By the third level, I was again gasping for breath. After a couple of minutes spent doubled over, the visions again receding, I straightened up and saw what looked like an early nineties Caprice over in a far corner. If it was indeed a Caprice, then it was likely it could be trusted. It wasn’t by random choice that so many police departments chose the vehicle before it was usurped by the Ford Crown Victoria.
As I dragged myself toward the car, a searing light flashed behind my eyes. I felt like I was plummeting down a bottomless well. I tried to shake my head clear but my vision was blurred. I forced myself to keep walking toward the car.
My eyes cleared and I found myself standing directly in front of the Caprice. I smashed the rear right-hand window, opened the door, and eased myself inside.
The steering column cover came off easily and I started to fish for the ignition wires.
A shooting pain ran up my spine as I leant into the steering wheel, but my fingers had already found the right ones.
The engine sprung into life.
My pupils felt like they were the size of pinheads. My field of vision had been narrowed to about twenty degrees, but I managed to steer the car down the ramp, crashing through the barrier and out onto Fulton. I took a left on Pearl and got onto the FDR, my autopilot following the route I usually took back to Mamaroneck. Traffic was sparse, but steady and I kept my speed down and tried to drive as though I didn’t have a psychoactive drug doing cartwheels in my veins, but I quickly discovered I needed to pull over. I managed to get off the FDR at Houston and wormed my way through a couple of deserted streets before pulling into a free spot and killing the engine.
I needed new ID and a change of appearance.
I needed to get hold of Tess without putting her in jeopardy.
But first, I needed to sleep off the primordial demons running amok inside my head.
SATURDAY
26
Federal Plaza, Lower Manhattan
Nat “Len” Lendowski was having a lousy day.
Actually, lousy might be just a touch off the mark.
He was so pissed off he was looking to rip someone’s head off. Ideally, Reilly’s.
His bruised head was still hurting from where the agent had cold-cocked him with Deutsch’s gun. To add insult to injury-literally-Reilly had taken his gun and his badge, cleaned his wallet out of almost a hundred bucks and taken a spare suit he kept in the back of his car before leaving him out on his ass in the street, handcuffed to Deutsch, their arms daisy-chained around a tree. Then came the final affront: sitting in the twenty-third floor conference room at seven in the morning, on a Saturday, and getting reamed out by Gallo in front of the whole office and a couple of stone-faced CIA douches for letting Reilly escape.
“The two of you, get your butts out to Reilly’s house,” Gallo barked at him and Deutsch as he concluded the debriefing. “I don’t want to see you back here unless he’s with you. Preferably with him wearing the handcuffs this time.”
It was understandable that the last thing Lendowski needed right now was to have another bodily orifice drilled into him. But it was unavoidable. Failing to make the call would only make things worse.
As they stepped out of the elevator and made their way to the garage, he told Deutsch, “I’ll see you down there in a minute. I need to use the john.”
He watched her disappear out of the lobby, angled away from the flow of people coming in and out of the building, then pulled out his replacement BlackBerry and dialed the number.
The familiar voice picked up after four rings. “Congratulations,” the man said, his dry tone heavy with sarcasm.
“Fuck off,” Lendowski replied.
“Oh, feeling a bit precious, are we?”
“He got the jump on me,” the agent spat back. “It wouldn’t have happened if that useless bitch they’ve got me with knew what she was doing.”
“The thing is, it did happen, and I need to know what’s being done about it.”
“We’re going to stake out his house, but he won’t show, of course. He’s not that dumb.”
“A fair assumption.”
“We’re up on his cell, but he’s not going to use it. We’re putting up a van outside their house as we speak, in case he makes contact some other way.”
“No all points then?”
“No.”
This seemed to please the man. He said, “They want to keep it under wraps.”
“Seems that way,” Lendowski replied. “Not that it makes any fucking sense. We should have every last pair of eyes looking for his mug out there. Must have been those two Agency dickheads’ doing.”
“I’m sure your boss’s bosses don’t want this hitting the news channels either. It’s not exactly something you want to advertise. You should be grateful for that. You’d be the one on center stage.”
The comment didn’t pass unnoticed. The man had never said who he was working for, but he seemed well in tune with the community’s internal politics. “You think I give a shit?” Lendowski countered. “I just want to see that dickhead locked up.”
“In one piece?”
The question caught the agent out. He paused, wondering about that. “I’m easy on that one.”
“All right. You’d better get out there. How long’s your shift?”
“Open-ended,” Lendowski said with a self-mocking grunt.
“Find him,” the voice said. “And let me know the second you do.”
Deutsch waited for Tess to pick up her phone while keeping an eye on the garage elevator.
“Come on,” she whispered. “Pick up!”
It wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have with Lendowski anywhere near her.
Tess picked up.
“Tess? Annie Deutsch. Can you talk?”
“What’s going on?”
“So you haven’t heard from him yet?” Deutsch asked, listening carefully for clues in the response.
She thought she heard a sharp little intake of breath in the brief pause before Tess answered.
“Heard from Sean? What do you mean?”
“He gave us the slip last night.”
The intake, and the break, were more significant.
“How?”
Deutsch wondered about that question. Was Tess Chaykin genuinely surprised? Or was she just playing the part? Given what she knew about Tess, given what she knew about what she and Reilly had been through, it wouldn’t surprise her if Tess had something to do with his escape. She’s been to see him, after all-although under Deutsch’s supervision. It would reflect even worse on Deutsch, she knew, if Tess had used that meet to somehow help Reilly pull it off.
She filled Tess in on what happened, briefly, then, aware that Lendowski might appear at any moment, got down to the reason for her call.
“He’s going to call you, Tess. You know it and I know it. Somehow, he’s going to make contact. And I can’t stress enough how important it is that you do the right thing here. You need to try to convince him to hand himself in-”
“You know he’s never going to do that,” Tess interjected.
“I know. But you have to try. Hard. And you have to be seen to be trying, Tess. We’re talking aiding, abetting-you know the drill. I want to keep him safe. But I want to keep you safe too. I also want you to put me in touch with him. Just me. Tell him to call me. Give me a chance to talk to him, see what he wants. Maybe broker a deal for him to come in. Will you do that for me?”
Standing by the counter in the kitchen of her house in Mamaroneck, Tess went quiet as she chewed over Deutsch’s words.
“I can tell him,” she finally offered. “I don’t think it’ll do much good.”
“You have to try,” Deutsch said. “Please. For his sake. Get him to talk to me.”