Trust Me

by Jeff Abbott

  ‘Dad. Okay, we’re okay, but we got to find this guy.’ A thousand words he wanted to hear and say burst in his head – his father’s explanations, his father’s love, his own anger to lash out at his dad for abandoning him – but it had to wait. The last bomber was running.

  Luke remembered his father’s false goodbye, his words: I’ll miss you every moment. There had been years of missed moments as he stared at Warren Dantry. His father stepped back. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for what happened to you. Let that be a start.’

  Luke got behind the wheel, his father next to him, Aubrey in the back seat.

  ‘My God,’ his dad said. ‘My God. Luke. Oh, Christ.’

  ‘Dad. Are you all right? Aubrey, you okay?’

  ‘Yes. Fine. We’re fine.’ His voice was hoarse, blood caked on his lips. ‘My God. I can’t believe you did that. The timers, yes?’ Surprise and pride colored his voice and he let out nearly a choking laugh.

  ‘Luke?’ Aubrey, touching his shoulder, squeezing it in reassurance. He looked back at her and she was wide-eyed, shaking, rubbing her hands together as if for warmth. ‘I’m glad you came for us,’ she said softly.

  Luke roared hard onto the street. Emergency vehicles were making their way down the road, a fire truck, police cars. He shot past them. The Navigator was faster than the van. The driver would have to be rattled. Maybe he’d dumped the bombs in the lot, afraid they’d been set for early explosion as well.

  Or maybe the guy had figured he’d caught a lucky break, and if he didn’t blow up when everyone else did, he wasn’t going to. Or he didn’t care; terrorists loved their blazes of supposed glory.

  He shot past the first group of responders and ran four red lights, heading up to a hundred miles an hour. It was one in the morning and the streets were empty. He saw tail lights ahead, the only set.

  A small moving van.

  He’d caught up with the last bomber. He steered with one hand, the one with the broken fingers, fished out the gun with his hand.

  ‘Dad – here, you’re the better shot.’

  ‘My hands.’ Warren raised them and for the first time Luke saw them, misshapen. Several fingers had been broken.

  What those bastards had done to his father. He shoved down the accelerator, caught up with the moving van. ‘Dad, get in the back.’

  His father obeyed, sliding over the seat, Aubrey helping him.

  Luke raised his gun, came even with the van.

  The bomber leveled a gun, fired. Luke felt the heat of the bullet pass in front of his face, like a bolt, and he steadied his arm and fired. Missed. He fired again at the same time as the bomber; the bomber’s bullet hammered into the Navigator’s roof, two inches from Luke’s head. A black dot of blood appeared above the bomber’s ear, his head jerked, the van careened onto the sidewalk. It crashed into the front of a closed laundromat, sheets of windows shattering. Luke stopped, ran to the van. The bomber lolled, eyes open, dead.

  ‘Luke. Get back here! We’ll call the bomb squad. They’ll know what to do,’ Warren called.

  Luke ran back to the Navigator. His father moved into the front seat, staring at Luke as though he’d never seen him before, as though looking for traces of the lost boy in the man.

  ‘Dad. Oh, God. You’re okay. You’re alive.’ All the things Luke wanted to say began to bubble up in his chest. ‘Really alive.’

  ‘I know you have a million questions.’

  ‘No. Just one. Why?’

  ‘Okay, I know. But let’s go, before the police arrive. Now.’

  Luke obeyed, pulling out onto the road. He set the gun down between him and his father. He didn’t want to touch one, ever again. He turned onto the highway that led back toward downtown Chicago.

  Silence filled the space between the three of them. A horrible, uncomfortable quiet. The adrenaline made Luke eager to talk but he didn’t know what to say. Aubrey started to speak – Luke could hear the catch of her breath – and then she stopped.

  Luke kept his gaze on the black ribbon of the street. He found his voice and it was calm. ‘So. Dad. Why? Why?’

  Warren started to answer ‘I know that there is no…’ then he stopped.

  ‘I want to forgive you,’ Luke started. ‘I just need to understand why-’ he couldn’t go on, his chest heavy with grief and shock.

  His dad said nothing.

