Hard Road (44 page)

“The first rule is that there are no rules.”

Meyerstein smiled. He liked her smile. “You might be interested to know that preliminary tests show that the two baubles recovered from Caan here in Washington contained the same virus as the batch used in New York City. Our scientists say that the contents of two vials were found in the baubles. The aerosol containers in New York were estimated to have contained the contents from one vial. But thankfully, unlike New York, there was no release here in Washington. There are no traces. And we've now accounted for all the bio-material stolen from the lab in Maryland.”

“What about the guys behind it?”

“What about them?”

“I assume you know who was responsible?”

Meyerstein steepled her fingers on her desk. “I can't say anymore.”

“Can't or won't?”

“Let's just say we're dealing with this in our own inimitable way.” She shrugged. “Is the inquisition over?”

“What do you know about the two people who visited the small hotel in Washington where I took Luntz? Are you at liberty to say who they were?”

“French contractors who were born in Algeria. We believed they killed our Special Agent at the St Regis, and then were ordered to the small hotel to kill you and Luntz. But they've disappeared off the planet. We're using diplomatic channels to try and find out where they are.”

Reznick felt his eyes getting heavier. He looked at Meyerstein and she looked washed out. “When was the last time you slept?”

“That bad, huh?”

Reznick gave a rueful smile.

“I can't remember the last time I slept.”

Reznick smiled. “What about Luntz?”

“What about him?”

“How is he?”

“He's doing well, thank you. I'm told an antidote and vaccine is being rushed into advanced trials in the next twenty-four hours.”

“Pass on my regards.”

“I'll say you were asking after him. But I think he'll need counselling for the next ten years after what happened to him.”

Reznick laughed.

Meyerstein shifted in her seat. “Do you mind me asking something?”

“Sure.”

“Why did you trust me down in Key West? I mean, I could've doublecrossed you, couldn't I? It would've been easy for me not to keep my side of the bargain.”

“Gut instinct. You have a face I can trust.”

Meyerstein blushed. “Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah. I've enjoyed working with you, Meyerstein.”

“My name's Martha. Do you think you'll remember that being so doped up and all?”

“Sure. Martha. I like that.”

Meyerstein ran a hand through her hair before she stifled a yawn. “It's been an experience, that's for sure.”

Reznick felt a burning twinge in his shoulder and winced at the pain.

“You OK?”

“It's nothing. Tell me, what about the guy down in Miami pulling the strings?”

Meyerstein shrugged. “What guy?”

“Brewling.”

“Ah, him. We believe he has been professionally disappeared.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, he is being protected by some of those behind this plot. But we'll find him. I personally think he was being played as well.”

Reznick said nothing.

“But we have had some progress. We have already intercepted and decrypted a conversation he had with the President of a Swiss bank where he holds five separate accounts, via an NSA operation. We believe it was made on-board from a private jet flying over the Mediterranean.”

“You mind if I hear it?”

Meyerstein arched her eyebrows. “And why may I ask would you want to know the sound of his voice? I can't allow any spill out from this, do you understand?”

Reznick nodded. “Just curious.”

She picked up a remote control and pressed a couple of buttons. The speakers on the huge TV came to life. Then the voice of Brewling. “Are all my assets liquid or will I have to wait to transfer them to the Caymans? I need this situation to be resolved right away.”

The glass of whisky and the morphine had dulled Reznick's brain. His exhausted mind was trying to process the voice. Something about it seemed vaguely familiar.

The voice spoke again. It was cold. Chilling. Mechanistic in its delivery.

The voice was familiar. Eerily familiar. Slowly it dawned on him.

“You OK?” Meyerstein said. “You look as if you've seen a ghost.”

Reznick forced a smile, eyes heavy. It was a ghost. The voice was of the man he knew only as Maddox. He had been played from the moment the call was made to his cell phone at his home in Maine. He felt waves of anger run over his body.

“You OK?”

“That voice, are you sure that's Brewling?”

“One hundred per cent.”

“Well, I'm not an expert in voice analysis, but that sounds a helluva lot like my handler. But I knew him as Maddox.”

Meyerstein leaned back in her seat, face impassive. “Maddox. Thanks for that. I'll pass that on. But we'll find him, don't worry.”

Reznick smiled and got up from his seat and reached over to shake Meyerstein's hand. She stood up and smiled as he gripped her soft hand tight.

“Nice working with you,” she said. Her hand felt warm. “Look, we can move you to a safe house, until this is resolved.”

“Don't worry about me. My only concern is Lauren and she is safe.”

“I understand. Before I forget, you wanna know the latest news on Lauren, as of fifteen minutes ago?”

“How is she?”

“She's now fully conscious and has made a remarkable recovery over the last twenty-four hours. Jon, they've done all the diagnostic tests, and they're satisfied your daughter is not damaged in any way.”

Reznick looked at Meyerstein who smiled back at him. “I owe you one.”

“You don't owe me anything.”

He let out a long sigh. “Look, I gotta go.”

“Where are you going at this hour?”

Reznick smiled. “I'm going to see my daughter.”

FORTY-TWO

The Feds offered to fly him down in the morning, but Reznick needed to be alone. He was provided with a black BMW X5 and he started the brutal one thousand mile journey through the night. It would be the best part of fifteen hours.

It would give him time to think. He wanted the open road.

Reznick stared out at the oncoming lights as he sped down the freeway and his thoughts ran free. His shadowy world had been visited upon his beloved daughter. His decision not to carry out the assassination had brought those consequences to his door. But although he'd have to live with that, it was his daughter who would ultimately pay the price.

Would she be visited by nightmares? Flashbacks? Perhaps she would.

The more he thought of it the more he seethed.

He thought of Maddox – the pseudonym for Brewling – and he was engulfed with hatred. He wanted to wipe him out. It was Brewling all along.

