by Jeff Abbott
‘Are you using this kid to settle old scores? Let’s be honest. You hated me, you hated Warren, you hated everyone in the Book Club.’
‘That’s not true…’
‘Isn’t it? We all thought you hated us.’
‘Hardly. I made the Book Club happen.’
‘Maybe. But Warren Dantry made it succeed.’
Henry shook his head slowly. The words, and the truth, couldn’t hurt him any more. The Book Club was dead and he’d won. ‘Some success. A bunch of thinkers and thugs that no one paid much attention to in the first place.’
‘And now your stepson…’
‘He’s my son!’ Henry snapped. An awful silence descended between the two men.
Drummond’s lips curled in a sneer. ‘You really did step into Warren Dantry’s life. His career. His wife. His son. My God, I guess you got over your hatred for him. How do Warren’s shoes fit you, Henry?’
Henry breathed slowly, counted to ten, etched a half-smile on his face. He had never wanted to kill anyone as badly as he wanted to kill Drummond. He quelled the rage. ‘You know if I knew, I would tell you, because then I could help you find Luke. That’s all I want. Luke to be found and home safe.’
Drummond tented his fingers with the air of a man with a final card to play. ‘I’ll find him. Before the police do. He’s going to talk to me.’ Drummond stood. ‘It might be best, Henry, if you allowed yourself to be placed under my protection.’
If he was kept under watch, the first wave of attacks might fail and then Hellfire would not happen. And no way he could find Luke or Eric Lindoe or the fifty million. ‘Some protection, you with a knife at my throat.’
Drummond laughed. ‘Yes. But no one else would get a knife near you.’
Henry swallowed down the tickle of bile at the back of his throat. ‘I stay here. If he comes here – my son needs me.’ A wave of dizziness flushed through his brain.
‘Stay in touch, Henry. I will.’ Drummond handed Henry a plain white card, with a Manhattan address handwritten in black ink, with a phone number below. ‘Henry. I don’t want to see Warren’s kid hurt, if he’s innocent. But if he’s not, if he killed Clifford, nothing you do can protect him. We just want to know why.’
‘I want to know why, too.’ And it was true.
‘Henry, this has just been great. I love reunions.’ He fixed a steely glare on Henry. ‘If you decide there’s a greater truth you’re not telling me, call me. Because I’m going to find this kid, and I’m going to find out the truth of what he’s been working on. You don’t want me pissed at you.’
Henry said nothing.
Drummond left, this time out the front door. Henry slammed it behind him.
He stayed at the front window until Drummond had driven away. Drummond isn’t going to let this go, he thought. He wondered who Drummond’s employer was – a private concern, he’d said. What did that mean?
Henry dug out his cell phone and called the cabin rental number in Braintree, Texas that he’d gotten earlier from Snow and Mouser. The number was posted on the gate to the road that led to the cabin. If Clifford had rented that cabin – if it wasn’t coincidence, he had to find out who Clifford was freelancing for.
‘Good morning, Braintree Park Rentals.’ A bright cheery voice answered the phone.
‘Yes. Good morning. A coworker of mine said he was renting cabin number three, I believe, and he’s not been answering his cell phone, and I wanted to know if he had shown up there.’
‘Mr Clifford? I saw him at the beginning of the week.’
The very dead Allen Clifford had rented the cabin Luke had been taken to. ‘But not since?’
‘People come out here to escape the world,’ the clerk said. ‘Maybe he just turned his cell phone off.’
‘Did he charge the cabin to the corporate card?’
‘Yes, sir, but I can’t give out details, I’m not allowed.’
Henry didn’t give up. ‘Did he give a billing address?’
‘Yes. In New York. Who is this?’
‘Oh. Was it this address?’ He read off the address on the card Drummond had given him.
‘Yes, sir, that’s it.’ The clerk’s hesitancy vanished. Henry could almost imagine him smiling.
‘We have several firms under the umbrella, so to speak, which company did he charge it to?’
‘Quicksilver Risk.’
‘Thank you so much.’
‘Did you want to leave a message for Mr Clifford? I can go up to the cabin.’
