Stay

by Victor Gischler

  David made a slow circle, gun up and ready for whatever might come, but nobody else in the lobby remained alive. Cordite and the copper smell of blood hung in the air.

  He went to the elevator and pushed the call button. When the elevator arrived he looked at the button for the penthouse, and as he suspected he needed a key card to gain access to that level.

  He found it in the jacket pocket of the man whose head he’d blown apart with the Airweight. He also took the man’s pistol, another 9 mm but a Browning. There were two extra magazines, and David took those also.

  This is taking too long. If the doorman takes the hint to stay away then good. But if he decided to call the police …

  In every operation, luck played a part. David was using up his allowance for the next ten.

  He stepped back onto the elevator, inserted the key card, and pressed the button for the penthouse. It was on the thirtieth floor.

  David had killed the gunman in the lobby before they could warn anyone in the penthouse. He should have the element of surprise.

  I hope. But that sort of assumption had been wrong before.

  Dead wrong.

  * * *

  The Chechen—Reagan—had gone to support Yousef’s efforts aboard the yacht, but Dante Payne had been correct to heed his instinct and retain the other two specialists he’d hired. He needed them for protection. Yousef had shown him how pedestrian his usual muscle was, an oversight Payne would remedy as soon as the current situation had been concluded. They were men suited well enough for running errands and shooing away flies, but he needed professionals for more dire situations.

  For now, he addressed the five gunmen he still had at his disposal—men originally in his employ before he’d sent for Yousef and the other three specialists.

  “I want you to go to the outer hallway and wait for the elevator,” Payne told them. “Get your weapons out. Point them at the elevator and wait. When the elevator door opens, start shooting. Don’t wait to see who it is. Our men aren’t coming back here, so just shoot. You understand?”

  They nodded, drawing weapons.

  Payne gestured to the Arab with the gray at his temples and the Serb who was lighting yet another of his toxic cigarettes. They were not especially good company, but they were the men who would keep him alive. “Follow me.”

  They followed him back though the penthouse to a door behind the kitchen, and then through that to a maintenance entrance where there was a small service elevator. When originally shopping for a penthouse, some instinct told him an escape route was a good idea.

  “This goes all the way down to the parking levels,” Payne told his protectors. “It’s a back way out and not generally known.”

  They traveled down and got off on the first parking level. Payne started for his limousine, but the Arab put a gentle hand on his shoulder to stop him.

  “Wait.”

  Payne waited.

  “What is the driver’s name?”

  “Emile,” Payne told him. “He has bad teeth.”

  The Arab nodded. “Just a moment.”

  He crossed the garage to the parked limousine and rapped on the driver’s side window with a knuckle. The window came down. Payne couldn’t hear the exchange, but the Arab turned back to him and waved them over. “It’s okay!”

  Payne felt the Serb at his back as they crossed to the limousine. The men were taking their task seriously.

  Good.

  Once inside and buckled up, the limousine circled to the exit and twenty seconds later, they were on the streets of Manhattan.

  Payne didn’t like this. He wasn’t bound for one of his other properties because Yousef had said Sparrow might find him at any of his usual haunts. Payne felt like a bit player in the story of his own life, set adrift in a luxury life raft waiting to be contacted and told the coast was clear.

  He fixed himself a Scotch on the rocks from the limousine bar and guzzled half in one go.

  Dante Payne despised waiting, hated depending on somebody else. He glanced at his wristwatch. What next?

  Back at his penthouse, the elevator arrived, and the doors slid open. His men opened fire at once, emptying their pistols in an apocalypse of fire and lead.

  * * *

  After David hit the elevator button for the thirtieth-floor penthouse and the doors closed, he hit the button for the twenty-ninth as well.

  He exited on the twenty-ninth floor, heard the elevator chime and the doors close behind him as he jogged across the lobby toward a door marked EXIT.

