Repairman Jack [09]-Infernal (4 page)

“The checkpoints are in place now. You can start to head out.”

And then his back was to them and he was walking away. If he heard any of the questions called out after him, he gave no sign.

Jack too barely heard them. The word “checkpoints” was blaring though his mind.

His earlier misgivings about his Tyleski ID withstanding full-bore scrutiny had became full-blown doubt. But even if it did pass muster, his car was another story. A check of the registration would raise a horde of questions. Like why was he driving a car registered to someone else? And to Vinny “the Donut” Donato, of all people? If someone checked with the owner they’d learn that the black Crown Vic in question was sitting in his garage in Brooklyn.

Then even more shit would hit the fan.

Bad enough to be bagged for false ID, but to be suspected of being connected to the terrorists who’d killed his own father… a father he couldn’t officially claim as his own…

Had to find another way out.

7

Jack fought the numbness his mind yearned to yield to and forced it to focus. He shuttled between the garage and the skyway, getting the lay of the land and not finding much in the way of potential escape routes.

To the north lay the runways, the East River, and Rikers Island. If he didn’t get out of here soon, Rikers might be his new home.

To the south, past Ditmars Boulevard and Grand Central Parkway, the glowing house windows of Jackson Heights beckoned.

East offered only dark expanses of marsh and more of the East River. The west had possibilities, but involved long stretches of exposure.

He had to get down to the highway.

Jack fell in with a group heading from the skyway to the garage. No one spoke. Shock was the order of the day.

As they entered the fourth level and scattered toward their respective cars, Jack took the elevator down to the ground floor. Crossed to the outer rim and hopped over the wall. Cut across an access lane to a low concrete wall. Hopped that, landing on a patch of bare ground. Directly ahead, across a scraggly winter lawn, lay Grand Central Parkway.

All that stood between Jack and freedom was an eight-foot, chain-link fence with a barbed-wire crown.

Blue-and-white police units and sinister black SUVs kept roaring in and out along the airport access roads.

That fence… that damn fence…

Couldn’t go over it. No big deal physically—he could easily climb the links and throw his sweatshirt over the barbed wire—but he’d be spotted for sure.

Had to find another way.

Jack lay flat and began to belly crawl through the cold, dead grass. When he reached the fence he turned and crept along its base, feeling his way, searching for—

His hand slipped into a depression in the dirt. Knew he’d find one somewhere along the line. Inevitable that some dog at some time would want to get past the fence. To do that it would dig. And one had dug here.

Not deep enough to allow Jack through, but okay. The dog trough gave him a head start. All he had to do was make it a little deeper, strip down to his underwear, and slip through.

He pulled out his knife and flipped it open. A sin to use a Spyderco Endura as a digging tool, but…

At least the ground was still soft. Though cold, winter was a couple weeks off, and the ground hadn’t frozen yet.

He began to dig, loosening the dirt with the knife blade and scooping it out with his free hand…

8

Jack crouched in the shadows under an overpass. He punched Abe’s number into his phone and prayed he was still at the store. He released a breath when he heard him pick up.

“Abe? It’s me.”

“Hello, Me. I don’t recall ever meeting a Me. I should know you?”

“Hold the jokes, okay. I need a favor.”

“Always with the favors.”

“This is serious.”

Abe must have picked up on his tone. “Serious how?”

“I need a ride.”

“You call that serious?”

“Abe, I’m stranded on the Grand Central. Can you pick me up?”

“I should drive all the way out to Queens when you can take a cab?”

“I can’t take a cab.”

“Why? Someone pick your pock—hey, wait. Are you out near the airport?”

“Very.”

“Are you okay?”

“No.”

“Wait—your father was coming in today. Was he—?”

“Yeah.”

“
Gevalt
! He’s not…?”

“Yeah, Abe. He’s gone.”

“What?”

“Gone.”

Silence on the other end. Finally Abe spoke, his voice thick.

“Jack… Jack, I’m so sorry. What can I do? Anything. Just tell me.”

“Come get me, Abe. Check the underpasses near the airport exit ramp. I’m under one of them. Wish I could tell you which one but…”

“I’ll take the truck.”

“Hurry.”

9

Hours later Jack sat slumped in a funk on Gia’s couch while she huddled against him. Vicky was upstairs doing her homework. Gia had told her that Jack’s father had died and left it at that. Knowing that he’d been slaughtered in what the media were now calling the “Flight 715 Massacre” would only frighten her. Better for now to let her think he was an old man who’d died of natural causes—whatever those were.

They stared at the old TV, watching the same shots of La Guardia’s Central Terminal, hearing the same clips of the mayor, the police commissioner, the head of Homeland Security, and the president himself. No new news, just repetitions of what little had been gleaned from witnesses who had been close enough to see the massacre, but far enough away to stay clear:

Two gunmen wearing airport coveralls, ski masks, and Arab headdress—described as “the kind of thing Arafat wore”—had entered baggage claim through an employees-only doorway and opened up on the passengers of American Airlines flight 715. The result was one hundred and fifty-two dead—men, women, children, passengers, relatives, limo drivers, security guards—everyone who’d been anywhere near the carousel.

Among the dead were forty-seven members of the ultra-orthodox Satmar Hasidic sect returning to Crown Heights from a gathering in Miami. Since the killers did not attack any of the other nearby carousels, the news heads speculated that the presence of such a sizable group of Hasidim might have been why that particular flight was targeted.

