by Jeff Abbott
‘You’re dead, you’re dead, I’m going to make you dead again,’ Henry screamed.
‘Let him go.’ Mouser stood in the doorway, holding Aubrey. He held a gun aimed at Henry’s head.
‘I told you to leave us alone,’ Henry said.
‘We need him alive.’ Mouser guided Aubrey to a corner chair. ‘For information, or for ransom.’
‘No, he has to die, now.’
‘Go back to being dead?’ Mouser pushed the gun against Henry’s skin, between the nose and the upper lip. ‘Listen to yourself. We need him.’
Henry slapped the gun away. ‘Why? I can tell you what Quicksilver is if this bastard’s behind it. It’s a group of eggheads, with a bit of muscle thrown in, to evaluate threats and fight them off the books. Just like the Book Club. He took it over from me, he stole all the credit.’
‘Quicksilver is far more than the Book Club ever was. Just like Luke is far more of a man than you’ll ever be.’ Warren spat out another sliver of tooth and blood.
‘You,’ Mouser said to Warren. ‘How much do you know about us? Specifics.’
Warren hesitated and Mouser aimed his gun at Aubrey’s head. ‘Talk or she dies.’
‘You’re going to kill us anyway.’ Warren looked at Aubrey, sadness in his eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Aubrey, but it’s true.’
‘I know.’ Aubrey closed her eyes. As if waiting for the bullet to end the nightmare.
‘But I think if you want this money you’re after so bad, you won’t shoot her. Luke might still be willing to make an exchange.’
Mouser weighed his words. ‘Oh, I want to shoot her. Badly. Just because Luke killed my woman.’ Mouser twisted one of Aubrey’s breasts until she gasped in pain. He gave her a rough, angry kiss on the cheek as she tried to wrench her face away. But then he turned the gun back toward Warren. ‘You work for the Beast, right.’
‘The Beast?’
‘The United States government.’
‘I don’t work for the government. Not any more.’ Warren raised an eyebrow. ‘I mean, Henry takes the government’s money at his think-tank. I don’t.’ He said this like it was a sign of moral superiority.
‘How did you survive?’ Mouser said.
‘Don’t you have other things to worry about?’ Warren said.
‘Answer me. You should have died on the Book Club flight.’
‘I missed my plane.’
Mouser licked his upper lip. ‘Those two guys outside. They used to commit gang rapes in Bosnia when they wouldn’t get answers from pissant villagers. They’d love a few hours with Aubrey.’
Warren said, ‘I didn’t get on the plane at the last minute.’
‘Why?’
‘I got a phone call before the flight took off. I got a job offer I had to give immediate and private consideration. I told my friends I’d fly down later and meet them. And when the plane crashed, I knew it wasn’t an accident. My new employers thought it best to hide me. For me, and for my family. So they wouldn’t be targets.’
‘You’re a cold bastard,’ Aubrey said. ‘Luke worshipped you. You don’t deserve his love.’
‘My enemies thinking I was dead protected Luke. Until now.’ Warren stared at Henry. ‘You tried to make him into you. You failed.’
‘Shush,’ Mouser said. ‘You say you’re not part of the Beast. Only the Beast can mount a group that’s so well funded.’
‘Night Road is an army but isn’t part of any government, either,’ Warren said. ‘We’re opposite sides of the same coin.’
Mouser frowned.
‘You’re non-state, so are we,’ Warren said. ‘Welcome to the future of warfare.’
‘What, you’re a bunch of well-heeled international vigilantes? Please.’
‘We don’t have to follow the laws. Same as you. Scary for you, a level playing field.’
‘Shut up, Warren.’ Henry seemed calmer, collected. He turned to Mouser. ‘He won’t tell us specifics. Maybe if Luke were threatened. But he won’t talk. But he might break if tortured.’
Mouser leaned down into Warren’s face and shouted, ‘What do you know about Hellfire?’
‘You’re not going to be able to pull your big attack off,’ Warren said.
‘You didn’t answer my question.’
Warren closed his mouth.
‘You’re a lot like your son,’ Mouser said.
‘Thank you,’ Warren said.
‘By that, I mean you are too stupid to know when you are in deep trouble. He’s had luck. Yours has run out.’
