by Abbott, Jeff
Mouser studied him. ‘I don’t waste much time on the web. Others, yes, not me. Now. What names did he mention?’
‘Names. Yes. But … let me think for a minute.’ He could feel the weight of the knife hidden in his sleeve.
‘Concentrate. You’re supposed to be such a smart boy.’
Luke hunched over the table. He dropped his arms and he fake-shivered, and the knife began to work its way down into his hand, below the table’s edge.
‘He mentioned my stepfather … he mentioned a Night Road, but I didn’t understand, it was a name I made up for Henry …’
‘He did?’
‘Yeah, he said something about Hellfire … is that a code name?’ That was a lie but it worked.
‘Tell me what he said.’ The cool evaporated from Mouser’s voice.
Under the table, the handle of the knife slid into his hand. And for a moment fear stopped him. You have a knife, he has a gun. Seriously. How do you think this is going to end? ‘… Can I have paper and pen to write down everything I remember?’ He put a tired whine in his voice.
Mouser stood and walked past Luke toward the kitchen drawers and Luke drove the knife hard into Mouser’s leg. The knife sliced through the denim, the blade sliding into Mouser’s flesh.
‘Jesus!’ Mouser screamed as he doubled over in surprise. His hand instinctively grappled at the knife’s handle. But as Luke bolted past him, Mouser let go of the knife and got a steel hand on the back of Luke’s neck. He worked his fingertips into a claw that pushed expertly against nerve juncture and artery.
The agony staggered Luke. He reached back and twisted the knife’s handle and Mouser released him with a mix of roar and shriek.
Luke scrambled across the floor and he grabbed the heavy can of corn that he’d dropped and he lobbed it straight and hard at Mouser. The can nailed Mouser on the forehead as he tried to stand. Mouser collapsed to the floor again, staring at the tiles as though he didn’t quite comprehend the past minute.
Luke wasn’t about to risk getting close to the man again; he’d learned a hard lesson trying to fight Snow. He just thought: run. He ran out of the cottage. No car. Which meant that Snow might be driving up and down the river road, hunting him, same as Mouser.
He ran into the thickness of the pines.
12
The waiting was pure hell for Henry Shawcross. The police were gone, and he’d ignored the phone calls from the press after the brief statement he’d had to make on his front porch after the reporter showed him the Houston shooting footage. He was badly shaken; he hated to feel unprepared. He wasn’t going to speak to anyone unless it was Mouser or Luke or the kidnapper, calling to arrange another deal.
He’d watched the coverage of the disaster in Ripley for five minutes with a coolness in his heart; the crushing rains had scraped the chlorine from the sky. But the damage was done, the fuse of panic lit in the American heart. Politicians were demanding, in gusting words, to know that the cargo railways of rural America were safe, that the chemical plants around the country where chlorine was stored were secure. Of course all they cared about was covering their asses, he thought. That was all any of those jerks cared about.
But they - his clients, and his soon-to-be clients - all wanted to know what would happen next. His dozen policy papers released in the past few weeks all outlined a variety of potential attacks, some inspired by overseas trends in terror, some inspired, privately, by the ambitions of the Night Road.
Success was simple. Predict the attack; then the attack happens, and you have the ears of the most powerful people in Washington. That was the kind of power, of respect, he needed to wield. His blistering, uncannily accurate paper on a possible chlorine attack had made the rounds of the Washington power brokers last month; his voicemail was full of inquiries from potential think-tank clients. From the government, from private industry. All wanting his insights, all wanting his opinion on what the future would hold now, where the terrorists would strike next.
It should have been his shining moment. But Luke’s situation had tarnished it for him. The same pols eager to hire him would be watching the coverage of the shooting involving Luke, perhaps holding back. Which meant he had to distance himself from Luke and get his next papers out quickly so he would still be seen as the main, most authoritative voice on the next stage of terrorism. He would be respected again. He would be close to the levers of power in Washington. Luke, on the news, would fade. The country would have much more to worry about in the days ahead.
