The Betrayer (34 page)

Johnny was on Twenty-Third Street, between Fifth and Madison Avenues. He hadn’t seen Cat or Jeremy since they had entered the park. He scanned ahead, to the right and then to the left. He was there for a good half minute before he spotted Cat approaching from the east.

She was hurrying toward him, calling his name. He couldn’t hear her voice over the rain till she was just feet from him.

“What happened?” Johnny said. He could barely breathe, as much from pain as exertion.

Cat, too, was winded. “He’s on the subway,” she said. She had to bend forward for a moment, her good hand digging into her side.

Johnny glanced toward the direction of subway entrance. “That’s the six, right?”

“Yeah.”

Johnny only needed to think about that for a quick moment. He turned and started walking west toward Fifth. Cat followed him.

“Where are you going?”

“I think I know where he’s headed.”

“Where?”

“Atkins is still the only person who can get Jeremy close to Dickey.”

“Close enough to what? Kill him?”

“That’s what I’m afraid of, yeah.”

“But Atkins is missing,” Cat said. “He’s probably dead.”

“He could have gone into hiding. If he has, maybe he went to the apartment on MacDougal. Jeremy said it belonged to a friend of Atkins’s.”

“That was three years ago.”

“It was rent-controlled. People don’t let go of those. We kept Dad’s old place for the same reason. And if Atkins isn’t there, then maybe whoever is will know where Jeremy can find him. Trust me, it’s where he’s heading, I know it.”

Cat sped up till she was walking beside her brother. “I’m going with you.”

“It’d be better if you went back to the hotel.”

“Johnny, you’re limping. And you’re as white as a ghost.”

“I need you to look after Haley.”

“You go back and look after your girlfriend, I’ll go get Jeremy.”

As Johnny reached Fifth, he saw a cab and raised his arm to flag it down, but he was too late; the driver didn’t see him and the vehicle sailed past. Johnny looked up Fifth, spotted another, and waved for it.

“Jeremy might have already come and gone by the time I get there. If he has, I’ll need to ask his friends where he went. You’re FBI, Cat, and if Jeremy’s friends know that, which I’m sure they do, it’s likely they won’t talk to you.”

“But they’ll talk to you?”

Johnny said nothing to that.

“And what if someone sees you?” Cat said. “What if this goes to shit and the cops pick you up? You’re a fugitive, Johnny.”

“I’ve gotten pretty good at not being seen, Cat. And anyway, that’s another reason why I need you to go back to the hotel. You have to make sure Fiermonte doesn’t send the police. I’m sure he’s figured out for himself where Jeremy is going. I need you to buy me some time to take care of this myself.”

“And what if Dickey is using Atkins to bait Jeremy? The way he used Jeremy to bait Dad. What if this is what Dickey wants — Jeremy to come to him?”

The cab Johnny wanted switched lanes suddenly and began heading for the corner.

“Dickey already had Jeremy,” Johnny said. “Remember? Had him and let him go. He wants the CD. If I can’t find Jeremy in the next hour, I’ll call Dickey myself and offer him what he’s been after. He can have it and hear for himself that Jeremy isn’t a threat.”

“And you think he’ll just back off after that?”

“He’s a businessman, Cat.”

“He’s a mass murderer, Johnny. And he’s going to listen to that CD and know that we know he killed our father. You think he won’t want to kill all of us then?”

The cab pulled to the curb and stopped. Johnny looked at Cat.

“If it comes to that, then I’ll kill him myself.”

“Jesus, Johnny.”

“Jeremy can still have a normal life, Cat. I’m not going to let him throw that away. I’m running anyway — not that very many people will care that Dickey McVicker is dead.”

“Richter will,” Cat said.

“Like I said, I’m good at not being seen.”

Johnny opened the cab’s back door.

“Don’t tell Haley anything,” he said. “Okay? Just tell her I’m taking Jeremy somewhere safe and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“And if you don’t come back?” Cat asked flatly.

