“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.
“Just give me the wire.”
“Who are you? You’re not CIA.”
“I was. They didn’t pay worth shit.”
“So you’re freelance.”
She smiled. “Sort of. I’m doing this particular job for OPEC.”
“OPEC?”
“Yeah. And I’m sure you’re smart enough to figure out where OPEC comes in.”
“No,” he said, buying time.
“What do you think that piece of wire would do to their business? You could kiss the petroleum market good-bye. Along with the gas-powered car. So give me the wire, big boy. I really don’t want to kill you, Gideon, but I will if you don’t do what I say.”
“So how much are they paying you?”
“Ten million.”
“You sold yourself short.” He thought back to Hong Kong, how she’d just happened to have a diplomatic embosser in her bag. That alone should have made him suspicious. He recalled how she always seemed to be working alone, no backup, no partner. Very un-CIA.
Nodding Crane was right — he’d been a fool.
She stuck out her hand. Of course, she might kill him anyway. But maybe, just maybe, the memory of their time together would stop her…He reached into his pocket and handed her the wire.
“That’s a good boy.” Still covering him, she held it up, scrutinizing it. Then she balled it in her fist and took fresh aim.
“Wow,” she said. “I’m really sorry to do this.”
And Gideon realized she meant it: she truly was sorry. But she was going to do it anyway.
He closed his eyes.
69
A single shot rang out from the darkness. Gideon felt nothing: no pain, no impact of a bullet. His eyes flew open. At first, nothing seemed to have changed. Then he saw the blank look on Mindy’s face, the clean bullet hole between her eyes. For a moment she stood there. Then she toppled backward into the dirt.
Gideon snatched the wire from her twitching hand and ran.
More shots ripped through the seats, spraying him with wood chips and vegetation. He burst out the rear of the bleachers and made a beeline for the boat. It was his only chance for survival.
Ahead stretched the post-Armageddon suburban neighborhood. He sprinted down the leafy, ruined streets, turned a corner, then another. He could hear Nodding Crane pounding along behind him, slowly catching up.
To go into a house would mean being trapped. He couldn’t outrun his enemy. And he realized now he was never going to make the boat.
He doubled back at the next street, turning corners to keep from giving his pursuer a clear field of fire. He had no gun, no way of defending himself. He should have taken Mindy’s .45, but it was either that or the wire — there hadn’t been time for both.
Nodding Crane was gaining steadily. And Gideon was gasping so hard it felt as if his broken ribs would puncture his lungs. What now?
The last street ended. Ahead lay the open field adjacent to the Dynamo Room. He’d been here before. This was the area the guard had carefully detoured around. That field’s off-limits, he’d said. There’s a lot of places on the island that are dangerous.
What was the danger here? Maybe this was an opportunity. It sure as hell was his last chance.
He sprinted across the field, zigzagging as he went. He could hear Nodding Crane still closing the gap, not bothering to stop and fire but instead using the opportunity to get close enough so that he couldn’t miss. Gideon glanced back: sure enough, there was the running figure, only fifty yards away now.
Halfway across the field Gideon realized he had made a serious mistake. He would never make it to the other side and there was nothing here that offered any chance of escape, no unexpected danger, no evidence of pits or old structures. Just a big damn open field without cover. The ground was solid and level. It was a race — and Nodding Crane was the faster runner.
He glanced back, his legs churning. Nodding Crane was now only thirty yards behind.
As Gideon turned his head toward the unattainable far end of the field, his eye caught the monstrous, crumbling smokestack rising from the Dynamo Room. Abruptly, he understood. The danger wasn’t in the field itself — it was that smokestack. It was old and unstable. That was the reason the guard had detoured: the damn stack looked like it might fall at any moment.
An old iron stairway spiraled up to the top.
He veered off, running toward the smokestack. Clawing his way through the undergrowth, he reached its base. He hesitated just a moment: this was a one-way trip to nowhere.
Fuck it.
He leapt onto the rusting stairs and began climbing. A trio of shots sounded from behind, smacking the bricks around him, spraying him with chips and dust. But the stairs spiraled around the curve of the stack, providing cover.
The stairway was old and rusted, and as Gideon climbed it rumbled and screeched, sagging and swaying with his every step, the rust raining down on him from the sudden strain. A step broke and he seized the railing, swinging briefly out into space before recovering, grasping the next step and hauling himself back up.
As he continued, climbing recklessly higher and higher, he heard a groan of metal below and felt a new vibration. Nodding Crane was coming up after him.
Naturally. This was a stupid move. Nodding Crane would chase him to the top and then shoot him from below.
As Gideon mounted higher, he could feel the stack vibrating in the buffeting winds, with an accompanying grinding and crackling sound of crumbling mortar.
Now the true insanity of what he had done began to hit home. The storm was shaking the entire stack, which felt like it was going to collapse at any moment. There was no outcome he could imagine in which he survived this chase to the top.
A single shot rang out, the bullet snipping the railing by his hand. He scrambled upward faster, keeping the turning of the staircase as cover. A flash of lightning illuminated the ghastly scene: the island, the ruins, the crumbling stack, the rotten stair, the storm-tossed sea beyond.
“Crew!” came a call from below. “Crew!” Nodding Crane’s peculiar, flat voice pierced the howling wind.
He paused, listening. The stack groaned, crackled, swayed in the wind.
“You’re trapped, you fool! Bring me down the wire and I’ll let you live!”
Gideon resumed his climb. Another shot rang out, but it went wild and he knew Nodding Crane must be having a hell of a time firing accurately, given the swaying of the stack, the howling wind and rain. And there was something else: he thought he detected a note of fear in Nodding Crane’s voice. And no wonder. That was progress of a kind. Strangely, Gideon felt no fear himself. This was the end — there was no way he was coming down off this smokestack alive. What did it matter? He was already a dead man.
The thought gave him a strange feeling of relief. That had been his secret weapon, the one Nodding Crane was unaware of: he was a man living on borrowed time.
As he climbed higher, heavier wind gusts boomed around him, so strong at times that they almost tore him from the stairway. Another lightning bolt split the sky, the crash of thunder following instantaneously. He heard a screech of metal as a section of the stairway detached from the stack, the bolts popping loose like gunfire, and the detached section swung out over the void, with Gideon clinging to the railing. He gripped the metal with all his might as the wind swung him back, slamming him against the bricks. The iron held until the wild oscillations of the stair finally calmed down. He found purchase, his feet back on the shaking iron steps, and resumed climbing.