The Revelation Code (Wilde/Chase 11) (4 page)

‘You’re doing fine,’ said Harvey. ‘Okay, we’re gonna follow the land.’ He indicated the shores of New Jersey and Staten Island. ‘Use the pedals like I showed you before, real easy.’

Eddie carefully depressed one of the anti-torque pedals, adjusting the power being fed to the tail rotor. The helicopter slowly turned. ‘That okay?’

‘Yeah, that’s great – whoa, hold on.’ A new voice came through Eddie’s headphones: one of the heliport’s staff, telling Harvey that he had a phone call. ‘Eddie, I gotta take this. Just keep doing what you’re doing.’

The Englishman gave him an okay as the call came through. ‘Lena, hey hey!’ said Harvey, his Bronx accent becoming even more rapid-fire. ‘How you doin’? Great night last night, huh?’

Eddie tried not to be distracted by what very quickly became a personal conversation, concentrating on following the shoreline. The huge jetties of the New Jersey container terminal rolled by. He glanced down at them, only to realise with alarm when he looked back at the instruments that the altimeter was falling towards the thousand-foot mark. He moved the cyclic, but the descent continued. ‘Oh bollocks.’

‘Babe, I gotta call you back,’ said Harvey over the headset. ‘I got a slight altitude deficiency situation here.’ He laughed, then ended the call. ‘All right, man, I got this.’ He retook the controls, bringing the LongRanger back into a climb. ‘Sorry ’bout that. Women, huh? Gotta love ’em, but . . .’ He briefly took one hand off the throttle to mime a duck quacking. ‘Damn, that reminds me, I gotta make another call.’

There was a cellphone connected to the cabin’s communication system by a cable; he thumbed through its contacts list. ‘Lana, hey, it’s Harv,’ he said after connecting. Eddie was again an unwilling eavesdropper. ‘Yeah, sorry about last night. I had to stay late at the hangar to deal with some FAA paperwork. How ’bout I make it up to you tonight, huh? Yeah, that place on Leland. Nina o’clock? Epic. See you then. Bye, babe.’

‘Lena and Lana, eh?’ said Eddie.

Harvey nodded. ‘Yeah. I gotta be
so
careful not to get their names mixed up! That might cause problems.’

A sardonic smile. ‘You’re not kidding.’

‘You ever been a juggler like that?’

Eddie shook his head. ‘Not me. One woman’s always been enough for me. More than enough sometimes.’

‘You’ve had problems?’

‘Well, my first wife wanted to kill me. And I mean she literally tried to murder me.’

Harvey made a face. ‘Yow!’

‘Yeah. Nina . . . well, at the moment it sometimes seems like she wants to as well.’

‘You want my advice? First hint of bunny-boiling, run, run, run! Life’s too short to be dealing with psychos.’

Eddie chuckled. ‘It’s nothing like that. It’s just . . .’ He became more serious. ‘She’s been pretty hard to get through to lately. And when I try, she . . .’

‘Bites your head off?’

‘Actually, yeah. She’s a redhead; I’m used to a bit of mardiness, but this is different.’

Harvey gave him a quizzical glance. ‘Mardiness? I guess that’s British slang?’

‘Yeah. Use it in conversation with Lana – or Lena – and she’ll think you’re all cultured and refined, just like me.’

‘No offence, man, but your accent? Not even slightly
Downton Abbey
.’ The pilot grinned, then nodded at the duplicate controls in front of Eddie. ‘Okay, you’re on the stick. Take us around the Narrows, then back towards the city.’

The LongRanger was now cruising parallel to the shoreline of Staten Island, the great span of the Verrazano–Narrows Bridge straddling the mouth of the bay ahead. Eddie pushed the pedal again, and the helicopter swung into a lazy turn across the water. Brooklyn spread out before them, Manhattan coming back into view beyond. ‘Doin’ good,’ Harvey assured him, before checking his watch and making another call to air traffic control. ‘Okay, gotta start heading back now. My next tour group’ll be waiting.’

