by Jeff Abbott
Oh, God, Luke thought. In the pocket he found a ring of car keys with a bottle opener. He grabbed the keys and Snow’s gun, still nestled in Drummond’s hand.
When he grabbed the gun everyone in the tea shop scrambled backwards. He paused. Then he tore the Saint Michael medal from Drummond’s throat, cupped it in his hand. He hurried past a counter and ran into a small side alley of brick. It was closed to the main streets by an iron gate.
Keys. A car. Drummond must have a car. A rental garage’s address was printed on the back of the bottle opener. Four blocks away.
Luke climbed over the iron gate, dropped to the next street, and ran.
44
The final bullet of Drummond’s long career had caught Sweet Bird under the jaw and he’d fallen back with an astonished look on his thin face.
Mouser had picked up the rifle next to Sweet Bird’s body. He’d gotten a single shot off, nailed Drummond, missed Luke. He squeezed the trigger again; no ammo left.
Chaos was about to descend on this building. He had to get out. There was no time to say goodbye to Snow. He’d left her behind in the elevator cab, one kiss goodbye. He blinked away the hot feeling behind his eyes as he bolted out the back of the building, avoiding the arrival of the police, blending in with the crowd. Sweet Bird’s crew was either dead or had fled.
Luke and Drummond had killed her. The vengeance against Drummond had come quickly but Luke still walked and breathed. He felt the cold bloodthirstiness from Snow begin to fill him, as though her spirit was settling in his bones, seeping into this skin. A stirring in his chest took its final breath and shriveled. He had not even known her real name.
He turned into the tea shop’s back door; he’d seen where Luke ran. Drummond’s body still lay sprawled on the tiles. He frisked the body. Nothing. No cops yet; outside, a woman in a barista’s apron spoke with the police in the street, pointing toward her store.
He retreated out the back door. The alleyway remained empty. Which way had Luke gone? And where would he go?
He remembered the manifest for Eric’s charter – he’d seen it at the air park in Chicago – had said New York, then Paris.
He ran down the alley, toward the iron gate, fury for Luke filling him, and fury for Henry, who had sent him on this fool’s errand.
The garage was four stories tall and Luke hurried along the row, testing the remote, until the lights on a plain Ford sedan beeped. He opened the trunk and found a briefcase and a packed bag. He took the briefcase and set it on the front passenger seat. The car still smelled new; the miles on the car were fewer than a hundred. Luke rifled through the glove compartment. The car had been sold to James Morgan.
The charter pilot, Frankie Wu, had mentioned flying on to Paris. There had to be a reason that Eric would have stopped in New York – perhaps to meet Drummond and seal a deal on information – and then fly on to Paris.
For what? A final meeting? Drummond said the people watching their interview were headed to Paris.
He steered into traffic, heading away from the chaos at Drummond’s building, watching his rearview mirror for Mouser. His mind kept replaying the bullet he’d put into Snow. Intent didn’t matter. He had killed her. He had ended another human life, but she had brought on her own fate with her choices.
At a stoplight he snapped open the briefcase. Two Canadian passports, one for Drummond, one for him. In the names of James Morgan and for Luke, in the name of Tom Morgan. The passport photo was a modified version of his license driver’s photo, cleverly expanded to fit the passport parameters. They were stamped with entry for the US and the Bahamas. They looked real to him. He counted the cash, around two thousand dollars. He found credit cards in the name of Tom Morgan. The promise to hide him was real and would have been immediate. And two tickets, the seats together, on the red-eye to Paris for tonight, in the same false names.
The car had a GPS system, and at the next light, he plugged in a request for directions to JFK airport.
Aubrey lay on the cot and she heard the scarred Frenchman say to the boss: ‘We have a live signal from Drummond’s car.’
‘He got out?’ the boss asked. The satellite picture of the street had indicated Drummond might have been hit.
A pause. ‘I wonder where they’ll go,’ the Frenchman said.
