Even (17 page)

The officer was barely three yards away. The next leaflet was half out of her satchel. I could see my own eyes staring back at me from a black-and-white photo in the center of the page when Patrick suddenly reached down in front of me and opened the glove box. He started to rummage around inside it, urgently searching for something.

Patrick’s lost it
, I thought.
He’s got a gun in there
.

My fingers were curled around the door handle, starting to pull, when the officer abruptly veered away to her right. She was moving purposefully now, heading for the back of our car. I thought of Julianne. She was still locked in the trunk. Had she found a way to call for help without Patrick or me realizing?

I looked around, and saw the driver of the Lexus had lowered his window. He was leaning out, beckoning to the officer. She walked over and handed him a leaflet. He examined it for a moment, then passed it to his passenger. They started arguing over it, each one pointing to things on the page. They continued to squabble until the car in front of us had cleared the barrier and we started to move again. I saw the driver finally shake his head, crumple up the leaflet, and let it drop behind his
seat. He held the officer’s eye for a moment, shrugged, and then flashed her an apologetic smile.

Patrick hauled himself upright before we picked up too much speed. His right hand was hanging on to a white plastic object he’d retrieved from the glove box. It was about three inches square and one side was covered in shiny silver indentations. As we approached the booth he held it up to the windshield, just below the mirror, and the barrier immediately whipped up out of our way.

“What is that thing?” I said. “Is it legal?”

Patrick nodded toward a board marked
THIS LANE—NO CASH—E-ZPASS ONLY
. Then he moved his thumb and I saw a matching logo on the white side of the square.

“Why keep it hidden, then?” I said.

“It’s not hidden,” he said. “It fell off. No one stuck it back on yet.”

I knew the hotel was good—I’d stayed there before—but I wasn’t going back for their service. I knew it was handy for our meeting the next day, but I wasn’t worried about how far we’d have to drive. I’d have chosen the place anyway, whatever it was like and wherever it was located. Because, for that one night, I needed something else more than I needed comfort or convenience. I needed a garage. A particular kind. It had to be underground, away from prying eyes. And, unusually for what I’d seen of New York, one where we could park our own car.

The machine controlling the entrance barrier had developed a fault, causing it to display its instructions in German. Patrick pointed to its small LCD screen and rolled his eyes in disgust.

“Sure you’re not French?” I said.

He took a ticket anyway and then coasted down the ramp, running wide at the bottom to avoid adding to the scrapes of paint on the white concrete wall.

The space we’d entered was smaller than the FBI’s garage—about half the size—but it was cleaner and brighter. The fluorescent lights were closer together, casting no shadows on the shiny gray floor, and the regimented layout of pillars and parking bays was a million miles from the color and chaos of the city streets we’d just crawled through.

Most of the other vehicles were crammed in together at the far end,
close to the elevator that led up to the hotel itself. A few cars and SUVs had spilled over into the center section, but farther out the garage was almost empty. The corner opposite the ramp—where people would have the farthest to walk—was completely deserted.

It looked perfect.

Patrick headed for the space at the end of the last row. He swung the car into some empty bays on the other side of the aisle then snaked backward, stopping with the rear fender about four feet from the wall. That left the hood hanging out over the white line, but Patrick didn’t seem worried. He just rolled up his window, switched off the engine, and leaned down to unlock the trunk. I checked my watch. It was seven minutes past nine. Just shy of twelve hours since the detectives had disturbed me in my cell.

Julianne was lying on her left-hand side, curled up in a ball, with her back to the rear of the car. Her arms and legs were pulled in tight and she showed no reaction when I lifted the trunk lid. There was no sign of her even breathing, and her skin looked like perished rubber in the harsh artificial light.

She didn’t look any better when the Jeep arrived, three minutes later. It pulled in next to us, close to Patrick’s side of the car, and kept easing backward until its rear fender was nudging up against the concrete, boxing us in tight.