‘Damn, and I was just starting to get the hang of this,’ Eddie replied. He still felt as if he were trying to balance a carton of eggs on a fingertip, but at least now he could maintain a constant height and speed.

‘Stick with me and you’ll be an expert in no time. I told you I’m a licensed instructor, right?’

‘Several times,’ said Eddie, grinning. ‘How long can I stay in control?’

‘Until we get to Governors Island. I’ll take over when we’re in the East River VFR corridor.’

‘The what?’

‘Something you’ll have to know about if you wanna be a proper pilot! Visual flight rules – basically, flying by eye. If you’re in a ’copter, you don’t need to tell ATC what you’re doing in the Hudson and East River corridors, although it’s kinda good sense to let ’em know. Although they’ll be making the East River into controlled airspace soon for some UN summit. Pain in the ass.’

‘Yeah, I know what it’s like dealing with the UN,’ Eddie told him with amusement.

He continued flying until the flat pear of Governors Island loomed ahead. ‘I got it from here,’ said Harvey as he took control once more. He reported to ATC that he was returning to the heliport, then pointed to the right, up the East River. ‘You seen that?’

‘It’s a bit hard to miss,’ said Eddie. The object of their attention was a huge Airlander airship, slowly cruising down the length of the waterway. The enormous twin-lobed craft, dwarfing even the largest airliner, was a new addition to New York’s long list of tourist attractions, having arrived a month earlier to act as a mammoth advertising billboard. With the Airlander presently head-on to them, though, the commercials on its flanks were invisible. ‘It looks like a massive arse from the front.’

‘I always thought it looked like boobs myself. Whatever turns you on, man!’ Harvey snickered. ‘I’ll be glad when it’s gone – it’s a pain in the butt. Even in VFR, you’re supposed to maintain spacing with other aircraft, but that damn thing moves so slow, you’ve gotta go wide to keep clear of it. Airships, jeez.’ He shook his head. ‘What is this, the 1930s?’

‘Oh, the humanity,’ Eddie joked. He sat back to watch the skyscrapers of Manhattan’s financial district grow larger as the helicopter descended. ‘Thanks for the flight.’

‘No trouble,’ said Harvey, guiding the LongRanger towards the jetty where the helipads were located. ‘Like I said, any time you want a lesson, I’ll tell you when my next free slot is. Hopefully there won’t be too many – if I’m not carrying passengers, I’m not making money! – but I owe you.’

He brought the aircraft in to land at a vacant pad. ‘I’ll be in touch,’ Eddie told him as he removed his headphones. ‘Try to remember which girlfriend’s which!’

Harvey smiled and gave him a thumbs-up. A member of the heliport’s ground crew opened the cabin door, and Eddie hopped down, keeping his head low as he moved away from the chopper. Another guide waited nearby with the next passengers, who were led aboard as soon as he was clear.

The first man took him back to the terminal building. He walked through it and emerged on South Street. Heading along the waterfront, he took out his phone and found Nina’s number. ‘Okay, brace yourself . . .’ he muttered as he made the call.

Behind him, unnoticed, a man who had been waiting outside the terminal followed at a discreet distance, making a call of his own.

2

N
ina looked up as her iPhone buzzed. Her laptop was open, her notes and manuscript on the screen . . . but the cursor had remained in the same spot for twenty minutes. She checked the phone: Eddie. ‘Hi.’

‘Hi, love,’ came the gruff reply. ‘You back from the shrink’s?’

‘Yeah, about a half-hour ago.’

‘How was it?’

‘I think it helped,’ she said, not even certain if she was being truthful. ‘Did you do your helicopter thing?’

‘Just landed. Good fun – we went around the harbour, buzzed the Statue of Liberty. I flew it for about ten minutes. Didn’t crash once!’

Nina tried to inject some enthusiasm, however ersatz, into her voice. ‘That’s great.’

