Why not kill him and buy time? The Saudis would be out of the country long before Shaw’s body was discovered. And as for LeClaire, he’d done his part, and they couldn’t care less what happened to him. He might even be a good fall guy for the murder.
Ahmad’s dark eyes turned toward Rass and his shiny pistol.
“Wait,” Shaw said harshly. “There’s something I—”
2
“You’re a lucky SOB, Merritt.”
The pale and gaunt prisoner, unshaven, brows knit, looked at the uniformed screw.
The guard glanced at Merritt’s balding head, as if just realizing now that the man had more hair when he’d begun serving his sentence than now. What a difference a near year makes.
The men, both tough, both fatigued, faced each other through a half-inch of bulletproof glass, a milky sheet as smeared as the walls were scuffed. The business end of eighty-year-old Trevor County Detention had no desire, or reason, to pretty itself up.
Slim, tall Jon Merritt was dressed in a dark suit — the deepest shade of navy blue, good for job interviews and funerals. It was a size too big. A complementing white shirt too, frayed where frays happen. The last time he had worn this outfit was more than ten months ago. In the interim his garb, not of his choosing, had been bright orange.
“You’re looking like an ace,” the guard said. Larkin was a large Black man whose uniform was much the same shade as Merritt’s suit.
“Oh, I just shine, don’t I?”
The guard paused, maybe wondering how stinging the sarcasm was meant to be. “Here you go.”
Merritt took the envelope that contained his wallet, watch and wedding ring. The ring went into his pocket, the watch onto his wrist. The battery had behaved and the instrument showed the correct time: 9:02 a.m.
Looking through the wallet. The bills — $140 — were still there, but the envelope no longer contained the coins he’d had. A credit card and an ATM card were present too. He was surprised.
“I had a phone, a book, paperback. Socks. A pen.”
The pen he’d used to jot notes to his attorney at the hearing. It was a nice one, the sort you put a refill in, not threw out.
Larkin looked through more envelopes and a cardboard box. “That’s all that’s here.” He lifted a huge hand. “Stuff disappears. You know.”
More important: “And some work I did in the shop. William said I could keep it.”
The screw consulted a sheet. “There’s a box outside the door. On the rack. You didn’t come in with it so you don’t gotta sign.” He prowled through more paperwork. Found two envelopes, business size, and pushed them through.
“What’s that?”
“Discharge documents. Sign the receipt.”
Merritt did and put the envelopes in his pocket fast, feeling that if he read them now, he’d see a mistake. The screw could catch it too and say, sorry, back inside.
“And these.” He slid Merritt a small business card. “Your parole officer. Be in touch in twenty-four hours. No excuses.” Another card made the short trip. It was a doctor’s appointment reminder. It was for eleven today.
“Take care, Merritt. And don’t come back.”
With not a single word he turned. The lock buzzed and snapped and the thick metal door opened. Merritt walked through it. Beside the door, on the rack Larkin had mentioned, was a cardboard box, about one by two feet, j. merritt on the side. He picked it up and walked to the exit gate in the chain-link. The barricade clattered as it crawled sideways.
Then Jon Merritt was outside, on the go-where-you-will sidewalk.
He felt odd, disoriented. Dizzy. This did not last long. It was like the time he and some cop friends went party boat fishing and it took him a little time to find his sea legs.
Then, steadying, he turned south. Inhaling deeply, wondering if the air outside tasted different from the air inside. Couldn’t tell.
His feet hurt already. Merritt had enough cash to buy shoes — he wasn’t sure if his cards still worked — but it was easier and cheaper to go to the U-Store facility, where his possessions resided.
Supposedly.
The light changed and Merritt started across the asphalt, shoulders slumped, in his tight shoes and baggy, somber suit. On his way to a job interview.
Or a funeral.
3
“Wait. There’s something I—”
Colter Shaw’s words were interrupted by a loud bang from one of the drums that had tumbled to the floor. A huge, dense cloud of yellow gas poured from it and filled the room. In seconds it was impossible to see a foot ahead.
The men began choking.
“Poison!”
“What is it?”
“Some shit from the factory!”
The words dissolved into coughs.
“That man... He can’t leave here. Stop him. Now!” This was from Ahmad.
Rass couldn’t fire, though, not with the lack of visibility.
Shaw crouched, staying under cover of the cloud. He moved in a wide circle.
“I can’t see him!”
“There! He’s there! Going for the window.”
“We’re four stories up. Let him jump.” Ahmad again.
“No, he’s going the other way.” Panicky LeClaire’s voice was high.
“It’s going to kill us! Out. Now!”
Their voices fell into choked shouts and obscenities and then went silent as they pushed toward the door.
Shaw felt his way back through the shelves and to the window by which he’d entered the factory. Choking, he descended the fire escape to a decrepit dock that jutted into the river. He jogged over the uneven wood, dark with creosote and slick with ancient oil, and climbed down into an alley that ran beside the factory from the river to Manufacturers Row.
He walked to the dumpster that sat halfway down the alley and worked on clearing his lungs, hawking, spitting, inhaling deeply. The coughing stopped, but what he was breathing here wasn’t much better than the fumes. The air was laced with the acrid off-gases from the wide Kenoah River, its hue jaundice brown. He’d come to know the scent quite well; the distinctive sour perfume hung over much of central Ferrington.
At the dumpster, whose top was open, he scanned around and saw no one nearby. First he lifted out the gray Blackhawk inside-the-belt holster containing his Glock, the model 42, and clipped it in place. Then a thirty-two-ounce bottle of water. He filled his mouth and spit several times. Then he drank down half of what remained and collected his personal effects.
Hand on the grip of his weapon, he looked about once more.
No sign of Rass and his small silver gun, or the other men. Were they searching for him?
Walking to the front of the alley, Shaw noted that the answer was no. The three hurried away from the factory, Ahmad clutching the briefcase. The Saudis climbed into their Mercedes, and LeClaire his Toyota. The vehicles sped off in different directions.
Shaw returned to the dumpster.
Reaching inside, he extracted a backpack and into it he slipped the gray metal box that had been in the attaché case upstairs. He slung the bag over his shoulder and exited the alley onto gloomy Manufacturers Row. He turned right, pulling a phone from the pack and sending several texts.
He then continued his walk toward downtown Ferrington.
Thinking of the trap.
Indeed it was simple and efficient. But it was also one of Shaw’s making, not one set by the three men in the room.
Hired by a corporate CEO recently to stop the theft of a revolutionary industrial component, which had been designed by the company’s most brilliant engineer, Shaw had narrowed the list of suspects to LeClaire. The scrawny, nervous IT man — a compulsive and bad gambler — had arranged to sell the device to the Saudi buyers. Shaw had learned that the transfer was going down in the factory this morning.