Adrenaline (50 page)

“So. My choices were let you die and then be faced with a life I didn’t want, with a child, or to keep working for them and figure out a way to cut loose and to set you free.”

“You could have come and told us that you were in trouble. Cooperated with us. You’ve used me, you’ve used our kid.”

“I couldn’t come back after the bomb. I couldn’t do prison.”

“There are worse things than prison.”

“Is that a threat?
You
won’t hurt me.” A half smile played on her face. “You won’t. You’re the good guy. I’m the mother of your child.”

“Where did you have the baby?” I said. “You owe me this, Lucy. Tell me.”

“I owe you nothing. I saved your life. We’re square.”

“There is a Company airfield in Maine, near Damariscotta. If I tell the pilots to land there, they will.”

“I thought we were going to New York.”

“No. I think I should give you back to the Company.”

“Sam, we had a deal. You stop Edward, I walk.”

“But you don’t know where he is, you say. I’ll bet you’ll tell the Company. I bet they’ll make you talk.”

“But the guns—”

“My son takes precedence. Maybe these people haven’t even fixed their targets yet. Maybe the fifty people are just to see if they can encode a chip; they may not be targets at all, just DNA samples that they stole somehow.” I crossed my arms. “I can’t wait to see what Howell does when he gets his hands on you. Oh, I was just the warm-up, sweetheart. You’re the main course. You made him look very bad. Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat screwed.”

“He’ll kill you, too.”

“No, I’ll get forgiven. He’ll say he authorized me in secret or some bull. He’ll be clean. He’ll have his traitor in his pocket.”

“The Company won’t let you land at their airfield,” she said.

I stood up. “I can be talking with Howell in five minutes. I’ll have clearance.”

“You weren’t always so stubborn.”

“Where did you have the baby? Tell me and we’ll keep going on to New York.”

She decided to believe me. “Strasbourg. A private
clinic called Les Saintes. On the tenth of January. He was given the name of Julien Daniel Besson.”

“Who took him?”

“A woman.” I’d been told the broker was a woman.

“Who does Daniel look like?”

“Babies all look like Winston Churchill at first. But he has your eyes, Sam.”

“What is this baby broker’s name?”

“Edward didn’t tell me. I don’t know. That’s how they kept me in their pocket. It was insurance.”

“And they gave you money for my son?”

“Our—”

“You just lost the right to call him yours, Lucy. Don’t you
ever
call him yours again.”

“No, don’t say that.”

“You let them take him to
sell
him. Jesus.”

She stared at me and she knew the deal between us was dead, that I was never going to let her go without having my child.

“What’s going to happen to me?” she said.

“You tell me everything and then you tell the Company everything. I want my name cleared.”

“Your name is never, ever, going to be cleared. Sam, there will always be someone in power who believes you knew. That maybe you didn’t do anything wrong, but you knew what I was doing and you kept your mouth shut. Either hoping that I would stop, or I would never be caught. You’re a good husband. That made you a bad agent.”

“Then I’ll focus on being good at my job. Where is Edward delivering the gun chips? Where in New York? You cooperate with me and I’ll be your advocate with the Company.”

She considered this and for several long seconds there was only the whine of the engines. “At the new Yankee Stadium. Since Edward tried to kill me I’m assuming he thought that you were going to capture me and he wanted the plan protected. He won’t change it if he thinks I’m dead.”

“What time is this meeting?”

“At eight tonight. As the game starts. The season’s just begun.”

I stared at her. I thought of our last morning together, our lives so normal, our lives such a lie that it clenched the air in my lungs.

She said, very softly: “Do you remember once that I asked you, if we knew a day was our final day together, what you would say to me?”

I remembered. “I’d say anything but good-bye. I never wanted to say good-bye to you.”

She looked at me and I couldn’t tell if there were tears in her eyes or if it was the dim light of the cabin. “I think I’ll say my good-byes now, Sam.”

L
UCY AND I WALKED
free of the private plane. Our papers had been stamped and the custom official waved us through. Thank you, Kenneth and flight crew. Borders. Do they even matter anymore?

We exited the airport and walked along the short service road. A car pulled up, and I pushed her into the backseat and then followed. I’d phoned ahead.

“Hello,” August Holdwine said.

“Mr. Nice Guy. You just committed professional suicide,” Lucy said, as he pulled the car away from the curb.

“Career advice from you is rich,” he said. “How are you, Lucy?”

“I should have married you. Not him,” Lucy said.

“Be nice. August is going to get the credit for your capture,” I said.

“You’re not surrendering to the Company?” Lucy jerked her head to look at me.

“No. I’m going to go get our kid. Thanks again, August.”

August glanced at Lucy in the rearview. “I always thought it was iffy to trust you. I hate being right so often.”

I could feel the defensiveness rising in her. “You’re betraying the Company yourself, going out of bounds to help Sam.”

August said, “You got a limited imagination, Lucy. Certain people in the Company might entirely approve of what I’m doing. As long as it nabs you.”

