‘They’re already executing attacks.’ Luke paused. ‘But I think these attacks, they’re not Hellfire. Hellfire is bigger. On their website they are chattering about the attacks, but there’s no word on Hellfire. Hellfire has got to be something distinct from this group of small attacks; it’s much more tied to this money they want. It’s not unusual in terrorist psychology to consider smaller jobs as dry runs, or as qualifiers for more dangerous work.’
‘You’re right. As awful as they are, these attacks are too small. Too localized.’ Drummond frowned. ‘Maybe they need that fifty million to finance a huge new series of operations, and you not giving it to us is leaving open the chance that the Night Road will get their hands on the money.’
‘If someone else is listening to or watching us,’ Luke shouted at the ceiling, ‘if they have Aubrey, I want to talk to them. Please.’
Drummond made a choked laugh. ‘You’re a smart kid. You figured it out we were under a camera. I’m pleased.’
The phone began to ring again. Drummond answered it. He listened and then said, ‘For God’s sakes. He gives us what he knows first, then we decide.’
Drummond turned away to go into the other room, as if to finish his discussion.
Luke stood and picked up the chair and the voice on the phone must have warned him because Drummond turned. Luke swung the chair with all his might and it crashed and splintered into Drummond’s head. He didn’t pause. He hit him again and Drummond went down.
Drummond groaned, the back of his head bloodied, his eyelids at half-mast. The phone lay on the floor.
Luke picked it up. ‘Hello? Did you see Drummond’s taking a nap?’
Silence. The line was dead. He dropped the phone and looked up again where he thought the hidden cameras might be. ‘I’m not playing your game. All right?’ he yelled to the air. ‘I want Aubrey back. I’ll give you all the information on the Night Road, the accounts, everything I know, but you give me Aubrey and you tell me who you people are. Do you hear me?’
Drummond groaned. ‘I’m sorry,’ Luke said. He dragged Drummond into the walk-in pantry, slammed the door, and jammed the other kitchen chair under the knob. Leaving Drummond with the cake mixes and the bottles of beer, he turned back toward where the cameras might be hidden.
‘Hey! Why are you hiding behind an old man?’ Luke taunted.
The phone rang. He answered it.
‘Let Drummond out of the pantry.’ It was Aubrey. ‘They have me. You have to let him out.’
‘Aubrey. Are you okay?’
‘I’m all right. They haven’t hurt me, Luke, I think these are the good guys.’
‘Let me talk to whoever’s in charge.’
A few moments passed. For a moment the silence made Luke think they’d been disconnected. A man’s voice came on the line, one he didn’t recognize. ‘Release Mr Drummond. You must get out of the building. Now.’ The accent was French – slight but noticeable.
‘What’s happening?’
‘Get out of the building now, it’s under attack.’
‘By who?’ He opened the closet door and dragged Drummond out. He was groggy, bleeding from the ear and the temple.
Luke put the phone back to his ear. ‘Who the hell are you people?’
‘Get out, Luke, get out of there now!’
He hung up the phone and started to search the apartment for a weapon.
He found a bedroom, a small office next to it. Inside the desk drawers, he found a manila file folder, crammed in crookedly as though it had been put away in haste.
In it were papers. The first was a news account of his father’s death; the plane that had gone down with several noted professors aboard. A file on Ace Beere, the man who had confessed to sabotaging the plane before he blew his brains out. A large sticky note said check airport surveillance photos from last Book Club flight, compare with Night Road suspect, ask photo archive for facial comparison and confirmation.
Under the note was an old photo of Mouser. Then a new photo, that looked like it had been taken from a security camera, stamped LAKEFRONT AIR PARK, Mouser and Snow heading toward an entrance. Another image of Mouser, taken from what might have been a traffic camera on Armitage, during the chase from Eric’s shooting. The photo was grainier but it still looked like Mouser.
Luke’s stomach felt a dark pang. Mouser. Was he connected to his father’s death? And how could Quicksilver access these surveillance cameras?
The final document was attached to a photo of the man who died in Houston. The photo was grainy, slightly hazed by sunlight. It looked like it had been taken in a desert setting; a long stretch of sand lay behind the man. In the photo, his father stood next to the man. Hands on shoulders. They were dressed in military garb, guns at their sides. Next to his father stood Drummond, smiling, an arm around his father’s shoulders.
Attached to the photo was a readout, a service record from the State Department, of a man named Allen Clifford. He had retired from the State Department two weeks after Luke’s dad died.
He hurried back to the kitchen. Drummond sat up from laying curled on the floor, holding his head. ‘Drummond!’
‘What?’ A harsh hiss, low and pained.
‘I’m really sorry. Your friends say we have to get out of here now, we’re under attack.’
He focused his gaze on a blinking red light on the kitchen wall. ‘Someone’s trying to get past the security systems.’ He rose unsteadily to his feet. ‘We have unwanted company, Luke. The Night Road must have tracked you here. I hope you’re ready for a fight.’
40
Ten minutes earlier, Snow knocked at the door of the Quicksilver building. The doorman stood up, peered at her both on the camera that monitored the street and through the bullet-proof glass.
‘Yes, I’m here to see Mr Drummond at Quicksilver Risk Management,’ Snow said with a coy, slightly crooked smile.
The doorman did not seem at all impressed with her smile. He gave her a hard, measured stare.
‘No sales calls,’ he said through the intercom.
‘I’m not a sales person. I represent a software company that has already registered the trademark of Quicksilver Risk Management in the state of New York and I’ve been trying every way I can to get in contact with Quicksilver at this address and nothing has worked.’ She tapped her foot on the pavement and ran a hand through her snow-white hair.
‘We’re not interested.’
‘Well, you might be interested that my client is planning to sue you for use of a registered trademark. And if you don’t let me in to speak with someone in charge, then I shall simply have to summon the police and the press here and say that you are refusing to accept legal papers.’
The doorman was not privy to the name of the building’s owner. And he privately thought the police wouldn’t care less. But the woman was making a fuss and one of the overriding descriptions of his job was to keep the building out of public and police notice.
She stepped inside as he deactivated the electronic locks on the door. She reached into her purse and pulled out a thick envelope. ‘Honestly, how do your clients get a hold of you?’
The doorman reached for the package and the end of it exploded. The bullet tore through his flesh like it was paper and he toppled toward the granite counter.
She thought of the uniformed men who had swarmed the burning compound, the only home she’d ever known, and she was glad the man was dead. She walked to the front door and admitted Mouser. She propped the door open with a metal wedge. They dragged the doorman’s body out of sight.
They hurried toward the elevator. She swiped an electronic code scanner card, connected to a modified handheld computer, that Sweet Bird had given them to unlock the elevator; it tested thousands of combinations within thirty seconds, scored the right one, and the doors closed. She pressed the button for the top floor.
