His father stared at him, but Luke couldn’t look at him. Every second ticking by was a heartbeat closer to death. But that was true of any ordinary day.
‘Don’t listen to this kid,’ Mouser said. ‘He and his friend killed our best bomb maker.’
‘Only because she tried to kill me. Funny how you can put your sorrow about Snow aside when it suits you, like in Paris.’
Mouser’s face purpled, his mouth worked.
‘We’re here about the money. For a trade,’ Luke lied.
‘You didn’t have the money,’ Mouser said.
‘Eric did. Jane knew where it was. She told me.’ At this both Warren and Aubrey lifted their heads. ‘She used the Quicksilver computers to break the encryption that showed where Eric hid the fifty million. Right before genius boy here blew up their offices.’ Jane’s final words echoed in his brain: Hidden in plain sight. That little b. Eric, the bastard, who had betrayed her. He wished he knew what she meant. The answer had to be close. He was under enormous pressure. Where could he have stashed the money? Hidden in plain sight.
Mouser’s gun swiveled toward Warren and Aubrey. ‘The money. Now. Or they die.’
Luke glanced at Henry. ‘I’ll give up the money. But only to Henry. That way, he’s in control. My deal is with him. He lets my father and Aubrey go and I give him the cash. We worked it out.’ The lie was thick in his mouth. He looked at the men at the table. ‘I found you all. I pointed you to Henry. I made the Night Road happen. You owe me at least this deal.’
‘You’re owed nothing,’ the neck-tattooed man said.
‘You have nothing,’ Luke said. ‘What happens when the rest of the Night Road finds out that you’ve cut them off from potential millions to carry out their attacks?’ He pointed at Mouser. ‘You’re responsible, and your life will be worthless.’
Mouser’s face purpled in rage. ‘None of us are in this for money.’ He all but spat out the last word.
‘No, but the money makes pretending that you’re badasses easier. To buy your bomb materials, to buy your guns, to do your dirty work. Without it you’re nothing but assholes posting bullshit on the internet, pretending you’re important.’
Mouser pointed at Henry. ‘He wanted you caught. Dead. Now you’re on his side?’
‘I never wanted him dead. That was your own mistake,’ Henry said. ‘Go. Do what you have to do for Hellfire. Mouser, you stay here. We’ll work out the deal for the money.’
‘They saw our faces,’ Mouser said. ‘No witnesses.’
‘This is the only deal I’m offering,’ Luke said. Then he said the words that he knew would matter most: ‘Why don’t you put it to a vote?’
‘Did you really think I was going to negotiate with you?’ Mouser said, nearly laughing.
Luke saw sharp glances pass between the Night Roaders. Mouser had ignored the call for a vote, and he knew that these men – leaders of their own movements or cells – did not relish taking orders. They were used to giving them as captains of their own causes.
‘There is no vote. I have the access to the funds. You do as I say. Get going. You have your instructions, yes?’ Henry said.
The men nodded. Luke noticed they each had sheets of paper outlining the bomb’s operations, schematics of what looked like train tracks, photos and bios of train personnel at their target stations. Get in, stash their bombs, and get out.
‘Go. You know the plan. 6.30 a.m. Central, 7.30 a.m. Eastern, day after tomorrow.’ Henry jerked his head. ‘Go.’
They had a day to return to the targets, to set the bombs.
‘No,’ Mouser said. ‘I’m running the show.’
‘Do you have fifty million to reward and fund our friends here? Have you succeeded in anything I’ve asked you to do? Shut the hell up, Mouser.’ Henry cleared his throat. ‘Get going now. One of you will find the downstairs guard in your van sleeping off a punch.’
The men filed past Luke; he could hear the shuffle of their footsteps on the stairs. Then, from downstairs, the sounds of them loading the boxes, rushing them through the store, out of the front door.
‘So,’ Mouser said. ‘It comes to this.’
‘You left a man to kill me back in Paris,’ Henry said.
‘I didn’t. He was supposed to keep you under wraps until Hellfire was done.’
‘You’re a sorry liar, Mouser.’
‘Funny, isn’t it?’ Warren Dantry said. No one was expecting him to speak and they all glanced at him. Underneath his bruises a smile flickered, the grin that Luke remembered from fishing trips, from sitting with his father on the back porch of their house. His voice sounded the same as it had before, a gentle baritone, older, wiser.
‘Dad,’ Luke started. A thousand things to say, to know, rushed through his mind, then went blank.
‘Funny,’ Warren Dantry repeated. ‘You really can’t work with anyone, can you, Henry? First the good guys, now the bad. You always screw it up.’ He glanced up at Mouser. ‘You know, he thinks, he honestly believes, he predicted 9/11.’
Mouser glanced at Henry. ‘But you did.’
‘Hardly. He didn’t.’ Warren snorted. ‘He would have risen to the highest posts in State or CIA if he had. Instead he’s hanging out with these nothings.’
Look at me, Dad, Luke thought, but Warren didn’t.
‘Shut up,’ Henry said. He swiveled the gun back toward Warren. ‘Shut up. Luke is my son now. Not yours. You gave him up. Shut the hell up.’
‘Luke. You know he’s a nothing. A nothing.’ Warren now met his son’s eyes. ‘He tried to kill me. Then your mother dies, under questionable circumstances.’
‘That was an accident!’ Henry screamed, spittle flying from his mouth.
‘Was it? Was it? Was it?’ Warren said in a low, hypnotic mumble.
‘It was an accident,’ and Henry brayed the last word as though a critical string had broken in his voice.
‘Let’s make peace, Henry,’ Mouser said. ‘Jesus, we’ve come this far. Let me talk to this bastard. Pry every secret from Quicksilver out of him.’
‘He won’t talk. He just needs to die,’ Henry said. ‘Luke, look away.’
‘No!’ Luke screamed. He lunged toward Henry.
And the world exploded.
57
Five of the trucks never made it out of the empty lot. Luke had been busy. He’d opened each box of bombs, picked one of the cell-phone timers connected to the Semtex explosive, and reset it to detonate in fifteen minutes. It had taken just enough time to load the trucks, light cigarettes, and gossip for a minute (the suggestion of going back in and killing Mouser and Henry had been floated and shot down).
The trucks – save one – all went up at once in blossoms of fire, within three seconds of each other, scattering debris and flaming tires and peppering shrapnel. The packed screws and twists of metal shredded the terrorists into raggedy men, tatters of flesh and bone.
The truck closest to the store was spared. Rushed to reset the timers, Luke had unknowingly pulled the wires loose on the last two cell phones, panicked to finish before he was caught, and did not realize his mistake. The cell phone’s alarm did not detonate the blasting cap. The driver – the hardest and oldest of the men, the tattooed man responsible for the Kansas City high school bombing – stared at the wheeling masses of what had been his colleagues’ trucks. He raised himself up from the truck seat. His windows were blown out, as were the storefronts of the mall. One of the trucks crashed in the deserted street, burning. He could see what was left of one of his fellows, halved and crisped, twenty feet in front of him.
The bombs, he thought, somebody screwed with the bombs. For the next ten seconds he waited, knowing if his timers had been tampered with he’d be dead and there was no point in running.
But the tampered bombs had all gone off at once. None of his boxes had. He realized, with a certainty, that he was safe. He wheeled hard out of the lot, pressing his foot against the accelerator, thinking he would still get the job done.