“Can they?”
“Possibly. But so can we.”
THE HUMMER DOGGED the school bus along Dyer Avenue and down the walled-in approach ramp to the tunnel. The bus entered the rightmost of the three tunnel tubes, and the Hummer did the same.
Suddenly both vehicles were on snow-free roadway. The Hummer picked up speed. So did the bus. The bus’s engine produced a shade over 200 horsepower, while the Hummer’s was capable of twice that. The bus was also twice the weight of the Hummer. The car quickly whittled down the distance between them. In no time it was sitting right on the bus’s tail. The noise of engines was amplified by the tunnel. The Hummer nosed still closer to the bus. Its bonnet was dented and one headlight was missing, broken during its glancing altercation with the snowplough truck. The bus was battered too, and acned with bullet impacts.
Lieutenant Giacoia leaned out of the passenger-side window. He had a pistol, a SIG Sauer P226 Blackwater Special. Steadying his gun hand on his left forearm, he took careful aim at the bus’s rear offside tyre.
Then the bus’s back door swung open and something large came flying out.
INSIDE THE BUS, the vampires were able to move freely again. They were no longer pinned in contorted crouching positions by the rods of daylight.
As soon as the tunnel roof closed over the bus, blotting out all natural light, Redlaw ordered the vampires to pull up a bank of paired seats. Denzel, Anu, Patti and Mary-Jo all bent to the task. With their combined strength they were able to wrench the seat frame free from its bolted mountings.
The bank of seats was what came barrelling out of the back of the bus towards the Hummer. It flipped end over end and slammed into the windscreen. One metal leg embedded itself in the glass, creating a perfect spider web of cracks. The bank of seats stuck fast, almost completely obscuring the driver’s view.
Berger was forced to jam on the brakes. The Hummer came to a greasy, sidewinding halt. Berger and Giacoia piled out. Giacoia sprinted after the bus, loosing off several rounds from the SIG, but he was too far away and the bus was going too fast for accuracy. He took out one indicator light, but that was all.
Berger, meanwhile, wrestled with the bank of seats and at last managed to yank it free. She tossed it aside in disgust.
“LT! Get back in!”
Giacoia leapt into the Hummer as it rolled past, and Berger gunned the car for all it was worth, swearing heartily under her breath. The delay had cost them a good thirty seconds. The bus was already out of sight and probably closing in on the other end of the tunnel.
The Hummer reached the exit, coasting up into daylight and deep snow again. To the left was the toll plaza through which traffic was funnelled down into the tunnel from the New Jersey side. Beyond lay the Weehawken Helix, the pretzel of flyover and underpass that brought Route 495 through a 180º turn and merged it with JFK Boulevard. Of the school bus, there was no sign.
But among all the pairs of parallel ruts in the snow there was one that was particularly broad and deep. Berger followed this trail confidently until, at the next intersection, the ruts diverged into two separate pairs. The bus had been ghosting over the tyre marks of some other vehicle with a similar axle length. Damn.
The question was, had Redlaw turned off the freeway or carried straight on? Berger assumed the Brit would play it safe and stay on the main roads.
A mile further on, the Hummer caught up with... a FedEx truck that was pluckily battling the elements to make its deliveries.
Berger cursed, threw the car into an about-turn, and headed back down the freeway. She wove in and out of the sporadic oncoming traffic. Headlights flashed and horns beat out an angry Morse. The Hummer hairpinned onto the off-ramp that the school bus must have taken.
“Goddamn suburbs,” Giacoia said. “They could be anywhere.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Berger growled.
Berger drove around the area, wind whistling through the hole in the windscreen. She crisscrossed Union City and Hoboken, trying vainly to pick up the vampires’ scent again. She headed west along the South Marginal Highway, north along the New Jersey Turnpike, east along I-95. Nothing.
The bus was gone, lost in the wilds of New Jersey.
She pounded the steering wheel several times, bending it ever so slightly out of true.
“I don’t believe it! The fuckers have gotten away!”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR
THE SUNOCO GAS station was blissfully warm inside. Tina spent a full minute in the shop just revelling in the heat. The bus, with its bullet holes and missing windows, had become a freezer on wheels.
Then she remembered she didn’t have a lot of time. It wouldn’t take Redlaw long to fill up the tank. She asked the attendant if she could use the restroom. The pimply teenage kid barely glanced up at her as he handed over the key on its large rectangular plastic tag. He had a bottle of Coke Zero open in front of him and looked tired and wired. He’d probably been pulling a double or even triple shift, stuck here with nobody able to come to relieve him. Tina could empathise.
In a toilet cubicle, she checked her site. The hit counter had reached five figures. Unbelievable. And the waspish and abusive comments were now few and far between. The vast majority of visitors were posting single-word positive critiques—“Awesome!” “Amazing!” “Fangtastic!”—some with emoticons such as “8D,” “@_@” and “((v=v))” tacked on.
At the washbasins she studied herself in the tarnished mirror. Grubby, ratty-haired, eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep. She did what she could to smarten herself up. She hand-scrubbed some of the sewage stains out of her clothing with warm, soapy water. She splashed cold water on her face.
Pursued. Shot at. Nearly killed.
