Then he saw them.
It really was as obvious as he had expected. One man, far too big and brutish to blend into the crowd, stood at a hotdog stand wearing an expensive-looking shirt, an earpiece coiled around his ear and—the most telling sign of all—not eating anything. Nothing in his hand, nothing in his mouth. He couldn’t keep his eyes off Rachel.
There was another one sitting on the stone brim of the fountain, the water spraying cold flecks of water onto his back. Blake wondered why the man hadn’t moved, but maybe he knew that it would draw too much attention to himself.
Rachel looked both ways and crossed the street. As if she hadn’t seen it, she stepped out in front of a car. Slamming on its brakes, the driver leaned on his horn and shouted some abuse at her. It almost struck her down, but she barely noticed. Her mind must have been elsewhere.
Blake let out a breath, scared, for her and for himself. Approaching the pits, Rachel took a seat on a step that stretched around the outside of the park. He could see her perfectly here, except for the occasional passerby blocking the view with their fat, touristy heads. Nobody stopped for long though, and he probably wouldn’t get a better view than this.
This would be so much easier with Greg. The silver-haired spy had helped him so much to a point, but he was alone now—alone with the guilt of having left him to die. Maybe he won’t die, Blake kept assuring himself, but he couldn’t quite believe it.
Focusing on the task, he turned his thoughts back to Rachel. He would have to play this real smooth, and worst of all, he would have to leave right now. His nerves rattled like he was in school and it was his turn to give a presentation. He had always tried to avoid confrontation where possible, but too much was at stake.
Taking his eye off her for a moment, he dropped the binoculars into his backpack and retrieved the cell phone he’d purchased earlier. He got the number ready on the screen, his thumb hovering over the green dial button when the reality struck him—when he dialed the number, he would be opening a can of worms he wasn’t sure he could digest.
Blake took a breath, pressed the button, snatched up his binoculars, and climbed to his feet while raising both devices up to his head. In another world, he might have felt in control. But as ready as he was, this could go south really fast.
Rachel’s face didn’t move when the phone beside the tar pit began to ring.
Blake panicked. Please answer. He envisioned his whole plan hitting the ground before he even got the chance to run. But then it seemed to register with her. She glanced around, then approached the phone and picked it up.
“Hello?” Her voice wavered.
“Rachel, it’s me.” He’d thought of everything except how to phrase this and whether or not she would go along with it. “Do you know you’re being followed?”
“I…”
“Don’t lie to me, Rachel. Our lives are in the red here. Trust me, and I can help you.”
There was a long pause.
The black handset looked huge against her tiny pink ear, which reddened in the blistering winter air. “I think there are people here, Blake.”
“What people?” he pressed. “Police?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
Blake took his eyes off her for a second, looked over to the guy by the fountain. He was standing now, his eyes fixed on her. He took small, unsure footsteps, like a lion ready to pounce if the gazelle looked ready to run.
“Okay,” Blake said, both proud of himself and terrified that his guess had been correct. “You have to do exactly as I say, no matter what. Do you understand?” He saw her nod and her lips move, but didn’t hear the words. “On my mark, go straight up the steps to your right and get on the 156 bus. As soon as you get on, move to the back and get ready to step off. They’ll follow you but don’t panic.”
For just a moment, she looked like a frightened little girl.
Blake fell in love with her all over again, but he couldn’t think about that now.
“Go, Rachel. Go and don’t look back.”
She dropped the phone onto its cradle but missed. It fell and swung on its cord.
Blake threw the phone and binoculars into his bag, zipped it up, and left it there so he could get it later. There was no way he could haul it around with him now. He just hoped that kids wouldn’t find it, rummage through, and find the gun.
Sprinting down the grassy bank and receiving a host of dirty looks from bystanders, Blake kept his sights on the bus he’d told her to board. The crowd grew thicker, surrounding him and blocking his view. He could no longer see Rachel or the agents, but he would be damned if he let the bus leave now.
Rude tourists struggled amongst themselves to be the first onto the bus, pushing and shoving where they needed to. Blake burst into a sprint, running toward them while he yelled and squeezed between them. “Get out of the way!” His own voice surprised him.
People turned and sneered. They didn’t let him pass.
“Move!” he yelled, sliding his arms between and trying to part them. He had to move fast, but he was probably making too much noise. If the agents—or police, whoever they were—saw him, it would be game over.
Then he saw Rachel stepping up onto the bus.
Behind her, the man who’d been leaning on the fountain.
Blake hoped he wouldn’t turn around. He quieted himself, swallowing his words, then took a step back and watched Rachel board the bus. Through the glass, he saw her moving straight to the back, just as he’d instructed.
Please, Rachel. Please, please jump off at the last moment.
The man followed closely behind her, not paying for his fare.
Blake stepped back, blending into the crowd. From there he watched them both, hoping, barely noticing that he was mouthing a prayer.
Rachel sat down.
No! Blake felt this entire attempt fall flat. He would no longer be able to help her—probably wouldn’t be able to save himself either. He watched the man scowl as he was forced to sit in front of her rather than behind where he could keep an eye on her.
