by Abbott, Jeff
‘Tell me where you put the money now!’ she screamed.
‘Don’t shoot him!’ Luke screamed back. ‘Eric hid it in plain sight! In your accounts at his bank!’
Aubrey fired. The bullet caught his father in the chest with a horrifying blast and he collapsed against the passenger door. Luke slammed on the brakes and the car slid into a long skid. Henry’s car rode alongside them, Henry standing up through the sunroof as the cars spun on sheer momentum, not bothering to steer, aiming.
Luke felt the warmth of Aubrey’s barrel against his neck and then the blast was loud in the car.
The Navigator skidded to a stop as the sedan hit its side. Luke realized he was still breathing. He could see his father slumped in his seat, eyelids fluttering, his chest a wet wreckage of blood. He wrenched around. Aubrey lay on the seat, bleeding from the side of her throat, eyes open, mouth slack.
Luke looked to his left and saw Henry, his car stopped parallel against Luke’s, positioned just behind the driver’s door. Henry still stood in the sunroof, a gun in his hand. Now aimed at Luke.
Luke had no gun.
‘My last favor to you,’ Henry said. ‘Do you know where the money is?’
Luke shook his head. ‘No,’ he lied. ‘No.’
They were the ten longest seconds of Luke’s life. They stared into each other’s eyes, the gun between them like a long-hidden truth.
Henry lowered the gun. ‘Don’t come after me.’ Luke could see, for the first time in the scant light of the highway lights, tears brimming in Henry’s eyes. ‘I will not treat you like family again.’ Henry slid down into the driver’s seat, roared his battered sedan off into the night. And out of sight, taking the first exit ramp.
Luke felt for his father’s pulse. Weak. Erratic. He saw a call button on the Navigator and jabbed it.
Instead of an emergency service he heard Frankie Wu say, ‘Where the hell are you?’
‘Dad needs a doctor, he’s shot, tell me where a hospital is.’
‘We got a doctor.’
‘He’s been shot, he needs surgery.’
‘You can’t take him to a hospital,’ Wu said. ‘Too many questions. I want you to do exactly as I say, Luke. Follow my directions.’
And Luke Dantry, no longer the most dangerous man in the world, listened and drove off in the dark night, holding his father’s hand, begging him to not leave him again.
59
A Week Later
Northern Michigan, Luke decided, was one of the nicest places you could go quietly insane. He sat on the porch watching the light dapple the waters of the lake, and he folded the newspaper and tucked it where his father would not see it.
The story had dominated headlines, but not in the way he had expected. A group of suspected extremists had been found dead after a series of explosions. Two had been identified: a dentist from Milwaukee known for sending threatening letters to oil companies, and a pharmacist from a small city in Tennessee, the same town where the E. coli scare had grabbed headlines the previous week. Another man, a known neo-Nazi from Kansas City, had been found several blocks away, with two dozen bombs hidden in first aid kits, and a uniform and passes that would have given him access to the Atlanta rail system. A man who had been dishonorably discharged from the military lay dead on the pavement, and recent information via anonymous phone calls tied him to an attack on an office building in New York. FBI officials suggested the group had planned a bombing in Atlanta, and most likely in other cities as well, but it had gone wrong. Theories as to why were as plentiful as the clouds in the sky. Editorials painted a grim picture of domestic groups of disaffection arming themselves with foreign-bought weaponry. No mention of fifty million dollars in terrorist seed money, or a connection to the shooting deaths of a crazy artist, a Chicago police officer or Eric Lindoe. And no mention of networks called the Night Road or Quicksilver.
Aubrey Perrault found her rest in the quiet of an unmarked grave in this northern Michigan enclave, a quiet Luke guessed she hadn’t known in her life. Every move she had made: urging Eric to flee with them, sticking close to Luke as he trailed the money, even, as his father told them, buying time for Jane to find Luke by insisting to Mouser that Luke didn’t have the money … all of it an attempt by her or Jane to gain control of the funds. The bombing investigators found fifty million wired into her accounts as part of the bombing investigation; the FBI had seized the money. Aubrey was connected, the investigators concluded, with the terrorist attack. Now the forensic accountants were trying to trace the money back to its source. Anonymous tips kept pointing back to a prominent Arab prince.
Luke watched the dappled light play on the water. How many names did Aubrey have? How many lies did she live? Luke wondered. He had been smart enough to fight the Night Road and win, but too blind to see she was no victim. She had been one of the architects of this carnage. It was strange to know she had stuck with him simply to help her find the money. If he’d found the hidden thumb drive in her presence, back in Chicago, she would have killed him and taken the file to Jane. Or if she’d checked her account balances, she would have seen the money and she could have taken it and run to Jane. They would have won.
