by Abbott, Jeff
‘I do not understand. Your father’s past?’
‘Drummond was investigating one of our attackers, a man known as Mouser. I want to know if Mouser is suspected of killing my dad.’
‘And what about you?’
A surprising certainty filled him. ‘I want to keep fighting these people. I want to join you.’
A pause, and then: ‘This is not your fight, Luke.’
‘It is entirely my fight. I don’t want to hide under a name somewhere and hope you defeat Night Road. I am in this fight.’
‘Luke, you fought hard for someone who was cast as simply a pawn.’
‘Are you in Paris? Because I found tickets for today’s flight. Drummond was supposed to bring me to Paris, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes. If we agreed it was best. But—’
‘Then I’ll see you soon.’ He switched off the phone.
46
The red-eye to Paris was close to full. Luke’s tongue felt like a rock in his mouth when he had to present his false passport, but the airline’s scans did not raise an alarm. Drummond had bought tickets in business class. The seats were plush, in a plastic and steel half-shell that let you recline without intruding on the space of the passenger behind you. He had the window seat and he kept his sunglasses in place, a cap pulled low on his head.
Drummond’s seat next to him remained empty. He gave a sigh of relief. He pulled Drummond’s medal from his pocket and studied it next to his own. Exact duplicates, in every detail.
This will keep you safe, his father had said. What exactly had that meant? Luke had taken it to mean a metaphysical safety, in the terms of a moral compass; but now he thought his father might have meant a more concrete promise. He put Drummond’s medal back in his pocket.
He ate the dinner of salad, lamb, couscous, and ice cream sundae. He pulled a blanket up to his chin and fell into a heavy sleep.
He awoke, hours later, as the breakfast service was being completed and first he saw out the window the spill of clouds over the French countryside. Then he sat up, rubbing his eyes under the dark glasses, and Mouser said, ‘You slept well. I didn’t.’
Luke blinked. It couldn’t be. But Mouser was sitting right next to him.
And then he gave Luke a twitch of a smile, the kind the devil might flex. Somehow that quasi-grin was worse than the thrust of a blade.
‘If you make a scene, you’ll ruin the flight for everyone else. In the worst way.’
Luke spoke past the rock in his throat. ‘How did you …?’
‘We both needed to get to Paris. There’s not an infinite number of flights.’
Luke let his gaze dart past Mouser’s aisle seat. The middle row was occupied by an older couple who looked like vacationers. Behind him were two businessmen, one asleep, the other immersed in a laptop. Everyone in their own cocoon.
‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ Mouser said in a soft whisper.
‘Liar.’ He thought of Drummond, bleeding his life out. His father’s face boarding that plane.
Did you kill my father? Why are you a suspect, years later? The thoughts blazed through his mind as if blasted from a flamethrower. His hands clenched into fists.
In his pocket was the secret thumb drive, hidden in the little basketball. The key to the money.
‘Why are you going to Paris, Luke?’ Mouser sipped coffee from a cup that sat on his fold-out tray. ‘I guess you need a vacation after all your adventures.’
Luke gave no answer. He had to get away. The pilot announced that they’d be landing in twenty minutes.
‘Do tell me. Because if I alert the attendants to the fact you happen to be traveling on a false passport - mine is legit, by the way - this was a giant risk for you. What would be worth such a risk, I wonder. I can only think that it’s the money. Eric wanted to go to Paris, too. You’re following that dog’s trail.’
I have to incapacitate him, Luke thought. Fight him here and get away without getting caught.
‘You give me the money,’ Mouser said, ‘and you walk. Our battle is over.’
‘I won’t, on either count.’
‘I don’t blame you for New York. I blame Snow. She rushed where she shouldn’t have.’ His gaze was steady on Luke’s face.
‘But I do blame you for Drummond. And—’ He stopped.
‘And what?’ Mouser hissed.
‘Did you ever …’ He waited as the flight attendant walked past. ‘Did you sabotage a private plane? Heading from DC to North Carolina? Ten years ago?’
The silence hung between him, Luke staring at him. The twitchy smile stayed on Mouser’s face.
