Trust Me Page 25

  33

  Luke ran. Not deeper into the parking lot, where he knew the Mercedes sedan could corner him as their partners had caught Aubrey; nor back toward the razor-tipped fence where the two men had corralled him.

  He ran toward the highway.

  The grass funneled out into a short expanse - maybe sixty feet across - and then a service road and then the torrent of cars, traffic still brisk at a late hour, people returning from Manhattan.

  Behind him, the Quicksilver Mercedes vroomed off the asphalt lot, onto the dry grass.

  Blood coursed down his calves where the wire had bit. He did not dare glance behind him; he did not want to see. It was worse than being pursued by Mouser and Snow because this was teams, coordinated, an inexorable fist closing around him.

  Luke hit the service road and a minivan laid on its horn, nearly veering off the road trying to avoid him. The van revved past him, leaving a wake of burnt stench and a scream of you crazy asshole as he ran. The pursuing Mercedes lurched across the grass, closing the distance fast, and now he glanced back, saw a rear window powering down.

  He measured his options in one glance. He could go to the right, where the service road curved toward a distant intersection and the Mercedes could run him down or scoop him up. Or he could go left, where he’d be running headlong into one-way traffic. But to the left was an entrance ramp onto the highway, bordered by a crash barrier, so the Mercedes would have both to go against the one-way traffic and make a 180-degree, sharp-as-nails turn to follow him onto the highway.

  He headed for the ramp.

  Two cars hurtled at him, both screaming with their horns and he ran between them, feet snapping on the white line. He ran like a machine, the wind carrying him, trying to urge every bit of speed from his tired muscles.

  A screech yowled behind him, metal sliding, skimming hard against other metal. He turned as he sprinted along the highway entrance ramp, another car zooming past him in a blur.

  Luke stormed up the ramp, and he glanced back. The Mercedes began a sharp turn to navigate the entrance, smoke misting the wheels.

  Five lanes of traffic, a median wall, and then five more lanes. They would catch him if he hugged the shoulder and ran in the direction of the traffic. Or smear him like jam along the concrete.

  But a stream of traffic coursed by, and he couldn’t get across the lanes in time; it would be a violent waltz where one wrong step or one veering driver would kill him.

  No time to hesitate. He saw the approaching cars and their headlights, and he had to dodge them.

  A belching semi rocketed past him and he ran the first lane in its wake, seeing a station wagon in the second. The wagon slammed brakes and he jumped and ran around it, clearing it and the third lane as the station wagon resumed speed.

  The Mercedes powered fast onto the highway. He froze, no choice, five zooming sedans powering past him. He was trapped, the Mercedes approaching, trying to navigate to his lane.

  The Mercedes aimed dead on for him as the fifth car blasted by and he ran, brakes screeching, a crunch as a car swerved over into another lane, its side crumpling against another sedan. The Mercedes cut around the cars, heading straight for Luke. He could see the triumph on the driver’s face.

  Then the Mercedes was rear-ended by a brake-slamming truck.

  Luke turned and ran through the final lane and vaulted the concrete wall. The slowing of traffic had already started due to the inexorable human urge to rubberneck and while the New York-bound traffic didn’t slam to standstill, he managed a short, brutal dash to the opposite side.

  A truck barreled past him on the exit ramp, clearing him by inches, and he fell on the concrete and saw the tires just miss his outstretched fingertips. He looked up and the truck was past him, slowing at the end of the ramp, brake lights brightening. He cleared the ramp by hurtling himself over its edge, dropping fifteen feet to soft dirt. He went to one knee, weary with the cold, shaking and the adrenaline turning on him, burning like poison in his veins. He staggered back to his feet and caught his breath, the quavering in his legs finally easing.

  He ran down the service road, the weight of the knapsack heavy on him.

  They got Aubrey. He had to get her back.