‘If you kill him, you won’t get the money.’
‘You see, that was wishful thinking on Henry’s part. I think we get a man inside Eric’s bank, we hack our way in, and we track where he hid the money. That’s a hell of a lot simpler than trying to find Luke, who may or may not know where the money is.’
‘Luke doesn’t know,’ Aubrey practically spat the words at Mouser. ‘You might as well not spend your time chasing him. Eric was too smart for you. You killed him in cold blood but he made sure you’re not ever going to get that money. He hid it too well.’
Mouser kicked her in the chest and she went down, gasping. He turned back to Warren. ‘Where will your son go?’
‘His only option is the police.’
‘I don’t think he will,’ Mouser said. ‘I think he’ll look for Quicksilver to help him. We are interested in them, and in one other person. A British woman who calls herself Jane.’
‘I don’t know a Jane,’ Warren said.
‘I think you must,’ Mouser said. ‘She’s pitted us against each other. She’s responsible for the deaths of your man in Houston and she’s tried to steal our money. We have a common enemy in her.’
Warren stared silently, his lips pressed into a tight line.
‘You don’t know her,’ Mouser said.
‘No. No idea who she is.’
‘I think you don’t know her by the name Jane, but maybe by another name. Maybe Jane’s just her kidnapper’s name. I think maybe she’s screwed you over,’ Mouser said.
Warren remained silent, but Aubrey could see a flash of painful realization on his face.
‘Is your son working for you? Was he a spy for Quicksilver?’ Mouser asked.
Warren measured the tension in the air. He watched Aubrey staring at him. ‘Yes. Yes, Luke works for Quicksilver.’
‘Goddamn it, he’s lying, to make me look bad,’ Henry said.
‘You’re doing that perfectly well yourself,’ Mouser said. ‘I’m not blind to the fact this man wants to see you stripped of your power.’
‘I want to see him stripped of his life,’ Warren said.
‘But I’m not blind to the one fact you both ignore. The catalyst to this entire situation is Luke. He is the one and only person with a personal link to both Quicksilver and to the Night Road. This Jane bitch knew it. She’s not part of the Night Road. So I think she must know about Quicksilver.’ Mouser crossed his arms.
Henry and Warren glared at each other.
Mouser went to the desk, opened the laptop. ‘I left Eric’s account alive on the Night Road website to see if they would come back. It was accessed once, after Eric was dead, and I figured it had to be Luke or Aubrey. Someone using Eric’s account just posted a request to trace a phone.’
‘Luke’s looking for someone,’ Henry said. ‘Where is he? Can you find where he logged in from?’
Mouser studied the screen. ‘He’s gotten a promise to respond from a member. Call the member, Henry. Tell him to give us the information on who’s registered to that phone but well before he passes it to Luke. I want to know where they are, and who owns that property. I think Luke will go there.’
‘You want to set a trap,’ Henry said. ‘Let me go, let me talk to him.’
‘No. Much more than a trap. This ends now, Henry. There are other ways to get our money back.’ Mouser glanced at Aubrey. ‘She was his woman. She can get us inside that bank. She knows Eric’s friends there, his coworkers. We can get i
nside, we can track where he moved the money.’
The answer from the hacker came quickly; Mouser read it off the screen: ‘Registered to a Jane Mornay, at this address. On rue de l’Abbe-Gregoire.’
‘Send me. If Luke is there, I can talk to him.’
‘Grow up. You cannot have it both ways. Didn’t your mama ever teach you that?’ Mouser clicked open his phone, began to dial. ‘I’ve got friends here beyond you, Henry, people I’ve traded information with before. It’s time for a very big gun. Then we go back home and we launch Hellfire, Henry, now. The money is not more important than the mission. We can get more money to fund the Night Road.’
‘We can’t. You don’t know who our financiers are, they’ll kill us for losing the fifty million.’
‘Not us. You.’
Henry stared.
‘I do know who’s sending us the fifty million. Did you think I wouldn’t check you out when you approached me about the Night Road, you idiot? I have my own contacts, Henry. When I explain your incompetence, your lack of focus, the prince will give us fresh cash. He has plenty and he’ll pay plenty to fund us for years to come. And if you argue with me, I will shoot you to death. I’m taking command. Fight me and I’ll kill you.’
