This is personal for him. He’ll want to see my face. He’ll want me to see his.
Mason heard a car coming up behind him as he walked south on Rush Street. He took a turn on Illinois and started walking the wrong way down the one-way street. It was hard enough to tail a man on foot when you’re in a car. In Chicago, it was almost impossible.
He was already counting the blocks to the apartment building, not that far once he crossed the river. Then he stopped. Mason was standing next to Nordstrom’s, the building closed up but the windows lit up with an autumn display of pumpkins and leaves and a well-dressed female mannequin staring through the glass at him. He watched a single figure walk toward him, a lone shadow growing bigger with every step. It wasn’t Sandoval. He’d do the cop thing, stay in his car and maybe get on his radio. Burke, on the other hand, he’d ditch a stolen vehicle in one second flat and keep coming on foot. Mason knew that because that’s exactly what he’d do if the situation were reversed.
Mason reached inside his jacket, put his right hand on the grip of the Browning. The figure came closer, hesitating for a moment as he looked up and saw Mason standing there with his hand reaching for his belt. Unmistakable body language, in a city where someone was killed by a gun every day. The man crossed the street and kept walking, watching Mason carefully with every step.
That’s when he noticed another figure, another lone shadow, standing at the intersection. Not moving at all.
Mason thought about the training he’d done with Eddie, wondered how close he’d have to be to have a realistic shot with the Browning. He studied the figure carefully, and as the wind picked up he saw the tail on the man’s long coat moving. He remembered the empty slot in the bunker’s gun rack, the wreckage of the bodies on the floor.
He’s got an assault rifle under that coat. If we go Wild West in the streets, I’m a dead man.
Mason turned and kept walking, made a turn at Wabash and headed toward the river. The twin Marina City Towers loomed on one side of him, the garish Trump Tower on the other, as he turned again, saw the shadow a block behind him. He crossed the Wabash Avenue Bridge, the water glittering below him as it reflected the lights of late-night Chicago.
I need a play. I need an advantage.
He continued across the bridge, sped up as he made another turn on Wacker, moving down to the promenade next to the water. But he realized how exposed he was there, that the man following him could stop on the bridge and use the rail to steady his weapon, send a spray of shells at Mason and cut him down. The only question would be where his body would fall, if it would be on land or into the river. Mason picked up his pace and cut south onto State Street. He walked down another block and came to the intersection with Lake Street, saw a handful of barhoppers, still out on this cold night, converging on this one corner where the El train ran east–west and the subway north–south.
Mason went up the stairs to the El, stopped by the window facing north, and saw the man coming down State Street. In the dim light he saw the red hair and the way the long coat hung from his thin shoulders. He watched him come to the same staircase, so Mason went to the opposite end of the platform and went down the other steps. When he was back on street level, he crossed State, looking behind him as he took the stairs down to the southbound subway.
There was a train waiting as he hit the platform. He went through the doors and watched carefully behind him. An automated voice told everyone to stand clear of the closing doors, and at that moment a large group of college-age kids rushed down the stairs and boarded the train. When the doors were closed, Mason moved to the back of the car and looked through the window into the car behind him. All of the kids were standing, at least a dozen of them. Then they parted, and Mason saw Sean Burke, lit up in the glare of the artificial light.
Their eyes met. Burke smiled at him. He opened his coat just enough for Mason to see the assault rifle hanging from its shoulder strap. Then Burke’s eyes scanned all of the other people in the car around him—besides the college kids, there were two older men in overalls and a woman with a baby wrapped up in a shawl and held close to her chest. Burke regarded every one of them with that same smile on his face before his eyes met Mason’s again, and the message was clear: Burke would kill every single person in the car, if he had to, without giving it a second thought.
The two men stayed frozen to their spots as the train rushed down the tracks. Burke finally broke the spell and came toward the door. Mason backed up, moving away from him. He went to the opposite end and went through the door to the next car. Then again to the opposite end of that car and through to the next car. When he turned to look behind him, he saw Burke advancing, slow and steady. Both men knew there were only so many cars Mason could go through before he hit the end.
But only one man had ridden the Red Line enough times to know that the next station was only four blocks away.
As Mason watched Burke reach to open the door of the last car, he took stock of the other riders: one man sitting by the door, another man apparently asleep, a third man standing and holding the rail. The standing man would be shot first, had no idea he had maybe five seconds left in his life. Mason took the Browning out of his belt and was about to yell for everyone to get down when suddenly the lights flickered for an instant and the train’s brakes were hit a notch too hard. The man holding the rail swayed, and Mason saw Burke lunge forward, off balance, and hit his head on the glass. The train had come to a stop before Burke could get the door open. Mason moved quickly through the other, open door and out onto the platform.
Mason kept the gun tucked behind his back, still in his right hand, safety off, finger on the trigger. Burke had essentially been trapped between the two cars for several seconds, but as Mason eyed the exit he saw Burke coming out the open door. The barrel of the assault rifle was extended from his coat and he had an angle on Mason now—there was a flight of stairs leading up to the street, but Mason had no way to get there without getting cut down.
