kill your father in Queens. I often find people care about the lives of loved ones more than their own.’ She gave a little shrug. ‘Aren’t people funny?’
Terror flooded Beth.
‘Will you play nice nice?’
Beth nodded. Very eagerly.
‘Now don’t you get blood on my suit, I will be most unhappy,’ the brunette said, as though Beth could stop the blood oozing from her nose.
They shoved her into the small kitchen that doubled as an office supplies storage area. They handcuffed her to the sink pipe.
‘Now. The access code. If you lie to me your family’s dead. But we’ll come back here first and shoot off bits and pieces.’
Beth did not lie. She gave them the code. The pain in her face was now agony. She tried to fight back the tears.
‘Very good.’ The brunette pulled Beth’s cell phone from her purse. ‘Where are the property keys?’
‘My desk drawer. Tagged as Williamsburg.’ Her voice trembled.
The blonde vanished, returned in a moment, the keys dangling.
‘Please don’t hurt my family, please… ’
‘Beth, chillax, we’re all cool. You’re just going to tell whoever finds you that you were mugged. By two big Chinese guys. Just provide a couple of pointless yet specific details. They wore red shirts. They had body odor. Two details, no other. You’ll be very convincing. You never saw us. You will never speak of us. If you deviate from that story, your daughter and your father will die, guaranteed, no matter how long it takes. Because the threat against your family stands as long as you live. It doesn’t have an expiration date. But if you talk, then your family has an expiration date. They will die and the white lilies at their funerals will be from me and my sister. Are we clear?’
Beth nodded, tears brimming her eyes. They stuffed a wash-cloth from the kitchen drawer in her mouth, bound her lips with tape.
‘Have a nice day,’ the brunette said, and they left her.
43
Hotel Esper, Williamsburg
I decided to suit up for the meeting. I wanted to look like a legitimate business owner for the property management company, and I thought, given that I had a black eye, I needed every ounce of respectability I could muster. And I didn’t want Jack Ming, if he was hiding in the building, to see me as a soldier. I wanted to look like the other side of my life, the owner of a really nice bar. When I worked undercover for Special Projects I quickly learned that most high-level criminal groups adopt a stylish look. I would prefer myself to always be in T-shirt and jeans but life demands more. So I figured out, like a personal shopper to an assassin would, what suits worked for my build as well as what I could wear if I had to fight while dressed to the nines.
Also, even though I didn’t pay much attention to The Last Minute as I launched my search for Daniel, I was conscious of when I looked rattier than Bertrand (who always looks annoyingly dapper) and the staff. So, I’d grabbed from my office above The Last Minute the dark navy Burberry Prosrum suit, sleek-fitting. I put on a light gray shirt, a soft silver tie. To the back of the tie I attached a small, thin fighting knife; it stayed in place thanks to a customized loop I’d sewn in. The blade’s handle was extremely slender, and the weight of the knife kept the tie tucked against the shirt. I buttoned the jacket; you’d have to look hard to see the blade. I attached a holster to the small of my back; my Glock went there. Another thin blade was bound to an ankle; I put on a pair of Allen Edmonds shoes, with a slightly thick heel. I am man enough to kick when there is a need to.
I left Leonie tapping at her keyboard. ‘He’s probably not there, but if he is, and I get him, we’ll have to run quickly.’
You don’t rush in if you can help it. We had to be prepared for a couple of eventualities: that Jack Ming might somehow already be here, and have turned the building into his own fortress, and that the CIA might be here as well. Anna could be wrong about the rendezvous being set for tomorrow. Her source inside could be wrong, and, with our children’s lives on the line, neither Leonie nor I had any intention of walking into a trap. If we were caught, our children were lost to us.
Would Jack Ming hide where he planned to meet? Possibly. But if I were him, I would try to stay on the move as much as I could. Hunkering down in a place tied to his father could be dangerous, an unacceptable risk.
Of course, he was a twenty-two-year-old grad student, not a trained operative. He might not think the same way I would. But he’d run home, the most dangerous thing he could do if his false ID in the Netherlands had been cracked, and so he might commit a whole chain of mistakes. If he didn’t realize that his mother was gone, he might feel perfectly safe coming to this building that he knew to be empty.
He, after all, had to have taken the key for a good reason.
The building was enemy territory. It could be a kill zone. I had only seen it in the dark late last night and now it looked like a difficult place to defend. It was neat red brick, windows covered to keep damage and neglect at bay. An outdoor market was in full swing two streets over; pedestrians passed on their way to and from the stalls.
I walked down to the building a few minutes late. If Jack was inside I didn’t want him to spot me until the very last minute. I had no idea if he had seen me in the Rotterdam shootout, or if he would register my face from those horrible few minutes.
As I walked up to the door, a Volvo sedan with New Jersey plates pulled up. Two women got out. Great, I thought: if Jack Ming is holed up inside and gets violent then I’ve got two people to protect. They both wore practically identical pinstriped suits. Maybe Mrs Ming enforced a dress code. They were both in their late twenties, I would guess. One was dark-haired, dark-eyed, with a lovely face and a kind smile. The other was blonde, steel- eyed, a bit taller, but something in her face registered wrong. Like the smile was just for practice.
‘Mr Capra?’ This was the brunette.
‘Yes.’
‘Beth Marley.’ We shook hands. ‘This is my associate, Lizzie.’
She offered her hand, I shook it, and she held onto it a little longer than necessary. ‘Oh, what happened to your face?’ Odd tone to her question – she almost sounded disappointed. I thought for a moment she was going to reach out and touch my black eye.
‘Surely not a bar fight?’ Beth said.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And that dude won’t walk a check again.’
‘Oh, rough stuff,’ Lizzie said. Her smile didn’t waver. I felt sure commercial leasing agents have seen nearly everything.
‘May I see your ID?’ Beth said.
I understand leasing agents have to be careful, going into buildings with strange men. I gave her both my New York driver’s license and my Last Minute business card, which looked even sharper than I did. She inspected them and handed them back to me.
Beth gestured to the building. ‘Shall we?’
I nodded.
Beth unlocked the door with a key with a small tag on it. She stepped inside and punched in the code for the building. She didn’t hide her tapping finger and I saw the code was 49678. She seemed to hesitate for just one moment, as if expecting the alarm to sound, but it stopped its warning chime and the indicator light turned green. But I stepped away from her before she could register that I’d been watching and turned my gaze critically to the ceiling, as though I expected to see a pox of water leaks. Lizzie stayed close to me. A little too close. I didn’t like her, all of a sudden.
On the first floor was some unfinished plasterboard, a wall left undone.
‘Did someone start to remodel and forget to finish?’
