Exit Strategy

by Steve Hamilton

  “Just the marshals they really trust,” he said, looking out the window. “Like me.”

  Mason waited for more. He had to fight off the urge to reach forward and slap the cigarette from the man’s mouth.

  “This is the last time I do this,” the marshal said. “You can tell your boss that.”

  He lowered the window and the cold rushed in as he threw the cigarette out against the wind and ended up spraying himself with sparks. He swore and brushed the embers from his coat.

  “That’s not the way this works,” Mason said. “But you want to try telling him that yourself, go ahead.”

  The marshal turned to him. “You think you’re any better than me? I’m not the one about to kill some good men in that bunker.”

  “Shut the fuck up and show me where it is.”

  “It’s out there.” He pointed through the windshield at the crumbling path leading into the fairgrounds. “Just follow the Yellow Brick Road.”

  “The ventilation outlet is fifty feet away from the entrance. Where is that?”

  “You know what? I’m done with this. I told you, I got enough blood on my hands already.”

  Mason weighed his options. Even if he dragged this man out of the car, he’d be nothing more than a liability. But if he left him here …

  “Give me your car keys,” Mason said.

  “Why?”

  “So you’ll still be here when I’m done.”

  “I’m not giving you my keys.”

  Mason exhaled as he shook his head and stuck the barrel of the M4 in the marshal’s ribs. The man fumbled in his pockets for a moment, then handed them over.

  “Now,” Mason said, “the entrance …”

  “It’s one of those two towers over there.”

  “I can see that from the blueprints. Which one?”

  “I don’t know. Take a shot. You got a fifty-fifty chance.”

  Mason swore under his breath as he got out of the car. “Take off your coat,” he said, opening the driver’s-side door. When the marshal hesitated, Mason grabbed him by the back of the neck and pulled him out.

  “This is my good coat,” the marshal said as he took off his full-length gray mackintosh. “Try not to get bullet holes in it.”

  “You’re going to sit in this car until I get back,” Mason said as he slipped the coat on over his vest. “If you run, I’ll find you.”

  The marshal shivered in the cold, got back in his car, and shut the door. He’s betting I won’t make it back, Mason thought as he made his way across the parking lot. He’s coming up with his story right now about how I forced him to bring me here.

  Mason put the marshal out of his mind, tucked the M4 under the coat, and focused on his surroundings. He couldn’t see anyone else around—this part of the park was essentially abandoned, and you wouldn’t come out here on a gray, windy day, anyway. But Mason still felt exposed as he walked across the open ground, the wind swirling a small hurricane of dead leaves all around him.

  No matter what happens, he said to himself, this is going to be some version of a nightmare.

  On every other mission, he had done everything he could not to kill anyone besides the intended target. Even now, he was walking with a reminder, the still-healing gunshot wound in his shoulder, of how much he put his own life in danger to avoid taking an innocent life.

  As he approached the looming towers, weighted down with more weaponry than a Special Ops soldier, he knew that this personal code of his was about to be obliterated forever. If he left this place alive, he would leave as another kind of man.

  There’s no other way I live through this. I take out everyone. Or they take out me.

  Mason paused by the great Unisphere, its globe rising high above him as he stood in the dry concrete bed of the fountain. The towers were two hundred yards away, rising even higher, a single light blinking at the top of the taller one—a warning to any aircraft passing by. Otherwise, the towers looked completely deserted.

  Mason knew there was no way to approach the towers without being seen by the surveillance cameras. And there had to be cameras. He wondered if he could have used a better disguise right about then—something to make himself look like a homeless person wandering by. With a shopping cart to hide the weapons.

  He looked back to the car behind him, decided to go ahead with the hand he’d been dealt. Moving quickly, keeping his eyes wide open for any movement, any sounds, anything at all that would indicate a reaction from the men in the bunker, he walked toward the towers.

  Fifty feet from the entrance. I don’t even know what this ventilation outlet will look like, or how big the opening will be.

  He scanned the ground as he walked, circling the towers, and finally found it on the far side. It was a pipe, about four feet high, maybe eight inches in diameter, topped with a fitting to keep out rain and debris and anchored in a metal plate that was only slightly larger around.

  I can’t fit through this. And if I try to blow the opening any bigger, I might as well be ringing the doorbell.

  That left Plan B. When Mason went back to the larger of the two towers, he found a double set of glass doors, and, looking inside, he saw an elevator door and the bottom steps of a long spiral stairway that presumably went all the way up the tower. He didn’t see a surveillance camera, but when he pulled on the handle, the door didn’t move.

  He went to the other, slightly shorter tower, pausing at the wastebasket next to the door. When he looked inside, he saw a dozen fast-food bags and coffee cups. He reached in, picked up the cup closest to the top. Even through his gloves, he could feel that it was still warm.

  This was the tower.

  Mason stayed out of view for as long as possible, keeping his back to the wall. He waited, listened, heard nothing but the wind and the leaves. He pulled the balaclava down over his face and then he moved.

  There was another double set of glass doors, as in the first tower. A similar elevator door and stairwell. But this time, he could see the surveillance camera mounted over the elevator. The red light was on. If there was someone actively watching a video screen in the bunker, he was looking right at him.