‘Track the car. And find where Henry Shawcross is. I want to know if he’s on a plane, a train, where he is.’
‘Do we still send a cleanup team?’
Aubrey closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep. They might speak a little louder, over the rumble of the plane, if they thought she was asleep again.
‘No. If anyone’s still alive they’re on their own,’ the boss said, and she could hear the awful bitterness under his words. ‘Sometimes you have to leave people behind.’
‘We could just call the car,’ the Frenchman said. ‘If it’s Luke alone, he’s probably scared to death.’
‘We clearly have to build trust with young Mr Dantry,’ the boss said. ‘You play it out, you talk to him.’
Aubrey felt a shadow over her. She opened her eyes. The boss, staring down, wore a frown on his hard face. ‘How is Luke doing it?’
‘What?’
‘Escaping these people. Finding us. Being so clever. Was he trained by Shawcross?’
‘ Trained? He’s a grad student in psychology and you people have scared the crap out of him. A smart person who’s scared can be dangerous.’
‘You better tell me the truth, Aubrey.’
‘I am. I am.’ She licked at her dry lips. ‘He and I, we just want out, we just want our old lives back. Please.’
The man leaned close to her. ‘You get to go home when you help us. This fifty million Luke mentioned to Drummond. Where is it?’
‘I don’t know. I want nothing to do with that money. I want to go home.’
‘Home,’ the boss said. ‘I hope you can.’
45
Henry wanted to be present for Luke’s capture – or at least in the van that would be taking him away from the Quicksilver building. But an absolutely critical component of Hellfire required his attention. He especially wanted to be there to kill Drummond personally, if Drummond was at the address. But priorities were priorities. He could not delegate this task.
The storefront in a quiet street in Queens read Ready-Able Services. A recent change in ownership was not reflected in the store-front. The company, which was headquartered in New York and had branches in fourteen major metropolitan markets, contracted out cleaning and maintenance services to government and corporations. The workers were bonded and underwent background checks. The company was twenty years old, successful, and privately held. The inside man had been hired, inserted at Henry’s suggestion four months ago. He cleared the background check because he had no record; he had never been caught. He took a salary cut for the job at Ready-Able, and his boss thought the company lucky to have landed such a smart, hard worker.
Henry went inside and gave a false name. The inside man, with the rank of supervisor, was expecting him. The two of them walked past the other supervisors and employees and headed for a storeroom at the back of the facility.
In the storeroom, the supervisor opened the box. ‘You can see,’ he began in Arabic.
‘English,’ Henry said. ‘I don’t wish to be overheard.’
‘Yes, well,’ the supervisor said in lightly accented English. ‘As you asked. Twenty surgical masks.’
‘It’s not uncommon for the employees to wear these?’
‘No. Cleaning can be a nasty job. They go with the uniforms. I have provided twenty, in the sizes you asked for.’
Henry looked at the uniforms. ‘The pocket here is big enough to hold a gun.’
‘Yes, a variety of models, I tested it myself.’
‘And the access passes?’
‘Activated. That took a bit of fiddling with the master database. You cannot have substitutions of personnel, though. I cannot issue new picture IDs at this late date.’<
br />
‘I understand.’ Henry carefully inspected all twenty passes. They looked entirely genuine because they were. Ready-Able had just added twenty employees that had not been hired or interviewed, hidden inside an access pass database that held information about two thousand employees around the country.
‘The database audit was completed yesterday. I added the new records immediately afterwards. We should be good for two or three days. I hope your operation takes place by then…’
‘Not your concern.’
‘The company will be seen as a common element of the attack’s targets when Hellfire is completed.’
‘You will be extracted and sent wherever you like. Go to the airport, go to the Travport cargo office. They will smuggle you out of the country.’
‘Understood.’
The supervisor and Henry resealed the boxes, and loaded them into Henry’s van. Henry drove to a Travport satellite office and shipped the boxes to an address in Chicago.
