire in the backseat. She jolts. There’s no Plexiglas divider. There’s nothing but air.

Presumably, he says something to her, but the back of his head is toward the camera. Claire offers up her purse. He takes it and she says something. I was never any good at reading lips.

He should be leaving. Running away. Instead, he swings out and around, opening the rear door. He’s out of frame for no more than three seconds. Then all I see is his outstretched arm. And the fear in her eyes.

He fires two shots at point-blank range. Did he panic? Not enough to flee right away. Quickly, he riffles through her pockets, and then tears off her earrings, followed by her watch, the Rolex Milgauss I gave her for her thirtieth birthday. He dumps everything in her purse and takes off.

“Wait a minute,” I said suddenly. “Go back a little bit.”

Chapter 6

Lamont and McGeary both turned to me, their eyes asking if I was crazy. You want to watch her being murdered a second time?

No, I didn’t. Not a chance.

Watching it the first time made me so nauseous I thought I’d throw up right there on the floor. I wanted that recording erased, deleted, destroyed for all eternity not two seconds after it was used to catch the goddamn son of a bitch who’d done this.

Then I wanted a long, dark alley in the dead of night where he and I could have a little time alone together. Yeah. That’s what I wanted.

But I thought I saw something.

Up until that moment, I hadn’t known what I was looking for in the recording, if anything. If Claire had been standing next to me, she, with her love of landmark Supreme Court cases, would’ve described it as the definition of pornography according to Justice Potter Stewart in Jacobellis v. Ohio.

I know it when I see it.

She’d always admired the simplicity of that. Not everything that’s true has to be proven, she used to say.

“Where to?” asked McGeary, his hand hovering over a knob that could rewind frame by frame, if need be.

“Just after he beats the driver,” I said.

He nodded. “Say when.”

I watched the sped-up images, everything happening in reverse. If only I could reverse it all for real. I was waiting for the part when the gun was turned on Claire. A few moments before that, actually.

“Stop,” I said. “Right there.”

McGeary hit Play again and I leaned in, my eyes glued to the screen. Meanwhile, I could feel Lamont’s eyes glued to my profile, as if he could somehow better see what I was looking for by watching me.

“What is it?” he eventually asked.

I stepped back, shaking my head as if disappointed. “Nothing,” I said. “It wasn’t anything.”

Because that’s exactly what Claire would’ve wanted me to say. A little white lie for the greater good, she would’ve called it.

She was always a quick thinker, right up until the end.

Chapter 7

No way in hell did I feel like taking a taxi home.

In fact, I didn’t feel like going home at all. In my mind, I’d already put my apartment on the market, packed up all my belongings, and moved to another neighborhood, maybe even out of Manhattan altogether. Claire was the city to me. Bright. Vibrant.

Alive.

And now she wasn’t.

I passed a bar, looking through the window at the smattering of “patrons,” to put it politely, who were still drinking at three in the morning. I could see an empty stool and it was calling my name. More like shouting it, really.

Don’t, I told myself. When you sober up, she’ll still be gone.

I kept walking in the direction of my apartment, but with every step it became clear where I truly wanted to go. It was wherever Claire had been going.

Who was she meeting?

Suddenly, I was channeling Oliver Stone, somehow trying to link her murder to the story she’d been chasing. But that was crazy. I saw her murder in black and white. It was a robbery. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and as much as that was a cliché, so, too, was her death. She’d be the first to admit it.

“Imagine that,” I could hear her saying. “A victim of violent crime in New York City. How original.”

Still, I’d become fixated on wanting to know where she’d been heading when she left my apartment. A two-hundred-dollar-an-hour shrink would probably call that sublimated grief, while the four-hundred-dollar-an-hour shrink would probably counter with sublimated anger. I was sticking with overwhelming curiosity.

I put myself in her shoes, mentally tracing her steps through the lobby of my building and out to the sidewalk. As soon as I pictured her raising her arm for a taxi, it occurred to me. The driver. He at least knew the address. For sure, Claire gave it to him when he picked her up.

Almost on cue, a taxi slowed down next to me at the curb, the driver wondering if I needed a ride. That was a common occurrence late at night when supply far outweighed demand.

As I shook him off, I began thinking of what else Claire’s driver might remember when Lamont interviewed him. Tough to say after the beating he took. Maybe the shooter had said something that would key his identity, or at least thin out the suspects. Did he speak with any kind of accent?

Or maybe the driver had seen something that wasn’t visible to that surveillance camera. Eye color? An odd-shaped mole? A chipped tooth?

Unfortunately, the list of possibilities didn’t go on and on. The ski mask, turtleneck, and gloves made sure of that. Clearly, the bastard knew that practically every taxi in the city was its own little recording studio. So much for cameras being a deterrent.

As the old expression goes, show me a ten-foot wall and I’ll show you an eleven-foot ladder.

The twenty blocks separating me from my apartment were a daze. I was on autopilot, one foot in front of the other. Only at the sound of the keys as I dropped them on my kitchen counter did I snap out of it, realizing I was actually home.

Fully dressed, I fell into my bed, shoes and all. I didn’t even bother turning off the lights. But my eyes were closed for only a few seconds before they popped open. Damn. All it took was one breath, one exchange of the air around me, and I was lying there feeling more alone than I ever had in my entire life.

The sheets still smelled of her.

I sat up, looking over at the other side of the bed... the pillow. I could still make out the impression of Claire’s head. That was the word, wasn’t it? Impression. Hers was everywhere, most of all on me.

I was about to make a beeline to my guest room, which, if anything, would smell of dust or staleness or whatever other odor is given off by a room that’s rarely, if ever, used. I didn’t care. So long as it wasn’t her.

Suddenly, though, I froze. Something had caught my eye. It was the yellow legal pad on the end of the bed, the one Claire had used when she took the phone call. She’d ripped off the top sheet she’d written on.

But the one beneath it...

Chapter 8

I all but lunged for the pad, gripping it beyond tight while staring at the indentations she’d left behind.

Another impression.

I could make out a letter here, a letter there. An S followed by something, followed by a B. Or was that a 6?

I flipped on the nearby lamp for more light, angling the pad every which way, trying to decipher the ever-so-slight grooves in the paper. It could’ve been a name, but all my money was on it being an address. It was where Claire was going. It had to be. But I still couldn’t make it out.

I thought for a few seconds, racking my brain. Before I knew it, I was dashing across my living room and into my office, grabbing a pencil, followed by a piece of paper from my printer tray. This could work, I thought.

Laying the paper over the pad, I began gently making a rubbing, like people do with tombstones and other memorials. But the printer paper was too thick. I needed something thinner. I knew exactly where to find it, too.

It was an invitation I’d just received to a legal aid benefit being held at the New York Public Library. Pretty hard to miss the irony, given that Claire would have been my plus-one.

The invitation itself was on a thick stock, but all I could see in my head was what had been inserted to protect the embossed type: a piece of vellum as thin as tracing paper. Perfect.

I riffled through my pile of mail, finding the invite and the vellum. Laying it on the legal pad, I again began gently rubbing the pencil back and forth. Like magic, the letters started to appear before my eyes. Letters and numbers.

It was an address, all right. Downtown on the West Side. She’d also written 1701 below it. Was that an apartment number?

I turned on my laptop, grabbing my keys and throwing on a baseball cap while waiting for it to power up. Quickly, I Googled the address.

The first result was the only one I needed to see. This wasn’t someone’s home. Claire had been heading to the Lucinda Hotel, room 1701.

Now I was, too.

Chapter 9

An interruption.

That was what Owen Lewis was waiting for in room 1701 of the Lucinda Hotel. The tiny camera, no bigger than a lipstick cylinder, was taped to the exit sign above the entrance to the stairwell, wirelessly transmitting to his laptop the same image of the long, empty hallway outside his door. It was monotony in black and white. A continuous loop of stillness and silence, over and over. Uninterrupted.

For anyone else, it would’ve been the most boring movie of the century. To Owen, it was easily the scariest. Especially how it might end.

She said she’d be here in twenty minutes. That was hours ago. Did they get to her? Am I next?

He’d thought about leaving town, but it was already so late. There were no buses, trains, or planes he could catch at this hour, and he knew you had to be twenty-five to rent a car. His driver’s license couldn’t get him a beer, let alone a Buick.

All in all, the only real option was a taxi, but that didn’t feel like a good idea, for some reason. Just his gut instinct.

