The Inner Circle (9 page)

I reversed out of the backseat, slowly, and then lowered myself to the wet pavement. I used my phone to illuminate the undercarriage. Nothing.
 

“Ben?” Ian said, his voice more than nervous. “What’s wrong?”
 

“Carver’s bag is missing.”
 

“So?”
 

“Somebody obviously took it.”
 

“And that means what?”
 

“That means somebody may have left a surprise in its place.”
 

I stood back up and glanced at the hood. I considered having Ian disengage the hood but knew that wasn’t Simon’s style. A bomb hooked up to the ignition would take too long to set, and besides, it could be easily defused. After all, roughly ten minutes had occurred from the moment Ronny fishtailed out of the parking lot to when Ian and I returned, which meant that they would act fast.
 

Not even thirty seconds had passed since I told Ian to stop, but it felt like an hour. I stood there, thinking, the girl quiet beside me. I leaned back down in the backseat, all the way down to the floor, and shined my phone’s screen under the driver’s seat.
 

“Son of a bitch,” I said.
 

Ian, his voice barely a whisper: “How bad is it?”
 

“Extremely. Looks like a tilt fuse.”
 

Ian groaned softly but said nothing.
 

I squinted at the device underneath the seat. It wasn’t a completely professional job, but it was designed to do the trick.
 

Ian said, “Am I ... am I going to die?”
 

“Be quiet.”
 

“Ben.”
 

“No, you’re not. Now be quiet.”
 

A tilt fuse usually consists of a small glass tube filled at the bottom with a certain volume of mercury. At the cap end are wired two live electrical contacts linked to a battery and bomb. When the device is properly placed, such as in a car, the idea is when the fuse is tilted or moved, the mercury will slide down the tube and close the electrical circuit wired to the bomb. Once the circuit is closed, the electric current will then be able to bridge the previously open gap and activate the bomb.
 

That was what we had here. From where I was positioned, I couldn’t see the entire tube, but it was clear the mercury hadn’t shifted yet. If that were the case, all three of us would be dead. But the bomb had been attached to the seat in a way that it would be impossible to move it without upsetting the mercury, now that it had been activated. Which meant it was impossible to deactivate it.
 

Somehow Ian hadn’t set it off when he sat down on the seat. It was possible there wasn’t as much mercury in there as I feared. But once he would start the car and back out of the space, that would give it enough movement to detonate.
 

“Ben?” Ian’s voice trembled on that one simple word.
 

“Quiet.”
 

“Just ... take the girl. Go on without me.”
 

“I said quiet.”
 

“But—”
 

“Ian,” I said. “You’re not going to die. I promise you that. Just sit still while I figure this out.”
 

He sat still. I glanced over my shoulder to check on the girl. She still stood there, watching me. I knew the best thing right now was to get the girl as far away from this car as possible. But I worried that if I did that Ian would freak and inadvertently set off the bomb. Carver had already died tonight; I wasn’t going to let Ian die too.
 

I climbed out of the back and stood up straight. Turned to the little girl and said, “Do you understand English?”
 

She just stared at me.
 

“I need you to go back to where we just left. Do you see that white SUV parked over there?”
 

No reply.
 

“I need you to go stand beside it. Okay?”
 

The girl blinked.
 

I turned back to Ian. He was staring back at me, his face pale. He looked like he was going to speak again but I held a finger to my lips.
 

“Stay quiet and don’t move,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”
 

I grabbed the girl’s shoulder and directed her back toward the Yukon. I expected there to be some resistance, maybe even more whimpering, but she complied without trouble. Once we reached the SUV, I opened the back door and had her climb in and buckled her to the seat. Then I hurried around the front to the driver’s side. I unclipped the dead driver and pulled him from the seat. He tilted over and fell to the ground. I grabbed his arms and pulled him a few feet away from the Yukon, then stepped back to the SUV and leaned in.
 

“Stay here,” I told the girl.
 

She just stared back at me.
 

I ran back to the Corolla. It didn’t look like Ian had taken a single breath the entire time I was gone. Tears stood in his eyes.
 

“Okay,” I said. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to stand here next to the car and hold my arm out. You’re going to use that as leverage as you slowly—and I mean
slowly
—lift yourself off the seat. Any sudden movement, no matter how slight, will get us both killed. Understood?”
 

He nodded slowly.
 

“Good. Now let’s do this.”
 

He grasped my arm and lifted his left leg and gently placed it on the ground. Next he slowly moved his right leg over as he turned slightly in the seat. He started to lift himself up as I leaned down and used my hand to press my weight onto the seat. Ian didn’t fully realize what I was doing until he had stood up completely out of the car.
 

“Ben, what are you doing?”
 

“Go.”
 

“But—”
 

“Take the girl. Make sure she’s safe.”
 

He just stood there, motionless.
 

“Now, Ian.”
 

He stood there for another second or two before turning and sprinting toward the Yukon. I watched him go. Then I started to release the pressure on the seat—slowly, so very slowly—until my hand came off the seat completely and I stepped back and away from the car.
 

I closed my eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, surprised I was still alive.
 

Then I turned and started running toward the Yukon.
 

I was halfway there when the world exploded.

17

I heard the blast an instant before I felt it.
 

