He walked to where North Seventh Street and Bedford Avenue met, then leaned against the corner of the building there with his arms folded so he would appear as if he were waiting for someone.
Richter had been parked on Bedford when Johnny left. On the eastern side of the street — across from their building — and a few doors down. The vehicle was still there. It was likely that when his relief came, Richter would simply exit the vehicle and his replacement would enter it. This would avoid the need for them to make a switch where Richter had to hold the parking space for his arriving replacement, an act not usually seen in New York and one that would likely draw attention to what was supposed to be a clandestine effort.
Though Johnny could see the car, three-quarters of the way down the block, he could not see its driver. He ended up backtracking, making his way west on Seventh, then turning south onto Driggs, then east onto North Sixth Street till he arrived at the southern corner of his block.
He occupied it in the same manner as before; he could see the back of the vehicle.
The man behind the wheel had hair — so, not Richter. Moreover, the man’s hair was long and pulled back into a ponytail. All this pleased Johnny. If worse came to worst, if he had to use force, it would be easier for him to do so against a stranger than against someone he knew and of whom he was fond. And in a fight — a life-or-death brawl — a ponytail was generally a huge disadvantage to its wearer.
Of course, if Haley were in danger, and Johnny came face-to-face with Richter, then all bets were off. Johnny would do whatever needed to be done, and without a moment’s hesitation. He had learned to fight long before becoming a Ranger. His father had started teaching him when he was a boy — jungle warfare skills, nasty stuff, quick but effective ways to subdue or maim. John Coyle had taught all his children to fight — but also to think, to size up and outwit. Don’t box with a boxer, don’t wrestle with a wrestler. Determine the range they aren’t familiar with and fight them there.
Because of this Johnny was confident that he knew Richter’s weaknesses. He hadn’t ever actually seen Richter fight, but he was still certain that he knew. Richter would do what most large men do — trust too much in size and the strength that came with it. He therefore would likely crowd his opponent first, grab hold second, and then and only then, hit.
A wrecking ball, after all, needed to be firmly planted.
So Johnny wouldn’t let that happen.
Now that he knew the lay of the land, Johnny looked toward his building — no, McVicker’s building, but Johnny’s current home. All its windows were dark, from street level to upper floor. A silent, empty hulk in an otherwise vibrant neighborhood.
Just as it should be.
He took out his cell phone and sent Haley a text, asking if she was in place.
She replied instantly that she was.
Johnny focused on the windows of the floor below their apartment, the one that Dickey McVicker used as a storage area. Not long after they moved in, Johnny had let himself into that apartment by picking the lock and found exactly what he’d been hoping to find.
In the bedroom below their bedroom was a closet, directly below their closet. And just like their own closet, this one was empty.
He purchased a jigsaw from a pawnshop and proceeded to cut a rectangular hole in the floor of their closet — a hole just big enough for Haley and himself to slip through.
There were advantages in not being a particularly large man.
He then lowered himself down and into the apartment below, after which he screwed the planks he had cut out of the floor to the wall just below the opening, forming a makeshift ladder, like the kind kids nail into trees. He tested it, then got Haley and made sure she would be able to climb down, too. She did so without a problem.
After sweeping up the sawdust and debris, Johnny closed the lower closet door and returned upstairs. He laid a case of Poland Spring bottled water over the opening. The case just covered it. Then he stacked two more cases on top of that one and was done.
The text he had sent Haley a half hour ago, containing a single word, “Down,” meant that she was to make use of that escape hatch to enter the unoccupied apartment below theirs and wait for Johnny.
According to her reply, she was there now.
Alone, among stacked boxes and rolled-up rugs and chairs and tables, some of which were covered with canvas tarps.
An eerie place, especially at night.
But a necessary evil, so she would endure it.
All Johnny needed now was to get to her unseen.
Jeremy exited the subway at the Bedford Avenue stop, then quickly crossed North Seventh and headed up to McCarren Park.
He reached it thinking of a quote from Sun Tzu. Be the first to arrive.
He found a place to stand where he could see the entire park without being seen himself, or at least without being easily seen. It wasn’t long after this that he watched two men enter the park from the east.
One in a suit; the other in jeans, a hooded sweatshirt, and work boots.
Detective Morris was the one in the suit. The other was the man Morris had introduced to Jeremy three nights ago as Smith.
An undercover New York Police Department cop who, according to Morris, had infiltrated Dickey McVicker’s organization and was keenly interested in knowing what Jeremy remembered of the night John Coyle was taken.
As the two men paused just inside the park, Jeremy could see clouds of cigarette smoke rising above Smith. Though their meeting the other night had been a simple ten-minute meet-and-greet intended to help put Jeremy at ease, Smith had gone through three cigarettes and had been lighting a fourth when the meeting ended.
Camels, Jeremy had casually noted.
He had thought of course of his own father, the way he had dealt with the stress of his undercover work: obsessive exercise. Running, lifting weights, round after round on the heavy bag that hung in the basement of their Ossining home — all as if his life had depended on it, which it did. Even when he no longer worked undercover, when he had taken a desk job, John Coyle Sr. still worked out fiercely. A giant of a man — even as Jeremy himself approached manhood, his father still loomed large in his memory.