No, he would wait it out until morning, stick with his plan.

It was a good plan, extremely well thought out, with the highest attention to every detail. Of course, when you’re sporting an IQ that approaches the boiling point of water, anticipation is your stock in trade. You see the future before others do. You live it, too.

“The Boy Genius!” declared his hometown paper back in Amherst, New Hampshire, in a front-page story when Owen was only four. By then, he had memorized the periodic table, could read and write in three languages, and was doing complex algebra. The photo accompanying the article showed him shaking hands with Steve Jobs at a “Pioneers of Tomorrow” conference at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino.

For an entire year after that, Owen wore only a black mock turtleneck everywhere he went.

Elementary school was finished at age six, junior high at eight, and then high school when he was eleven. At fourteen, he was the youngest ever to graduate from Cal Berkeley, earning summa cum laude and salutatorian honors. He would’ve been valedictorian if it hadn’t been for a B+ in comparative Russian literature. Even geniuses have their blind spots.

Next up were combined MD and PhD degrees from Harvard Medical School and MIT at age seventeen, after which Owen spent nearly two years at Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, aka the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, studying what had become his true passion: artificial neural networks.

That was when the two men first approached him, one night as he was leaving the library. They were Americans.

“How would you like to help save the world?” one asked.

Owen laughed, not taking him seriously at first. “Only if I get to wear a cape,” he said.

A predilection for sarcasm commensurate with sapience, read the extensive psych profile of Owen that the two men had already seen.

“No, I’m afraid there’s no cape or even a skintight suit,” said the other man. “However, you will get to be a part of the digital age’s equivalent of the Manhattan Project.”

Owen liked the sound of that. Loved it, to be more precise. It was his chance to make history. And who doesn’t want to do that?

But that was then.

Now, less than a year later, here he was hiding out in a cramped hotel room — in Manhattan, no less — hoping against hope that he’d live to see another sunrise.

Turned out, Owen Lewis had the one problem he never thought he’d have. Not in a million years. Or certainly, at least, not before his twenty-first birthday.

It was why they wanted to kill him, the Boy Genius.

He knew too much.

Chapter 10

Without once taking his eyes off his scuffed-up laptop and the live feed from the hallway, Owen bit off another triangle of the twelve-dollar Toblerone from his minibar and dialed Claire Parker’s cell for a third time. And for the third time the call went straight to voice mail.

Something was wrong. He just didn’t know what. There were a few plausible explanations as to why she hadn’t shown up at his room, ranging from the relatively harmless to the absolute worst-case scenario. He could speculate all he wanted, but that was all it would be. Speculation. The important thing now was whether or not she was the only one who knew his location.

She wasn’t.

Two minutes later, the image of the man stepping off the elevator at the other end of the hallway told Owen so much at once that his brain tingled with overload, which was no small feat.

Male... solo... decent physique... running shoes... baseball cap with curled bill... no room key in hand... no suitcase or carry-on...

The man paused by the elevator bank to look at the directional sign for the rooms on the floor. If he’d just been checking in, thought Owen, he’d almost certainly have had luggage. If he’d been staying at the hotel already, he’d have had no need to look at the sign.

Plus, with that curled bill on his baseball cap, he could shield his face from any security cameras in the hotel.

But most incriminating of all?

None of that mattered.

The guy could’ve been a blind midget wearing a clown suit, and it wouldn’t have changed anything. It was four in the morning and he was heading straight toward room 1701. Thirty yards away and closing.

As if his chair had springs, Owen jumped up and slap-closed his laptop, stuffing it in his already packed backpack along with the wireless receiver for the transmitting camera outside in the hallway.

He sprinted into the bathroom, where he’d already filled the tub to the brim with water, not an inch of porcelain left dry. With a hard yank, he turned the shower on full blast.

As for the hotel’s hair dryer, it was already plugged in, the surge protector dismantled and the outlet rewired to deliver the maximum current possible. Suffice it to say, that sort of thing doesn’t get a chapter in Electrical Wiring for Dummies.

Quickly backing out of the bathroom, Owen took one last look at the setup before shutting the door, his eyes darting about to make sure all the elements were in place.

The shower curtain drawn closed, tucked inside the tub.

The cord of the hair dryer knotted around the towel bar to ensure that it would remain plugged into the outlet no matter what.

And the floor mat strategically placed on the tile floor to ensure that Owen wouldn’t slip when he came barging in behind the guy.

From the room next door.

This was the plan, all right. Based on two things Owen knew as surely as he knew that sunrise was only a few hours away.

The first was primal. Sometimes in life it’s as simple as kill or be killed.

Second, professional hit men aren’t exactly suckers. You can’t expect them to fall for the “I’m in the shower” trick simply because you’ve got the door to the room cracked open and have the water running. They’ll search the rest of your room first, top to bottom.

So hiding behind the armchair in the corner or squeezing yourself under the bed? Probably the very last dumb idea you’ll ever have.

No, if you want the true element of surprise, you need to think outside the box. Better yet, come up with your own box.

Just make sure there’s a connecting door.

“I’d like two rooms,” he’d told the clerk at the front desk when he checked in. “And they need to be adjoining.”

Owen slipped through the double doors separating room 1701 from 1703, pulling the first one closed behind him. His heart was pounding like a jackhammer against his chest, but he couldn’t help noticing that it wasn’t just fear. As crazy as it sounded, he also felt a twinge of excitement, a sort of in-the-moment buzz of anticipation that came from an intellectual curiosity always in hyperdrive. A prodigy’s conceit, if you will.

In other words, he desperately wanted to know if his plan would work. And there was only one way to find out.

Pressing his ear up against the door, all Owen could now do was wait and wonder.

“Will you walk into my parlor?” said the Spider to the Fly.

Chapter 11

I owned only one cell phone, as opposed to Claire’s three, and it was pinned to my ear as I entered the lobby of the Lucinda at four in the morning, pretending to be completely engrossed in a conversation.

The lobby — which sadly looked as if it hadn’t been updated since the Koch administration — was completely empty, as it should’ve been, given the hour, save for a wary-eyed woman behind the front desk in a turquoise blazer who was clearly in the midst of deciding whether or not to ask me if I was a guest of the hotel.

That was when I delivered the clincher to my imaginary friend on the other end of the imaginary line.

“Yeah, I’m heading up to my room now,” I announced.

As I walked past the front desk, walking straight toward the elevators, the woman didn’t say a word. I was in.

Then I was up... to the seventeenth floor. With a tug on my baseball cap, I stepped off the elevator and stopped briefly before the sign telling me which rooms were in which direction, left or right.

Room 1701 was to the right.

I walked down the long, narrow hallway, the beige carpet blending in with the beige walls to form a seamless tunnel of blandness, the only splash of color coming from the glowing red exit sign announcing the stairwell at the very end. The odd-numbered rooms were to my left.

1723... 1721... 1719...

I was repeating them silently in my head, like a countdown. To what, though, I wondered?

And what was I going to say after I knocked? Whoever was on the other side of the door was expecting Claire, but that was hours ago. Now it was the middle of the night, and I was a complete stranger with a lot of explaining to do. This, after first breaking the news that Claire was dead.

1709... 1707... 1705...

My vision was so trained on the room numbers that I didn’t even notice it at first. My hand was literally in the air, knuckles tucked and ready to knock, when I saw that the door was open. Not open like see-into-the-room open, but rather the door was just shy of the frame, as if someone had forgotten to close it all the way.

If I wanted to step inside, all I had to do was push.

Instead, I stepped back. There was a bad vibe racing through me, head to toe. Something wasn’t right.

I stood there on the beige carpet, my feet frozen, while my brain sifted quickly through the options. Bad vibe or not, leaving wasn’t one of them. In fact, that door being open — be it ever so slightly — just made me all the more curious. For better or worse.

I knocked. Softly, at first, on the outside chance that whoever was in there was still awake at four in the morning.

Very outside chance. After ten seconds of silence, I knocked again. This time, louder. Then louder still.

Oh, shit. Too loud.

The jarring sound came from directly behind me, a dead bolt sliding on the door to another room. I’d woken somebody up, all right, just the wrong person.

Suddenly, I was in no-man’s-land, and my only thought was that I couldn’t afford to be seen. Call it instinct or sheer panic, but I was done knocking on the door of room 1701.

I was now in room 1701.

And I wasn’t alone.

Chapter 12

It was pitch black; I couldn’t see a thing. But there was no mistaking the sound of running water. It was the shower.

