Exit Strategy

by Steve Hamilton

  Isaiah Wallace. Darius Cole’s childhood friend and most trusted confidant. The man most responsible for putting Cole away. And the man we most need if we’re going to keep him there.

  Assuming we can keep him alive.

  A thought that before last night would have been little more than a joke.

  “We actually had a third potential witness for the original trial,” Greenwood said. “Don’t know if you knew that.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “We never tried to flip him. He could have tied Cole to several homicides, but …” She shook her head as her voice trailed off.

  “Wouldn’t have made a good witness?”

  “My boss at the time told me not to go after him unless I had to. He disappeared a few years later, ended up in New York, got popped not that long ago. Doing life at Dannemora, if I remember. So I really want to make sure that Mr. Wallace is—”

  “We’re moving Wallace to a WITSEC black site,” Harper said. “He’ll be absolutely untouchable. In the meantime, you can help me put Mason away. If we need a wiretap request or have to authorize overtime …”

  A fact of life in modern law enforcement: if the U.S. Attorney doesn’t want to go after a suspect, you can’t charge him with a federal crime.

  “I’ll be happy to help you,” Greenwood said. “But in return, I’ll need to meet with Mr. Wallace to prepare him for the retrial.”

  “I’m sorry but no.”

  She tilted her head at him. “Did you just say no?”

  “I can set up a video feed,” Harper said. “If we can get the judge to agree to it, we’ll have Wallace testify that way, too.”

  “Not good enough.”

  “It will have to suffice.”

  “I need to see him in person. He’s the key to my remaining case and I need to be absolutely certain that he’s ready.”

  “Do you want me to protect this man or not?” Harper asked. “His own mother’s not going to be able to see him in person. Not until the retrial is over.”

  “I am the U.S. Attorney prosecuting Darius Cole, not Isaiah Wallace’s mother.”

  “Sorry.”

  “‘Sorry’ doesn’t work for me. My job was already hard enough, Marshal. I’d be taking McLaren’s pretrial deposition right now if …”

  If the entire U.S. Marshals Service hadn’t failed him.

  Harper shrugged, unwilling to give in.

  Greenwood stood up, came around the desk, and sat on the front edge of it, looming over Harper.

  “You really want an interagency pissing contest, Marshal?” Greenwood asked. “If you think you’ll win just because I have to sit to pee …”

  She leaned over and lifted her phone out of its cradle.

  “What do you think?”

  “I’ll see what I can arrange,” Harper said. “If you don’t mind flying to his location.”

  “I’ll go anywhere,” she said, giving him a tight smile. “I’ll even wear a blindfold on the way.”

  “Mason won’t get to him,” Harper said. “Nobody will. I promise.”

  “I know you’ve had a tough twenty-four hours,” she said, giving him another smile. “I’ll let you go now.”

  As he shook her hand, he was glad he’d never have to face her in a courtroom.

  7

  It was a bad day to be Nick Mason.

  The woman he had been trying to build a life with had been a minute away from becoming a statistic. A bullet through her head, in her own bedroom. One of a thousand unsolved cases in Chicago worth a few inches in the morning paper. Now she was gone, along with the dog that had brought them together.

  And his neck and shoulder still hurt like hell.

  He was driving the new car he’d been given after Quintero had taken the Pontiac GTO and had his men obliterate it in the chop shop. The replacement, another in a seemingly endless line of cars from Darius Cole’s collection, was a 2004 Jaguar XK8. It was the first car Mason had seen that wasn’t a classic muscle car—but it was jet black, like all of Cole’s other cars, and when Mason thought about the year, it made sense: this had once been Cole’s personal car, bought new right before he went to prison.

  Mason pulled out from the shop, in the afternoon shadows cast by the Cook County Jail, blew through two red lights and gunned it down California Avenue, feeling the power in the engine but with no idea where he was going.

