The Betrayer

by Daniel Judson

  The hard fall rattled Cat even further, and she could sense the power that this woman — this younger and larger woman — possessed. But Cat knew how to fight while on her back, had learned that long ago. Bending her knees and sliding her feet as close to her own hips as she could, she placed her feet flat on the gravel, then bucked her hips high and rolled onto her left shoulder, pulling the woman off balance and quickly switching positions with her.

  Cat unleashed a series of blows to the woman’s head — not punches, but open palm strikes. These eventually became devastating elbow blows. She could feel the woman going limp beneath her — all that youthful strength draining away — but she continued nonetheless, didn’t want to be fooled into ceasing her attack too soon.

  She was landing maybe the tenth blow to her attacker’s skull when suddenly her vision went black.

  Somebody had struck her from behind. Two blows with a blunt object — one to the center of her back making a solid, deep thump, the second as she was slumping forward, this one catching her right forearm, making a sharp snapping sound.

  Cat heard the snap as she fell, felt a wave of dread because she knew it was the unmistakable sound of bone breaking. A gut-wrenching, thought-erasing pain echoed through her as she landed on the gravel.

  She lay there on her left side, vulnerable, defenseless.

  Helpless.

  By the way the man was still holding Haley by her hair, Johnny knew he was preparing to use her as a shield.

  A shield, though, can be a disadvantage to the one behind it.

  Johnny knew this. He ducked low and positioned himself so Haley was blocking the man’s view of him. After that it was a simple matter of closing the distance and moving around Haley, which Johnny did aggressively, then coming up between Haley and her attacker.

  The man didn’t know what hit him.

  Johnny got in close and went for the man’s throat. Simple moves were the best, and Johnny went for the most basic one he knew — placing the blade edge of his left hand against the man’s trachea, then swiftly hammering his left hand with the heel of his right.

  A savage, powerful thrust.

  Like striking a wedge with a sledgehammer, driving it deep.

  The man, his trachea fractured, let go of Haley’s hair and clutched his own throat with both hands, then dropped to his knees before finally collapsing onto the pavement.

  There was no need for Johnny to do more than that. Chances were, the man would be dead soon. But Johnny couldn’t care about that. He grabbed Haley’s hand, paused to make eye contact with her, make sure she was unharmed. They didn’t speak, didn’t need to. She simply met his eyes and nodded once.

  Then they took off, running side by side.

  Haley didn’t know where they were going, but she didn’t ask. She and Johnny had studied the streets of Williamsburg, knew every inch of the neighborhood, where the subway entrances were, and yet right now her mind was racing and she couldn’t think of the nearest one. For that matter, she had no idea where she and Johnny actually were.

  But she trusted that he knew and decided that the best thing for her to do was to focus on keeping up with him, to not become a liability, to match his speed as they ran.

  After a few blocks, though, she noticed that Johnny was slowing. It no longer took all she had to remain beside him. She knew that this meant that whatever injuries he had sustained in the crash were beginning to catch up with him. She didn’t miss a beat, though. She wound his left arm around her neck and pulled him close, wedging her hip just under his for leverage.

  It was his turn to do what it took to keep up.

  They ran like this for the next block, Johnny wedged against her, Haley keeping his arm around her neck. It was as they reached the next corner that she saw what she was hoping to see on the other side of the street.

  A subway entrance.

  She didn’t wait for the light — this neighborhood, mostly residential, was quiet now. She led him across the street and to the entrance, then helped him down the stairs and through the turnstile.

  Waiting at the edge of the platform, breathing hard, they stood as casually as they could. Their side of the station was empty, but there were a few people waiting on the platform on the other side of the tracks. Haley, though, didn’t pay too much attention to them. Like Johnny, she was watching the stairs, just in case.

  Watching and waiting.

  But when moments passed and no one appeared, she concluded that no one was following them.

  Who among the three men would have been able to?

  It was then that she realized who it was she had been watching for, who she would most dread seeing.

  Richter. Just the thought of him filled her with fear.

  The very kind of man, if Dickey McVicker had his way, that her Johnny would become.

  She turned away from the stairs and looked at Johnny. He was breathing through his nose, and by the fact that each intake was short — he clearly didn’t dare expand his lungs too much — Haley had a good idea the nature of his injuries.

  “You might have broken a rib,” she said.

  Johnny shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Then fractured or bruised it, maybe. Either way—”

  “Not now,” Johnny whispered.

  There was no one within earshot, and yet he didn’t want — didn’t dare — admit to her that he was injured.

  Of course, the person he really didn’t want to admit it to was himself. He simply couldn’t. Haley understood this and backed off. Defeat begins in the mind. One of the many maxims Johnny had been taught as a soldier. She thought quickly of their escape from Thailand, the skills he had displayed again and again, skills that made their escape possible, without which they would have died any number of times.

