Choke Point gc&jk-2 Page 18

  Knox has relocated them to another houseboat, this time on Keizersgracht not far from the Amsterdam Hermitage. It’s the same boat by the same manufacturer, the same layout as the first, but Sonia has been installed into the waterside cabin because Keizersgracht has a fair amount of foot traffic; Knox is taking no chances of an inadvertent sighting.

  Perched on the berth, her laptop on her lap, Sonia clings to a glass of red wine, half full. It’s a familiar sight; she hasn’t moved from this pose in days. But it’s not the same woman; one look tells him as much. Tells him more than he wants to know. The wine bottle stands close to empty.

  “What is it?” He speaks at a low volume. Closes the thin wooden door gently behind him. Latches its brass latch.

  Sonia plays music from her laptop to cover their voices. Contemporary Top 20 pop. She’s full of surprises. Knox sits by her ankles.

  Her eyes wander to his, then roll into the back of her head and her pupils reappear. She stares him down with angry eyes. He looks back at the near-empty wine bottle. Its glass refracts and displaces the camera tucked behind it. His Nikon.

  “Who are you?” she says accusingly.

  “You’ve had too much to drink.”

  “Who—?”

  “You know who I am!”

  She spins the laptop to face him. “I needed to caption whatever photo I was to include with my article.”

  On the screen is a shot of a tall woman in a scarf entering an eatery.

  “The camera keeps information on all the pictures,” she says. “Date and time. So I ask again: who are you?”

  “I followed you. It’s true. But for your security. To look after you because clearly you were not looking after yourself.”

  “And this Chief Inspector Brower?”

  Knox assumed he’d gotten away with that misspeak at the school. Her bringing it up now is a surprise. He’s underestimated her.

  “Brower?” He won’t lie to her. Can’t tell the truth.

  “He’s your boss, isn’t he? You’re police.”

  Knox grins. Wishes he hadn’t. “No.”

  “Get out!”

  “Listen to me. I was following you. Yes. To protect you. After your meeting, I tailed that woman,” he says, pointing to the laptop, “into a park where she met with a man. As it turned out, a cop.

  “Brower’s men caught me spying on their inspector and brought me in,” he continues. “I had to talk my way out. It wasn’t easy.” The truth. “Brower wants the knot shop shut down as much as we do. Brower will work with us. I thought if the head of school called into the police’s main number, we might lose our hold on this, lose control of it. So I recommended Brower.”

  “We never had control in the first place.”

  “We have this guy who claimed to be Maja’s father. We’re ahead of everyone on this.”

  “Not we,” she argues. “I . . . do . . . not . . . trust . . . you.”

  “Don’t do this.” Dulwich’s warning echoes in his head. He adds, “Please.”

  She answers with hurt eyes. There’s a boat motoring on a nearby canal, a barking dog several blocks away.

  “Who is that woman?” he asks.

  Her words slur. “I have very good instincts when it comes to people. My work depends on it. I was wrong about you. I know it in here,” she says. “I don’t know who you are, but I know when I’ve been lied to.”

  “Who . . . is . . . she?”

  “An activist. All right with you? Google her, if you want. Christina Jorgensen. Swedish. Has been fighting child exploitation, worldwide, for nearly a decade. She read my article, okay? If she meets with the police, what do I care? The woman should be sainted!”

  He takes this in. Christina Jorgensen could have been watching the market stall where Grace got the tip that led to her assault. Jorgensen followed and saved Grace when the time came.

  “We have a phone number for the man claiming to be Maja’s father at the school,” he says. “We—both of us!—have people who can help us with that. This impostor is one of them. Has to be. You understand how close we are? The first twenty-fours hours are critical.”

  “You even talk like a cop.”

  “I am not a cop.”

  “A photographer?”

  He answers only with his eyes.

  “An agent?” Horrified.

  “We can finish this. We can close this.”

  “We? I don’t think so. You followed her, didn’t you?”

  “Who?”

  “Why bother asking? You’ll just lie to me anyway.” She revisits the wine bottle, sloshing more into her empty glass.

