The Directive

by Matthew Quirk

  I still had his gun hand tied up. As the seat belt loosened and he reached back for the wheel, I sat up and threw my left arm around his neck. I settled it into a choke, dragging him across the center console with his throat in the V of my elbow.

  His face was turned to the ceiling. Neither of us could see the road.

  “Brake!” I shouted. He couldn’t say anything through the choke, and given how far he’d come out of his seat I didn’t even know if he could reach the pedals. His main goal seemed to be angling the gun, which was about six inches from my face, so he could kill me. I gripped his wrist and tried to aim the muzzle away from my head.

  The van must have had decent alignment, because it seemed like a long time before we veered into oncoming traffic and clipped another car.

  Metal shrieked. The van skidded and bucked hard to the right, throwing us over my reclined seat toward the back seats. I let go of his gun hand for a second and reached back to brace myself.

  I only succeeded in shoving the handle of the passenger-side sliding door. It flew back, wide open.

  The collision knocked us away from the median. We jumped the curb and ran along the sidewalk, edging closer and closer to the railing and the long drop to the river.

  I had the choke in deep. Lynch was lying half on top of me. We both faced the ceiling, far back on the tilted passenger seat, no one in control. He had no good angle to get me with the pistol now.

  Lynch reached back with his right hand and drove his thumb into my eye. I twisted my head away, but suddenly neither the pain nor the gun seemed to matter.

  I was slipping off the seat, toward the open door. Only my hips, pinned by Lynch’s weight, kept me inside the vehicle. The last wheel jumped the sidewalk. The van shuddered, knocking me farther out. My head was hanging upside down, past the doorsill. The bridge’s white stone parapet strobed past, coming closer and closer to crushing my head against the steel frame of the van.

  I waited until the last second, dug my left arm into the choke, and groaned as I levered my torso up with every bit of strength I had. I pulled up just before the body of the van ground against the railing, raining sparks on the cement sidewalk.

  We slowed, then stopped—as did most of the blood to Lynch’s brain, from the look of him. He was like a rag doll. I relaxed the choke hold, then took a deep breath. I was draped over the seat with my head resting on the sill a couple of inches from the railing. It wasn’t ideal, but at least I wasn’t dead.

  On my third breath, Lynch’s body tensed. “Christ,” I muttered. He started to turn over, his gun hand now free.

  He aimed the pistol at my face. I grabbed his wrist and the gun with both hands and jerked it down beside my ear as I pressed both legs hard into his waist and sent him over the bridge railing.

  I looked over. We were near the end of the span, and it was only a short fall to the brush on the hill below.

  I glanced up and down the sidewalk. The driver of the other car had gotten out at the end of the bridge, the way we had come. He looked okay.

  I stood on the sill, holding the gun by the barrel, and let the air fill my lungs, let the cramp in my forearm relax. Lynch had a nice pistol, a Wilson Combat.

  Someone was coming from farther up the bridge. I took the gun by the grip. A man approached, walking down the center of our lane.

  I aimed the pistol at his head. It was Jack. He approached the van.

  “Hands, Jack,” I said.

  “Are you okay?”

  “You’re suddenly concerned about my safety? Hands, or I kill you. And you will absolutely deserve it.”

  He raised them. I didn’t see any obvious signs that he was carrying. Bloom had been driving well ahead of us, but she must have seen something. She was now parked facing us at the end of the bridge, the direction Jack had approached from. I imagined there was plenty of hardware in her truck.

  “I’m sorry, Mike. I had no choice.”

  “I don’t care why. I’m done with you. Step back.”

  “At the end of the day, I knew they would kill me and you wouldn’t. It’s as simple as that. I’m your brother, and you’re a good guy. Good guys don’t kill people.”

  That last bit was actually a matter of some debate between Annie and me.

  “Stop pretending you’re going to shoot me,” Jack said, and came toward the driver’s side door. I ducked down, to have a clear shot through the van.

  He started to lower his hand.

  “I’m going to open this door, Mike.”

  “I’ll do anything to keep her safe. Don’t test me, Jack. I will shoot.”

  “You’re a good guy, Mike. Now come out before you get hurt.”

  He opened the door, leaned toward me, and filled his face with kindness.

  I knew every line he might use, every gesture, every subtlety of speech to draw me back in. I’d seen them all before, whenever Jack made one of his offers. How many times had he leaned his head toward me with a sly look, a tightening of the eyes, a little roll of the fingers as he tried to pull me into the con?

  I knew them because they were my father’s expressions, because they were my own. But now there was something awfully strange about his face, about those eyes the same green as mine. Probably because it was my first time seeing them down the barrel of a gun.

  I centered the sights on his face. He was my brother, sure. But how many times do you turn the other cheek? Where would it end if not now? He had ruined my life once before, left me to take the fall for the job that had nearly landed me in prison so many years ago. After all the suffering Jack had put me through, how much, really, did I care whether he lived or died?

  “Last chance,” I said.

  He moved closer. “Come on, Mike—”

  I tightened my hand. And Jack, for once, realized he had read me wrong. I saw the fear in him. I pulled the trigger. The gun jumped. My brother cried out in pain.

