by Abbott, Jeff
He became conscious as he scribbled with the pencil that time was passing. Maybe a neighbor would knock on the door, wondering who was parked in front of the empty house. Maybe the police would come, looking for evidence as to why Eric was murdered. Sweat formed along his lip. He pushed a piece of paper at her. ‘Start entering these, please.’
She typed, fingers pistoning on the keyboard, working through each possibility. ‘No. No. No.’
After the tenth no he said, ‘You’re being negative.’
She hit it on the forty-second try. ‘This laptop,’ Aubrey said, ‘is officially our pet bitch.’ She turned the screen toward him. Unlocked, it showed a normal desktop.
‘Which word?’
‘It was versailles, except with 1s instead of Ls. I should have guessed. We had a really nice day in Versailles. He wondered aloud if you could get married there.’
An awkward silence filled the room and Luke broke it. ‘Thank God for the consistency of bankers.’
She got up and he leaned over the laptop. He started to search through its files. A few text files, an email program and a web browser, nothing else installed. Luke opened one of the text files; inside were listed the same accounts on the piece of paper. Beside each account was a regional bank and a password, and a business name. The companies carried names that spoke of vague occupations - Lionhead Consulting; Three Brothers Partners; Jester, Inc. - nothing that hinted at what exactly they did. He counted a dozen of them. ‘He established a bunch of accounts for different companies.’
‘Try them. See if the fifty million is in those accounts.’ He could hear the urgency in her voice.
Luke surfed to each regional bank’s website, entered in the account info and the password. He could hear Aubrey holding her breath, her mouth close to his ear.
But each account only held a hundred dollars, probably the minimum to stay open.
‘These must be accounts he set up for the Night Road,’ she said. ‘For them to access money.’ Her sigh tickled his shoulder.
‘He hid the money somewhere else. He could have tucked it into an idle account at Marolt Gold, changed passwords, opened up new accounts under false names. He started in bank operations, I saw it on his bio. Which means he’s technically adept. We may never find it.’ A wave of despair washed across him.
Luke did online searches for the various company names. They did not have web pages. ‘These are all dummy corporations. Another dead end.’
‘Luke, we have to find this money.’ Frustration filled her voice.
‘Let’s see where else he went the last time he was online.’ Luke looked in the browser’s history window, which told him every site Eric visited. Aside from the banking pages, Eric had visited only one other place on the internet: a website about TV shows.
‘That’s odd.’ He clicked to the website. A password page opened for him to log in.
‘Why would you need a login?’ Aubrey asked.
‘I don’t know. Was he a big TV fan?’
‘Sports, mostly. The Bulls games.’
Luke remembered the toy basketball on Eric’s key ring, with the Bulls logo. ‘In the middle of hiding millions from killers, he goes to a foreign-based television fan site. It’s like getting a haircut in the middle of a funeral; it makes no sense.’
‘Log on, see what happens,’ Aubrey suggested.
He tried the versai11es password but it didn’t work. He pulled the password worksheet close to him and began to work through the possibilities again. None of them worked.
‘I can’t take another dead end.’
‘If it’s not a password that connects to his life with you … what else in his life?’
‘Well, his secret life.’
‘The Night Road.’ He entered the term, plain. It failed. He entered in variants, using the same number-replacement key as before.
The first few variants didn’t work, then he tried Ni8htRoad. The password was accepted.
The dark world opened before him.
He scanned the newly loaded page and saw a long list of postings. Some of the posters used the same login names they had used on the websites where he had found them weeks ago. Their postings inside the Night Road were calmer. Offers for advice on cleaning funds through cheap insurance policies, requests for help on how to use automatic rifles, suggestions on how shrapnel could make a real difference in civilian deaths. Trade in murder, in secrets, in stolen identities and credit cards. Celebrations over the bombing of the rail yard in Texas, the pipeline in Canada, the E. coli food scare that had spread from Tennessee across the nation.
