Winterlong

by Mason Cross

  “I can buy that, and I’ve only known you for an hour.”

  “We need to get out of here.”

  “No, sounds like you need to get out of here.” He sounded vaguely amused. I guess I would have in his position, too, if I had no idea how much danger we were both in.

  We passed a Starbucks, and one of those generic airport bar and grills. I saw a sign for the restrooms and a fire exit. It was better than nothing, though I expected the door would be alarmed.

  “We,” I repeated. “If airport security gets ahold of us, they’ll put us in one of those little rooms for a few hours until they hand me over to my people and you over to the cops.”

  “Why are you saying all this like it’s my fault?”

  “Bryant—shut up.”

  He opened his mouth again before deciding to take my advice. I looked over my shoulder, glad to see no sign of the security twins just yet. I glanced around the stores again, seeing a clothing store. That gave me a better idea than hoping there was a back exit we could sneak out of.

  “Give me your coat,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Just do it.”

  He shrugged the overcoat off and handed it to me. I removed my own coat and draped both over my arm, heading for the clothing store. The space within was full and cluttered, thanks to the spatial limitations of an airport concession. Folded T-shirts and sweaters were stacked on shelves around the walls, and heavier garments like coats and dresses were hung on racks crammed together across the modest floor space. The cashier was serving a customer, an old man in a gray fedora. I made my way to the farthest rack and hung the coats up over a pair of turquoise dresses, before making my way to the front again. On the way, I passed a couple racks of coats. Glancing at them long enough only to make sure I didn’t select anything too small or too large, I plucked two raincoats from the rack—one green, one blue—and made my way to the register.

  The cashier had finished serving the guy in the fedora, but a large woman was now approaching the register carrying a plastic-bagged T-shirt. We were about equidistant on our approaches, and the cashier glanced at both of us with an indecisive smile, as if to say, “You two figure out who’s next.”

  Seeing the look, the woman quickened her pace pointedly. I did likewise. I didn’t have the time to wait in line, and I definitely didn’t want to attract even more attention by shoplifting the coats. I beat her to the counter by a nose.

  “Listen, I hate to do this, but I’m running really late. Do you mind?”

  The woman pursed her lips, stepping in front of me and actually physically butting into me. “I most certainly do. You should have arrived in better time, shouldn’t you?”

  I glanced at the price tag and took two hundreds from my wallet. I dropped them on the counter, with a look of apology to the cashier. Mission accomplished, I brought the coat back out and handed one to Bryant. His face wrinkled up at the sight of the cheap raincoat I’d just overpaid for.

  “I liked that coat.”

  “Well, now you can like this coat instead,” I said. I pointed back out at the main terminal space. “Walk straight across there. Don’t run. I’ll meet you at the taxi stand in three minutes.”

  He rolled his eyes but nodded assent, walking out in front of me. We’d be exiting through the front as two lone men in raincoats, rather than sneaking out through the back as the pair the United check-in woman would have described to the guards. I hoped that would be enough of a diversion.

  I gave Bryant thirty seconds and then followed him. As I cleared the ring of travelers hanging around the food court and the shopping area, I saw the two big security guys again. They were scanning the faces in the crowd, speaking into their radios and wearing the unmistakable expressions of people who are trying to identify someone they’ve never laid eyes on from somebody else’s description. Of course, the place was scattered with security cameras, which would make it easy to track our movements and our escape method later, but not in enough time to stop us.

  I saw Bryant exit through the revolving door ahead of me as I passed within ten yards of the nearest security guy. He was talking calmly into his radio, eyes darting around the crowd. I looked around and saw three other security officers closing in on the shopping area. All I needed was ten more seconds to reach the exit, and safety.

  And that was when I saw the man in glasses.

  22

  I had seen his face only once before, but I knew I would never forget it as long as I lived. However long that turned out to be.

