by Adam Hamdy
‘Who am I calling?’ she asked.
‘Hector Solomon.’
‘I won’t do it,’ Ash protested.
‘Then he dies now,’ Pendulum remarked, wheeling the pistol towards Wallace’s head.
‘Why?’
‘Call it a test,’ Pendulum replied. ‘Don’t think you’re in a position to negotiate,’ he warned her. ‘There are many ways for me to achieve my objective. This is simply the easiest.’
Ash picked up the phone. ‘I don’t have his number.’
‘Just redial,’ Pendulum instructed. He held something to the side of his head, and Ash realised it was a Bluetooth earpiece; he was listening to the call.
Ash pressed redial. She looked at the phone, and, if the clock was to be trusted, saw that it was 01:06. After a few rings, she heard Hector’s voice.
‘Hello?’ he said.
‘Hector, it’s me,’ Ash replied.
‘Are you kidding? Do you have any idea what happened tonight? Someone shot a kid called Ramon Meza. You know anything about that?’
‘What did the others say?’ Ash asked quickly.
‘So you were there,’ Hector observed. ‘They crumbled pretty damned quickly. Said some guy paid them. Told them he was a recruiter for the Foundation.’
‘Check he’s in his office,’ Pendulum whispered, his voice tinged with irritation.
‘Where are you?’ Ash complied.
‘Where am I? Where do you think I am? In the office going through a pile of paperwork,’ Hector replied. ‘I’m going to be here until Judgement Day.’
‘Tell him you know who killed Ramon Meza,’ Pendulum commanded.
‘I know who killed Ramon Meza,’ Ash relayed.
Hector waited.
‘John Wallace,’ Pendulum told Ash.
Ash shook her head, unwilling to pass on the lie. Pendulum drew closer to Wallace and prodded his head with the pistol.
‘John Wallace,’ Ash relented.
‘What?’ Hector asked incredulously.
‘Tell him Wallace was behind the Pendulum killings,’ the killer commanded. ‘He was working with a man called Leo Willard. Wallace was the brains, Leo was the muscle.’
‘Wallace is Pendulum,’ Ash complied, her voice wavering as she watched the dismay spread across Wallace’s face. ‘He’s been working with a man called Leo Willard. Leo was the muscle, Wallace was the brains.’
‘I don’t have time for this, Chris,’ Hector sighed in disbelief.
‘Tell him Wallace has sent him proof, and a confession,’ Pendulum said calmly.
‘Wallace has sent you proof,’ Ash told Hector. She watched as the masked killer produced a small tablet PC from his coat pocket and swiped his fingers across the screen.
‘It’s here,’ Hector informed Ash, who heard the faint click of a mouse. ‘What the fuck!’ Hector exclaimed suddenly. ‘What the fuck have you done?’
A split second later, the line went dead.
‘What did I just do?’ Ash asked the man in the mask.
‘Did you get cut off?’ Pendulum countered.
Ash nodded.
‘Then the email just uploaded a virus on to the New York Field Office servers,’ the masked man explained. ‘It’s a particularly virulent one designed to take out every computer, server and device on a network. It also attacks any back-up nodes and ancillary systems such as power and telephones. You just sent the New York office back to the Stone Age.’
‘Why?’
‘It will take months to repair the damage,’ Pendulum replied. ‘By then . . .’ he trailed off, stopping himself from revealing any more. He reached behind an air duct and produced a black bag. As he rifled inside it, Ash saw the thick coil of a noosed rope. She looked at Wallace and saw that he’d also registered it. Pendulum continued gathering items for a few moments before tossing a bundle of stuff towards Wallace. ‘Help him get changed,’ he told Ash.
She looked at the bundle and realised that it wasn’t just clothes, but body armour and a mask; an exact replica of Pendulum’s outfit.
Wallace picked up the face mask and stared at it as he got to his feet, before tossing it back to the killer. ‘No,’ he said flatly.
‘Then you can dress him after he’s dead,’ Pendulum responded, raising his pistol.
