“You don’t have to stay here,” Abbey murmured from the hospital bed. “I know you’re looking for Vix. You have things you need to do.”
Bourne stared out the second-floor window toward the Santa Monica hills. He turned back to Abbey, who was groggy from the surgery that had removed the bullet from her shoulder. Her face was pale, emphasizing her handful of freckles, and her dark red hair was pulled back and tied behind her head. His own wounds had been stitched and taped, and he felt nothing but a quick tug of pain when he moved.
“I’m waiting for someone. I can stay until then.”
“Someone?”
He shrugged. “Treadstone.”
Abbey closed her eyes with a sigh. He came and sat down in the chair next to the bed, and he took her hand in his. Her grip was limp.
“I’m sorry about Garrett,” he went on.
“Thanks. The worst thing is, I feel like a fool. I always thought I was too smart to be manipulated by a man like that. I guess we all have our blind spots.” Abbey’s eyes blinked open. “Of course, most women don’t have to shoot their husbands to make up for their mistakes. But you’ve saved my life so many times, I suppose I owed you one.”
Jason smiled. “We’re even.”
“So what happens next?” she asked.
“Like you said, I have to find Vix. And fast.”
“How?”
“We assume she’s trying to leave the country with the laptop. There are lots of ways to do that. She could have a fake passport, but we’ve got facial ID surveillance on the airports and an alert out with TSA. She could head south to the Mexican border, but we’ve got her on the radar down there, too. Or she could head to another part of the country before trying to get out, but the longer she stays in the U.S., the greater the likelihood that she’ll be spotted. So she’ll want to move quickly.”
“I’m guessing you have an idea how she plans to do that,” Abbey said.
“Yeah. Her asset is the Files. Odds are, she’s doing what she did with Rod Holtzman, finding somebody’s weak spot and pressing on it. My guess is she’s already got someone who knows how to smuggle people in and out of the country. Our advantage is, she’s done it once before, so she’ll probably go to the same person.”
“Done it before?” Abbey asked. Then she made the connection. “Her sister.”
“Right. She had to get her sister into the country. My bet is Vix will go to the same person to try to get herself out of the country. According to Callie Faith, she was trying to book passage for them via the port in Long Beach before the fire. I’ve got Treadstone doing research on likely suspects.”
Abbey held his hand a little tighter. “After that, I guess you’ll be gone.”
“I already told you what I have to do once I get the Files.”
“You did, but that’s not what I mean.”
“I know what you mean,” Jason said.
She stared up at the ceiling. “I said when this was over, I wanted you to go far away from me. But now that it’s really happening—”
“Abbey, don’t do this now,” he interrupted.
“If not now, then when? Isn’t this the end?”
“We’ll have time to talk.”
She looked back at him with dark, troubled eyes. “Will we?”
“I’ll make sure we do.”
“You mean we’ll have time for a proper goodbye?”
“I mean we’ll have time for whatever feels right.”
“Okay. I’ll hold you to that.”
Bourne felt the vibration of an incoming text on his phone. “I have to go.”
He got up from the chair, but Abbey held on to his hand tightly. She didn’t need to say anything, but there was a message for him in her face, and he watched her searching his own face for a reply. They were on dangerous ground. It would be easy, all too easy, to erase a year of goodbyes and go back to where they’d been before.
Her fingers loosened, and her hand fell back to the bed. She bit her lip and closed her eyes, rather than see him go. He turned away before he could lean down and kiss her, and he left her alone in the room.
Downstairs, Bourne exited the hospital into the warm California afternoon. He crossed to the far side of the parking lot, where he’d left his Highlander, and he found Shadow waiting for him, as cool and elegant as ever. He wondered what it would be like to be so untroubled by emotions, to be able to separate your feelings and duties into two separate boxes. She stood beside the SUV, her arms folded, her eyes focused on the rolling green hills. She heard him coming, but she didn’t look his way.
“How’s Ms. Laurent?” she asked.
“Abbey’s not your concern.”
“I’m just showing polite interest, Jason.”
“She’s fine. The surgery went well.”
