The Sign (48 page)

“Well if they’re so closed-minded, if they don’t see the danger of their ways and insist on marching down that path to destruction, then they’re beyond saving.” Drucker seethed. “We had a war over slavery. Maybe we do need a war over this.” He gave a haughty shrug. “If it’s going to happen sooner or later, might as well just get it over with. And then maybe we can build something more sane from its ashes.”

Rydell felt as if someone had reached in and yanked his lungs out with pliers. “You’re insane,” he told Drucker. “You’ve lost all sense of perspective.”

“Not at all.”

“You can’t do this, Keenan,” Rydell insisted.

“No. Not without a fall guy,” Drucker conceded.

Rydell stared at him, the words colliding with his tangled thoughts, and instantly got it. “Me. That’s what you need me for.”

Drucker nodded stoically. “I needed a fall guy. Someone with a completely different motive, one that wasn’t in any way related to the politics of this country. Because this can’t be seen as a political act, you’re absolutely right about that. The only way to do this is to paint it as the desperate act of a visionary genius with no political motive other than trying to save the planet. And who knows? It may well end up giving people more awareness of the global warming problem.”

“But you couldn’t care less either way,” Rydell said sardonically.

“Not true, Larry. I care. But I’m not even sure what, if anything, we can realistically do about it. And bringing reason back into politics—that’s going to help the polar bears more than pushing Hummer into bankruptcy, don’t you think?”

“This isn’t about saving the polar bears or the rain forests, Keenan,” Rydell said angrily. “It’s about social justice. For everyone on the planet.”

“Social justice is about freeing people from the clutches of witch doctors and superstition,” Drucker fired back.

Rydell rubbed his brow, letting Drucker’s words sink in. The room was suddenly feeling much hotter and tighter. “How was it all meant to end for me? ‘Suicide’ ? ”

Drucker nodded. “Once the hoax is exposed. A tragic end to a heroic attempt.” He sighed and leaned forward. “I’m sorry, Larry. But I hope you can see the sense in what I’m trying to do here. The urgency. And that, at some level, you agree that it had to be done.”

Rydell sat back and shrugged. “I hope you won’t be disappointed if I tell you I won’t play along.”

Drucker gave him a negative, dismissing wave of his hand. “Please, Larry. Give me some credit.”

Larry looked at him, waiting for more—and suddenly froze at Drucker’s composure.

“You’re going to have a stroke,” Drucker told him, casually. “A bad one. In fact it’s going to happen sooner than you think. Maybe right here in this restaurant. In front of all these people. You’ll end up in a coma. One we can manage. And during that time, we’ll,” he paused, choosing his words, “massage your personality. You know, like we did with the priest. We’ll put the right answers in your mind. Make you more amenable to our plans. And when the time comes, we’ll help you take your own life, after leaving behind a detailed, contrite, and moving explanation of why you did what you did.” Drucker studied his face, as if intrigued by Rydell’s reaction to his words. “It’s the stuff of legends, Larry. No one will ever forget your name, if that’s any consolation.”

Rydell felt a surge of sheer terror—and just then, he noticed something behind Drucker. A man in a dark suit, one of his drones. He swung his head around toward the entrance of the café. Two more men appeared there. His mind tripped over his only option—to make a loud, visible run for it and hope the commotion screwed up their plans—and he was about to push himself out of his chair when he spotted something else. To his side. Out, on the street. A white van that had been parked there all along. Its side door, sliding open. Two silhouettes, standing inside, on either side of something big and round and mounted on a stand, something that looked like a projector lamp. His hands slipped off the chair’s arms as he tried to push himself to his feet, but he never made it past a couple of inches off the seat cushion. The blast of noise was horrific. It assaulted his senses like a hammer blow that came from inside his skull, overwhelming every nerve ending in his head with an unbearably loud and shrill noise that wouldn’t stop. His eyes burst into tears and he yelled out, the force of the caustic sound blasting him out of his chair in front of a stunned roomful of hotel guests. His hands shot up to protect his ears, but it was too late as his legs crumpled under him and he fell to the ground, wretching and coughing and sputtering with convulsions.