  Chapter 48

  THE DRIVER’S SIDE window blew out. Jack dropped beside the van, hands to his face. I crossed over to the driver’s seat. The door was still open. Jack lay on the ground.

  He was screaming at me, a long string of curses, as he brought his hand down, then felt around his cheeks and eyes.

  He must have thought I’d shot him in the face. And I could understand how he might take that the wrong way. I hoped Bloom would have the same impression, because I needed time.

  “Stop being a baby,” I said as I reached down, covered by the open door, and pressed the gun to his head. There was a small cut on his cheek. “I shot the window. It’s a scratch from the glass. Now give me your cell phone.”

  “What?”

  “Your cell phone. I know they didn’t have you locked down. Where is it? I have to make some calls.”

  He pointed to his pocket. I pulled out the phone, then patted his waist.

  “Where’s your gun?” I asked.

  “My back.”

  “Roll on your face.”

  He complied. I pulled a baby Glock out of an inside-the-waistband holster.

  “You don’t know me, Jack. And you’re not as good at this as you think you are.” I gave him a light slap on the cheek. “I win.”

  I climbed into the van, slammed the door shut, and stomped the gas. My head pressed against the seat as I shot toward Bloom’s truck. I veered left, across the double-yellow, then curved back at her truck.

  I took a last look as Bloom stepped from the driver’s side door and raised her pistol, then I dropped behind the dash. I could hear the shots plinking the hood of the van.

  My face smashed into the steering wheel on impact. The van skidded to the side. Red and white lights filled my vision.

  The van was still running. I’d spun around 180 degrees. Bloom’s truck was halfway up the end of the parapet. I pressed down on the gas, more controlled this time, as I tasted the blood coming from my lip where it had hit the wheel.

  I crunched into her rear bumper and hung her truck up on the railing, two wheels lifted i
n the air. Even with its high clearance, there was no easy way down from that, and I prayed this would buy me enough time to get away.

  Bloom came up shooting from the brush. I reversed down the highway, botched a J-turn, and had to go up and over the curb to finish my turnaround.

  The back windows and the passenger’s side mirror exploded as I pulled away, but I was putting distance between us fast. I pulled some quick turns through the houses on the edge of town, then raced downhill toward a road along the river.

  As I sped away, I lifted up Jack’s cell phone. I needed to warn Annie.

  Her phone rang and rang, then went to voicemail. I left the number, told her to call me immediately, that she was in danger.

  I swerved down the country road, trying to figure out how to reach Annie and my father, how to get back to our house in Alexandria in time.

  I tried our landline. No answer. I needed to reach her at work, but first I had to start another ball rolling. I called 911.

  “What is your emergency?”

  “I need the nearest Secret Service field office.”

  “What is your situation?”

  “I need the Secret Service. There’s a threat. Or just give me the number and I’ll call myself.”

  “I’ll connect you.”

  The Secret Service has 150 field offices throughout the country. You can find them in the emergency pages of the phone book. I remembered what Cartwright had said: the Secret Service does computer and bank fraud. As soon as Jack and I stepped into the Fed, we were the Secret Service’s problem, and could sidestep Lynch’s pull at the FBI. Before the job I didn’t have enough evidence to take down Bloom and Lynch and their master, but now I had them cold.

  “Secret Service,” a dispatcher answered.

  “I need to report a serious crime.”

  “When did it happen?”

  “It’s happening now.”

  “Where?”

  “The Federal Reserve Bank of New York.”

  “And who are you?”

  “I’m the guy who robbed it. I need to talk to a senior agent or an SAIC.”

  “What is the nature of the crime?”

  “We stole the directive, the decision from the open markets committee in DC. It’s not public until two fifteen, and we’re going to inside trade on it. You have no reason to believe me; I understand. But you can call the Fed. Confirm they have a breach. It’s probably on the news by now. There’s a camera hidden behind the senior vice president’s desk in a baseball stand he received as a gift.”

  “Hold please.” I heard a click. The Service deals with more than their fair share of cranks, so I expected some screening. A moment later they connected me with a new voice, an agent.

  “Did you hear what I said to the operator?” I asked.

  “Yes. I’m going to connect you to New York, and they can check this out.”

  “Don’t. I’m already in Virginia. All of the culprits are. I’m going to give you some more info so you can check my story. Are you ready?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “There’s a virus we planted on the computer in workspace 923. And the PIN code to the secure fax on the trading desk is 46195019.”

  I heard him typing, taking it down.

  “And there’s a note,” I went on, “in the office of the SOMA desk manager, the executive vice president.”

  “A note?”

  “Yeah. It says, ‘I just stole the directive.’ ”

  “Seriously? You expect me to—”

  “Just call New York and confirm.”

  “Who are you?”

  “No names,” I said. “But I’ll give you my address.”

  He took it down. I told him to write down the trades to watch for, to confirm the insider information. And then I hung up.

  I figured the Secret Service might have people not far from the address I had given them. There’s a secure site called Mount Weather in the Blue Ridge Mountains, a little over an hour from DC. It’s a bunker built into the mountainside, set to serve as the seat of government in case of an emergency. It’s where they kept stashing Dick Cheney after the September 11 attacks.

