As I was dozing off, my mind drifted with the thought of semiconductors and a new internet, both technologies and concepts with which I was only vaguely familiar. I couldn’t understand the alarm bell ringing in my mind as I fell asleep from exhaustion.

  18

  THE PLANE CIRCLED ABOVE the Hudson River fifty miles north of New York City and landed smoothly. Evelyn’s Sharpstone security team drove a black Lincoln SUV to the dropped stairway. Behind the SUV was a gunmetal-gray four-door Dodge Charger Hellcat chase car.

  The man riding shotgun in the Lincoln stepped out and opened my door. He was easily six and a half feet tall. Shaved head, bulky neck, steel eyes, locked-on gaze, black-on-black shirt, pants, and outer tactical vest. A French F1 FAMAS was slung from a snap hook connected to his vest.

  “I’m Maximillian. Most of my men won’t be speaking to you. We are Sharpstone. I’m in charge.” When he opened the door for me, his sleeve slipped up his forearm, revealing a small black rhombus tattoo inside his right wrist.

  “Roger that,” I replied, and slid into the back seat with my backpack.

  As we wound our way around Storm King Mountain and past the gates of West Point, I recalled my days of drinking beer, playing baseball, and laughing with my friends. Today, I was alone in the back of a bulletproof SUV with six people securing me between the two vehicles. I didn’t do a lot of musing about where I would be in thirty years when I was an eighteen-year-old cadet, but if I had, my current situation would not have been on the list.

  We slowed to a crawl approaching the George Washington Memorial Bridge with the usual traffic snarl I remembered from the few times I visited the city as a cadet. The driver followed the cloverleaf, inching along until we were climbing the upper level of the bridge. A police car was in the distance, forcing four lanes to three and then to two. A typical day on the GW Bridge.

  “Don’t like it,” the man to my left said into his earbud.

  “Wasn’t here on the way out,” the driver said.

  “Chase, deploy the drone,” Maximillian said from the shotgun seat.

  On the headrests were small display monitors where a real-time video feedback loop of the GW Bridge panned by. There was a single line of traffic squeezing out of the slowdown at the checkpoint. There was no accident that the chase car drone had imaged, yet. As it was making a westward pass, the feed showed flashing lights at the entrance to the bridge. When the operator zoomed the camera, it was obvious that these were not authorized police vehicles. They were basic sedans and SUVs with light racks on the top.

  They were Phalanx squads, some of whom had dismounted and were running at us from both directions in traffic. Dressed in black uniforms with black outer tactical vests and Special Operations helmets, each member carried a long gun and was jogging at us from a hundred meters away east and west.

  “Plan B,” Maximillian said.

  Within seconds, my door was open, and two Sharpstone security team members were ushering me toward the railing while another two were moving with weapons trained in each direction. They formed a protective diamond around me, two focused on getting me to safety and the other two deterring threats in both directions.

  Lead pinged off the metal trusses, followed quickly by the muted report of silenced weapons firing at high rates of speed. My Sharpstone bodyguard bearhugged me as he wrapped a nylon rope around me and tied it off with a square knot. He hooked a carabiner into the knot and snapped it into his Swiss climbing seat built into his outer tactical vest.

  “Hang on,” he said.

  He pulled me over the railing from two hundred feet above the Hudson River as if we were scuba divers going off the back of a dive boat in the ocean. We tumbled in the air, and he threw a parachute square-up like a base jumper. While I had conducted hundreds of freefall and static line parachute jumps, this was the very first tandem I had ever done. With double the body weight, the parachute marginally slowed our descent into the river.

  As we hit the water, the puck, puck, puck of bullets burrowing into the murky Hudson surrounded us. We splashed, submerged, and then resurfaced beneath the bridge. The Sharpstone operator had turned the parachute to the north and managed to get us under the bridge where, within seconds, a Zodiac boat appeared.