“Come on, Julianne,” I said, reaching down into the trunk and gently shaking her shoulder. “We’re here. Time to get out.”

“Wait,” Patrick said. “Leave her. Let her wake up on her own.”

I couldn’t see why. I’d known stowaways to recover slowly before, but only when they’d been drugged or wounded, or we’d had some kind of incident en route. Nothing like that had happened to Julianne. She’d been in the trunk twenty minutes longer than I had, earlier in the day, but that was because of the traffic. It was nothing traumatic. There was no reason for her to just lie there, increasing the chances of us being compromised.

I shook her again and after a few seconds her arms loosened and her head began to appear, like a tortoise emerging from its shell. She craned
her neck around and gradually started to take in her surroundings—the trunk lid, the garage walls, the Jeep. And me.

“David,” she said huskily. “This is your fault.”

Julianne refused any help climbing out of the trunk, but she did take my arm as we set off toward the cluster of cars surrounding the elevator. She was still looking a little green and crumpled, and her stride was shorter and stiffer than it had been at the house. The farther we walked the harder she leaned on me, but however much weight I took, it didn’t make her speed up or move any more easily. The opposite, if anything. Patrick and the guys from the Jeep were pulling way out in front of us, despite changing course slightly to pass the Lexus, which had finally appeared in a space away to our left.

“What happens now?” she said quietly.

“Not much,” I said. “We check in. Get a meal. Then some rest.”

“What about tomorrow?”

“Take it easy. Have a lie-in.”

“What’s a lie-in? What are we lying about? Who to?”

“No. Lie in bed. Stay asleep. I’ll see you around lunchtime.”

“You want me to sleep in? Why? What will you be doing?”

“Helping Patrick with something.”

“What you agreed with those people? To make them let us go?”

“Right.”

“Are you OK with it, what they want you to do?”

“I’m fine.”

“Is it something bad?”

“Not entirely. Neutral, overall, I’d say.”

“But something big? It must be big, to trade for our lives.”

“Just something they can’t do on their own.”

“David, this feels wrong. I don’t know what they want, but they’re bad people. You had a gun to your head, back then. Now it’s different. No one would blame you if you didn’t go through with it.”

“Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing. It’ll come out fine.”

“Are you sure? We could make a run for it. You and me. Ditch these guys and hide out somewhere, till we figure out how to make it right with the police.”

“Sorry, Julianne. It wouldn’t work, with the police. It has to be done this way. But trust me. By lunchtime tomorrow, it’ll all be over.”

The automatic announcements in the elevator had also reverted to German, which did nothing to improve Patrick’s mood. He stood in the corner and muttered to himself for the few seconds it took us to reach the ground floor. The doors hadn’t even fully opened before he pushed past me and veered away to the right, heading for the reception desk. Julianne and the other guys moved more slowly, taking a moment to adjust to their new surroundings. Stepping into such a bright, uncluttered space was quite a change after the cramped elevator car.

A row of abstract tapestries hung below the high windows to our left. They provided the only color or texture in the place, standing out vividly against the smooth white marble walls and floors. They were also the only things in there that weren’t strictly necessary. It was a large area, but everything else in it had a practical purpose—the counter where Patrick was standing, a second bank of elevators ahead of us serving the bedrooms, glass double doors on either side leading to the bar and restaurant, and an exit to the street farther down on the right. No space had been wasted on seating areas or display cabinets or porters’ stations. The result obviously wasn’t to Julianne’s taste—I felt her shiver as she took it all in—but I liked it. It made the place seem focused and purposeful.

It also meant that covert surveillance was out of the question.

For Lesley’s people, or the FBI.

Two clerks were on duty that night. Neither had been there when I last visited, a couple of years ago, so there was no danger of them recognizing me. The one on the left was sitting down, hunched over a keyboard.
It looked as if he were processing a pile of papers stacked up on the desk beside him. His hands were moving—robotically pressing the keys and sorting through the forms—but the rest of his body was absolutely still. He was completely absorbed by his work. Patrick was close enough to touch him but he had no idea that anyone was even near. You could have brushed the thin flakes of dandruff off the shoulders of his navy blue blazer and I doubt he’d have missed a beat.

