by Abbott, Jeff
‘Ah. Having betrayed your friends, your family and your country, now you’re going to betray the Night Road.’
‘Would you prefer I stay loyal to them or help you?’ Henry asked. The traffic thickened and he laid on the horn, fighting his way through a tangle of cars and buses at the Place de la Concorde.
‘Help me. How do I stop the Night Road?’
‘You can’t, there are too many of them.’
‘What is Hellfire?’
‘Hellfire is the second phase. The first wave was an audition.’
‘What?’
‘Think it through, Luke.’ Like this was an intellectual exercise. ‘An audition,’ Luke repeated. ‘Like a gang initiation, a smaller crime before you get responsibility for the bigger crime? Is that what these recent attacks are? The chlorine train in Texas, the E. coli in Tennessee, the pipeline bombing. The high school attack?’
Henry nodded.
‘Proving grounds,’ Luke said. ‘Pull them off and you get to play on a bigger stage. Which is Hellfire.’
‘Yes.’
‘The money,’ Luke said. ‘The fifty million. You get a slice of that if you qualify, more if you contribute to executing the Hellfire attack.’
‘Yes.’
‘Where’s it coming from? The funds had to be brought in and cleaned, Eric said. From where?’
Henry’s tongue played along his lip. His breathing grew ragged. ‘I need to explain.’
An audition. He thought of the various terrorist wannabes on the Night Road site, asking for and getting expertise, the words they’d used. ‘It’s an investment. Someone overseas is investing in American-based terrorists.’
Henry nodded.
‘Your researches into terrorism. You interviewed people overseas, too.’ Now he put the knife close to Henry’s tender throat. He didn’t care if anyone else in a passing car saw. ‘Who?’
‘An elderly Saudi prince. He’s backing the fifty million. More to come if we succeed. Our connection with him is what gave Mouser access to a suicide bomber here in Paris. He is funding networks all over Europe, in East Africa, in the Philippines, in Australia.’
Luke lowered the knife. He thought he knew how deep this betrayal went, but this staggered him. ‘Why?’
‘I told you, I’ve been warning people about this for years, even with the new think-tank, I write the papers, not enough people listen, but now … they have to. I’ve predicted everything that’s going to happen. All my papers over the past six months. All the papers I’ve got coming out this week.’
‘You predict the future and then you make it happen. And now - everyone will listen to you. And pay you handsomely for your insights. And think you’re incredibly smart.’
Henry moved his mouth to say yes but no word issued from his breath, his lips.
‘Do you realize how utterly pathetic you are? Truly?’
Henry wiped at his mouth.
‘Why?’
‘I told you.’
‘Why me. Why involve me.’
‘I thought I could just write the papers - with you - and then when our “predictions” came true, we’d be a success together. I didn’t know I’d have to run the show. Handle the money, recruit the Night Road proper. But it was all my idea, so the prince wanted me involved. I couldn’t say no. I thought it would just be us together in the think-tank - not us together in the Night Road.’
Henry drove onto a highway that snaked through the northern suburbs of Paris.
Luke couldn’t look at him. It was as though he’d glanced into a well and seen bodies piled and rotting in the water, a sickening sight that would haunt him forever. ‘Hellfire. It’s bombs, isn’t it, with Snow involved.’
‘Snow made a lot of bombs. They’ve been planted in six cities.’
‘Planted where?’
The car’s phone rang. ‘Mouser,’ Henry whispered.
‘Tell him you saw me dead.’
Henry glanced at him.
‘I want him to think I’m dead.’
Henry answered the phone. He kept it on speaker.
Mouser sounded impatient. ‘Well? What happened?’
‘You won, Mouser. You won.’
‘Luke?’
‘Dead. I saw it myself. Lying in the street.’
‘His father’s people?’
‘Same.’
‘Excellent. Anything else?’
‘No.’
Mouser hung up. No goodbyes.
‘Where are these bombs, Henry?’
‘I’ll tell you if we can make a deal.’ Henry gave him a sidelong glance. ‘And if you kill me, you won’t get your dad or Aubrey back.’
‘What’s the deal?’
