Hack (20 page)

Jack Leslie began counting. I dropped my cell in the gutter, reached for the door and got in but I left the door open. Leslie moved his legs to make room for me and sat up.

“Close the door.”

I ignored him and quickly took off my tie, wrapping it once around my left hand while palming the flat dark object hidden inside it with my right hand.

“Go!” Leslie yelled.

Molloy floored it. Leslie and I were shoved back into the seat, as I heard and felt the door slam behind me. Leslie’s gun also went back, to my left. I sprang forward to the right and slapped at the pistol with my padded hand, grabbing it. It went off incredibly loudly, bright as a paparazzo’s flash bulb, the expanding blast hurting my ears. I wedged the wrapped web of my left hand into the space in front of the cocked hammer as Leslie recovered, swinging the gun point-blank at my chest and pulling the trigger again.

I yelled in pain but held tight. I hit him in the chest, fast and underhanded, with my fisted right hand and held the grip of my letter opener against him. He gasped in astonishment.

“Abracadabra, motherfucker!” I yelled into his face, only inches away.

He spasmed and released the automatic, along with all the breath in his lungs. The pistol came away, attached to my left hand, the hammer still embedded in the silk of my tie and the skin between my thumb and forefinger. I safed the piece, freeing my hand, dropped the magazine and jacked the last round out of the chamber. Molloy’s driving was tossing us around wildly. The pistol fell to the floor of the cab in three pieces. We were moving very fast, tires squealing. The cab banged off something and I fell backwards. Leslie crumpled into the foot well on his side.

I heard shouts and sirens. Several shots outside the vehicle. Molloy was yelling Leslie’s name over and over but Leslie wasn’t answering. I reached for my door handle. We fishtailed sideways, hit something else, bounced in the air and accelerated back the other way, fast as a bastard, clipping something with a bang. The rear window shattered and Molloy cursed and drove faster, still calling for his partner. I raised my head for a peek. Trees were flying drunkenly by. We had to be going more than a hundred, sliding all over the place. The sirens faded.

We sped onto another roadway, black trees flashing by. Then we left the road, thumping and bumping and scraping, slowing down as we hit several bushes and trees. I was tossed onto Leslie’s body and took the chance to retrieve my high-density plastic letter opener from under his sternum. The composite graphite and phosphorus polymer was as sharp as a real knife and had ruptured his heart instantly.

Magic.

From his point of view, anyway. I dug a lighter out of my pants pocket and flicked it into flame. Once I cooked Leslie’s blood off the dark blade, the weapon ignited. It was designed to cut and to burn like a flare, but much hotter. No messy evidence left behind. Another successful government product. Cost to taxpayers: $930. I shoved the lighter back in my pocket and fought to hold the burning blade steady as we banged all over the place, crawling back to my open window. In a quick shot, I hooked the flaming black blade, now one third consumed, and tossed it in the front window, into the front seat. Right onto Molloy’s lap.

“Presto!” I shouted.

“Fuck!” he screamed. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

He swatted at it with his turban but it would not go out. He managed to knock the burning blade and the flaming turban onto the floor on the passenger side but it was still burning.

“Hi, I’m Sarah Jessica Parker,” the TV said.

Time to go. I went for my door handle and shouldered open the door. It snapped shut like a steel jaw, as we hit a hillock. We were moving more slowly, rocking and rolling through a sparse wooded area in the dark. I tried again and dove out, hitting dirt and rolling. I heard shots. Molloy firing at me. I was sprawling through rocks and leaves and roots downhill. Fast. I had to get up and run but something hit me in the back of the head.

It was still dark. I wasn’t running. I was sitting on the ground, my back against the front tire on the driver’s side of the cab, my legs straight out. The dented taxi, its lights and engine off, ticking, was parked in a woody spot, on an asphalt walking path, not a road. My head was pulsating with pain. I reached up to the back of my skull with my left hand and felt wetness on my palm. Blood. My Houdini from the moving cab had ended with me thumping my head into something hard. If Molloy had shot me, I wouldn’t be waking up. But, unlike with Leslie, I had no element of surprise and no chance to move fast. I started to seriously re-evaluate my no-gun pledge, as I slowly drew my legs in and braced my left hand on the pavement.

“Don’t fucking move, asswipe!” Molloy said in a hushed voice from the dark. “And keep your voice down.”

I froze. I didn’t remember saying anything, loud or otherwise. He had me. He was visible as an outline against the moonlight coming through the trees. In the distance a skyline of high-rise buildings glittered, a horizon of black teeth studded with diamonds.

