The Betrayer

by Daniel Judson

  “I remembered that we used to do that for hours, and that we’d make up this story about a boy who makes a canoe out of a tree trunk and rides it down the river to the city and has all kinds of secret adventures. I don’t know why I thought of that then. Maybe because I was going home and that was my best memory of home. Watching the river with Mom, listening to her tell her stories, just she and I waiting for you guys.

  “I must have been passing out again, because Dad was shaking me, telling me that he needed me to stay with him. The next thing I knew he was leading me down the sidewalk, toward the corner. We turned the corner and were heading east, into the wind. The gusts kept coming one right after another like ocean waves; some were almost strong enough to knock me down. There were moments when I couldn’t hear anything but that deep rumbling sound. With the wind in my face like that, you’d think I’d wake up fully, but I didn’t. If anything, I was getting more disoriented. My head felt full of water again, and everything started spinning. Dad was pretty much dragging me along at this point.”

  Jeremy fell silent again. His tears had ceased, but he was clearly still agitated.

  Johnny gave his brother the moment he needed, then once again prompted him.

  “That’s when they ambushed you.”

  Jeremy nodded. “Yeah.”

  “How did it happen?”

  “A box truck turned the corner and started tailing us,” Jeremy said. “Dad started moving more quickly. He knew right away that something was up. He said to me, ‘I think we’re in trouble.’ He told me that you were parked three blocks to the east. No matter what happened to him, I was supposed to get to where you were, and you and I were supposed to take off and call Cat, meet her wherever she said to meet her. We weren’t supposed to stop for anything, not even a cop.”

  “You’re sure he said that? ‘Not even a cop’?”

  “Yeah. I guess I didn’t respond, because he started slapping my face to snap me out of my stupor. I came to enough to look at him, to focus on him, eye to eye. I can still see his face. I can still smell his cologne. I knew we were in trouble. I knew he was in trouble because of me. He told me that he really needed me to walk now, that he knew I could do it, that I had what it took in me. I don’t know how, maybe it was the adrenaline, maybe it was what he was saying, but suddenly I had this…clarity. Boom, just like that, I could see and hear and think. Everything was heightened. My skin started to tingle, I felt this rush from my scalp down to my legs, and before I even knew I was doing it, I was walking. He said that I was going to need to run in a minute, that I was the fastest, the born runner in the family, better than Cat, better than you. All I needed to do was run to where you were. He doubted anyone would come after me; it was him they were after. But he would make sure they’d be too busy with him to bother with me.”

  Jeremy paused, then said, “He looked at me, made sure I was looking at him and listening, then told me I could do this. He knew I could. We were near the end of the block now, almost at Eleventh Avenue. Two men were getting out of a car parked near the southeast corner. They had ski masks on. Dad told me that when he let go of me, that was my signal to run.

  “I looked back, and there were two more men on the sidewalk behind us now. Counting the two men in the truck, that made six. They all had ski masks on, but I knew by the clothes of one of the two men behind us that he was the man from the apartment. The Russian. They were going to box us in at the corner, and Dad told me to get ready. I wanted to tell him that I wasn’t going anywhere. I remember it being on the tip of my tongue, but before I could say anything, he let me go. I didn’t run like I was supposed to, though. I don’t know, maybe I didn’t want to leave him, or maybe I just froze. When I didn’t move, he got pissed. I mean, really pissed. Everything he’d said up to me at that point had been in a controlled whisper. Urgent but steady and calm. At that moment, though, he put his face close to mine and said in this firm voice, ‘Go! Now!’ It startled me, and it wasn’t until he said it again that I finally bolted.

  “I went straight like he told me to, and as I did, he veered off, heading for the only gap available to him — at the northern edge of the corner. He turned it, I could see that out of the corner of my eye, but as I ran past the two men closing in on the corner from the south, one of them lunged out for me. His partner yelled, ‘Nyet, nyet,’ but the guy couldn’t help himself, it was like an animal fixated on prey. He grabbed me — he was strong — but before he could do anything, someone came rushing up behind me. It was Dad. I don’t know what he did exactly, but the next thing I knew, the guy who had grabbed me was on the pavement. He was still holding on to me, though, and I went down with him. His partner was rushing Dad, and Dad took him out, too. I’d never seen Dad like that — I’d never seen the combat veteran that he was. The guy who had survived jungle warfare. Who had thrived on it. He wasn’t going to let anyone touch me. As that second guy was hitting the pavement, Dad was pulling me up to my feet. He took several steps, pulling me along. We stepped off the sidewalk and onto the street, and he looked at me and said, ‘Run, son. Run.’

  “But it was too late. The men behind Dad — the Russian and whoever was with him — had caught up with us. The Russian had something in his hand. I couldn’t see what at first, but he was holding it low, close to his waist, and I’d seen enough knife fights to know what that meant. I looked down and there it was, this huge knife. The blade was a foot long. The Russian was moving straight for me. I’d seen his face, and he wanted me dead. He was lining himself up so he could put the thing into my chest. He was so efficient, so fast. Dad got to the Russian before he could get to me.”

  Jeremy stopped there, needed a moment.

