Ghost Rendition Read online

  “Who are you looking for?” Ms. Persky asked.

  “I’m Devon Alexander’s father,” I said.

  “I thought you were the father,” she said to Rowan.

  “I’m definitely the father,” I assured her.

  I was beginning to think that I was really overpaying for this school.

  “I spend a lot of time with the boy, so I wanted to be here to do whatever I can,” Rowan said.

  Who says, “the boy” and what the hell was he talking about?

  “That’s my chair and Devon’s my kid. You can get up and leave,” I said and looked over to Ms. Persky to back me up.

  “At least he was on time,” Suzanne said.

  “He’s still thirteen years late to be Devon’s father and the job is filled.”

  “It’s okay, Suz, I’ll wait in the car. I don’t want to cause any problems. This is supposed to be about Dev,” Rowan said, finally vacating the chair.

  I wanted to hit him in the windpipe so badly my hands twitched. Suz? Dev? It was clear provocation. It didn’t help that the guy was taller than I was, wore more expensive clothes, and had those big brown eyes that are perfect for making fake trustworthy expressions. I had never hurt anyone who wasn’t part of a job, but I was seriously contemplating an exception.

  “Thanks, hon,” Suzanne said, and squeezed his hand.

  I felt like she was squeezing my stomach. I know Ms. Persky talked to us for a while, but I couldn’t take it in. I kept hearing Rowan saying, “Suz” and “Dev” like they were his family, not mine. Then I was outside the school and Suzanne was the one who was mad.

  “Why did you have to make a scene? Dean was just there to be supportive. He and Dev spend a lot of time together now.”

  “Dev? Who the fuck calls him Dev?” She hates when I curse.

  “At least he had a clue Devon was getting into trouble,” she said.

  “What kind of trouble? Devon’s a great kid.”

  “He’s not handing in his homework. He spends all his time locked in his room with his computer doing God knows what. He’s having problems.”

  “This tight-ass school is the problem. We should put him back in public school, and he’ll be fine,” I said.

  “We got him into this school because he was having problems. You can’t pretend they don’t exist.”

  “I’m not pretending anything. I’m just not freaking out because he likes to play computer games and he’s a little bit of a wiseass.” I knew as soon as I said it that I would regret it.

  “Oh, this is me freaking out. Freaking out that you get to drop in and be the good guy, and I’m the one who has to nag him about his homework. Freaking out that you spend one-tenth of the time with him that I do, but somehow you’re better qualified to know when there’s a problem. Freaking out that I try to make sure he’s healthy and safe and reasonably happy, and you get to toss it all in the garbage and give him Taco Bell and lie to my face about it. That’s me freaking out.”

  I could have pointed out that she was, in fact, freaking out, but I didn’t think that would help, and I had to admit that she probably had a point. Devon’s a quirky kid. He’s a lot like I was at that age, and I didn’t have an easy time of it. That’s how I ended up with Nachash. But that wasn’t what I wanted for Devon.

  Suzanne began to cry. I wanted to hug her and comfort her, to tell her that we would figure it out, that Devon would be fine. I moved toward her, and then Rowan had her in his arms. I was lost in my own thoughts and never heard him coming. In other circumstances that could get me killed. This felt worse.

  “I’m sorry,” I said and walked to my car.

  I hoped that Suzanne watched me go, but I couldn’t bear to look back. The Camry’s new window rattled at me the whole drive home.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I dressed in dark blue jeans, a black t-shirt, and white canvas sneakers I bought to blend in downtown. And I didn’t have any clean laundry, so buying fresh clothes was a bonus. I packed my surveillance gear into a backpack and drove into the City. I had wanted to do a little more background first, but I needed action. I cranked up the radio and tried to stay out of my head. I made good time and found a parking spot on the street. I get paid in unmarked cash. It’s not like I can expense parking fees.

