The God's Eye View (24 page)

CHAPTER
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38

A
s soon as Evie was inside, Manus put the pickup in park, cut the engine, and got out. He wanted to believe the director would never hurt him, but his gut warned that if there were any opposition, they would be looking for his truck, and that he should therefore be somewhere else when they found it.

There was a long cluster of mulberry bushes on a grass berm ten feet behind the pickup. Good concealment. But if Manus was tempted to hide there, someone else would be, too. So he went past the bushes into the line of trees just behind them, crouching close to the thick trunk of an old maple. There was a slight breeze, but other than that the night was still. Manus mirrored that stillness, retracting, retreating, letting himself fade away as he had when his father would come home drunk, when being overlooked, remaining unseen, was the only way to survive.

A few minutes went by. A middle-aged woman came out through the entrance, about fifty yards from Manus’s position. She looked Latina, but she was backlit by the building and Manus couldn’t be sure. She walked to a dark Honda Civic near the front to the lot, got in, and drove off. Manus had a feeling she was the nanny.

Another minute ticked by. He saw headlights approaching along the access road to the complex. Big lights, high off the ground. A truck or SUV.

A moment later, a black Suburban turned into the parking lot. It passed several empty spaces, paused in front of Manus’s pickup, and then continued slowly on. Manus tried to see inside it, but the windows were smoked and he couldn’t make anything out.

The Suburban backed into a space at the end of the parking area, about thirty feet from Manus’s position. The lights went out and the front doors opened. Two large men emerged, both wearing dark suits, neither of them remarkable but for a certain tension in their posture and gait, and for the sunglasses they wore despite the weak light of the parking lot lampposts. They strolled toward Manus’s truck, their heads swiveling as they moved, each hitching up his pants as though adjusting for something heavy around the waistband.

Manus understood the director had sensed something was amiss. These men were here to keep things running smoothly. And what would that entail, when they realized Delgado had been sidelined and Manus was helping the woman?

You’re looking for a thumb drive
, he could imagine the director instructing them.
Retrieve it. Whatever it takes.

Manus had always assumed the director relied entirely on Delgado and him for contract work, but realized now that was naïve and even narcissistic, a product of his need to believe the director was as devoted to him as he was to the director. He felt bitterness welling up in his chest and throat and willed it away. He didn’t want to feel anything. Someone was here to hurt him. He would stop them, the way he always had. That was all this was. He would figure out the rest later.

One of them peeled off fifteen feet short of Manus’s pickup and eased into the cluster of mulberry bushes at its far end. Manus nodded, knowing he’d been right not to use the spot himself. The other kept coming, taking up a mirror-image position at the other end of the bushes not ten feet in front of where Manus crouched.

They were watching the front entrance. The director must have told them he’d tracked Delgado, Manus, and the woman all going inside. They’d confirmed Manus’s truck was empty, and now they were waiting for everyone to emerge from the building.

Maybe he was wrong about what they had come for. But it didn’t matter. They weren’t here to help. And when they saw Evie coming out alone with Dash, they were going to move in. She and the boy would be in the crossfire. Manus would have lost the element of surprise. He couldn’t let that happen.

He knew he was making things worse. But maybe he could still explain. He hadn’t killed Delgado, only disabled him. And only because Delgado was doing things the wrong way, and wasn’t going to find the thumb drive. And these men . . . he didn’t know who they were, or who sent them. Not really. If it turned out they were the director’s men, then it was a misunderstanding, and Manus would apologize and explain. If he could just get Evie to give him the drive, and make her promise never to say anything, he could still make things right. He had to make things right.

He could have dropped the man in front of him with the Force Pro, but the sound would alert the man’s partner, as well as all the neighbors. So instead, he eased the Espada out of his pocket and unfolded it with both hands, holding open the safety catch to prevent the blade from clicking when it locked into place. There was nothing between him and the man directly ahead other than soft, manicured grass. No branches, no gravel, not even any mulch. He moved forward, letting the heel of each boot slowly take his weight, then rolling along the outer sole as they’d taught him at the Farm. He kept the knife back along his thigh lest some stray light glint off the surface of the blade.

At the last moment, the man began to turn, whether by instinct or chance or because Manus had made some sound, Manus neither knew nor cared. He clamped his left hand around the man’s mouth and nose, swept him back onto his heels, and plunged the point of the nearly eight-inch stainless steel blade into the right side of the man’s neck, driving it all the way past the front of the cervical vertebrae and out the opposite side, then punched it edge-forward, transecting the man’s larynx, both carotid arteries, both jugular veins, and pretty much everything else in the neighborhood, too.

A geyser of hot blood erupted from the wound. The man’s hands came up, scrabbled spasmodically at Manus’s forearm, and then fell away as oxygenated blood plummeted out of his brain. Manus waited until the pressurized spray had ebbed, then stepped back and carefully laid the man out on his back. He stayed down, watching to see if the other man offered any reaction. He saw nothing.

He wiped the knife and his wet hand on the grass, then eased back to the tree line. Once clear of the mulberry bushes, he could see the other man again. He was still focused on the entrance.

