Titans

by Tim Green

  It all fell together instantly for Rachel. The phone line could be cut only if the alarm was off. Otherwise a cut line would signal the alarm, just like any zone violation.

  "Sara!" she whispered, shaking the little girl. Sara moaned, irritated at another disturbance in her normally peaceful child's sleep.

  "Sara! Wake up!" Rachel hissed, refusing to stop shaking her daughter's shoulder.

  "Mommy, stop," Sara complained.

  Rachel thought she heard a noise at the bottom of the stairs. "Sara, quiet! Do as I say!" she said as forcefully as she could without raising her voice. "Now!"

  Sara came to life at the tone of her mother's voice. Rachel thanked God she saved that tone for times when she really needed it. "Come with me," she said, leading her daughter quietly to the bedroom closet.

  She heard the knob on the bedroom door rattle loudly. Someone was there!

  Rachel pushed aside her husband's clothes and clawed desperately for the hidden handle to the old trapdoor. She'd never used it herself, but she'd seen Hunter go through it when they first bought the house. He'd wandered through it every day for almost a week before he got bored and forgot about it. Her teeth chattered and her heart thumped wildly with fear.

  "Mrs. Logan." She heard a gruff voice coming from the hallway outside the bedroom. "It's the police again, Mrs. Logan. Everything's fine. We just need to talk with you, so come out."

  The voice didn't belong to Officer Wolkoff. She knew that much.

  'There!" Rachel muttered to herself triumphantly as the door sprung open.

  Rachel dragged Sara into the pitch-black passageway and pulled the door shut behind her.

  "Mrs. Logan!" she heard the man shout. "Unlock the door, Mrs. Logan! We need to speak with you."

  Rachel felt her way cautiously along the passageway. She jumped at the sickening crash as the intruder violently kicked in her bedroom door. She jerked Sara forward, and they both tumbled down several steps in the darkness to a small landing. Sara let out a shriek.

  "I hear them!" she heard someone yell. They're here somewhere!"

  Rachel found her daughter's mouth and held it tightly. Sara began to sob and pawed gently at her mother's hand, but Rachel would not let go. The men's footsteps pounded loudly about the upstairs. Rachel looked up at the thin line of light as one of them flipped on the light in Hunter's closet.

  "You must be quiet!" she whispered frantically in her daughter's ear.

  Sara nodded. Rachel's hand was wet with the little girl's tears, but still she held her mouth shut.

  Someone was rummaging around in the closet. Rachel's eyes were riveted on the thin outline of the trapdoor. She expected it to burst open any minute.

  Then she heard a man's angry curse and his footsteps leaving the closet. Slowly she removed her hand from Sara's mouth. Carefully she untangled herself from Sara.

  "You must be absolutely quiet," she whispered. She felt Sara's head nod in acknowledgment and began to inch her way forward.

  "We'll find you, Mrs. Logan!" one of the voices bellowed. "You come out now and we'll leave the little girl alone!"

  The mention of her daughter made Rachel panic. She choked back a sob and hurried down the rest of the stairs, bumping loudly into a wall.

  "She's downstairs!" someone cried.

  "I heard her up here!"

  They're downstairs now! I heard them!"

  Rachel navigated down a long corridor, feeling ahead with her right foot until she came to another set of stairs. She heard the closet doors in the entryway being flung open, the crash of the pantry ' doors being ripped off their hinges.

  "You bitch! Come out! We'll kill your little fucking girl if you don't!"

  Rachel was crying now, too, and was almost glad for the darkness so Sara wouldn't see the panic and tears that covered her face. She felt the hard concrete of the basement under her bare feet. They were down! A maelstrom of footsteps pounded above them. Rachel scurried across the basement floor between the walls of the wine cellar and the foundation until she came to the end. She felt the seams of a doorway and gently pushed it open. A section of the wine racks swung open, and Rachel stepped into the musty cellar. She stopped in her tracks. These men would not stop hunting, and Sara couldn't run very fast or very far in her tiny bare feet. If the men saw them running from the house, or if there were more of them out there, they would catch Sara quickly and both would be caught.

