Burning Midnight (16 page)

The metal stairs inside the spire were narrow, pie-shaped wedges, the space dim and claustrophobic. Their guide was a skinny man in his sixties with thick gray eyebrows. Two middle-aged women, both Mexican, were the only other people taking the first run of the day up to the balcony that stood in the shadow of
El Ángel de la Independencia.

Sully felt light-headed with worry. He and Hunter had made some harrowing climbs up to the water towers of Manhattan, but they were always on ladders. Climbing
El
Ángel
would be different.

As if reading his thoughts, Hunter reached back and took his hand.

They were still holding hands when they reached the top and stepped out the door to the balcony that circled the pillar.
El
Ángel
loomed above them.

The view was dizzying; the vehicles zooming around the roundabout looked like toys. Buildings and trees and glimpses of wide avenues stretched out below, the horizon framed by mountains.

Sully spotted Mandy looking up at him from the steps of the monument. He hoped if it came down to it she'd stick with the plan: if he and Hunter were arrested, she was supposed to run back to the hotel, where Dom was waiting with the Gold.

Hunter squeezed his hand. “Okay. Here we go.”

Sully kissed her impulsively, hitting the side of her mouth. “Be careful.”

Since the balcony circled the top of the spire, wherever the guide was, if Hunter was on the opposite side, he couldn't see her.

When Hunter entered the guide's blind spot she reached up without hesitation, gripped the ornamental grillwork set into the spire, and pulled herself three or four feet off the balcony. Sully had worried about how Hunter would navigate the lip on the spire's roof, which jutted out three or four inches, but it barely slowed her. With the toes of her shoes wedged into the grillwork, she reached up and around, gripped
El Ángel
's ankle, and hoisted herself onto the tower roof.

Sully's heart was galloping as Hunter pulled the cord out of her pack, tied one end around the statue's ankle, and cinched Sully's belt around her waist. The other end of the cord was already tied securely to the belt.

She reached into a fold in the statue's billowing skirt and began to climb.

There were no good footholds low on the statue; Hunter's foot slipped twice before she gave up and pulled herself up with her arms, like she was doing a chin-up. She managed to hoist her head even with her hands, but there was still nowhere to wedge her feet. Her legs flailed around until she finally swung her left one up so it was level with her hands, and hooked the same crevice.

Hunter lunged for a billowing curve in the skirt three feet higher. She got her fingertips around it. A growl of fear and effort escaped her as she pulled herself up, finally managing to get her right foot into a crevice.

There was a cry of surprise. One of their fellow tourists, a small Mexican woman, was staring at Hunter, one hand covering her mouth.

“¡Baja¡”
the woman shrieked at Hunter.
“Senorita, baja.”

Hunter was clinging to the side of
El Ángel
's skirt from narrow pleats, fifteen feet above Sully's head. She ignored the woman's shouts as she shimmied up
El Ángel
's bare waist, her body pressed tightly against the slick gold.

“No!” This time the shout came from their guide. “No!
¡Baja ya!”

Hunter reached out and grabbed
El Ángel'
s bare breast. At another time it might have been a comical sight, but under the circumstances Sully was just grateful the breast was there. The guide went on shouting as Hunter found footholds on the statue's waistline, then reached and caught its outstretched arm with her left hand. She let go of the breast and gripped the arm with her right hand as well, then pushed off with both feet and swung her legs up so she was sitting on
El Ángel
's arm.

Her breath coming in a tight squeal that Sully could hear from thirty feet below, Hunter shimmied out onto the arm, wobbling as it grew ever thinner, until she couldn't go any farther. The sphere was three feet away. Hunter leaned forward until she was hugging the statue's forearm with one hand, then reached with the other.

Her fingertips brushed the sphere.

She stretched, stretched, leaning forward.

She lunged. As one hand closed around the Gold, she lost her balance and flipped, swinging underneath the arm. She was hanging upside down, her legs still wrapped around the arm, one hand scrabbling for purchase while she clutched the Gold sphere in the other.