Manus moved laterally until he was directly behind the man, then began to ease forward. Something about the man’s posture, his attention, sharpened. Manus froze. He looked to the entrance and saw Evie and Dash coming through it, Dash wearing a backpack, Evie holding an overnight bag. Fuck, he was out of time.

He moved more quickly, trading stealth for speed. The man must have heard him because he turned, turned and saw Manus. It was too dark for Manus to make out his expression, but there was recognition in his posture, in how quickly he was reaching inside his jacket, in the way he was moving offline to buy time and distance.

Manus charged forward, took hold of the man’s right hand just as it closed over the butt of a side-holstered pistol, and speared the Espada straight up under his jawline, driving it with such force that the man’s feet left the ground. For a moment, the man dangled and danced as though skewered on a pike, supported only by a blade buried in his brain and a fist in his throat, blood spraying from his neck, tongue protruding, eyes bulging and fixed on Manus’s face. Then his body sagged, his eyes drifted skyward, and Manus could no longer hold him aloft. Manus lowered his arm and stepped back, and the man folded onto his knees. Manus took him by the hair, jerked out the knife, and let the body spill facedown onto the grass.

For a moment, his vision blurred and his eyes stung. Blood, he realized. He swiped an arm across his face and accomplished nothing—the sleeve was soaked. He used the other arm, and that worked better. He wiped the Espada on the dry sleeve, folded it, and clipped it back in place. Then he stripped off his shirt and used it to clean his face and arms. He could feel his tee shirt had gotten blood on it, too, but it was dark blue, and in the low light he didn’t think the blood would show up right away. If it did, he’d think of something.

He looked through a break in the foliage and saw Evie and the boy. They were thirty yards away and hadn’t seen anything—the bushes were too thick.

He balled up his shirt and crept along until he could see the Suburban. He didn’t think there was anyone else inside, but it wasn’t impossible, either, and he didn’t want to take the chance. He considered slashing a tire, but if there were someone in there, they might feel that and emerge while he was out of position. So instead, he moved forward in a crouch until he was directly behind the vehicle.

He eased out the Force Pro, took a deep breath, stood, and hammer-fisted the butt into the rear window. Glass exploded inward and he saw two men in the middle seats flinch and start to turn. Muscle, waiting in the car to help secure whoever the other two brought back from the apartment. Manus shot the one on the left in the face. The other was quick, ducking down as Manus tracked back to him. Manus adjusted and fired four times through the seatback. He saw blood and brain matter explode onto the back of the front seats, and knew the man was done.

Had anyone heard? The gun had been inside the vehicle, which might have muffled the sound at least somewhat. But he had no way of knowing.

He holstered the Force Pro and jogged back to the pickup. Evie and Dash were just walking up the passenger side. Dash waved hello and gave Manus a big smile. He looked around, wrinkled his nose, and signed,
What’s that smell?

The answer, of course, was blood, which Manus knew had a different scent by the liter than it did in whatever sorts of cuts and scrapes Dash might have experienced during a blessedly innocent childhood. Other than the question, the boy seemed untroubled, and Manus assumed Evie had dreamed up a comforting story about why they had to run out.

Someone hit a deer
, he signed.
I tried to help, but there was nothing I could do.

Can I see?
Dash signed.

Manus shook his head.
You don’t want to see that. Come on, we should go.
He opened the passenger door and Dash got in.

Evie looked in the direction of the Suburban and said, “Was that . . . shooting?” It wasn’t easy to make out the words in the dim light, and Manus wondered why she hadn’t signed. Then he realized: she didn’t want Dash to know.

He opened the pickup’s toolbox and tossed in the bloody shirt.
Later,
he signed.
Did you leave the phones?

She nodded.

All right. Let’s go.

Evie got in and he closed the door behind her. Manus moved toward the back of the truck, yanked off his tee shirt, tossed it on top of the other shirt, then grabbed a fistful of hospital bleach wipes from a canister and cleaned his hands and arms and face. The dirty wipes went on top of the dirty shirt. He’d get rid of it all somewhere safe, and bleach down the toolbox, too. But distance first. He pulled on a clean shirt and got in.

They sat three across, with Dash in the middle. As he drove, Manus caught snatches of the two of them signing. The boy wanted to know where they were going. Evie was telling him Mr. Manus was helping her fix a big problem at work and that she’d explain more just as soon as she could.

Manus drove northwest, keeping to secondary roads. He couldn’t go north to his apartment, and while the urban density of Baltimore to the east and the District to the south were tempting, there were also too many license plate readers in the cities, too many cameras, too many cops. All of which rendered west or northwest a possibly predictable choice, but on the other hand, there were innumerable state and regional parks, forests, and campgrounds in the area. Not to mention cheap motels—the nearby Civil War battlefields were popular attractions. He’d always kept the toolbox well stocked as a bugout kit. He hadn’t planned on using it for three people, but they’d manage. He’d get them somewhere safe, and then they’d figure out what to do.

He just hoped they could agree on what that might consist of.

