The Betrayer (19 page)

Johnny pulled himself up from the sedan’s floor, managing to get far enough up to reach across Haley and grab hold of the door handle. He yanked it, and the heavy door swung free.

Haley didn’t miss a beat; she unbuckled her seatbelt and scrambled out, then reached in to help Johnny, who was still partially pinned under the dashboard.

It took the two of them to get him free and onto the seat. Haley was strong — stronger than Johnny had ever known her to be, which meant of course adrenaline was pumping through her now. Johnny looked at her face, had to force himself to focus to see it. But all he saw was a look of calm determination.

He recognized at that moment that she was in control of her fear. And he loved her even more for it.

But as soon as Johnny was seated, had his feet out the door, and was about to exit the sedan, something happened. Haley was suddenly no longer there.

One second she was helping him, pulling him out, her beautiful face right there above him, the next second — gone.

So fast she didn’t even have time to call out or scream.

Johnny looked for her — she couldn’t have gone far — and saw exactly what he feared he’d see.

The man who was seated behind Haley had gotten out of the sedan ahead of them and grabbed a handful of her red hair. Whether he was simply pulling her out of the way or was about to use her as a shield or hostage wasn’t immediately clear to Johnny.

Only one thing was.

The man had made the mistake of attacking Haley Siner in the presence of Johnny Coyle.

Johnny got to his feet and went after him.

Cat was a Coyle — the daughter of a Coyle, the older sister to two Coyle boys — and she had the heart of a runner. Her father had instilled in her early the importance of a strong heart and legs.

She had both, and she reached the woman in the black field jacket before the woman had time to see her coming, let alone raise Cat’s own weapon and use it against her.

Cat used a disarm technique, one that should have resulted in her gaining possession of the Sig as she removed it from the woman’s hand, but the move proved only partially effective; Cat managed to work the weapon free, but the woman snapped out of her stupor in time to turn and press her shoulder into Cat’s sternum, then charge forward.

The weapon was lost, dropping to the garage floor as Cat was driven back. She countered the woman’s counter by grabbing hold of her sturdy jacket and pulling the woman along with her. But after several feet of running backward, Cat could no longer outrun the woman’s momentum. She stumbled and fell, landing on the gravel, the woman crashing down on top of her.

The hard fall rattled Cat even further, and she could sense the power that this woman — this younger and larger woman — possessed. But Cat knew how to fight while on her back, had learned that long ago. Bending her knees and sliding her feet as close to her own hips as she could, she placed her feet flat on the gravel, then bucked her hips high and rolled onto her left shoulder, pulling the woman off balance and quickly switching positions with her.

Cat unleashed a series of blows to the woman’s head — not punches, but open palm strikes. These eventually became devastating elbow blows. She could feel the woman going limp beneath her — all that youthful strength draining away — but she continued nonetheless, didn’t want to be fooled into ceasing her attack too soon.

She was landing maybe the tenth blow to her attacker’s skull when suddenly her vision went black.

Somebody had struck her from behind. Two blows with a blunt object — one to the center of her back making a solid, deep thump, the second as she was slumping forward, this one catching her right forearm, making a sharp snapping sound.

Cat heard the snap as she fell, felt a wave of dread because she knew it was the unmistakable sound of bone breaking. A gut-wrenching, thought-erasing pain echoed through her as she landed on the gravel.

She lay there on her left side, vulnerable, defenseless.

Helpless.

By the way the man was still holding Haley by her hair, Johnny knew he was preparing to use her as a shield.

A shield, though, can be a disadvantage to the one behind it.

Johnny knew this. He ducked low and positioned himself so Haley was blocking the man’s view of him. After that it was a simple matter of closing the distance and moving around Haley, which Johnny did aggressively, then coming up between Haley and her attacker.

The man didn’t know what hit him.

Johnny got in close and went for the man’s throat. Simple moves were the best, and Johnny went for the most basic one he knew — placing the blade edge of his left hand against the man’s trachea, then swiftly hammering his left hand with the heel of his right.

A savage, powerful thrust.

Like striking a wedge with a sledgehammer, driving it deep.

The man, his trachea fractured, let go of Haley’s hair and clutched his own throat with both hands, then dropped to his knees before finally collapsing onto the pavement.

There was no need for Johnny to do more than that. Chances were, the man would be dead soon. But Johnny couldn’t care about that. He grabbed Haley’s hand, paused to make eye contact with her, make sure she was unharmed. They didn’t speak, didn’t need to. She simply met his eyes and nodded once.

Then they took off, running side by side.

Haley didn’t know where they were going, but she didn’t ask. She and Johnny had studied the streets of Williamsburg, knew every inch of the neighborhood, where the subway entrances were, and yet right now her mind was racing and she couldn’t think of the nearest one. For that matter, she had no idea where she and Johnny actually were.

But she trusted that he knew and decided that the best thing for her to do was to focus on keeping up with him, to not become a liability, to match his speed as they ran.