Meanwhile, there was the other sound behind me. A door opening and closing out in the hallway. Whoever I’d woken up was going back to bed without laying eyes on me. One bullet dodged.

Now what?

I could practically hear myself playing lawyer with the police, telling them this wasn’t breaking and entering because technically the door was open. The trespassing charge, however, would be a little harder to argue.

No, this was an easy decision. I’d slip back outside the door and wait for whoever was in the shower to get out. I’d knock again, and this time Claire’s source would hear me. It would be as if I’d never set foot in the room.

But as I turned to reach for the handle, I felt the squish beneath my shoe. The carpet was wet. Soaked, actually.

From there, it was all a blur.

Immediately, I slapped my hand blindly against the wall until I found the nearest light switch. The entryway lit up as I rushed into the bathroom, the water splashing up beneath my feet.

Again, I felt around for a light and found the switch. But it wasn’t working. I couldn’t see anything beyond shadows.

Reaching for my phone, I hit the flashlight app and waited for my eyes to adjust. When they did, I literally jumped back, almost tripping over myself.

Half his body was in the bathtub; the other half — his legs — dangled over the side. Also dangling was the cord of the hair dryer that was submerged in the water. It didn’t take a genius to put it together. This was no accident. Claire’s source had been murdered.

I took a step forward, the light from my phone edging up toward his face. It was like a grotesque freeze-frame of the electrocution. Every muscle contracted, his mouth ovaled as if midscream. The stuff of nightmares.

I knew what I was supposed to do next. It was what all the stupid characters in movies somehow decide not to do right before things spiral hopelessly out of control. Go to the police. In the big scheme of things, it didn’t matter how or why I was there in that room.

As a forensic psychologist once told me in a deposition, with a slow nod of his bearded chin, “A dead body changes everything.”

Problem was, all I could really think about in that moment was Claire. Whatever story she was chasing, it was the kind someone else didn’t want told. Really didn’t want told.

And just like that, the random act of violence that had ended her life — a taxi robbery — didn’t seem so random.

Chapter 13

The next thing I knew, I was holding off a minute on calling the police.

Yes, it was a crime scene. Yes, I was aware I shouldn’t be touching the victim. But I was in that hotel to find out whom Claire had been coming to see, and I still didn’t know. Right or wrong, the answer was only a few feet away.

Angling my phone near the sink, I spotted and grabbed a face towel to prevent my leaving any fingerprints as I turned off the shower. I knelt down at the edge of the bathtub and began looking for a wallet, or anything else that would ID the guy. One hand was still holding my phone for light, the other searching his pockets. It would’ve been a lot easier if he hadn’t been wearing jeans.

The front two pockets didn’t turn up anything except perhaps a measure of guilt. Most of Claire’s sources were people doing the “right thing” in one way or another. Whistle-blowing on corruption, setting the record straight, things like that. Some of them risked their lives in doing so. Now here was one, it seemed, who’d paid the ultimate price.

Until I searched his back pockets.

At first, I thought it was his wallet I was feeling. It wasn’t, but it was certainly a form of ID. Even drenched and bunched in a ball as it was, I knew right away what I was holding in my hand. A ski mask. Looked like the same one from the taxi surveillance video.

This wasn’t the guy Claire had been going to see.

This was the guy who killed her.

All at once, the rest of the pieces came together before my eyes. Underneath the guy’s gray sweatshirt was the same black turtleneck I’d seen in the video. There was also a black baseball cap on the tile floor next to the tub.

There was no doubt this was him, whoever he was, and all I could think of, all I wanted to do in that very instant, was to bring him back to life just so I could kill him again myself.

I’d never known such a feeling. Vengeance was an abstraction to me, the melodramatic word that always seemed a bit too much. Now it wasn’t nearly enough. Where have you taken me, Claire?

I stood up, looking at the cord of the hair dryer knotted around the towel bar. The tub had been full, the water running. As a plan, it was brilliant in its simplicity. Claire’s source had known he was in danger, and had known enough to turn the tables. Damn good for him. Now if I only knew where he’d gone.

Claire would’ve been all over me for assuming that only a guy would’ve had the wherewithal to outwit a killer, and she would’ve been right. He could’ve easily been a she.

Any proof either way, though, was nowhere to be found as I searched the rest of the room. It was spotless. The two queen beds were made, the wastebasket was empty, nothing had been disturbed. Except for the dead guy in the bathtub, of course. Now it was time to call the police.

But before I could even reach for my phone again, I suddenly had a brand-new problem. It was the distinct sound of things about to spiral hopelessly out of control.

Someone was knocking on the door.

Chapter 14

The first thing I did was freeze. There was no second thing. At least, not right away. I had no idea what to do.

Instead, it was all about what not to do. There was no way I was opening that door. No way I was asking, “Who’s there?”

But I did need to know. If it was anyone from the hotel, they weren’t necessarily going away if no one answered.

About twenty feet of that beige carpet separated me from the door, the final few feet drenched with water. I had to time it just right.

Quickly, I tiptoed right up to the door of the bathroom. Then I waited. I couldn’t cover up the squishing sound of my last footsteps on my own. It would take some help, and I knew it was coming.

The second knock on the door — even louder than the first — was all I needed to get right up next to the peephole. I held my breath and took a fast look before peeling off to the side.

Damn. There were two possibilities. One, the peephole was somehow broken. Two, it was working just fine.

Either way, all I could see was black. As I reached over and oh-so-silently swung the door guard closed, I was betting my entire stack on the perfectly working peephole... and a hand in the hallway placed over it.

Ten seconds passed. Twenty. Half a minute. I remained with my back plastered against the wall, inches away from the hinges, hoping the next thing I’d hear would be footsteps fading away toward the elevator.

If only.

It was more like the exact opposite as the sound of the key card sliding into the lock was followed by a click and a beep. The door opened, only to be stopped short by the door guard. Little hard to pretend no one was in the room now.

I waited for the voice of hotel security, or at least someone who worked at the hotel. Anyone. I didn’t care. Let it be room service or housekeeping. My mouth was half open, ready to respond to whatever was said. But nothing was. What’s taking so long?

No, wait... a far more pressing question.

What’s that smell?

Chapter 15

It was straight out of an Ian Fleming novel, something Q would’ve given 007. Jutting through the two-inch opening in the door was what looked at first glance like a common pair of pliers. The only difference being what they were doing, literally melting the metal loop of the door guard. Silently, no less.

This wasn’t someone from the hotel.

A starter’s pistol went off in my head, but I had nowhere to run. I looked over at the windows, which didn’t open, and the bed I’d be a fool to hide under. Ditto for the one and only closet as I pictured myself trying to duck behind a hotel robe. The ultimate indignity. Dying while stupid.

The only real shot I had was erecting the world’s quickest wall of furniture. Basically, I’d lodge everything in the room that wasn’t bolted down against the door. It could work. It had to work. Question was, how much time did I have left?

I stared back at the door, those pliers cutting through the metal as the smell of sulfur continued to overwhelm the air. I had to step back just so I wouldn’t cough.

As I slid along the wall, it was my hand that felt it first — the connecting door to the next room. My eyes had passed right by it, and I couldn’t blame them. Countless times, if only for shits and giggles, I’d been in a hotel room and opened the first door, only to see the door behind it, leading to the adjoining room, staring back at me, shut tight as a drum and locked. Here goes nothing...

I opened the door on my side, peeking around the edge, and in one, beautiful skip of a heartbeat, it was as if Al Michaels were broadcasting my life instead of the US men’s Olympic hockey team. “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!”

The second door — the door that was never open, not ever — showed a sliver of daylight, or whatever kind of light was coming through from the other side. Given the odds I was beating, it might as well have been the burning bush.

As silently as I could, I slipped into the adjoining room, closing both doors behind me and locking the one now facing me. I knew immediately I wasn’t barging in on anyone. The room was empty, with a neatly made king bed and no luggage lying around. I peeked into the bathroom. No dead body, either.

Let’s keep it that way, I thought.

My first instinct was to strip down to my boxers, crawl beneath the sheets, and simply play dumb should there be a knock on the door. I’d answer it while rubbing the sleep from my eyes and convince whoever owned those magic pliers that I was nothing more than an innocent bystander. A pissed-off one at that, for having been woken up.

There was just one problem. Who the hell flipped the door guard shut in the other room? The guy in the bathtub?