‘He’ll do it,’ Ash interjected urgently. ‘You’ll do it, won’t you?’ she asked Wallace, who was impassive as she approached. She moved slowly, fearful of triggering a violent reaction in their captor. ‘This isn’t going to work,’ Ash observed. ‘John was in custody when you killed Ken Pallo and he was with me when Bonnie Mann was murdered.’
‘That’s why you just told Solomon that he wasn’t working alone,’ Pendulum replied.
‘Who’s Leo Willard?’ Ash asked.
‘Nobody important. A Vegas thug. He’s dead now,’ the masked man continued. ‘But tomorrow the Bureau will be fed evidence implicating Leo and John in the murders. A sick scheme, twisted out of control.’
‘I guess after killing me, John is overcome by guilt and hangs himself?’ Ash remarked.
‘It isn’t perfect,’ Pendulum noted. ‘But it doesn’t need to be. It just needs to hold long enough to buy me more time. Sow enough confusion to get them to stop looking for a few days. Now, quit stalling, Agent Ash. Help him change.’
Ash picked up the heavy leather coat and turned to Wallace. ‘When I say run, you’ve just got to trust me,’ she whispered.
Wallace replied with an imperceptible nod, fear writ large on his face. She glanced over the south-west corner of the roof and saw what she’d been waiting for. Her timing needed to be perfect.
‘Go!’ Ash exclaimed, pushing Wallace with all the force she could muster. She hurled the leather coat behind her and started running. Gunfire struck the ground behind her as she grabbed Wallace and bundled him towards the edge of the roof.
‘We’ve gotta jump,’ she exclaimed. Ash looked behind her and saw Pendulum running to catch them, his pistol spitting fire with every step. ‘Trust me,’ she told Wallace, who looked at her as though she was insane.
She forced Wallace forward as bullets sliced the air around them. The resonant thump of suppressed gunfire assaulted her ears, pounding them with the urgent need to move. Ash felt every cell in her body recoil at what she was about to do, but she knew that if they stayed on that roof, they were both dead. Her head went light and her gut wrenched violently as she neared the balustrade and saw the street far below. She diverted her eyes towards the target, a red Roosevelt Island Cable Car, which was some eight yards south of the building, ten stories down. The drop would enable them to make the distance, Ash told herself as she pushed Wallace and then followed him over the edge.
Ash floated for a moment. The interior of the cable car was lit up with a brightness that drew her focus like the piercing beam of a lighthouse. The world around it shrank into insignificance as Ash went flying out from the building, soaring majestically before gravity kicked in and violently yanked her down. The world rushed past, but Ash kept her eyes focused on the illuminated cable car, which grew larger with every passing second. Her mind screamed the word death, but Ash forced the dark thought back. Ahead of her, Wallace struck one of the A-frame struts and bounced through the gap, across the cable car roof, slamming to a halt against the frame on the other side. The cable car shook violently and Ash hit a moment later, but her trajectory wasn’t as kind and she struck the A-frame with her left shoulder and bounced away from it.
The impact had slowed her fall, but Ash realised with growing horror that she was sliding down the side of the cable car. She whipped her hands out, her fingers clawing at the cold glass that separated her from the horrified passengers who watched her slide towards her death. With a final, desperate effort, Ash grabbed at the thin metal foot rail that lined the base of the cable car. She felt her right shoulder scream in pain as her arm wrenched in its socket, but she directed the full force of her will towards her fingers, commanding them to hold. Her legs flai
led wildly, but she was no longer falling, and she brought her right hand up to hook her remaining fingers around the foot rail.
Ash looked towards the sky and saw the terrible figure of the killer leaning over the edge of the roof. She could sense his hatred as he stared down at them, and saw him load his pistol and take aim. She held her breath when he fired, but the distance was too great for a sidearm and the bullets flew wide and struck a Mercedes on the bridge below. Ash watched as the driver swerved and crashed into the central barrier. The dazed man emerged from his vehicle and stared up at the heavens. When he caught sight of Ash hanging precariously from the cable car, he hurriedly produced his phone. Ash returned her gaze to the roof and saw Pendulum lower his weapon and step away from the edge. They both knew it would not be long before the authorities arrived, and neither of them wanted to get caught. Ash could hear the cable car’s shocked passengers trying to open the doors.
