“Stick him, goddamn it,” said the largest of them, the one pinning his legs.
Shaw saw the syringe, and the needle. He tried to get his arm free to grab it, block it, anything.
“Hey!” A shout, not far off. A whistle blew, high and piercing.
The slim one holding the hypodermic turned toward the sound. Shaw thrashed with all his strength. The man toppled off his chest. Another blast from the whistle speared through the park.
“Fuck. Deal with that,” the big one gasped, crawling to reach for Shaw’s arm with dark hands as his partner let go.
He missed. Shaw had a hand free. He lashed out at the closest of them, the same face he’d punched a moment before. Blood sprayed from behind the man’s mask, and he fell back, tangling with the smaller man who held the syringe. Shaw kicked hard and hit the large one in the shoulder, hearing a hiss of pain.
His legs were free. He rolled and got to his feet and ran.
Too slow. He had no wind. They would catch him in seconds. To stay in the park was suicide. He lunged left, toward the short concrete wall edging the grounds. If there was an embankment beyond, he could jump down, get to the streets and have a chance of losing them in the streets—
No. They were still over the interstate. A thirty-foot vertical drop onto the northbound lanes.
Below and to his left, a mound of dirt had been heaped on a square abutment between the freeway and a curving on-ramp. Maybe intended for some construction project within the park supports beneath them. Twenty feet down to the steep pile.
No time to debate. They were coming. He sprinted two yards to his left and vaulted the wall. A grasping hand brushed his jacket, an instant too late.
Shaw plummeted.
He hit the soft earth feetfirst and crumpled into a ball from the impact even as he rolled to his right, his momentum carrying him down the mound like a wheel. Dirt filled his mouth and eyes.
Too fast to stop. He was going to tumble off. Fall into the six-foot gap between the dirt mound and the elevated lanes, to break his back or worse far below. As his legs came underneath him, Shaw pushed off desperately, trying to launch himself over the span.
He struck the road on his side, rolling onto the interstate. Pitted concrete scraped the fabric from his elbow and the skin from his hands. He felt a rush of hot wind on his face as a car flew past at sixty miles an hour. A furious bull bellowed. Shaw scrambled to one knee, dazed. The colossal grille of an eighteen-wheeler bore down on him. He flung himself aside, catching a shuddery glimpse of the driver’s terrified face and the wheels turning. The truck boomed past, its wake whipping Shaw’s shirt and jacket as if he’d been slapped. Its rear tires missed his leg by the width of a bootlace.
More horns howled. But Shaw was on his feet now, teetering on the faded white stripe between lanes like a man walking a tightrope. The oncoming traffic blared and screeched its terror. He dodged a minivan and stumbled across the remaining lanes. His knee twinged with every step. He ignored it. His attackers might still be in pursuit, circling on foot or in a car.
He reached the shoulder on the far side, touched the wall of the underpass with raw palms, and pushed off to keep going. North. A hundred yards up the freeway, Hubbell Place curved to run alongside the northbound lanes. City streets, and a dozen ways to disappear. Shaw focused on putting one foot in front of the other, faster and faster as the morning sun broke through the pall of clouds. Racing for daylight.
THIRTY-ONE
“My Lord,” Addy said. “What happened to you?”
The adrenaline rush of having escaped had worn off by the time Shaw reached Holliday House and snuck around back to tap on the TV-room window. His fingers left daubs of wet dirt on the glass, matching the smears he made on the stucco wall as he leaned exhaustedly against it. Addy had pulled back the curtain and, after a moment’s understandable gawking, motioned to the back door. She’d made him take off his muddied jacket and boots before coming inside. His pants were equally filthy and torn in two places from his tumble into speeding traffic.
Addy led him to what appeared to be a game room for the residents. The floor was linoleum, easy to wipe up the clots Shaw left. He tried to get his teeth to stop chattering.
“Don’t suppose you have an extra hoodie or something,” he said.
