The King of Fear: A Garrett Reilly Thriller (33 page)

M
IDTOWN
M
ANHATTAN
, J
UNE
25, 11:32 A.M.

G
arrett told no one that he had received a phone call from Ilya Markov. He walked off the roof without another word to Wells or Chaudry, found Mitty and Patmore downstairs in the lobby, and said he was going back to his apartment to catch up on some sleep. He asked, as an aside, if either of them had seen Alexis in the lobby or on the street, but both said they hadn’t.

“Did you try calling her?” Mitty asked.

Garrett shrugged. “No. I will.”

“Maybe she booked a hotel room,” Patmore said. “Gonna catch some shut-eye like you.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

Mitty grabbed Garrett by the arm and whispered, “Is it true a dude jumped from the—”

“It’s true.” Garrett cut her off, brushed her hand from his arm, and walked out of the lobby.

Over the phone, Markov had told Garrett to go into the Au Bon Pain bakery on the corner of Forty-Seventh and Madison and reach under the table closest to the back bathroom. A brand-new cell phone was taped to the bottom of the table, an iPhone 6. Garrett slipped it in his pocket, then gave his two burner cell phones to the busboy, as Ilya had instructed. The busboy took them without saying a word, and Garrett watched him toss them into a garbage can behind the cash register. Garrett’s new phone rang half a minute after he walked out of Au Bon Pain.

“Walk to Forty-Second and Lex.” Ilya’s side of the conversation had little ambient noise. “Take the five train south to the Bowling Green station. Walk to Battery Park and I’ll call you again.”

“Listen, I need to know—”

“Your phone has GPS tracking turned on. If you turn it off, she dies.” Markov hung up.

Garrett tried to come up with an alternate plan, but couldn’t think of one. The streets of the city were still tense: pedestrians were scarce, and pairs of police men and women stood on most corners. Garrett walked to Lexington and Forty-Second Street. He thought about approaching a cop, then decided against it. On the train, sitting by himself in the last car, he let his mind run through the possibilities. Clearly, Markov had found a way to abduct Alexis, but how? She was an army officer, well trained, and on the lookout for suspicious activity. She, more than anyone else, would have been alert to a stranger coming at her. And she knew what Markov looked like.

Yet he had gotten her. Undoubtedly, Garrett decided, Markov did it with another trick, an illusion or a come-on; that was his play, over and over again.

Garrett got off at the Bowling Green station and walked into Battery Park. The air was hot and damp. His gray T-shirt clung to his body. Only a handful of people strolled through the park; tourists had abandoned the city. New York was a ghost town.

His phone rang and he answered quickly.

“Sit on the bench on the near side of the Castle Clinton Monument. Don’t talk to anyone, don’t make a phone call. You are being watched. If you do any of those things, she dies.”

“I want to talk to Alexis.”

“No.” Markov hung up.

Garrett cursed the air. He could see the monument in the distance, a one-story sandstone fortress. Garrett sat on a wooden bench. He let out a long breath and waited, staring straight ahead, not using his phone or looking anyone in the eye. The summer sun beat down on him. His head had begun to ache again, and he cursed himself for throwing away all his meds. He sat for half an hour, then stood up to stretch his legs, figuring that was safe, then sat again for another thirty minutes. Why was this taking so long? He sat for another hour, his skin baking in the sun, and then his phone rang. He answered immediately.

“Walk to the ferry building, get on the three-thirty ferry to Staten Island. You’ll be called when you arrive. Talk to no one. If you do, she dies. You are being watched.” Markov hung up without another word.

Garrett walked into the ferry building. Was he really going to do this? Shouldn’t he try to find a way to call Chaudry? He suspected he should, but he also felt, instinctively, that whatever he was traveling toward was some part of the answer to this entire mystery, and that he needed to travel to it alone. The FBI and the American financial system were only a part of the answer, not the totality of it. And anyway, if he notified the police or the FBI, he calculated a pretty high probability that Alexis would end up dead.

Garrett boarded the waiting ferry and sat inside, by a window on the middle deck, then turned his body away from the window so he could see the other passengers. There weren’t many: a few commuters, some families, people coming back to the island with shopping bags. No one seemed to be paying Garrett much attention. Who was watching him? Nothing was out of the ordinary in the patterns of people moving about the deck, talking on their cell phones, eating snacks, and looking out the window.

Garrett tried to keep his mind blank and open, so that he would be receptive to whatever was coming, but a steady drumbeat of anxiety was just at the periphery of his thinking. Was Alexis okay? Was she even with Markov? This was all certainly a setup, but why?

