Ridley Pearson - Choke Point

John Steele is preparing his camera by testing the flash and adjusting exposure for the close distance, using a magazine cover as his subject matter. He retrieves the artwork from the coffee table.

“It is not that at all,” says Sonia, “merely the ways of journalism, as I’m sure you can appreciate.”

“Yes. I see.” The woman’s anxiety has given way to vulnerability. She’s leaning forward now and on the attack. “You want me to spy for you, I suppose? You want me to put others at risk as I’ve done for myself. My principal will most certainly not tolerate my addressing the press this way. I am not about to involve others without their consent.”

“As I’ve already promised, you will be an unnamed source.”

“We all know how that works out,” she says sarcastically and clearly afraid.

Knox is incapable of remaining quiet any longer. “There is a degree of sensitivity to this story, of security risk, that we are well aware of, believe me. Ms. Pangarkar and I have no intention of seeing anyone else hurt. Least of all, the children.”

She tightens with the word.

“We all want the same thing,” Sonia says.

The woman repositions her chair to include Knox, who’s firing off shots of the watercolor. “I will ask my colleagues. It is all that I can do.”

Sonia passes her a business card. “In the short term, I would appreciate a chat with Maja’s mother.”

“No. I do not have that information. Besides, it is impossible.”

“I will be discreet. A good reporter is a good storyteller, Elizabeth. She will never know I started first at the school.”

A television is playing through the wall. A teakettle sings farther away. “I will try,” Elizabeth says.

Knox is about to warn her that should anyone come knocking on her door in the next thirty minutes, she should remain silent and avoid answering. But she’s slipped into a fragility that dictates otherwise.

“This might seem like an odd request, but I was wondering if you might have a tennis ball I could take with me?” Uncomfortable about asking the question, Sonia does a poor job of it, making it sound too serious.

“It’s for me actually,” Knox says. “A dog I must contend with. Better the ball than my leg.” He winces a grin.

The woman is befuddled. “Around here somewhere, I suppose.” She calls out to her son and puts him on the task. The boy returns in short order with a bald tennis ball. Knox thanks him and pockets the ball. With Sonia looking his way, he taps his wristwatch.

She thanks Elizabeth and manages some mindless chatter as they find their way out. As the apartment door shuts, Knox feels a profound sense of relief.

“Tricky,” he says in English. “You were good in there.”

“You don’t have to sound so surprised.” She adjusts her scarf to slightly below her hairline. They are nearing the stairs when she adds, “You could use a little work on your accent.”

Knox stops to stab the tennis ball with the knife. The rubber is thick, the task not easy. He creates a small slit in the seam, squeezes the ball and it sighs. “We all serve a useful purpose,” he says.

His pulse quickens as they reach street level. His us-against-them mentality warms him. He turns to Sonia in the faint yellow light of the foyer and sees her eyes shining. She’s either terrified or excited, but it turns him on, whatever her present state. His urge is to take her here, now. Her eyes soften and she smiles.

“Follow my lead,” he says.

“Of course,” she replies, her voice raspy and hoarse.

It’s her face that would be recognized, not his. He tugs her scarf farther forward, the contact intimate. “I will go first. Watch me before you follow. We’re going directly to the Fiat, you to the passenger side. If there’s trouble, you run in the opposite direction from where I turn. If we separate, avoid any place familiar to you.” He picks up a piece of junk mail from the floor beneath the buzzer box and writes down Dulwich’s phone number. “Call this number. He can help you.” Seeing suspicion on her face, he says, “He’s an old friend, the only person I know well here, a good man. And resourceful.” He has gone too far, poisoned by the combination of hormones and adrenaline.

Knox is out the door before there’s room for discussion. He pauses between two parked cars, using them as screens as he listens and looks for anything unusual. He’d prefer a busy street to this. But his hesitation is infinitesimal; he’s out across the street, heading for the Fiat, the tennis ball gripped in his right hand. He hears the door pop shut behind her—does not look in that direction. Guiding the slit in the tennis ball to the keyhole in the car’s door handle, he holds the ball firmly in his left hand while punching it with his right. The ball collapses and the driver’s-side lock pops up. He’s inside a beat before she arrives. He stretches to unlock her door while his left hand probes the wires beneath the dash. He’s chosen the Fiat for its age. As she slides into the seat, he’s already contorting to reach below the dash. He’s pulling apart and biting the ends of the wires, spitting plastic onto the floor. He twists three of the wires together and touches them to a fourth. It sparks and the engine turns over and starts. One final twist of wires. As he turns on the headlights and the dash comes alive, Sonia’s indicting expression weighs on him.

“An ill-spent youth,” he explains. He catches a single, slow moving headlight in the rearview mirror. It approaches at a patrol-like speed.

Sonia notices the vehicle as well and pulls Knox into a kiss. Knox would’ve held the kiss if he thought it would’ve fooled anyone. But with his eye on the interior mirror, he grabs the door handle and throws open the door as the motorcycle comes alongside. The bike swerves to miss the door. Knox charges out into the street. He tackles the helmeted rider from behind, throwing him off. Kicks the man twice while hollering back to her, “Come on!”

He pats down the writhing rider, finds a mobile phone and throws it into the canal.

Sonia springs out of the car, dragging Knox’s camera case. He rights the bike. She throws her leg across. They’re off. She clings to him tightly as he leans the bike into the first turn.

“Who the hell are you?” she shouts too loudly for the closeness of his ear.

Knox doesn’t answer. Accelerating the bike, he seeks out the cover of traffic.

It’s unnecessary,” Knox complains to Dulwich as if Grace weren’t part of the conversation. “We’re making progress.”

They sit at different tables in Café Papeneiland, a brown café—the Amsterdam equivalent of a London pub—at the intersection of Prinsengracht and Brouwersgracht. The mood is lively, the beer flowing. It’s so dark, due to the wood-paneled walls that stretch back to 1624 and and the thick smoke in the air that might be as old, it’s difficult to make out Dulwich in the corner by the main door. Grace is visible where she sits on a bench seat alongside a table of men, most of whom can’t keep their eyes off her. The three speak into their cell phones, a Skype conference call initiated by Grace.

Grace places her hand across her mouth as she speaks into the mobile. “The object is to bring them to us. Not the soldiers, but the generals. The soldiers outnumber us. We have been lucky so far—all of us. If we are to expedite results, if we are to survive, we need a new strategy.”

“I can’t argue with that,” Dulwich says.

But Knox wishes he would. The plan as proposed presents unnecessary risk to Grace. It amounts to a frontal attack instead of the guerrilla methods they’ve been using. While certain to win the attention of those behind the knot shop, there’s no guarantee it will have the intended results, and Knox says so for the third time. He finishes with, “They’ll have your head.”