  The stairs. As predicted, the key card unlocked the stairwell doors, too. He was halfway up to the penthouse floor when he heard the storm of gunfire.

  Instead of hesitating, he ran faster.

  David reached the top, exploded through the door, and into the thirtieth-floor lobby, the Beretta in one fist and the Browning in the other.

  Smoke hung in the air. A gaggle of Payne’s goons stood staring slack-jawed into the empty elevator. David felt no inclination to offer them a sporting chance.

  He walked toward them, deliberate, swinging the pistols in a slow arc, firing steadily. The slugs hit hard, blood spraying on the walls and across the carpet. Men twitched and staggered and fell.

  A few attempted to return fire without result. Their pistols were empty from blazing away at the empty elevator.

  A couple were game for the fight and ejected spent magazines, trying to reload fast, but it was hopeless. David kept shooting until they were all down. One quivered, and David shot him again. A groan from another one, and David blasted him.

  David stood a long silent moment, guns pointed at the corpses as if he expected one to rise up and come after him. The only sound was the bump of the elevator doors trying to close on one of the bodies that had fallen halfway into the elevator.

  He tossed away the Beretta. It was empty, and he didn’t have spare magazines for it. He reloaded the Browning. He searched the bodies quickly and opted for a Glock and three extra magazines.

  A pistol in each hand, he entered the penthouse.

  Room to room. Eyes sharp. Ears open.

  Nothing. David was too late.

  Or maybe Payne had never been here at all.

  No. That’s not right. The welcoming committee at the elevator. They knew I might be coming. They were covering Payne’s escape.

  Every time David thought he was ahead, he found out he was a step behind.

  It was starting to piss him off.

  In the kitchen he paused at the refrigerator, opened it, and took out a bottle of water. He didn’t realize how thirsty he was until he started drinking. He tilted it back and kept drinking until it was gone. It was good to get the taste of the East River out of his mouth.

  He was acutely aware of his cold, wet clothes sticking to him. He knew he’d been in the penthouse too long. Dawdling invited ten different flavors of trouble, but suddenly, irrationally, the most important thing in the world was to be dry again.

  He ripped off his wet shirt and tossed it aside, shimmied out of his pants, kicked off the shoes. He gathered his wallet, car keys, blackjack, cell phone, the guns, and extra magazines and went in search of a bedroom. He found it, found Dante Payne’s closets and dresser drawers. Silk suits, tennis outfits. It took some searching but David found jeans, a green V-neck pullover, socks, and deck shoes. The fit was close enough.

  Upon feeling dry again, sanity returned, and he considered his next move. He couldn’t hang around here. He found the same service elevator Payne must have used and took it down to the street level, then left the building via a loading dock.

  He circled the building back to the Dodge and got in, pulled away from the curb slowly as if everything were normal. He passed the building’s front entrance. Quiet. No sign at all that anything was amiss. The doorman hadn’t called the police and hadn’t returned. He probably knew that when one of your tenants was Dante Payne, there were just bound to be nights like this.

  David kept driving until he found a d
ark quiet spot, parked, and dialed Charlie Finn.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Reagan and Payne’s men waited for Yousef on the sidewalk outside of Jerry’s. Yousef had insisted on going in alone, and they’d indulged him. Reagan was the only one who chafed at Yousef’s orders, pestering him with insistent questions. Every minute he spent with the brash Chechen, Yousef liked him less and less.

  “You talked to her?” Reagan asked.

  Yousef nodded.

  “Why?” Reagan demanded. “What can she tell us about Sparrow we don’t already know?”

  “I wasn’t looking for information. I didn’t ask her anything about Sparrow,” Yousef said.

  “Then why?”

  “Sparrow let her live. Would you have?”

  Reagan shook his head. “No.”

  “Now, how would you use this information to your advantage?”

  Reagan thought about it. “I don’t know.”

  “That’s why I give the orders,” Yousef said. “And you take them.”

