I was tired of the walls around me, the false ones in the shapes of threats and violence. I wanted my son back. That was the only wall to conquer. I ran at the wall, did a saut de chat (jump of the cat). I went head first, my hands landed on the wall’s top surface. My legs powered past my arms as I flew from the wall. I landed fair and kept running.
I hadn’t had a clean run since the bombing, when my wife was taken from me before my eyes in a London street and I did a parkour run through a remodeled building, bomb-damaged scaffolding collapsing around me, running like I never had before to keep her in my sight, to not lose her.
But, of course, I did lose her, and in a worse way than if she had been kidnapped and killed.
I vaulted up a narrow staircase in the unfinished motel, bouncing off the walls, feeling the sweat explode from my skin. Burning off the too many drinks of the middle of the night, the worry about Daniel, the stress over whether I might be arrested or grabbed by August’s team to force me to tell them more about Mila and the Round Table.
I reached the roof and the desert early morning sun shone on me. Las Vegas, even at its edges, is never entirely hushed. I wished there were neighboring roofs. I used to run the council housing projects in London, and on a roof I felt like I had wings. I ran in a circle here, staying warm, building up my power, stopping only to study the balconies jutting off the side of the building, wondering if I could navigate the seven stories in a series of controlled jumps and drops from balcony to balcony. Who needs stairs?
Dropping from balcony to balcony might attract attention; the police are rarely parkour fans. I studied the line of movement it would take to do the balcony drops. Part of my mind said too risky, but another part wanted to feel like I’d pushed myself, like I was testing myself for the final stretch of confronting Anna Tremaine and getting my son back. I wanted to be sure I still had my nerve, my daring.
Drop, roll, vault, drop again, roll. I played the run in my head.
I dropped down to the first balcony and from the edge of my eye I saw the car on the facing road brake to a halt.
I should have checked first. I’d needed to be sure that I didn’t have a witness, someone who might call 9-1-1 on the crazy guy doing the balcony surfing. I stood up from the balcony.
The road near the unfinished motel was empty. Except for the one car, stopped at a light at a deserted intersection.
Okay, I thought, not me, it stopped for a light.
A green light. I could see the double glint of binoculars past the window.
I dropped back out of sight.
Waited. I heard the purr of the car’s engine moving. I glanced over the edge. I could see the driver below, a sleeve of purple jacket, a snug knit hat pulled tight over the head.
The car sped away.
Maybe he just stopped because he saw you jump. That’s it. Yes, that’s all.
But the run was ruined for me. I dropped down the rest of the balconies and ran back to my car.
Mila would be here this afternoon, and then Anna Tremaine. And, by tonight, I hoped, I would have my son back.
9
Amsterdam
The doorknob to Nic’s apartment turned under his hand. Unlocked. But Jack stood and knocked for the fourth time, his heart hammering in his chest. If Nic had a woman or a roommate still living here, that person was also likely connected to Novem Soles. But he had to know. And he couldn’t wait. The police were looking for him. The dead man had been discovered at the hospital. The papers carried a picture of both Jack’s face and one of the man he’d killed. The online news site had the most up-to-date information, and by noon Amsterdam time the police had released the man’s identity: a Czech immigrant named Davel, who had an arrest record a meter long, mostly as a rented enforcer for eastern Europeans who were muscling into illegal activities in the West.
A hired thug, sent to kill Jack, and he’d ruined Jack’s plan to slip out of sight.
Jack remembered Hollywood blockbusters about a man on the run. Being on the run could look like a bit of a lark. You could always outpace and outthink the pursuers. It was not fun. Jack was sick with the thought that even walking on the street he would be seen, noticed, made for the man on the front page of the paper.
He pushed the door open and called out: ‘Hello?’
No answer. The apartment was small and not tidy. Old newspapers sat stacked, unread, on a coffee table. He could smell spilled lager. A muted television played in the corner, offering news of the world, ignored.
He had the gun he’d taken from his assassin in his pocket.
He stepped down the hallway to where a door was half closed and inside the room lay an old woman. She slept, a vodka bottle clasped loosely in her hands. Her pose could have been a poster highlighting the blight of alcohol. He glanced at the labeclass="underline" very cheap vodka, the kind the university kids with no money drank, and the room smelled as though she didn’t invest much in soap, either. She looked like a female, fragmented version of Nic – strands of red in the graying hair, short, stocky, a fleshy mouth.
Nic lived with his mother, at his age? Jack couldn’t imagine. Of course, Jack’s mother didn’t want him around. He stepped out and made sure the rest of the apartment was empty. He guessed a back bedroom had been Nic’s. Large desks with a slight settling of dust, with clean spots where computers and monitors had likely sat.
Naturally the police had taken all of Nic’s gear. It was evidence – he was a hacker and a scumball and he’d been murdered. He searched the rest of the room. Nothing electronic remained. He saw no papers, no records. The room had been picked clean except for Nic’s computer books.
No sign of a notebook. He didn’t even know how big it was, which could affect where it was hidden.
He checked the room a final time, being extra careful, and then went back to the old woman’s bedroom. She was snoring now.
He sat on the edge of the bed and shook her awake. He thought she would scream in horror at a stranger in her room. Her eyes stared at him, muddled, then widened in fear. ‘Who… Get away from me.’
‘I won’t hurt you. I’m a friend of Nic’s.’
‘Friend of Nic’s.’ She spat at him, made her face a scowl.
‘I am. He gave me a job.’
She stared at him. ‘Get out of my house.’
He pointed to the healing wound on his neck. ‘The people who killed your son did that to me. I want to make them pay.’ He tried to smile. What did you say in a situation like this? ‘I am his friend, I promise you.’
‘His friends got him killed. And now the police, they say all these lies about my Nic. That he did terrible things.’
‘Mrs ten Boom, please, let me help you.’ He got up and jetted water into a clean glass and brought it to her. She drank it down and then she glanced at the vodka bottle. Uncertain, he poured a tiny bit into the glass. She took a tiny sip, as though embarrassed, and then looked at him with sullen eyes.
‘I’ll leave you alone,’ Jack said, ‘but I know of a way to get back at the people who hurt Nic.’ Like avenging Nic was his motive. Lying to a grieving mother. Gosh, he was so proud of himself these days. A slow throb of headache began to pulse in his temples. He looked at the vodka glass instead of her, which was fine as she was looking at the vodka as well.
‘How?’
‘Nic was researching the bad people who led him astray. He learned their secrets. I helped him a bit, but I don’t know where he would have hidden the information.’
‘He kept everything on computers. I don’t even know how to work one. I don’t like them.’ She flapped her hands, as if computers were gnats floating near her face. Her voice turned a bit petulant.
‘It’s a notebook. With printouts in it from the computer. Where would he keep it?’