  “Sonia . . . listen to me—”

  “Shut up!” She fumbles with her phone and places it past the laptop face up. She plays a voice mail for him.

  It takes Knox a moment to recognize the hysterical voice as that of Maja’s mother. “What have you done? I told you not to follow her. I told you to leave us al—”

  “I called back. I recognized the caller ID and I called back.” She absorbs a long draught from the glass. “She never came home. Because . . . you followed her. Who the hell do you think—?”

  “No! I did not follow her!”

  “Just like you did not follow me?” The image on the laptop glares back at him.

  “A friend’s house. School again.”

  “No. Yasmina has checked everywhere. Gone. She has no idea where to start looking. She can’t contact the police, and she blames us.”

  “We’ll get Maja back. But we have no time for this.” He motions between them. His mind is cluttered with prepared dialogue as he rehearses what comes next. He can drop her into his world but fears the shock would push her even further away. He can abandon her, accepting that he used her as best he could. Rutherford Risk is already running the impostor-father’s phone number. It’s the best lead they’ve had. All things come to a useful conclusion, including the Sonia Pangarkars. He hates that Dulwich could have foreseen this.

  “You followed her and don’t have the balls to admit it.”

  In a moment of clarity, he sees through the alcohol, through her.

  “You blame yourself, not me,” he says.

  “To hell with you.”

  He can’t quite put his finger on it, but knows he’s scored a hit. “For writing the original story. For getting these girls into all this trouble.”

  “You’re an asshole.”

  “A photograph?” he says, thinking aloud now. “Captioning a photograph? That would be at the request of your editor.”

  “You little shit.”

  “You filed the story on Maja.”

  Her eyes burn into him.

  “You filed, and then Maja went missing.”

  “No connection. Coincidence.”

  He waits her out, both impatience and intolerance gnawing at him. He enjoys getting drunk as much as the next guy, but has little time for drunks. He’s never claimed to be fair. He eases the glass from her and sets it down.

  “I filed the story around four this afternoon. It cannot possibly be the cause.” She sounds resolved to the likelihood she’s the cause of it all.

  “You sent in one of my pictures without asking me?” It’s important to remain in character, but he’s losing John Steele to Knox’s temper. How much of this conversation will she even remember?

  She seems to have just noticed Knox. “The grandmother. The cigarette by the window.”

  “Which one? Which shot?”

  “What do you mean, which one?” she asks.

  “Are you insane?” It escapes before he can prevent it.

  “There’s nothing in that shot to give Maja away. It’s a silhouette.”

  “There’s everything to give Maja away,” he counters. “It took three tries to get the f-stop right to account for the depth of field. In the first two shots, the background was in focus—a store sign across the street.”

  Her skin tone turns a sickly yellow. He reaches for the trash bin, but it’s too late. She vomits
onto the floor. Knocks the laptop and phone into the bedding and slips off the berth, heaving a second time, this time on target.

  He catches her as she’s heading for the floor. “You didn’t know.”

  “Oh, God . . .”

  He moves her out to the head. The proprietor’s in the galley and tries to pretend he doesn’t see them, hasn’t heard them arguing.

  Knox helps her out of the stained top. Pulls the bottoms down and places the clothes into the sink as he turns on the water and steps out of the room. The showerhead is in one corner, a drain in the wood floor.

  Knox approaches the proprietor and asks for cleaning supplies, and after some discussion accepts the offer for the proprietor’s wife to clean the forward berth. When Sonia comes out wrapped in a towel, Knox directs her into his room. He’s collected her laptop and phone as well as his camera. Hasn’t left anything for his hostess to come across.

  A more sober Sonia sits on his berth, barely covered by the small towel. He offers her a T-shirt he’s been sleeping in. She declines.

  “She never came home. Can you imagine?” She whispers, but Knox does not like ears so close. He’s already planning to move them again.

  He puts a finger to his lips and they wait out the cleaning next door. It takes ten minutes. Feels longer.

  The proprietor knocks. John answers the door and thanks him.

