determined to recover from her ordeal, and at least the sight of me did not provoke hysterics. There was a chance we might remain friends.
On the far side of the wide street, a guy ambled into view, weaving between the people and the colourful planters.
‘There you are, Roy,’ I murmured under my breath. ‘Right on time.’
According to Gleason’s security services contacts, he was currently using the name Roy Neese, and he’d made it fit. His hair was short and ginger, which it had not been the last time I’d seen him. It was a clever choice, I considered. Men do not often choose to be redheads.
He had also affected a neatly trimmed beard and moustache, which gave him a surprisingly distinguished appearance. He was wearing chinos and loafers, and a lightweight dark-blue jacket over a polo shirt. A pair of designer sunglasses perched on top of his head, which meant either contact lenses or he’d had laser treatment for his eyes. He looked reasonably affluent and totally relaxed. Not at all like a wanted fugitive.
If he had any inkling that Epps’s people were closing in, he hid it well.
And if he had any inkling that
I’d tracked him down the first evening, had been trailing him ever since. Epps’s guys were due to arrive early the following afternoon, and when they did I planned on having all the answers. So, I’d been following him on and off since I’d first identified him, more by his gait than his appearance. It seemed he had turned into a creature of habit.
I stood up, trapping a dollar bill under my empty cup. I’d paid for my coffee when it arrived, so I could make a quick getaway when I needed to. I left the receipt the waitress had provided, though. I didn’t think I’d be putting in an expenses claim for this trip.
Casually, I crossed the uneven street, stepping down carefully from a kerb that seemed to be the best part of a foot high. The cars were all parked nose-in on a slant, and a number of the regulars had one corner of the bumper bashed in as testament to the unexpected steepness of the camber.
I waited for a custom Cadillac to rumble past, floating along on a blue neon glow that reminded me of Eisenberg’s yacht. The windows were down and the stereo was thumping. It was Sunday evening in old Omaha – the perfect time to show up and show off.
It was also my last chance.
My quarry, meanwhile, had turned the corner at the end of the street and disappeared from view, but I didn’t hurry. If yesterday and the day before were anything to go by, I knew exactly where he was heading.
The packet of intel Gleason had provided was brief but solid at the same time. There hadn’t been much in it, but what there was turned out to be accurate, and that was worth pages of
By the time I reached the corner, I could see Neese a hundred metres ahead, walking briskly but showing no alarm in his stride. I crossed over at the lights with a group of conventioneers who were heading back to the Embassy Suites, lurking amid their chatter just in case he glanced back.
He did, just once, in what had clearly been a habit of survival at one point, now grown somewhat lax. I veered unnoticed away from the group when we reached the hotel entrance, dipped quickly through a park and jogged down a sloping side road, glad of my dark jeans and trainers. I was heading towards the Missouri River that wound along Omaha’s eastern edge and partly separated it from neighbouring Iowa.
Getting into town from the prosaically named Eppley Airfield, I’d discovered to my amusement, had involved crossing briefly into the next state. The river’s meandering course had changed and nobody had bothered to redraw the borders.
Away from the stores and restaurants, it was apparent how fast the light was dropping, stars beginning to pop above the slow relentless river. In the distance I could see the hulking flyover for Interstate 480, and beyond that the twin uprights of the swooping pedestrian bridge linking Nebraska to Iowa.
The footbridge was known locally as ‘Bob’, for a reason I’d yet to discern. I’d walked across it the day I’d arrived, during my first recce, and found it bounced alarmingly under foot. I didn’t know if the flyover had an official name, although the graffiti artists who’d clambered into its steel rafters with their cans of spray paint had made up plenty of their own.
A planked walkway led under the flyover, over the top of the railway line and past an old pumping station, before coming out alongside the river. During the day it was a popular spot for walkers and joggers and a few tourists. At night, even though it was lit, the whole area tended to be more secluded.
Secluded was good.
I reached the point under the flyover where the traffic made eerie howling noises on the concrete high above, eyes searching for my target. Yesterday, he had stuck to the roadways, which were better lit, before cutting across to the paved area beside the river. If I had my timing right, he should have appeared there just ahead of me. But when I reached the turn in the walkway, there was no sign of him.
Had I moved too fast and got too far in front of him? Or had he taken a different route back to the river – maybe headed to Rick’s Cafe Boatyard for a drink? I reminded myself that I was not an expert when it came to surveillance. My job was to blend into the scenery and to spot people who were themselves out of place, not track and trace.
I hesitated, and then some sixth sense made me turn abruptly, twisting to look over my shoulder.
The man who had become Roy Neese was standing on the walkway about four metres behind me. There was a gun clasped firmly in his right hand, pointing at my stomach. The muzzle didn’t waver.
‘Hiya, Charlie,’ he said. ‘Did ya miss me?’
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
‘OK, let’s see the weapon,’ the man said, and even his voice seemed different, lower and more gravelly, although that could just have been the tension. ‘Take the piece out, nice and slow, and toss it over the railing.’
I shook my head sadly. ‘I’m not carrying.’
He was silent for a moment, then he flicked towards my torso with the barrel of the gun. It was another nine-mil Glock, I saw, like the one he’d used to shoot Sean. He was getting a taste for them.
‘Show me.’
Obligingly, I lifted the hem of my sweatshirt, just high enough to expose the waistband of my jeans, turned a slow circle. It went against all my training to present my back to an armed assailant, but he wasn’t going to shoot me just yet.
Not without discovering what I knew – and who else knew it, also.
When I was facing him again, he gave a sardonic smile. ‘Don’t know why that should surprise me – you always were so sure of yourself.’
‘With reason,’ I said coldly. ‘I caught you, didn’t I?’
The smile lost some of its internal backing, became more forced. Not a memory he wanted to dwell on. His chin lifted on a taunt. ‘Tell me, Charlie – those reflexes of yours quick enough to dodge a bullet?’
‘What does it matter?’ I shrugged. ‘Epps has a bullet with your name on it, and you can’t dodge that one for ever.’
‘Dodged it pretty good up ’til now,’ he said with satisfaction. His eyes were everywhere, I saw, as if expecting the Homeland Security man to storm in with a full SWAT team behind him at any moment. It took half his concentration away from me and I needed to use that while I had the chance.
I cursed the fact I’d left the SIG behind in New York, but I had set out to confront and detain, not to kill. The man in front of me may not have started out personally violent, but he’d certainly picked it up along the way. Who knows what else he’d had to do in order to survive on the run?
My heart rate had stepped up, but I let my arms dangle, kept my knees soft and my shoulders relaxed. Strangely, I felt no fear. I had no doubts that the man behind the gun was prepared to use it if he had to. He might even be looking forward to it, but if it was my destiny to die here, I was ready for it.
And I would not provide him with an easy kill.
‘I hope you’re not too attached to good old Roy Neese, because he’s blown out of the water.’ I watched the information filter through the layers of nerves, tightening and tangling as it went. ‘