  * * *

  David sat in the parked Dodge in a spot next to Central Park. He’d dialed Charlie, and it rang five times before going to voice mail. He switched to text messaging instead.

  Charlie, it’s me. David. New phone.

  Ten seconds later the phone rang, and David answered.

  “Holy fucking shit,” Charlie said. “I thought you were dead at the bottom of the fucking river. It’s all over the marine bands. I’ve been scanning in case they found a body.”

  “Good thing I’m a strong swimmer,” David said. “Thanks for hanging in there.”

  “Well, it was a close thing. I was about to pack up my van and my leftover Chinese food and haul ass back to the Bronx.”

  “I still need you,” David said.

  “Bring me up to speed.”

  “Payne wasn’t on his yacht,” David said. “I thought if I moved fast, I could catch him at the penthouse. I came up short. I’ve been crapping out all over town, Charlie.”

  “Then maybe you could use a little good news,” Charlie said.

  “Tell me.”

  “I cracked Calvin Pope’s flash drive.”

  David sat up in his seat behind the Dodge’s steering wheel. “Start talking and don’t leave anything out.”

  “We all know what Pope did,” Charlie reminded him. “Once you or other solo operatives got a guy out of the danger zone, Pope took charge of him. It would be embarrassing for these guys to fall into enemy hands, right? They could talk about everything our government is doing, incursions, all kinds of stuff.”

  David knew this already. It wouldn’t look good for America to talk big about respecting another nation’s sovereignty under the bright lights of the world stage only to find out America was pulling strings behind the scenes to undermine that very same sovereignty. But Charlie was building up to something, so David let him talk.

  “So when those guys were no longer useful, when their cover was blown or whatever, guys like you would get them out,” Charlie said, “and guys like Pope would hide them someplace. Relocate them to the States. The information on the flash drive is a detailed log of every man Pope relocated—name, country of origin, where he was relocated to, all of his personal data and everything.”

  “I’m not getting it,” David said. “That was his job, wasn’t it?”

  “No, you’ve got to listen to me, man,” Charlie insisted. “This information has been compiled in a very specific way to communicate a very specific message. Pope’s job was to hide these guys in out-of-the-way places. You stick a guy in Boise, then the next one in Baton Rouge, then another in Little Rock. Spread them around and they blend in, and then everyone can forget about them.”

  “And you’re saying that’s not what happened.”

  “That is most definitely not what happened,” Charlie said. “A bunch of these guys are clustered around New Jersey and New York. If you’re paying attention, it’s pretty easy to see that a guy like Payne could bring over all his old cronies and reassemble his network right here in Manhattan. A bunch of loyal and experienced foot soldiers all ready to go. There’s also a column with a dollar amount next to each name.”

  “Bribes?” David asked.

  “That’s what it looks like,” Charlie said. “If Pope was on the take, then that’s one thing, but I think it’s even worse. Consider this from a citizen’s point of view. Remember that badass terrorist dude they took from Guantanamo and gave him a trial in the States?”

  “Of course.”

  “Everyone went ape shit. Nobody wanted a dangerous guy like that on American soil, not in their own backyard. Well, that was just one guy. Now imagine people find out terrorists are being relocated by the fucking planeload right in your neighborhood, maybe down the street from your kid’s school or near your church. All because Calvin Pope wanted to line his pockets. How do you think that would sit with people?”

  “I think,” David said slowly, “it might well be seen as a massive policy failure on the part of the federal government.”

  “Benghazi on steroids,” Charlie said. “With every politician in Washington rushing to point fingers or get out of the way.”

  David let that sink in. Subverting a government official was serious. It would be enough to put Dante Payne away for a few years, something Amy had hoped to do before her star witness had been murdered. But in the process, information would be revealed that would set the State Department on its ear. David could imagine the Washington Post headline: “Government Relocates Terrorists and Murderers to Your Neighborhood.”

