Jason was in New York in his room at the Carlyle Hotel. He was watching Kenna Martin on the video camera he’d hidden inside her apartment, and he could see that the girl was falling apart. He’d listened to her call in sick that morning, but it was obvious that she wasn’t sick. Instead, she was frozen with fear of what came next. She hadn’t showered, and her blond hair was greasy and limp. Rather than sit on the sofa, she’d curled up on the floor in a corner of the living room, with her arms wrapped around her stuffed koala. He could zoom in on her eyes and see that she was crying.
As the afternoon wore on, Kenna barely moved. She didn’t eat anything. Once, she got up and made coffee, but she left it on the counter to get cold, and then she sat back down in the corner with her back against the wall. Her phone was on the carpet next to her. Several times, the phone rang, but when she checked the screen, she ignored the calls. Her text tone sounded several times throughout the afternoon, but she didn’t read any of the messages. Her expression was empty and lost.
Jason felt bad, as if he were torturing this girl. That was a feeling of regret he never got over. He knew it wasn’t him; it was others. It was Darrell Forster. It was Lennon. But Jason was the conduit who’d blown up her life, as he’d done with so many others in the past.
At five o’clock, Kenna’s phone rang again.
This time she clicked the speakerphone and took the call, and Jason listened as a Chinese man spoke quickly.
“Yeah, this Miss Becky?”
“No, it’s not.”
“You order food? This is Wok Fun on Third. Your delivery address all wrong. Nobody there.”
“I didn’t order any food. You’ve got the wrong number.”
The man swore and hung up. Kenna started crying again. Jason knew this was the call. This was the signal. Another drop. The young woman drew her arm back as if to hurl her phone across the room, but then she simply pounded her fist against her forehead in frustration. She closed her eyes, and her breathing was fast and ragged. She got to her feet and disappeared toward her bedroom.
Bourne wondered if she’d dial the number he’d given her. He’d told her to make contact as soon as she got another call. But she didn’t. His phone stayed silent. She was still more afraid of the people she was working for than she was of Bourne.
He didn’t wait for Kenna to leave the apartment. Wok Fun on Third. He ran a search on his phone and found that there was a Pop’n Drop mailbox store only three doors down from the Chinese restaurant. That’s where Kenna would be going. The location was a fifteen-minute walk up Madison from the Carlyle. Bourne grabbed his leather jacket and immediately headed downstairs.
Outside, he went north, dashing across the intersections between the lights. It was rush hour, and the street was a parking lot of cars, yellow cabs, and buses. A drizzle fell, and the evening was gray, lit by a sea of red brake lights. When he got to 88th, he turned east. Trees in the sidewalk plots hung over the dark street. He hurried down the long blocks past Park and Lexington, and when he got to Third, he found the Chinese restaurant around the corner. He didn’t think it had anything to do with Kenna or the drop; the call itself was fake. He bought himself a takeaway pint of fried rice and took it to the opposite side of the street, where he ate it as he leaned against the wall of a bank.
From there, he had a vantage on the Pop’n Drop store. The after-work crowd kept the place busy, customers going in and out to check their mailboxes. There was no sign of Kenna yet. When the light at 89th turned red, traffic backed up, and an oversized moving truck temporarily blocked his view. After the truck finally moved, he spotted a bicycle messenger emerging through the doors of the mailbox store and climbing onto his Schwinn. The twentysomething kid wore a helmet and backpack, but what caught Bourne’s eye was the T-shirt under his nylon vest.
It was a caricature of a beast taken from a Lon Chaney movie. A wolf man.
Wolf Man Travel.
Kenna had told him about the mistake the messenger had made during one of the drops, when she’d found an envelope from Wolf Man Travel stuck to the package she was supposed to pass along. Once was a coincidence. Not twice. Bourne came off the wall to go after the kid, but he didn’t have time. The messenger was already back in traffic, flying northward on Third through the rain.
By the time Jason finished his fried rice, he saw Kenna coming around the corner on 88th. She had no umbrella, and her blond hair glistened with dampness. She wore an untucked man’s dress shirt over jeans, with a large zippered purse over her shoulder. As she got closer, Bourne studied the crowd. Kenna was on her own; no one was following her. He also didn’t see anyone staking out the shipping store and waiting for her to arrive.