Matt was scared and he was pointing his gun at me. For some reason, he was afraid of noise. With his other hand he held his crotch and jogged from one leg to another, obviously in pain.

“Sorry about toasting your balls but you’d do the same thing if somebody tried to kill you,” I said loudly.

“I said keep your voice down or I’ll fucking blow your brains out!”

“That would be even louder,” I explained.

“Shut up. Who said we were going to kill you? We wanted to talk to you, get you to tell us what you’re doing. Now you’ve screwed everything up. Everything. You got no fucking idea, asshole.”

“Tell me.”

“I’m asking the goddamn questions, dickwad. What are you up to? Tell me now or I’ll fucking murder your ass.”

I detected sniffling. Was he crying? For Leslie?

“Sorry I had to kill your friend Jack,” I tried.

“You fucking bastard! How did you do it? You moved so fast I couldn’t see what happened. He was good. How did you turn his own gun on him?”

“I didn’t. I had a composite blade in my tie. I stabbed him once in the heart. It was quick. He didn’t suffer. Sorry, self-defense.”

“You had a knife? And a fucking firebomb? Where?”

“No. The knife burns. That’s what I threw on your lap.”

“A burning knife? I didn’t find no fucking knife.”

“Because it burned.”

“They were right, you’re not a dog dork. You’re some kind of Special Forces killer, right?”

“Actually J-SOC. Not Delta. Working to keep America safe. Who are
they
—Badger and Edgar?”

“You didn’t have to kill him,” Molloy sniffed. “We weren’t going to kill you.”

“You mean not right away,” I corrected him. “Not until after I talked.”

He didn’t deny it.

“Anyways, now I gotta kill you.”

“That would be incredibly stupid, Matt.”

“Don’t call me stupid.”

“Okay. Since you’re not stupid, you know you were seen, Matt,” I told him, improvising, hoping it was true. “You were caught on camera. Long lenses, night vision, the whole deal. They know who you are and are looking for you now. Remember the picture in the
Daily Press
of me with the fed? They’re waiting outside your place right now. Maybe inside, too.”

“Fuck,” he groaned, massaging his groin.

He believed me. I wished it were true.

“You and Leslie sent the text to me, pretending to be Aubrey.”

“Duh. And you called the cops? We didn’t see them.”

“I told the feds. Was NYPD there, too?”

“Yeah, I bounced off one marked blue-and-white car and one unmarked one. Fuckers shot at us. With a hostage. That’s not right. This has been so sweet for so long, I can’t believe it. I’m totally boned.”

“What about the other ones, Molloy?”

He was silent.

“The smart move is to walk away. Take off or get a lawyer. Blame it on me.”

“That’s what I’m doing,” he giggled. “This here’s Jack’s gun. I put it back together. He shot you, not me. I didn’t know you guys was gonna kill each other.”

“Molloy, you didn’t kill anybody. You can say you thought the cops were drug dealers or something.”

“I can still say that. Don’t need you.”

“But they will know you fired a gun. The forensics will be all screwed up and they’ll come down on you. You can’t kill an undercover and get away with it.”

“I knew it. You’re working for the cops.”

“Yes I am,” I lied. “Agent Shepherd. Put down the gun and we’ll work this out.”

His gun hand wavered and slowly lowered halfway, like it was very heavy.

“I’ll make you a good deal, Matt.”

“I can’t go to jail again.”

“No jail. You just lay out the whole thing and you’re good to go,” I told him, standing.

“The whole thing?” he asked, suddenly suspicious. “You mean all of them? Everywhere?” Damn.

“Forget that for now. Let’s just start with the Joyce case and worry about anything else later,” I assured him. “No problem, we’ll just—”

“No fucking way! If I rat they’ll kill me. He’s got billions. You have no clue. These people are serious as a heart attack. NO!”

“The Witness Relocation Program is…”

The gun came up again. I rambled on but he wasn’t listening. I reached into my left pocket and felt the lighter. My thumb moved the butane setting to high.

“On your feet.” His weapon was centered on me. “Move to the back of the cab.”

I saw he had the trunk open. I almost flicked the butane onto steady flame and tossed it into the open driver’s window but I hesitated too long.

“Get in.”

“No.”

“Get in or I’ll shoot you.”

“That would be very loud, and a very big mistake.”

“I just want to put you in there, so I can get away. I won’t shoot, Agent Shepherd. Really. Get in and pull it closed. You’ll see.”

