by Tim Stevens
At the same time she felt a ring of cold, hard steel press against the side of her head.
Beth’s legs kicked frantically, one of her pumps catching the side of the Crown Vic.
Both detectives turned at the noise.
‘Holy shit,’ said Gomez.
Chapter 21
Venn began to back away rapidly, his arm across the woman’s throat, the pressure just firm enough to stop her from screaming but not enough to cut off her breathing.
Straight in front of him, at the other end of the Crown Vic, were the two detectives she’d arrived with. Beyond them, through the glass doors of the lobby, were a bunch of other cops who didn’t appear to have noticed him yet.
Venn aimed to keep it that way.
‘Stay back,’ he called softly to the two detectives. ‘Stay back or I shoot her.’
The man, the one with the pockmarked face, was slipping his hand inside his jacket. Venn snarled, ‘Don’t do that. Keep your hands where I can see them. Both of you.’
Both detectives raised their hands away from their bodies.
The Colby woman tried to dig her heels into the pavement. In her ear, Venn whispered, ‘Don’t resist. I won’t hurt you, I promise. Not unless you fight me.’
Realizing immediately that he sounded like any one of the scores of scumbag rapists he’d arrested when he was a cop himself, Venn added, ‘Believe it or not, I’m rescuing you. You’re safer with me.’
He was heading down the sidewalk toward the corner of the block. What he’d do when he rounded the corner, Venn didn’t know. He hadn’t had time to plan that far ahead.
Heading back to Colby’s apartment, he’d dodged the CSI people in the street behind the building, where he’d been Maced, and made his way to the entrance, trying to peer in like any nosey passerby would. Some cops had hurried over and shooed him away. He hadn’t gotten a look at their numbers so he didn’t know which precinct house they were from.
Venn hung back after that, across the street where he could watch the front of the building. He studied the windows corresponding to Dr Colby’s apartment. the lights were on, but there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of activity behind the thin drapes.
Which suggested the cops didn’t yet regard that as a crime scene.
Which meant that if Venn could find a way to get into the building, he might be able to search her apartment undisturbed.
But for what? For some clue as to Lomax’s whereabouts? But Colby sounded on the phone as though she didn’t know the professor had disappeared.
Venn watched, and waited, for over half an hour, growing increasingly frustrated.
Then he hit paydirt.
The Crown Vic pulled up, a standard cop car, and out got two people who were obviously plainclothes detectives... and Dr Beth Colby herself.
Ten fast strides took Venn across the street. Before the woman realized what was happening – before Venn himself had time to think about what he was doing – he had the Beretta out and pressed against her head, and his arm across her neck.
He could have walked over, introduced himself. And then the woman would have recognized him as the guy she’d Maced, and the cops would have arrested him.
This way – even though he was committing a felony – he at least had a chance of talking to her on her own.
Besides, Corcoran’s words kept echoing in Venn’s mind. You see, we don’t trust the FBI. Or the police.
The distance between Venn and the girl on the one hand, and the detectives at the car on the other, was growing.
Ten yards to go, and Venn would be round the corner. Then he’d have to slug the girl – there was no way round it – hoist her across his shoulder, and run like hell.
Over at the car, the male detective was calling something out in the direction of the lobby doors. Alerting his fellow cops inside that help was needed.
The woman detective had drawn her gun now, and was crouched low, sighting across the hood of the car.
‘Drop it,’ she yelled.
Five yards to go...
The car came out of nowhere behind them, tires howling on the slick tarmac as it vaulted the curb, and Venn was just turning when the first shots came.
Chapter 22
Instinct took over in Venn’s brain and body, rational thought taking a back seat.
He dove down and sideways, to his left, hurling the girl before him so that his body was between her and the source of the attack. He hit the sidewalk and rolled, even as the thwack thwack of bullets smashed holes in the brickwork of the wall where a second earlier he’d been standing.
