The Last Minute (2 page)

But now.

‘We could not find a complete enough history for Mrs Derwatt before she came over from Romania.’

Mila was from Moldova, but the languages are identical. She turned to me and said in Moldovan, ‘We will have to kill them.’

I forced a smile. ‘She doesn’t understand what you mean,’ I said to Mr Bell in English.

‘You said you met Mrs Derwatt through an online dating service that matches Western men with eastern European brides.’

‘Yes. What does this matter? We’ve brought the money. We want a child.’

‘She’s Romanian, why not adopt there?’ Mr Bell said. ‘You could just go to eastern Europe and buy yourself a kid like you
bought yourself a wife.’ Nice sneer at the end.

Somewhere, we’d left a hole in our story. Or, conversely, this was a test. I put on my outraged face. ‘We don’t care where
the child comes from. I told you, I cannot use normal channels.’

‘As many of our clients can’t, Mr Derwatt. So you understand why we must be so cautious. Our potential parents are … dangerous
people.’

‘My business is my business. I’ve provided you with what you need to know about me. Anything more could be compromising.’

‘For me or for you?’ Mr Bell asked.

‘Darling, let’s gather up our money,’ I said to Mila. ‘We’re leaving.’ I continued to play the outrage card.

‘Don’t touch the money, Mrs Derwatt,’ Bell said.

‘We had a deal.’ I pointed at the laptop on the table. ‘Pay a deposit, pick a baby from the list, pick him up and pay the
rest.’

‘We can decline to do business with anyone who makes us uncomfortable.’

‘What is problem?’ Mila said. ‘Maybe you make misunderstanding, and this is easy to fix.’ She tried a bright smile with him.

‘You claim to be Lilia Rozan, from Bucharest, immigrated here three years ago.’

‘No claim. Am.’

‘That particular Lilia Rozan is currently in a cancer ward in New Jersey.’

Misstep. We’d used a bad identity. Mr Bell stood a little straighter. He was nervous but he had the muscle here. ‘So, Mr Derwatt,
we want to know who you and the lovely missus are.’

‘We’re wanted by the police,’ I said. ‘We had to lie.’

Mr Bell smiled. ‘Details, please.’ The two men were on each side of him. They didn’t have their guns out but they thought
they didn’t need to; we were unarmed.

I looked at Mila. ‘Look, our money’s good as anyone else’s. Please.’

The bald man moved behind Mila. She clasped a hand over her wristwatch.

‘We want to know who you are. Right now. Or he starts in on your wife.’

Mila turned, hands clasped together as if in prayer. ‘Oh no, please, don’t hurt me. We just want a baby. Please. That’s all
we want.’

He shoved her into the wall. She kept her footing but tears sprang to her eyes. ‘Oh, please.’

I stayed very still. The bald man glanced back at me, frowning with disgust that I would let him manhandle my woman, and in
that second Mila pulled the watch from its band. Connecting them was a thin steel wire. She leapt onto his back and looped
the garrote over his neck, the watch and the band serving as handles so that she didn’t slice her fingers off. His yell became
a gurgle in an instant.

I hammered a fist into Mr Bell’s chest and he went heaving into the air and landed on my money. The redhead started to draw
but he couldn’t decide, for one crucial second, whether to shoot me or save his buddy, now purpling under Mila’s wire. As
he swung the silencer-capped Beretta 92FS back toward me – hello, self-preservation – I launched into him. I levered the gun
down as he fired and he hit his own foot. He howled and I slammed a fist into his solar plexus and then into his throat. He
staggered back and we fought for control of the gun. He was bigger than me. I wrenched the gun, pushing it back toward his
chest. His eyes widened as he realized the barrel was going to slip under his chin. It did and I squeezed his hand and his
own finger pulled the trigger. A spray of blood and flesh fountained as it carved a path into his face. He looked surprised
before the bullet distorted his flesh.

I freed the gun from his fingers and whirled, aiming at Mila’s opponent. But that guy was already gone. She’s not big but
still a hundred pounds, hanging onto a wire; a throat can’t survive the trauma. The bald man lay in a sprawl at her feet;
she hovered over Mr Bell, panting.

‘You all right?’ I asked her. She nodded. I felt a tickle of bile at the back of my throat and I swallowed it down.

‘You killed them,’ Mr Bell said, gasping. People say the most obvious things when they’re in a daze.

