The president. The pope. They come to the city, everything stops, everybody knows about it. Everything feels different just for those few hours. Then the man leaves and everything goes back to the way it was.
When Sean Burke came back to Chicago, there were only a handful of residents who even knew his name. Even fewer who had any idea what chaos he was about to bring with him.
But for those people, he would change the city forever.
Sean Burke didn’t give a shite about Chicago, his old hometown, or how much it might change that day. He only wanted one thing:
The man named Nick Mason.
• • •
IN LA VILLITA, Marcos Quintero closed the suitcase packed with his daughter Gabriela’s clothes. His wife, Rosa, had an old friend from the church on Twenty-eighth Street, lived across the border in Hammond, Indiana, now, and that’s where he’d be taking them until he was absolutely certain they’d be safe.
As he helped carry the suitcases to the car, Quintero looked up and down the street. Ever since Mason had shown up there, he’d known just how vulnerable his family was, how easy it would be for anyone to find them.
Especially the man to whom he once relayed orders from Darius Cole. The man who came before Nick Mason. The man who would set the standard for every assassin Darius Cole ever hired.
Sean Burke was the original Ángel de la Muerte.
• • •
IN LINCOLN PARK, Detective Frank Sandoval pulled out behind Nick Mason and followed him down the street. Sean Burke had now been out of the Protective Custody Unit for sixteen hours, and Chicago was twelve hours from New York City. This was the math that made Sandoval realize it was a great day to take some personal time. The sergeant who ran his six-man crew wasn’t happy about it. The sergeant hadn’t been happy about a lot of things lately.
Neither had Sandoval. He honestly didn’t know how long he could keep doing this job.
But today, that all took a backseat to the one thing that was most important: never letting Nick Mason out of his sight.
• • •
MARSHAL BRUCE HARPER checked himself out of Forest Hills Hospital with the official designation of AMA, meaning “against medical advice.” He had a freshly taped-up head and a Grade 3 concussion, which gave him intermittent nausea and blurred vision. But he was doing a hell of a lot better than the six Corrections officers who were lying on metal slabs in the basement.
Travis Claiborne. That was the name of the marshal they’d found shot in the head, lying on the ground in the parking lot outside the bunker.
Travis Fucking Claiborne, a man Harper had transferred out of WITSEC months ago, burying him in Prisoner Operations. His instincts about the man’s basic integrity had been proved correct, but not about the man’s ability to somehow break into his old office wing.
Harper swore to himself for the hundredth time as he got himself dressed. He had to hold on to the railing of the bed for a full minute until he could start walking. When he did, he went downstairs, got into a taxi, and headed toward the airport to catch the 11:43 a.m. flight to Chicago.
• • •
ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY Rachel Greenwood looked at the boxes stacked in her office’s biggest conference room. The hearing was scheduled for the next morning, when the motion to vacate the charges against Darius Cole would be considered by Judge Oakley. That gave Greenwood one full day to go through all of the evidence from the original trial.
If Starr’s Scarpa Defense really works and most of this gets excluded, Greenwood asked herself, what will I have left?
She started going through the first box. Arrest records. Police reports. She pulled out a mug shot. A thin, pockmarked face. The face of a starving animal.
Sean Burke. Her last chance to turn a witness against Cole.
I have nothing, she said to herself. This is going to be a bloodbath.
• • •
DARIUS COLE WOKE UP seventeen stories above street level, a thin ray of sunlight coming through the thin slot in the wall. Twelve years after the long trip to Terre Haute, he was back in Chicago. Back in the city he still owned.
He should have felt good that morning. He could look back and see every successful step in his plan, one after another, from the day the plan had been born as he sat reading legal journals in the prison library and had found the one legal exposure in trials heard by anonymous jurors. Then realizing that somewhere in Chicago one of his own twelve jurors must have boasted about the case to the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time.
That was the one simple idea that had put everything in motion and now he had one of the best lawyers in the country walking into that hearing the next morning fully armed for battle …
• • •
COLE DID SOME QUICK MATH in his head—if everything went the way he’d orchestrated it, plus processing time—it added up to a genuine possibility he’d be free in approximately thirty hours. Not a sure thing, not yet, but there were other moves to make if this one didn’t produce a checkmate.
Because if you’re Darius Cole, there are always other moves. Other pieces on the board.
The one piece on the board that troubled him that morning was Sean Burke. It had been a mistake not to go after him harder when he had first left Chicago. He should have sent an army to hunt him down. Whatever it took.
Cole looked out the slit in the wall, could see only the building across the street and a fleeting glimpse of the pavement if he stood up tall enough. Sean Burke was out of his bunker, the rogue piece moving across the board. And there was no doubt in Cole’s mind where Burke would end up.
• • •
SEAN BURKE SAW the devil’s horns of the Sears Tower in the distance as he crossed the Skyway Bridge. The last time he’d been on this bridge he was heading in the opposite direction out of Chicago. That was the day he had driven east to start a new life in New York City, putting the only home he’d ever known since coming to America behind him.
