The End Game (30 page)

I had to smile at that. The tunnel beneath Pearl Street that ran between the MCC and the Federal Courthouse was legendary, especially among the criminals and their associates on the outside who’d spent hours thinking up ways to breach it—all with zero success.

I looked straight at him. “When this is all over, when I’ve dealt with these bastards and cleared things up, I’ll use everything in my power to help. And I mean everything, short of destroying evidence. You have my word. And believe me—when this breaks, a lot of big shots are going to owe me a lot of favors.”

He studied me curiously. “Come on, Reilly. I know how fucked you are. The chances of you ever being able to do anything for me are so close to nothing as to be irrelevant.”

“I have a favor or two I can pull from high up,” I told him, wondering if the fact that I had saved president Yorke’s life only weeks ago would ever count for anything.

“So why haven’t you used them to help yourself?” He let me sweat it for a beat, then he grinned. “But don’t worry about it. I’m in if it helps score a big one against those fascists.”

Gigi shook her head and chortled. I don’t know if she muttered something unsavory under her breath, but her lips were creased in a smile. “So how do we get in?”

I understood nothing of the conversation that followed. In fact, a couple of sentences in, I had totally zoned out as if I were having an out-of-body experience, watching the three of us like a silent observer. I found myself questioning what I was doing there, wondering what the odds were of someone on Daland’s uber-Darknet recognizing one of the two faces that had my mind under siege. Corrigan and Fullerton had both been field agents. They had been good at what they did—which meant they would have been extremely careful about who knew their true identities. They would have traveled extensively and met with a significant number of assets over the decades, but many of those would have never known who they were really dealing with. On the other hand, I expect their profiles at the Agency were visible enough that anyone reasonably senior who’d worked there sometime in the last two or three decades would know their real identities. I only needed one of those former colleagues or assets to remember one of them. Maybe it wasn’t such a stretch after all.

Gigi put a hand on shoulder. “We’re done here, Ben. Time to go.”

I blinked, no idea whether they’d been talking for five, or twenty-five minutes. “You got everything you need?”

She nodded. “Like I said, it’s a thing of beauty.”

Daland smiled. “I’ll take that, seeing as how you don’t seem too keen for me to take you.”

Gigi couldn’t help but laugh. “You really are a total dickwad, Jake. But hey, never say never, right?”

Daland’s face reconfigured into a hopeful, curious leer.

I stood, walked over to the door and knocked.

No reply.

Knocked again.

Nothing.

I could feel the panic rising.

They know who I am. They’ve been listening to everything. The only place I’m going from here is Florence supermax.

“Guard? We’re done now.”

I looked at Gigi. She had her mouth right up against the door, but her poise was ice-cold. Like she was expecting a waitress to bring her a flute of champagne.

The door finally opened and the guard appeared. “Sorry about that, folks. Just stepped away for a few seconds.”

I forced the relief off my face and turned back to Daland and shook his hand. “Hang tight, Jake. We’ll let you know about the plea bargain very shortly.”

He held my hand firmly. “You do that.” He turned to Gigi and smiled. “Drop by any time.”

She smiled back and followed me out of the interview room.

As we made our way down the hall, she leaned in close and whispered in my ear, “Jesus, I need to get back to Kurt pronto. Role playing like that, plus all the adrenaline—I’m like unbelievably horny.”

I didn’t reply as we continued along the corridor, starting to feel the relief that I wouldn’t allow free reign till we were both back in her Beemer and had checked in with Kurt.

“I don’t think Mrs. Burnham would appreciate you talking to her husband like that, Miss Harris. Pull your mind back to the case. You have a lot to do.” She grinned over her shoulder. “Don’t worry, boss. I’ll just multitask.”

50

Chelsea, New York

I sat in the restaurant opposite Gigi’s building, letting the time drift by without scrutiny, eyes unfocussed, the steady snowfall outside creating a blur of white against the night’s dark backdrop. I figured I’d hang out here at least another hour before I went back upstairs. There wasn’t much for me to do there anyway. Corrigan and Fullerton’s portraits were roaming the darkest corners of the Internet and until someone decided to let us in on who they were, all we could do was wait. And hope.

