Island of Thieves

by Glen Erik Hamilton

  “Be smart,” the leader said softly. His clippered hair had receded sharply on either side, leaving a blunt wedge of salt-and-pepper over a deeply furrowed brow. He pressed against Shaw’s side. “I got a target pistol and I’m a good shot. You run, I’ll put a round through your kidney. Might not kill you but you’ll wish it had. Hear me?”

  The growl of an engine echoed through the station. A silver Chrysler SUV roared out the mouth of the eastern tunnel, doing fifty miles an hour. Its high beams made Shaw squint. Commuters surged to the back, shying like frightened goats from a charging bull.

  The Chrysler swerved close to the platform curb. Before it came to a full stop, the leader shoved Shaw after the cyclist, who reached to yank open the back door. “In.”

  Shaw went. The leader piled in behind him, forcing Shaw into the middle of the bench seat. The driver hit the gas, and the leader turned to pull the door shut. Shaw had an instant urge to push the man out, sending him tumbling headlong onto the platform. But the cyclist had his own gun out and stuck it in Shaw’s ribs.

  “Easy, asshole,” the cyclist said, baring his teeth. “None of us will cry if you don’t make it. Especially Vic.”

  He nodded to the driver, who was rigidly focused on threading the needle as the western tracks split into two tunnels. Their SUV plunged into the right-hand tube. Darkness enfolded them. The dashboard lights flipped on automatically.

  Vic’s face looked odd, even from Shaw’s limited vantage in the backseat. When the driver glanced right to check the mirror, the man’s swollen profile became obvious. Violet streaks ringed his eye and had settled into a puffed blackish mass at the lowest point. A busted nose, and maybe his cheekbone as well.

  Good, Shaw thought. I’m not the only one still feeling that fight.

  He stared through the windshield. Nothing to see but the curved concrete walls of the tunnel and the silver stripes of the rail tracks on the subterranean road, showing the way. Within thirty seconds the bright circle of the next downtown station appeared around the bend.

  Vic kept his foot on the gas. The SUV flew through the station’s passenger area. Shaw had a snapshot glimpse of one young woman, no more than ten feet from his window, her eyes and mouth wide and hands reflexively thrown up to ward off the snarling beast. Then the world diminished to concrete and dark once more.

  He tried to remember how many stations on the line were underground. At least one more, under Pioneer Square, and then maybe Chinatown. One of the commuters would have called the cops. Units would be converging where the tunnel finally rose to the surface.

  Except there was no cellular signal underground. Unless a transit cop had spotted them and managed to radio ahead, the SUV might have a clear path, or at least a far enough head start to evade any roadblock.

  They roared through the Pioneer Square station doing sixty. Shaw’s brawny minder shuffled sideways in his seat to unzip his running jacket. Underneath he wore a bandolier lined with half a dozen black and green canisters. Extra grenades. Dark curls of chest hair showed through his sweat-soaked T-shirt.

  The Chinatown station was aboveground but enclosed. The concrete tunnel became two rows of steel fence. Vic didn’t pause except to don sunglasses against the abrupt glare.

  The cyclist clambered into the backseat of the SUV to look out the rear window. He spoke into a radio. “Heading for the drop.”

  “You’re clear,” a woman’s voice replied.

  Karla? The comm static made it impossible to tell from just two words.

  There would be a barrier at the exit, Shaw recalled. A retractable metal blockade that kept crazy or drunken drivers from entering the transit route at the far end and driving headlong into an oncoming train.

  Unless Vic stopped—and he wasn’t even slowing—they would smash into the barrier any second. Did their crew not know about it? Shaw braced for an impact.

  It never came. The baseball stadium loomed to their right. Vic touched the brakes as the road neared Royal Brougham Way.

  “Tucker,” he said without taking his eyes from the road. “Which way?”

  “The ballpark,” the leader answered. “We’ll switch cars in the first lot.”

  Vic nodded, intent on the coming turn. Shaw saw the transit gatehouse, where a guard would stand and control the retractable barrier. The little shed was empty. Jesus, had they killed someone just to bust him out? Tucker and the cyclist both craned their necks in the same direction, perhaps wondering the same thing. Vic swung the Chrysler sharp right. Everyone leaned against the sudden lurch.