Blake’s heart sank, and he was no longer sure of what to do.
Rachel had been the only person he could trust in this whole mess. Without her, he would be on the run forever, and now it would be impossible to get in touch with her. All eyes would be on her, just waiting for him to make contact. That was if they didn’t punish her for trying to get away.
The engine grumbled, the door hissed, and the bus began to crawl away.
“Get off the bus!” Blake screamed at the top of his lungs, drawing attention to himself from nearby pedestrians and God-only-knew who else.
In a flash, Rachel stood, swung around, and dove off the low step of the moving bus.
Blake rushed toward her, a sudden excitement springing new life inside him. As Rachel stumbled, he caught her arm. He studied her for a second, her face a beetroot color as she thrashed around before realizing he wasn’t an agent.
“Blake.” Her mouth hung open as her eyes leveled on him.
“We have to move,” he told her, watching the man hurry to the back of the bus as it drove away. It was going too fast now, and there was no chance of him jumping off it without landing on his face.
Rachel nodded and fed her arm under his. Together, they stalked away from the crowd and moved along the wall of the nearest building. Blake hadn’t thought this far ahead. He was improvising but had no idea what he was doing.
“There are more of them,” he told her. They rounded a corner and hurried up the street, resisting the urge to look back. Blake knew this area a little. He used to come here sometimes on his days off, grab a coffee and sit in the sun.
Somehow, he didn’t think that would happen again.
“Where are we going?” Rachel’s asked, panting.
“Somewhere safe,” Blake said in his most soothing tone and led her into the nearest alleyway. It was an impulse, really—he had no idea if they were in the clear, but he hadn’t seen anyone looking suspiciou
s. That was probably a good sign.
About halfway down the alley, Rachel stopped dead in her tracks and pulled her arm away. “I’m so sorry,” she said, shaking her head at the floor. “I knew they would be there.”
It’d been obvious to Blake, but he’d barely stopped to think about it. “It’s okay. You shouldn’t be involved in this anyway.” He was just realizing this for himself. Then again, he shouldn’t have been involved either.
“They said you would contact me.” Tears rolled down her cheeks, taking her makeup with it in black streaks. She leaned back into the wall for support. It looked like her knees were threatening to buckle.
“Who said that? The Agency?”
She waved her hands around. “Them.” She obviously had no idea who they were, only that they were bad news. “I had to. I had to get you in their sights, and I feel horrible for it. But they were threatening my mother. I’m a terrible person.”
In her entire life, Rachel had never let him down until today, and the times his failure had caused problems for her were countless to say the least. Blake looked around; each end of the alley opened onto different streets. He was getting used to observing his surroundings. “It’s okay,” he finally said to comfort her. “However bad you feel, you can make it up to me later. Look at me.” He raised her chin, held it between his forefinger and thumb. Her eyes were a smudged black. Red and white mixed in the center. “But right now,” he went on, “we have to go. It’s not safe here.”
Rachel nodded, sniffed, and stood up straight, using Blake’s arm for support.
“Good. Okay, we need to—”
Fear closed over him when he saw the man stood at the mouth of the alley. He wasn’t one of the men Blake had seen at the tar pits, which only made his heart pound harder. How many of these guys were there?
Blake took Rachel’s arm and led her away. She hadn’t seemed to spot him yet, and he didn’t want to worry her. His eyes trained on the man for a few more cautious seconds, as he led her toward their exit.
As he turned, two more men appeared at the opposite end.
They were trapped.
Blake had no idea what to do. He couldn’t fight these men. Only hours ago, back in his father’s library, he’d been in the first fight of his life, and that hadn’t exactly ended in his favor. When it came down to facing three trained men in a fistfight… well…
He backed away, holding onto Rachel, who was sobbing uncontrollably. Blake reached into the back of his pants for the gun that wasn’t there. He regretted leaving it at the museum.
“Who are they? Make them go away!” Rachel begged.
Blake couldn’t help her.
The agents closed in on them.
The man who’d been standing by himself got to them first but kept his hands in his pockets. “Mr. Salinger. You’re a slippery little guy, aren’t you?” He grinned, pushing his thick black glasses up his nose. “Miss Lawrence. Lovely to see you again.”
Had Rachel met this man before? Was he the one who’d threatened her?
She gasped as if she recognized him now that his face wasn’t in the shadows.
The other two men came to join them.
Blake and Rachel were backed up against the wall.
“You can leave now,” Glasses said to Rachel, though his cunning smile suggested it wouldn’t be that easy.
Rachel hesitated, looked at the end of the alley, and then looked to Blake. As if to apologize—as if to accept the consequences of what she’d done—she clung harder to Blake’s sweat-stained sleeve.
“Very brave, Miss Lawrence. But stupid. You didn’t have to die with him.”
The man drew his gun.
Blake stared at the weapon. He felt Rachel’s head lower into his chest, and she whimpered. He held her tight and closed his eyes to accept his fate. He’d put up a good fight, tried to help her in every way. At least he could die knowing that he’d not been a coward.
The gun’s hammer clicked back.
For a fraction of a second, Blake heard it fire.
