The Last Minute by Jeff Abbott Read Free Book Online Page A

Park. The Last Minute’s a nice bar. Elegant, refined, oriented toward jazz.
     The bar itself is exquisite Connemara marble. The mirror behind the bar is huge and ancient, a leftover from a New York establishment
     from before the Civil War. We get a bit of tourist trade – any high-end bar in New York does once good reviews land on Yelp
     or on the guide sites – but we get a lot of Midtown office people, bored wealthies, regulars who actually know what goes into
     a proper Old-Fashioned or Sazerac. The post-work crowd had started to melt away. Eloise is at the piano, softly playing a
     Thelonious Monk arrangement. She’s older than God but the sparks of jazz in her body are apparently going to keep her alive
     forever. When I’d acquired the bar from Mila a few weeks ago, it had been called Bluecut, but I’d renamed it. The Last Minute
     was my base of operations in searching for my son, and it reflected my sense of urgency and my determination that I would
     never give up.
    I nodded at the bartender and pointed at a stool for August. He sat. Then I went back behind the bar to make our own drinks,
     which is a statement in itself. I knew I had to let go of some secrets right now to protect others.
    August looked like what he is, a Minnesota farm boy of Swedish and German descent. He glanced around at the beautiful people,
     at the elaborate décor, at the shimmer of lights. He’d met me here for a drink a few weeks before and, five minutes after
     he left, Mila showed up and gave me ownership of The Last Minute, and of thirty other bars in cities around the world. Ihadn’t told him because so far he didn’t need to know. But as I moved to the other side of the expanse of Connemara marble,
     he raised an eyebrow at me. ‘You bartending now?’
    I gestured, open-handed, at the charm and the glory. ‘The Last Minute is mine.’
    ‘The bar is yours?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    He glanced around at the finery and absorbed the news. ‘Well. I was going to order a beer. But if you own the joint, then
     I’ll have a martini made with good gin.’
    ‘All right.’
    I crafted his martini, with all the care you would take for your best friend having his first cocktail in your new bar.
    I slid a Plymouth English Gin martini in front of August, two olives. Not the most expensive gin but really a strong choice
     for a martini. August took a sip and nodded in approval. I poured another one for myself.
    ‘Let’s go sit in a booth,’ he said.
    Old banquette-style leather booths lined one wall; they provided a modicum of quiet. August followed me to one.
    ‘Why have you bought a bar?’ he asked.
    ‘I need a livelihood to support my search for my son,’ I said. There was a lot more to the story, but he didn’t need to know
     how I’d come into possession of The Last Minute and its thirty sisters around the world. Mila’s bosses – a group known as
     the Round Table, who claimed to be a force for good in the shadows – had offered me the bars as a cover to travel the world,
     to track down my son and to do the odd job for them that required my skills.
    ‘You could have come back to work at the Company.’
    ‘They don’t like to accuse you of treason and then backtrack by offering you gainful employment.’
    My past with the CIA was a sore spot with him; he almost cringed as I spoke. To camouflage his embarrassment, he glanced around
     the bar, drinking it in as carefully as he’d sipped his martini. Some spy; he couldn’t keep the surprise off his face. ‘Really
     nice place, Sam.’
    ‘So now you know where to find me. Why are you following me?’
    He twisted the toothpick holding the olives. ‘This woman. Mila. Who helped you fight Novem Soles in Amsterdam. I want to know
     about her.’
    ‘There’s nothing to know.’
    ‘Sam, let’s not insult each other.’
    Fine, I thought. I’d play. ‘You followed us today. Mila, too.’
    ‘Yes.’
    I had had an early dinner in a favorite old haunt of mine; that must have