A bazaar for violence, a marketplace for twisted ideas. Horror braided his guts. He had found these people, given them to Henry as abstract bits of psychological profiling, and now they were a community. Worse. A secret army, readying for battle at home.
‘Oh, my God,’ Aubrey said.
He did a search on the discussion forum for Henry Shawcross. For Mouser. For Snow. Nothing.
Then on Hellfire.
Nothing.
‘They’re celebrating the recent attacks, but they’re not talking about this Hellfire thing,’ he said. ‘Hellfire must be separate and distinct from the current attacks.’
‘Maybe they canceled Hellfire, if they don’t have the money.’
‘They don’t seem like the cancelling type. Or maybe the whole group’s not involved. Only a few.’ Luke logged out from the discussion group.
‘Why did you do that?’
‘They could have software recording every account that enters, every address, every password. I don’t want them to know that I’m here.’ He wiped his mouth. ‘I read about another community like this, set up in the Mideast by a weapons dealer to move explosives around the region. They could shut down, move their database and server, and the authorities couldn’t find them again.’
‘So take it to the cops.’
‘I will. When we know where to find a member who will talk. Otherwise they’ll just vanish into smoke.’
He opened the email program. Everything had been cleaned out, except one email. It read:
Your kind offer is accepted and protection is extended. Meet LAP, 23rd at 7 PM for your getaway. - Drummond.
‘Do you know this Drummond?’ he asked. The message had been sent from a common online email provider, the kind of account you could set up in thirty seconds. The twenty-third was today; the rendezvous was in two hours.
‘No,’ she said.
‘Protection is extended. This is the deal he told you about, for protection to save you two,’ Luke said. ‘We have to find out who this Drummond is.’
‘So we can make the same deal?’
‘Absolutely. I would very much like some protection now. Maybe Drummond can help us. We figure out who or what LAP is and get there in the next two hours.’
Luke accessed the internet, searched on LAP CHICAGO. He found references to a lawyers’ assistance program, lap dancers and a Lakefront Air Park. A private air park for general aviation.
Luke said, ‘This is the answer.’
‘He’s meeting someone at an air park?’
‘If he made the deal, part one is an escape route. Let’s go.’
She got up, touched the photos of Eric Lindoe, the bright-eyed boy with a wide smile and brilliant future awaiting him. She kissed her fingertips, pressed them to the photo, and then turned away.
They took the laptop, the money and the guns, and headed north toward Lake Michigan.
29
The Lakefront Air Park’s office was small, low, and sleek. The chrome and glass gleamed. They’d had to drive through long stretches of Chicago rush hour traffic, and the setting sun burned the sky orange. The light reflected hard off the mirrored glasses.
They’d parked Aubrey’s car in the small adjacent lot. ‘This is certifiably insane,’ Aubrey said as they walked toward the building. The wind, which had been cooling all afternoon, bellowed and they drew closer together, without thought.
‘
You’re right,’ he said, ‘so no one will be expecting it.’
The air park’s offices were dim and, surprisingly, slightly shabby, as though all the money had gone into the architecture and design and there had only been stray pennies left for the furnishings. At one desk, a man in his thirties sat peering at a computer screen. He was of Asian descent, compactly built, a thin scar marring the corner of his mouth. He frowned at the screen - which Luke could not see - as though puzzling over bad news.
Luke took the lead. ‘Hey, I’m Eric Lindoe, I had a flight chartered for today.’
‘With who?’ The man cranked a crooked smile.
First roadblock. ‘Mr Drummond.’
‘Hi, Mr Lindoe. I’m your ride.’ He offered his hand. ‘Frankie Wu.’
Luke shook what he hoped was a dry hand with Wu’s. ‘This is your other passenger, Aubrey Perrault.’
‘Hi.’
Wu shook hands with Aubrey. ‘You’re shivering, Ms Perrault. You scared of flying? Don’t be.’
‘Terrified,’ Aubrey said, with a glance at Luke.
‘You and my wife. Actually she’s more scared when I’m driving. You’re in excellent hands.’
