Children of the Underground (18 page)

Twenty-seven

When we left the apartment, I felt naked knowing that I was the only one who wasn't armed. The sun was sinking behind the buildings as the three of us surveyed the point where the drop-off was supposed to take place in only a few more hours. The sky was an amber color. “So, where are we supposed to do this?” Michael asked.

“Between the bridges,” I said. I was eager to get this done. I was eager to move forward. I could feel the same emotions coming from Michael and Reggie. Still, I knew what Michael was thinking as he eyeballed the area. Some park benches were bolted into the ground facing the water. A number of giant stone columns held up the highway above us. We could hear the cars rumbling by overhead. The columns were our best bet for cover. There was no place to hide.

“We're sitting ducks,” Michael said.

“We're not blocked in,” Reggie said in my defense, pointing toward the Brooklyn Bridge. “There's three escape points: north, south, and west. Maria's right. If anyone comes after us, we'll see them coming. If we go west, we head right into the thick of lower Manhattan. If we go north or south, we can eventually turn into Manhattan, or we climb up onto either the Brooklyn Bridge or the Manhattan Bridge and head into Brooklyn.”

We moved in closer, walking under the Manhattan Bridge. For a moment, the sound of traffic from the bridge and the sound of the traffic from the FDR merged. It was beginning to get dark, but people were still on the path, jogging or riding their bikes. We stopped walking, standing along the path as people passed us; runners, young kids on bikes, old Asian men pushing giant black carts filled with God knows what, street vendors heading away from the South Street Seaport for the night.

“How much time do we have?” Michael asked me.

I looked at my watch. “Just over an hour,” I answered.

“Let's get off the path, then,” Michael said. “We'll make them wait. We'll come to them. They can take the risk of standing out here in the open.” We began walking away. I looked back once as we walked. The bikers and the runners were beginning to thin out. It got darker earlier beneath the shadow of the highway. The lights draping the bridges were on, lighting up the sky and reflecting off the turbulent black water beneath them. As I looked, I saw one of the street vendors, a small Middle Eastern man, standing still, watching us. He had been pushing a giant metal street vendor's cart. The metal slats pulled up on the sides covered the cart's windows. When the man realized that I was watching him watch us, he put his head back down, leaned into the cart, and kept pushing. The cart moved.

We went to a bar nearby to kill the hour we had before the action started. We ordered sodas and pretended we were carefree. If the drop-off went down like it was supposed to, the whole exchange should have taken five minutes, ten tops. I have no idea how long the bloody mess that occurred actually took. It felt like an eternity. While we were in the bar it had grown dark and quiet. When we left, the only sound we could hear was the drone of traffic whizzing by above us. As we neared the water, I looked down the footpath running beneath the two bridges. At first, I didn't see anyone. Then I noticed a figure sitting alone on one of the benches, facing the water.

“Is that her?” I asked Michael, pointing to the bench. The figure didn't move.

“There's only one way to find out,” Michael said. We crossed the street toward the footpath. A boat floated by on the river, sending light flashing over the figure on the bench for only a second. It was a woman, her hair hanging down to her shoulders. Shadows flitted over her like smoke drifting from a fire.

“I think it's her,” I said to Michael. A single biker rode by us, a small white light flashing on his handlebars. The bridges were like giant beacons of light now, pointing in different directions and both pointing away from where we were. Michael walked up to the railing overlooking the black water and turned so that he could get a good look at the woman on the bench. We were only fifty feet from her now. She still hadn't moved. I stepped close behind Michael so that I could see her. Reggie stayed a few feet behind us.

“Dorothy,” I whispered into the darkness, hoping that she could hear me, hoping that she would turn her head and we'd be able to see her face. I was sure that once we saw her face, everything would be okay.

She did turn toward us. Everything wasn't okay. The light from the bridges reflected off the tears on Dorothy's cheeks. I followed her tears down her face to her mouth. Then I saw the tape covering her mouth. I looked up for a split second, following the sudden sound of wheels rolling over concrete, and saw a metal pushcart. It was coming toward us and gaining speed. I turned back to Dorothy, looking down at her hands. They were tied together and fastened to her lap as if she were praying. Her feet were tied together too and lashed to one leg of the bench. I remembered her telling us that she was working alone, since she was dealing with people she trusted. I remember thinking how dangerous that sounded. Even if she could trust us, there were so many people she couldn't trust.

