The Last Minute (29 page)

‘Fine, but I don’t want you playing all week, you said you would research a cruise and book it.’

‘Fine, whatever. I’ll pack along the brochures.’

My lucky day, Beth Marley thought. She’d already dodged a bullet: the other two employees in the office were out today, downed
with food poisoning brought on by a highly questionable chicken curry they’d eaten while lingering at an unforgivably long
lunch yesterday, one that Beth hadn’t gone on because, you know, she was too busy doing all three of their jobs.

And now this. Beth Marley tapped the stack of papers straight on her desk and thought: well, I can’t wait to tell Sandra that
I might lease an entire building. Then Empress Ming’d have to get her ladder and climb down off my ass.

Beth canceled her lunch with her best friend via her BlackBerry, apologizing profusely, and saying that she might pay her
back with drinks later in celebration of a big deal. And this would show Sandra Ming she could seriously handle the work:
Mrs Ming always looked at her as though she weren’t quite sure Beth could tie her shoes much less manage properties around
the city.

She sat down at her computer, summoned up the web
browser, Googled Sam Capra. She got a number of hits relating to some poor guy getting killed in Afghanistan, with a brother
who had granted a couple of interviews as the family spokesman; probably not related to this client. Not a lot on him. Hmmm.
She Googled The Last Minute and found the bar’s website. She’d met girlfriends there for drinks a couple of times. Well, if
he was thinking of a bar in the building, it would probably be high-dollar. The Last Minute was a well done space, clearly
money had been dropped on it. She picked up the phone to call Sandra, and then decided to wait until she actually had good
news. If she told Sandra she had a fish on the line but then didn’t reel it in, she’d never hear the end of it.

She was gathering her purse and her phone to leave when the office door opened. Which was weird, because there was an electronic
passkey and you couldn’t just open the door. Oh, she thought, as two women stepped inside. I must not have shut it all the
way. They were both stunning. One was blonde, hair pulled up into a bun, tall, with cool green eyes and cheekbones that Beth
instantly coveted. The other was a brunette, with lovely chocolate eyes, her hair trimmed into a stylish short cut. Beth instantly
wanted to ask: where do you get your hair done? Both women were, oddly though, dressed identically, in form-fitting gray pinstripe
suits, and silky black dress shirts.

Beth couldn’t think of women who voluntarily dressed alike. She thought: missionaries?

‘Hi, may I help you?’ she said.

One of the women shut the door behind her. The other stood in front of Beth’s desk and smiled. ‘Yes. Are you Ms Marley?’

‘Yes.’

‘Super.’ She gave a bright smile in return. ‘This is what we’re going to need from you. Your cell phone, your car keys and
the keys to the building in Williamsburg. Also, the alarm access code. Is there a closet where we can lock you up?’

Beth gave a nervous, uncertain laugh. ‘Is this a joke?’

‘No. We’re keeping your appointment at the building. So. Cell phone, please, and the closet would be where?’

‘Get the fuck out of here!’ Beth reached for the desk phone. Security was one press of the button away.

The brunette slammed a fist into Beth’s face. Hard. Beth had never been hit in the face in her life and the pain astonished
her. Another blow to her throat cut off her scream, a third busted her nose. Faster than she would have thought, the brunette
was over the desk and one hand was on her mouth, the other on her throat. Crushing against her windpipe.

‘Listen to me. I don’t wish to kill you. We have a phone tap on you, so we know you’re meeting Sam Capra. It would be really
pointless for you to die over a cell phone and an appointment. Yes?’

Beth nodded, too dazed to cry, her nose bleeding, her mouth covered by the woman’s hand. The pressure on her windpipe eased
very slightly.

‘In fact, you won’t die. Instead my sister will go kill your seven-year-old daughter in Ridgewood, and I will go kill your
father in Queens. I often find people care about the lives of loved ones more than their own.’ She gave a little shrug. ‘Aren’t
people funny?’

Terror flooded Beth.

‘Will you play nice nice?’

Beth nodded. Very eagerly.

‘Now don’t you get blood on my suit, I will be most unhappy,’
the brunette said, as though Beth could stop the blood oozing from her nose.

