Choke Point gc&jk-2 Read online

  The Achilles’ heel of such systems is complacency. Working a computer terminal has become second nature. Employees are accustomed to the look and feel of the terminal—to switch out a keyboard might sound an alarm or win an inquiry. Conversely, they pay no attention whatsoever to the snarl of wires and blinking lights at the back of the machine, and Grace knows this. This is where she has been trained to attack. She will need thirty seconds.

  Phase one is simple enough: a prescription bottle with a small amount of lighter fluid and a cotton wick lit as it’s placed into a trash can. This goes off smoothly. Grace steps up to the counter, her purse open. Inside her head the clock is running.

  “Name, please?” the nurse asks.

  Grace explains she’s waiting for a friend who asked to meet her here.

  Poof. The trash can ignites: her cue.

  Grace, alarmed by the sight, knocks her purse across the counter, its contents spilling onto the desktop and the floor. The nurses rush the fire as a team. Grace comes around behind the counter and begins collecting her spilled items. On hands and knees, she scrambles under the desk’s ledge and, locating the body of the PC terminal, pulls the keyboard’s USB connector. In her hand is a thumb drive, a USB passthrough. One end of the device plugs into the terminal; the keyboard plugs into its opposite end. It’s a Wi-Fi memory stick tweaked to record and transmit each keystroke. She hears the discharge of a fire extinguisher.

  “May I help you?” comes a voice from above. “Excuse me, please!” Irritation.

  “My purse,” Grace says. “I apologize. The fire . . . I bumped my purse.” She motions to the Tampax on the desk and the lipstick, wallet and change on the floor beside her.

  “No problem. May I be of help?” A nurse, by nature, is more kind than suspicious. She’s alongside Grace collecting her personal effects.

  “The fire,” Grace says, “it rattled me.”

  “Did me the first time as well.”

  “The first time?”

  “Are you kidding? Some fool dumps a cigarette in there at least once a week.”

  Grace had not anticipated this. She fights off a smile.

  Back in her seat in the waiting room, her tethered iPhone creates its own Wi-Fi network and is connected to the USB passthrough. She checks the device’s log. The nurse hit the spacebar to clear the screen and then typed her ten-character alphanumeric password. Grace has what she needs. The USB can transmit up to sixty feet.

  It’s a waiting game now. Grace has an iPad sideways in her lap, her purse supporting and screening it from view. She can only take over the terminal when the nurse is away, which isn’t often. She builds macros to automate the process. The first time she has access, it takes her over a minute to menu through to records. The nurse returns.

  The second time, Grace has only to push a macro button to access the records, saving her the minute. She builds on her past accomplishments: records, sorted by first name, Berna. Now she’s studying the admittance form: last name, Ranatunga.

  Her country of residence jumps off the page: Belgium. Her language, French. A runaway, or a kidnap victim. There’s a note: indigent. A “citizenship” box checked: immigrant. It’s unclear if Berna walked in on her own or was dropped at the clinic. There’s no money trail to follow. She is required to have private insurance, but has none. The state takes over. Grace follows this in a series of checked boxes.

  The nurse arrives. Grace returns the screen to how the nurse had left it.

  Grace Googles “Ranatunga.” A common Sri Lankan family name. Berna is an Irish version of Brenda. Irish/Sri Lankan—that accounts for the young girl’s intriguing look. Irish/Sri Lankan living in Belgium. Chances are the parents can be found if they’re alive, if they didn’t sell their daughter into child slavery.

  Grace is desperate to find connective tissue to follow back to the knot shop. Some hint, some clue to where Berna was being kept. She has to wait for the nurse to leave her station again, and the wait is interminable. Ten minutes, fifteen, twenty. Finally, Grace macros through to Berna’s form. About to give up, she discovers two tiny paper-clip icons. She touches the screen.

  Photographs. Her age or her situation required them to document her condition upon admittance. Grace gets a look at Berna prior to the hospital gown that she escaped in. She’s wearing a pair of filthy blue jeans and an equally soiled blue-and-white-striped long-sleeved tee. Her hair is matted and filthy. Her eyes are sullen and her face malnourished. She appears exhausted. Grace saves the image and the next—Berna shot from behind—to the iPad.

