With Andris the limo driver dead and floating in eternal company with Mrs Ming, he was going to need someone else to handle Capra and Jack Ming. The best thing about Special Projects was that, since it was supposed to be separate and deniable from the Company, he was allowed, when needed, to use non-Company personnel. And keep them out of the record. Like Andris and his limo company, funded by Company dollars that had been washed by Special Projects.
Or the sisters. Yes, the sisters would be a good choice for tomorrow. They always brightened his day.
35
Brooklyn
Jack Ming sat in a movie theater. He was on his fourth feature film of the day. The theaters were nice, dark and quiet and he could think. Right now a romantic comedy, indifferently written and acted, played in front of him. He didn’t really want to see or hear anything violent or twisted. He didn’t like movies with gunfire, not since Rotterdam. Right now the movie’s hero thought his girlfriend’s mom had the hots for him, which wasn’t true, but, you know, was just hilarious. Not. His dinner had been a hot dog and a soda he bought at the theater and he rattled the ice in a jumbo cup.
His mother’s betrayal had stopped itching at him. He could not be surprised. She would never let him do as he wanted; the only freedom he’d had in his life was when he had run away and worn another name, in another country.
The notebook sat in a square, taped to his back. Earlier, in a Starbucks, he’d sat down in a lonely corner and paged through its mysteries again. Account numbers, pictures, email addresses. He studied the photo of the three people that had the words The Nursery written underneath. The word Nursery was suggestive: a place where something was born, or something was protected and grown. Just a photo of three people. But clearly three people who, by virtue of being together, revealed a secret about themselves. If Nine Suns meant nine people, then this was a third of them, and if you could take down a third, perhaps you could find out who the other six were. Perhaps you could cripple them.
He thought about trying to contact any of the people being blackmailed, but he decided against it. If he frightened them, they might vanish, and what would make the notebook valuable was if the people corrupted were still in place. If they took off running or hiding, then they would not be useful. On one page he’d found a single phone number. He was so tempted to call it, and fear and curiosity played over his heart.
More than ever, the notebook was his ticket.
But. He wondered why, if his mother had called the CIA, they weren’t already there when he arrived. Why not snatch him up at home? Had they just figured out it was him? If they waited for him to show up, and lounge around at home, they could take him with less fuss, perhaps.
He didn’t know what to believe.
He needed a place to sleep. Hostels were out of the question; he didn’t know who his mother would have looking for him, much less Novem Soles. If homeless people could sleep on the streets, he could as well. Just for one night.
He left the movie theater and ducked into another coffee shop. Lots of people his age, on laptops, chatting, pretending to write the next great American novel while they idled away their creative time on social networking sites. He got a decaf and sat in the corner and opened up the notebook, staring at the one phone number on the last page.
36
The Last Minute Bar, Manhattan
Mila ordered another Glenfiddich from Bertrand and a bacon sandwich from The Last Minute’s small kitchen. She put aside her confessions for Sam; the story of herself that she had only told one person before – and she opened up the tracking software on the laptop, which would tell her where Sam was going.
She studied the route. From The Last Minute to a hotel in Greenwich Village to a nightclub to another hotel. She didn’t believe he was nightclubbing. And she didn’t believe whoever he was tracking was out nightclubbing either. He’d found the tracker she’d planted on him and put it in a cab. She smiled. Sam was no fool. And now he knew she’d tricked him. For a moment she considered deleting the confession; she was mad at him, unreasonably, she knew, but mad all the same. She was alive and she felt sure his baby was probably dead or lost forever to him, no matter what promises Anna made. Novem Soles had no honor, no sense of justice, no kindness. They would never give him his child back and she knew it and she wished he could know it as well. She could not make him understand; she could not force him to abandon hope.
She could not do to him what had been done to her.
She took a long sip of the whisky and put her fingertips back to the keyboard, the letters on the electronic screen hanging like small, curved ghosts before her eyes.
37
JFK Airport
The Watcher stepped off the plane. His mouth tasted sour from his in-flight doze. His suit wasn’t as clean as he’d like for it to be. He waited for the press of folks off first class to pass (to his great annoyance he couldn’t get a first class seat) and then he obediently followed the rest of the coach passengers off the jet. The flight attendants gave him robotic nods and thanks.
He waited in the queue at Customs for non-US citizens and finally presented his Dutch passport. It passed muster without a hesitation, and he even managed a smile for the customs clerk who wished him a pleasant stay in the United States.
He stepped out into the city – one of the greatest dining cities in the world, he dreamed of a vacation where he did nothing but eat and talk with chefs here, but he could not think of food now. Novem Soles had found the record of Jack’s alias taking a flight out of Brussels; Ricki had lied to him. She would pay when he had time to focus on her. Jack Ming was in this city now, with his book of secrets. Sam Capra and Leonie Jones were going to kill Jack Ming and then they would die. It would close a book on the CIA’s own investigation of Novem Soles, once a former CIA agent had been identified as Jack Ming’s murderer. And then the circle would be closed, and the circle would be safe.
His phone rang. ‘Yes?’
Silence on the other end.
‘Yes?’ the Watcher said impatiently. ‘Yes, hello,’ a voice said, and it was one he’d listened to in the recording of the CIA conversation before, a voice he knew by heart. Jack Ming.
‘Hello,’ Jack Ming said into the sudden silence.
The Watcher froze. ‘Who is this?’
‘You don’t know me,’ Jack Ming said, ‘but your phone number is in a book I found. May I ask who this is?’
‘Well, no, because I don’t know who you are,’ the Watcher said.
‘I think you are being blackmailed,’ Jack said. ‘Are you? Because if you are, maybe I can help stop the people who are hurting you.’
‘You… you.’ The Watcher said. ‘Who are you?’
‘Since you didn’t say no, I’ll assume you’re being blackmailed.’
The Watcher’s mind spun. What exactly was in this notebook? A cold chill inched up his spine. ‘Listen. Okay. I don’t know who you are, this could be a trick to get me to say something I shouldn’t.’ Play the victim, draw him close. ‘Tell me exactly how you got my number.’
‘A friend gave me a book. It has numbers – bank account numbers – and emails and photos in it. I think it’s a book used to extort people all over the world, people in positions of business and government.’ Silence. ‘Do you fit those criteria?’
‘I might. Oh, my God,’ the Watcher said. The fear in his voice wasn’t exactly false. He cursed. He was standing out near a taxi pickup line at JFK. He had no equipment with which to trace the call; no way to alert any of the technical resources of Novem Soles. He would have to draw Jack in himself. And, honestly, if you can’t do that with a grad student you don’t deserve your job. ‘Look, if this is a test, I’ve done what you said. I have. Everything. Please. Please.’