After a few blocks, though, she noticed that Johnny was slowing. It no longer took all she had to remain beside him. She knew that this meant that whatever injuries he had sustained in the crash were beginning to catch up with him. She didn’t miss a beat, though. She wound his left arm around her neck and pulled him close, wedging her hip just under his for leverage.

It was his turn to do what it took to keep up.

They ran like this for the next block, Johnny wedged against her, Haley keeping his arm around her neck. It was as they reached the next corner that she saw what she was hoping to see on the other side of the street.

A subway entrance.

She didn’t wait for the light — this neighborhood, mostly residential, was quiet now. She led him across the street and to the entrance, then helped him down the stairs and through the turnstile.

Waiting at the edge of the platform, breathing hard, they stood as casually as they could. Their side of the station was empty, but there were a few people waiting on the platform on the other side of the tracks. Haley, though, didn’t pay too much attention to them. Like Johnny, she was watching the stairs, just in case.

Watching and waiting.

But when moments passed and no one appeared, she concluded that no one was following them.

Who among the three men would have been able to?

It was then that she realized who it was she had been watching for, who she would most dread seeing.

Richter. Just the thought of him filled her with fear.

The very kind of man, if Dickey McVicker had his way, that her Johnny would become.

She turned away from the stairs and looked at Johnny. He was breathing through his nose, and by the fact that each intake was short — he clearly didn’t dare expand his lungs too much — Haley had a good idea the nature of his injuries.

“You might have broken a rib,” she said.

Johnny shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Then fractured or bruised it, maybe. Either way—”

“Not now,” Johnny whispered.

There was no one within earshot, and yet he didn’t want — didn’t dare — admit to her that he was injured.

Of course, the person he really didn’t want to admit it to was himself. He simply couldn’t. Haley understood this and backed off.
Defeat begins in the mind.
One of the many maxims Johnny had been taught as a soldier.
She thought quickly of their escape from Thailand, the skills he had displayed again and again, skills that made their escape possible, without which they would have died any number of times.

That memory led to a realization, which itself led to another.

“We’re leaving, aren’t we?” Haley said.

As in leaving New York, getting out of Dodge.

Johnny nodded. He had planned out several routes of escape long ago, and they had spent days and nights sitting around their apartment and repeating each and every one of them like schoolchildren repeating their multiplication tables.

Haley thought of one of the steps that needed to be taken. It wasn’t the first step, but it was one of the most essential, to her mind.

It was the one with the biggest degree of difficulty, and the greatest risk of exposure.

“We need to get our money,” she said.

Johnny nodded. “We’ll figure that out later.”

“I don’t have much cash on me.”

“I do.”

“How much?”

“Three grand.”

Haley looked at him, surprised by that. As a rule, neither of them carried much cash. Everything they made — everything they didn’t need to spend on the bare minimum of basics — went straight into their secret savings.

“Where’d you get three grand?”

“I’ll explain later. If we have to, though, we can leave on that and come back for our stash after things have cooled down.”

Though Johnny was still trying to hide the extent to which he was injured, Haley knew he was hurting bad. It was evident with each word he spoke, each breath he took. This told Haley the order of the steps they needed to take.

Get to a safe place, tend to his injuries, then deal with the logistics of their particular escape.

Retrieve their money, determine their destination and method of departure, secure the tickets.

And before finally departing, buy new clothes, maybe even dye her hair, something — anything — that would help her to be less recognizable.

She knew all this, but what she still didn’t know was where they were headed at this very moment, which of the many portals available in the Greater New York area they would be using.

As if reading her mind, Johnny said softly, “We need to get to Jersey City.”

Haley saw in her mind’s eye then exactly what they — what
she
— would need to do.

Subway to a PATH station, train to Jersey City, then a room in a motel not far from the bus station.

She looked at Johnny’s face, saw that he winced every time he breathed. His skin was pale and there was a faraway look in his eyes. It was a look she recognized, one she had seen many times in the eyes of boxers who were about to, despite their best efforts, go down.

The same look she had seen in his eyes when they first met.

“Hang on,” she told him. “I’ll get us where we need to be.”

When the train arrived, she and Johnny boarded a nearly empty car. She helped him down onto a seat near the door, then sat beside him. The three other passengers didn’t even look at them.

As the train started moving, Johnny said softly, “We need to shut down our cell phones and remove the batteries.”

Haley understood the significance of this procedure. Only a handful of people had the numbers to their respective phones — Johnny’s employees and Dickey McVicker. It was possible that Dickey could use either phone to track their movements via GPS, even with the phone shut off. Detaching the batteries was the only way of eliminating that threat.

She quickly removed her cell, pressed the Off button, and disconnected the battery, then pocketed both pieces. She was removing Johnny’s cell from his pocket when she whispered, “Dickey’s up to something.”

Johnny nodded.

“What?”

He shrugged.

“Why? After everything he’s done to help us.”

He shrugged again.

“Did you find your brother?”

“No.”