Lucy opened and then shut her mouth.

“You mean we have help?” I asked.

“No. You have me,” August said. I wasn’t sure how tough we could be. I was injured, and August had been shot in the arm. We weren’t exactly a pair of badasses.

Lucy seemed to study these words, as if they hung in the air above August’s head.

“Where’s Howell?” I asked.

“Summoned to Langley. Whatever technology you found these guys have, it has set off a firestorm.”

“The rendezvous is in one hour,” Lucy said. “I suggest you drive a little faster, since you’re in such a hurry to be a hero.”

“There has to be a reason they’re meeting at Yankee Stadium,” August said.

“A demonstration,” I said. “You want to prove a bullet can truly, without fail, seek out a single target among thousands? A crowd is the best way to make your point, without a doubt. So who’s the target?”

“Any of the star players,” August said. “And the governor was scheduled to throw out the first pitch, I checked, but he had to cancel.”

I looked at her, thinking of the photos of the kids I’d seen on Zaid’s computer. “Kids. Are they going to kill a kid at this game?”

Lucy said, “I told you, I don’t know if there’s even a demonstration. That’s between Edward and the buyer. It seems awfully risky to me.”

I said to August, “Do you have a liaison with the Yankees security or police detail?”

“Yes, but I ask them anything, they’ll want to know my source. And I’m supposed to be on leave.”

“Do they know that?”

“I imagine not.”

“Say the tip’s anonymous. Call. Find out if there are any groups of kids being brought in.”

August phoned his contact. “Hey, Lieutenant Garcia, this is August Holdwine at the Manhattan CIA office.” Pause. “Yeah, I’m fine, thanks. I’m kind of dodging channels here, but I thought I better talk direct to you. Do you have any groups of kids coming in for today’s game? We picked up some chatter that talked about targeting a kid.” He listened. “Okay, no, I don’t have more than that.” He listened some more. “Can you give me a rundown?”

“If Edward sees you coming, our son is dead,” Lucy said. “Just so you know.”

“Not if he gets caught first.”

“I wouldn’t be willing to risk it,” she said, as though I were the bad parent.

August got off the phone. “Twenty-seven kids groups there today, everything from orphans being brought in from a Catholic orphanage in Queens to Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and prep-school groups. They’re going to put extra security around them all, but Garcia needs to know more.”

“We don’t have more.”

“This is getting people’s attention, Sam.” August glanced at me in the car. “I suspect the police are going to want to talk to me as soon as I get to the stadium. I can’t back you up if I’m chatting up Garcia. They’ll want threat assessments—”

“Good.” I raised my hand.

“Like a cop can stop that bullet once it’s fired. Nothing can,” Lucy said.

“We find him before he ever fires,” I said.

“You risk our child to save a stranger’s life,” Lucy said. “I should have killed you in Amsterdam, Sam. At least our son would be safe. If you’re wrong…”

I had been so wrong about so much. I couldn’t be wrong now.

I
EXPECT HE’LL BE ALONE,”
Edward said into the phone. “Do you have the sample for him? In case I need it?”

“Yes. I took the precaution. I’ll see you shortly, Edward, and I look forward to the demonstration.”

“Yes, I think the whole world will be impressed,” Edward said. Bright sunshine kissed New York City; the sky gleamed a faultless blue. He felt happy. He was nearly done with his trudge along a very dark road. He missed Yasmin, to his surprise. He had made her, shaped her into the person most useful to him, and he wondered if he had given her up too easily. Ah. Soon he would have enough money where he could attract a woman who required much less effort to bend to his will.

A marvelous day, it was, to prove that fear works wonders.

I
T WAS A GORGEOUS AFTERNOON
in New York. The sun smiled down like a saint. August already had our tickets and we moved through the crowd.

August’s phone rang. He answered and listened. “Yeah, I don’t have more information, Garcia. Kids. Credible, I don’t know how much. You can’t take the risk, though… yeah. What? What? Um, okay.”

He hung up the phone. “Garcia had to go; he’s dealing with the governor’s security detail.”

“You said—”

“He un-cancelled. The governor is here to throw out the pitch,” August said. “His son apparently begged him to do it.”

The governor of New York was in his late forties, a man named Hapscomb, popular, but with no plans for higher office. “That’s it,” I said. “Surely if you want to demo a weapon, you kill a prominent person.”

But killing a governor—it lacked the impact of killing a president or a religious leader. It seemed a smaller stage for Edward’s ambitions, especially with such a powerful weapon. And none of the people in the photos were politicians, at least none that I recognized.

We watched thousands of people settling into their seats. The game would begin in minutes. I scanned the ring of the stadium, looking for a likely spot for a sniper to fire from. But the security details would already be watching those.

Lucy saw what I was doing and shook her head. “As long as he’s in range, Edward doesn’t have to set up a careful position to shoot the governor,” she said. “He can just fire. The bullet will do most of the work, if there’s nothing in its way.”