Circle of Death, page 11
“Target one is in the ceiling vents,” says Burbank.
“How high up?” asks Jericho.
“As high as you can go.”
Margo is now in the foyer just outside the General Assembly, where scattered aides and visitors are watching the president’s speech on huge wall-mounted monitors.
“Where am I headed?” she asks, chin dipped toward the mic in her collar.
“Secure corridor. One level up,” says Burbank. “You’ll need access.”
Burbank watches as Margo walks purposefully toward the staircase at the far end of the foyer. She brushes past a security guard. For a second, his stout body is obscured by Margo’s flowing garment. When he emerges into the clear again, his key card is missing from his belt.
“Got it,” says Margo.
Burbank swivels back to Jericho’s screen. But Jericho’s gone. Out of sight. Out of range. Burbank slaps the console, hoping to jostle the connection back to life. But it’s no use. Contact lost. Dammit!
Jericho is on his own.
CHAPTER 48
THE FOURTH-LEVEL CORRIDOR is nearly empty. Jericho waits for a few workers to disappear around a corner. Then he scrambles up a metal ladder mounted to an inside wall. He pushes open a ceiling hatch and muscles his way into a transverse aluminum ventilation duct. He clicks on a small flashlight and grips it between his teeth.
“Which way?” he mumbles to Burbank.
No reply.
Jericho can hear the voice of the president of the Americas booming through the sides of the metalwork. There must be a speaker column mounted near the ceiling.
He starts crawling through the narrow duct. He doesn’t even know what he’s looking for. He squeezes his broad shoulders toward his ears and inches forward, knees against the cold metal, fighting his growing claustrophobia. He feels like a mouse passing through the gullet of a snake.
Suddenly, a rivet pops underneath him. A narrow seam opens between two sections of the duct. As Jericho squirms past the break, he gets a glimpse of the audience four stories below him. Then he hears another sound. This one is coming from around a bend in the duct ahead. A shuffling, scurrying sound.
Something or someone in a hurry.
Margo presses the key card against the entry plate. The lock releases with a loud click. She pushes the door open. The corridor is empty. The walls are stainless steel and the floor is grooved rubber. The door closes behind her. No sound from the Assembly Hall below. All she can hear is the low hum of heavy machinery. Margo hugs the wall and moves down the corridor.
“Which way?” she asks Burbank. No answer.
Jericho contorts his body to squeeze around the bend. The duct narrows again.
No way he can get through. Not with his bulk. He starts to move in reverse. His chest pounds as he imagines being stuck in here forever. Then he stops and looks ahead once more. He squints. His narrow flashlight beam illuminates an obstruction in the middle of the next section. Like a stack of clay bricks.
C4 explosive!
“Bomb!” shouts Jericho. His voice reverberates in the duct. But nobody else can hear. He forces his body forward again and feels the sides of the duct compressing his shoulders and chest. Sweat drips from his forehead and runs down his nose. He grits his teeth and frees one arm. He stretches it forward, straining his muscles until he feels like they might rip.
Margo catches a flash of clothing a few yards ahead. A black burka. She looks around the hallway for a weapon she can use. Something heavy or sharp. But the walls are seamless.
She runs to the end of the hallway. Sees a door ajar. Jerks it open and steps into a dimly lit utility space—a corridor behind the corridor, lined with cables and junction boxes. The figure in the burka is moving around a corner at the far end. Margo follows, inching sideways, her back pressed against the wall. She projects her thoughts, trying to control the intruder’s mind and get him to stop. But in return she gets only a dim, primal current. More animal than human. Totally nonresponsive.
Jericho’s fingers scratch at the base of the explosives, attached to a small electronic packet. His flashlight wobbles in his mouth, slippery with saliva. He looks for a timer, but sees only a receiver. The bomb is wired for remote detonation. He spreads his legs as much as possible to distribute his weight. His thumb and forefinger are an inch from the mechanism. He makes one final painful lurch and plucks two wires from the receiver. He holds his breath, praying that he didn’t trip a backup circuit. Nothing happens. He wipes his brow and rests his head on his arm. The silence is golden.
