The Last Minute

by Jeff Abbott

  He came out into the alley and she shot at him. Not close enough to hit but, you know, a bullet in your general direction is enough to make you retreat.

  “I told you to stay!” she screamed at him.

  One of the backups, Griffith, was lying in the alley, groaning, pawing at his ribs. No sign of the Navigator. He counted to twenty and risked coming out the door again. The redhead was gone.

  He keyed his earphone. “Two, this is One, report?”

  “I’m getting the informant away, we’re being pursued, an armed male, he knew your name, he said you were shot—”

  And then chaos. The distant thrum of metal against metal crashing, the drum-drum-drum of gunshots hitting bulletproof glass. Grimes cussing, screaming at someone to get down and stay down, Jack Ming’s voice answering I am getting out of here.

  “The hostile is trying to kill the kid,” Grimes said and then more shots. Grimes howled and cussed again. August ran now. “Where are you?”

  The hostile. Sam Capra. His best friend—who should have wanted nothing more than an informant from Novem Soles coming forward—was trying to kill their best hope of unveiling the ring’s every secret.

  August ran.

  51

  I RAN.

  Ahead of me, Jack Ming dodged a booth full of DVDs from Bollywood and Hong Kong, leaping over the stacked tables, scattering packaging and earning a scream of annoyance and rage from the elderly vendor. The man hollered at him in a quilted howl of obscene English and Mandarin. Ming stumbled and his T-shirt hiked up his back. He reached for something in the small of his back and I thought it was a gun and I couldn’t let him shoot the old man but it was a swath of red leather. Like a book or a journal, firmly lodged in the back of his pants. He yanked his shirt back over it.

  He was making sure it was still there.

  The notebook. The secrets of Novem Soles.

  I hollered in Mandarin: “He stole my wallet!” There are decided advantages to having parents who give you a nomadic, worldwide existence as a kid. I can produce a large selection of random utterances in two dozen languages. I knew that phrase because I’d had it yelled at me, more than once, in Beijing when I was fifteen. I got bored easily. I always gave them back.

  The vendor grabbed at Jack, who screamed: “He’s lying, he’s trying to kill me!”

  Which story is more likely to be believed in New York?

  The vendor closed his hold on Jack, who kicked away from him, landing an awkward punch on the man’s face. The old man fell back onto a stack of Bollywood epics that now spread on the asphalt like a fallen house of cards.

  I was jumping over the table when Jack proved himself.

  Next vendor over was a stir-fry stand and Jack seized the searing hot pot and flung it at me.

  I twisted and ducked and the scalding grease and shreds of meat landed against my jacket, in my hair. Real, honest pain. I dusted the meaty napalm free from my head and shoulders and singed my palms and fingers in the process. Glops of grease bubbled the plastic cases of the DVDs. The vendor caught a small splatter of it on his arm and cried out in pain.

  I gritted my teeth, finally free of the searing mess, and ran out the booth.

  Jack was gone.

  Fifteen seconds is a lifetime in an urban chase; that was about what I had lost. Run. Catch him. How hard could it be to kill a computer geek?

  I saw him skid into a cross street and grab a cab. He piled in the back and the cab roared forward. I reached the intersection, hurrying to its middle, trying to see the cab name and a number. A guy on a Ducati motorcycle nearly ran over me, yelling at me in furious Spanish as he barreled past. He called out unkind words about my mother.

  I ran after him. The Ducati slowed for braking traffic; the cab was several cars ahead. I stayed three steps behind Mr. Ducati, just past the corner of his eye, and as he came to a stop I introduced an elbow to his throat, between the shielding of the helmet he wore and his jacket.

  When I hit, I don’t tickle. I hit hard. It’s a lot harder blow than I look like I can deliver. The guy was blocky and squat and he perched on the Ducati like it was a mobile throne. He’d mouthed off at me, the fool in the intersection, and then forgotten about me, his eyes looking ahead for the next obstacle.

  I slammed him off the bike. He didn’t yell, he just went over and he made a choking noise. I knew he’d recover; I’d pulled the punch.

  “Manners,” I said in Spanish. And I roared onto the sidewalk.

