‘My keys,’ he repeated and then the shot rang out, piercing him in the back, near where Luke’s hand held him. The bullet tumbled through spine and organs and the impact nearly knocked him loose from Luke’s grip.
The crowd that had been starting to close around them scattered, a woman shrieking, students bolting.
But Luke did not stop. A tea shop was a few yards away and he stumbled through its door as the proprietor opened it to see what fresh hell had erupted in the Village. At tables people with laptops looked up from their web-induced isolation and gasped; the counter person erupted with a series of short screams.
‘Call 9-1-1,’ Luke said. ‘Please.’
Drummond opened his eyes with visible effort. ‘My keys. Run. No police.’ His eyes focused on Luke’s face. He clutched at Luke’s Saint Michael medal, which dangled above his face as Luke knelt by him. Then his hand went to his pocket and he died.
Oh, God, Luke thought. In the pocket he found a ring of car keys with a bottle opener. He grabbed the keys and Snow’s gun, still nestled in Drummond’s hand.
When he grabbed the gun everyone in the tea shop scrambled backwards. He paused. Then he tore the Saint Michael medal from Drummond’s throat, cupped it in his hand. He hurried past a counter and ran into a small side alley of brick. It was closed to the main streets by an iron gate.
Keys. A car. Drummond must have a car. A rental garage’s address was printed on the back of the bottle opener. Four blocks away.
Luke climbed over the iron gate, dropped to the next street, and ran.
44
The final bullet of Drummond’s long career had caught Sweet Bird under the jaw and he’d fallen back with an astonished look on his thin face.
Mouser had picked up the rifle next to Sweet Bird’s body. He’d gotten a single shot off, nailed Drummond, missed Luke. He squeezed the trigger again; no ammo left.
Chaos was about to descend on this building. He had to get out. There was no time to say goodbye to Snow. He’d left her behind in the elevator cab, one kiss goodbye. He blinked away the hot feeling behind his eyes as he bolted out the back of the building, avoiding the arrival of the police, blending in with the crowd. Sweet Bird’s crew was either dead or had fled.
Luke and Drummond had killed her. The vengeance against Drummond had come quickly but Luke still walked and breathed. He felt the cold bloodthirstiness from Snow begin to fill him, as though her spirit was settling in his bones, seeping into this skin. A stirring in his chest took its final breath and shriveled. He had not even known her real name.
He turned into the tea shop’s back door; he’d seen where Luke ran. Drummond’s body still lay sprawled on the tiles. He frisked the body. Nothing. No cops yet; outside, a woman in a barista’s apron spoke with the police in the street, pointing toward her store.
He retreated out the back door. The alleyway remained empty. Which way had Luke gone? And where would he go?
He remembered the manifest for Eric’s charter – he’d seen it at the air park in Chicago – had said New York, then Paris.
He ran down the alley, toward the iron gate, fury for Luke filling him, and fury for Henry, who had sent him on this fool’s errand.
The garage was four stories tall and Luke hurried along the row, testing the remote, until the lights on a plain Ford sedan beeped. He opened the trunk and found a briefcase and a packed bag. He took the briefcase and set it on the front passenger seat. The car still smelled new; the miles on the car were fewer than a hundred. Luke rifled through the glove compartment. The car had been sold to James Morgan.
The charter pilot, Frankie Wu, had mentioned flying on to Paris. There had to be a reason that Eric would have stopped in New York – perhaps to meet Drummond and seal a deal on information – and then fly on to Paris.
For what? A final meeting? Drummond said the people watching their interview were headed to Paris.
He steered into traffic, heading away from the chaos at Drummond’s building, watching his rearview mirror for Mouser. His mind kept replaying the bullet he’d put into Snow. Intent didn’t matter. He had killed her. He had ended another human life, but she had brought on her own fate with her choices.
At a stoplight he snapped open the briefcase. Two Canadian passports, one for Drummond, one for him. In the names of James Morgan and for Luke, in the name of Tom Morgan. The passport photo was a modified version of his license driver’s photo, cleverly expanded to fit the passport parameters. They were stamped with entry for the US and the Bahamas. They looked real to him. He counted the cash, around two thousand dollars. He found credit cards in the name of Tom Morgan. The promise to hide him was real and would have been immediate. And two tickets, the seats together, on the red-eye to Paris for tonight, in the same false names.
The car had a GPS system, and at the next light, he plugged in a request for directions to JFK airport.
Aubrey lay on the cot and she heard the scarred Frenchman say to the boss: ‘We have a live signal from Drummond’s car.’
‘He got out?’ the boss asked. The satellite picture of the street had indicated Drummond might have been hit.
A pause. ‘I wonder where they’ll go,’ the Frenchman said.
‘Track the car. And find where Henry Shawcross is. I want to know if he’s on a plane, a train, where he is.’
‘Do we still send a cleanup team?’
Aubrey closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep. They might speak a little louder, over the rumble of the plane, if they thought she was asleep again.
‘No. If anyone’s still alive they’re on their own,’ the boss said, and she could hear the awful bitterness under his words. ‘Sometimes you have to leave people behind.’
‘We could just call the car,’ the Frenchman said. ‘If it’s Luke alone, he’s probably scared to death.’
‘We clearly have to build trust with young Mr Dantry,’ the boss said. ‘You play it out, you talk to him.’
Aubrey felt a shadow over her. She opened her eyes. The boss, staring down, wore a frown on his hard face. ‘How is Luke doing it?’
‘What?’
‘Escaping these people. Finding us. Being so clever. Was he trained by Shawcross?’
‘ Trained? He’s a grad student in psychology and you people have scared the crap out of him. A smart person who’s scared can be dangerous.’
‘You better tell me the truth, Aubrey.’
‘I am. I am.’ She licked at her dry lips. ‘He and I, we just want out, we just want our old lives back. Please.’
The man leaned close to her. ‘You get to go home when you help us. This fifty million Luke mentioned to Drummond. Where is it?’
‘I don’t know. I want nothing to do with that money. I want to go home.’
‘Home,’ the boss said. ‘I hope you can.’
45
Henry wanted to be present for Luke’s capture – or at least in the van that would be taking him away from the Quicksilver building. But an absolutely critical component of Hellfire required his attention. He especially wanted to be there to kill Drummond personally, if Drummond was at the address. But priorities were priorities. He could not delegate this task.
The storefront in a quiet street in Queens read Ready-Able Services. A recent change in ownership was not reflected in the store-front. The company, which was headquartered in New York and had branches in fourteen major metropolitan markets, contracted out cleaning and maintenance services to government and corporations. The workers were bonded and underwent background checks. The company was twenty years old, successful, and privately held. The inside man had been hired, inserted at Henry’s suggestion four months ago. He cleared the background check because he had no record; he had never been caught. He took a salary cut for the job at Ready-Able, and his boss thought the company lucky to have landed such a smart, hard worker.