The ferry took less than half an hour to cross the bay, and Garrett disembarked into the St. George Ferry Terminal. His phone rang and he answered quickly.

“Go to the Staten Island Railway station. Don’t get on the train until I call you.”

The line was dead before Garrett had a chance to speak. He was hungry now and realized that he hadn’t eaten since the morning. Staten Island seemed like another planet, overgrown and unkempt, slightly run-down and in need of a makeover. The streets were empty of pedestrians. The Staten Island Railway station was easy to find, located right outside the ferry terminal. He swiped his MetroCard and stood on the platform. One train left, then another, and another. Passengers got on and off, and Garrett just stood there, waiting. He watched everyone carefully, but no one seemed to be watching him.

His phone rang. “Get on this train. You’ll be getting off at the Oakwood Heights station.”

Garrett got on the last car. As he waited for the train to leave, he watched the other riders as they made their way to seats. The pattern seemed much the same as on the ferry: commuters, families, shoppers. But now, Garrett felt a pulse of something else around him, a slight variation in the norm. He wasn’t sure what it was. Someone Markov had sent to watch him? That would make sense. When the doors closed, Garrett settled in to wait out the ride.

He watched out the window as Staten Island rushed past the train—a parade of two-story brick buildings, storefronts, and wooden houses. At first, he could see the water on the left-hand side of the train, but then the tracks cut inland, and all Garrett saw were neighborhoods stuffed with small homes and yards cluttered with toys and lawn furniture. The conductor called out for Oakwood Heights, and Garrett got off the train. On the platform, there was only a mother pushing a stroller. He waited until she cleared the station, and then his phone rang.

“Walk east on Guyon Street. Keep walking until you hit a dead end.” Markov hung up immediately.

Garrett walked out of the station and surveyed the neighborhood. The sun was setting in the west. The city was growing dark, and Garrett suddenly understood that all his waiting around was simply Markov wanting the cover of darkness for whatever was about to transpire. That realization did not comfort Garrett; it scared him.

There was a liquor store across the street, lit up in white neon, and Garrett desperately wanted to stop inside and buy some food—and a beer to wash it down—but thought better of it.

He walked past block after block of small houses with economy cars and minivans parked in their driveways. He didn’t like Staten Island, not because it was so awful, but because it reminded him of Long Beach, California, where he had grown up. Both places were working-class suburbs of fabulous culture capitals. Garrett guessed that the people who lived on Staten Island made the city run, but that they never got paid what they deserved for it. Janitors, bookkeepers, teachers, cops, firemen. Garrett could see this in the living rooms and kitchens that he passed, rooms filled with threadbare couches and framed prints of museum art on the wall.

After ten minutes he came to a street with a
DEAD END
sign. A few houses lined the street, interspersed with a stretch of vacant lots that he could just make out in the darkness. His phone rang.

“Turn left, and then take the first right. Keep walking.” Markov hung up.

Garrett took a look back down the street he had just walked. It was empty, with no movement, but something was telling him that he was not alone. The sky was black. Did Markov have people all through the neighborhood? Or was this another sleight of hand?

He turned left on a street whose name he couldn’t see, then right on a street called Kissam. Vacant lots lined the road. Beyond the vacant lots were stands of marsh grass, reaching over his head, eight feet tall at least. In the distance, Garrett could hear waves breaking, and the howl of the wind off the bay, and it suddenly occurred to him that he was in a neighborhood that had been devastated by Hurricane Sandy—the vacant lots, the destroyed homes, the suburban landscape being reclaimed by nature.

But why had Markov chosen this spot? In the chess game that the two of them were playing, the only advantage this spot seemed to give Markov was that it was isolated. But, Garrett thought to himself, that was a sizable advantage, especially if you were aiming to kill someone.

He walked deeper into the darkness, past more and more marsh grass, until the little light that had shown him the way at the beginning of Kissam Avenue was all but extinguished. He felt as if he were in the thick of the wilderness, even though he knew he was mere minutes from homes, sidewalks, and a train station. A jolt of terror ran down his back, making his legs tremble uncontrollably. He stopped walking, to try to shake the fear out of his nervous system, and then a voice, soft and low, broke the silence behind him.

“Hello, Garrett.”

O
AKWOOD
B
EACH
, S
TATEN
I
SLAND
, J
UNE
25, 8:15 P.M.

E
ven though Garrett was alone and unarmed, the moment Alexis saw him her heart leapt. A man was pointing a gun at them, they were in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees and marsh, and help seemed a thousand miles away, but still, the sight of Garrett Reilly gave Alexis hope. And hope had been hard to come by lately.