No, I had to get out of this room, too. Too risky, otherwise. And again, I had to time it just right.

Listening through the walls, I paced and waited. It was like a surreal game of musical doors instead of chairs, and it would’ve been funny if I hadn’t been so pessimistic about the penalty for losing.

Finally, the sound came. The door opening in the next room, and more importantly, the same door closing. That was my cue. As quietly as I could, I slipped back into the hallway. To hell with the elevator. The stairs were right there, and I didn’t have to wait for them. I was out of there, lickety-split. At least, I should’ve been.

I couldn’t help myself, though. As I passed the door to room 1701, I stopped and listened. I could hear a guy’s voice. At first, I thought he was talking to someone else in the room, that he hadn’t come alone. Then he made it clear he had. He was talking on a phone or some kind of radio.

“The kid’s still alive,” he said. “I repeat, the kid is still alive.”

Chapter 16

I didn’t need any added incentive for what I planned to do next, but there she was anyway as I walked as casually as possible through the lobby of the Lucinda and out to the street.

The same wary-eyed woman behind the front desk wearing a turquoise blazer watched me step by step. Still, she didn’t say a word. That would change, of course, once she learned of the dead body in the bathtub seventeen floors up. She’d have plenty to say then, a description of me sure to be included.

“Did you notice anything or anyone out of the ordinary?” the crime scene detectives would ask her. With the help of Forensics, they would’ve already determined the time of death as during her shift, and quite possibly between the times I came and left.

Safely down the block, I dialed my own crime scene detective. As they say in both PR and politics, always get ahead of the story.

“Wait, slow down,” said Detective Lamont from behind his desk. I could hear him through the phone shuffling papers, probably moving Claire’s file back in front of him.

I apologized. I was getting too far ahead of the story, talking a million words a minute. My heartbeat, still racing, was acting like a metronome for my mouth.

I stopped, took a deep breath, and began again to detail what had happened since I shook his hand on my way out of the Midtown North precinct house. “Talk to you soon,” Lamont had told me. He’d had no idea just how soon.

I could tell now that I was trying his patience. The fact that Claire had left my apartment to go see a source did nothing to challenge what he knew — or, at least, thought he knew — to be true: that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time in the back of that taxi.

And why wouldn’t he believe that? I certainly had. The incident was designed that way, caught on video for all to see.

I told him about the phone call Claire had received, and how I’d figured out the address.

Lamont interrupted me. “Where are you going with all this?” he asked, wanting me to move the story along.

“To the Lucinda Hotel,” I answered.

“Hurry up and get there.”

I couldn’t blame the guy. It was late and he was tired. But I knew all would be forgiven with one sentence about room 1701.

“The guy in the bathtub is the guy who killed Claire,” I said.

I could literally hear him sit bolt upright in his chair.

“Where are you right now?” he asked. No, demanded.

“Eighth Avenue and Thirty-Fourth.”

“Don’t move, I’ll have it radioed right now. A cruiser will be there shortly,” he said. “I’ll meet you at the hotel.”

“Hold on, there’s one more thing,” I said.

I was back to talking a million words a minute as I tried to explain the guy with the magic pliers. The more I listened to myself, the more I realized how crazy it must sound to Lamont. If it did, though, he didn’t let on. Instead, he cut to the chase, the only thing that mattered at the moment.

“Good guy or bad guy?” he asked.

“Bad guy,” I said.

He paused for a moment. “Aren’t they all?”

Click.

Chapter 17

From the moment I first got the call from Claire’s sister, Ellen, so much had changed, and then changed again. Still, in some ways, I couldn’t help thinking I was right back where I’d started. With more questions than answers.

The kid is still alive.

As I waited for the cruiser courtesy of Lamont, I kept repeating the line in my head. It couldn’t literally be a kid, could it? I didn’t think so, but anything was possible. The night so far was a testament to that, and here we were rolling into the next day.

A few minutes later, I caught a flash of red and blue lights out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see my escorts pulling up along the curb on Eighth Avenue. The officer riding shotgun stepped out. He looked like a very young version of Kiefer Sutherland, albeit on some serious steroids. The guy was ripped and he knew it. Had the sleeves on his uniform been rolled up any higher, he would’ve officially been wearing a tank top.

“Trevor Mann?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

He nodded at the door to the backseat. “Let’s go.”

I climbed in and answered a rapid-fire succession of questions from him while his partner, a guy who didn’t resemble any actor I knew, took the turn onto Thirty-Fourth Street, driving slowly toward the front of the Lucinda.

Basically, I was confirming everything I’d told Lamont. The room number. The guy in the bathtub. The other guy who still might be in the room.

“And this other guy, you never actually saw him?” asked the officer.

“No, I just heard him through the door.”

“What did he sound like? Black? White? Hispanic?”

“White,” I said.

He turned to his partner behind the wheel and smirked. “Shoot the white guy.”

They both chuckled as we pulled up in front of the hotel. Engine off, battery on. I reached for the door handle, thinking I was going inside with them. Silly me.

“Stay here,” I was told.

It made sense. Of the three of us, I was the only one who didn’t have a 9mm pistol strapped to my belt. Besides, I was happy never to set foot inside the Lucinda again.

“Do me a favor, though,” I said. “Could you turn off the flashers?”

The cop behind the wheel smiled and nodded. He understood. There might not have been a lot of foot traffic on the cusp of dawn, but there was still no need for me to look like a perp sitting in the backseat. Off went the flashers.

The two disappeared into the hotel as I did my best to keep my eyes open. I was exhausted, my lack of sleep suddenly crashing down on me. Point being, I had no idea how much time had passed when I was jolted awake by the sound of knuckles rapping on the window. Kiefer’s doppelganger was waving for me to join him on the curb.

I stepped out, glancing quickly at his name plate. OFFICER BOWMAN, it read. The moment seemed to suggest that it was time I knew that.

“Was the other guy in the room gone?” I asked.

He nodded. It was the way he nodded, though. There was something else, more to it.

“How long did you wait before you called this in?” he asked.

“I didn’t wait,” I said. “It was right away.”

He nodded again. The same kind of nod.

“Follow me,” he said.

Chapter 18

So much for my never setting foot in the Lucinda again.

I followed Officer Bowman through the lobby, where his partner was questioning — who else? — the wary-eyed woman in the turquoise blazer behind the front desk. I kept waiting for her to glare at me as we passed by, but it didn’t happen.

On the ride up in the elevator, I kept waiting for Bowman to give some clue about what was going on. But that didn’t happen, either.

We walked the long, beige hallway in silence, and as we reached the door of room 1701, he stepped inside first and immediately spun around to look at me. Only in hindsight did I realize what he was doing. Gauging my reaction.

I turned and stared into the bathroom, my jaw literally dropping. It was as if nothing had happened.

The light was working. The hair dryer was unplugged and sitting on the shelf beneath the sink, the cord neatly wound. There wasn’t a drop of water on the floor or in the tub.

Also not in the tub? The guy who killed Claire. He was gone.

I stared back at Bowman, who was still watching me like I was a science experiment, or more accurately, a science experiment with the title “Is This Man Telling the Truth?”

“You don’t seriously think I’ve made this up, do you?” I asked.

“Of course not,” he said. “That would make you crazy.”

Of course, the way he said it made clear that he was leaving the door open. Speaking of which...

“You did notice the sheared-off door guard behind me, right?” I asked. I certainly had as I walked in.

Bowman nodded. “Yep, saw it,” he said. “I can also feel the squish beneath my feet. The carpet’s definitely wet.”

He left it at that. I knew what he was thinking, though, if only because I was thinking the same thing. There was no dead body in the bathtub, and the combination of a sheared-off door guard and some wet carpet didn’t prove there ever had been.

“They must have moved the body and cleaned up afterward,” I said.

“They?”

“I heard only one voice through the door, but that doesn’t mean there was only one person.”

“You’re right, it doesn’t,” said Bowman before checking his watch. “And about how much time would they have had to do this?”

“Apparently enough.”

But even I was doing the math in my head. Ten minutes. Fifteen, tops. I looked back into the bathroom at the neatly folded dry towels, and especially the dry floor. In addition to the magic pliers, was there also a magic mop?

I could see how Bowman or anyone else would be a bit skeptical. That didn’t concern me. Truth was, it didn’t matter how it’d been done. It had been done. Quickly. Quietly. Professionally. And that combination could mean only one thing. The story that Claire was working on was getting bigger by the minute.

