Clawback (25 page)

A long moment passed. I couldn’t look away from her eyes.

“I…have a question,” I said.

“Hmm?”

“I can’t figure out why I’m a mistake.”

She laughed. “Let’s see. Mysterious past, check. Violence and mayhem, check. No job, mortgage, car, children, dog, 401(k) or any apparent signifier of conventional life whatsoever, check.”

“Actually, I do have a car.”

“Oh? Well.” She leaned across the small table, still looking right into my eyes. “In that case…”

CRASH!

The front door banged open, hitting the wall. I rolled off the chair, diving left, reacting without thought. Plates fell from the table—

“Silas!”

I hit the base of the counter, spun to my feet. Dishes shattered on the floor, shards bouncing.

“Hey!”

Kimmie stood openmouthed in the doorway. Her short leather jacket was dark and shiny from rain, her black boots soaked.

“What are you
doing
?” Clara stood up now, too.

“Um.” I straightened. “Hi, Kimmie.”

“You remember Silas,” Clara said.

“Sure.” She continued to stare.

“He stopped by for dinner.”

“Oh.”

“Rondo said you were going out for the evening.”

Kimmie shrugged. “Too wet. Everybody’s at home or whatever.”

We cleaned up the broken dishes, righted the chairs. Kimmie shucked her boots at the door, dried off, then offered to share the takeout General Tso’s she’d picked up. Which was generous, for three people. I tried not to have more than a few mouthfuls.

But the mood between Clara and me had fled once more, lost in the shift to normal domesticity. When we’d finished, I found my jacket myself.

“Let me know what you find at Blacktail,” Clara said, seeing me off at the door.

“I might have to embargo the details.”

“Even if they’re really, really good? And could totally make my career?”

I smiled. “You don’t need my help for that.”

“Call me.” She ran her fingers over the uninjured side of my face—a bare, fleeting touch.

“First thing,” I said, and got out of there.

Clara was totally rewiring my life.

“W
e don’t even know he’s here.” Zeke, grouchy.

“That’s why it’s called surveillance.”

“Seems like better recon would help.”

I couldn’t argue with that. We were sitting in a white Ford Fusion, a car as bland and unappealing as its name, which of course is why I chose it at the rental desk in Newark Airport.

Leaving the Mallory in the morning, I’d bought a MetroCard from an automated kiosk in the Second Avenue station—the uptown side, with no attendant present. Because I still had it, I’d tried Hayden’s credit card. It worked just fine. I guess he hadn’t gotten around to canceling it.

With that confirmed, I’d gone ahead and taken the train all the way out to Newark. On the way I studied Hayden’s driver’s license. He and I were just close enough in age and hair color that I could probably use it, and the Amex, to rent the car, pretending that I’d just flown in. Why not? He’d caused me enough aggravation. I might as well take a little back.

Not to mention I was still suspicious. If Hayden was involved
somehow, it couldn’t hurt to fuck with his identity. Leave some unexpected clues for the government trackers. Shake him up, he might make a mistake.

As one more precaution for myself, I swapped license plates with an identical Fusion in the next spot. In the vast rental lot the switch took less than a minute.

This was as close to bulletproof anonymity as you could get on the road nowadays, at least without a fully forged identity. If, God forbid, the police ever had reason to run the plate, it would show the proper make, model and owner; the chance that they’d notice a discrepancy in the handwritten rental agreement was effectively nil.

All dressed up and nowhere to go. Zeke and I were parked along the far boundary of the Spruce Hill Office Park, off Route 118 in Chalder. A sprawling, two-story, faux-brick building housed a dozen companies with names like Everspritz Technology and Human Potential Corporation. We hadn’t gone into the lobby to check, but from Blacktail’s suite address we deduced they were on the second floor.

The windows formed silver-blue reflective bands around the building. We couldn’t see in. Occasionally someone walked in or out, to or from a car. A narrow strip of scraggly grass separated the parking lot from the six-lane roadway.

“What if he goes out the back?” said Zeke.

“Seems unlikely. There’s no car parking in the rear.” Just asphalt up to the loading dock, dumpsters and a windowless utility building. I’d checked earlier, when we arrived. “He’d need to roll up the dock doors, too.”