  The two security men in the rubber boat were holding long guns and scanning upward. The operator of the motor spun the bow toward us and tossed a line over, which I grabbed. He pulled us into the raft, and we sped north and east on the opposite side of the bridge from the Phalanx squads. Sirens blared and helicopters began screaming north along the Hudson, but by then we were making our way past the little red lighthouse at the base of the eastern portion of the bridge.

  “I’m hit,” my Sharpstone protector said. “Get to this address as fast as you can.”

  He handed me a piece of paper and I leaped onto the rocks, managed to climb over the mossy boulders, jogged past the lighthouse onto an asphalt greenway, and continued south. The wind was whipping, and the windchill was below freezing. My second dip in a frigid river in less than a week.

  I jogged along the path for a couple of miles, only seeing a few hard-core workout fanatics doing a lunchtime cycle or run into the teeth of Canadian winds hawking down the Hudson. Thankfully, the wind was behind me, pushing me along, and the heat my body generated from running prevented hypothermia. On my right were the West Harlem Piers and I came upon an underpass on St. Clair Place, where I slid beneath the Hudson Parkway and exited the river trail and the biting winds. The path led me onto Broadway, which I followed as it sliced on a southeasterly path through Manhattan Island.

  The city had the usual traffic and sounds. It smelled of grime and garbage. Full bags of trash lined the storefronts. Once I hit a street in the eighties, I cut east toward Central Park, huddled low in my soaking wet clothes. My outer Gore-Tex jacket had dried marginally, and my body was still producing heat. I cut right at Central Park West and crossed into Central Park where I wound my way into the wooded area, following a trail. The entire park seemed sparsely populated. Wisps of snow were built up in assorted areas, remnants of an incomplete thaw. The trail ended at a sundial-looking circular piece of artwork in the path. The word Imagine was in the center memorializing John Lennon’s assassination as he returned to the Dakota apartment building at Seventy-second Street and Central Park West.

  Two homeless men were huddled in sleeping bags on the green benches on either side of the path. Given the freezing weather, there were no tourists loitering around the landmark. It was late afternoon, and the sun was already blocked by the twin-spired Dakota, my ultimate destination, to the west. I moved to the low stone wall that separated the park from the road, which had moderate traffic. For an hour, I studied patterns of life, moving from one observation location to the next, mostly to avoid detection but also to get moving. The wet cold was settling in, and I needed to get warm.

  Kneeling between two leafless dogwood trees next to a Canadian fir that still held its protective cover, I stood as the SUV that had been carrying me and the Dodge Charger chase car turned left off of Seventy-second Street into an alley behind the Dakota, next to the archway where Lennon had been gunned down in 1980.

  I hustled across the street and followed the path of the Sharpstone cars where I saw them carrying two of their teammates into a side door. Two men were standing guard in the darkened alley. One raised his rifle at me, studied me for a long moment, and then beckoned me forward with the turn of his chin. I jogged past him and into the flow of the team members loading their wounded onto a service elevator. I joined them as the doors snapped shut and it rocketed to the top floor.

  The Sharpstone team members were stoic, speechless, as they had been for nearly the entire time. I imagined that they were worried about their wounded teammates and potentially about failure of their mission, particularly if that mission was to get me safely here.

  “Bon travail,” one finally said. It was Maximillian, the big guy in the shotgun seat of the Lincoln SUV.

  Good job.

  The elevator opened to a foyer with two doors. A Sharpstone member held open the door on the left and said, “Blesse.”

  Wounded.

  As I moved with the flow, one of the Sharpstone operators nudged me into the door on the right, as the injured were hustled into the adjacent condo.

  “Vêtements chauds,” he said to me.

  Warm clothes.

  He allowed me to enter and then closed the door behind me. I was alone in a penthouse condominium that had floor-to-ceiling windows with towering three-hundred-sixty-degree views of Central Park, the Hudson River, Midtown Manhattan, and Harlem farther north. The furnishings were modern with low sofas in white or silver colors in the sunken den, which opened to a terrace that overlooked Central Park. The kitchen was large and seemed equipped with every modern appliance. Walking through the hallway toward the bedrooms, I glanced at the modern art decorating the walls. There was nothing I recognized, but it was tastefully done and smacked of Evelyn’s class. Off the main aisle were two guest bedrooms with full baths and made beds that would make a West Point tactical officer proud. The master bedroom in the rear was at least a thousand square feet including a large bathroom with two showers and a jet tub. Tucked behind the bedroom was an office that replicated Evelyn’s workspace in her Bordeaux mansion.