‘Hold on!’ one of the occupants yelled.
The doors wouldn’t give, but, to her intense relief, Ash felt the cable car rock to a gentle halt. Moments later it started going backwards, descending towards Manhattan and the station on Second Avenue.
47
Dazed and disorientated, Wallace heard his name being called over and over again. He lifted his fingers to his temple and felt a tender lump rising on the side of his head. The pain jolted him to his senses and he looked around urgently, realising that he was lying on the roof of a cable car, suspended high above the city. Ash had saved him but she was nowhere to be seen, and Wallace was grief-stricken as he looked towards the night sky. He dared not look down; he did not want to see the remains of another saviour lost to the murderous killer.
‘John!’
Wallace tuned into the voice that had cut through his dazed stupor, and realised that it belonged to Ash. He pulled himself to the edge of the roof and looked down to see the battered FBI agent hanging by her stubborn fingertips.
‘I’m developing a real fear of heights,’ Wallace said faintly.
‘We gotta get off this thing,’ Ash told him.
Wallace looked east and, beyond an off ramp that cut beneath their path, he saw Roosevelt Station, a well-lit, four-storey metal and concrete building which housed the red anchor girders and flywheels that kept the cable cars aloft. As he was watching, a blue and white police car pulled to a halt outside the building.
‘Can you jump?’ Ash yelled up at him.
Wallace nodded. ‘I think so.’
‘The ramp,’ she instructed.
Wallace looked at the approaching elevated section of road, which was connected to the bridge, and tried to guess the drop. The adjacent building suggested it was two, maybe three stories. Fifteen to twenty-five feet; more than enough to break a leg. Late-night traffic raced along the ramp at terrifying speeds. Wallace grabbed hold of the left A-frame strut and lowered his legs over the side of the cable car, looking along the bridge for an approaching gap in the oncoming traffic, which was starting to build up behind the crashed Mercedes.
‘I’ll go first,’ Ash shouted.
He followed Ash’s gaze towards the station and saw two police officers peel away from the assembled crowd and start running towards them. He looked down and saw that the cable car had just crossed the concrete barrier that marked the edge of the off ramp. Ash dropped but mistimed her fall and landed directly in front of an SUV that was gathering speed. The driver must have been startled but reacted quickly, and the brakes screeched as the tyres trailed black rubber along the road, before the SUV came to a jarring halt inches from Ash’s face.
‘Go!’ she yelled.
Wallace surrendered himself to fate and released his grip. He struck the roof of the SUV, bent his knees and rolled down the windshield on to the hood, where he came face to face with the shocked middle-aged woman who was driving. He felt a hand tug at his jacket.
‘Come on,’ Ash said urgently. She pulled Wallace on to the road, and led him along the dividing white lines that split the ramp into two wide lanes. As he stumbled on, Wallace noticed that Ash was hunched over, her right shoulder bent inwards, forcing her into an awkward gait.
Horns blared and engines roared all around them, but more worrying than any of the immediate cacophony was the sound of approaching sirens. They struggled on for about a hundred and twenty metres before they reached the intersection with Sixty-Second Street. As the ramp levelled out and joined the island’s surface, Wallace’s heart plummeted as he saw the two uniformed policemen who’d been outside Roosevelt Station. A young African-American officer and an older Hispanic, they were running level with Wallace and Ash on the other side of the northernmost concrete barrier.
‘Stop!’ yelled the African-American officer.
‘Hold it!’ the other cop cried. ‘Or we’ll shoot.’
Wallace looked at Ash and saw her eyes darting around for a solution as both cops vaulted the barrier and raced towards them.
‘This way,’ Ash yelled, and she sprinted towards a white van with black windows that was in the eastbound lane, two cars back from the Sixty-Second Street intersection. Ash ran up to the driver’s door and yanked it open. ‘Federal Agent!’ she screamed at the top of her voice. ‘Get out of the vehicle!’
