The Last Minute (46 page)

‘Warmest greeting ever,’ Mila said. ‘I tingle.’

‘Two guns are better than one, Leonie,’ I said.

She looked at us both and then she surrendered. ‘All right. Thank you, Mila. If we get Taylor and Daniel back I will be eternally
grateful.’

‘You said you had an idea on finding Jack?’ I said.

‘His phone number is the first step,’ she said. ‘If I can get that I can get his call log. I can start on that right now.
Maybe I can find a way to see if any new numbers are calling anyone he knows, via his Facebook network or any of his family
or other contacts.’

‘All right.’ I got up, somewhat painfully.

‘Where are you going?’ Mila said.

‘I’m going to see if I can use an old friend.’

‘Everyone can use a friend,’ Leonie said.

‘I mean literally use him, God forgive me.’

I walked downstairs, and I noticed the older, elegant, spare man in the corner drinking a pint. I noticed everyone but everyone
else at a table was in a group. He was the only one flying solo. Someone who might want to observe the bar but garner less
attention would not sit at the bar. You are kind of front and center sitting at the bar; everyone can see you and you craning
your neck around to watch the rest of the room is noticeable. This may sound paranoid but this is how my mind works, especially
with the thought that August might be watching the bar to see if I turned up here. I didn’t like the look of him. He watched
me, but in the mirrored back of the bar.

When I left The Last Minute, I waited at the next corner for him to exit. Five minutes. Ten minutes. He didn’t. He wasn’t
tailing me.

I called Bertrand. ‘The guy in the corner drinking his beer.’

‘Yes.’

‘Anything odd about him?’

‘No.’

‘Have you seen him before?’

‘No, never. He has ordered one Harp and he drinks it slowly. He’s not stirred from his table since you left.’

Well, then if … Mila. ‘Did Mila get here before or after he did?’

‘Before.’

‘We need to be very cautious of anyone alone watching for Mila or for me.’

‘Go do what you need to do,’ Bertrand said. ‘Mila and I can handle any trouble that arises.’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘are you sure?’

‘Did she tell you about when we had the bathroom soundproofed?’

‘Uh, sort of. All right. I’ll be back soon.’

I walked into the night.

I sat on the crates of beer and when Ollie came in and switched on the light and saw me, he nearly had a heart attack.

‘Jesus and Mary!’ he yelled. Then he stared at me. ‘
You!
What the hell are you doing here?’

‘I owe you a gun.’

‘Christ almighty. You could have given me notice when you left.’ A few months ago, when the Company decided to take me out
of their private prison in Poland and dangle me as bait for Nine Suns, they’d gotten me a job bartending here at Ollie’s.
My decision to slip the Company’s leash to go hunt for my wife necessitated I give Ollie no notice when I left my job. I had
also stolen the gun from his safe, but, to my credit, I left an IOU.

‘You know it hurts. It hurts to lose my only good bartender.’ Ollie was famous for bemoaning the sad quality of his hired
help. ‘And for you to be a thief.’

‘I left an IOU.’

‘Which I believed, oddly,’ Ollie said. ‘I didn’t call the cops on you.’

‘The gun wasn’t registered anyway, Ollie,’ I said dryly. ‘I lost it but I brought you a better one.’ I handed him a sleek
Beretta and a box of ammo I’d taken from The Last Minute.

‘This is fancy,’ he said. ‘I’ll never learn to shoot it.’

‘You never learned to shoot the other one,’ I said.

‘True. Where did you go?’

‘I went to go find my wife and my son.’ For some reason I was done lying with Ollie. I’d answer a direct question as much
as I could. He was a good man. Mila adored him, had wanted to buy his bar for years. She and I had first met here; she was
scouting me as a possible recruit.

This confession made Ollie blink. ‘Did you?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s good.’

‘I’m trying to find August without using a phone,’ I said. ‘I thought you might be willing to pass him a message for me.’

‘Are you allergic to phones?’

‘No.’

‘I hear they might cause brain cancer.’ Ollie was happiest when worrying. ‘He’s out front and he’s had a bit much.’

‘Is he alone?’

‘Yes, although there’s a good-looking lady eyeing him up four stools down.’

‘I am not one to interfere with the course of true love but do you think you could get him back here to talk to me without
anyone knowing?’

