The Kiss after Midnight (The Midnight Trilogy) (14 page)

“You’re kidding, right?” Tobias smiled and tugged at the rucksack. “How am I gonna know which one it is? You’ve probably got every type of gun in here.”

Annabel nodded and walked toward him with a smile. “You’re right. I should have done this days ago.” She reached into the bag and pulled the guns out one at a time. She held up a dark gray pistol—the same kind he’d taken from the bald man. “This is the Glock. It’s probably the most popular handgun around.” She dropped it onto the table and lifted another pistol. It was much smaller than the first one, with a nickel-plated finish and a white plastic grip panel. “This is the Smith & Wesson. It’s more a backup gun but very effective.”

Tobias glanced at the larger weapons on the couch. Annabel smiled and picked up a long assault rifle. “This is the AR15. The armed forces use this gun, so it’s definitely not for you, not until you get some training.”

She walked Tobias through the appropriate ways to hold most of the guns and fire them, but kept him away from the largest ones.

***

Tobias walked toward the parked Toyota with his hands by his chest. He felt a little ridiculous because of the false dark hair that trailed to his shoulders. Anyone looking at him would assume he’d spent five hours at a salon to make it hold so firmly. Annabel was equally unrecognizable in her long blond hair. Studying her, Tobias decided that she looked amazing as a blonde, too, her blue eyes as prominent as ever.

She had insisted that if he were to continue carrying the Glock, he needed an appropriate holster, which she got for him. As she opened the car’s trunk, he glanced again at the large rucksack on her back. To anyone watching, they might have looked like two people going on a business trip, but the reality was that the stunning blond woman was carrying enough weapons to stage a siege at a large bank.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Tobias said. “What’s the point in having all this firepower? It’s not like we’ll be using it on the plane.”

She carefully placed the rucksack in the corner of the trunk and took his laptop bag off him. “There’s no such thing as too much firepower. Besides, we have to get to JFK first.”

He nodded at her and got in the car. She drove slowly for a few miles as they headed down Barbara Street before eventually crossing I-278 toward the city.

***

They arrived at the corner of East Thirty-fourth Street a little after 2 p.m. Annabel parked the car on a side street and immediately got out. Tobias put his blazer on and stood beside the trunk as she pulled the bags out. As he slung the laptop case across his shoulder, she put the Smith & Wesson inside an ankle holster and checked the clip of the Glock in her purse.

Tobias reached into the breast of his jacket and touched his own Glock for a moment before bringing his hand back out. He was happy just knowing it was there—he didn’t have to check the ammunition. With the rucksack strapped onto her shoulders, Annabel shut the trunk. “You ready?”

He nodded nervously and looked toward the main road.

Annabel walked ahead, looking stern and focused. “You remember what to do?”

“Yeah, I’ve got it.”

“Good. If anything happens to me, just get out of there.”

“But what about you?”

She stopped and looked firmly into his eyes. “Even if we’re separated, I’ll find you.”

“I thought you trusted this guy.”

She continued walking. “I do. But nothing in this world’s guaranteed.”

***

Tobias walked into the El Parador café first. He looked back at Annabel, who stood on the sidewalk, in the midst of many pedestrians, with her camera out like a tourist. He felt overdressed, as most of the men wore khakis and vests. The women wore long summer dresses and flat sandals.

With many pairs of eyes on him, he knew he had to take a seat quickly to avoid raising further suspicion. He ran his hand through his hair, as if making sure it was in place, and walked toward the back of the establishment.

A waitress in a white shirt and red apron smiled at him. “Be with you in a sec, honey.”

Tobias smiled and nodded at her. As he took a seat near the back, he exchanged glances with a white-haired man. The thin, long hair looked almost artificial framing his youngish face. Unlike the others in the café, he was dressed like Tobias was, with a black shirt and slim-fitting black trousers. He kept his eyes on the man for a moment until the waitress returned wearing a smile that could have lit a mansion.

“Coffee, tea?” she said, beaming.

“Coffee, please,” Tobias said. “Black and one sugar.”

The woman smiled and wrote on a small pad. “Anything else?”