The driver was a large tattooed man with a shaven head. After recovering from his momentary shock, he reached beside him and drew a black pistol, which he swung towards Ash.
‘Gun!’ she exclaimed, as she ducked the shot.
Wallace saw the two police officers stop in their tracks and draw their pistols.
‘Shots fired! Shots fired!’ the African-American cop called into his radio.
Ash drove her left fist into the driver’s nose, and, as his head lurched back, she punched his larynx. As he doubled over in pain, she grabbed his pistol and slammed it into the top of his head, knocking him cold. She leaned into the van, popped the safety belt and rolled the huge guy on to the asphalt.
‘Get in!’ she told Wallace.
He slid into the passenger seat, while Ash jumped in and slammed the door shut. She flipped the central locking just as the African-American cop reached the passenger door and tried to pull it open. Ash slipped the van into drive and gunned the accelerator, but as the vehicle lurched forward, the African-American officer stepped back and opened fire. His shots shattered the passenger window, whipped past Wallace and Ash, and smashed the driver’s window. The van sped forward, colliding with the car in front. Ash stepped on the gas, and the weight of the van forced the sedan into the intersection, where it was sideswiped by a truck. The car spun clear and, as the police officer leaned in and grabbed ineffectually at Wallace, Ash steered the van across the intersection. Wallace resisted the cop’s attempts to grab him and punched the man in the face. He fell away, and when Wallace looked in the side mirror, he saw the cop roll to a halt at the top of the intersection. The dazed officer got to his feet and spoke into his radio as Ash sped away.
Wallace could hear sirens through the shattered window, but couldn’t see any flashing lights. Ash turned west on Sixty-Third Street and shot past other vehicles as she devoured the three blocks to Lexington Avenue. As they approached the intersection, Wallace saw an NYPD car speeding south.
‘Buckle up,’ Ash instructed, and Wallace fumbled for his safety belt. The clasp clicked into place, and Wallace looked up to see the driver of the police car change lanes as he recognised their vehicle. Ash accelerated, aimed straight for the car, and drove the van into the police car, broadsiding it. Wallace was hurled forward by the force of the impact, but the airbags deployed and the safety belt caught, jerking him back on to his seat. He watched in horror as the cop car was driven across Lexington Avenue. Grinding steel shrieked, showering everything with furious sparks as the van pushed the car sideways over the slick street. The mass of metal came to a crashing halt when the police car hit an SUV parked on the far corner. The police officers inside the car were dazed and disorientated, their siren adding to their general confusion as it bl
ared through the shattered windows.
‘Come on,’ Ash urged Wallace.
He opened the passenger door and stepped into the road. Ash followed him and hurried towards the other side of Sixty-Third Street. She and Wallace stumbled towards the tiled stairs that led down to the subway station. As they descended the steps, sirens wailed, drawing ever closer. Wallace tried to rein in the pounding adrenalin, but his heart raced even faster when he saw a couple of transit cops round the corner at the bottom of the staircase. Drawn by the riotous commotion on the surface, the officers ran straight past Wallace and Ash. Wallace looked at the FBI agent, his eyes bright with relief.
‘It’s not over yet,’ she cautioned, continuing down the steps.
Wallace clung to the vain hope that Ash was wrong, but found himself nodding slowly as he followed her into the station.
The F Train spat them out at Second Avenue Station and they shuffled on to the street, where they moved slowly and silently along the icy sidewalk. Ash looked at Wallace and saw an exhausted, battered man. His skin and clothes were filthy, and Ash guessed that she didn’t look much better. She certainly felt terrible and wondered about the nature of the injury that was causing her shoulder so much pain. She didn’t think it was dislocated, and guessed she might have some deep tissue bruising and torn ligaments. They staggered down Bowery like a pair of degenerate drunks, until they came to the Fresh City Hotel. Ash noticed the All-Nite pharmacy on the ground floor.
‘You go up to the room,’ she told Wallace. ‘I’ll get some supplies.’
Wallace was too exhausted to argue and simply nodded as he stumbled into the hotel.