‘No, that’s fine. He’s not supposed to be using a corporate card for his vacation but it’s not a problem, we know he’ll reimburse us. Thanks so much.’ Henry hung up.
Quicksilver Risk.
Henry glided back onto the web and found the company’s website. It was chrome-colored and discreet in the manner of the most expensive consultants. Only a mission statement and a trio of principals. Allen Clifford, hired muscle for the Book Club, was one. The other two were former professors, but with business backgrounds in risk assessment. They hadn’t been part of the Book Club. No listing of clients. No listing of fees. No mention of ties to the government. It said that they’d helped Fortune 500 companies assess the risk of providing relief after the Boxing Day tsunami, after Katrina, after the chaos in a few African countries that had contested elections.
He tried the phone number. He got the voicemail, left a message for Allen Clifford. ‘Hey, Allen,’ he said to the dead man’s machine, ‘it’s Henry Shawcross, haven’t talked to you in a while, I’d like to catch up. See what you’re up to. Give me a call.’ He left a number. Hopefully someone at the firm would start returning Clifford’s calls and he could ask more questions.
‘What dirty work were you up to?’ he said to Allen Clifford’s photo.
The doorbell rang.
At his feet lay an overnight package, flat, in a large thick plastic envelope. Luke’s condo was the return address.
He weighed the package in his hand, listened to every side of it. Light. No ticking sound, although that meant nothing with digital detonators. He carefully opened the box.
Inside was another package. It had been sent first to the American transport company for delivery in the United States, but had originated in France. Paris. An address he didn’t recognize.
Without opening the inner package, he Googled the Paris address. It was a postal shop in the Saint Germain district, the kind where you might rent a mailbox.
Inside was a cell phone. Plain, cheap, the prepaid kind. A card attached to it read FOR HENRY’S EAR ONLY.
He turned the phone on.
He very badly wanted a shot of whiskey. He was afraid what news the phone would bring. He was afraid of how the day could darken. But the phone had to be a positive, yes? It must be the kidnapper, reaching out to him. The phone was a blessing if Drummond was monitoring his calls. He had to assume they were. Drummond knew how to tap lines, bug rooms – he’d done it for years when Henry worked with him.
He put the phone into his pocket and went to get his whiskey, his mind blazing with confusion. Things that should not be intersecting were. The Book Club, Luke, Hellfire, the long and still hot hatred for Luke’s father. A hatred he had worked hard to mask, every day, when he was around Barbara and Luke. It had been hard, keeping his acid loathing bottled up. Warren Goddamned Dantry. Warren was a know-it-all and a know-nothing, all at once. Even now the thought of Warren Dantry made Henry quake with fury, with disgust.
Warren made the Book Club work, Drummond had said.
A lie. A complete lie. ‘I brought him in, I brought you all in,’ Henry said to the empty kitchen. His hand shook slightly as he poured, and the glass tinkled. He ran a finger along his neck, convincing himself that Drummond had left no mark. He would have to call Snow and Mouser, warn them that Hellfire – at the very least the code name – had been leaked, that if Bridger was found Snow was in danger of being exposed, and that Drummond was hunting Eric and Luke, just as they were. If they chose to withd
raw, he could do nothing to compel them.
But then he would have to start the Night Road all over again. The Ripley operation’s advantage of distraction would be lost, rendered to nothing like the chlorine in the rain. Or else he’d have no choice but to run, from the prince’s throat-cutting wrath, since his fifty million was either locked in an inaccessible account, had been moved to Switzerland or had vanished into the ether.
Then he heard a quiet trill. He opened the phone.
‘Henry Shawcross.’ It was a British woman.
‘Yes?’
‘You may call me Jane, for the purposes of our discussion. I thought given time to miss your stepson, you might reconsider my offer.’
This woman was the mastermind. The boss. Relief flooded him; now he could strike a deal. ‘I want to know where Luke is.’
‘Shame on you, shoveling the blame on poor Luke. I suspected you were a truly despicable person and, my God, you didn’t disappoint.’ She laughed. Laughed at him, a teasing giggle.