She knew at once that she had failed. ‘Is everything okay?’ her husband asked cautiously.

‘Fine,’ she said flatly. ‘Where are you?’

‘South Street, on my way to the subway.’

‘Can you stop off at the Soupman’s and get me that jambalaya soup I like?’

‘What? That’s all the way over by Eighth Avenue – it’s a bit out of my way.’

‘I’m pregnant, I get to decide what I eat and where it comes from!’ She had meant it as a joke, but it came out more shrill than intended.

‘Soup for you, then,’ said Eddie. ‘You want anything else?’

Was there a hint of sullenness? ‘No, that’s okay. Although, wait – you could get me my favourite sandwich.’

‘The ones from Aldo’s deli back across in the East Village?’
That
was definitely tinged with exasperation.

‘Okay, forget the sandwich,’ she sighed. ‘Just the soup.’

‘Just the soup. No problem.’

‘Thanks, Eddie.’ Silence on the line. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yeah, of course,’ he replied, still sounding downcast before suddenly becoming more enthusiastic – forcedly so, she couldn’t help but think. ‘Oh, I came up with some more baby names!’

Considering his past suggestions, that immediately put her on alert. ‘Go on . . .’

‘For a girl, I’m thinking Pandemonium. For a boy, Arbuthnot. Pandemonium Chase, that works, doesn’t it?’

‘Arbuthnot,’ she repeated. ‘That’s not even a real name.’

‘Yeah, it is! It’s a good, honest Yorkshire name. You can’t go into a pub where I grew up without meeting a couple of Arbuthnots.’

Nina knew that in other circumstances she would have been amused, but right now even Eddie’s best efforts were failing to breach her prison of gloom. ‘I think we need to keep thinking.’

‘It’ll be hard to top Arbuthnot.’

Something snapped. ‘Stop saying Arbuthnot! That’s the most stupid name I’ve ever heard. God! If you can’t even take seriously something as simple as choosing a name, how are you going to manage being a father?’

The silence that followed was broken only by her own exasperated breathing. Finally he spoke. ‘I’ll figure it out when it happens. I’ll get your soup, then.’

‘Eddie, I—’ But he had disconnected. ‘God
damn
it,’ she muttered, already annoyed at herself. He was, as always, just trying to help – in his own unique, occasionally infuriating way – and she had overreacted and blown her top. She glowered down at her stomach. ‘This is all your fault,’ she told the unseen foetus. ‘You and your frickin’ hormones.’

She headed to the kitchen for a drink. Along the way she passed a shelf of memories. Beside her husband’s hideous pottery cigar holder in the shape of a caricatured Fidel Castro, that she had by now despairingly accepted she would never find a believable excuse to smash, was a collection of photographs. The majority were Eddie’s, pictures of himself with friends now gone: his SAS mentor Jim ‘Mac’ McCrimmon, Belgian military comrade Hugo Castille, and others she knew only from stories.

But Nina had her memorials too. Macy in one, dressed up as Lara Croft from the
Tomb Raider
video games for a magazine photo shoot; and in another, her own parents.

Henry and Laura Wilde beamed at her from the picture, a quarter-century-younger version of herself between them. She remembered the time and place: an archaeological dig near Celsus in Turkey. It had been a hot, dry day, making their descent into the partially excavated Roman tombs both a relief and a thrill. The memory made her smile . . .

It froze on her face.

Her parents were gone, killed by their obsession, which their daughter had then taken on herself. The question she had posed at the therapist’s office returned: had everything she’d achieved been worth it?

Another question from the session joined it. Was it right to bring a baby into her world? She knew herself well enough to be fully aware that her own obsession, her
need
to uncover the past, would never be sated. Was it fair to subject her own child to that same mania, to continue the cycle?

What kind of mother would she be?

Nina was forced to admit she had no idea.

She broke out of her trance, leaving her nine-year-old self behind and fetching a glass of water before returning to the study to find the cursor still blinking mockingly from its parking spot. She slumped huffily back in her chair, feeling trapped by her guilt and fear and uncertainty. She had to do something to break free, but what?