  My rendition, Danny Pratt, lived on the top floor of a five-story walk-up, no doorman. It took me under five seconds to pick the lock on the front door and another five to get into his apartment. I scanned the living room and kitchenette before finding his router in his bedroom. I pulled a silver key chain out of my backpack. I squeezed it gently on the top and a plug popped out. I plugged it into one of the router’s LAN slots and squeezed again, which inserted a tiny chip into the router. It would let me monitor any computer that connected to it. The apartment had four electrical outlets. I replaced their covers with ones that included tiny webcams. The apartment was small enough that they wouldn’t leave dead spots. I was in and out and back on the street in fifteen minutes.

  Starbucks was next. The brief said Pratt stopped here every day after work. Either lax security was part of his cover, or he was overconfident. I bought a Grande Americano, found a seat in the back corner, and took out the New York Times. I planted a tiny webcam under the table. Its wide-angle lens took in most of the room.

  Ten minutes later, I left and set up two doors down at Peter’s Pub. I ordered a club soda, opened my newspaper, and slipped on my glasses. They had a transmitter that took in the feed from the webcam. All I had to do was look up and to the right to view it. It picked up audio too, but I didn’t bother to put in my earpiece. With all the ambient noise, I wouldn’t be able to get anything useful.

  Pratt strolled in a little after five, ordered some kind of too sweet latte and took a table by the window. I guess writing cryptography algorithms has good hours.

  I knew he was twenty-five, but he looked like he was barely shaving. He wore a starched white shirt with gold cuff links and a purple jacket. He had a bright green scarf wrapped around his neck and a green backpack slung over his shoulder. Green boot-cut jeans and purple high tops completed the outfit. It was like he was on the way to a costume party, but I couldn’t figure out who he was trying to be.

  I sipped my soda and watched Pratt bang away at a paper-thin laptop. As soon as he went home and connected to his router, I would get a look at what he was doing. Until then, it was a boring watch-and-wait.

  I was down to the end of my soda, and the bartender had started to give me dirty looks, when two short, squat guys wearing European cut black suits walked in. The Suits sat to Pratt’s right with their backs to the wall. Black suits weren’t all that rare in this neighborhood anymore, but these weren’t imports, they had been bought in Europe. The shoes had too. Middle Eastern agents love to shop in Italy. It’s an easy tell, but they can’t seem to stop. And these two looked like they were eyeballing my guy.

  I was trying to decide whether they posed a threat to the operation when another guy sauntered in dressed like I was except with a pair of Ray-Bans. The only reason I made him was that he practically did a sitcom double take at the Suits before he sat at a table on the opposite side of Pratt. The Suits saw it too, and they looked as confused as I was. The only one who was oblivious was Pratt.

  This was the second time in three days that I had unexpected company. It couldn’t be a coincidence, not after Shrink’s warning. I was not going to step into a shitstorm like this blind. I was going to go home and signal Shrink and demand some answers, or I was going to walk. I knew bailing on the job would end my career as a contractor, but it was better than ending my life. Then the shooting started.

  The Suits headed for Pratt’s table. Ray-Bans got up to intercept them, stopped and looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel trying to figure out what to do. The Suits ignored him. They were about to grab Pratt when Ray-Bans pulled out an SR1911 Commander and started firing. It’s a good accurate gun for close combat, but he didn’t hit anything but ceiling, like he
was trying to warn the Suits. They pulled out matching Desert Eagle .50 calibers, which are huge. They were designed by the Israeli military, and if they hit you, there isn’t much left. The Suits weren’t interested in warnings. They blew up Ray-Bans like he was a cheap piñata. The whole place went crazy. Everybody ran around bumping into each other trying to get out. Pratt calmly closed up his laptop, put it in his backpack, and got up to go with the Suits.