  He ran to the intersection where an all-night mart sat in a puddle of streetlight. He walked in and heard the soft sounds of Indian sitar music drifting above the shelves. A few minutes ago he’d been dodging cars, now he was shopping. He wondered if he looked shell-shocked. He bought a first-aid kit and a hot coffee and a bottle of water. He went to the bathroom and inspected his cuts. A thin shallow one marked his stomach - the concertina wire had nipped him where his shirt had been hiked and twisted. Another cut had sliced through the back of his jeans, a scoring across his calf and lower back that stung even more when he saw them. He smeared on disinfectant gel, applied adhesive bandages to the worst of the cuts, and swallowed aspirin. He downed the cold water in four long gulps. He drank the still-warm coffee and the heat began to seep into his blood, under his skin.

  Luke left the mini-mart and walked away from the highway. He had to keep moving. But it was late and they would not stop hunting him. He did not feel panic; rather the calm of resolution.

  He was going to take the war back to these people.

  First things first. He was still entirely too close to the air park and the highway, and the Quicksilver team might have friends.

  He found a taxi letting off passengers close to a bus station. He showed the cabbie the address for Quicksilver he’d stolen from the food manifest.

  ‘That address, you know what part of the city that is?’

  ‘That is near NYU in Greenwich Village,’ the cabbie said, after consulting a detailed map.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  The cabbie informed him of everything wrong about New York, a city Luke had always enjoyed visiting. Luke sat in the back seat and listened only enough to make agreeing grunts when required for politeness. When they reached Washington Square, Luke asked the cabbie to let him out at the entrance to the park. Luke walked through the darkened paths and sat down on a bench. He surveyed the immediate area for trouble and police and saw only a drunk reclining on a bench thirty feet away, staring at the grass as though it held the secrets of the universe.

  What will they do with Aubrey?

  He imagined the worst for a long while and when the drunk approached and asked if he had five bucks, he got up and walked out of the park. He did not walk to the Quicksilver address. He found a small hotel that catered to New York University visitors and paid cash for a minuscule room. He registered under a fake name, Brian Blue, because a weird abstract blue painting hung in the lobby, and Brian was the name of the annoying neighbor who’d badmouthed him on the television news. He sprawled on the lumpy bed. He wanted to curl into the cocoon of sleep but he couldn’t. They had Aubrey. She had been kidnapped, again, and the thought of what she must be enduring burned. Being kidnapped at gunpoint, he knew, was not something you got accustomed to, even with practise.

  He had thought he was taking them to safety. He wished he had talked her into going to the police; now she’d be safe. And he would be able to give up this fight, just vanish, run, find a nice big rock to hide under.

  He stared out the window. Running was no life. Hiding was no life. He couldn’t give up, not yet. He had never felt so alone, even chained in the cabin. There, escape had been the only option he could pursue. But now, he could try to save Aubrey, or go to the police and surrender, or try and fight the Night Road and Henry.

  He unpacked the knapsack. The useless gun, the laptop that he’d already picked clean. He pulled Eric’s key ring from his pocket. The Chicago Bulls toy basketball on the end of the ring caught on the pocket’s inside lining. He yanked it free.

  There was a slight catch on the edge of the toy ball, under the Bulls logo. He hadn’t noticed it before. He worked his thumb on the catch.

  The ball popped open.

  Inside was a USB plug, the kin
d that slid into a computer port.

  The other half of the basketball was solid. It was a hidden thumb drive; a portable way to carry computer files.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Luke said in the silence of the room. He powered up the laptop and logged in. Then he slid the secret thumb drive into the laptop.

  The thumb drive appeared on the screen. Holding his breath, biting his lip, he clicked on it. Inside was a single file. He tried to click it open, but all he got was a dance of gobbledygook, glowing random numbers and letters, across his screen.

  The file was encrypted.

  Eric had started his career in bank operations; he would know about encryption. Luke knew then this must be the file that contained the whereabouts of the fifty million dollars. Nothing else could be so important. The thumb drive was Eric’s insurance in the face of certain death from the Night Road, his bargaining chip for Quicksilver. He’d simply carried it in his pocket.

  This was the information on where the fifty million was hidden, and the key, he knew, to stopping Henry and the Night Road.

  But he had no idea how he could access the information. The encryption key needed to be on the computer, and it wasn’t on this laptop.