Elaine had been right, she decided. Clearing the air with her husband would be a good way to start. She reached for her phone, but then withdrew her hand. Eddie would be on the subway by now, and she knew
him
well enough to guess that he would still be pissed at her behaviour. Wait until he gets home, she decided. Until I’ve had my soup.

Eddie emerged from the 77th Street subway station and headed north up Lexington Avenue, holding a cardboard cup of hot soup and a bag of crusty bread. He had considered getting a cab back to the apartment, the subway journey from the soup store being a pain requiring two changes of train, but in the end he decided the longer trip might give Nina a chance to calm down about whatever had pissed her off this time.

Still, the fact that he had gone out of his way would hopefully show her that he wasn’t mad about how she’d treated him. Well, not any more. His initial irritation had faded, replaced by a resigned amusement. She had endured so much in the past months, and surviving everything the world had thrown at them only to face an unexpected – though far from unwelcome – pregnancy would stress anybody out.

He still wanted the old Nina back, though. And it would take more than fancy soup to do that. He’d done everything he could to be supportive and helpful and loving, but what if that still wasn’t enough?

He tried to put the depressing thought aside as he turned on to East 78th Street and headed for their building. Maybe the combination of time and food would calm her down . . .

Something triggered an alert in his mind.

It took a moment to work out what; all he initially had was a feeling of wrongness. But why? He was only a few hundred yards from home. Then he realised the cause.

A young man with dusty blond hair stood not far ahead, talking on a phone. Nothing unusual about that – except that when he had glanced in Eddie’s direction, his eyes had met the Englishman’s and displayed
recognition
, an involuntary split-second confirmation that somebody he was expecting had arrived. Then he looked away, but too quickly.

The mystery man wasn’t a mugger. He was waiting specifically for Eddie. And he had an oddly clean-cut air that felt out of place for a street criminal, a neat, conservative haircut and casual clothes that looked brand-new.

Eddie didn’t know him, but the face was somehow familiar. He had seen him before, though couldn’t place when or where. He kept walking, but tensed, ready to respond to anything that might happen.

The man seemed to pick up on his wariness. He pocketed his phone and stepped to the centre of the sidewalk. There was a parked van to one side, a wall to the other. If Eddie got closer, he would be caught in a channel, the only escape routes being either to retreat the way he had come – or go through his adversary.

He chose the latter. The man was younger than him – late twenties – and taller, but the former SAS soldier was confident he could handle him.

The other man’s eyes locked on to him as he reached the van – then flicked to something behind him.

Eddie spun as he heard the sudden scuff of someone breaking into a run, seeing another young man charging at him. The first ambusher rushed to catch him in a pincer—

The Englishman dropped the bag and swiped the top off the cup – then flung its contents into the running man’s face. ‘No soup for you!’

The jambalaya was still hot enough to hurt. The second man let out a yelp as he wiped his eyes – only for the sound to become a choked screech as Eddie’s foot slammed firmly into his groin. He collapsed on the pavement.

Eddie whirled to face the blond, but a lunging fist caught the side of his face. He reeled as the blow jarred his skull, recovering just in time to intercept a second blow with his arm.

He straightened and faced his opponent, who shifted his stance. The younger man had clearly expected an easy victory, but now that he had a real fight on his hands, he was stepping up his game.

One of the man’s feet lanced at Eddie’s kneecap. He jinked away, an elbow barking against the van’s side. Fists shot at him, left high then right low; he swatted away the first, but the second punch caught his side. He let out a grunt of pain. Satisfaction on his attacker’s face, then he darted forward to deliver another blow—

Eddie caught his arm with both hands. Before the younger man could react, he forced it downwards and twisted the elbow, hard. The joint crackled. The man started to cry out – but was silenced as Eddie head-butted him in the face, mashing the cartilage in his nose with a gushing squirt of blood.