This was frontline journalism. Never mind the Middle East or Sub-Saharan Africa or Afghanistan. She was in the thick of a war and it was happening right here, on people’s doorsteps.
She envisaged herself giving an interview, perhaps on Piers Morgan’s show on CNN. Telling that slimy Limey how she obtained her extraordinary footage, what she went through to break her story about paramilitary vampire killers, the terror, the danger, the adrenalised highs and—
Her BlackBerry was buzzing. The incoming call was from an unrecognised number.
“Yes?”
“Do I have the pleasure of speaking with Tina Checkley?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“The Tina Checkley who has a website called Tick Talk?”
“That’s me.”
Her heart started to beat faster.
“Ms Checkley—may I call you Tina?”
“I guess. Who is this?”
“An admirer, you could say. Someone hugely impressed by your work. Someone in a position to make a highly lucrative bid for your footage and your future services.”
Fuck Jesus shit fuck holy frigging Christ...
Tina kept her voice even and businesslike, as cool as could be, the voice of a woman who took phone calls like this every day. “Yeah, really? You run a TV station or something?”
“I don’t run one,” said the man. “I own one. Three, as a matter of fact. Including a major network with a top-rating news outlet.”
“This better not be a prank call.”
“Not in the least.”
“Because if you’re punking me, mister...”
“Tina, I am entirely on the level.” His voice was refined and beguiling. Nothing in it gave Tina any cause to suspect that he was a bullshit artist or a time-wasting crazy. His accent was Boston, but high-end Boston; not the slovenly drawl of someone from Charlestown, say, or Roxbury. “I’ve seen that you’ve been consorting with vampires, putting yourself at great personal risk to bring us some truly remarkable reportage.”
“Listen, I love having smoke blown up my ass as much as the next person,” Tina said, “but I’m on the clock here. Let’s cut straight to it. What are you offering?”
“What am I offering? Only everything you’ve ever dreamt of.”
“And who are you?”
“My name? J. Howard Farthingale the Third. Perhaps you’ve heard of me...”
TINA RETURNED TO the shop, where Redlaw was paying for gassing up the bus. She noted that he had wrapped some of the parcel tape around his left sleeve to cover up the rips in the fabric.
“Tina? Are you all right?”
“Sure,” she said. “Why?”
“You’re looking a little... dazed.”
“No. Well, yeah. Hardly surprising, though. We’ve been on the go since who-knows-when and it’s all been pretty, you know, stressful. Must be catching up with me.”
She grabbed some candy bars and a couple of bags of Doritos off the shelf and tossed them on the counter. The attendant added them to the bill and took Redlaw’s money.
“Need refuelling myself,” Tina said, unwrapping a king-size PayDay as they walked back to the bus. “You want some?”
Redlaw shook his head.
“So where to now, boss? What’s the deal?”
“I’m open to suggestions.”
“’Cause we can keep driving around aimlessly from now until doomsday if you like. But if you ask me, we ought to be thinking about some kind of endgame. Taking the fight to these people rather than letting them make all the running.”
“Where has this sprung from?” Redlaw said. “The sudden attack of gung-ho?”
“I’m tired of being pushed around, is all. And of seeing the vamps get victimised. Also, the way you’re defending them, I’ve got to say it’s pretty inspiring.”
He looked askance at her. “Who are you and what have you done with Tina Checkley?”
“No, seriously. It’s cool. Your dedication to them. They haven’t done anything wrong except be who they are. Okay, we’ll overlook the part where they were going to drink you and me dry. Blame the Russian priest for that. Bad leadership. Jim Jones in a cassock. But here are American soldiers who want to just wipe them off the map. It’s genocide, pretty much. Ethnic cleansing. It’s a disgrace, and we shouldn’t stand for it.”
“I’m not,” said Redlaw. “But—”
The phone in his pocket trilled.
“Call for Colonel Jacobsen,” he said, pulling it out. “Or more likely me. Yes?”
He listened to the voice on the other end. For a time he said nothing other than “Hmm” and “Yes” and “I see.” Then he said, “I’ll think about it. Give me a few minutes and I’ll call you back.” He shut the phone.
“Who was that?”
“Farthingale.”
Tina frowned. “Who is...?”
“The man—and I use the term loosely—who’s behind all this. Rogue billionaire sociopath. There’s a surprising number of those about.”
“You know him?”
“Not personally. We’ve talked before. Just the once. Last time he was making threats. Now...”
“What does he want?”
“A truce.”
“Really?”
“Apparently. He says his soldiers have gone AWOL. He’s not running the show any more. He’s in over his head and he’d like to parley.”
“Where?”
“His place. It’s a couple of hundred miles from here. He wants us to go there and, in his words, ‘try to sort out this mess before it gets any worse.’”
“And what do you think to that?”
“I think, Tina,” said Redlaw, “that I’d be a fool if I didn’t suspect a trap. But I also think I should go.”
“Yeah, walk into a trap, that’s not at all foolish,” said Tina. “What good will going do?”
“Because,” said Redlaw simply, “if I meet this Farthingale face to face, then I can kill him.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE
REDLAW DROVE.