Luke watched Frankie Wu on the fishing pier, reeling in an empty line. The past few days had been spent fretting over his father, recovering from surgery in a private clinic north of Chicago, one under Quicksilver control. That alone had made him realize the extent of this so-called loose network. They had money, they had resources.
But so did Henry.
‘Have you decided?’ His father wheeled his chair close to the door. Pale, gaunt, but he would recover, the doctors said.
‘On dinner? I say steak. We deserve a steak. Now that you’re up and chewing.’
‘Sounds good, but I thought more about what your future holds.’
‘I’m still a missing person.’
‘You don’t have to be.’
‘Don’t I? I hardly imagine Henry or the Night Road are going to let me walk back into my old life.’
‘We can do a great deal for you.’
Now Luke watched his father, who was not looking at him, instead studying his hands folded in his lap. He felt a weird whirlpool of love and hate rise in his chest. He’d spent the past days watching his father sleep, recover, slowly regain his strength. And had not yet heard an answer to his one question.
‘In gratitude for all you’ve done, Luke, Quicksilver can help you back into your old life.’
‘Is that how you make amends to me? Make all the trouble go away? You brought a lot of the trouble on me, Dad. This … war has been building my whole life, and I had no idea that I might be pulled into it. Other than you giving me a Saint Michael’s medal and warning me I might one day have to fight. Were you assuming I’d simply follow in your footsteps? Thanks a lot.’
Warren studied his splinted fingers, as though he hadn’t heard the sharpness of Luke’s words. ‘Eric’s already been identified as a money launderer since his murder. He screwed around with the audit records trying to cover his transfers. We can fake computer records, make it look like you had previous but innocent contact with him. That he thought you knew about his crimes and that he was pursuing you. We can clear your name in every way that it’s been muddied, given time.’
‘Make up a lie so I can live a truth? My old life wasn’t truth. It was all in the service of Henry. Because you left me behind. You abandoned us.’
Now his father met his steady gaze. ‘I never would have picked this life for you, Luke. It was why I left.’
‘Why you lied. Let’s call it what it is.’ Anger that he couldn’t control steamed up in him. Before he was shot they hadn’t had enough time to talk. Only for his father to say he was sorry.
‘Fine. Why I lied. But I thought I was doing the best for you and your mom. I didn’t want anyone coming after me to come after you. They killed everyone I worked with. Do you think they would have hesitated to kill my family?’
‘They? It was
just Henry, Dad. He chased you off, you let him, and he slid into your life. For God’s sakes …’
‘I didn’t know it was Henry behind the attempt on me. I swear.’
For the past week Luke had danced around this truth, unwilling to discuss it until his father was stronger. ‘What you said about Mom. That he killed her …’
‘I will always believe he had a hand in her death. Your mother was a smart woman. She could have found out what he was doing. Confronted him. Knowing what we know now he must have killed her.’
‘But she would have never been in danger if you’d had the guts to stick around. If you’d put us ahead of your work.’
Warren reached for his son’s hand, but Luke stepped back. A horrible silence settled between them for a long minute, broken only by the hiss of the wind in the oaks.
‘Do you want me to be dead, Luke?’ Warren asked. ‘I can be. It’s what you know. You never have to see me again.’
‘You don’t get off that easy, Dad. You did this so you could go fight this secret war, save people, prove all your theories. I have to matter as much as your work does. I fought that war when you couldn’t, without any warning. But the war has to be worth fighting, for a personal reason. I have to matter to you. Why didn’t you stay in New York, meet me there instead of relying on Drummond to take care of me? If I’d been willing to hide under a false name, like Drummond offered, would you even have stepped forward to let me know you were alive?’
‘It wouldn’t have been necessary.’
Luke shook his head. ‘Even when I was in danger, you put Quicksilver’s interests first.’
‘No, not true.’ Warren paused, as though he didn’t know what words to use.
‘Just say what you want to say, Dad.’
‘I was afraid of your hate. I could bear being away from you, but I couldn’t bear knowing you hated me.’
The silence between them was thick for a long moment. ‘I don’t hate you. I don’t know that I understand you yet. I may never. But I will try. But I’m not sure what my next step is.’
Warren cleared his throat. ‘You can go back, try to have a normal life again, or—’
‘I can’t. I can either hide or I can help. I don’t want to hide, but I don’t like the idea of being drafted into Quicksilver. And I’m not sure I’m ready to forgive you, much less work with you.’
‘I deserve every bit of anger you want to shove down my throat. I’ll take it, Luke, and never argue that I could have made a better choice. But I want you to know, what you accomplished - the lives you saved … you make me so proud.’
Luke watched the water. He had wanted to delve into minds defined by destructive purpose. He had, but now he understood less about them than he had before. No amount of study or theorizing had prepared him for Henry, or Mouser, or Snow. Yet he had survived.
