by Caleb Carr
“But they’re Feds!” Lucas protested. “What do they care about speeding to keep up with us?”
“More than you think,” Mike answered, eyeing our speedometer and struggling to restrain his right foot. “Remember, they don’t actually have any reason to arrest us—so they don’t want to tear through town with their blue-and-reds flashing in their grilles, then get stopped by the local cops and asked for an explanation.” A demonic look crept into Mike’s face. “Which gives me an idea…”
Lucas and I then heard a short, angry squeal from the Empress’ seventeen-inch tires, and were unexpectedly thrown back in our seats. The situation took a minute to make sense of, because it was in fact so senseless—but Mike had evidently decided to rocket through the last half of quaint little East Chatham, speed limits, our own careful planning, and anything else be damned.
“What the fuck are you doing, Mike?” Lucas shouted.
“Being smart,” Mike said, as the speedometer rose up to seventy and the far side of town quickly came into view. “I may not be sure if I can lose these Feds at the turnoff, but I know I can lose the local boys. And, if our friends decide to keep up and hit it this hard, the local cops’ll figure we’re racing, and nail the driver who’s trailing. So hang on!”
Incredibly, it all played out as Mike had predicted: by the time we reached the point where the speed limit returned to fifty-five, we must have been doing seventy-five; and when our tail moved to keep pace, out of nowhere appeared a local cop. The cruiser behind us flashed the red-and-blues in its grille, but the cop couldn’t see them; and even if the unmarked car had flashing strobes in the rear, the cop wanted an explanation for what the hell was going on. But by the time the mysterious agents in the cruiser had broken off to give it to him, we were already on Rock City Road.
As we made our way along the short stretch of road to I-90 West, the sound of Lucas laughing out loud as he bounced around the back seat in relief gave the situation a touch of the surreal. It was not an entirely unwelcome experience, although, for my part, I would not be truly relieved about things until we’d pulled onto the interstate and found that no new cruiser had picked up our trail. When that was precisely what happened, I let myself take some amusement from the lunatic in the back, although I still had questions:
“I don’t really get it, Mike—those guys must’ve ID’d our plates, at least, and contacted the state patrols ahead.”
“Maybe they don’t want the State Police in on this,” Mike answered, very evasively.
“Mike? The car’s plates are still in place, right?” He began to fidget badly. “Mike? Right?”
He waved me off with a look of guilty annoyance. “What the hell, L.T., I’m not stupid enough to take the plates off.” Yet his voice was far from relieved; and before I could get another question in, he began to mumble, “Oh, man, I’ve done something bad…really bad…”
Lucas managed to say, “What’re you talking about, Mike, you were the dog’s balls, dude—” before I got my hand up to tell him to keep quiet; then, figuring that Mike was anxious enough for the three of us, I tried to keep my voice very even as I said:
“Okay, Mike—what did you do that was so bad?”
“Well,” Mike said, struggling. “Not that bad; I mean, we did get away, and we haven’t been picked up again. Yet. Which I think means it probably worked.” He took a deep breath, then gave out with the real story at last:
“Okay—so, ever since law enforcement’s video surveillance became so constant after 9/11 and the Patriot Act, people have been figuring out legal ways to obscure their license plates. The cheapest way is to put a curved plastic lens over them, so that the number can only be read from head on—which eliminates speed cameras, and all the other passive stuff. But it still makes you visible to cops on your tail, because obscuring that view can get you into serious trouble. Some people with more extreme feelings, though, have come up with infrared LED strobes, which defeat the onboard cameras in cruisers; and some real diehards have been tinkering with sequenced strobes that cover the whole spectrum, and—at least in half-light or darkness—blind cops in pursuit to plate numbers. And I got to fiddling with that a while back, while we were considering going to New York in the, whatever, the abstract—I even built a set and put them into the Empress’ plate frames.” He reached down to a toggle switch that he had, without my ever noticing it, installed in the far left-hand corner of the car’s dashboard, and shut it off. “I’m guessing that, even though it isn’t totally dark yet, what with the leaves on the trees and the shadows…well—it worked…”
Lucas burst out in more triumphant laughter, making it impossible for me to speak. “Holy shit! Mike, you are a badass, G, why the fuck are you working for the law? Criminal genius!” He grabbed Mike’s shoulders and started shaking him. “Gang-sta!”