  As I walked in, the screen came to life, perhaps motion induced, perhaps a coincidence. Either way, Evelyn’s face appeared on the screen. She was in her office in Bordeaux looking harried.

  “Garrett, you had me worried to death. My men told me about what happened,” she said.

  “All in a day’s work. It’s obvious my uncle wants me dead or maybe even alive, which, come to think of the effort he’s putting into this, might be worse than dead,” I said.

  “You’re in my Manhattan crash pad. Shower and change. I had the team stock clothes for you in the closet on the right,” she said. “Then let’s chat. I want to go over a target folder I’ve built for you, and I have some more headway on the Phalanx Code.”

  “Some crash pad,” I said.

  I entered the large walk-in closet, and there was a section of men’s clothing still in the hanging bags from Nordstrom. There were Zegna and Canali suits, spread-collar Nordstrom brand white and blue dress shirts, jeans, pullovers, hoodies, loafers, dress shoes, running shoes, work boots, and the expected assortment of T-shirts, underwear, socks, and ties. I spent ten minutes stripping off my wet clothes and showered for fifteen minutes with the pressurized rainfall showerhead blasting the grime off me. I looked at Coop’s dog tag on my chest as I pulled on a hoodie sweatshirt and black jeans with running shoes. I had to admit that the shower felt good, and I was more intrigued about Coop’s secret life. A French lover. Another child. An entire business, perhaps?

  When I entered the office, I found a woman dressed in chef’s clothing removing a steel dome from a plate that contained a ribeye steak, baked potato, and broccoli. A giant bottle of San Pellegrino sparkling water was sweating on the tray next to the plate. The large screen to my front jumped to life as Evelyn reappeared from her Bordeaux home office.

  “Have a seat and eat something, Garrett,” Evelyn said.

  “Fattening me up for the kill? Last meal?” I asked.

  “I told you, if you go to war with me, you will win,” she replied. “Now eat while I show you two things, and then we’ll talk about the Phalanx Code. First, Blanc is on his balcony less than a mile from you right now.”

  I nodded, picked up the knife and fork, and began to eat.

  The eighty-inch monitor to my front went to a split screen with Evelyn on the right and a satellite or drone shot of Blanc on the left. Blanc was standing on the penthouse terrace of his condo in what appeared to be a heated argument with three men and a woman, all wearing tactical gear. There were no long guns in the picture, but they were all wearing holsters with pistols. They were young in appearance and physically fit, wearing layers of dark clothing to keep them warm from the biting February winds as the sun hung low in the southwest.

  “That’s Cyrilla, his security commander,” I said. “And her main squad.”

  “How do you know this? I’ve never met his US-based team,” Evelyn asked.

  “Misha showed me the video of their reaction to my escape,” I replied.

  She paused, thinking. A doubtful look with furrowed brows followed, as if she didn’t understand something, but she remained silent.

  “Any audio?” I said between bites, keeping the conversation going.

  “Unfortunately, no. Our presumption is that these are the commandos that were in charge of killing or capturing you. They of course failed … so far … and my lip-reading algorithm is picking up snippets. He keeps moving around so it’s hard to capture full sentences.”

  The left side of the screen split into two halves with Blanc and his four commanders on the top and a closed captioning system printing out on the bottom.

  … no fail mission … want him … can’t let this happen … dead or alive … only thing I care about … Drewson after Sinclair … find him … stop him.