The kid is still alive.

The words were echoing again in my head. Someone had checked into this room and maybe even the room next to it. All I could look at now was the other thing strapped to Bowman’s belt besides a pistol. His radio.

“Your partner downstairs,” I said. “Did he get the name of who was staying in this room?”

“Yeah, he got a name,” came a voice from behind me. I knew right away it wasn’t Bowman’s partner.

I turned to see Detective Lamont. Quite the sight. His glasses were askew, his tie loosened to the point of looking like a noose. His suit jacket, meanwhile, had more creases than an unfolded piece of origami.

Still, for a guy so disheveled, he somehow maintained an aura of complete control. You can’t fake experience.

After silently studying the sheared-off door guard for a few seconds, Lamont stepped past me, gazing inside the bathroom as if confirming what he’d already been told in the lobby. There was no dead guy in the tub.

All the while, I was waiting for him to say the name of whoever it was who’d been staying in the room. He didn’t.

“Is it supposed to be some kind of secret?” I finally asked. I couldn’t help the sarcasm.

“No,” said Lamont, bending down to touch the wet carpet. “No secret. It’s just not his real name, that’s all.”

“How do you know?”

He stood up, looking at me for the first time. “Because I graduated high school in 1984.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Bowman. “Besides the fact that you’re old.”

Lamont ignored him. He was also ignoring the notepad clutched in his hand, suggesting that he’d never even bothered to write down the name.

Instead, he simply recited it, as if from memory. “Winston Smith.”

Bowman looked at both of us and shrugged. I looked at Lamont and nodded.

“You’re right,” I said. “That’s not his real name.”

Chapter 19

“Why can’t Winston Smith be his real name?” asked Bowman.

“It’s from a book,” said Lamont, straightening his glasses with a professorial nudge. Class was in session. “George Orwell’s 1984. Everyone in my high school had to read it that year. They practically made us memorize it. The name of the main character was Winston Smith.”

Bowman shrugged again. “What? So no one else can have that name?”

“They could, but Winston Smith was supposed to represent Everyman,” I said. I caught Lamont’s eyes and cracked a smile. “It was a few years later, but I read it in high school, too.”

“Good for you both,” said Bowman, getting his Bronx up. “I wasn’t even born in 1984.”

I was really starting to dislike this guy. “Anyway,” I said, “Winston Smith is simply a more clever version of John Doe.”

“Not to mention that our Mr. Smith also paid in cash for this room and the one next door,” said Lamont.

As if having prompted himself, he took a walk through the connecting doors to look at the other room. He was back within seconds.

“Do me a favor, Bowman,” he said. “Give Mr. Mann and me a few minutes, will you?”

Bowman was more than happy to oblige. “I’ll be in the lobby,” he said.

As he walked out, Lamont closed the door behind him. He turned and made a beeline for the minibar fridge, grabbing a Diet Coke.

“What do you think they charge for this?” he asked, digging a fingernail under the tab. He popped open the can with a loud snap and grinned. “I guess we’ll just have to put it on Mr. Smith’s bill.”

After taking a long sip, he stepped back and settled into the armchair in the corner. He was in no rush, and whether or not that was calculated I didn’t know. He surely had questions for me. I just didn’t expect his first one to be the same one I had.

“So what happens now?” he asked.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” I said.

“Well, I know what I need to do,” he said, pointing at his chest. “I need to eyeball all the exits and hope that the security cameras aimed at them were actually recording. I also need to get a description of our Mr. Smith from the clerk who actually checked him in, since the beady-eyed woman downstairs told me it wasn’t her.”

He was right. I had the wrong word. The woman at the front desk was more beady-eyed than wary-eyed.

Lamont paused, taking another sip. “Then maybe, just maybe, we can start piecing this whole thing together. Because until then, we’ve got a little problem.”

Yes, we did, and he didn’t need to spell it out. I’d learned it in law school; he’d learned it at the police academy.

No body? No crime.

“So, like I said, what happens now?” he asked. “What do you need to do?”

“You mean, besides getting some sleep?”

“That’s a good start,” he said. “But yeah, besides that.”

I was stalling because I had no idea what he was getting at. Of course, that was his point.

“You tried to trace Claire’s footsteps tonight and look where it got you,” he said.

“I know her killer is dead, don’t I?”

“Yes, and if it wasn’t for those dumb doors being open to the next room, you could’ve been next.”

“Is this your way of saying let us do our jobs?”

Lamont winced. “God, I hope not. They only say that on cop shows. What I’m saying is this: Stop trying to do hers.”

I was about to shake my head, tell him he was off base. No, worse. Delusional. Like Donald Trump with a comb.

But Lamont knew that was coming and was way ahead of me. He’d already reached into his pocket and was now holding it in the air, Exhibit A.

“Where the hell did you get that?” I asked.

He broke into a smile, and as he did, I could practically see the canary feathers caught in his teeth.

“Did I mention you’re a lousy liar, Mr. Mann?”

Chapter 20

Lamont was holding Claire’s cell phone, the old Motorola she used strictly for her sources.

The Stopper.

“Why didn’t you say anything back at the precinct?” he asked.

“I wasn’t sure that was what she was doing,” I said.

“Still, what the hell were you planning? Hop the fence later this afternoon at the Whitestone Pound and search behind the backseat?”

“It was really there, huh?”

“The second you wanted to watch that part of the recording again, I knew you saw her do something,” said Lamont.

“Only I didn’t know it was her phone she was hiding.”

“You know why she would, though, don’t you?”

He had me dead to rights on everything, right down to my waiting until the taxi had been cleared by Forensics, then shrink-wrapped and flatbedded from Lamont’s precinct to, yes, the Whitestone Pound in Queens, where it would eventually be claimed by whoever owned the medallion for it.

The only part the detective got wrong was the timing. Screw the afternoon. Way too risky. Criminal trespassing is better left for the dark, no? I wasn’t planning on hopping that fence until well after midnight.

“She was just protecting her sources,” I said. “That phone was for them exclusively.”

With that, I cocked my head, and he immediately shook his. He knew what I was about to ask.

“Counselor, we both know I can’t turn it over to you, at least not yet,” he said. “Pretty damn impressive, though, her presence of mind. Even in that moment... wanting to shield them.” He flipped open the phone. “Of course, I can see why. There are a lot of boldfaced names in the directory, at least those I could decipher. Most were just listed by initials.”

“Was there a W.S., by any chance?”

“No such luck,” he said, pointing at the table between the two beds. Winston Smith had called from the phone in the room.

The kid was still alive, and we still had no way of contacting him.

Like a kick in the head, though, it occurred to me. What about the people who wanted to kill him? What about contacting them?

I took out my own phone, quickly sending an anonymous text to a number I knew by heart.

Lamont’s eyes narrowed to a suspicious squint. “What are you doing?” he asked.

Something you’re definitely not going to like, Detective.

Chapter 21

One good setup deserved another. Only mine had to be better, because I’d already discovered theirs.

Less than three hours later, I was sitting on one of the concrete benches lining the perimeter of Bethesda Terrace by the Lake in Central Park. I’d tried to get a little sleep beforehand back in the spare bedroom at my apartment, but it was impossible. Closing my eyes just seemed to magnify everything, if that makes any sense.

In my lap now was a Nikon D4, the 300mm lens peeking out beneath the bottom of the Daily News. With the weather warm and breezy and no clouds in sight, I couldn’t have asked for a more picture-perfect day.

About thirty yards in front of me was the famous fountain known as the Angel of the Waters, the lily being held in the bronze statue’s left hand representing the purity of the circular pool around her. Claire had told me that. I suspected it was why I’d chosen the location. That, and the crowds of people. There were joggers passing by, locals sipping coffee and hanging out, even some early-bird tourists looking in their guidebooks or just looking lost. All in all, safety in numbers.

Claire had cleverly hidden the Stopper behind her seat in the taxi, but her other two phones had been in her purse, which had disappeared with her killer. He sure didn’t have it when he showed up dead in the tub at the Lucinda. Question was, who had the phones now?

I’d sent the text to Claire’s BlackBerry, the phone provided and paid for by the Times. I was posing as a confidant — someone she knew and trusted — and as roles go, it was hardly a stretch. The tough part, in every sense, was acting as if she were still alive. Timing was everything. The text had to be sent before her death had made the morning news. Same thing for the meeting.