‘No. I don’t know anything about planes or their systems.’
Luke watched him. He didn’t believe him. Terrorist psychology showed extremists did not like to admit a shortcoming in knowledge. It was a consistent thread. They were know-it-alls. A simple no would have sufficed. Luke had said nothing about the systems of the plane being involved. His tongue felt locked to the top of his mouth.
If Mouser was curious about the North Carolina question, he didn’t ask. ‘I’ve answered your question, you answer mine. Where is the money?’
He told his first lie: ‘Eric hid the money in a bunch of accounts.’
‘Give me the account numbers.’
Luke tapped his temple.
‘I don’t believe you memorized a bunch of bank account numbers. They’re long.’
‘I was highly motivated. If you kill me, you’ll never get them.’
Mouser looked at him. ‘You’re giving the info to someone in Paris. To get Aubrey back.’
‘Yes.’ And to keep the money away from the Night Road. He had no intention of funding terrorism. But he wondered: could he turn this meeting into a trap for Mouser? A way to give him to Quicksilver? The outline of a plan began to take shape in his mind.
‘You barely know that woman.’ Now Mouser looked straight ahead. ‘I barely knew Snow. Sometimes barely is all you need.’ He paused. ‘A college kid like you, you don’t want this kind of life. Give me the info on the accounts and you’re free.’
Tires hit pavement as the airliner coasted onto the runway.
What had Henry told him, a lifetime ago back in Austin, about his work? You’re good at baiting the hook. ‘I’m meeting Quicksilver. They have the capability to do a lot more damage to you and the Night Road than I ever could,’ Luke said.
The captain was announcing to the passengers that the plane would first taxi to the bus that would take them to the terminal. ‘You cut a deal with them.’
‘No,’ Luke lied. ‘They only want the money. So I have a suggestion.’
‘What?’
‘Come with me to the meeting. You can grab one of their people, find out what Quicksilver really is. But me and Aubrey walk. You get the money, you get your enemies.’
‘Why would you help me?’
‘Because I just want to be left alone. By you, by Quicksilver. The fight is between you two.’ Luke knew if he made a scene to get Mouser arrested in the airport, he’d be arrested too. And he wouldn’t ever find out the truth.
Quicksilver would be watching their every move. They have the resources; they’ll see Mouser coming well ahead. And they’ll kill him, Luke thought.
‘Me help you save your woman after you killed mine.’ Mouser’s whisper was so soft that as the plane parked and everyone stood to gather their belongings Luke could barely hear him. ‘I feel like I’m making a deal with the devil.’
Me, too, Luke thought.
47
Paris.
Luke had not been there since he was an undergraduate. He had accompanied his stepfather and his mother to Paris for a conference. At nineteen he had wandered the streets in blissful freedom - bookstores, bars, the expansive parks, the old student quarter near Notre Dame. He had loved the city, but it had been a brief affair, and he had not been back since.
But he hoped his brief familiarity with Paris would save him. Mouser had given no signs of even a basic
comprehension of French beyond oui or non and that might be his salvation. Neither had a suitcase other than their carry-ons, and after a desultory check of their documents at passport control he and Mouser walked out into the dull gray morning, toward the taxi line.
He checked his cell phone as they walked outside and retrieved a text message: Meet at the Eiffel Tower for Aubrey one hour after your plane lands. Mouser grabbed the phone, read the message. Luke yanked the phone back.
‘But they don’t know I’m here,’ Mouser said.
‘No.’ But considering Quicksilver’s reach - it would not surprise him. But let Mouser be surprised.
‘The Eiffel Tower. How touristy,’ Mouser muttered in a low growl. ‘I’ll take your phone.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t want you calling them and letting them know I’m with you.’
He’d thought of trying to text just the word Mouser or help to the number that had just called him. To warn Quicksilver. He hesitated.
‘I will kill you the second you pull a fast one on me,’ Mouser said. ‘Give me the phone.’
Luke gave it to him.
Mouser put a steel grip on his shoulder. ‘Come on. I have a ride for us.’