Her head still ached from where she’d been pistol-whipped. She was tired and hungry, the muscles in her arms and shoulders cramping because her hands were still bound behind her back. She was desperately thirsty as well, partly from the heat, but also from the fear. No one had spoken to her for hours—neither the girl nor Markov—although every once in a while she’d heard Markov answer his phone and whisper something to whoever was on the other end of the line. His voice was cold and flat and gave Alexis chills.

Then Garrett showed up. She had so much to explain to him: how she’d had a moment of inattention, and how sorry she was for that, and how happy she was to see him. But not now. Later. Now she had to help him get them out of this situation.

Markov pointed a gun at Garrett’s chest. “No trouble finding the place?” He sounded amused.

Alexis could see Garrett in the faint light. He shrugged his shoulders, eyes squinting, running over the features of Markov’s face, then flashing to Alexis. She guessed that he could not see her in the darkness.

“There was no one watching me, was there?” Garrett asked. “You used GPS only.”

“We’ll leave that a mystery,” Markov said.

“What do you want?”

“You haven’t guessed yet?” Alexis thought she detected genuine surprise in Markov’s voice. But then again, he was a master of deceit. Nothing in him was genuine.

“You want me,” Garrett said.

Alexis could just barely make out Markov’s head bobbing up and down. “Exactly.”

Alexis didn’t understand. What were they talking about?

“You want a partner.”

“Don’t sell us short. More than a partner. A team. A family.”

Alexis could see Garrett squinting in the darkness, dawning knowledge washing over his face.

“And why would I agree to be a team with you?”

“Because of what we share. Backgrounds. Goals. Because there are very few people like us in this world, who have traveled similar paths. And when you find someone who is like you, then you reach out to them. You join with them.”

Garrett appeared to think about this for a moment, then shook his head. “I find people like me to be—I don’t know—really fucking annoying.”

Markov laughed under his breath.

“Anyway, what do I have to gain from siding with you?” Garrett said. “I’ve got a good gig where I am now.”

“That’s a lie and we both know it. You’re not happy. With your job, you don’t have relationships, you lock yourself in your apartment and take a laundry list of pharmaceuticals. I think you are angry at the world, at the injustice of it, angry at how you’ve been treated. How your family was treated. Losing your brother. All those powerful people, all those governments and police—all collaborating to keep you down.”

“Nobody’s keeping me down. I do fine.”

“Robert Andrew Wells made a hundred million dollars last year. He has an apartment the size of your entire building. He flies around the world in a corporate jet, goes to Davos, shows up on television. Does he deserve his life? What about the people out here, living in these homes? Little shacks that get washed away by the sea? Do they deserve what they have? Is that right? Is that justice?”

“Are we really going to have this discussion? About fairness? Here? Now?”

“Humor me.”

“It’s capitalism,” Garrett said. “You work hard, you get paid.”

Alexis struggled to read Garrett’s face. He didn’t sound entirely sincere. But then again, he had a gun pointed at him. The wind picked up again, whistling over the marsh grass, rattling the stalks.

“Capitalism? That’s your rationale? That explains everything? Do you think they could shoot Robert Andrew Wells’s brother in some godforsaken shithole like Afghanistan and then lie about it? And get away with it? Would the government do that to his family? Do you think Wells would let that happen? Is that capitalism?”

There was silence between the four of them.

“There’s corruption everywhere,” Garrett said. Alexis thought he sounded sad. As if what Markov was saying had struck Garrett in some meaningful way. Her mind raced. That couldn’t be, could it? Was Garrett Reilly so unhappy, so alienated, that the rank blathering of a criminal con man would move him?

Markov stepped closer to Garrett. “Agreed. The world is unfair. And no one will make it fairer except people like you and me.
No one.
We have the means. We have the skills. We can take down the rich, the powerful, force governments and armies to confess what they have done. We can damage them, embarrass them, humiliate their leaders. Change the way they treat their citizens. That’s not some pipe dream, Garrett. It’s a reachable goal. A real battle to join. You don’t just have to lash out irrationally at anyone who looks at you wrong. Get into senseless fights, self-destruct. You can focus that rage. Focus your anger and get something done. Wouldn’t that feel good? To know that you were doing something meaningful with your life?”

“I do plenty with my life,” Garrett said, but Alexis heard no conviction in his words.

