Not a moment’s hesitation. ‘I do.’
He put his arm around her. She closed her eyes, leaned into his shoulder. He closed his eyes, and this time he slept, heavily. When he woke up, she was asleep, nestled against his shoulder. For a moment the nearness of her broke his heart. Then the plane began its descent toward Florida, toward Fort Lauderdale.
I’m coming, Dad, and they won’t know what the hell hit them.
SATURDAY MARCH 19
41
F lorida at midnight The air hung heavy with damp, the clouds blotted out the stars. The CIA jet shuttled to a remote hangar at the Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood airport, and two cars – a black Lincoln Navigator and a Lincoln Town Car – waited for the passengers. A woman and a man, dressed in dark suits, stood by the cars. The woman stepped forward as they approached.
‘I’m McNee, out of the Mexico City office. This is Pierce from HQ.’ She handed Frame their credentials. ‘Who’s Bricklayer?’
‘I am.’ Bedford didn’t introduce the others.
‘Sir, you have several calls to return… regarding the bombing in London yesterday. If you take the Navigator, you can talk privately.’ She gave privately the subtlest stress.
Frame nodded at Carrie and Evan. ‘They can ride in the Town Car with McNee and Pierce.’ He handed Carrie her Glock; they had all given their weapons to Frame before boarding the plane.
‘Do you have a piece for Evan?’ Bedford asked. ‘I don’t want him unarmed until our target’s in the morgue.’ As if he didn’t even want to say the word Jargo aloud, in a crowd.
‘You know how to use?’ Frame asked.
Evan nodded. Frame went to the Navigator, brought back a Beretta 92FS, showed Evan how to check, load, unload, and put on the safety. Evan put the gun inside the laptop bag and kept his grip on the decoy laptop. ‘I’d like to keep hold of the goods, if you don’t mind.’
‘Fine,’ Bedford said.
‘Where are we headed?’ Evan asked.
‘A safe house in Miami Springs. Near the Miami airport. Courtesy of the FBI. We told them we had a Cuban intel agent willing to defect,’ McNee said.
‘Then you’ll make your phone call,’ Bedford said.
McNee gave Evan a kind smile. ‘I promise when we get to the house, you’ll get a good meal. I like to cook.’ She popped open the trunk and Carrie and Evan put their luggage inside. Evan kept the decoy laptop clutched against his chest, as though it were the dearest object in the world to him, and McNee held the back door open for them. Pierce, the other CIA operative, got in the front seat.
They slid onto the cool leather of the backseat. McNee shut the door, got in the driver’s seat, and started up the car. ‘We’ll shake any shadows first.’ She powered up the dividing window between the front and rear seats so that Carrie and Evan could talk in private. Evan glanced back; Bedford was in the passenger seat of the Navigator behind them, already talking on a phone.
Evan stared out at the night. The air felt as warm as a kiss. Billboards, palm trees, and speeding vehicles flashed by. The two cars made a long series of turns and backtracks around the airport, stopping and checking and ensuring no one followed, and then McNee headed onto I-95 South. Even after midnight it was a busy highway.
They rode in silence for a few minutes.
‘You shouldn’t go to the rendezvous point,’ Carrie said.
‘I’m the bait.’
‘No. Your call is the bait. I don’t want you near Jargo. You can’t imagine… what he would do to you if he catches you.’
‘Or to you.’
‘He’d give me to Dezz,’ Carrie said. ‘I’d rather die.’
‘I’m going. End of story.’ Evan read the signs. I-195W to the Miami airport. McNee inched over into the right lane. But then she wheeled over fast, taking the 195 East exit toward Miami Beach.
He looked through the rearview window; Bedford’s Navigator swerved around two cars, horns blaring, staying with them, narrowly avoiding a pickup truck.
‘What’s wrong?’ Evan said.
McNee flashed a look in the rearview mirror, gave a shrug. She pointed at the wire in her ear, as if to suggest she’d been radioed new instructions.
Pierce – the CIA guy in the front seat – unhooked his earpiece, fidgeted with a frown. Then he slammed backward into the passenger door and slumped down. McNee raced around a truck, putting distance between her and the Navigator.
Pierce wasn’t breathing. A bullet hole in his throat. McNee stuck the pistol in the drink holder.
Evan kicked at the reinforced divider as McNee swerved across more lanes of traffic. It didn’t budge. ‘She’s kidnapping us,’ he told Carrie.
Evan stared through the back windshield. Bedford’s Navigator vroomed up next to them, a black Mercedes in fast pursuit behind him. Bullets pinged against the driver’s side of the Town Car as McNee tore away from Bedford’s Navigator. Bedford, from his passenger window, shot at McNee. Flashes, the Mercedes firing at Bedford. But beyond the Mercedes, Evan spotted another car, a BMW, revving up next to the Navigator.
McNee cranked it to ninety, heading for Miami Beach. The towers of downtown Miami glittered beneath the clouds.
‘Stop or I shoot!’ Carrie ordered. McNee shot her the finger. Carrie fired at the divider, at a point between the dead man and McNee’s head: the glass was bulletproof, and the slug hammered flat into the faintly green material.
Evan tested the locks. They’d been stripped; the controls didn’t work. He kicked at the window. It was reinforced.
Bedford’s Navigator accelerated close to the Town Car, like a lion chasing down a gazelle, looking for the battle-ending tenderness of throat. The Mercedes roared on the Navigator’s other side in pursuit. Bullet fire from the Mercedes peppered the side of the Navigator’s windows, the glass popping into small concentric circles but holding.
Evan slid back the cover on the sunroof, framing a gleam of the moon as it slid between two heavy clouds. He thumbed the control. Sunroof stayed still. He pulled the Beretta from his laptop bag and fired into the sunroof’s glass. It held. The boom hurt his ears inside the closed car.
‘We have to get out,’ Carrie said. The Mercedes nicked the Navigator, sparks flying up between the cars like a fountain of light. Gunfire erupted from the Mercedes and the side windows in the Navigator shattered.
Evan saw Bedford return fire from the front passenger side of the Navigator. The Mercedes answered with a burst of bullets and Bedford collapsed, half out the Navigator’s window, a smear of blood along the door and the front window.
Bedford. Gone.
McNee’s voice crackled to life on the intercom: ‘Quit shooting, and you won’t get hurt.’
There has to be a way out. Not the windows, not the roof. The seats. Evan remembered a news report he’d seen about a trend in recent models, to make backseats more easily removable to accommodate the constant American hunger for trunk room. Please, God, don’t let the Agency have modified everything or we’re in a death trap. He dug his fingers into the seat and pulled. It gave a centimeter. He yanked again.
He glanced over his shoulder: McNee’s eyes burned into his in the rearview, otherworldly, distorted by the pocks in the bulletproof glass. He heaved again at the seat, and now he saw the Navigator veer behind them, its side crunched, Bedford’s limp body dangling over the shattered glass, with a horrifying percentage of his head pulverized away. The Mercedes approached to attack the driver’s side.
