“Last night?”
“They found him yesterday. Released his name last night. They believe the time of death was the night before.”
“When Page’s people invited me to see him,” Hutch said. “It was his call to me that triggered this. They kicked into cleanup mode.”
Larry said, “I’m ready to call the cops.”
“Larry, hold on, hold on.” Hutch stopped at the top of an escalator leading to the tram platform. People from his own flight bumped into him, grumbled as they went around. He stepped sideways to clear the way. He cocked his head to one side. But the voice over the intercom had moved on: “. . . Mr. Jack Johnson, Ms. René, Ms. Lynda René, please pick up . . .”
“Larry,” Hutch said into the phone. “I think someone is paging me. I’ll call you back. And don’t call anyone. Not until I get Logan back.” He hit the disconnect button, scanning the area for a phone. He saw one on a pillar by the food court. Ran to it and picked it up.
“Paging operator,” said a pleasant-sounding woman.
“You paged me. David Ryder.” It had to be from Laura.
“It was just cleared.”
“Cleared? Expired? I just heard it.”
“It was picked up.”
“No, I’m David Ryder. I didn’t pick it up.”
“We show it cleared, sir.”
“Okay, what was it?”
“It’s cleared, sir. We no longer have it in our system.”
“You have to have a record of it.” He took a deep breath. “Please.”
“One moment, please.”
Be Laura, he thought. No, no. Be Page.
Could it be him, calling to accept Hutch’s deal? Why wouldn’t he have called the mobile? Hutch looked at the mobile phone’s screen. There was no indication that he’d missed a call or that a message was waiting to be picked up.
Be Page, he thought again. Be Page ready to give me my son.
“Mr. Ryder?”
“Yes.”
“The message was: Please wait for your party at door number 502 in Terminal West.”
“Who’s the ‘party’?”
“It doesn’t say.”
He hung up and headed for the tram platform. It was either Laura or . . . His steps quickened. What if Page’s men were here with Logan? Page had made his point. Hutch had agreed to get off his back. Could it be this easy? Were they here to release his son?
Another possibility presented itself. That it was a setup. They were here, but not with Logan.
He pushed the thought away. It went kicking and scratching, because Hutch knew that this last scenario was the most likely, the most like Page.
He’d know soon enough. There was no way he could avoid the rendezvous, not with the chance that Logan or Laura was waiting for him there.
FORTY-NINE
Laura had watched the sun bleaching the sky and the photostatic lights outside turning off one at a time. She had traversed the airport a dozen or more times. All she could think about was how every step brought her closer to the time the men after Hutch—and Laura and the kids, she reminded herself—showed up to look for them at the airport.
Come on, Hutch. Where are you?
It was still early—not even seven. She expected him earlier than his scheduled flight, which had been midafternoon, but dawn shouldn’t be her patience’s breaking point.
She reached the door that marked another complete circumnavigation, but didn’t go through it. She slowed her pace, turned in a circle, and leaned into a wall. She stretched her back against it and raised her right knee up high, then the left, as though she’d just completed a long run. She bent over, gripping her thighs above the knees.
Her clumpy hair fell over her face. She never did get to a store for a brush. She hadn’t wanted to waste a minute doing anything other than looking for Hutch. He would simply have to tolerate her lack of hygiene. She raised herself up to her full height, snapping her head to flip her hair back off her face.
One of the men from the parking lot was heading for her. Black boots, pants, jacket. He was young and fit—there was no mistaking him. He had come out of the elevator and was taking great strides, trying to rush without drawing attention.
She turned and slammed through a metal fire door. She had discovered the possible getaway earlier, which was one reason she’d chosen that spot to rest. It opened onto a long, doorless hallway, which led to a labyrinth of connecting corridors. She had gone only a few intersections in, enough to get the idea that she could lose a pursuer in there.
Behind her, the door ka-chunked open and banged against the wall. As she darted around the first corner, something struck the wall. Sharp debris struck her face. He had shot at her.
In an airport!
