The Dark River Read online

  IT TOOK HER about ten minutes to walk to Columbus Park—a rectangular patch of asphalt and woeful-looking trees a few blocks east of Chinatown. Gabriel liked to visit the park in the afternoon, when it was filled with elderly Chinese men and women. The old people formed complex alliances based on who came from the same province or village. They gossiped and nibbled on snacks brought in plastic containers as they played mah-jongg and an occasional game of chess.

  Hollis Wilson sat on a park bench wearing a black leather jacket that concealed a .45-caliber automatic purchased from Dimitri Aronov. When Maya first met Hollis in Los Angeles, he had shoulder-length dreadlocks and wore stylish clothes. In New York, Vicki had cut his hair short and he had learned the Harlequin rule of concealment: always wear or carry something that conveys a false identity. That afternoon he had pinned two buttons to his jacket that announced: WANT TO LOSE WEIGHT? TRY THE HERBAL SOLUTION! The moment New Yorkers saw the lapel buttons, they turned their eyes away.

  As Hollis guarded Gabriel, he studied a loose-leaf copy of The Way of the Sword, the meditation on combat written by Sparrow, the legendary Japanese Harlequin. Maya had grown up with the book, and her father was constantly repeating Sparrow’s famous statement that Harlequins should “cultivate randomness.” It annoyed her that Hollis was trying to take possession of this key part of her training.

  “So how long have you been here?” she asked.

  “About two hours.”

  They looked across the park to another row of benches where Gabriel was playing chess at a park table with an elderly Chinese man. The Traveler had also changed his looks during their time in New York. Vicki had given him a very short haircut, and he usually wore a knit cap and sunglasses. When they first met in Los Angeles, Gabriel had long brown hair and the casual manner of a young man who spent his time skiing in the winter and surfing in the summer. He had lost weight in the last few months and now had the drained appearance of someone who had just recovered from a long illness.

  Hollis had picked a good defensive position with clear sightlines to almost every area of the park. Maya gave herself permission to relax for a moment and enjoy the fact that they were still alive. When she was a little girl, she had called these moments her “jewels.” The jewels were those rare times when she felt safe enough to appreciate something pleasant or beautiful—a sky pink from a sunset or the nights her mother cooked a special meal like lamb rogan josh.

  “Did anything happen this afternoon?” she asked.

  “Gabe read a book in the sleeping area, then we talked for a while about his father.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He still wants to find him,” Hollis said. “I understand how he feels.”

  Maya watched carefully as three elderly women approached Gabriel. The women were fortune-tellers who sat at the edge of the park and offered to predict your future for ten dollars. Whenever Gabriel walked past them, they would extend their hands slightly—palms facing upward, the right hand beneath the left—like beggars asking for alms. This afternoon, the fortune-tellers were merely showing their respect. One of them placed a cardboard cup of tea on the folding table used for the chess game.

  “Don’t worry,” Hollis said. “They’ve done this before.”

  “People are going to talk about it.”

  “So what? Nobody knows who he is. The fortune-tellers just sense he has some kind of power.”

  The Traveler thanked the women for the tea. They bowed to him, and then walked back to their post near the fence. Gabriel returned to his chess game.

  “Did Aronov show up for the meeting?” Hollis asked. “His text message said he was offering a new piece of equipment.”

  “He tried to sell me a ceramic handgun that we could carry through metal detectors. It was probably manufactured by a Russian security agency.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I haven’t made up my mind. I’m supposed to meet him at seven o’clock tonight. We’ll drive to New Jersey so I can fire it a few times.”

  “A weapon like that could be useful. How much does he want for it?”

  “Nine thousand dollars.”

  Hollis laughed. “I guess we don’t get a ‘good customer’ discount.”

  “Should we buy it?”

  “Nine thousand in cash is a lot of money. You should talk to Vicki. She knows how much we’ve got and how much we’re spending.”

  “Is she at the loft?”

  “Yeah. She’s organizing dinner. We’ll go back there when Gabriel’s done with this game.”

