Jeff Abbott - Collision

“Given the one-fingered salute, it must be a prank.”

“A rather elaborate prank, sir.” Espinoza sounded doubtful.

“Well, like computer hackers wasting their intellect on defacing a company’s Web site.” He slid all the abacus beads to one side with a clatter. “We need not report this to the police.”

“Sir?”

“This might be a gentleman hungry for attention, to hurt the Hector Global name. We’ve already had one facility attacked and now this intrusion. The last thing we need is the police getting ahold of this video, and a joker leaking it and putting it on YouTube. This guy’s just trying to show that Hector Global’s not doing its proper job, and he’s gone to great lengths to prove it.”

“Yes, sir,” Espinoza said.

“We cannot handle more bad publicity regarding our security services. Cut a deal with Blarney, tell them we’ll give them six months of free work. Just keep them calm and keep the police uninvolved.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And, Fred? Thanks for alerting me to the situation, you’ve done me a huge favor.”

“Yes, sir, good night.”

He watched the video again. Choate, stealing an old picture of him.

He didn’t know you as Sam Hector. Now, for sure, he does. He had not assumed that Choate knew of his rise to the pinnacle of contracting work; he’d thought Choate was dead. Only a few days ago he had learned that Choate was alive. So… now he knows you by your real name.

The next time I see that finger, I’ll shoot it off, he thought. So Pilgrim was still in Dallas. Maybe he had cut Ben Forsberg loose, maybe they were working together. That last thought did not appeal; but he was smarter than both of them. There was little they could do to him, hiding like the rats they were, but they needed to be stopped. Put down.

The phone rang. It was the contractor he’d asked to notify him of any charges on the James Woodward credit card. “A charge came through at a Blarney’s Steakhouse. I called the restaurant. Four martinis, two appetizers. The server said there were two men in the party.”

“Thank you.” So they were together. Ben and Pilgrim, drinking and snacking and breaking into offices. Weren’t they the confident bastards? He would end their arrogance.

He slid a fingertip along the abacus on his desk, moving beads from one side, whittling the top rod’s value. Ben. Stupid-he slid the last bead to zero. He’d been an economic soldier of value, helping with the business deals, putting money into Hector’s pocket, a workaholic easy to exploit because he had no life of his own to live since Emily died. He’d been useful until now he wasn’t. Just like every other person.

He hurried to the room where Teach slept, handcuffed to a bed. He kicked the side of the bed and she awoke with a jolt.

“Up,” he said. “I want to know where they’re hiding.”

“Who?”

“Pilgrim.”

“I gave you every Cellar account, every safe house we have… I gave you everything…”

“You kept Barker near an airport hub in Dallas, same with De La Pena in Chicago, with Green in Denver. It’s your pattern, your method. Pilgrim would copy it here if he wanted a hidey-hole.”

“Then it’s his and not mine, and I don’t know about it.”

He put his face close to her. Her breath was sour; he hadn’t permitted her the dignity of a toothbrush. “Dallas is close to his kid.”

Teach didn’t flinch. “He doesn’t have a kid.”

“Yes, he does. Tamara Choate. Her name’s Tamara Dawson now. Her new stepdad adopted her. No reason not to, what with her good old dad dead and all. She’s fourteen. She lives in Tyler, eighty miles east of Dallas. That’s why you give old Pilgrim all the jobs in this corner of the country. Lets him swing by and goggle his kid from a distance. I don’t wonder if he might have a place nearby so spying on her is easier, gives him a pillow to lay his head after a job.”

She shook her head. “He has no children.”

He slapped her hard. “Tell me where he’s hiding. Or I’m going to have Jackie pay Miss Tamara and her mommy a call.” He leaned down to her. “Don’t make the man’s daughter pay.”

Her lip bled. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know.” She gave him a look he didn’t like, the fear ebbing, pure hatred firing into her soft, pale eyes.

“Give me his address or I’ll encourage Jackie to spend quality time with his daughter.” He stroked her chin with his fingertip. “I like kids. Don’t want to hurt them. But if you don’t help me, I’ll hurt her and she’ll never, ever be the same. I won’t kill her. I’ll leave her alive. It will be the worse of the two fates.”

She gave no answer, her bowed head hanging over her lap, as though lost in prayer.

“Are you holding out hope that Pilgrim’s going to rescue you? Give it up.”

She raised her head. “How many dead men you got?”

He went to the door, favoring her with a remorseful sigh. “Jackie, come in here for a minute, please.”

Jackie stepped inside. His face was terrible: the bruising from his broken nose, the bandages crossing his face. Hector touched Jackie’s jaw.

“If you’re a fourteen-year-old girl, and you wake up in the middle of the night to find that face above you-no offense, Jackie-you’re going to piss yourself in sheer terror.” He turned to Jackie. “Pilgrim’s got a fourteen-year-old sweetie pie of a daughter. I’m going to give her to you. Tell Teach here what you’d do to her. Don’t leave out any details.”

Jackie glanced at him, reading the other man’s need for calculated savagery, then smiled and sat on the edge of Teach’s bed. “I don’t normally contemplate hurting girls, but Pilgrim’s daughter, wow, okay, I’d have to get inventive. I’d start with giving her a fierce poking. I’d let her feel a bit of good before she felt no more pleasure, ever again.”

Teach didn’t flinch.

Jackie pulled the knife from its leg sheath. “Let me tell you some of the ways my da got the Proddy bastards and the traitors in Belfast to talk when they were sure they wouldn’t. See, they’d get brought down to his basement for a cup of tea and a nice long chat. If the chat went bad, Da would get out the knives.”

Teach didn’t move. Jackie thought if he leaned forward and kissed her he’d feel the fear in her lips.

“But see, it’d be worse for Pilgrim’s girl. Back in Belfast, when the stupid men started talking, my da stopped cutting their faces and their privates. The knife’s work was done. But I don’t want her to talk. There’s nothing she can tell me to save herself.” He turned the knife and its glint caught the dim light above her bed. “I only want her to hurt.”

Jackie began a recitation that chilled Teach’s blood, painted horrors in her mind so that she flinched from his soft whisper. But still she shook her head.

So Jackie started to demonstrate.

Khaled’s Report-New Orleans

On Sunday, we start our work. If I have not ruined everything.

I am terrified because I fear I have jeopardized all my training, all my sacrifice. I was unprepared for random chance. Today I walked through the French Quarter on one of my exercises, trying to determine who is following me and how I can lose them in the crowds. I am sure that the crowds are smaller than normal, since Katrina, but the streets still throng here with happy Americans, hazed on their crimson hurricanes of liquor and fruit juice or their canned beers.

I entered my own haze today. Halfway through my exercise with my trainers, I saw someone I know, from home in Beirut. A girl, named Roula, a cousin of a good friend. I remember hearing that she was studying architecture at Rice University in Houston. One would hope she would be hard at her studies. But no, here she is, walking with a trio of blond American girls, looking very American herself in jeans and a sky blue polo shirt and a set of bangle bracelets. She is lovely, walking with these American beauties, tucking a lock of her dark hair behind her ear. I glance at her twice, once in shock and the second time to be sure it is her. I turn my head but she has sensed my stare and she turns.