R u up yet? Need to c u asap. Think kid might be telling u the truth. Meet me in park, far end of Bethesda Fount at 9. Something to show u.

Ten minutes later, after I’d left the Lucinda, the reply came. A text from Claire’s BlackBerry.

Ok, c u there.

Even if Claire had still been alive, I would’ve known the reply wasn’t from her. She hated the shorthand of texting, countless times complaining to me that it was dumbing down kids and adults alike. Not only would she never use shorthand, but she made fun of me whenever I did.

Ok, see you there, she would’ve typed. Not a vowel or consonant less.

Either way, the time and place had been set. All that was left was the guest list. My end was simple. It was just me. I could’ve told Lamont about it, but that would’ve changed everything.

Police detectives might not have the equivalent of a Hippocratic oath, but there was no way Lamont would’ve allowed me to set this trap alone. He’d either have to handcuff me to a large inanimate object far from the park or be right next to me by the fountain. Most definitely with backup.

That was the difference, really. Why I hadn’t told him. His job was to arrest people for what they did, not why they did it. If I had involved him, he’d immediately have brought this person in for questioning. Possession of stolen goods, at the bare minimum, with an eye toward accessory to murder.

Or was it accessories? Who knew who could show up, or how many? That was their end of the guest list.

So I had to be patient. Take pictures. Not take them in for questioning. Be their shadow. Identify them, follow them, and figure out the why. Because if you want to get some real answers from people, the last thing you do is let them know you’re watching them.

I pulled back my shirtsleeves, checking my watch. Two minutes after nine. As much as I didn’t know who I was looking for, I knew it wasn’t the elderly man and woman deep in conversation who’d been sitting by the far side of the fountain since I’d arrived.

Turning the page of the Daily News spread between my hands, I continued to pretend to read. Through dark sunglasses, I kept peeking above the paper, my eyes scanning for anyone who might be approaching, or at least looking in the direction of, the elderly couple on the bench.

The minutes kept ticking away. No one looked suspicious or out of place. Then again, neither did I. Or so I thought.

I was about to check the time again when I felt the quick, short vibration of my cell. It was an incoming text. Only it wasn’t from Claire’s phone. In fact, I didn’t know whose phone it was from. The sender was anonymous.

Get out of there! it read.

But it was too late.

Chapter 22

He came out of nowhere. A man wearing sunglasses even darker than mine, walking around the curve of the fountain and heading straight toward me.

Not fast. Not slow. Just walking. The click of his heels with each step now the only sound in the world.

How had I missed him?

He was dressed in a dark suit with an open-collared white shirt. He looked to be in his thirties. Short-cropped blond hair and in good shape. I couldn’t see his eyes behind those sunglasses, but I had little doubt they weren’t aimed at anyone else. I could literally feel his stare.

Or was it just the rush of fear shooting up my spine?

Suddenly, I didn’t know what to do with any part of my body. My feet were stuck to the ground, my hands frozen and locked in the air, the newspaper pinched between my fingertips feeling as heavy as one of those lead blankets they cover you with before an X-ray.

He had a newspaper, too.

I didn’t see it at first, the way it was tucked neatly under his left arm. Now it was all I could look at. There was something about it, how it was folded so tightly as if there was something... shit.

Inside it.

His right arm was a blur as it swung across his body, his hand outstretched with his fingers spread. All at once, his left arm loosened, the paper holster sliding down to his elbow while beginning to open. The way he caught the gun in midair, I was instantly sure of two things. One, he’d done this before. And two, I was simply done.

It’s not true what they say. You don’t see your life flash before your eyes. You see your death. In slow motion, no less.

He’d come to a complete stop, ten merciless feet in front of me, with the Angel of the Waters rising up behind him. But she wasn’t looking my way.

Others were, though. There was a woman screaming to my left, her high pitch and volume sending nearby pigeons scattering in the air. To my right, there was the sound of feet scampering, someone literally running for his life. Gun! Gun! Gun!

I heard it all. Still, I couldn’t move.

His arm began to unfold, the barrel of the gun lining up with my head. It was the only thing I could see. Until, out of nowhere, there was something else.

It was another blur, I couldn’t see what exactly. More importantly, neither could my executioner. He was being blindsided, someone tackling him at full speed.

Like a linebacker.

Chapter 23

I watched as both bodies slammed against the pavement and rolled, a tumble of arms and legs hurtling over and over. I couldn’t tell who was who, but I was convinced I knew one of them. Lamont! It had to be him.

But it wasn’t. As the bodies separated, both sprawling on the ground, I could tell this guy was younger. He was at least half the detective’s age. And not nearly as big.

Big enough, though. I certainly wasn’t complaining.

He pushed himself up, standing quickly, if not a little wobbly. “The gun!” he barked, pointing.

I hadn’t seen it go flying, but there it was, matte black against the terra cotta of the Roman bricks around the fountain. It was closer to me than to him. As for the gun’s original owner, he was somewhere in between and staring right at it.

Then at me.

Then right back at the gun.

It was up for grabs.

I sprang from the bench into a headfirst dive while my camera, launched from my lap, shattered to pieces. Scooping up the gun, I whipped my arm and locked both elbows, and dammit if the view wasn’t so much better from this angle.

“Stay down!” I yelled, jabbing the barrel of his Beretta M9 straight at his chest. With its fifteen-round staggered box magazine, he and I both knew I could remind him over and over who had the upper hand.

Yeah, I knew guns. I knew them well. Ever since my high school days at Valley Forge Military Academy. I shot them, cleaned them, took them apart and put them back together again. Even once while naked, blindfolded, and being blasted by a power washer during the school’s version of Hell Week.

I hated guns.

“Call nine-one-one,” I said with a quick glance at the guy who’d saved my life. Man, did he look young. He was practically a kid. Hell, he was a kid. He was also way ahead of me, his cell already in hand.

“On it,” he said.

I could hear him perfectly amid the hush that had fallen over the terrace and the fountain. Never had so many New Yorkers been so quiet all at once. I could feel them, though, as they began peeking out from whatever they were ducking behind, at least those who didn’t have the camera lenses from their cell phones trained on me. I was about to trend mightily on YouTube.

All the while, I kept my eyes fixed on the man on the ground, hoping he wouldn’t even blink until the police arrived. Turned out, his gun wasn’t the only thing that had gone flying when he was tackled. Gone, too, were his sunglasses. Good thing.

If he’d still had them on, I would never have known about his partner.

Chapter 24

It wasn’t much of a poker face. In fact, if anything, I could’ve sworn he cracked the slightest of smiles the second he glanced over my shoulder.

Following his eyes, I quickly turned to see the only person in the crowd who was actually running toward us — a second guy in great shape sporting short-cropped hair and apparently the de rigueur wardrobe among the assassin set. Dark suit, white shirt, open collar... and a semiautomatic handgun.

So much for my having the upper hand.

He was racing down the farther of the two massive staircases that connected Bethesda Terrace to the Seventy-Second Street Cross Drive. Fifty yards away and gaining. Fast. He might as well have been Moses, the way people were parting for him. Wielding a deadly weapon has a funny way of doing that.

“C’mon, let’s go!” said the kid.

The kid.

The way he’d said it, as if there weren’t even a decision, it all clicked. He was Claire’s source. He was the one at the Lucinda. He was what this was all about — even though I still had no idea what this was really all about. Except that this was him. The kid.

“C’mon,” he repeated. “Let’s go!”

He took off, hurdling the concrete bench where I’d been sitting. He was sprinting across the lawn, heading for the cover of the trees lining the Lake. I didn’t need any more prompting to follow him, but it came anyway with the crack of a single shot splitting the air. People and pigeons were scattering all over again.

I might have been the only other one with a gun, but the bullet wasn’t intended for me. Assassin #2 was aiming for the kid and nearly got him, the divot of grass flying up a mere foot to his left as he ran. There was a better-than-good chance the guy wasn’t going to miss twice... unless I did something.

Hopping over the concrete bench, I didn’t run right away. Instead, I spun around, crouched, and let go with a few rounds. Then a few more. Not at him, though.

You still smiling, buddy?

The guy on the ground had seemed all too pleased to stay there and watch me sweat, but as I sprayed a circle of bullets around him, he was quick to find the fetal position. Even quicker was his partner, who got the message. From a full sprint he stopped on a dime, lowering the gun to his side.