This was the next to last stage before Hellfire could be launched. If only he had Luke under his thumb, then all would be well.
Henry’s phone rang, and he opened it, sure that it would be good news.
The car’s phone rang as Luke pulled into airport parking. He hit the talk button. ‘Hello?’
‘Is this Luke?’ A man’s French-accented voice, the same one from Drummond’s phone.
‘Yes.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, but Drummond is dead. I’m sorry I couldn’t save him. He saved me.’
‘We mourn him more than you know. I can tell you he had a rewarding life.’
‘I have the fifty million the Night Road wants. I will trade it to you for information on my father’s past, and for you to set up Aubrey someplace where she is safe.’
‘I do not understand. Your father’s past?’
‘Drummond was investigating one of our attackers, a man known as Mouser. I want to know if Mouser is suspected of killing my dad.’
‘And what about you?’
A surprising certainty filled him. ‘I want to keep fighting these people. I want to join you.’
A pause, and then: ‘This is not your fight, Luke.’
‘It is entirely my fight. I don’t want to hide under a name somewhere and hope you defeat Night Road. I am in this fight.’
‘Luke, you fought hard for someone who was cast as simply a pawn.’
‘Are you in Paris? Because I found tickets for today’s flight. Drummond was supposed to bring me to Paris, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes. If we agreed it was best. But-’
‘Then I’ll see you soon.’ He switched off the phone.
46
The red-eye to Paris was close to full. Luke’s tongue felt like a rock in his mouth when he had to present his false passport, but the airline’s scans did not raise an alarm. Drummond had bought tickets in business class. The seats were plush, in a plastic and steel half-shell that let you recline without intruding on the space of the passenger behind you. He had the window seat and he kept his sunglasses in place, a cap pulled low on his head.
Drummond’s seat next to him remained empty. He gave a sigh of relief. He pulled Drummond’s medal from his pocket and studied it next to his own. Exact duplicates, in every detail.
This will keep you safe, his father had said. What exactly had that meant? Luke had taken it to mean a metaphysical safety, in the terms of a moral compass; but now he thought his father might have meant a more concrete promise. He put Drummond’s medal back in his pocket.
He ate the dinner of salad, lamb, couscous, and ice cream sundae. He pulled a blanket up to his chin and fell into a heavy sleep.
He awoke, hours later, as the breakfast service was being completed and first he saw out the window the spill of clouds over the French countryside. Then he sat up, rubbing his eyes under the dark glasses, and Mouser said, ‘You slept well. I didn’t.’
Luke blinked. It couldn’t be. But Mouser was sitting right next to him.
And then he gave Luke a twitch of a smile, the kind the devil might flex. Somehow that quasi-grin was worse than the thrust of a blade.
‘If you make a scene, you’ll ruin the flight for everyone else. In the worst way.’
Luke spoke past the rock in his throat. ‘How did you…?’
‘We both needed to get to Paris. There’s not an infinite number of flights.’
Luke let his gaze dart past Mouser’s aisle seat. The middle row was occupied by an older couple who looked like vacationers. Behind him were two businessmen, one asleep, the other immersed in a laptop. Everyone in their own cocoon.
‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ Mouser said in a soft whisper.
‘Liar.’ He thought of Drummond, bleeding his life out. His father’s face boarding that plane.
Did you kill my father? Why are you a suspect, years later? The thoughts blazed through his mind as if blasted from a flamethrower. His hands clenched into fists.
In his pocket was the secret thumb drive, hidden in the little basketball. The key to the money.
‘Why are you going to Paris, Luke?’ Mouser sipped coffee from a cup that sat on his fold-out tray. ‘I guess you need a vacation after all your adventures.’
Luke gave no answer. He had to get away. The pilot announced that they’d be landing in twenty minutes.
‘Do tell me. Because if I alert the attendants to the fact you happen to be traveling on a false passport – mine is legit, by the way – this was a giant risk for you. What would be worth such a risk, I wonder. I can only think that it’s the money. Eric wanted to go to Paris, too. You’re following that dog’s trail.’
