Ridley Pearson - Choke Point

They watch it again.

The suspect Mert Demir’s reaction is unmistakable. Upon hearing the voice his face fills with alarm. He is wide-eyed. He forces himself to recover from the shock, but it’s too late.

A lie is the first thing to find Knox’s tongue. But he swallows it. Brower is an asset, a friend of Dulwich’s.

“Watch Demir,” he advises. Brower plays the bit again.

“He knows that voice,” Brower says, finally seeing what first Sonia and now Knox have. “He’s afraid of Fahiz.”

“Because Fahiz is actually—”

“Kloten!” Brower curses.

“The voice is completely unexpected by Demir. It paralyzes him.” Knox pieces together the story. “Fahiz’s guys find and punish the EU worker, killing him with the car bomb, hoping his death is taken as politics as usual. They can’t find Sonia’s other sources to teach them a lesson. But Fahiz has serious stones: he walks into your cop shop playing the victim to try to find out how much you know. If anything should connect back to him in the future, you’ll doubt your findings—he’s a victim, after all.”

“He was assaulted! I’ve seen the photographs!”

“Was he?”

Brower is already typing on an adjacent keyboard. Fahiz’s face appears, showing his injuries in three images.

Looking beyond the cuts and abrasions, Knox leans in and points out a curving bruise across the man’s forehead.

“Wiekser!” roars Brower.

“That bruise is from a steering wheel,” Knox says.

“First-year constables! They process this shit and don’t pay a damn bit of attention to what it is they are looking at.”

“He wrecked a car and saw it as an opportunity to introduce himself to you guys.” Knox hesitates.

Brower says, “The sack on this guy!”

“He’s a psych case.” Knox blurts out without thinking, “Sonia’s going after him.” At the same time he’s thinking there’s a report sheet of traffic accidents on or before the date Fahiz filed the assault. That one of those accidents will tie directly to the man they’re calling Fahiz. Brower has access to that information, but the excited look in Brower’s eyes says not to ask. Knox doesn’t want to give the man a head start.

“If we are to arrest him, I need more than Demir’s look of surprise. We must locate him. Put him under surveillance. Build a case.”

Knox has lost the ability to track her iPhone. She’s responded to none of his messages. But maybe not Fahiz. Grace has a phone number the man answered, a SIM card from Singapore.

Brower clearly wants Fahiz for himself. He’ll interrogate Demir for a second time as soon as Knox has gone. There will be additional threats and plea bargaining incentives. If Demir plays along, Brower will jump ahead of Knox with little or no consideration of Sonia.

Knox feels himself being sucked down the drain.

He’s afraid Sonia has already beaten him to it.

The call from the real estate agent is anything but reassuring. The woman has found a couple of properties that Grace “should see.” Given that Grace has pressured the vendor, Marta, for a list of possible girls, has hacked Kreiger’s laptop, and has downloaded the vitals from the computer that hacked hers. She’s aware it could be a trap.

Knox sends the text message:

sit tight. on way

She has a decision to make. Knox’s situation is radically different from her own; in the world of Rutherford Risk, initiative is capital. If she’s to be rewarded with future fieldwork—with or without Knox—it will be because she has taken initiative while remaining part of a group. It’s a fine line to walk. Dulwich’s impressions and recommendation are critical. The very nature of Knox’s text implies urgency; she can feel him about to influence the direction of the assignment.

The sleeping tiger never eats.

“We have an appointment,” she tells Dulwich over her mobile. Like an obedient driver, he spends much of his time behind the seat of a rented Audi or Mercedes in the hotel’s parking lot while on his BlackBerry. She explains the realtor’s call.

“I’ll pull around front.”

She saw no indication the text had been sent to both of them. Dulwich’s failure to mention it can mean several things, none of which matters to her once he agrees to drive her. Dulwich has his own master plan.

“What about the computers?” he asks from behind the wheel.

“I have enough to attempt to hack them. Kamat narrowed down the router location to a ten-block area.”

“Still too big.”

“Yes, but the smallest yet. We’re closing in. If I ping the router, we will have it much narrower, but a ping would be detected. No way around that. We would have a matter of minutes. No more.”

It has been the worry since the firewall breach from the hotel lobby. Any attempt on her part to reconnect could scare the rats from the den. It is a time for prudent decision-making.

“That could play into our favor.”

“Agreed.”

“The photos? The porn?”

“Carry a digital ID, yes, but unfortunately not a phone. Taken with a Canon PowerShot. Kamat is working a long shot.”

“Which is?”

“Both photos were taken with the same camera—same digital tag in the code. If the camera happens to be under warranty . . .”

“Seriously? The camera is hot. Count on it.”

“If Canon will cooperate, or if Hong Kong can hack their warranty database, we might come away with his full contact info.”

“I wouldn’t count on it meaning anything.”

“I register all my gear.”

“As do I.”

“Something to think about from now on.”

“If I go into the porn business,” Dulwich says.

They’re a good ten minutes from the hotel when she says, “John just texted for us to ‘sit tight.’” She pauses to see if he calls her out. “He is en route to the hotel, I believe.”

“Tell him to sit tight himself. We’ll be, what? An hour? Two, at most.” Dulwich reconsiders. “Better yet, text him the address of the meet. Tell him I need him as backup, ASAP.”

“Yes.” She doesn’t dare go counter to Dulwich’s instructions, though for a moment her fingers hover over the phone’s screen without touching it.

The invitation to view the real estate could be an attempt on her life, an attempt to steal her laptop, an attempt to raid her hotel room while she’s away. It might be used as a chance to photograph her, or the car, or Dulwich.

Her driver pops gum into his mouth and begins chewing furiously. She doesn’t often see Dulwich nervous.

“Do you want to walk through this?” she asks.

“You keep your phone on and the line open so I can hear. What more is there to discuss? If we can wait for Knox we improve our odds—and then some.” Dulwich has on several occasions referred to Knox by the name of a popular sitcom: Two and a Half Men . There’s a seed of truth behind the jab, and all three know it.

“I doubt that will be possible.” She would rather do this herself. Knox has a way of sucking the air out of a room.

“You can stall her. Ask long-winded questions that demand long-winded answers. Realtors love to sell. Let her do her job.”

“I refuse to believe this woman could in any way be tied to our principals.”

“She doesn’t have to be. It could be a coworker. Another realtor who’s heard what you’re looking for. You did everything but tell this woman you were setting up a sweatshop. It won’t take a genius.”

“I suppose.”

“Your street market pal could have gotten the ball rolling. Your beating the shit out of that guy may come back to haunt us. If you’re looking for child labor, you need a place to use it. It’s all a piece of the same pie.” He adds, “Remember, by your own admission, these mothers, people in these neighborhoods, rely on the knot shop. If you go into this meeting expecting trouble, you might just come out of it.”