  It doesn’t matter, Mason said to himself. There’s one way into this place. One way out. No matter what else happens, I’m going to have to fight every inch.

  Mason tried the door. It didn’t move. He didn’t want to stand there for the two or three minutes it would take him to pick the lock, so instead he rammed the glass with the barrel of the M4. With the glass shattered, he reached in and turned the latch, then pulled the door open. He took off the marshal’s coat as he moved under the camera’s range. No need to hide anything now, and it would only get in his way. He paused there for another moment, listening for some response to his entry.

  Nothing.

  He brought the blueprints back into his head. The elevator, taken ninety-nine and nine-tenths percent of the time straight up to the viewing platform, also had a secret capacity to go down to the bunker, a capacity accessed only by a special key. The compromised marshal hadn’t been able to get Mason a copy, but even if he had, there was no way Mason was going to ride down the elevator and let the doors open to whoever would be waiting for him. The blueprints showed an alternate set of stairs, from its time as a bomb shelter. Mason saw the door set into the wall, painted the same mid-century shade of institutional green. He pulled on the handle, felt it catch against a lock. He took one step backward and kicked it open, stepped inside.

  As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he saw fuse boxes, circuit breakers, a panel of controls for the elevator.

  No stairs.

  He’d seen no other door in the lobby. This electrical closet was the only possibility. Unless …

  He took a few slow steps across the floor. On his third step, he felt it give with a slightly different degree of resistance. Mason went down to one knee and examined the floor, flipped up the recessed ring and lifted the trapdoor. He had found the bunker’s secret emergency exit.

/>   Mason went down the dark concrete stairs, leading with the M4. He saw a dim light that grew brighter as he neared the bottom. Then as he turned the last corner, he saw a small alcove with the elevator door inset next to the opening in the wall that provided access to the stairs, and, on the far wall, a metal door that must have led into the rest of the bunker and a security window with thick glass.

  Above the door was yet another surveillance camera. Another light blinking red, another chance for whoever was inside to see him.

  If they’ve clocked me, Mason said to himself, why have they let me get this far?

  The answer came to him immediately.

  Because this alcove is the killing room. As soon as I take one step forward, that door will swing open and they’ll gun me down.

  It was fight-or-flight time: either make a bold move forward or get the hell out of there and deal with the consequences of failing his first mission.

  Mason turned off his mind, put every ounce of his humanity into a hard black box, and closed it.

  Then he took one of the fragmentation grenades from his vest, pulled the pin, and rolled it to the door, ducking back into the concrete stairwell and covering his ears.

  The explosion was more powerful than anything he’d ever experienced, far more intense even than what he’d been through at the Aqua. The noise and heat were staggering, lighting up the confined space with a sudden blinding flash and pressing needles into his eardrums. Fragments of metal flew in every direction, some of them chipping right through the corner where he was hiding and drilling holes into the concrete just inches behind him. Mason came out into the alcove with the M4 drawn and ready to fire.

  The smoke hung heavy in the air. Mason moved through it to where the metal door had once been. It was blown backward into the interior of the next room, and, as he stepped over it, he saw the first body. He trained the barrel of the M4 on the man’s chest, but it wasn’t necessary. His entire body was torn apart, from his abdomen to his neck, his head bent back at an impossible angle, the blood already pooling around him. The humanity Mason had locked away was straining against the box’s lid. Mason kept it shut tight.

  He stayed low, waiting for any sense of movement, not even sure if his ears were working again yet. As he took a few more steps down the hallway, the smoke began to clear and he saw the second body, twice the distance from the blast but just as torn up as the first. With just as much blood on the floor.

  Something was wrong. This wasn’t adding up.

  Two more steps and he came to a doorway on his left. He peered around the corner and saw the bunker’s control room, with the two video screens corresponding to the two surveillance cameras he’d seen on the way in, and the window looking into the alcove. Another man lay dead in another pool of blood. A pistol lay a few inches away from his right hand.

  The explosion didn’t touch this room …

  He kept moving until the hallway opened up into the largest room of the bunker. Four folding chairs were toppled around a table in its center, with three more dead bodies on the floor.

  Mason scanned the rest of the room and saw several lockers against one wall, a gun case against the other with its glass doors ajar. There was room in the case for eight weapons, Mason saw seven—a full array of shotguns and assault rifles. One slot was empty.

  He noticed one other odd detail: a metal tray lying on the floor, one edge slick with blood.

  Hearing a noise somewhere to his left, Mason spun with the M4 raised and saw the metal door half open, a pair of legs visible on the floor inside the next room. He went to the door and carefully pushed it open with his foot, ready to fire at anything that moved.

  It was a makeshift cell, with one bed and a stainless steel sink-and-toilet unit. The man on the floor was lying on his back, his eyes closed. Mason moved closer, watching the man’s hands. He was wearing a black windbreaker with the U.S. Marshals seal on its chest. One arm was in a sling, and it looked like his head had also been bandaged—although now the bandage was hanging by a single piece of tape. And there was a fresh scrape running all the way across his forehead.

