The Last Minute (10 page)

‘Be smarter next time,’ August said. ‘Email that to me and my supervisor, if you must, but why don’t you think about it some
more?’

‘You should have grabbed him,’ the tracker said. ‘We got you breakfast, by the way.’

‘Did you spit in it?’

‘Thought about it. Thought you’d make him come back here and talk.’

‘Detention hasn’t much worked with him in the past,’ August said.

‘So, finding this Mila woman, what do we do now?’ the woman tracker asked.

August considered. That thought had kept him awake much of the night. He was charged with finding Mila; but what if, despite
Sam’s protestations, this Mila was helping Sam find his son? Was he going to interfere with that? Duty and friendship were
often uneasy partners. But duty had to come first.

Didn’t it?

His phone rang. He answered and listened and hung up, then he went upstairs to a makeshift office and locked the doors. Then
he called the CIA headquarters back.

We have a phone-in
, Langley had told him on his secured phone.
Asking specifically for you, to call him at this number. It’s an Amsterdam exchange. Prepaid phone, no record of owner
. That only meant the phone had been purchased in Amsterdam; the caller could be anywhere.

It rang. Nine times. Nine. Novem. Did that mean something? Then a male voice came onto the phone. ‘Hello?’

The tracking would begin immediately, August thought. The phone was connected to a laptop, showing on its screen a map of
the world. Numbers began to flash across the top as the software traced the caller’s location. ‘Yes. My name is August. I
understand you’ve been trying to reach me.’

‘Yes. I have.’ Male, American. No discernible regional accent.

‘About a subject of mutual interest.’

‘Oh, my God, you sound like a bad movie,’ the voice said.
Young
, August thought,
younger than me
. ‘Novem Soles. You’re one of the guys looking for them, aren’t you?’ A slight shaking in the voice.

‘Yes.’

‘Well. I can give Novem Soles to you.’

‘How?’

‘I have information for sale.’

‘Information for sale,’ August repeated. He would be repeating much of what the caller said. It was a standard ploy to extend
the call, simplify the trace.

‘The price is ten million dollars.’

‘I can’t pay that amount.’

The laptop screen’s map trimmed down where the call was originating from. Europe. Then western Europe.

‘They’ve got their fingers and reach into governments around the world. I think I am giving you a bargain.’

‘Let’s say I agree to the price. What are your terms?’

‘I will deliver the information to you and you will place the funds in a numbered account in the Caymans. I want immunity
from prosecution for any crimes I may have committed. Then the CIA gives me a new identity. I want sanctuary where they can
never find me, in an English-speaking country.’

August listened carefully. Did he know this voice? Its tone tugged on the frail strings of memory in his mind. ‘I can’t commit
that kind of money without seeing what the proof is.’

‘I have the proof.’

‘What is it? Names? Locations? Operations?’

‘It’s a notebook.’

‘A notebook.’

‘Full of details on the people in government and business that Novem Soles owns.’

‘Scan the pages and email it to me.’

The call searcher narrowed. The Netherlands/Belgium/ Luxembourg glowed bright green on the map.

‘And once I’ve done that, then you have the proof, August, and I’m left out in the cold without money or immunity.’

‘What’s in the notebook?’

‘Everything you need to decapitate Novem Soles. They’re not just a criminal ring. They’re worse, a lot worse. It’ll be the
best ten million you ever spent.’

‘How did you know my name?’

‘I have the information and I can either sell it to you or I can sell it to any other number of interested buyers.’ Not an
answer to the question.

‘Well, I’d have to see the notebook, you understand that.’

‘I am willing to meet.’

‘Where? When?’

‘I’ll call you back. Give me a number.’

‘I’d prefer to call you again.’

‘Oh, no. Not how I play, August. Give me a number or I vanish.’

August fed him his cell phone number. ‘I can’t get you any funds, or any promises, until I know what evidence you have. Until
I see it. Tell me your name.’

‘Now knowing my name would be dangerous for you, and since we’re just getting to know each other, and you’re going to get
me my beautiful ten million, I don’t want you getting yourself killed. We’re going to enjoy doing business together, August,
you’re going to make your career and I’m going to buy my safety and my future. I’ll meet you in New York in two days.’