  “Coffee,” he says. “No milk. One sugar.”

  Sonia looks out from a curtain of wet, stringy hair over the rising mist from a mug of coffee. The mug is from Starbucks in Oslo. As she tilts it, its bottom reads: MADE IN CHINA. “I’m sorry for what I said, John.”

  It hurts more than her accusations. “Listen—” The truth dances on the tip of his tongue.

  She samples the coffee. “This tastes horrible.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I have to see her. Yasmina.”

  “Never going to happen.”

  “We must get her back.”

  “Yes.”

  “You are distracted.”

  “Thinking,” Knox says. “A lot to think about.”

  Her hand is occupied with the hot coffee, so when the towel falls open she has only the one hand to try to deal with it. Knox comes to her aid, reaching for the mug, but Sonia reconsiders and opens the towel fully. Finally, she passes Knox the mug as she lies back on the berth.

  Knox locks the door.

  —

  LATER, AFTER SONIA HAS RETURNED to her cabin, Knox pulls out his phone—his version of smoking a cigarette.

  “It’s John,” he tells the man who answers. Daniel, he thinks. But Daniel may have been the nurse before this. “John Knox.”

  “Sure. Hello. How can I help you?”

  “Just wondering how Tommy’s doing?”

  “It’s a rough patch, Mr. Knox. It’ll pass.”

  “Physical, mental, or both?”

  “Let’s not limit him,” Daniel says. When Knox fails to respond, he says, “The new medication is causing insomnia. That’s triggering some of the old behavior. I have a call into his doc.”

  “Which doc?”

  “Foreman.”

  “Okay. Good. But he’s okay?” Tommy’s progress toward at least the guise of independence has been promising—even encouraging; any reversion to earlier behavior is a blow. The suggestion that Tommy hasn’t progressed, his meds have simply improved, leaves Knox desperate.

  “He’s okay.”

  He’s never loved Daniel—if that’s even his name—but Tommy likes him. Daniel treats Tommy as an adult, which is more than can be said for the nurse that came before him.

  “Can I call him?”

  “A visit wouldn’t hurt.”

  He remembers now why he doesn’t like the man.

  “Thanks for everything you’re doing.” Knox’s version of a white flag.

  “It’s my job, Mr. Knox.”

  Knox ends the call, tempted to smash the phone.

  Tommy’s number rings right to the edge of when the live answering service will pick up. Tommy struggles with mechanics. The live service is a godsend. But at last he picks up and Knox says hello.

  “Johnny?” Sometimes his brother can sound especially young.

  “Hey.”

  “How ya doing? You sound kinda out of breath.” Tommy finds this amusing.

  “Out for a walk,” Knox lies. He doesn’t like the sound of this already. Blames himself for so few visits.

  “Where?”

  Tommy knows better than to ask.

  “How about you? How goes?”

  “Darkest hour is just before the dawn.”

  “Is it dark or dawn?” Knox asks, cringing. He knows this pattern: random quotations, inability to find words of his own.

  Tommy takes the question literally, as always. “It’s just past three in the afternoon.”

  The time. That’s progress, though Knox can’t mention it.

  “And how’s business?”

  “Dollars to donuts. Bob’s your uncle.”

  “Tommy . . . Just hang on a second . . .”

  “Just desserts. Rack your brains.”

  “Stay with me here, Tom.”

  “Stand and deliver. Silence is golden, duct tape is silver.”

  Knox plays along. “Keep the ball rolling.”

  A sudden silence.

  “All’s well that ends well.” Knox checks the connection. As he does, a call comes in from Dulwich. Hanging up will crush Tommy.

  “Tom, I gotta run.”

  “Run amok. Run of the mill. Run out of steam.”

  “It’s nice hearing your voice.”

  “You, too. YouTube,” Tommy says.

  “We’ll talk soon.”

  “I miss you.”

  “And I, you.”

  “You said you were coming.”

  Knox silences Dulwich’s incoming call.

  “I’m working on it,” Knox says.

  “How much longer?”

