Father Night (30 page)

He called a taxi, stopped first at REI, then made a number of purchases at shops selling electronics, car parts, Halloween costumes, and hardware, placing the items in the featherweight camping duffel he’d bought. The cab dropped him off at the Metro Green Line, which he took to Waterfront Station. From there, he headed due south toward the warehouses, skirting Fort McNair on the land side.

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Paull—he knew his boss had Alli’s welfare in mind—but he couldn’t agree that the best way to approach the warehouses was with a show of force. Going solo into the house where Morgan Herr had imprisoned her had been the right approach. Unlike Paull, Jack saw no difference in this situation.

He didn’t know why Alli had been taken, but it seemed to him that it must have been an act of desperation. No one in his right mind would abduct the daughter of a fallen president and expect to stay under the radar for long. Maybe, like Morgan Herr, her abductor had a secret death wish. But that, he well knew, could only cause more problems, because the perp wouldn’t be afraid to die, or make a grand gesture that could only end in a wider form of destruction. The thought sent a chill down his spine.

Up ahead he could make out, glimmering in the dull sunshine, the northernmost wall of the warehouses—two long, low buildings, whose interiors had been completely gutted to configure and construct the offices for the Norns.

Seagulls banked and turned, cawing to one another, crying for food. Jack stood for a moment, surveying the scene. He stepped beneath the stippled shade of a thick-branched camphor tree. Reaching into his duffel, he affixed a theatrical mustache to his upper lip, then slipped a set of Halloween false teeth over his uppers. He checked his reflection in the mirror of the compact he had bought. These admittedly tacky prosthetics changed the look of his face just enough to forestall anyone armed with a recent photo of him. They wouldn’t fool someone for more than a few seconds, but that was all he calculated he’d need.

Stepping out of the shade, he made his way to the embankment that led down to the water’s edge. The Washington Channel looked dark and sluggish, mucked at its edges. Paper wrappers and used condoms drifted along, bobbing like miniature boats.

He spotted the lookout. Studiously consulting the D.C. tourist guide he’d bought, he stumbled his way toward the man. When he was six yards away, he lifted his hand in greeting, and said in a passable upper-class British accent, “I say, pardon the intrusion, old chap, but I seem to have lost my way. Could you direct me to the nearest Metro Green Line station?”

As the lookout’s eyes narrowed, focusing on his fake mustache, Jack made a short run at him, levering an elbow behind him. With a kick, he brought the man to his knees, whereupon he chopped down on his neck.

Jack grabbed him as he collapsed forward, and quickly dragged him over the embankment. Shielded by the low wall, he went through the lookout’s pockets, finding his ID, an electronic access swipe card encased in plastic, and a CZ 75 SP-01 Phantom.

Pulling the lookout along behind him, he descended the steep slope of the embankment and laid him facedown in the water. Then he went along until he reached the water side of the warehouses. Because it was early, the canted shadow cast by the buildings lolled on the water side, and would cloak him temporarily.

He counted twenty-three paces from the northwest corner of the warehouse, then adjusted slightly for the conversion into feet. There, just as it appeared on the architectural blueprint, was the slipway to the water side. And there, just to the right and above it, was a video camera. Taking out a Fuji Instax camera, he circled around out of the lens’s view and, standing just beneath it, took a shot of the gateway. When the photo hatched, he affixed it to one end of an extended car antenna, which he clamped to the video camera mount.

The first time he’d seen this trick was on an episode of the original
Mission Impossible
TV show. Since then, it had been repeated in films and TV shows so often it had become something of a minor espionage trope. He’d read that it had actually been the brainchild of William Joseph Donovan, the head of the wartime OSS. He had received a clandestine intelligence dossier, which he immediately marked
EYES ONLY
. The intel detailed the design and installation of a CCTV system in Peenemünde, for observing the launch of the Nazis’ dreaded V-2 rockets. With his brilliant, forward-thinking mind, Donovan saw the future uses for CCTV systems guarding military installations, and, ironically, how to foil them.

Jack was counting to ten. He swung the photo into alignment, and heard the gratifying whir as the autofocus on the camera lens adjusted to the distance of the photo of the deserted slipway.

