Trust Me

by Abbott, Jeff

  Drummond groaned, the back of his head bloodied, his eyelids at half-mast. The phone lay on the floor.

  Luke picked it up. ‘Hello? Did you see Drummond’s taking a nap?’

  Silence. The line was dead. He dropped the phone and looked up again where he thought the hidden cameras might be. ‘I’m not playing your game. All right?’ he yelled to the air. ‘I want Aubrey back. I’ll give you all the information on the Night Road, the accounts, everything I know, but you give me Aubrey and you tell me who you people are. Do you hear me?’

  Drummond groaned. ‘I’m sorry,’ Luke said. He dragged Drummond into the walk-in pantry, slammed the door, and jammed the other kitchen chair under the knob. Leaving Drummond with the cake mixes and the bottles of beer, he turned back toward where the cameras might be hidden.

  ‘Hey! Why are you hiding behind an old man?’ Luke taunted.

  The phone rang. He answered it.

  ‘Let Drummond out of the pantry.’ It was Aubrey. ‘They have me. You have to let him out.’

  ‘Aubrey. Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m all right. They haven’t hurt me, Luke, I think these are the good guys.’

  ‘Let me talk to whoever’s in charge.’

  A few moments passed. For a moment the silence made Luke think they’d been disconnected. A man’s voice came on the line, one he didn’t recognize. ‘Release Mr Drummond. You must get out of the building. Now.’ The accent was French - slight but noticeable.

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘Get out of the building now, it’s under attack.’

  ‘By who?’ He opened the closet door and dragged Drummond out. He was groggy, bleeding from the ear and the temple.

  Luke put the phone back to his ear. ‘Who the hell are you people?’

  ‘Get out, Luke, get out of there now!’

  He hung up the phone and started to search the apartment for a weapon.

  He found a bedroom, a small office next to it. Inside the desk drawers, he found a manila file folder, crammed in crookedly as though it had been put away in haste.

  In it were papers. The first was a news account of his father’s death; the plane that had gone down with several noted professors aboard. A file on Ace Beere, the man who had confessed to sabotaging the plane before he blew his brains out. A large sticky note said check airport surveillance photos from last Book Club flight, compare with Night Road suspect, ask photo archive for facial comparison and confirmation.

  Under the note was an old photo of Mouser. Then a new photo, that looked like it had been taken from a security camera, stamped LAKEFRONT AIR PARK, Mouser and Snow heading toward an entrance. Another image of Mouser, taken from what might have been a traffic camera on Armitage, during the chase from Eric’s shooting. The photo was grainier but it still looked like Mouser.

  Luke’s stomach felt a dark pang. Mouser. Was he connected to his father’s death? And how could Quicksilver access these surveillance cameras?

  The final document was attached to a photo of the man who died in Houston. The photo was grainy, slightly hazed by sunlight. It looked like it had been taken in a desert setting; a long stretch of sand lay behind the man. In the photo, his father stood next to the man. Hands on shoulders. They were dressed in military garb, guns at their sides. Next to his father stood Drummond, smiling, an arm around his father’s shoulders.

  Attached to the photo was a readout, a service record from the State Department, of a man named Allen Clifford. He had retired from the State Department two weeks after Luke’s dad died.

  He hurried back to the kitchen. Drummond sat up from laying curled on the floor, holding his head. ‘Drummond!’

  ‘What?’ A harsh hiss, low and pained.

  ‘I’m really sorry. Your friends say we have to get out of here now, we’re under attack.’

  He focused his gaze on a blinking red light on the kitchen wall. ‘Someone’s trying to get past the security systems.’ He rose unsteadily to his feet. ‘We have unwanted company, Luke. The Night Road must have tracked you here. I hope you’re ready for a fight.’

  40

  Ten minutes earlier, Snow knocked at the door of the Quicksilver building. The doorman stood up, peered at her both on the camera that monitored the street and through the bulletproof glass.

  ‘Yes, I’m here to see Mr Drummond at Quicksilver Risk Management,’ Snow said with a coy, slightly crooked smile.

  The doorman did not seem at all impressed with her smile. He gave her a hard, measured stare.

