The Naked Edge (41 page)

Raoul crashed past retreating demonstrators, knocking a man to the pavement. “Damn it!” he heard behind him, but all he cared about was reaching the protection of that archway. He charged inside, but there wasn't a door that he could slam and lock. A musty brick corridor led to metal stairs angling up. Shadows beckoned as he raced to the stairs. He heard footsteps rushing behind him. Drawing his pistol, he spun and saw a blur as Bowie shouted, “
Want to make a bet?
”

The shout boomed off the bricks. Along with the fright of Bowie's swiftly enlarging figure, the noise was loud enough to startle Raoul. His knees bent. His shoulders hunched. His hands rose to shield his chest. He fumbled to squeeze the trigger, but at once, he felt Bowie walloping into him, jolting the remaining air from his lungs. He landed hard on the stairs, their sharp edges chopping his back as Bowie continued hurtling into him, punching him repeatedly, except that the punches were stabs and now it was blood instead of air that escaped from Raoul's lungs.

31

“You dummy, didn't you learn
anything
? Don't bring a gun to a
knife
fight!” Carl drove the blade deep into Raoul's chest, his stomach, his throat, again and again, each thrust sending a shudder through the body. Gas escaped. Blood flew. He kept pounding until the torn mass beneath him was barely recognizable. With each frenzied blow, he felt as if he were out of himself, smiling down at the punishment he inflicted. Courage. Honor. Sacrifice. But the greatest military virtue is
loyalty
. This is what you get for—

Carl was suddenly in his body again, conscious of the gore beneath him, the blood dripping from his hands, his shirt, his face. A tremor went through him, a spasm of release that raised his head and arched his back. His vision turned gray. Then everything was vivid before him, Raoul's death-contorted body, the black metal stairs now sprayed with red, the crimson-covered knife in his hand.

How long have I been . . . My God, what time is it?
His watch was so covered with blood that he had to wipe it on the back of his shirt before he could see its display. Four minutes to ten. The last thing he remembered was charging into the passageway at
six
minutes to ten. Several quick slashes with his knife. That was his plan. Thirty seconds to teach Raoul his lesson. In and out. Five minutes to get away. Not all the team members would be warned that something was wrong. Some would pull the cords on their knapsacks and activate the detonators, releasing the gas. Not enough to save the mission, although the target area was still dangerous. He needed to run.

Looking like this?
Straightening, he felt the wet heaviness of the blood on his shirt.
Every security agent in the crowd will converge on me. Damn you, Raoul.
He kicked the body, cursing Raoul for making him lose control.

Think! There's got to be a way to—

He tore off his shirt. In muggy New Orleans, a man without a shirt attracted little attention, but someone with a blood-soaked shirt was another matter. He hurried to a faucet next to the stairs, rinsing the blood from his hands and face. He almost ran back along the alley toward the street, but a commotion out there told him that somebody was charging in this direction.

Trying a door on his right, he found it locked. He tried a door on his left, with the same result. Terribly aware of time passing, he charged up the stairs, all the while folding his knife and shoving it with his pistol into one of the baggy pockets of his pants. His shoes clattering on the stairs, he reached the top and turned the knob, groaning when he found that
this
door, too, was locked.

Past a closed window next to it, he heard two women talking. When he pounded on the door, their voices stopped.

“Let me in! It's an emergency!”

Below him, footsteps sounded in the passageway. He stared down, feeling his heart skip.

32

“The middle of the block! The south side!”

Listening to the voice give instructions through his earbud, Cavanaugh veered through the crowd on Fulton Street. Reaching an archway, he heard the voice say, “That's where they went! Backup's on the way!”

“No time!”

Staying to the side, he drew his pistol and listened. With the noise of the departing protestors behind him, he thought he heard the echo of footsteps on a metal staircase.

Working to control his heartbeat, he took a breath, held it, counted one, two, three, exhaled through his mouth, one, two, three, and inhaled through his nose, one, two, three. Pivoting into view, he aimed along a brick passageway and saw the lower half of a man climbing the stairs. A blood-covered body lay at the bottom. A blood-soaked shirt was near a faucet.