‘Where and when exactly in New York?’

‘I’ll let you know.’ The line went dead.

August sat and studied the laptop readout. The call had come from Amsterdam. The city where Sam had wrecked the Novem Soles
plot.

Novem Soles. In English, the Nine Suns. The name for the criminal syndicate that had been behind the London bombing that had
branded Sam Capra a traitor. Their reach was unknown but they had co-opted at least one high government official in the United
States and had attempted to deliver a shattering blow to American society. Their ambitions, Sam had claimed, were limitless.

A criminal organization, not terrorist in its ideology, but one that had tried to destroy a CIA office and wreak political
havoc in the United States.

What kind of criminals were these?

He had no answer. The entire Novem Soles cell in Amsterdam had been killed. The only survivor was Lucy Capra, caught in that
comatose netherworld between life and death. Lucy knew some of the secrets of the group. But she was beyond helping him.

August replayed his recording of the conversation.

Who was this guy?
he wondered.
He kept using my name. Like it was a point of pride that he knew it. He said I was a nice guy. Have I met him before? I thought
I knew the voice
. But now he wasn’t sure.

Sam Capra might be paranoid about how deeply the criminal network’s claws reached into the government, but August Holdwine
was not.

He dialed his boss’s number. He had to report the offer. But he knew what the bureaucratic response would be. Why pay off
an informant when you could fold him under your wing and keep him shuttered up until he was ready to talk for free?

Fourteen minutes and thirty-seven seconds after August Holdwine said the phrase
Novem Soles
into his phone a text message appeared on another smart phone’s screen. Outside of intra-Company communications, there had
been no mention of the phrase in the government’s phone and email monitoring database for weeks, since Sam Capra made his
one and only statement for the CIA. The public did not know the phrase.

A large percentage of the world’s communications were vacuumed into the data tanks of the National Security Agency, to be
studied and filtered. In the never-ending torrent of words, Novem Soles was a distinct outlier. Novem Soles were two words
so unusual, so unmistakable, that the small bit of software hidden on the servers was able to find, within a few hours, any
mention of the phrase and identify the sender and the recipient and provide a text transcript of the conversation during which
the magic words were uttered. This transcript was sent to one man’s cell phone; he knew then, any time, when anyone in the
United States was discussing Novem Soles.

It was, as the Watcher put it to his peers, an eye that never blinks.

The Watcher stepped out from the thrum of a restaurant on South Beach, a place that supposedly provided the best gourmet breakfast
in Miami but the Watcher was unimpressed. He knew he could have done a better job in running it and he’d thought of buying
it; how nice it would be to run a restaurant and have a simpler job. It was a cloudy, rainy day and in the morning haze of
patio he studied the readout: it was the transcript of the entire
call from the Langley office to August Holdwine. Someone had information on Novem Soles to sell, someone who had called from
an Amsterdam number, and had called the Central Intelligence Agency with an offer.

He felt a jolt of nervous energy ride along his bones.

The Watcher closed the phone. He thought: Sam Capra, now. As soon as he had it rang again. He studied the phone log and answered.

‘
Bonjour
,’ a woman’s voice said. ‘We have a problem.’

Braun didn’t return from Langley to New York until mid-afternoon. The study in the Special Projects office smelled of fine
cigars and exquisite coffee. August felt he should decline the coffee; he felt jittery enough. But you did not often say no
to a legend, and Ricardo Braun was a legend. So August sat down in a heavy leather armchair, a fragrant Brazilian brew steaming
from his cup. He had only been to the study once before; Ricardo Braun was an early retiree from CIA who’d come back into
the fold a few weeks earlier when Special Projects needed mature, steady guidance after the disasters of the past few months.
He made August feel like an ox; Braun was a spare, sleek man, bald, with a strong runner’s build, in his late fifties, with
gray eyes and an air of unfailing confidence. He wore black slacks and a crisp white shirt. He had what appeared to August
to be the world’s most elaborate coffee machine and he turned from it now,
holding a thick mug of a brew that smelled amazingly rich, a curl of steam snaking from the porcelain.

