Chapter 17
The sky was beginning to lighten to a shade of gray that had the promise of morning behind it, and Magda opened her eyes.
When it was the smartest thing to do, she could sleep twelve hours, but this morning she had to be awake before her prospective client, or prisoner, or whatever she decided he was.
She stood up, picked up her purse, went into the bathroom in the hallway that led to the rear of the house, fixed her hair, and then brushed her teeth.
Magda didn’t yet know how far to trust the deception skills of her four men, so she had already decided to talk to the newcomer alone. She went into the room where he was sleeping and said very quietly, “Brian.”
His eyes opened and he saw her, and sat up from the couch.
“Good morning. I’m sorry to wake you,” she said.
“Please don’t worry about that. I think I just slept better because it’s the first night I wasn’t afraid.”
“I don’t blame you for being afraid,” Magda said.
“He didn’t threaten you or yell at you. He just sent people to kill you.
He’s obviously serious, and he’s not a fool.
So here we are. We’ve got to find you a new life.
I don’t think being a billionaire’s assistant has any future for you. Am I wrong?”
“No,” Brian said. “They don’t all know each other, and the ones who do certainly don’t like each other, but Bart Stillivant is one of the ones who’s addicted to luxury.
Those people find themselves in the same places a lot—the same hotels in the European capitals, islands—they all love islands—a few spots in California and New York—and the same small, special sections of airports for private planes.
I wouldn’t be able to show up in those places anymore. ”
“I suppose not. While you’re here, I want you to spend some time thinking about what you will be able to do, and where you would like to live. Then we’ll find ways to help you do it. The sooner you start, the better your chances will be.”
“You don’t always find a way to make the people who come to you safe?”
“No. Unfortunately, I don’t. But the ones who got caught and killed were all ones who didn’t do exactly what I told them to.”
Brian stared at her, silent for a moment. “I’ll do what you tell me to.”
She studied him. “I believe you will. Think about who you can realistically hope to become, and we’ll talk some more later.
” She turned and began to climb the stairs to the second floor.
She went into the room where Maxim and Dmitri were both dressed and sitting on their military-tight freshly made beds.
“I’ve talked to the man downstairs. I took his gun and the keys for his car last night.
I also got the name of his old boss, who has been sending people out to look for him.
We want to keep him in storage until we have the woman who owns this house.
His boss will be willing to pay a lot for him.
Even if we don’t make the sale, his boss will help get the bidding up, because he’s rich and he’s vulnerable.
I want you two to keep an eye on this man today.
His name is Brian Finlay. Do not kill him.
Let me repeat. Do not kill him. If he’s dead, his old boss will have no reason to pay us. Understood?”
“Yes,” Dmitri said. Maxim nodded.
“I haven’t told him anything about you. Tell him you’re people I’m helping to get new identities.
You could tell him that you’re peaceful immigrants being hunted by ICE agents trying to send you to Russia.
It’s something you know all about, but he doesn’t.
It also makes you seem harmless. Say what you like, just don’t lose him.
And if today is the day that the woman we want shows up, one of you keep him quiet until we have her. ”
She went into the bedroom that Mikhail and Daniil were sharing, to retrieve the suitcase she had left in their closet, told them the same things, and then took her suitcase into the upstairs bathroom, locked the door, showered, and dressed.
Downstairs, Brian Finlay was in the other bathroom getting washed and dressed.
Jane Whitefield was not the way he had imagined her.
She was a tall, thin woman in her late thirties with black hair, and she was very sure of herself and physically comfortable, as though she was at rest while standing, as athletes were.
To that extent, she fit the description that Karen had given him.
There were things that he wondered about.
There was something about the way she spoke.
She didn’t have an accent, and her command of slang and idioms was like everyone else’s.
Was it a regional tone or cadence from this part of upstate New York?
Maybe it was. He supposed that his feeling was a normal by-product of having a person he’d never met occupy his imagination for several days.
There were differences between what he’d imagined and the actual person.
He wished there could have been a photograph of her, but of course it was too dangerous so there hadn’t been.
It occurred to him that he was letting his weeks of fear make him stupid.
He was a drowning man looking at the only lifeboat, and questioning whether it was acceptable.
When he came out, the four men he had seen entering the house were in the kitchen eating breakfast. They stood up when he entered. He said, “Hi. I guess we’re all here for Ms. Whitefield’s help.”