He drove north-east through New England, a region that seemed to him like a cartographical remix of his own country—the names were the same, but the placements differed. He had a map, purchased at the Sunoco station, open on his lap. Portsmouth could be found due east of Manchester. Norwich lay south of Worcester. Rutland loitered way up north while Gloucester perched on a coastal promontory. It was England, but not as he knew it.
Tina had taped over the fresh holes in the bus’s bodywork, so the vampires were free to occupy the seats as normal. They were asleep now. It was the middle of the day, their natural rest time.
As for Tina herself, she dozed too, and the peace and quiet, to Redlaw, was bliss. He had his thoughts to himself and wasn’t having to deal with her almost incessant chatter.
It couldn’t last, alas. Shortly after they had bypassed Providence and were heading for the state line between Rhode Island and Massachusetts, Tina woke up. She came forward and peered over Redlaw’s shoulder into the viewing slot. It was bright out, the sky unbroken blue, sunshine glaring off snow. They passed a road sign: Boston 70 miles.
“Not far to go, huh?”
“We’ve broken the back of the journey,” said Redlaw. “We’ll give Boston a wide berth, then we’re more or less there.”
“At which point, what? You make like John Wayne and go do what a man’s gotta do?”
“Pretty much. Farthingale left the arrangements loose enough that I’ve room to play it by ear.” In his follow-up phone conversation with the plutocrat, they had ironed out the very vague terms of their meeting. “I intend to go to his island, handle whatever resistance he has lying in wait for me—if there is any—then bring him to justice.”
“What if he’s on the level, though? What if he wants to say sorry and throw himself on your mercy, just like it seems he does? You’re a Christian. What is it the Bible says about sinners who repent?”
“‘Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance.’”
“Exactly. If it’s redemption he’s after, don’t you sort of have to give it to him?”
“I think things have gone a little too far for that,” said Redlaw. “Anyway, it’s God who does the redeeming.”
“And you’re the man who sends folks to the Pearly Gates so’s He can do that.”
“Don’t make it sound so arbitrary. I don’t go around killing people willy-nilly.”
“Only whoever deserves it, yeah?”
“Whoever endangers that which I believe is right.”
“But what gives you the right to say what’s right?” said Tina.
“It’s obvious. Basic morality.”
“So that’s how it is with you. Cut and dried. Black and white. No grey areas. Kind of childish, don’t you think?”
“Tina, if someone tries to harm me, I don’t let them. That’s not childish. It’s purely practical. I’m not going to back off from a foe or show leniency, not when my life’s at stake—or the lives that are under my protection. That’s not what Jesus meant when he talked about turning the other cheek.”
“But according to you, Farthingale’s saying he’s lost control of the situation. Sounds to me like he wants you onside. He’s scared now—of what he’s done, and of you.”
“That’s if he isn’t lying and setting me up.”
“But if he isn’t, shouldn’t you give him the benefit of the doubt? A chance to make amends, anyways?”
Redlaw took his eyes off the road long enough to fix her with a curious stare. “Why are you defending him all of a sudden?”
“I’m not.”
“Not so long ago you were talking about taking the fight to the enemy. Farthingale is the enemy.”
“His soldiers are. He’s... probably not. Not any more. He’s Victor Frankenstein and his monster’s on the rampage and he doesn’t know what to do about it, which is why he’s turned to you. Out of desperation.”
Redlaw hmmed sceptically.
“It’s possible,” Tina said. “You have to at least take it into consideration.”
“Tina,” Redlaw said after a long pause, “is there something you need to tell me?”
“No. Suc
h as?”
“Anything you know that I don’t. Anything at all.”
“I don’t think so. Why do you ask?”
“You didn’t strike me as this conciliatory when I first met you. You’re the woman who, as I recall, zapped me with a stun gun just for putting a hand on you. You’re the aspiring journalist who’ll stop at nothing, put up with anything, to get her story.”
“I’ve been through a lot since then,” she said. “Not surprising my outlook might have changed.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure I’m sure.”
“Because if there’s something I should know, now’s the time to confess.”
“You are so suspicious, you know that?”
“I was a policeman once. I have a policeman’s instincts. When people are hiding things from me...”
“...your cop sense tingles, I get it. It’s just a shame.”
“What is?”
“That you don’t trust me. After all we’ve been through together these past few days. After all the help I’ve given you.”
Redlaw glanced at the map, then back at the road—the broad six-lane sweep of I-95. “We’ve another two or three hours of driving time,” he said. “It’ll be dark by the time we reach our destination. You do some thinking, Tina. Make up your mind. Honesty will get you much further than deceit. Take a long, hard look at yourself and let me know what you find.”
Tina rolled her eyes, gave a disgusted grunt, and slouched back to her seat.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SIX
THE TOWN WAS a pretty colonial-era sea port nestling at the tip of one horn of a large bay. In summer the streets would be thronged with tourists and seasonal residents, milling and meandering. The quaint clapboard and shingle-sided houses with their birthday-cake paintwork would gleam in the sun. The bay itself would be a glittering expanse dotted with countless yachts gliding to and fro, mainsails and jib sheets billowing, a pleasure seeker’s vision of paradise.
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