He saw unopened boxes of Chinese figurines, knockoffs of Swedish furniture, a desk, a scattering of papers. On the bulletin board were photos of Eric and Aubrey: at dinner, on a boat, walking along Lake Michigan.
Where would they hide the bombs? He started to open a box and thought: no. Mouser’s here, he would have checked them, and plus he has to show them how to work the mechanisms. Whatever packaging the bombs were in, they’ve been opened.
He pulled one box open. Inside were gray uniforms and surgical-style masks, folded neatly. There were a stack of photo IDs, for a company called Ready-Able. At least twenty. They were photo IDs, with bar codes for electronic access. The first ones read NYC in small print. He thumbed through the others. Washington, Atlanta, Dallas, Chicago, Boston.
Each was keyed with the name of the mass transit system in the city. DART for Dallas, MARTA for Atlanta, CTA for Chicago, MBTA for Boston, Metro for Washington, MTA for New York. Henry had lied. It wasn’t shopping centers. It was the transit systems. A hundred-plus bombs for the rail and bus systems in six major cities, separated by only a time zone, so a simultaneous attack would be devastating. Thousands would die; the sheer number of bombs would ensure a mind-numbing tally.
On a table across from the desk he saw a half-dozen boxes that had been opened. In Spanish they said on the side Botiquin de Primeros Auxiolios. His Spanish wasn’t good and he looked inside the box.
First-aid kits. Plain, white, with the red cross on them. But larger ones than you’d find at a store, ones that you might find mounted in a public place, like a shopping center, or an airport. Or a school.
Or a commuter rail train, or a subway.
He opened one of the cases. Inside were nails and screws, packed into thin plastic bags so they wouldn’t rattle. And in the middle was an orange brick, like a clay, a simple lacing of wires webbing to a cell phone.
A bomb, armed with what he guessed was plastic explosive. He set it down carefully and began to count the first-aid kits. A dozen to a box. And how many opened boxes? A dozen. He checked kits in each box. Each contained a bomb.
A hundred and forty-four bombs. Henry had told him the truth about this, at least. The first-aid kits could be placed on the transit system walls by the uniformed ‘cleaning crews’, who need only show up, plant the bombs and leave. The surgical masks – used by real cleaning crews – would hide their faces, since they weren’t suicide bombers. One hundred and forty-four bombs, divided among six cities. Multiple cars on multiple tracks. Targeting people simply going to work for the day – just like 9/11 or the Madrid or London bombings. A dirt-cheap attack that would inflict millions – even billions – in damage to the economy and worse, end thousands of innocent lives.
The thought chilled his blood.
The scale staggered him. The cell phone – it had to be the trigger. But would the bomb be detonated by calling the cell’s number? No. There were far too many of them, and he suspected the bombs were supposed to go off simultaneously, or as near to it as possible. So. How?
Then he saw the simple answer. His throat went dry.
He had a choice. He could detonate one of the bombs now – killing himself but also the best of the Night Road, and his father and Aubrey if they were here. They’d be dead. The plan would be over. Or – there was another possibility.
And he heard the front door open and shut. Decision made. He didn’t have much time.
What the hell, he thought. He’d be dead in a few minutes anyway.
A minute later, ‘Hello, Luke.’
Henry Shawcross stepped into the storage room, gun leveled at his stepson, who knelt by an open file cabinet, rifling through its papers.
Luke stood.
‘They don’t know you’re here, do they?’ Henry said. Very quietly. ‘No.’
‘You killed the guard outside.’
‘No, he’s just beaten up and dumped in a van.’
‘You’re nicer than I am.’
‘You got out. And got here.’ He didn’t need to answer Henry’s question.
‘The keys to the handcuffs were in the pocket of the man you killed. Your grand gesture backfired.’
Luke closed his eyes. A stupid mistake that was going to cost him dearly.
‘I left quickly, right after you, I commandeered a Travport plane directly here.’ Henry flicked a smile. ‘I knew you’d be here. Playing the well-intentioned idiot. What possessed you? What were you looking for?’
‘Evidence of where Eric hid the money.’
‘The money. Why do you care?’
‘I need it. To hide.’ Luke put his gaze directly on Henry’s. Let Henry think – if only for a moment – that Luke was as mercenary as he was, since he’d hoped Luke would become more like him. ‘What now?’
Henry shrugged. ‘Hard choices. The good things in my life are all gone, Luke. You’ve betrayed me, too.’
‘You destroyed your life. Not me.’
‘No. Warren destroyed my life. It was hard enough to compete with a dead man. It’s much harder when he turns up alive.’
Luke said nothing. Henry cast a gaze around the room, as though checking that all was well, then settled his stare back on Luke. ‘You’re armed.’
‘Yes.’
‘Turn around. Hands on the cabinet.’
Luke obeyed. Henry frisked him, took his guns.
‘They’re upstairs,’ Luke said. He had an idea. If only he could fool Henry. ‘My dad is up there, I think.’
‘Then let’s go give you a proper reunion,’ Henry said, the hate thick in his voice.
They went up the stairs, Luke first, Henry’s gun in the small of his back. Luke felt like he was walking up to a rickety gallows.
The second floor held import furnishings, and Mouser and six men sat around a patio table in an assortment of cheap chairs. Mouser saw Luke and Henry step inside. And he stood.
‘What. The. Hell,’ he said.
A set of clocks stood above his head and Luke glanced at them. But they were set for a crazy quilt of times. He glanced past the table. His father and Aubrey were bound to chairs. Aubrey had a black eye; his father had been beaten, dried blood caking beneath his nose and mouth. They both met his gaze.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Mouser said.
‘I’m here to lead the meeting,’ Henry said quietly.
The light above the table was dim, and Luke thought of the disaffected minds he’d studied in his psychology classes, trying to decipher their passions: the fire bloods of the French Revolution plotting the incineration of a social order and the collateral deaths of thousands of innocents; John Wilkes Booth, plotting the murder of the singular man who changed the course of history by keeping the Union together through a horrible trial by fire; the Bolsheviks, planning their paradise, who ended up with a discounted ruin built on the bones of millions.
‘You said he was dead.’ Mouser stared at Luke.
‘I lied,’ Henry said. ‘You’re not in command here. I am.’
‘Not any more.’ Mouser raised a gun and aimed it squarely at Henry’s head.
‘Gentlemen,’ Henry said. ‘You were promised a further, and much greater investment in your causes if you accomplished your initial attacks. Mouser doesn’t have your money. I do.’ He jerked his head at Luke. ‘And he does. Kill us and all investment in the Night Road stops, immediately.’
‘No,’ one of the men said. He had a pinched face that reminded Luke of a ferret, a tattoo decorating the side of his neck. ‘You will give us our money now.’
‘Wrong.’ Henry smiled at Mouser. ‘You’re such a punk idiot. You can’t run this group.’
‘No one runs us,’ one of the other men said. ‘We do what we want. We succeed, we get funded. That was the deal.’
An investment scheme, Luke thought. Terrorism Incorporated. The dark opposite of an idea like Quicksilver, which was Counter-Terrorism Incorporated.
‘You won’t get the money without us,’ Luke said, glancing at Henry. As if saying, okay, I’ll play. He had no doubt that Henry, now rejected and bitter, would shoot him the moment his usefulness was done.