The Second Life of Nick Mason (19 page)

But Mason knew Eddie couldn’t help him now. He reached up, clasped his hands across the top of his head, and kept walking. He started to see the quality of the light change as the walls on either side of the tunnel seemed to bow outward. There was a wide spot here, with another flight of stairs cut into the rock of one wall, accessing another high door. He saw all of this as the two shadows ahead of him resolved into a man wearing a long coat.

And Diana. She was on her feet, but otherwise half bent over and closed in on herself. Mason was maybe a hundred feet away. His eyes darted from one wall to the next, and things were starting to add up for him. A bulldozer sat idle on the left side. The widening of the tunnel had created a large room, where the dozer had been chewing away at one wall. Mason saw that the ground dropped off just beyond the dozer’s blade. He couldn’t tell how deep it went, but he imagined a pile of rocks and debris at the bottom, pushed over the edge by the machine.

The perfect place to put two bodies.

Bury them there, cover them with more debris. Nobody would ever think to dig it up. And within months this whole tunnel would be filling up with water.

This is why you made me walk all the way down here, Mason thought. You’re gonna stand me right at the edge of that pit before you kill me. Not only are you dirty cops, you’re dirty cops who don’t want blood on your hands.

“That’s close enough!”
the man said.

Mason kept walking. Eighty feet away now. There had to be
another man here. A cop would never do this alone. Mason needed to know where that second man was.

There. He saw that the other man had moved up onto the stairs for a better angle. He had his Mossberg 500 police-issue shotgun aimed right at Mason’s body mass.

The next sound, Mason thought. You can’t talk and shoot at the same time. The next time you open your fucking mouth.

Wait for it.

“I said—”

Mason pulled the gun and fired. The sound exploded in that closed space, pressing in against his eardrums. He fired at the man with the shotgun first, with not much hope of hitting him from this distance. But he had to take that gun out first. Mason had already thrown himself against the wall as the shotgun blast obliterated everything else in the world. Water erupted where he had just been standing. Mason fired again at the shotgun, just to keep him pinned down, then at one of the lights above. He needed darkness. One shot, then two, and the light was out. Mason was already moving again—forward, not backward—as the shotgun went off again and he heard the wall crumbling just behind him. He rolled on his back and shot at the other light. It was out and now he was hidden. But he needed to keep moving. He threw himself forward again, staying prone, rising up just long enough to fire off two more shots at the shotgun. The man next to Diana found his range and put a bullet in the wall inches from his head.

Mason got up just long enough to throw himself across to the other side of the tunnel, hoping that the dark would be enough to hide him. He heard two pistol shots as he went down as flat as he could against the cables that ran along the right wall.

He caught his breath for a moment, wondering why the shotgun
hadn’t gone off again. Six shots in one of those motherfuckers and he’d heard only two. He looked up and saw the first man in the classic pose, two hands on his gun, aiming carefully. Diana had collapsed to the ground behind him.

The first man fired. Then again. But the man was backlit. He fired yet again and now Mason took dead aim, fired, and shot the man in the head.

He tucked himself back in against the wall as he heard the body fall.

He waited. He tried to listen, but he couldn’t imagine ever being able to hear again. He let a minute pass, then it was time to get up and move. He held the gun out in front of him as he took one step after another, keeping the gun steady. The second man was sitting on the stairs. He seemed to be lying back against the wall as if catching his breath. But as Mason came closer he saw that the shotgun had fallen down to the first step and that the man was holding on to his neck, blood running through his fingers and down onto his vest. He gave Mason a pleading look.

Mason shot him in the forehead, blowing off the top of his head. The blood flew high in the air, far enough to spray Diana’s face. She screamed.

Mason went over to her and tried to pick her up. She hit him with her fists and kicked him and kept screaming until he slapped her across the face.

“It’s me,” he said. “Diana, it’s me.”

Her eyes met his, but they were still unfocused. She was fighting to breathe.

He picked her up, but she collapsed against him. He pulled her up straight and held her for a moment, his arms wrapped tight around her.

“It’s gonna be okay,” he said into her ear, not even sure if she could hear him. He could barely hear his own voice. “You’re safe.”

She nodded her head against his chest.

“Hold on.” Mason let go of her hand and went over to the cop on the stairs. He picked up the shotgun and took one more look at the man’s dead eyes. Then he went up the stairs and along the catwalk to the door that had been cut into the wall. It was another submarine door, like the first one he’d tried. But this door opened when he turned the wheel.

He pushed it open slowly, keeping the barrel of the shotgun trained on whatever might be on the other side. As he stepped into the enclosure, he saw a caged staircase winding its way high above his head. All the way up to the ground level, he thought. That’s how they had gotten down here with Diana.

But there’s no way we’re going back up these stairs, he thought. With or without Eddie.

There could be more cops up there. Even if it’s clear, we won’t have a vehicle.

He closed the door and came back down the stairs.

“This way,” he said, grabbing her hand again.

They started walking. He knew it was a long way back. He hoped she had the strength to make it. They moved from one circle of light to the next, marking their progress that way even if nothing seemed to change ahead of them. He tried to keep her out of the standing water, but it was impossible. Her feet were soon as wet as his and she started shivering.

