Gideon’s Sword gc-1

by Douglas Preston

  We’re not doing that. Garza rolled his eyes. A typical Glinn answer, containing no reasons, no explanation. Just fiat.

  He eased himself into the cart, put the trash spear away, and unlocked a metal equipment locker bolted into one wall of the vehicle. He made a quick visual inventory of the contents: nine-millimeter Glock with silencer, sawed-off shotgun, taser, police radio, night-vision goggles, emergency paramedic kit, half a dozen federal, state, and local ID badges in assorted sizes. Satisfied, he closed the locker, then eased the cart north, toward the Queens Museum of Art.

  Glinn had nixed assigning teams to Gideon Crew. So Garza had come here on his own initiative. This was a critical mission, a world-altering mission. There was no way Garza was going to let Crew go it alone — especially when somebody as dangerous as Nodding Crane was involved.

  The Unisphere, Crew had said. Garza could see it ahead in the distance: a huge, gleaming silver globe, fringed at its base by fountains, on the far side of the Long Island Expressway. The problem was, Crew hadn’t said whether they were meeting right at the Unisphere, or just somewhere in the general vicinity. The fact that the damn thing was located smack in the middle of Flushing Meadows Corona Park—​the second largest park in New York City—​didn’t make Garza’s job any easier. If it had been up to him, he’d have had police, real and imitation; EMS workers, public and private; snipers, fire-suppression teams, hijacking specialists, getaway drivers, journalist interdictors, and a partridge and a pear tree, all fanned out through the park in carefully assigned locations. As it was, he was alone and had his work cut out for him.

  It had made absolutely no sense right from the get-go. Why assign such an important mission to someone like Crew: untested, unproven? Glinn could have selected any number of operatives who had proven themselves under fire. It just wasn’t right to pick a screwup like Crew, someone who hadn’t made his bones, who hadn’t started small, worked his way up through the ranks — the way that, say, Garza himself had. Gideon Crew was impulsive; he operated on anger and adrenaline more than steely-eyed caution. Garza was a pretty levelheaded guy, but the very thought made irritation bubble up in him like so much acid.

  He glanced at his watch again: eleven thirty. Ahead, the Unisphere glowed against the night sky like a streaking meteor. Not much time — he’d do one last reconnoiter, then pick the optimal spot from which to monitor the unfolding situation. He pointed the cart toward the vast globe and pushed down hard on the accelerator.

  68

  Gideon knew he was going to die but felt absolutely nothing. At least this way would be quicker and less painful.

  There was a sudden yell and a fusillade of shots. Turning toward the sound, Gideon saw a monstrous apparition—​a form covered in mud—​erupting from the slide of dirt, firing and screaming like a banshee. Nodding Crane was punched violently back by the bullets. He sprayed return fire wildly as he went down.

  “I’m out of ammo!” she screamed, tossing the rifle aside and scrabbling in the muck for her handgun.

  Gideon fell on Nodding Crane, grasping the man’s gun and trying to wrench it from his hands, hoping he was dead. But he was not — it seemed he, too, had body protection. The two wallowed in the muck, locked in a struggle for the TEC-9. But Nodding Crane was incredibly strong and he threw Gideon off, bringing his weapon up.

  Mindy swung in with a board, attempting to slam it against Nodding Crane’s head, but the assassin pirouetted away, deflecting the blow with his shoulder and raising his weapon unsteadily.

  Gideon staggered back, realizing they had only one option now: to get away. “Out!” he cried.

  Mindy leapt over the lip of the trench as Gideon followed. Another burst came from the TEC-9, but they were already racing across the field in the blackness of the storm and the rounds went wild.

  For a moment the sky was split by an immense blast of lightning, followed by the roar of thunder.

  “Bastard’s reloading,” Mindy gasped as they ran, reaching the line of trees as a fresh burst of fire ripped through the leaves around them, spraying them with vegetation. They crashed through the undergrowth, running until they could run no more.

  “Your weapon?” Gideon gasped.

