“We said we’d stick together.” He thought he saw for a moment a flicker of relief on Pilgrim’s face. There, then gone. He must have imagined it.
“They’re gonna chase us hard. You ready?”
“Yes.”
Pilgrim tore along a road of houses of patchwork brick and wood, homes trying to arise from the drowned soil, stripped down and rebuilt.
“I can still hear that plane.” Ben leaned out the window. “He’s banking, trying to keep us in his sights.”
Pilgrim swerved the wheel hard, catching sight of a police car flashing sirens in the rearview, and he wrenched the pickup into a two-wheeling turn toward the thoroughfare of St. Claude Avenue and headed west.
A deputy’s car picked them up, followed, lights blazing.
Traffic was light and Pilgrim swerved and accelerated around cars, ducking onto side roads, and then back onto St. Claude. Ben braced himself for the impact that would surely come when Pilgrim miscalculated and rammed into a bumper or a barrier. Pilgrim nearly clipped a construction sign that marked where the street was being repaired, power-turned hard, drove across two yards, and veered down a side street. He was out of sight of the pursuing deputy’s car and he stood on the brakes, revved into a grassy parking lot full of cars and trucks, a banner announcing a Saturday night revival meeting, presumably connected to a church that sat back from the street, in redbrick grandeur. Slammed on brakes, nestled in between two large trucks in a loading area for the event. The jet went overhead.
They ducked down and Ben thought, This is how it ends, me arrested with an ex-spy in a church parking lot. The jet’s whine passed, the deputy’s sirens faded, and they eased out of the truck. Pilgrim started feeling along bumpers for key cases, Ben testing for unlocked doors.
More sirens sounded, patrols responding to calls about the downed plane. The energetic strains of modern worship music rose from the tent that stood pitched near the church. Then the sirens faded again. The buzz of a helicopter replaced the churning whine of the Homeland plane.
“I got a winner,” Pilgrim said, pulling loose a key box from a bumper. “Come on, before the helicopter spots us. They can fly lower and slower, stick to us like glue.”
They pulled away from the revival in a sedate blue Ford sedan.
“I hope this isn’t the preacher’s car,” Ben said. “We’re going to hell.”
“I’m the only one hell-bound. We’ll find you a place to lay low.” They could hear the helicopter widening its circles. Pilgrim wheeled the sedan back into traffic, at normal speed.
“Lay low. Forget it. He killed Emily. I’m not sitting on my ass.”
“Ben. Hector specifically took over the Cellar for this big job. That means I have to fight several people from the Cellar. It’ll be like fighting a whole gang of me. You did your part. You don’t have to take this on…”
“I know I’m not good at shooting and fighting, but I can help you.”
“Not now. I promise you, I will kill him for you. For everyone he’s hurt.” Pilgrim’s mouth became a thin slash. “For Teach, and for your wife. You won’t have a long wait.”
“Good Lord. You know where Hector and the Cellar are at.” Of course he knew, and he wasn’t going to tell Vochek or the authorities until he knew what kind of reception awaited him and Ben in New Orleans.
“I have an idea,” Pilgrim said.
“The Cellar had a safe house here.”
“Good guess.”
“If Hector has them believing you turned against Teach-same as Green and De La Pena did-they’ll kill you,” Ben said.
“Yes, they will. They don’t know me from any other jerk on the streets. Hector has all of Teach’s pass codes, bank information-he’ll seem very legit in their eyes. I will look like the enemy.”
“Then let me fight him from another angle. Barker called someone at the Hotel Marquis de Lafayette. Last person he called before he left that house, to betray you and Teach.”
“Yeah.”
“I want to know who that person is. We know Hector’s working for Vochek’s boss on security. But maybe he’s working for someone else, too.”
“Fine,” Pilgrim said. “You go get phone records, I’ll go shoot people.”
“You better calm down,” Ben said, “or you’re going to make a mistake and get killed.”
Pilgrim pulled the sedan over to the side of the road. “Pardon my anger. I’ve lost my life, same as you. But I’ve done it twice now. First I lost my family, my career; and now I’ve lost Teach and the Cellar. I wanted to retire two days ago. I wanted to leave and be in the real world. He killed my hope.” For a moment he was silent, fingers clenching above the steering wheel. “But there’s no place out here for me now. As long as I could stay in the Cellar, then I could hope it could be different for me… that I could have a real life. But I can’t. Vochek and Homeland, they’d put me in a cell, have me talking for years.”
“You offered to do that for Vochek.”
“I was desperate, Ben. To get here. Because Hector’s not winning. Do you understand me?”
“Yes. I hate the bastard as much as you do. That’s why I want you to let me help you…”
“Call me on my cell if you find anything interesting in the phone records. I’ll call you when I’ve killed Hector.” He pulled the pilot’s stolen cell phone from Ben’s hands, activated the screen, memorized the number.
“Assume we succeed, then what?”
“I walk away. You negotiate an immunity, I’ll feed you plenty to give Homeland that’ll be worth gold to them. It’ll buy you your life back.”
“Buy your own life back. You’ll always be looking over your shoulder.”
“No. I won’t.” Pilgrim drove in silence for several minutes and then turned onto Poydras. On the streets were clumps of tourists, not like in pre-Katrina days, but more than Ben had expected. “Here.” Pilgrim pulled a few hundred dollars, hoarded from his storage unit, slid them to Ben. “You won’t be able to get the records without bribery. Nothing’s cheap. The hotel’s a few blocks down that way. Good luck.”
“You almost hope I get caught.”
“You don’t want to be in the cross fire, Ben.”
Ben offered his hand. Pilgrim shook it. “Sorry. Not good at good-byes.”
“Good-bye, Randall.” Ben stepped out of the car. First and only time to use his real name, the one Vochek mentioned.
“Bye, Ben. I’m sorry. For everything.”
Ben closed the door and the car raced off into the night.
38
The Cellar. They arrived, one at a time, taking rental cars from Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. The safe house was a two-story family home on the edge of the suburb of Metairie, in a neighborhood spared the Katrina flooding. Hector felt like a magician summoning spirits to do his bidding as each of them arrived, and he greeted each at the door with the pass code that Teach had given him-and with their real name.
Six in all. Two women, four men. The six of them had never been in the same room together, and he could see them glancing at each other, trying not to study each other overmuch. Trying not to be remembered or to remember.
Jackie stood in the back to the room, arms crossed, wearing sunglasses like he was a bad-ass.
“I’m afraid I bear tragic news. Teach is dead,” Hector said when they had all gathered. He pushed a button on his laptop, which was hooked to a projector. A slightly grainy photo of Teach lying dead on the carpet. He’d snapped the picture with his cell phone when he’d run back to the apartment, knowing proof of her death might be useful.
One of the men rubbed his eyes as though weary. One of the women gasped. The rest were silent.
“Let me assure you that the Cellar continues as it always has. The transition to my leadership will be as seamless as possible. Like you all, I am ex-CIA. I worked in Special Ops as deep cover. I currently run, in my regular life, a private security firm. But I’ve worked with Teach in partnership with the Cellar for the past several years.” It
