I hesitated for the briefest second as we passed the knives, but then kept walking.
“Wise decision, buddy,” Meyer said, jamming the gun barrel against my ear. “I knew we’d start to grow on each other, me and you.”
We went down the back elevator and came out the side entrance of my building on 95th Street. Not a soul was in sight as I led him to my unmarked Impala. He put me behind the wheel and took Chrissy into the backseat with him.
“She’s not wearing a seat belt, Mikey, so I’d drive carefully if I were you. Go to Broadway and head uptown, and do me a favor. Turn that police band up.”
We rolled uptown to Washington Heights.
“Make a left up here,” he said when we got to 168th.
Over the building tops, I saw the steel lattice tower of the George Washington Bridge.
“Find an on-ramp for the outbound side,” Meyer said in my ear. “We’re going across.”
Why were we heading to Jersey? Not to load up on cheap gas, that was for sure. Was this his escape plan? It was impossible to guess what was going on in that crazy mind.
I managed to make eye contact with Chrissy in the rearview mirror. She looked scared, but she’d settled down, and was holding up more incredibly than I could have imagined. I love you, Daddy, she mouthed. I love you, too, I mouthed back. Don’t worry.
I didn’t know much, but I was certain of one thing as I piloted us carefully onto the bridge. This sick bastard wasn’t going to harm my daughter. No matter what.
Chapter 87
When Maeve and I had first brought home our oldest daughter, Juliana, I used to have this terrible recurring nightmare. In it, I’d be feeding Juliana in her high chair, and all of a sudden, she’d start to choke. I’d put my finger in her mouth, give her the Heimlich, but absolutely nothing would work. I’d wake up sweating and gasping, and I’d have to go to her room and hold a mirror to her tiny nose and see it fog with her breath before I could let myself go back to sleep.
Because that, without question, is a parent’s greatest fear. To be helpless, not able to do anything, when his child is facing harm.
I glanced in my rearview mirror at Meyer, sitting next to my daughter. At the heavy, oiled automatic pistol he held loosely in his lap.
My dry throat felt like it was caked with dust as I swallowed. My whole body was covered in a cold sweat. The steering wheel was slick with it, practically slipping out of my hands.
You live long enough, I thought as misery shook through me like a low-voltage shock, even your worst nightmares may come true.
I glanced in the mirror again, and this time I saw a pain-filled light in Chrissy’s eyes. It was the same look she’d gotten when I’d read her The Velveteen Rabbit for the first time. She was starting to really understand how wrong this ride was.
The last thing we needed was for her to start crying, and irritate the human time bomb sitting next to her. When I’d attended the FBI Academy in Quantico, I’d learned that when you’re kidnapped, you want to be as unobtrusive and cooperative as possible.
“Chrissy?” I said, struggling to keep the fear out of my voice. “Tell us a joke, honey. I didn’t hear today’s joke.”
The sad light in her eyes diminished, and she cleared her throat theatrically. As the baby of the family, she knew how to perform.
“What do you call a monkey after you take away his bananas?” she said.
“I don’t know, honey. What?” I said, playing straight man.
“Furious George!” she yelled, and started giggling.
I laughed along with her, watching Meyer’s eyes for his reaction.
But they had nothing in them. They were the glazed eyes of a man buying a newspaper, or riding an elevator, or waiting for a train.
I glanced back at the road just in time to see that the tractor trailer in front of me had come to a dead stop. My heart locked as the huge truck’s blood-red brake lights and sheer steel wall seemed to rush at us, filling the windshield. I mashed the brakes, with rubber squealing and smoking.
That the car came to a stop inches before decapitating me under the tailgate was a miracle. Add hysterical cops to the list of people God looks out for, I thought, wiping my sweating forehead.
“Get it together, Bennett,” Meyer warned me harshly. “You get us in trouble, I’ll have to shoot my way out of it. Starting right here.”
Yeah, sure, my bad, I wanted to snap back. It’s a tad hard to focus when your nerves are stretched past the snapping point.
“Take the next exit west off the interstate,” he ordered. “Time to get off this road, anyway, the way you drive.”
We pulled onto Route 46, a run-down industrial strip. I stared out at the old motels and warehouses, with patches of deserted desolate Jersey swampland in the spaces between them, trying to assess whether the slower speed and lack of traffic might work in my favor. If I jammed the car into a fishtailing spin, would that throw Meyer off balance long enough for me to grab Chrissy and run? It’s hard to hit a target, especially a moving one, with a handgun.
But this guy was incredible with a pistol, there was no doubt about that. Just my luck.
Run or fight – both bad choices, but the only ones I had. Oh, God, help me save my daughter, I prayed. What the hell do I do?
“Look, Daddy,” Chrissy said, and an instant later, a violent roar shook through the car. Stunned, I thought maybe I’d actually hit something this time. For an insane instant, the thought of a roadside bomb even flitted through my mind.
It took me a couple more seconds to realize that the noise was from a plane coming in low over our car. As it dropped into sight ahead, I saw that it was a small, sleek corporate jet, landing on a runway behind the high chain-link fence on my left.
What the hell was an airport doing here? Newark was miles farther south down 95. Then I realized that this was Teterboro, a small private airport that a lot of corporations and jet-setters used when coming into New York. It cost a fortune, but it was only twenty or so minutes into the city, and there were no strip searches or waiting in line.
“Slow down and turn in here,” Meyer said as we approached a stoplight.
I made the turn carefully, swiping again at the cold sweat now stinging my eyes. Whatever this son of a bitch had in mind, the addition of an airport somehow made it a thousand times worse.
Chapter 88
The airport entrance road called Industrial Avenue was lined with private jet management firms – small two-story buildings with hangars behind them and fenced, guarded parking lots in front. The guard booths were manned with uniformed Port Authority cops, I noticed.
Was this the time to make my move? Would they figure out what was happening before Chrissy, I, and maybe they, too, ended up dead?
I hung on once again, figuring I’d be better off if I knew what Meyer had in mind.
“Stop here,” he said when the road dead-ended. “Listen good, Bennett, because you’re going to get only one chance. Turn around, then pull into the first hangar on the way back. They’ve got only one guard, and that’s why I brought you. You’re going to use some of that on-the-job cop juice. Flash your badge and get us in.”
“What am I supposed to tell him?” I said, wheeling the Chevy around in a U-turn.
“Get creative, cop, and make it good. Your daughter’s life depends on it.”
The Port Authority cop in the guard booth was a young Asian guy, who leaned out his window when we drove up.
“NYPD,” I said, flashing my shield. “We’re in pursuit of a homicide suspect that we believe might have climbed the fence off Forty-six, and could be inside this area.”
“What?!” the young officer said, squinting in at me. “I haven’t heard anything about that. Homeland Security had us put sensors on the wire after 9/11. They should have picked the guy up.” His gaze moved toward Meyer and Chrissy in the backseat.