Henry remembered, with a pang, a magician his mother had hired to perform at his sixth birthday party. I don’t want a magician, Mom, and her answer had cut him to the bone: Well, Henry honey, it might make the kids want to come to your party. She’d said it without thought or malice; she was possessed of a brutal honesty and a steady disregard of others’ pain. Henry had inherited only the latter from her. So he’d sat on the cool cut grass, with neighborhood acquaintances who didn’t much like him and who he didn’t know how to make like him. While the kids who’d just come for the show and the squares of chocolate cake oohed and aahed, Henry had drilled his gaze on where the cheap-rate teenage magician didn’t want him to look: the hand in the pocket, the coin secreted between fingers, the intact paper curled up the jacket sleeve. He’d seen there was no magic, only distraction.
It etched a lesson on his brain.
Now Henry sat in his study in his Arlington, Virginia home, the chessboard Luke had given him for Christmas five years ago on the table, the pieces locked in battle. Henry imagined Luke slumped across from him, sitting the way he always did when lost in the game, leaning hard to the left on an elbow, hand trapped in his brown thatch of hair, tongue tenting his cheek while he thought, humming some rock tune Henry didn’t know. Henry played black against white, playing Luke’s side in aggressive style. He moved his own pieces with the timidity of a mouse. Luke’s bishops and knights closed in rapid conquest, his white queen shadowing Henry’s black king, defeat three moves away.
Exactly what you deserve, Henry thought. To lose and to lose badly. Just like how you lost Barbara. You’re going to lose Luke. You already have.
Henry rose from the chessboard, headed down the hall to get a cup of coffee. Steam danced above the mug. He added a dollop of milk. He took a fortifying sip. Mouser would find Luke, bring him to a safe place where Henry could question him and then make him understand. Make him see that the Night Road was the key to a golden future for them both - a road to respect, to power, to importance.
He stepped back into his study. From his left a gloved hand raced a knife to his throat, stopped the blade right above his Adam’s apple. Hot coffee, sloshing from his mug, burned his hand. Henry froze and his gaze slid to the face of his attacker. He stayed still because he knew this man would kill him without a moment for mercy.
‘Hello, Shameless,’ the man with the knife said. Henry hadn’t heard that nickname in years. The man’s voice was Southern-inflected, scraped from the bottom of an ashtray. ‘We need to talk.’
Henry forced his voice to remain calm. ‘Drummond.’
‘Let’s pour that hot coffee on the floor, please. I prefer you unarmed.’
Henry obeyed. Then dropped the cup. It shattered on the hardwood.
‘Good.’
‘You could have rung the doorbell.’ He’s here because he knows, Henry thought, he knows about the Night Road. And Hellfire. Convince him he’s wrong or kill him. ‘Put the knife down, for God’s sakes - are you crazy?’
‘When dealing with you, I prefer the direct approach,’ Drummond said.
‘The doorbell would be direct. Hiding behind a knife is not.’
‘Goodness,’ Drummond said. ‘Did you grow a pair in the last ten years, Shameless? You’re very steady. Ah, wait, now I see sweat making its debut on your forehead.’
‘Please put the knife down.’
‘Not yet. I’m not here for a casual reunion.’
‘The knife at the throat told me that
.’
‘Your stepson killed one of our old friends.’
Henry’s mind went as blank as unlined paper. ‘What?’
‘The man who your stepson shot in Houston was our old buddy Allen Clifford.’
‘What?’ Henry didn’t have to pretend shock; it thrummed through his body in a wave straight from his chest. ‘That’s not … that’s not possible.’
‘You are going to tell me what you and your brat are up to,’ Drummond said. ‘If you lie, you die. We clear, Professor?’
‘Clear, Drummond.’
Drummond lowered the knife. He spun Henry around and shoved him toward the table. ‘Sit down. Hands where I can see them at all times.’
Henry sat on one side of the chessboard. Drummond stood on the other, the knife still in his grip. Drummond had always reminded Henry of a fire hydrant. Short, stocky, thick-necked, a flat bland face with a squarish nose. Drummond glanced around the room. ‘This used to be Warren’s study.’