I didn’t want to intrude on Gigi and Kurt’s downtime either—not that I’d cramped their style in any way so far. After she’d finished uploading the sketches to Daland’s online catacombs, Gigi had left me and Kurt in the large open plan area before returning not long after, fully decked out in a Wonder Woman costume—the classic outfit, she explained, not the new, post-modern black outfit she and the rest of fandom apparently hated. She’d been pretty vocal about how pumped up she’d felt after our incursion into the MCC and her digital stroll through Daland’s blackest creation, which was why I thought her costume change probably had something to do with her wanting to show Kurt he had nothing to worry about when it came to Jake Daland. The lovable bear seemed seriously rattled that his girlfriend was so in awe of Daland’s programming prowess and, even worse, that Daland had propositioned her—even if nothing had come of it—that he’d shrugged off at least two blatant attempts by Gigi at intimacy since our return from the MCC. The Wonder Woman outfit did the trick.

Kurt was also pissed off at me too, but once he’d seen Gigi in the outfit, any lingering resentment evaporated. With a huge grin on his face, he went looking for his Green Arrow costume, which was my cue to leave the apartment.

I was actually glad to have an excuse for a change of scene. I took a long walk, drifting aimlessly through the streets of Lower Manhattan as darkness swooped in overhead, gentle fluffy snowflakes peppering my face and my clothes, my mind still besieged by the idea that my dad could have been part of it all. I felt a cold hollowness inside me and I wondered if maybe I’d been wrong to pursue this so doggedly, maybe I should have left it alone and let sleeping dogs—especially rabid feral ones that sink their teeth into you and never let go, in this case—lie.

I ended up back at the trendy eatery across the street from their apartment, with more time to think, mull, grind, process—though all it did was put me in an even worse mood than when I first sat down an hour earlier.

Kurt had managed to hack into Rossetti’s home broadband connection and pull up his online search history. He’d put both documents on a small Vaio laptop that now sat on the table in front of me, goading me. I hadn’t yet taken a look. The coffee next to it—my third—was already stone cold, the life-altering cheesecake barely defaced. I’d been through everything in my mind, turning over each piece of information like it was part of some demonically unsolvable Rubik’s Cube, hoping that with each turn, something new would reveal itself.

Nothing came. I had reached a dead end.

Every stream of information had turned to ice. We had three guys who all seemed to be part of some CIA covert assassination unit, but they were now all dead. We had the deeply unsettling notion that my dad was part of that noble group. And we had Corrigan and Fullerton’s faces from thirty years ago, but no one who could ID them.

All I could do was wait and see if someone in Daland’s underworld recognized either of them and stepped forward. Obviously, there was a strong chance that wouldn’t happen at all. Then what?

Deflated, weary, and missing being home with my family—a lot—I powered up the laptop, clicked the browser open and pulled up Rossetti and his editor’s web histories that Kurt had put on it.

They were long, running to several pages each. I suppose their careers made them use Google far more than your average Internet surfer.

I was trawling through it when Theo, Gigi’s comedian-waiter friend, passed near me and noticed the untouched coffee. He pointed at it and said, “Call me psychic, but it seems to me like you’re ready for something with a bit more of a kick, right?”

“What do you recommend?” I asked.

He picked my cup up off the table. “My barman has this amazing Reposada tequila he brings in from Mexico. Guaranteed to push those demons away.”

I wasn’t sure I was keen on the idea of a Mexican potion messing with my mind, not after my recent experiences down there, but I still said, “OK.” Then I asked him, “Any news on that audition?”

His face beamed with pride, his crazy eyes taking on an even more manic look. “I got it. A bit part on
Louie
, can you believe it? I’ve got two small scenes with the man himself.”

I nodded, bittersweet. “That’s terrific news, man. Terrific.”

Things were clearly working out for Theo. Maybe I’d catch a break too.

I halfheartedly dragged my eyes back at the screen to scan a second page of Rossetti’s web search history when three words skewered my attention:

THE OCTOBER SURPRISE

My spine went ramrod straight as I clicked on the link and started reading.

Sandman eased himself soundlessly down the rope onto the small terrace at the back of the loft and quickly dropped to a crouch.

It was cold enough for the insubstantial but steady fall of snow to accumulate where it landed. Already there was at least an inch covering everything that didn’t have traffic moving across it.

He took a moment to let his eyes adjust to the low light emanating from inside the loft, scanning the interior for any signs of activity. He saw none. He crept up to the French doors and, with gloved hands, pulled against the handle gently. They weren’t locked, it being fair to assume that this high up there was little risk of any burglars gaining access that way. A stream of warm air hit him from inside the loft. Clearly, Miss Decker had no problem heating the huge space, given that both her checking and savings accounts had very healthy balances, and those were just the accounts in her name. Her sloth of a boyfriend seemed to have nabbed himself a pretty sweet catch.