Mason looked behind him, saw a grimy metal utility door in the station wall. He tried the handle but it didn’t move. There was no engine at this end—it was a “push” route instead of a “pull”—so the conductor was sitting at the far end of the train and wouldn’t interfere with what Mason was forced to do next.
He took one more quick look behind him as everyone else on the platform filed up the stairs. Burke smiled at him. There was nowhere for Mason to go. Unless …
Mason knew it was his only choice as he squeezed himself onto the thin edge of the platform that ran beyond that final wall into the darkness. He listened for the sound of Burke following him, every step farther along the tracks, as Mason kept his back against the wall and moved as quickly and as silently as he could. When the platform ended, there were metal stairs leading down to the tracks. He looked back one more time, saw a shadow obstructing the light: Burke was coming after him. Mason climbed down the stairs onto the tracks.
There was another safety light somewhere ahead of him but not close enough for Mason to see where he was stepping. He knew there was a third rail here somewhere, knew there were rats and filth and other things he didn’t have time to bother with. He kept moving forward until the light ahead of him grew closer.
You’re going to walk right under a fucking spotlight, Mason said to himself. Might as well paint a target on your back.
He went forward another ten yards before he saw the cutout on his right. He ducked in and put his back against the wall. He listened for footsteps, but all he could hear was the distant sound of a train on the rails. It was growing louder.
Mason’s heart was pounding. He tried to slow it down.
Breathe. Focus.
The roar on the tracks got louder. A light started to grow in the distance, getting brighter every second, along with the sound of the train. But it came from Mason’s right, the track on the other side. As the light became visible, it was filtered through the support beams that separated the tracks. It flickered and became
intensely bright as the northbound train came around a bend in the tracks and slowed down for the Monroe Street station. Mason moved closer toward the edge of the cutout, then receded when he sensed the shadow nearby. He waited with his gun held in both hands.
The train passed by on the other track and stopped. Mason watched and waited, ready to react in an instant.
He saw the barrel of the assault rifle first, swung both hands with the Browning and knocked the barrel upward. He stepped out, tried to grab the barrel with one hand while he swung his gun with the other. But Burke stepped away too quickly, and Mason felt the butt of the rifle before he saw or heard it as it hit him across the side of the head and knocked him against the wall. Burke kicked him in the gut and drove all of the wind from his body, then used the rifle again to hit him on the back of the head.
Mason was down on his hands and knees, in the squalor of the subway tracks, waiting for the shot, wondering if he’d even feel it.
“Stand up,” he heard a voice say. A lilting accent to the voice, something almost musical, from somewhere far away. “Get on your feet.”
Mason reached for the wall and pushed himself up. When he was standing upright, he took another blow to the face. The rifle again, the man’s fist, he couldn’t tell, and it didn’t even matter. He fell back down into the filth and he saw his daughter’s face, the way she looked up at him the last time he saw her when he left her at the restaurant.
If he’d only known it would be the last time he ever saw her.
He felt a hand grabbing his jacket, pulling him back up. From somewhere he heard another sound building. A thunderstorm in the distance, something far away, that wouldn’t matter to him anymore. In the dim light he saw Burke’s face, calm and composed. Studying him, lining him up for another shot. There had been a gun in Mason’s hand. Where was it now? He didn’t have it anymore.
“Are you telling me,” Burke said, that same brogue, “that you’re the man Cole hired to replace me? Are you fooking kidding me?”
Mason heard the swing, not that it helped. He took the blow right on the chin and would have gone down again if the wall hadn’t held him up. The distant sound grew louder, and now a light appeared from beyond the north end of the platform. As Burke turned to look in that direction, Mason went down to one knee and drove his right fist into the man’s groin. He’d learned it on the streets of Canaryville. You fight dirty when you have to. And even when you don’t.
With Burke bent over, Mason put his shoulder into him and drove him into one of the support beams. Burke let out a cry of pain as Mason grabbed at the assault rifle, not so much to shoot him with it but to use its strap against him, pulling it and turning it at the same time to tighten it against his body.
The train came to a screeching stop in the station, bathing both men in a harsh white light. Mason kept twisting the rifle against Burke, tying him tighter with the strap. Burke kicked out with his right foot, catching Mason in the leg, then he came off the support beam and used the momentum to spin Mason around and drive him backward toward the far wall. Both men tripped over the rails but somehow didn’t electrocute themselves as they went to the ground, Burke on top now and pressing the length of the rifle against Mason’s neck. As the train left the station, Mason could see the interior of each car as it flashed by, the backs of heads, people on their way home to regular lives. The roar was deafening for those few moments when Mason struggled against the rifle, pressed against his throat and cutting off his air supply.
Adriana’s face came to him one more time as the tracks rumbled beneath his back and the train left them behind. Adriana as a baby, coming home to that little house in Canaryville. Adriana as a four-year-old, sitting at the table and waiting for her pancakes on a Saturday morning. Adriana as the nine-year-old girl, sitting next to him in his car. And then even another vision of Adriana as a teenager, riding uptown on this subway and not even realizing that her father died right here on this very spot.