Chapter Twenty
Greg spun around the corner, extended his arm, and shot a bullet right into the temple of one of the agents. He kept walking toward them, weapon extended.
The other agent drew his gun. Greg fired a couple of shots into his chest.
Grover turned and saw the commotion. A pistol was clutched in his hand.
Shit. I didn’t know he had that. Greg was getting careless in his old age, unintentionally inviting a premature death.
“Step away!” Greg shouted at him.
Grover hesitated.
“I said step away. Right now!”
The metal clunked to the floor as the man raised his shaking hands above his head. He stepped to his left, away from Blake and the girl. He was clearly trying to express that he wasn’t any kind of a threat.
Blake looked up, the girl’s head buried into his chest. “G-Greg.” There was a strain in his voice: a cocktail of surprise, guilt, and concern.
“I’ll deal with you in a second.” Greg turned back to Grover. “You have five seconds to explain why I should let you live. Convince me.”
Grover’s glasses fell from his face, and his eyes darted between the three of them. “I…”
“Five,” Greg started the countdown.
“Well. Some… I mean—”
“Four.”
“Don’t do it!” Rachel screamed.
Greg was enjoying his moment. He had waited years for this.
“Three, two, one,” he said and squeezed the trigger.
The sound of the gunshot rang through the alleyway.
Grover tumbled back, a red growth appearing on his white shirt.
“No!” Rachel yelled.
Greg suspected he’d done something to displease her. It was like she knew something he didn’t. He turned to look at her, his thirst quenched by the long-anticipated killing shot. “What?”
“My mom.” She wept. “They’ll kill my mother, asshole!”
Greg sighed. They must have had some leverage over her to get this far, but it wasn’t until now that he knew what the leverage was. Or rather, who it was. Though all the time in the world wouldn’t have changed the outcome; there were bigger things at stake than a girl’s mother. “She’s already dead.”
Rachel stared daggers at him, then sulked into Blake’s arms while he stared up at Greg with a look of mistrust, fear, and somehow, condescension.
“She’s dead,” he said again. It wasn’t exactly a lie; it would happen soon enough, but there was no harm in bending the truth here or there. Besides, there were bigger lies being hurled around right now, and there were surely many more to come.
Chapter Twenty-One
Although the rescue had been daring and heroic, Blake had detected a new emotion lurking behind Greg’s eyes. Something hostile. It was like an inactive bomb had been given a fuse. When he demanded that Blake go back to the tar pits and retrieve the bag, his tone of voice had only confirmed that hostility.
“The fucking black box was in that bag, you moron!” he screamed.
“What’s the big deal?” Blake felt his face redden. “We don’t even know what’s inside.”
“Exactly! It could be anything. It could be the key that sets off a damn nuke for all we know. Get your skinny little ass back up that hill and meet me outside the pits. Christ.”
Blake ran all the way back up the grass verge, sweating profusely and wondering what Greg would do about the fact that he’d left him with the agents. He’d left him with Rachel now too, and he wasn’t sure he should have—not with her fragility and his temper.
He got the backpack and ran back to the street, but they were nowhere to be seen.
A car’s horn sounded, startling him.
Looking over, he saw Greg in the driver’s seat, waving him over with a darker scowl than it had been a few moments ago. Blake threw the bag into the back seat next to Rachel and climbed up front.
“Nice car,” he told Gre
g. He didn’t really think that much of it—it was okay at best—but the silence was awkward, and he wanted the conversation to flow. “Where did you get it?”
“Borrowed it,” he said matter-of-factly and pointed to the post-hotwire cables swinging from the ignition. He shifted the gears, and they pulled out, heading into God knew where.
“You stole it?”
“What a surprise,” Rachel said, “the murderer stole something.”
“I borrowed it. And you’re welcome for saving your life, Rachel.” Greg knocked Blake’s knee. “I should probably teach you how to do this at some point. It could come in handy.” His eyes never left the road.
For a moment, he wondered what he meant by that, but then he quickly understood that he was a fugitive, and it was likely that he would be for a very, very long time. Blake peered over his shoulder at Rachel, who was sobbing in the back seat with her head down, sniffing and swallowing in big wet breaths. “Are you all right?”
She looked up at him with pleading eyes that practically begged him to let her out the car. He couldn’t do that though—as Greg had told her, the Agency probably had eyes all over the hospital, and that was undoubtedly where Rachel would head first.
Blake turned back to Greg, accepting Rachel’s blank expression in place of a real answer. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
It was like that for about thirty minutes, the three of them sitting in complete silence, the engine’s gentle hum sending Blake into drowsiness. His eyes started to close over, but what felt like seconds later, they sprung open and he was awake.
“Where are we?” he whispered to himself. As he studied his surroundings, he figured out the answer. It was a shipping yard. Wet gravel spat under them as they drove around the maze of containers. A gray veil of clouds cloaked around them, threatening rain, and there was not a person in sight.
Greg stopped the car and shut off the engine. He raised his hand—almost black with dirt—to his face, rubbing his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. He sighed. It sounded like a huff. “All right, this is where we get out. Bring the bag.” He slammed the car door behind him and stormed off into the darkness.
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