The Witnesses Read online

  “Are you the neighbor who made the complaint?” she asks.

  “I did.” His breathing is harsh, and he feels like a series of explosive coughs are about to rip from his lungs.

  “It was unfounded.”

  “What?”

  “Sir, it was unfounded.”

  He walks to her, stops as he forgets his wheeled oxygen tank. The tubes rip from his nose, the tank falling over. “What do you mean, unfounded? I saw it! Hey, I was on the job for twenty-plus years, back in Manhattan, and I know what the hell I’m talking about.”

  The female officer shakes her head again. “Sir, it was unfounded…and if you’ll excuse me, I have to go back on patrol.”

  That’s it. She’s back in her cruiser. The engine starts right up, and in a few seconds, the cruiser makes a left-hand turn and is gone.

  Ronald is alone on the empty street.

  But he senses something.

  He slowly moves, breathing hard, toward his oxygen tubes on the grass, his oxygen bottle on its side.

  There.

  The large man in the house…he’s at the door.

  It’s open.

  He’s staring right at Ronald.

  Right at him.

  So now he knows who made the call.

  Who told the police all about him.

  The stare is quiet, unmoving, unyielding.

  Ronald feels that old fear of being alone out on the street, no partner, no backup. He suddenly wishes the unhelpful officer from Nassau County was still here, with her cruiser and her radio.

  It’s been a very long time since Ronald has been this afraid.

  CHAPTER 19

  Teresa Sanderson sits on the crowded bathroom floor with her legs pulled up to her and her arms wrapped around her knees, trying not to shiver with fear. Lance is next to her, arm around her shoulders. Her children are huddled in the bathtub, a heavy and bulky black Kevlar blanket draped over the two of them. Jason had moved quickly, putting Sandy in first, then her brother on top of her, and putting the blanket in place. Another Kevlar blanket is attached to the locked bathroom door behind them.

  The bathroom is a dump. Filthy tile, a dirty tub, a leaking faucet over an old porcelain sink, and a toilet that flushes itself every now and then, usually at three in the morning. Over the toilet is a small window, so dirty that the outside can’t be clearly seen. There’s a handmade crooked shelf that holds some cleaning supplies, most of them almost as old as Sam.

  Lance notes Teresa’s review of the dingy bathroom and gently leans into her.

  “Honey?” he asks.

  “Yes?”

  “I love what you’ve done with the place.” His smile warms her and she leans back into him.

  Still…

  How in God’s name did she end up here, in danger, with her kids and her husband? What combination of forces and coincidences have conspired to do this to her and her family?

  Risk.

  Always a matter of risk, but long before, when Sam and Sandy were just barely toddlers, she wanted to go along with Lance as he dove into the past, unlocking the secrets of Carthage and its long-standing enemy, Rome. It had all worked out from the start. She spent quality time with her husband, and her kids had grown up knowing there was more to the world than just a school playground and computer games.

  She strains to listen to what’s happening on the other side of the door. A murmur of voices, that’s all.

  Now?

  Now she regrets it all, and though she hates to admit it, she regrets trusting Lance. Oh, he’s a solid husband, smart, funny and loyal, good in bed and good at taking care of the kids. But sometimes…sometimes he is caught in the past, thinking of battles involving Carthage and Rome instead of lifting his head and seeing the battles going on around them.

  She shifts her weight, still listening.

  Because this is a battle that has caught up her and her family.

  She thinks back about their time in Tunisia, and with guilt flooding through her, she remembers one thing that she’s been hiding from Lance and Jason and the other government people they’ve encountered since their abrupt departure.

  About that day in the nearest city, Bizerte, when she had been taking photographs in the marketplace.

  Three hard-looking men had been sitting at a café table, drinking coffee, and she loved the way the light was coming in past the overhanging tapestries. She had taken the photo, and the men—suddenly and scarily angry—had leapt as one from the table and chased her through the crowds.

  Who were they? Why didn’t they want their photos taken?

  Teresa knows…though she’s too scared to admit it, even now.

  She had never told Lance about what had happened. She had planned to tell him the next day, but on that next day—

  A knock on the bathroom door makes her jump.

  “Sanderson family.” It’s the familiar voice of Jason. “Sanderson family, we are clear.”

  She untangles herself from Lance’s grasp and gets up. Lance unlocks the bathroom door. Teresa goes over to the bathtub and pulls away the heavy Kevlar blanket, her heart breaking when she sees her boy and her girl scared and huddled in the bottom of the tub.

  Jason comes in, going past Lance, helping out Sam and then Sandy. “You okay, kids?” he asks.

  “I need to go back to my reading,” Sandy announces. “I’ve wasted nine minutes in here.”

  Sam says, “And she farts. And won’t say she’s sorry.”

  Sam barrels out and his older sister follows him, and Jason says, “All clear.”

  Lance nods in satisfaction, but Teresa can’t stand it. “All clear? For now…but for how long? Will we ever be safe, ever again, will we?”

  The two men look away from her and say nothing.

  And she wishes she was brave enough to tell them what she’s thinking: that this is all her fault.