The four men smiled and nodded, and one of them said, “Yes. I guess the four of us will be moving on in a few days, when our IDs are ready. You may be here longer, but who knows?”
“It depends,” another one said.
“Being able to stop in one place for a day feels like a rest,” Brian said.
“Come, sit,” said another one. “Eat. We scrambled some eggs and made pancakes.”
Brian accepted their invitation, pulled over a fifth chair from along the far wall, and watched a plate and silverware appear in front of him.
He did a lot of smiling and nodding as he listened to their talk and ate some of the food.
A couple of times he heard the men at the table make quiet comments to each other in Russian.
He decided that it wasn’t because they were trying to hide anything from him, but out of a feeling of mild frustration because the speaker had forgotten an English equivalent.
They seemed to be friendly and trying hard to be nice to him.
After a time, his impression that they had accepted him as a friend began to weaken.
He had sensed that it was wrong to ask other fugitives any questions, because giving honest answers could put them in danger.
Obviously, this group knew each other, and obviously they were all Russians, so he wondered who or what they were hiding from.
Were they political resisters who were running from Russian operatives sent here to murder them?
That had happened a few times in recent years, but the victims had always seemed to be famous or important.
These men didn’t appear to fit either description.
As the day went on, he noticed that some of them were always near windows and looking out at the surrounding neighborhood as though they were standing guard, but there was always one man engaged with him, talking just to kill time, the way two strangers might on a long flight.
Eventually, the time came when the latest one, Maxim, ran low on talk about the best cars, and Brian excused himself to go to the bathroom.
He stepped into the room, closed and locked the door, took his phone out of his pocket and reinserted the battery, and then pressed the number for Karen Alvarez in California.
It took a very long minute to get his call transferred to Karen.
When she came on, he said, “Karen, I don’t have much time to talk.
I’m at her house, but it doesn’t feel right. ”
“What doesn’t?”
“Her. She looks sort of the way you said, tall with black hair, late thirties. She talks differently.”
“How?
“Just off, like a tiny difference in certain vowel tones, maybe, and sometimes an emphasis on one syllable or another. There are four Russian guys here, with accents. I’m beginning to think she sounds a little like them.”
“She and I were in college together. She sounds like any woman born around Buffalo. If she doesn’t sound like that, it’s not her. Get out. Don’t hesitate. Do it now.”
“I’ll have to wait for a chance, but I’ll do it. I’d better end this call.” He ended it and turned off the phone in case she tried to call back.
He took the battery out of his phone again while he flushed the toilet and ran the water in the sink.
He had taken a big chance to call Karen.
Not only was it potentially dangerous to risk making the four Russians distrust him, but he knew Bart Stillivant would be more desperate than ever to find him, and Bart might be capable of having Brian’s new phone traced because it had called a number or two that he had also called with his old phone.
He’d had it turned on for only a minute or two, but any time a call connection was made, the signal pinged on a particular tower.
Brian wasted a moment feeling too weak to open the door, then opened it, stepped out, and rejoined the others.
They didn’t appear to look at him any differently than they had before.
He tested that impression and decided it must be true.
If they’d thought he was making a phone call, wouldn’t they have stopped him?
Yes, they would. He heard Jane—or not-Jane—coming down the stairs.
If this woman was not Jane Whitefield, he had no idea what these people were doing in her house.
All he could think of was that he had to get away from it.
He spent the rest of the day watching the ones he could see.
The men again took turns talking to him or watching soccer games on television while the others spent their time near the windows, looking out at the street.
After a few hours two of them went out, saying it was to do some grocery shopping.
Brian’s hopes rose, and he began to feel his lungs taking in more air, his heartbeat speeding up, and his mind waking up.
But one man—his name was Daniil—stayed at the front window, and the other stayed near the back door in the kitchen, and the woman came to spend time talking with him, asking him prying questions about what his life had been like and how he would like the new one to be.
When the other two men returned, he felt he had missed a chance.
Night was the same. He spent the night watching for a chance to get up and go, but the woman was sleeping thirty feet away in the living room.
When he finally got a chance to sneak to the doorway, he tried the door and found that it had an old-fashioned lock that had been locked from the inside and the key removed.
Trying it woke her, and she asked him what was wrong.
He said he woke up disoriented and had been looking for the bathroom.
He would have to wait longer until she was asleep again.
Next time he would try to go out a window.