Letting Kenna stay ahead of him, he crossed the street and fell in behind her. When she got to the Pop’n Drop, she went inside, but Bourne stayed on the street, watching through the store window. She headed directly to Box 156, opened it with her key, and withdrew a large manila envelope. Something was scrawled in marker on the back, and Kenna took note of what it said, then stashed the envelope inside her purse and re-zipped it. She checked her watch and headed for the exit.
Bourne turned away as Kenna came back outside. She headed south again, retracing her steps, passing Jason without noticing him. He followed, then matched her pace and came up beside her in the crowd.
“You didn’t call me, Kenna.”
The girl slapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her scream. “Fuck! How did you find me?”
“I told you I’d be watching.”
“I was going to call you. I swear. I was waiting until after the pickup.”
“Don’t lie. You’re scared. I get it. But I need to be with you at that drop.”
They reached the intersection at 88th, where a mass of people waited to cross at the light. Bourne wanted to get out of the crowd, so when the light changed, he steered Kenna across the street to a small concrete park. It was located behind a barred fence, but the gate was open. He led her to a wooden bench at the back, and they sat down. The trees overhead blocked most of the rain.
“Really, I was going to call you,” Kenna repeated. She pressed her knees together, her legs twitching.
“I said, don’t lie. But from now on, you need to listen to me and do exactly what I tell you.”
“You’re going to get me killed!”
“I only care about who you’re meeting. For you, everything’s going to go down like it always does. Nothing changes. You’ll pass along the envelope to your contact, and then I’ll follow whoever that is. After that, you’ll never see me again. You can go back to your life.”
Kenna shook her head. “I am so fucked.”
“Not if you do what I tell you. Now let me see the envelope.”
She didn’t seem able to move, so Bourne reached over and unzipped her purse. He withdrew the manila envelope she’d collected at the mailbox store. The flap and edges were sealed over with tamper-evident tape. Kenna was right; if she opened it, they’d know. He felt the ridges of the contents and could feel a sheaf of papers inside.
Then he read the handwritten note scrawled on the back.
The High Line. 30th and 11th. 9:30 p.m.
“Is that a typical location?” Bourne asked.
She shrugged. “There’s no pattern. It changes every time.”
“Is there any kind of code you use at the drop?”
“He makes me show him the pyramid tattoo. Or she. Sometimes it’s a woman. The whole thing is done in a few seconds. I hand off the envelope, they leave, and I go in the opposite direction. That’s it.”
“Do they run any kind of check to see if you’re wired?”
“They never have before.”
“Okay.”
Bourne replaced the envelope in her purse. Then he dug in his inside pocket and removed a plastic bag with a tiny earpiece inside. He handed it to Kenna. “Fit this in your ear. No one will see it, but it will let us communicate. I’ll be able to hear you, and you’ll be able to hear me.”
“Why do we need that?” she asked.
“Plans always change. We need to be prepared.”
“I don’t like this. What if they find it?”
“They won’t.”
She frowned, then slid the earpiece into her left ear and let her blond hair fall across it. Her lower lip trembled. He could see that she was barely holding it together.
“That’s good. You’re doing great, Kenna. From this point forward, do everything you’d normally do. Go to dinner. Walk around. Whatever. Then head to the meeting point and be there at the specified time. Proceed with the drop the way you typically would.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll already be there, but you won’t see me. Neither will the person you’re meeting. When the drop is done, go home. Throw away the earpiece, and forget about me.”
“Gladly,” she said.
She shrugged her purse tightly over her shoulder, and then she got up and walked away from him into the mist. As she did, Bourne spoke softly into the microphone secured under his collar. “Can you hear me, Kenna?”
At the gate leading out of the park, her body stiffened at the unexpected voice in her ear. Without looking back at him, she nodded.
“Good. Now say something back to me quietly. Just a whisper.”
“Fuck you. I hate you. How’s that?”
Bourne heard her loud and clear.