I have to incapacitate him, Luke thought. Fight him here and get away without getting caught.
‘You give me the money,’ Mouser said, ‘and you walk. Our battle is over.’
‘I won’t, on either count.’
‘I don’t blame you for New York. I blame Snow. She rushed where she shouldn’t have.’ His gaze was steady on Luke’s face.
‘But I do blame you for Drummond. And-’ He stopped.
‘And what?’ Mouser hissed.
‘Did you ever…’ He waited as the flight attendant walked past. ‘Did you sabotage a private plane? Heading from DC to North Carolina? Ten years ago?’
The silence hung between him, Luke staring at him. The twitchy smile stayed on Mouser’s face.
‘No. I don’t know anything about planes or their systems.’
Luke watched him. He didn’t believe him. Terrorist psychology showed extremists did not like to admit a shortcoming in knowledge. It was a consistent thread. They were know-it-alls. A simple no would have sufficed. Luke had said nothing about the systems of the plane being involved. His tongue felt locked to the top of his mouth.
If Mouser was curious about the North Carolina question, he didn’t ask. ‘I’ve answered your question, you answer mine. Where is the money?’
He told his first lie: ‘Eric hid the money in a bunch of accounts.’
‘Give me the account numbers.’
Luke tapped his temple.
‘I don’t believe you memorized a bunch of bank account numbers. They’re long.’
‘I was highly motivated. If you kill me, you’ll never get them.’
Mouser looked at him. ‘You’re giving the info to someone in Paris. To get Aubrey back.’
‘Yes.’ And to keep the money away from the Night Road. He had no intention of funding terrorism. But he wondered: could he turn this meeting into a trap for Mouser? A way to give him to Quicksilver? The outline of a plan began to take shape in his mind.
‘You barely know that woman.’ Now Mouser looked straight ahead. ‘I barely knew Snow. Sometimes barely is all you need.’ He paused. ‘A college kid like you, you don’t want this kind of life. Give me the info on the accounts and you’re free.’
Tires hit pavement as the airliner coasted onto the runway.
What had Henry told him, a lifetime ago back
in Austin, about his work? You’re good at baiting the hook. ‘I’m meeting Quicksilver. They have the capability to do a lot more damage to you and the Night Road than I ever could,’ Luke said.
The captain was announcing to the passengers that the plane would first taxi to the bus that would take them to the terminal. ‘You cut a deal with them.’
‘No,’ Luke lied. ‘They only want the money. So I have a suggestion.’
‘What?’
‘Come with me to the meeting. You can grab one of their people, find out what Quicksilver really is. But me and Aubrey walk. You get the money, you get your enemies.’
‘Why would you help me?’
‘Because I just want to be left alone. By you, by Quicksilver. The fight is between you two.’ Luke knew if he made a scene to get Mouser arrested in the airport, he’d be arrested too. And he wouldn’t ever find out the truth.
Quicksilver would be watching their every move. They have the resources; they’ll see Mouser coming well ahead. And they’ll kill him , Luke thought.
‘Me help you save your woman after you killed mine.’ Mouser’s whisper was so soft that as the plane parked and everyone stood to gather their belongings Luke could barely hear him. ‘I feel like I’m making a deal with the devil.’
Me, too, Luke thought.
47
Paris.
Luke had not been there since he was an undergraduate. He had accompanied his stepfather and his mother to Paris for a conference. At nineteen he had wandered the streets in blissful freedom – bookstores, bars, the expansive parks, the old student quarter near Notre Dame. He had loved the city, but it had been a brief affair, and he had not been back since.
But he hoped his brief familiarity with Paris would save him. Mouser had given no signs of even a basic comprehension of French beyond oui or non and that might be his salvation. Neither had a suitcase other than their carry-ons, and after a desultory check of their documents at passport control he and Mouser walked out into the dull gray morning, toward the taxi line.