  I had my stuff stowed and was out the door before Ray-Bans hit the floor. I didn’t have my vest on. I usually don’t wear it for routine research surveillance. But I charged ahead anyway. I know that saving Pratt from a pair of Middle Eastern operatives to rendition him to another group of them didn’t make much sense. But he had the look of a little boy who found himself in a mess yet was sure he would get off with a warning. He reminded me of Devon. I knew Shrink had probably planted that idea, but I still couldn’t help it.

  The Suits waded through the swarming crowd with Pratt between them. They were headed for the back exit. If I tried to push my way in against the tide, I’d be right in their sights. I shot out the glass in the front window instead, leaped through, and got behind a table for cover. I could still see them through the webcam. The Suit on Pratt’s right turned and fired. The other one kept moving with Pratt. They were obviously well trained and had worked together for a while. The .50 caliber rounds splintered the table. I rolled to my right and pulled another table in front of me. The Suit looked over at his partner to see if he was out the door. Normally it would have been a safe move. I was behind the table, and he only glanced for a second. He didn’t know I could see him. I popped up and hit him square in the face. My 9-mm slugs weren’t as big as his .50 calibers, but this was one of those times when size didn’t matter. He was dead before he hit the floor.

  His partner didn’t look back. How many years had they worked together? How many times had they escaped situations like this? He pulled Pratt to his side to make sure I couldn’t get a clean shot and kept moving. I picked up the table and ran at him like I had with Nachash. The Suit stopped, pinned Pratt with one hand, and aimed with the other.

  “Danny, fall down,” I yelled.

  I didn’t know if Pratt would have the presence of mind to do it, but he let his legs go limp as if we’d practiced. The Suit’s shots went high, and I slammed the table into his face. He went limp too. I hit him across the temple with the butt of my Browning to make sure. Pratt got to his feet and followed me out like a puppy that was happy to be taken for a walk.

  I got him into my car and made for the West Side Highway, looking hard for anyone following. If my brain hadn’t been turning before, now it was cranking. A routine research surveillance had turned into a public shootout, complete with dead bodies and civilian witnesses. That was usually enough to get you retired even if it wasn’t your fault. The good news was that there weren’t any security cameras, and it was complete bedlam by the time I showed up which meant I wasn’t likely to be identified. The bad news was that I had grabbed my rendition over a week before the earliest possible drop-off date. That meant he was my problem until I could dump him.

  I sent Shrink the same code-red message that he had sent me, but this one was real. It went to a series of burners he carried and required an immediate response. I got nothing. I sent it again and still nothing. Shrink was my single point of contact. I didn’t know anyone else and no one else knew me.

  “Who were all those guys?” Pratt asked.

  I had almost forgotten he was there. “You need to be quiet and enjoy the fact that you’re not dead.”

  “Where are we going?’

  It was a good question. Shrink had safe houses set up in the South Bronx, but his lack of response could mean they were compromised.

  “Wrap your scarf around your face like a blindfold. Make sure you can’t see, or I’ll have to take your eyes out.” It was always a good motivator. People are sensitive about their eyes.

  “Slump down in your seat and don’t talk until I tell you to.”

  It took me forty-five minutes to get home in rush-hour traffic. I was violating the cardinal rule again, but it was all I could come up with. I tightened Pratt’s blindfold and sat him on the floor against the built-in workbench in my garage. It was left over from the prior resident. Suzanne had kept most of the tools we had bought, since she was the one who knew how to use them. I had picked up enough from her to build a decent hiding place for my work gear. I pulled Pratt’s hands behind his back and secured them to the leg of the workbench with plastic ties.

  “You don’t have to tie me up. I promise I won’t go anywhere,” Pratt said.

  “We don’t know each other that well.”

  “Can I at least have a drink? I like orange soda if you have any.”

  I found a bottle of Dr. Pepper Devon had left in my fridge. I filled a plastic cup and held it for him. Part of me was amused by the kid, and part of me wanted to shoot him.

  “Dr. Pepper is not as good as orange, but it’s an underrated beverage,” he said.