No sound from the gun, but that didn’t matter to the bullet. Of all the places she could have scouted for Hutch, this one lay way outside the security checkpoints. He’d have been able to carry a firearm without anyone challenging him.
The man’s footsteps, surprisingly quiet, picked up pace. She turned right, then left. She hoped she was too quick for him to catch every turn. Eventually, the combination of directional changes she could have taken would force him to give up. While she ran, she thought about how he’d found her. Could be, he’d simply stumbled onto her. More likely, the men had made the connection between David Ryder and Hutch, and picked up the page.
She believed the man had missed her last few turns. It was time to get out of town. She opened a door: storage room. Another door: janitor’s closet. Finally she found a short hallway leading to a door labeled DENVER COFFEE BAR. She stepped around a stack of boxes to the door—and heard the man’s footsteps, approaching fast. A flap of the top box was tipped up, revealing four coffee decanters. She pulled one out, gripped the handle, and edged to the corner of the hallway.
The footsteps grew louder.
She swung around the corner, swinging the coffeepot. It cracked into the man’s forehead. He flew back, staggering, his arm flying up over his head. She had already set the coffeepot on top of the box and was at the door when she heard him hit the floor with a loud oomph! Metal clattered against the floor. She hadn’t knocked him cold, but he might have lost his gun, at least for a few seconds.
She pulled open the door and stepped through. She was behind the counter of a coffee bar she had passed a dozen times. A young woman was handing a customer a tall paper cup. Her mouth dropped when she saw Laura.
“Security,” Laura said, knowing full well her appearance didn’t fit the part. “This door is supposed to be locked. You have the key?”
The woman pointed to a key hanging from a nail by the jamb.
Laura grabbed it and locked the door.
“My partner’s right behind me,” she told the barista with a wink. “Don’t let him in.”
She went around the counter and hurried to the escalator to the fourth level. She still needed to find Hutch, but she had to take care of a few things first.
FIFTY
Hutch exited the terminal on the third level, which connected directly to the parking garage complex. He climbed the garage stairs to the fifth level. He watched door 502 for a minute from an island where a few limousines idled. No one waited for him. He walked to the other end of the building and entered. He worked his way back toward the meeting place. When it came into view, he went to a row of chairs, picked up a stray newspaper, and sat. He peered over the sports section toward the rendezvous spot.
A man burst through an interior door. Holding one hand to his forehead, he swung his head around, looking, looking. . . . His hand fiddled with something behind his back. No doubt, a gun stashed in his waistband.
Hutch’s insides felt blowtorched. Stomach, heart, muscles ached with disappointment. Page’s man wasn’t here to return Logan. He was here to kill Hutch. Page had communicated his answer: no deal.
On the plane, Hutch had clicked through Page’s options. Several scenarios involved stashing Logan in Colorado until Hutch g
ave himself up to Page’s men. Most entailed Logan being taken back to Page’s campus and compound, where he had a thousand places to hide him and many times that number of people to help. A couple scenarios required Logan’s quick death, but Hutch had tried not to dwell on those.
Page had told Hutch, “This isn’t going to end well.” Hutch’s hope lay in short-circuiting Page’s plans before they reached their conclusion.
You’re right again, Page, he thought. This isn’t going to end well. But for you, not me.
The man walked through the glass exit doors. A few seconds later, he reappeared. He crossed toward the center of the level and walked out of Hutch’s view.
Hutch beelined it for the exit.
Names rattled out of the airport speaker: “Mr. Neil Savona . . . Mr. Zhou Tong . . .”
The RapidParking shuttle wasn’t in sight. He hopped in a cab. The driver grumbled about giving up his place in the queue for a five-mile, ten-dollar fare.
“I’ll make it a twenty,” Hutch said. “Just get moving, will you?”
He watched the doors as they passed, but he didn’t see the man with the gun or anyone else he would identify as a likely Outis soldier.
The cab turned left, and the building fell away. When he could see all of the airport’s roof of thirty-four white spires, which represented the Rocky Mountains, he relaxed a bit.