He didn’t think he’d ever have a reason to come back. When he got sent to Dannemora, it became an impossibility, anyway. No way he’d ever see Chicago again. Yet here he was, driving over the Calumet River in a Ram 1500 pickup truck, previously owned by the man behind the counter at the service station in Flushing Meadows, wearing clothes also previously owned by that same man.
As soon as Burke crossed the city line, he headed west to his old Irish neighborhood of Beverly. He recognized most of the old buildings, but that didn’t surprise him. It was a part of the city that didn’t exactly embrace change.
He stopped the pickup truck half a block down from the bar on the corner, got out, and walked the old sidewalk, came up to the front of the building and saw the darkened windows and the crime scene tape still stretched across the door. This was his cousin Eamon’s place, the man who’d taken him in when he had to run away from Crossmaglen, who let him sleep in the spare room upstairs and introduced him to certain people in the neighborhood. On this morning, Eamon should have been cooking up eggs for the housepainters and plumbers and serving up the first drinks of the day to the other men who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, work at all. But, instead, the place was locked up tight. Burke was about to walk across the street, but then a Chicago PD squad car drove up and parked in the lot.
He didn’t need to see anything else to know that Eamon was dead.
Burke got back in the pickup truck and drove across town with clenched teeth and white knuckles on the steering wheel. He had the assault rifle he had brought with him from the bunker on the passenger’s seat beside him, and as he glanced down at it he tried to estimate how many rounds he had left.
I don’t want to use a gun, anyway, he thought. I don’t want it to be quick.
Burke remembered the office’s location on Canal Street, not far from the Chicago River. It was in an industrial park, set between low-traffic manufacturing sites. He remembered crates being unloaded on the dock, unpacked, repacked, some thrown away, others sent to different loca
tions Burke knew nothing about. It was not his area of responsibility, and he got the idea that he wasn’t supposed to even know about this place at all. But it didn’t matter now because as Burke drove through the entrance he saw a new refrigeration business in the old building. He didn’t bother getting out of the truck to ask if anyone knew where the old import/export enterprise had moved to. He was sure it was well hidden in another forgotten corner of the city.
Cole is too smart to keep his office in one place for too long, Burke thought to himself. But I wonder how many of the same people are still alive and still working for him. And who can lead me to Nick Mason?
Burke drove west through the city to La Villita. He turned onto Trumbull, passed the old house in the middle of the block, parked, and waited to see some sign of Quintero. Burke had spent many a night in his cell thinking about settling the score with that fooker, the man who’d call him up in the middle of the night and order him about like some kind of white slave. Burke didn’t know how much it would take for Quintero to give up Mason, but he found himself hoping the man would be stubborn about it. That he would make Burke torture him, and maybe his whole family, until he got the information he wanted.
He kept waiting, but there were no signs of life, and he wasn’t about to go ask the neighbors if Marcos Quintero still lived there. A neighborhood like this, they wouldn’t say shite to a red-haired stranger.
As he drove toward the restaurant on Rush Street, it seemed every block he passed brought back memories of different jobs he’d done, first working for the old man who ran the bookmaking operation, then for Cole, who paid him a lot better but had a certain problem when Cole withdrew the hit on that rival dealer and Burke killed him anyway. Burke had let himself believe the war was over until, after all these years, Cole sent those men to kill him in the elevator.
You actually believed, Burke said to the Darius Cole in his mind, that I’d turn into a rat?
As he drove on, he tried to remember the name of that restaurant where Cole laundered so much of his money. Started with an A …
Antonia’s. That’s it.
The place looked better than he remembered. There were red awnings on the windows now, a red canopy over the door. Burke parked the truck in the lot and went in through the front door. He wondered if Cole still used the place to launder money and to give no-show jobs to his special employees. Only one way to find out.
“Good day, sir,” the maître d’ said in a tone that implied anything but. “Do you have a lunch reservation?”
Burke looked down and realized he was still wearing the work shirt and jeans of the service station attendant. Typical American snob who thought an expensive suit somehow turned him into a superior man.
“I don’t, sad to say.”
“Unfortunately, we’re completely booked this afternoon.”
Burke was looking past the man into the open kitchen. He caught sight of the woman. Diana. Cole’s woman. She looked just as good as he remembered. Better than anything he’d seen in a long time.
“You mind if I use the jax?” Burke said.
“Excuse me?”
“The john. The facilities.”
The maître d’ didn’t look pleased but pointed the way. Burke thanked him and made his way down the hallway toward the bathrooms, being careful to stay out of Diana’s line of sight. When he saw the door to the office, he took a quick look around him and then pushed it open.
He was prepared to break into the filing cabinet if he had to but it was unlocked—his first bit of good fortune since that metal tray had found its way to his cell in the bunker. Riffling to the M’s, he looked at the address listed for Nicholas Mason.
And couldn’t believe it.
• • •
WHAT BURKE HOPED WOULD BE his last stop wasn’t far away. He was already north of the Loop, making his way along the shoreline. North Avenue Beach was mostly empty, a wind coming off the lake and making whitecaps in the water. Burke rolled up Lincoln Park West, slowing down as he approached the town house. He circled the block and pulled over near the entrance to the zoo on his second lap, just close enough to maintain a sight line.
