Mackie scampered toward the guard’s body and scooped up his gun, and when she turned back to face the crowd, she was holding a gun in each hand.
That should give any heroes pause before rushing me.
She was on camera. She knew that. Cops were coming. But not very fast.
She backed toward the doors and pushed one open with her shoulder. She shouted into the bank, saying, “First person out the door after me gets a shot to the head. Have a nice day.”
And she was back outside in the gray morning.
Mackie drafted along behind a group of three white-collar tools on North Dearborn, unbuttoning her coat as she walked. Ten yards ahead was a trash can next to the bus stop. Mackie blended with the passengers getting off the bus. She emptied the pockets of her gray hooded raincoat and transferred the cash and her Ruger to the navy-blue coat she wore underneath the gray one.
She dropped her gray coat into the trash and kept moving, plumbing her pockets as she walked, smoothly putting on sunglasses and slicking on bright lipstick. She fluffed her hair. She had changed her appearance in maybe thirty seconds.
Mackie felt exhilarated as she continued on, walking north at a moderate pace, crossing West Randolph against the light.
She guessed she had about a couple thousand dollars, which would be enough to get the hell out of Chicago.
But the real plan, the one that included making an actual home for Randy and Ben in a new place, with new names—that plan had been destroyed when Randy died.
She had Sergeant Lindsay Boxer to thank for that.
She would thank her in person, though.
She could hardly wait.
Chapter 22
At three in the afternoon, the bustling Seattle waterfront was swarming with passenger arrivals, food and luggage transport, and other commercial vehicles bringing fuel and cargo into the Port of Seattle. A cruise ship was moored along the waterfront at Pier 66.
Yuki and Brady were in the backseat of their hired car, holding hands as the car nosed through traffic into a sliver of a parking spot outside the pier. The driver got out and opened the car door for Yuki. Brady exited on the other side and signed for the ride.
Their luggage had been sent on ahead, and Yuki took in the salty marine air and thought about the future. She was married! She was Jackson Brady’s wife. She loved her husband, loved him so much. And there was no other way to say it: her job wasn’t the center of her life anymore.
“There she is,” Brady called to her.
“She” was the FinStar, the flagship of the Finlandia Line, dead ahead, moored on the far side of the terminal. This grand ship would be taking her and Brady and about six hundred other people on a ten-day luxury tour of Alaska.
Even from here, the FinStar looked entirely awesome.
The car pulled away, and Yuki’s husband called out, “You okay?”
“No.”
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his face full of concern.
“I’m not okay. I passed ‘okay’ about six months ago. I’m over the moon, Brady. I’m over Pluto.”
He grinned at her, put his arm around her waist, and walked her toward the terminal doors.
“I hope we can handle this, sweetie. Ten days with nothing to do but enjoy ourselves. It’s been about twenty years since I had ten days off.”
“I plan to spend a lot of time in bed,” Yuki said.
“Oh, no, not that,” he said.
They grinned at each other and kissed. And then, over the next two hours, they checked into their awesome, shipshape honeymoon hotel. They visited their cabin, bounced and wrestled on the bed, and at 5:00 p.m. they were on deck.
From this windswept point of view, they could see all of the Seattle shoreline to the north and south, Elliott Bay and Puget Sound extending out to the west. Seabirds dove into the waves and then Yuki covered her ears as four long horn pulls signaled that their ship was ready to depart. Harbor Police and Coast Guard boats scurried to escort the cruise ship out of the port.
All along the dockside railing, passengers waved good-bye, took pictures, and shared the moment with other guests around them as the ship pulled slowly away from the moorings.
Yuki touched the little card in her pocket.
It had been on the tray with the bottle of champagne that had been waiting for them in the cabin. It said, Dear Mr. and Mrs. Brady. Thank you for spending your honeymoon with us. I look forward very much to meeting you over dinner this week.
And the captain had signed his name, George Berlinghoff.
“I’ve got something here,” Brady said. “It’s, uh, a wedding present.” He took a longish black box out of his Windbreaker pocket.
“I saw this,” Brady said, “and it looked like you, and I don’t know what the hell to do in a jewelry store, so I hope you like it.”
Yuki said, “I do.”
“Open the box, smarty.”
She smiled, then opened the long clamshell box. She sucked in her breath when she saw the strand of pink coral beads the size of marbles.
“How absolutely perfect.”
“It’s called ‘angel skin coral.’”
“These are beautiful, Brady. I can’t believe how beautiful they are.”
Yuki stood on her toes and kissed her brand-new husband, kissed him again, thanked him, and then handed him the necklace. She turned so that he could fasten it around her neck.
He swore at the clasp, apologized, then managed to close the necklace on the third try. He leaned down and pressed his cheek to Yuki’s.
“Happy honeymoon, Mrs. Brady.”
Yuki was too moved to speak, but she knew this. She was both happier than she’d ever been, and confident that she and Brady were meant to be together.
Part Two. Look Out. Ol’ Mackie’s Back.
Chapter 23
I was already awake when Clapper called.
He said into my ear, “Glad I got you, Boxer. We’ve got breaking news on the belly bombs.”
At 7:15 or so, I texted Claire, and within an hour she and I were high on caffeine and optimism, on our way out to San Francisco’s Police Department Crime Lab at Hunters Point.
We met Clapper on the ground floor of the 13,500-square-foot lab. In answer to our questions, he said, “Keep your lids on. You’ll hear all about it in another couple minutes. And better from her than from me.”
Clapper walked us through the lab’s labyrinthine corridors and between rows of cubicles until we reached a corner office at the back of the building that was pretty much crammed with lab furniture and shiny high-tech equipment.
At the center of it all was Dr. Damaris Cortes, lab manager and point person working with the FBI on the belly bomb case. Cortes was a radiant forty, with short blue hair, large diamond studs, and a tattoo of an atom in the cleft between thumb and forefinger of her right hand.
She almost shimmered with energy.
Cortes offered us small chairs in her cramped office, while Clapper stood in the doorway, saying, “I’m pretty sure the three of you could speed up the rotation of the earth.”
Cortes said, “Fasten your seat belt, Clapper. Buckle up.”
Clapper laughed and said, “Copy that,” then disappeared down the hallway.
Cortes fixed her big gray eyes on us and said, “Claire, Lindsay, you understand this belly bomb is impossible, right? And yet—it was done. The FBI gave me a few cc’s of stomach contents—about one tablespoon. And, guess what? I found something.”
Cortes spun her chair around and began clicking open files on her computer.
“Nope, nope, nope—there you are, you little stinker,” she said. “Come look at this.”
Claire and I peered over the doctor’s shoulders and looked at the screen, but I had no idea what I was supposed to be looking at within this splotchy pinkish smear.