“Eddie!” Mason said into his headset, not sure if he had a signal again yet. “Clear!”

“Here . . .”

“Get out!”

“Going . . .”

They came to the crane Mason had passed on the way in. He figured they were halfway out.

“Almost there,” he said to her.

She didn’t answer him. He pulled her up for a moment to look into her eyes. She had gone somewhere else. But at least she was still moving, her body on automatic pilot, so he took her hand and kept walking with her.

More rings of light until he saw where they ended. Where the night sky could already be seen through the last ring and the air was getting fresher with every step.

He looped his arm around Diana’s back and held her up for a few more steps.

“Stay here,” he said.

He found a dry spot against the rounded wall and eased her down into a sitting position. She folded her arms over her knees and put her head down. She didn’t say a word.

“Be right back,” he said. “Don’t move.”

He brought the shotgun up to a ready position and made his way slowly to the mouth of the tunnel. Drinking in the night air, he caught his second wind. One more shot of energy to get him across these last few yards.

Mason didn’t want to speak into the headset now. He didn’t want to make any sound at all.

He inched his way to the last ring of light, staying low, taking one careful step at a time, each step giving him a better angle on whatever he might see outside. He switched to the opposite side of the tunnel, then back again. Another step, then another. Until he was at the edge and could carefully scan the entire scene.

His car was there. The darkened trailer behind it. The giant
construction vehicles still asleep in their places. The far rim of the quarry high above everything else.

Mason took another step, out into the night. He could see along the cliff in either direction. Nobody there.

No Eddie. No Jeep. He was already on his way out.

We’re safe, Mason said to himself. This whole crazy fucking thing worked. Which is yet another confirmation of why Cole chose me. He said so himself. I might not even understand it until I saw it with my own eyes. Now I have.

Because here’s the simple truth. There aren’t many other men who could have done this.

But the thought didn’t give Mason any satisfaction. He wasn’t even sure what it meant—about what kind of man he really was—but there’d be time to think about that later.

He went back to where Diana was still slumped against the wall. When he bent down to her, she shivered and tried to push him away.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.”

He picked her up and carried her out of the tunnel, across the open ground, working hard to keep his balance, finally getting her to the car and opening up the passenger’s-side door. When he put her in the seat and closed the door, she fell back, her head against the window, her hands covering her face.

Mason went around to the driver’s side and got behind the wheel. He started the engine and turned on the headlights.

Another cop was standing directly in front of the car.

He had his pistol leveled at Mason’s head, and he was smart enough to swing himself around, away from the front of the car, so there’d be no chance of Mason running him over.

Mason had put the shotgun between the two front seats. He played it out in his head as the cop came around to the
passenger’s-side window, his gun still pointed at him. One move for the shotgun and he’d get it right through the glass.

The cop spoke to him, but Mason couldn’t make out the words. Probably something about getting the fuck out of the car. Or, maybe, don’t even bother.

The two men were frozen in that position for a single second, just long enough for Mason to have his one last hope. That second ended when a .338 Lapua Magnum round tore through the man’s body, going through the Kevlar like it was toilet paper. The man fell onto the windshield, the blood already streaming from his nose and mouth.

Then a movement. On Mason’s left. A face, vaguely familiar to him in that fraction of a second, then pure reaction as he picked up the shotgun and fired. The blast was louder than any so far, a spike in each ear, as it sent buckshot and pebbles of glass at the man who had appeared at the driver’s-side window. Diana kept screaming as Mason put his foot down on the accelerator and the tires threw limestone dust high in the air behind them. The dead man slid off the windshield as the tires found purchase, the second man down on the ground somewhere behind them, as Mason weaved around the construction vehicles at impossible speed, sliced through the ponds of water, drove through the pass-through into the other section of the quarry, and then climbed the long, sloping shelf up to the access road, fighting every inch of the way to keep the car from falling off into the abyss below.

She had stopped screaming by the time Mason exploded through the gate. She had no breath to scream anymore. No strength. She had nothing left.

But Mason did.

Mason didn’t know where he was driving. He didn’t even know which direction. He was just getting away from the quarry as fast as he could. Drive the fuck away, he told himself. Don’t stop until you’re somewhere safe.

Diana was slumped in the seat next to him. Her eyes were open, but they weren’t focused on anything at all. He grabbed her arm and shook it.

“Diana!”

She didn’t respond.

“Diana! Are you okay?”

As Mason made a quick turn, she was thrown against the side of the car. Then she fell back to the same position. She was still staring at nothing.

“Answer me! Are you okay?”

She inhaled a long breath, ragged and sputtering. Like a diver breaking through to the surface. “Let me out!”

“No.”

“Let me out! Let me out right now!” She grabbed his arm, her fingernails digging into his skin. “Pull this car over, God damn it!”

He jammed on the brakes and brought the car to a skidding stop on the side of the road. Diana was thrown forward in her seat, then came back hard. She grabbed at the door handle.