  People screamed and parted out of my way. I could see the cab, four or five cars ahead of me, to the right. I was surrounded by witnesses but he was here. He was here and I had to make this work. The gun felt heavy at the back of my ruined suit jacket. I left it there.

  I veered the Ducati hard, past a parked truck between me and his cab.

  And saw the cab’s back door open, swinging as the cab braked. Jack had jumped somewhere along the street. He’d seen me pursuing him.

  I scanned the crowd. Alleyways, streets, doors.

  Then I saw him. Stumbling, running in the distance.

  I powered the Ducati, cutting across the traffic.

  He ran up the stairs in front of a hipsterish, modern-architecture brownstone that was all glass and cube. And I saw him pull a small gun awkwardly from his pocket.

  The door opened and a young woman exited. Jack waved the gun in her face and she screamed and crouched, obeying his order. Then Jack vanished inside. The cowering woman kept the door propped open, frozen in fear.

  I roared the bike up the stairs after him, through the open door. I wanted him scared. I wanted him panicked. I wanted him not stopping to aim at me.

  He ran up the apartments’ stairs as I vroomed across the tile floor of the lobby. Eyes forward, intent on fleeing. Only glancing at me.

  I braked with a foot, wheeled the Ducati in a circle with a deafening screech, and powered the bike up the sleek steel stairs; the motorcycle jittered and roared, not built for this punishment, but I rocketed it. The roar of the bike made him run and he was about to run out of road, so to speak. I spun on the landing, zoomed up the next flight. My spine felt like it was about to separate from my body.

  He ran up the final flight. I followed, the engine huffing its protestations. He glanced back at me once, but because I hunkered down on the bike, when he shot, the bullet zoomed well past me. He was unnerved.

  I needed him to stay that way if this was going to work.

  I reached the landing and Jack ran hard down the hallway, in the direction of the street, toward a window-covered dead end.

  Fear is a weird mistress. She can stop you dead and cripple you, or she can harden your heart with courage.

  Jack Ming’s heart hardened in those last few seconds.

  52

  HE SPUN AND HE FIRED, the blasts from the gun bright and heat-dizzying in the dim of the hallway.

  I fell back off the bike and it roared forward the remaining few feet, straight toward him. He threw himself out of the way. The bike rocketed past him, smashing through the glass wall. It tipped out into the sudden glare of the day, and I distantly heard it crash three stories down onto the pavement.

  For a second, lying on my side, time froze. Jack leveled the gun at me, face wrenched with shock and horror—I had nearly run him down with the motorcycle, and the gust of wind from the window ruffled his hair.

  Now I could see the nearly childish terror on his face. He was barely past being a kid. He fumbled at a door lock, the door marked with a red EXIT sign. The knob wouldn’t move.

  I groped at my back, my fingers searching, my ragged voice saying, “I’m sorry.”

  But my gun was gone from my holster.

  He stared at me as he worked the knob.

  Oh, God, I must have lost it, either in the jump to the car or along the hallway when I skidded.

  Then he fired the gun. But not at me. He shifted its aim, sent a bullet into the lock of the door marked STAIRS. The lock broke. He shoved the door open and he ran.


  I lurched to my feet as he bolted through the door.

  I followed. He hurried up a short stairway and then through a rooftop door he opened and then slammed shut.

  On a rooftop I could be king, and Jack Ming had no chance.

  I grabbed the doorknob as he tried to shut it. The door froze in our tug of war. Then the little gun appeared in the gap, close by my head.

  I ducked. He fired. I let go.

  The door slammed shut.

  I counted to ten. Fifteen. The moment I opened the door he could shoot me in the head.

  Twenty. I yanked open the door, just a bit.

  I could hear, in the open air, the approaching whine of a police siren. This building would soon be swarming with New York’s finest and, if they caught me before I could reach Jack Ming, my son was dead.

  I eased out onto the roof. I didn’t see him. Lots of places for him to hide: water tanks; AC units; vents. All he had to do was wait until the police showed. Maybe he’d surrender to them and they’d ferry him to August or Special Projects. Compared with the option of dying at my hands, he’d prefer the police.