Margo rounds the corner and sees the veiled figure on a ladder, head and shoulders hunched over a seam between the wall and ceiling. The stock of a rifle is nestled against her armpit. Margo leaps up and grabs for the waist. They both fall backward. The shooter’s head cracks hard against the cement floor, and her body goes limp. Margo yanks the head covering off the unconscious figure, expecting to see a Middle Eastern woman.
Not a scrawny white man.
“Margo! Jericho!”
Burbank shouts into his mic, even though he knows they can’t hear him. The trackers are blocked. He’s getting no audio signal at all. All he can do is watch. And what he sees is confusing.
There are now two thermal images in the inner corridor on the third level. Only one is moving. In the duct high above the gallery, one thermal image is dead center over the podium. Another is moving quickly down the space between the inside and interior wall. But who’s who? Are the threats neutralized or active? Are Jericho and Margo alive or dead? No way to tell.
Frantic, Burbank switches to the camera view from behind the podium. The president is still speaking. In the front row, a slender teenage girl in a wheelchair puts a water bottle to her lips, her eyes locked on Diaz. When she lowers the bottle, the mouthpiece stays between her lips. Burbank zooms in. The girl stands up. She points the mouthpiece at Diaz!
Burbank jumps up from his chair and puts his hand on the screen, as if that would help. Where’s Lamont? The girl leans forward, puffing her cheeks. Suddenly, a steel plate appears in front of the president. Bodyguards swarm Diaz, shoving him down behind the podium. Two agents leap from the rostrum and tackle the girl, flattening her on the carpet as the other kids cower and scream.
As Burbank watches, the steel barrier dissolves. A needle-thin dart floats lightly in midair—as if it’s being held in an invisible hand.
The Shadow’s hand.
CHAPTER 49
I’M HUDDLED WITH the president of the Americas in a safe room in the subbasement of the UN building. The walls are designed to withstand a nuclear strike, and we could live for weeks down here on the supplies in the storeroom. But the president is ready to leave. Right now.
“Let’s move!” he says. “I feel like a goddamn gopher in a hole!”
The head of UN security is standing near the door, sweat seeping through his light gray suit. “Please. Give us a few minutes, sir. We’re still securing the building.”
Jericho glares at him. “A little late for that, isn’t it?”
The security boss has no comeback.
Margo is sitting in a chair next to the president with the top of her niqab peeled back over her head. I can see the fire in her eyes. She wanted to question the two assassins, try to work her way into their minds. But they’re already on their way to a maximum-security detention center. If they’re anything like the Chinasian commandos, I doubt there’s much left of their minds anyway.
“What about the bomber?” asks Diaz.
“So far, no trace,” says the security chief. “We’ve established a perimeter.”
“I’ll tell you one thing,” says Jericho, rubbing his chafed shoulders. “You’re looking for somebody really thin.”
Across the room, the head of the president’s security detail puts down a phone and steps over to report. “It looks like the man and the girl are mercenaries, trained in Hangzhou. First-timers. Doubtful they know anybody beyond their handlers. If they even know that.”
“And the other kids?” asks Margo.
“All clean, as far as we can tell. The girl infiltrated the line after they left the holding room. The dart was a synthetic polymer. Hard to detect.”
“And the poison?” asks Jericho.
“Batrachotoxin. About a thousand times more potent than cyanide. Natural and untraceable.”
That would have been one painful stick. And a very quick death.
Suddenly, I hear Burbank in my earpiece.
He shouts one word. One syllable. I turn white.
“Open the door!” I shout at the guard. He stiffens and plants his feet. I turn to the president. He looks at my face and nods. The guard presses a release mechanism and swings the massive door open. I step into the underground corridor and wave my security pass at the sentry posted outside.
“Which way out?”
The guard points down the hall. “That way. Thirty yards.”
The corridor flies by in a blur. For a second, I think about shape-shifting into a cheetah or a greyhound. But that would take some concentration. And right now I can’t concentrate at all. All I can do is run—as fast as my human legs can carry me.