He had figured he’d have to pick the gateway’s lock, but the lookout’s swipe card made access that much simpler. Inserting the card, he waited for the telltale electronic double-click, then pushed the door in the slipway open and was immediately swallowed whole by the darkness of the interior. He switched on a pocket flashlight. Bringing out the newspaper and the clutch of fire starters he had bought, he separated the paper sections and crumpled them against the fire starters.

When he lit the pile, the flames shot up. He began to run.

*   *   *

“W
HY DO
you let him treat you like that?”

“Look at you.” Reggie Herr stared at Alli. “I’m a fucking prince.”

“I won’t let Waxman intimidate me.” She stared back.

“He was the bad twin.” A sudden shaft of sunlight in the darkness. “I am the good one.”

The misplaced pride in his voice caused her to shiver, and he, unthinking, reached out for her. She could tell how much he still wanted to back her against the wall and fuck her. She pressed against him, her hands running down his sides.

“The good one,” she whispered.

“Always.”

“So that’s why you obey Waxman.” Her fingers wound and unwound. “Who is he to you?”

The moment the words were out of her mouth, she knew she had made a mistake. Herr pushed her away and stumbled backward, as if her question had set off alarm bells inside his head.

“I’m really sorry, Herr. The good twin never needs to answer questions.”

He nodded. “Damn straight.”

“It’s just that Waxman keeps asking me about you.”

“He does?” Herr stepped closer; he didn’t appear surprised. “Like what?”

“Like what you and I talk about.”

Herr frowned. “You tell him?”

“Of course not. He doesn’t have the right to know—”

“He’s got a right,” Herr said. “KWIfA gives him the right.”

“KWIfA? What’s that?”

A sly smile lit up Herr’s face. “Only everything.”

Just then the door swung open.

“Reggie, I’ve been looking for you,” Waxman said as he stood at the threshold.

Herr was reluctant to take his eyes off Alli. “There was something that needed—”

“There’s nothing here,” Waxman said gently. “Nothing for you—or for me.”

He gestured with his walking stick. “Come, now. It’s time. McClure is in the building.”

*   *   *

T
HE MOMENT
the cell door clanged shut, Alli ripped off the tail of her shirt and threw it over the lens of the surveillance camera. Then she flicked open the gravity knife she had lifted from Reggie Herr’s pocket. She had felt it the time he had almost succeeded in raping her. Now she applied the tip of its blade to the door’s locking mechanism.

As she worked, she felt her heart lifting, her pulse drumming in her inner ear. Jack was here, he’d come to save her, just as he had before. But Waxman knew it, possibly also knew where he was. She had to get out of the cell to warn him.

The blade was too thick, she could only get the tip in. Retracting it, she slid the tip into the joint between floor and wall so the knife canted up at an angle. She stamped as hard as she could, bringing her heel down on the end of the hilt. The blade snapped, leaving a jagged edge, which she brought back to the door and inserted into the lock. Putting her ear against the door, she heard the tumblers falling into alignment the farther she worked the blade in.

A moment later, the door unlatched, and, swinging it open, she stepped into the corridor.

*   *   *

J
ACK HAD
the plan of the warehouse interior in his head. It hovered like a theater scrim overlaying what he saw with his eyes. Quite soon after leaving the fire he had set, up a short set of metal stairs, he had come upon an illuminated hallway, carpeted in a dappled-gray, sound-absorbing material. He ran at top speed, knowing that his diversion would only give him a limited amount of time to find Alli and free her. Beyond that point, he was counting on the Escher-like configuration of rooms, staircases, and corridors, the staple of any black ops HQ, to keep him and Alli one step ahead of their pursuers until they got to the escape point he had chosen.

Hearing the clatter of boots descending a second flight of stairs, he shrank back into the shadows and, when two armed men came into view, he kicked one in the side of his knee and batted the other with the big, beautiful butt of the CZ. Jack smashed Knee Man in the mouth with the CZ’s barrel, then disarmed both men.

As he leapt over their prone bodies, he heard orders being given on the upper landing, and paused, holding his breath.

“… sure the girl is secure, then kill her,” a voice came from above him.

