“I left a note with your names and this address on Chapman’s desk at the station. He’s heading the FBI team and knows about the hits that are out on you both. The FBI guys should be here soon,” John offered, attempting to soothe them both.
“If Chapman finds it! What if the assassin finds it instead?” Jennifer said, panicking.
There was a knock on the door of the apartment, and it suddenly became the focus of all their attention.
John stared at Jennifer. She shrugged as if to say she had no idea who it could be. He pressed a finger to his lips and she immediately did the same for the benefit of David.
John silently went to the door.
“Anyone home?” The accent of whoever was behind the door was Irish.
As the caller pulled his head away from the peephole, he revealed himself to be Jim Donovan, John’s father’s so-called best friend, whom he had left, high on crack, in his apartment over the Irish Pub. The pub that his father had invested in, and that Donovan had secretly sold on to El Gordito to pay off his drug debts.
What the hell did this parasite want? Had the assassin gotten to him? John thought.
The knocking was replaced by a spell of thumping, and then silence. John saw Jim pressing his ear to the door. He turned around and saw Jennifer looking quizzical and mouthing, Who? John placed his finger to his lips again and moved back to Jennifer’s side. He whispered that it was Donovan, and she repeated this to her father.
“I’m going to follow him. If you hear anyone come in, use the safe room!” He looked through the spyhole again. But now there was just empty space. As he passed through the door, he could see Donovan at the end of the corridor, about to take the left turn to the bank of elevators. He chased him and turned the corner. Donovan had already called an elevator and was about to disappear inside. The illuminated arrow above the doors showed he was going down. John raced up to the elevator and leaped into it just as the direction indicator went out and the doors were closing. As he passed into the elevator cab, he narrowly missed Donovan before crashing against the floor and wall of the cab.
Picking himself up, he regarded Donovan closely. What was he up to? He noted that the button for Floor 1, the parking garage level, was illuminated. Did he drive in? John thought it highly unlikely that the Irishman had an electronic pass as they were issued to residents only.
The doors opened onto the underground parking area, which was nearly empty. Those cars that were present needed a fatter wallet than Donovan had. John counted five of them. A couple of Porsche 911s, both in bright ‘look-at-me’ colors, one turquoise, the other yellow. The rest were big, statement cars: a Maybach, a Rolls Royce, and a tricked-out Range Rover. As he expected, Donovan wasn’t walking toward any of them. Instead, the Irishman followed the wall of the elevator enclosure and turned left at the corner. John started after him, holding back at the next corner to look around it.
He saw a sleek, black, top-of-the-range BMW limousine parked in one of the bays opposite him, two figures standing in front of the trunk. Donovan was facing John with his back to the trunk. In front of him, with her back to John, was a short, firm, but not overly-muscular-looking woman. A long, shiny black ponytail hung over a messenger bag she had slung diagonally across her back. She wore a jacket, stretch pants and combat-style boots. Everything was black, looked designer, and fit impeccably. Even from behind, her appearance was extraordinary, and John could feel there was something remarkable about her, something unmistakably purposeful, something dangerous.
John was about to have his instincts confirmed.
The woman slid the messenger bag from her back to her front. It looked like she gave Donovan something from it. A greedy grin broke out on his face as he clutched a small package about the size of an inch-thick stack of dollar bills. Two things then happened almost simultaneously. First, the lid of the trunk silently opened behind Donovan, and John heard a short and intense whooshing sound. Immediately, Donovan stumbled backward, doubled over in pain, clutching his stomach. For a moment he looked up in surprise, his hands now covered in blood. John heard the same sound again, twice. This time, he saw the gun. It had a suppressor, and it had let off two bullets to Donovan’s head. He collapsed like a deckchair into the trunk, banging his head on the lid, and leaving his legs splayed and dangling over the lip.
Panic momentarily rooted John where he stood, but his fear for Jennifer’s and David’s lives forced him into action. He ran back to the elevator as fast as he could and pumped the call button. The elevator seemed to be stuck on the first floor. The building is half empty, for Christ sake! Who is keeping it on the first floor? He guessed he only had a few minutes ahead of the assassin, at best. Given Donovan’s size, John figured it would take the woman longer than usual to fit him in the compartment.
He took the stairs and ran up two flights. The elevator was still there on the first floor––he was still in front of her. One of the chrome posts that usually held the velvet rope by the main entrance had been placed in the door opening, causing the doors to close and hiccup open in a continuous, annoying loop while the cab was being filled with chairs. He debated whether to commandeer it and decided not to––there was a good chance it would first descend to the parking level in response to calls by the assassin.
Running up