Venn came up on one knee, the Beretta extended, his left hand clasped under his right. He fired, taking only the barest instant to aim.
Hurtling past Venn and the girl, at a slant across the sidewalk on the corner, was a car, a dark non-descript vehicle, the passenger side closest to Venn. From the driver’s seat a man was firing, and it was back at the driver that Venn returned fire. He was too low from his kneeling position on the sidewalk to hit the guy, and instead his shots punched a row of ragged holes in the passenger door.
From far away, the cops were shouting.
One of Venn’s low shots, a lucky one, hit the front offside tire and it blew with a sharp report. Venn rose to his feet as the car – a Honda – slewed round, the driver letting it spin so that it described a narrow arc across the street and ended up facing Venn. Almost without pause the driver gunned the engine, just as Venn loosed off a fresh salvo of shots straight at the windshield.
The driver’s head disappeared below the dashboard as the windshield exploded in a sunburst of crazed, glittering glass. A second later the car was upon Venn. He was ready for it, and leaped up on to the hood, rolling across the shattered windshield and landing on the roof.
The car spun again, one wheel now naked of its tire, its bare metal screeching on the tarmac, and Venn scrabbled to find purchase on the roof. Giddy from the violent rotation of the vehicle, he saw the woman, Colby, scrambling on her knees across the sidewalk, trying to get away. The driver seemed to be trying to lock on to a course that would allow him to run her down.
She was the one the driver wanted. So Venn had to keep his attention from her.
Clinging awkwardly to the roof by gripping the frame at the top of the ruined windshield, Venn hauled himself forward, hooked his gun hand so that it was pointing blindly down through the windshield gap, and fired.
He heard a yell from inside the car.
The driver slammed on the brake, and Venn was catapulted onto the hood. He bounced off, the pebbles of glass crunching between his body and the metal, and hit the sidewalk with a thud, rolling twice.
Staying flat, he crawled round to see the fender of the car a few feet from his face. From beyond, he heard yelling, and gunfire. It was the cops, opening up on the car.
Without pausing he rose to a crouch and duckwalked toward the street corner, hoping the car would conceal him from the cops on the other side. Hoping, too, that if the driver was still alive inside, he’d be too distracted by the advancing cops to pay any attention to Venn.
He made it round the corner just as a salvo of gunfire ended in a crump, then an earsplitting whoosh as the fuel tank of the car went up.
The blast seared his back and shoulder as he dragged himself round the corner. A wicked-looking chunk of jagged black shrapnel came spinning past his head, narrowly missing his ear.
A few yards ahead of Venn down the street, the girl, Dr Colby, was stumbling to her feet, gazing back dazedly.
When she saw him her mouth opened in a silent scream.
She began to run. Venn noted that she hobbled slightly. Probably the result of twisting her ankle earlier when she dropped off the fire escape.
He reached her in four strides, grabbing her arm. She yelped and slapped at him with her other hand, trying to wrench her arm free.
He held the Beretta down at his side, pointing away from her.
‘Try to stay calm,’ he said, i
n the low voice he’d used to defuse heated situations countless times before, both as a Marine and when he was a cop.
From the way the woman flinched, Venn realized he must have spoken more loudly than he’d intended. Then he recognized the ringing in his ears, from the gunfire and the explosion of the car’s fuel tank.
‘Like I said before, I’m not going to hurt you,’ he said. ‘Come on. We’re not out of danger.’
She kept trying to pull away. Venn marched her forward, down the street. People were rushing in the opposite direction, along the sidewalk and the street itself, toward the source of all the heat and noise, their phones already out to capture the footage they’d try to sell to the networks, or just post up on YouTube.
The woman staggered, and Venn caught her round the waist just before she slumped to the ground. He stared down at face. She was conscious, but her eyes looked vacant.
‘Try and stay on your feet,’ he said. ‘Try and keep moving.’
They lurched on, looking like some grotesque parody of a drunken couple supporting one another after a hectic night out.