“There’s a lost and found. It might have a discard. You had a bad night, I take it.”
“The night was first-rate. It’s the morning that’s been rough.” He sat down on the floor to rest his back against a Barcalounger. Donated, like almost all the care home’s furniture. Its covering felt like steel wool. Or maybe that was his skin. His legs ached as though each muscle had been struck with an aluminum bat. His knee protested at being straightened.
“I need to check on Penelope,” said Addy. “Make us some tea or something.” She waved a distracted hand at the kitchenette opposite the TV room.
Shaw stayed where he was. Preoccupied by thoughts of what had happened at the park.
Three men had attacked him. More than that, they’d tried to dope him. Or worse. The memory of the hypodermic made Shaw’s jaw clench. At least it stopped his teeth rattling.
If he hadn’t known better, the assailants would be an easy match with Kilbane and Castelli and Pollan. Those three had plenty of motivation to make a run at him.
Except that the Droma security squad was uniformly tall and white. Even the woman on Kilbane’s team, Pollan, had a honed V shape from long hours in the weight room.
The men in the park had been unalike, from one another as well as from Kilbane’s people. Shaw remembered the dark hands and forehead above the mask of the largest attacker, the man who seemed to be their leader. The one whose nose he’d likely broken was broad and short, with a powerful bulldog physique. The last man, the one with the syringe, had been wiry.
A different crew. New enemies.
That didn’t necessarily absolve Kilbane. He might have hired thugs to take Shaw out. What had been their plan? To give Shaw a hot shot of heroin and antifreeze and watch him spasm his way into death? Maybe the dope was to knock him out for a while, get him someplace where Kilbane could take his sweet time breaking every bone.
Then Shaw thought of Karla. The crew must have known he was at the hotel with her, to have been waiting for him outside.
Had they tailed the Barracuda from his apartment? That would require them to know where Shaw lived. A big hurdle. The apartment’s lease had been signed over to Shaw, but it wasn’t where he received his mail, nor was it his address of record for banking and credit cards. Leaving aside friends like Wren and Addy, the only people aware of Shaw’s real address were the management company, the lawyer who’d handled the lease, and a lieutenant he knew in the SPD.
No. He hadn’t been followed. They must have latched on to him after he’d arrived at the Crowne Plaza.
Maybe they’d been watching Karla. Spotted Shaw on the date with her and waited through the night. Once they saw him leave the lobby and walk away on foot, they took the opportunity. Dropped two of the team off to run into the park after him while the other man circled to close the net from the other side.
Possible. But if it were true, it meant Karla was under surveillance. Who’d have a whole team assigned to watch one financial analyst?
Which left the simplest explanation. Karla had told them Shaw would be there. Perhaps even signaled them the moment he left her room.
Shaw didn’t like that theory. Or didn’t want to like it. But he made himself examine it as coolly as he could.
Karla had told him Chen Li had brought a chemical sample to the island for testing. And that everyone was asking what had happened to it after Nelson Bao was killed. Shaw rubbed his sore shoulder. It was a workable supposition that the sample was what the three men had been after. Did they think he had taken it off Bao’s body? Had Karla been setting him up from the start?
Odds were ten to one that Karla was exactly what she seemed to be. A bean counter, trying to put together an impo
rtant deal.
So how did they know where you were? the cold, furious part of him whispered.
He shook his head. The whole tangle with Chen and Zhang had him seeing spies everywhere. Too many theories, not enough hard facts. He needed a closer look at Karla Lokosh, or Haiden.
Not that you could get much closer to her than you’ve been already.
Damn it. He liked Karla. Both her company and the sex, which had been extraordinary.
That could be how she works. Getting close. Gaining your trust.
Shaw got to his feet and went to make the tea. The voice wouldn’t shut up.
Did she make sure you left a little later than you’d planned this morning? Giving the hit team time to get into position?
She’d told him about the chemical sample, even though it was proprietary information. Risking her job.