  ‘No sales calls,’ he said through the intercom.

  ‘I’m not a sales person. I represent a software company that has already registered the trademark of Quicksilver Risk Management in the state of New York and I’ve been trying every way I can to get in contact with Quicksilver at this address and nothing has worked.’ She tapped her foot on the pavement and ran a hand through her snow-white hair.

  ‘We’re not interested.’

  ‘Well, you might be interested that my client is planning to sue you for use of a registered trademark. And if you don’t let me in to speak with someone in charge, then I shall simply have to summon the police and the press here and say that you are refusing to accept legal papers.’

  The doorman was not privy to the name of the building’s owner. And he privately thought the police wouldn’t care less. But the woman was making a fuss and one of the overriding descriptions of his job was to keep the building out of public and police notice.

  She stepped inside as he deactivated the electronic locks on the door. She reached into her purse and pulled out a thick envelope. ‘Honestly, how do your clients get a hold of you?’

  The doorman reached for the package and the end of it exploded. The bullet tore through his flesh like it was paper and he toppled toward the granite counter.

  She thought of the uniformed men who had swarmed the burning compound, the only home she’d ever known, and she was glad the man was dead. She walked to the front door and admitted Mouser. She propped the door open with a metal wedge. They dragged the doorman’s body out of sight.

  They hurried toward the elevator. She swiped an electronic code scanner card, connected to a modified handheld computer, that Sweet Bird had given them to unlock the elevator; it tested thousands of combinations within thirty seconds, scored the right one, and the doors closed. She pressed the button for the top floor.

  The elevator began to rise. At floor five it jolted to a hard stop.

  Sweet Bird listened to a call in his earpiece. ‘Understood,’ he said. He turned to his Birdies. ‘The showoffs got themselves trapped.’ He did not want to spend his day playing soldier; he did not like putting himself or his people in unwarranted danger. But he had no choice.

  He and his five Birdies got out of the van, their guns hidden under their coats. The driver moved the van along into traffic, to start his ongoing orbit of the building until needed.

  The front door was propped open, but Sweet Bird kicked the prop loose and the door shut itself again.

  ‘Get on the computer system,’ he told one of the Birdies, ‘see if there’s an override for the elevator, or if we got stairs to take.’ Suddenly two uniformed men barreled in from a door at the end of the small lobby, guns drawn.

  The gunfire erupted just as Sweet Bird dove for the cover of the counter.

  ‘Look for an override button.’ Snow spoke into her mike. The distant sound of gunfire, five floors below, stopped abruptly.

  A long quiet filled the elevator while she waited for an answer, hoping that Sweet Bird and his flock were still on their feet.

  ‘Got it,’ Sweet Bird said. Suddenly the elevator lurched into life, began its ascent toward the top floor.

  ‘If Luke or these assholes have our money, we kill them as soon as we’ve got our hands on it.’

  ‘I get Schoolboy,’ Snow said. ‘He hurt me worse than he hurt you. A bullet beats a blade.’

  ‘Do you know who killed my dad? Was it Mouser?’

&nb
sp; ‘Not now, Luke, for God’s sakes. Here, take this gun. We’re getting the hell out of here.’

  ‘Tell your friends on the other side of the camera to call the police if we’re in danger.’

  ‘They’re far away. They can’t help us.’

  ‘Where’s far away?’

  ‘Europe.’

  ‘Why are they taking Aubrey to Europe?’ Then he remembered Frankie Wu’s words back in Chicago, discussing their itinerary. New York. Paris.

  ‘Can you shoot this?’ Drummond pulled a Glock 9 from a kitchen cabinet, pressed it into Luke’s hand.

  ‘If I have lots of time to aim.’

  ‘Don’t be a perfectionist.’ They turned the corner into the entryway. The elevator doors were already open and Mouser leveled his semi-automatic and opened fire. Rounds exploded into the walnut paneling near Luke’s head. Drummond shoved him back around the corner, returning fire.

  They retreated toward the kitchen. The finery of the living room - the cleanly upholstered sofas, the glass table tops, the vivid photos of misspent suffering on the walls - all were splintered and dusted in the gunfire.