Even over the sounds of the cars roaring on the highway overhead and the sound of the pushcart rolling toward us, I could hear a muffled sound coming from Dorothy's direction. She was trying to scream to us. She was trying to tell us to run. Michael ran—only instead of running away from Dorothy, he ran toward her. He cleared about half the distance between us and Dorothy before I saw Dorothy's head jerk forward. Her head bounced back up. For that split second, I could see the hole where the bullet had come out of the front of her head. Finally, her head came to rest, dangling loosely in front of her like the head of a marionette without a puppeteer.

I thought in a flash of each of the times I'd met Dorothy—the breakfast in the compound outside of D.C., the late-night visit to my apartment, the meeting in the park. Her death seemed too quick, like she deserved more drama. We all deserve more drama. Few of us get it. Reggie, I thought suddenly. What is going to happen to Reggie?
I turned to him. “Run,” I shouted at him as loudly as I could. From where he was standing, he couldn't see everything that was happening. Maybe he heard the gunshot. Maybe he saw the fear in my face. Whatever it was, he turned and ran. He was already past the first stone column when I turned back to Michael and Dorothy.

Michael almost made it to Dorothy before the second gunshot. For some reason, I hadn't heard the first shot. I hadn't been listening. Not for that. I was listening now. I turned in time to see the splash of water where the bullet entered the East River after whizzing past Michael. Michael heard the shot too. He dove down to the ground. I don't know if he knew how close the bullet had come to him. I looked over at the pushcart. Two men were stepping out of the back of the cart. They both had guns in their hands. As they stepped out, the small Middle Eastern man hurried from behind the cart. I could see the sweat on his forehead glistening in the dim, shadowy light. He was breathing heavy from pushing the massive cart. He had a gun in his hand too. Whatever rule Michael and your father had about guns, they didn't share it.

The first man was holding his gun in front of him, his arm outstretched. He was ready to aim, ready to fire. He only needed a target. The man behind him had a rifle with a scope. He must have been the one that shot Dorothy. The pushcart must have been rigged for this. The men were moving quickly, having lost the element of surprise. The man in the front was aiming his handgun at Michael. He pulled the trigger. I heard the crack. I looked over. Michael was on the ground. He was about three feet from the bench where Dorothy's body was tied. He was crawling for the cover of the bench. The bullet missed him, but I saw dust from the concrete kick up as the bullet entered the ground only a foot or two from his legs. Another bullet came, one that Michael couldn't avoid. It hit his right calf. I saw his leg jerk and saw blood begin to seep from the wound.

I stood there, confused and frightened. The bench, Dorothy's body, even, would give Michael a little cover, but the men with their guns were no more than thirty feet from him. In no more than seconds, they would be able to walk up to him and shoot him at point-blank range. Michael was trapped. He had nowhere to run. I couldn't do anything to save him. The only thing that could save him now was a gun on our team. Michael reached Dorothy's body. His hands clambered up her legs, up to the pockets of her pants. I remembered seeing the bulge in her pocket the night she first came to visit me in New York. Was there any chance she had a gun, that they'd tied her up without having the time to search her? Maybe they'd just been lazy. I thought it was Michael's only hope. I tried to think of something I could do to distract the men with the guns to buy Michael time, but it was useless. I was useless.

I turned my head and looked south. I should have still been able to see Reggie running but I saw nothing. I turned my head quickly back to Michael. They were closer to him now. My eyes passed by the column closest to me. I saw him standing behind the column. Reggie hadn't run away. He hadn't deserted us. He stood with his back pressed against the column, trying to control his breathing. He was holding his gun in his hand. In the growing darkness, I could still see the shining color of his eyes looking to me for guidance.