  “Lost it. Got my backup.” She pulled out a military-issue Colt .45. “The wire?”

  “In my pocket.”

  “We’ve got to keep moving.” She turned and headed south at a jog, Gideon following, pushing away the pain as best he could. He had lost his night-vision goggles and flashlight in the fight, and they were moving in pitch black, blundering through the woods, thrashing aside heavy brush and brambles. He had no doubt Nodding Crane was following.

  “This isn’t going to work,” gasped Gideon. “He’s got night vision. We need to get out in the open where we can see.”

  “Right,” said Mindy.

  “Follow me.” Recalling the map, Gideon headed due east. The woods thinned and they passed through another field of bones, their feet crunching over skulls half-hidden under the leaves, and emerged at a broad, overgrown road with long, low buildings along one side: the boys’ workhouse complex. There was just enough light coming from the southern sky — the lights of New York City — for them to see. Gideon broke into a run and Mindy did the same.

  “Where’s the boat?” she gasped.

  “Near the beach by the smokestack,” he said.

  A sudden burst of fire came at them from behind, and Gideon instinctively threw himself down. Mindy landed beside him, rolled, returned fire with the .45. There was a sharp scream, then silence.

  “I got him!” she said.

  “I doubt it. He’s a wily bastard.”

  Scrambling to their feet again, they ran for the ruined dormitories, leaping over a shattered doorway. Gideon kept going, running almost blind through one ruined room after another, tripping over mangled bed frames and broken plaster. Coming out the far end, he took a sudden turn into the ruined chapel, ran its length, leapt out the broken rose window at the end, then doubled back.

  “What are we doing?” Mindy called softly from behind. “You said the boat was the other way—”

  “Random is what we’re doing. We need to lose him, go to ground.”

  Gasping, ribs on fire, he led the way through a dense stand of woods toward the opposite shore, moving more slowly now, trying to be as silent as possible. The trees thinned and they stepped out onto the overgrown baseball field he had seen earlier, bleachers covered with vines and trees, the diamond having vanished under a riot of weeds and saplings.

  They pushed through the field. Gideon stopped and listened. The wind howled, the rain came down in stinging sheets — it was impossible to hear.

  “I’m pretty sure we lost him,” Mindy whispered, digging rounds out of her pocket and reloading. She nodded at the bleachers. “That looks like a good place.”

  Gideon nodded. On their hands and knees, they crawled under the old bleachers. They were covered with a heavy mat of vegetation; within, it was like a cave. The rain drummed on the metal seats above.

  “He’ll never find us here,” she said.

  Gideon shook his head. “He’ll eventually find us anywhere. We’ll wait for a bit, then make a dash for the boat. It’s not that far.”

  He listened. Over the roar of the storm he could hear the sound of the surf in the distance.

  “I think I really did hit him back there.”

  Gideon didn’t answer, thinking instead of the route they now had to take to get to the boat. He had no confidence that Nodding Crane had been hit — or that they’d shaken him.

  “You don’t have a light or the map?” he asked.

  “Everything was in my pack. All I saved was the gun.”

  “How did you get out of the dirt?”

  “It was loose and I wasn’t far under the surface. You shoveled off most of the weight. Give me the wire.”

  “For God’s sake,” he hissed, “we’ll deal with that later.”

  The gun came around and pointed
at him. Mindy rose slowly, taking a step back. “I said, give me the wire.”

  For a moment, Gideon’s mind went black as he stared at the gun. And then he recalled Nodding Crane’s comment. You’re a fool. It had seemed like a random insult at the time. But now, too late, he realized that nothing Nodding Crane said or did was random.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he asked.

  “Just give me the wire.”

  “Who are you? You’re not CIA.”

  “I was. They didn’t pay worth shit.”

  “So you’re freelance.”

  She smiled. “Sort of. I’m doing this particular job for OPEC.”

  “OPEC?”

  “Yeah. And I’m sure you’re smart enough to figure out where OPEC comes in.”

  “No,” he said, buying time.