  Blanc turned in anger and the software presumably couldn’t read the lips if the video couldn’t see them. He turned back into view and pointed at his commanders and said:… twenty-four hours … no fail mission … find him … everybody …

  Then he stormed from the rooftop and into the glassed sunroom, where he paced back and forth between a long bar and a set of high-top tables with bar stools. He walked behind the bar and poured himself a drink and sat down at a large piano, which was perhaps a Steinway that matched the decor. The amber liquor in the glass sat on an end table as he plucked at the keys, picked up some rhythm, swayed his body with the flow of whatever song he was playing, and sang soundlessly to us. He started bouncing his shoulders as the beat picked up and he grimaced.

  The lip-reading software, however, began interpreting:

  But I grew up quick and I grew up mean … My fist got hard and my wits got keener.

  “Do you know this song, Garrett?” Evelyn asked.

  “Sure. It’s Johnny Cash’s ‘A Boy Named Sue,’” I said. “About a son who hates his father but ultimately grows to respect him in an odd way.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “Wouldn’t it be ‘A Girl Named Sue’?”

  “The ballad talks about Cash’s dad leaving his mother and him but naming him Sue before he did so. A boy named Sue would be bullied and so on, so the song’s narrative is that he set out to find his father and kill him for giving him a girl’s name. When he finds him, they fight, and as Cash has a gun ready to kill his father, the father says, essentially, that Cash should thank him for naming him Sue because it made him tough and prepared him to deal with a tough world.”

  “Does he kill the father?”

  “Not in the song,” I replied. “They hug and make up, but I wouldn’t read too much into that. Maybe he just likes Johnny Cash songs.”

  “He’s playing another,” she said.

  Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack … he went out for a ride, and he never came back …

  “This one?” she asked.

  “Bruce Springsteen. Same theme. Dad leaves the kid. ‘Hungry Heart’ is the song, but Springsteen sings it in the first person,” I said. While I was answering her question, the thought going through my mind was that this was Blanc’s way of processing the pain he felt from Coop’s absence in his life.

  “So, Aurelius changed it to third person?” she asked.

  “It appears so if the software is doing its job,” I said.

  Blanc finished the song and tossed the drink into the sink. He stared at his commanders, who were still standing on the rooftop talking, shook his head, and then walked back into the condo.

  “You said you had a target folder?”

  “Yes. I’ve shared it to the computer for you to study on your own time. It’s got the blueprint of the building he lives in and the one next to it. There’s an interesting set of scaffolding on the neighboring building that goes to one level below Aurelius’ level. The gap is only about ten feet between the scaffolding and the ledge onto Blanc’s balcony where he just was. There is security there, however,” Evelyn said.

  “My read on the conversation, if taken on face value, is that Blanc is ordering all hands on deck to find me. They have to know I’m in the city, perhaps even less than a mile away in your crash pad.”

  “Perhaps, but my Sharpstone men are good. All former Legionnaires. I hope you’ve seen that by now.”

  “They’re good,” I said. “What is Blanc’s routine with respect to the balcony?”

  “Every morning he has his coffee in the sunroom, which it appears has ballistic windows, and every evening he watches the sun set, provided there is one.”

  “Even if it’s freezing outside?”

  “That’s the pattern we’ve seen. Our satellite has been over him for some time now,” Evelyn said.

  “The president’s speech,” I said. “Why is the FBI not raiding his place right now?”

  She chuckled. “Remember, he’s an official French diplomat and has all the protections thereof. But do you really think this president would be so brazen as to do that? Not everything is a simple black and white, go or no-go decision, Garrett. Especially in diplomatic affairs.”

  She was right, of course. Washington, D.C. and Paris worked in their own ways, I imagined, and were quite different from the direct action to which I was accustomed. Sometimes it was about the performance, not the results or action.

  “I have a thought about how to do this,” I said. “But you said you wanted to discuss the Phalanx code.”

  “Before I get into that, I want to say I would prefer it that you don’t kill Aurelius.”

  “Have you told him not to kill me?” I shot back.

  “I haven’t spoken with him. He’s a recluse hidden behind heavily guarded palaces and compounds. But, yes, I would prefer if you don’t die, either, Garrett. If you can get to him, perhaps I can talk to him through video chat.”

 

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