His silence over the next few heartbeats spoke volumes, confirming what she already knew deep in her gut.
There was no future for them beyond the dawn.
Finally he said, “Come on. Grant’s podium was set up over here.” This time he took her hand in his, but his grip was an impersonal clasp rather than an intimate finger twine.
As they crossed the pavement, their footsteps echoed off a high wall on one side of them. Gabby trailed her free hand along the surface and identified a building sided with brick veneer, meaning that it was newer construction than the real brick facings in the North End. When Ty reversed direction, forcing them to retrace their steps, and then did a second about-face, she said, “You’re not seeing anything?”
“Nothing,” he said, voice harsh with bitterness. “What if this has all been a wild-goose chase? What if Liam was just killing time, running me around in circles while he—” He broke off. “Wait a second. I think I see something.”
“What is it?”
“Wait here.” He pulled away abruptly, and Gabby heard him hurry forward a few steps.
Leaving her standing alone.
* * *
Ty crouched down and aimed his flashlight toward a shadowed doorway, where a glint of reflected light had caught his attention.
“Gotcha,” he breathed in triumph. A small gray detonator cap sat atop a folded piece of paper. He gave a quick scan for trip wires and booby traps, then lifted the cap for a quick inspection.
It was a standard military design, a multifunctional detonator that could be used with a dozen different explosives and hundreds of designs. Not much of a clue.
“Hopefully, this is something better.” He reached down and snagged the paper. Unfolding it, he quickly scanned the handwritten note.
You always were loyal to a fault, Jones, which was part of why I liked you. I’m sorry it has to be this way, but I need you to listen to me. Meet me at the entrance to the Ted Williams Tunnel, and come alone. If you’re not there by 5:00, or if you bring company, both of them are dead.
“Both of them?” Ty said aloud. “What do you think he means by—”
He broke off and spun toward where he’d left Gabby.
She was gone.
Ty’s heart stopped, simply stopped in his chest. One moment she’d been standing there, waiting for him, the emotions of their conversation, of their situation, written plainly on her lovely face.
Then the next minute, poof. She was gone.
He surged to his feet on a roar of pain, of frustration. “Liam Shea!”
There was no answer save for the low throb of sirens in the distance. Then, closer by, he heard a car engine fire up, followed by a squeal of tires.
“Damn it!” Ty bolted toward the Camaro, which still sat with both doors hanging open. He slammed the passenger’s door and ran around to the driver’s side, but once he was inside the vehicle, he banged his fists into the steering wheel and cursed viciously.
He’d turned his back on her for only seconds, maybe a minute, tops, but it’d been long enough for Liam to take her. For what?
A lure? A threat? A diversion?
“I don’t know what the hell you want from me, you bastard,” Ty snarled, but he knew what he had to do next. He had to get to the entrance to the Ted Williams Tunnel, and a quick check of his watch warned that he had roughly twenty minutes to do it.
He fired the engine and hit the gas, sending the Camaro screaming out into the night, and though he wasn’t a praying man, he found a litany running through his brain as he drove.
Please, God, let her be okay.
Chapter 10
Dear Ty:
I know you don’t understand why I won’t meet you, and I know you’re hurt that I keep refusing. I can only say that I’m sorry. Over the past four months, your friendship has meant more to me than you’ll ever know. You’ve reminded me of things I’d forgotten I cared about, and you’ve made me wish that things could be different, more than any other person has ever done. However, what we have now is all we can ever have. I hope you can respect that while still being, at the very least, my friend.
[Sent by CyberGabby; July 25, 3:32:06 p.m.]
4:45 a.m., August 3 53 Minutes until Dawn Gabby woke with pain screaming through her head, panic not far behind.
She was lying on her side, her legs and arms bent and sending pinfire pain from loss of circulation. She groaned and tried to stretch out, but banged against metal walls. Engine noise sounded all around her, and the stink of exhaust crinkled her sinuses as the roughly carpeted surface beneath her jolted, wringing another groan out of her when she reached the only possible conclusion that made any sense. Terrifying sense.
