58
‘Where’s the money, Luke?’ Aubrey’s mouth was close to his ear; the tickle of her breath froze him.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
Warren Dantry didn’t move. He glanced over at Luke, eyes wide in surprise.
‘The money. I’d like to know where it is, please.’ Aubrey sounded steady, calm, as she had been during the crisis in Lincoln Park, on the jet to New York, in urging them toward the car back at the store. ‘You and Henry said you had it.’
‘Why do you-’ and then he saw it. The missing piece.
If Jane had arranged for Eric to grab him to ransom Aubrey, then she would have used a kidnapper to grab Aubrey. Just a man, Aubrey had said.
But what if there was no kidnapper? The realization fell into his mind all at once. The burlap hood she said she’d been covered with, even after the kidnapper left. It hadn’t been on the floor or under the bed. His wrists, after being tied to the bed for several hours, were raw. He remembered the smoothness of Aubrey’s skin when he unlocked her shackles.
No one could prove Aubrey had ever actually been kidnapped. Except Aubrey.
She’d faked the kidnapping. Which meant… she was in with Jane.
It was you. You alone, he’d said to Jane. But she hadn’t been alone. She’d had a partner, to keep an eye on the progress of the Night Road. Not a member, but sleeping with a member.
How had Jane ever found out about Eric’s role in the Night Road in the first place?
‘Dad. Did Quicksilver suspect Eric Lindoe of criminal ties?’ He remembered seeing reports about Eric’s bank in his file in the Paris office.
‘There have been a number of questionable accounts at that bank,’ he said quietly. ‘Yes, we’ve been watching the bank for a while. We sent the same agent to watch this Arab prince who seemed interested in financing terrorists.’ He swallowed. ‘I think you know her as-’
‘Jane.’ Luke glanced back. He had to get her to see reason. If he told her where he thought the money was, she’d just kill them both. His tongue felt like concrete.
She said, her voice torn with panic: ‘I want to know where the money is.’
Hidden in plain sight. That little b- Jane had said. ‘Henry lied. He was bluffing.’
‘You know where it is,’ Aubrey insisted. ‘You have to. Tell me.’ Her voice cracked. ‘What I’ve been through, goddamn it, I get the money.’
‘I won’t tell you unless you put the gun down.’
‘Tell me, Luke. Now. Don’t pull over. Keep driving.’
They raced down the highway, Luke dodging in and out among the scattering of cars.
‘You won’t believe me,’ Luke said. His father raised his mauled hands, his eyes wide in pain as Aubrey dug the barrel into the back of his head.
‘You just got your dad back,’ Aubrey said. ‘I’ll take him away. Tell me.’
‘I thought Eric was using you, but you were using him,’ Luke said. ‘An export/import business, lots of overseas money coming in, payments going out. A perfect way for Eric to stream in money, using your accounts. He thought he was using you, to a degree, at first. But you wanted him to use you. You thought he might be involved in money for the Night Road. Did he pillow talk you, tell you what he was up to?’
‘No. Jane and I figured it out on our own. From her spying on the prince for Quicksilver.’
‘Jane worked for us, but Aubrey doesn’t,’ Warren said. The Navigator hit a bump and the gun jiggled against his father’s head.
‘We aimed me straight at Eric,’ she said, her voice calmer. ‘I got into his bed. I got into his head. After I was kidnapped I told him that these Quicksilver people might be willing to help us hide. He bought it.’
Luke watched her in the rearview. ‘You were never kidnapped. It was just a lure to make him act and to keep you clean. And blameless and above suspicion.’
She made a noise in her throat.
‘Aubrey, you don’t have to hurt anyone.’
‘Yes, I do. The money. Jane and I worked on it for months. Where is it?’
Luke saw a sedan speeding up behind them. Fast.
‘I don’t have it. I don’t know where he moved it.’
‘You’re lying! Tell me or your father dies.’
Luke looked up at his father. His father shook his head. ‘Don’t tell her. Don’t let these people win.’
