“Career advice from you is rich,” he said. “How are you, Lucy?”
“I should have married you. Not him,” Lucy said.
“Be nice. August is going to get the credit for your capture,” I said.
“You’re not surrendering to the Company?” Lucy jerked her head to look at me.
“No. I’m going to go get our kid. Thanks again, August.”
August glanced at Lucy in the rearview. “I always thought it was iffy to trust you. I hate being right so often.”
I could feel the defensiveness rising in her. “You’re betraying the Company yourself, going out of bounds to help Sam.”
August said, “You got a limited imagination, Lucy. Certain people in the Company might entirely approve of what I’m doing. As long as it nabs you.”
Lucy opened and then shut her mouth.
“You mean we have help?” I asked.
“No. You have me,” August said. I wasn’t sure how tough we could be. I was injured, and August had been shot in the arm. We weren’t exactly a pair of badasses.
Lucy seemed to study these words, as if they hung in the air above August’s head.
“Where’s Howell?” I asked.
“Summoned to Langley. Whatever technology you found these guys have, it has set off a firestorm.”
“The rendezvous is in one hour,” Lucy said. “I suggest you drive a little faster, since you’re in such a hurry to be a hero.”
“There has to be a reason they’re meeting at Yankee Stadium,” August said.
“A demonstration,” I said. “You want to prove a bullet can truly, without fail, seek out a single target among thousands? A crowd is the best way to make your point, without a doubt. So who’s the target?”
“Any of the star players,” August said. “And the governor was scheduled to throw out the first pitch, I checked, but he had to cancel.”
I looked at her, thinking of the photos of the kids I’d seen on Zaid’s computer. “Kids. Are they going to kill a kid at this game?”
Lucy said, “I told you, I don’t know if there’s even a demonstration. That’s between Edward and the buyer. It seems awfully risky to me.”
I said to August, “Do you have a liaison with the Yankees security or police detail?”
“Yes, but I ask them anything, they’ll want to know my source. And I’m supposed to be on leave.”
“Do they know that?”
“I imagine not.”
“Say the tip’s anonymous. Call. Find out if there are any groups of kids being brought in.”
August phoned his contact. “Hey, Lieutenant Garcia, this is August Holdwine at the Manhattan CIA office.” Pause. “Yeah, I’m fine, thanks. I’m kind of dodging channels here, but I thought I better talk direct to you. Do you have any groups of kids coming in for today’s game? We picked up some chatter that talked about targeting a kid.” He listened. “Okay, no, I don’t have more than that.” He listened some more. “Can you give me a rundown?”
“If Edward sees you coming, our son is dead,” Lucy said. “Just so you know.”
“Not if he gets caught first.”
“I wouldn’t be willing to risk it,” she said, as though I were the bad parent.
August got off the phone. “Twenty-seven kids groups there today, everything from orphans being brought in from a Catholic orphanage in Queens to Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and prep-school groups. They’re going to put extra security around them all, but Garcia needs to know more.”
“We don’t have more.”
“This is getting people’s attention, Sam.” August glanced at me in the car. “I suspect the police are going to want to talk to me as soon as I get to the stadium. I can’t back you up if I’m chatting up Garcia. They’ll want threat assessments-”
“Good.” I raised my hand.
“Like a cop can stop that bullet once it’s fired. Nothing can,” Lucy said.
“We find him before he ever fires,” I said.
“You risk our child to save a stranger’s life,” Lucy said. “I should have killed you in Amsterdam, Sam. At least our son would be safe. If you’re wrong…”
I had been so wrong about so much. I couldn’t be wrong now.
97
I expect he’ll be alone,” Edward said into the phone. “Do you have the sample for him? In case I need it?”
“Yes. I took the precaution. I’ll see you shortly, Edward, and I look forward to the demonstration.”
“Yes, I think the whole world will be impressed,” Edward said. Bright sunshine kissed New York City; the sky gleamed a faultless blue. He felt happy. He was nearly done with his trudge along a very dark road. He missed Yasmin, to his surprise. He had made her, shaped her into the person most useful to him, and he wondered if he had given her up too easily. Ah. Soon he would have enough money where he could attract a woman who required much less effort to bend to his will.
A marvelous day, it was, to prove that fear works wonders.
98
It was a gorgeous afternoon in New York. The sun smiled down like a saint. August already had our tickets and we moved through the crowd.
August’s phone rang. He answered and listened. “Yeah, I don’t have more information, Garcia. Kids. Credible, I don’t know how much. You can’t take the risk, though… yeah. What? What? Um, okay.”
He hung up the phone. “Garcia had to go; he’s dealing with the governor’s security detail.”
“You said-”
“He un-cancelled. The governor is here to throw out the pitch,” August said. “His son apparently begged him to do it.”
The governor of New York was in his late forties, a man named Hapscomb, popular, but with no plans for higher office. “That’s it,” I said. “Surely if you want to demo a weapon, you kill a prominent person.”
But killing a governor-it lacked the impact of killing a president or a religious leader. It seemed a smaller stage for Edward’s ambitions, especially with such a powerful weapon. And none of the people in the photos were politicians, at least none that I recognized.
We watched thousands of people settling into their seats. The game would begin in minutes. I scanned the ring of the stadium, looking for a likely spot for a sniper to fire from. But the security details would already be watching those.
Lucy saw what I was doing and shook her head. “As long as he’s in range, Edward doesn’t have to set up a careful position to shoot the governor,” she said. “He can just fire. The bullet will do most of the work, if there’s nothing in its way.”
“If he’s delivering the guns here too, he needs seclusion.” I held her between us, a firm grip on her arm, steering her through the crowd, August on the other side of her.
Fifty guns. Fifty bullets. Fifty states. Fifty governors? But none of the people in the files were governors. “This is the product demo, isn’t it? And then the buyer will move onto the next targets.”
“You’ve missed the other timing advantage of this gun,” she said. “God, I thought you were smarter, Sam.”
Any fool could assassinate. Fools had been doing it for centuries. But now…“With fifty guns all at once, you