  Johnny waited.

  Jeremy said finally, “It was chaos, Johnny. Just…chaos. I heard the engine of the box truck gun then. It was a diesel, so it was really loud. Between that clattering sound and the wind in my ears, I couldn’t hear anything at all. The truck was pulling to the curb at the corner. Someone got out and ran toward us. Dad had grabbed hold of the Russian — they were struggling over control of the knife — and the Russian’s partner and the second man started grabbing at Dad. Dad must have disarmed the Russian, because the knife landed on the pavement. I just stood there and looked at it. Dad and the three men were all caught up in this insane scuffle. Everyone was yelling in Russian. It was just this mass of men struggling, with Dad in the middle of it — Dad and the Russian, actually. They were the center of the storm.

  “The mass of men started moving, like one of those rugby huddles. They were out of control, swaying here and there, back onto the sidewalk, back onto the street. Before I could do anything — before I could pick up that knife — I heard the Russian yelling. He was panicking. He yelled something, repeated it maybe three times, and I didn’t understand what was going on.

  “But then I saw it. Someone had pulled out his gun. Dad had grabbed it. And then I heard the gunshot.

  “The Russian just dropped. Boom, like that, he was a heap on the pavement, blood pouring from his head. But the mass kept moving, stepping over him. The guy who had grabbed me saw this and started screaming. Dad must have kicked him in the balls, because he couldn’t get up at first. He wanted to, struggled to stand, and then finally did. He staggered over to the Russian, was still screaming. It was this terrible scream. He dropped to his knees beside the Russian, tried to tend to his head, like he could stop the bleeding or something. But it was too late. The man was dead.

  “The mass of men collapsed then — someone stumbled, and the whole thing came down. The man who had grabbed me saw that. He searched for the knife, saw it, and went for it. He grabbed it and was hurrying toward the pile of men in the middle of the street. He was enraged. I knew he was going after Dad. I started after him, but his partner saw him coming and got up from the heap to intercept him. He grabbed hold of him — he could barely keep him back. The guy who had gone crazy just kept swinging the knife at the air. The guy who had been following us with the Russia
n started yelling something at them. He was taking charge now that the Russian was dead. He must have been telling the other guy to get the crazy guy with the knife out of there. Obviously, the crazy guy with the knife was the Russian’s son. I knew that even then.

  “Another man rose from the pile. He had the gun. Dad was facedown on the pavement, still struggling, but the man hit him in the back of the head with the butt of the gun a few times, and Dad suddenly stopped struggling. I got pissed and started toward the guy with the gun. I didn’t care what happened to me then. But someone came up behind me — it must have been the driver of the box truck. I heard this sickening thud and saw these orange lights. The next thing I knew I was slumped on the sidewalk.

  “The crazy guy — Gregorian’s son — was being dragged away by his partner. His partner kept saying something to him in Russian, saying it in his ear. Eventually Gregorian’s son dropped the knife. He and his partner were halfway across Eleventh Avenue by then. When they reached the other side, Gregorian’s son stopped struggling against his partner and started running beside him, being pulled along by him. They were heading east.

  “The rest of the men picked up Dad and dragged him to the back of the truck. They got him inside, then climbed in with him and pulled the door closed. I saw the driver scramble in behind the wheel. The truck took off, and all that was left was me on the sidewalk and the dead Russian in the middle of the street.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Johnny thought about what he had seen that night.

  The two masked men rounding the corner, one of whom landed on the hood of the car and looked at Johnny with fear in his eyes.

  Wild fear.

  “I heard that shot,” Johnny said. “But by the time I got to where the body was, you weren’t there.”

  Jeremy was exhausted. He returned to the bed and sat down, resting his elbows on his knees and slouching, his head bowed, his eyes on the narrow stretch of floor between his feet and the window. “Sirens were coming,” he said. “I took off.”

  “Back to MacDougal Street.”

  Jeremy nodded. “I didn’t know where else to go. My head was bleeding from where the driver had blackjacked me.” He paused. “And I guess I was in shock.”

  “You got high again.”

  It was obvious to Johnny that his brother was ashamed — of his actions during the altercation, and in the hours that followed it. “I couldn’t remember anything. I definitely couldn’t remember how I got to MacDougal. My memory was just…blank. But I was used to that, used to blackouts. That’s why I became a fucking addict, to forget. Getting high was what I did, so that’s what I did. The next morning one of my friends heard on the news that someone had been shot in Chelsea, and that an FBI agent was missing. I remembered enough then to put two and two together.”

  “That the FBI agent was Dad.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you headed home. To Ossining.”

  “I figured that’s where you and Cat would be.”

  Johnny recalled the scene at the house: Jeremy talking to the police that had gathered there, Cat and Fiermonte listening closely. His recollection of the abduction that day was scanty compared to now. He was really very little help at all back then. Most of what had been pieced together about that night didn’t come till later, when a member of the six-man grab team had been captured and quickly confessed.

  Of course, it wasn’t just details of the abduction — and subsequent murder of their father — that this man had provided.

  He was the first to point to their father’s alleged double-dealings.

  The first to label the man as a betrayer of his oath.