Tobias noticed Annabel approaching the entrance and quickly smiled at the waitress once more. “I’ll be fine with just the coffee, thanks.”

“Okay then. Let me know if you want anything else.”

Tobias didn’t fully hear the last thing she said, as he was distracted by Annabel’s entrance, which commanded even more attention than his had. He watched her gliding across the floor in her handsome dark blue suit, her blond hair bringing out so many of her features. He had never noticed how clear her skin was or that her eyes were so big.

She nodded at the waitress as she moved to within a yard of the white-haired man. She walked past him, though, and Tobias assumed she was headed to the back of the café. But he couldn’t remember seeing anyone there whom he thought might be the contact.

The waitress returned with his coffee a moment later. He stirred it for a minute, certain that Annabel was by now engaged in a deep conversation. He arched his neck and swiveled his shoulders. Turning his head, he saw Annabel sitting with her back to him, but he couldn’t see who she spoke to.

He tried to remember who he had seen sitting there. He drank some more of his coffee and checked his watch. It was almost 2:30. He considered going to the back of the café to meet the person who held the key to his freedom, the recording of a murder most foul.

Nearly ten minutes after he’d finished his coffee, Annabel still hadn’t moved an inch. He grew restless, swallowing every time he saw a police car pass by. He finally heard shuffling sounds behind him, and within seconds a tall well-built man in a long black jacket walked past. Tobias moved his head from side to side but couldn’t get a clear view.

The man turned as he opened the café door, but just then Annabel appeared in front of Tobias and sat down. “I’ve got everything.”

Tobias looked past her, but the man was gone. “Why all the secrecy? Why didn’t you want me to meet that guy?”

She signaled for the waitress and ordered a glass of water. “He just likes his privacy, that’s all.”

Tobias leaned back in his chair with a blank expression. Annabel slid her hand forward and lifted it slightly to reveal an American passport. “Take it.”

Tobias glared at her, his lips twitching. Angrily, he placed his fingers under hers and slid the passport toward him. He recognized one of the poses he’d made when she took snapshots of him a few days before, but his hair had been altered to resemble the wig he had on. The name read “Patrick Montgomery.”

Annabel gulped her water down as soon as it arrived and half stood up. “Are you ready?”

Tobias put the passport in his jacket pocket and maintained a somber expression. “Where’s the car?”

“Not far. In a parking garage around the corner.”

He stood and gestured for her to lead. As he walked out the door, he looked back at the white-haired man and saw him turn quickly away. He had been watching them.

He called out to Annabel, who had gotten about five steps ahead.

“What is it?” she asked.

Tobias looked around the street, studying the passing drivers. “I don’t know, but something doesn’t feel right.”

Annabel grabbed his hand and pulled him along. “Shouldn’t it be me getting paranoid?” A thin smile crept onto her face.

He pulled her back by the wrist. “I’m serious. There was a man with long gray hair in there. He looked really fucked up. Like one of those assassin types. He stared at me when we walked in, and I just caught him looking at us when we left.”

She frowned. “Everyone looked at us when we walked in, and why shouldn’t they? We don’t exactly look like regular folk in there, do we?” She ran her hand through her false hair. “We need to keep moving. The sooner we’re out of here the better.”

It took only three minutes for them to catch a glimpse of the parking garage. Tobias was going through his laptop bag, ensuring that everything was there, when Annabel held her hand out in front of his chest.

“What is it?” he asked.

She didn’t speak. She just stared straight ahead at the passing cars.

Tobias looked ahead in the same direction. “What? What’re you looking at?”

“They’re here. It’s not Antonio this time. It’s Juan’s men.” She slowly opened her handbag.

Tobias reached toward his holster, but she stopped him.

“Not yet.” She looked to her left and he followed her gaze. The entrance to the parking garage was no more than ten steps away. “Take this key. It’s a silver BMW on the third floor.”

“No, I’m not leaving you.”

She smiled. “You won’t be. I’ll be right behind you.”

“Promise?”

She nodded. He pulled her head toward him and pressed his lips against hers. He opened his eyes to see her smiling. Then she took off the blond wig and pulled the Glock from her handbag. “Go,” she shouted and fired at a black Lincoln sedan parked across the street. The bullet hit the car’s hood and she fired again, shattering the side mirror. The engine roared to life and the car charged forward. She looked at Tobias again. “Go now!”