I didn’t believe a word but my only choice was to rush him and that option would probably end with him putting at least one round into me before I could get to him. I left the lighter in my pocket, ducked into the open trunk, pulling it closed by the dangling glowing open-the-trunk cord. Even darker inside. No air. I fired up my lighter. I was in a deep box lined with dark felt-like material, the trunk rug. There was a horizontal ledge above me, under the rear window, that held a full-sized spare tire. I sat up and leaned toward it. The inflated tire was held in place by a steel rod secured by a steel plate, itself held over the metal center rim with a large wing nut. Excellent. I put the lighter away and worked in the dark. I spun the wing nut off and put it in my other pocket and put the metal plate aside on the shelf. I had to shift the tire to unhook the steel rod because it was hooked to the shelf underneath to hold the heavy steel belted radial in place. I hit my light again. The steel rod was about nine inches long and solid, a weapon.

The trunk thumped loudly. Molloy was kicking the outside of the trunk hard, over and over, laughing about how I should try to get out of that. He was deforming the area around the lock, so I couldn’t open it. Why? I could think of at least one bad reason. I ignored his ranting and got busy. While he was denting the trunk shut, I pulled the tire off the shelf and curled into the fetal position in the main trunk well under it. Thank God for a full-size American spare tire, not some tiny donut spare. I got as much of my head under the center metal rim as possible and worked my way as far to one side as I could. I had to bow my head painfully to get it under the rim and I couldn’t tell how much of me fit underneath. The thumping stopped. Then Molloy tried to open the trunk. It was jammed solid. I wondered how long I could stay this way.

“You hear me, Agent Asshole?”

I didn’t answer. Why give him a better idea where my head was.

“Okay, play dead. First, I’m already in Witness Protection. Second, fuck your deal! Fuck you! This is for Jack.”

I felt the first shot hit the tire and me like a hot hammer, the steel belted radial screaming and howling like a banshee as its air escaped. Or was that me? The shots came fast and loud. I could feel the rounds impacting, one after the other as they perforated the trunk more than a dozen times, half of them slamming me, some clanging the metal rim over my head like a bell, blowing me away.

I was fuzzy all over, crushed in the dark, wet, dripping with pain. My head and arms and legs were slimy. I tasted blood coming out of my nose and mouth. My eyes burned, which is what happens when blood gets in your eyes. Not good. Some jerk was making noise, ranting, hooting, hurting my head. I wasn’t supposed to talk to him.

“Still got ears, Agent Asshole?” the jerk demanded.

Shit. Molloy. Trunk. Jammed. Bullets.

“Who’s stupid now? Who’s dumb enough to bring a knife to a gunfight?”

Molloy waited for an answer but I kept my mouth shut. I began to choke on blood and I quietly opened my mouth to breathe. I began moving my body carefully under the dead, deflated tire. It was hard to separate me from the tire; it clung like a porcupine, quills dug into my flesh. Everything hurt. I was hit in both legs, one arm and the head and no medic in sight. I slowly shuffled off the treaded tire and rim with my good right hand. I felt it rip my skin, like it was part of me. I painfully pulled out the lighter and flicked it on. It was like a blowtorch in a casket. My pants from both knees down were shredded and bloody, as was the skin of my left arm below the elbow. I could feel new wounds on my face and head. I tried wiggling both toes, which resulted in surges of hot pain that took my breath away. My left arm had two holes with a spider pattern of cuts radiating outward for a few inches, all oozing blood. I tried touching it with my right fingers. It was wet, sticky, and ripped up, like a shrapnel wound. Damn. Maybe Matt was using exploding ammo. When I rolled my head for a closer look, everything spun, including my stomach. I smelled something sharp and familiar. Gasoline.

I stopped moving and shut off the flame but held tight to the lighter, waiting for the spinning to stop. I closed my eyes. The bullets had hit the gas tank under me. I was curled on top of fifteen gallons of flammable, dripping 87-octane gasoline. I could see it in my mind’s eye, dribbling onto the asphalt, pooling under the car, ready to burn. If he was using exploding rounds, why didn’t they ignite the tank? I opened my eyes in the dark. A ghostly green man swung back and forth in front of my eyes. I reached out and grabbed him. It was the florescent plastic tag hanging from the trunk release cable. Not a ghost. I wanted desperately to yank on it and open the trunk and get out but I remembered Molloy kicking in the trunk surface. It wouldn’t work. Also I was playing possum. Bleeding possum. I let the green ghost go.