Aubrey offered a smile. ‘I feel better already.’
‘We’re fueled up and ready to go, Mr Lindoe.’
Where the hell are we going? He wanted to know. But he could hardly ask.
‘You don’t have more bags?’ Wu asked, glancing at their cheap knapsacks. They’d stopped and bought a couple of changes of clothes and nothing more. Luke had the gun and the laptop and the money they’d taken from Eric’s house in his pack, Eric’s key ring jangling in his pocket.
‘We travel light,’ Aubrey said.
‘Please explain that virtue to my wife.’ Wu shut off the computer, scribbled a note on the clipboard.
‘I only hope I brought the right clothes,’ Aubrey said. Good, Luke thought.
‘The weather in New York should be fine. Paris might be rainy by tomorrow.’
New York. Paris. Not one destination, but two. Was someone joining them in New York to go on to France? Luke felt a surge of panic - neither he nor Aubrey had passports. Paris wasn’t going to happen.
Paris. Where Jane was, the mastermind behind their kidnappings. He glanced at Aubrey; she gave the slightest of nods.
As he, Aubrey and Wu walked outside, across the tarmac to the waiting plane, he thought: don’t do this. Turn and run. Aubrey’s right, it’s crazy.
He kept walking toward the plane.
If he turned and ran, he would never know why the man he thought of as a father betrayed him. He’d never know who was after him; he’d be forced to live a half-life, always afraid, branded a murderer. No more turning or dodging. This lavish, expensive plane that was a dead man’s escape route was going to take him straight into the heart of the matter.
His throat tightened as he looked at the plane. A private jet. Much like the one his father died in. A swirl of painful memories churned in his head; the rainy night in Washington, hugging his father goodbye and breathing in the Old Spice scent of him; finding his mother red-eyed at the breakfast table the next morning, bearing her grief alone because she wanted Luke to sleep through the night; the letters pouring in from the universities where he had been a guest lecturer, Cairo, Bonn, London; the news footage of the salvage ship off the North Carolina coast, hauling the wreckage aboard out of the gray depths a week after the crash. The eulogies about what a wonderful teacher his father had been, listening to them, his mother holding his hand so tight he could feel the skip and beat of her pulse under her skin.
And Henry, introducing himself to Luke at the reception, a plate of chicken and salad in his hand, offering the other cool palm to Luke to shake, saying how much he had admired his father. How much he would miss him. As if anyone could miss him more than Luke and his mom.
He wondered, with a jolt, how life would have been different if he had not run away three days after the service. He had given Henry an easy, sympathetic key to wriggle his way into the family. If he had stayed home, maybe his mother would never have become friends with Henry Shawcross.
They followed Frankie Wu onto the plane. The Learjet was larger than Luke had expected; with a private cabin and cockpit. The cabin seated ten. A small galley was at the front of the aircraft. Aubrey sat down and he sat next to her, his heart thrumming in his chest.
Wu completed his final inspections, walking around the plane. Aubrey and Luke waited in silence. Wu walked, a cell phone pressed to his ear. He said a few words, then listened while he completed the inspection.
‘He’s letting someone know we’ve checked in,’ Aubrey said.
‘Maybe,’ Luke said. He wasn’t sure what he would say if Wu asked for Lindoe’s ID. Say he’d lost it. A bead of sweat trickled past his ear.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘My dad died in the crash of a plane like this. A mechanic named Ace Beere worked for the charter service. He had extremist views he shared at work; he found out he was going to be fired. He sabotaged my dad’s flight. Him and several of his professor friends, they were flying down to Cape Hatteras for a retreat and some fishing. I’d wanted to go; he said no. Beere damaged the plane’s systems so it lost pressure midflight. Everyone on board suffocated, died from hypoxia. The plane kept flying, far past the coast, until it slammed into the Atlantic.’ He glanced around. ‘Yeah, this plane’s real similar.’ His throat tightened.