  Maya got up from the bench and cut across the dead grass to where Gabriel was playing chess. When she wasn’t alert to her own emotions, she found herself wanting to be near him. They weren’t friends—that was impossible. But she felt as if he looked into her heart and saw her clearly.

  Gabriel glanced up at her and smiled. It was just a brief moment between them, but it made her feel both happy and angry at the same time. Don’t be a fool, Maya told herself. Always remember: you’re here to take care of him, not to care about him.

  She passed through Chatham Square and headed down East Broadway. The sidewalk was crowded with tourists and Chinese people buying food for dinner. Roast duck and scallion chicken hung from hooks just inside the steamed-up windows, and she almost bumped into a young man carrying a suckling pig wrapped in clear plastic. When no one was watching Maya unlocked the door and entered the building on Catherine Street. More keys. More locks. And then she was inside the loft.

  “Vicki?”

  “I’m here.”

  Maya pulled back one of the tarps and found Victory From Sin Fraser sitting on a cot, counting currency from several different countries. In Los Angeles, Vicki had been a modestly dressed member of the Divine Church of Isaac T. Jones. Now she was wearing what she called her artist costume—embroidered blue jeans, a black T-shirt, and a Balinese necklace. Her hair was braided and there was a bead at the end of each strand.

  Vicki glanced up from the stacks of money and smiled. “Another shipment arrived at the Brooklyn apartment. I wanted to check our current total.”

  The women’s clothes were stored in cardboard boxes or hung from a dress rack that Hollis had bought on Seventh Avenue. Maya pulled off her overcoat and slipped it onto a plastic hanger.

  “What happened when you met the Russian? Hollis said he probably wanted to sell you another handgun.”

  “He offered me a special weapon, but it’s expensive.” Maya sat down on her folding cot and briefly described the ceramic gun.

  “Seed to sapling,” Vicki said as she slipped a rubber band on a packet of hundred-dollar bills.

  By now, Maya was familiar with a variety of phrases from the collected letters of Isaac Jones, the founder of Vicki’s church. Seed to sapling, sapling to tree meant that you should always consider the possible consequences of your actions.

  “We have the money, but it’s a dangerous weapon,” Vicki continued. “If criminals got control of it, they could use it to hurt innocent people.”

  “It’s the same with any weapon.”

  “Will you promise to destroy it when we’re finally in a safe place?”

  Harlekine versprechen nichts, Maya thought in German. Harlequins don’t promise. It was like hearing her father’s voice. “I will consider destroying it,” she told Vicki. “That’s all I can say.”

  As Vicki continued counting the money, Maya changed her clothes. If she was meeting Aronov near the concert halls at Lincoln Center, then she had to look as if she were going out for a social evening. That meant ankle boots, black dress pants, a blue sweater, and a wool peacoat. Because of the money involved, she decided to carry a handgun: a short-barreled .357 Magnum revolver with an aluminum frame. The pants were loose enough to conceal an ankle holster.

  Maya’s throwing knife was held with an elastic bandage on her right arm while a push knife was worn on her left arm, close to the wrist. The push knife had a sharp triangular blade with a T-shaped handle.
Holding the handle in your fist, you punched at your target with all your strength.

  Vicki had stopped counting the money. She looked shy and a little embarrassed. “I have a problem, Maya. I thought—maybe—we could talk about it.”

  “Go on….”

  “I’m getting close to Hollis. And I don’t know what to do about it. He’s had a lot of girlfriends, and I’m not very experienced.” She shook her head. “In fact, I’m not experienced at all.”

  Maya had watched the growing attraction between Hollis and Vicki. It was the first time she had ever noticed the evolution of two people who were falling in love. At first, their eyes followed each other when one of them got up from the table. Then they leaned forward slightly when the other person was talking. When they were apart, they spoke about the other person in a bubbly, foolish manner. The whole experience made Maya realize that her father and her mother had never been in love. They respected each other and had a strong commitment to the alliance of their marriage. But that wasn’t love. Harlequins weren’t interested in that emotion.