  Drummond and Luke went over the kitchen counter. A few more bullets thrummed into the granite-topped island.

  Then silence.

  Drummond pointed at the doorway at the end of the kitchen, gestured that it meant the roof. It would be a run of a dozen feet, uncovered.

  Luke shook his head.

  ‘Schoolboy.’ Luke heard Snow call to him. ‘You left marks on my throat with those chains, and a hole in my shoulder’ - and then she went silent. Luke knew what would happen to him if she got those pale, tender hands on him. She would pay him back with agony.

  He stared at Drummond and listened for the shuffle of feet on broken glass. But there was only silence. The quiet filled his chest with a crushing dread.

  The silence stretched.

  ‘No neighbors to call for help, Mr Drummond,’ Mouser called. ‘This is one empty building. We got people going floor to floor and nobody’s home. How can you afford that in New York?’

  ‘Family money.’ Drummond reached into a drawer and yanked out a large knife.

  ‘Luke, how you doing?’ Mouser called.

  ‘Better than Snow,’ Luke said. Did you kill my dad? He wanted to ask the question but the words wouldn’t form in his mouth.

  ‘You’re a nothing punk to me,’ Mouser said. ‘You cooperate, you get to go home to stepdaddy. You don’t, I’m giving you to my girl, and it’s not going to be sunshine and lollipops. Now shut up and let the big boys talk. Mr Drummond?’

  ‘What, asshole?’

  ‘Tell me who’s trying to screw the Night Road.’

  Drummond said nothing.

  ‘You help me, I help you.’ Mouser’s voice grew closer.

  ‘Fine. Here’s the deal,’ Drummond said. ‘You leave and I won’t kill you.’

  Snow was silent; Luke thought she might be drawing close, grinning at him under her bottle-white hair. He risked a glance around the counter’s edge but didn’t see her.

  ‘I’ll leave, but with Luke. You get to live.’

  Drummond said, ‘Eric stole your money. Not us. And I walk out with Luke.’

  ‘You’re outgunned. I got street gangbangers in the lobby. We’re over a dozen stories up. You got no place to fly.’

  ‘Except into my arms.’ Snow sounded like she was just on the other side of the counter.

  Mouser continued his negotiation. ‘Eric hid the goods and you were gonna fly his ass out here. I think Eric gave Luke and Aubrey our money.’

  ‘You want to know what Eric did with your money?’ Luke said. ‘I know exactly where he stashed it. You kill us, you’ll never ever find it.’ They had nothing left but a bluff. Luke’s fear rose in a tide inside his heart. But he would not let it control him.

  Drummond gestured again at the stairs. No way, Luke thought, no way. But they had no choice.

  ‘Luke. Aren’t you tired of running?’ Mouser said.

  Luke held up a hand to Drummond, five fingers spread and then pointed at the escape route to the rooftop garden. He opened his hands again to five. Then four fingers. A countdown.

  Luke wanted to shoot Mouser. He could feel the hate, the rage swelling in his chest.

  Three. Two.

  ‘Luke, don’t you want to see your stepdad again? You two got lots to discuss,’ Mouser said.

  ‘No,’ Luke said. ‘You talk to him. You’re both traitors.’

  One finger, upraised, holding. Drummond mouthed: you just run. There was no arguing with him. Luke couldn’t look back.

  Go, Drummond mouthed. He had the knife in one hand, the gun in the other.

  ‘You’re the one who’s a traitor,’ Mouser said in a snarl and Luke bolted for the stairs. He expected the rip of bullets. He ducked low, hiking fast up the stairs and he heard gunfire, a cry of fury from Mouser and a scream from Snow.

  The roof. He ran through the door and Drummond was seconds behind him, his shoulder bloodied. Luke slammed the door closed and engaged the bolt. Weird that there was a lock on the outside of the door - it meant that this really was Drummond’s escape route. ‘We have nowhere to go.’

  ‘Wrong. Down.’ Drummond gritted his teeth against the pain.

  ‘It’s suicide.’

  Bullets began to pan hard against the metal of the door around the lock.

