Ridley Pearson - Choke Point

“The first time?”

“Are you kidding? Some fool dumps a cigarette in there at least once a week.”

Grace had not anticipated this. She fights off a smile.

Back in her seat in the waiting room, her tethered iPhone creates its own Wi-Fi network and is connected to the USB passthrough. She checks the device’s log. The nurse hit the spacebar to clear the screen and then typed her ten-character alphanumeric password. Grace has what she needs. The USB can transmit up to sixty feet.

It’s a waiting game now. Grace has an iPad sideways in her lap, her purse supporting and screening it from view. She can only take over the terminal when the nurse is away, which isn’t often. She builds macros to automate the process. The first time she has access, it takes her over a minute to menu through to records. The nurse returns.

The second time, Grace has only to push a macro button to access the records, saving her the minute. She builds on her past accomplishments: records, sorted by first name, Berna. Now she’s studying the admittance form: last name, Ranatunga.

Her country of residence jumps off the page: Belgium. Her language, French. A runaway, or a kidnap victim. There’s a note: indigent . A “citizenship” box checked: immigrant . It’s unclear if Berna walked in on her own or was dropped at the clinic. There’s no money trail to follow. She is required to have private insurance, but has none. The state takes over. Grace follows this in a series of checked boxes.

The nurse arrives. Grace returns the screen to how the nurse had left it.

Grace Googles “Ranatunga.” A common Sri Lankan family name. Berna is an Irish version of Brenda. Irish/Sri Lankan—that accounts for the young girl’s intriguing look. Irish/Sri Lankan living in Belgium. Chances are the parents can be found if they’re alive, if they didn’t sell their daughter into child slavery.

Grace is desperate to find connective tissue to follow back to the knot shop. Some hint, some clue to where Berna was being kept. She has to wait for the nurse to leave her station again, and the wait is interminable. Ten minutes, fifteen, twenty. Finally, Grace macros through to Berna’s form. About to give up, she discovers two tiny paper-clip icons. She touches the screen.

Photographs. Her age or her situation required them to document her condition upon admittance. Grace gets a look at Berna prior to the hospital gown that she escaped in. She’s wearing a pair of filthy blue jeans and an equally soiled blue-and-white-striped long-sleeved tee. Her hair is matted and filthy. Her eyes are sullen and her face malnourished. She appears exhausted. Grace saves the image and the next—Berna shot from behind—to the iPad.

It’s the two dark stains below the girl’s knees that capture and hold Grace’s attention. The same height up the legs for both stains. Water. Berna had waded through water before arriving at the clinic.

A woman’s voice. Grace looks up sharply to see the nurse has returned to her terminal. The woman sees an image of a young girl’s backside on her screen instead of the screen where she left off. She calls over a colleague to have a look.

Grace’s finger hovers over the icon that will return the screen to the nurse’s last page view. She doesn’t dare trigger it until the nurse looks away . . .

“Maghan!” the nurse calls out. Her eyes lift.

Grace touches the screen, hoists the iPad and drops it into her purse. She leans her head back with her eyes closed.

Maghan joins the nurse, who is clearly befuddled by the terminal’s miraculous return to her original page.

Grace hears a discussion about how there was a picture of the girl—“ the girl!”— just a moment prior. Berna is famous here since the publication of Sonia’s article.

It’s everything Grace can do to keep her eyes closed. Five minutes later she approaches the counter and, in an irritated tone, tells the nurse that if Julia Schmidt checks in, please tell her that her friend has left.

Muttering to herself, Grace leaves.

—

KNOX IS SUPPOSEDto be going door to door showing Berna’s photograph as he agreed to do for Sonia Pangarkar. But Knox is not great at following orders; he’s better at following people, and so it’s Sonia he follows.

She knows more than she is letting on. Reporters make their livings exploiting secrets. He has yet to determine where she lives, but she’s a creature of habit. She has chosen Melly’s Cookie Bar and Gourmet Coffee bakery several blocks west of Café van Daele on Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal. It’s a small space that offers only a few bar stools looking out at the street. She arrives promptly—predictably—at 9:30. He needs to talk to her about that.

By ten A.M. she’s on a tram, Knox bicycling close behind. Each time he’s about to lose the tram it makes a stop, allowing him to ride at an even pace while still keeping up. She disembarks, walks four blocks west and rides another tram. Ten minutes later, she’s moving store to store showing Berna’s photograph as Knox is supposed to be doing. She’s depressingly predictable. He stays with her another ninety minutes and is about to give up when she checks her watch. It’s the first time she’s done that. Right or not, he grants this weight. Encouraged, he stays with her, having little better to do.

At 11:30, she’s on the move again. He can see it in the urgency of her strides and her passing up storefronts she might have gone inside only an hour earlier. A second check of her watch less than ten minutes after the first confirms it for him: she has an appointment.

It might be a hair appointment, or a lawyer, or a deadline filing, but her body language says differently. Excitement and anticipation show in her every step, in her eagerness to cross streets. She is charged, and he along with her.

At 11:45 she enters Plaats Riche, a restaurant undeserving of its name by the look of its pub exterior. Looks more bratwurst and Guinness than duck pâté and foie gras. The size of the place prevents him from following her inside. There’s no question in his mind that she’s meeting someone. If Sonia has arrived first, then Knox stands a chance of identifying her company. If she is late, then he’ll have to hope for after the meal as she departs.

He wins a break five minutes later, when a fairly tall woman arrives at the door. She wears a head scarf and carries a shoulder bag. She pauses at the window, cupping the glass to see inside.

Grace didn’t give him much of a description, but Knox is not shy about jumping to conclusions. He likes pieces to fit. Doesn’t expect them to, but isn’t one to fight it when they do. A tall woman wearing a scarf was seen in the market. A tall woman Tasered Grace’s attacker.

Knox shoots a long-distance photo from waist high, as if reading e-mails, having no idea if the resolution will be good enough to see the woman’s face. He considers some way of getting inside Plaats Riche for a salad. It’s a small enough place to eavesdrop on any table.

He messages the photo to Grace.

look familiar?

She texts back:

where are you?

But it’s Dulwich Knox texts next, asking how far he is from Knox’s current location. The answer comes back:

15 mins

Knox considers all that he’s missing inside the restaurant. He texts:

leave G and meet me. hurry. you just got hungry

—

“WASTE OF TIME,” DULWICH SAYS,“except they make a damn good burger. Did it ever occur to you that both ‘frankfurter’ and ‘burger’ sound German? We’re in the land of plenty over here.”

“Nothing?”

They are walking on the canal side of a street, a block behind the woman in the scarf, who is alone. Dulwich’s limp is causing them to lose ground; Knox will have to ditch him soon and both men know it.