‘What the hell are you planning?’ Henry’s voice rose.
‘Two birds,’ Mouser said. ‘One stone.’
51
Rue du l’Abbe-Gregoire was a quiet street and Luke used the cabbie’s passkey to open the ground-level door of the building. He walked in.
The lion’s den. The truth behind his kidnapping. The truth behind his past.
It was tomb quiet. He walked up a narrow stairway. He had the cabbie’s passkey still in one hand and the gun he’d taken from the Night Road thug at the Tower in his other hand. The cabbie could have regained consciousness, called in and warned Jane.
Launcelot Consulting read the sign on the doorway. He tested the knob. Locked. He tried the passkey on the electronic pad next to it. It didn’t work. Tried again. Still didn’t work.
An idea struck him. He took his Saint Michael’s medal and pressed it against the pad.
The door opened.
His breath felt frozen in his chest. Because here was a threat far scarier than kidnapping or bullets or the unmoored violence of a Snow or a Mouser. Because here might be the truth. About his father, his stepfather, the shadows that had lain quiet close to his life, waiting to waken, and now dominated him. He raised the gun ahead of him and he stepped into the empty reception area. He closed the door behind him and he heard the lock take hold.
Dead quiet.
He moved through the rest of the office suite. The passkey opened every door but one. He saw cots, a table with guns, a small kitchen. It smelled like a small camp cabin: a lingering air of food, of cigarettes, of sweat. In one of the rooms, the corner held a single cot. Long dark strands of hair threaded the pillow. Aubrey’s rings, her watch lay on a bedside table.
Aubrey. They had kept her here.
He went into the next room.
Paper covered the walls. Clippings, photos, writings. Of Mouser and Snow and the thin black guy who’d nearly killed Luke and Drummond in New York.
It reminded him of his father’s study. His dad liked to post index cards and notes on a blank wall, scraps of history, economics and politics, to find the common links that would help him delve into a past mystery or outline a scholarly article or book. The sight of the collage of paper struck him; his father’s thoughts, put up on the wall.
He looked at the clippings and photos. The word HELLFIRE? was written on a piece of paper in the center, in his father’s handwriting. The wall looked like a project interrupted, as Quicksilver – his dad – tried to piece together the evidence about the Night Road.
Luke recognized the first photo as that of the man who’d been at the Houston rendezvous with Allen Clifford, recently shown executed on the Night Road’s site. He had small eyes, a weak mouth, nice hair. His driver’s license was next to him; his name was Bridger. A list of former addresses was posted next to his picture. But the photo next to him was a face seared into Luke’s brain, that of Allen Clifford. Alive, and then the press photos of him dead after Eric shot him. Luke read the handwritten notes beneath the pictures: Subject that Clifford is meeting with wishes to sell information on an impending multi-city terrorist attack. A date four days ago scrawled in: Subject meeting with Clifford, demands that they meet in open. Will not meet indoors, extreme paranoia. Insists on meeting at corner near Episcopal shelter on McCoy Street, near downtown, 9 p.m., Clifford to dress as homeless man, at subject’s request.
Mouser’s real name was Dwayne York. A blow up of his Texas driver’s license hung on the wall. He was a freelance web designer in Dallas. Ex-military. Dishonorable discharge. His friends called him Mouser because he got written up for shooting mice on the base. He had progressed to cats and dogs. A long history of loose ties to paramilitary groups; he had been implicated and spent time in prison for a loose connection to a radical group that tried to bomb a government building.
A picture, dated on the day his father’s plane went down. It was a security photo, a man in a maintenance suit, walking past a camera, head ducked slightly. It could be Mouser.
The bastard did it, Luke thought. He sabotaged my dad’s plane, he killed my dad’s friends, the son of a bitch.
Snow. Her real name was Roanna Snowden. One of the few survivors of the Children of the Lamb religious cult. He remembered the Feds besieging their compound; they had been massing weapons. He had just been a kid then, and so had Snow. She’d gotten a chemistry degree and then dropped out of sight. To make bombs, apparently.