Another sound. Another light. Mason’s eyes went to his right and he saw another train approaching, only this time on the tracks he was lying on. Burke looked up and then back down at Mason with a cruel smile. He said something but Mason couldn’t even hear it, the roar of the train already too loud and the ground shaking beneath him as Burke changed his position, moving his own body off the rails and continuing to hold down Mason with the rifle. Mason knew he would pull the rifle away at the last moment, just enough time to fall backward and watch the train run over Mason’s body.
Mason struggled against the rifle, trying to push it away. But then he saw that the strap was still looped around Burke’s neck and he reversed his energy, pulling Burke’s surprised face close to his.
“We’ll both go together,” Mason said, holding the strap tight and feeling Burke frantically trying to pull away. Burke didn’t have enough leverage to work against Mason’s strength, his eyes going wide as he looked up and saw the light growing brighter. Mason held on, held himself and his enemy on the tracks, the roar growing louder and louder, Burke fighting harder and harder to pull away, the train so close now that Mason could almost taste the metal in his mouth.
Burke screamed, and Mason curled himself upward, twisting the rifle as he did and turning everything around, Burke still trapped in the strap and losing his advantage now until he was on the bottom with Mason holding the rifle against him, his neck positioned perfectly across the outer rail. The simplest move in the world now for Mason to pull away, completely free, and let the train decapitate Burke right in front of him.
Burke looked sideways, still screaming, the train a hundred yards away from his head.
Fifty yards.
Twenty.
Mason grabbed him by the collar and pulled him away from the track. He kept his grip on the strap as the train rumbled by, kicking up a wind that washed over both of them, with its dirt and grime and rat shit, until the last car finally passed by and Mason could let out his breath.
Mason looked Burke in the eye. Neither man spoke.
Mason next cocked his right hand and hit Burke in the face again and again until he was unconscious.
Mason got up, brushed himself off, went to other side of the tracks and found his Browning. He came back and unraveled the strap from Burke’s neck. Burke was starting to regain consciousness again. Mason took the Browning and stuck it in his temple.
“I just saved your life,” Mason said, “but I’ll blow your head off right now if you do anything stupid.”
“What do you want?” Blood was trickling from Burke’s mouth and his words were slurred.
“We’re walking back to the restaurant,” Mason said, pulling Burke to his feet. “And we’re going to have a little talk.”
19
Mason may have told Burke that he’d shoot him in the head if he tried anything stupid, but he still expected it to happen, and Burke did not disappoint him.
Mason had pushed him up the ladder and along the subway platform, drawing stares from the few after-midnight riders who were there waiting for the next train. Both men were filthy and bleeding, but Mason had kept the gun out of sight, and nobody tried to stop them.
Burke had stayed silent when they were back up on the street. The cold stung the fresh scrapes on Mason’s face as he’d directed Burke up State Street, all the way past the original Lake Street station and over the Wabash Avenue Bridge. Mason had intentionally stayed off Rush Street, paralleling it on Wabash and cutting over to the rear of the building. He didn’t need Detective Sandoval involved. Not until he settled things with Burke.
When he’d opened up the back door, that’s when Burke tensed up and tried to backhand the gun away from Mason. It might have worked if Mason hadn’t already been thinking about how good it would feel to hit him again. He caught him right in the face with the butt of the gun. The fingers of his right hand hurt like hell, on top of everything else he’d been through that night, but it did a lot more damage to Burke, and now Mason had to physically drag the man throug
h the back of the restaurant and into the kitchen. He propped him up on a chair, took off the man’s belt and looped it crossways around his wrists. Then Mason took off his own belt and secured Burke to the chair. It didn’t have to be a professional calf-roping job, just enough to keep him still for a while.
Mason put some ice in a plastic bag, then he filled a saucepan with cold water and threw it in Burke’s face. He pulled up another chair and sat down in front of Burke.
“Wake up,” Mason said. He winced as he pressed the ice bag against his own cheek.
“Why am I still breathing?” Burke said when he’d opened his eyes and shaken his head clear.
“I told you, we’re talking.”
Burke looked down and strained against the belts.
“I will take the heaviest thing I can find in this kitchen,” Mason said, “and I will beat the living shit out of you with it if I have to. Now just sit there and listen to me.”
Burke sat back, looking as defiant as a one-hundred-and-sixty-five-pound man can look when he’s tied to a chair.
“First of all,” Mason said, “what kind of bomb is in my car?”
Burke smiled. “There’s no bomb.”
“Bullshit, there’s a wire going from the door handle down to the—”
“That’s all it is,” Burke said. “A wire. It’s an old trick from Crossmaglen. When we were kids, we’d use it on the RUC.”
Mason gave him a look and shook his head.
“The Royal Ulster Constabulary,” Burke said. “You tie a wire to their door handle, make them think it’s connected to a bomb. It’s not, but you’ve just disabled their car for two or three hours while they wait for the patrol to clear it.”
“How do I know you’re not just feeding me a line right now and there’s a real bomb under my car?”
Exit Strategy Page 19