  It’s the two dark stains below the girl’s knees that capture and hold Grace’s attention. The same height up the legs for both stains. Water. Berna had waded through water before arriving at the clinic.

  A woman’s voice. Grace looks up sharply to see the nurse has returned to her terminal. The woman sees an image of a young girl’s backside on her screen instead of the screen where she left off. She calls over a colleague to have a look.

  Grace’s finger hovers over the icon that will return the screen to the nurse’s last page view. She doesn’t dare trigger it until the nurse looks away . . .

  “Maghan!” the nurse calls out. Her eyes lift.

  Grace touches the screen, hoists the iPad and drops it into her purse. She leans her head back with her eyes closed.

  Maghan joins the nurse, who is clearly befuddled by the terminal’s miraculous return to her original page.

  Grace hears a discussion about how there was a picture of the girl—“the girl!”—just a moment prior. Berna is famous here since the publication of Sonia’s article.

  It’s everything Grace can do to keep her eyes closed. Five minutes later she approaches the counter and, in an irritated tone, tells the nurse that if Julia Schmidt checks in, please tell her that her friend has left.

  Muttering to herself, Grace leaves.

  —

  KNOX IS SUPPOSED to be going door to door showing Berna’s photograph as he agreed to do for Sonia Pangarkar. But Knox is not great at following orders; he’s better at following people, and so it’s Sonia he follows.

  She knows more than she is letting on. Reporters make their livings exploiting secrets. He has yet to determine where she lives, but she’s a creature of habit. She has chosen Melly’s Cookie Bar and Gourmet Coffee bakery several blocks west of Café van Daele on Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal. It’s a small space that offers only a few bar stools looking out at the street. She arrives promptly—predictably—at 9:30. He needs to talk to her about that.

  By ten A.M. she’s on a tram, Knox bicycling close behind. Each time he’s about to lose the tram it makes a stop, allowing him to ride at an even pace while still keeping up. She disembarks, walks four blocks west and rides another tram. Ten minutes later, she’s moving store to store showing Berna’s photograph as Knox is supposed to be doing. She’s depressingly predictable. He stays with her another ninety minutes and is about to give up when she checks her watch. It’s the first time she’s done that. Right or not, he grants this weight. Encouraged, he stays with her, having little better to do.

  At 11:30, she’s on the move again. He can see it in the urgency of her strides and her passing up storefronts she might have gone inside only an hour earlier. A second check of her watch less than ten minutes after the first confirms it for him: she has an appointment.

  It might be a hair appointment, or a lawyer, or a deadline filing, but her body language says differently. Excitement and anticipation show in her every step, in her eagerness to cross streets. She is charged, and he along with her.

  At 11:45 she enters Plaats Riche, a restaurant undeserving of its name by the look of its pub exterior. Looks more bratwurst and Guinness than duck pâté and foie gras. The size of the place prevents him from following her inside. There’s no question in his mind that she’s meeting someone. If Sonia has arrived first, then Knox stands a chance of identifying her company. If she is late, then he’ll have to hope for after the meal as she departs.
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  He wins a break five minutes later, when a fairly tall woman arrives at the door. She wears a head scarf and carries a shoulder bag. She pauses at the window, cupping the glass to see inside.

  Grace didn’t give him much of a description, but Knox is not shy about jumping to conclusions. He likes pieces to fit. Doesn’t expect them to, but isn’t one to fight it when they do. A tall woman wearing a scarf was seen in the market. A tall woman Tasered Grace’s attacker.

  Knox shoots a long-distance photo from waist high, as if reading e-mails, having no idea if the resolution will be good enough to see the woman’s face. He considers some way of getting inside Plaats Riche for a salad. It’s a small enough place to eavesdrop on any table.

  He messages the photo to Grace.

  look familiar?

  She texts back:

  where are you?

