Jeff Abbott: The Last Minute

‘You’re not taking him back to the bar?’ I asked.

‘You want me to carry an unconscious man past customers?’ Mila always seems to assume I’m brain dead. ‘I’ll stash Bell where he can’t be a problem and have a little chat with him. A man with a family to consider, he wants to keep a nice life, he will work with us. You go arrange travel to Las Vegas.’

I waited until they left. I watched the street to see if they were followed. The CIA had left me alone since I’d declined to return to the embrace of their employ, although I thought it likely that they might be checking in on me. I didn’t see a sign that anyone was following Mila and the truck.

I walked out onto the street. I glanced at the faces of those near me and committed them to memory. It was eight blocks to Columbus Circle. The early evening breeze felt good against my face. The night was oddly full of music. From the buildings I passed I heard the soft tones of a Mahler symphony, the spice of Cuban salsa, a thunderous beat that drowned out hip-hop lyrics. Music was something people living a normal life got to enjoy.

When your child is missing, you live in a limbo. A purgatory without clocks. A room without windows, without doors, pitched into black, and all you can do is fumble along in the darkness and hope you find the knob to the door, or the sash of the window. That is hope. That you can throw an exit open, let light flood back into your prison, and standing there will be your child, safe and sound.

I had no intention of staying in limbo.

I spotted the first tail boarding the subway one car down from me. A sixtyish woman, hair styled short, dark glasses, delicate blue earrings. She’d been standing on the corner down from Mr Bell’s building when I walked out. Looking away from me. I’d walked at a good pace and she’d kept up.

I stayed on the train. So did she.

I got off at the next stop, which was Seventh Avenue. So did she and a moderate sized crowd of people. I slowed, forcing her to get ahead of me. I had to figure she had at least one partner, someone who would stay with me if she peeled off, someone I hadn’t seen when I exited the building.

The woman, pushed slightly ahead of me by the crowd, climbed the stairs to street level and she had to choose. She went left with brisk, heel-clicking purpose. I headed right. I didn’t look back to see if she’d turned to follow me.

I didn’t hurry. I wanted to see if she would backtrack. I also wanted to see who was sticking close to me. I turned into a small convenience store and I browsed. I bought a bottle of red wine, a couple of apples and a wedge of Cheddar cheese. I took my time, waiting to see what fly would stick in the honey. Seven other shoppers in the narrow aisles. I glanced at their faces, their profiles, without them noticing. One was familiar. He’d been on the subway with me. Late twenties, a bit older than me, dark hair, wearing a Yankees cap and a dark T-shirt and a light jacket although it’d been a warm day. Jackets change your appearance to the casual eye, and they’re easy to ditch. So are hats.

I paid for my purchases and I headed back toward the subway station. I didn’t look back but in the rearview of a parked car I saw the Yankees cap coming behind me. I ducked into a clothing store at the next corner.

At a distance he followed and in one of the mounted security mirrors I saw him enter the store. I grabbed a brightly colored shirt that would have embarrassed a peacock off one of the racks and I asked the clerk where the changing room was. She nodded toward the back and told me I couldn’t take my grocery bag in with me, like I’d planned to shoplift some ugly plaid. I gave it to her to keep under the counter and I went into the changing area. Four saloon-style doors, a tailor’s stand with a triptych of mirrors. I went inside one of the changing rooms and I waited.

If he’d seen me come with just one shirt he might wait. He might still think I hadn’t spotted him; at no point had I looked at him directly.

So I decided to really, really consider the merits of this kaleidoscope of a shirt.

Five minutes. Ten. The clerk hadn’t come back to check on me yet. Then I heard him. I knew it was him because he gently pushed open one saloon door. Then another. If he was just looking for a place to try on clothes he would have stopped with the first one.

If I was wrong I would apologize.

He pushed on the unfastened door to my cubicle and I seized his hand. I levered him forward hard, slammed him in the wall. I smashed his face against the wall and he ooofed. You got to love an oof. Then I cracked his head again.

I wrenched his arm hard against his shoulder blades. Checked the left ear. Empty. Right ear. Oh, there it was, like a tiny beige fleck of wax. The earphones get smaller every year. I reached down, flicked off the lead for his mike under his shirt.

‘Who sent you?’ I asked.

He didn’t answer.

‘Special Projects?’ That was the secret CIA branch I worked for; they have trouble saying goodbye.

He didn’t answer. He tried to lever back and free his arm. I kept my grip above his wrist, on the cloth of his shirt.

I don’t believe in giving multiple chances to cooperate. I battered the juncture of neck and shoulder, twice, and he folded. I took the mike, the earplug, and put them on, switched them to live. I searched his pockets. There was a wallet that I left alone, but a telescope, palm-sized. I took it. I put the unconscious shadow up on the small seat in the changing room. He was breathing just fine.

‘Gato, respond.’ He was being called. I knew the voice. So I answered in Special Projects code.

‘He did a four-nine.’ I’d heard him speak in the grocery, the barest tinge of a Boston accent, when the cashier asked if he had coupons. So I copied it. It only had to be good enough and I’m a decent mimic. Four-nine meant the subject had cut me loose in a crowd.

‘Lucky, respond.’ Now the speaker was calling the other agent; I figured this was the older woman from the subway. I looked around for her as I tossed the shirt I hadn’t tried on back to the clerk and scooped up my bag of groceries. I hurried back onto the street.

‘I don’t have visual confirmation,’ she said. ‘He did not return to subway station.’ She had hung close to the subway to pick me up if I doubled back.

‘Return to base,’ the voice said. ‘We’ll see if we can pick him on the traffic cameras.’

Yes, please, return to base. I waited. I had nothing more to contribute to class discussion, as Gato, so I stayed quiet. If the unconscious man was found an alarm might be raised. And I had to hope that they were the only two on me. Normally a team of four would have been used. Either I didn’t matter or resources were thinner than usual. I didn’t care about the reason. This stopped now.

I melded into the constant stream of pedestrians on Seventh and cast my gaze down the street with my palm curved around the telescope, as though shading my eyes. I caught the woman walking away from me, back the way we’d come. She pushed back her hair and in the telescope I could see her blue earrings I’d noticed before. I followed at a distance.

Several blocks later, along West 58th Street, I saw her approaching a parked van. It advertised a floral delivery service. I thought that was funny because it’s an old CIA joke that Langley does more to keep florists and chocolatiers in business because spouses get neglected and we have to make frequent apologies.

I don’t have to worry about that any more.

I ran. I caught up with her, put my palm under her ribs, and gently – and rather gentlemanly, I thought – propelled her forward.

‘Open the door,’ I ordered.

She did. She was smarter than Gato. She tapped on the van door, three times, and it opened.