‘They sell people,’ I said. ‘They’re worse than I’ll ever be.’

‘Who are you?’

I didn’t answer. I’m just a man who wants his stolen child back. My son I’ve never seen, except on this video, being carried
by a woman who sells human beings for profit. My child. I was much closer to finding my kid than I’d ever been. And I thought
of the times I rested my hand on my wife’s pregnant swell, feeling the bubble of movement beneath the skin, knowing it was
a baby but not knowing it was going to be Daniel, this unique and special person who I’d never gotten to see with my own eyes,
hold with my own arms.

I’m coming, I told him, my breath like a prayer on the air.

Mr Bell swallowed; his mouth quivered as he looked at the dead men. ‘Okay, you can have a baby. Whichever one you want.’

‘I want one born on January 10th at a private clinic in Strasbourg called Les Saintes. His birth name on the certificate was
Julien Daniel Besson but his real name is Daniel Capra. This woman took him from the clinic. All we’ve been able to find out
is that she travels on a Belgian passport under the name of Anna Tremaine. Now, I asked around, and I found out that you work
with Anna Tremaine.’

He gave a half-nod. He was scared to death, blinking at the bodies of the muscles.

‘Where is my son?’ I asked, very quietly.

‘I didn’t handle that placement. Anna would know. Oh, God, please don’t hurt me.’

‘Don’t lie to us.’ Mila held up the watch-garrote, slicked with blood.

‘I’m not lying. I’m not.’

I squatted by him, put the silencer – still warm – against his modishly unshaven cheek. ‘Did Anna know you were suspicious
of me?’

‘Um, no. We initially reject every adopter – we claim they aren’t suitable, that there’s a hole in their story. Our clients
are normally so desperate, they will do almost anything not to be rejected. Usually we can pressure them into “qualifying”
by sharing information that is valuable – you know, insider info on a company, or they can render services to us that can
be useful later.’

Extortion and blackmail, as if illegal adoption wasn’t enough. What charming people.

‘So you meet us. We pass your test. Then what?’

‘I call Anna. We set up a meeting. You give her the rest of the money. Then she makes a phone call and the child is brought
to you.’

‘Has my son been sold?’

‘I told you, I don’t know. Please. Please!’

‘Watch him,’ I said to Mila. I opened the laptop. On the screen was a catalog in PDF format. Pictures of babies. Countries
of origin. Description of parents, if known – but no names. The spring catalog featured over two dozen children. Beautiful
kids on the auction block. I scanned it quickly. None were listed as being born in France and I didn’t see what the point
of lying in the catalog would be.

‘You’re going to call Anna Tremaine, and you’re going to set up a meeting.’

Mr Bell’s lip trembled.

‘Where is she based?’

‘Her cell phone has a Las Vegas area code. But that’s not where she necessarily meets people,’ he added in a little rushed
lie.

‘Las Vegas will be just fine.’ I decided I’d make it extra easy for Anna Tremaine. ‘You tell her that Mr and Mrs Derwatt have
checked out and that we’ll be in Vegas tomorrow night to collect our child and pay the money.’

‘You have to pick one, then.’

‘What?’

‘A child. You have to pick a child.’

‘This one.’ I just pointed to the infant whose picture was on the current page of the digital catalog.

‘Okay.’ His breathing slowed. ‘I’ll do it, please don’t kill me.’

‘Call her. Now. And if you say a single syllable that I don’t like, I
will
kill you.’ And I slipped Mila’s garrote around his throat.
The bloodied wire lay against his shirt and I tightened it enough so that the steel lay against his soft throat. I gave him
an address in Las Vegas to suggest as a meeting place. He nodded.

He dialed. He waited. I leaned close enough to hear.

‘Yes?’

‘Anna. It’s Bell. The couple today, the Derwatts, they checked out okay. They’ve made their selection.’

‘Which one?’

‘Number fourteen.’

I could hear the barest scratch of pen and ink. ‘All right.’

‘They don’t want to meet in New York. I think they would be willing to come to Las Vegas.’

A pause. ‘All right.’

‘Do you know a place called The Canyon Bar, just off the Strip?’

‘Oh, wonderful,’ she said. ‘Hipster parents.’

‘They suggested meeting there. Tomorrow evening at nine.’