The second clerk was younger and a little more animated. She was shuffling around behind the counter, gathering some documents and chatting to Patrick as they waited for us to catch up. A badge clipped to her blazer said she was Maxine, the shift manager. Her eyes did occasionally stray in our direction, but she didn’t seem unduly suspicious. She clearly wasn’t checking anyone against a wanted photograph or trying to match us to a description. More that she was just idly curious, and as we got closer she did nothing more sinister than fan out the wad of forms she’d collected, hand them to Patrick, and reach down for a pot of pens.

The registration forms were preprinted with the details George had given over the Net so all that was left for us to do was sign them. There were three spaces, clearly outlined in black. Even so, it turned out to be a major exercise for the guys from the Jeep. Maybe they had particularly difficult names, but they were still scratching away with the cheap hotel ballpoints long after Julianne and I had finished with ours.

George had booked me in as David Van Der Wahl from Ossining, New York. He had some idea that a Dutch-sounding name might misdirect the clerk if she heard my accent and was questioned later about English guests. I wasn’t so sure. I preferred my usual approach—not speaking to anyone—but I supposed his little subterfuge wouldn’t do any harm. At least he’d come up with a more imaginative name than the ones the navy usually gave me.

Maxine handed out our keys one at a time, and even though the elevators and restaurant were in plain sight, she obstinately ran through how to reach the bedrooms and where to go for breakfast with each of us in turn. She issued my key last, and by the time I’d listened to her instructions
for the seventh time Patrick and the others had already started to drift away from the counter.

Our rooms were on the tenth floor. Mine was the last on the left, at the far end of the corridor. Patrick’s was next door. Julianne’s was directly opposite.

“See you bright and early,” Patrick said, working the lock on his door and disappearing inside.

“Early, anyway,” I said.

“What about lunch, tomorrow?” Julianne said when he’d gone. She was standing in the middle of the corridor, looking a little lost. “I’m worried. Will you really come back?”

“Of course,” I said, sliding my key card into its slot. “Sleep well.”

The door closed solidly behind me and for a moment I felt a slight pang of regret about leaving Julianne outside, on her own. She looked so forlorn, with her head tipped anxiously to one side and her big brown eyes stretched wide and fearful. Maybe I felt a little bad about lying to her, as well. After what I was planning for tomorrow there was no way they were going to let me out for lunch. I was never going to see her again, and part of me was wondering what other possibilities I was turning my back on. It was a long time since I’d been in a hotel with a woman, voluntarily, and not felt some official eye looking over my shoulder. Tomorrow’s plan wasn’t complex. How much sleep could I need?

But deep down, I knew I was right. If I was going down that road with anyone, it had to be Tanya. Especially now we were back in touch. And tomorrow was about more than the basic ability to stumble through a plan. It was about more than the professional pride of doing a job right. Or even the satisfaction of wiping the smile off Rosser’s smug face.

Tomorrow was about redemption.

Another man’s life would be taken. Mine would be reclaimed.

It deserved my full attention.

Mitchell Varley and his colleagues had seemed innocuous enough when I first met them in their abandoned office building. Devious, certainly, but not physically dangerous. Not like the Nazi from the police cell. You didn’t get the feeling they were going to leap across the table and tear your head off. But with guys like these, superficial impressions don’t count for much. You could say the same for lots of unpleasant species. Spiders, for example. The deadliest ones are always the most harmless looking.

Which is why I changed the plan.

I didn’t call Tanya at nine the next morning, as I’d promised.

I called her at eight.

Tanya answered on the first ring.

“David?” she said. “What’s wrong? You’re an hour early. Is there a problem?”

“No,” I said. “I’ve just brought the schedule forward a little. Are the FBI guys with you yet?”