  It was a face that promised nothing good. The face of a tax inspector interviewing a suspect about a discrepancy, or an uncaring doctor about to give a patient bad news. The blue eyes behind the round lenses seemed to study everything that passed before them like a predator dispassionately regarding its next meal. Pitiless countenance aside, the rest of him blended in to his surroundings, from his neat haircut to the black overcoat worn over a button-down shirt, black pants, and polished shoes. If he had had a briefcase, he would have looked like an executive on his way to or from a meeting. But he carried nothing. Nothing that wouldn’t fit beneath his coat.

  Our eyes met and it was too late already—the flicker of recognition flashed behind the glasses, and I pictured the last time I’d seen this man, pointing a gun at the head of an LAPD detective named Jessica Allen.

  It felt like we stared at each other for an hour, though it couldn’t have been more than a split second. I turned away and started walking quickly, following in the direction Bryant had gone. I quickened my pace to just short of a run as I approached the exit doors, not daring to look back and not even worrying about the airport security anymore.

  It had been too late the moment Coop had sent Martinez’s black notice; I knew that now. That had been the reason for the e-mail: not just to rattle me, but to find me. They must have known my general location for hours, were probably staking out the airport as one of the most likely places to find me. That phone call about the No Fly list had probably come directly to the cell phone of the man in glasses.

  As the automatic doors gave way at my approach, I saw the people behind me faintly reflected in them. The man with glasses was a dozen paces back, another man now walking alongside him, watching as he pointed me out. The second man was around the same height, short, reddish hair, dressed similarly.

  I passed through the doors. The rain had started up again, harder than before. Bryant was there, poised to climb into the open back door of a cab at the front of the stand. I glanced around. It was less busy than I had been hoping at this exit. Most people had scurried for cover from the downpour. There were only a few people making their way to the public pickup points farther on. That was bad: Fewer people meant fewer witnesses.

  “Are we good?” he asked, completely oblivious to how much more trouble we were now in.

  “Get in,” I yelled, running toward the front passenger side.

  “Carter Blake!” I heard the shout from behind me, knew it was either the man with glasses or his friend, whom I hadn’t gotten a good look at. “Police. Stop where you are!”

  I ignored it and yanked the door open, sliding in. Bryant was already in the backseat.

  “Maybe we should ...”

  “That’s not the police,” I said as I heard the voice again. Closer, louder.

  “Stop or I’ll shoot.”

  The taxi driver was looking over the head restraint, past Bryant and through the back window at the two approaching men he assumed were plainclothes cops. He turned to look at me, alarm in his eyes. “What is this?”

  “We have to get out of here,” I said. “They’re not cops.”

  I glanced back and saw the man in glasses pointing the gun straight at us. I yelled, “Get down,” as I ducked. Bryant reacted quickly. The driver, not quickly enough.

  Three shots shattered the back window, safety glass spraying over the interior. I heard a fleshy impact as the driver took a bullet in the side of his throat. He slumped over, his
eyes rolling back in his head. His body was held up by the seat belt as a torrent of blood coursed down the front of his shirt.

  Staying down, I slammed the car into drive and lunged headfirst into the driver’s footwell, slamming the palm of my hand down on the gas pedal with my left hand while I gripped the wheel with my right and yanked us out into the lane. The wheels spun and then caught, jerking us out onto the road. I corrected the steer blind, hoping we wouldn’t hit one of the concrete pillars outside of the terminal.

  Two more shots punched into the car, one of them passing through the back window and exiting through the windshield, the other hitting the driver’s side wing mirror. I gritted my teeth as we sideswiped another vehicle. A glancing blow, not enough to slow us down. I risked putting my head up in time to avoid plowing into another car and course-corrected enough to keep us on the straight before ducking down again as I heard two more shots.

  Bryant’s suddenly high-pitched yell came from the back. “What the fuck, Blake?”