She was in the trunk of Liam’s car.
“Oh, God.” She didn’t remember being grabbed. The last thing she remembered was…fighting with Ty, she supposed. They’d been in the car, headed for the hospital, and he’d been telling her about Mandy, giving her a subtext that had been all too clear.
Don’t be thinking about happily ever after just because we kissed. I like being on my own and making my own schedule, and there isn’t room in my life for a woman. He hadn’t said “for a woman like you,” but she’d heard the words. They were the same words Jeff hadn’t said when he’d broken up with her, deciding she was just too much work for not enough reward.
“Jerks,” she said aloud, boosting the volume to give herself a jolt of confidence. “I. Am. Not. An. Invalid!”
Nobody said you were, a small voice reminded her from deep inside, giving her a moment’s pause, a moment to wonder if she was reading something that wasn’t there after all.
Then the driver decelerated and downshifted, and the vehicle hooked a sharp left. Gabby’s eyes teared and her stomach clenched as she forced herself to face the fact that she was in far more trouble than just a bad first date.
She’d been kidnapped by a madman bent on revenge.
“Think, Gabby,” she said aloud. What would Ty want her to do in the situation? What would she have done as a wily teenager? She used to be able to slip past any curfew, escape from any locked house, past every watchful parental eye.
What would that girl have done?
When there was no answer from deep inside, a tear broke free and trickled across her cheek. Oh, God, what was she supposed to do? How was she supposed to get herself out of this?
The vehicle stopped abruptly, brakes squealing. Inertia flung her backward and she slammed into something hard and sharp. She cried out in pain, the shriek sounding unnaturally loud in the closed-in space.
The engine died, and moments later, a car door slammed and heavy footsteps approached the rear of the vehicle.
Gabby squeezed her eyelids tightly shut and felt tears leak from beneath them. She tried to swipe them away, only then realizing that her wrists were tied in front of her, connected with a short length of rope that let her move some, but not much. She scissored her legs and found that her ankles were similarly bound.
Helpless, she could only flinch when the trunk lid clicked and opened, and a man’s voice said, “Good, you’re awake. This’ll make things easier.”
She recognized Liam’s voice from Christ Church, but before she could ask what was happening or where he’d taken her, he grabbed her roughly by both arms, hauled her up and out of the trunk and dragged her out into the unknown.
* * *
Ty cut through Chinatown, knowing it was a gamble with its narrow, twisty streets that might not have been cleared yet, but also knowing it was the quickest way through. He made it—barely—through a bottleneck formed between a wall and a graffiti-covered delivery truck lying on its side, then hit the gas and sent the Camaro flying straight across Commercial Street…
And into the side of a tank.
Ty saw the gray-green bulk too late to turn, too late to do anything but shout and brace himself.
The Camaro hit hard, its front end crumpling into a mess of metal and fiberglass, its windshield spider-w
ebbing and sagging inward. The impact snapped Ty against the three-point harness and slammed him to the side, wringing a groan from his suddenly compressed lungs.
Rear tires still spinning, the car careened sideways and lifted up on two wheels, threatening to go over sideways. It teetered there for a second before it crashed back to the pavement and shuddered on its tires.
Ty cursed and fought his way out of the harness that had probably saved his life. The driver’s door was dented and stuck closed, the window mechanism jammed. Shouting against a slice of pain that ran down the back of his neck all the way to his tailbone, he levered himself around, lifted his legs and kicked out the broken windshield.
It flew free and landed with a crash, and he followed it out and down, hitting the pavement so hard the concussion reverberated through his body, making him fold over and gasp with pain.
When he straightened, he was looking straight up the business end of an M-16 held by a grizzle-cheeked National Guardsman whose bearing shouted ex-combat military. Behind him stood two younger soldiers, with a third fuzz-cheeked Guardsman peering out through the main hatch of the tank.
“You move, I pull the trigger,” the veteran said, and there wasn’t a hint of maybe in his voice.