‘Mouser resents my efforts to protect you. He’s going to kill me, I feel sure, and take control of the Night Road entirely. I want immunity. I want protection.’
‘I can’t really give that to you.’
‘Quicksilver is more than that office in Paris or Drummond in New York. They can protect you. I want protection.’
‘All right.’
‘It will be a wave of bombings. A hundred and forty.’
A hundred and forty bombs. My God.
‘Where? What cities?’ He thought of the map of the previous attacks. Would they strike the same areas? Or entirely different ones?
‘When I’m safe, I’ll tell you. Not before.’ Henry glanced at his watch. ‘You better hurry. Mouser’s moving your father and Aubrey in the next hour.’
‘Describe where they’re being held.’
Henry remained silent and it was only when Luke shifted position to slice at him again that he said, ‘Don’t be an idiot. If you want them out, you need me. I can’t go in there bloodied. They’ll know something is wrong. Start using your brain, Luke.’ He reached out, grabbed Luke’s wrist. Squeezed. Released it. ‘You hate me. Fine. We’re still stuck together in this mess. You should tell me what you plan to do. Marching in with a knife on me buys you nothing.’
‘True. I need a gun.’
‘Glove compartment.’
Luke opened it, fished out a small Beretta. He checked; it was loaded. He didn’t say thank you.
‘Tell me what the plan is,’ Henry said. ‘I just gave you a gun.’
‘We’re going to go in and I’m killing Mouser.’
‘He has hired men with him. You have no chance. I want you alive, Luke. Look at me. I raised you, for God’s sakes.’
‘I don’t see tears in your eyes.’
‘I don’t cry. You know that.’
‘Thanks, but I’ll handle it myself. Where are they?’
‘The prince has a compound just outside Paris. I drove like the devil to get there in time to try and stop the bomber.’
‘Or to make sure his work was done.’
‘You know that’s not true. If you believe I want you dead, stab me right now. Do it. Kill me.’
‘I need you breathing, Henry.’ He thought of the words of ChicagoChris; now Luke was the one trying to earn admittance to the club. ‘You’re my golden ticket.’
53
A stone wall surrounded the compound. The home beyond looked like a chateau, grand but slightly shabby. The landscaping had been ripped up around the house but not replaced, giving the house the air of neglect. Three miles away was a former French air force base, used as a hub by Travport for its legitimate courier service.
‘The prince, he owns Travport, through a series of limited partnerships.’
‘And he put you in touch with Eric.’ Luke remembered the photos in Eric’s room at his parents’ house, him posing with a businessman type in the shimmer of the desert.
‘Yes.’ Henry paused. ‘Eric did banking for him when he worked on overseas projects. Mouser will fly us back on a Travport jet, with the prince’s permission. Easier with prisoners. You’re an idiot to try this.’
‘Not asking your opinion,’ Luke said from the back seat. Henry had given him a basic layout of the compound. In the center was the old sm
all chateau that the prince’s money had renewed from ruin. Behind it was a large barn, a guest house. Beyond that was another house, and that was where Warren Dantry and Aubrey Perrault were now being held.
Or so Henry said. But Henry was the king of lies.
‘Guards?’
‘Two remaining. Now that Quicksilver’s Paris base is gone, and presumably the remains of Quicksilver scattered with it, I suspect that the guards will not have further reinforcements.’
‘I’m going to shoot the guards,’ Luke said. ‘If you give me away, I’ll shoot you too.’
‘Is it liberating to order me about?’ Henry sounded almost amused.
‘The spine, Henry, is where I’ll put the bullet. If you survive a nurse will wipe your chin and change your diaper.’ He knew Henry well enough to know the merest thought of a lack of control would frighten him.
Henry steered the car to an entrance. ‘The camera’s on me,’ he said.
‘Don’t talk. I don’t want them wondering who you’re talking to.’ Henry shut up. He entered an access code; the tasteless baroque iron gates hinged back and swung open with a false grandeur. He drove in.
‘What will be expected of you?’ Luke asked.
‘For me to drive to the back house.’