  I ignored him and stabbed my finger at the button to release the driver’s seat belt, taking my other hand off the wheel long enough to scrabble at the door handle and push it open wide. I grabbed the wheel as the car started to list to the left and yanked it hard right. The driver’s body tipped over and out onto the road. I took my other hand off the gas, shuffled across into the driver’s seat, and stamped my foot down on the pedal to bring us up to speed again. The exit road curved around on itself before leading out, but there was a line of low bushes directly ahead that offered a shortcut. I floored the gas and braced myself as we hit the verge and plowed through the line of bushes, swinging onto the road that led out of the airport in front of a shuttle bus. I felt impact as Bryant slammed into the back of my seat, face-first, with a yell.

  “Seat belt,” I yelled, daring to glance in the rearview for the first time. The shuttle bus had slewed into the verge to avoid us, neatly blocking the exit road behind us. That was good, but I knew we wouldn’t get far in a shot-up stolen taxi.

  We passed under the freeway bridge, took the curving on-ramp at sixty, and merged onto the freeway. The cold air sucked through the bullet holes in the windshield and breezed through the smashed rear window. Bryant was looking back out of the window in disbelief.

  “They shot at us. They just shot at us. Why would they ...?”

  I kept my eyes on the road, looking out for signs for the next exit. The real police would be on our tail soon enough.

  “I told you. They’re not cops.”

  “Well, who the hell are they? They can’t just start shooting at us. Can they?”

  “They’re people who don’t give a shit if you think they can’t start shooting at you. They’re people who won’t stop until we’re dead.” I thought about that. Bryant was as deep in as I was now. Marked for death by association. “I’m sorry.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll know as soon as I do.”

  23

  SEATTLE

  Stark walked over to the driver with the idea of checking for a pulse. He realized there was no point when he got within ten feet of the sprawled body. His head jerked around as he heard a scream. A large woman in a raincoat looked out from the shelter of the parking structure across from the taxi stand.

  “Oh my God, is he dead?”

  “Please stay back, ma’am,” Stark commanded, waving her and the other people who were emerging from the shelter to gawk away. They were very lucky that these bystanders had been too busy getting the hell out of the way to pay close attention to what had happened.

  He returned to where Usher was standing. The pair of them holstered their weapons and waited patiently in the rain, keeping their hands visible. With any luck, Blake’s name triggering an alert moments before would mean the cops could be quickly persuaded they were on the tail of a dangerous fugitive. Still, it was a hell of a mess. Faraday would be pissed.

  “Was that a good idea?” Stark asked. It was Usher who’d started firing first. Stark had backed him up only reluctantly, aiming for the tires. By that time, Blake had gotten the car out of effective range.

  “We’ll take care of this.”

  “That wasn’t what I asked,” Stark said. “You killed the driver.”

  Four airport security guards were approaching them, guns drawn. Stark was pleased to see they didn’t look scared or tense, just wary. The way he and Usher were dressed, their demeanor, and the fact they’d put their guns away was enough to put the cops at something like ease, as far as was possible in this kind of situation. The two of them looked like feds of some variety, so they got the benefit of the doubt. How different from the reaction they might have gotten in other parts of the world.

  Usher turned to look at him, speaking quietly. “Blake killed the driver.” The combination of the intense stare and the calm, flat voice, put Stark in mind of a hypnotist. He knew Usher wasn’t trying to convince him it hadn’t been his bullet that killed the driver—that would imply he cared. No, he was just making sure Stark knew the official story. Of course, an autopsy and ballistic tests would eventually confirm that the driver had been killed by a bullet fired from outside the vehicle, but that would take several hours. By the time that was confirmed, they would both be long gone, never to be seen by local law enforcement again. Questions would be asked, demands would be made, but nothing would reach the unit, or Usher. The blame would be filtered up through various government agencies until it evaporated entirely.

  “Keep your hands where I can see them and identify yourself,” the closest security guard called out. He was a tall black man in his forties, gray hair at his temples. Calm, experienced-looking. He obviously sensed they were authorized personnel of some kind, because he hadn’t yelled at them to lie on the ground yet. Stark was glad they weren’t dealing with an unpredictable rookie.