He rubbed his hands over his face. He should have caught some z’s on the two-and-a-half-hour flight from Chicago. His body had been more than willing, but his mind had refused to slow down. It had reeled out everything from practical action items—get a gun—to memories of Logan—the first time he’d taken him fishing: the kid had fallen in, twice. From considering Page’s motivations—protecting his freedom, his image, his pride . . . some kind of macho, competitive crap . . . the guy was just plain nuts—to guessing the man’s next moves—keep after Hutch . . . negotiate for Logan . . . nothing, let Hutch stew.
He did not put it past Page to play dumb, pretend he hadn’t taken Logan. At some point Hutch would have to call in the cops, which would not rattle Page in the slightest. The man had the kind of real estate holdings that made looking for Logan akin to finding a specific grain of sand in the Mojave. But stew didn’t describe what Hutch would do if Page ignored him. If Page thought a crate of old dynamite, sweating nitroglycerin, was volatile, he didn’t know volatile.
Those had been Hutch’s thoughts on the plane. The man in the airport told Hutch which option Page had chosen. The man was coming after him. Didn’t matter that he had Hutch’s son. Page liked edgier games than that. He—
Zhou Tong.
Hutch had heard the name announced on the airport intercom while he was peering over the newspaper at Page’s man. He’d heard it . . . but hadn’t. He’d been concentrating on the killer, then on getting away from the airport without being seen.
Zhou Tong had been a famous archery teacher and military arts tutor in the Song Dynasty. He and Dillon had had long telephone conversations about him, because of Tong’s blending of archery skills and self-discipline. He was an inspirational figure to Hutch. Dillon had sensed that and wanted to know everything about him. This time the page could only have been left by Laura.
The driver said something.
“Sorry?” Hutch said, pulling the phone from his pocket.
“Where’s your car?” They were stopped just past the entrance barrier.
“Oh,” Hutch tried to remember. “The aisle with the bighorn sheep, S. Way down toward the far end.”
The driver cranked the wheel left and pulled onto the road that traversed the parking aisles.
Hutch called the information operator and asked for the airport’s paging service.
A robotic female voice said, “You are being connected to that number.”
He touched the driver’s shoulder and pointed. “Right here.” After the cab turned into the aisle, he said, “Almost to the end, on the right. Just go until I tell you to stop.”
A man came on: “DIA Paging. May I help you?”
“You have a message for Zhou Tong.”
“Hold, please.”
Hutch pinched the phone between his shoulder and ear. He fished his wallet out of his back pocket and selected a twenty. “Little farther,” he told the cabbie. “Here.” The guy grabbed the bill from him.
The paging operator returned. “Mr. Tong?”
“Yes. Hold on a sec.” He extended his arm past the seat back to point. “ Right there, the silver Accord.” Into the phone, he said, “Okay, sorry.”
The operator said, “Umm, this message is marked urgent.”
The cab stopped in front of the Honda. Hutch opened the door and stood. “Yes?”
The operator said, “It says, ‘Do not go to the Honda.’”
“What?”
“‘Do not go to the Honda.’”
Hutch stopped breathing. He looked at his car, snapped his eyes up to the vehicles behind it, then swung around to the ones parked on the other side of the aisle. Movement caught his attention—several rows away, a man rose up from the open driver’s door of a tall vehicle, a truck or SUV. He was staring directly at Hutch, something in his hands.
Hutch dropped the phone. He ducked back into the cab and slammed the door.
“Go! Go!” he yelled.
The driver crooked his elbow over the seat back. “What are you—?”
“Drive!”
The Honda exploded.
FIFTY-ONE
The explosion shattered the cab’s windows. Fragments of glass flew into the interior. Hutch saw a blinding flash of fire, a glimpse of the Honda’s front end starting to rise, as though it were a dragster popping a wheelie. Sheet metal blew apart. The sound was a thousand shotgun blasts in his ears.
