When Shadows Come Read online

  “Hello, Captain,” he says, in his chipper voice. A voice that makes me want to kick him in the gut. But is my fury because of Grace or because of something else not yet completely understood? “Would you care to follow me, please?” he asks.

  I agree. But only under one condition. That Anna Laiti accompany me.

  Graham gives Carbone a look.

  Carbone shoots Graham a similar look. Not a chance.

  Lowrance shoots Graham his version of the same no fucking way expression.

  “How about I ask Laiti to write up a new report for CNN?” I say. “Don’t hesitate to mention that after blaming me for my wife’s disappearance it turns out that she’s been abducted by the Taliban. That you assholes kept it a secret until now to save your own bureaucratic asses. That my fiancée could be dead now because of your inaction.”

  Graham holds up his right hand. “Hold on, Captain. Let’s not get carried away. Despite the break in protocol, you may ask Ms. Laiti to join us. This is all bound to go public anyway.”

  Chapter 56

  The five of us enter into an area through the secret door set into the wood panel. In contrast to the interview room, this space is outfitted in black acoustical wall and ceiling tiles, and black rubber-mat flooring laid upon a computer subflooring system. Just about every square foot of space is occupied with computer and surveillance equipment of one kind or another. Several flat-screened LED monitors are mounted to walls along with stacks of electronic equipment too complicated and high-tech for me to recognize, even as a professional soldier in the digital age.

  Graham, Lowrance, and Carbone lead Anna and me to a laptop set up on a counter. Carbone sits down in a tall, black leather swivel chair before the computer, swiftly types in several commands, then sits back in the chair contemplatively. After a few seconds an image appears on both the computer screen and every wall-mounted digital monitor in the room.

  It’s a clear black-and-white shot of Piazza San Marco filmed from a couple dozen feet above the stone surface. Included in the picture is the caffè where Grace and I sat for our last lunch together. In the video, we are seated at the table.

  “What you’re viewing here,” Carbone begins to explain, “is a surveillance video shot from five meters up on the north corner of the cathedral. It took us a couple of days to get our hands on it from the cathedral authorities and then some doing to sort through the video, but we eventually narrowed it down to the twenty or so minutes from your arrival at the caffè to Grace’s disappearance.”

  Anna steps forward, her stocking-covered thighs pressing up against the counter.

  “Detective Carbone,” she says, “are we about to witness the kidnapping of Grace Blunt?”

  “Just keep watching,” Graham says, crossing lanky arms over his narrow chest.

  On the monitor, Grace assists me with taking my seat at the table. She then makes her way around to the opposite side and sits. A waiter approaches us, takes our orders, and brings us our drinks. That waiter is not the man I would later come to know as Giovanni. It’s then that Grace seems to become distracted. She’s not looking at me, even though I am clearly speaking to her. She’s instead looking over my left shoulder at someone who must be standing behind me.

  The overcoat man.

  “I’m going to speed things up a bit here to save time,” Carbone says, hitting a key that makes the video fast forward. But he stops when a key figure enters into the scene.

  “There’s the man you spoke of, Captain. You can see him standing only a few feet behind you. He appears to be staring directly at Grace and he’s getting away with it, too, because of the massive amount of people already crowding the caffè.”

  The detective is right. Despite hordes of people moving all around the caffè perimeter and even rudely walking in between the tables, the overcoat man seems to present a formidable figure. Tall, dark, bearded, wearing sunglasses, and slowly approaching our table. He eventually comes so close, Grace is visibly shaken and looks like she’s about to scream in alarm.

  “You can see the man approach the table,” Carbone observes. “He doesn’t stand behind you for more than a few seconds before making his move.”

  On the screen, the overcoat man scurries around the table and makes a threatening move toward Grace. But that’s when he disappears. Rather, he doesn’t disappear so much as his presence is blocked by a group of tourists who suddenly enter the frame.

  “People,” I say. “All I see is people.”

  “Yes, a Japanese tour group entered into the frame at exactly the wrong time,” Carbone says. “Or, perhaps for the abductor, at exactly the right time.”