  "Sara," Rachel said in her most imploring tone, taking her daughter's face in her hands, "listen to me carefully! I know you're just a little girl, and I know you don't want me to leave you, but you have to do as I say! I'm going to run for help. I want you to stay in the secret passageway. You'll be safe there, and you have to do it."

  "Mommy, I want to go with you," Sara whispered fiercely.

  "No!" Rachel said without wavering a bit. "You stay here, Sara! I'm telling you to stay. Daddy would be very upset if you don't do what I'm asking you now."

  "Daddy?" Sara said, and Rachel could see that she'd hit a nerve.

  "But I'm scared," Sara whimpered.

  "Honey, I know," Rachel whispered as she stroked the little girl's cheeks. "I know you're scared, but I want you to be brave. I want to tell Daddy how brave you were when I needed you to be."

  Sara thought about this and said, "Daddy will think I'm brave if I stay?"

  "Yes, honey."

  Sara was thinking, and Rachel tried to be patent.

  "OK."

  "Good, honey! Now listen to me, this is very important. I want you to stay in a secret hiding place until you hear me or Daddy or Nana and Poppa, no one else. You're going to hear me yell in a few minutes, but don't worry about that. You just stay here until everything is quiet again. Then when you hear one of us, you come out. Even if they say they're the police, Sara, don't come out. Don't let anyone know you're there. One of us will come. I promise. Are you OK?"

  Sara nodded.

  "OK, good. Be brave, honey."

  "For Daddy, right?"

  "Yes, honey, for Daddy."

  Rachel gently pushed her daughter back behind the wall and closed it. Tears were streaming down her face, but she brushed them aside and started up the cellar stairs, letting herself out into the backyard. Choking back a sob, she tried to think rationally. This was the only thing that could protect her little girl. She had to think clearly.

  She carefully closed the cellar door and circled around to the front of the house. Their van was parked neatly in the driveway like an overnight guest's. The service door to the house was ajar, and she could hear the men rushing around inside her home.

  "I'll find you, you bitch!" a voice bellowed suddenly from within.

  Rachel jumped at the sound and trembled. She had to do what she was about to do. It was the only way, she told herself. The thought of her little girl made it easy. She stepped into the entryway and turned herself about, so she could get out as fast as humanly possible. She was afraid with the wind and the loud hissing of the trees that the men inside might not hear her, so she backed in to the house a little more and yelled over her shoulder.

  "Run, Sara! Run!" Rachel screamed at the top of her lungs. She waited only an instant, until she was certain that the thunder of footsteps was headed her way.

  "She's getting out!" someone yelled.

  Rachel ran. She got out of the house and halfway across the front lawn before she looked over her shoulder to make sure the men were following her. They were just emerging at a full sprint from her house. She thought she could outrun them. She veered toward the driveway to save herself from having to go over the stone wall that marked the perimeter of their property. The wall might slow her down.

  That was her last thought before she went down in a heap on the lawn. She was numb from the shock and suddenness of her fall. A wiry man with a grip of steel had tackled her by the ankles and was holding her tightly around the waist. Rachel was aware of the other two men closing in on her fast. She kicked and screamed, fighting wildly. Her cries
wafted up uselessly amid the howling wind. No one would hear her.

  Carl got a hold of her legs, and Lonny finally pinned her arms to her sides. Rachel recognized Carl as a changed version of the brute she'd seen at her mailbox in the summer. Her eyes widened with fright as Angelo Quatrini's hand closed over her mouth. She tried to bite him instinctively. He only smiled, taking a rag from the front of his windbreaker and replacing his hand with it. The moment before Rachel lost consciousness seemed to hang in time. She used it to try to read whether or not these men had bought her ruse and would abandon their search for Sara in order to escape as quickly as possible. The faces of the three men and the swaying branches of the trees above them began to spin slowly. They were carrying her toward the van.

  "Let's go," a voice said. "Forget the girl."

  Rachel smiled. Then everything went black.