  But it’s Dulwich Knox texts next, asking how far he is from Knox’s current location. The answer comes back:

  15 mins

  Knox considers all that he’s missing inside the restaurant. He texts:

  leave G and meet me. hurry. you just got hungry

  —

  “WASTE OF TIME,” DULWICH SAYS, “except they make a damn good burger. Did it ever occur to you that both ‘frankfurter’ and ‘burger’ sound German? We’re in the land of plenty over here.”

  “Nothing?”

  They are walking on the canal side of a street, a block behind the woman in the scarf, who is alone. Dulwich’s limp is causing them to lose ground; Knox will have to ditch him soon and both men know it.

  “They talked so quietly I’m not sure they could hear each other half the time.”

  “That’s something,” Knox says.

  “That’s bullshit. Coulda been pillow talk, coulda been nukes. Who knows?”

  “But they knew each other?”

  “Couldn’t tell,” Dulwich answers. “I would say no. Too many uncomfortable pauses between them. Leaning back, studying the other person. Nice rack on the tall one, by the way.”

  “Focus,” Knox says. For once, they’ve reversed roles. “Ethnicity?”

  “Indian? Pakistani?”

  “Working for Sonia?”

  “You two on a first name basis, huh?”

  “Maybe we are.”

  “They do not know each other. Not well, if at all.”

  “Was Sonia conducting an interview?”

  “Maybe. Could be. She definitely took notes. But the way it looked, that wouldn’t be my first guess.”

  “The tall one was spying on Grace. Rescues her at just the right moment. Meets with Sonia the next day for lunch.”

  “So maybe they do know each other,” Dulwich concedes.

  “Or maybe she’s freelance. Someone Sonia hired, someone a friend recommended. Poses the question how she knew about Grace, how she knew where to find her.”

  “Grace has been making some noise,” Dulwich says. He burps loudly. “Meal so nice you enjoy it twice.” Dulwich laughs at his own joke. Knox does not.

  Dulwich limps straight ahead at the next intersection where the crossroad spans a canal to the left. Knox crosses the bridge, moving away from the woman, picking up his pace to catch up and stay even with her while across the canal. Natural barriers create mental barriers; she won’t be looking for anyone over where he is. Knox quickly overtakes Dulwich, but has to run hard as the woman in the scarf turns right, away from the water, away from downtown. Knox has guessed wrong. He crosses back at the next bridge and staircases his way through the neighborhood’s blocks trying to intercept her, but he has lost her.

  He finds himself in a regimented, neatly planned residential zone of tree-lined narrow streets with endless four-story brick buildings, some with retail at street level. It’s a massive housing project done with class. Block after block. Kilometer after kilometer. A dizzying place where it’s easy to get lost because of the architectural similarity. An easy place to stand out. Small shops and banks are all he sees. No supermarkets or car dealers or theaters. No hotels or shopping malls.

  No people.

  The place appears inhabited by only cars and bicycles. The machines have taken over. It’s a back lot for a science fiction film. It’s the Blade Runner no one ever saw coming. It’s suburbia.

  He spots a tall woman at a distance; she’s wearing the same color head scarf as the woman who’d dined with Sonia. She’s walking away from him. He follows, careful to stay so far behind that he’s still not sure he has the right woman. But anyone who can surprise Grace Chu in a crowd has his respect, is a formidable mark. He’s not going to push it. Holds back several blocks trusting his good fortune; he found her once, he can find her again. He’s a dog on a scent, a spy behind enemy lines—he lives for this shit. He can see, hear, smell and taste everything, everywhere: the couple coming out of the building a block behind him; the truck about to turn onto his street; the taste of winter in the air. Realizes why he loves this work, why import/export is a waste of his talents. It’s like the ghost of Dulwich whispering over his shoulder. He thinks about Tommy. Feels the weight of the burden, regrets both their situations, is angry at his parents for dying on him. He’s something of a mess when, a few dozen blocks later, he sees an oasis rise out of all the brick.