Sure. That’s what con artists do. They show how much confidence they have in you. Wasn’t it she who suggested whoever had the missing sample could sell it back for serious cash? That might have been an offer for the man who could recognize it.
Shaw’s fingers tore the lid from the box of Darjeeling. He made himself take a breath and shoved the thoughts away hard.
Maybe she really does like you, the cold voice said as it retreated.
And just maybe you can use that.
James Hargreaves had been expecting the call from Tucker by half past six. Even with a margin of a quarter hour, the men were late. When his phone finally rang at eight minutes after seven, he had already accepted that the news would be poor and was assessing the likeliest contingencies.
“Shaw escaped,” said Tucker. The man knew better than to equivocate. “We converged in the park outside the girl’s hotel. A civilian interrupted. We chased her off before she could bring the police, but Shaw broke loose. He fell down to an embankment and onto the freeway.”
“Injured?”
“Not significantly. He’s a fighter.”
“So are you, supposedly. All three of you.”
“Yes, sir,” Tucker said.
“Outnumbered and taken by surprise, and he still eluded you and Vic and Louis put together. Perhaps I should be employing Shaw instead.”
Tucker didn’t say anything. Hargreaves imagined the furrows deepening in the man’s grim black face. His lead field operative was not demonstrative, but Hargreaves knew how much of Tucker’s self-worth was tied to successful execution of his job. And, correspondingly, how much harder he would work to make good on a mistake.
“Right,” said Hargreaves. “Call this a lesson learned. It reinforces our original assessment of the man, that he’s resourceful. Likely in business for himself.”
“What about the woman?”
“Plan B becomes Plan A. We hired her for a reason.” Hargreaves smiled to himself. “Let’s see what Karla can do.”
THIRTY-TWO
Shaw said a brief hello to Penelope when she woke in her room at Holliday House, initially groggy from the sleep and her medications.
“How’s the foundation? Crossroads?” Penelope managed to say after a sip of water. Her elfin frame was bundled in blankets, with only her thin face and a fall of light brown hair streaked with gray above the folds. But her eyes were bright and clear after a night’s rest.
“The therapists you found are great,” said Shaw. “We’re in the money-gathering stage now.”
“That stage never ends. You let me know if there’s something I can do. I should be going home from here within the week.”
Addy prepped a few things for the daytime staff and kissed Penelope on the cheek before they left. Shaw drove Addy home in her battered Subaru.
“Did Penelope mean she was going home because she’s on the mend or because there’s nothing more they can do for her?” he asked as they waited at a stoplight.
Addy sighed. “The former, happy to say. But it’s all fits and starts. We don’t expect the girl has much more than a year, even with the best prognosis.” Addy frequently referred to her friends as girls, even though, like Penelope, most had seen their seventieth birthday pass some time ago.
“It’s amazing that she wants to work.”
“Well, of course she does. Nothing keeps the spirit up like feeling wanted. Useful.”
Cyndra was asleep on the living-room sofa when they arrived, the massive white bulk of Stanley lying on the floor next to her like an ice floe. He raised his head and his tail thumped heavily on the rug, but he stayed put.
“Kept you up all night, did she?” Addy said, sitting on her ottoman to scratch Stanley’s taco-size ears. “Poor boy.”
Shaw tapped Cyndra’s shoulder until the girl sat up, blinking. He found some running pants on the shelf reserved for his things in the linen closet, changed out of his ragged trousers and threw them in the trash, went to the kitchen to make coffee, and returned to the living room to find Cyn still in the same position, staring blankly at the curtains. He sat on the floor by Stanley and stretched his legs, trying to get some blood moving. He could tell that his knee wasn’t seriously hurt, but it would be a few days before he’d feel up to throwing any roundhouse kicks. Cyndra stood up with the blanket and disappeared into her room without a word.
Addy glanced at him. “So were you going to tell me what happened this morning?”