  He tucked the gun under his pillow; even empty, it reassured him. And he put the key ring under the pillow as well. Luke closed his eyes and the weight of what he knew he must do pressed him into fitful exhaustion.

  As the darkness pressed against the windows, the eyes of the Night Road and Quicksilver kept watch, scanning every credit charge, every hotel database, looking for Luke’s name, Eric’s name, any sign, any mistake that would signal his location.

  And while the thousand electronic eyes watched, he slept.

  34

  The day had nearly driven Mouser mad. Snow made a poor patient; she slept fitfully, waking often to worry if Hellfire would be canceled. Mouser kept waiting on the Night Road hacker to pierce the GPS database and hand him Aubrey and Luke. He’d paced tracks in the already questionable carpet of the South Chicago motel room. Snow alternated between uncomfortable sleep and watching him fret.

  ‘You had him in the basement,’ she said finally. ‘Is that what’s preying on your mind, baby? Because I had him in the woods and he got away from me.’

  ‘I’m not happy with how we’ve done. We can do better.’

  ‘Come here,’ she said. ‘Lie down next to me and see if you can’t calm down.’

  He swallowed, thinking he shouldn’t. ‘I hate this waiting.’

  ‘I need a little more warmth than the blanket,’ she said. He lay down next to her certain she couldn’t want him, not after being shot in the shoulder. But she did. He was conscious of her bandages and was very gentle with her. The whole time her small mouth was a hard little O and he wasn’t sure if she was happy or angry until the savoring smile broke across her face at the end. Afterwards he watched the ceiling and thought: God sent her to me, to be my helper against the Beast. I’ve had bad luck with catching Luke but that all changes now. He’s running out of rope. He can’t go to the police. He can’t go much anywhere where the Night Road can’t find him.

  ‘You know why I hate the government. Why do you?’ Her breath warmed his shoulder.

  He didn’t intend to answer but then her fingers began a slow meander across his stomach.

  ‘I knew Tim McVeigh,’ he said.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I’m not bragging. We weren’t buddies, but we’d met at a couple of … meetings of folks who didn’t like the government infringing on peoples’ rights. I had some acquaintances, who decided they would emulate McVeigh by bombing a big shopping mall. I didn’t know about the plot but I got hit with a jail sentence because they’d called me and asked me about acquiring explosives, and I didn’t turn them in. They blabbed about me, I hadn’t done anything wrong and yet I went to prison for five years.’

  Snow was silent.

  ‘So. In there I met a guy. Henry. Interviewing so-called domestic terrorists, delving into our heads. Trying to figure out if I hated my dad, was dominated by my mother, psychobabble crap.’

  ‘He thinks terrorists hate their dads?’

  ‘Some of them. He said it was a consistent pattern. I got a friend outside to send me one of his books.’

  ‘I would have died for my dad,’ Snow said softly. ‘I know what loyalty is.’

  ‘He and I kept talking. I liked talking with Henry. I got out and I sort of bummed around, did mechanics’ work when I could find it. And kept thinking about how I could make the Beast pay for taking five years of my life.’

  He felt her fingers grope along his chest, skirt the tattoos that read glory and death that spread across his muscles, move down across the flat of his belly.

  ‘We lost a lot from the government,’ she said.

  ‘You more than me. Your family. I remember the rage I felt, after Waco, after Ruby Ridge, after what happened to your compound in Wyoming …’

  ‘Show me,’ she whispered, closing her hand around him. ‘Show me that rage.’

  He made rougher love to her in answer, not caring about her injured shoulder. She gasped and writhed, gritting her teeth. When they were done she put his head on her stomach and rubbed his hair, gently. He felt he could have stayed there forever, safe against her skin. Wrong feeling. The mission was more important. The mission trumped all.

  Just before ten p.m., his cell phone rang. Mouser scooped it up. ‘Yes?’