  Luke glanced at his father and saw the cool barrel of the gun against the back of his father’s head.

  58

  ‘Where’s the money, Luke?’ Aubrey’s mouth was close to his ear; the tickle of her breath froze him.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  Warren Dantry didn’t move. He glanced over at Luke, eyes wide in surprise.

  ‘The money. I’d like to know where it is, please.’ Aubrey sounded steady, calm, as she had been during the crisis in Lincoln Park, on the jet to New York, in urging them toward the car back at the store. ‘You and Henry said you had it.’

  ‘Why do you-’ and then he saw it. The missing piece.

  If Jane had arranged for Eric to grab him to ransom Aubrey, then she would have used a kidnapper to grab Aubrey. Just a man, Aubrey had said.

  But what if there was no kidnapper? The realization fell into his mind all at once. The burlap hood she said she’d been covered with, even after the kidnapper left. It hadn’t been on the floor or under the bed. His wrists, after being tied to the bed for several hours, were raw. He remembered the smoothness of Aubrey’s skin when he unlocked her shackles.

  No one could prove Aubrey had ever actually been kidnapped. Except Aubrey.

  She’d faked the kidnapping. Which meant… she was in with Jane.

  It was you. You alone, he’d said to Jane. But she hadn’t been alone. She’d had a partner, to keep an eye on the progress of the Night Road. Not a member, but sleeping with a member.

  How had Jane ever found out about Eric’s role in the Night Road in the first place?

  ‘Dad. Did Quicksilver suspect Eric Lindoe of criminal ties?’ He remembered seeing reports about Eric’s bank in his file in the Paris office.

  ‘There have been a number of questionable accounts at that bank,’ he said quietly. ‘Yes, we’ve been watching the bank for a while. We sent the same agent to watch this Arab prince who seemed interested in financing terrorists.’ He swallowed. ‘I think you know her as-’

  ‘Jane.’ Luke glanced back. He had to get her to see reason. If he told her where he thought the money was, she’d just kill them both. His tongue felt like concrete.

  She said, her voice torn with panic: ‘I want to know where the money is.’

  Hidden in plain sight. That little b- Jane had said. ‘Henry lied. He was bluffing.’

  ‘You know where it is,’ Aubrey insisted. ‘You have to. Tell me.’ Her voice cracked. ‘What I’ve been through, goddamn it, I get the money.’

  ‘I won’t tell you unless you put the gun down.’

  ‘Tell me, Luke. Now. Don’t pull over. Keep driving.’

  They raced down the highway, Luke dodging in and out among the scattering of cars.

  ‘You won’t believe me,’ Luke said. His father raised his mauled hands, his eyes wide in pain as Aubrey dug the barrel into the back of his head.

  ‘You just got your dad back,’ Aubrey said. ‘I’ll take him away. Tell me.’

  ‘I thought Eric was using you, but you were using him,’ Luke said. ‘An export/import business, lots of overseas money coming in, payments going out. A perfect way for Eric to stream in money, using your accounts. He thought he was using you, to a degree, at first. But you wanted him to use you. You thought he might be involved in money for the Night Road. Did he pillow talk you, tell you what he was up to?’

  ‘No. Jane and I figured it out on our own. From her spying on the prince for Quicksilver.’

  ‘Jane worked for us, but Aubrey doesn’t,’ Warren said. The Navigator hit a bump and the gun jiggled against his father’s head.

  ‘We aimed m
e straight at Eric,’ she said, her voice calmer. ‘I got into his bed. I got into his head. After I was kidnapped I told him that these Quicksilver people might be willing to help us hide. He bought it.’

  Luke watched her in the rearview. ‘You were never kidnapped. It was just a lure to make him act and to keep you clean. And blameless and above suspicion.’

  She made a noise in her throat.

  ‘Aubrey, you don’t have to hurt anyone.’

  ‘Yes, I do. The money. Jane and I worked on it for months. Where is it?’

  Luke saw a sedan speeding up behind them. Fast.

  ‘I don’t have it. I don’t know where he moved it.’

  ‘You’re lying! Tell me or your father dies.’

  Luke looked up at his father. His father shook his head. ‘Don’t tell her. Don’t let these people win.’