  “The stuff on this flash drive isn’t just random information that got out,” Charlie said. “It’s a confession. Calvin Pope wanted people to know. For whatever reason, he wanted your wife to know.”

  A long silent moment. It stretched into another.

  “You there, Major?”

  “Charlie, I don’t know what to do.”

  This time it was Charlie’s turn to pause. “Maybe we need to call somebody. This is bigger than we thought at first. There are people besides Payne who won’t want this flash drive making it to the public. We’re getting into some deep water here. Deep water with sharks.”

  David thought about it. The information on the flash drive could put Payne behind bars. But that wasn’t a guarantee. There were never guarantees. Only one course of action would guarantee that Dante Payne would leave him and his family alone, and that was to make Dante Payne go away forever. Knowing what was on the flash drive didn’t change that plan of action.

  “I’ve got to think about this,” David said. “Call you back in a few.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  They hung up.

  David felt a strong urge to call Amy, but the urge to wait until he had better news was stronger. He was failing. He’d spent the night killing men, and yet he was still failing. The strongest feeling of all was shame. He was ashamed of himself for his attitude these past weeks. He’d felt sorry for himself. Pathetic. A sad selfish man, wondering if the Army would call him back to work. To do what? Strap on a gun? To do this?

  David would give anything to return to his drab life of a few days ago, to make Amy coffee in the morning, to drive the kids to school and clean the house and trade banal pleasantries with the moms in front of Anna’s school.

  He’d give anything to go back to a time when his wife and kids were safe and happy.

  And if he ever started feeling sorry for himself again, he would remember this moment right now. Sitting in a rusty Dodge Aspen with no idea if he’d be able to save his family or not. If he made it through this, he would get out the goddamn charcoal grill and make goddamn hamburgers on a Saturday afternoon. He’d talk to his neighbor over the fence. He’d go to the PTA meetings.

  All he needed was the chance.

  David let out a long, tired sigh.

  He turned his head, and his eyes fell upon the logbook he’d taken from Jerry’s. He pulled it into his lap and opened it, began scanning th
e pages, name after name in Gina’s tight, neat penmanship. He paused and raised an eyebrow a few times at prominent names. Dante Payne’s reach went even further than David had guessed, but at the moment none of those names suited his purpose.

  David had to go back nearly six months before he found the name he’d been looking for. He wondered absently if Gina had seen to Calvin Pope’s needs personally, or if she’d simply supervised, bringing in a redhead or a blonde or a black girl, whatever it had taken for Payne to cement his hold on the man.

  Except he hadn’t cemented it at all, had he? Calvin Pope had betrayed his government when he’d taken Payne’s money. And then he’d betrayed Payne. Considering the situation, David thought Pope was currently short on friends.

  Maybe he could use one.

  He scanned across the page, taking in what little information there was that Gina had seen fit to include in the log. No notations about any deviant sexual proclivities, no other personal information. Under contact information, Gina had listed a single phone number. David didn’t recognize the area code, probably a cell.

  He pulled the cell phone he’d appropriated from his pocket, dialed the number. His thumb hovered over the Send button.

  Pope won’t answer, just like Charlie didn’t when he didn’t recognize the number.

  David erased the number and switched to text messaging.

  I want to talk. This is David Sparrow.

  He remembered the text would show up as somebody else and followed up with:

  I took this phone from one of Payne’s men.

  He couldn’t think of anything else to say that might convince Pope to reply, so he simply waited. Five minutes turned into ten. At the twenty-minute mark, David figured it was time to come up with plan B. Maybe he could call Charlie back and find out if—

  The cell phone vibrated in his hand.

  He looked at the phone, eagerly read the incoming text.

  Prove it.

  Prove it. How was David supposed to prove who he was?

  He sat back in the car seat and closed his eyes, trying to recall the memory techniques from training. David had met Pope on only a few occasions, and he tried to recall the last time. An Air Force hangar in Frankfurt, Germany. He tried to place the faces, reconstruct the scene.