Their progress was too slow, Venn decided. Looking around, he saw what he wanted.
He steered Colby toward the curb. She appeared to think he wanted them to cross the road, and she stepped off the curb unsteadily.
Instead, Venn took his hand out of the pocket of his leather coat where he’d been holding the Beretta. He reversed the gun so that the grip protruded from the top of his hand.
With two sharp blows he smashed the window of the car he’d chosen, a dark-blue Ford Taurus. The alarm began whooping immediately, harsh even above the general hubbub. Despite her dulled state, the girl gasped at the sudden noise.
Venn dragged the door open and shoved her inside. He moved swiftly round to the driver’s door, got in and tore the plastic panel from beneath the dashboard. Within seconds, the alarm stopped.
It took him another twenty seconds to hotwire the ignition. The Ford rumbled into life.
Venn glanced about him. People were running everywhere, their emotions whipped up by the scream of sirens that seemed to be descending from every direction. Nobody seemed to have noticed Venn busting into the car. Or if they had, they’d thought nothing of it, a disaster-scenario mentality beginning to set in where looting was considered commonplace.
Just as he was pulling away, he saw two familiar faces appearing in the rearview mirror, bobbing above the crowd that surged in the opposite direction. A woman’s and a man’s.
It was the two cops, the ones Colby had been riding with in the car.
Had they spotted him? Venn didn’t know, and didn’t care to stick around and find out.
He gunned the engine.
Chapter 23
Venn knew he’d have to return to the city before long.
Right now, though, all he wanted to do was get the hell out.
He drove hard, staying just within the speed limit so as not to attract attention, but swerving sharply whenever they approached what might turn out to be an obstruction of some kind. And there were surprisingly many of them, at after 3 AM on a Wednesday morning. Delivery trucks wheezing their way to markets and stores. Late partygoers finally heading home. Refuse trucks.
Beside him, the woman sat staring dully straight ahead of her. Every now and again Venn glanced across at her. Her eyes were open, but she might as well have been asleep, for all she reacted to their surroundings.
Venn didn’t know the city all that well yet. He hadn’t made a point of exploring it, and most of his experience of it was limited to the vicinity of Greenwich Village where he lived and mostly hung out.
But he knew the exits, the freeways and the tunnels and the bridges, and he decided to head for the Holland Tunnel toward New Jersey. It would get them out of Manhattan quicker, and off the NYPD’s turf. That didn’t mean much in the long run, but in the shorter term it might cause a little interdepartmental confusion which could give him an edge.
On Canal Street Venn pulled in abruptly, along a more-or-less deserted stretch.
Beside him Dr Colby stirred, fear threatening to break through her apathetic expression. Venn got out, went round to her side and hauled open the door.
She cringed back. He grabbed her arm and pulled her out, more roughly than he’d intended. It was just that he didn’t want to waste any time.
‘Where –’ she managed, her voice hoarse.
‘Change of car,’ he said curtly.
Thirty yards away he found a silver Toyota Corolla, a few years old but not so beat-up looking that it was apt to conk out in mid-journey. A nice, dull, nondescript set of wheels. This time, instead of smashing a window, Venn took a minute to pick the lock. Once inside, he found a set of keys under the mirror flap.
Something occurred to him. To Dr Colby he said, ‘Give me your cell phone.’
She stared dumbly. Venn snapped his fingers. She handed the phone over.
Venn wound down the window, dropped the phone carefully in front of the wheel, and started the engine, grinding over the phone with a soft crunch.
‘The cops will put a trace on your phone,’ he said, by way of explanation.
The Holland Tunnel yawned to receive them. Venn took them into it, half-expecting irrationally to be stopped at the entrance by a roadblock. It didn’t happen.
As the Corolla slipped into line, the girl spoke. Her voice startled Venn after the prolonged silence.
‘Before you kill me, at least tell me why.’
Her tone was flat, without fear.