  “You can eventually make out the man and Grace as they move away from the table,” Graham adds. “Watch.”

  On the screen it takes the tour group maybe five seconds to pass by our table. By then you can see the overcoat man, with his right arm wrapped around Grace. He’s forcibly shoving her in the direction of the basin.

  Carbone says, “A closer look shows that this man is pressing something into her ribs with his left hand. A gun perhaps. Or a sharp object like a knife.”

  He clicks a couple more keys and the scene appears far more enlarged but at the same time, far more grainy and distorted. But there is no doubt in my mind of what I’m witnessing. The kidnapping of Grace.

  “From there,” Graham adds, “we believe he boarded her onto a boat or a barge disguised as a supply vessel, and carted her away. Perhaps to one of the islands. Perhaps to one of the buildings on Murano or Torcello. We just don’t know yet.”

  Carbone turns in his chair to face us.

  “We are fairly certain Grace has not left the country. There are only two publicly accessible ways out of Venice other than by water, and that’s by train or motor vehicle. Our eyes are constantly monitoring roads, water, and rails and thus far we’ve picked up no sign of their leaving.”

  “What about a chopper?” I suggest.

  “We’ve not been alerted to helicopters operating in or around the area since Grace’s abduction,” Carbone answers.

  “We’d know if someone did a hop-skip in and out of one of the islands,” Lowrance adds. Then, shaking his head, “I only wish I’d been on the scene just two minutes earlier. I might have caught him in the act.”

  His words sucker punch me in the gut. “You were already watching me by the time Grace was taken. So you knew there was a possible assassin on the loose. Why didn’t you warn us? You could have given us a heads-up. Protected us.”

  Lowrance nods. “I feel your frustration, Captain. But Interpol orders took precedence, and I was sworn to keep my distance from you and Grace. Other factors come into play also. For instance, you are not supposed to be here. Some army brass might have done you a favor, but you’re here at your own risk. I was able to observe you but only from a distance, since, technically speaking, you aren’t in Venice at all, but instead, back in New York recuperating.”

  Anna looks at me, then locks her eyes on Lowrance.

  “What’s all this mean, Agent Lowrance?” she says. “You used Grace and Nick as bait?”

  His face goes tight. “I did what I was told. Observe and report. We’d spotted the man earlier but we still couldn’t be sure what we were dealing with.”

  “Wait a minute,” I say. “You knew this guy was coming after me even before I showed up? How is that possible? I mean, how the hell did a card-carrying member of the Taliban even get past customs?”

  Lowrance shakes his head. “There are certain elements of the situation I’m not allowed to speak about. But to answer your question as directly as I can, we did not know someone was following you until you got here. If the abductor got into the country he did so illegally and perhaps even had help.”

  “So then, even though I’m ‘technically not here’”—I make quotation marks with my fingers—“you knew I was here.”

  “Yes,” Lowrance says. “We’ve been following you.”

  “You’re spying on me, just like
that Taliban creep.”

  “Yup,” Lowrance says. “For your own good. And the US military’s good, naturally.”

  “But you weren’t watching us close enough to prevent Grace’s abduction.”

  “Yup?” Laiti says wryly. “Did you just say ‘yup’?”

  “Listen, Captain,” Graham chimes in. “You are government property and when you defy direct orders, regardless of who helped you out in DC and Frankfurt, a whole bunch of red flags are raised. And if you don’t mind my saying so, you should be glad we’ve kept an eye on you, or you and Grace might be dead by now.”

  I chew on his words for a bit. He’s right, of course; if these men hadn’t been watching me they might never have caught sight of the overcoat man. Still, questions remain, not the least of which is . . .

  “But you knew what you were dealing with when Grace was taken.” Acid permeates my tone.

  “Yes,” Lowrance says. “Then we most definitely knew.”

  “But you kept your true identity from me.”

  “Again, orders are orders. And do I need to mention New York one more time?”

