Ridley Pearson - Choke Point

“I appreciate both the explanation and your efforts. It will be taken under advisement. But to remind you: our concern is freedom of the press.”

“One other piece of unsolicited advice,” Brower says, his concentration fixed, his brow tight. “These black market operations are well organized and well defended. I suspect the bottoms of the canals carry the bodies of many who tried to cross them.” He pauses and lowers his voice. “I cannot vouch for all my colleagues. There is a great deal of money at play.”

Knox refuses to react. His only response is a slight nod. Brower is trying to save his life.

“Until tomorrow morning, then,” Brower says, leaning back.

Knox provides him the phone number of one of the SIM cards he carries. Brower will text the time and location of the hearing.

As Knox leaves the constabulary, he keeps an eye over his shoulder as he advised Sonia to do, Brower’s warning echoing in his mind.

—

GRACE’S DRIVER, DULWICH,catches her eye from across a crowded Starbucks where a good deal of English is spoken. She packs up and joins him. He holds open the rear door of the rented Mercedes for her and then climbs behind the wheel himself.

“So?” she asks.

“Your scarf lady had lunch with Pangarkar.”

Grace has been waiting impatiently for his return. It has been nearly an hour and the wait has been killing her.

“And?”

“I had the burger.”

“Please.”

“Knox may have lost her. It’s unclear. He played a hunch that didn’t work out. It happens.” He reviews for her what he and Knox discussed about the meeting between the two.

“They know each other, Pangarkar and this woman?”

“They do now,” he says. “What about Berna?”

“Her full name is Berna Ranatunga . She’s from Belgium.”

“Well done.”

She passes her laptop over the backseat. It shows the two photos of the girl. Dulwich drags it toward him at the next light.

“Wet legs.”

“She arrived there that way. I am working on it.”

“Working?”

“The canals are not knee deep. I’m looking for ponds and fountains . . . someplace a child might have waded through.” She hauls the laptop back over the seat. “Turn left in two blocks.”

“You have a nicer voice than the GPS,” he says. The device speaks female robot in Dutch. It’s hardly a compliment. Dulwich zooms out to try to see where she’s directing him.

Four blocks later as his eyes leave the mirror, he says, “Interesting.”

She knows better than to turn around to look. There isn’t enough tinting to hide her actions.

“A tail?” she says.

But Dulwich has his mobile out and is one-eyeing the street as he navigates the phone’s screen.

He speaks Dutch. “Inspector Brower, please.” He pauses intermittently. “Josh? It’s me, David . . . He’s not great with authority . . . I’ll tell him. Question for you . . . How quickly can you run a vehicle registration plate? . . . Please.” He consults the mirror and begins reciting the plate information when he’s cut off. He ends the call, placing the phone in the cup holder. He explains, “Our contact at the police. His guys grabbed up Knox. Our guy, Brower, smoothed the waters.”

She didn’t hear the groan of a motorcycle. “The car behind us.”

“Uh-huh.”

“No one followed me,” she says absolutely.

“No one’s accusing you of anything.”

“You’re assuming it was me,” she says. “You’re wrong.”

“We want you followed,” Dulwich says, reminding her. “This is a good thing.”

“But I wasn’t followed.”

“It’s a taxi. A private taxi.”

“I do not understand.”

“We’ve underestimated the reach of our adversaries, as well as your celebrity.” He pauses. “The same thing happened to Knox in Shanghai. Money gets spread around the taxi drivers, the tram operators, hotel doormen. A private network of informers who have their eyes everywhere.”

She experiences a chill. Doesn’t want to acknowledge she was spotted. “Four blocks, and then a right,” she says, directing him. “Let me out anywhere along the green. I will meet you on the opposite side, at the film museum, in ten minutes.”

“Too risky.”

“You are getting exactly what you want. We will see to what lengths they will go. I can handle him . . . them. You would not have chosen me otherwise.” She’s eager to make her points with Dulwich where she can. Her Army training and her performance in Shanghai are worth reminding him of.

Their eyes meet in the rearview mirror and she knows she has him exactly where she wants him. Men like Dulwich are so predictable. Knox, far less so. Dulwich is the drill sergeant type: he’ll push to the edge of sanity, but ultimately believes both in a person’s abilities—as he defines them—and the expendability of any one player to the greater cause. She’s glad it worked out for Dulwich to drive her; she knows how to play him.

He pulls to the curb. She’s out of the car and headed into the park. It is a beautiful setting of lawns and paths interlaced with a dozen ponds. The sudden change from brick and asphalt to grass and birdsong has a calming effect on her. The cabdriver has followed her, but he’s lagging behind and she can feel the tug of his parked vehicle drawing him. Whatever money he’s been offered doesn’t measure well against the hassle of a parking violation and abandoning his cab. She quickens her step and by the second intersection she’s lost him.

The pond she encounters has a three-flume fountain shooting water thirty feet into the air. There are couples on blankets despite the cold. The lawn tapers into the water where a child could easily wade. There are bushes along the water’s edge behind which a child could hide.

She passes a gazebo where the water is behind a retaining wall, and offers an unlikely place to hide. The park is enormous and would take an hour or more to circumnavigate, but she puts it on her list of possible locations.

She is well trained at increasing her pace without the appearance of doing so. Much of her sudden increase in speed over ground is the product of flexing her ankles with each step. It results in an incremental burst of speed which is unseen to the eye—a sprinter’s trick—along with a slight increase in stride and standing up straighter, her posture implying a body more at rest than one leaning into her efforts. A person attempting to follow her will find himself losing ground, distance he can’t make up without revealing himself. Her Army Intelligence instructor, a woman in anatomy only, used video and timing drills that, at the time, seemed overly harsh and exhausting. Only now does Grace appreciate them.

Fifteen minutes later, she and Dulwich are driving the streets surrounding the park. The real estate doesn’t match her needs. It’s hard— impossible —to picture a knot shop in such a classy neighborhood where brand-name companies occupy converted mansions along the park’s perimeter. This isn’t an area to recruit hungry girls or to have them seen entering and exiting a building at all hours.

“We are going about this all wrong,” she says, blurting it out before she realizes she’s challenging Dulwich’s original plan.

“Are we?”

“That is, I may have an alternative plan to bring these people to us.”

“Are you going to share?”

“How committed is our client in terms of investment?”

“Less ambiguous, please.”

“I will need . . . That is: it will require substantial investment in infrastructure. Five figures easily.”

“If it means we can shut it down, I believe the client will bring the necessary resources to bear,” Dulwich says.