Jeff Abbott: The Last Minute

‘I find your confidence in the face of death charming. I like you. If Mr Zviman wasn’t so specific about getting you alive and in a state to be tortured, I might give you a mercy bullet.’ His voice sounded almost merry. ‘Out of respect.’

‘I am curious… ’

‘Why would you be, when you’re about to die? I wouldn’t bother learning new facts. I would be reflecting on all the old choices that brought me here. We have a duty to learn more from our mistakes. I mean, you’re one of my mistakes, and I’m learning from you. I would have liked to have dinner with you, Mila. Talked to you. You fascinate me. Both you and Zviman.’

He wasn’t talking about her but she wanted him to keep talking. He would be less likely to notice anything she did.

‘I am not sure how I am your mistake,’ Mila said. The handcuff pick slid home. Now, if it would work. It better. She had paid very good money for it.

‘You. Zviman. Two sides of the same coin, my dear. I mean, there’s an irony that I’m going to profit from my mistake. But after all I am cleaning up the mess. I was retired. I had a place to live in Florida. I was going to focus on golf and fishing. Mistakes shouldn’t come back to haunt you at that point in life. Mistakes should die first and then let you die.’

This Braun was a crazy man. The handcuff opened. She gave out a little sigh.

‘I do not know what you mean. I am not a coin.’

‘No, Mila, you’re a jewel. But you are worth a great number of coins. Retirement doesn’t go as far as it used to.’ He gave a sigh. ‘Now I can retire in peace, knowing my past mistakes are rectified. It should really help my golf game.’

She eased a wrist free. She was careful not to make a clicking sound.

Now the other heel. She loosened it and wedged in the heel was a small, sheathed knife. She flicked off the sheath and the knife, forged from Japanese steel, rested in her hand. It was actually harder to cut the ropes around her feet than open the cuffs; it required more movement to saw through the fibers.

‘Well, I find it odd that I am your mistake when I have never seen you before. Are you my long lost father, Mr Braun?’

‘Not biologically, but, yes, I am your father, in a manner of speaking.’

Okay, she thought, entirely crazy. ‘You cannot answer straight questions,’ she said. ‘You must have been CIA. You talk all vaguely, just like Sam.’

‘Yes, he’s the problem, isn’t he? It all comes back to him.’

She felt the van slow, make a turn. They had been driving north in a relatively straight stretch; she couldn’t see, but she assumed he had the GPS monitor up in the seat with him.

‘We’re here, Mila. Here where it all began,’ he said. ‘Where it was all born.’

He stopped the van.

‘Well, that’s not good,’ he said. ‘I better not be too late.’

And then he got out of the van and slammed the door.

Mila writhed, slashing at the ropes. She had maybe eight seconds before Braun opened the van’s rear door.

Not enough time.

The Nursery

‘Leonie.’ My glance kept flickering between the gun and the baby. ‘What are you doing?’

She wept, tears bright on her cheeks. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t let you take him.’

‘That is Daniel. Where is your child?’

She glanced at Daniel. He cooed and moved against her, gently. As though he knew the smell of her skin, the swell of her breast.

I shook my head. ‘No. No.’

‘He’s mine. I’m all he’s ever had, all he’s ever known,’ she said. ‘He’s not yours any more. His name is Daniel Taylor Jones. I sometimes call him Dat. Like in a peek-a-boo game, I go who, then I go dat, and he laughs.’ Fresh tears, but her mouth curled into a twist of resolve.

‘He is my son,’ I said and she steadied the gun. ‘Okay, okay,’ I said. I raised my hands. ‘Leonie. We can talk about this.’

‘No. No talk. I am leaving. With my son.’

‘The child in the picture you showed me… ’

‘That was my first child. My daughter. I had to leave… Ray Brewster when I got pregnant. I didn’t want him to be the father. He wouldn’t have let me be tied down with a child; in case I ever had to run with him. Children complicate everything. So I went.’ She steadied her voice. ‘I would have liked… someone like you, Sam, I so don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to. I will keep him safe in a way you can’t, not with the life you lead, the enemies you have. So move to the wall, and keep your hands up, and let me leave.’

‘What happened to your daughter?’ As long as she was talking, she wasn’t shooting me or leaving.

‘She died. She died.’ And I thought the grief would make her body fold. ‘Meningitis. It takes them so fast. She… I had done work for Anna. On the babies’ new identities. She gave me Daniel. She said… he could be mine. A replacement, but he’s not. I loved Taylor just as she was, she was the greatest, Sam… oh, God… ’

‘I bet she was.’ My own face felt hot and heavy. ‘Leonie, please.’

‘… but… but she gave me Daniel and I love him just as much… ’ her voice broke to a whisper. ‘And you are not going to take him away from me.’

I could see how Zviman and Anna had planned this ending. I, the ex-CIA, killed Jack Ming, the one man CIA Special Projects wanted more than anyone else. Then I died, at Leonie’s hand, when my defenses were down, when victory was in my grasp. Leonie as a partner would ensure that I would not betray or move against Nine Suns, and, if I did, she had every reason to kill me.

Leonie would have a bigger motive for wanting me dead than anyone in Nine Suns. I could take away the thing most precious in the world to her.

‘Give me my son,’ I said. I opened my hands toward her.

‘He isn’t yours. I’m his mother. I’m the only mother he’s ever known. That… that… traitor you married, she gave him up, she gave him up… ’

‘I never did,’ I said. ‘You know how hard I have fought to find him-’ And then I heard it.

‘You!’ she screamed, and the sympathy she seemed to feel for me turned instantly to venom. ‘I have fought a thousand times harder… ’

I raised a finger to my lips. ‘I heard something. Downstairs. Someone’s here.’

She shook her head. ‘You’re trying to scare me or trick me… you want to go down there and get a weapon because I’ve got the gun… ’

‘Leonie!’ I hissed. ‘ Someone is downstairs.’

She shut up, my tone slicing through her fury. Listening.

I held out my hand for the gun. After a moment she stepped forward, hand shaking, and gave it to me.

‘Hide,’ I whispered. And she nodded, my son gurgling against her shirt. I looked at him for one second. His eyes met mine, his little mouth parted and a spit bubble formed and burst like a flower given a five-second life. I have never wanted to hold another human being so badly in my life.

Instead I checked the gun for the remaining clip and I eased onto the mezzanine.

But, to Mila’s surprise, Braun didn’t come around the van’s back door.

He walked away from the van. She could hear the soft hiss of his footsteps on the gravel.

Unloading his prisoner wasn’t a priority. Fine by her. She risked a glance out the front window. Braun stood by a BMW, looking down at the ground. Talking to the ground.

It must be someone lying next to the car.

Then Braun shook his head and he walked into the grand house, a gun in his hand.

She sliced through the remaining ropes, kicked them away. Her hand went to her watch. The garrote’s wire was inside, just as when she had used it against Anna’s men in New York. She palmed the heel of her boot, with the miniature Japanese knife. The blade protruded between her ring and middle finger. Two small weapons. She hoped they would be enough.