“She’ll know what to do. Just keep her safe till she does it.”
Johnny climbed into the backseat and pulled the door closed.

It took all he had to hide the pain this caused. He looked at Cat one last time.

The cab pulled off and headed down the rain-swept street. Johnny reached up and touched his collarbone. The strange pain there was getting worse.

And then he realized something.

Something worse even than pain.

He hadn’t terminated his call to Haley.

Johnny removed his cell phone, and to his relief saw that the call had been dropped.

But when?

How much had poor Haley heard?

He closed his eyes and visualized reuniting with her.

Then he visualized them somewhere far away, just the two of them, in a place safe enough that they both could dare to sleep.

Cat returned to the Gershwin, eyeing the security camera above the front desk as she headed toward the elevator.

Fiermonte was on his cell phone when she entered the room. He looked straight at her and said into the phone, “I’ll have to call you back,” then ended the call. “You’re soaked,” he said to her. He walked into the bathroom and came out with two folded towels. He handed them to Cat and told her she should probably get out of her wet clothes.

She ignored that and said, “Who was that on the phone?”

“My ex.” Fiermonte shook his head, as if to say,
What a bitch.
“The ceiling is leaking. Even though I don’t live there anymore, she still thinks it’s my job to call the super.”

Cat had almost forgotten about every other aspect of her life — her failing career, her drinking and one-night stands, her recent encounter with a separated man who had been colleagues with her father, and was nearly old enough to
be
her father.

In a way, she regretted remembering all of that.

But every bubble must burst.

As she dried her face and head with one of the towels, Cat told Fiermonte what was going on — where Johnny thought Jeremy was heading, and that Johnny was going to stop him and bring him back.

Then she said she had to go upstairs to lie to Johnny’s girlfriend.

As Cat was the closing the door, Fiermonte opened his cell phone again.

She asked him who he was calling.

“The super,” he said. “And then I have to call my ex back. Like I fucking need this right now.”

Cat left him to his misery and made her way to the elevator.

In his Mercedes SUV, his cell phone still on speaker, McVicker instructed his two PIs to remain at their post outside the Gershwin Hotel, then terminated the call and looked at the man in the black mackintosh.

“We wouldn’t make it there in time,” the man said.

“I have Richter standing by.”

“How far from MacDougal Street?”

“He could probably get there in fifteen minutes.”

“He has a crew with him?”

“Yes.”

“Better than that last bunch?”

McVicker nodded.

The man thought for a moment, then said decisively, “Send him.”

McVicker was entering the number into his cell with his thick thumb. “You’re sure about this?”

The man was looking through the sheets of water streaming down the windshield. His eyes weren’t focused on the dark restaurant but rather the Hudson River flowing just beyond it.

“I don’t think he has left us any other choice.”

“And once Richter has them?”

“Bring them here.”

“Great Neck would be safer.”

“No, here. I want them here.” His eyes focused on the restaurant now. “And tell your chef buddy he’s going to need to close early tonight.”

McVicker nodded and put the phone to his ear. He looked at the mackintosh man as he waited for his call to be answered.

He knew what the man had to be thinking.

This was a long time in coming
.

A text came in to Vitali’s cell phone. From her cot Rachel watched as he read it.

She knew that at this point any communication the Russian received could be the order to kill her.

Her gut tightened as she waited, her legs ready to spring her up and forward, her mind on the distance she would need to cross before he had the chance to reach for his own weapons.

Unless he was arrogant enough to think he could easily dispatch her with his bare hands.

She had killed in confined spaces before, so she knew reaching for her gun was out of the question; the Russian would be on her before she could even clear the weapon from its holster, let alone take aim.

So it would be the knife — the one clipped to her belt, and the best way to kill an enemy this close.

She was ready to reach for the knife and spring toward him.

“It’s from Smith,” Vitali said finally. “We’re on the move.”