“I’m going to have to piss soon.”

“There’s a peanut butter jar in the backseat.”

“Empty?”

“Mostly.”

“I’ll try to hold it.”

He wasn’t really grumbling. Waiting behind a mud wall in hundred-degree heat and full armor, wondering whether it was going to be mortar rounds or just sniper fire when the anticipated engagement finally began—
that
was something to complain about. This was about as challenging as a nap on the couch.

“What kind of support does he have in there?” Zeke said.

“I don’t know. It’s not like Blacktail has piles of cash to worry about or two hundred employees to keep an eye on. From their website it seems like they might have two dozen people, tops, and a roomful of PCs.”

“So why do they need a Director of Security in the first place?”

“That’s the question.” I shifted in my seat. The sun had been going in and out of clouds all day, and at the moment it was shining too brightly through my side of the car. “Millions of dollars flow through there, but it’s all electronic.”

“I thought all the trading happened down at the stock exchange. On Wall Street.”

“No. The NYSE floor’s more than half empty now. I think they keep a few guys running around just so it looks good for the tourists. Everything else is in the ether.”

“I guess.”

“The exchange set up its big new data center in Mahwah, about five miles from here. Blacktail must have a direct feed—probably through a massively armored cable pipe, underground.”

“If we knew where it was,” Zeke said, “we could cut it. That would invite their attention.”

I looked at him. “That would invite a full-scale assault.”

“Yeah?”

“In any given second, Blacktail might account for ten percent of total trading volume—ten percent of the entire market! Fuck with that and commandos will be rappelling out of the sky.”

“Amazing.” Zeke had a glint in his eye.

“No,” I said. “Stop thinking like that.”

He studied the building. “Saxon better show up soon, all I have to say.”

The afternoon wore on. Eventually enough people would drive away that we’d be too conspicuous. I drank some bottled water, ate a granola bar. Zeke seemed to have entered a zen state of watchful stillness. Or possibly he’d fallen asleep with his eyes open. Hard to tell.

I drifted into my own road hypnosis. Spruce Hill was perhaps the dullest architecture on the planet—a brick-shaped block, made of brick. Traffic motored past. Clouds drifted slowly in the sky. Somewhere, paint dried.

I put in the bluetooth earpiece and called Johnny. The markets were open, but he made a few minutes to talk.

“How’s Plank Industrials doing?” I asked.

“Down, down, down. It’s a feeding frenzy. And not just the stock—guys are starting to short the bonds.”

“Really?” Short selling bonds was a notably riskier way to bet on a company’s downfall, mostly because the market for them was much less liquid. The best position in the world is worthless if you
can’t buy or sell out of it. “So everyone’s totally convinced that Terry Plank is going to die.”

“Not necessarily. If he has to spend the next few months in hiding, it’s almost the same thing—his business still suffers.”

I thought about that. “Still seems ghoulish.”

“It’s just a trade.” Hairsplitting ethical philosophy was not Johnny’s forte. “Where are you?”

“Chalder. The salt flats of American culture.”

“Jersey.” His dismissive shrug was clear in that single word. “What’s happening there?”

“Waiting for the killer to show up.” I explained Blacktail’s connection to at least three of the deaths so far.

“Blacktail Capital? The flash traders? They’re huge. You’re saying they’re
involved
?”

“Maybe. Probably.”

“And you
didn’t tell me this
?” Johnny sounded upset.

“Well…”

Gunned motors sounded in the parking lot. I caught a glimpse of a black truck roaring up the aisle toward us.

“Holy sh—”

Brakes slammed and wheels screeched. A second vehicle—an SUV—bounced over the grass strip behind us and scraped along Zeke’s side, jolting our car and banging it forward a few inches. The truck slewed around in front, stopping at an angle across our left front.

I’d started the engine in an instant, but we were boxed. Zeke couldn’t even open his door.

“Silas?” Johnny’s voice in my ear. “What’s going on?”

I ignored him.

One man leaped from the truck. Gray body armor, flat cap, combat boots—and a SCAR assault rifle. Black-tinted windows concealed however many others remained in the vehicles.

