She pivoted and held up a hand to shush him. “Hear that?”
He heard a car engine gunning in the ravine. No way that could be his. They both leaned over the rail, squinting into the dark.
“When I was hiding in the brush down there I spotted another van just like the one that drove us off the road. On my way back up here I noticed that the two guys I gassed were gone.”
“You think they took the bodies with them?”
“I’ll bet on it. This wasn’t a couple of beered-up Teamsters. These people had a plan and they were following it by the numbers, military style.”
Patrick noticed her stiffen, as if a bell had just rung. “What?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
As the sound of the van’s engine faded, Patrick stared again into the dark ravine, trying to locate his BMW, and was struck by how perfectly their “accident” had been planned. If he had trouble locating his car in the shadows below—and he had a fair idea where it should be—a passing car wouldn’t have a clue.
A shudder cut through his body. He began to tremble inside.
“Don’t tell me ‘nothing,’” he said. “Somebody tried to kill us and—”
“They were going to shoot me up with something first…to ask me questions.”
“Oh, Christ! What are we into here? Whowere they?”
“SimGen, I suspect.”
“No way! With their clout in court and Congress, they don’t need to hire killers.”
“Who’s got more to lose?”
“No, Romy, I don’t buy it—I won’t buy it. They’re—”
She leaned close. Intensity radiated from her like heat from a reactor core. “They’re hiding something, Patrick. And whatever it is, the two of us—you, me—we’ve touched a nerve. We’ve somehow threatened that secret.”
“Just great,” he said. “One of the largest corporations in the world has painted a bull’s-eye on my back.” He held up his hands and watched them shake. “Look at me—I’m a wreck.”
“The shakes are normal,” Romy said, holding out her own trembling hands. “Just excess adrenaline. It’ll pass. How do you feel otherwise?”
“How does terrified sound?” He wasn’t ashamed to admit it: He was shaken to his core. “It’s not every day someone tries to kill me.”
“The all-important question is: Have they scared you off?”
“Oh, they’ve scared me, but not off,” he said, hoping he sounded a lot braver than he felt. “You see, they made a big mistake when they ruined my practice: It left me with only one client. Ican’t quit.”
Romy smiled at him, and he sensed genuine regard in her eyes. Somehow that made the terrors of the past few minutes almost worthwhile. Almost.
“And I’ll tell you something else,” he said, feeling a growing anger blunt the edge of his fear. “I’m still not convinced SimGen was behind what happened here, but just in case it was, I’m putting them on notice.”
Her eyes never left his face. “How?”
“I’m sure I saw the word ‘SimGen’ on the side of the van that sideswiped us. How about you?”
“Come to think of it,” she said, touching an index finger to her temple, “I believe I did too.”
“Of course you did. We’ll make sure it’s in the police report, and I’m going to mention it in every interview over the next week or so. SimGen will deny it of course, but a suspicion will be implanted in the public mind. SimGen will bepraying nothing happens to us.”
“I love it,” she said. “Turns the tables in a wonderfully underhanded way.”
“I aced Underhanded 101 and 102 in law school.”
“I’ll bet you did.” She pulled a PCA from her coat pocket. “Time to call the cops.”
11
SUSSEX COUNTY, NJ
“I understand,” Luca Portero said for what seemed like the hundredth or thousandth time, trying to calm the voice on the other end of the hard-encrypted line.
Truth was, he didn’t understand. Not one damn bit.
He rubbed his burning eyes. Somewhere outside this sealed office in the subbasement of SimGen’s Basic Research building, the sun was preparing to rise. Luca hadn’t slept in twenty-three hours, but he wasn’t the least bit physically tired. The fatigue weighing on him like a lead-lined shroud was mental, from hammering his brain for an explanation as to how such a simple op could go so fatally wrong.
“Doyou understand, Portero?” said the voice.
It belonged to Darryl Lister, Luca’s old CO, the man who’d brought him into SIRG. Just like back in the service, Lister was his direct superior, and the next stop up the ladder from Luca. Lister was understandably upset about being awakened ahead of his alarm clock with the news that two of their men were dead. He’d hung up on Luca, then called him back half an hour later—after checking with the SIRG higher-ups, no doubt.
“Then maybe,” Lister continued, “just maybe you can helpme understand how six pros go out to process a couple of soft-shelled yuppies, and two come back in body bags, while the yups are still walking around. You were running the op. Explain, please.”
Lister’s tone surprised Luca. He sounded nothing like the Captain he’d known back in their Special Forces days. Hell, they’d stalked through Kabul and Baghdad together; he was one of the few men in the world Luca respected. Why was he coming on so managerial?
Couldn’t worry about that now. Had to give him answers.
Luca once more reviewed the set-up, groping for a flaw. He’d handpicked the men, all seasoned SIRG operatives. Using a bogus identity he’d personally rented the vans from two different companies—could have used unmarked SimGen vehicles but didn’t want to chance a trace. Then last night, after weeks of surveillance on Sullivan and Cadman, a golden opportunity: the two of them together driving through Westchester in the dead hours of the morning. A couple of quick calls and everyone was in position, waiting for it to go down.
So far, so good. Not a hint that it was going to go down the toilet.
He reran his mental tape of what he’d learned from debriefing the survivors. According to Snyder and Lowery—the wheel man and his back-up in the first van—the hit on Sullivan’s car had been perfect: over the rail and down the slope. As planned, they’d driven away and left their rented van at a body shop that knows how to keep a secret.
After that the story murked up. The two survivors of the wet team, Cruz and Hooper, had spent too much time recovering from their doses of Mace to see anything. And they were still limping from the tap dance the Cadman woman had done on them.
Luca shook his head, torn between rage and admiration. Some kind of broad, that Romy. He couldn’t help but admire the way she’d engineered the raid on that sim whorehouse. And then she’d made asses of two of his best men. Maybe they were still alive thanks to her. He could use someone like her.
When Cruz and Hooper could finally see and walk again, they’d found Ricker and Green dead; they’d gathered up the corpses and hauled ass out of there in the second van.
“I put Ricker in charge,” Luca said.
“Good choice,” Lister replied. “I’d have done the same. But Ricker is dead, and that’s what disturbs me, Portero. How does Ricker wind up with a cracked skull? Who do you know who could take Ricker in hand-to-hand?”
“Nobody.”
“Damn right. He was a fucking animal.”
No argument there. Ricker wasn’t just big and tough, he was experienced and smart. No one was going to take him down without a struggle, and not without him taking one or two down with him. But according to Cruz and Hooper, they never heard a sound.
And Ricker’s body…his throat had been crushed—that explained the silence—and his head had been smashed. Looked like he’d leaned out of a speeding subway and got clocked by a support girder. Same with Green.