Trust Me

by Jeff Abbott

  First-aid kits. Plain, white, with the red cross on them. But larger ones than you’d find at a store, ones that you might find mounted in a public place, like a shopping center, or an airport. Or a school.

  Or a commuter rail train, or a subway.

  He opened one of the cases. Inside were nails and screws, packed into thin plastic bags so they wouldn’t rattle. And in the middle was an orange brick, like a clay, a simple lacing of wires webbing to a cell phone.

  A bomb, armed with what he guessed was plastic explosive. He set it down carefully and began to count the first-aid kits. A dozen to a box. And how many opened boxes? A dozen. He checked kits in each box. Each contained a bomb.

  A hundred and forty-four bombs. Henry had told him the truth about this, at least. The first-aid kits could be placed on the transit system walls by the uniformed ‘cleaning crews’, who need only show up, plant the bombs and leave. The surgical masks – used by real cleaning crews – would hide their faces, since they weren’t suicide bombers. One hundred and forty-four bombs, divided among six cities. Multiple cars on multiple tracks. Targeting people simply going to work for the day – just like 9/11 or the Madrid or London bombings. A dirt-cheap attack that would inflict millions – even billions – in damage to the economy and worse, end thousands of innocent lives.

  The thought chilled his blood.

  The scale staggered him. The cell phone – it had to be the trigger. But would the bomb be detonated by calling the cell’s number? No. There were far too many of them, and he suspected the bombs were supposed to go off simultaneously, or as near to it as possible. So. How?

  Then he saw the simple answer. His throat went dry.

  He had a choice. He could detonate one of the bombs now – killing himself but also the best of the Night Road, and his father and Aubrey if they were here. They’d be dead. The plan would be over. Or – there was another possibility.

  And he heard the front door open and shut. Decision made. He didn’t have much time.

  What the hell, he thought. He’d be dead in a few minutes anyway.

  A minute later, ‘Hello, Luke.’

  Henry Shawcross stepped into the storage room, gun leveled at his stepson, who knelt by an open file cabinet, rifling through its papers.

  Luke stood.

  ‘They don’t know you’re here, do they?’ Henry said. Very quietly. ‘No.’

  ‘You killed the guard outside.’

  ‘No, he’s just beaten up and dumped in a van.’

  ‘You’re nicer than I am.’

  ‘You got out. And got here.’ He didn’t need to answer Henry’s question.

  ‘The keys to the handcuffs were in the pocket of the man you killed. Your grand gesture backfired.’

  Luke closed his eyes. A stupid mistake that was going to cost him dearly.

  ‘I left quickly, right after you, I commandeered a Travport plane directly here.’ Henry flicked a smile. ‘I knew you’d be here. Playing the well-intentioned idiot. What possessed you? What were you looking for?’

  ‘Evidence of where Eric hid the money.’

  ‘The money. Why do you care?’

  ‘I need it. To hide.’ Luke put his gaze directly on Henry’s. Let Henry think – if only for a moment – that Luke was as mercenary as he was, since he’d hoped Luke would become more like him. ‘What now?’

  Henry shrugged. ‘Hard choices. The good things in my life are all gone, Luke. You’ve betrayed me, too.’

  ‘You destroyed your life. Not me.’

  ‘No. Warren destroyed my life. It was hard enough to compete with a dead man. It’s much harder when he turns up alive.’

  Luke said nothing. Henry cast a gaze around the room, as though checking that all was well, then settled his stare back on Luke. ‘You’re armed.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Turn around. Hands on the cabinet.’

  Luke obeyed. Henry frisked him, took his guns.

  ‘They’re upstairs,’ Luke said. He had an idea. If only he could fool Henry. ‘My dad is up there, I think.’

  ‘Then let’s go give you a proper reunion,’ Henry said, the hate thick in his voice.

  They went up the stairs, Luke first, Henry’s gun in the small of his back. Luke felt like he was walking up to a rickety gallows.

  The second floor held import furnishings, and Mouser and six men sat around a patio table in an assortment of cheap chairs. Mouser saw Luke and Henry step inside. And he stood.

  ‘What. The. Hell,’ he said.

  A set of clocks stood above his head and Luke glanced at them. But they were set for a crazy quilt of times. He glanced past the table. His father and Aubrey were bound to chairs. Aubrey had a black eye; his father had been beaten, dried blood caking beneath his nose and mouth. They both met his gaze.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Mouser said.

