Get down!” Nikki cried.
They were flying through Jefferson Parish on Interstate 10, passing the broad off-ramps to various shopping malls, cavernous hangarlike buildings where Ben had done last-minute Christmas shopping in another life. He’d been dialing numbers so frantically he’d missed the flare-up of police lights behind them. Now he lowered his head and watched as Nikki looked into the rearview mirror and let her foot off the gas.
“No, no, no!” Ben protested. “C’mon. You gotta—”
“Hush.”
The police car was gaining on them, lights flaring, siren wailing. They’d been doing ninety since hooking up with the interstate behind the airport. Ben had been curled into a ball for the first twenty minutes of the drive until he realized the nausea was actually more bearable when he was sitting up. By the time he got his bearings they’d been cutting through the sea of cypresses that cradled the 310 Freeway, leaving the towering Luling–Destrehan Bridge in their wake, and crossing behind the airport’s runways. Wherever Noah had taken him, it had been on the west bank of the river.
But now they were just a few minutes from the best off-ramp to get to Anthem’s apartment and Nikki was letting a cop car get within inches of their rear bumper. “Gotcha,” she whispered.
The cop car suddenly swerved to one side and slammed nose-first into the concrete divider. She hadn’t just let the car gain on them; she’d been letting the driver get within range.
“You have a test question, right? If you get him. You understand what I mean, don’t you? In case Marshall’s already—”
“Yeah. I’ve got one.”
“You need to throw up?”
“No.”
“Are you lying?”
“Yes. Nikki . . . how long until I can . . .”
“I don’t know, Ben. It was days with me, but I didn’t know what had really happened to me. It could be sooner. I don’t know.”
“Just open the door, I’ll slow down and—”
“No, no, no. It’s not that. He’s on
“He’s safer on a ship.”
“He wouldn’t go out on one without his phone. He needs it. He uses it to communicate with the relief pilot.”
The great hulk of the new pumping station they’d installed next to the broad, flood-prone dip in the interstate flew past the left-hand side of the Jeep, then they were passing under the train trestle, and two expansive aboveground cemeteries appeared on either side of the freeway. The city was within sight now, the South Carrollton off-ramp dead ahead.
“Do I get off?”
“I don’t . . .”
“
“I don’t know. Just wait. Just hold on—”
A call to information put him through to Vessel Traffic Control, the small bunkerlike building where all the bar pilots monitored their own river traffic. Each station was manned by an off-duty pilot, and chances were high at least one of those pilots would be a member of the Landry family. A gruff male voice answered before Ben could rehearse his words. So he went with his first instinct.
“Are any of the Landry brothers working a shift tonight? I have to speak to them immediately. There’s been a family emergency.”
“And who’s this?”
“My name is Ben. I’m a close friend of their brother, Anthem. There’s been an accident.”
“There’s been an accident, you say?”
“Yes. I’m trying to get in touch with any of the Landry brothers. Merit or Greg or—”
“Hold on,” the guy said. The curtness of his response suggested that either Merit or Greg was working one of the computers in the other room, maybe within sight of the guy’s desk, and he wanted nothing more than to pass off this crazy dead-of-night caller to one of them as soon as he could.
“Ben?” It was Greg Landry. The last time they’d spoken had been at a family crawfish bowl a few weeks earlier, where the family was shot through by a wary optimism over Anthem’s newfound sobriety. Radio calls squawked in the background; Greg must have picked up in the central control room.
“What accident? Anthem’s on a ship.”
“Where’s the ship?”
“Uh, sheesh . . . I don’t know. I know it’s grain and it’s headed south for a handoff to a Crescent City pilot at Chalmette. One of its containers is cracked . . . What the hell’s going on, Ben?”
“Find out if he got on alone. If he didn’t, we have a very serious problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“Find out, Greg. You said he’s headed south? Toward downtown?”
“Yeah. I can give you his exact position . . .”
“I need to know if he’s
“Now just hold on a second. Okay? Hold on! He’s got his radio with him.”
Nikki said, “Where am I headed?” Ben gestured dead ahead, toward the mushroom swell of the Superdome and the brightly lit skyscrapers of the Central Business District. The radio noises continued in the background. Greg Landry must have been sitting at his station when he answered the phone, and he didn’t even bother putting his hand over the receiver as he asked the guy next to him, “You talked to A-Team since he boarded?”
“Wait, wait, wait!” Ben cried. “Don’t radio the ship!”
“Well, how in the hell do you expect me to—”
“Listen to me, Greg. And I promise you, I am not fucking around here, okay? So you have to listen to me here—”
“I’m
“If he didn’t get on the ship alone, then he’s in danger—”
But Greg was talking to the man next to him in the control room again, his tone urgent.
“Greg!”
“He’s not alone,” Greg said into the phone. “Guy next to me just talked to the pilot who handed off to him at Destrehan. He said some . . .” To the guy next to him, Greg said, “What frickin’ cousin?”
Greg’s simple question—What frickin’ cousin?—resounded over and over again in Ben’s head like cannon fire.
“You want to tell me what the hell’s going on here, Benny?”
“There’s been a threat against Anthem,” Ben said.
“A threat against— What kind of threat? Like terrorism?”
“Something like that.”
“You think somebody got on with him?” Greg said, dropping his voice so as not to be overheard. “Benny. Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“Yes.”
“Mother of Christ. I’m calling the ship, for Christ’s sake!”
“No! Don’t do that! You’ll tip him off.”
“Then he’ll use the code word we’ve got for hijackings.”
“Just tell me where the ship is!”
“Ben, you’re not making any goddamn—”
His scream frightened Nikki so badly she winced and brought one hand to her mouth. There was a stunned