I head for an exit. ALARM WILL SOUND, it says. I push through it. A piercing siren blasts. I’m outside on the north side of the building, river at my back. In the parking area, smoke is billowing from behind an emergency vehicle, lights flashing. UN firefighters are jumping off the truck with hoses and extinguisher canisters.
My lungs are heaving as I sprint across the grounds. Two security guys try to intercept me. I shove through them like they’re not even there. On the other side of the truck, I stop cold.
Moe’s limo is wrapped in flames. The whole frame of the car is bent, and the hood is up and partly detached. The roof is practically blown off.
One of the firefighters has a heavy tool wedged between the driver’s-side door and the frame. He throws his full weight into it. The door flies open, releasing another plume of black smoke. The firefighter reaches in and slices the shoulder strap and belt with a sharp blade.
I get to the car just as Moe topples out, his face bloody and blackened. His suit and shirt are in shreds and I can see deep, oozing wounds in his chest and belly.
The firefighter grabs his ankles. I grab his wrists. We drag him a few yards away and lay him on the pavement. Smoke is billowing around us and we’re soaked with water and foam.
“Moe!”
I lean down over his shattered skull, and see his pinkish brain leaking out. I scream his name again and again, louder and louder.
As if I had the power to wake the dead.
CHAPTER 50
LAMONT’S MANSION IS lit by hundreds of flickering candles. Tall torches illuminate the garden. Giddy guests in formal wear circulate through the first-floor rooms and pause to chat on the rear balconies. Waiters move from room to room carrying trays of elegant canapes. A man in a porkpie hat sits at the piano, pounding out a bouncy accompaniment to the festivities.
The conversations are all about one thing. Prohibition. Or, actually, the end of it. What better cause for a celebration? Copies of that morning’s New York Times are stacked in the foyer. December 5, 1933. “City Toasts New Era,” the front page says.
The party has two full bars, one in the parlor and one in the library, staffed with red-vested bartenders. Legal booze is in short supply, but Lamont apparently still has plenty of bootleggers on call. And tonight, they definitely delivered.
As the guests swirl and mingle, Lamont stands quietly near the fireplace, sipping his Scotch. In a sea of formal black and white, his midnight-blue tux stands out like a beacon. Even with all the Broadway actors at the party, he’s by far the best-looking man in the room.
His girlfriend Margo is gorgeous, too. She moves from group to group in a high-waisted satin gown, her bright red lipstick setting off her brilliant white smile. At one point, she kicks off her high heels and shows off a few sinuous samba moves in her bare feet. A cluster of guests applauds. In mid-step, Margo looks up and spots Lamont leaning against the mantel.
She picks up a flute of champagne from a tray and walks toward him. They lock eyes through the crowd, and some kind of visual warp opens between them, turning the rest of the room into a buzzing blur. She slides her arm through his and brings her lips to his ear. Lamont grins, then turns and kisses her gently on the neck. Then he does it again. As if they were the only two people in the room.
“That’s enough,” says Dache.
Maddy blinks. Back to present reality. She’s blushing.
“Wow,” she says. “It worked! I was really there!”
“You did well,” says Dache. “Now rest.”
“Lamont and Margo,” says Maddy. “I saw them! In this house!”
“Of course,” says Dache. “You were a guest at their party.”
Maddy leans back on the bench, her heart still pounding. Dache had told her the risks of inhabiting the past, but she had insisted. And it was totally worth it. Now she’s back with her mind intact. “It’s embarrassing how in love they were,” she says.
“Are,” corrects Dache. “Not everything fades with time, Madeline. Some things get even better. Even if you can’t always see it.”
Maddy grabs Dache by the arm. “I want to go back! I want to see more.”
“Not today,” says Dache gently. “Pace yourself. I warned you—chuanghu can be dangerous, even for the best students. The past has a way of…” He stops in mid-sentence.
Maddy looks up. Lamont, Margo, and Jericho are standing at the top of the garden path. Margo is in the middle, clinging tight to the men. Her lips are ashen. Lamont’s pants and shirt are streaked with blood.