  Shaw shoved Tucker hard against the window as he hooked a finger in the ring tab of one of the smoke grenades in the man’s bandolier and yanked. The ring came loose with a sharp pop. Shaw threw an elbow backward into the face of the lunging cyclist and dove for the shotgun seat.

  A modern smoke grenade can produce a hundred thousand cubic feet of opaque vapor in well under a minute. Purple clouds erupted from the little canister to fill the interior of the SUV almost instantly. Tucker’s big hands grabbed at Shaw, missed as the vehicle came too fast off the turn and fishtailed wildly. Shaw was thrown against the passenger door. The cyclist cursed in the fog. Tucker retched.

  Blind in the thick fumes, Shaw smashed the heel of his hand in the direction of Vic’s head. He felt the driver’s Oakleys snap in two. Vic slumped, his already damaged nose jetting warm blood onto Shaw’s arm. The wheel spun. The Chrysler hit the curb straight on with a shuddering bang that was immediately drowned in a second crash as they struck something less surmountable. Shaw’s shoulder bounced off the dash, and he fell onto his ass on the passenger floor, folded almost in two.

  He scrambled to reach the door handle, found it, and shoved the door open with his foot. Huge billows of violet smoke rolled with him onto the sidewalk. He stumbled through the mist toward what he hoped was the street, caring less about direction than distance. He heard another door on the SUV thump open behind him.

  Across Royal Brougham was a Metro depot, a fenced lot with dozens of county buses parked in tight rows. Shaw ran for the chain-link. Traffic was light on the SODO streets, but already two cars had stopped to goggle at the SUV engulfed in purple fog. Cops wouldn’t be far off.

  Shaw glanced back. The Chrysler had struck a streetlamp, crushing the grille and one headlight. Tucker stumbled out of the purple murk. He’d managed to toss the smoking grenade away.

  Lines of barbed wire topped the eight-foot fence to the bus lot. Shaw ran down the avenue to a spot where one of the fence posts was crumpled inward at knee level. Some driver had backed into the post from the sidewalk, buckling the chain-link toward the street. Shaw grabbed the top to haul himself up and under the first line of wire. Barbs tore his shirt as he hooked a leg over the top and wormed his way sideways and over.

  His left side caught fire. He fell to the pavement, more from surprise than distress. Had he punctured his skin on the barbed wire? He pushed himself up and rushed for the line of buses.

  This time he heard the crack of the gunshot. He was nearly to the first of the indigo-and-gold buses, running for the six-foot gap between its rear bumper and the flat front of the next in line. Moving well, though he knew something was wrong. His ribs burned.

  Would they follow? A dozen witnesses on the city street might not stop them, not if they were desperate.

  He ducked between the buses and kept going, winding through the maze of closely parked behemoths. The smoke and gunfire would bring first responders. Tucker’s crew would have to catch him fast or give up the chase.

  Someone in the next row of the transit lot laughed. Shaw changed directions, seeking a new path. If he made it out of the lot, could he get far enough away? Would they be watching the exits? Did they know he was wounded?

  Warm wetness saturated the left side of his shirt. His vision had begun to blur around the edges. Shock. Nothing he hadn’t felt before. He kept going.

  One of the buses had been left open. He deliberated for half a second before climbing
inside. Blood dripped to the steps behind him like a trail of rubies. He found the button to close the bus’s front door and sat heavily on the floor between the rows of seats, out of sight of the windows.

  A fire engine’s horn blared from the direction of the waterfront. Maybe drawn by the smoke. No cop sirens yet.

  Shaw looked down at his left side. Blood loss, yes, but not enough to be life-threatening if he could stanch it. Giving a pint at one of the mandatory drives at Fort Benning would drain more.

  He unbuttoned his shirt and peeled it away. Half-congealed blood snapped like weak chewing gum between the fabric and his body. He craned his neck to look. A three-inch gash had torn away skin and subcutaneous tissue along the second rib from the bottom. Blood seeped from the center of the laceration. The edges were already clotting.

  One of Tucker’s target rounds, he guessed. Aimed for his kidney as promised and not missing the rapidly moving bull’s-eye by much. Jesus.