  Next I called 411. I had almost forgotten it existed. I asked for Annie’s office. They put me through. The receptionist at her firm connected to her desk, but there was no answer.

  Where was she? I called again, and asked for a friend of hers in the same practice group. She picked up.

  “It’s Mike Ford. I’m sorry to bother you at work, but I need to find Annie. She’s in danger.”

  “I don’t think she wants to talk to you, Mike.”

  “Do you know where she is?” It’s never a good situation when you are consciously trying not to sound like a stalker.

  “I can’t tell you. But she said she’s going someplace safe. I have to go. I’m sorry, but I can’t get in the middle of—” she started to beg off.

  I hung up. Someplace safe. I knew where she was going. I’d told her to go there myself. And right now it was the most dangerous place she could be. It was the address I had just given the Secret Service.

  I slowed, palmed the wheel, and pulled a U-turn across the double-yellow.

  All I wanted to do was get away, to take her and my father, and run from the violence coming for us.

  But now I had run into the fire.

  Chapter 49

  I TORE DOWN the byways at seventy miles an hour. The roads were mostly empty as I navigated from memory: the farm stand, the gun shop, the country store. I’d been here many times.

  It was almost two p.m. The announcement was at two fifteen. I would be at ground zero when it all fell apart.

  I pulled off the road about fifty feet from the entrance to the estate and came to a stop surrounded by shrubs and towering oaks. On the hill where the main mansion stood, I could see the circular driveway. Annie wasn’t here yet. I could catch her before they did. I had a decent view of the road. I would wait and flag her down, jump out in front of her car and hope she was still fond enough of me to stop.

  I chewed the nail of my thumb while I watched the clock count down.

  After ten minutes, I leaned over to check the cell phone.

  “Hands!” someone barked.

  Lynch came from the passenger side, where I was blind since Bloom had blown the side mirror off.

  I dropped, grabbed the pistol, and rolled out the driver’s side door. I circled toward the front of the van. We aimed straight for each other’s heads. He had scratched the side of his face up pretty bad when I had thrown him into the brush, and I gathered he was looking forward to revenge.

  “Boys and their guns.” I turned to see Bloom cross the road, her pistol aimed at me. My chances in this fight plummeted.

  “Finger off the trigger, Mike. Hold it by the barrel. Place it on the ground and back away,” Bloom said. “I’d prefer not to kill you here.”

  I stood there, figuring my odds and my outs. They weren’t good. Before I could say or do anything, I heard another car, and then caught a glimpse of Annie’s Accord curving down the hill, coming from the opposite direction.

  “I’ve got him covered,” Bloom said to Lynch. “Why don’t you go say hi to Annie? I don’t think she’d be very happy to see me.”

  Lynch started off. Bloom reminded him to keep his radio on as he jogged past the entrance to the driveway. The road curved slightly, but through the brush I could see Lynch as he stepped into the roadway in front of Annie’s car.

  The Accord came screeching to a halt.

  Bloom held a radio in one hand and kept her gun on me.

  “You may believe that you are some kind of martyr, Mike, but I don’t see you letting Annie die. So please, stop with the drama and put the gun down, and we can sort this out like grown-ups.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  She seemed surprised. “You see Annie?” she asked.

  I peered around the car. I could barely make her out, but I could hear her cursing at Lynch, clearly shaken up after
he had stepped in front of her car. She was leaning out the driver’s side window. Lynch stood in the road, turned slightly to conceal the gun he was holding next to his right thigh.

  Bloom lifted the radio. “Put it down, Mike, and play nice, or I’ll let him kill her. Just between us, I’m starting to have my worries about him. I think he gets off on it.”

  If they’d just come after me, I don’t know what would have happened. I was high on adrenaline and pain, in the mood to burn everything down to the ground. But with Annie at the point of the gun, the game was over.

  Or that’s what they assumed. And my only strength in all this was that they really had no idea who they were dealing with. Annie thought she knew me. So did Jack. So did Bloom.

  But they had a lot to learn.

  “Now, Mike. Or she dies.” Bloom spoke so confidently.

  “Please.”

  For once, she was rattled.

  “Sorry?”

  “Go ahead,” I said.

  She swallowed and pressed the button on the radio. I could hear the faint static on the open channel. “We’ll kill her.”

  “Will you?”

  I could see the muscles tense in her forearm, the doubt creep into her eyes, but that was it. No command. No shot.

  “You want her to die?” Bloom shouted.

  “I see right through you, through all this.”

  She lowered the radio.

  “Good,” I said. “I’ll take that as confirmation of who you’re working for.”

  “Annie, run!” I yelled. “He’s got a gun!”

  I stepped toward Bloom, steadied my gun with both hands. She spoke into the radio to Lynch: “Forget the woman. Get back here.”

  Now that she had lost her leverage on me and we were in a fair fight, Bloom didn’t seem so excited about our standoff.

  Lynch ran away from Annie’s car, toward me and Bloom.

  “Hey! You broke my—” I heard Annie shout after him. She followed him slowly in her car. “What are you doing in the middle of the road? Are you all right?”