  Mason bent down and put his gloved hand against the man’s neck. He was alive.

  As he stood back up, Mason pieced together the whole sequence of events, running everything backward. The marshal was in here alone with Burke. When the door was opened, Burke surprised the marshal and incapacitated him by ramming his head against the wall. Or else possibly he took out the marshal first and then knocked on the door. Either way, he surprised the man on the other side of the door—the man who, along with five other guards at his side, had been so concerned about the threat outside this bunker they’d become complacent about the threat inside.

  Burke had slashed the guard’s throat with the tray, moved quickly toward the gun case, probably slashing one or two of the other guards on the way. As soon as he had one of the weapons in his hand, the war was all but over. He killed every one of them on his way out. Only this marshal, lying on the floor at Mason’s feet, was left alive.

  When he looked back down, he saw that the marshal’s eyes were open. Mason stepped back and aimed the M4 at his chest.

  “Where is he?” the man said, his voice ragged.

  Mason shook his head.

  “The others …” The man tried to sit up, but then he brought his free hand up to his head and lay back down on the concrete floor again.

  “Please,” he said. “Help them.”

  Mason didn’t bother telling him that the other men were beyond help. He’d find out himself soon enough.

  “Don’t move,” Mason said. “I’ll call someone after I leave.”

  As he stepped away, Mason felt the marshal reach out and grab him by the ankle with his left hand. Mason stopped and looked back down at him.

  “You’re Mason,” he said.

  Mason didn’t respond. When the marshal let go, he left the cell, stepped over all of the dead bodies, and went up the stairs.

  When he was back on ground level and out of the tower, Mason sucked in a big gulp of air, hoping it would clear his head.

  Those men weren’t dead for long, he said to himself, and that marshal was just regaining consciousness.

  Meaning I just missed Burke. By, what, five minutes? Ten?

  A chill swept over Mason as he wondered what would have happened if he’d gotten there in time to meet him.

  As he walked back to the car, Mason took the keys from his pocket. When he was a hundred yards away, he saw the driver’s-side door open. When he was ten yards away, he saw the marshal slumped behind the wheel, a bullet hole in his head.

  Burke wanted this car, Mason thought. He scanned the horizon in all directions, looking for some sign of him. But there was nothing to see but an abandoned park. Mason pulled the marshal from behind the wheel, left him on the concrete staring up at the sky with unblinking eyes as the wind blew dead leaves across his face.

  When Mason closed the door, he saw the file on the passenger’s seat beside him. Burke’s mug shot on top. Burke now knew with absolute certainty that someone had been sent to kill him.

  I don’t know what he knows about me, Mason told himself as he started the car and put it in gear. But he knows who sent me and he knows where I came from. Which can mean only one thing.

  He’s heading to Chicago.

  16

  Eddie was back on the job, surveilling Cole’s operations at the storefront on 111th Street, gathering more counter-intel for Nick Mason’s exit strategy.

  The gray sedan pulled out of the lot, and Eddie tailed it across town to the Irish neighborhood of Beverly in the southwest corner of the city. He clocked the two men parking the car and entering one of those neighborhood places that don’t even need a sign—just a single neon shamrock glowing in one window—because all the regulars know where to find it, and nobody else has any reason to be there, anyway.

  He waited a beat, then followed the men inside. It was a place out of another time, dimly lit, an unuse
d jukebox in one corner and an unused pool table in the middle. There were a dozen hard drinkers arranged at the other tables, and the two men he’d followed were at the rail, their expensive suits making them look like aliens from another planet, while the bartender stood on the other side, his tattooed forearms on the top of the bar.

  Eddie went right up to the bartender, a man in his sixties with disheveled white hair and red eyes. He seemed distracted and out of sorts as he drew Eddie a pint glass from the tap like a man trying to remember how to perform a routine task he’d done ten thousand times before. He put the glass down on the bar, and Eddie slid him a twenty, told him to keep the change. The bartender didn’t even blink.

  The two men watched Eddie with a look that was cool and patient. Eddie gave them a nod and sat down at one of the tables. He couldn’t hear much of their conversation, and after another few minutes, one of the men led the bartender through the door to the kitchen. The other man remained at the rail and announced that the bar had just been closed.

  Eddie left with everyone else, hung back by his Jeep and watched the place. A full half hour passed. When the two men finally came out, got in the sedan, and drove away, he gave it another minute, then went inside. The front door was still open.

  He went through the empty bar, pushed open the kitchen door with his shoulder, saw the splash of blood on the floor first, then the red lake surrounding the man himself, the lifeless eyes looking up at him. There were burn marks on his face. His fingers were gone. Eddie had seen dead bodies before in the army, had seen a few more through his scope when he backed up Nick in that quarry, but this …

  He eased the door closed, grabbed a bar towel, went back to the table and wiped down his glass. He picked up the phone behind the bar, still holding the towel, called 911 and gave the operator the bar’s address, told her there’d been a murder. When she asked him for his name, he hung up.

  He went out quickly to his Jeep and drove away, hoping to put as much distance between himself and the dead bartender as quickly as he could.

  He’d barely gotten on the Skyway when he saw the police lights behind him.