  That memory led to a realization, which itself led to another.

  “We’re leaving, aren’t we?” Haley said.

  As in leaving New York, getting out of Dodge.

  Johnny nodded. He had planned out several routes of escape long ago, and they had spent days and nights sitting around their apartment and repeating each and every one of them like schoolchildren repeating their multiplication tables.

  Haley thought of one of the steps that needed to be taken. It wasn’t the first step, but it was one of the most essential, to her mind.

  It was the one with the biggest degree of difficulty, and the greatest risk of exposure.

  “We need to get our money,” she said.

  Johnny nodded. “We’ll figure that out later.”

  “I don’t have much cash on me.”

  “I do.”

  “How much?”

  “Three grand.”

  Haley looked at him, surprised by that. As a rule, neither of them carried much cash. Everything they made — everything they didn’t need to spend on the bare minimum of basics — went straight into their secret savings.

  “Where’d you get three grand?”

  “I’ll explain later. If we have to, though, we can leave on that and come back for our stash after things have cooled down.”

  Though Johnny was still trying to hide the extent to which he was injured, Haley knew he was hurting bad. It was evident with each word he spoke, each breath he took. This told Haley the order of the steps they needed to take.

  Get to a safe place, tend to his injuries, then deal with the logistics of their particular escape.

  Retrieve their money, determine their destination and method of departure, secure the tickets.

  And before finally departing, buy new clothes, maybe even dye her hair, something — anything — that would help her to be less recognizable.

  She knew all this, but what she still didn’t know was where they were headed at this very moment, which of the many portals available in the Greater New York area they would be using.

  As if reading her mind, Johnny said softly, “We need to get to Jersey City.”

  Haley saw in her mind’s eye then exactly what
they — what she — would need to do.

  Subway to a PATH station, train to Jersey City, then a room in a motel not far from the bus station.

  She looked at Johnny’s face, saw that he winced every time he breathed. His skin was pale and there was a faraway look in his eyes. It was a look she recognized, one she had seen many times in the eyes of boxers who were about to, despite their best efforts, go down.

  The same look she had seen in his eyes when they first met.

  “Hang on,” she told him. “I’ll get us where we need to be.”

  When the train arrived, she and Johnny boarded a nearly empty car. She helped him down onto a seat near the door, then sat beside him. The three other passengers didn’t even look at them.

  As the train started moving, Johnny said softly, “We need to shut down our cell phones and remove the batteries.”

  Haley understood the significance of this procedure. Only a handful of people had the numbers to their respective phones — Johnny’s employees and Dickey McVicker. It was possible that Dickey could use either phone to track their movements via GPS, even with the phone shut off. Detaching the batteries was the only way of eliminating that threat.

  She quickly removed her cell, pressed the Off button, and disconnected the battery, then pocketed both pieces. She was removing Johnny’s cell from his pocket when she whispered, “Dickey’s up to something.”

  Johnny nodded.

  “What?”

  He shrugged.

  “Why? After everything he’s done to help us.”

  He shrugged again.

  “Did you find your brother?”

  “No.”

  “Does your sister know?”

  “Not yet.”

  “When will you tell her?”

  “When we’re safe. After we get new phones.”

  Haley nodded. She glanced at the three passengers as she discreetly shut down Johnny’s phone and disconnected the battery. Then she slid those two pieces into her pockets as well.

  “Will you be able to make it all the way to Jersey?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We can find a place to stay in Manhattan.”

  “No. We stick to this plan, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Cat was on her side on the hard gravel. Though it was a June night, the stones were cold, and she felt her body heat draining away.

  She faded in and out of consciousness, lost all track of time. At one point a man — the man who had knocked the wind out of her, then broken her arm — was helping the woman in the black field jacket. Cat could not see the man. She could see no details at all, really, just shadowy shapes and, in a vague way, the motions they made. The man guided the woman — she could barely walk on her own — toward the yard, then they disappeared from Cat’s line of sight.

  Cat heard and saw nothing for what felt like a long time. She was wondering if this was how she was going to die — her very life force drawn out of her by the cold earth. She knew enough about wilderness survival — she was the daughter of a former LRRP — to know that a person could die of hypothermia even on a fifty-degree night, if the conditions were right.

  And the conditions seemed right to her.

  Do I want to die here? she thought. I’ve become so good at surrendering. Should I just surrender now? Slip in and out of consciousness knowing that any one of these lapses could be my last? How easy would that be?

  And then she remembered something her father used to say.

  Something he used to tell all his children.

  Don’t look for a way out, because you’ll use it.

  The moment you even consider quitting, the moment you start looking for a reason to quit, you’ve lost.

  She was on her left side, and she knew she would have to roll onto her right before she could even attempt to stand. She waited a moment, then proceeded, and the instant her right arm came in contact with the gravel, a blinding pain tore through every inch of her, just as she knew it would.