The odds were bad. Four to one, really, because Henry wasn’t on his side. Henry was only on his own side. Luke leaned closer to the floor of the sedan, keeping a tight grip on the gun. Fear prickled every bone in his body, and then the fear shrank, became smaller than himself.
The sedan stopped. ‘We’re at the house. The doors will be locked.’
Luke peered over the edge of the back seat. The back house was built of stone, studded with a few windows. ‘Do you have a key?’
‘Yes, Luke, I do.’
‘Out.’
Henry got out of the car. Luke walked close behind him and kept the knife at his ribs.
Henry unlocked the door. Luke pushed him, used him as a shield, and Henry didn’t complain. They moved from the front door, across a living room, into a back kitchen. The house was silent as a grave. Or maybe, Luke thought crazily, a grave was louder. For a hub of terrorist activity, it was far too silent. Luke’s skin tingled as though warmed by fire.
‘They’re gone,’ Henry said.
Luke listened to the pressing silence of the house. He heard a creak on the stairs.
Henry was a liar.
Luke kept his grip on Henry but he moved the gun away from his neck, kept it aimed over his shoulder. He listened for the next creak. Heard nothing. He kicked open a back door, yanked Henry away from the wash of cool air, pulled him back into a corner.
Five seconds later he saw the gun come into sight from around the open door. The edge of the barrel, then hand gripping the guard, then arm.
Luke aimed and fired twice in rapid succession. The gun kicked more than he thought it would. The first bullet scored; the second missed. The sleeve, halfway up, pulled and smoked and produced a bright flush of blood. The thug fell against the door and raised the gun but Luke threw Henry into the thug. Henry tackled him. Closing arms around him, they staggered into the wall, sliding to the floor.
The thug screamed a babble of rage in his own language. He punched Henry hard; Henry went down, but clawed at the thug’s hair. They grappled, and Luke looked for the shot.
Just shoot them both, he thought, but he couldn’t.
The thug shoved Henry clear, sending him crashing into and over a kitchen table. The thug slid to the floor, his arm bright with blood. His hands empty.
Where the hell was the guy’s gun? Gone.
Henry. That conniving bastard had grabbed it. He glanced over at the corner of the kitchen where Henry had landed. Gone.
Luke pulled the trigger. The gun jammed. Or the clip was now empty. Or he didn’t know how to use it. The gun was useless.
The thug launched himself at Luke; his fingers dug into Luke’s throat, squeezed into the flesh. Luke gripped his hands, tried to pry them free, kicked his feet along the floor. He was bigger and taller than his attacker but the guy had the advantage of strength and experience.
The guy slammed Luke’s head against the tile. Luke released his futile grip on the guy’s hands. He pushed off the floor, came close to the guy’s chest. He threw one arm around in an embrace and as he did so, searched along his own waist for the knife he’d taken from the restaurant after the bombing.
Luke slid the blade hard into the guy’s side. Felt it touch bone and the guy howled. No second chance. Luke stabbed and pulled out again and the wash of blood was warm, awful; and he drove the blade upwards, into the guy’s throat.
The guy toppled. Dying. Luke kicked out from under him, hand slick with blood, the breath frozen in his half-strangled throat.
He looked up from the dying man and Henry stood above him, gun in hand.
‘No one else is here. The house is empty. I had to be sure,’ Henry said calmly.
Luke stared at him, kicked away from the dying terrorist. The thug lay on the floor, gasping out air and blood, a froth on his lips. His eyes stretched wide in fear, in horror, in pain. Luke couldn’t look away. It was all the ugliness of slow death, laid bare. He had killed Snow but she had died within seconds. It did not matter that the man deserved it. Luke felt something shift in his chest, in his brain, watching death unfold.
The dying man coughed and writhed and his eyes pleaded for a question he couldn’t ask. Unlike the near-instant deaths he had seen - Snow, Chris, the poor officer in the Chicago alleyway - this dying took time. They watched his pain.
‘For God’s sakes, put him out of his misery,’ Luke said.
Henry glanced at the gun he held and remained motionless.
The thug coughed and gurgled blood, clutching his wound, and then he lay still.
