Jeffery Deaver - Watchlist

“Sounds like nothing but wrong notes.”

“Exactly. All the easier to hide a message in it. Who’s going to know when the music is off?”

He flashed on the Chopin manuscript in his briefcase, the one he’d thought the Polish authorities had wanted when they’d stopped him at the Krakow airport. His conviction it wasn’t genuine lay exactly in several passages of oddly discordant cadences, unlike the meticulously melodic Chopin. What if it’s a code, he wondered. What if it’s not the manuscript or the other music they’re after, but something far more valuable, something only to be found by decrypting the counterfeit folios?

Inspired suddenly, he reached down for his briefcase to check the manuscript-only to realize the briefcase wasn’t there.

No please, he thought. Dear God. He mentally backtracked to the St. Regis, remembered placing his cell phone in his pocket at the restroom sink, then shambling out to the bar, checking his ravaged, hopelessly memorable reflection in the mirror before dropping the cell phone into his briefcase, snapping it shut. Had he then just wandered off without it? How dementedly absent-minded. It was one more sign of how addled, scattered-moonstruck, like mad Pierrot-he’d become.

“Turn the car around.”

Traci glowered over her shoulder. “Come again?”

“Turn the car around! We’re going back to the hotel.”

The two hapless thieves glanced back and forth. Marcus said, “Check out your eyes, mack.”

Traci chimed in, “You beginning to scare me, Mr. Gray.”

Middleton lifted the Beretta, placed the tip of the barrel against the back passenger-side window, and pulled the trigger. The thundering report in the small car, topped by the piercing hiss of shattered glass, deafened him again. Traci opened her mouth in a silent scream, hunching forward in terror as she fumbled to maintain hold of the steering wheel. Marcus clutched his head, staring at the gun with wide-eyed dread. The burnt sulfur smell of cordite, fanned by the sudden gust of black wet summer heat, finally masked the stench of the car’s moldering interior.

Middleton reached forward, clutched Marcus’s collar with his free hand while jabbing the pistol forward. As before at the airport, every sound came swathed in invisible muck, and yet from somewhere deep within his thrumming skull he heard the underwater roar of his own words, shouted at Traci: “I said turn the car around or I swear to God I’ll kill him-I’ll kill him, understand? Right here. I’ll kill you too.”

Struggling weakly in Middleton’s grip, Marcus started to tremble uncontrollably. Reaching across the car, Traci tried to soothe him, the lilt of her gentling words finally beginning to register as, with a hateful glance over her shoulder, she merged right to make the coming exit.

Gradually, even the crackling radio, the abstract insistence of Pierrot Lunaire, returned. Middleton wondered: Who have I become?

Conrad the bartender held the manuscript, paging through it gingerly. It seemed very old-the paper faded and brittle, the notations handwritten, not printed like the ones he’d bought Jennifer before. She’d love this, he thought, feeling a surge of inner heat. Chopin. She’ll throw her arms around his neck, press her cheek to his.

He lived to dote on his niece, buy her things-toys when she was younger, bits of modest clothing, sheet music now that she’d started piano lessons. A gifted girl, his sister’s oldest, just turned nine. Growing a little awkward now that she was shooting up in height, leaving the baby fat behind, but still with that shimmering black hair, halfway down her back, the vaguely lost blue eyes, the porcelain skin. Black Irish, like her wretch of a father, wherever he might be. Prison. The grave. Back in Carrickfergus. Someone had to look after the girl, she needed a man in her life. And her uncle loved her. He loved her very much.

Her musical turn the past two years had proved a welcome change. He didn’t have to just sit on the sofa and watch her gambol about on the floor in her school jumper and socks. He could sit there beside her now, turning the pages as she played the Schumann he’d bought her. Scenes from a Childhood. Album for the Young. With the vanilla scent of her shampoo thick between them, her hands faltering in painful discords across the keys, he’d gently nudge closer, until their thighs touched, the rustle of her sleeve against his. That was enough, he’d remind himself. No more, not yet. Content yourself with this. But someday. Perhaps. If she wants to.

Such thoughts, such images, so terrible, so welcome, like the devil whispering in his ear: It’s what you’ve always wanted. He lived for that, too.

He let the warmth subside from his face as he rolled up the manuscript and put it in the pocket of his sport jacket, draped on its peg on the storeroom wall. As he returned to the bar, two men entered from the hotel lobby, dressed in blue sport coats and gray slacks, one of them tall with an edgy fluid rhythm in his gait. The other was broad and muscular, with a bull-like neck, small dead eyes. The tall one offered an empty smile and slid a business card across the bar. It bore the seal of the FBI. Behind him, the hefty one remained expressionless.

There was no one else in the bar. It had been deathly slow all night.

The tall one, leaning forward to read the bartender’s nametag, said, “Good evening, Conrad. A middle-aged man came in earlier, probably a little uneasy, rattled. He shot a peace officer out at the Dulles airport, then fled the scene. We have some indication the shooting may be terrorist-related. His cell phone placed him here just a short while back. It’s very important we track his whereabouts. You recall him, yes?”

Conrad knew exactly the man they were talking about, but he couldn’t convince himself just yet that admitting as much was wise. “The description you just gave,” he said, “that could fit just about every guy who’s been in here the past few hours. I mean, I’d like to help, but-”

The tall one wasn’t listening. He’d spotted the briefcase behind the bar. It belonged to the stranger from earlier, the one who looked like he’d wandered in from a car wreck. A cop-killer, they said. Apparently, a musical one. Conrad had found his briefcase while straightening the barstools, and he’d glanced inside, hoping to find some identification, only to discover the Chopin instead.

The tall one refreshed his vacant smile. “Would you mind handing that to me?” He nodded toward the briefcase and held out his hand. “I’d like to take a glance inside.”

Conrad hesitated, yielding to an inchoate fear of being found out.

“Just to be clear, Conrad. National security’s involved. We have broad powers. So.” He wiggled his fingers. “If you would please.”

Conrad collected the briefcase and handed it across the bar, figuring he had little choice. The tall one took it greedily and immediately opened it up, searching the contents brusquely. His partner just stood there, a little ways behind, his huge arms folded across his massive chest.

“It’s not here,” the tall one said finally. He looked over his shoulder at his partner, then back toward Conrad. The empty smile was now pitiless. “Something’s missing. But you know that already-don’t you, Conrad?”

Conrad felt the floor sway beneath him, his viscera coiled. An inner voice said, They’re going to find out your dirty little secret. Before he could think through the consequences, he heard himself say, “I don’t know what you mean,” his voice faltering. He pictured Jennifer sitting sad-eyed and prim on her shiny black piano bench, waiting for her only uncle, smelling of breath mints and aftershave, to settle in beside her.

“The sheet music, Conrad. It’s supposed to be inside. It’s not. Fetch it for us now. Before I lose my temper.”