‘Yes.’
‘I remember, when Warren was working on a paper or a project, he would have those walls covered with sheets of paper, pictures, Post-It notes, like a blizzard of ideas.’
‘I keep my thoughts in my head.’
‘I’m sure that’s a safer place for them.’ Drummond surveyed the walls: Henry’s diplomas, pictures from his travels, framed medals from the Alexandria Pistol Club. ‘You still shoot?’
‘Yes.’
‘You were always a crack shot, Henry, I give you that. Of course I taught you. You teach Luke how to shoot? Maybe how to shoot from a car at a running man?’
‘Warren taught him the basics.’
Drummond jerked his head toward the interrupted game on the chessboard. ‘Are you still so friendless you have to play chess alone, Shameless?’
The old, undeserved nickname, a cheap variant on Shawcross, made the blood surge into his face. Humiliation. He hated Drummond with a loathing that went to his marrow but he realized he needed him; he needed to know why his past and present were intersecting so violently. But he knew Drummond was trying to keep him off-balance: the drama of the knife at the throat, then the offhand compliment about Henry’s aptitude with a gun. Standard interrogation techniques, a constant shifting between threat and kindness. Henry kept a neutral expression on his face.
‘I could hear the click of the pieces on the board from the hallway,’ Drummond said.
‘Playing took my mind off my son.’ Henry cleared his throat.
‘Your stepson, you mean.’ Drummond picked up one of the chess pieces - Luke’s king - and inspected it, as though admiring the crafts-manship. ‘You always did like to play both sides.’
Henry crossed his arms. ‘You said Allen Clifford was the murdered man. Since when did he become a homeless street bum?’
‘He wasn’t. He was pretending to be.’
‘Pretending?’
‘Allen Clifford was meeting with a fellow who had ties to domestic extremists who wanted to sell some information.’
‘Information?’ Henry made his voice go weak.
‘Yes. There’s a black market, you know.’
‘And Allen Clifford was posing as a bum?’
‘At the request of the guy he was meeting. Seller wanted to meet in the open, he wanted it to look like the meeting was just two totally harmless guys talking on the street. Very nervous. I assume he was worried about being cornered in a room, or tape recorded.’
An extremist in Houston, selling information. Henry worried that the guy was going to sell his name. But no. The only ones in the Night Road who knew Henry’s name were Snow and Mouser and Eric. Who could it be? ‘How do you know all this? Who was Clifford working for? Whom are you working for?’
‘Whom? Oh, I’ve missed you, Shameless. Clifford and I both freelance. He talked to me about the operation before he went down there. He was doing it alone, he didn’t want the guy spooked. But clearly, your stepson knew about this meeting. I want to know what he’s been doing with his life since he lost his dad and’ - here Drummond made a face - ‘got you as a replacement.’
‘Luke is harmless. He’s just a psychology student.’
‘Harmless? The Houston police disagree. But I know even more than they do. I got access to his internet records from his home account, Shameless.’
‘Stop calling me that. You sound like you’re in junior high.’
‘But you sure are pushing yourself today, aren’t you? Shameless as ever. The amazing political seer, the Freud of the terrorist mind, the guy who claims to know the terrorists better than they know themselves.’ Drummond kicked the table aside, sending the chess pieces scattering across the floor. He put the blade up under Henry’s jaw. ‘I call you exactly what I think you are. Your stepson’s internet records indicate he has been visiting hundreds of websites frequented by people with radical viewpoints. He’s been corresponding with them through these sites, using tons of different email addresses, sending them some rather fiery messages of agreement. Why?’
‘He was working on a paper about … extremist psychology. He’s been fascinated by it … ever since Warren died.’ That was true, and Henry stared hard into Drummond’s ice-blue eyes. They reminded him of the hard blue of the sky beyond a mountain peak.
‘So this reaching out to the fringes is for a research paper? No, I don’t think so. He’s compiled an avalanche of data, even for a master’s degree. I think he’s one of them.’