Venn kept his eyes on the road. ‘If I’d wanted to kill you, I’d have done it back there.’
She said nothing to that.
He went on: ‘It probably escaped your notice, but I was protecting you back there. Both times. From the guy in the car, and before that, when he tried to shoot you on the fire escape.’
A long silence followed again. Then she said, ‘Why did you take me prisoner? Away from those detectives?’
‘If I hadn’t, you’d be dead now. The cops wouldn’t have reacted as quickly as I did. If you’d stayed with them, that guy would’ve gone by in his car and taken you out before any of you knew what hit you.’ Venn braked as the lights came on at the rear of the car in front. He forced himself to relax a little. He knew he was jumpy.
‘Plus,’ he continued, ‘you can’t trust those cops. You can’t trust anyone.’
‘Just you.’ There wasn’t any mockery in her voice. Venn responded in the same spirit.
‘That’s right. Just me.’
Somebody had stalled up ahead and the cars were having to slow. Venn didn’t like it. He felt shut in.
To distract himself he said, ‘Do you have any idea why anybody would want to kill you?’
She turned her face to him. He glanced across, and saw that she looked faintly surprised.
‘I assumed you would know,’ she said.
Venn shook his head. ‘No clue. I don’t even really know anything about you, except that you’re Dr Elizabeth Colby.’
‘Who are you?’
‘My name is Joe Venn.’ He left it at that.
They emerged on the Jersey City side. It was still hours before dawn, but Venn fancied he could see a reddish lightening in the sky over to the east.
He drove apparently aimlessly through the empty streets. Colby said, ‘Where are we going?’
‘Somewhere we can get coffee, and talk.’
At last he spotted an all-night diner near a silent industrial plant of some kind. Venn pulled over, got out and once again opened the door for the woman.
When she stayed put, he jerked his head.
‘Come on. Out.’
He didn’t show her his gun. He didn’t particularly want to threaten her. Besides, she’d be well aware he had it in his pocket.
The diner was empty apart from a waitress with a tired but friendly smile, and two solitary men who looked like construction workers, each nursing early breakfasts with their heads buried in newspape
rs. Venn found a booth near the back, and took the seat facing the door.
The waitress ambled over. Venn ordered black coffee for the both of them, without asking Colby. Also eggs, bacon, tomatoes and hash browns.
Dr Colby raised a hand. ‘No. I don’t want –’
‘Shh.’ Venn nodded at the waitress and she went to fill the order.
To Colby, Venn said: ‘You need to eat. Whether you’re hungry or not. Protein, carbs. You’re in deficit after everything that’s happened, and you’re going to need a lot of energy for the foreseeable future.’
Her hands began to shake, then. She clasped them together but it didn’t make any difference. The tremor spread to her shoulders. She bowed her head, and through the tangle of hair hanging down over her face, Venn could see her features contorted. Long, barely controlled sobs began to wrack her body.
Venn watched her for thirty seconds, letting the delayed reaction take its course. Then he laid a gentle hand on her forearm. She jerked away, then relaxed. He left his hand there lightly.
‘It’s a hell of a lot to take in,’ he said quietly. ‘A hell of a lot. Better that you face it now, than go to pieces later when you need to have your wits about you.’
He handed her a fistful of paper napkins from a dispenser on the table. She took them gratefully, dabbed at her eyes, then blew her nose.
The waitress came back with the order. She gave Dr Colby a pained, sympathetic smile.
Lover’s tiff, Venn could see her thinking.
He attacked his food, realizing suddenly that he was starving. He nudged her plate toward her but she ignored it. Just sat there shredding a paper napkin in her fingers.
Without warning she lifted her head and said, ‘You’re on the run from the law.’
‘We both are, now,’ Venn said. ‘Technically.’
‘No. I mean... before this. You’ve got that tag on your ankle.’
‘You’re very observant.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘In a manner of speaking, you’re right. On the other hand, I am the law. Kind of.’
