Strangers: A Novel(102)

“How much time do you have left?”

“Five more minutes.”

“OK. Wait for another two minutes, then go in. We’re almost there now. Do everything the man says. Pretend like you’ll be perfectly compliant. Try to get close to Joanna as well. Once we’re in, it’s going to get unpleasant. You’ll have to protect her, do you understand?”

“Yes, I’ll try.”

“Very good. Once we’ve hung up, hide the phone somewhere in your car and go.”

“The phone? Why would—”

“Have you forgotten that Gabor called you from Joanna’s phone? He’s going to search you too. He’ll find the phone and hit redial. An Australian number. He’ll suspect what’s going on if he’s not a complete idiot.”

“But the call log can be—”

“For fuck’s sake!” Gavin suddenly bellows. “You’re the one who put Joanna in this situation. Now stop babbling and do what I’ve told you, or I’ll fucking tear you a new one.”

I want to scream back at him and tell him to go screw himself. Tell him that the reason why Joanna ran away from him at the airport in the first place was because he was so stubborn. Tell him I’d asked Joanna more than once to go back to him. But I need him. Joanna needs him.

“OK,” I say, emotionless, and hang up. I hide the phone underneath the floor mat behind the driver’s seat, take one final deep breath, then get out and walk the last three hundred feet. Maybe it’s a good thing if they don’t hear me coming.

My knees feel shaky. But I wouldn’t dream of running away anymore.

Because Joanna’s there somewhere, just up ahead of me.





47

Lambert’s hand, which is pressed over my mouth, smells of cold cigarette smoke. I try to bite it, try to kick behind me, but he’s unimpressed by both attempts. Instead, he just laughs. “Just you wait until Gabor gives me free rein,” he whispers into my ear.

Gabor has just finished his conversation with Erik and is carefully putting my phone into the inside pocket of his jacket. “That was more productive than I expected,” he says, turning toward me.

The man who was sitting on the crate earlier has now stood up and is ambling toward us. He’s tall, dressed like a businessman, and his dark hair is very short, buzz-cut.

“Did I get that right, Gabor? This Thieben guy you assured me was dead is actually still alive?”

Gabor shrugs, clearly trying to keep his cool. “Yes, but he won’t be for much longer than the next half hour. He’s on his way here.”

So my warning hadn’t helped. Erik was going to fall into these people’s hands—probably believing that he was saving me. As if Gabor would risk letting either of the two of us leave alive.

“It was a mistake to entrust you with this much responsibility,” says the man with the buzz cut. “It’s not going to be easy to straighten all of this out again. I hope you realize that—”

“Enough.” The voice is coming from the entrance. I hadn’t noticed that the gate to the building had been opened again, and it seemed that the others hadn’t either.

The man walking in toward us acts like he has all the time in the world. He had only said one word, but it was enough to make everybody there freeze, including Gabor. Lambert’s grip on me becomes increasingly merciless.

The man is old, in his mideighties for sure. His posture is very rigid, almost military-like, even though he has a walking stick, though he’s not leaning on it; he strikes it onto the floor with every second step, as though he’s wanting to create a rhythm as he walks.

The three-piece suit he’s wearing reminds me of my father’s tailored suits from London. This man has money. And power which far exceeds Gabor’s. I can see that in people. I’ve met some of these sorts before, though admittedly no one whose appearance alone causes this much fear. As he walks past, the men flinch, not visibly, but internally. Like school kids trying not to get noticed by their teacher.

“I find it very regrettable that I’ve been forced to clean up your mess, Gabor.” The man’s voice is soft but powerful, as though it would be beneath him to raise it in order for the people around him to understand. “You said you were up to the task. Clearly it was a mistake to believe you.” He comes to a stop, both hands on the pommel of his stick. “You are endangering the success of the project. The elections will be in two weeks, and in light of recent events we’ll be celebrating our biggest victory in seventy years—unless, that is, your mistakes prove to be our downfall.”

Elections? What do the elections have to do with all this? I have no idea what the man’s talking about, but I can see that Gabor is struggling to regain his composure. He clears his throat several times, but still sounds hesitant when he finally speaks.

“I can assure you, Herr von Ritteck, that I have everything under control. There were just a few unpredictable incidents—”

“Unpredictable?” The man takes three leisurely steps toward Gabor. “You gave an employee access to our confidential correspondence. If you mean unpredictable in the sense of being stupid, then I agree with you. And then, instead of immediately dealing with your mistake, you let the man go.”

Gabor keeps shaking his head. “But I took measures. There was a downright genius idea of how to get rid of Thieben if it had turned out to be necessary.”