  The shakes would pass. A few moments of rest were all he needed to get his bearings.

  And then what? He had no wallet or phone. His apartment at the Empyrea was only a couple of miles away, but even if he’d had his keys or his lockpicks, SPD might be pounding on that door right now. The Barracuda was parked in the residents’ garage and registered in his name. No good.

  There was another option. Shaw kept his Ford truck in a garage not far from Bully Betty’s on the hill. The pickup was still under the name of the man who’d once owned the apartment, which was itself a false identity. Safe enough transport. If Shaw could reach it.

  He crawled to the driver’s seat again to find the first-aid kit. The kit and an extra boon. A Metro worker had left a jacket stuffed between the seat and the window. Safety gear, in Day-Glo yellow and gray. Shaw took it and the aluminum box to the rear of the bus.

  His side flamed angrily as he removed his shirt. A sticky blackish patch saturated the fabric from the armpit to the lower hem. With gauze pads and tape from the kits, he bandaged his ribs as firmly as he could, then folded the shirt to tape it over the bandage. Putting the safety jacket on was another chore, but at least he didn’t look like one of the undead. It hung low enough to cover the blood-soaked belt line of his jeans.

  A protective mask was tucked into the kit as well, a leftover from the pandemic days. He put it on.

  It was still early afternoon. Shaw didn’t have his watch—another thing that remained in the hands of King County Corrections—but it couldn’t be much more than half an hour since Kanellis had escorted him out of the jail. It felt more like thirty hours than thirty minutes.

  A siren whooped once from a block away. He couldn’t stay hidden here for much longer. Shaw left the bus and carefully made his way through the rows of buses toward the far side of the depot. The stadium station was there. A train would be the fastest way out of the area, and he could walk right on. Provided that Tucker and Vic and the curly-haired cyclist hadn’t figured that out for themselves. If they were waiting, Shaw would have to hope the cops got to him first.

  The depot’s exit looked clear. The station was next door, mere yards away, its platform empty save for a handful of commuters at the end of their workday. Shaw waited behind the last row of buses until he saw a train coming north. He hurried across the tracks ahead of it. The train stopped. He boarded.

  He backed himself into a corner of the train car to watch the platform. None of Tucker’s crew rushed to beat the closing doors. No cops boarded to begin a sweep through the cars.

  Shaw slumped into a seat. The train would take him back the way he’d just come, plus one stop farther, to Broadway. From there he could walk to the garage and the truck, if his legs held out. The recorded voice cheerily announced the next station, as if all were right with the world.

  His side burned. Not as hotly as his thoughts.

  He was positive the cyclist had been talking to a woman. Even if he wasn’t a hundred percent that the voice had belonged Karla Haiden, it would be willful ignorance to assume the duplicitous former PI wasn’t the leading nominee.

  And despite his pain and exhaustion, Shaw felt elated. He knew why. The same rush that he’d always felt after a mission with his platoon or after a score with Dono.

  The enemy had taken their best shot at him and missed. He was alive. And free.

  Despite his exhilaration, the smile that creased Shaw’s drawn face was less from pleasure than an animal baring of teeth.

  FORTY-ONE

  Dono had constructed hidden compartments in his old cars. Simple holes above the ceiling fabric or cut into the wheel wells. Shaw had been improving on the concept in recent months by experimenting with electronic relays. He parked the truck and remained in the driver’s seat—keeping weight on a pressure plate within—and pressed the rear defrost, child lock, and cruise control in that order. With a hum of small hydraulics, the backseat slid forward three inches on its rails.

  The compartment was so new that Shaw hadn’t had occasion to load it with anything save for a burner phone and two bundles of cash, twenties and fifties. He took them all before leaving the truck and walking to the large storage facility off Union in Capitol Hill. His walk was slightly crooked, a combined result of the pain in his side and his knee, which had begun to twinge again. One more thing he owed Tucker and the boys.

  On the way he turned on the phone and sent a text message to Hollis: GO GET AN ICE CREAM. He powered the phone down again.

  His fifteen-by-ten storage unit was at the far end of the hall. He lifted the rolling door cautiously to keep from stretching any muscles on his left side. The throb from his wound felt like it might be visible, like the wildly beating heart of a lovestruck cartoon character.