‘No. Not a paper; a book. He’s working on a book.’ The lie wriggled, thick in his mouth. He had to convince Drummond or Drummond would find Luke and kill him. Of that, Henry had no doubt. ‘He told me.’
‘Have you read or seen this book?’
‘No.’
‘So he could have lied to you.’ He moved the knife off Henry’s throat, let it dance along Henry’s eyelashes. Henry bit his lip. ‘Does he know about us, Henry? You and me and Clifford … and his dad?’
‘No. I swear. Luke doesn’t know about the Book Club, I swear. I never told him. And even if I did, he wouldn’t go after Allen Clifford or you or me …’ His voice trailed off. ‘He’d probably think we were all heroes.’
‘Heroes,’ Drummond snorted. ‘God. You did tell him, just to make yourself look smarter.’
‘No. I’ve never told Luke about the Book Club. Honestly, Drummond, why would I?’
‘Bragging.’
Henry gave a choked laugh. ‘Wasn’t that our great failing, Drummond - not telling the world what we knew?’
‘In your mind, Shameless, in your mind.’
‘We both know that if we’d been listened to, the world would be a very different place today, Drummond.’
‘I don’t care to dissect history. I care about dissecting the present. You say Luke doesn’t know about our past. But he knows about a meeting between Clifford and an extremist that is coincidentally scheduled to take place on the same day of a bombing that scares the piss out of the country. Maybe this extremist is one of Luke’s online friends.’
‘No,’ Henry said. ‘I saw the video. Luke wasn’t alone in the car. Someone else was in the passenger seat. Maybe Luke was forced to participate.’
Drummond shook his head. ‘Hardly an acceptable theory. A trap was set for Clifford. And your stepson was the getaway driver.’
Henry said, ‘Assume you’re right.’ He could feed Drummond a bit of a line, see what Drummond was willing to share. ‘What was Clifford going to do with this extremist once he had him? Just how wide do your responsibilities range? Who was he going to turn the extremist over to?’
Drummond made a clicking noise, frowned. Henry could see him deciding to give a bit of information in hope for Henry doing the same. ‘Clifford would have hauled his ass out to a cabin in east Texas, up near Braintree, questioned him. With force, if needed. See how much he’d spill.’
Henry blinked. The cabin. It had been originally intended for something other than Luke’s kidnapping. An interrogation by Clifford. And the kidnapper had known tha
t with Clifford dead, the cabin would be free to use for holding Luke hostage.
‘Luke would not willingly participate in any crimes,’ Henry said in an even tone. ‘Clifford, on the other hand, was contemplating kidnapping of his source. You’re here because you were working with Clifford. You’re still nothing more than hired muscle.’
Drummond paused. ‘Your defense of Luke is not convincing.’ He shook his head. ‘His dad wouldn’t be very proud of how his boy’s turned out. You did a piss-poor job. I’m not surprised.’
‘Get out of my house, or I’m calling the police.’
‘No you’re not. How will you explain me?’
The silence stretched between them. Finally Henry said, ‘If you tell me what you know about this meeting, maybe I can figure out how Luke is connected. I might be able to find notes in his research to help you. I’ll give you any information I find. But you have to promise me. You do not hurt Luke. I take your word as a fellow member of the Book Club that you will not harm him.’
Drummond considered the offer for ten long seconds. ‘All right.’ The knife eased back.
‘Who was the extremist, what’s his name?’
‘Jimmy Bridger.’
Snow’s old boyfriend, the one who had taken off a few days ago, a racist nothing. Snow had talked, and Bridger had looked to sell the information. Henry kept his poker face in place. ‘He wanted to talk and then he wanted protection.’
‘Who are you and Clifford working for that you could offer protection to an informant?’
Drummond didn’t deny that he and Clifford shared an employer. ‘A private employer.’
‘A private employer that performs undercover operations that are clearly the purview of the FBI.’ Henry raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you telling me the Book Club is back in business?’
‘The Book Club died with Warren Dantry and the others on that plane, Henry. Now all that’s left of the Book Club is you’ - he tapped the end of the knife against Henry’s nose - ‘and me. Now that Clifford’s dead.’