  Until he knew where he had to go. And the one person he had to see. The one person who could remind him why he was here. Why he had signed this contract and accepted these terms for a second life.

  • • •

  MASON DROVE CAUTIOUSLY through the West Side, eyes in his mirrors as much as on the road ahead. Even without clocking a tail, he would speed through red lights, pull into dark driveways, double back again. Trying to leave the violence and threat that was his second life at the city line before entering Elmhurst. A suburb of maple trees and fresh-cut lawns. Soccer fields and a restored movie theater on Main Street. A world apart.

  Mason’s daughter had been four years old when he went away, nine when he came back. He still hadn’t seen the bedroom she had all to herself on the second floor of that house in Elmhurst. He pictured it in his head: soccer ribbons and trophies on her shelves, stuffed animals on her bed, posters on her walls.

  He’d stood at the front door of the house. One time. Three steps into the hallway was as far as he’d come into her new world.

  Some nights he would drive by, look up at her darkened window, imagine her sleeping on the other side of the glass. During the soccer season, he would come to her games whenever he could, stand off to the side and watch her running after the ball. She was fast, built lean and tall like her mother. Then the soccer season ended and it felt like his daughter was taken away from him again, disappearing into the routine of the school year and weekends away with her mother and her stepfather. And Mason was back to driving by their house just to make sure they were safe.

  Today, he needed more than arm’s length.

  Mason rolled down North Avenue, knowing school would be out soon. He saw her elementary school just off Saint Charles Road, a building of glass and brick surrounded by acres of perfect green grass. A long line of cars streamed around a loop in the front of the building. All of these parents picking up their children, taking their normal lives for granted. They had no idea what Mason would have given just to be one of them.

  Mason parked the car in a side lot and walked back to the fenced-in playground. Some of the parents were getting out of their cars now, coming over and calling out to their kids. Mason stood and watched the scene, oddly reminded of the busy days out on the prison yard when it was just as bright and sunny and there were just as many voices in the air all at once.

  Then within one second the whole world went quiet and receded into the background as Mason caught sight of her.

  Adriana.

  Her hair was longer now but still lightened from the sun, just as her mother’s hair would be well into the fall. Her cheeks were red as she chased after someone. She darted in and out of the crowd of children until she finally caught a boy by the shirttail and stopped him. He turned to face her, pushed her away, and sent her to the ground. Mason stopped breathing and remembered having the same reaction when she was knocked down on the soccer field—but now it seemed like his reaction was even more automatic, Mason already leaning forward, ready to move, ready to protect his girl, with no thought as to what that would mean.

  Mason had always lived with violence. It was impossible to avoid growing up on the streets of Canaryville. But now …

  Mason was the violence.

  He let out his breath as Adriana got back to her feet, laughing. The boy ran away and his daughter kept chasing. He watched her, looking back toward the front of the school, waiting to see Gina appear. Unless it was Brad picking her up, but in the middle of the afternoon he was probably at work. Doing his normal job in an office building downtown.

  No, it’ll be Gina. It’ll be
good to see her, too.

  As much as it hurt him, he still wanted to see her face, wanted to remember the best part of his life.

  He kept watching and waiting, standing by the school yard fence, until it occurred to him that nobody was doing anything about it. No uniformed security guards had come up to him to ask him if he belonged here. In fact, Mason could see no guards on the premises at all.

  Someone could walk over to her right now, Mason thought. Anyone. Just grab her and pick her up, bring her back to his vehicle and take her away.

  Who would stop him?

  Mason turned and scanned the vehicles that were lined up in the front driveway or parked in the side lot as if already searching out the one man who would do this. He saw a black vehicle, focused on it. A pickup truck. He found another. A Nissan SUV.

  Then he saw it. The black Escalade. With the tinted windows.

  Quintero’s words from the night before echoed in his head: Your job was to take out the accountant. Mine was to drive to Elmhurst. Wait to hear from you … Or not.