After finishing their bloody work, the killers had fled through the same doorway. In the hallway beyond they’d discarded their coveralls, their masks and
kufiyas
, as well as their assault pistols. Word had leaked that both pistols were Tavor-2 models, manufactured in Israel. That started speculation that the choice of weapon might have been a way of adding insult to injury. Jews slaughtered by Israeli-made weapons.

But the question most asked by the news heads to their endless parade of experts on terrorism and Arabs and Islam, singly or on panels, was why there were no wounded. How could every wound be fatal? Finally someone offered the possibility that the terrorists might have used cyanide-filled hollow-point rounds.

“Oh, my God!” Gia said. “How could they?” Then she shook her head. “Sorry. Stupid question.”

“I figured it might be something like that.”

“Why? How?”

As he’d knelt next to his dead father, Jack’s reeling mind hadn’t been able to process all the surrounding sights and sounds. But as he’d waited in the cold darkness for Abe, he’d slowed and corralled his chaotic thoughts, and painstakingly pieced together what he had seen.

Dad hadn’t been lying in a pool of blood—he’d been lying
next
to one that seemed to have come from the uniformed woman beside him. His body wasn’t bullet riddled; in fact Jack had seen only one wound, a bloody hole near the left buttock, but not much bleeding from that.

“My father’s wound—at least the one I could see—seemed to be a flesh wound. Of course the bullet could have ricocheted off a bone and cut through a major artery. But after I heard there were no wounded, that everyone who’d been shot was dead, I began to suspect cyanide.”

None of this had been confirmed, but Jack was pretty sure it would turn out to be something along those lines.

Gia shivered against him. “I’ve never heard of—I mean, what hideous sort of mind dreams up these things?”

“Cyanide bullets aren’t new. They’re a terrorist favorite, but usually when they’re out to assassinate a specific target. The poison guarantees that an otherwise nonlethal wound will be fatal. First I ever heard of them was back when we were kids—when those Symbionese Liberation Army nuts used cyanide-tipped bullets to kill that school superintendent. But for mass murder? Never heard of them being used for that. At least until now.”

Gia closed her eyes as a tear slid from each. “So if they’d used regular bullets your father could have lived… if he’d laid still and played dead, he might have survived, and we’d be standing around his hospital bed now talking about how lucky he was.”

Thinking about what could have been and might have been never worked for Jack. Seemed like self-torture, and he felt tortured enough right now.

“I doubt it.”

Gia opened her eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I saw a smear of blood about the length of his leg on the floor beside him. His hand was on the holster of a dead security guard. I think—no, I’m sure he was going after her gun. Dad wasn’t the type to sit and wait to be killed. He was an excellent shot. If he’d reached the gun… who knows? I doubt he could have taken down both of them, but maybe he could have hit one of them, and that might have scared off the other.”

Could have
…
might have
…

Useless.

Just as useless as the rerun of his fantasy of teaming up with Dad to take out the killers.

Gia said, “He would have been a hero.”

“Most likely they’d have cut him to ribbons as soon as he fired his first shot.”

“At least you got to see him again. If this had happened down in Miami, you, well… you’re now the last one to see him alive.”

Jack knew he couldn’t claim that blessing for himself.

“No, the killers were.”

“I mean in his family—oh, God! Family! Did you call your brother?”

Shit!

“No. I didn’t even think…”

Truth was, thoughts of his brother rarely if ever crossed Jack’s mind. He’d never considered Tom a real brother, just someone who shared some of his genes and, for the first eight years of Jack’s life, the same house. Ten years older than Jack, Tom hadn’t been a presence even before he’d gone off to college, and after that he’d faded to a wraith who’d float in and out over the holidays and breaks.

Jack had his number somewhere. He’d had to call him a few times last September to update him on Dad’s coma, but not often enough to remember.

“You’ve got to call him.”

Yeah, he did. But how much would Tom care?

Jack caught himself. Not fair. Maybe Tom hadn’t gone to visit Dad in Florida when he’d been hurt, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be devastated to learn he was a victim of the flight 715 massacre. Back then he’d said he was tied up with “judicial matters,” whatever that meant. Yeah, he was a judge in Philadelphia and maybe he couldn’t leave in the middle of hearing a case, but still… if your father’s in a coma and no one knows whether or not he’s going to come out of it, hell, you find a way.

“Tom’s number is back at my apartment. So’s Ron’s.”

His sister’s kids needed to know about their grandfather.

He kissed Gia on the top of her head. “Got to get home and make those calls.”

Gia looked up at him. “Can’t you call information?”

“For Ron, yeah, I suppose. But I know Tom’s is unlisted, him being a judge and all.”

She grabbed his hand. “You’re going to come back, aren’t you?”

“Sure, I guess.”

“Jack, you shouldn’t be alone tonight. This is something that needs to be shared. Vicky and I can help you through this, but you’ve got to let us. I know you, Jack. You’re like an injured wolf that goes off to lick its wounds alone. You can’t keep this bottled up. You’ve got to let it out. I’m—
we’re
here for you, Jack. Please don’t shut us out.”

“I won’t. I’ll make my calls and then come back.”

As Jack left, he hoped he’d be able to keep that promise.

10

Jack sat in the cluttered front room of his apartment. Still numb, he hadn’t turned on the lights. He sat in the dark with the glowing touchpad of his phone providing the only illumination. He started his calls.

The one-hundred-and-fifteenth precinct came first. A woman there told him they didn’t have any information yet on how relatives could claim the bodies of the deceased. The victims were being IDed and examined, and then they’d be released.