“Lucas!” I was finally able to say. “Stop screwing around. Mike, that’s still a serious offense, and you know it: you can’t use lights to obscure your plates, that’s why they made all the gangbangers take those neon plate rings off their Escalades.”
“Yeah, but this is different,” Mike said, knowing that he was fighting a losing battle. “According to the guys on YouTube, these lights can be interpreted as simple reflections of the cop’s own strobes, and—ah, fuck, so maybe it’s not different.”
“Yeah,” I answered, a bit testily. “Maybe. And I’m delighted to know that our success or failure rests with ‘the guys on YouTube’—”
“Chillax, L.T.!” Lucas’ voice rose above and silenced mine, after which the kid sat back. “Between that device and Mike’s driving skills, man, nobody is going to know who we are or where we’re going.” I scowled at the kid, at which he leaned Mike’s way and whispered, “It was badass, Mike, I’m telling you—you’re the shit, dude…”
The statement actually brought a smile to Mike’s face; and, seeing it, I started to relax a bit, myself. The strobes had, after all, worked—or so it seemed; yet when I turned to the back seat, I found Lucas suddenly puzzling with something. “What’s got you, Mr. Badass?”
“There’s just one thing I don’t get about all this.” Lucas leaned forward between our two seats, his mind having completely shifted gears once again. “It’s Derek. I hate to say it, but—where in the world, even if the people were rich and desperate, would a kid like him go? I mean, it seems like this organization has got an awful lot of choices—Shelby, Kyle, Kelsey….They were all smart, and all pretty good-looking—I can get why, if you had bucks and no other way, you’d be glad to go after one of them. But Derek? You guys don’t know—I mean, you really don’t know how much help Derek sometimes needs, and not just with shit like his homework. He gets confused, and sometimes by really simple things. Not all the time, but…What kind of place could he end up in?”
“That’s—actually interesting, Lucas,” I answered; yet despite the fact that the kid had indeed done some first-rate cogitating on the subject, it was impossible for me to give an honest answer. So I danced around the basics of how Derek had likely been lured away: I talked about a woman being involved, one who could read people’s weaknesses and empathize with them so strongly that she could convince them to rearrange the entirety of their lives (whatever hadn’t already been rearranged, that is), and then take control of their existences, thereby seeming to let them stop feeling victimized and start feeling a sense of power. With all that to consider, Lucas at last sat back silently, while I was left to sink down in my seat, feeling like a heel about not coming clean to him; but I just couldn’t do it, yet. Not without knowing and being able to tell him the why of it all…
We had decided, in order to further confound our enemies, to avoid shortcuts, as well as accept the increase in trip time, by taking I-90 all the way in to its connection with the Thruway in Albany; and by this point, we were emerging from the wilds of the eastern corridor of New York and approaching the state’s capital. And tonight, even this brush with fading urban greatness seemed to lift Mike’s and
my own spirits a bit, while at the same time giving Lucas—who had never seen such a place—a huge thrill. A spur of highway would carry us along the west bank of the Hudson, taking us within sight of the Beaux-arts magnificence of the old state capitol, along with the equally impressive and similarly styled Delaware and Hudson Railroad Building (now the administration center of our employers, SUNY-Albany), and finally to the monstrousness of the Thruway itself. But the sheer desolation of that multi-laned highway did not descend on one’s spirits until the city had been left behind amid the sparse suburban bleakness of Albany’s southern environs; and as we enjoyed the elevation of optimism offered by the age-old town, Lucas returned to the throwaways case, and one of its most unpleasant aspects: the actual power behind the woman I had so sketchily profiled for him.
