Jack’s grip on the phone tightened. “I’m asking you a question: What do you want me to do?”
“Grab her!”
Chapter Seventy-six
Shada tucked the roll of foil in her backpack, careful not to let the salesclerk see all that cash inside.
“We have cellophane wrap as well,” the clerk said as he stuffed the fifty-pound note into his pocket.
“Next time,” Shada said. The chances were exactly one in five hundred that she’d just solved her microchip problem, but the foil would shore up those odds. She’d wrap the remaining 499 notes once they were underground. “Let’s go,” she said, and the girl followed her to the door.
“By the way,” asked Shada, “what should I call you?”
“Call me what he calls me: McKenna.”
Shada stopped cold. Had it not been for Jack Swyteck, Shada might never have found out about the teenage girl in the cellar. It had been a sickening realization this morning that the girl in the cellar was the same girl she’d met on the Internet and unwittingly brought into Habib’s web. Hearing now that he called her “McKenna” was more than sickening. It was Shada’s worst fear realized.
She stepped away from the door, found a spot at the counter facing the window, and hit REDIAL on the girl’s cell. Habib answered, and Shada talked fast.
“I have the foil,” she said. “We’re a stone’s throw from the Tower Hill Station. Tell me where to get off the train.”
“First stop on the District Line. Aldgate East. About three minutes.”
Shada was about to answer, then stopped. Through the plate-glass window, she could see all the way across the street. A streetlight enhanced the light of dawn, and the man standing at the bus stop looked just like the guy on the train wearing the black cap. Shada tightened her stare, and even from this distance, it made him look away nervously. There was no doubt in her mind.
That’s Swyteck.
“It might take me a little longer than three minutes.”
She tucked away the phone and grabbed the girl by the elbow. “Let’s go,” she said as they moved quickly toward the other exit.
Chapter Seventy-seven
She saw me,” Jack said into his phone.
“Then go now!” Chuck shouted.
Jack put away the cell as he darted across the street, making the American mistake of checking left instead of right. Two cars slammed on their brakes, and Jack narrowly missed mention in tomorrow’s paper under the headline “Death by Mini Cooper.” Shada and the girl flew out of the restaurant and ran in the opposite direction, headed down a side street. Shada covered the city block in no time, but the girl seemed to be struggling to keep up.
Damn, that woman can run.
“Shada, stop!” he shouted. It felt like the fiasco at Carpenter’s Arms all over again, only this time he knew the area-he was glad he’d studied his map-and he knew that she was headed for the Tower Hill Tube Station.
Shada was in full stride, and as they made a hard left down another street, Jack could hear her yelling at the girl to keep up. Then the girl went down in the shadows beneath the overpass. Shada kept going. The girl had fallen, and Shada just left her.
Or did Shada push her down?
The girl was still on the sidewalk, holding her ankle, when Jack caught up with her.
“Are you okay?”
“Leave me alone!” she shouted. She got up slowly, then nearly fell over again when she put weight on that ankle.
Jack glanced ahead, beyond the darkness of the overpass. Shada was out of sight, long gone-with the cash. Jack hated to think what might happen to Vince without the ransom, but he couldn’t let a teenage girl go back to the Dark.
“Let me help you.”
“No!”
She was panic-stricken, and Jack tried his most soothing voice. “You’re safe now. Stay with me.”
“Leave me alone!”
Jack looked around for help and saw that they were right in front of a place called Pitcher amp; Piano, which, to a jet-lagged attorney from Miami, sounded like a law firm. “I’m going to take you inside here and call the police.”
“No!”
“You’ve been brainwashed by-”
Her punch to his chest took Jack’s breath away. “I’m not brainwashed,” she shouted, “and I can’t call the police!”
“Yes, you can.”
“If I’m not back with the money in ten minutes, he’ll kill me!”
“He has to find you to kill you!”
“No, he doesn’t!” she shouted.
“Just let me-”
Her scream was deafening-long and shrill, like the cry of a mortally wounded animal, and the fact that they were beneath an overpass made it even louder. A man came running out of Pitcher amp; Piano-it was a bar, not a law firm-and grabbed Jack.
“Let go of her!” the man shouted.
“I’m trying to help her.”
“I said, Let go!”
He took a swing at Jack, but Jack deflected it. Jack managed to keep a tight grip on the girl’s coat, but she only encouraged her Good Samaritan.
“Help! Get him away from me!”
The man was smaller than Jack, but the girl’s plea gave him added strength. He pulled Jack to the ground, and the girl broke free. The two men rolled on the sidewalk, and the speed with which the girl ran away-right through the pain in her ankle-left no doubt that her life was on the line. Hers and Vince’s. Jack pushed the man aside, jumped up from the sidewalk, and chased after the girl.
“Stop!”
She flagged a taxi to the curb. Jack was still a hundred feet away, but the thought of the girl getting away in a taxi made him kick into a higher gear. He had his cell phone in hand and was trying to dial the police, but that was impossible while running at full speed. He closed the gap quickly-that ankle was really bothering her-and she was almost within reach when the man from Pitcher amp; Piano tackled him from behind. Momentum carried them all the way to the taxi, and Jack reached for the girl’s ankle as she yanked the car door open. The man knocked Jack’s arm aside, and the girl jumped into the taxi.
“No!” Jack shouted, but the door was swinging shut, and the girl would soon be on her way to God only knew where. Jack was still on the ground, the man was on top of him, and he couldn’t stop the door from closing. In a split-second decision, Jack tossed his cell phone onto the floor in the back of the cab.
The door slammed shut, and the cab pulled away.
“Sorry, pal,” Jack said as he swung at the man’s jaw. The blow stunned the poor fellow, and it was enough to discourage him from giving chase as Jack hurried down the street in pursuit of the girl’s taxi. He dug the cell phone