And the last thing Jeremy remembered of him — the last thing he now remembered of him — was the man fighting for his life.
During that first meeting three nights ago, Smith had told Jeremy how he wanted more than anything to bring down Dickey McVicker. That McVicker had been the number-one suspect in the murder of Jeremy’s father, as well as many other murders. Dozens, maybe even hundreds. A monster, nothing less. But McVicker was just too smart and he was “lucky”; any and all witnesses that could testify against him always seemed to turn up dead. Most often, drug deals “went bad” — McVicker’s cover of choice, apparently — though other times men with no history of mental illness and with personal lives in good order would be found in “suicide motels” with a single bullet through their heads.
Now, though, with Jeremy’s help, Smith at last had a chance of getting McVicker.
And what better crime for the man to go down for than the murder of John Coyle Sr.?
What Jeremy needed to do was hand over the audio recording of his sessions.
And yet, just as he had heard that — just as he was hearing everything he wanted to hear — something inside him had told him to wait.
Stall, hold off, think this through.
Draw the enemy in with the promise of gain, Sun Tzu had written.
A tactic, but also a warning, no?
What Jeremy had set out to do was clear their father’s name. For Cat, for Johnny. What he had remembered would help him accomplish that.
But he had never in his wildest dreams believed he might actually expose the man who had ordered his father’s murder.
And do what no one else — cops, FBI, Fiermonte, or Cat — had been able to do.
For this to happen, both Morris and Smith had said, they needed to know more.
Everything, in fact.
Jeremy waited, thinking about all this, then finally stepped out into the open. Surrendering the safety of his carefully chosen shadow, he approached the two men.
Cat followed the long gravel driveway toward the Halls’ home. Two vehicles were parked outside the two-car garage — a Volvo wagon and the Volvo sedan Elizabeth had driven off in.
The Mustang rolled to a stop, the noisy shifting of the gravel beneath the tires finally ceased, and Cat killed the motor and the lights. She saw no hint of activity in the house, though some of the tall windows showed that lights were on. She had hoped that the sound of her vehicle coming down the driveway would have brought Elizabeth to the door, and, with this in mind, Cat waited a moment. But nothing, no one.
She took out her cell and punched in the Halls’ landline — her last hope of keeping this discreet. But there was no answer. The answering machine didn’t even pick up. After maybe a dozen rings Cat closed her phone.
She knew then that she had no choice but to knock on the door. I’m here as a concerned sister, she reminded herself. Still, she leaned across the seat to retrieve the handgun she kept in the glove compartment.
A Sig Sauer P226, snug in a well-kept leather holster. Both were a gift from her father, given to her upon graduating Quantico.
Cat did a quick check of the pistol, then secured the holster to her belt and got out.
Walking toward the door, she felt a bit like an intruder but pushed that from her mind. She’d given Elizabeth Hall every chance. And no matter what the consequence, she would collect what she had come here for.
Johnny waited till he saw a group approaching the corner of North Sixth and Bedford. Five people — two couples and a woman. They reached the corner and paused before crossing. Johnny made his move then, stepping in behind them and positioning himself so the group was between him and the ponytailed man in the parked car. When the group crossed — they had clearly been drinking and paid no attention at all to him — he simply crossed with them.
They turned north onto Bedford, but Johnny peeled off there and continued along Sixth, making his way to Berry Street, where he turned north, then turned east onto North Seventh.
A simple hooking maneuver.
He had scouted this all out when they had first moved in. During the first night, in fact.
There was a narrow lot behind their building, the access to which was halfway down North Seventh. He hurried to it and entered. The lot was shared by their building and the buildings on either side of it, so it was relatively private — only half a dozen or so windows overlooked it and it was not at all visible from the street. This, plus the time of night, greatly diminished the risk of Johnny being seen by someone who might call the police.
He needed to be fast and quiet. Haley would have known to leave their bathroom window open slightly prior to retreating to the apartment below, so Johnny could gain access to the building while she remained behind locked doors downstairs. He monkey-climbed the thick metal drainpipe that ran up the backside of building till he was beside it. It was a stretch, but he reached it and fit his fingers beneath the frame, then lifted. Reaching in, he grabbed hold of the windowsill and pulled himself over so he was hanging beneath it. From there it was a simple matter of climbing up and through, which he did easily.
He quickly closed and locked the window, then made his way through the dark apartment to the bedroom closet. Certainly Haley heard him moving above and knew it would be just a matter of seconds before he reached her. This eased his concern for her. He reached the closet and saw that the three cases of water had been moved aside, just as they should have been. Without hesitating, Johnny lowered himself through the opening in the floor, found the first rung with his foot, and climbed down to the closet below.
The closet door was ajar, and he slipped through it without having to open it any farther, whispering Haley’s name.
She didn’t answer. He moved around the clutter, assuming that she would be standing beside one of the front windows, watching the street below for him. He whispered her name a second time and still got nothing.