Zeke drew his handgun and fired without hesitation. Four shots in an instant, right across the windshield. The safety glass fractured into a million spiderweb cracks but held together. He shoved forward, out of his seat, going right through and rolling across the hood. The shattered sheet of glass fell aside.

The attacker was on my left, swinging his weapon up. I opened my door fast, levering off the floor, and slammed him in the torso. The rifle stuttered. Unaimed bullets cracked into the car’s metal and fiberglass.

Zeke was gone. I heard a couple of shots.

“Drop your fucking
guns
!” The truck had a bullhorn.

I didn’t even have mine out. I jammed the transmission into reverse and bucked backward, but the Fusion’s bumper scraped and jammed on the curb. Okay—forward, then. I struck the truck, budging it left a foot or two.

Another guy jumped out, leaving his door hanging. He had a handgun in each hand, like some idiot Hollywood hero.

Good news, because it’s near impossible to aim either one that way.

On the other hand, his range was about six feet. Both pistols came up, pointed at me. I hunched, involuntarily.

A shot, and the man jerked, then fell.

Thanks, Zeke.

I rammed the car backward, then forward again. More gunfire.
The Fusion’s side windows blew out in a spray of glass. I kept going. Neither vehicle could be pushed out of the way, but daylight opened up between them. Side panels screeched and tore as I scraped through.

“Stop! Stop!” More yelling through the bullhorn.

As I cleared the truck, I looked right and saw Zeke coming out of the SUV.

Out?
He must have gone in the opposite door, shot his way through, and kept right on going.

One hostile vehicle out of action.

The truck suddenly moved, leaping forward and sideswiping the row of parked vehicles in front of us. I spun my wheel right, gaining room but destroying the front of a Prius.

Zeke yanked open the rear passenger door and dived into the backseat.

“Go!” he yelled.

“I know, I know!” I put the accelerator on the floor, and the Fusion shot ahead.

“Fucking
bumper
cars!” Zeke laughed.

“Silas?” Amazingly, Johnny was still on the line.

We rocketed down the long row of parked vehicles. The truck pulled close, then struck the Fusion’s rear corner, throwing it into the beginning of a spin, but we ricocheted off a minivan and I wrenched the wheel back into line.

“They’re wearing armor.” Wind through the absent windshield blew bits of glass into my chest and made my eyes tear.

“Go around the corner.” Zeke reloaded, leaned around and fired twice at our pursuers.

“Right.” So far none of the collisions had been at speed, so sensors had not blown the airbags in our car or their truck. But if we arranged for them to plow into us, that might change. “Hold on.”

I sped up as the end of the parking lot approached, letting them think we were heading for the exit. At the last car in the row, I pulled the wheel sharp right, then immediately back left. The car swayed, its centripetal acceleration amplified by the one-two, and slid into a smoking left turn. I hit the gas, hard, and the rear tires whined, still in their skid. We cleared the corner just as the rubber finally caught traction, coming out of the turn and accelerating into the alleyway behind the building.

“Yawww, motherfucker!”

Zeke’s battle zone war whoops could be downright embarrassing.

The service way was barely one truck wide, the loading dock on one side and the utility shack on the other. I hit the brake pedal with both feet, throwing the car’s nose almost to the ground, and we screamed to a halt sixty feet in.

“Brace!” I shouted and threw my arms in front of my face.

The truck took a few extra seconds coming around the corner. The driver must have been good, because they appeared going almost as fast as we’d been.

Really
good. In one second he saw us, realized I’d set up the collision—and decided to avoid it.

He feathered his steering, just enough to pass us. The truck had to be going forty, fifty miles an hour. It flashed by, a blur of black metal. I could see it start to turn in again, the driver calculating he had barely enough room to slide in between us and the utility shed.

He almost made it.

A stepdown transformer was bolted onto the shed’s exterior wall, several fat power cables routed overhead. The truck was inches clear of the wall but struck the big metal box, breaking it free of its mount and dragging the cables.

The driver slowed, too late. His truck caromed off the wall, bouncing up on two wheels, completely out of control. Cables snapped, and masonry cascaded down where the junction box was torn free.

“Uh-oh,” said Zeke.