  The roof was quiet. The neighboring roofs were both a half-story higher; but I didn’t think he’d have had time to clamber up them. Then I saw him. Running. He had scrambled onto the roof next door, hunkered down for a moment, but I could see the top of his head, ducking back down. He’d risked a look. It was a bad risk.

  I ran toward him and scrambled onto the neighboring building—there was no alley dividing the two—and Jack sprinted full out, dodging between the obstacles on the roof and jumping across a narrow gap to the next building.

  Most people hesitate at a jump. He didn’t. Brave. Or desperate.

  His arms caught the wall. He screamed in terror, that sort of blind terror that makes your bones hurt, then he pulled himself over to safety.

  My turn. I shoved my mind into the old parkour groove. See the obstacles, find the fastest and most effective way over them, under them, through them. I timed the jump and launched myself. I cleared the edge of the building and landed in a roll. My muscles howled—they had missed this particular form of exercise. I spotted Ming, running full out. Looking back at me once, terror bright in his gaze. Then he fired a shot at me and kept going.

  Just chase him off the roof, I thought. If he falls he’s still dead at this height. And Daniel is safe.

  I ran. I had to catch him. Daniel, the son I’d never held, crowded out every other thought but run, jump, catch. My blood fevered, my mind went primeval. Simple. He had a head start of fifty yards on me, and I had to catch him.

  Forty yards. He pulled himself up a REMODELING NOW CONDOS AVAILABLE SOON! banner, using the edge of it like a rope, onto the roof of a neighboring building. I arrowed straight toward him. He stumbled again. I glanced behind me. The roof we’d exited onto was empty but it wouldn’t be for long. The police would be swarming. What with the cycle crashing and shots fired, it would be more than a single patrol car responding.

  The thoughts went scattershot through my brain in seconds. I focused on running. Jack was running very, very hard. Survival instinct kicked into full. But I was trained in this, and I was faster.

  “Police!” I heard a voice boom across the rooftops. “Stop! Lay down your weapons!”

  I glanced back. Two officers, scrambling out the door where Jack nearly shot me in the head.

  I put my gaze back to where Jack was running.

  Gone.

  I scanned the roof I was approaching. Ming had been running across it, stupidly, in a straight line, and he’d vanished onto a lower roof when I’d glanced back at the sound of the pursuing officer. Now I’d lost him. No.

  “Halt!” the police yelled as I topped the roof’s edge and dropped onto the next building. He’d run out of space. Chimneys, vents, a brick shack for the doorway to the stairs into the building. There was equipment up here, the bright blue blisters of building wrap, scaffolding climbing above the farthest edge of the roof. Renovations were underway. Maybe he’d ducked under the wrap, which was everywhere. Maybe he’d gone through the door. If he dropped down into a building’s stairwell I could run right past him. Panic frosted my heart. I headed for the door. I had to choose, now; the police would be broadcasting my location and other units responding would be directed to intercept me.

  I rounded the corner to the stairwell entrance and Jack swung a heavy flowerpot at me. I caught it on my arm and the bone screamed. I fell back and he raised the gun; it clicked, empty. He moaned.

  I slammed my foot into his stomach. He grunted, breathlessly, and staggered back.

  “Police! Down on the ground! Down!” They were drawing closer. Maybe forty yards away. Two of them climbing up onto the roof. I guess the other cops didn’t want to make the same leap Jack and I had made.

  I jumped to my feet.

  “Don’t kill me, please, God, don’t kill me.” His voice pleading. A voice ragged with tears. He yanked on the door; it was locked from inside.

  I grabbed him with my good arm.

  I’d had thoughts of trying to use him against Novem Soles, build an insurance policy to get my son back, fragments of a crazy plan that wouldn’t have worked.

  But there was no time. No time for him or for me or for Daniel. My arm didn’t feel right where he’d clipped it with the heavy pot. I could break his neck if I had a minute. But the police were closing in on us, just thirty feet away. I didn’t have the time.

  I shoved him hard toward the edge of the building. Pushing him toward the edge, keeping him off-balance, in an unyielding grip.