“Where to?”

The Russian kid was smiling as he rose from his cot.

“To avenge my father,” he said.

They quickly gathered their gear, then made it down to the loading dock just as Smith was entering through the bay door.

He was carrying a large shopping bag. He met them near the small office and placed the bag on the cement platform.

“Put these on,” he said.

Vitali didn’t bother to look inside the bag; he knew what it contained.

He removed his rain jacket, but Rachel was curious and stepped to the bag, glancing at its contents.

“We’re pressed for time,” Smith said to her.

The corner of Bleecker and MacDougal
, Jeremy had said.

That was where he had been abducted, after walking less than half a block, so that should be where the apartment he had been staying was located.

Johnny had the cabbie drop him a block to the north, then double-timed it the rest of the way.

This heavy downpour had all but emptied the Village of pedestrians as well.

Johnny stood at the corner of Bleecker and MacDougal. His clothes and hair were soaked. And while the day had been mild, the temperature had dropped significantly once the rain started, and was dropping still.

Drenched, cold, exhausted, hurt.

All he wanted was to grab his kid brother and get back to Haley.

He made these two thoughts the only ones in his mind.

It was difficult to see — rain was in his eyes, and his vision, which was usually sharp, was suddenly blurring. His line of sight extended for two blocks or so, and then everything just faded till it disappeared completely behind the shifting mesh of rain.

Johnny knew that MacDougal ran north to south, and Bleecker east to west. The 6 train station was five blocks to the east, so Jeremy would be coming from that direction. He doubted his brother was already here, in one of the many apartments in any of the dozens of five-story buildings that lined the street — his cab had made good time, and Jeremy would still have had to walk the quarter mile between here and the Bleecker Street station.

That was, of course, if Johnny was right and his brother was in fact on his way here.

He decided to head toward the station and watch the sidewalks on both sides of Bleecker as he walked. An intercept course. There was no chance of missing his kid brother; Johnny was the only person out. As he walked, though, he considered the possibility that Jeremy might take a roundabout way here, which is what
he
would have done.

With that in mind, Johnny altered his plan. He found a building with a small awning halfway, not far from Sullivan Street, and positioned himself beneath it. From this vantage point, he could see east, in case Jeremy came that way, but he could also look west and keep an eye on the corner of MacDougal and Bleecker.

Ground zero for Jeremy’s abduction.

Johnny waited for several minutes, watching the few cars that passed. At one point a police unit appeared, its lights flashing but its siren silent. Johnny casually turned his head away as the car passed — not speeding, but not cruising at the posted speed limit, either. At the end of the block, the car turned onto Sullivan and disappeared.

It wasn’t long after this that another vehicle approached. A white panel van. As it passed, Johnny stole a look at the driver through the driver’s door window.

A woman. Dark hair, under thirty. One didn’t usually see women behind the wheel of panel vans — Johnny hadn’t, anyway, that he could remember.

But that vehicle, too, turned at the end of the block and was gone from Johnny’s sight.

He looked west again, toward MacDougal. Several minutes passed, and then at last someone appeared.

A lone figure, no raincoat or umbrella, moving with furious purpose, his hands plunged deep into the pockets of his jeans.

Jeremy.

And as Johnny suspected, his brother had taken the less-than-direct way here, had headed north before moving east, was now heading south on MacDougal and passing Bleecker.

Johnny stepped back out into the hard rain and started after him. He quickly reached the corner of MacDougal and Bleecker. Instead of turning, though, he paused to look around.

Jeremy, walking now at an even faster, more determined pace, was approaching the doorway of a building less than a quarter of a block down. He lifted his head as he got closer, looking up at the floors of lighted windows above.

Rounding the corner, Johnny called out Jeremy’s name, but Jeremy didn’t react, couldn’t hear him over the rain, so Johnny filled his lungs with the damp air and called out once more, making sure this time that his voice was the deep bark of a drill sergeant.