Markov let out a low laugh. “I’ve done my job—I’ve shocked the system. I could have done more, but you stopped me, and that’s the way the game is played. Fair enough. But just think for a second, Garrett, if you and I had been on the same team. We could have brought Vanderbilt Frink to its knees. And then we could have destroyed, one by one, the entire banking system. We could have raided their accounts, started bank runs, shut down the trading markets. The two of us, working together, could have watched the entire island of Man
hattan burn itself to a cinder. That would have been a sight. Don’t tell me you don’t have destruction in your soul.”

“So we destroy everything. Then what? I don’t want to live in that world.”

“When the time is right, we rebuild. A system that we help create, that we have a stake in.” Markov’s words drifted off into the night.

“You think you’re a revolutionary,” Garrett said. “That’s what this is about?”

“
Revolutionary
is an old-fashioned term. I am a catalyst for change. The status quo would crumble eventually, whether I was there or not. That’s the nature of capitalism, as you put it. I just make things happen faster.” Markov waved his gun in the air. “I’m not alone, Garrett. Snowden was just the beginning. WikiLeaks? Anonymous? A drop in the bucket. There are many more, ready to join us. All over the planet.”

“Then why do you need me?”

“You know the answer. But I’ll say it out loud if you are feeling the need to hear it spoken.” Again, Markov moved closer to Garrett, ten feet away at most. “Because very few people can do what you do. Can see beneath the noise, through the chaos, and pick out the patterns. And then manipulate the chaos to suit your needs. You change the data flow so that it works for you, not against you. That is a special talent.”

Alexis watched as Garrett didn’t respond. He seemed to be looking down now, as if Markov’s compliments had made him uneasy.

“You are good. But not perfect. You have your flaws, problematic moments. You make mistakes,” Markov said. “I could help you with those. Share secrets, make you stronger. Lend you a helping hand when you are down. That would be useful, wouldn’t it? Someone to turn to in dark times, someone who understands your frustration. Your anger . . .” Garrett kept his head down as Markov continued. “We can live anywhere. Here, Russia, a beach house in Thailand, an apartment in Caracas. I have them all. We move around, we make deals with like-minded governments, and then we betray them when it suits our purposes. We are invisible, untraceable—ghosts.”

“That doesn’t sound like much of a life.” Garrett’s words were halfway between a question and a statement of fact.

“Do you think the authorities will let you have real power? Do you think they trust you? Garrett Reilly from Long Beach, California? Son of a janitor and a Mexican immigrant?”

Markov fell silent and Alexis could hear a train in the distance and the honk of a car horn.

“Don’t fool yourself.” Markov’s words had a sudden rush of intensity, as if he were spitting them out in a rage. “There is a wall between you and them, and that wall will never be broken down, no matter how badly you want it. The people who hold real power—Wells and his helicopter, Levinson and his billions—have no interest in giving you—or me, or anyone like us—true agency in this world. You are their pawn, and in your heart you know it.”

Markov fell silent, and Alexis had to admit that even she was spellbound by his diatribe. Listening to his words she thought, He’s not wrong
.
Not entirely. Alexis had always felt that nagging seed of class doubt in the back of her mind. She came from a long line of American patriots, but they were middle class and always had been. No Truffant had ever achieved real wealth or held true power, and she knew it. She suspected her father had known it as well, a secret limitation buried in his life expectations. He never gave voice to that doubt, but he had been an army staff sergeant until the end of his days. But what if he had given voice to it? What if he had fought against the unfairness? Would she have turned out a different person?

“The Russians won’t let you play with their money forever,” Garrett said.

“We’ve been siphoning off Vanderbilt Frink trading accounts for the last two months. Dollar by dollar. They have no idea,” Markov said with apparent glee. “We’ve actually got quite a bit of money. And more every minute. And I have the next job already lined up. Six months of election fraud for the Myanmar ruling party. Easy money. Nice beaches.”

Markov stepped away from Garrett again, then held his pistol out so everyone could see it. He aimed at Garrett. “So now, a decision. Tell me whether you want to join with me.”

“That’s it? I just tell you I want in and we’re good?”

“No,” Markov answered, and Alexis’s heart shuddered. That one word had a coldness, a bottomlessness, that made her afraid to her core. She thought, for a moment, of pushing away from the young woman who was holding her, of sprinting into the marsh grass and trying to lose them in the night. She started to move, but the young woman gripped her hard, jamming the gun into her side.

“Don’t,” the woman hissed, barely audible. “Don’t even fucking try.”

“What then?” Garrett asked.

Markov nodded in the darkness, and Alexis could see the silhouette of his head tilt in her direction. “She needs to go. And you need to make it happen.”

“I’m not going to kill her,” Garrett said.

“Of course not. We will.”

Alexis caught her breath and closed her eyes.

“But you have to give the order,” Markov said.