  The room goes silent for a moment, its poisonous atmosphere so palpable I can feel it coat my skin like a mist. Maybe Lowrance is right. If I had stayed in New York, Grace wouldn’t be missing. But then, if the overcoat man knew I was in Venice, he must have also known I was in New York. And if I stayed in New York, chances are he would have come after me there too. If he wanted to terrorize Grace and me that badly, he would have called on his own intelligence network to track me down no matter where I was. I could point this out to Lowrance and the others, but to what end?

  “Perhaps we should concentrate on the present situation,” Detective Carbone interjects, “rather than busy ourselves with pointing accusatory fingers.”

  “Like we have a choice, Detective,” I say. “Let’s get back to finding Grace. Before something worse happens to her.”

  Graham clears his throat. “We also have a solid theory as to why the abductor wouldn’t want to cart Grace away from Venice,” he says.

  “And what would that be?” Anna asks.

  “We believe he wants to eventually flush out the captain. They want him to find Grace and, once he does, he will kill them both.”

  “Christ, why not just kill us at the caffè?” I ask. “Why not shoot us in our sleep at our studio? Why go to all the trouble of abducting Grace just to flush me out when he could have taken a shot at me at any point?”

  Lowrance and Graham exchange glances.

  “It’s possible that killing you would be simply too easy,” Lowrance says. “Too unsatisfactory for him.”

  “He wants to prolong the terror,” Graham adds. “Prolong the torture. He’s testing your pain threshold, teasing you, playing with your temporary blindness like a demented child tortures an insect, tearing off a leg here, a wing there. The bug can still move. It will even live for a long while. But it will be seriously damaged. It will also come to realize how powerless it is.”

  “But why?” Anna asks, running both her hands through her hair. “Doesn’t he realize that with every minute he spends tearing Nick’s wings off, he stands the chance of being caught himself? Why risk it?”

  “Retaliation,” Graham says. “Revenge not only for the bombing of his village, but perhaps something far more personal.”

  “What could be more personal than the bombing of one’s home?” she says.

  “That’s precisely what we’d like to find out.”

  Chapter 57

  “What happens now?” I ask.

  “We wait to make contact,” Lowrance says. “He’ll want to be heard. It’s possible he’ll crave the satisfaction of letting you know that he’s responsible for the abduction and be only a relative phone call away. Most abduction cases, even military-related ones, involve a ransom. But in this case, the ransom is you, Nick. Doesn’t make any difference, though, because we won’t negotiate. What we will do instead is to try and get a fix on his location, and then send in a team to rescue your fiancée. Right now, we have no idea where he is.” His eyes now locked on Anna. “And I trust we can keep our conversations under wraps for the time being? Is that a plausible request?”

  She nods, but then pauses. “On the contrary, gentlemen. Perhaps news of this story is precisely what you need to make our man show his head—to be properly coerced.”

  Carbone stands, takes his place beside Graham. “She has a point. Time is of the essence. If his inevitable objective is to kill the captain out of revenge, we must attempt to trip him up, give up his position. Do it immediately.”

  “I agree,” Graham says, biting down on his bottom lip. “Agent Lowrance. What about you?”

  The Interpol agent crosses arms over chest.

  “Maybe you’re right. We’re dealing with two human lives here, so I will defer to the captain.”

  “And if we do make contact with him, what precisely do you have in mind for extracting Grace?”

  “Can’t say until we know exactly what kind of hiding place we’re dealing with,” Lowrance says. “A building, a boat, a vehicle. You get the picture.”

  I plant my eyes back on Anna. “How long will it take you to write the piece and have it published?”

  “I can get started right away, if you’ll allow me the use of your apartment.”

  Adrenaline fills my battered brain. There’s a distinct sound to it, like an orchestra about to reach a climactic crescendo. My already-fragile vision is beginning to fade, the sight flickering on and off. From light to gray to dark and back again.

  “Let’s go now,” I say. “I fear I need some rest.”

  “Your eyes,” Anna says.

  “Yes, my eyes,” I say. But then, I’m blinded in so many other ways, I want to tell her. Blind to the best way of rescuing my fiancée. Blind to the future.