“Hunter!”
Sully screamed. “Just drop it! Hang on!”

Hunter lost her grip and fell. She plummeted past Sully, past the edge of the balcony.

The rope went taut. He heard her slam into the side of the tower.

Sully sprinted to the rope, grabbed it with both hands, strained to pull her up.

Hands gripped the rope behind him. The guide and the other tourists helped Sully pull until Hunter's outstretched hand rose into view. Gasping, she grabbed the balcony's steel railing. They kept pulling until Hunter came over the top of the railing and dropped to the floor.

Sully knelt beside her. “Are you hurt?”

“I think my arm is broken.” She was cradling her left arm against her body.

The guide said something in Spanish. He was furious.

Hunter answered, then said to Sully, “He wants to know why I was vandalizing their statue.”

Sully nodded. The sphere matched the gold of the statue so perfectly, the guide still didn't realize what Hunter had been after. The sphere was nowhere in sight. Either she'd dropped it or stashed it in her pack. “Let's get you to the hospital.” He looked up at the guide. “Hospital? Ambulance?”

Two police officers appeared in the doorway to the stairs, breathless from the climb. The guide went to them, speaking quickly, gesturing at Hunter.

“Can you stand?”

“Yeah,” Hunter said. “Help me up, and immediately take my pack from me, like you're doing it because of my arm.”

Sully did as she said, gently sliding the pack off her shoulders and draping it over his own as the officers came over. One of them, a stout woman, asked Hunter something.

“Come on,” Hunter said. “She wants us to go down.”

“Are they letting us go?”

“I'm being arrested, but first they're taking me to the hospital.”

There was only room for one person at a time on the stairs, so a police officer went first, then Sully, in case Hunter fell. Hunter walked gingerly, and seemed woozy, but she made it down on her own.

A crowd had gathered at the bottom. Sully wrapped a hand around Hunter's waist and helped her toward a police car. He'd been expecting an ambulance, but maybe she didn't seem hurt enough for an ambulance.

“Perdóname, Señora Agente.”

The police officer who was walking beside Hunter turned toward the voice. Sully glanced over his shoulder.

His knees almost buckled.

Alex Holliday was approaching the officer, accompanied by two men in dark suits.

“Damn it,” Hunter hissed. “How the hell did he find us?”

Hunter listened carefully as Holliday spoke to the officer in rapid Spanish.

“No,”
Hunter nearly shouted. She stepped toward Holliday and the officer, shaking her head and protesting.

“What is it?” Sully asked, staying close.

Hunter turned to Sully. “He's telling them I'm wanted in the United States on felony drug charges. That I'm probably high on meth right now.” She turned and shouted something at the police officer.

Holliday reached out to shake the officer's hand, and slipped something into it as he did. The gesture was subtle, but Sully caught it. The police officer smiled as if she and Holliday were old friends. She nodded, said something.

Sully could see this wasn't going their way. “Run,” he said to Hunter under his breath.

He'd barely gotten the words out when Hunter took off, right into traffic. Brakes squealed and horns blared as Sully followed. A van coming right at him veered, sideswiping a tiny car.

Shouts rose from behind Sully as he reached the curb on the far side of the roundabout. He was gaining on Hunter, who was cradling her arm against her stomach. They had to get out of sight in a hurry—Holliday had burned Seafoam Green spheres, so he was fast.

Hunter had evidently reached the same conclusion. She headed right for their hotel, bolted through the automatic doors. She and Sully didn't slow down until they were on the second floor, pounding on the door to their room.

When Mandy flung the door open, Sully headed straight to the window.

One of Holliday's bodyguards was standing a dozen feet from the hotel entrance, his hands clasped in front of him.

“What happened? Did you get it?” Dom asked.

“Yes,” Hunter said. “But Holliday found us.” Her breathing was ragged, her eyes closed.

Sully still wasn't sure exactly what it meant that Holliday had located them, only that it was bad. Did he plan to kill them and take the spheres for himself, or just hold them hostage until they agreed to sell the spheres to him? Sully knew Holliday was a criminal who'd cheat kids and burn down competitors' stores, but was he a killer?