  Once inside he found an empty gallon bucket and walked to the water fountain by the elevators to fill it. He returned to switch on the ceiling fluorescents and shut the door. Hanging the lights had been his first task after renting the space. Better illumination than the original sixty-watt bulbs for detail work with locks and electronics. His second chore had been building basic shelves of pine wood. The shelves had steadily filled with duffel bags containing various tools of his trade, from spare computers to cobalt drill bits.

  What he needed now was the duffel containing his trauma kit, assembled from smaller first-aid packages and some additional purchases. Shaw dragged the kit from its shelf and sat on a stool to open it. Sample packets of Percocet were in one of the kit’s inside pouches. He tore open a packet with his teeth and washed the pill down with a handful of water from the bucket.

  He took off the Metro jacket and the folded and gory shirt taped to his torso. The gash reopened when he peeled the gauze away, fresh beads of blood welling up in the clotted line.

  Ugly but minor. The laceration would heal within a week if he kept it protected and didn’t move too much.

  Of course, moving was exactly what he would have to do. Far and fast.

  The bullet graze was too wide and too shallow to permit Dermabonding or stitches. Or at least the kind of stitches he could apply himself. He’d end up making the problem worse if the sutures tore. Cleaning and covering the gash would have to do.

  He removed what he needed from the kit and set each item within reach. More gauze pads plus tubes of lidocaine and antibiotic ointments along with a large roll of athletic tape.

  It had been ten minutes since he’d sent the text. Long enough for Hollis to have taken a quick walk, if he were home. Shaw turned on the burner and dialed a number before putting the phone on speaker.

  “Little Coney,” a female voice said. Young-sounding, maybe a teenager on her summer job, selling soft-serve and sandwiches to the boaters at the big marina.

  “Hey,” said Shaw. “I’m looking for a friend of mine who might be there. Older guy, looks kind of like a nice redheaded gorilla.”

  The girl gave a snorting chuckle. “Um. Nobody’s bought anything for a few minutes. Hang on.” Shaw waited. “Ooh, I think I see him. He’s coming from the docks.”
/>   “That’s him. Could you put him on when he gets there?”

  “Um. We’re not supposta.”

  “It’s kind of urgent. I’ve broken down, and he’s going to help.” If the kid assumed Shaw meant a busted car, that wasn’t technically lying to her. “And he’s a good tipper.”

  “Okay. Just for a minute.”

  “Thank you.”

  Shaw dipped a clean cotton rag into the bucket of water and began to wash the blood and cloth fibers from his left side. He had most of the skin around the wound clean when Hollis’s voice came on.

  “It’s me,” said Shaw.

  “Who else?”

  Shaw held the rag against his side with his elbow and opened the tube of antibiotic. “I need to keep this short. Do you have a spare phone?”

  “Several.”

  “Post the number on the bulletin board.” The Web page for marina residents to share notices of lost belongings or special events. Not open to the public and a site Shaw knew that Hollis could get to immediately without needing further help. Hollis Brant was at least as ingenious as Shaw when it came to building things with his hands, but the finer points of current technology often eluded the smuggler. “Once I call, you can erase the post.”

  “Right,” said Hollis. “You okay? You sound . . . strained.”

  Shaw had been spreading antibiotic over the wound, which continued to seep. Red dewdrops that swelled until their weight allowed them to dribble onto the congealed edge of the gash. Maybe he should have started with the analgesic salve. The Percocet was taking its time kicking in.

  “I’m fine. Give the counter kid a few bucks. I’ll talk to you in fifteen.” He hung up.

  With the wound as clean as he could make it, he taped a stack of three gauze pads over the red furrow and reinforced the tape with additional strips, making an X over his ribs.

  He was desperately thirsty, he realized. The water in the bucket was bloody from his cleaning job. He found a bag with spare dark-colored clothes, there in case he needed to change on the fly for night work. With some care he worked his left arm into the sleeve of a black turtleneck and put it on. Too warm for the season, but at least he wouldn’t attract flies. He dumped the bloody shirt and the yellow safety jacket in the trash on his way back to the water fountain.