“I mean, I get it, it’s the guy up on the mountain, obviously,” he said, his mind working hard. “But—does that definitely make him the guy who ran Dr. Chang off the road?”
“I believe that is where he made his next appearance, yes,” I answered.
“Well, if that was him, then—then he must’ve been the one that drove Derek away, I mean, somebody had to, and it had to be somebody close by. But the woman probably wouldn’t want to risk it, if she’s actually so important.”
I held a finger up to the kid. “Stop with your TV connections—‘must’ve’ and ‘had to’ doesn’t get into this. We are profiling, here: trying to build a picture of this person, and yes, that necessitates a certain amount of speculation. But we have to base that speculation on what we know. So let’s see what kind of a picture we can paint of this imaginary man.”
“Ah, yes, ‘The Imaginary Man,’ ” Mike said with a half-taunting smile, recalling, from my book on Laszlo Kreizler, the term that Kreizler had used over a century ago to describe early profiling.
“Yes,” I replied. “Our own imaginary man. What would you say, Lucas, is the consistent purpose behind his various appearances in the case?”
“Okay,” Lucas answered, picking up the challenge. “From all the sick shit that happened on the mountain, and then forcing Dr. Chang off the road—if that’s what happened to her—and then murdering that CSI guy, we know one thing, for sure: he was, like, warning us—or I guess anybody—about what to expect if they pushed too far or snitched.”
“Correct. Warning was certainly the predominant aspect of those events, but there are others. A knowledge of even dangerous parts of the woods, and how to handle himself with deadly force in them, even in the dark. Then, he shows deadly driving skills in an old truck. What does all that say?”
“Well, shit, that’s easy,” Lucas answered. “He’s local.”
“Correct again—all those things suggest that he’s somebody local, somebody who’s been hunting, target shooting, and working on vehicles since he was your age. But now, those innocent talents make him the dark creature of the throwaway organization, the one who’s released to commit the ugly acts others require to discourage outside interference, most notably ours. And yet the next time we believe we encounter him, we speculate that he’s involved in moving the throwaways to their points of rendezvous. That’s an additional and distinct role. That involves more than force: it also requires someone who isn’t a rogue agent, someone who’s trustworthy, maybe even likable, and takes orders. And what would combine two such sides of a person?”
“Jesus,” Mike whispered. “You really are talking about a cop, L.T.—aren’t you?”
I had to give my partner a poke with my cane at that, reminding him that this was supposed to be an exercise to keep Lucas preoccupied. But as usual, the kid had heard all:
“Hey—Mike’s right! If he has to do all that, he could only be—”
“Ah, fuck!” Mike’s exclamation was quiet but no less disconcerting; and glancing outside the car, I noted that we were by now well into the stretch of the Thruway that ran south of Albany. Complete darkness, broken only by the occasional overhanging light or passing car, had crept upon us without my noticing it. But we were in the wasteland, all right; and, such being the case, Mike’s alarmed curse struck a certain amount of fear into both Lucas and me.
“What, what, what?” Lucas whispered urgently. “The Feds again?”
“I’m not sure exactly what’s happening,” Mike replied, trying to maintain his cool. “But as soon as we left Albany, I noticed two vehicles, the ones that’re behind us now, pull into both southbound lanes—meaning we can’t drop back, even if we wanted to. They’re driving just the way the last cruiser did, like they’ve done this kind of thing a lot. Only this time, it seems like they’re making good and sure that if local law enforcement messes with one of them, the other one can still follow us. And there’s something else, too—the way they just started moving up on us. I get the very distinct feeling they’re pissed off about something. I mean, it says cops, but at the same time…Okay, Lucas—back down you go. And L.T., make sure your Colt’s ready.”
“I knew it, I fucking knew it,” Lucas moaned, sinking down again onto the floor. “Why did I ever let my sister make me go up the hollow that day?”