  She bore it and, when it passed, she placed her left hand onto the cold, sharp stones, then pushed herself to a seated position. She took a moment to survey the empty driveway and make sure that she was in fact alone. That unknown man could be on his way back to finish her off. But around her were only silence and stillness. She looked toward the garage, where the Sig had fallen. She wanted to get to it, picked this as her immediate goal — another survival technique. Set one goal you can reach, accomplish it, then set another. She was bracing herself for that, summoning what it would take to stand, when something caught her eye through the border trees.

  The flickering headlights of a vehicle as it moved along the road.

  But not only headlights — flashing red and blue lights, too.

  The cop car slowed, then made the turn into the driveway and followed it toward the house. It picked up speed, kicking gravel, moving fast. It wasn’t long at all before its headlights found Cat, seated not far from the garage. The lights blinded her, and she raised her left arm to shield her eyes. The vehicle stopped, but its headlights remained on and aimed at her. The driver’s door opened, and a figure emerged and carefully approached her.

  When it got close enough, Cat saw that it was a state trooper.

  Before he could speak, she said, “I could do without that light in my eyes.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Cat was sitting in the back of an ambulance. She watched as yet another vehicle turned into the driveway. A second state trooper had arrived shortly after the first, and at some point a Chappaqua cop had showed up, too, but Cat had a feeling that this newest vehicle didn’t belong to another local authority.

  She watched as the vehicle followed the long drive, then rolled to a stop. It was an unmarked sedan, but she recognized it by its license plate.

  The markers of a New York State prosecutor.

  Donnie Fiermonte emerged from behind the wheel. A trooper approached him, and Fiermonte held up his prosecutor’s badge. As the trooper studied it, Fiermonte’s eyes found and fixed on Cat.

  A look of relief crossed his face.

  The trooper let Fiermonte pass. Heading straight for Cat, he moved with determination.

  She had to admit to herself that she was glad to see him.

  A loyal family friend — the only remaining family friend — coming once more to rescue one of John Coyle’s children.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Jeremy was dreaming of the last time he’d seen his father, hearing once again the last words the man had spoken to him.

  Stay out of sight. Don’t make a sound, no matter what happens to me.

  It was a memory of that night, the one he had not managed to forget, the one he couldn’t seem to forget no matter how hard he tried, how deeply into addiction he burrowed.

  Even in his most numbed state, his senses softened by heroin, his mind adrift and his heart rate dangerously slowed, Jeremy could never escape that memory or the crippling guilt it wrought.

  He had never shared it with anyone — therapist or family member or drug-friend. It was his secret, his shame. If he had what it took to kill himself, he would have done so. But he was a Coyle, and Coyles endure.

  Never shared it with anyone until he met Elizabeth, that is. He had revealed it to her over the phone, during their last week “together”; he had needed that long to build up the nerve to say it aloud. Their calls were the only intimacy she allowed, and yet that intimacy was nonetheless real. Maybe even more real because it was free of the physical. A pure connection — he sitting in the dark in the apartment on West Tenth Street, she lying on her lonely bed in the bedroom of her Chappaqua home, their voices and the words spoken the only things they had.

  Jeremy finally regained consciousness, breaking free of the memory that haunted him, but he quickly realized that he was in a room he didn’t recognize, in a building he had no memory of entering.

  This was strangely familiar, all too similar to that night three years ago, that
night he hadn’t been able to recall fully till recently.

  From one nightmare into another.

  There was a difference worth noting, however. He hadn’t taken a beating prior to his being brought to that room three years ago. But he had been beaten in the van on his way here, and then once again shortly after his arrival — that much he could remember. No questions had been asked of him during that second beating — it was just a beating for a beating’s sake, the Russian going to town on him seemingly for sport, a simple case of that fucker doing what he did best.

  But Jeremy had taken beatings before, plenty, and he withstood that one. Afterward, he’d been left to lie on the floor and drift in and out of consciousness in a small room with no window.

  Alone — another difference here; he had not been left alone that night three years ago.

  He had been watched over by a Russian — a different Russian, an older Russian.

  A man who had made plenty of phone calls as he guarded Jeremy.

  And, at some point prior to the arrival of John Coyle Sr., received one visitor.

  None of his hypnosis sessions helped Jeremy recall the face of the visitor. But what he had said to the Russian — that was a different story.

  I need you to kill my friend.

  Jeremy was thinking of that when the door opened. The light that spilled in looked to him like the muted light of predawn. The Russian entered, and Jeremy braced himself for another beating, but the Russian wasn’t alone this time.

  Another man was with him.

  This man was dressed in a pair of mechanic’s coveralls. That was all that Jeremy could see before the Russian pinned him to the floor and turned Jeremy’s head away so he could not see the man’s face, or what was about to happen.

  But Jeremy could smell, and that second man reeked of cigarette smoke.

  Smith.