‘Your number won’t be in it now, so why worry? So concerned for your fellow victims?’
‘I just don’t want innocent people hurt.’ The night breeze, the smell of jet fuel in the airport wind, blew over him. He had to stop this little lunatic, somehow.
‘Very considerate of you. This has been so illuminating,’ Jack Ming said. ‘Thank you… ’
Time for Plan B. ‘They know who you are, Jack,’ the Watcher said. ‘Which means they know who Ricki is, and who your mother is. They will find everyone you’ve ever cared about and they will burn them and everything you love to the ground. Oh, yes. You know why I’m really here? I’m going to destroy you financially, your family, everything you hold dear. Your mother will be selling herself in alleyways after I’m done.’
Stunned silence on the other end. ‘What?’ Jack said finally.
‘There is another option for you. I’ll buy the notebook. I’ll buy your silence.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Ten million. It’s a nice round number and you can easily live off that for the rest of your life.’
‘Unworkable,’ Jack said. ‘Ask the dead dude in the Amsterdam hospital if you think I’m going to meet you face to face.’
‘That was done without my approval, in panic, by a fool. Let’s deal like adults. I’ll put half the money in an account for you. You mail me the notebook and I’ll pay you the other half.’
‘And when I show up at your bank or move the money, you find me and kill me. No thank you. Plus, you can’t trust I haven’t copied the notebook.’
‘Let me propose this. A cash drop. We agree on a place for you to leave the notebook. And a place for me to leave you cash.’
‘Ten million in small bills is not exactly transportable by one guy in a hurry,’ Jack said. ‘I don’t trust you.’
‘I can give you a better deal than the CIA can. Twice the money.’
‘And dead twice as fast.’
‘Jack. Play nice, or I will burn you down.’
‘You’re just trying to lure me in. No. You know who I am. I know what you are. And when I’m done with you, you son of a bitch, there is no hiding place for you.’
This little nobody, threatening him. The Watcher heard the snap in his own voice. ‘You are nothing but a contemptible punk. When you die, and you will, I’ll throw a party. I’ll have people over for drinks and we’ll watch you being slowly tortured to death. I’ll have it catered. It won’t happen in some dark warehouse or basement. It will happen, with people standing around having drinks, laughing while they watch your skin pulled off, your eyes gouged, your ears burned to a crisp.’
‘Someone’s going to burn,’ Jack said, ‘but it’s not me.’ Then he hung up.
The Watcher stood there, the red rage slowly building in his eyes. He closed the phone and walked forward slowly to join the line of travelers awaiting a taxi.
38
Hotel Esper, Williamsburg
‘I want to know who owns that property in New Jersey,’ I said. We were in the hotel room; Leonie sitting at the table, me standing at the window, looking down toward the Ming building’s boarded windows.
She opened her laptop. ‘It would help if we had an address. It’s out in the middle of nowhere.’
‘It was marked as River Run Road. See you if you can find a county property map. Or find it on Google Maps.’
She tapped, and hummed under her breath. Leonie on a computer reminded me of my wife Lucy. My ex- wife. Lucy was very clever with computers, too. I stared out at the night and let her work. She tapped, found maps, compared them with the route we’d driven.
‘The property is owned by Associated Languages School.’
‘A language school?’ No wonder it was derelict. Didn’t most people learn foreign languages these days through software programs? And it was out in the boonies. ‘Maybe it’s supposed to be an immersion program?’
I watched her fingers fly across the keyboard; she nibbled her lip in thought. ‘They have a very basic website.’
‘Where are they headquartered?’
‘New York. They have immersion programs in rural New York, Florida and Oregon that they offer. But it says their next three sessions are full.’
‘Maybe the driver knew that the house was unoccupied.’
‘Yes. Maybe he drove students out there before and knew it was shuttered now.’
But it didn’t quite ring true. ‘Would it be shuttered if business was booming?’
I picked up my phone, sat down on the bed and called them. ‘You have reached the offices of Associated Languages School. We offer instruction and translation services in’ – and then the recording went into a tiresome listing of every major language spoken on four continents. I considered hanging up the phone. Maybe that’s what they wanted me to do. Finally, I was invited to leave a message. I hung up.
‘Front company,’ I said. ‘Nobody makes it that hard to do business.’
‘A front for Novem Soles?’
‘Maybe. Can we find out anything else on them?’
‘Yes, but is that going to help us find out anything about Jack Ming? Let’s not lose focus here, Sam. If we do this right we have our kids tomorrow. We vanish, and we don’t ever worry about Novem Soles again.’
I got up and stared out the window. She tapped away at her computer while I watched the night.
‘I got into Proxima Security,’ she said. ‘Via Sandra Ming’s account. I’ve got access to a monitor log. It will tell us if anyone enters the building and punches in a code.’
‘We know the guard has the code.’
‘And we can assume Jack does. We know the guard’s schedule. If someone comes at a different time, I think we’ll know it’s Jack.’
‘Could you disable the alarm?’
She shook her head. ‘Separate system.’
‘Well, at least we’ll know when people come and go.’
‘I’ll put an alarm on my laptop to chime if there’s an update to the log,’ she said. ‘Can I give you some advice?’
‘No.’
‘Give up on fighting Novem Soles when this is done,’ she said. ‘Revenge is the most worthless motive in the world. Your wife made her choice, yes? You get your son back, then you have all that matters. All right? Don’t try to keep fighting them. Go live a safe, good life.’
‘Move on and put out of my mind that I’m going to kill a young man who could bring them down.’
‘To save your son? Yes. Put Jack Ming as a human being out of your mind. People put ugliness out of their heads all the time. Jack Ming made his choice, same as your wife.’
‘And now he’s trying to unmake it,’ I said. ‘Does that count for nothing?’
She was silent.
‘He’s trying to be the good guy. If he’d turned on Novem Soles seven months ago he might be surrendering to me, and I’d be getting ready to take a bullet for him if that’s what it took to save him.’
Leonie got up and sat at the window. She stared down at the building. ‘Some choices can’t be unmade. So we should watch for him?’
‘If you want. But I seriously doubt he’s going to come around to be discovered by the security guard. We have to trust Anna’s source.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘I think so. He’s not a trained operative. Daylight is easier. He can see what he’s facing. I’m thinking he’s camped somewhere else tonight. He needs his sleep, too.’