‘You have made enemies with the wrong people, young woman.’
‘Have I? It’s more that you have made the wrong friends. That nasty billionaire who played dress-up in the London park and offered fifty million to you while the pigeons danced for the crumbs at his feet. I heard your every word.’ She laughed again, silvery, and a cold fist closed on Henry’s heart.
‘What do you want?’
‘Transfer the fifty million to a numbered account and you’ll get Luke back.’
She didn’t know that the passwords to the accounts had been changed and he couldn’t access the millions. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have bothered with the call.
‘I want to speak to Luke.’
‘I don’t give the goodies without the cash. You can let him yell at you after the funds are delivered.’
‘No, now.’ Jane might be desperately bluffing, to get him to release the money that he couldn’t touch. Nausea and rage swept through him. ‘Why did you have Eric kill Allen Clifford?’
‘Oh, so many questions, so little time,’ Jane said. ‘I don’t have to answer anything, love, that’s what power is. Never having to explain yourself. Now. The money for Luke. Do I need to spell it out with pictures?’
‘You’ll kill Luke anyway.’ An ache suffused his entire body.
‘Actually, we won’t. We’ll let him go. He’ll be your problem, won’t he?’ And Jane gave the cruelest laugh he’d ever heard. ‘How exactly will you explain your refusal to help him? What you are, what you’ve done? Should we tell him to ask about what happened to his sweet mother?’
The unexpected words, delivered with a twist of steel, froze him.
‘Barbara died in an accident. Anything else is a lie.’
‘She did, she did. A well-timed accident.’
‘It was an accident! It was!’
‘But now, he won’t believe you, Henry. You’re the nowhere man: always on the fringes, always laughing a bit late at every joke, who has to practice his smile. You finally get a family after years of being alone, one too good for you, and you toss it all away. I doubt Barbara Dantry and Luke ever quite recognized the stray dog they let in their house was a wolf.’
Every word was a pile-driving fist, through bone and brain. Henry sucked in a harsh breath. ‘I’ll give you the money. Please-’
‘I want you to understand that if you don’t transfer the money within thirty minutes, Luke is dead.’
Oh, God. God, no, he thought. ‘Eric has the code for the accounts. Not me,’ he said. ‘Please don’t hurt Luke, I’ll find the money…’
‘Eric doesn’t have the money.’
‘Jane, he does. He’s lied to you.’ And they would kill Luke now, he was useless to them. No, no, no. ‘That’s why I couldn’t give you the money before. Please. Believe me. Please…’
Jane hung up.
He fumbled on the phone. There was no call log; it had been disabled. No way to call back.
Henry drank the whiskey, very slowly. The shaking in his hands stopped. He drank another, neat. Then he poured the rest of the bottle down the sink.
She might be killing Luke right now. Right now, while you stand crying over a sink, whiskey on your breath, and you have caused the death of the one remaining person in the world that you care about, Henry thought.
The phone rang. The phone he used only with Mouser. Mouser’s voice sounded raspy, hard, tinged with fury. ‘Luke identified Eric Lindoe as his kidnapper.’
‘Is Luke okay? Tell me you have him.’
‘Oh, I’ll get him back for you. He stabbed me in the leg and he ran.’
‘Why did he stab you? I told you not to hurt him…’
‘He knows we came from you, Henry, and you’re on his shit list. Watch your back. Your boy is pissed and apparently able to fight.’
The warning coasted over Henry’s ears. Luke was alive. And out of Jane’s clutches. Or maybe she had recaptured him after he escaped Mouser? ‘You sure someone else didn’t grab him?’
‘Not sure, but he was free as a bird last time I saw him.’
Then Jane was bluffing. He had to fight back, he had to find this woman, find out who she was. And destroy her. ‘I don’t understand. Why would Eric Lindoe turn against us and target Luke?’
‘Luke says some Brit bitch named Jane used him as ransom for Eric’s woman. This Jane thought you could deliver the fifty million, but Eric must have already hidden it. If he hasn’t given it to her, then Eric has it. We have to find him.’