  Cook parked his rental car in a garage on Sixth Avenue. It was his habit to keep the car away from where he lived and walk a few blocks. He saw the flashing lights when he turned the corner at Twelfth. He sprinted the rest of the way down the street and broke through the yellow police tape without bothering to duck. He went unnoticed amid the blinking NYPD squad cars and an ambulance, but there was a crowd of law enforcement personnel on the steps and he held his badge high. The throng of officers and detectives parted silently for him without asking for an explanation. They already knew that this had something to do with the Bureau.

  Cook pushed himself by two forensic men who were plodding up the narrow stairway, yawning sleepily and toting black bags like doctors making midnight house calls.

  He barged through his own front door and was halfway into the living room before anyone recognized him. Duffy was on his haunches, gently poking the figure of Duncan Fellows whose blood was splashed all over the little hallway. Duffy rose when he saw Cook. Cook's stomach sank.

  "Natasha?" he croaked, his eyes pleading with his friend for news that she was alright.

  Duffy looked around nervously, but the police were busy at work and didn't seem to notice Cook. He took his boss by the arm and led him into the bedroom.

  "Natasha?" Cook repeated. "Do you know what happened?"

  They're not here, Ellis," Duffy said in a low voice, "and I don't know if you should be. I have no idea what the hell is going on, but when the boys from the office get here they're going to want some answers."

  Cook glanced into the hall. Cops were everywhere. A camera flashed repeatedly like an erratic strobe light. Technicians from the forensic lab were carefully scraping up minute samples of everything from the blood to the carpet and putting them into little plastic vials. The whole thing was like some bizarre dream.

  "What do you mean, answers?" Cook heard himself say. "Where's Natasha?"

  "I mean, Cook, the boss is dead and his brains are splattered all over your hallway like a spilt dish of pudding. What the hell was Fellows doing here?" Duffy said.

  "I don't know," Cook said. He looked around the mess and crossed the room to examine his desk. The Rizzo file was gone. He went to the shelf in his closet.

  "Gone," Cook murmured.

  "What?" Duffy said.

  "No one knows where Esther and Natasha are?" Cook asked without bothering to answer.

  "No," Duffy said. "No one saw them. One of your neighbors came home and saw your door wide open. They called for Esther and when no one answered they looked in and found Fellows."

  Cook nodded. "OK," he said, and moved toward the door, then quickly slipped through the throng of police and out of the apartment.

  "Ellis," Duffy called after him.

  Cook didn't seem to hear him. Duffy hurried down the stairs and grabbed Cook's arm tightly as they reached the stone front steps of the building.

  "Ellis!" Duffy hissed. "Where the hell are you going?"

  Cook turned and looked Duffy in the eye. "I've got work to do. Either Esther's taken Natasha and run, or somehow Rizzo has got them. Either way, the best way for me to settle this is to do my job."

  "Well, you can't just walk out of here, Ellis," Duffy said frantically. "You can't just disappear again! They're going to want to talk to you." "Who?"

  "Who? Everyone, that's who," Duffy said. "NYPD's gonna want you. The guys from Fellows's office are gonna want you. Washington's gonna want to talk to you. Hell, this is a mess!"

  "I gotta go," Cook said, turning abruptly and starting down the stairs. "I can't wait around until they figure out what's going on."

  Duffy ran to catch up and had to jog to match his friend's pace. They ducked under the police lines.

  "Ellis," Duffy said, huffing now. "If you walk away from this, you'll be on your own, man. Don't do it! It looks bad, you understand me? You can't just leave!" Cook pulled away.

  "You give me as much time as you can, Duffy." he said over his shoulder. "Keep them away from me. You're right, this whole thing looks bad, and I don't have the time to sit around for three days answering questions. Got it?"

  Duffy stopped and watched Cook as he continued to put distance between himself and the mess at his apartment. He bit his lower lip, angry with himself for all the questions he wanted to ask Cook but didn't.

  Duffy cupped his hands around his mouth just before Cook rounded the corner.