They shoved her into the small kitchen that doubled as an office supplies storage area. They handcuffed her to the sink pipe.

‘Now. The access code. If you lie to me your family’s dead. But we’ll come back here first and shoot off bits and pieces.’

Beth did not lie. She gave them the code. The pain in her face was now agony. She tried to fight back the tears.

‘Very good.’ The brunette pulled Beth’s cell phone from her purse. ‘Where are the property keys?’

‘My desk drawer. Tagged as Williamsburg.’ Her voice trembled.

The blonde vanished, returned in a moment, the keys dangling.

‘Please don’t hurt my family, please … ’

‘Beth, chillax, we’re all cool. You’re just going to tell whoever finds you that you were mugged. By two big Chinese guys.
Just provide a couple of pointless yet specific details. They wore red shirts. They had body odor. Two details, no other.
You’ll be very convincing. You never saw us. You will never speak of us. If you deviate from that story, your daughter and
your father will die, guaranteed, no matter how long it takes. Because the threat against your family stands as long as you
live. It doesn’t have an expiration date. But if you talk, then your family has an expiration date. They will die and the
white lilies at their funerals will be from me and my sister. Are we clear?’

Beth nodded, tears brimming her eyes. They stuffed a wash-cloth from the kitchen drawer in her mouth, bound her lips with
tape.

‘Have a nice day,’ the brunette said, and they left her.

I decided to suit up for the meeting. I wanted to look like a legitimate business owner for the property management company,
and I thought, given that I had a black eye, I needed every ounce of respectability I could muster. And I didn’t want Jack
Ming, if he was hiding in the building, to see me as a soldier. I wanted to look like the other side of my life, the owner
of a really nice bar. When I worked undercover for Special Projects I quickly learned that most high-level criminal groups
adopt a stylish look. I would prefer myself to always be in T-shirt and jeans but life demands more. So I figured out, like
a personal shopper to an assassin would, what suits worked for my build as well as what I could wear if I had to fight while
dressed to the nines.

Also, even though I didn’t pay much attention to The Last Minute as I launched my search for Daniel, I was conscious of when
I looked rattier than Bertrand (who always looks annoyingly dapper) and the staff. So, I’d grabbed from my office above The
Last Minute the dark navy Burberry Prosrum suit, sleek-fitting. I put on a light gray shirt, a soft silver tie. To the back
of the tie I attached a small, thin fighting knife; it stayed in place thanks to a customized loop I’d sewn in. The blade’s
handle was extremely slender, and the weight of the knife kept the tie tucked against the shirt. I buttoned the jacket; you’d
have to look hard to see the blade. I attached a holster to the small of my back; my Glock went there. Another thin blade
was bound to an ankle; I put on a pair of Allen Edmonds shoes, with a slightly thick heel. I am man enough to kick when there
is a need to.

I left Leonie tapping at her keyboard. ‘He’s probably not there, but if he is, and I get him, we’ll have to run quickly.’

You don’t rush in if you can help it. We had to be prepared for a couple of eventualities: that Jack Ming might somehow already
be here, and have turned the building into his own fortress, and that the CIA might be here as well. Anna could be wrong about
the rendezvous being set for tomorrow. Her source inside could be wrong, and, with our children’s lives on the line, neither
Leonie nor I had any intention of walking into a trap. If we were caught, our children were lost to us.

Would Jack Ming hide where he planned to meet? Possibly. But if I were him, I would try to stay on the move as much as I could.
Hunkering down in a place tied to his father could be dangerous, an unacceptable risk.

Of course, he was a twenty-two-year-old grad student, not a trained operative. He might not think the same way I would. But
he’d run home, the most dangerous thing he could do if his false ID in the Netherlands had been cracked, and so he might commit
a whole chain of mistakes. If he didn’t realize that his mother was gone, he might feel perfectly safe coming to this building
that he knew to be empty.

He, after all, had to have taken the key for a good reason.

The building was enemy territory. It could be a kill zone. I had only seen it in the dark late last night and now it looked
like a difficult place to defend. It was neat red brick, windows covered to keep damage and neglect at bay. An outdoor market
was in full swing two streets over; pedestrians passed on their way to and from the stalls.