The taxi’s right side buckled in. Hutch was thrown into the opposite door. A hand of fire and smoke pushed against the taxi, tossing it over. Sky filled a gaping rent the length of the passenger side. Hutch’s legs, then hips, then torso tumbled over his head. His face smashed against the glass in the left-hand door. It cracked and shattered, breaking inward as the asphalt road pushed in on it. Hutch continued to tumble. He hit his head on the ceiling, which was now the floor.
Through a side window, narrowed by a pushed-in roof, he saw the pieces of burning metal that had been his Honda—something unidentifiable jutted from the side of an adjacent minivan, which in turn had tipped into the car beside it. The engine had landed on the hood of a Corvette. Windows all around had shattered. Fenders and hoods and trunk lids and roofs were blackened, bent, torn away. Heavy smoke billowed up from burning oil. The pungent odor of gasoline and frying seat-foam stung his nostrils.
Liquid poured from his face. Blood, he realized. He spat. His forearms and knees against the ceiling of the upside-down cab, he turned his head, felt pain streak over his shoulder, down his left arm. He moved again. More pain. He ignored it.
The cabbie lay slumped on the other side of the partition. His face was pushed against the Plexiglas. If he had let a child finger-paint his face in reds and browns, it could not have been messier, less defiling. His sightless eyes stared at Hutch in horror and disbelief. The Plexiglas itself was scratched and pocked. The windshield was shattered. Hutch realized that it had imploded into the cab like a million shotgun pellets. The divider had saved his life.
Hutch coughed, spat more blood. He reached out to the cabbie’s wrist. He felt no pulse.
A loud, steady moan filled his ears. Slowly it diminished, and he could hear car alarms, screams, crackling fire.
He backed through a window opening. When both knees and hands were on the road—on the glass and detritus that littered the road—he attempted to stand. He pressed his fingers against the mangled door and heard them sizzle on the scalding metal. He pulled them away, staggered back, fell.
Voices, sounding underwater, came at him: “Hutch!” “Daddy!”
Hands grabbed him, at first tentative, then greedily. Macie squeezed his neck. An
icicle of agony penetrated his head. He closed his eyes against it. He held his daughter close, basking in her embrace despite the pain it caused. On his other side, Dillon smiled worriedly. The boy’s hand gripped Hutch’s shoulder. Hutch pulled him close and squeezed.
He remembered the guy standing in the open door and looked. The man was still there, scowling. He slid back into the vehicle. He reappeared and leveled a weapon at Hutch—at them.
“Move,” Hutch said. The word came out as a grasping croak. He pushed Dillon away, swung Macie around and pushed her as well. “Move!” He hit the ground. Bullets thunked into the taxi beside him. Divots of asphalt exploded into the air. He crawled, grabbing and pushing the kids ahead of him.
The shooter was a good forty yards away. Three rows of cars lay between them. It should not take that much to get out of his line of fire.
“Closer to the cars!” he told Dillon and Macie. “Go that way!” He pointed and recognized his XTerra. It was parked nose out on the other side of the aisle from where the Honda had been. It was right where he had directed them to go. “Go to the car,” he said.
The taxi’s tire exploded. Big holes appeared in the fender. Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!
“Dillon! Macie! Hutch!”
Laura ran at them from the front access road. Behind her, a taxi had stopped. The driver stared out the windshield, trying to assess the situation. His eyes widened, and his mouth moved in a silent string of obscenities—Hutch knew it from the expression on his face. The taxi’s tires kicked up smoke as the driver reversed.
Laura was still thirty yards away when Hutch gestured wildly with his arms. “Get down! Get down!”
She looked beyond him at the gunman. Her jaw unhinged, and she dropped to the road. A windshield behind her shattered as three bullets struck it. Laura had covered her head with her arms. She raised her face to him. “There’s a gun!” she yelled. “In the car, the XTerra!”
Hutch and the kids were close enough to touch the SUV’s front bumper. Hutch pushed them. “Go around the next car. Crouch down.
Deadlock Page 24