Seeing the town house brought back a memory, the one time he was allowed inside, to go up those wooden stairs to where the great Darius Cole lived. The grand kitchen with the green granite countertops and the center island larger than the bedroom he’d shared with his brother back home. The plush leather furniture and the giant television, the pool area out on the terrace. Who the fuck builds a pool two stories off the ground, anyway? It was the kind of place Burke wouldn’t have minded spending more time in.
Burke was a little surprised at the jealous rage he felt welling up inside him now. When he’d worked for Cole, he was handsomely paid, no arguing that. But he sure as hell wasn’t invited into the king’s palace to live with the queen as Mason obviously had been. Burke had lived in that little shite apartment above the bar in Beverly with no grand kitchen, no pool two stories off the ground, no views of the lake. And instead of coming home every night to a woman like Diana, he came home to his drunken cousin Eamon.
The thought of his cousin brought him back into the moment, blew a fresh wind onto the fire that was already burning inside him. He stayed in the truck, watching the town house, until he finally saw a face appear over the railing.
That must be him, Burke said to himself.
That’s Nick Mason.
• • •
MASON GOT TIRED OF WAITING. It was after dark and time to move. He went down to the garage, got behind the wheel of the Jaguar, and hit the button to raise the door. He cleared it by inches as he backed out onto the street, hit the button again, and spun the tires on the pavement. The streetlights were all burning against the cold night.
He drove down to Rush Street, clocking the dark sedan behind him: Sandoval. If there was someone else following both of them, he couldn’t see him. Mason parked the car on the street in the valet area directly in front of the restaurant, went inside, and found Diana closing up the kitchen. She looked scared.
“Everything’s going to be okay,” Mason said as he handed her the keys to his secret apartment. “Make sure you’re not being followed.”
She didn’t look like she believed the first part, but she understood the second and gave him a quick kiss on the lips as she took the keys from him. The restaurant was otherwise empty. Nobody was here to see them, and Mason had a sudden urge to pick her up and put her on the prep table.
“We’ll celebrate later,” she said, seeing the thought in his eyes. “Take care of yourself.”
He nodded, and then he took the gun from his belt as he led her to the back door. He went out first and let the door close behind him, waiting for a footstep, a shot, anything. The alley was quiet. He opened the door again and she came out, hurried to her black BMW, and took off.
Mason went back inside. When he looked out the front window, he was happy not to see Sandoval’s dark sedan parked on the street. He didn’t see Quintero’s Escalade either or the gray car that sometimes took its turn following him.
But still no sign of Burke.
“Where the fuck are you?” Mason said. “I’m right here. The front door is open.”
Mason had spent all day thinking like Burke, trying to get in his head. What would I do if the situation was reversed? That’s why Mason wanted to stay visible without being too obvious about it. If Burke had worked for Cole, he’d know about the town house. And he’d probably know about the restaurant.
Again, thinking like Burke, the town house was a bad place to make a move. This may have been the man who just escaped from an underground bunker staffed with six armed guards, but those tactical disadvantages were unavoidable. There was no reason to attempt infiltrating a town house two stories above street level knowing that there were surveillance cameras and God knows what other security measures—not if you knew that the occupant would eventually have to leave the premises and make things a lot easier.
&nbs
p; That left the restaurant. Mason’s car was parked right outside. Everything short of a billboard announcing that Burke could find Mason there. But once he made his move, the next problem was how to isolate him. How to keep him away from everyone else, including Sandoval, and at the same time switch everything around so that Burke would be the one at a tactical disadvantage.
This would have been a great time to have Eddie watching my back, Mason thought.
He looked back out on the street. This time, he saw the dark sedan pull up half a block down, nose facing the restaurant. He didn’t have to see through the windshield to know who was inside.
Sandoval.
As he took out his cell phone and dialed Sandoval’s number, he played out in his head what was about to happen. Sandoval was just as exposed as he was. Even more so, sitting out there in his unmarked yet obvious car. Burke wouldn’t even blink before putting a bullet in the back of Sandoval’s head. It was the last thing Mason needed to think about right now—the image of some cop with his hat in his hands, ringing the doorbell at the house where Sandoval’s ex-wife and kids lived.
“Listen to me,” Mason said as soon as Sandoval picked up. “You have to get out of here.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Sandoval, you have no fucking idea what you’re doing. I don’t have time to explain. Just move.”
Mason ended the call as he looked out the window again. It was time to hit the reset button and get the hell out of there. He opened the front door and stepped outside. It was colder now as the hour approached midnight. Mason barely felt it. He was about to open the driver’s-side door to the Jaguar when he saw the wire leading down from the handle. He stopped his hand a half inch away from it, stepped back, and got down on one knee to look under the vehicle. The wire trailed all the way down and hooked under the chassis. No way in hell he was going to reach under and find out what it was connected to.
The phone in Mason’s pocket rang again. He knew it was Sandoval, didn’t even bother checking. He looked up and down the street, then started walking. With every step he imagined Sean Burke somewhere behind him already focusing crosshairs on his back. But, no, something in his gut told him Burke wasn’t a long-distance kind of killer. Or at least he wouldn’t be with Mason.
Exit Strategy Page 18