I walked down to the building a few minutes late. If Jack was inside I didn’t want him to spot me until the very last minute.
I had no idea if he had seen me in the Rotterdam
shootout, or if he would register my face from those horrible few minutes.

As I walked up to the door, a Volvo sedan with New Jersey plates pulled up. Two women got out. Great, I thought: if Jack Ming
is holed up inside and gets violent then I’ve got two people to protect. They both wore practically identical pinstriped suits.
Maybe Mrs Ming enforced a dress code. They were both in their late twenties, I would guess. One was dark-haired, dark-eyed,
with a lovely face and a kind smile. The other was blonde, steel-eyed, a bit taller, but something in her face registered
wrong. Like the smile was just for practice.

‘Mr Capra?’ This was the brunette.

‘Yes.’

‘Beth Marley.’ We shook hands. ‘This is my associate, Lizzie.’

She offered her hand, I shook it, and she held onto it a little longer than necessary. ‘Oh, what happened to your face?’ Odd
tone to her question – she almost sounded disappointed. I thought for a moment she was going to reach out and touch my black
eye.

‘Surely not a bar fight?’ Beth said.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And that dude won’t walk a check again.’

‘Oh, rough stuff,’ Lizzie said. Her smile didn’t waver. I felt sure commercial leasing agents have seen nearly everything.

‘May I see your ID?’ Beth said.

I understand leasing agents have to be careful, going into buildings with strange men. I gave her both my New York driver’s
license and my Last Minute business card, which looked even sharper than I did. She inspected them and handed them back to
me.

Beth gestured to the building. ‘Shall we?’

I nodded.

Beth unlocked the door with a key with a small tag on it. She stepped inside and punched in the code for the building. She
didn’t hide her tapping finger and I saw the code was 49678. She seemed to hesitate for just one moment, as if expecting the
alarm to sound, but it stopped its warning chime and the indicator light turned green. But I stepped away from her before
she could register that I’d been watching and turned my gaze critically to the ceiling, as though I expected to see a pox
of water leaks. Lizzie stayed close to me. A little too close. I didn’t like her, all of a sudden.

On the first floor was some unfinished plasterboard, a wall left undone.

‘Did someone start to remodel and forget to finish?’

‘Apparently so. Of course, if you lease the whole space we’ll remove any left-behind renovations that were incomplete.’

Beth started to tell me about all the building’s wonderful features, of which there were three. She embellished in the way
that best sales people do. I let her lead me but I stepped first through every door. I didn’t think Jack Ming, if he’d hidden
himself inside here, seemed like the type to just start shooting; I didn’t even know if he had a gun. But I wasn’t going to
risk the leasing agents getting hurt.

We walked through the building. The first two floors were configured for offices. Beth was giving me a very generic patter.
On the top floor we could see the roofs of the adjoining building, which only went to three floors. This floor was mostly
cleared concrete space.

‘So you’re thinking a bar on the ground floor?’

‘Yes. And private party rooms on the second and third floors,’ I said. ‘Office space on four.’

‘Oh, party space, I hope you’ll invite us,’ Lizzie said. ‘You won’t make us wait in line, will you? Can we jump the rope?’

I gave her a smile, but I didn’t much care for the smile she gave me back. She kept standing a little too close to me, clutching
her oversized purse. ‘I’ll make sure you’re on the special guest list.’

‘Next door it’s being renovated into restaurant space,’ Beth said. ‘I believe the top floor is going to be a sushi bar. They’re
opening next week, I think. You could have a synergy, depending on their clientele.’

‘I’m all about the synergy,’ I said. I never know how the hell to use that word in a sentence.

The fourth floor was mostly open space. Russell Ming was using it for storage. Boxes of all shapes and sizes, Chinese paintings,
a set of rounded tables in a row, lightly covered with dust. Windows faced out onto the neighboring roof; below was a skylight
that looked new. The sushi bar, celebrating natural light, I guess.

In the back corner there was a door.

I walked straight over to it and tried the doorknob. Locked.

‘What’s in here?’ I asked. My voice sounded a little louder than I’d intended.