Ty’s brain raced as he considered and rejected all his possible options. He didn’t have time for this. He was still several minutes away from the tunnel, and now he had no wheels.
Not to mention he had maybe eighteen bullets left, compared to the mag of an M-16 in fully automatic mode.
“I’m not moving until you say it’s okay,” Ty said, holding his hands out at his sides to indicate that he wasn’t going for a weapon. “But I’m on your side, buddy. I’m with the feds.”
The vet, whose chest tag identified him as Sergeant T. Martin, didn’t stand down one inch. “Show me your ID.”
“Stolen by a bunch of punk kids,” Ty lied. “Along with my badge.”
“Then give me your name and who you’re with and I’ll call it in.” Martin sent a sour look at the Camaro. “That isn’t an official ride, and even though it got the worst of the crash with my tank, I’m not letting you walk when you’ve pulled that sort of stunt, after curfew, while packing at least a Glock and a Magnum.”
“I don’t blame you,” Ty said. And then, because lies hadn’t been getting him anywhere lately, he said, “Look, if you run my name, you’re going to get a hold order and I don’t have time for that garbage. I can’t tell you the details, but I swear to you that if you don’t let me through, a lot of people are going to die.”
Martin stiffened imperceptibly, and a muscle ticked at the corner of his jaw. “Sampson and Jimmy, with me. Paulo, you get on the horn and see what the hell is going on.” The two soldiers behind the guardsmen moved up to his three and nine, and the third man dropped back through and let the hatch clang shut behind him as the veteran said to Ty, “You’re going to need to wait. Hands on your head and turn around.”
Ty cursed. “Look, I’m telling the truth here. I’ll show you.” He faked a reach into his pocket and came up with the revolver, which he cocked and aimed at the leftmost youngster, a smooth-cheeked blond guy whose tag IDed him as S. Sampson.
The three guardsmen froze. Actually, the two kids froze and Martin nearly started shooting, then paused with his finger on the trigger. There was no indecision in his eyes.
No, his look was pure speculation.
Ty risked a breath, knowing he’d guessed right. “I don’t want to do this, and you don’t want me to. We’ve both seen too many kids like him die. It doesn’t have to happen tonight, Sergeant Martin. Just let me go.”
“You’re not with the feds,” Martin said. “What are you, a merc? You trying to get your hands on a tank? The thing’s a piece of junk. Hell, you and your Camaro probably did it a favor, got it that much closer to the scrap heap.”
Ty shook his head. “I occasionally do some side work for pay, but I really am a fed. Secret Service, and no, I don’t want the damn tank. I want something faster, but just getting the hell out of here will do for now.”
“And what happens if I hold you?” Martin asked. “We both know you’re not going to cap the kid.”
“We both also know you’re not going to shoot me.” Ty took a step back. “I’ve got you wondering, and you’re not pulling the trigger until you’re sure I’m the enemy.”
“Everyone’s the enemy in a situation like this,” the sergeant replied, raising the weapon an inch, until it was aimed at Ty’s left collarbone. “And I’m packing rubber rounds. Probably wouldn’t kill you, but it’d sure as hell keep you in one place long enough for Paulo to check your story.”
The possibility had Ty freezing in place once again. “Please,” he said, his voice cracking on the word. “There’s a woman involved.”
That same muscle jumped in Martin’s jaw. “Your girl?”
“No,” Ty said reflexively, then contradicted himself. “Yes.”
“Which is it?”
“She’s mine.” Ty took a deep breath and lowered the revolver, releasing the hammer. “She’s mine, damn it, and a bastard named Shea has her. He’s going to kill her if I’m not at the TedWilliams in—” he glanced at his watch and the bottom fell out of his world “—four minutes.”
Martin let the tip of the M-16 drop an inch. “If that’s true, I can have men there in time. We’ve got a unit right near—”
“That’s no good,” Ty said. “The guy who has her is calling the shots. He’s ex-Special Forces.”
“Like you.” It wasn’t a question.
“I need to get to her,” Ty said. “Please.”