  The Night Road hacker said, ‘I found your target.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I got a lead on them from a traffic camera last evening. That gave me a starting point for searching the GPS database and getting a read on them. Aubrey Perrault’s car is now at Lakefront Air Park. Private aviation field north of the city.’ He fed Mouser the address.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘When you kill the cop for me … send me the news clipping.’ The hacker hung up.

  Mouser got off the bed and climbed into his clothes. A private air park. First Eric’s name forged on a passenger manifest, now a private jet to whisk them out of Chicago. He and Snow and Henry were clearly up against someone with serious resources. ‘Get up,’ he said, sharper than he intended.

  Snow sat up, let the sheets pool at her waist. ‘I need my bandage changed.’

  ‘Get up. Now. They’re at an airport, they’re leaving the city, we got to go now.’ All gentleness in him was gone. Nothing else mattered.

  Mouser parked. The small airpark appeared closed. He spotted a security guard - older, African-American, heavy-set - walking along the sidewalk in front of the terminal building.

  They surprised him with their guns, hurried him into the building, using his electronic pass key.

  The guard was afraid for his life. He kept telling Mouser he had a wife, two daughters, three grandsons. He kept repeating their names, a threadbare litany. Like invoking saints who would protect him.

  Snow studied the computer’s database; it had not been locked. ‘Two people logged as taking a flight to New Jersey’s Ridgcliff Air Park. Pilot, Frankie Wu. Passengers, Eric Lindoe and Aubrey Perrault.’

  ‘That smart bastard.’ Mouser shook his head.

  Snow raised an eyebrow. ‘I strongly suggest you lose that slight tone of admiration.’

  ‘Nita. Shawnelle. Latika. Joy. Trevor. David. Shawn,’ the guard said, eyes on the floor, as though he could see the faces of the loved ones in the texture of the carpet.

  ‘Hold them in your thoughts,’ Mouser said. ‘May I ask you a question?’

  The guard - in his sixties - looked up, his face crumpling with grief. I guess you don’t get any more ready to die even when you’re old, Mouser thought.

  ‘Before you worked here, what did you do?’

  ‘I’m retired. From the police department.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Mouser said, and paid his bill to the hacker with one quick shot.

  Snow watched, then returned her gaze to the screen.

  ‘On the computer, who paid for the f
light?’ Mouser asked.

  ‘Quicksilver Risk Management.’

  ‘Get us tickets on a red-eye to New York.’ He smiled; he had not even smiled when they’d made love. ‘I’m glad to finally know who our enemy is.’

  35

  At first, Aubrey thought she was dead.

  Darkness surrounded her. She blinked and awareness slowly warmed her. Her hand lay stretched above her head, tingling from lack of circulation, and she thought for one surprising second that she lay back on the narrow hard bed in the east Texas cabin, waiting for Eric to come save her, the poor gallant fool. Of course she wasn’t and she gave a half-laugh, half-cough.

  She moved, stretched, let her fear subside and let herself drink in her surroundings. Her hand lay bound above her head and her desert-dry mouth tasted of chemical gunk. Thirst crushed her throat.

  She moaned. The flight to New York had gone so wrong. Why had she gotten involved in this madness? The plan hadn’t worked. She remembered the men closing in on her, manhandling her into the back seat of a car, trying to fight. Screaming. A needle piercing her flesh, then an awful sodden blackness that smothered her. Vague notions of a buzzing noise, darkness, the hum of machinery. She felt as though she’d slept for days. Years.

  Everything had gone wrong. Luke. Did they get Luke?

  A faint light switched on and Aubrey could see she lay in a narrow bedroom. She tried to blink past the medicinal haze that fogged her thoughts and focus on the man’s face that appeared above hers.

  A man’s face. Familiar, maybe? But then she closed her eyes. She opened them again and the haze cleared and she didn’t know this man.

  ‘Aubrey.’

  Her lips formed an answer. ‘Where am I?’

  ‘Where is a good start. Tell me where Luke Dantry will go.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  The voice - she kept her eyes closed because she did not want to look at him again - did not respond. Fingertips moved hair from her eyes. ‘Am I to believe that two kidnapping victims who have endured as much as you and Luke Dantry made no contingency plan if you were separated?’