Unfortunately, the sound-deadening carpet that had worked in his favor now kept him from knowing where the men had been dispatched. Rushing up the second flight, he found himself in a hallway identical to the one below—a key feature of the maze effect. He had just enough time to spot one of the men turning the far corner to his right before the man vanished. No sign of the order-giver. Jack took off after the men. He had to get to Alli before they did—and he didn’t even know how many of
them
there were.

Owing to the high water table this close to the channel, the warehouses had no basements. That left the top floor. He was about to mount the stairs when he heard a voice and footsteps coming down. He could not afford the delay of another violent encounter.

Turning, he raced down the deserted corridor to the other end, where a back staircase, narrower and steeper, rose upward. This one must be the original, because it was old, abutting the original brick wall, which was covered with World War II graffiti. He paused midway up, shedding his empty duffel. It had one more use.

Reaching the top of the flight of stairs, he looked both ways. At the end of the corridor to his right, a metal ladder rose vertically through a cutout in the ceiling. Keeping the CZ at the ready, he reached it and climbed up. He paused with his head just below the lip of the cutout. He’d be going up blind, but what other choice did he have? He waited, listening intently, but heard not even the barest hint of a sound.

Poking his head up above the rim, he surveyed the empty corridor of bare, poured concrete. There was a distinct animal smell, as if emanating from a cattle pen. Four doors to his left led to what appeared to be a T, five to the right, with one at the end, thicker than the others, bolted: a cell door. That was where they were, with Alli! No time left. Levering himself into the corridor, he had taken two strides toward the cell when three men appeared from the closest rooms on either side, armed with handguns identical to his, holding him in what he could only surmise would, momentarily, be a lethal cross-fire.

*   *   *

A
LLI, HIDING
in a plumbing and electronic supply storeroom adjacent to her cell, saw it all, and her heart contracted. She had to do something. Now! She grabbed a large wrench and moved out into the hallway. Before she could fling it at one of the gunmen, Herr had her around her throat. He ripped the wrench from her hand and force-marched her with his knees toward where his men held Jack at gunpoint.

“Stop your infernal squirming,” he said in her ear. But when she wouldn’t obey he reached for his gravity knife.

Alli grasped the moment of his confusion at not finding it to slam her elbow into his side. He let up on his grip enough for her to deliver a backward kick into his groin. She ran toward Jack.

“No!” he shouted. “Alli, get the hell out of Dodge!”

“I’m not—” she began.

But he overrode her. “Just go, forget me, damn it. Cut your losses!”

One of the gunmen swiveled, leveled his CZ, and would have shot her in the stomach had not Jack’s lunge knocked him off balance. Alli swerved as another gunman squeezed off a shot, which ricocheted past her shoulder, splintering a chunk of wall. Reaching the T at the far end of the corridor, she whipped to her left, Herr loping after her.

In all the chaos, Jack managed to draw his CZ, but the cold muzzle of a gun at the back of his head froze him.

“We can’t have any of that, Mr. McClure.”

It was the same voice that had given the orders. A dark thought swam into Jack’s mind and he began to curse himself.

One of the gunmen reached over and disarmed him.

“I think we’ve had enough of your heroics for one day,” the voice said from behind him.

“You’re Waxman.” It was a guess, but he felt a good one.

“Yes, and no,” Werner Waxman said.

To his men, Waxman barked another order: “Take him to the cell.”

The three men pushed and shoved Jack down the hall. When he stumbled, one of the men grasped his arm. Jack swung around, smashed him in the face, then spun, taking out a second guard. He saw the man with the walking stick out of the corner of his eye, tried to adjust his stance, then felt a needle enter his leg and something hot burning its way through his veins.

He tried mightily not to fall into the gunmen’s arms, but it was useless. He was paralyzed. He could still see and hear, however.

“This is Alli’s cell, one of three used during the war,” Waxman said as the gunmen hurled Jack to the stinking concrete floor. “The cells stink of death even now, decades later. But you’ll see for yourself as soon as Herr terminates her.” He grinned. “He’s been so patient, you know, waiting for this moment.” The grin broadened like a waxing moon. “And so have I.”