CHAPTER
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39

T
hey drove along dark roads in silence, their surroundings becoming more rural and remote as the night deepened, the headlights of the truck picking up nothing but trees and the odd grain silo and occasional modest houses. Dash was slumped against Evie, asleep. Evie wished she could nod off, too. But she was too terrified by everything that was happening, and everything that had happened before.

When she had awakened in the van, she’d first thought she’d been in some kind of accident and was now in an ambulance. Someone was asking her if her head hurt. But she couldn’t move . . . had they strapped her to a gurney?

Then she had seen that man—Delgado—and the way he was looking at her, like she was something he was planning to cook and eat. And she remembered Marvin, outside the supermarket, and it all came back to her in a sickening rush.

The man had looked familiar, which somehow had made the whole thing even more disturbing and surreal. And then she’d realized why: the camera footage. The man who had planted the bomb and then disappeared in the cemetery. He’d been wearing a cap and glasses, but that sneer was unforgettable.

She had been sure she was going to die. And then Marvin had shown up, claiming to have the thumb drive, and she hadn’t known what the hell to think. And then . . . had he
shot
someone in the parking lot of her building? She thought that was what she’d heard, and there was that story about a deer, but when she’d asked he hadn’t answered. But had someone been waiting for her outside her building? Had Marvin
killed
someone there?

There was too much happening. She couldn’t keep up. And now that the immediate danger had passed, she felt herself wanting to fall apart. But she couldn’t. She had to stay strong for Dash. She just needed a little time to catch her breath. And more than anything, to think.
Think
.

Marvin had stopped to switch the truck’s license plates just outside of Clarksville, explaining that he kept a spare pair in the truck toolbox just in case. She was glad he was well outfitted, but it made her uncomfortable, too. She had thought she knew who he was. She had taken him into her home, into her body. And now . . . she felt confused, and frightened, and violated. And also grateful, because he certainly seemed to know what he was doing in the current situation while she didn’t have a clue. But how much could she really trust him?

Somewhere north of Gettysburg, she was finally beginning to nod off from nervousness and exhaustion—or was it the aftereffects of whatever drug they’d given her?—when she felt the pickup stop. She shook herself awake and looked around, seeing nothing but rolling fields and farmland. Marvin was gesturing to a poorly illuminated sign next to a driveway to their right:
Big Sky Motel
. Beneath the faded blue and red letters, flickering in pink neon, the word
Vacancy
.

Independent
, he signed.
We can use cash
.

She stared down the driveway but couldn’t see where it led.
How do you know?

The corporate chains have policies. The independents are usually family run. They’re getting harder to find, but they’ll always take a cash deposit
.

She decided to file his apparent experience with that sort of thing in the same place she had filed his spare license plates: as something better examined later.

Wait
, she signed.
Cash is bad. They might be looking for that pattern. Someone registering at a hotel within a certain radius of my apartment tonight. For cash.

They can do that?

I’m getting the feeling I don’t know a fraction of what they can do.

I have some prepaid credit cards. Unused. Untraceable to me. In case of emergency.

She smiled faintly.
Well, I guess this is an emergency.

I’ll tell them to not even register us. It’s just going to be a night clerk. For an extra fifty bucks, they’ll give us a room key and forget to enter us into the system. Look at this place. I doubt it’s part of Travelocity or whatever.

You sure?

He nodded and turned right into the driveway. A swimming pool was illuminated by the passing headlights, then disappeared again in the darkness. Then an old swing set, a lopsided picnic table, some chairs. He parked a little way past the office—just beyond where someone inside could see the pickup without getting up, she noted. He wasn’t hiding them, but he wasn’t making it easy for anyone, either.

She rolled down the window and heard only the sound of crickets. No distant traffic, no neighbors, nothing. She leaned her head out and looked up. The sky was studded with stars.

Marvin returned a few minutes later. He pulled the truck door closed behind him and showed her a key on a plastic fob.
Thirty-four dollars
, he signed.
Plus a fifty-dollar security deposit. And another fifty for not entering us into their computer system because I’m paranoid about my office finding out I’m playing hooky. Old guy, well into a bottle of Four Roses. He’s not going to remember us.

She nodded and gave him a small smile. He must have known how upset she was, and was trying to make her feel better. It wasn’t much, but maybe it was something.

Their room was at the far end of the structure, which was shaped like a U around a central parking area. Marvin backed in directly in front of the door. She figured parking nose-out was for a quick getaway, but again decided not to ask.

He cut the engine and looked around.
Stay here for a minute.

She glanced at Dash. He was still out cold.
Why?

He removed the ashtray, and from behind it withdrew a small leather pouch, which he placed on his lap.
I’m going to let us into the room next to ours. I asked the owner to give us a room with unoccupied ones alongside it because my wife is a light sleeper. He said no problem, we’re mostly empty tonight, I’ll give you a room at the end of the complex.

She glanced at the leather pouch.
Those are lock picks?

He nodded.

She had to ask.
Marvin . . . who are you?

He stared through the windshield, into the darkness.

Right now, I’m not really sure.