Continuing to aim, Cavanaugh eased along the passageway, shifting his feet carefully, taking care to place them firmly and maintain his balance. Nearing the stairs, he heard pounding on a door above him. Ignoring the corpse at his feet, he aimed upward.

Carl.

Slowly, Carl's surprised look changed to a welcoming smile. “My, my.” The smile widened. “How are you doing, Aaron?”

“I've been better.” Cavanaugh tightened his finger on the trigger.

“Yeah, I'm not having a great day, either.” Carl's lanky chest was bare, his ribs showing through his lean muscles. His narrow face dripped water. He held up his wet, powerful-looking arms in surrender. “It's been too long, Aaron. You must be taking a lot of vitamins. Either that, or marriage agrees with you. You don't look any older.”

“For certain,
you
haven't changed. I see you're still having control problems.”

“Well, he turned against me. I know disloyalty doesn't bother
you
, but it makes me furious.”

“Apparently, a lot of things do.”

“Only people who trick me into believing they're my friends when they're actually the opposite.”

“Come down the stairs, Carl.”

“I don't think so.”

“Slowly. Carefully.”

“What happens if I tell you to screw off? You'll shoot me?”

“Yes.”

At the top of the stairs, voices behind a door made Cavanaugh frown.

“Not today, good buddy.”

The door opened. Before Cavanaugh could fire, Carl vanished into the building.

Cavanaugh raced up the stairs, but not before the door slammed shut. He yanked at the knob. Locked. He pounded on the door. Beyond it, he heard shots. The door was metal. Carl knew that pistol bullets wouldn't go through it. That meant the bullets were intended for someone else: whoever had opened the door. Cavanaugh thought he heard footsteps running along a corridor.

“He's in a building on the second floor!” Cavanaugh said into his lapel mike.

“We'll seal off Fulton and the opposite street!” the voice promised.

Loud noises made Cavanaugh spin and look down the stairs. A half dozen agents rushed along the passageway. The person he focused on was Jamie.

“He went through here!” Cavanaugh yelled to them. Seeing flowerpots at the top of the stairs, Cavanaugh grabbed one and hurled it through the window next to the door. Convinced that Carl wouldn't have risked staying, he reached through, freed a lock, and raised the window. Air conditioning cooled his hand.

As Jamie and the agents ran up the stairs, Cavanaugh peered through the window, studied an office, decided that he had to take the chance, and crawled inside. Two women lay on the floor, streaming blood.

“We need an ambulance!” Cavanaugh shouted into his lapel mike. Rushing, he unlocked the door.

Jamie and the agents hurried in but stopped at the sight of the gunshot victims. One agent knelt, trying to help them while Cavanaugh and the others raced along a corridor.

In an office, a man peered up, hiding behind a desk. In another office, a man lay bleeding.

Reaching a lobby, Cavanaugh saw a receptionist trembling in a corner behind her desk. Glass doors led to an elevator and stairs.

“We've got operators waiting on the street outside! He can't get through!” an agent told him. Gun drawn, the agent ran past Cavanaugh and charged down the stairs, the others following.

But Cavanaugh and Jamie lingered.

“What's above us?” Cavanaugh asked the trembling receptionist.

She opened her mouth. No sound came out.

“You're safe now,” Jamie said. “What's above us?”

“Other offices.”

“And?”

“A roof garden.”

33

Three minutes to ten.

A team member stood against a wall as the crowd passed. Impatient, he checked his watch, looked up, and paled when two men confronted him, aiming pistols.

“Hands up!”

*

“Turn around! Against the wall!” an agent shouted to another team member, this one a block away. “Jay, get the knapsack off him!”

*

“I think it's safe to take the knapsack!” an agent yelled to his partner three blocks away. “If it's a bomb, it doesn't have a manual trigger. Otherwise, he'd have blown himself up by now.”

Someone in the crowd overheard. “
Bomb?
”

“Where?”

“A bomb!”

“Run!”

*

“Keep your hands away from the knapsack!” an agent shouted.

When the team member drew a pistol, the agent protected the knapsack and shot the man in the head.