Drucker’s men rushed to his side. They helped him up and instantly bundled him out of the room, avoiding any brusque moves, and displaying the well-trained, expert moves of caring, efficient bodyguards. One of them even called out for a doctor. Within seconds, they’d hustled him out of the café and into a waiting elevator.

Its doors slid shut with a silent hiss, and it glided down to the hotel’s underground parking lot.

M
att’s pulse thundered ahead as he saw Rydell get blasted out of his seat by an unseen force. There was no noise, no physical disturbance. It was as if he’d been punched backward by a huge invisible fist. Then he was there, bent down on the ground, writhing in agony, the contents of his belly spewing out onto the café’s richly textured carpet.

He’d been ready to make his move. Waiting in a corner booth, behind the grand piano by the bar, away from the main seating area, biding his time at a staging point he’d chosen carefully. His fingers were wrapped around the Para-Ordnance’s wide grip, ready to yank it out and shove it up against Drucker’s ribs. But they’d moved first. Whatever they did to Rydell had sent Matt’s plans to the shredder.

He rose and charged toward the café’s entrance. He caught sight of Drucker heading out of the room, flanked by two of his men. He was turning right, headed for the hotel’s front doors, whereas Rydell had been taken left, to the elevators. Matt hurtled across the café. He skidded to a stop at its entrance. Drucker was leaving the hotel with his escorts. There were a lot of people around him. Hotel guests, bellboys, valets. No way he could get to him. He’d missed his chance. He spun his gaze in the opposite direction. The lights over the elevator Rydell was in scrolled down to indicate he was being taken to the hotel’s parking lot.

Matt chose to go after him instead. If Drucker had him again, Matt would be left with no leverage. Leverage he needed if he was going to see his brother again.

He bolted across the lobby, past some shocked guests and through the door to the hotel’s internal stairwell. Flew down the stairs, three at a time, gripping the banister at the turns and flinging himself around them like an out-of-control bobsled. Six flights later, he was at the parking level. He burst onto its smoothly painted concrete floor in time to see a dark gray van squealing away and turning onto the exit ramp. His eyes traveled across the garage. He heard a door click open to his left, spun his gaze that way, and rushed toward the noise. A valet was getting out of a car. A big Chrysler Navigator
SUV
, silver. Matt didn’t flinch. He sprinted right up to him, yanked the car keys from his grasp, and shoved him away before climbing in and spurring the big Northstar V8 to life. He slammed the selector into drive and cannoned out of the parking slot and onto the exit ramp.

He emerged into the golden-orange glow of dusk and threw a quick glance in each direction. The city center was an orthogonal grid of alternating one-way avenues, some of them five lanes wide. This one went east-west, and the van was pulling away to the right, heading west. He nudged the gas pedal. The Navigator slid out from under the garage entrance’s canopy and accelerated onto the avenue. The van was cruising away, three hundred yards down the road.

Matt threaded the big
SUV
through a rolling chicane of slower vehicles and caught up with the van in no time. He held back, keeping a car between them. The road was straight and wide, the traffic sparse. The intersections were vast and generous, concrete plains outlined by patterned stone infills that gave them the feel of a Beverly Hills piazza. Two blocks on, a big green sign appeared overhead, announcing the on-ramp to the interstate and, beyond, to the 90. Matt knew he had to do something before they hit the highway. Once they were on it, all kinds of unknowns would come into play. He risked being spotted. He risked losing them. He risked them getting to wherever it was they were going, and having them end up with the home advantage.

He had to make his move.

The road was as wide as a runway and didn’t have any cars parked on either side. The block they were coming up to was lined with a row of thin trees to the left, and some kind of granite colonnade on the right. It wouldn’t do. Too brutal. Matt edged the Navigator right and peered ahead. The next block looked more promising. The left side was edged by a bunkerlike parking garage and wouldn’t do. The sidewalk on the right, on the other hand, led to a rise of a dozen or so wide, low steps that climbed up to a raised open area outside an imposing stone-clad office building.

Matt settled on it and mashed the pedal.

