2.05 Wed. Mar. 18
WHEN they left the restaurant, it was close to two-thirty. Gideon walked with Ruth back toward her apartment. He felt as if he was closer to understanding Doctor Julia Zimmerman, if no closer to understanding what she was doing.
He was thinking over what Ruth had said, about Julia's belief in her mathematics, when he noticed something across the street. A man in a heavy leather coat was pacing them. The man's hands were in his pockets, and he seemed to be conspicuously not looking at Gideon and Ruth as they walked down the street.
Ruth was saying something, but Gideon wasn't paying attention to her. He was looking ahead of them. On the sidewalk, walking toward them, was a man in a jogging suit, wearing a windbreaker. His hands were in his pockets, too.
Gideon took Ruth's arm and started slowing down.
'Are you all right?' Ruth asked as Gideon began exaggerating his limp.
'Follow my lead,' Gideon whispered.
They were limping past a small bookstore. The front window display was filled with the covers from a lot of underground magazines. Inside, Gideon could see ranks of bookshelves facing the doorway.
The man in the jogging suit was about ten yards away. His right hand was coming out of his pocket. Across the street, the man with the leather coat had stopped and looked as if he was about to cross the street.
A small bell rang as a man walked out of the bookstore. While the door stood open, Gideon half tackled Ruth into the store while he grabbed for his own gun. 'Back in the store,' Gideon said, 'Take cover.'
Ruth froze for a moment. The man behind the counter began to say something, 'Hey—what?'
Then there was a sound like a soft explosion—like a sledgehammer pounding loose sand. It was accompanied by the sound of breaking glass. A hole appeared in the glass of the closing front door.
With that, Ruth scrambled for the back of the store to take cover somewhere behind the shelves. The guy behind the counter dropped, and Gideon hoped it wasn't because he was hit.
Gideon saw the guy with the jogging suit through the front window. His hands were out of his pockets, and he carried a wicked looking automatic sporting a silencer. He was running for the door.
Gideon leveled his revolver and fired. Unlike the silenced automatic, this sounded like a gunshot. The bullet punched a hole in the window just behind the jogger. The jogger dropped out of Gideon's line of sight. There were others moving on the other side of the bookshop door.
They dropped as well, before he could get a good look at them.
Gideon didn't wait for them to reappear. He backed up, past the lines of shelves, toward the rear of the store. He was hoping there was a back way out of this place.
As he ducked around the last bookshelf, Ruth grabbed him. 'What the hell's going on?' she demanded.
'We have to get out of here,' Gideon looked around the rear of the bookstore and saw what he was searching for. A large fire door stood at the end of the corridor formed by a tall bookshelf and the rear wall. It said, in bright red letters, 'Emergency Exit Only.'
There was the sound of breaking glass by the front of the store. Gideon grabbed Ruth and pushed her toward the exit.
'Who are these people?'
'CIA, NSA, I don't know—just that they're trying to shoot us.'
Ruth slammed through the door first. As soon as the door opened, the room was filled with the sound of a fire alarm. She pushed through, Gideon following on her heels, backing toward the fire door, his gun pointing back into the store.
He saw the gunman start to duck around the bookshelf and he put two shots near the corner.
Fragments of wood and paper flew into the air, and the follower ducked back around the corner of the bookshelf.
The fire exit led into a narrow alley that was only open at one end. 'Run,' he yelled at Ruth. They had to get to the end of the alley before these guys cut off their only escape route. Ruth didn't need the encouragement, she was already running for the street. Gideon started running after her, but he could feel his injured leg resist the movement. He was barely twenty yards away from the door, and Ruth was almost at the street.
The fire door began moving, and Gideon fired another shot next to the open side of the door. The shot echoed in the alley, and orange sparks flew from the brick near the handle of the door. For the moment it stopped moving.
Then he heard Ruth scream, 'Shit!'
Gideon turned to look toward the mouth of the alley. A black Lincoln Town Car had pulled up, passenger side facing the alley, blocking their escape. Ruth was only a few feet from it.
The rear door opened and someone yelled from inside. 'Quick, get in!'
Whoever they were, they weren't trying to shoot them. Ruth didn't appear to debate the matter. She dove into the back seat, Gideon started running, his limp trying to slam him into the wall of the alley with every other step. As he closed on the car, the front passenger door opened, and a large man stepped out.
He wore a charcoal-gray suit and a black tie, and in his hands he held a silenced Uzi.
Gideon threw himself on the ground as the guy started firing. He was close enough to him that he could hear the hot brass casings bounce around and over him as the gunman emptied the Uzi's clip into the alley.
'Come on, move it,' the gunman called as Gideon heard him change clips.
Gideon pushed himself up and scrambled for the back seat of the Lincoln, landing on his side next to Ruth, somehow keeping his grip on his gun. Outside the car, he heard the sound of the muffled Uzi reverberate through the car. He managed a look back down the alley and could see someone attempting to return fire, using the metal door for cover. The door itself was peppered with dozens of holes, and the men following them didn't dare give up their cover while the Uzi was firing.
The man with the Uzi kicked the passenger door shut after Gideon was fully inside. He let a few more shots go into the alley, and then he slipped into the passenger seat. The Lincoln was accelerating away before he'd even closed the door.
'Well,' said the driver, sparing a glance back at Gideon and Ruth, 'I guess we're in it now.'
'Who are you people?' Ruth asked.
The man who'd carried the Uzi shook his head. 'It would be inadvisable to tell you that. Suffice it to say that it's not in our best interests to allow you to fall into the hands of those people.'
'And who are they?' Ruth asked.
Gideon sat up. There was something vaguely familiar about these guys.
Now that he could see where the Lincoln was going, they were shooting north, weaving in and out of traffic. They blew through lights as yellow cabs blared horns at them.
Gideon noticed a livid bruise on the neck of the man with the Uzi. 'You were at my house,' Gideon said.
'You're worth keeping track of,' said the driver. 'We're not the only ones of that opinion.'
'What's going on?' Ruth yelled with frustration bordering on hysteria.
'We'll explain what we can, when we can,' the gunman told them as they tore through another intersection and made a screeching turn following signs toward the Holland Tunnel. While the one drove like a maniac, the other picked up a cellular phone and dialed someone. 'Hi, Mom,' the guy said. 'Uncle had a bit of a breakdown. We had to pick him up. We got some groceries and we're heading to Abe's house. Yeah, I think you better call Triple-A.' He hung up.
'Uncle?' Gideon said.
'We're going to take you to a safe house, check you both out for listening devices, then we'll see what we can talk about.'
The Lincoln slid into the tunnel. Gideon raised his gun and said, 'I'd like an explanation now.'
'You better put that away,' said the driver. 'We don't want things to get ugly.' The Lincoln started slowing down. 'I could let you both out here. But neither of us is going to discuss anything before we get where we're going.' The car was almost stopped, and behind them horns were blaring at them. 'Now either put that away, or get out.'
Gideon considered forcing the issue, but he didn't know if he wanted to. He would be putting Ruth in danger if