The car ate up the miles. On and on, deeper and deeper towards Pensacola. He drove I-66 west and crossed into Virginia, before heading down I-81 South through Tennessee. The wee small hours passed slowly, Alabama talk radio hosts banging on throughout the night about Obama and the Tea Party.

By the time the sun edged over the horizon as he drove through the Deep South, his shoulder was burning like hell. He stopped for a breakfast of pancakes, maple syrup and a couple of painkillers, washed down by two black coffees.

He felt better as he drove through southern Alabama. The sky turned blood red, the fields a reddish brown.

With daylight, the dark thoughts seemed to dissipate. The road was bringing him closer to his daughter.

Reznick thought of his daughter's future. College. Falling in love. Having a family. A career. The usual obsessions of Middle America. When he edged across the Florida state line, the flawless morning sky was cornflower blue.

Reznick pulled up at the security gates of the Naval Hospital in Pensacola just before 10am. He flashed a special pass the FBI had given him. The soldier checked his list and ushered him through.

He signed in at reception, before he was escorted to the ICU. A doctor was waiting for him just outside her room. He stepped forward and shook his hand. “Dr Todd Frith, I'm a neurologist here at the hospital. Can I have a few minutes before you see your daughter?”

Reznick's heart sank fearing the worst. He nodded and followed the doctor into a side room alone.

“Please, take a seat, Mr Reznick,” Dr Frith said, pulling up a couple of seats.

Reznick sat down, hunched forward, clasping his hands.

He let out a long sigh. “Your daughter has emerged unscathed from this coma. I've carried out a series of tests and a full neurological examination. MRI, CAT scans, everything, to test her functionality. She is perfect. I carried out more tests just over an hour ago, and she is well on the road to recovery. But she is now under sedation, as we feel she needs some proper sleep and rest. So, five minutes with her, if that's OK.”

Reznick smiled as relief flooded through his body. “Thank you.”

His mind flashed back to when Lauren was a child. Playing in the rock pools down on the beach in the cove with her mother, a few months before she died. The smell of the salty air and the biting chill of the wind, as they ran and played and fooled around, before enjoying a picnic. It was their private beach. Their own world. Enclosed. Safe.

His abiding good memories of Elisabeth were on the beach, smiling, not a care in the world.

The doctor asked, “Mr Reznick, are you OK? You look quite pale.”

“I'm fine. I'd like to see my daughter, if that's OK.”

“Of course.”

The doctor got up and shook Reznick's hand as his pager bleeped. “Excuse me, I've gotta go. Nice talking to you.”

Reznick stood outside Lauren's room for a few moments. He had doubted this day would ever come. He gathered his thoughts, composed himself before he gently pushed open the doors to her room. His daughter was no longer hooked up to the machines. No beeping.

He stood and looked across at his daughter. Her golden hair was tousled on the starched white pillow cloth. His thoughts were scrambled. Part guilt, part elation, part exhaustion. He sat down at her bedside and leaned over and stroked her silky hair. She was in a peaceful sleep, breathing calmly.

He touched her face and she stirred and slowly opened her eyes. A flicker of recognition and then a huge smile as she reached out to take his hand.

Reznick squeezed it tight. He thought his heart was being ripped out at the roots. He wiped the tears from her face and kissed her softly on the cheek. “You're safe now, honey.”

She looked up at him for what seemed like an eternity before she smiled. “I always knew you'd come and get me, Daddy.”

Then Reznick pulled her close and hugged her tight, neither one wanting to let go.

EPILOGUE

Six months later, Reznick was sitting alone on his deck – the house to himself – nursing his second bottle of beer on a balmy early summer evening in midcoast Maine. The last remnants of the sun had turned the ocean a burnt orange, the tops of the old oaks on fire. He felt at peace for the first time in months.

His daughter, Lauren, had moved to a new school in upstate New York. She emailed every day with boundless optimism, talking about walks with her friends in the rolling hills, upcoming school visits to Central Park, art galleries, museums and a whole bunch of wholesome stuff.

He was missing her, but the dark days of last winter had passed.

Reznick didn't venture far. He had hung around the Rockland area most of the time. He walked past the abandoned sardine packing plant his father used to work in. He tried to imagine how hard it must have been for his dad to do a job he loathed, memories of Vietnam burned into his mind. He took long walks on the beach, did the garden and took time to watch the flowers grow. He occasionally sat on the beach in the cove and thought of his wife and daughter, when she was just a baby all those years earlier, playing on the same sand, laughing and joking. He imagined what his life would have been like if his wife had survived. He wondered if they would have had more children. When he closed his eyes and listened to the water rush up the sand, he thought he heard their laughter and voices hanging in the breeze.

The rest of the time he tended the trees his father had planted. This was his home. The clapboard colonial his father had built with his own hands. The oak floors, the crafted shutters and beige and ocean blue walls.

When his phone rang, he saw an unfamiliar number on the caller display. He let it ring and ring. Eventually he picked up.

“Yeah?” he answered.

“Sorry to bother you, Jon.” It was the soft voice of Meyerstein.

Reznick sat up straight, rubbing his eyes. “Hi. Long time no hear.”

“Indeed. How are you, Jon?”

“I'm fine. What about you?”

She let out a long sigh. “Working. You know how it is.”

“Do you guys ever take a vacation?”

“Not as often as I'd like. Look, I'm just calling to check on how Lauren is. I believe she has now moved to a new school.”

“She has. And she is good. And for that, I'm truly grateful.”

“Look, Jon, I have some news.”

“What kind of news?”

“Jon, I think from this moment on, Lauren can sleep securely in her bed. It's all over. The job is done.”

“I'm sorry, how do you mean?”

“Turn on the TV. CNN.”