The two speakers turned the corner, and Gideon got a good look at the new gentleman. He was short, and wore a dark, expensive-looking suit. He wore a pair of thick glasses that made him resemble a thinner Peter Loire. Gideon recognized him—
'Emmit D'Arcy.' Gideon whispered.
'What?' Ruth said.
The short man nodded at Gideon and at Ruth. 'Mr. Malcolm, Miss Zimmerman. I'm here to take you back to Washington for a more thorough debriefing.'
Gideon heard Ruth groan.
The Colonel stood, holding a sheet of paper in his hands. 'I can't protest this strongly enough.'
The short man nodded, and took off his glasses. This was Emmit D'Arcy, the National Security Advisor to President Rayburn. Kendal had said that there were rumors of D'Arcy's interest in what was happening, but Gideon had never expected to meet the man personally. Whatever Julia was involved in, Gideon didn't think he merited this kind of attention. What the hell was D'Arcy doing here!
D'Arcy pointed his glasses at the Colonel. 'You don't know the depth of what you're dealing with. I need these people in Washington.' He pressed a button for the elevator.
'Do you know?' The Colonel looked at Gideon. 'There are some disturbing elements—'
D'Arcy replaced his glasses. 'I've been privy to your interviews. That's why we have to handle it in Washington.'
The elevator dinged, and the doors opened. There were two men in suits waiting in the elevator. They didn't look like Marines. The Marine escorts led Gideon and Ruth to the elevator and stepped back out to let D'Arcy in.
'You know there're security problems. Moving these people now is dangerous.'
'Their security is no longer your concern,' D'Arcy told him as the elevator doors closed.
Ruth sobbed. It sounded more frustration than anything else. Gideon put his arm around her. 'What do they want from us?' she muttered.
D'Arcy heard her. 'Only your cooperation,' he said.
The elevator doors opened on the parking garage. There were two cars waiting for them, engines idling. At first Gideon thought they were going to separate him from Ruth again. It would make sense from a security standpoint.
He was wrong.
The two men escorted them into the rear car, a tan Ford sedan that looked like an unmarked police car. Then the men walked to the lead car, a black Oldsmobile, and got in with D'Arcy.
The setup made Gideon feel nervous. Since he'd gotten here, every time they moved him around they'd used a trio of Marines. Now all they had was the driver. His mind kept going back to what the Colonel had said, that moving them was dangerous.
The Olds pulled out and the Ford followed. Ruth was still leaning against him and asked, 'What's going to happen to us?'
The driver spoke, and after dealing with the Marines for days, hearing someone engage in a conversation was a bit startling. 'Don't worry, madam. We're just going straight to JFK. No problem.'
JFK? Gideon thought. Isn't La Guardia closer?
'Want to hear some music?' the guy asked. He slipped a CD into the car's stereo and the car was suddenly filled with the sound of Mozart.
They spent some time on the Long Island Expressway as the night deepened. It was close to two-thirty as they took the exit for JFK. They still had a ways to go on the Van Wyck Expressway. The lead car, with D'Arcy in it, was little more than a set of taillights ahead in the distance.
The Olds seemed to have pulled ahead quite a bit since they'd gotten on the exit. That alarmed Gideon, especially when he checked their own speedometer and saw that they were going ten over the speed limit. He was about to ask the driver if he shouldn't catch up, when their car was washed by the brights from a vehicle behind them.
Ruth must've felt the same unease. She turned to look behind them just at the same time as Gideon did.
The lights behind them were coming from a truck or a van, Gideon couldn't make out the silhouette past the glare of the headlights. As he watched the vehicle close on them, he saw another set of headlights drift into the passing lane.
Gideon turned toward the driver, but the man was aware that something was wrong. The needle on the speedometer was already passing seventy. The guy was muttering, 'Fuck, fuck, fuck . . .' He was barely audible under the whine of the engine and the pulse of a Mozart symphony. Gideon saw their driver only had one hand on the wheel.
He grabbed Ruth and said, 'Get down.'
He saw a look of panic on her face and he had to yell at her, 'Get down!'
The vehicle in the passing lane had pulled up next to them. It was a Dodge pickup four-by-four, the side of it a sheer metal wall blocking in the Ford.
Gideon was thrown against the front seat as their follower touched the rear bumper. Gideon looked behind and could just make out the grille of another giant pickup beyond the glare. Then he was thrown to the side as the truck next to them drifted into the side of the Ford.
Gideon threw himself on top of Ruth as their driver cursed and leveled an automatic at the driver's window. But there was nothing for him to shoot at but the passenger door. The truck was too close for him to aim at anything else.
The truck next to them made contact again, and the rear driver's side window shattered, covering Gideon and the back seat with safety glass. From the sound of abused metal, the truck stayed in contact and began pushing them to the right, off the road. Their driver did the only thing he could, he tried to accelerate away, but at the angle he was at, he was fighting the mass of the truck. The only way he could go was the way he was being herded.
The driver took that as their only chance and peeled off to the right. He took an exit that was so fortuitous that Gideon wondered if they were meant to take it.
That question was answered once the Ford peeled out onto the surface street. The two pickups still shadowed them, and a third turned off of a side street ahead of them and reversed toward them in their lane. The Ford had to swerve around the truck to avoid a collision, and that effectively cut off their exit down the side street.
All three pickups were on them in no time. The Ford couldn't outrun them. The driver was on the radio yelling for backup, help, anything. He yelled the names of cross streets into the radio, and then a truck was slamming into the passenger side of the car.
The driver grabbed his gun off of the seat and Gideon ducked his head. The space inside the Ford seemed to shake with the sound of the automatic going off. The smell was rank before the driver let off a third shot.
The only response was a shudder from another impact. Gideon heard twisting metal and breaking glass, and risked a look up. The Ford was sandwiched between two of the pickup trucks, doors buckling inward, and the screeching protest of the Ford's engine cut through the air as their driver tried to gun the accelerator.
Gideon smelled burning rubber, oil, and hot metal. The Ford was slowing whether it wanted to or not.
He turned to look behind them and heard the sound of strain from the rear window. He ducked his head just before the stress on the frame shattered it. It popped right next to him like another gunshot.
Ruth was shaking under him. She was screaming something incomprehensible.
He looked up in time to see the trailing headlights drift to the right to pass them. Then the whole mass of traveling metal pulled to a stop at an intersection. Gideon could see a stoplight swinging above the front of the cars.
Their driver still tried to accelerate, gunning the engine. The Ford responded with a short jerk and the smell of burned rubber. They'd stopped moving.
'Come on,' he yelled at Ruth. 'Move, now.'
He pulled her up, and after about half a second of paralysis, she saw what he was doing. He pushed her through the remains of the rear window and quickly followed, cutting his hands and knees on cubes of safety glass.