“I’m not sure myself. I was attacked. I got away.”
“That’s all?”
“The abridged version, yeah.” Addy could handle hearing about the violence, but Shaw had decided he was too wiped to argue with her about involving the cops. “I got offered a job.”
“While you were being assaulted?”
“Before that. It’s good pay—very good pay—and all the perks. It would also mean a lot of travel. Starting immediately. Today.”
“On a Sunday. They must really want you. This is legitimate work?”
“Yes. Or technically legit. The offer might be a kind of payoff. The company’s trying to make some sort of big merger. I know a lot about it. As an employee I’d be beholden to keep my mouth shut, at least until the deal was finalized.”
“Protecting a company’s secrets is pretty normal fare. What’s the catch?”
“Somebody died while I was on the island. And a corporate secret might have been stolen. It’s all very warped, and I know I’m not getting the whole truth.”
“Yet with all that you’re undecided.”
“Crossroads could use the money. So could we, for that matter.”
Addy waved a hand. “The house is paid for. The child has food. We’re fine.”
“Maybe it’s me.” Shaw smiled. “I’d have to grow up.”
“Ask them for more time to think about it. Maybe their reaction will tell you something.”
He nodded. “They wanted an answer before noon. I’ll do it now.”
His call went to Linda Edgemont’s voice mail. Shaw explained that he needed another day to weigh the offer and to set his things in order to be out of town, and that he appreciated the consideration. The business-speak didn’t feel natural, coming out of his mouth. He hung up unsure if he’d sounded like he was mocking them. Maybe he had been, unconsciously.
Addy readied herself for bed while Shaw used the living-room computer to search for mentions of Karla Lokosh. She had a LinkedIn listing, noting her time at Bridgetrust and previously at a company called Atwater Marketing. Both were finance jobs. She’d been promoted twice during her five years with Bridgetrust.
She had social-media accounts, too, none of which showed many posts beyond intermittent individual photos of her on skiing trips to Colorado and Utah and some snapshots of restaurant meals. That wasn’t odd in itself. He imagined that investment firms were conservative by nature. Posting selfies during wild nights out or leaving photos from past relationships wouldn’t do Karla’s career any good.
He tried searching for Karla Haiden. There were other women on the eastern side of the nation with that name; none of the top results was the redhead he knew. He refin
ed the search by trying “finance” without success, and then “dance.” Karla had said she taught classes; she might be listed on the faculty of some studio.
One result on the second page caught his eye, from Berklee College. In Boston. He clicked on it.
It was an archived photograph from the school’s performance season of twelve years before. A troupe of fifteen or sixteen dancers, caught in motion. Radiating out from center stage, leaning back with an angle and length that would be impossible for the average human. The show was called Lonesome Heart: Beats. Each of the dancers wore black long-sleeved leotards and capri dance pants in metallic gold and black stripes. All their hair had been pulled back and ruthlessly tamed into buns.
The performers’ names were listed along with the director and key technical crew in a tightly spaced paragraph below the picture. Shaw found hers squeezed into the lines below: Karla Haiden, 3rd year.
The picture was sharp but taken from a distance. He examined the photo again, trying to discern the faces of the dancers who were white and female. Their figures were too much alike, given the naturally lithe people who would pursue dancing into adulthood and the years of hard training that had refined their bodies in similar ways.
He found her on stage left. Leaning back like the others, right arm thrown high and balanced on her left leg. Her hair had been a darker red then. She was turned partly away from the camera. But it was her. Shaw was sure. He could almost smell the clove scent of her hair.
It didn’t tell him any more than he’d already guessed. She had been born Karla Haiden, changed her name to her husband’s, most likely, and kept it after the divorce.
And if her online presence was as carefully trimmed as a topiary animal, so what? There were good and rational reasons for a woman to have little to no online presence. Privacy. Security. Professionalism.
None of that eased his mind.
Island of Thieves Page 19
