"You going to puke?" Dan asked.
"No." I massaged my forehead, trying to soothe the pain. "You didn't have to knock me out."
Again, he sounded apologetic. " 'Tasha's orders. We had to take you back to the street, long drive, she didn't want you making talk, you understand."
"You could have gagged me."
"She said knock you out, I do what she says."
He reached past me and pushed open the doors at the back of the van, climbed out, and offered me a hand. I ignored it, swung my legs around slowly, and got out.
It was night, though how late I couldn't tell, and at some point while I'd been out it had rained, because everything around us glistened with reflected light. The humid air stank of feces and rotten food, and I looked around and saw water and then the length of Manhattan in the distance, and I realized I was smelling the Hudson. A sign at the corner of the street said we were at Frank Sinatra Park.
"Hoboken."
"Hoboken," Dan confirmed cheerfully, slamming the rear doors. Then he came around to where I stood, handed me a paper lunch bag, and then passed me and climbed behind the wheel.
"Wait," I said.
"No. No more waiting," he replied, starting the engine with one hand and slamming the door with the other. He leaned out the open window. "Good to meet you, Mr. Kodiak."
For some reason, I shook his hand when he offered it. Maybe it was my expression or my grip, but it gave him a last laugh, and then he put the van in gear and pulled out. I watched as the taillights went down the block, then slipped around a distant corner.
There didn't seem to be anyone else around. A couple of boats were out on the Hudson, moving lazily on the water, and I saw the lights of a helicopter as it lifted off from the heliport on Thirty-fourth Street. Seconds later, the sound of the rotors reached me, then faded. From Hoboken I could hear traffic, automobiles on the main roads, but there didn't seem to be a lot of them, and I thought it had to be past midnight, if not later. To the north, over the river, I could see the lights spanning the GW Bridge. A couple cars were parked along the curb nearby, though there was no sign of any of the owners. One of them was a Ford Escort, and I looked at the license plate and confirmed that it was the same one I'd driven from the cemetery.
I remembered that I had a paper bag in my hand and decided now would be the best time to open it. Inside was a key, another cheap Motorola walkie-talkie – this one blue – and my watch. The key went with the Escort.
I put the watch on my wrist, the key in my pocket, and dumped the bag in a trash can at the edge of the park before switching on the walkie-talkie. Then I pressed the transmit button.
"I'm here," I said.
"I know, " Drama said. "How's your head? "
"It hurts. Are we almost finished? It's been a long day."
"For us both. If you 're asking if I'm ready to return her, the answer is yes. Shall I tell you how this will work? "
"Please."
"I am sitting behind an Accuracy International AWM, which is pointed at your principal's head. As long as you do as I say, sighting her will be all that I do. However… "
"I understand."
"I never doubted that you would. You will keep the radio on and I will direct you to her location. Begin by turning to your left and proceeding to the corner. Stay to the sidewalk. At the corner, turn right and keep walking. I'll let you know where to stop. "
Turning left meant leaving the park and walking down Third Street about twenty yards, putting my back to the Hudson. On my right, a chain-link fence stood about eight feet high, topped with barbed wire. Beyond it, in the darkness, I could see what had once been space for piers and warehouses, but was now nothing more than an enormous expanse of broken pavement, scattered with rusting pieces of scaffolding and some very determined weeds that had managed to push through the cracks in the concrete.
The corner was River Street, and I made the right, still following the fence. Fifteen feet or so along, the weeds thickened, spilling through the fence, and a large sign hung on the chain-link, stating that the area was slated for development, to be "reborn" as something called The South Waterfront. I'd read about it in the papers, but never actually been down here before. A lot of construction was planned for the area, Sinatra Park being only a small part of it. Office buildings and hotels were supposed to start going up soon, financed by the likes of Trump and Lefrak. There had even been talk of attempting to move the Stock Exchange from New York to the location, but it would never happen.
"What did you think of Dan?" Drama asked.
"Interesting fellow," I said. " 'Tasha?"
"Just a name. " She said it dismissively. "There's an opening in the fence another five meters or so from your position. You can make it if you crawl."
It took another minute before I found the gap, obscured by weeds. The ground nearby was deep with broken glass and trash, and I had to belly-crawl to get through the gap, and I took it slow. Even knowing that Drama was nearby with a rifle, I found myself more afraid of catching tetanus from a rusty nail. I couldn't remember the last time I'd been immunized.
When I was through I got to my feet, brushing myself off, looking around. A couple of towers for power cables stood nearby, anchored to concrete slabs. Past them were chunks of abandoned machinery, broken and rusted pieces. As I came around a tower, I got a good look at the space. There was almost no cover to speak of for at least one hundred yards, and even though the streetlights didn't do much to illuminate the area, anyone looking with Nightvision or infrared would have no difficulties picking me out.
"Walk forward, as if going to the water. "
I picked my way around the largest piles of junk. As I crossed out into the open, there was a rumble of thunder, and distant lightning jumped clouds. My heart was surprisingly steady in my chest, and my breathing was easy, and I wondered what I should make of that. Drama had to have line of sight on me, I had to be close to my principal, and I should have been very scared. But I wasn't.
"Stop. Turn left."
Looking past the scattered garbage, I could see the length of the shattered pier, all the way to the far fence on the north side. Beyond its edge, maybe half a mile away, a building sat just on the water, a road running between it and a sharp slope to the east. At the top of the slope I saw the nimbus of sodium lights, but not the lights themselves.
She had to be on the slope, on the high ground, and the odds were that I was looking right at her.
"There's an oil drum ahead of you, " Drama said. "She's inside."
I lowered the radio, saw the container, and walked toward it. As I approached I could see that the cover had been removed, but I was almost on top of it before I could look inside, and when I did I saw Antonia Ainsley-Hunter, shivering, bound, a black cloth bag over her head.
"Antonia," I said. "It's Atticus, I'm here."
She jerked at the sound of my voice, turning her head, trying to see me with her covered eyes. She made a noise, and I realized that she'd been gagged, too. The Motorola had a clip, and I hung the walkie-talkie from my belt before reaching for her.
"I'm going to touch you," I said. "I'm going to remove the hood."
She tried to nod, made another sound that would probably have been inaudible if not for the amplification from the metal that surrounded her. I touched her as gently as I could, knowing that she'd had unwelcome hands on her too much already, and got my fingers along the edge of the bag at her neck, feeling around until I found where it had been tied. The knot was easy, and I undid it, then pulled the bag off and threw it down.
The look in her eyes was desperate gratitude, but there were no tears. A ball-gag was in her mouth, but I decided that could wait, and reached in to take her beneath the arms. She tried to move to assist me, but there was nowhere for her to go, and in the end I had to almost fold my upper body in with her to get a grip. I pulled her up against the edge of the barrel where I was leaning, tipping it against my body, backing up a little at a time to ease her out. I had her mostly out when the barrel finally tipped all the way, and its hollow clang on the concrete was followed closely by another roll of thunder.