  CHAPTER 20

  Two blocks away from Perry Street in downtown Trenton, New Jersey, Gray Evans locks his rental car in front of a boarded-up three-story brick building, one of at least six he sees up and down this side street. The streets are filthy, the streetlights are broken, and the sidewalks are cracked and have knee-high weeds growing out of them.

  Gray glances up and down the street. A thin black dog trots along the other side of the street, disappears into a narrow alley. Gray takes a deep breath, smells the familiar scents he’s encountered over the years in different parts of the world, and knows where he is: a place where people and the government have given up. Lead-tainted water, uncollected trash, decaying buildings. All the signs of a collapsing civilization.

  He walks up a block, takes a right. Another series of three-story brick buildings, but the one at the end has lights on and is a bodega. Two bars are across the street, lights on, some men walking in, others stumbling out with drink-fueled vigor. Shouts, music, and more shouts punctuate the night.

  At the center of the block is a secure metal-frame door with reinforced hinges and a keypad combination lock. He punches in eight numbers he’s memorized, turns the knob, and enters a different world. The floor is covered in clean tile and the lights are all on. There’s a narrow elevator in front of him—again, with a keypad lock. He punches in another set of numbers, the door glides open, he gets in, and the elevator gently takes him up to the third floor.

  It opens up into a wide, open loft with recessed lighting. There’s a grouping of comfortable leather furniture in front of him, a kitchen to the right with stainless steel appliances, and a wide work area in the distance consisting of a conference table, four large-screen monitors, banks of servers with blinking lights, and two computer workstations.

  A man leaning on a cane approaches him, smiling, holding out his right hand. “Gray. On time, as always.”

  “That’s how I roll, Abraham.”

  “Come on in.”

  Abraham leads him to the conference table. He has on leather moccasins, khaki slacks, and a Yankees T-shirt. He’s in his early thirties, w
ith trimmed black hair, a black goatee, and gold earrings in each ear.

  He settles down and Gray sits across from him. Abraham says, “Refreshments?”

  “Not now,” Gray says.

  “Suit yourself,” Abraham says, sitting still, his cane tight in his left hand. “What do you need?”

  Gray says, “Looking for the Sanderson family. Husband and wife, Lance and Teresa. Preteen daughter and son, Sandy and Sam. All from Palo Alto. Hubby is a professor at Stanford, wife is a freelance author, has written two travel guides. A couple of weeks ago they were in Tunisia. Now I think they’re in Levittown.”

  “From Tunisia to Levittown, what a letdown,” Abraham says.

  “I guess.”

  “You want them found?”

  “Very much so,” Gray says.

  “Usual fee?”

  “Plus ten percent,” Gray says. “Your skills…I think they deserve to be compensated.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “Plus I’m in a rush.”

  “You or your client?”

  “What difference does it make?”

  Abraham looks up at the open ceiling, where a red digital clock is suspended. “Let’s say…twenty-four hours.”

  “Perfect.”

  Gray gets up and walks out.

  He’s never been one for extended good-byes.

  Back to his rental car—Gray always purchases the extra insurance, just because of trips like these—he comes upon two local youths sitting on the hood. They’re dressed in baggy pants with their underwear showing, wearing lots of gold chains—or bling, he can never keep up with latest trends—and baseball caps worn at an angle.

  “Yo,” the one on the left says, not moving. “Nice rig.”

  “Glad you like it,” he says. “It’s a rental.”

  The other youth says, “Rental or no, you owe us a parking fee.”

  “I do?” Gray asks, stepping closer. “Funny, I don’t see any signs.”

  The first one says, “It’s understood, bro. This place and all. It’s…understood. We watched your rig, nothing happened to it, we get compensated.”

  Gray says, “Appreciate the concern, fellas, but I respectfully decline.”

  The first one gets off the car. “Bad move, bro. We’re not taking no for an answer.”

  Gray eyes them both and says, “All right, here’s the deal. Tell me what happened here in December 1776 and I’ll let you go.”

  The second laughs. “You’ll let us go?”

  They both advance on him. The first one says, “Who the hell you think you are?”

  Gray waits until the last moment, relaxed. Unless these two are well trained and exceptional, and know how to work as a team, they are quite vulnerable.

  They just don’t know it yet.

  He spins and kicks hard at the right knee of the closest one, making him cry out and fall to the ground. His friend attempts to run away and Gray snags the waistband of his exposed underwear, gives it a severe tug—crushing whatever might be in the way—and spins him back so he falls against the hood of his rental.

  The two youths are on the ground, moaning and clasping at their injured parts. Gray leans over and says, “Tell you who I am. I’m the guy who knows Washington and his troops saved the revolution here in Trenton, for the eventual benefit of you two dopes.”

  More moans and they scramble away in fear as Gray gets closer and says, “Guys?”

  Neither one of them attempts to speak. Gray says, “Guys…I really need to go. Mind getting out of the way?”

  And in seconds they’re gone.

  Gray gets into his rental and heads out.

  It’s been a full day.

  CHAPTER 21

  After a three-hour run north from Levittown, New York State Trooper Leonard Brooks arrives in Latham—just north of Albany, New York—and parks his cruiser at the office building that houses the New York State Intelligence Center. Having called ahead, he gets a friendlier reception here than he had in Nassau County, and he is quickly ushered into a plain-looking office where he meets with Beth Draper, an intelligence analyst for the State Police.