Or as close to it as he could get.

Startled, Jeremy turned, then froze.

Johnny began to close the distance between them. He moved casually, without a hint of aggression, as if Jeremy were some wild animal that might at any moment bolt.

“Go away,” Jeremy said. “Go back to the hotel.”

“Not without you.”

“I heard what Fiermonte said.”

“I know. But what you’re planning on doing just won’t work, Jeremy. You wouldn’t get within a mile of Dickey. Not unless he wanted you to.”

“I don’t care.”

“They’d kill you.”

“I’d rather die trying than live with this.”

“With what?”

“I got her killed, Johnny. Just like I got Dad killed.”

“This won’t change that.”

“You heard him. She died for
nothing
. Because of
me
.”

Johnny was maybe ten paces away. “We’ll ask Fiermonte to listen to the sessions again. Maybe he missed something the first time.”

Jeremy took a few steps back. He was agitated, on the verge of tears. His stance told Johnny that he was ready to either fight or flee. Johnny ceased his approach.

“I’m not afraid of you,” Jeremy said. “I can outrun you, you know that. And if I have to, I’ll fight you.”

“You need to stop all this, Jeremy. You need to stop doing this to yourself.”

“I heard what you told them. About Thailand. Could you live with yourself if you had let her get killed? If those men had cut up Haley and killed her?”

Johnny shook his head. “No.”

“Now imagine if you had caused that. How would you feel then?”

Johnny had no words.

“They
beat
her,” Jeremy said. He was pleading, desperate for Johnny — for anyone — to understand his torment. “Someone
beat
Beth. Some bitch. She smashed her face, then put a gun in her mouth and pulled the fucking trigger.” He let those words — that terrible, unimaginable string of images — linger. Finally, he said, “She must have been so scared, Johnny. So fucking scared. And it’s all my fault.”

The kid was on the edge, ready to implode under the weight of his rage.

Johnny said the only thing he could. “Come back with me, Jeremy. Come back to Cat and me. I’m not going anywhere, okay? Not till we’ve figured out what to do.”

“He has to pay,” Jeremy said.

This was the thought that fed his rage, and the thought to which his rage always led him.

The only thing that mattered to him.

He was calming down — no, Johnny thought, he was running down, his emotions, as they often did, quickly turning from something that drove him to something that depleted him.

Johnny resumed closing the distance between them.

“He will,” he assured his brother. “One way or another, Dickey will pay.”

Jeremy stood his ground as Johnny stepped closer. “You promise?”

“Yeah.”

Johnny reached Jeremy, put his hands on the kid’s shoulders, and sought out his eyes.

Brother to brother, man to man.

“We’ll get him, Jeremy. I swear it.”

Jeremy met Johnny’s eyes, held them for a moment, then closed his own as tightly as he could. Tears joined the rain streaming down his face.

Leaning forward, Jeremy placed his forehead into his big brother’s chest and clutched at him, wrapping his arms around his waist.

Johnny embraced Jeremy, felt him all but collapse.

He also felt the pain radiating from his ribs and collarbone.

They stayed that way for a moment, and then Johnny shifted his position so Jeremy was beside him. He was as much holding his brother up now as holding him. Johnny knew that Bleecker Street was their best chance for a cab, so he turned to steer Jeremy in that direction.

They took only a few steps together before Johnny saw them.

A man and a woman, half a block away and walking toward them.

Johnny glanced at them briefly, then looked away as if the sight of this couple meant nothing to him.

His glance, however, was enough for him to recognize the woman as the same dark-haired woman he had seen in the passing van moments ago.

The man with her was a menacing hulk — Johnny’s glimpse had been enough to tell him that.

The kind of man for which there was really only one purpose in life.

Johnny stole another quick look, and this time he saw that the man’s eyes were fixed on Jeremy.

More than fixed — the cold, hateful stare of an obsessed man.