‘My God, that was messy. You for sure killed him,’ Henry said. ‘Let’s get you washed.’
Luke tore his gaze away from the dead man and looked up at Henry. Get me washed, like I was a child caught playing in the mud. Henry held the gun but it wasn’t aimed at him.
‘You could have shot him,’ Luke said. ‘You could have ended the fight so I didn’t have to …’
‘So you didn’t have to do what was necessary? You handled it.’ Henry’s voice was flat. ‘I had to make sure no one else was here, attacking our flank. Everyone else is gone.’
Our flank. Like they were a team. The shock of killing had eroded the anger he felt toward Henry. But Henry had the gun.
Luke wondered if Henry would shoot him. He didn’t really know Henry. He only knew the lie Henry was.
‘You hung back to see if I’d win. What are you trying to make me into? You?’ Luke stood and the rage he’d felt while stabbing the thug tingled hard in his hands. ‘You used me to build your terrorist network. You made it so I can’t go to the police. That I can only turn to you.’
‘We’re family,’ he said quietly.
‘You involved me only to bind me to you. You destroyed my options in life and left me with yours. So I would join you?’ It was the horrifying truth that lay between them. ‘You think that because you had me build the Night Road, and hide from the police, and now made me kill, I’m somehow more like you?’ He spat at Henry’s shoe. ‘We could not be more different.’
‘You’re all the family I have, Luke. The only family I’ve ever had.’ He mouthed the words with difficulty. He tried an expression that was distantly related to a smile. ‘I wanted us together.’
‘What, in jail cells? If you wanted to be my family, you could have had your normal life and let me have mine. You don’t know what family is.’
‘I know we don’t turn on each other in a time of need.’ Henry wet a hand towel, tossed it to Luke, as though cleaning the blood off his hands was as everyday for him as a gardener wiping dirt. ‘Clearly, since Mouser and everyone else is gone, and this man was waiting here to kill me, I’m on the outs with Mouser and the Night Road,’ Henry said. ‘You and I have to come to an ag
reement, Luke. An opportunity confronts us.’
‘This isn’t like we’ve had a fight about a family issue,’ Luke said. ‘There is no agreement. No opportunity. You tell me where Mouser took them.’
‘I assume Chicago, on a Travport plane. He thinks he can find the fifty million by tracing Eric’s activities at the private bank that Eric worked for. The money, Luke. Where is that money?’
‘Your so-clever bomb destroyed the encrypted file that contained the account info. Jane decrypted it. But I didn’t see it and all the evidence was destroyed.’
‘She said nothing about where it was?’
‘No.’ Only her final words of anger. Hidden in plain sight, that little b—
‘If you and I take the fifty million before they do, well, the Night Road is done. It will fall apart without the promised money and the billionaire won’t try and invest in terror again. You and I can hide. All is well.’
‘Not for my father and Aubrey.’
Henry’s lips thinned. Laughing, but not wanting to show he was laughing. Because Henry had the gun. ‘Trying to save them is suicide. They’ll kill you.’
He punched his stepfather, hard, fist to jaw. Henry sagged to the floor, agony on his face. He swung the gun back toward Luke. But he didn’t fire.
Henry said thickly, ‘I’m trying to save you…’
‘Quit lying. Just quit.’ Luke kicked his stepfather. Hard. In the stomach. He did it before he even realized it. All the air went out of Henry’s lungs. Luke hit him again in the face and a great sorrow rose in him, for this man who’d cared for him, been his friend, tried to be his father. It was all a most vicious, damnable lie. He could kill him. But there were things worse than death.
‘Tell me where these bombs will be placed. Or I’ll kill you.’
‘They’ll change their targets, because Mouser’s shut me out. They’ll be afraid I’ll cut a deal with the authorities.’
‘Humor me. What are the original targets?’
‘Shopping centers. Striking at ordinary people. Easy to deploy.’ Henry turned his face to the floor. ‘But I’m telling you, they’ll abandon that plan because they’re under such pressure and so much has gone wrong. Mouser will … think bigger. He’ll make Hellfire a memorial to Snow.’