  Mason felt a raw, burning panic in his throat. He had sent Lauren away forever, just a matter of hours ago. It was something he had to do, to protect her.

  And yet, here was his daughter. Still here in Chicago.

  Still in danger.

  “Hello …”

  Adriana’s voice cut through everything else in his head, but he heard her struggling for what to call him.

  “Call me Nick. Would that be okay?”

  “Nick? Okay.”

  He looked down and saw Adriana standing against the fence. She was peering up at him, squinting in the afternoon sunlight.

  Mason went to the fence and got down on one knee. He took one more quick look behind him, then turned to his daughter. “Hey, sweetie,” he said, his heart pounding out of his chest.

  “Why are you here?”

  “I wanted to see your school.”

  “This is it,” she said, making a grand gesture to everything behind her. “And that’s my teacher right over there. Mrs. Martin.”

  She nodded toward the woman standing next to the side door of the school. The woman was watching Adriana carefully, watching Mason, this stranger kneeling at the playground fence.

  Go walk over to that Escalade, he thought, if you want to see the real danger.

  “I miss seeing you play soccer,” Mason said. “You’re really good.”

  “I like softball better,” she said. “I’m going to play in the spring.”

  “You could play both.” He imagined himself sitting in the bleachers in April and May, another chance to see her every week.

  “I can hit the ball really hard,” she said. “Mom says I get that from you.”

  “She talks about me?” He tried not to sound surprised.

  “Sometimes.”

  They spent another few minutes together talking about nothing. Mason asked her about the boy she’d been horsing around with. She asked him a few questions about his life and he had to lie to her. He hated to do it. He had no choice.

  A man’s voice came from over Mason’s shoulder. “Is this your daughter?”

  As Mason stood up, he was already working out what this meant, Quintero out of the vehicle, this close to his daughter.

  When he turned, it wasn’t Quintero, though Mason was no happier to find himself staring into the intensely dark eyes of Detective Frank Sandoval.

  “Your Jaguar over there?” Sandoval nodded toward the parking lot. “Change of pace for you.”

  Mason didn’t answer him. Rule number three: When in doubt, keep your mouth shut.

  “Hard to keep track of your cars.”

  Mason let that go, turned back to his daughter.

  “We gotta talk, Mason.”

  Mason shook his head.

  “Who are you?” Adriana asked, looking back and forth between the two men on the other side of the fence.

  “I’m a friend of your father’s,” Sandoval said, bending over to address her. “You must be Adriana. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “You’re not his friend,” Adriana said, squinting up at his face. “You’re a policeman.”

  Sandoval smiled. “How do you know that?”

  She patted her right hip, then pointed. “I can see your gun.”

  Sandoval buttoned his jacket. “You got a sharp kid,” he said to Mason.

  “And you’re interrupting.”

  “Didn’t mean to butt in,” Sandoval said. “Just wanted to ask you something. About what you gave me …”

  He didn’t need to be any more specific. Mason had only ever given him one thing—the flash drive off a dealer’s laptop, with enough information to bring down the whole SIS task force. He’d given it to Sandoval not because he wanted to help his career but because he knew Sandoval was the only cop clean enough, and stubborn enough, not to bury it.

  “What about it?” Mason said.

  “Did you tell anyone else?”

  “If you got other cops looking at you, that’s got nothing to do with me.”

  Sandoval looked at him for a long moment, nodded, and turned to leave. Turned back. Smiled.

  “You talk to your girl, but we’re not done.” He pointed at his car. He waved to Adriana. “Nice meeting you.”

  She didn’t wave back.

  Sandoval shook his head and returned to his sedan. Mason watched him get behind the wheel, noting that the detective was alone now. Whoever had been in the car with him that morning was gone.

  “We’re going to Denver,” Adriana said.

  Mason got back down on one knee. “When?”

  “Soon! Mom says we might live there.”

  Mason had to hide his surprise again. This time, it was a lot harder.

