‘That’s not going to change your predicament, Miss White.’
‘You’re going to tell me — ’ M began, when Borgia reached for her.
Mistake.
M was ready, her fist was ready; she was already out of her seatbelt, and she had enough room to move. She deflected the blow easily with her right arm as her left fist came up. She hit him with a solid blow that broke his nose.
It didn’t stop him. Borgia was frenzied, like an animal caught in a snare. He had managed to unlock his seatbelt when she hit him again, and still he went for her. He grabbed the lapels of her jacket, clutching it as though she were the last-remaining life-vest aboard a sinking ship. He was trying to push her down against the floor.
Borgia was smaller than she was, and nowhere near as strong. She grabbed his head and smashed it against the console radio. When he screamed she gripped him by the back of the hair and smashed his face against the edge of the dashboard. She got to her knees and pinned Borgia against the seat and hovered over him the way the HRT operator had hovered over Karim and she hit Borgia again in the face and she hit him in the throat and kept hitting him until he went limp and begged for her to stop, please stop.
75
Special Agent Robert Ortega was back on watch patrol inside Ali Karim’s garage, but at least he had something interesting to occupy his attention this time around: a firm, heart-shaped ass. It belonged to Miranda Wolfe, and right now she was bent over the Ford Expedition’s engine block, her tight-fitting black trousers hugging every perfect curve. A bald guy with a noticeable beer gut hanging over his belt and — surprise, surprise, no wedding ring on his finger — stood next to her, holding a flashlight.
‘Miranda,’ the bald guy said, ‘do you feel that?’
‘Feel what?’ she asked.
‘The heat. I think it’s coming from the Jaguar.’
She moved to the car and pressed her hand against the side.
‘What the hell is causing this?’ she said, more to herself. She moved her hand away.
‘Your hand,’ the fat guy said. ‘It’s covered… it looks like black dust.’
The overhead rows of fluorescent lights hanging from the garage ceiling started to flicker.
The fat guy and Miranda Wolfe looked up, wide-eyed. Ortega’s attention was locked on the radio clipped to the woman’s belt. Smoke was rising from the loudspeaker. He was about to speak when the garage door started to rise.
Ortega flinched at the sound. He was standing near the elevator, only a few feet away from the wall controls for the garage; no one had pressed the button and yet the garage door was rising. He was still staring at it when the fat man said ‘Holy shit ’, and Ortega turned to see the guy and the woman backing away from the Ford, plumes of grey smoke drifting up from its engine block.
The overhead lights kept flickering.
Ortega called upstairs on his wrist-mike; didn’t get an answer. He grabbed his radio, pressed the push-to-talk button, got nothing but static.
He tried it again. The static grew louder. He looked at his radio, wondering why it -
Plumes of grey and white smoke rose from his radio loudspeaker; the LED panel was dead. He tossed the phone, the smell of burning plastic and fried circuitry filling his nostrils. The fat guy had his radio in hand and it was smoking. Wolfe had tossed hers to the floor; she had her cell in her hand and it was smoking.
A set of overhead fluorescents exploded. The woman screamed, glass shards raining down on her and tinkling across the garage floor. Smoke billowed from the security camera positioned in the corner and scattered in the wind blowing inside the garage.
Another set of overhead lights exploded as the Jaguar’s engine roared to life. It backed up, tyres peeling across the garage floor. Ortega pulled his weapon. He was looking down the target sight, advancing to the car, when the car turned around and faced him.
More lights exploded and he screamed at the driver to stand down. The car’s headlights were turned off but eerie green orbs of light glowed and pulsated from the centre of the car’s front grille.
The green lights exploded in blinding flashes of light. The colour burned his eyes and he heard the fat guy screaming ‘ Run, Miranda, get the hell out of the way ’ and Ortega couldn’t see, oh, God no, he had been blinded by that green light and he couldn’t see. He heard tyres squealing and he staggered around aimlessly as the Jaguar raced out of the garage.
76
Fletcher pulled into the destination he had researched earlier in the day — a self-service car wash located on the fringes of Manhattan that operated on coin-and-dollar-fed machinery so people could clean their vehicles any time, day or night. It had four wide bays equipped with sprayers and vacuum hoses, dented kiosks offering Armor All wipes, packages of micro-fibre towels and a wide variety of chemically scented air fresheners. The small shack, where a daytime cashier usually sat behind a bulletproof window to collect money or swipe credit cards for customers who pulled in for gas, was dark and empty.
He would have preferred to wash the Jaguar inside one of the day-operated washes with their enclosed bays and powerful brushes. This would have to do. He fed the final dollar into the machine and the motor’s compressor rumbled and roared.
He started with the front hood. The spray of water exploded with a hiss of steam. He moved the spray nozzle closer to the hood and the powerful spray peeled away cracked chips of black paint, sending them flying into the air. It took nearly forty minutes to clean away all the black paint.
Now the Jaguar was white. The police wouldn’t be looking for a white Jaguar, and he didn’t have far to travel. Fletcher drove away, watching the streets.
M had made arrangements for the use of another vehicle — a forest-green Jeep Grand Cherokee parked on the fourth level of a private New York garage free of security cameras. Fletcher parked next to it and got out.
He reached underneath the Cherokee’s front bumper, found the magnetic box and took out the car key. He opened the hatchback and then returned to the Jaguar to remove a fresh set of clothes from a suitcase.
After he finished changing, he placed his tactical belt on the backseat of the Jeep. He returned to the Jaguar and quickly collected the items he needed. Then he grabbed the final item, the netbook computer, shut the trunk and drove away in the Jeep.
Dawn had broken by the time he reached the back of a strip mall lot in New Brunswick, New Jersey. A silver Ford Mustang was parked by a nearby dumpster. The door opened and M stepped out, bundled up in a heavy coat and wearing sunglasses.
Fletcher parked next to her. He left the Jeep’s engine running and, tactical belt in hand, got out and made his way to the hatchback.
M joined him, hands tucked in her jacket pockets, breath steaming in the frigid air.
‘I listened to the news on the way here,’ Fletcher said.
‘I did too.’
‘So you know Borgia is missing, and since you were the last one seen with him, you’ve become a person of interest.’
‘They’re also talking about your escape, although they haven’t mentioned you by name.’ There was no emotion in her voice, just that flat, neutral tone. ‘The reporters camped out in front of Karim’s house got footage of what happened inside the garage — the smoke and the exploding lights. They’re saying an agent has been blinded.’
‘I installed a laser dazzler system in the Jaguar’s front grille. The blindness is only temporary.’