‘Oh, my God, I’m sorry. Are you going to be all right?’
‘I’m okay.’ He gripped the seat. Suddenly his father was like a physical presence in his chest.
‘You’re pale.’
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘Tell me about your dad. What made him cool.’ She put her hand on his knee.
He savored the strength in her grip. ‘He always listened to me. He always had time for me. He was gone a lot, teaching overseas, and we didn’t always get to travel with him. But when he came home, I felt like the most important person in the world. Like he breathed in every word I said. He took me fishing, shooting - old school stuff that dads don’t do much with their kids any more. He always expected the best from me. That was a kindness, not a cruelty.’ He stopped, embarrassed, closing a hand around the Saint Michael’s medal on his neck, hidden under his shirt. ‘The man that killed him, I always wanted to understand why. How do you just snuff out innocent lives, how do you justify that decision? He committed suicide, so I could never know. But that shaped my life. My career. If I hadn’t been interested in the psychology of violence … I never would have been able to put together the Night Road for Henry. It all comes back to my dad’s death. It’s everything that has made me, shaped me.’
Wu stepped back aboard. He flexed the smile back on. ‘Looks like all the masking tape and glue is in place.’
‘Ha, ha,’ Aubrey said.
‘Did you check the baling wire?’ Luke asked.
‘Sealed it with spit,’ Frankie Wu said. ‘We’ll depart in just a couple of minutes.’ He vanished into the cockpit and shut the door.
Luke leaned into Aubrey’s ear and whispered, ‘He may be able to hear us over an intercom.’
Aubrey nodded. She said, in a clear voice, ‘Eric, hold my hand. Mr Wu might not have checked all the masking tape.’
Luke took her hand. It felt strange and right all at once. He was Eric Lindoe, at least for the next few hours, until he met his kidnapper’s benefactor.
Ten minutes later they arrowed into the sky and blasted toward the east.
She slept and Luke watched her. He wanted to sink into the warmth of sleep but he couldn’t.
New York. Paris.
He looked out the window, past the thin haze of clouds, over the glow of heartland light, as Illinois became Indiana, the diamond towns and the clouded black spreading beyond to Ohio and Kentucky. The low hum of the plane lullabied him.
He went to the cockpit and opened it. Frankie Wu was speaking softly into a radio and stopped, turned
with a smile.
Luke asked, ‘Can I use my cell phone on this flight? I didn’t know if the rules were different for private jets.’
‘There’s a phone in the cabin you can use, yes.’
‘But not mine.’
‘No. I’m surprised you’d be wanting to call anyone, Eric.’ Like he knew Eric was running, Eric was in trouble.
Luke said, ‘I need to tell someone goodbye.’
Frankie Wu turned back to the controls without comment. Luke shut the door. He had no intention of using the cabin phone; it could be monitored and he didn’t want Wu overhearing this call. He sat at the back of the cabin and opened the phone he’d taken from Eric, the lifeline to Jane, and dialed Henry’s number.
‘Hello?’ Henry sounded exhausted. The reception was spotty.
For a moment he couldn’t speak. He listened to the sound of Henry’s breathing.
‘Hello?’ Henry repeated. He sounded nervous.
‘You sorry ass excuse for a human being.’
‘Luke. Thank God, thank God, you’re alive.’
‘I am never, ever going to forgive you for what you’ve done to me.’
‘Luke. Listen to me. I can help you. I’m your best hope.’
‘Your sorry bastard. You knew I had been kidnapped, you listened to me beg you for help and you hung up the goddamned phone. I saw you on TV …’
‘My clients - they’re not who I thought they were. They used us both. And they wouldn’t let me do anything but damn you to the public. But meet me, we’ll figure out how we can both get out of this mess.’
‘Mess? This is beyond a mess. You sent Mouser and Snow after me like dogs to hunt me down. They tried to kill me. They’ve killed people trying to kill me.’ His voice broke. ‘Well, I shot one of your dogs and stabbed the other, and I’m going to do the same to you.’