  That little b-. Jane hadn’t meant Eric. She’d meant Aubrey. Jane thought Aubrey had betrayed her.

  The speeding car passed, on the driver’s side, edging Luke’s Navigator.

  Henry. Driving fast, a gun in his hand.

  ‘Oh, Jesus,’ Luke said, slamming the Navigator against Henry’s sedan. The Navigator rocked hard and Warren spun in his seat, grabbing at Aubrey’s gun.

  ‘Tell me where you put the money now!’ she screamed.

  ‘Don’t shoot him!’ Luke screamed back. ‘Eric hid it in plain sight! In your accounts at his bank!’

  Aubrey fired. The bullet caught his father in the chest with a horrifying blast and he collapsed against the passenger door. Luke slammed on the brakes and the car slid into a long skid. Henry’s car rode alongside them, Henry standing up through the sunroof as the cars spun on sheer momentum, not bothering to steer, aiming.

  Luke felt the warmth of Aubrey’s barrel against his neck and then the blast was loud in the car.

  The Navigator skidded to a stop as the sedan hit its side. Luke realized he was still breathing. He could see his father slumped in his seat, eyelids fluttering, his chest a wet wreckage of blood. He wrenched around. Aubrey lay on the seat, bleeding from the side of her throat, eyes open, mouth slack.

  Luke looked to his left and saw Henry, his car stopped parallel against Luke’s, positioned just behind the driver’s door. Henry still stood in the sunroof, a gun in his hand. Now aimed at Luke.

  Luke had no gun.

  ‘My last favor to you,’ Henry said. ‘Do you know where the money is?’

  Luke shook his head. ‘No,’ he lied. ‘No.’

  They were the ten longest seconds of Luke’s life. They stared into each other’s eyes, the gun between them like a long-hidden truth.

  Henry lowered the gun. ‘Don’t come after me.’ Luke could see, for the first time in the scant light of the highway lights, tears brimming in Henry’s eyes. ‘I will not treat you like family again.’ Henry slid down into the driver’s seat, roared his battered sedan off into the night. And out of sight, taking the first exit ramp.

  Luke felt for his father’s pulse. Weak. Erratic. He saw a call button on the Navigator and jabbed it.

  Instead of an emergency service he heard Frankie Wu say, ‘Where the hell are you?’

  ‘Dad needs a doctor, he’s shot, tell me where a hospital is.’

  ‘We got a doctor.’

  ‘He’s been shot, he needs surgery.’

  ‘You can’t take him to a hospital,’ Wu said. ‘Too many questions. I want you to do exactly as I say, Luke. Follow my directions.’

  And Luke Dantry, no longer the most dangerous man in the world, listened and drove off in the dark night, holding his father’s hand, begging him to not leave him again.

  59

  A Week Later

  Northern Michigan, Luke decided, was one of the nicest places you could go quietly insane. He sat on the porch watching the light dapple the waters of the lake, and he folded the newspaper and tucked it where his father would not see it.

  The story had dominated headlines, but not in the way he had expected. A group of suspected extremists had been found dead after a series of explosions. Two had been identified: a dentist from Milwaukee known for sending threatening letters to oil companies, and a pharmacist from a small city in Tennessee, the same town where the E. coli scare had grabbed headlines the previous week. Another man, a known neo-Nazi from Kansas City, had been found several blocks away, with two dozen bombs hidden in first aid kits, and a uniform and passes that would have given him access to the Atlanta rail system. A man who had been dishonorably discharged from the military lay dead on the pavement, and recent information via anonymous phone calls tied him to an attack on an office building in New York. FBI officials suggested the group had planned a bombing in Atlanta, and most likely in other cities as well, but it had gone wrong. Theories as to why were as plentiful as the clouds in the sky. Editorials painted a grim picture of domestic groups of disaffection arming themselves with foreign-bought weaponry. No mention of fifty million dollars in terrorist seed money, or a connection to the shooting deaths of a crazy artist, a Chicago police officer or Eric Lindoe. And no mention of networks called the Night Road or Quicksilver.