That little b-. Jane hadn’t meant Eric. She’d meant Aubrey. Jane thought Aubrey had betrayed her.
The speeding car passed, on the driver’s side, edging Luke’s Navigator.
Henry. Driving fast, a gun in his hand.
‘Oh, Jesus,’ Luke said, slamming the Navigator against Henry’s sedan. The Navigator rocked hard and Warren spun in his seat, grabbing at Aubrey’s gun.
‘Tell me where you put the money now!’ she screamed.
‘Don’t shoot him!’ Luke screamed back. ‘Eric hid it in plain sight! In your accounts at his bank!’
Aubrey fired. The bullet caught his father in the chest with a horrifying blast and he collapsed against the passenger door. Luke slammed on the brakes and the car slid into a long skid. Henry’s car rode alongside them, Henry standing up through the sunroof as the cars spun on sheer momentum, not bothering to steer, aiming.
Luke felt the warmth of Aubrey’s barrel against his neck and then the blast was loud in the car.
The Navigator skidded to a stop as the sedan hit its side. Luke realized he was still breathing. He could see his father slumped in his seat, eyelids fluttering, his chest a wet wreckage of blood. He wrenched around. Aubrey lay on the seat, bleeding from the side of her throat, eyes open, mouth slack.
Luke looked to his left and saw Henry, his car stopped parallel against Luke’s, positioned just behind the driver’s door. Henry still stood in the sunroof, a gun in his hand. Now aimed at Luke.
Luke had no gun.
‘My last favor to you,’ Henry said. ‘Do you know where the money is?’
Luke shook his head. ‘No,’ he lied. ‘No.’
They were the ten longest seconds of Luke’s life. They stared into each other’s eyes, the gun between them like a long-hidden truth.
Henry lowered the gun. ‘Don’t come after me.’ Luke could see, for the first time in the scant light of the highway lights, tears brimming in Henry’s eyes. ‘I will not treat you like family again.’ Henry slid down into the driver’s seat, roared his battered sedan off into the night. And out of sight, taking the first exit ramp.
Luke felt for his father’s pulse. Weak. Erratic. He saw a call button on the Navigator and jabbed it.
Instead of an emergency service he heard Frankie Wu say, ‘Where the hell are you?’
‘Dad needs a doctor, he’s shot, tell me where a hospital is.’
‘We got a doctor.’
‘He’s been shot, he needs surgery.’
‘You can’t take him to a hospital,’ Wu said. ‘Too many questions. I want you to do exactly as I say, Luke. Follow my directions.’
And Luke Dantry, no longer the most dangerous man in the world, listened and drove off in the dark night, holding his father’s hand, begging him to not leave him again.
59
A Week Later
Northern Michigan, Luke decided, was one of the nicest places you could go quietly insane. He sat on the porch watching the light dapple the waters of the lake, and he folded the newspaper and tucked it where his father would not see it.
The story had dominated headlines, but not in the way he had expected. A group of suspected extremists had been found dead after a series of explosions. Two had been identified: a dentist from Milwaukee known for sending threatening letters to oil companies, and a pharmacist from a small city in Tennessee, the same town where the E. coli scare had grabbed headlines the previous week. Another man, a known neo-Nazi from Kansas City, had been found several blocks away, with two dozen bombs hidden in first aid kits, and a uniform and passes that would have given him access to the Atlanta rail system. A man who had been dishonorably discharged from the military lay dead on the pavement, and recent information via anonymous phone calls tied him to an attack on an office building in New York. FBI officials suggested the group had planned a bombing in Atlanta, and most likely in other cities as well, but it had gone wrong. Theories as to why were as plentiful as the clouds in the sky. Editorials painted a grim picture of domestic groups of disaffection arming themselves with foreign-bought weaponry. No mention of fifty million dollars in terrorist seed money, or a connection to the shooting deaths of a crazy artist, a Chicago police officer or Eric Lindoe. And no mention of networks called the Night Road or Quicksilver.