pocket as he had turned from the ramp onto the sidewalk.
‘Jesus, watch where you’re going, jerkwad,’ he snapped at me.
‘My bad, I’m very sorry,’ I said. I turned into the parking ramp and hurried up the stairs. I didn’t even glance to see which keys I’d pickpocketed off him until I was on the second level. A Mercedes logo on the keychain. I ran along the parked cars, testing the automatic unlock, until headlights on an SE flashed at me.
One minute later I was heading toward the Lincoln Tunnel.
If you save her and Jack Ming gets away…
I had to get a grip. Focus. I wanted to make good time. The limo driver apparently had and I thought, please, don’t let there be bad traffic or an accident. Don’t let the guy whose car I’m stealing realize his keys are gone. Let the doorman and the guard be okay after I punched them. Forgive me everything I do to save my son.
Don’t let me fail.
29
Along Highway 206, New Jersey
The Garden State. You tend to forget that New Jersey deserves that name when you’re stuck driving through an endless unfurling of suburbia. I drove at top speed and the rain that had hurried in from the Atlantic passed through here. The rain was like a hand cleaning a slate. The air smelled wet and fresh and new.
I drove. I didn’t use the car’s GPS – if it had been reported stolen by now, I didn’t want the system tracking where I was. I kept it switched off.
Okay. Now: who had Leonie and Mrs Ming? Jack’s mom had called someone. And then the limo driver had collected Mrs Ming. Now, I would not put it past Special Projects if they figured out like I had that Jack Ming was their new best buddy – Fagin might have tattled – to scoop up Mrs Ming for her own protection against Novem Soles. And they might even, to lure me in close, pretend-threaten Leonie’s life. If August was at this house, fine, we’d talk, and maybe he’d let me take some photos of Jack Ming looking dead, if his people had already nabbed Jack.
But. But. If August was involved in this operation, the limo driver wouldn’t have been on the phone. It would have been August. Right?
I was not optimistic that Special Projects had Leonie. It had to be the dreaded ‘Someone Else’. An enemy I didn’t know.
The phone Anna gave me rang again as I turned into the address. ‘Yes?’ I said, sounding impatient.
‘Hello, Sam.’ Anna Tremaine.
‘What?’
‘I would like to know your status.’
‘I’ll call you when the job’s done.’
‘Has Leonie found the informant?’
‘I’ll call you when the job is done.’ I made the words short, clipped.
‘You know,’ she said, ‘I don’t think you’ve heard your baby cry. He’s been rather fussy today. Well, both these babies are unhappy. I wonder, do you think they can sense their… precariousness?’
I don’t know how to describe the dark surge over my heart. I don’t have the words for it. It was a blackness. I hadn’t felt it in my worst moments, when I saw my brother die on a scratchy video, when my wife was kidnapped in a street of fire, when I was tortured and accused of being a traitor, choking to death when I couldn’t give the Company answers I didn’t know. I’ve had more than my share of really bad moments. This was even darker. This was reaching into me and smearing something foul on my soul. It took all my will to keep my breath steady. ‘I am doing what you asked. You don’t hurt him. You do not hurt either of them.’
‘But the job’s not done yet and you won’t tell me what’s happening.’ She sighed. ‘I’m playing with his little fingers right now, Sam. They’re more delicate than bone china.’
I told her briefly what I knew, and what I was doing. For several moments she was silent.
Then she said, ‘Listen, Sam. Listen to your son. I’m going to put the phone right by him.’ And I could hear the phone, a hiss of breath, a gurgle. My son. I had never heard him. A soft ahhhhhh, all baby breath, all happy, toothless mumble.
Then choked, frustrated gurgling; he wasn’t happy. Bored or annoyed at the phone resting next to his face.
‘Daniel. Daniel, this is Daddy.’ Like he could understand. Like my voice would mean anything to him; my soft baritone was as alien to him as any other sound he’d never heard. My words, my voice, could give him no comfort. I’d never thought about what I’d say to him: he was a baby, what would he understand? I’d never been around babies. I was the youngest in my family. ‘Daniel. It’s Daddy. I’m coming to get you.’
He fussed, he squawked, he cried. Maybe he wanted Anna to pick him up again. He wanted Anna. The idea made me want to vomit. He wanted a woman who would hurt him. That was true innocence.
‘I’m going to be there soon, son, we’ll be together. Okay? This is Daddy. I love you, Daniel. I love you.’ I did love him. I loved him, sight unseen. ‘I love you. I love… ’
‘Sam,’ Anna’s voice was back. ‘Listen to me.’
30
Morris County, New Jersey
Leonie looked up from staring at the floor. The driver hadn’t planned on two victims, she supposed; he only had the one set of handcuffs and he’d chained Mrs Ming to another wooden chair. He’d bound Leonie with rope from a closet in the house. The living room was small, the wallpaper old and twenty years out of fashion, musty with grime. The house carried the feel of a way station, a place used infrequently. Leonie sat, her knees folded beneath her, watching the driver pace the floor.
The driver had moved into the front rooms, to watch the windows for Sam.
‘Help me,’ Mrs Ming whispered to her.
Leonie glanced at her. ‘I’m curious as to what you expect me to do.’
It wasn’t the answer Mrs Ming was looking for. ‘He’s not from the CIA. He’s not. They said they would send someone.’
‘The CIA?’
‘Yes!’ Mrs Ming said.
Leonie inched closer to her. ‘The CIA is looking for your son.’
‘A man who said he was from the CIA called me this morning. They said Jack might be coming home. To call them if he did. I… I didn’t know to believe him, but I went to the grocery, in case. I got Jack’s favorite things to eat.’ Her voice sounded lost.
Leonie looked at her. ‘Where is your son?’
‘I don’t know… ’
‘Tell me.’
‘He left, I don’t… ’
Leonie leaned back and head-butted the woman. ‘Tell me where he is!’
Mrs Ming howled in anger and pain.
‘Hey! Hey!’ the limo driver said, hurrying into the room, kicking Leonie onto her back. ‘Stop it!’ He murmured again into his open phone, too low to hear, and then clicked it off.
‘You’re not from the CIA!’ Mrs Ming said, blood oozing from the corner of her mouth, her forehead vivid with the imprint of Leonie’s head. ‘You cannot keep me here. You cannot. They will look for me.’
‘You,’ he said to Leonie. ‘You’re with Sam Capra.’
She said nothing and he responded, in his accented English, ‘Bitch, I am short on patience’, and he began to