The car sat in the parking garage in a back corner. Mouser found keys in a container locked under the bumper. It was a Mercedes sedan, gleaming, high-end.
He opened the trunk. Inside were bags and cases. Some were long and narrow, marked with the logo of a British golf club manufacturer. Luke figured they were not golf clubs. Weapons. Someone had given this man an armory and driven it to the airport for him. So Mouser had allies in France.
The Night Road was bigger than a mere group inside America. He had only researched American extremists, but if those domestic terrorists were linked to, cooperating with, other extremists around the world … the thought was frightening.
‘Get in the car,’ Mouser said.
Luke obeyed. Mouser didn’t slide behind the wheel; rather he seemed to be studying the phone. As though he’d gotten an email. He turned his back to Luke. Thirty seconds later he slid into the car, an angry look on his face.
Mouser roared out of the garage.
48
Mouser had taken one of the long cases from the car’s trunk. He slipped an earpiece into Luke’s ear, saying, ‘I’ll be able to hear your every word. Dump this and you’re dead.’
‘Where will you be?’
‘Watching. Don’t screw this up or I’ll shoot you, accounts or not. You play nice, you and Aubrey walk.’
No, Luke thought, you’re the one who’s going down. But he turned and walked toward the tower. When he glanced back, Mouser was gone. He had not counted on Mouser being able to eavesdrop on his conversation. This made his plan much harder. And if he dumped the earpiece, he had no doubt: Mouser would shoot him, and Aubrey. He had to think of another way to warn Quicksilver.
The base of the Eiffel Tower was broader and the plaza wider than Luke remembered. He saw French soldiers with assault rifles wandering the sprawling grounds, scanning faces in the scattered crowd of hundreds of tourists and sightseers, watching for the unusual or the threatening. A kiss of sunshine came through the late spring clouds.
His phone rang. He answered it.
It was Aubrey’s voice, scared. ‘Luke.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes. I’m going to give you your directions now.’ She steadied her voice. ‘Walk away from the river, away from the Tower, go toward the half-circle where the tour buses stop. You’ll see me.’
He could see in the distance, past the walkways and the low shrubberies, a wide loop of street, a double-decker bus parked, tourists not bothering to get off the bus but snapping photos of the grand tower. ‘All right.’
In his other ear, he heard the whisper of Mouser’s voice: ‘If you warn them, I’ll shoot first and learn to live without the money.’
‘Yes,’ he said, as if to both Aubrey and Mouser.
So much for his brilliant trap. He had brought this maniac to the meeting, and he could only hope that the Quicksilver people had spotted his uninvited guest. If they hadn’t … then he was going to have to talk through the meeting without handing over the encrypted thumb drive, get Aubrey, and figure out a way to get the Quicksilver people and Aubrey to safety.
He walked past a beggar woman, with outstretched hands who said, ‘Speak English?’, past a fellow wearing a belt of cheap Eiffel Tower replicas that jingled. He glanced around to see if he could spot where Mouser had gone.
To his right was another pathway that led to a shuttered gazebo and a playground that was unoccupied. Beyond that was a large wide walking and jogging trail; and beyond that was a cluster of grand mansions, one of which, he remembered from strolling around here before, was the Czech Embassy. He didn’t think Mouser could hide there, so he cast his gaze toward the half-circle, looking for the spot where Mouser would be and trying to spot Aubrey in the dozens of faces.
Mouser had walked down the broad jogging path in the shadow of the Tower, Allee Leon Bourgeois, after sending Luke on his way to the rendezvous. The allee was not busy; a few joggers, iPods insulating them from the world. He scanned the area, looking for the best point to make his stand. To his right, shaded trees bordered the allee, with an empty playground and a shuttered gazebo that sold treats on warmer days. He walked with complete purpose, which was always the most convincing camouflage. He went to the back of the gazebo, stepped onto an electrical unit, and climbed onto its green roof. He would not be concealed for long; anyone on the allee who looked up would see him sprawled on the roof, but the joggers were absorbed in their solitary orbits. That’s the problem with everyone today, Mouser thought. They’re all in their own world, oblivious to civilization around them descending into hell.