‘Why should I do you a favor, Sam? After how you treated me?’

‘Ollie, do you want to retire?’

‘Yes.’

‘I will buy this bar from you when you retire. You don’t have to worry about that, I’ll pay a more than fair price.’

He blinked. ‘Quit your joshing.’

‘How many guys would come back and make stealing a gun right?’

‘Not many, but could I get that in writing?’

‘Like the IOU I was good for?’

‘Yep.’

I tore a label off a case of Newcastle Brown Ale and wrote on the back:
I promise to buy Ollie’s Bar at a fair price when he’s ready to retire. Samuel Clemens Capra
.

‘That’s your full name? You poor kid.’ Ollie inspected my handwriting for legibility and legal loopholes. ‘Huh. I thought
your answer would be because I’m a nice guy.’

‘Well, that too.’

‘Okay. I’ll tell him I need him to help me move a beer keg. He’s drunk enough it might work.’

‘Thank you, Ollie.’

Two minutes later August came into the backroom. ‘Oh, hell,’ he said.

‘Hi.’

He regarded me with a shake of his head and sat down on a stack of cases of Heineken. ‘What the hell are you thinking? Well,
taking you in with a broken arm should be easier.’

‘You’re not taking me in. We’re not going to fight. We have to figure out a way to work together. Are you okay? I’m sorry
I hit you.’

‘I had to have three stitches.’ He pointed at the back of his head. ‘The Kum-ba-ya approach is a little late, Sam. You cost
me my job today.’

I let ten seconds tick away. I couldn’t tell if he was furious or numb. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Well, that happens when you are supposed to pick up an untrained asset, who tells you to lose your tails because he’s hacked
the camera system following you, and you and your team can’t subdue one ex-agent and you lose your asset.’ His
voice rose in anger. ‘I’m sorry. I know you are doing this for your kid but, hell, you can’t do this, Sam. You’re in my custody.’

‘August. If you want your job back listen to me.’

‘I think bringing you in will get me my job back.’

‘It won’t. Because something inside Special Projects is broken, and you know it.’

August frowned at me.

‘You know Special Projects has been compromised. Either you have a mole, or your communications or networks are being monitored.’

‘We’ve found nothing.’

‘Jack Ming, in his old New York hacker days, his specialty was getting computer systems, as in printers, to send him information
secretly. Tiny little sneaky bits of code that hide in other programs and harvest him what he needs. I’m pretty sure that’s
exactly what he wrote for Nine Suns, and they’ve been using these software spies to extort and control people in key positions
in business and in government.’

August rubbed at his chin. ‘Every traitor we’ve arrested since Lucy, they claimed they were blackmailed into doing this. We
didn’t believe them.’

‘Either your systems have been compromised, or someone else has turned bad.’

‘Hell.’ August is not a big cusser.

‘August, you’re not the traitor, are you?’

‘No.’ He raised an eyebrow.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I had to ask.’

August tapped his foot against the concrete. ‘Those women you killed, what do you know about them?’

‘They were accused murderers, a sister act, who got a fresh
start and new names. A man named Ray Brewster hid them and used them as hit women for hire. The guy I killed in New Jersey,
who kidnapped Jack Ming’s mom, I think he might have worked for Brewster as well.’

‘Someone who gives murderers and psychopaths fresh IDs and a job as hired muscle.’

‘Do you know Ray Brewster?’

‘No.’ August shook his head. ‘Do you know the name Lindsay Partridge?’

‘No.’

‘She’s your red-haired sidekick.’

I waited.

‘Ex-forger and counterfeiter, CIA informant, we paid her off well, then two years ago she vanished.’

‘She gives people new identities now. Novem Soles has her kid, too.’

‘Part of her file is locked. I can’t open it, even with a Special Projects access. What’s her secret?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said.

‘Who are these bastards?’

‘One of them is a sex slaver named Yaakov Zviman. He seems to have moved into extortion as his mainstay, but he’s the one
who put the million dollars on Mila’s head. I think he’s a power in the organization. You ever hear of him?’

‘No.’

‘I think that whatever information Jack Ming has relates to whatever Zviman’s doing now for Nine Suns. Maybe it’s the list
of people that they control. We get that, we cut off a major source of information for them. The kind of programs Ming wrote
would give Nine Suns power over people who could help them profit.’