  “I wish I could say. Don’t know. I’m being honest, Tommy. Treating you like an adult.”

  “I know.”

  “Your meds are off.”

  “You think I don’t know that?”

  “Daniel’s working on it. Hang in there.”

  “It’s noisy in here.”

  Knox isn’t sure what to do with that. In his head? In his apartment?

  “I’m here for a reason. For you, man. We both want the same thing for you—”

  “But it costs money.”

  “I know you don’t want to hear that.”

  “I want to see you.”

  Knox won’t lie. His voice catches.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can. That’s the truth, Tommy.”

  “Truth hurts. Truth or Consequences. You can’t handle the truth!”

  It hits Knox in the chest. Jack Nicholson. A favorite film scene of the brothers.

  “Gotta go.”

  Knox calls Sarge back.

  —

  THE EXTERIOR OF THE FIVE-STAR Sofitel Grand on Oudezijds Voorburgwal harks back to Europe’s glory days a century or more before. Inside, its Gothic-arched ceiling is painted ceramic white and supported by massive columns. Two seven-foot-tall metallic vases hold purple alliums reaching five feet higher, a contemporary dazzle where form meets function and where blue jean–clad millionaires mix with the business elite. Sitting before the glass-enclosed gas fireplace, in two of the modern overstuffed seats, Grace and Dulwich sip a Pimm’s and a lager as conversation blurs around them.

  Grace is connected to the lobby’s free Wi-Fi. Dulwich has one eye on the front door, the other on their escape route to the dining room.

  “Your upper lip,” she says.

  Dulwich pats the perspiration away. This is the third time they have lounged like this around the city in as many days, sometimes for hours at a time. Grace acknowledges her boss’s impatience; Dulwich comes out of fieldwork, he’s not wired for stakeouts, physical or virtual. He’s a leader of men, goo
d at running supply convoys from the safety of Kuwait into the killing fields of Iraq. He’s tough and durable, filled with titanium screws and pins and enough stitches to make a quilt. Apparently incapable of holding down a relationship, he is a single-minded workaholic. But sitting around in the lobby of a luxury hotel is anathema to him. The perfume, the piped-in classical music, the distant chiming of arriving elevators—everything here conspires against him.

  “They are in,” Grace says calmly. The moment they’ve been waiting for: Grace delivers it with all the aplomb of a telephone operator.

  The announcement nullifies Dulwich’s former sarcasm and disrespect for the process. Grace made the investigative procedure intentionally difficult. Too easy, and they would be suspected; too difficult, and the enemy would never connect the dots. It’s a cat-and-mouse game where, the mouse can leave nothing but a scent and a whisker or two to follow.

  Grace has been planting the crumbs to follow: the business card left with the real estate agent; listing an e-mail address; her persistence with Marta; the thumping she gave Marta’s runners. All pieces of a whole—a woman looking to set up a sweatshop of her own. Dulwich, the doubter, failed to believe anyone would figure it out. But Grace knew. She would have. Knox, as well. Those who establish a beachhead can smell the enemy coming.

  She’s the enemy, and she awaits notice. An e-mail address she has used has led back to a service provider; the service provider to an ISP; the ISP accessed via a router; the router tracked to the hotel whose lobby Grace and Dulwich now occupy. Bread crumbs. Grace’s firewall will require several attacks before submitting. This because it’s expected.

  The third time’s the charm. The hacker opens a port on Grace’s laptop. The hacker is so consumed with the attack he misses being outflanked. Grace has been expecting him.

  While her hacker is downloading her files, she is a spawning salmon swimming up the data stream. Bytes are flowing in both directions.

  “It is good,” she says, trying to dissuade Dulwich from his penchant for worry. “The connection is established. We’re in.”

  It’s a double-blind: the data the hacker is collecting is disinformation, positioning Grace as a direct competitor. Piggybacked onto the raid, she is downloading pertinent data. A digital battle has begun. For all she knows, the data she’s collecting is as bogus as the data she’s dishing out. Time will tell. Data is only as good as the analyst interpreting it.