I was about to tell him to lay it on the ground and back away. Problem was, I didn’t have much of a plan from there. I was just buying time, and only a few extra seconds at that. As soon as he stepped back, I was taking off, and then we’d see how fast we both could run.

That was when I glanced up and saw her.

There she was, the Angel of the Waters, perched high in the air and watching. Now she was looking out for me, and her plan was a hell of a lot better.

I jerked my head at the fountain. I didn’t need to explain. In fact, I didn’t say another word. All I did was keep aiming where I was aiming.

Maybe I have it in me to shoot your asshole partner, or maybe I don’t. But do you really want to take the chance?

My two would-be killers exchanged glances, the one on the ground nodding somewhat helplessly at the one with the gun. He nodded back. Then — plop! — he tossed it into the fountain.

One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three...

I was waiting until the count was ten, long enough for the barrel to fill with water. Would it still fire? Sure. But first he’d have to fish it out and shake it dry, and even then the compression would be off. And as for me?

Eight Mississippi, nine Mississippi, ten...

I was off and running.

Sprinting for my life across the open stretch of grass, I could feel my lungs on fire. Only when I reached the trees did I look back for the first time, relieved as hell to see they weren’t chasing after me.

Still, I kept running. Fear of the unknown, partly, and the rest hoping I could find the kid. But he was nowhere to be found. Until, that is, I felt the quick vibration of my phone again. It was another text from him.

Last 4 of ur SS#

I knew right away what he was doing — making sure it was really me who had my phone. He obviously hadn’t hung around to see how things played out back at the fountain. Couldn’t blame him. But I also couldn’t figure out how he would know my Social Security number. Just add that to the litany of questions I had for him.

I texted back the last four digits, and within seconds he responded with a location where we should meet. Finally, I was going to get some answers.

Careful what you wish for...

Chapter 25

I didn’t look around the street before opening the door to the Oak Tavern on Seventy-Fourth off Broadway, but I knew he was watching me from behind some stoop or parked car, or more accurately, watching to see if anyone was following me. The kid wasn’t dumb. That was why he was still alive. That was why we were both still alive.

So this guy walks into a bar with a Beretta M9 tucked under his shirt...

Most New Yorkers can tell you that last call in the city is 4 a.m. Far fewer of them can tell the flip side — first call, the time at which a bar can legally start serving. It’s 8 a.m. I knew it only as trivia.

For sure, the four guys scattered along the stools, who didn’t even bother to glance my way as I approached the bartender, knew it as a way of life.

“Double Johnnie Black, rocks,” I ordered.

The fact that I was having whiskey for breakfast didn’t seem nearly as relevant as my having just had a gun aimed at my head. Drinking to numb the pain of Claire’s death was one thing; drinking to settle an entire body of frayed nerves was another.

The bartender, tall and thin and hunched with age, nodded, completely expressionless, before heading off to grab the bottle. He might as well have had a sign hanging around his neck that read NO JUDGMENTS.

Waiting for him to return, I looked around a bit. Fittingly, the Oak Tavern was a genuine throwback, not the kind of place that hung reproduction crap on the wall to imitate a time gone by.

Instead, what hung on the wall was actual crap and old as shit. Signed photos of D-list celebrities from the seventies. A painting of a horse that looked as if it had been bought at one of those hotel art fairs off the highway. And right next to it, a coatrack missing half its pegs.

Genuine as well was the musty smell of the place. I could practically feel the dust traveling up my nose with each breath.

“Five fifty,” said the bartender, standing in front of me again and pouring.

I gave him seven, picked up my glass, and headed for the rear of the tavern and a row of booths. They were those classic high-back ones, the crimson leather so worn and cracked it looked like a marbleized porterhouse. I slid into the last booth on the left, beyond the line of sight from the bar.

A few minutes later, the kid arrived.

As he walked toward me, I noticed that almost everything about him was a contradiction. He was skinny, with unusually broad shoulders. He had disheveled hair and slacker clothes and was staring ahead with the most focused eyes I’d ever seen. His gait was slow and deliberate, and yet his hands couldn’t keep still. He was rubbing them together as if they were under some imaginary faucet.

The kid sat down across from me without saying a word. No introduction. No offer of a handshake, either, lest one of those hands of his might actually have to stop moving while waiting to grip mine. Finally, he spoke.

“Sorry for all this,” he said.

That was the biggest contradiction of all, as far as I was concerned. “For what?” I asked. “You saved my life.”

“I’m the only reason it was ever in danger, dude.”

“We’ll get to that in a moment,” I said. “That, and whether I’m really going to let you call me dude. But speaking of names, what’s yours? And don’t say Winston Smith.”

“It’s Owen,” he answered.

“And you already know mine, don’t you? Among other things.”

He nodded.

“Are you some kind of hacker?” I asked.

“It’s not what I do for a living, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Okay. What do you do for a living?”

But it was as if he hadn’t heard me. Or, more likely, as if he needed to ask a few questions for himself before answering that one.

Chapter 26

“What’s your connection to Claire?”

“Close friend,” I answered. It was a good enough explanation for the time being.

“Are you a reporter?”

“No.”

“You don’t work at the Times?”

“No.”

He hesitated, reluctant to ask his next question. He needed to know, though, and I needed to tell him.

“She’s dead, isn’t she?” he asked.

“Yes,” I answered.

I explained how it had happened. His head dropped. “It’s my fault,” he said. “Everything.”

“Claire would’ve been the first to tell you that isn’t true,” I said. “And I’d be the second.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I was with her before she went to meet you. This was her job, Owen. It’s what she did.”

“So you knew about me?”

I smiled. “No. Claire never discussed her sources. I don’t even know how she found you.”

“She didn’t — I found her,” he said. “I knew her work. That’s why I called her.”

“When was this?”

“She and I spoke two days ago,” he said. “I was planning on coming up here next week.”

“What changed?”

He reached into his pocket, taking out his iPhone. After a few taps, he handed it to me. On the screen was an obituary from the online edition of the Sun Gazette down in Virginia. “Dr. Stephen Hellerman, 48, Leading Neurologist,” the headline read. A picture of a clean-cut, good-looking guy was underneath.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“My boss.”

I leaned in, squinting to read the first few sentences. “‘An early-morning home invasion’?”

“That’s what it was made to look like. They shot him in the head. Then, last night, they almost got me, too.”

“Who’s they?”

“I’m not sure yet. I was hoping Claire could tell me.”

Were we homing in, I wondered, or just going around in circles? “Why would she know?” I asked.

“The piece she wrote last year about the CIA black site in Poland.”

I knew the article well, if only because Claire was in Warsaw for two weeks researching it, and missed my birthday. “The secret jail?”

“Yeah, in Stare Kiejkuty,” he said with a perfect Polish accent. Impressive.

Stare Kiejkuty was a Polish intelligence-training site tucked away in a forest about two hours north of the capital. Claire got a guided tour of it from Polish officials, the key word being guided. As she described it, the whole purpose of the tour was to convince her the CIA wasn’t using a spare room or two to interrogate suspected Muslim terrorists outside the reach of US legal protections.

“So you have actual proof that it’s a CIA black site?” I asked.

The kid shook his head slowly. “No, what I have goes way beyond that,” he said. “Way beyond.”

Chapter 27

“Do you know the name Abdullah al-Hazim?” Owen asked.

“No,” I said. “Should I?”

“He was thought to be the number two guy in Al Qaeda,” he explained. “Of course, it’s pretty silly how we imagine terrorist groups to be structured like our own government, with a neatly organized line of succession. Let’s just say al-Hazim was one of the ringleaders based in Yemen.”

“Was?”

“About a year ago, the State Department announced he’d been killed by a drone attack in the Shabwah province,” Owen said. “If I’m not mistaken, the Times gave it two columns above the fold in the International section.”

Two columns above the fold...

“You sound like Claire,” I said. “There was the story, and then there was where the story was placed.”

“In this case, though, the story was wrong.”

“The guy’s still alive?”

“No, al-Hazim is dead, all right. It just wasn’t a drone attack that killed him.”

With that, Owen slid out of the booth and joined me on my side. I didn’t know what he was doing until he removed a small device from his pocket, attaching it to the Lightning dock on his iPhone. It was one of those tiny portable projectors. We were going to the movies.

The backrest of the bench where he’d been sitting became the screen. The video was black-and-white and as grainy as the leather of the booth, but it was clear enough to see what was happening... and to whom.

“That’s al-Hazim in the chair,” said Owen.