Much as it distorted the truth of his own willingness to be dispatched to meet us, the question could not help but strike me at my core, and make me wonder, even as I checked the clip on my Colt, how things might have been different if Lucas and Derek had not obeyed Ambyr’s instructions, what seemed so long ago…
{ii.}
Glancing into my wing mirror, I saw that Mike had been right about our new shadows: there were four ominous headlights strung straight across the Thruway, and although the pair in the fast lane would swing aside to allow speeding drivers to pass, they’d immediately resume position after that, blocking our ability to suddenly slow down, fall behind them, and maybe exit the highway in an effort to lose them. But as I studied the lights more closely, I also noticed several things about their arrangement and position relative to the ground that were even more ominous.
“Mike,” I said slowly, “those are not cruisers.”
“Nope,” Mike answered. “Vans—black vans. Just figured that one out myself.”
“But they have to know they’ll attract the attention of whatever troopers are patrolling this stretch, staying in both lanes. All the same, they’re trying to intimidate us—to say that they’re willing to get ugly, if we don’t keep going. It’s probably just more bullshit from Frank Mangold’s crew—they certainly look like BCI vans. But they must know the minute they try anything I’ll call Mitch McCarron, and he’ll have uniforms out here in a shot. So keep going—whoever these mooks are, it’s a fairly safe bet that they don’t know New York like we do. We’ll just proceed until something happens that makes another course necessary. Or wise.”
“Oh, sure,” Lucas said. “Let’s just roll right along, pissing our damned pants, until they let us know they want to kill us—that’s a brilliant idea.”
“He’s right, kid,” Mike said. “I don’t like it any better than you do, but it’s what they’re trying to do—freak us out. So all we can do is refuse to get freaked out.”
Lucas crawled back up into his seat, still keeping his head low. “But I am freaking out, Mike,” he whispered. “So can you please tell me how I get un-freaked out?”
“Well, stick with what you were doing before,” Mike tried. “Use your head, work shit out. After all, Lucas, these guys are just following us, in the end. Even if we never shake them—though you watch and see, we will shake them—the worst that happens is they’ll end up knowing that we went to Manhattan. And that’s the thing they want, for us to get out of Surrender and go there. I know it’s tough, when they’re being such assholes; but it’s not like they’re going to disappear us.”
“Exactly the point.” I watched Lucas uncurl as he began to trust our arguments. “So just keep your head and use it.”
“O-kay,” Lucas conceded. “If you say so…”
“I do. Keep your mind on the same track: keep trying to think, for instance, of wh
ere and to what kind of people Derek might have wanted to go.”
The kid’s face grew puzzled. “That wasn’t what I said, L.T.”
“Sure it was. You were trying to think of what kind of situation Derek would want—”
“Nooo,” Lucas droned. “I said that I couldn’t think of anybody who would take Derek. Shit, he’d go anywhere that beat Surrender, and that’s a lot of places.”
And with a feeling that was pretty startling, even in our situation at that moment, I realized that Lucas was right: perhaps because of my unease at having had to be evasive, I had misinterpreted his earlier words, and the realization of it struck me dumb.
Mike quickly grew anxious at my continued silence. “L.T.? Come on now, no Sorcerer shit—”
I began to mumble slowly: “He’s right. What Lucas said before—‘Who would want a kid like Derek?’ Exactly; who would? And what you also said, Lucas: ‘He gets confused.’ In fact, Derek’s not like the other throwaways at all. He could be talked into anything…We’ve been wrong—I’ve been wrong.” I glanced into my wing mirror, seeing the vans again, then turned to the back seat, reordering my thoughts in an attempt to reassure my colleagues and get us out of the trap into which I had arrogantly walked us. “Lucas,” I said. “Pull up a map of the Thruway on your phone—I want you to find the next exit that offers us a fast way to turn completely around and head north again.”