The Englishman threw him against the wall. The second man tried to stand. Eddie kicked his head, then turned to run—

Something stabbed into the back of his leg – and a searing pain tore through his body as all his muscles locked solid.

He fell, paralysed and helpless as a Taser’s agonising charge burned into his thigh. Through clenched eyes he saw a third, older man emerge from the van’s side door and stand over him, shouting orders to his companions. They dragged him across the sidewalk and threw him into the vehicle. The stun-gun shut off, the pain fading, but Eddie had no time to move before his attackers delivered several brutal revenge-fuelled kicks, then secured his wrists and ankles with zip-ties.

The third man slammed the door and jumped into the driver’s seat. The van peeled away with a skirl of overstressed tyres.

Eddie struggled to break loose, but the plastic strips were unyielding. ‘Get off me, you fuckers!’

‘Shut him up,’ ordered the driver, looking back. Late forties, American, narrow eyes and a small, mean mouth.

‘
You
come and shut me up, you fucking shithead! I’ll—’ The words choked in his throat as the first man reactivated the Taser, another excruciating jolt of electricity blazing through him. A piece of rag was forced into his mouth, then a length of duct tape slapped roughly across his cheeks to hold it in place. The blond glared down at him. Eddie realised where he had seen him before – Little Italy, a month earlier, mistaking him for the Nazi who had attacked Nina. Whatever the men wanted, they had been following him for some time.

The current ceased, but all Eddie could do was scream muffled obscenities as the van disappeared into the crowded streets of New York.

The cursor continued to blink relentlessly, still fixed in place on the laptop’s screen.

Nina stared at it, then sighed. Maybe she would feel more productive after lunch. Which reminded her: where
was
her lunch?

She looked at the clock on the menu bar. Even allowing for the detour to the soup store, Eddie was late. That wasn’t like him; as an ex-military man, timekeeping was engrained into him at almost a cellular level, and if there had been some problem en route he would have phoned. So where was he?

A knock at the front door. ‘Speak of the devil,’ she said, going to answer it.

She reached for the lock – then hesitated. Why would Eddie knock? He had keys. It was possible that his hands were full . . . but the New Yorker’s innate security-consciousness prompted her to look through the peephole.

It wasn’t Eddie.

Standing in the hallway were a tall, short-haired black man and a white woman with a dark bob and unflattering thick-framed glasses, both smartly dressed in light clothing. She didn’t recognise either. ‘Yeah?’ she called. ‘Who is it?’

‘Dr Wilde?’ said the woman. ‘We need to talk to you about your husband.’

Worry filled her. ‘What about my husband? Is he okay?’ Were they cops? Had they come to tell her that something had happened to Eddie?

‘Can we talk to you, please?’

Again, she was about to release the lock when caution returned. If they were cops, they would have identified themselves by now. She put the chain on the door and opened it a crack. ‘Who are you? What’s—’

Nina leapt away in fright as the door was kicked open, the chain ripping from the wood. The man advanced on her, drawing a gun. The woman followed him inside. ‘Stay where you are, Dr Wilde,’ she snapped. ‘Shut up and you won’t get hurt.’

Another two men filed into the apartment behind them. ‘What the hell is this?’ Nina managed to say, outrage pushing through her fear. ‘What do you want?’

‘Come with us,’ said the man with the gun.

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she replied. ‘Get the fuck out of my house!’

One of the other men twitched in distaste at the obscenity. The woman ignored it, producing a tablet computer. ‘You
will
come with us, or your husband suffers. Look.’ She switched on the device.

Ice ran through Nina’s veins as she saw the image on the screen. It was Eddie, pinned to the floor by two men, his hands bound behind his back and tape covering his mouth.

‘Hit him,’ said the woman. In response, the men punched their prisoner in the stomach. There was no sound, but Nina could almost hear the impacts. Eddie writhed in pain, cheeks blowing out as he struggled to breathe behind his gag.