Leonie helped me shower in the apartment’s small bathroom. The blood and sand rinsed from me. I sported cuts and bruises and a nice slice across my chest, blood caked on my belly. She washed my hair for me in silence, soaping out the grains of sand. She helped me dry off and I found boxers to put on for the doctor’s arrival.
I didn’t tell her Anna’s threat against Daniel. The idea would unnerve her, and we had to keep our focus. I was horrified enough for the both of us.
She closed the door behind her. My arm was a dull ache. My whole body was a dull ache. But if I was hurt, then so was Ming and he couldn’t run as far, or as fast. We might have clipped each other’s wings.
I drank the rest of Leonie’s Guinness. It felt good to be alive. I wanted to keep the kids alive. The past two days made me very tired of death. I could hear the hustle of Manhattan traffic outside the windows. I closed my eyes and I only opened them again when the door opened.
Bertrand stood there. He wore a tailored, subtly pinstriped suit on his tall frame, gray, with a sky-blue tie. He muttered something in French when he saw me, which I couldn’t quite hear. He shook his head as he closed the door. I raised my arm, which screamed in protest.
‘The doctor will arrive soon, Sam.’
‘We could be in trouble. Where is Mila?’
He shrugged. ‘There was a man here. Asking for you.’
‘Blond?’ I thought it might be August.
‘No, dark-haired. He asked how often you came by the bar. I said about once a week, and you had been here yesterday. He wanted to know where you lived. I told him I didn’t know that, all I had for you was a phone number. I gave him a fake one. I don’t think it occurred to him that you have an apartment here.’
August would send someone, the bar might be under surveillance. Or it might not be. They cared about finding Jack Ming more than they cared about me. Special Projects did not have an inexhaustible supply of resources. Eight people in the New York office. If they needed more feet on the ground they’d have to call Langley.
I told Bertrand what happened. He took away the martini glasses and the pint glass and brought me ibuprofen. I swallowed four.
‘I suspect,’ he said, ‘you aren’t going to find this Jack Ming again.’
‘We have his computer. Leonie is going through the files.’
‘Alone? You trust her?’
‘I have to.’
A knock on the door. The doctor. There are all sorts of medical professionals who are willing to practice on the side to not require you make a trip to an emergency room. Usually they’re doctors or nurses who have been bankrupted by a lawsuit or they have a prescription med monkey on their backs. This doctor was a woman, fiftyish, and seemed delightfully sober. She had a backpack on and blue jeans and inside the backpack was an army field medical kit.
‘Doctor Smith,’ Bertrand said.
‘Smith,’ I said, ‘I hope I can remember.’
‘Doctor I’m Not Going to Say Your Real Name doesn’t quite trip off the tongue,’ Bertrand said.
The doctor said nothing to me except ‘tell me what happened’ and ‘does this hurt? Does this?’ She did not blink when I described getting hit in the arm with a flowerpot, or throwing myself off a building, or landing in a sand truck. She ran fingertips along my arm, tested it, watched me wince. ‘At worst a simple break.’
‘Can’t you tell?’
‘The kryptonite is interfering with my x-ray vision,’ she said dryly. ‘I can equip you with a fiberglass cast. You need to rest the arm, though. No more jumping off buildings.’
‘Okay,’ I said. She set about her work of setting and casting my arm. Bertrand went and turned on a television to a local twenty-four-hour news station. After a weather update, and a political scandal out of Albany involving a state senator and a prostitute, the gun chase through the streets of Brooklyn and us falling off the building were the top stories. But they hadn’t caught me, and they hadn’t caught Jack Ming.
‘I need you to move into fast gear, Doctor, because I got places to be.’
Bertrand said, ‘Inspect his head for concussion, please.’
‘I don’t have a concussion.’
Bertrand brought me black slacks and a black shirt. The doctor assembled a bandage around my arm and put on the cast. I got dressed. She said hardly a word. She left me instructions and a large bottle of illicit painkillers. Bertrand stuck a wad of cash into her hand and she was gone.
‘What is it you want me to do?’ Bertrand crossed his arms. He looked like he should be in charge, not me.
‘Special Projects will be working to find him. But they won’t go to the police because they don’t want to explain why they’re causing gunfire in the streets. Now I just have to figure out where Jack will go.’
‘Sam!’ Leonie screamed. ‘Sam, come here!’
I hurried into the room where Leonie sat. A messaging window was open on the screen. Leonie pointed and I leaned down and read the words you will never find me losers so fuck you.
‘Jack?’
‘Yes. He’s got a remote access program. He’s got control of the system.’
Damn. He could format the hard drive remotely; he could wipe out all the information on the system.
I leaned down and typed I want to make a deal with you. We have a common enemy in Nine Suns.
The words stood alone until another sentence appeared below them: Is this Sam Capra?
Yes.
‘Don’t tell him anything. Don’t,’ Leonie said.
You say you want me dead to save your kid. I know. But you know even if you kill me, your kid is dead.
‘He’s lying,’ Leonie said. ‘He’s lying just to protect himself. To scare us.’
Give us the notebook and we’ll tell them you’re dead, I wrote. You can hide or surrender to the CIA or whatever.
I have no reason to trust you, he wrote. You threw me off a building.
I’m sorry. We have a common enemy. You know I’m being forced to work for them. We can both be free.
This is a trap and I’m not stupid.
Why are you even talking to me then? I wrote.
I want you to know you’ve lost. You will never, ever find me. I’m sorry about your kid.
We could fool them together. Give them a fake notebook. Tell them you’re dead, they’re not looking for you. We get our kids back. We all win.
No. I won’t risk it.
I took a deep breath and typed: I’m sorry, Jack. They killed your mother. I’m sorry to tell you this.
Long silence. Then: You’re lying.
No. I’m not. We tried to save her. They took her and they killed her. At a house in Morris County, on River Run Road. Only house on the street.
I expected then that he would cut off the communication. He would reformat the drive, he would steal our hope from us, he would snap the link.
I offered the sparest of olive branches: I killed the man who killed her. If that’s consolation. The words just felt so empty.
How did they? The letters appeared one at time, typed slowly, as though his hands were shaking.
They shot her. We tried to help her.
Sure you did. Sure you did.
Will you listen to me? I wrote. Please.
Silence again.
I wrote: They will kill you, Jack. Our only hope is to help each other. We fake your death, you’re free of them and we get our kids back.
That requires me to trust you, and that’s not going to happen, Sam. They’re going to want proof. A body.
I will give them proof that satisfies. I have an idea on how we can do it. They care more about the
