Clawback (34 page)

Only one thing to do. Grind my teeth and keep the throttle as high as possible. The Jet Ski hydroplaned, almost out of control. Bucking and pounding on the waves, I pulled a little ahead of Saxon. Ten yards, twenty…I glanced back. He was glaring my way. I raised one hand, just long enough to give him the finger, then yanked the steering bar sideways. The Jet Ski reared like a horse, didn’t quite swamp, and after a split second, when it recovered its footing, roared straight for the Zodiac.

It was a truly stupid move, the only positive aspect being that every other option was worse. Saxon may not have believed I’d do it, at first—he didn’t turn away for a couple of seconds.

And then it was too late.

I struck the inflatable dead center. By chance, at that instant, the waves had slammed me down and bounced the Zodiac up—so instead of riding up and over the pontoon, the Jet Ski smashed its
nose and stopped as abruptly as if we’d run into a seawall. I rocketed off the seat, thrown forward like a crash-test dummy, and about as gracefully.

It was only luck that I didn’t fly right over the damn boat and land in the water on the other side. Instead, I slammed into Saxon himself, standing conveniently in the way. We collapsed onto the bench. The Zodiac almost tipped over as the steering swung wildly. The outboard’s screw came out of the water, screaming.

The action got a little hazy for a few moments. Saxon and I had both been half knocked out, and we grappled and punched at each other on autopilot. He landed a pair of useless strikes on my chest, which the life jacket absorbed. I tore at his ear, and he tried to bite my hand. Blood was running down his left arm. We both had submachine guns but couldn’t spare the seconds it would take to find the trigger and point the barrel.

Saxon recovered faster. Despite the bending, rocking surface of the Zodiac’s bottom, he managed to stand up, then kicked me in the neck. I went down hard. He kicked me again, lost his balance as the boat swayed, and recovered by bracing against the steering column.

“You crazy motherfucker,” he said, and pulled the M4 from behind his back, where our struggle had tangled it up. “They said you’d be
easy.
”

Unfortunately, we weren’t going to have a long, chatty discussion. Saxon gripped the carbine, aimed at me and started to pull the trigger.

For an instant, I saw Death.

But we’d both forgotten somebody.

Clara, trussed like Houdini, had wormed her away across the
base of the boat. On her back, hands and legs taped together. Just as Saxon corrected his aim, she curled her legs to her chest, then kicked out, as hard as she could—right at his knees.

He collapsed. The carbine jerked toward the sky, and I saw a trail of bullets in the rain. With one last, volcanic surge of adrenaline I launched myself at Saxon, struck his hip with my head, and knocked him clean off the boat.

I scrambled up, slipped, grabbed the steering wheel. The Zodiac swerved sharply. I straightened and stared at the water.

Where
was
the bastard?

Clara kicked me in the shin. Oh, right. I bent down and tore the tape from her hands. She undid her legs herself, as I went back to searching the waves.

“Thank you,” I shouted, over the spray and rain and engine noise. “You are amazing.”

She pulled herself up and grabbed me around the chest.

“I thought I was going to die,” she said into my ear.

“Me too.”

It felt like she was crying. I held onto the wheel with one arm and hugged her with the other. “You’re all right now,” I said. “We’re safe.”

“Where is he?”

If I knew, I’d have tried to run him over, wouldn’t I? I kept searching the dark water. “Don’t know.”

A sudden blast of engine noise. We swung around, and there he was—on the goddamn Jet Ski. Fucking Christ, the man had more lives than Jack Bauer. I fumbled for my SCAR, wondering if we were about to go through the same crap again, in reverse.

But no. Maybe he was hurt. Maybe he realized Clara was loose, and it would be two to one. For whatever reason, he simply turned and gunned the Jet Ski away from us, disappearing toward the west, exhausted by the whole business.

I knew how he felt.

“I think I’m going into shock,” said Clara.

“Hang on until we get to shore.” I found the Zodiac’s throttle, put our backs to Saxon, and headed for land.