  “What do you think that piece of wire would do to their business? You could kiss the petroleum market good-bye. Along with the gas-powered car. So give me the wire, big boy. I really don’t want to kill you, Gideon, but I will if you don’t do what I say.”

  “So how much are they paying you?”

  “Ten million.”

  “You sold yourself short.” He thought back to Hong Kong, how she’d just happened to have a diplomatic embosser in her bag. That alone should have made him suspicious. He recalled how she always seemed to be working alone, no backup, no partner. Very un-CIA.

  Nodding Crane was right — he’d been a fool.

  She stuck out her hand. Of course, she might kill him anyway. But maybe, just maybe, the memory of their time together would stop her…He reached into his pocket and handed her the wire.

  “That’s a good boy.” Still covering him, she held it up, scrutinizing it. Then she balled it in her fist and took fresh aim.

  “Wow,” she said. “I’m really sorry to do this.”

  And Gideon realized she meant it: she truly was sorry. But she was going to do it anyway.

  He closed his eyes.

  69

  A single shot rang out from the darkness. Gideon felt nothing: no pain, no impact of a bullet. His eyes flew open. At first, nothing seemed to have changed. Then he saw the blank look on Mindy’s face, the clean bullet hole between her eyes. For a moment she stood there. Then she toppled backward into the dirt.

  Gideon snatched the wire from her twitching hand and ran.

  More shots ripped through the seats, spraying him with wood chips and vegetation. He burst out the rear of the bleachers and made a beeline for the boat. It was his only chance for survival.

  Ahead stretched the post-Armageddon suburban neighborhood. He sprinted down the leafy, ruined streets, turned a corner, then another. He could hear Nodding Crane pounding along behind him, slowly catching up.

  To go into a house would mean being trapped. He couldn’t outrun his enemy. And he realized now he was never going to make the boat.

  He doubled back at the next street, turning corners to keep from giving his pursuer a clear field of fire. He had no gun, no way of defending himself. He should have taken Mindy’s .45, but it was either that or the wire — there hadn’t been time for both.

  Nodding Crane was gaining steadily. And Gideon was gasping so hard it felt as if his broken ribs would puncture his lungs. What now?

  The last street ended. Ahead lay the open field adjacent to the Dynamo Room. He’d been here before. This was the area the guard had carefully detoured around. That field’s off-limits, he’d said. There’s a lot of places on the island that are dangerous.

  What was the danger here? Maybe this was an opportunity. It sure as hell was his last chance.

  He sprinted across the field, zigzagging as he went. He could hear Nodding Crane still closing the gap, not bothering to stop and fire but instead using the opportunity to get close enough so that he couldn’t miss. Gideon glanced back: sure enough, there was the running figure, only fifty yards away now.

  Halfway across the field Gideon realized he had made a serious mistake. He would never make it to the other side and there was nothing here that offered any chance of escape, no unexpected danger, no evidence of pits or old structures. Just a big damn open field without cover. The ground was solid and level. It was a race — and Nodding Crane was the faster runner.

  He glanced back, his legs churning. Nodding Crane was now only thirty yards behind.

  As Gideon turned his head toward the unattainable far end of the field, his eye caught the monstrous, crumbling smokestack rising from the Dynamo Room. Abruptly, he understood. The danger wasn’t in the field itself — it was that smokestack. It was old and unstable. That was the reason the guard had detoured: the damn stack looked like it might fall at any moment.

  An old iron stairway spiraled up to the top.

  He veered off, running toward the smokestack. Clawing his way through the undergrowth, he reached its base. He hesitated just a moment: this was a one-way trip to nowhere.

  Fuck it.

  He leapt onto the rusting stairs and began climbing. A trio of shots sounded from behind, smacking the bricks around him, spraying him with chips and dust. But the stairs spiraled around the curve of the stack, providing cover.

  The stairway was old and rusted, and as Gideon climbed it rumbled and screeched, sagging and swaying with his every step, the rust raining down on him from the sudden strain. A step broke and he seized the railing, swinging briefly out into space before recovering, grasping the next step and hauling himself back up.

