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

been where August’s watchers had picked me up. Then
     Mila and I had met in Central Park, then gone to the apartment address Bell gave us. She hadn’t been here at The Last Minute
     in weeks. And she’d left with Bertrand. And with her cap and sunglasses and moving van uniform the followers must not have
     spotted her leaving, else they would have followed her, not me.
    ‘Why?’
    ‘I want to know who she is.’
    ‘Stop following her and ask her.’
    ‘I’m not going to kidnap her off the street.’
    ‘Because the CIA isn’t supposed to operate on American soil. And yet here you are, tailing people. I guess I should be grateful
     you haven’t set the FBI on me.’
    August took an appreciative sip of the martini.
    ‘I don’t need to kidnap her when I think you’ll tell me what I want to know.’
    I slid the olives off the stick with my mouth and dropped the toothpick next to my glass. ‘Mouth full,’ I said. ‘Can’t talk.’
    ‘You’ve really picked your side, haven’t you, Sam? You’ve picked this Mila.’
    ‘I can rely on her.’
    ‘I told you we would help you find your kid.’
    ‘I told you I would handle it myself.’
    ‘Because you think you still have enemies in the Special Projects branch.’
    ‘Yes. Who would use my kid against me.’
    ‘You’re paranoid.’
    ‘You get to be after you get framed for treason, August.’
    He took another sip of his drink. ‘You’re trying to find the woman who took Daniel.’
    ‘No luck yet.’
    ‘I’m betting you’re close.’
    ‘August. Go home. Let me get my kid back.’
    ‘Have you made progress? Can we help you?’
    ‘I trust you. But if you tracked my kid and there’s another traitor inside the Company working for Novem Soles, then, well,
     maybe my kid is dead. Right now they don’t know what I’m doing and I have to keep it that way. I get him back, that’s all
     I care about. I’m not in the revenge business.’
    ‘We don’t even know what Novem Soles is,’ he said. ‘Some of the thinkers at the CIA are arguing that Novem Soles actually
     stands for “nothing special”. They could just have been a few guys who decided to make some cash committing corporate espionage
     and smuggling weapons. They got a gang of low-level thugs to tattoo themselves and talk like they were part of a big deal
     and maybe it’s all just a grand illusion.’
    ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘I think they’re big.’
    ‘I think you’re right. My hope is that Mila could tell me exactly what and who they are.’
    ‘If she knew that they’d all be dead.’
    ‘I’m glad Mila and I are on the same page, then. What were the two of you doing today up on the Upper West Side?’
    ‘Meals on Wheels.’
    August tapped a finger against the base of the martini glass. ‘Look, I want Daniel back for you. More than anything, Sam.
     But you can’t grab him back and just let these people roll on.’
    ‘I am going to do what’s best for my kid and me.’ I gestured toward his martini. ‘I want out, August. I want a normal life
     again. They took it from me and I’m going to get it back.’
    ‘And, what, run a bar?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Sam. You did us, and the nation, a good turn here in New York.’
    ‘You sound like an award plaque.’
    He ignored my sarcasm. ‘I won’t ever forget it. But I’ve had to argue, repeatedly, not to pull you back in. I’ve protected
     you because we’re friends. I did it because I know you want it this way. But Novem Soles is much, much bigger than you. I’m
     running a task force in Special Projects on finding information about this network, what they want, who they are.’ He turned
     the martini glass. ‘They’re something new. Different. I would expect a terrorist group to try to do a mass assassination.
     But not a criminal group. What’s the profit in it for them? Who are they? Why are they doing what they’re doing? It makes
     no obvious sense.’
    ‘Good luck.’
    ‘So. Let me help you. We’ll find