The thin guy from New York. David Byrd, nicknamed Sweet Bird. A long list of crimes, a web of names with his at the center, prisons and terms served. Many of the names on the list were tied back to another network, a mosque in Queens, one with links to Wahhabi radicalists in Saudi Arabia. Stories of unsolved crimes where he had fallen under suspicion, including the murder of an assistant DA, were chronicled below his picture. Financial accounts that showed one of his associates had signed for cargo shipments carried by Travport. Luke remembered the name; Travport was the company that had bank accounts with Eric. Then a long list of recent attacks, small ones, against the city’s infrastructure: power stations, traffic lights. Small acts of sabotage, knife swipes at the soft tissue of everyday life.
There were photos, all overlaid on a map, of a shooting in Los Angeles, a bombing in Kansas City, a ruptured pipeline in Canada, the chlorine attack in Texas, as if whoever had assembled this collage – his father – was trying to piece together the people and the attacks, find the common links.
Looking at the map, a thought rose to his mind. The scattered bank accounts Eric had set up. California, Minnesota, Missouri, Texas – the locales of, or very close to, the attacks. Even the one failed attack – in Alaska, where the extremists had been arrested – he remembered the news account said the men were from Seattle. Washington state had been on the bank account list as well.
He stepped over to an array of computer screens. One screen showed a feed from the station at Les Invalides. In the screen’s corner was a frozen photo of himself, stepping onto the train at Champ de Mars. The cabbie must have gotten radioed reports, driven fast to each stop. Another photo of him, on the automated walkway at Les Invalides.
He could not believe that the place was empty. But then he considered. His father was a captive of the Night Road. The Frenchman was dead at the Tower and the cabbie was unconscious in the taxi. Maybe Quicksilver’s numbers in Paris were few. But where was Jane Mornay?
And if she was part of Quicksilver – part of his father’s organization – why had she done this? Why had she put Luke’s life at risk?
He tried the one door that the passkey denied again. Locked.
He tore down a curtain and wrapped it around the gun. He fired into the lock.
It took twenty minutes of intense arguing and haggling, bu
t Mouser struck the unholiest of deals. The Islamic terror cell knew and trusted Mouser; he had previously sold them stolen credit card data from hijacked PCs. The cell’s leader listened to Mouser as he outlined his difficult request.
He needed a bomb, and he needed it right now.
The cell’s next martyr had planned to execute its Paris operation three weeks from now, during a visit by the Israeli prime minister. Everything was prepared. The martyr wanted to do his work.
Mouser said the cell’s leader needed to strike an office of the Israeli intelligence service, hidden in a quiet neighborhood. But they had to strike immediately. An attack on it would be a great blow before the Zionist’s visit. And Mouser could guarantee a strike, in payment, on Zionist targets inside the United States. As well, Mouser told the handlers what corporate stocks would be most affected in a massive planned American attack he referred to as Hellfire in the next couple of days: they could sell and buy accordingly, and realize a nice profit.
The cell’s leader was convinced. Sacrificing a martyr now could build a useful alliance.
Ten minutes after Mouser’s call, the martyr’s prayers were completed, and he was on his way, driving with deliberate care through the busy streets of Paris.
Behind the locked door was a small room. Luke saw a scattering of paper files, printouts; a large shredder sat in the corner. File cabinets filled a wall. He tested one. It slid open easily. It was empty. Another also empty, but he could see flicks of paper left in the bottom, like forgotten snow standing its ground in shadow. The third cabinet was locked.
He shot out the lock. His hands trembled. Inside were paper files, but only a few.
A file on his stepfather. Thick, and some of the papers torn free. They were old memos written by Henry on State Department letterhead, with sticky notes attached. Most of the memos touched on the rising challenge of cheap terrorism – how radicalist groups could gut a nation on the cheap with attacks on its infrastructure. Apparently this was Henry’s favorite topic during his earliest think-tank days. Scribbled, handwritten notes clipped to the various reports validated Henry’s long-ago musings. 9/11 cost a half-million dollars, inflicted $80 billion. Bali bombings, $2 billion in damage for a $60,000 investment. The Madrid bombings, $50 billion in damage for around $12,000 in marijuana, Ecstasy, and money. The London bombings, $3 billion in damage inflicted for $18,000 in expenditures.