“Reggie, now!” I shouted, still not bothering to hide myself. He gave me a small nod and stepped past the edge of the column. He aimed his gun toward the men as they closed in on Michael. He pulled the trigger. One shot. Then another. Reggie missed them with both shots, but he got their attention. I remembered how Michael said that the small gun wasn't accurate from a distance. We weren't close enough. Reggie kept pulling the trigger. He pulled the trigger, took a breath, aimed, and then pulled it again.

In between shots, I heard one of the strange men shout, “That's him.” They were shouting loud enough that they could be heard over the sound of the traffic and the bullets. They were crouching down now, moving away from each other to try to keep from giving Reggie too large a target. I could see dust swirl up as the bullets hit the ground around them. “Let's get him,” said the man with the rifle. They had come for Reggie. Reggie kept firing, but none of his shots hit anything but the ground.

“You guys get him,” the Middle Eastern man said, “I'll finish this one and catch up.” He motioned toward Michael. I could see Michael still rummaging through Dorothy's pockets. He'd found something but I couldn't see what it was.

The man with the handgun aimed it at Reggie. His gun was bigger than Reggie's and had to be more accurate. He pulled the trigger. Concrete from the column above Reggie's head crumbled and fell. Reggie didn't move. He aimed his gun again but he wasn't aiming at the men coming for him. Reggie was aiming his gun at the man going for Michael. The man was only five steps from the bench now. He hadn't bothered to shoot his gun. It wasn't necessary. He could walk right up to Michael and execute him. Reggie inhaled deeply and held his breath. He squeezed the trigger again. This time, he hit his target. It wasn't a perfect shot. It didn't even knock the Middle Eastern man off his feet, but Reggie hit him somewhere above his waist. The man grunted and stumbled for a second but didn't fall. It would have to be enough. The other two men were closing in on Reggie. Reggie turned and aimed his gun at them. He pulled the trigger again. Another bullet whizzed by their heads. Then Reggie ducked behind the column as the men returned a blaze of fire. I stood out in the open, in the middle of the madness, feeling like a spectator in the world's most awful game. No one even looked at me. It was like I didn't exist.

I looked over at Michael. The man Reggie had shot seemed to be regaining his balance. I saw a flash of light reflect off something in Michael's hand. He had his knife out. Michael shifted Dorothy's lifeless legs and rolled under the bench. Now he was only two steps away from his would-be executioner. The Middle Eastern man didn't even notice Michael until Michael stood up. By then, it was too late. He tried to swing around so that he could fire one last shot at Michael, but Michael was already too close to him. Michael put all his weight on his good leg, the one without the bite wounds or bullet hole. He reached up with his left hand and grabbed the Middle Eastern man by his shoulder, near his neck. Michael was holding whatever it was that he'd found in Dorothy's pocket in his left hand, but it didn't stop him from getting a good grip on the man's shoulder. Then Michael took his right hand and plunged it up toward the little man's chin. The knife entered below the Middle Eastern man's jaw and shot up, cutting through any skin, bone, or tendon that got in its way. Michael's knife wasn't a small knife, but all I could see of it now was the handle jutting out from below the man's jaw. The rest of the blade had found its mark. The little man's body seized for a moment, but it put up no more fight than that.

Everything with Michael happened so quickly that, for a second, I'd forgotten about Reggie and the other two men with guns. Then I heard a popping sound near my feet. I looked down. I could see the spot on the ground, only three feet from me, where a bullet had hit. I looked up. I was still standing out in the open, not bothering to hide or duck while the men shot guns at each other around me. The gunfire had slowed down. Reggie had taken cover behind the column and, every few seconds, would turn and shoot wildly at one of the other men. Without the time to aim, his shots inevitably missed their mark. The two men had hunkered down, taking what cover they could find, hiding from Reggie's bullets. They fired too. Their shots were more accurate, but Reggie moved too fast and they couldn't master the timing.

I felt helpless. I was only twenty feet from Reggie but I couldn't think of anything to do that wasn't suicidal. Reggie turned the corner and fired again. He was merely trying to keep the men at bay. He couldn't hold them off forever. Reggie had only twelve bullets. He'd be lucky if he had three left. I hoped he'd been keeping track. I looked at Reggie. He was bouncing up and down on his toes. He looked back at me. Then I heard my name.