Gregorian’s son.

As he and Jeremy continued forward, Johnny quickly scanned their surroundings for ways of escape, as well as anyone else who might be associated with this couple.

He completed his scan with a look over his left shoulder.

He saw another man coming up behind them. Moving casually, like he was out on a stroll.

But Johnny knew better.

Because he had seen that man before, too.

Opening the loading dock door of Dickey’s warehouse.

The smoker.

Smith.

An undercover cop, as corrupt as that undercover cop in Thailand.

Johnny thought briefly of the thousands of miles he had traveled, all the careful steps he had taken, the hard choices he had made, only to find himself facing more or less the same situation he had faced three years ago.

He thought, too, of all Jeremy had been through, only to face yet another abduction at the corner of MacDougal and Bleecker.

But there wasn’t time to dwell on that.

Johnny looked forward again and said in a calm whisper, “I think we’re in trouble, Jeremy.”

Jeremy lifted his head and saw the couple heading toward them.

Though the eyes of the man — the man who had recently beaten Jeremy and injected him with heroin — were fixed on him, Jeremy’s eyes went straight to the woman at that man’s side.

Cat had said it was a woman who had interrogated and killed Elizabeth Hall.

Who else, then, could this woman next to Dragoi Gregorian be?

Jeremy’s body language suddenly changed. No longer drained of energy, he began to surge with it.

And he had Johnny’s KA-BAR knife in his hand.

His body tensed; he was ready to charge.

Maybe twenty paces remained between them and the two hired killers.

And not much more than that between them and Smith, bringing up the rear.

Johnny slowed himself and his brother to a stop, scanning the area again, zeroing in on what would be the best direction for them to go, the best way out of this pincer movement.

Certainly Dickey wants Jeremy alive, Johnny thought. That gives us the advantage. Dickey still wants the recordings. So all we need to do is what Coyles do best — run.

But as Johnny told himself this, he saw the dark-haired woman reaching into her jacket.

The unmistakable gesture of someone going for a holstered weapon.

A drawn gun wasn’t uncommon in an abduction, Johnny thought, but if that was what this was, then where was the vehicle into which he and Jeremy were to be placed?

The white panel van he had seen moments ago.

It should be tailing them, just as the box truck had tailed Jeremy and their father. Or it should be parked somewhere up ahead.

There was no such vehicle anywhere.

And if not an abduction, then what else this could be but a hit?

This realization changed everything. Running was no longer their best option. It was no longer an option at all. Running would only get them both shot in the back.

Johnny said to his brother, “Steady,” but just as he spoke that word — even before he finished speaking it — Jeremy bolted from his side like a spooked horse.

And was moving with startling speed toward the woman.

A street fighter set on a collision course, the six-inch knife in his hand raised and ready.

The woman had cleared her handgun from the shoulder holster under her jacket. Johnny saw a semiautomatic affixed with a suppressor, saw her extending her arm and bringing the weapon level.

But Jeremy was pressing to close the distance.

He was almost there.

As if in competition for a prize he would not allow himself to lose, Gregorian broke from the woman’s side and moved to intercept Jeremy. He cut in front of the woman, quickly blocking what would have been a clean and easy shot for her.

As Fiermonte had predicted, Gregorian was off the leash.

And the young Russian clearly wanted more satisfaction than a simple execution would provide.

He wanted to hurt first.

Hurt the kid who had gotten his own father killed.

This still made no sense to Johnny — why abduct Jeremy and beat him, then let him loose, only to tail and kill him on a city street hours later?

But there was no reason to expect or even hope for sense, not at this point, not now.

A fraction of a second after Jeremy had bolted from his side, Johnny moved to intercept Gregorian, focusing his mind on all the ways he was going to take the much-larger man apart.

All he could hear was the sound of the rain, all he could feel was the hard beating of his heart and the adrenaline surging into his arms and legs, erasing every hint of pain.