  “You said earlier that you had remembered names,” Johnny said.

  “Yeah. Of the three men Gregorian talked to while I was in being held in that room. At one point he was telling someone who else was in. That was what I remembered.”

  “Morris thought Smith might know how to find those men.”

  Jeremy nodded. “Originally, I was hoping one of them could help me somehow clear Dad’s name. That one of them would know why someone wanted Dad’s reputation destroyed. Or better yet, who that someone was.” Jeremy paused. “Dad’s dead because of me. We all know that now. I can’t bring him back to life, but I thought maybe I could give him back his good name. It was the least I could do for him. And the least I could do for you and Cat, too.”

  “You said ‘originally.’ What changed?”

  “We started to hope that maybe one of those men would be able to give us something on Dickey.”

  “We?”

  “Me and Morris. It was a long shot, even I knew that. But those three names were all we had.”

  “And Smith was supposed to help you locate those men.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you give him the names when you and Morris met with him?”

  “We kind of got sidetracked. They told me that my therapist had been found dead. And then they just fixated on the recordings.”

  “They wanted you to hand them over.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Suddenly they didn’t care about the names you had remembered.”

  Jeremy nodded.

  “And it was right after the three of you met that Smith and your Russian friend jumped you.”

  “Just a few minutes later, in fact. As I was leaving to get the CD.”

  “Wait,” Johnny said. “You were on your way to get it, and then they jumped you? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Welcome to my world, Johnny.”

  “Were you going to give it to Morris or Smith?”

  “Both.” A thought occurred to Jeremy. “So maybe Smith didn’t want Morris to have it. Maybe I was right to trust him. Smith and Gregorian’s son are obviously connected somehow, but maybe Morris is cool, maybe he’s trying to help.”

  Johnny thought about that for a moment, then asked, “You said the CD isn’t far from here, right?”

  “It’s less than a block away.”

  “And it’s safe?”

  “Anyone who tries to get it is going to be seen by two surveillance cameras, not to mention by whoever is working behind the counter and whoever happens to be in the store at the time.”

  “You gave the only key to Beth, though, right? So can you even open the box yourself?”

  “I asked about that when I rented the box. As long as I show them my driver’s license and the information matches what’s on the contract I signed, they’ll open the box for me.”

  “Do you have your license on you?”

  “Yeah.” Jeremy reached into his jeans pocket, removed his license, and showed it to Johnny.

  “Hang on,” Johnny said. He stepped to the door and opened it. Cat and Haley were sitting on the small sofa in the living room. “Cat, can you come in here?”

  She stood and approached the bedroom. Haley remained on the sofa. As Cat stepped through the door, Johnny told her to leave it open. He looked at Haley for a moment, smiled the best he could. Cat stood beside Johnny and studied their kid brother.

  “He needs to rest,” she concluded. She looked at Johnny. “You both do. Actually, Johnny, you don’t look so great.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “I have some painkillers.”

  “I’m fine.” He looked at his brother but addressed his sister. “We should get his CD as soon as we can. We need to put it someplace that’s safer, maybe even make a few more copies. And we should get his laptop from downstairs, have a technician of yours look at it.”

  Cat nodded. “How far away is the CD?”

  Jeremy answered, “There’s a UPS Store right around the corner from here, on Fifth. It’s there. Box six fifteen.”

  “But we don’t have the key.”

  “There’s a way around that,” Johnny said. “The thing is, neither of us can get it for him.”

  “I’ll take him,” Cat offered quickly. “On the way back up, we’ll get his backpack from the front desk.”

  “I’d b
etter go with you. We can’t be sure that no one’s out there.”

  “I can handle it, Johnny. And, to be honest, you really don’t look so good.”

  Johnny heard Haley rise from the sofa and cross the living room. Obviously, she’d heard Cat’s comment. Within seconds, she was standing in the doorway directly behind Johnny.

  “You need to give Cat those names,” Johnny said to Jeremy. “I doubt we’ll be able to find any of those men, but it’s worth a shot.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because Dickey went on a rampage after Dad was killed. A lot of men just disappeared. The story was that Gregorian had betrayed Dickey, and Dickey was going after anyone else who may have been in on it.”

  “But you don’t believe that anymore.”

  “What looked like a purge could have just been Dickey covering his tracks, killing everyone who had been involved.”

  “First rule of assassination,” Jeremy said. “Kill the assassin.”

  “But Gregorian’s son was part of the six-man team,” Cat said. “He’s still alive. And he’s working for Dickey.”

  “I know Dickey,” Johnny said. “I know how he thinks. He saw Gregorian’s son as an asset. The guy witnessed his own father’s death. A thing like that would make him receptive to manipulation.”

  “Dickey kept him on, just in case.”

  “He probably treated him like his own son, gave him money and gifts. Dickey’s good at that, at finding out what a person wants — what a person needs more than anything — and then giving it to him.”

  “Like he used to do with you,” Jeremy said.

  Johnny looked at his brother.

  Like he’s still doing, he thought.

  “I wonder what kind of things he gave Gregorian’s son,” Cat said. “To keep him around for three years. I wonder what a guy like that needs more than anything.”