The Middle Eastern man was probably in his late thirties, with a short beard and rimless glasses. I was hardly an expert on body language, but this was an easy read. Al-Hazim was trying to act defiant but was clearly scared to death.

“This is from Stare Kiejkuty?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

The room was average-sized and well lit, albeit with no windows I could see. The chair al-Hazim was shackled to — hands and feet — was the only furniture, at least in front of the camera. There were two male voices in the background speaking English, but I couldn’t make out the conversation.

I turned to Owen. “What are they saying?”

“I haven’t been able to make it out,” he answered. “Keep watching, though.”

I leaned forward for a quick peek toward the front of the tavern. I couldn’t see anyone, and no one could see us; this was truly a private screening. If I hadn’t been so intrigued, I would’ve been more aware of how surreal this all was, even by New York standards.

What the hell am I about to see? Torture? Some sort of confession? A combination of both? Or is it D, none of the above?

I kept watching. Seconds later, three men entered the picture. Two were in suits and ties, while the third was wearing a white medical smock. That man, presumably a doctor, was holding something as he approached al-Hazim.

“Is that a syringe?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“He’s not getting a flu shot, is he?”

Owen shook his head. “Nope.”

Chapter 28

The two men restrained al-Hazim, one of them gripping him in a headlock as the doctor swabbed the side of his neck with an alcohol pad. Quickly, the doctor injected the contents of the syringe into the carotid artery. All three then stepped out of frame.

As al-Hazim simply sat there as he had before, I was about to ask Owen what was going on. That was when I heard a man clearing his throat off camera. This sound, unlike the previous conversation, I could hear perfectly.

“What is your name?” the man asked.

Immediately, another voice off camera translated the question into Arabic. I hadn’t suddenly learned the language — there were actually subtitles at the bottom of the frame. It was like a foreign film, albeit not the kind Claire and I would watch at the Angelika down in SoHo.

Al-Hazim didn’t answer, and everything repeated itself. One voice asked the question again in English, the other translated it again in Arabic. And once again, al-Hazim didn’t respond.

“Are you a member of Al Qaeda?” came the next question. The translation followed, along with the subtitles. Still, al-Hazim didn’t say a word.

Then something strange started to happen. It was as if his chair had been electrified, although not with a sudden jolt. Rather, a slow build. His arms and legs began to shake, his face contorting. He was clearly feeling pain.

“Are you aware of any plans by Al Qaeda to kill American citizens?” came the third question, the interrogator’s voice unchanged. It was calm, placid, even as al-Hazim began to shake uncontrollably as if he were having a violent seizure. He was in agony, and no one was laying a finger on him.

Meanwhile, the question was repeated — louder, finally, so as to be heard above the metal cuffs around his ankles and wrists, which were now clanking and rattling incessantly against the chair.

“Are you aware of any plans by Al Qaeda to kill American citizens?”

If he was, al-Hazim still wasn’t saying. I wasn’t sure he could even if he wanted to, at this point. His mouth was open as if to scream, but there was no sound coming out. His eyes rolled back. He looked possessed. There was no control, not anywhere. His jumpsuit darkened around his crotch and thighs. He was urinating on himself, if not defecating.

Suddenly, everything stopped. Like someone had pulled the plug. Al-Hazim collapsed in the chair, his body limp and lifeless.

The doctor in the white smock reappeared and placed two fingers on the neck, exactly where he’d administered the shot. He turned and shook his head to those behind the camera. His face was as expressionless as the bartender who had poured me my whiskey.

“Christ!” was all I could sputter at first. I was still staring at the opposite side of the booth and what was now just an empty white square being projected. It was all sinking in. Finally, I turned to Owen. “The syringe. Whatever was in it killed him, right?”

“Technically, no,” he said.

“Technically?”

He folded his arms on the table. “What you just saw was actually a suicide.”

Chapter 29

Before I could ask what the hell that meant, Owen reached for his phone and began tapping the screen again. He was bringing up another video. It was a double feature.

“If this is the same thing with a different prisoner, I don’t need to see it,” I said.

“Just watch,” said Owen.

He hit Play and positioned the phone again, the image beaming across the booth as it had before. Same room, same chair, different Middle Eastern man chained to it. His beard was slightly longer, and he didn’t wear glasses.

The only other difference was that he filled out his jumpsuit more. He looked bloated, puffy where there might otherwise be edges.

Maybe for that reason alone, his blank stare didn’t seem as determined.

The same three men entered the frame, the one in the white smock administering the shot. As they retreated behind the camera, I was already bracing for what was to come.

It came. The man was asked his name in English, followed by Arabic, and he refused to answer, once and then twice. As with al-Hazim, the “symptoms” started.

“Are you a member of Al Qaeda?” came the next question, and again he refused to answer. But that was when things took a turn.

As his heavy body shook and convulsed, the man’s face looked as if he were in a tug-of-war. He was trying to fight the pain, not give in to it, but as his teeth gnashed and the tendons in his neck stretched so tight I thought they would snap, he opened his mouth not to scream... but to talk.

“Yes,” read the translation beneath him.

The voice of the interrogator resumed. So calmly, so eerily. “So you admit that you are a member of Al Qaeda?”

“Yes,” the man repeated.

And no sooner had he done so than the shaking, the convulsing, the outright agony he was experiencing began to dissipate. Quickly, the interrogator followed up.

“Are you aware of any plans by Al Qaeda to kill American citizens?”

Seconds passed as the man remained silent — and motionless — in the chair. He was clearly deciding what to do, how to answer. His forehead was dripping sweat. He didn’t have much time, and he knew it.

“No,” he answered. “I don’t know anything.”

He tried to sell it, his eyes pleading desperately with everyone behind the camera to believe him. The room was silent for another few seconds... and then came the sound. The handcuffs, the ankle cuffs — they began to rattle against the chair. His faced seized up, his dark eyes practically popping out of his head. Everything was starting all over, only faster and more severe.

“Yes!” he screamed. In English, no less. “Yes! Yes! I know of plans...”

And for a second time, everything stopped. No more convulsing, no more pain. No more video, either. It ended abruptly.

Owen turned to me. “Go figure, huh? Of all things, it’s the plans they didn’t want recorded.”

“How the hell did you get these?” I asked.

“It’s a long story.”

“I’ve got nothing but time.”

“Yeah, that’s what I used to think.”

I got what he was saying. His life was never going to be the same. Maybe that was why he was eyeing my glass as I threw back the last of my whiskey.

“You want one?” I asked.

“No thanks,” he said.

But it was the way he said it, like it wasn’t even a possibility. “How old are you, by the way?”

“Nineteen.”

“Are you in school?”

“No,” he said. “I work.”

“What do you do?”

“I design artificial neurological implants.”

I stared at him blankly.

“Yeah, I know,” he said. “But Subway wasn’t hiring.”

The kid definitely had a snarky streak. In a good way, though. Claire would’ve liked him.

He and I were all alone in the back of the Oak Tavern, everyone else out of earshot. Still, I couldn’t help lowering my voice for what I was about to ask. It was just one of those kinds of questions. “Do you work for the CIA, Owen?”

He nodded at his phone. “Not anymore, I’m guessing.”

“And those injections, what we just watched. Did you have something to do with that?”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“Whether you think the Wright Brothers had something to do with nine-eleven,” he said. He slid out of my side of the booth and back into his before explaining. “I was working on artificial neurotransmitters for the human brain. I’m not a sap, I knew there were possible military applications. But I also knew that they were the cure for dozens of neurological diseases. Sometimes you just have to take the good with the bad.”

“Until you saw the bad with your own eyes,” I said.

“I was their missing link. They had isolated all the neurological changes, everything the brain does when we lie, but they didn’t know how to manipulate it.” He drew a deep breath, exhaling with regret well beyond his years. “I thought I was curing Alzheimer’s.”

The irony was inescapable. “They lied to you.”

“No, not exactly,” he said. “Those people in the recordings — the men in suits, the doctor — I don’t even know who they are.”

“But they know who you are, don’t they? They know you wanted to go public, and now they want you dead and anyone else you might have told.”

I leaned back, sinking into the booth as those last words of mine hung in the air for a few seconds. I’d said them thinking entirely about Claire.

That was when it dawned on me, the morning I’d had. I was leaving someone out of the proverbial risk pool. Me.

As if on cue, Owen tilted his head and, of all things, smiled. “Welcome to the club, dude.”