  Once more, she takes hold of my hand.

  “I’ll lead the way,” she says.

  Chapter 58

  Anna and I arrive back at my apartment. While she sets up her laptop on the harvest table behind the couch, I swallow another sleeping pill. Lying down on the bed, I quickly fall into a deep sleep.

  Grace is standing alone in the center of a gondola, her long hair draping her pale face and shoulders like an angel. She’s wearing a black gown covered with sequins. The gown doesn’t match the rich glossy black finish on the narrow boat so much as it blends into it, becomes one with it. Wrapped around her ring finger is her engagement ring. The diamond sparkles brilliantly in the daylight.

  The canal is calm, the water as clean and clear as newly drawn bathwater.

  Hers is the only boat on the water while the old buildings and stone canal banks are empty of people. Empty of life. Framing Grace is an arching stone bridge. She begins to float backward under it. I’m not in a boat. I am treading water. I’m floating calmly at first, but then desperately toward my fiancée, my hands outstretched like I’m trying to grab on to her.

  But she’s moving away from me far too fast, her boat sinking, filling with the clear canal water, her black-gowned body being swallowed up by Venice.

  I too am sinking, no matter how hard I try to stay afloat by kicking my feet and slapping at the water with my hands and arms. Then I am underwater and so is Grace. Only she’s no longer Grace. She is Karen.

  My wife and I lock eyes underneath the silent veil of water. Her expression hasn’t changed since she began to sink and drown. She peers at me with wide brown eyes and a slightly open mouth.

  The more I sink, the more my lungs constrict, and I feel the need to open my mouth, take a breath. But I know that if I do it, I will drown. I will die.

  Karen stares at me. Into my eyes. She knows I’m about to die.

  But then the dream shifts, and I am flat on my back on a table. I’m paralyzed. A man is standing over me. He’s got a board shoved in my mouth and he’s pouring water into it from a bucket.

  “Breathe, Nick,” comes Karen’s calm voice. “Breathe.”r />
  “Do it,” says Grace. “Do what Karen says.”

  I open my mouth. I breathe in the water.

  And I die.

  Chapter 59

  Anna is sitting beside me on the bed, my hand gripped in hers, as if she fears I’ll drift away into endless outer space unless she holds on to me.

  “You were dreaming again,” she says softly. “A nightmare.”

  She dries my forehead with a warm washcloth, presses the back of her hand against my face like she’s taking my temperature.

  “I saw Grace,” I whisper.

  “In your dream?”

  “She was floating on the Grand Canal. In a gondola. I was swimming for her. We both sank under the surface. But that’s when she turned into Karen. We all drowned.”

  She pats my forehead.

  “It was just a dream,” she says. “Just a dream.”

  I sit up, my face close to her face, her eyes looking into my own. For a brief moment, we are desperate figures caught up in a still life. I feel my hand in hers, until I pull it away, slowly, and stand.

  “How are your eyes, Captain?”

  “I needed rest,” I say, looking out over the easel, out the open French doors and into the fading afternoon sunlight. “That’s all. Rest and sleep.”

  My gaze shifts from the doors to the harvest table and her laptop. It’s open, a sheet of notes set beside it, a pen sitting on top of the notes, her cell phone set beside the pen.

  “And your article?” I ask.

  “Finished. Submitted to my editor, and posted. Thank God for the digital age.”

  “Let me read it.”

  She stands, then sits down before her laptop and turns it in my direction.

  “Please,” she says.

  I sit down, read the piece from off the CNN website.

  It’s not much of a piece. But that’s not the point. It’s the spin Anna has put on the piece that counts. To most people it will seem like a follow-up to the “American woman goes missing in Italy” story published yesterday; this short article states that after further investigation, it’s been determined by the Venice police that Grace Blunt was indeed abducted from the caffè in the Piazza San Marco in broad daylight. While no one has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, the police welcome open contact with the abductor or abductors in order to “consider their demands.” The piece ends with the police phone number and website contact address.