  ‘I’m here to lead the meeting,’ Henry said quietly.

  The light above the table was dim, and Luke thought of the disaffected minds he’d studied in his psychology classes, trying to decipher their passions: the fire bloods of the French Revolution plotting the incineration of a social order and the collateral deaths of thousands of innocents; John Wilkes Booth, plotting the murder of the singular man who changed the course of history by keeping the Union together through a horrible trial by fire; the Bolsheviks, planning their paradise, who ended up with a discounted ruin built on the bones of millions.

  ‘You said he was dead.’ Mouser stared at Luke.

  ‘I lied,’ Henry said. ‘You’re not in command here. I am.’

  ‘Not any more.’ Mouser raised a gun and aimed it squarely at Henry’s head.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ Henry said. ‘You were promised a further, and much greater investment in your causes if you accomplished your initial attacks. Mouser doesn’t have your money. I do.’ He jerked his head at Luke. ‘And he does. Kill us and all investment in the Night Road stops, immediately.’

  ‘No,’ one of the men said. He had a pinched face that reminded Luke of a ferret, a tattoo decorating the side of his neck. ‘You will give us our money now.’

  ‘Wrong.’ Henry smiled at Mouser. ‘You’re such a punk idiot. You can’t run this group.’

  ‘No one runs us,’ one of the other men said. ‘We do what we want. We succeed, we get funded. That was the deal.’

  An investment scheme, Luke thought. Terrorism Incorporated. The dark opposite of an idea like Quicksilver, which was Counter-Terrorism Incorporated.

  ‘You won’t get the money without us,’ Luke said, glancing at Henry. As if saying, okay, I’ll play. He had no doubt that Henry, now rejected and bitter, would shoot him the moment his usefulness was done.

  His father stared at him, but Luke couldn’t look at him. Every second ticking by was a heartbeat closer to death. But that was true of any ordinary day.

  ‘Don’t listen to this kid,’ Mouser said. ‘He and his friend killed our best bomb maker.’

  ‘Only because she tried to kill me. Funny how you can put your sorrow about Snow aside when it suits you, like in Paris.’

  Mouser’s face purpled, his mouth worked.

  ‘We’re here about the money. For a trade,’ Luke lied.

  ‘You didn’t have the money,’ Mouser said.

  ‘Eric did. Jane knew where it was. She told me.’ At this both Warren and Aubrey lifted their heads. ‘She used the Quicksilver computers to break the encryption that showed where Eric hid the fifty million. Right before genius boy here blew up their offices.’ Jane’s final words echoed in his brain: Hidden in plain sight. That little b. Eric, the bastard, who had betrayed her. He wished he knew what she meant. The answer had to be close. He was under enormous pressure. Where could he have stashed the money? Hidden in plain sight.

  Mouser’s gun swiveled toward Warren and Aubrey. ‘The money. Now. Or they die.’

  Luke glanced at Henry. ‘I’ll give up the money. But only to Henry. That way, he’s in control. My deal is with him. He lets
my father and Aubrey go and I give him the cash. We worked it out.’ The lie was thick in his mouth. He looked at the men at the table. ‘I found you all. I pointed you to Henry. I made the Night Road happen. You owe me at least this deal.’

  ‘You’re owed nothing,’ the neck-tattooed man said.

  ‘You have nothing,’ Luke said. ‘What happens when the rest of the Night Road finds out that you’ve cut them off from potential millions to carry out their attacks?’ He pointed at Mouser. ‘You’re responsible, and your life will be worthless.’

  Mouser’s face purpled in rage. ‘None of us are in this for money.’ He all but spat out the last word.

  ‘No, but the money makes pretending that you’re badasses easier. To buy your bomb materials, to buy your guns, to do your dirty work. Without it you’re nothing but assholes posting bullshit on the internet, pretending you’re important.’

  Mouser pointed at Henry. ‘He wanted you caught. Dead. Now you’re on his side?’

  ‘I never wanted him dead. That was your own mistake,’ Henry said. ‘Go. Do what you have to do for Hellfire. Mouser, you stay here. We’ll work out the deal for the money.’

  ‘They saw our faces,’ Mouser said. ‘No witnesses.’

  ‘This is the only deal I’m offering,’ Luke said. Then he said the words that he knew would matter most: ‘Why don’t you put it to a vote?’