‘What do you want me to do?’ August asked.

‘Well, write the informant a check, of course,’ Braun said. ‘Am I supposed to do all the thinking?’

August realized it was a joke so he ventured a smile. ‘Above my pay grade. But not yours.’

Ricardo Braun said, ‘We’re not paying this guy ten million dollars. Not someone who isn’t willing to come in. Not someone
who wants to hand us off what might be worthless information and vanish before we can confirm it.’ He sipped at his coffee.

‘He can’t vanish, he said he wanted protection from us.’

‘Exactly what I’d say if I planned to vanish.’ Braun arched an eyebrow.

‘He can’t think he can hide from us.’

‘Novem Soles certainly has hidden themselves well. What do we truly know about them? Nothing. Dead ends and nowheres.’ Braun
looked at the bourbon in his glass but didn’t taste it.

‘Do I open a case file?’ Special Projects operated by a unique set of rules, free from CIA bureaucracy. But records still
had to be maintained, for the branch’s own reference. Special Projects could access and use Company databases, but it was
not a twoway street. The branch had its own computer network, its own protocols for accessing information from police and
corporate databases; some were illegal. It was this willingness to bend the rules that put Special Projects apart from the
regular operations of the CIA.

‘Yes. Do. But we don’t report anything yet to the Company.’ He got up and walked to the reinforced glass in the study. ‘We
know this group penetrated the Company once already, more than once, through bribery. Well, not on my watch. I didn’t give
up daily rounds of golf and marlin fishing to come back and fail.’ He turned back with a stern stare at August. ‘We are not
alerting any other traitors who are looking for a mention of Novem Soles in an email or a report or a conversation. I want
this off the books, for now. Find this informant, bring him in, and we’ll see what he’s got.’ Braun paused. ‘Did you get anywhere
with Capra?’

‘He spotted our shadows, took out one who got too close, and then bought me a martini at a bar he now owns, over by Bryant
Park. Called The Last Minute.’

Braun smiled. ‘A bar. If I wasn’t so irritated with him I think I might get to like him.’

‘He won’t give any information on this Mila woman and he claims not to know anything more about Novem Soles. I get the sense
he’s moved on with his life, well past us. He’s a businessman now, he’s wanting out of the game.’

‘And his kid?’

‘No news. So he says.’

‘I don’t believe he’s sitting around doing nothing,’ Braun said. ‘You don’t twiddle your thumbs if there’s a chance of finding
your kid.’ Now he picked up his mug and tasted the rich brew within. The best coffee ever. It was so rich and perfectly roasted
his tongue nearly went into shock. Braun gave him a smile.

This is a guy, August thought, who appreciates caring for every detail.

August knew Braun had read Sam’s file. ‘He may have run into the same walls we have.’

‘Could your informant know anything about the Capra baby?’

‘I have no idea. I did not ask.’ Guilt surged up through his chest. ‘The conversation didn’t lend itself to detailed questioning.’

‘That child could be used as leverage.’

‘Only to a point. Sam wouldn’t act against us if ordered. He would tell us of any demand made against him for his child’s
safety.’

Braun raised an eyebrow. ‘Does your father love you, August?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Would he kill to save you, if push came to shove?’

August said, ‘If I’m being honest, yes, my dad would.’

‘Sam might cut your throat to save his kid. Get the meeting. But be very careful.’ Braun fixed him with a look. ‘Langley says
this informant asked for you. That means he must know you’re running the task force. This could be a meeting just to kill
you, or grab you to see what you know.’

‘You’ve made me eager to get back to work.’ August stood. ‘Can I ask you something? It came up in talking with Sam.’

‘Yes?’

‘This Mila woman.’ He slid the picture over to Braun. ‘She was with Sam again last night. We lost her.’

Braun studied the picture. ‘I told you before, I don’t recognize her. I was out of the field for several years, though.’

‘We picked up some chatter. There is, and has been for the past three years, a million-dollar bounty on her head.’