  “Sorry.” I said it so soft I didn’t think he heard me.

  “Get away from there! Get on the ground!” one of the cops bellowed at us.

  Jack fought me, screaming, begging. If I just wrap arms around him and shove, we both go over, and the cops can’t beat gravity, I thought. Ten more feet.

  “No, no!” Jack screamed.

  “They’ll kill my kid if I don’t. I’m sorry,” I yelled.

  If we both went over… maybe they would give Daniel to Leonie when they give her back her daughter. She would make sure he’s okay. I knew her well enough to know her basic decency.

  He’ll be dead, it’ll be in the paper, my job would be done. My son, free.

  “No! No!” Jack Ming screamed. My grip on his forearm closed like an iron cuff. This is the only way.

  I threw us both off the gravel roof.

  53

  AND MY FOOT LANDED ON… scaffolding. This side of the building was under remodeling. Jack, arm pinwheeling, screaming, grabbed at an upright bar but I yanked him away from life, from safety. I saw his fingertips brush the metal pole and miss. The balls of my feet hit the edge of the scaffolding and I pushed beyond, my hands gripping his arm.

  Into air. Gravity slipped its fatal embrace around us. Jack Ming’s scream rose and rushed hard into my ears.

  Three stories. It’s not far to fall but it’s enough. The images of the alleyway below burst through my mind, a memory that would only imprint for a moment before death.

  I can’t see the asphalt of the alleyway.

  Parked in the space between the buildings are big dump trucks.

  Blue canopies. More scaffolding on the sides, now behind us.

  The renovation gear crowded the alleyway. We plummeted toward blue canopy, a surprising pond. Jack wrenched free from my grip. Two more seconds and we hit, ripping the thin plastic sheet, but it slowed our fall, like rain striking a leaf before dripping onto the mud. The canopy tore, yawned like a sleepy mouth. Metal rods snapped loose from under the canopy, cracking like bones. Then the tearing fabric, having cocooned us, spat us both free in a slow, awkward tumble. Just below us was a truck, its load covered in black plastic.

  We tore through the plastic and hit sand. A metal rod clanged against the back panel of the truck. Pain gripped me, shook my already hurt arm. A drift of canopy settled on me like a blanket. I realized I was still breathing. Every inch of me recateg
orized pain, but I still breathed. I kicked the shredded canopy off me. Sand abraded my face.

  “What the hell!” a guy exclaimed; he stood on scaffolding, six feet away from me and seven feet above. He hovered over me, inspecting me as though he couldn’t believe I’d fallen out of the sky. “What the holy hell?”

  If I’m still alive then so was…

  I saw Jack, scurrying off the sand at the front of the truck, on the driver’s side of the cab. The sand had scraped his face raw, he bled from his ears. He fared better in the fall than I did. He dropped out of sight but moments later the truck gave a little shift, like a door had opened and slammed closed.

  “Stop,” I said but there was hardly any breath in me. My arm—the same one Jack had nailed with the heavy ceramic pot—didn’t feel right. “Stop him.”

  The engine started and the truck jerked forward. Jack bulldozed the truck through the detritus of construction: the canisters of paint, the stacked drywall, the wooden barriers erected to keep out the curious and the sticky-fingered. He blared the horn, skidded the truck out into the Brooklyn traffic.

  I gripped the edge of the truck with my good arm. Holding on for the ride.

  The sand truck smashed along the cars parked on the side of the street. Metal crunched, glass shattered. I tried to get to my knees on the sand.

  And then the back of the truck’s bed fell open. I didn’t know if Jack got clever and resourceful—he was already that, he’d thought of stealing the truck before I did—or if he just hit the wrong switch, or if the rods that hit the truck when we fell damaged the catch that kept the hinge of the bed in place.

  The sand spilled, as though from a broken hourglass, and carried me with it into a slide onto the street. Cars behind the truck braked as the sand exploded out onto them. Which was good because I tumbled out with the sand and I landed on a heap of it, approximately three feet in front of a honking cab. I leapt forward and the sand stopped the cab’s bumper, just short of my shoes.