No Plan B

“Larry told the kid he might be able to get some dirt on us, but he needed time to think. He said he’d get in touch if he wanted to go forward. Then he called me to give us the heads-up. See how we wanted him to play it. So, here’s what I’m thinking. We have Larry contact the kid. Send him on a wild-goose chase.”

“Like where? And to do what?”

Brockman shrugged. “Somewhere far away. I don’t know. San Francisco. Key West. The details don’t matter. We can make something up. It just has to be urgent. So the kid leaves town tonight. Tomorrow morning at the latest.”

Hix picked up his pen and twirled it between his fingers. “OK. I like it. Let’s do it. Just make it something convincing.”

Chapter 23

The only promise Lev Emerson had to make was that he wouldn’t burn the building down.

That was the opposite of the kind of condition Emerson usually signed up to but in the circumstances it made sense. He needed access to some premises. Something secluded. Where no one would hear anything. Or see anything. Or smell anything. Somewhere that was robust. Industrial. He was in a strange city. And he was in a hurry. So he had called the client he had just done the job for in Savannah. The guy owned a vintage warehouse in St. Louis. It was vacant, near the river, with no active businesses close by. Emerson already knew about the place. He remembered it because the guy had once hired him to torch a neighbor’s property.

When Emerson’s contact came around from the chloroform he was lying flat on his back. He was naked. And he was in the middle of a cold concrete floor. He could smell a slight hint of gasoline. He could see walls in the distance. Made of brick. They looked ancient. A pale, chalky coating was flaking off them. The ceiling was high above him. It was stained from water leaks, and it was supported by rusty metal beams.

The guy’s arms and legs were stretched out to his sides. He tried to move them but he couldn’t. Because his wrists and ankles were cable-tied to six-inch stubs of steel that were sprouting from the ground. There were rows and rows of them. They were all that was left of the giant sets of shelves that had been removed and melted down when the storage business which had inhabited the building had been abandoned. The guy pulled with all his might. The plastic strips dug into his skin but the metal stubs didn’t even flex.

Emerson was standing on one side of the guy. Graeber was on the other. Near the guy’s feet there was a large plastic barrel. And lying on the barrel there was a ladle. The kind they use in restaurants to serve out bowls of soup.

Emerson crouched down and waited for the guy to turn his head and look at him. Then he said, “Let’s not beat around the bush. I know about you. I obviously know about your ship. So the purpose of today is for you to fill in the remaining blank.”

The guy’s throat was dry. He managed to say, “What blank?”

Emerson said, “I want to know who your supplier is.”

The guy’s eyes stretched wide. “I don’t know. I can’t tell you.”

Emerson straightened up and crossed to the barrel. He took the ladle in one hand. Removed the lid with the other. Scooped out a big dollop of thick, cream-colored gel. Crossed back to the guy. And poured the gel all over the guy’s genitals.

The guy screamed and bucked and thrashed around. “Stop! What are you doing? What is that stuff?”

Emerson said, “I could tell you its chemical name but it wouldn’t mean anything to you. Have you seen Apocalypse Now?”

“What? Why?”

“Because the name you’ll know it by is napalm.”

“No. Seriously? What the…”

“It’s my own version. Better than the military kind. The key is not skimping on the benzene. The original formula only burns for a few seconds. Mine stays alight for ten minutes. Think about that. Do you feel how it’s sticking to your skin?”

The guy wriggled and bounced and tried to fling the gel away from his body. It was heavy, like glue. A little came off but the bulk remained stubbornly attached.

Emerson took a box of matches from his pocket. “So. Tell me. Where does your organization get its inventory from?”

The guy stopped moving. He was struggling for breath. “We have a few sources. We get different things from different places.”

“Start with what you got for my son. Where did it come from?”

“I don’t know. Honestly. I only have a contact. I tell him what we need. If he can get it, he does. I don’t know who he works for. That’s the way the system is set up. For security. Just like he doesn’t know who I work for.”

“His name?”

“Carpenter. That’s what he told me. It might not be his real name.”

“Contact information?”

“It’s in my phone. I’ll give it to you. But listen. This is the truth. Four weeks ago Carpenter dropped out of sight. He might have quit. The FBI might have gotten to him. I don’t know. But if you can’t reach him, don’t think I was lying to you.”

Graeber picked the guy’s pants up off the floor and pulled a phone out of one of the pockets. He said, “Passcode?”

The guy reeled off a series of numbers.