After hanging up I sat for a long time, just staring at the phone. I knew I should call Garth immediately, but I just couldn't will myself to pick up the receiver and dial the number of his precinct station house. I felt gutted, incapable of movement or decision. I had become something much worse than a mere stalking horse being used by both sides; I had been transformed into a Judas goat given just enough tether to track Veil and, in the process, target people. Loan Ka and his family and Kathy had survived the war in Southeast Asia; they'd survived Colonel Po, as well as the postwar ravages of the Pathet Lao.
What they hadn't survived was talking to me.
And if and when I found Veil, then Veil, Garth, and I would be killed. There was no longer much subtlety to the plans of Veil's hunters.
Calling Garth wouldn't ease my rage and despair, and I knew that I would continue to feel paralyzed unless I somehow struck back. I couldn't involve Garth in any plans for revenge because he was on the investigation in an official capacity. There was nothing Garth could do but investigate and report, which was not the situation with me. I could kill, and that was precisely what I planned to do.
I checked to make sure that the magazines and the chambers of both the Beretta and Seecamp were fully loaded, then replaced them in my ankle and shoulder holsters. I rummaged around in Garth's closets and cabinets until I found what I wanted-a twelve-foot-long electric extension. Feeling as if I were moving in slow motion at the bottom of a sea of grief and hatred, I put on my parka, dropped the extension cord into one of the pockets, then walked out of the apartment.
Bypassing the main elevators and the stairs, I went into a storage area at one end of the hall and summoned the freight elevator. I descended to the basement, got out, cut through the laundry room where a young couple were doing their wash, banged my way out of the building through a rear delivery entrance. I walked up a long, sloping concrete ramp to the sidewalk without bothering to look around to see if my watchers might have this side of the building covered. I didn't care who might be watching me, because I didn't think anyone would try to stop me before they realized what I was up to, and by then it would be too late. I had one big move left to me, and I was determined to make it regardless of the consequences.
After going two blocks, I turned left, went down the block and crossed at the corner, putting me on the same side of the avenue as the Con Ed van. I waited for a fairly large group of pedestrians to come my way and fell into step behind them, keeping to the inside of the sidewalk, away from the street. I took the extension cord from my pocket, tied a small loop at one end. As the group I was moving with came abreast of the van I cut across the sidewalk, ducked under the wooden barricade. New Yorkers are notorious for ignoring virtually everything that doesn't directly concern them, so I wasn't too concerned about being challenged by anyone but a cop as I hopped up on the running board at the back of the van. I dropped the small loop over the top of one of the handles on the twin doors, looped the rest of the cord tightly around both handles. Then I stepped off the running board, went around, and looked up at the side.
Any concerns I'd had about the van's being nothing more than what it appeared to be were instantly dispelled when I saw the small, glass-covered viewing portals cut into the side of the van, partially disguised in the heavy block lettering of the Con Ed logo. I'd hit my mark, and now somebody, even if it was just a foot soldier, was going to pay for the murders in Seattle, after I got the answers to a number of important questions.
With a grim smile and wave up at the central viewing portal, I jumped into the cab of the van. I'd been prepared to hot-wire the vehicle, but somebody had thoughtfully left the keys in the ignition. After pulling up the seat as far as it would go, I turned on the engine, put the van into gear, and rumbled forward through the barricade, easing my way out into the traffic.
Checking the rearview mirror on the far side of the van, I could see that the unlikely sight of me hijacking a Con Ed van had finally attracted some attention; a knot of fifteen or twenty people were standing beside the broken barricade, some of them excitedly pointing in my direction. What I needed was some privacy and seclusion, things I wasn't likely to find with a stolen van in the middle of Manhattan.
I cut across town to the West Side Highway, headed north. I kept checking in my rearview mirror, but I saw no cops and heard no sirens, and when I made it to the George Washington Bridge I felt I was home free-at least as far as pursuit was concerned. I still had some very dangerous cargo to handle.
I crossed the bridge on the upper level, got off in New Jersey at the Fort Lee exit. I circled on a ramp under the bridge, turned left on a street that led to the entrance to a park on the very edge of the New Jersey Palisades, overlooking the Hudson River. The park was closed for the winter, with a chain blocking off the access road. However, the weight of the van easily snapped the chain, and I rumbled in low gear up the snow-covered road into a tree-shrouded parking area. I turned off the engine and ran, slipping and sliding, back down to the street. There weren't many cars, and I was hoping nobody would notice-or care about-the tire tracks on the access road. I pulled the chain taut, managed to tie the broken links together with my handkerchief, then ran back up into the parking area.
There was no sound from inside the box of the van-no pounding, shouting, or cursing, as might have been expected from a man or men who'd suddenly found themselves trapped and being carted around town to an unknown destination. I certainly hoped I hadn't stolen the van when the owners had been out to lunch.
I went to the edge of the parking area and poked around under the bare trees until I found what I wanted-a long, firm stick. I trimmed one of the ends into a small fork, then returned to the van. I stopped a few feet to the side of the doors, drew my Beretta, and poked with my stick at the wrapping around the handles of the doors. It took some time and doing, but I finally managed to unwind the extension cord, leaving only the small loop over the door handle nearest to me. I threw away the stick and yanked on the extension cord. Both doors flew open, and in the same instant a fusillade of bullets poured out through the opening. I counted about ten shots in four or five seconds, from what sounded like two handguns. I waited until there was a lull in the shooting, then sucked in a deep breath, stepped forward, and peered into the interior of the van through a crack between a door and the side.
Inside the van, banks of electronic equipment lined two of the three walls; the men had not only been watching, but listening, probably by means of a bug somewhere in Garth's apartment; telephone conversations could have been monitored by means of an NSA satellite. There were also cots, a portable toilet, and a small refrigerator-all the comforts of home.
Two men dressed in fur-lined leather coats were crouched toward the rear of the van, their guns pointed toward the opening. They must have caught a glimpse of my head, because suddenly they both turned their guns in my direction and fired simultaneously; one bullet ricocheted off the metal floor, while the other flew through the crack and passed just over my head. I fell to the ground, rolled to the opposite side of the van, came up firing. I caught one man in the chest, and the other in the right eye; both died instantly. I swung my gun up, leveling it on the barrel chest of the big man with the triangular face who was sprawled across the top of a bank of electronic equipment against the right wall, clutching at a ceiling strut for support.
'I'm coming down now, Frederickson,' the man said evenly.
'You do that.'
Gripping the strut with both hands, the big man swung down to the floor, landing easily on the balls of his feet just in front of the corpses of his two dead companions. Now he was all business, without a trace of the effeminacy he had displayed on the plane. Even standing still, and despite his formidable size, he gave the impression of someone with grace of movement, unexpected speed, and great strength. His face with its broad forehead was impassive, the pale eyes revealing nothing. If he was worried about what I was going to do to him, he didn't show it-and that worried me.
The big man gestured disdainfully with his thumb at the bodies behind him. 'I told them that what they wanted to do wasn't such a good idea. You're pretty clever, Frederickson. I believe I've underestimated you. I won't do it again.'
'I don't give a shit what you do, pal, as long as you're doing it hopping on one leg,' I said as I aimed my Beretta at his right kneecap and fired. It was an accurate shot; the problem was that the big man didn't stay where he was supposed to, and the bullet smashed into a computer console behind him.
With quickness matched in my experience only by Veil Kendry, at the moment I had pulled the trigger the man had grabbed the strut above his head, swung up and out of the bullet's path. As I started to turn the gun on him for a second shot, I saw him release his right hand from the strut and flick his wrist. I knew enough to duck, and the star-shaped
