Free Choke Point by Ridley Pearson Page A

bag.
    “Think of a tram as a trap,” he says. “You can’t get off until and unless it makes a stop. It gives the enemy time to identify you, physically reach you and detain you.”
    “The enemy,” she says, scoffing. She thinks of him as a little boy. “Photographers think like this?”
    “This photographer does,” he says. “I’m here at your request.” He waits for her to say something. “You have a shoot for me?”
    “It is possible.” She works her phone and slides it across the table to him. He reads. It’s an e-mail in English. The message is brief. A woman has been reported as missing. Knox recognizes the name from Sonia’s article. Another of her sources.
    “From the police?” he asks.
    “A contact. Reliable.”
    “And then there were three,” he says.
    “I’m sorry?”
    “You quoted six different people in your article. This leaves three remaining. There’s an old black-and-white movie. You like movies?
Ten Little Indians.
‘And then there were three.’”
    She nods mournfully. “I must find Berna. The girl in my article.”
    “The chances of that are slim,” Knox says, gloating that he now has the girl’s first name. She’s not asking for a photographer, but a bodyguard. He feels relief. He will maintain the pretense.
    “I don’t expect a shared byline, but I do expect you to fight for my photographs to run along with the article wherever it’s published.”
    “You know I have no say over that.”
    “You have influence. You’re well known. I am not.”
    “My editor and I will do what we can.”
    That’s out of the way, allowing them both to tackle the unmentioned: that Knox brings other skills and qualities to the table.
    “You must warn the other people you interviewed.”
    “I tried to do this, following the car bomb. Of course I did! Several were unreachable, including this woman.”
    “I forget her role in the piece.”
    “A teacher. Not Berna’s teacher,” she says. “When a young girl failed to enroll in school this year, her teacher from the previous year thought the family must have left the district—moved residences. She then encountered the girl’s mother at a local market and confronted her. The mother shunned her, refusing to speak with her. I believe the school records are filled with such missing children.”
    “A place to start,” Knox says.
    “Acquiring enrollment records is not so easy. I have a contact, willing to help, but I would not anticipate much progress. Protecting children—” She cuts herself off, attempts to rub fatigue from her eyes.
    “What about your remaining sources?”
    “I was told they’d all left the city. Shows you what I know. If they have not, I’m sure they will now.”
    Knox thinks what good bait the three would have made. Lost opportunities.
    He doesn’t dare push his delicate relationship with Sonia too far toward investigation. He reminds himself he is a photographer, first and only.
    “Honestly . . . I feel awful saying this . . . but it’s Berna I care about. I should never have let her escape.”
    “Do you know the girl personally?”
    Sonia views him curiously.
    “You refer to her by name. I feel something each time you mention her.”
    She eyes him skeptically, but secretly impressed. “It is personal, but not with this girl, not with Berna. A niece. Another time and place entirely.”
    “You can’t fix the past in the present,” he cautions, wishing he hadn’t spoken. She questions him with heated eyes, requiring more of him. “Based on personal experience, I’d say it’s a mistake to try.”
    “I’m a problem solver, Mr. Steele. It is what motivates me to write in the first place.”
    He stifles what would be a cynical comeback. “I’m only saying: if your motivation is to help a niece who cannot be helped, you’re setting yourself up for failure.”
    “When I want a therapist I’ll let you know.”
    He hesitates. They’re into the thick bushes now. It’s darker here.
    “You