“I’m not willing to let you go, Krada,” Hannibal said, driving a little faster. “You’re the prize at the bottom of the box. But the doc here, they don’t need him any way.”
“Agreed,” Ivanovich said.
“Can’t you just call the police?” Viktoriya asked.
“Maybe,” Hannibal said, easing to a stop at a light. “But there’s no point getting Dr. Sidorov mixed up in that either. I’m going to pull over at that next corner. We’ll just let you out and let them follow us all the way to a police station.”
Hannibal had cut left on Fifteenth Street and followed it around, keeping the Washington Monument on his right. Part of him wished he was out there with those camera-carrying tourists, or the homeboys involved in some fierce Frisbee tossing. He figured the closer he stayed to the monument area, the safer they all would be. What kind of an idiot would start trouble just a few blocks from the White House? The loop segued into Seventeenth Street, which was a traffic squeeze with cars that had just come into the city over the Memorial Bridge. He no longer saw either of his chase cars.
“We might have caught a break, gang,” Hannibal said, turning right to get back on Constitution, which at that point was a wide two-way street. There were three lanes going each way but the cars parked on both sides made the two outer lanes useless. After another five blocks he pulled over to double-park in front of the Federal Reserve Building and issued instructions to each of his passengers.
“Viktoriya, sit tight. Krada, get out and stand by the car with your hands on the trunk. Dr. Sidorov, get out and walk straight into the Federal Reserve. There are armed guards in the lobby, and there’s also a phone. Wait ten minutes and call a cab home. Aleksandr, watch Krada. If at any time he loses physical contact with this vehicle, shoot out his right knee. Everybody got it? OK, move.”
The door opened and Krada moved with care to the side of the car, resting his palms on the trunk. Sidorov patted Viktoriya’s knee the way an uncle would. Then he leaned forward to address Hannibal.
“Thank you for everything,”
Sidorov stepped toward the building at a normal pace without a backward glance. Hannibal took those few seconds to consider where he was. The black granite Vietnam Memorial stood just over the hill in the park across the street. It was designed like a slash in the earth. If he walked across the street and down the path he could point to the exact spot where his father’s name was engraved on that wall. And that led him to consider the nature of devotion.
“You’re still hooked on her, ain’t you?” he asked the back of Ivanovich’s head.
Without turning, Ivanovich replied, “Sometimes, when nothing seems worth saving, I can’t let her slip away. All right, Krada, back in the car.”
Hannibal knew the sound that came next, although most people would mistake it for a loud cough. Krada’s body snapped backward as if pulled by invisible wires. Before Hannibal could turn he heard Ivanovich’s elbows hit the Volvo’s roof and two guns roared as one. When Hannibal did see the black BMW moving down the road, its back window was spider webbed from the impacts of two bullets. Then Ivanovich bounced back into his seat.
“Move!”
“Not without the prize,” Hannibal said.
Ivanovich said something rude in Russian, snatched Krada off the sidewalk, and tossed him back into the car. Viktoriya was lying across the seat, so Krada landed partially on top of her. She screamed and sat up, slapping at blood in her hair.
Hannibal ground the gas pedal into the floorboard and pulled out into traffic the instant Ivanovich was back inside, letting his forward momentum slam the doors shut. His jaw was clenched tight as he spurred the car forward.
“You have them again?” Ivanovich asked.
“Black Beemer ahead. Silver Civic behind. They’re a lot ballsier than I thought. Gunfire in broad daylight in front of the Federal Reserve Building? A couple blocks from the Lincoln Monument? What’s the matter with these morons? And why the hell shoot Krada?”
“He was with us,” Ivanovich said. “Guilt by association. And I’m sure he never saw it coming. Will you call the police now?”
Hannibal grinned. “They’d hang you up by your thumbs, buddy. I’m pretty sure you don’t have licenses for those two handguns you just discharged in the middle of the city. Besides, we got to keep on the move. If these guys find us waiting for the cops, they won’t hesitate, they’ll just shoot. So by the time the cops found us, it would all be over anyway. Unless…”
“Yes?”
“Unless we find a safe place to sit for a while.”
Hannibal hit the ramp to I-66 with everything the Black Beauty could give him. As he reached the top of the curve he was staring at a bank of dark, forbidding clouds. Hannibal rarely prayed, but he did at that moment. He prayed that they would not be hit with another cold rain that afternoon. He expected to be outdoors for quite a while.
Traffic was only moderate, so on the downhill run he was able to slide into the farthest left of the three lanes as they hit the Roosevelt Bridge.
Behind him he heard Krada coughing and Viktoriya sniffling. In his rearview mirror he saw her stroke Krada’s head in an affectionate way. Then she slammed her fist down onto his right shoulder and shouted, “You bastard!”
“Hang onto something,” Hannibal said. The bridge was less than a half-mile long and the first exit was coming up on the far end. The BMW was not far in front of him, the Civic only one car behind. Traffic was moving at a smooth seventy miles per hour, despite the fact that they were driving directly into the setting sun.
“Come on, baby,” Hannibal said under his breath. Then he slapped the shifter down into second gear, popped the clutch, and yanked the wheel to the right. He could almost hear the other drivers cursing him as he shot across two lanes of traffic onto the off ramp. In the past, in New York or even in Germany, his maneuver would have raised a chorus of horns, but for some reason Washington drivers rarely honked at idiots.
Hannibal’s tires squealed only a little as he pulled into the parking area and rolled to the far end. When he cut the engine he noticed that Ivanovich was staring out the back window.
“I think that worked,” the assassin said. “Between your speed and driving into the sun, neither of them could get to the ramp in time to follow us.”
“They’ll be back,” Hannibal said. “Uspensky doesn’t pay these boys to quit. Come on.”
He got out of the car and opened the back door to help Viktoriya out.
“Where is this?” she asked, looking around at the parkland surrounding the parking area and the welcome center at the far end.
“Welcome to Roosevelt Island,” Hannibal said. “Ninety acres of woods and marshes and swampland. By the time those clowns figure out how to turn around and get back here, we’ll be well hidden in those woods and waiting for help to come.”
“We might not be moving too quickly,” Ivanovich said. He had Krada out of the car, but the Algerian was leaking life into a little pool. Lucky for him, he had passed out. Lucky for him, but real bad news for Hannibal.
“How bad?” he asked, walking around the car.
“Two inches high and to the left of the heart,” Ivanovich said. “Without care real soon, he will never be able to confess to anything.”
“Shit!” Hannibal’s eyes darted around. The parking lot was empty but for the cars he assumed belonged to the employees. Roosevelt’s memorial was not very popular during the week, especially after summer ended. The island officially closed at dark anyway, which wasn’t all that far off. Taking Krada with them seemed pointless. Leaving him to die seemed inhumane. The Russian mobsters had stolen his neat, tidy ending and Hannibal wanted to hate someone for that. He chose Krada.
“Sit his ass next to that Land Rover,” he said, pointing at a nearby vehicle. “If he’s still alive when the owner comes out, maybe he’ll get medical care. If not, he gets the sentence you’d have given him anyway.”
Ivanovich was quick to comply, wiping his hands on the dead man’s jacket afterward.
“And now?”
“Now we head for the trails,” Hannibal said, moving off at a slow jog. “There must be a couple miles of trails wandering all over this place. It will take your pals hours to find us in here.”
