After Death(35)

Aleem has marshalled seven of his homeboys to help him snatch John and do God knows what to Nina. More likely than not, mother and son will both end up dead, because the boy won’t be taken easily or let them harm Nina without going to her defense.

“Aleem and seven others,” he tells them. “Keep moving while I deal with this. Keep moving, or you’re finished.”

The United States government—and most others in this age that is sliding toward universal tyranny—has instituted a clandestine vehicle-control project that, like everything else, is no secret to Michael Mace since his resurrection. Years earlier, when it was recognized that the technology would soon exist to equip all new cars and trucks with a kill switch that could disable the engine via a microwave-carried command linked to the vehicle’s GPS identifier, defenders of liberty protested vigorously. All politicians wishing to appear righteous swore that this outrage would never be committed as long as they drew breath. Some remain unaware that it’s been done through the auspices of the Environmental Protection Agency, while others are aware and comforted by the knowledge. This power of “mobility restriction” has not been—and will not be—revealed for any ordinary law-enforcement purpose, such as foiling a carjacking or bank robbery or to stop a child abductor in flight with his prey. It must remain secret, so that should the country ever experience a serious insurrection, those in rebellion will be surprised and disempowered when the wheels they rely on will turn no more.

In this instance, in the case of Aleem Sutter and his crew, Michael has no compunctions about violating the right they have assumed they possess, the right to kidnap and murder as they choose.





GOING TO SEE THE WIZARD




Durand Calaphas leaves his agency sedan in the restaurant lot to be retrieved later. With the hood of his raincoat providing anonymity, he walks to his meeting. The rear entrance of Woodbine, Kravitz, Benedetto, and Spackman, attorneys and eager financiers of death by heroin and fentanyl, is two blocks away, but he travels five blocks to get there, to prevent traffic cams at intersections capturing an image of a man walking directly from the restaurant to the law offices. The roll-up door is raised, as he was told it would be. Inside, a lean man in black jeans and a black denim jacket worn over a red T-shirt stands beyond the reach of the in-blown rain. As Calaphas arrives, this agitated specimen expresses his impatience with obscenities. His nose is bandaged, bruises extending under his eyes. “Where the hell’s your car? No one said you’d walk in.”

“I had dinner nearby. This kind of weather invigorates me.”

“You was supposed to be here at nine o’clock.”

“Isn’t it nine?” Calaphas asks.

“You’re twenty-five minutes late.”

“Really? That much?”

“You didn’t call or nothin’.”

“Like I said, I was at dinner.”

“You don’t have no watch?”

“A quite good one,” Calaphas says, pulling his coat sleeve up to reveal a gold Rolex. “It was my brother’s. His widow wanted me to have it, to remember him by.”

The man answers that with a hard stare, as if he has killed people for less than being late for an appointment. “You kept us waitin’.”

“After dessert and coffee, I had a good port. You know how it is with port—you want to savor it. You don’t just slug it down.”

Exasperated, the man repeats, “You kept us waitin’.”

“And who might you be?”

“Santana. Woodbine’s bein’ pissed off in his apartment. Harris, too. They been here since eight thirty.”

“Then why are we chatting and making them wait even longer?”

After considering Calaphas in silence for a moment, Santana says, “Somethin’ wrong with you?”

“How do you mean?”

“How do I mean?”

“If you’re asking if I’m ill, the answer is no. If you’re asking if I’ve had too much to drink, I haven’t. But maybe you’re implying something else.”

After another silence, Santana says, “I see you now.”

“Do you?”

“Real clear.”

“Because I could always administer a vision test.”

As Santana goes to a control box mounted on the wall and puts down the big roll-up, Durand considers a glass-walled cubicle with a sign above its door that reads VALET. Against the back wall of that space is a pegboard on which only a few electronic keys hang. As an experienced player, he often notices things that seem mundane but that eventually prove to be essential to a winning strategy.

Santana opens an interior door, and Calaphas follows him into a vestibule.

“Leave your raincoat. Don’t go drippin’ all over the place.”

As they proceed along a hallway toward the lobby at the front of the building, Santana speaks a name and says, “Know who that is?”

“He’s a United States senator.”

Santana mentions another name.

Calaphas says, “Investment fund boss. Oversees trillions.”

The third name is Katherine Ormond-Wattley, the director of the ISA, to whom Calaphas answers if he answers to anyone. “Them three,” Santana says, “is so tight with Woodbine they’re Siamese twins.”