  ‘Did you really think I was going to negotiate with you?’ Mouser said, nearly laughing.

  Luke saw sharp glances pass between the Night Roaders. Mouser had ignored the call for a vote, and he knew that these men – leaders of their own movements or cells – did not relish taking orders. They were used to giving them as captains of their own causes.

  ‘There is no vote. I have the access to the funds. You do as I say. Get going. You have your instructions, yes?’ Henry said.

  The men nodded. Luke noticed they each had sheets of paper outlining the bomb’s operations, schematics of what looked like train tracks, photos and bios of train personnel at their target stations. Get in, stash their bombs, and get out.

  ‘Go. You know the plan. 6.30 a.m. Central, 7.30 a.m. Eastern, day after tomorrow.’ Henry jerked his head. ‘Go.’

  They had a day to return to the targets, to set the bombs.

  ‘No,’ Mouser said. ‘I’m running the show.’

  ‘Do you have fifty million to reward and fund our friends here? Have you succeeded in anything I’ve asked you to do? Shut the hell up, Mouser.’ Henry cleared his throat. ‘Get going now. One of you will find the downstairs guard in your van sleeping off a punch.’

  The men filed past Luke; he could hear the shuffle of their footsteps on the stairs. Then, from downstairs, the sounds of them loading the boxes, rushing them through the store, out of the front door.

  ‘So,’ Mouser said. ‘It comes to this.’

  ‘You left a man to kill me back in Paris,’ Henry said.

  ‘I didn’t. He was supposed to keep you under wraps until Hellfire was done.’

  ‘You’re a sorry liar, Mouser.’

  ‘Funny, isn’t it?’ Warren Dantry said. No one was expecting him to speak and they all glanced at him. Underneath his bruises a smile flickered, the grin that Luke remembered from fishing trips, from sitting with his father on the back porch of their house. His voice sounded the same as it had before, a gentle baritone, older, wiser.

  ‘Dad,’ Luke started. A thousand things to say, to know, rushed through his mind, then went blank.

  ‘Funny,’ Warren Dantry repeated. ‘You really can’t work with anyone, can you, Henry? First the good guys, now the bad. You always screw it up.’ He glanced up at Mouser. ‘You know, he thinks, he honestly believes, he predicted 9/11.’

  Mouser glanced at Henry. ‘But you did.’

  ‘Hardly. He didn’t.’ Warren snorted. ‘He would have risen to the highest posts in State or CIA if he had. Instead he’s hanging out with these nothings.’

  Look at me, Dad, Luke thought, but Warren didn’t.

  ‘Shut up,’ Henry said. He swiveled the gun back toward Warren. ‘Shut up. Luke is my son now. Not yours. You gave him up. Shut the hell up.’

  ‘Luke. You know he’s a nothing. A nothing.’ Warren now met his son’s eyes. ‘He tried to kill me. Then your mother dies, under questionable circumstances.’

  ‘That was an accident!’ Henry screamed, spittle flying from his mouth.

  ‘Was it? Was it? Was it?’ Warren said in a low, hypnotic mumble.

  ‘It was an accident,’ and Henry brayed the last word as though a critical string had broken in his voice.

  ‘Let’s make peace, Henry,’ Mouser said. ‘Jesus, we’ve come this far. Let me talk to this bastard. Pry every secret from Quicksilver out of him.’

  ‘He won’t talk. He just needs to die,’ Henry said. ‘Luke, look away.’

  ‘No!’ Luke screamed. He lunged toward Henry.

  And the world exploded.

  57

  Five of the trucks never made it out of the empty lot. Luke had been busy. He’d opened each box of bombs, picked one of the cell-phone timers connected to the Semtex explosive, and reset it to detonate in fifteen minutes. It had taken just enough time to load the trucks, light cigarettes, and gossip for a minute (the suggestion of going back in and killing Mouser and Henry had been floated and shot down).

  The trucks – save one – all went up at once in blossoms of fire, within three seconds of each other, scattering debris and flaming tires and peppering shrapnel. The packed screws and twists of metal shredded the terrorists into raggedy men, tatters of flesh and bone.