  Maya slipped the revolver into the ankle holster. She made sure that the Velcro safety strap was fastened, and then pulled her pant leg down so that the cuff touched the top of her boot. “You’re talking to the wrong person,” she said to Vicki. “I can’t give you any advice.”

  The Harlequin took nine thousand dollars off the cot and headed for the door. She felt strong at that moment—ready for combat—but the familiar surroundings reminded her of Vicki’s help during her recovery. Vicki had fed Maya, changed her bandages, and sat on the couch beside her when she was in pain. She was a friend.

  Damn friends, Maya thought. Harlequins acknowledged obligations to one another, but friendship with citizens was regarded as a waste of time. During her brief attempt to live a normal life in London, Maya had dated men and socialized with the women who worked with her at a design studio. But none of these people were her friends. They could never understand the peculiar way she saw the world; that she was always hunted—always ready to attack.

  Her hand touched the latch, but she didn’t open the door. Look at the facts, she told herself. Cut your heart open and dissect your feelings. You’re jealous of Vicki. That’s all. Jealous of someone else’s happiness.

  She returned to the sleeping area. “I’m sorry I said that, Vicki. There are a lot of things going on right now.”

  “I know. It was wrong of me to bring this up.”

  “I respect you and Hollis. I want you both to be happy. Let’s talk about it when I get back tonight.”

  “Okay.” Vicki relaxed and smiled. “We can do that.”

  Maya felt better when she finally got out of the building. Her favorite hour was approaching: the transition between day and night. Before the streetlights went on, the air seemed to be filled with little black specks of darkness. Shadows lost their sharp edges and boundaries faded away. Like a knife blade, sharp and clean, she passed through the gaps in the crowd and cut through the city.

  6

  M aya walked north from the alleyways of Chinatown to the broad avenues of Midtown Manhattan. This was the visible city, where the Vast Machine asserted its control. But Maya knew there was an intricate world beneath the pavement, a labyrinth of subway lines, railroad tracks, forgotten passageways, and utility tunnels lined with electric cables. Half of New York was hidden from sight, burrowed deep within the bedrock that supported the tenements in Spanish Harlem as well as the glass towers on Park Avenue. And there was a parallel world of humanity that was hidden as well, different groups of heretics and true believers, illegal immigrants with false papers and respectable citizens with secret lives.

  An hour later she was standing on the marble steps that led to the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. The theater and concert buildings were on the perimeter of a large plaza with a lighted fountain at the center. Most of the performances hadn’t started yet, but musicians wearing black clothes and carrying instrument cases hurried up the steps and cut across the plaza to different concert halls. Maya shifted the money to a zippered pocket inside her jacket, then glanced over her shoulder. There were two surveillance cameras in clear view, but they were aimed at crowds near the fountain.

  A taxi pulled up to the arrival area. Aronov was sitting in the back. When he gestured with his hand, Maya came down the steps and got in beside the Russian.

  “Good evening, Miss Strand. How pleasant to see you again.”

  “The gun has to work or no sale.”

  “Of course.” Aronov gave directions to the driver, a young man with a spiky haircut, and they pulled back onto the street. Within a few blocks, they were on Ninth Avenue, heading south.

  “You brought the money?” he asked.

  “No more than we discussed.”

  “You are a very suspicious person, Miss Strand. Perhaps I should hire you as an assistant.”

  As they crossed Forty-second Street, Aronov took a ballpoint pen and a leather-bound notebook out of his pocket as if he were about to write a memo. The Russian began to talk about his favorite nightclub in Staten Island and the exotic dancer there who had once been a member of the Moscow Ballet. It was meaningless chatter, something a car salesman would say as he guided you around the lot. Maya wondered if the ceramic gun was a fake and if Aronov was planning to steal the money. Or maybe it was nothing. He knows I’m carrying a handgun, Maya thought. He sold it to me.