Maddy stares at Lamont. She gets a sudden stab in her gut.
In that split second, she knows.
CHAPTER 51
IT’S NOT MUCH of a wake. I don’t even have a photo of Moe to display. But Jessica filled the whole parlor with candles, which makes it feel kind of like a chapel. Moe wasn’t religious. In fact, he probably would have called the whole thing silly. But we had to do something.
Margo is sitting across from me in a high-backed chair. Her eyes are red. “It’s amazing how alike they were,” she says.
“Who?” asks Jericho.
“Moe and his ancestor.”
“Those Shrevnitz genes were strong,” says Burbank from his seat in the corner.
He’s right. I think back to the original Moe Shrevnitz—the New York cabbie who became my confidant, my spy, and my escape driver back in the 1930s. I can’t even count how many times he got me out of a jam or helped me crack a case. Moe could be crusty at times, but he had street smarts like nobody else. And I always knew he’d take a bullet for me, if it came to that.
The Moe we just lost was exactly the same. I know how proud he was to be on the team. And I know how much he adored Maddy. In just one week, they’d built a special connection. Everybody saw it. Across the room, Maddy is curled on the sofa, her head buried in Jessica’s lap.
I have no doubt that the bomber who blew up Moe’s car was the same one who tried to blow up the building during Diaz’s speech. It was a message. If they can get to one of us, they can get to any of us.
I uncork a bottle of brandy and fill seven snifters. I pass the glasses around the room and set the last one on the mantel.
I raise my glass. “To Moe.”
“To life,” says Margo.
“To the team,” says Jericho.
Maddy stands up from the sofa and pushes her hair back from her face. She downs her drink in one gulp.
“To revenge,” she says.
CHAPTER 52
AT 1:00 A.M., Margo and I are the only ones still up. The fifth of brandy is almost drained, and the two of us are the main culprits.
“So what happens now?” Margo asks, leaning back in her chair. She knows the answer. She just needs to hear it from me, out loud.
I swirl what’s left of my brandy in the bottom of the glass. “What happens now is, we go on. We find out who’s behind all this damage, and we eliminate them. Same for the killer at the World’s Fair. We do it all for Moe.”
Margo nods quietly, then reaches for my hand. She fights a yawn, but the yawn wins. “Lamont, I’m sleepy.”
I put down my snifter and push myself up out of my seat. “Me, too. Half a bottle of Rémy Martin will do it every time.” I help Margo up from her chair and we head upstairs with our arms wrapped around each other. Margo’s leg wobbles on the second step. Neither of us is too steady at the moment. She gives me a little smile and grabs me tighter.
“If I go down, you’re coming with me,” she says.
“Joined at the hip,” I tell her. “Forever.”
We make it to the top of the staircase and head down the hallway. Everybody else has been tucked away for hours. As we pass Maddy’s room, Margo tugs on my shoulder. When we stop, I hear it.
Sobbing.
Maybe we should just leave her alone, I think. Let her feel what she’s feeling, give her some space to grieve. But Margo already has her hand on the doorknob. No way she’s not going in. She pushes the door open slowly. I follow her.
In the slice of light from the hallway, I can see Maddy hunched under the covers. Margo reaches out and rests one hand gently on her shoulder. Maddy flinches and rolls toward us, barely awake, her cheeks glistening with tears.
Margo sits on the bed and slips off her shoes. Maddy sits up slowly and wraps her arms around Margo’s neck.
“I could have saved him,” Maddy sobs. “If I’d been there, nobody would have gotten near that car. Nobody!”
Margo cradles Maddy’s head against her chest.
“They would have found another way,” she says, “another time.”
“I can’t lose anybody else,” Maddy sobs. “I won’t!”
I get the distinct feeling that I’m really not needed here. Or maybe it’s my discomfort at seeing Maddy in pain. It cuts me to the core. I can feel myself inching back toward the door. Margo looks up and nods, giving me permission to go. Or maybe asking me to.