  “What about school?” Mason said. “And soccer? And—”

  “They have all that out there,” Adriana said. “But I don’t want to leave, anyway. I want to stay here!”

  I want you to stay here, too. But Mason couldn’t say it out loud.

  “Adriana!” It was Gina’s voice, tinted with alarm. Her expression a mixture of worry and anger.

  Mason saw her coming toward them, moving a notch too quickly for a woman just casually picking up her daughter from school. She had the expensive haircut of an Elmhurst woman, the clothes, the diamond earrings—but he could still see the Canaryville girl he had fallen in love with. The girl he had given up everything for—his careers stealing cars, then taking down drug dealers, then doing commercial breakins. He gave it all up for her, rebuilt a house on Forty-seventh Street, rebuilt his entire life. And even when he made the biggest mistake of his life and ended up losing it all …

  He was doing it for Gina and Adriana.

  At least, that’s what he told himself.

  Gina was on the other side of the fence from Mason, and whether she meant it or not, the simple geometry of the situation said something important to him: We’re on this side, you’re on the other. This metal fence keeps us safe from you, with or without the razor wire on top.

  “I was just driving by,” Mason said. “I wanted to see where Adriana goes to school.”

  “Can he come over today?” Adriana asked her mother. “I want to show him my new bike.”

  “Today’s not good,” Gina said to her. “We have to pack, remember?”

  “What’s this about going to Denver?” Mason asked.

  “It’s Brad …” she said, then hesitated. “He got a really nice job offer.”

  “It’s a long way from Chicago.”

  The idea of his daughter living a thousand miles away … He didn’t want to show her how much it hurt him. He didn’t want to get in a fight with her. Not here. Not in front of his daughter.

  “We haven’t decided yet, Nick. We were going to call you and let you know.”

  It sure as hell sounds decided to me, Mason thought.

  “Can you come with us?” Adriana asked.

  Gina gave Nick a subtle shake of her head. Mason went back down to
one knee.

  “I can’t come,” he said. “But when you get back …”

  He struggled to find the words.

  “I want to come visit you,” she said. “I want to see where you live!”

  Mason looked up at Gina.

  “We’ll talk about it,” Gina said to her. “We should go now.”

  “I know what We’ll talk about it means,” Adriana said. “It means We won’t talk about it.”

  Mason didn’t want to play Adriana against her mother, but he wanted to have this time with her. While he still had the chance, Mason wanted to have just one day.

  He watched his ex-wife thinking it over. The inner war between the woman he’d married, who knew what Adriana meant to Mason, and the Mama Bear, who’d kill a dozen men and lay down her own life to protect her.

  When she looked through the fence at him, for one quick moment all of the years and everything that had happened between them fell away and she was Gina Sullivan Mason from Canaryville. A woman who could see how much her daughter’s father wanted to spend time with her.

  “Maybe we can do that,” she finally said. “As soon as we get back, okay? Now, we have to get going.”

  Adriana jumped up and down and waved to Mason as she went off with her mother. Mason wanted to hug her so badly, but the fence stood between them and he didn’t want to press his luck with a big production of going around it. In the end, he settled for a promise that Gina would call him as soon as they got back from Denver.

  Mason watched Adriana get into the minivan, waving at her again just before the door closed and the vehicle rolled away. Standing there, his gaze following the van, he tried making sense of it.

  Even on a day that should be a good one, a day in which I get to see my daughter … I find out that she’ll be moving a thousand miles away.

  He didn’t feel like dealing with Sandoval now. But thinking he could ignore the cop, hoping that he’d just go away, wouldn’t work. He’d tried that. It was like a fly banging against a window, convinced that the next time the glass wouldn’t be there.

  Mason leaned against the driver’s-side door of the sedan.

  “What’d you really want?”

  Sandoval took a long look at Mason. He pointed to the white tape peeking out over Nick’s shirt collar. “What’s that about?”