  As he continued, climbing recklessly higher and higher, he heard a groan of metal below and felt a new vibration. Nodding Crane was coming up after him.

  Naturally. This was a stupid move. Nodding Crane would chase him to the top and then shoot him from below.

  As Gideon mounted higher, he could feel the stack vibrating in the buffeting winds, with an accompanying grinding and crackling sound of crumbling mortar.

  Now the true insanity of what he had done began to hit home. The storm was shaking the entire stack, which felt like it was going to collapse at any moment. There was no outcome he could imagine in which he survived this chase to the top.

  A single shot rang out, the bullet snipping the railing by his hand. He scrambled upward faster, keeping the turning of the staircase as cover. A flash of lightning illuminated the ghastly scene: the island, the ruins, the crumbling stack, the rotten stair, the storm-tossed sea beyond.

  “Crew!” came a call from below. “Crew!” Nodding Crane’s peculiar, flat voice pierced the howling wind.

  He paused, listening. The stack groaned, crackled, swayed in the wind.

  “You’re trapped, you fool! Bring me down the wire and I’ll let you live!”

  Gideon resumed his climb. Another shot rang out, but it went wild and he knew Nodding Crane must be having a hell of a time firing accurately, given the swaying of the stack, the howling wind and rain. And there was something else: he thought he detected a note of fear in Nodding Crane’s voice. And no wonder. That was progress of a kind. Strangely, Gideon felt no fear himself. This was the end — there was no way he was coming down off this smokestack alive. What did it matter? He was already a dead man.

  The thought gave him a strange feeling of relief. That had been his secret weapon, the one Nodding Crane was unaware of: he was a man living on borrowed time.

  As he climbed higher, heavier wind gusts boomed around him, so strong at times that they almost tore him from the stairway. Another lightning bolt split the sky, the crash of thunder following instantaneously. He heard a screech of metal as a section of the stairway detached from the stack, the bolts popping loose like gunfire, and the detached section swung out over the void, with Gideon clinging to the railing. He gripped the metal with all his might as the wind swung him back, slamming him against the bricks. The iron held until the wild oscillations of the stair finally calmed down. He found purchase, his feet back on the shaking iron steps, and resumed climbing.

  He looked up as lightning flashed. He was about halfway to the top.
<
br />   He had to go on, to prevent his weight from remaining too long on any one rotten step, while simultaneously keeping to the far side of the stack from Nodding Crane.

  “Crew!” came the shout from below. “This is suicide!”

  “For both of us!” Gideon screamed back. And it was suicide. Whether the smokestack fell or not, he couldn’t go back down that stair; it was too damaged now, and besides, he was trapped by Nodding Crane. He had no weapon. Once he reached the top Nodding Crane would close in on him and that would be it.

  “Crew! You’re crazy!”

  “You can count on it!”

  The stack shuddered under a particularly fierce gust, and a fresh shower of bricks rained down. He pressed himself against the side of the stack as they clattered and bounced off the stairs. He looked down but Nodding Crane was out of sight around the curve of the stack. The lightning was now almost continuous, providing a glimpse every few seconds.

  He looked up. He was almost at the top now. A narrow iron catwalk circled the rim of the great chimney, half of its braces gone. It slanted perilously to one side. He pressed on, one foot after the other, clinging to the railing with all his might.

  Quite suddenly he was at the top, in the howling storm. He crawled through a hole onto the platform grate, clinging hard because of the slant. Bricks had broken away from the lip, giving it the look of ragged black teeth. The top of the stack was covered by a heavy grate to trap fly ash, and two brass dampers stood open, like giant bat wings. A strange hollow moaning rose up from inside the stack, as if out of the throat of some primitive, antediluvian monster.

  There was nowhere to go.

  One of us will die on Hart Island. That is the way you planned it and that is the way it must be.

  70

  Laughter echoed up. “End of the line!” came the voice from below, suddenly sarcastic.

  What now? Gideon had gone up the stack blindly, with no plan.