  The driver turned right on Thirty-eighth Street and followed signs to the Lincoln Tunnel. Rush-hour traffic converged upon the entrance, and then sorted itself into different lanes. Three separate tunnels—each with two lanes—led under the river to New Jersey. Traffic was heavy, but the cars were traveling about thirty miles an hour. Peering out the side window, she watched a power cable move up and down on the white tile facade that lined the tunnel.

  Maya turned as the Russian shifted his weight on the seat beside her. He clicked the ballpoint pen and a needle emerged from the tip. Within that instant, Maya saw each detail with total clarity. Her hand grabbed Aronov’s wrist. Instead of fighting his attack, she went with its force, guiding him halfway downward, and then jerking his arm to the left.

  Aronov stabbed himself in the leg. He screamed with pain, and now Maya used all her strength, punching him in the face while holding the needle in his flesh. The Russian sucked in air like a drowning man, then went limp and slumped against the car door. Maya touched his neck—still alive. Whatever chemical was in the fake pen was just a tranquilizer. She searched the outside pocket of Aronov’s raincoat, found the ceramic gun, and transferred it to her shoulder bag.

  A clear Plexiglas barrier separated the front seat from the back, and she could see that the taxi driver was talking into a headset. Both doors were locked. She tried to roll down the side windows, but they were locked as well. Glancing over her shoulder, she realized that a dark SUV was directly behind the cab. Two men sat in front, and the mercenary in the passenger seat was also using a headset.

  Maya drew her revolver and tapped the barrel on the Plexiglas barrier. “Unlock the doors!” she shouted. “Hurry up!”

  The driver saw the gun, but didn’t obey her. There was a calm center within her mind, like a chalk circle drawn on the pavement, and Maya stayed within its boundaries. The barrier between the seats would be bulletproof. She could smash the side window, but it would be difficult to crawl out through the small opening. The safest exit was through the locked door.

  She pushed her revolver into her waistband, drew her throwing knife, and forced the sharp point between the window frame and the plastic trim panel. The panel wouldn’t move more than half an inch, so she took out the push knife and jabbed it into the small opening. Forcing downward with both blades, she pried open the plastic, exposing an interior steel panel. The panel was thick enough to resist bullets, but the holding brackets looked fragile.

  Maya knelt on the floor of the cab, pointed her revolver at the top bracket, and fired. The gunshot was painfully loud.
Her ears were ringing as she pulled down on the steel panel—exposing the latch, a steel rod, and the power-lock actuator. Now it was easy. She pushed her knife onto the point where the rod and the actuator connected and pulled upward. The lock popped open.

  She had overcome the first obstacle, but still wasn’t free. The taxi was moving too fast for her to jump safely. Maya took a deep breath and tried to push the fear out through her lungs. They were about fifty feet away from the tunnel exit. When the traffic emerged, the cars would slow momentarily while changing lanes. Maya estimated she had about two or three seconds to get out before the taxi picked up speed.

  The driver knew that the side door was open. He glanced up into the rearview mirror and said something into his telephone headset. The instant the cab came out of the tunnel, Maya grabbed the door and jumped. The door swung outward. She held on tightly as the cab went over a bump and she was slammed back against the door frame. Cars swerved and brakes screeched as the taxi driver began to cut across the lanes. He looked back at her for an instant and the cab smashed into the side of a blue commuter bus. Maya was flung from the door and landed on the road.

  She scrambled to her feet and glanced around her. The entrance to the tunnel on the New Jersey side looked like a manmade canyon. A high concrete wall was on her right, with houses perched on a steep slope farther up. To her left were the tollbooths for vehicles entering the tunnel. The SUV had stopped about twenty feet away from the cab, and a man wearing a suit and tie got out and stared at her. He didn’t draw a gun; there were too many witnesses, and three police cars were parked near the tollbooths. Maya started running toward an exit ramp.

  FIVE MINUTES LATER, she was in Weehawken, a shabby commuter town with dirt alleyways separating three-story clapboard houses. When she was sure no one was looking, she scrambled over the stone wall that formed the back courtyard of a deserted Catholic church and pulled out her cell phone. Hollis’s phone rang five or six times before he answered.