Jeff Abbott - The Last Minute

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?’

‘Apparently so. Of course, if you lease the whole space we’ll remove any left-behind renovations that were incomplete.’

Beth started to tell me about all the building’s wonderful features, of which there were three. She embellished in the way that best sales people do. I let her lead me but I stepped first through every door. I didn’t think Jack Ming, if he’d hidden himself inside here, seemed like the type to just start shooting; I didn’t even know if he had a gun. But I wasn’t going to risk the leasing agents getting hurt.

We walked through the building. The first two floors were configured for offices. Beth was giving me a very generic patter. On the top floor we could see the roofs of the adjoining building, which only went to three floors. This floor was mostly cleared concrete space.

‘So you’re thinking a bar on the ground floor?’

‘Yes. And private party rooms on the second and third floors,’ I said. ‘Office space on four.’

‘Oh, party space, I hope you’ll invite us,’ Lizzie said. ‘You won’t make us wait in line, will you? Can we jump the rope?’

I gave her a smile, but I didn’t much care for the smile she gave me back. She kept standing a little too close to me, clutching her oversized purse. ‘I’ll make sure you’re on the special guest list.’

‘Next door it’s being renovated into restaurant space,’ Beth said. ‘I believe the top floor is going to be a sushi bar. They’re opening next week, I think. You could have a synergy, depending on their clientele.’

‘I’m all about the synergy,’ I said. I never know how the hell to use that word in a sentence.

The fourth floor was mostly open space. Russell Ming was using it for storage. Boxes of all shapes and sizes, Chinese paintings, a set of rounded tables in a row, lightly covered with dust. Windows faced out onto the neighboring roof; below was a skylight that looked new. The sushi bar, celebrating natural light, I guess.

In the back corner there was a door.

I walked straight over to it and tried the doorknob. Locked.

‘What’s in here?’ I asked. My voice sounded a little louder than I’d intended.

‘Storage, I believe. Don’t know why it would be locked.’ She stepped forward. She opened the door with another key. I tensed in case Jack Ming had set up camp inside the room. He hadn’t. It was empty. I tried not to breathe a sigh of relief. He wasn’t in the building. I knew the access code now and I could pick the locks. I didn’t need Beth and Lizzie so best to get them out of the way, come back and wait for Jack Ming.

‘You seem to be… expecting to see something here,’ Lizzie said when I finished twisting the knob as I stepped away from the door. She leaned against one of the square tables.

‘Just counting the footage in my mind,’ I said.

‘I like math,’ Lizzie said. ‘I like to add things up.’

‘So,’ Beth said smoothly. ‘How would this property work for you, Mr Capra?’

‘I think it might work well indeed. How firm is the leasing price?’

‘Pretty firm, I would think. The original owner died a couple of years ago; his wife has it now, and she would rather hold out than lease too cheap.’

I had my back to them, surveying the adjoining roof. Could he enter the building this way? No, I thought not. ‘Well, I think I’ve seen enough,’ I said.

‘Enough to know Jack Ming’s not here,’ Lizzie said.

I turned. Beth had a Glock 9mm aimed at me. Lizzie was pulling from her oversized purse a metal chain, an iron weight at one end, a steel spike at the other, firm in her grip. Surujin. A weapon I’d seen before in Japan, mostly used these days for individual martial arts practice. The weight dangled like a pendulum; she started it on a gentle sway, just above her feet.

‘Hands still, where I can see them, please, Sam,’ Beth said.

‘Are you kidding me?’ I nodded at Lizzie’s toy.

‘You’re supposed to be a graceful runner. I brought it to leash you in case you ran. Don’t make me chase you.’ Lizzie’s smile didn’t quite just look socially awkward; now she looked coolly cruel.

‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ I said.

‘We just want to talk,’ Beth – well, I knew now that wasn’t her name, but her name didn’t matter – said. Her aim steadied on my chest.