Something else was drifting out into the freezing cold. The unmistakable sound of a woman reaching her climax. Sandman smiled inwardly. This was going to make things even easier. For a brief moment, he wondered about what he could hear. Was it at all possible that Reilly was scoring with his hostess behind her boyfriend’s back? Unlikely. It had to be the costumed freaks that were at it. Which meant Reilly was elsewhere in the loft, if he was in at all.

The visit to the nightclub had paid off, big time. He hadn’t needed CCTV footage to see them get into a taxi and have to trace the cab’s number to find out where he’d dropped them off. The floor manager he’d spoken to didn’t know who the guy in the blue cape was, but he knew Gigi Decker, who was a regular at the club and liked to splurge on good champagne. Sandman had left little doubt in the floor manager’s mind that any attempt to forewarn Miss Decker of his enquiries would incur the harshest of consequences.

He slipped inside.

The overhead lights were off. A couple of oversized standing lamps that were replicas of old Hollywood searchlights cast a dim, warm hue over the space. The painted floorboards creaked slightly as he moved carefully through the loft, but he knew it was highly unlikely the pair in the bedroom would hear anything.

He focused his attention and ran it around the loft. The large living room was empty. Unless Reilly was asleep, he didn’t think the FBI agent or anyone else was around. He advanced further and found a small stack of clothes and personal possessions beside a neatly-made futon in one corner. They had to be Reilly’s, so his target was—as he’d surmised—out.

Sandman systematically searched them for a sidearm and found the holdall with the Glocks in them. Which meant that Reilly had probably gone out unarmed. He hid them deep under the mattress and stepped back into the large space.

As he reached the closed bedroom door, there was a shriek of such intensity that he had to hover for a moment until it subsided. They were both laughing now, the woman giggling hysterically like a teenager. There was no way either of them was going to offer any kind of defense.

Sandman pulled out his handgun, suppressor already in place, turned the door handle and entered the bedroom.

Jaegers saw him first, eyes immediately filling with unfiltered terror as he recoiled upright and back against the headboard.

“Shit!”

Decker followed the boyfriend’s alarmed look to Sandman and flinched, pulling the sheet up to cover her. “Kurt!”

Sandman just stood there, knowing there was no benefit in stepping further into the room and offering one of them a target.

“Get dressed. Move.”

They both did, quickly. Jaegers pulled on a pair of dark green leather trousers and a matching hooded jerkin while the girl slipped on a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt, which got caught on the gold diadem in her hair. She let out an annoyed groan and reached up, disentangled her hair and finished pulling on the tee.

Sandman waved his gun, herding them out of the room.

“Let’s go.”

He took a couple of steps back as Jaegers walked out of the bedroom first, obscuring the inside for the briefest of moments. The girl followed, holding out the diadem.

“Here, you have it. It’s not fucking working anyway.”

Just as Sandman instinctively stuck out his left hand to take the gold band, he knew she’d tricked him. The heavy lamp base she’d concealed behind her back under cover of Jaegers exiting the room was already arcing toward the side of his head. He moved fast, whipping his head away as the lamp slammed into his shoulder with surprising force, but before the pain hit him, he jabbed the butt of his gun into the girl’s head and sent her crashing to the floor.

Jaegers was moving toward him—he’d spun around the second he heard the approach from behind—but Sandman was too quick, swinging his left elbow up and back into the guy’s face. He heard Jaegers’ nose break and the accompanying wail of agony as he turned and aimed a vicious kick just below the guy’s knee—not enough to break more bone, but enough to open up an additional well of excruciating pain.

Jaegers bounced off the wall and crumpled to the floor.

“Enough of this bullshit,” Sandman barked, his gun leveled at the hacker’s head, his intention beyond doubt.

Jaegers removed the blood-covered hands from his nose and held them up, palms out. “OK, OK. Just—please, don’t hurt her again.”

His eyes, wide with fear and worry, bounced from Sandman to his girlfriend and back, then, hesitantly, his palms held open by his face, his lips quivering, his whole face pleading in silence for permission, he crawled over to Decker, slowly.

“Gigi? Gigi!”

She wasn’t moving.

Sandman watched him lean in to listen to her breath, then turn to look at him. “She’s breathing,” he said, then he repeated it before he started to sob.

Sandman looked down on him. “Can I take it you’re going to behave from here on?”

Jaegers just nodded as he wiped the blood and the snot that were streaming out of his nostrils.