He slid the rifle free from the golf bag. Just a matter of seconds and his work would be done. He put the crosshairs on Luke’s head.
Luke tried not to panic. So where was she? A flock of tourists herded and moved between him and the bus, which pulled out, to be replaced by another bright-red bus.
‘Speak English?’ another woman asked him. He ignored her and pushed past a small group of Japanese visitors. And saw Aubrey, several yards away, on the edge of the walkway. Aubrey wore a raincoat, a heavy hat on her head, her face pale and gaunt.
And standing next to her was a man who turned and met his gaze.
His dead father.
Luke froze. Blinked. No. The man was bald; his dad had a full head of graying hair. But the eyes. The mouth, set in a nervous frown. The nose, straight as iron.
He stared at Luke. Luke felt as though the crowded acreage of the Tower contracted, the mass of people around him fading to a misty blur, the hum and rumble of Paris devolving to a giant white-noise hiss. Mouser said something in his earpiece and Luke could not register a single word. The air left his chest; his knees buckled. He kept standing through sheer force of will.
This could not be. But it was. His father did not smile at him, but he closed his eyes, as though conscious of Luke’s pain, as though it were a wave he could feel or hear or taste. Ten years. Ten years of grieving, and missing his father, feeling his absence like a raggedy gap in his chest, and clutching a piece of silver as his father’s last gift of presence in his life.
His father’s words on their last parting: I’ll miss you every moment. They rang and echoed in his head. It had all been a lie, the kind of monumental lie that did not just sting feelings but cut down to heart and bone. A lie that undid lives.
His father was alive. He was here. The shock suffocated him until his chest began to ache. Heat burned the back of his eyes. He took two steps to start running toward his father … but then he remembered where he was. Not just in the gray light of the Paris morning. He was in the crosshairs of a terrorist’s gun.
Every plan and stratagem vanished from his mind. A tremble took his body. ‘Dad?’ he said, more gasp than word. No. It was too much to ask. He couldn’t do t
his any more. But he had to.
‘What?’ Mouser asked in Luke’s ear.
He couldn’t let Mouser close his trap. He had to think past the maelstrom of emotion.
‘I said damn. I don’t see her.’ Luke blinked. He felt tears on his face before he realized he’d shed them. ‘They’re not here. We should go. I’ll just give you the money. Please, let’s go.’ He turned to walk away.
‘I see her. The woman you were with in Chicago. Straight ahead of you, standing with some bald guy. What the hell’s the matter?’ Mouser said in a low growl of menace.
‘That’s not her.’ He could think of nothing else to say.
‘Luke. Don’t you fuck with me.’
Maybe he won’t recognize Dad, he thought. Maybe he doesn’t remember everyone he kills.
A man he didn’t know stopped in passing, grabbed his arm. ‘Luke, it’s okay.’ He recognized the voice as that of the Frenchman who’d spoken to him on the phone.
Luke tried to shake his head. ‘Get them out of here. Please get them out of here.’
‘What?’
‘Sniper, run, scatter.’ Luke bolted toward his father and Aubrey. ‘Aubrey, Dad, run! Run!’
‘Dad?’ Mouser hissed into his earpiece. ‘What the hell game you—’ and then he stopped, as words no longer mattered.
The crack of the bullet hummed through the air, the dirt kicking up at Luke’s feet. He stopped, nearly fell. A second shot boomed in the air, and now panic rippled through the crowd approaching the Tower.
‘Sniper!’ Luke screamed. Another shot and people scattered, screaming, knocking into each other as they fled. He looked back at the Frenchman - he was racing across the grass toward where the shots came from, a weapon drawn, and then he was cut down, a bullet slicing through his throat.
Luke got knocked off his feet by a line of tourists scrambling back toward their bus at the sound of the gunfire. His sunglasses fell from his face. Feet trampled him and agony rushed up from his hand, boots landed on his scalp, his cheek. He fought to his feet. He saw his father and Aubrey, surrounded by three men in black, guns jammed to the back of their heads, being shoved through the chaos of the crowd.
