Jeff Abbott - The Last Minute

Published by Hachette Digital

ISBN: 9780748129744

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright Jeff Abbott 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

Hachette Digital

Little, Brown Book Group

100 Victoria Embankment

London, EC4Y 0DY

www.hachette.co.uk

Jeff Abbott is the author of thirteen previous novels, published in twenty languages. His books Panic and Run have been optioned for film and are in script development. Jeff graduated from university with a degree in History and English, and worked as a creative director at an advertising agency before writing full-time. He lives in Texas with his wife and two sons.

Sam Capra series

Adrenaline

Whit Mosley series

A Kiss Gone Bad

Black Jack Point

Cut and Run

Other fiction

Panic

Fear

Run

Trust Me

For Shirley Stewart

I knocked on the green door and knew that in the next five minutes Id either be dead or Id have the truth I needed.

The man opened the apartment door just as I raised my fist for the second, impatient knock. He did not look like a man who traded in human lives. He looked like an accountant. He wore a dark suit, a loosened tie with bands of silver and pink and a slight air of exhaustion and impatience. His glasses were steel-framed and rectangular. His lips were greasy with takeout Thai, and the remains of a meal maybe his last scented the air.

He looked at me, he looked at the pixie of a woman standing next to me, then he looked at his watch.

You and your wife are late, Mr Derwatt, he said. One minute late.

There were several misconceptions in his statement. First, my name was not Derwatt. Second, the woman standing next to me, Mila, was not my wife. Third, we were exactly on time; Id even waited for the second hand to sweep past the twelve before I knocked. But I shrugged, full of graciousness, and he opened the door and Mila and I stepped inside. He looked her over. He did it all in a second but I saw it. She was glancing at the two thick-necked thugs who stood by the apartments dinner table. Then she cast her gaze down, as if intimidated.

Nice bit of acting, that. Mila could stare down a great white shark.

I offered the accountant a handshake. Frank Derwatt. This is my wife, Lilia.

Mr Bell. He didnt shake my hand and I let it drop down to my side. I threw in an awkward laugh for effect. I was wearing jeans and a navy blazer with a pink polo underneath. Mila had found a horrible floral skirt that I suppose approximated her bizarre idea of what an American suburban housewife would wear. She clutched her pink purse. We looked like we were more interested in country club membership than an illegal adoption.

I thought we were meeting alone, I said. Mila stepped close to me, like she was afraid.

The accountant dabbed a napkin at the Thai sauce smearing his mouth. I wanted to seize him by the throat, throw him against the wall and force him to tell me where my son was. But that would only get my son killed, so I stood there like I was the nervous suburban wannabe dad that I was playing.

Face the wall, one of the big men said. He was a redhead, with his hair sliced into a burr and freckles the size of pebbles on his face. Both of you.

We both did. I set down the small canvas briefcase I was carrying.

I didnt argue. I was supposed to be a nervous, law-abiding citizen and, although I have been those things in the distant past, I wasnt right now. No wire, no weapons. Just me and my shining personality and a rage I kept caged up in my chest. The redhead searched me thoroughly. Then he did the same to Mila.

Frank, she said, about halfway through, a tinge of fear in her voice. She was selling it.

Just be patient, honey, itll be over in a minute, I said. And then we can get our baby.

Mila made this soft hiss of assent, the patient sigh of a woman who wanted this deal to be her gateway to happiness.

Mr and Mrs Derwatt are clean, Mr Bell, the redhead said. He stepped back from us. I took Milas hand for just a moment.

Sit down, Mr Derwatt, the accountant said. Excuse the mess. We decided on an early dinner. I dont usually meet with clients at night.

I knew that normally the accountant would now be on a commuter train back to New Jersey. I had checked into every nook of his life: a wife, two sons, a mortgage on a cozy little place to live, a life full of promise.

All the sweet elements Id once had, and had lost.

The accountant and his toughs studied me. Let them, I thought. Id been careful.

One opened the briefcase. He dumped the bricks of cash out onto the table and began to sort them.

Mr Bell glanced at me.

My wife and I, I lied, weve failed to conceive after three years of trying. It has nearly destroyed our marriage. Im eager to give my wife a healthy, happy baby.

You could adopt through legit channels.

Yes. But, um, some of my business practices, I dont care to have them scrutinized by well-meaning social workers. We simply wish to acquire a child.

Mila moved close to me. You have done our background checks, yes? We wish to make our selection and get a child.

Its not that easy, Mrs Derwatt.

Ive brought the down payment. We select our child and then we go get him or her.

He blinked at me.

That was what was agreed, I said.

The moneys all here, Mr Bell, the redhead had counted with the precise quickness of a man used to handling banded stacks of cash. Twenty thousand dollars.

There were some anomalies in your background checks, Mr Bell said.

Anomalies. I do not know this word, Mila said. Shed thickened up her eastern European accent.

Um, questions, Mrs Derwatt.

I held my breath. We had been very, very careful in setting up these identities. Mila had worked on them while we tried our best to find any link to the one clue we had to my sons whereabouts: a photo of a woman leaving a private clinic in Strasbourg, France, soon after my sons birth. I had been told shed sold my son. We still did not know who the woman was, but using Milas considerable resources wed found a surveillance photo of her arriving in New York, a week after my sons birth, walking out of the terminal with this man. Mr Bell, whose face was in a criminal database maintained by the state of New York for having been convicted of embezzlement six years ago and had gotten parole. We matched him to the airport photo. Found out where he lived, where he worked and who his associates were. Slow, plodding detective work but it had paid off. We had sent out feelers as potential adopters of a child, provided background, gotten this meeting to pick out a son or daughter.

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 doesnt 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.