  The truck closest to the store was spared. Rushed to reset the timers, Luke had unknowingly pulled the wires loose on the last two cell phones, panicked to finish before he was caught, and did not realize his mistake. The cell phone’s alarm did not detonate the blasting cap. The driver – the hardest and oldest of the men, the tattooed man responsible for the Kansas City high school bombing – stared at the wheeling masses of what had been his colleagues’ trucks. He raised himself up from the truck seat. His windows were blown out, as were the storefronts of the mall. One of the trucks crashed in the deserted street, burning. He could see what was left of one of his fellows, halved and crisped, twenty feet in front of him.

  The bombs, he thought, somebody screwed with the bombs. For the next ten seconds he waited, knowing if his timers had been tampered with he’d be dead and there was no point in running.

  But the tampered bombs had all gone off at once. None of his boxes had. He realized, with a certainty, that he was safe. He wheeled hard out of the lot, pressing his foot against the accelerator, thinking he would still get the job done.

  The edge of the blasts blew in the curtained windows of the second floor showroom, lifted Luke off his feet, and tossed him into Henry. Luke tumbled over his stepfather and he didn’t hear the gun’s discharge. Bright balls of aftershock fire blinded his eyes; he blinked past the pain.

  Resetting the phones’ timers had worked. Luke scrambled to his feet. He saw Aubrey lying on her back, still tied in her chair, blood on her face. His father lay next to her, also knocked down by the explosions. Henry lay dazed. The gun that had been in his hands was gone.

  Where was it? And Mouser?

  Luke felt heat in a wave. Flame flickered along the curtains, blown in by fiery debris. The displays of imports: the African masks, the wooden tables, the bolts of Asian cloth – burst into flames, throughout the room. The building was ablaze.

  He didn’t see Mouser.

  Suddenly hands, from behind, closed around Luke’s throat. He felt a gun barrel jam up against his forehead. Luke hammered his head back and caught Mouser in the face. Luke twisted and seized the gun in his hands and the fired bullet smashed into the concrete flooring. Luke nailed Mouser’s jaw with a punch, the hardest he’d ever thrown. He felt the bone crack under his fist, felt his own fingers ache from the force of the blow.

  Mouser staggered back, nearly tripping over Hen
ry, who was struggling to his feet. The flames showed wild hate in Mouser’s eyes and with a howl of pure hatred and rage he launched himself again at Luke. Mouser tackled Luke and they skidded and rolled across the concrete, toward the now-flaming wall of windows.

  They fought, arms grappling. Mouser’s face twisted in a naked and bitter hatred. He seized Luke’s throat. They bounced off the windows, the burning curtains, and then fell back onto the floor. Luke felt his hair, his shirt ignite. He dropped and rolled to douse the fire, clutching Mouser close to him.

  Mouser screamed as the flames jumped to his own shirt. He yanked away; both men rolled to the floor, Luke smothering the blazing patch on his shirt. Mouser did the same and as he looked up, Luke kicked him savagely in the face, felt the man’s nose and teeth break. He seized Mouser by the throat and belt and threw him toward the wall, the pain scouring up his back. Mouser fell through the burning curtains and the shattered window, arms wheeling, flames catching him from head to toe, slamming headfirst into the asphalt.

  He lay still, and through the flames Luke could see his neck, bent at an utterly impossible angle.

  Through the lick of fire and the smear of smoke Luke could see five wrecked trucks, burning, ruptured.

  Five. Not six.

  ‘One got away!’ he screamed. And he turned and saw Henry fleeing down the stairs.

  No time to chase him. Luke pulled Aubrey to her feet, tore the ropes loose from her. She helped him free his father.

  ‘Dad! Dad!’ Luke screamed. His father opened his eyes, stared at Luke in shock.

  ‘Come on!’ Aubrey screamed.

  They ran toward the back as the remaining windows exploded from the heat, the flames jumping and dancing into the showroom.

  ‘One of them got away,’ Luke said. No sign of Henry in the parking lot. They ran, Warren clutching him close, Aubrey holding his other hand. ‘We have to catch him.’

  ‘We don’t know which way he would go,’ Aubrey started.

  ‘He’s going to head for a highway,’ Warren said.

  ‘Then head west,’ Aubrey said. ‘Closest one.’

  They could hear the police and fire sirens wailing. Cars in the street – a few – had stopped, people staring at the devastation. At the car Warren embraced Luke. ‘Luke, Luke.’ He cupped Luke’s face in his hands, tears on his face, shivering, shaking.