Shadow pursed her red lips, and as she always did, she seemed to read his mind. “Bad things happen to her whenever you come into her life. I’m sure you’ve thought about that. Remember the car bomb that nearly killed her?”
“I remember.”
“It doesn’t seem fair to do that to someone outside our world.”
“That’s why we broke up.”
Shadow focused on him with the lasers of her blue eyes. “Did you?”
“You know we did.”
“I know that’s what you told me. I know that’s what you’ve told yourself. But the past is the past, and that leaves the future.”
“Move on, Shadow,” Bourne snapped. “Abbey’s role in this is done.”
“All right. Whatever you say. Let’s talk about Vix.”
Bourne shook his head. “First tell me about Johanna.”
“Johanna’s not your concern.”
“She sure as hell is. I want to know where you’ve got her. I want to see her.”
“No.”
“I wasn’t asking,” Bourne said.
“And I’m not negotiating. Forget Johanna.”
“Is she alive?”
“She is. That’s all I’m going to say. Let’s get back to Vix and the Files.”
“Maybe I’ll just tell you to fuck the Files. Get them yourself.”
“Is that what you want? If so, say the word. I’ll throw you off the road like a flat tire and put on a new one.”
Bourne tried to defuse his anger at this woman and her calm, infuriating superiority. The trouble was, she knew him too well. She knew when he was bluffing. He needed the Files. “If you’re lying about Johanna—”
“I’m not.”
Jason cut his losses and let it go. At least Johanna was alive.
“Did you have any luck with Vix?” Bourne asked.
“We did. Your instinct was a good one. We think Vix used a human-trafficking smuggler to get her sister out of Shanghai and into Los Angeles via a Chinese freighter. I’m assuming she paid to get her better accommodations than the poor bastards who wind up inside the cargo containers.”
“Did you identify the smuggler?”
“With ninety percent certainty,” Shadow replied. “The port’s a big place. There are probably a hundred different smuggling operations going on at any given time, from refugees to drugs to knockoff Birkin bags. Half of them have ties to China. Vix could have gone to a dozen different people for help. There’s no way to know for sure how many of them would show up in the Files.”
“But?”
“But in this case, we owe a debt to Garrett Parker. He was watching Vix. Even when they were involved, he had a PI put her under surveillance. I assume he already had his eyes on the prize. Remember we cloned Garrett’s computer? Our techs figured out he kept data off-site using a third-party file manager. Video files, high-capacity stuff he couldn’t keep on his local drive. I leaned on the CEO to give us access to Garrett’s library. It turns out Garrett had files on Vix going back to when she was at Jumpp.” Shadow hesitated. “Just so you know, he was doing the same thing to Abbey. He knew everything about her. That’s how he was able to worm his way into her life so readily.”
Bourne wasn’t surprised. “What about Vix?”
“We’re still going through the data, but I had the boys focus in on the time period within a month or so of the fire. I assume she wouldn’t have tried to do a deal with Callie Faith until her sister was in the country, but she wouldn’t have waited very long once she was actually here. So if she reached out to a smuggler, it was probably in that time frame.”
“And you found something?”
“We did. Vix met twice with a man we were able to identify as Rufus Mack. He’s in charge of nighttime security for one of the shipping operators at the Port of Long Beach. When we looked a little deeper, we found that Rufus has connections all over the Far East. China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, South Korea. He’s a good choice if you want to move someone from Shanghai to L.A. under the radar. Rufus also wouldn’t want his side business to come to the attention of his employer—or the FBI—so if Vix found him in the Files, she’d have been able to leverage him to do whatever the hell she wanted.”
“And she still can,” Bourne said.
“Right. If Vix is looking to get out of the country, Rufus Mack would be her first call.”
*
Vix felt the thunder of a freight train rattle the walls of the motel.
She went to the window and peeked through the curtains, watching the graffiti-covered shipping containers rumble away from the port. It was dark outside, except for the city lights. Nearly nine o’clock. In another hour, her Uber would pull up outside the motel and drop her a few blocks away near the gangway of the Xin Fang. The ship would depart in the middle of the night after a wink and a nod from Rufus’s man in U.S. Customs and Border Protection. She’d be hidden on board, silently holding her breath.