“Is he out there?” Dom joined Sully at the window.

Sully pointed. “That's one of his bodyguards.” The man was tall and wiry, not one of the human bowling balls who had beaten them outside the Hammerstein. Sully would bet this guy was a lot more dangerous, maybe ex–Special Forces, pumped up with Seafoam Green and Chocolate spheres.

“Call the police,” Dom said.

Hunter sat on the edge of a bed. “And tell them what? That Holliday is trying to steal our spheres? If we do, they'll arrest me and confiscate
both
Golds.”

Sully nodded. That seemed likely. He got his phone and battery off the nightstand and inserted the battery. “We can use our phones now.” He was tempted to call his mom, but didn't want to scare her. Maybe he should call his father and ask for advice?

What did his father know about the situation they were in? Nothing. He'd just lay out all the things Sully had done wrong.

Sully's phone rang. It was a number he didn't recognize, with a New York area code. He answered it.

“David,
buddy,
” Holliday said. “Come on, what are you doing, making me fly all the way down here? Let me give you a free tip: don't bother disabling your GPS once someone IDs your vehicle. They can still track you visually via satellite.” He sounded jubilant.

He'd been following them the whole time.

“Good to know,” Sully said. “Now why don't you go find your own marbles with your army of hunters and your computerized database?”

“Put him on speaker,” Mandy said.

Sully activated the speaker function so the others could hear.

“I will, I will. Just as soon as we take care of business. I'll give you fifty thousand—cash—for the pair.”

“Unbelievable,” Sully said. “You are just a criminal, aren't you? All that crap about your integrity, your business model.”

Holliday spoke slowly and carefully. “See? This is exactly your problem. You don't understand the rules of the game. You think Jin Bao wouldn't be outside your hotel if he knew what you'd found?”

Sully didn't answer.

“Let me tell you a little story. I'll be quick, I promise. Back during the Great Depression, unemployed men would gather outside factories looking for work. If a crew boss needed, say, ten workers that day, he'd throw ten apples into the crowd. The ten men who brought him those apples got the work. Not the ten men who
caught
the apples—the ten who brought them up. The crew boss figured the men who were both quick and smart enough to catch the apples, and tough enough to keep them, would make the best workers.”

Dom cursed under his breath. Hunter stood, still cradling her arm, and went to the window.

“I have to hand it to you, Sully,” Holliday went on. “You're a talented hunter. You have a gift. I saw that in you—that's why I offered you a job. The thing is, you're smart enough to catch the apples, but you're not tough enough to hold on to them.”

He sounded like Sully's dad, who beat on kids, then justified it by saying you needed to toughen up.

“We want a hundred million,” Hunter said. “Each.”

“Yeah, that's not going to happen,” Holliday said. “Again, Hunter, you don't have a good grasp of the rules of this game. You have no leverage in this negotiation.”

“You're not getting them,” Sully said. “We'll call the police and let the Mexican government have them before we give them to you.”

“How can I say this nicely?” Holliday said. “I can't, so I'll just say it: if you call the police, three highly trained operatives will kick down your door, take the spheres from you, and hurt you in the process.”

“You don't even know what room we're in, dipstick,” Dom said, nice and loud.

“Hi there, Dom. Give me three minutes. One of my guys is bribing a maid as we speak.”

Hunter spun from the window, looked at Sully. “Hang up.” She grabbed her pack and Dom's with her uninjured hand and headed into the bathroom.

Sully and the others followed. Once they were inside, Hunter turned on the shower. She took out both Golds, leaned against the sink.

“We're not leaving here with these. We all know that, right? They have guns, and money, and power.” She raised the Gold in her right hand. “All we have are these.”

“So we negotiate the best deal we can get,” Dom said, crossing his arms. “We tell him ten million, cash, and we don't budge.”

Hunter shook her head. “Even if Holliday gave us that kind of money, he wouldn't let us leave Mexico with it. As soon as we were on the road, his men would take it back.”