  "I'll try!" he called.

  Without looking back, Cook gave him a wave, then disappeared.

  Chapter 37

  Cook forced himself to think objectively. Someone had killed Fellows. That same A person had taken the files on Rizzo.

  Cook had no explanation for why Fellows was at his apartment. It was inexplicable.

  He guessed that someone in the agency was a lot further gone than he had imagined, and that person had figured what Cook was doing and then took the files. Either way the killer was linked to the Mondolffis. Esther and Natasha might have escaped the apartment during the fray with Fellows and were running somewhere. Cook hoped that was the case. He knew Esther would get them someplace safe and stay there. Another possibility was that whoever had killed Fellows had taken the two of them for some reason.

  Everything led him right back to Rizzo. If Esther and Natasha had been taken, Rizzo could get them back. If his family was safe, he still needed Rizzo's head on a platter to help clear up the mess that would be waiting for him when he surfaced. Things didn't look good. There would very likely be no prints on the gun used to kill Fellows, and Cook would be a prime suspect. His relationship with Fellows was strained, and the body was found in his apartment.

  Cook was so close to having the goods on Tony Rizzo that he could feel it. He wouldn't stop now. He wouldn't let the FBI and the NYPD slow him down with their questions. He scouted the garage for another Dynasty. When he found what he was looking for, he switched its plates with his own car's. In all likelihood, this would buy him some more time. Most people never noticed their car plates as long as they had them. But it wouldn't be too long before the police traced the credit card numbers he'd be using. Cook didn't have much time. Hunter Logan would be back later in the day and Cook knew something would happen soon. He would follow Logan from the airport as planned and proceed with the quarterback as though nothing else had happened. For all Hunter Logan knew, things were just the same as they had been.

  In Kansas City, Hunter Logan played like the Super Bowl MVP he was. The Titans' defense played below themselves, allowing Joe Montana to gun the ball up and down the field almost at will. The result was a high-scoring shoot-out. The Titans had the ball on the last possession, however, and Hunter was able to orchestrate a two-minute comeback to win the game 42-38, throwing a touchdown with only eleven seconds left on the clock.

  The Titans players were ecstatic with their last-second win, and Hunter was their man. Everyone forgot about his disastrous performance only a week earlier. Cans of beer and bottles of vodka were broken out on the plane trip home, and the festive mood was heightened. Hunter sat in his usual place next to Bert, slowly working on a frosty can of Bud Light and staring out the window as t
he plane lifted off the ground. Hunter worked his jaw to pop the pressure from his ears.

  "You gotta tell me what's up, Hunt," Bert said suddenly, leaning across the empty middle seat so they could talk in confidence.

  Hunter looked down at Bert. "What do you mean?" he said lamely.

  "I mean, come on, man!" Bert said, obviously irritated. "You mope around these days like a damn street bum. Something like last week I can see. I know how much pressure you put on yourself to win. I can understand last week. But now? You just pulled off a fucking miracle, and you outgunned one of the legends of the NFL." Hunter just listened and nodded. He took another sip from his beer.

  "So?" Bert urged.

  "So, what?" Hunter replied. "I've got things on my mind. That's it. It happens sometimes, you know?"

  "Hey, are you and Rachel having some problems?" Bert said, his voice suddenly softening.

  "No. Everything's fine with Rachel. Everything's fine everywhere.

  I've just got things on my mind, and I don't want to talk, OK? Come on, Bert."

  Bert nodded. 'Yeah, but this is different. This is because I am your friend. I want to help you."

  "You really want to help?"

  "Yes," Bert said, nodding vehemently, "I do."

  "OK," Hunter said. 'Just be my friend and stop asking me questions. Everyone asks me questions."

  "OK," Bert said, trying to hide his disappointment. "Let's play some poker."

  Hunter turned his gaze back out to the window. It was beginning to get dark out, and he could just see his reflection in the window. He realized he hadn't shaved in several days.

  Bert pulled out a deck of cards and popped the middle seat's food tray down between them. He shuffled and dealt out a hand of cards.