Like a giant fist, it sent me flying into the nearest car. I hit its rear window so hard the glass spider-webbed. I lay crumpled on the ground, the majority of my body feeling like it had been shattered. I may have briefly passed out, I don’t know. All I know was my ears were ringing and I thought I was dying. The next thing I knew someone was shouting my name and I felt hands on me, trying to turn me over, feeling my chest and my stomach and my ribs, asking if anything hurt, and then I was being pulled to my feet and dragged to the Yukon where Ian managed to get me into the backseat.
 

The girl was screaming again. She wouldn’t stop. Ian climbed in behind the wheel and got us moving almost instantly, fishtailing out of the Beachside’s parking lot. I was coherent enough to glance out the window and see the destruction. The cars strewn everywhere, the fires, the crater where the Corolla had stood.
 

Ian was saying something to me—shouting, really, trying to get my attention.
 

“What?”
 

“Are you okay?”
 

I groaned, shifting in the seat, holding my side. “I’ve been better.”
 

“How did it happen?”
 

“Don’t know. The tilt fuse shouldn’t have gone off.”
 

I reached into my pocket for my phone. I expected it to be a shattered mess, but it still looked usable.
 

“What are you doing?” Ian asked, eyeing me in the rearview mirror.
 

“Calling the Kid. What are you doing?”
 

“Fuck, man, I’m just driving.”
 

He was driving much like Ronny had done earlier tonight, swerving from one lane to the next.
 

“Mind the speed limit,” I said. “We can’t afford to get pulled over.”
 

He slowed a bit as the phone connected with the Kid’s number.
 

The Kid answered almost instantly. “Goddamn, it’s about fucking time you called.”
 

“We have the girl,” I said.
 

“Yeah? And in the process of saving her, did anything, you know,
explode
?”
 

The girl had stopped screaming, was doing her whimpering thing now. I glanced at her and said, “I almost did.”
 

“What the fuck happened?”
 

“What have you heard?”
 

“Not much so far. The only word right now is there’s been an explosion at a hotel in Miami Beach.”
 

“Wonder how Caesar is going to spin that.”
 

“That’s the least of your problems,” the Kid said. “Are you guys in a GMC Yukon?”
 

I looked up sharply at Ian. “Why?”
 

“It was just reported stolen.”
 

I shifted again in my seat, wincing at the pain. “The cops aren’t going to bother with a stolen vehicle right now, not after an explosion like that.”
 

“That depends on how badly Caesar wants you guys.”
 

“Meaning?”
 

“Meaning someone could always call in an anonymous tip saying the Yukon is suspected in the explosion. Where did you pick it up anyway?”
 

“It used to belong to one of Caesar’s people.”
 

“Are you out of your fucking mind? The thing’s probably LoJacked.”
 

I thought about it for a second. “No, it’s not. If it had some kind of tracking device on it, why would they report it stolen?”
 

“Beats the hell out of me.”
 

“Look,” I said, shifting again in the seat, my body flaring with pain, “do you have our location?”
 

“Of course.”
 

“What’s the fastest way to get back to 95?”
 

I heard quick typing on the Kid’s end. He said, “Two blocks up, make a U-turn. Then keep going until the bridge and take it and continue straight. It will put you guys back on the Julia Tuttle Expressway.”
 

I relayed the directions to Ian and then said into the phone, “How’s Ronny?”
 

“He’s fine. But you guys ... what’s your plan for the girl?”
 

“Still haven’t figured that part out yet.”
 

“Yeah, it seems like you haven’t figured out most of your plan so far tonight.”
 

“At least we’re still alive.”
 

The Kid was quiet for a moment. “Yeah,” he said, his voice somber. “There is that.”

•
   
•
   
•

M
AYBE
TEN
MINUTES
later, Ian said, “Should we drop her off there?”
 

The Mount Sinai Medical Center was coming up fast on our right, the massive complex bright in the dark drizzle.
 

I looked at the girl beside me. She just sat there quietly, staring out her window. I hesitated, then shook my head.
 

“Keep going. It’s best we get out of Miami Beach as soon as possible.”
 

Ian kept the Yukon on the highway, taking us over the causeway headed into Miami.
 

Less than thirty seconds passed before my phone vibrated. It was the Kid.
 

“We’ve got a problem,” he said.
 

“I really wish you would come up with a better opening line.”
 

“The APB on the Yukon? It was just canceled.”
 

I glanced up and caught Ian eyeing me in the rearview mirror again. Only, I realized a second later, he was looking past my head out the back of the SUV. I turned slightly, my body flaring with pain again, and said, “Fuck.”
 

In my ear, the Kid asked, “What’s wrong?”
 

“I’m going to have to call you back.”
 

“Why?”
 

“There’s a cop directly behind us.”
 

A second later, the police cruiser whooped its siren and turned on its flashing lights.

18

I shoved the phone into my pocket, found myself reaching for my gun. It was gone, no doubt lost in the explosion.
 

I asked Ian, “How long has it been behind us?”
 

“Not long at all. It came up really fast.”
 

It was riding our ass now, less than ten feet away, its roof lights blazing with brightness.
 

I stared out at the highway in front of us. The causeway was maybe three miles long, give or take, and we’d only gone about a mile already.
 

“Give it all you’ve got,” I said.
 

Ian whipped his head back at me. “Are you fucking nuts?”
 

“Those aren’t regular cops.”
 

“How do you know?”
 

“The APB on the Yukon was just canceled. Now, give it all you’ve got.”