“Listen to me,” Mason said, reaching over and trying to pull her hand away from the handle. He looked outside, had no idea where they were. Still outside the city somewhere. A darkened warehouse on one side of the road, an empty field on the other.
“Will you fucking listen to me for one second?”

First she was comatose. Then she was clawing at the car door like an animal trying to escape its cage.

“You need to calm down,” he said.

She took a few more gasping breaths before she could speak again. “You want me to calm down?” she said. “I was just kidnapped, Nick. I was kidnapped and taken down a fucking tunnel. And then you came and you . . . you . . .” She tried to find the right words. “You killed four people right in front of me! You killed four cops, Nick! I’ve got their blood on me!”

She showed him the sleeves of her shirt. The white fabric was sprinkled with bright red dots. He didn’t want to point out that the same blood was all over her face.

And he didn’t feel like telling her that he’d only killed two of them.

Eddie had killed the third.

As for the fourth . . . He flashed back on the fraction of a second he saw the cop standing there on the other side of his car window. He could see the man’s face and those cold gray eyes. He could see the man’s tactical vest. Then the explosion from the shotgun, aimed right at the man’s chest.

That cop was probably still alive.

He’d only seen the man once before, from a distance. But he knew exactly who it was. Sergeant Bloome.

“That’s their
blood
, Nick! And you’re telling me to calm down?”

“Fine,” Mason said, letting go of her arm. “If you want to get out, get out. They’ll find you and they’ll kill you. But at least you’ll be out of this car.”

She was still breathing like she couldn’t get enough air. Mason put the car back into gear and kept driving.

“There’s only one safe place for you right now,” Mason said, trying to put some calm into his voice. “And that’s with me.”

“Are you crazy? Every cop in this city will be looking for you.”

“No,” Mason said. “That’s the last thing they want. They arrest me, they start asking questions. They start asking questions, they’ll want to know what I was doing there. They’ll want to know what
you
were doing there. And they’ll
really
want to know what Bloome and his men were doing there without backup.”

“What
was
I doing there?” she said. “What did they want from me?”

“They want something I have,” Mason said. “And then they want us dead.”

Her breathing was finally settling back into a normal rhythm. But her hands were still shaking.

“Where do we go?”

“Not home, not the restaurant,” he said. “They’re not safe.”

“Then where?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

They were heading straight back to the city, so he turned and cut to the west until they were in the forest that ran along the canal. He turned onto a gravel road leading off into the trees, the
branches scratching at both sides of the car. He came to a fork and went left, then to another fork and went right. All the way into the middle of the forest until the ground rose and the road ended in a clearing.

Mason stopped the car. Diana had her head back on the seat, but her eyes were still wide open. I wonder if she’ll ever be able to close them again, Mason thought, without reliving this night.

“Where are we?” she said.

“Nowhere,” he said. “Good place to be.”

“How does this end?”

“I don’t know.”

“My house?”

“Gone.”

“My restaurant?”

“Forget it.”

“What about
my life
?”

“That life is over,” he said.

She shook her head and looked out at the trees.

“This goes back to Darius,” she said. “Those cops . . .”

“They were in business with him.”

“But he’s
always
owned cops,” she said. “As long as I can remember. I’d see them parked outside on the street. Darius would send Quintero out to talk to them, give them their money. He hated cops his whole life. He’d tell me stories about what they did to some of the kids on the streets when he was growing up. But he said you had to learn to use the thing you hate the most. ‘Tie your wagon to the Devil’s tail,’ he said.”

“This one got loose,” Mason said. “So Cole had to respond. That’s why I’m here.”

“I was doing just fine until you got here,” she said. “It wasn’t the exact life I wanted, but I was making it work.”

“This was not my idea, Diana.”

“You brought this on me.”

He felt like he was about to say the wrong thing, so he got out of the car and walked away. He looked up at the stars in the moonless night. To the east, he saw a great smudge of light in the sky. This city where he came from. This city where nothing would ever be the same again.

We need to go somewhere, he said to himself. We need to go somewhere safe where we can figure out our next move.

Which means one thing. There is one man out there who told me to come to him with any problems. He remembered his exact words.
You need something, you call me. You get in a situation, you call me. Don’t get creative. Don’t try to fix anything yourself. You call me.

That’s his job. He couldn’t have made it any more clear.

He took out his cell phone.

He’s the only man who can help us, Mason thought. So why am I not calling him?

He heard the car door opening behind him. Then he heard the scream. As he wheeled around, he saw Diana halfway out of her seat, one foot on the ground. She was looking at the side-view mirror. At the blood on her face.

He went over and pulled her up from the car. He wrapped his arms around her and held on to her as she sobbed into his chest.

“It’s going to be okay.”

“What are we going to do?” she said. “Where are we going to go?”

“I know a place we can go,” he said. “It’ll be safe there.”

He picked up the phone again. He dialed Eddie.

“Thank you for what you did,” he said. “You saved our lives. Now we’re coming to your house.”

There was a long silence on the other end.

“You can’t bring this here,” Eddie finally said. “I’m glad I got a chance to help you out. You know that. But whatever this was, you can’t bring it into this house.”

“You can open the door,” Mason said. “Or I can knock it down.”