  She stands up from her desk, which is piled high with forms and folders, and comes around to give him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Brooksie, good to see you again.”

  “The same.”

  He sits down, feeling warm, thinking, Oh, yes, much nicer reception than Levittown. He and Beth dated for a year or so right after both of them graduated from the New York State Police Academy in Albany.

  She had gone into intelligence and he had gone into patrol. They saw each other every few months or so and were now less than lovers and more than just friends.

  Beth sits down, runs both hands through her long blond hair. She’s wearing a plain white blouse and black slacks that fail to conceal her pretty curves. “Okay, it’s past quitting time. Tell me what you need.”

  He spends the next few minutes explaining his search for his cousin, the lack of response from authorities in Palo Alto and Levittown, and how messages to Teresa’s cellphone, home phone, and email have all gone unanswered.

  “Damn,” she says. “Don’t like the sound of that.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “What do you think?” she asks. “She have enemies? Her husband?”

  “She’s a freelance writer. He’s an archaeologist. Not the enemy-making type.”

  “You’d be surprised. You said they were in North Africa recently?”

  “Tunisia.”

  “The whole family?”

  “Teresa…she’s one of those granola types. Wants to expose her kids to the bigger world. And her husband…he’s sort of an expert on Carthage.”

  “Car what?”

  “Carthage. North African empire that were rivals of Rome until Rome crushed them. You’ve heard of Rome, haven’t you?”

  She smiles, a perfect little smile of white teeth that still stirs him. “Sure. Rome. About ninety minutes away. Where the Erie Canal was started. Please stop busting my chops, Brooksie.”

  “Chop-busting done.”

  Beth sighs, scribbles a few things on a piece of scrap paper. “I’ll do what I can, I’ll start sniffing around…but you should prepare yourself.”

  His hands feel chilled, like a block of ice was suddenly nearby. “What are you saying?”

  “What you already know, in your heart of hearts,” Beth says, still writing. “Phone call unexpectedly broken off. No information from any authorities. Friends and relatives don’t know where they are. Phone, cellphone, and email all unanswered.”

  She looks up, pretty face solemn. “You remember the Petrov family, two years ago? On the run from the Russian mob? Hiding out?”

  Leonard feels much cooler. “Yes.”

  Beth says, “It took one slipup…a postcard to a relative, saying all was well. And that’s all.” Beth pauses. “I hear that when the house was finally cleared by the FBI, they had to bulldoze it down to the foundation. Because they couldn’t get all the bloodstains out of the floors and walls.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Sam Sanderson opens the door to his bedroom, checks out the hallway. All quiet. Lights off. Of course it would be quiet…this crappy place doesn’t even have a television!

  He closes the door, pops himself down on his unmade bed. He’s got books, he’s got dinosaur models…and he’s bored.

  God, he’s so bored.

  No television!

  And there’s no computer!

  Oh, Mom has a laptop, but something inside the computer has been switched off, meaning it can’t be used to access the internet.

  So Sam can’t do research on which new dinosaur models he wants to order, he can’t check out the dinosaur forums he loves to poke around in, and he can’t email…about a half-dozen of his buds back in California must be wondering why he hasn’t answered them.

  Great. When he finally gets back to Palo Alto, his friends will think he’s been a jerk because he hasn’t answered their emails.r />
  Plus…he reaches into his jeans pocket, tugs out a piece of metal and plastic, rolls it around in his fingers. This is something he picked up back at that desert place, something he hadn’t shown Dad. It wasn’t one of those broken bowl pieces, for sure…it looked too new. So what is it?

  He puts it back in his pocket. If he had a computer that really worked, he could find out…

  Sam bounces off the bed, opens the door one more time. Still dark, still quiet. He wonders where Jason is hiding. Ever since they left Tunisia, that scary bad guy has been hanging with them, day after day. Sam knows something bad happened back in Tunisia, but why should he have to pay for it?

  He can’t go anywhere alone, he can’t go play in the yard by himself, and no computer…

  Man, he’s bored!

  He closes the door and tries to tiptoe back to his bed.

  Bored or not, he has a plan.

  This crappy house has a house to the left and one to the right. The one to the left has some snoopy old guy who keeps on peeking in at them with binoculars. But the other house…there’s a guy and girl who live there together, and the funny thing is, they both work at night.

  Which means that, right now, their house is empty.

  The house he can see through his bedroom window.

  And he knows they use a computer…because he can see them working on it in their living room.

  Sam knows something else, too.

  The other day the two of them came back from some errand, and he saw the woman dig and dig through her purse, and then the guy laughed at her and removed a brick from the steps, took out a key, and unlocked the front door.

  So the house over there is empty.

  The house that has a computer.

  And he knows where the key to the door is hidden.

  Sam goes to the window, opens up the lock, and slides the window open, and then the screen. It makes a squeaky noise.

  He waits.

  And waits.

  No one seems to have heard him.

  Good!

  He clambers outside and steps on the grass and then starts to the empty house.