The V8 growled as the Navigator surged out from behind the buffering sedan and overtook it from the left. Matt went out wide to the left then veered right and aimed the Navigator’s nose at the van’s left front corner. He didn’t lift off. The Navigator homed in on the van like a guided missile. A split second before it slammed into it, Matt jerked the wheel to the left and righted the
SUV
. It hit the van at a tangent, catching its driver unawares, its momentum flinging the van off its trajectory and sending it shooting off to the right. Matt flung the wheel back to the right, bringing the Navigator right up against the van’s left side, hugging it tight and nursing it along its diagonal trajectory, then he swerved right even more to close the deal. The van had nowhere to go, and its driver knew it. He must have stood on the brakes, as the van lurched forward on its front wheels, lighting them up in a cloud of rubber, but he was still going too fast. The van bounced heavily up the stairs before slamming against one of the building’s massive square pillars.

Matt ramped the Navigator over the curb and flew out of it just as the van hit the column. He stormed up the steps, the stainless steel handgun out and ready to draw blood, eyes peeled for any movement.

The van had hit hard. Its radiator was smoking and its front end curled around the column. Matt didn’t know what state he’d find Rydell in. One thing he knew, though, was that the guys in the front wouldn’t be at their healthiest. The van had a steep front rake and little if no hood to protect the engine in case of a frontal collision. Plus, he knew, the guys weren’t expecting the hit.

Passersby and people who worked in the building were edging forward to check out the crash, only to reel away at the sight of Matt and his handgun. He ignored them and rounded the side of the van, knees bent in a wide, low stance, eyeing the van’s doors and windows cautiously, looking for any sign of life. The front was badly mashed up, and Matt was pretty sure he wouldn’t be getting any grief from there. He side-stepped away to the back of the van, extended an arm across one of its back doors, and rapped on it with his gun. He pulled his hand back quickly, anticipating a few rounds through the bodywork. None came. He reached over and pulled the door open then swung across, looking down the gunsight of the P14.

Rydell was in there, writhing on the floor, shaken up but alive. His hands were held by nylon cuffs. He saw one of the guys he recognized from the hotel, his head bloodied, trying to straighten himself up. The guy glanced up, saw Matt, blinked twice, and fumbled for a gun. Matt squeezed off a round and saw a red splatter burst out from the guy’s chest.

“Come on,” he yelled at Rydell, who nodded vaguely like someone who’d been in a solitary confinement sweatbox for a month. As Matt reached in to him, he saw something else. Another body, lying facedown behind Rydell. A woman. Her hands were tied behind her back, same nylon cuffs. Matt climbed in and, carefully, turned her over. She had a fat piece of duct tape covering her mouth. He peeled it off and recognized her instantly. Gracie Logan, the news anchor who’d been covering the sign’s appearances. He reached in farther and put his fingers to her neck, looking for a pulse. She was alive.

She stirred at his touch, then flinched, her eyes wide with shock.

“Where are . . . ? Who . . . ?” she mouthed incoherently.

“Give me your hand,” Matt told her as he tucked the P14 under his belt. He helped her up and slung her arm over his shoulders.

“Come on,” he told Rydell. He half-carried Gracie as he cut past a gaggle of dumbstruck onlookers, down the steps to the waiting Navigator. He set her down in the backseat, got in behind the wheel with Rydell beside him, and powered away.

In the rearview mirror, Matt saw Gracie straighten up. She was slowly coming out of it. Her eyes swept across her surroundings before settling on Matt’s face.

“You okay?” he asked her.

She stared at him blankly. She looked like she had the mother of all hangovers. Then things must have come flooding back, as her face tightened up with a worried frown.

“Dalton,” Gracie blurted. “I’ve got to get Dalton out of there.”

“Who?”

Her hands were rummaging around, looking for something. “My phone. Where’s my phone? I have to call Dalton. It isn’t safe.” She turned to Matt. “I have to warn him.”

Matt looked down the street, saw a bank of phone booths, and pulled over. He helped Gracie out. “Where are we going? Where shall I tell him to go?” she asked.

“Who are you talking about?”

“Dalton. My cameraman. They’ll be going after him too.”

Matt tried to fill in the blanks. “Where is he?”

“At Darby’s mansion,” she said, her expression vague, as if she wasn’t exactly sure.

“The preacher?”

“Yes.” She concentrated hard. “No. Wait. I’m not sure.” She shook her head. “He went to the airport,” she added after a beat. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure of that. Either way, he’s on his cell.” She picked up the handset. “What’ll I tell him?”