Tobias sprinted into the parking garage as fast as he could. He heard tires screeching outside and more gunshots. Seconds later, he heard a deafening crash—like a catastrophic collision between moving cars—and screams from women and children. He paused for a moment and listened for footsteps behind him but heard nothing.

Upon reaching the second floor, he pulled out his Glock and turned to go back down but remembered the words Annabel had said. A horn startled him, prompting him to leap sideways. Looking up, he saw that it was a driver honking at another who had not seen him. With a deep breath, he holstered the gun and continued up the ramp until he reached the third floor, but he still couldn’t hear Annabel behind him.

He looked at a row of cars and saw all makes and sizes from Hondas to Chevrolets, but no BMW. The sound of gunshots rang in his ears. He listened closely and heard submachine-gun fire and more screaming. He spun and ran to another section of the garage, where four BMWs were parked close by. Two were silver.

He frantically pressed the “unlock” button on the key chain until a silver 3 Series sedan finally flashed its lights. He unhooked his laptop from his shoulder and threw it into the back seat before kicking the engine to life. He forced his way into the lane and immediately began honking at the barely moving cars in front of him as the chaos spread into the garage.

The gunshots continued, sending more people into a frenzy. Women and children screamed as they lay on the ground with their hands on their heads. He banged his hands on the steering wheel when he realized he had not even reached the second floor.

He grabbed the laptop bag and popped the trunk. He got out and quickly searched it for anything important that might have been left there for them, but there was nothing. He ran past a host of scared faces and more people dropping to the ground in fear on his way to the first floor, the gunshots growing louder. He got a glimpse of the street outside, where the bodies of a man and a woman lay in the middle of the road.

He scratched his head and inched forward, trying to think of an appropriate plan of action. He noticed that a Maserati GT was the farthest car out, but it remained stationary. He drew his gun and charged toward it, aiming at the middle-aged man in the driver’s seat.

“Please,” the man said, “take whatever you want.”

Tobias pounded the window with his gun, and the man immediately rolled it down. “I just need your car,” Tobias said.

The driver looked at him dumbfounded.

“Now!”

The man jumped out and Tobias got in. He triggered the engine and cautiously eased out of the garage. The gunfire was still prominent but was now carried out in a sequence of shoot-cover-shoot. Tobias saw a wrecked car in the middle of the road with a blood-smeared hand sticking out the window. Then he saw Annabel crouched behind the Lincoln she had shot at. Only now it was upside down, probably as a result of the collision he’d heard. She held an assault rifle—he recognized it as the M4 she had shown him—and her rucksack was open on the sidewalk.

“Annabel,” he shouted.

She looked at him, sweat smearing her makeup, and motioned for him to approach with the car.

He pulled out to the right and quickly backed up to her. Just as he opened his door, his window shattered and gunshots struck the road beside him, one ricocheting off a nearby wall and others shattering shop windows.

He motioned for a couple emerging from the parking garage to return, and they quickly complied. He shut his door and shouted repeatedly to Annabel, but the gunfire drowned his voice out.
I’ve got to get to her.
He crawled out from the passenger side and inched toward her as she continued to fire at their assailants. The intersection ahead of them was now deserted, but police sirens could still be heard, along with the distant sound of a chopper.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” she said, panting. “We can’t let the police get here or it’ll be harder.”

Tobias nodded and started to put the rest of the guns into her bag. He took her M4 at her insistence and handed her an MPA submachine gun. With all the guns secured, he tugged at her as she sat against the upside-down Lincoln, breathing frantically and looking into the distance, silently performing some sort of countdown.

“We’ve got to go,” Tobias shouted.

She broke cover and fired a few more rounds across the street before quickly retreating behind the Lincoln again. Tobias saw three SUVs riddled with bullets across the street. Just then, two men appeared beside one of them and fired at him. He rushed to the ground beside Annabel. She pointed at the Maserati. “Go. Take the bag and start the engine. I’ll be right behind you.”