Had he known, at some level, this wind of change was blowing? Had he sensed, even as a boy, that his father carried many secrets? His search for his father, his delving into the terrorist mind, his surprising determination to carry the battle forward, where did that come from inside him? All of this horror had burned away the old Luke, and left a different man standing.
If he tried to go back to a normal life, he would spend his life looking over his shoulder. Wars did not last forever. What if Quicksilver was the best hope of bringing this battle to a rapid conclusion? Be drafted. Do a tour of duty. Help his father. Stop Henry and make him pay for what he’d done. Knowing what we know now he must have killed her. He must have. Luke thought of the time he’d spent comforting Henry, reassuring him. A cold anger ignited in his chest.
‘What would you have me do?’
‘I think you could handle field assignments, given time.’ Warren cleared his throat, risked a smile. ‘But you would be brilliant as a terrorism profiler. You sifted through thousands of people to find the Night Road. You could find them again. You could help us find the next wave of terrorists long before they strike. Identify them, perhaps find ways to keep them from embracing violence, or alienate them from groups like the Night Road.’
Henry had tried to make him believe, in his old innocence, that the world was not dangerous. That the world’s most dangerous people were on the other side of the glass, in their own distant Wonderland, and he knew now they were everywhere. Waiting. Hoping to strike. And the world needed ordinary people like himself to stand and fight and to win that war. To not be afraid; to live for a while, in the secret wilds of the world. He didn’t have to forgive his father right now. That would come in time. But he could take the anger he felt, channel it into kicking down the right doors. He could make a difference.
‘We’ll find Henry and the rest of the Night Road,’ Luke said, ‘You and me. I’ll stay for a while.’
And he sat with his father and he watched the sunset slide over the lake, creating a pool of a thousand colors, the first of the new memories.
60
The Next Day
On the internet (encoded)
Welcome to the new site for the Night Road. We have had a number of setbacks, but our strength as a network is our ability to recover quickly and with great nimbleness.
Despite the recent and unfortunate delays, I have relocated overseas and I have acquired new funding to share, based on appropriate projections of economic and mortal damage that you can inflict. As well, I have secured powerful friends around the world sympathetic to our cause. I expect further funding from them, so we can all pursue our plans.
Know that we face a real danger. The corporate titans - the globalizer, the power-mongers, the moneylenders of our enemies - have formed their own version of the CIA. They are called Quicksilver, and they will be hunting us. This is not the time to hide. Not the time to lose nerve. This is a time to rise and fight like we have never fought before. To join together in common cause. To know our enemy - the one who will engage us first, even if in secret - and to destroy him, utterly.
I made a mistake that I must confess. I placed my hopes in the wrong person. This caused our network no permanent or troubling harm, but it has reinforced to me that we must be careful in choosing our allies. In recognizing each other, in allowing no one to infiltrate us.
Instructions on proposals to be sent to me will follow shortly. Those who accomplish their initial missions will qualify for further investment. So think big, people.
Think very big.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to everyone who helped me in the process of writing this book and makes being a suspense writer such a joy for me.
I am fortunate to work with two of the best minds in the business: David Shelley of Little, Brown UK and Ben Sevier of Dutton. Their enthusiasm, support and terrific insights are a constant inspiration.
Thanks also to:
Ursula Mackenzie, Hilary Hale, Alison Lindsay, Thalia Proctor, Sean Garrehy, Kirsteen Astor, Nathalie Morse, and everyone at Little, Brown UK, who have made me feel very welcome indeed in Great Britain;
Brian Tart, Christine Ball, Lisa Johnson, Erika Imranyi, Melissa Miller, Jamie McDonald and everyone at Dutton, and Kristen Weber and Kara Walsh and everyone at NAL, for their advocacy and dedication.
As always, my deepest gratitude to Peter Ginsberg, Shirley Stewart, Dave Barbor, Holly Frederick and Nathan Bransford, for extraordinary representation and ongoing brilliance.
Special thanks to those who shared their time to answer questions or guide me along the way: Simon Baril; Travis Wilhite; Marcus Sakey (also a terrific crime novelist); Rick Wall; Matt Willson. Any errors, or enhancements for the sake of drama, are my responsibility, not theirs. Thanks also to Steve Bennett and Nancy MacDonald.
There is an evil stepfather in this book; I am blessed with a kind one. Thanks to my mom, Elizabeth; my stepfather, Dub; and my in-laws, Becky and Malcolm.
For a variety of compelling thoughts about non-state networks (such as the Night Road and Quicksilver) and terrorist psychology, I recommend the following: Brave New War by John Robb
; Thinking Like a Terrorist by Mike German; The Mind of the Terrorist by Jerrold M. Post; Leaderless Jihad by Marc Sageman; and Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-First Century by Philip Bobbitt.
Finally, my deepest thanks go to my muses: Leslie, Charles and William, who are there every day with their love and support, which is more important than ink to a writer.
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Table of Contents
Also by Jeff Abbott
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