The dying man fired into the sidewalk, fragments hitting the crowd.

Panicking, a woman tripped. Stampeding, three men fell over her. Screams filled the street.

34

Cavanaugh and Jamie hurried up the stairs. An office door was open, startled faces peering out.

“Close the door,” Cavanaugh told them.

“Take cover,” Jamie warned.

Continuing higher, they reached an open door, sky beyond it.

“Stay here,” Cavanaugh said. “You don't need to do this.”

“Babe, I'm not letting you do it alone.”

Cavanaugh went first, aiming to the right while Jamie aimed to the left. Amid blazing sunlight, potted trees and shrubs surrounded them. Patio tables, chairs, and sun umbrellas provided a lunch area through which Cavanaugh and Jamie darted, searching for a target.

“Over there,” Jamie said.

Fifty yards away, a shed-like structure had an open door. With the Mississippi spread along their right, they raced toward the exit.

“He used the roof to head east! Farther along the block!” Cavanaugh shouted into his lapel mike. “The corner!”

They entered a stairwell in time to hear footsteps rumbling below them.

“He's almost onto the street!” Cavanaugh shouted.

“We're waiting!” a voice shouted through his earpiece.

Shots made Cavanaugh pause. Even in the stairwell, he heard screaming along the street.

35

Two minutes to ten.

Nearing the ground floor, Carl heard shots outside. Beyond a window, a frenzy swept through the crowd, people swarming to get away. He veered into an office, where workers stared in alarm at the chaos outside. Turning toward him, they reacted with greater alarm to his bare chest, the water dripping from his face, and the gun in his hand.

“Out!” Carl yelled. When they didn't respond, he chose a man with red hair and shot him. “
Out! Out! Out!
”

The survivors collided with each other, all of them trying to get through the door at once. Firing above their heads, Carl watched them surge out, joining the turmoil on the street. Agents out there would be totally overwhelmed.

He grabbed a suit coat off a chair and put it on. He picked up a chair and hurled it through French doors. He surged through and joined the screaming, stampeding crowd.

36

Reaching the ground floor, Cavanaugh saw that the door was open, people rushing past. Taken aback by the chaos, he heard a window shatter in an office to his left.

“Go
that
way,” he told Jamie, indicating the open door. “I'll take the side!”

He rushed into the office in time to see Carl leap through the window and charge into the crowd. Immediately, Cavanaugh followed, shouldering past men and women, straining to keep Carl in sight. Another distant shot increased the crowd's panic. “Bomb!” he heard somebody say. The hysterical need to get away was so powerful that, for a moment, Cavanaugh was actually lifted off his feet by the crush of people around him. It was like being swept along in a flood while he tried to break free of the current and maintain a direction.

Ahead, he saw Carl struggling to go sideways through the crowd. But that didn't make sense. Where Carl seemed determined to go—to the right—was a dead end. He couldn't escape there. Abruptly, Cavanaugh realized he was mistaken. What he thought of as a dead end was actually the Mississippi River.
The river.
That was how Carl planned to get away.

37

One minute to ten.

No matter how hard Carl strained to break free from the crowd, it caught and squeezed him, carrying him with it. The force was so great that he had trouble breathing. Jabbing with his elbows, ramming with his shoulders, he managed to clear a space and thrust closer to the river.

He was too confined to be able to look at his watch. But he sensed that ten o'clock was almost upon him. Any second, the few remaining members of the team would pull the cords on their knapsacks, the police radio frequencies would trigger the detonator, and black clouds filled with nerve gas would drift across the remaining demonstrators.

Vaguely aware of a building on his right, he jabbed harder with his elbows and cleared enough space to draw his pistol, firing into the air. The deafening shots made people scream and run faster. Several fell, others piling onto them. Carl scrambled over them.

Ahead, part of the crowd raced across train tracks, up steps, and into a tunnel. He fired several more shots to keep the crowd hurrying and charged into the shadow of the tunnel. When he broke into sunlight, a wide expanse of concrete ended at the water. Barges and tugboats chugged along the Mississippi. He vaulted a waist-high fence and dove past a paddle wheeler moored at the shore, plunging beneath the surface.