I heard the second man coming before I saw him, tramping heavy-footed down the road to the pier. He walked out and greeted the first. This time I could read their lips: "Time to go there's a meeting yes, we both have to be there forget him, he's gone."
They walked back off the pier and I swung in behind them, letting the sound of their footfalls cover mine.
They had a car parked up the way not the one that had brought me here. This one had two bucket seats up in front and nothing behind. They got inside; I got up on the back bumper and leaned forward across the trunk, holding on with arms spread wide. The car pulled away. All I had to do now was stay on board until they got to wherever they were going. That, and hope the Tarnkappe didn't come off at highway speeds.
The first sign we came to told me that I was NOW LEAVING BABYLON, NEW YORK. Babylon. Figures. Nothing happens by chance, not when you have the Grail involved. It all means something. The trick is finding out what.
This pair wasn't real gabby. I'd hoped to do some more lipreading in the rearview mirror, but as far as I could tell they drove back to the Big Apple in stony silence. They took the Midtown Tunnel back in, then local streets to somewhere on the East Side around 70th street. That was where I had my next bit of bad luck.
Out on the highway, the Tarnkappe had stuck on my head like glue. But here in the concrete canyons, a side gust took it away and there I was in plain view on the back deck. All I could do was roll off and scuttle for safety between the rushing cars, while taxis screamed at me and bicycle messengers tried to leave tire stripes up my back.
I made it to the other side of the street. The Tarnkappe was gone, blown who-knows-where by the wind, and I couldn't make myself conspicuous by doubling back to look for it. A quick stroll around the corner, down one subway entrance and up another, and I was as safe as I could hope to be with my shoes squishing seawater.
I started out at a New Yorker's street pace for the spot where I'd ditched my bag. By now the sun was down for real and the neon darkness was coming up: a bad time of day for strangers to go wandering around Central Park. Me, I kind of hoped someone would try for a mugging. I had a foul mood to work off, and smashing someone's face in the name of righteousness would just about do the trick.
Nobody tried anything, and my bag was waiting where I'd left it. I changed clothes right there in the alley, and debated reporting in. But someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make me vanish, and I wanted the secret of my survival to be shared by the minimum number.
Sure, I had my orders. But blind obedience isn't what the Temple needs from the thirty and three. Distasteful as I found the possibility, I had to consider whether I'd been sold out from inside. If so, then reporting in would be a very bad idea.
Maybe those other three knights had figured things out the same way. They could be lying low and saying nothing until the situation clarified. But I didn't think it was likely. Odds were that they were sweating it out in Purgatory right now like I'd be, if I didn't start taking precautions.
I began by using the kit in my bag to make a few changes to my appearance. No sense having everyone who's already seen me recognize me the next time I showed up. Meanwhile, it was dinner time, which meant there was a good chance that my Mr. Lang would be away from his room. A search might show me something useful. And when he got back from dinner, I wanted to ask him some questions.
The rooms at his hotel had those new-style keycards with the magnetic strip. Some people think the keycards are secure, and they'll probably stop the teenagers who bought a Teach Yourself Locksmithing course out of the back of a comic book. The one on Lang's room didn't even slow me down.
Lang wasn't out, after all. He was in the room, but I wasn't going to get any answers out of him without a Ouija board. He was naked, lying on his back in the bathtub. Someone had been there before me someone with a sharp knife and a sick imagination.
I dipped my finger in the little bottle of chrism I carry in my tote and made a quick cross on his forehead.
"For thy sins I grant thee absolution," I muttered wherever he'd gone, he needed all the help he could get. Lucies aren't famed for their high salvation rate.
Then I searched the room, even though whoever had taken care of Lang would have done that job once already. Aside from the mess in the bathtub, the contents of the hotel room didn't have much to say about anything, except maybe the banality of eviclass="underline" no address books; no letters or memos; no telltale impressions on the memo pad. Nothing of any interest at all.
Then I found something, taped to the back of a drawer. My unknown searcher had missed it. Or maybe he'd left it behind, having no use for it he hadn't used bullets on Lang, only the knife. But there it was, a Colt Commander, a big mean .45 automatic.
I checked it over. Five rounds in the magazine, one up the spout. Weapon cocked, safety off. I lowered the hammer to half-cock and took the Colt with me, stuffing it in my waistband in the back, under the sport coat I was wearing. That lump of cold metal made me feel a lot better about the rest of the evening.
One more thing to do: I picked up the room phone, got an outside line, and punched in the number Lang had called that afternoon. After two rings, someone picked it up.
"International Research," said a female voice.
"This is Max," I said, my voice as muffled as I could make it. "I'm in trouble."
Then I hung up.
Before I left the room, I opened the curtains all the way. Then I eased myself out of the hotel and over to a vantage point across the street, where a water tower on a lower building gave me a view of the room I'd just left. The bad guys who'd tried to drown me hadn't taken my pocket binoculars, either. Those were good optics when I used the binocs to look across the street, it was like I was standing in the hotel room.
I waited. The wind was cold, and a little after one in the morning it started to rain. It was just past 4 AM, at that hour before dawn when sick men die, when I spotted something happening.
Across the street the door eased open, then drifted shut. A woman walked into the room. She was tall, slender, and stacked. Black lace-up boots, tight black jeans, tight black sweater. Single strand of pearls. Red hair, long enough to sit on, loose down her back. A black raincoat hung over her right arm. She was wearing black leather gloves. In he left hand she had a H&K nine-millimeter. Color coordinated: The artillery was black, too.
She did a walk-through of the room. Nothing hurried. I watched her long enough that I could recognize her again, and then I was sliding down from my perch. The lady had carried a raincoat. If she planned to go out into the weather, I was going to find out where she was headed. My guess was that she was from International Research, whoever they really were.
I was betting that she'd come out the main door. So I did a slow walk up and down the street, one sidewalk and then the other, before I spotted her through the glass in the lobby, putting on that coat. Then she was out the revolving door and away.
One nice thing about New York is that it's possible to follow someone on foot. The car situation is so crazy that no one brings a private vehicle onto the island if they can help it. She might still call a cab, but if she did, so could I. I've never yet in my career told a cabbie to "Follow that car," but there's a first time for everything.
I wasn't going to get the chance tonight. A limo was cruising up the street at walking speed, coming up behind the lady in black. I recognized it. The boys who grabbed me yesterday had used that car or one just like it to carry me out to Babylon for sacrifice.
The car stopped and the two clowns in the back got out. They looked like the same pair of devout souls who'd invited me to a total-immersion baptism. It was time for me to join the fun. I angled across the rain-soaked street, pulling that big-ass Colt into my hand as I went.