The sergeant stood for a frozen moment, a teetering second where the balance could’ve slipped either way. Then he nodded and lowered the M-16. “Go. But if you’re screwing with me, I’ll hunt you down myself.”
“I wouldn’t blame you.” Ty reholstered the revolver, thought about going back into the Camaro for his knapsack and decided not to bother. “I don’t suppose you have a spare jeep on the other side of this piece of garbage?” He knocked on the tank and listened to the echo.
Martin glanced at the Camaro, training his light on the cracked steering column, where wires gaped. “Nope, but I saw a decent looking bike two streets over.”
“Thanks.” Ty took off at a dead run, hoping like hell he wouldn’t be too late, but knowing deep down inside that there was no possible way he could run two blocks, hotwire a motorcycle and make it to the tunnel in time. If only he had—
He skidded to a stop, realizing he’d left his phone in the Camaro, and also realizing it was probably smashed to smithereens.
“Problem?” Martin called.
“Yeah.” He thought fast, calculating his odds and finally realizing it was time to call in the cavalry. “Get a message to SAC Epps of the Secret Service. Tell him where I’m going.”
Ty knew Epps wasn’t the fastest off the mark, and he was counting on that delay, because he also knew something else.
Ethan had the radio they’d pulled off Ben Parker, an agent who’d been killed by Shea’s son Aidan. The message wouldn’t just reach SAC Epps.
It’d get to the men of Eclipse, too.
* * *
Ty’s watch showed 5:05, five minutes past Liam’s deadline when he hit the entrance to the Ted Williams. The monstrous tunnel had once been a central part of Boston’s Big Dig, a huge construction project that had gone five years and several billion dollars beyond initial estimates.
Just before the inauguration, Grant Davis had given a speech at the mouth of the tunnel, promising matching federal funds to help the city and state climb out from underneath the mountain of debt they’d accumulated during the project. Ty knew damn well those funds had been allocated and spent, because the mayor herself had thanked the vice president two days earlier, during cocktails at the John Hancock building.
Right before the lights went out.
His gut knotted tight, he parked the stolen bike and swung down, then crosse
d a short strip of deserted tarmac to the carved granite ledge where Davis had stood for his speech.
Ty swept his flashlight back and forth over the area, but there was no sign of Gabby. No Liam. No Grant Davis. Nothing.
On the horizon to the east, visible beyond the flatlands of Logan Airport, he saw a faint lightening, a hint of pink that separated the sea from the sky. Dawn.
He was too late.
His throat closed on a fist of loss, of failure. Rage flashed through him and he dropped his hands to his guns, ready to draw both of them and shoot.
At what? There was no target. He’d been chasing a ghost, a shadow of a man he’d once known, once respected. A man who’d become—
“You’re late,” Liam’s voice said from behind him.
Adrenaline jolted and Ty cursed and spun, cross-drawing down on the other man in a blink. But he didn’t fire. He couldn’t.
Liam stood holding Gabby in front of him as a human shield.
“Toss your weapons,” Liam ordered.
Relief crashed through Ty. She was alive. Thank you, God.
He slid the safeties and tossed both of his guns, but took note of where they landed, just in case he got a chance to go for them. He hoped to hell he’d have a clear shot at Liam if he did, hoped to hell Gabby wouldn’t be in the way.
And he prayed he wouldn’t be forced to choose between her and the vice president, between her life and a bomb detonating in the city of Boston, because while his career vows and his strategist’s training said he’d have to make one decision, his heart said he should make the other.
“I’m here, just like you wanted,” he said, shifting on his feet, moving in a wide sweep around Liam’s position so the other man was forced to move, forced to stay a little off balance. “What do we do now?”
“We talk,” Liam said. In the yellow light from Ty’s flashlight and the faint glow from the east, he looked old and tired. “Actually, I talk and you listen.”
Come on, Ethan, Ty chanted inwardly, wishing he knew where the other members of Eclipse were, and whether they’d gotten his message.
He had a feeling they hadn’t, which left him on his own.
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