  Drummond grabbed Luke, shoved him away from the door. Over the pounding of blows against the reinforced door Luke could hear, hundreds of feet below, the hum of traffic, the whisper of endless shuffles of feet against the pavement.

  ‘Never let yourself get cornered,’ Drummond said.

  ‘We are cornered.’

  Drummond kicked the layer of gravel away near the slightly raised box of metal that looked like a maintenance access point. It was secured by a digital keypad lock. ‘We have only a window of fifteen seconds.’

  ‘What the hell are we doing?’

  ‘If they have gunmen below, you are going to have to shoot. You can be scared, but don’t think about it. It’s time to be your father’s son.’

  The hatchway opened and Drummond gestured to Luke to crawl inside. Behind them the roof door began to creak free from its hinges. ‘Be quiet. Not a sound.’

  Luke wriggled into the darkness. The narrow crawlway led into the elevator housing. Below him, eight feet or so, he could see the top of the elevator car. With a hatch.

  Drummond must’ve intended to go through the elevator and attack Snow and Mouser from behind. They’d surprise them with bullets in the back. But as soon as Mouser and Snow broke through the door and saw the roof was empty - in a matter of seconds - then Mouser would figure they’d re-entered the building. And then he would alert the other gunmen inside.

  Drummond closed the access hatch behind him and raised a grimy finger to his lips. In the dim light given off by the controls and from the glow of the elevator cabin below, Luke thought Drummond looked like a tired old lion. Blood soaked his shoulder.

  They’d shot him. Luke had to get him to a doctor.

  Wincing with pain, Drummond punched in a key command on the elevator’s roof and the soft click sounded of a lock released. He punched other buttons, presumably disabling the weapons scanner so it wouldn’t refuse to lower the car. They slid open the hatch to the elevator, but only an inch. Luke started to shift the hatch open more and Drummond stopped him with a firm grip on his arm. Drummond pointed.

  In the narrow gap, looking down into the elevator, Luke saw a handheld computer dangling from a card feeder at the bottom of the elevator keys. Luke guessed Snow and Mouser had used a digital lock pick to bypass the security in the elevator.

  He heard the roof door at the top of the stairs smash open, Mouser warning Snow to stay back.

  Luke slid the rest of the hatch open, eased himself down into the elevator. If they heard him …

  Snow and Mouser were soon going to see the roof was empty and figure out they were back inside. Within
seconds, they would charge back into the building and head for the elevator.

  Luke pressed the ground floor button.

  Nothing happened. The doors stayed open; the elevator did not move.

  In the distance, he could hear Mouser calling an all-clear to Snow.

  He jabbed at the button again. Nothing. He slid the electronic passkey from the card reader. Tested the button. Nothing. An elevator that wouldn’t move.

  They’d reset the code for the elevator. To keep Drummond and Luke trapped. There was no escape route.

  Luke studied the card reader. He spent way too much time on computers cobbling together the Night Road research; couldn’t he figure out this one? If the passcard had broken the original code - he slid the passkey back into the card reader. The PDA, tied to the card by a thin strip of plastic, blinked to life. A series of numbers raced across the screen.

  He heard the sound of footsteps returning down the stairs. Fevered breathing.

  Combinations of numbers flashed across the readout.

  Luke put himself flat against the door, out of sight from the hallway. They couldn’t see him, and he couldn’t see them. He heard voices barely ten feet away.

  ‘Not over the roof, goddamn it, no broken windows, nothing to lower themselves,’ Mouser said, as if speaking to someone not there. ‘So they’re back in, Sweet Bird.’

  The elevator gave a soft, traitorous ping and the doors began to slide, slowly, closed.

  He heard running footsteps and then the end of a gun jammed into the closing door. The door began, like an obliging devil, to open.

  The only thought that seared into Luke’s head was that hesitation meant death. He seized the gun’s barrel before it could pivot the rest of the way toward him.

  Snow stumbled into the elevator. She swung toward him, trying to wrench back control of the gun and aim it into his stomach. Over her bloodied shoulder, in the gunfire-sprayed hallways, Mouser ran toward them, full sprint, gun up.