Henry wiped sweat from his jaw. ‘Eric lied to us all. Including this Jane. She made him kidnap Luke to force my hand, and he did it to cover up that he had taken the money. She must have asked him for it originally and he convinced her he didn’t have the access. That I did.’ Oh, Christ, Luke’s life destroyed by a single lie. ‘Eric hasn’t given Jane the money. She just called me, thinking I could get it for her.’ Henry sank to the couch. ‘I don’t understand. Luke stabbed you?’ Luke, fighting two nutcase extremists with experience in murder and combat? He could not picture the scene.
‘I wonder, Henry, how well you know Luke. He seems far more capable than you gave him credit for.’
‘I… I don’t understand.’
‘It’s simple. He’s loose. He is a danger to us.’
‘No. I can take care of him.’
Henry thought quickly. ‘I’m going to put tracers on every friend Luke has, anyone he might turn to for help… the police will do the same, but we must be smarter than the police. And faster. We have to find Eric. And we have to find Luke. I can make Luke understand.’
‘That I doubt.’
‘I can.’ Henry raised an eyebrow. ‘And if he’s been as smart as you say, he might be very useful to us. Listen, I’m sorry he stabbed you. Are you all right?’
‘Yes. But I’m not happy. Find where he’s at and I’ll bring him back to you. Maybe in one piece.’
Luke, running. With Mouser and Snow and now that bastard Drummond all after him. What would he do? Come here? No. Washington was too far. And he wouldn’t trust Henry now, and he might believe the police were watching Henry, waiting for Luke to show. How else would he try to clear his name?
Eric. Eric, if forced to confess, could clear Luke’s name of murder.
‘He’ll go after Eric.’ Just like he chased after his father’s ghost, all the way down to Cape Hatteras. ‘We find Eric, we find Luke.’
Henry felt charged with the fire of battle. He could win. He called a Night Road hacker, ordered him to find any records in the airlines or credit card databases that indicated where Eric Lindoe or Luke Dantry had gone. Over time, he had found hackers with backdoors into such valuable databases. If they were not motivated by Night Road-style ideology, they were motivated by money.
His hunters, either on the ground, or electronic, would find Luke, and faster than Drummond could. He did not need to worry about warrants and permission. He did not want to think about Luke not believing him, and what awful sacrifice he might have to suff
er. All he had to worry about was telling, and selling, the greatest lie of his life.
13
For twenty minutes Luke ran, walked, ran again through the woods. He crossed open fields, cleared for cattle or horses, and he felt vulnerable and alone in the open. The pine trees, when he could stay in their dense growth, were like having a shield. He stumbled out onto a road, close to a bridge on the river. He had no idea where he was and he kept glancing over his shoulder.
He saw a teenage boy in a yellow slicker then, trudging up from the swollen riverbanks.
‘Hi,’ the boy said. ‘Which search team were you with?’
‘Oh,’ Luke said. ‘I got separated from my search team. I’m a friend of the Olmsteads, staying at their place on the river for a few days.’ He tried not to talk too fast or let his nervousness seep into his words. ‘Just thought I’d help. But I’m useless, I don’t know the country around here.’
‘Well, I can give you a lift back to the search base.’
‘Thank you.’
He followed the kid along the thin stretch of paved road, thinking if this kid’s been involved in the search for the trucker, then maybe he hasn’t seen the rest of the news with my face on it. He couldn’t dwell over-much on the trucker. If he did the guilt would overwhelm him and he’d make a mistake and be caught or dead. He could not bring the trucker back to life if he hadn’t made it out of the river. But he could be sure that Mouser and Snow paid for what they did.
A red truck sat at the edge of the road. The kid offered his hand and said, ‘My name’s Dumont.’
‘Hi, Dumont, I’m Warren,’ Luke lied. Using his dad’s name felt easy and right. He shook the kid’s hand. They got into the truck.
‘I feel bad for this gentleman’s family. Wondering when we’re going to find him.’ Dumont wheeled the truck south – away from the house where Luke had hidden. He tried not to sag against the door in relief.
‘You look exhausted, man,’ Dumont said.