Next stop, Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala. She’d be free. Maybe not of the past, but free to build her future.
After that, who knew? She could go anywhere. Maybe Chile. Maybe through the canal and on to Turkey in the Mediterranean or somewhere in the Baltic. The cartels, the Eastern Europeans, the Iranians—they all would want a crack at the Files.
She went to the motel door and stepped outside into the cool evening air. She smelled the spice of the taco stand around the corner, where she’d had dinner. Electrical wires crisscrossed the sky. Among the parked cars in front of the motel doors, she heard the murmur of voices, and two men smoked cigarettes near the railroad tracks. But no one seemed to be watching her. She drew back inside, locking the door. Her nerves were rattled. She’d only relax when the Xin Fang was safely clear of the port and churning into international waters.
A few more hours.
Her duffel bag sat on the neatly made bed, filled with everything she owned in the world. Except for the laptop, which she hugged tightly in her arms. The laptop was back with her now, and she would never let go of it. It would never leave her sight, not until the final deal was done.
Vix checked her watch again. Almost no time had passed. These final minutes before she left for the ship felt glacial. The stress was unbearable, like a heavy weight pressing on her chest. Her stomach lurched, and she tasted acid in her throat. She ran for the tiny bathroom, and when she knelt in front of the toilet, her dinner came up in spasms, followed by dry heaves that left her aching and thirsty. She washed out her mouth, then went and stretched out on the bed. She didn’t dare close her eyes and risk sleeping past the time she had to go. Not that she would have slept. Adrenaline poured through her veins.
Rufus had laid out the rules of the voyage. Arrive on time. Pay the captain in cash. Have plenty of money for bribes for the crew and for anyone else who asks questions. Keep to yourself until the ship arrives in Guatemala. Only get off when the captain tells you to get off, and don’t draw attention to yourself in the port when you disembark. That was how it worked for different people on different ships a thousand times a day. Follow the rules, and you’ll be fine.
But was Rufus lying?
He hated her because she knew all of his secrets and had threatened to expose him. When her sister had come over from Shanghai, she’d promised he would never hear from her again, but six months later, here she was, back with a new demand. For herself. Outbound, not inbound.
What if Rufus decided to do a deal of his own? Pay the captain or someone on the crew to get rid of her?
Wait until you’re west of Mexico, then throw the bitch overboard for the sharks.
Or what if he’d realized she was more valuable to the Chinese? He could have named any price to hand her over to them. They’d be waiting for her when she got out of the cab, and they’d shove her inside one of their black SUVs.
Vix didn’t trust Rufus. She didn’t trust anyone.
She got out of bed again and paced. Only five more minutes had gone by. It occurred to her that if something had gone wrong, she wouldn’t know. Her phone was powered down. Rufus had told her not to turn on her phone because phones could be tracked. But what if Rufus was trying to reach her, to tell her to stay away, to say that the plan was blown? She might be walking into a trap.
It would only be for a couple of minutes. Check her phone, then power it down and remove the battery.
Vix went to the window again. She checked outside for new cars in the parking lot, for new shadows on the street. But nothing had changed. She dug her phone from her pocket, inserted the battery with trembling hands, and waited impatiently for the power to go on and for the phone to search the sky for a 5G signal.
New messages.
None.
She went to the anonymous number—the number for Rufus’s burner—and saw only the last message she’d sent him earlier in the day. I’ll be there.
Everything was fine.
Vix went to power down her phone again, but before she did, a low musical ping announced that she had one new email waiting for her. The single digit on her home screen—1—taunted her. Who would be sending her mail? She thought about switching off the phone without checking it; she thought about going outside and putting the phone on the railroad tracks for the next outgoing train to demolish it.
Instead, she opened up the mail app and saw the empty screen of her inbox. Empty except for one message with nothing in the subject line. She didn’t recognize the sender or the domain. The account writing to her was anonymous, just like her own mail account was intended to be anonymous.
How had anyone found her?
Vix opened the message. She began to read, but she hadn’t even finished before she slapped a hand over her mouth and fell to her knees. Her eyes kept going back to the first lines of the email and reading them again and again.
I know who you are. If you want to survive the night, you’ll do exactly what I say.