  Aubrey Perrault found her rest in the quiet of an unmarked grave in this northern Michigan enclave, a quiet Luke guessed she hadn’t known in her life. Every move she had made: urging Eric to flee with them, sticking close to Luke as he trailed the money, even, as his father told them, buying time for Jane to find Luke by insisting to Mouser that Luke didn’t have the money… all of it an attempt by her or Jane to gain control of the funds. The bombing investigators found fifty million wired into her accounts as part of the bombing investigation; the FBI had seized the money. Aubrey was connected, the investigators concluded, with the terrorist attack. Now the forensic accountants were trying to trace the money back to its source. Anonymous tips kept pointing back to a prominent Arab prince.

  Luke watched the dappled light play on the water. How many names did Aubrey have? How many lies did she live? Luke wondered. He had been smart enough to fight the Night Road and win, but too blind to see she was no victim. She had been one of the architects of this carnage. It was strange to know she had stuck with him simply to help her find the money. If he’d found the hidden thumb drive in her presence, back in Chicago, she would have killed him and taken the file to Jane. Or if she’d checked her account balances, she would have seen the money and she could have taken it and run to Jane. They would have won.

  Luke watched Frankie Wu on the fishing pier, reeling in an empty line. The past few days had been spent fretting over his father, recovering from surgery in a private clinic north of Chicago, one under Quicksilver control. That alone had made him realize the extent of this so-called loose network. They had money, they had resources.

  But so did Henry.

  ‘Have you decided?’ His father wheeled his chair close to the door. Pale, gaunt, but he would recover, the doctors said.

  ‘On dinner? I say steak. We deserve a steak. Now that you’re up and chewing.’

  ‘Sounds good, but I thought more about what your future holds.’

  ‘I’m still a missing person.’

  ‘You don’t have to be.’

  ‘Don’t I? I hardly imagine Henry or the Night Road are going to let me walk back into my old life.’

  ‘We can do a great deal for you.’

  Now Luke watched his father, who was not looking at him, instead studying his hands folded in his lap. He felt a weird whirlpool of love and hate rise in his chest. He’d spent the past days watching his father sleep, recover, slowly regain his strength. And had not yet heard an answer to his one question.

  ‘In gratitude for all you’ve done, Luke, Quicksilver can help you back into your old life.’

  ‘Is that how you make amends to me? Make all the trouble go away? You brought a lot of the trouble on me, Dad. This… war has been building my whole life, and I had no idea that I might be pulled into it. Other than you giving me a Saint Michael’s medal and warning me I might one day have to fi
ght. Were you assuming I’d simply follow in your footsteps? Thanks a lot.’

  Warren studied his splinted fingers, as though he hadn’t heard the sharpness of Luke’s words. ‘Eric’s already been identified as a money launderer since his murder. He screwed around with the audit records trying to cover his transfers. We can fake computer records, make it look like you had previous but innocent contact with him. That he thought you knew about his crimes and that he was pursuing you. We can clear your name in every way that it’s been muddied, given time.’

  ‘Make up a lie so I can live a truth? My old life wasn’t truth. It was all in the service of Henry. Because you left me behind. You abandoned us.’

  Now his father met his steady gaze. ‘I never would have picked this life for you, Luke. It was why I left.’

  ‘Why you lied. Let’s call it what it is.’ Anger that he couldn’t control steamed up in him. Before he was shot they hadn’t had enough time to talk. Only for his father to say he was sorry.

  ‘Fine. Why I lied. But I thought I was doing the best for you and your mom. I didn’t want anyone coming after me to come after you. They killed everyone I worked with. Do you think they would have hesitated to kill my family?’

  ‘They? It was just Henry, Dad. He chased you off, you let him, and he slid into your life. For God’s sakes…’

  ‘I didn’t know it was Henry behind the attempt on me. I swear.’

  For the past week Luke had danced around this truth, unwilling to discuss it until his father was stronger. ‘What you said about Mom. That he killed her…’

  ‘I will always believe he had a hand in her death. Your mother was a smart woman. She could have found out what he was doing. Confronted him. Knowing what we know now he must have killed her.’

  ‘But she would have never been in danger if you’d had the guts to stick around. If you’d put us ahead of your work.’