  Frederik Hendrikplantsoen—Frederik Hendrik Park—rises as a forest to his right and across the wide boulevard before him. He has instinctively closed in on her, following now by a block, and on the opposite sidewalk as she slows nearly imperceptibly. They’ve arrived at her destination; she has telegraphed this unintentionally but clearly.

  It gives him the chance to get the jump on her. He doesn’t doubt his instinct. Advantage is a gift given in glimpses. With no time to consider pros or cons, Knox has only to choose a side of the boulevard that divides the park. He can be wrong and he’s still okay; if he goes right and she goes left, a park is a place where a person takes her time; he’ll have a second chance.

  He crosses the street and enters the park’s manicured lawns and gardens. He loses sight of the woman immediately. The smell of car exhaust is traded for loamy earth and sap. This is the part of his import travel he misses: the jungles, deserts and beaches. He walks a route that bisects the green ahead. Sensing more such space, he navigates to the right and reaches and crosses an asphalt path, moving deeper into the grounds. Parks himself on a bench with a view of the next path, realizing it leads back to the street. A man occupies a bench twenty yards up the same path. A woman runner approaches, then passes him.

  Knox waits with his ankles crossed on outstretched legs, his shoulders back—a man at rest. In the periphery of his eyesight he sees the woman in the scarf coming up the path toward him. He sighs and closes his eyes. When he opens them again, she’s nearly upon him. Then passing him. For all his apparent calm, his chest is tight behind a heart twice its normal size. The man to his left comes off the bench, a cell phone pressed to his ear.

  Knox has to judge the coincidence of the timing. It feels like a baton pass, the runner in front gaining speed to match the runner approaching. He doesn’t stare, doesn’t study. Closes his eyes again. Another deep breath.

  He’s grabbed from behind. Two of them, both going for an arm. Knox rocks forward slamming both men into the back of the bench. The grip holding his left arm lessens; he breaks free, swings a fist into the throat of the man on his right.

  He sees the uniform too late to pull the punch. Slugs the patrolman off him and into a choking, coughing slurry. Throws his hands up, but again too late. Takes a club strike to the side of his head that sends him into a purple fog. Manages to keep his arms overhead as he spins to face them from the other side of the bench.

  “Okay! Okay!” Knox says in English.

  The one patrolman has recovered. The other is ready to punish him again, the club held high, but his red-faced partner waves him off.

  “You will come with us,” the patrolman croaks out. He spits into the grass and stares at his phlegm, looking for blood.
r />   They’re standing too close together. Another few feet apart and it would make things much more difficult. Knox can take them out. Debates doing just that. But what are they doing here in the first place, and why the rough treatment? Why the surprise? They aren’t after an indigent, they’re after Knox in particular.

  Knox jerks his head to the right: no one there. But he’s thinking: the guy on the bench; the cell phone; the arrival of two uniforms.

  His mark has a meeting with the police. Knox is unwanted. They can’t hold him; they have no real charges against him. Though that won’t stop them if they want to. Advantage is a gift given in impulses. He lets this one pass.

  He interweaves his fingers atop his head. “Okay, okay,” he says again.

  —

  THE INTERVIEW ROOM OWNS a predictable blandness. Vanilla cream walls, a no-smoking poster burned by a match on the lower corner, a single table, two chairs, one bolted to the floor. A compact fluorescent bulb fails to provide enough reading light, like a hotel bedside lamp. The sergeant adjusts a pair of supermarket reading glasses to read Knox’s exploding passport. It has gotten wet too many times, dried in the sun, stuffed into tight pockets. He has promised himself to renew it, not because of its condition but because there is barely space enough left on any page for a new stamp, a quality that catches the eye of customs officers. They study his passport like it’s a piece of archaeology. The sergeant does the same, flipping pages, adjusting the orientation in order to read a date or location. He looks over the top of his glasses at Knox. Suspicious? Impressed? Jealous? It’s hard to tell.

  “You will please tell me what you were doing in Hendrikplantsoen,” the sergeant says.

  “I told the constables—the two who abducted me.”

  “Detained.”

  “I also told them I will speak with Chief Inspector Joshua Brower. No one else.”

  “You are hardly in a position to make such demands.”