Jeff Abbott - The Last Minute

‘That’s a white lie,’ she said. ‘I don’t think you’re adjusted at all. It’s all stifled just inside.’

I ate a slider, sipped at the whisky.

She looked at me. ‘Inside I’m a wreck.’

‘When my kid and my wife were taken – I couldn’t eat or sleep for days.’ I was also framed as a traitor, undergoing interrogation in a CIA-run prison in Poland, but that was an avalanche of detail right now for Leonie.

‘Your wife was taken. I thought you said… ’

‘Anna’s people grabbed my wife when she was seven months pregnant. I’ve never seen my son face to face.’

She just stared at me for a long moment. ‘How awful. I am sorry.’

‘Let me guess why you can’t go to the police. Anna provided you with your baby girl.’

She ate some more of the carrot. She did not seem the type for an impulsive admission. ‘Why would you say that?’

‘You said you work on hiding people which suggests to me you are breaking a few laws, committing forgery for new papers, maybe credit fraud. You know her. She got you your kid. What Anna giveth, Anna taketh away.’

She was good at concealing her emotions – after all, me dissing her was nothing compared to the agonies she must be feeling for her kid – and the only sign of betrayal on her face was the momentary quiver of her lip. ‘No. Taylor is mine. But I’ve done work for Anna. Sometimes the children she places with parents’ – note she didn’t say the unthinkable word of sells – ‘need birth certificates. I forge them for her. And I’ve helped hide people she sent to me.’

‘Did you do a birth certificate for Julien Daniel Besson?’ My breath couldn’t move in my lungs. I leaned in close and she leaned back. I grabbed her hands again. ‘That was the name my son was given at birth. He was born in France. Julien Daniel Besson.’

‘I didn’t. But if Anna’s using your child as leverage against you then she hasn’t placed him. She’ll only place him now if she doesn’t need him any more.’

Her words were a knife across my throat. She saw it.

‘I’m sorry, Sam. I really am.’

‘You help her, forging certificates.’

I thought I could hear the soft burr of her grinding her teeth. ‘It’s not a choice.’

I stared at her. ‘They have more dirt on you.’ I didn’t know yet if I could trust her. Cornering her about her secrets wasn’t going to win her over to my side.

‘I am not up for Twenty Questions.’ She stood. ‘Don’t talk about defying Anna. We do what she says, and nothing else. I’m not putting Taylor’s life at risk. And you shouldn’t be endangering your own child’s life, either.’ She spat the last word like I was the scum of parenting.

There was no point in saying, you’re wanting us to entrust babies to killers and murderers. ‘Okay, Leonie. Okay. Calm down.’

‘I don’t need to know you, you don’t need to know me.’ She downed the pinot noir in two hard gulps, picked up her bag. ‘Let’s go get on our plane.’

Flight 903, Las Vegas to New York

We sat together in first class. Most of the cabin, weary from partying in the desert and not looking forward to a work day tomorrow in New York, slept. I watched an old movie, Aliens, on my personal viewer in the chair back and thought, now there’s a movie about how you save a kid. I had seen the film a dozen times before and I could watch it without thinking, without having to follow the story. Leonie’s eyes were closed. She had spoken so few words to me on the flight I felt sure no one believed we were traveling together. I got up to splash cold water on my face in the lavatory. Most of the other passengers were locked in their own digital cocoons, watching movies on their personal movie screens or hooked into their iPods or iPads. Technology has made it easy for us to be totally alone in a crowded room. I envied those who slept. I needed sleep, badly, but I couldn’t settle my mind. I’ve never been good at sleeping on planes.

I sat back down and Leonie opened her eyes. She stared at me, blinking, as though unsure where she was wakening. I was surprised she’d managed to doze off. The adrenaline shock from her daughter’s kidnapping was fading, the inevitable exhaustion settling into her. She looked guilty at having done anything as weak and self-indulgent as sleep, when I knew it was the body’s natural response to cope with crippling stress.

‘You okay? You want something to drink?’ It’s the bar owner in me. I always want to offer a drink. The flight attendants should just let me man the beverage cart. They could go watch the movie.

She shook her head. The silence hung, like smoke ruining the air.

I started to put my earphones into place. No point in talking with her.

She put a hand on my arm. ‘Your son, he was given that name. If you got to name him, what would it be?’

‘Daniel. My ex did get to name him. For my late brother.’

Her mouth pursed, like she was tasting the name. ‘When did Daniel

… vanish?’

‘Right after he was born. I’ve only seen a picture that Anna gave me.’

‘And you’re sure she gave you a photo of your kid.’

‘I am.’

‘Show him to me.’

I showed her the picture of Daniel that Anna had given me. She studied it, then looked at my face. ‘He’s a handsome boy.’

‘He’s never been held by either of his parents,’ I said. ‘But there he’s smiling. How does that affect a kid – to not have been held except by people who want to use you?’ The words spilled, unexpected. I didn’t talk about Daniel. Who was I going to talk about him with? My crazy Moldovan boss with the million-dollar price on her head? My old friends in the CIA who weren’t my friends any more? My customers at the bar? No. Every flick of pain I felt about Daniel coalesced in my chest. I shut my mouth. I didn’t want to talk about him.

‘When you get him back, then don’t ever let him go.’ She handed me the photo. ‘How did you and your wife ever cross Anna’s path?’

‘My wife got bought by Novem Soles. She was a CIA officer. She was a traitor.’ It was a strange thing to say in the hush of a first class cabin. I glanced up from the photo. The flight attendants congregated in the galley ahead of us, people either slept or sat earplugged into oblivion. Yes, let me talk about my wife. The love of my life, the woman I gave my life to, the woman who betrayed both me and country and then tried to save me. Let me talk about the most incomprehensible person I ever knew and how machines keep her breathing and digesting and living like a ghost bound in flesh.

‘I’m sorry, that sucks.’ I was figuring Leonie was a master of understatement now.

‘It does.’

Leonie pulled a photo from her purse. It was worn, dog-eared from too much handling, as though it had lived a hard life inside her wallet. ‘This is Taylor.’ She was a bigger baby than Daniel, a few months older, rounder-cheeked, with darker hair and soft, sweet, brown eyes.

‘She’s a cute girl.’

‘Yes. Very.’

‘So never a husband?’

‘We’re not involved any more. I prefer to deal only with actual human beings these days.’

‘Not an amicable parting.’

She took Taylor’s photo from me and carefully fitted it into a back slot in her wallet, away from the credit cards. I could see a smear of ink drawn on the back as she worked the photo into the slot. She dumped the wallet in her purse. ‘No.’

‘How will you explain to him that Taylor’s gone?’

‘He is utterly indifferent to her. He couldn’t care less. He’s seen her once and made it clear he didn’t care to see her again.’

‘How old is Taylor now?’

‘Almost a year.’ She took a heavy, restoring breath. ‘So, Taylor is my life, Sam. Everything.’