August ran a hand through his blond hair. ‘Have you heard of Associated Languages School?’

‘Yeah. The owners of the property where Mrs Ming was taken. Old abandoned house in Morris County.’

August stood and began to pace by the cases of beer. ‘This fine language school also employs one of the dead women.’

‘Meggie or Lizzie Pearson? Those were their real names. Lizzie struck me as a person who would not work well with others.’

‘So they’re Nine Suns?’

‘Since they were trying to capture me, and I was Nine Suns’ errand boy, I think not. I believe they are working for someone
else who wants to collect the money on Mila. They talked about putting me in a cage and extracting information from me. Apparently
kidnapping and interrogation were their specialties.’

‘So we have Nine Suns after Jack Ming, and then a third party, and we don’t know how and even if they’re connected?’

‘We do not.’

‘I would love to have access to Special Projects files to see what we have on the women, but I’m supposed to go back to Langley
next week and I’ll be given a janitorial job. Or maybe fry cook in the cafeteria.’

‘That’s honest work.’

‘Nothing wrong with it,’ August said. ‘My career is gone, Sam.’

I considered. ‘Was your boss eager to get rid of you?’

‘Not particularly. But today was a massive screw-up. A head had to roll and it wasn’t going to be his although he could survive
the bullet. He could survive anything.’

‘Why?’

‘He’s retired officially, just brought back inside a couple of months ago to stiffen our backs and straighten our spines.
Very old school, very much concerned about the honor of the Company, protecting its reputation. His name is Braun. Did you
ever meet him?’

‘No.’

‘He retired before our time and came back after … after you left Special Projects.’

‘If you came back to him with new information would he listen?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Is there anyone inside who would help you?’

August sat back down on the cases of Heineken. He looked more tired and frazzled than I’d ever seen him. ‘Maybe Griffith.’

‘Yeah, I kicked him kind of hard and I winged the other guy in the leg. Is he okay?’

‘Yes. And you tried to murder Ming in front of him.’ He shook his head. ‘Why am I talking to you, Sam? We’re done. We have
to be done. I have to rebuild my career. I’m nothing without the Company, and, yes, I know that’s pathetic, you don’t have
to tell me. I hope you find your kid, more than anything, I hope that. But I don’t see how I can help you.’

‘I can give you Jack Ming.’

‘What?’

‘I can give you Jack Ming.’

August stood up from the beer cases, then he sat back down. ‘But you’re going to kill him.’

‘Yes, I am,’ I said. ‘And then I’m going to give him to you.’

Mila watched the man sitting at the corner table on the security camera. She had never seen him before. He ordered a small
appetizer of tapas, slowly finished his pint of lager.

‘Do you know this man?’ she asked Leonie.

Leonie leaned over and studied the face on the camera. ‘No. I haven’t seen him before.’

Mila had stepped back from the monitor and watched Leonie: the lay of her gaze, the set of her shoulders, the curve of her
mouth. ‘I guess Sam was wrong, then.’

They watched the man in the corner get up and leave money for his tab and walk out.

‘I don’t think Sam is wrong about much,’ Leonie said.

‘So what is your plan?’ Mila said. ‘You and Sam get to save your babies and live an exciting, on-the-run version of
The Brady Bunch
?’

‘I’m quite sure I’ll never see Sam again when this is done. Does that make you happy?’

‘Sam is only a friend. I am his boss. That is all.’

‘Then I guess you’ll never know what you’re missing. That parkour running does hone a body. And he’s been alone for so long,
poor thing.’

‘Alone I am sure you are not. For long. Ever.’ Mila seemed to stumble over her English.

‘Your jealousy translates clearly.’

‘Do not confuse jealousy with concern for a friend.’

‘I don’t think I’m confusing anything, sweetie.’

Mila gave a thin smile. ‘Do you know what I like about Sam?
He is clueless. He does not know he is attractive. He does not think about it and if you told him he is handsome he thinks
you are just being nice. He is down on himself right now because he blames himself for Daniel being in danger. He loved Lucy
very much and he doesn’t trust his instincts now about women. He does not know he is a really good guy. So it is easy to take
advantage of him right now.’