  I heard the phone ringing. “Don’t make too much noise and I’ll get you some more,” I said to Pratt and gagged him with a bandana.

  I let the answering machine pick up. “Hey Gib. You there? It’s Connor. You going to pick up the phone or what? You better be writing. Call me back, you Bozo.”

  Connor called everyone Bozo. He made a bunch of money with a line of books “For Morons.” They’re like the “For Dummies” series but dumbed down even further and full of crude jokes that Connor himself came up with. I’ve been one of his most successful writers. As it turns out there’s a large group of men who like books about violent topics and don’t mind being called morons. The books weren’t exactly Shakespeare, but the pay was decent and the hours were flexible. I used a pen name, only Connor knew that I wrote them, and he thought that I was just a nerdy weapons nut. My first book, Sniper Rifles for Morons was his top seller, and he was expecting big things from Stabbing Weapons for Morons. I was late on my next chapter, but he was going to have to wait.

  I put on my vest and got back in the car. Shrink didn’t live far from me. His real name was Robert Brooks Jr. I wasn’t supposed to know that, just like he wasn’t supposed to know anything about me, but that’s the business, you try to keep secrets, and you try to uncover them.

  He and his wife and two kids had a house across the county right on the water. It made me wonder how much guys like him got paid. He got to sit in his backyard and gaze out at the water while I was out getting shot at. Maybe it was time I asked for a raise.

  I saw the flames as soon as I rounded the corner of his block. The entire house was engulfed. I only got a glimpse of the damage as I drove by. I didn’t want to attract attention. I could see that someone very good with incendiaries had gone to work on his house. It didn’t look like there had been a big primary explosion, more like a bunch of smaller fires started in strategic locations. I heard the sirens of incoming fire engines in the distance. I thought about checking for survivors, but I could tell from my quick look that nothing was left.

  I tried to make sense of what I had seen as I made my way through the local roads back to the highway. I couldn’t believe someone had gotten to Rob. He once let slip that he knew my father named me after John Heysham Gibbons, a famous surgeon. My dad wasn’t subtle. He was an orthopedic surgeon, and he wanted me to be one. He thought Dr. Gibbons Alexander would be a distinguished name. The joke ended up on him. I’m not a doctor and everyone calls me Gib, which my dad hates. Rob told me that he understood how I felt. It drove him crazy that everyone in his family called him Junior. He said it made him more driven. He wanted to prove that he wasn’t junior to anyone. He thought that if my dad hadn’t named me Gibbons I might not have dropped out of med school. I told him it was because I didn’t have the hands to be a surgeon and everything else seemed like second place. He said that was exactly his point. He was a pain in the ass like that, but I had sort of considered him a friend. Maybe th
at was an illusion that he had fostered to control me. I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. I just hoped he was alive somehow. But if he had escaped, why hadn’t he answered my red code?

  I was almost at Nachash’s studio before I fully realized where I was going. I was closer to the attack this time. And they didn’t mess around with fire. This was high explosives detonated in the studio, enough to bring the whole thing down. There was still smoke rising from the ruins when I got there. I should have driven away, but I couldn’t leave knowing that there was any chance Nachash could be trapped in there. The odds were remote, but I had to know.

  I drove to the back parking lot and went for the stairs, but there was nothing left. I ran around to the front and picked my way through the rubble of the studio. I could see that the floor had collapsed down all the way into the basement. Anything or anyone down there was pulp. I always thought of Nachash as a cross between a superhero, a shaman, and a Jewish mother. He couldn’t die. He was a force of nature. I had an emergency number for him that I had never used. I called it and got no answer.

  I stood there, looking around like an amateur, as if I was going to spot the bad guys running away. The fact was, the bad guys had likely planted the bombs hours ago and used a timer or remote detonator. They had gone after Rob and Nachash in rapid succession. I ran for my car, dialed Suzanne, and tried to sound calm when she answered.

  “Is everything okay?” I said.