I thought she might suggest her own choice. But any public spot could be put under surveillance. Our locale was as good as
any other. ‘That’s fine,’ she said.

‘All right, I’ll tell them.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome.’ The conversation felt off. Tense. But he hadn’t said anything I could pinpoint as a signal to her.

‘The wife and kids all right?’

‘Yes, Anna, thanks for asking.’ He swallowed against the wire. ‘Brent starts flag football this weekend. Jared’s joined swim
team.’

‘Oh, that’s nice. All right, I’ll see the Derwatts tomorrow. How will I know them?’

‘She’s very petite, dark-haired. He’s about six foot, wiry, dark blond hair, green eyes. Nice looking couple.’

‘Tell them to get a table, preferably in the back. Order me a martini, three olives, and leave it at the table with a seat
for me. I don’t like the look of anything in the bar, I skip the meeting, and no baby.’

‘I’ll tell them.’

‘Very well,’ Anna said. ‘Bye.’

He hung up the phone and dropped it to the floor. Shivering under the wire, waiting for me to kill him.

Mila knelt to meet his gaze. ‘You’re not going to die. You’re going to talk. You’re going to tell me everything you know about
Novem Soles.’

‘Who?’

‘Novem Soles, also called Nine Suns.’

‘What? I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I mean the criminal ring that Anna works for.’

‘I only know Anna. She’s self-employed.’

I pushed up the sleeves on his shirt. There was no marking tattoo, a fiery nine transformed into a blazing sun. Novem Soles’s
mark of ownership; I’d seen it on too many arms back in Amsterdam. I checked the arms of the two muscles. One had a tattoo,
but it was the Chinese symbol for luck. Hadn’t worked.

‘She’s not working for herself,’ I said. ‘She works for an incredibly dangerous group of people. They were plotting a mass
assassination a month ago. You screw them over, you die.’

Mr Bell’s lip trembled. He was trying to find his bravery but failing.

‘You see them?’ Mila pointed at the bodies.

He nodded.

‘You’re not going to be like them unless you make trouble. You’re going to be locked up in a room and wait until we’ve
taken care of Anna. And you tell my people all you know about Anna Tremaine and her operation,’ Mila said. ‘Everything. And
then you’re going to go back and live with your family and you’re going to stay the hell out of illegal activities.’

He nodded.

‘Call your wife. Tell her you need to go out of town for a few days. Then call your office.’

He nodded, eager, hopeful he would live.

When he was done, he handed her back the phone. She took a pair of handcuffs off one of the dead men and cuffed Bell. I almost
saw him shiver in relief. If she was cuffing him, she wasn’t killing him.

I had the information I needed, finally. I was going to find my son.

It was a breaking of the rules, punishable by death. His project; his failure. His only shield was that he controlled access
to many secrets that made their work and their profits possible. He smoothed out the thin strip of blond hair that bisected
his scalp, a low-cut mohawk, and tugged at the jacket of his Armani suit. He stood on the porch of the large house and waited
for the other eight to arrive in the darkening evening.

Rain slashed the beach, wind whipped the waves. Thunder thrummed the sky and the world appeared to have been smeared with
gray paint. Alongside the sodden beach ran an equally
sodden road, with a sign marking that it had been closed for repairs. Over the course of two hours, eight cars came down the
rain-smeared asphalt and went around the wind-buffeted sign without the slightest hesitation. Each of the Lincoln Navigators,
with its windows tinted against prying eyes, had been hired out from a local company that usually specialized in transporting
film actors and rock stars around the island.

The passengers in each car, in this case, were not famous, and each liked their anonymity.

The house nestled in a private cove. The drivers helped their passengers inside. Each had packed light and carried a single
bag. The drivers – all former military, now security for hire, from a variety of English-speaking nations – then took up stations
around the house, to ensure that no one approached via boat, or car, or plane. Shortly after the last passenger arrived, the
sky began to break, the clouds parting as if a curtain was rising on a stage, the early evening stars as witnesses.

The house smelled of Italian cooking: a heady mix of oregano, garlic, simmering beef and red wine. The host for this gathering
of the Nine Suns, or Novem Soles as it was also known, had spent part of his wandering childhood in Rome. He loved food, and
his nanny had taught him how to cook. So for dinner there was salad, grilled fish, hearty pastas, and fine wines imported
from Tuscany and Piedmont.