  “Officer, I’m going to produce my identification, okay?” Usher said.

  The officer nodded. “Slowly. Left hand. Right hand where I can see it.”

  Usher did exactly as ordered, moving carefully and deliberately. He produced an ID wallet and held it up for the cop to look at.

  “We’re with the Department of Homeland Security. I’m Agent Black; this is Agent Burrows.”

  The lead cop stepped forward, his body language already relaxing. The other three kept their guns on the two men while he examined the ID. It would pass muster, because it was indistinguishable from a real DHS ID.

  He handed the ID back to Usher. “Okay. What’s going on, Agent?”

  “Thank you,” Usher said. “We’ve been tipped off that a couple of terrorist suspects were about to board a domestic flight. Sure enough, one of them was flagged on the No Fly list about ten minutes ago when he tried to buy a ticket. We made a visual on the suspects but before we could make the arrest ...” He paused and gestured at the body lying on the road fifty yards away. “They killed a cabdriver and stole his vehicle. We need to run them down as soon as possible. These men present a live risk.”

  A dozen more security personnel had arrived while they’d been talking. Two paramedics were examining the body of the driver with no great urgency, one of them shaking his head.

  “They won’t get far. Any particular reason we weren’t informed of your operation today, Agent?” the cop said, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

  Stark pitched in, deciding Usher’s matter-of-fact condescension was not the ideal tool to extract themselves quickly from this situation. “I’m sorry, Officer. We had people at various locations across the metropolitan area. We couldn’t be sure they’d be here until United’s database triggered the No Fly alert.”

  “We’ll need the pair of you to wait right here.”

  “I’m afraid we don’t have time, Officer,” Usher said. “This is a matter of national security. We’ll be pleased to cooperate once ...”

  The officer shook his head and held a hand up to stop Usher. “I’ve got shots fired in my airport and a dead civilian. Nobody’s going anyw
here.”

  Stark sighed inwardly, although he’d been expecting this. He turned to Usher. “Do you want to make the call?”

  Usher kept his eyes on the officer. His eyes had narrowed and his tone was even frostier than usual. “I’ll make the call.”

  24

  SEATTLE

  We left the freeway and I pulled off the road at the first opportunity, which turned out to be the entrance to a business park. We passed several rows of units: I saw a tire place, an auto repair center, and a bunch of different wholesalers. Nobody was out front of any of them, apart from a guy in coveralls stacking tires with his back to us. I slowed down a little and took a few random turns until we ran out of open businesses and found ourselves surrounded by boarded-up units. I found a blind alley between two derelict units, just wide enough to admit the taxi, and nosed it in as far as it would go. There was an opaque roof of corrugated plastic sheltering the alley, and by ramming the car straight into the junk at the far end, I managed to make sure its full length was under cover. I got out and gave myself a once-over. Some of the taxi driver’s blood had gotten on my left side, but thankfully it wasn’t obvious against a dark suit. Some of it had soaked into my shirt cuff, so I rolled both shirt sleeves up so they weren’t visible. When I saw Bryant had made no move to join me, I opened the back door.

  “Come on.”

  He was staring straight ahead, looking a little sick. He hadn’t spoken since the freeway, and I wondered if he was in some kind of delayed shock. I didn’t have time for that. While I felt bad that events hadn’t exactly gone to plan, my sympathy for Bryant had limits.

  “Bryant, now.”

  He broke the thousand-yard stare and looked up at me before nodding slowly and sliding out from the backseat. His nose was bleeding a little from the collision with the head restraint, but it didn’t look broken. I headed back for the mouth of the alley, not wasting any more time on persuasion. Bryant followed behind, not needing to be told a third time. He had retrieved his laptop case from the backseat. There was a bullet hole through the dead center. When he saw it, he looked like he was going to throw up.