We could have taken the boat out at Hell’s Kitchen, but who knows what people there might have seen of our high-seas duel? I didn’t want to get dragged into explanations, dissembling and police custody just yet. Instead, I motored another two dozen blocks farther north, finally pulling in at the 79
th
Street Boat Basin.

Before we arrived, I dumped the SCAR into the river. No need for the attention it would draw.

Most of the marina’s hundred-plus slips were full. 79
th
Street is the only city facility willing to let people live on their boats year round, and there was a long waiting list. Myself, I can’t see the draw—puttering around your tiny cabin in cold gray weather, cooking on a propane one-burner, trying to sleep to the lullaby sounds of tugboats, barge traffic, foghorns and booze cruises passing by. But for many, the romance of the sea is stronger than common sense.

The rain hadn’t let up. Thunder crashed. No one seemed to be outside to see us tie off at the outer dock, though warm light glowed through windows of a number of the docked boats.

Clara was shivering, hard.

“Can you walk?” I’d lifted her from the Zodiac, and stood her up on the slippery wooden boards.

“I’m sorry.” Teeth chattering.

“Don’t be stupid.”

“You told me to stay at the apartment. With Rondo. But I left.”

“Forget it.” She could barely stand. “You need medical attention.”

“No.”

“Don’t argue.” I put her arm around my neck and we shuffled along. “In fact, we need to let the police know you’re here.”

“You can’t!”

“Why not?”

“Once they start asking
you
questions, you won’t get out for days.”

Which was more true than she knew—or I hoped she knew. “I’ll deal with it. We’re not putting you on the wrong side of the law.”

“But you have to—” She stumbled on the end of a boat’s line, sloppily hitched to the dock cleat.

“What?”

“It was the same man. The one who attacked me in the park.”

“Saxon. I know.”

“You have to
get
him.” Clara stopped, swung to face me and held my shoulders with both hands. “He cannot be running around loose.”

“The police?”

“You.” She stared into my eyes, intense, almost febrile. “You can do it. They can’t. Not soon enough.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, but—”

“You.” Abruptly her grip weakened, and she started to fall. “Promise!”

What could I do?

“Okay, fine, I promise. But only if you take care of yourself.”

“Thank you.” Her eyes closed, and she collapsed, limp. Good thing I was ready, or she might have gone into the river again.

The marina’s entrance was a hundred feet up the dock. I lifted Clara into a fireman’s carry and jogged toward civilization.

“Y
ou
left
her there?”

“Only once the paramedics took over.” I didn’t like how defensive that sounded.

“I hope she lives.”

“Fuck, Johnny, I did the best I could!” I felt control slipping. I started yelling into the phone. “They killed every one of her coworkers at the Thatcher. Every one! Automatic weapons and
grenade
s
—she’s lucky to be breathing!”

I was in Central Park, in the wooded Ramble. I stopped walking, not even bothering to shelter from the rain under a tree.

“I’m not Superman! What do you want? I should go back and get arrested and spend the next ten years in jail?
That
won’t help!”

“Hey, no, I didn’t mean that.” He sounded surprised. “Calm down.”

“Fuck. Fuck!”

I forced myself to be quiet for a moment, ignored Johnny and looked around. A few early evening joggers were out, the hardy ones who liked to ignore the weather, splashing along in reflective lycra.
At four p.m. it felt like night under the drizzling clouds. Thunder rumbled again.

“I’m sorry. I’m having a really bad day.” I suddenly chuckled in an involuntary, weirdly hysterical manner.

“I know, man, I know.”

“It was just a touch of hypothermia and a delayed reaction to the abduction. She’s safe, she’s in the hospital, the cops are on guard.”

“I hope so.” He paused, a moment’s silence on the phone. “For your sake, too, not just hers.”

Emotion started to bubble up again, but I jammed the lid on. Time enough later to deal with my shit. Right now I
had
to focus on Saxon.

And his masters.

“Can you look something up for me?” I said.