He didn’t understand this at all, and the slight ease he had felt was suddenly gone. He came around the stacked boxes that blocked his view of the front windows and realized the terrible truth.
Three men were standing right where Haley should be.
Facing Johnny like a wall.
The one in the middle was Richter — he was hard to miss — and the other two Johnny barely glanced at. He didn’t need to see their faces. And anyway, he was too busy scanning what he could see of the dimly lit room for Haley.
Maybe he would see her standing in a corner, with another man beside her holding her arm firmly with one hand and cupping his other over her mouth.
Or worse, holding a knife to her throat. Or pressing a gun to her head.
But she was nowhere to be seen, and Johnny looked back at the wall of men, his heart and mind racing. He thought quickly of Thailand, when he and Haley had faced those three men in the tiny room of that Bangkok guesthouse.
I think I’m going to take that arm of hers as a trophy, one of the Thai men had said.
And he remembered what came after that, after those men were dead — he and Haley fleeing the hotel, carefully making their way through the strange city, beginning their long run for the border.
It had taken everything he knew — everything his father had taught him, everything he had learned as a Ranger — to get them to safety.
It was the same lifetime of training that kicked in now and helped clear his mind and calm his heart, if only slightly.
And yet adrenaline still surged through his arms and legs, and he was ready to fly into violent action. All it would take was one wrong move, one wrong word, one look he didn’t like.
Richter sensed this and raised both his hands in a gesture that was meant to be calming. As he did that, the two men at his side stepped in a wide, arcing motion till they were flanking Johnny. They kept their distance, careful to stay beyond his reach.
The trio in Thailand hadn’t been able to do that; the guesthouse room was just too small.
“I’m sorry about this, Johnny,” Richter said. “I’m going to need to ask you to come with us.”
“Where’s Haley?” Johnny demanded. His voice was low, almost a growl.
“Everything’s cool, Johnny.”
“Where’s Haley?”
“We don’t have a lot of time.”
“Where is Haley?”
“She’s not far from here. She’s okay. We’re going to pick her up on the way.”
“On the way to where?”
“My father has a safe house. He’s going to meet us there. He wants to talk to you.”
“What about?”
“He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.”
“I want to talk to her first.”
Richter had apparently anticipated this. He nodded to the man to Johnny’s left. The man removed a cell phone from his pocket, placed it on the floor, and slid it across to Johnny.
“Press One and then Talk,” Richter said.
Johnny picked up the phone and did as instructed. His call was answered after one ring.
“Johnny?”
Haley’s voice.
“Are you okay?” Johnny said.
“I’m fine.” There was, though, fear in her voice. “They told me to answer your texts as if nothing was wrong,” she said quickly.
“I know. It’s okay. You did the right thing. Everything is going to be fine. I’m on my way.”
“Okay.”
The fear was still in her voice. The thought of her frightened — and the thought of what she must have gone through, what she must have felt when she was taken by McVicker’s men — angered Johnny. He could feel it rise in him, joining with the adrenaline spiking his rushing blood.
A potent mix.
But he couldn’t let anger blind him.
“Are you hurt?” he said.
“No. Are you?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
“Okay.”
“Je t’aime,” Johnny said.
Haley hesitated, then repeated, “Je t’aime aussi.”
Johnny closed the phone and tossed it back to the man on his left.
Richter looked at him with suspicion. “What was the last part?”
“You don’t speak French?”
Richter shook his head. Johnny glanced at the man to his left, then the man to his right. Neither offered a translation. He looked back at Richter.
“I said ‘I love you.’”
Richter seemed satisfied by that. He nodded at the door and Johnny stepped toward it, one man ahead of him, the other directly behind, with Richter bringing up the rear.
Outside, they headed for the watch car parked across Bedford Avenue. It was a four-door sedan, which meant there would be just enough room for five. Johnny and the two men guarding him crowded into the backseat, Johnny in the middle. Richter filled the passenger seat, and the man with the ponytail drove.
Johnny knew that when they picked up Haley, at least one of these men would have to give up his seat. Logic suggested that it would be Richter. Johnny would still need to be guarded, so those two men would remain. Johnny’s only hope was that Richter wouldn’t simply change seats with the ponytailed man.
The sedan headed north, then turned east at McCarren Park. A block later the sedan came to a stop behind a white panel van parked at the curb. The rear doors opened, and the sedan’s headlights filled the cargo area.
Inside was Haley, seated on a crate, and two more of McVicker’s men. Upon seeing the sedan, the two men rose and took Haley by the arms, gently. They got her to her feet and helped her exit.
The sight of them touching her, even in a kind manner, incensed Johnny. He knew that this could have easily — too easily — gone another way. These men could have harmed her. They could have done anything they wanted to her. They could have filled her with terror — or done much worse — and then killed her. All Johnny’s careful planning had been for nothing. Hollow gestures. And his vow that she would never again face danger, never again have to fear the worst that terrible men were capable of, had been rendered utterly meaningless.
The Betrayer Page 15