“Yeah, sure. Where are you?”

“On walkabout.”

“You might want to keep going.”

“Why?”

“Haven’t you seen the news?”

“No, I’ve been chasing heavily armed kidnappers all over the city, remember? Jesus. What news?”

“The FBI tracked down the bomber—the guy who blew up Blacktail?”

“But—” Wasn’t that Zeke and me? So much had happened I was losing all the threads.

“Hayden Pennerton, disgraced hedge fund wunderkind. His name was on the rental car’s papers. Not the name I expected, actually.”

“Oh. They caught him?”

“At JFK. He was actually on the jetway when they arrested him.”

“How about that.”

“Apparently,” Johnny continued, “he was traveling under a false identity, with a complete set of phony documentation. Plus cash
and
a bunch of guns. The FBI is being cagey, of course, but ‘unidentified sources’ are talking about an anonymous tip.”

So the DA finally looked at my mail. “About time.”

“There’s video up already.” Johnny had obviously been spending too much time clicking through news updates. “A SWAT team, running through the terminal—ski masks, big fucking guns, Kevlar, the whole deal. It’s amazing how many people seem to have their cellphone cameras waiting for this sort of thing.”

“Good for them.”

“Traders this morning can’t talk about anything else. One of their own—they don’t usually go down so spectacularly.”

As I crossed one of the park’s roadways, four cyclists whizzed past. One wore the clear plastic rain jacket that was standard Tour de France fashion in about 1975. They must have been going thirty miles an hour, despite the rain-slick road. I stepped aside, just in time to avoid wheel spray.

“Is
he
talking?”

“Who, Hayden? Not to the media, that’s for sure.”

How long did I have? Hayden would roll over immediately, of course, but there wasn’t much he could say about me. The bank codes we’d used in recovering Marlett’s money were his—Marlett’s, I mean—and I’d cleared my own transactions subsequently. That
trail would die in the Republic of Overseas Tax Evasion, Caymans Branch.

Forensics on the rental car? The Hooverville labs could be incredibly persistent. Or they might match me some other way. We really do live in a panopticon.

“All very interesting,” I said. “And it’s now even more important—the favor I need.”

“Shoot.” He hesitated. “So to speak.”

“The yacht Saxon took Clara to.
Tangible Assets
. Who owns it?”

“Good question.”

And it was. Theseus’s thread through the entire maze, in fact.

Saxon was a nasty piece of work, but in the end, just another hired hand. He certainly didn’t have the scratch for a 150-foot supercruiser. Nor could he possibly have orchestrated the slay-to-pay scheme in all its devious glory. A market player with a billion or two to gamble and no morals whatsoever—yes, I realize that doesn’t narrow the field particularly—set it up. He was the guy I wanted to see.

He’d be the boat’s owner. Saxon had been running to his daddy.

“Nothing’s coming up on Google,” said Johnny.

“Well, hell, I didn’t think it would be
that
easy. There must be databases, though. Boats have to be registered, right? Maybe there are yacht spotters, like the nutcases who track private jets as a hobby? I don’t know. See what you can find.”

“I don’t spend much time in idle websurfing.” Which was undoubtedly true. I’m not sure Johnny had any interests at all outside the markets. “You need someone who knows how to do this,” he said. “A researcher.”

“She’s in a hospital at the moment.”

“Oh.” He paused. “Sorry.”

I let a beat pass. The rain had turned pretty in the park, and I just watched it fall.

“Look, it’s going to take a few minutes. Call me back.”

“All right. Thanks.” But before I hung up, I thought of something. “Hey, what’s going on with Plank Industrials? Are they still in play?”

“The share price is headed for the moon. No, Alpha Centauri. Up something like seventy percent today.”

“Why?”

“Because they arrested Pennerton! Everyone figures Terry Plank is safe now.”

“The shorts must be hurting.”

“On the
coals
.” Johnny laughed. “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a short squeeze so pure and clean—not on a Fortune 500 stock. It’s beautiful.”