Author: James R. Hannibal
Category: Thriller
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/james-r-hannibal/page,19,59578-shadow_maker.html
The train arrived below. Nick kept walking toward the stairs. “I don’t believe her. Come on. We have to catch this one. We need to make the switch at Cannon Street before they find those cops.”
Drake still lingered. “What was in the file?”
“Names, dates, formulas. Most of it made no sense to me. My flat isn’t far. I’ll drive.”
“Drake, let’s go.”
Chaya stood. “The name on the cover was Kattan, Masih Kattan.”
Nick stopped at the top of the stairs. Down at the tracks, the automated voice warned the nonexistent passengers to “please, mind the gap.” Then it advised them that the train doors were closing. He pounded the wall with his fist and let it go.
“I left the file at my flat,” said Chaya as Nick returned to the turnstiles. “You two could go through it with me.”
Drake met his teammate at the barrier. He lowered his voice. “Do we trust her?”
Nick shook his head. “We have to get this thumb drive to Scott. That’s our best lead.”
“But a hidden file with the name of one of our prime suspects is a good lead too. We have to cover all our bases.”
Nick knew Drake was right. But to cover those bases, they would have to split up. He winced. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I want you to take the pretty girl back to her apartment and get a look at her file.”
“Twist my arm.”
Before his teammate turned to go, Nick pushed Mercer’s Glock into his hands. “Be careful. If they have our biochemist, then chances are, they know where his daughter lives.”
CHAPTER 43
The call went out just before Nick reached Cannon Street Station. From the flurry of activity on his stolen radio, he gathered that McCormick—the bobby in Drake’s cell—had been discovered and that Detective Mercer could not be found. There was no mention of Gale.
Cannon Street was a major interchange, connecting multiple Tube lines with the National Railway lines above. One of those National Railway trains could take Nick straight to Greenwich, Scott, and the safety of the apartment, but with the bobbies now alerted and converging, it might as well be a hundred miles away. Just getting out of the Tube and up into the main rail station was going to be a trick. Getting through the platform turnstiles and onto the train itself—if not utterly impossible—would be like slapping the cuffs on his own wrists. The bobbies would pick him up at the next station down.
As the train pulled into the underground station, Nick spotted two bobbies on the platform between the east and west lines. They loitered near the stairwell to the street outside, blocking his quickest exit. Stepping off the train, he put his radio to his ear to cover his face and turned the other way, heading for the long escalator up to the main station.
Halfway up, Nick lowered the radio and turned to look back. He waited, expecting to see the two cops running up the rising stairs after him. They never came. That was a victory, but Nick was still a far cry from being out of the woods. He kept the radio in his hand, ready to use it for cover again at the exit turnstiles at the top of the escalator. Once again, though, his fear proved unfounded.
As the escalator reached the crest of its climb, Nick found himself completely alone. There were no cops, no other passengers, even the Lexan shack that usually housed the turnstile monitor was empty, its narrow door cracked open. Nick stepped through the barrier and snorted to himself. If this was the extent of the manhunt at the Cannon Street interchange, then maybe he still had a shot at getting out of the station.
Maybe not.
Nick walked down a short hallway and had just started up a small flight of stairs to the main station promenade when he heard an explosion of radio chatter—not on his own radio, but on at least a dozen radios near the top of the stairs. He hugged the left wall, crept to the top, and snuck a peek around the corner. His heart sank. A crowd of bobbies, most in yellow high-visibility jackets, huddled for a meeting near the main exit to the street. One of the attendees was the Tube monitor, which explained why her booth was empty. Another was the monitor for the train-station turnstiles. The two leading the assembly were SO15, easily distinguished because they were better dressed than all the others, with black ball caps, body armor, and G-36 submachine guns slung at their sides. Again, Nick’s path to freedom was blocked. He retreated back down the hallway to the Tube turnstiles.
All aluminum and steel and ticket machines, no subway station had ever seemed so barren to Nick, not until now, when he needed options. Then his eyes fell on a lone rack of free magazines, the kind no one ever seemed to pick up. His fingers tickled the bobby’s Taser on his stolen utility belt. It might work. It had to. There was no time to conjure up something better.
Nick dragged the whole rack—magazines and all—into the turnstile monitor’s Lexan booth. He needed the enclosed space to contain the smoke, at least until he was well clear. He started ripping up magazines, working feverishly, fearing that the monitor might return at any moment, or a civilian might rise up from the station below.
The magazine rack served as his frame. He stuffed the lower section with loosely crumpled pages and then spread apart the magazines lined up on the top section, making sure there would be room for oxygen to flow. Then, for good measure, he pushed the monitor’s rolling chair up against the loaded rack and set her mesh trash can on the seat.
That should do it.
Unwilling to push his luck any further, Nick stood sideways in the narrow doorway, aimed his Taser at the crumpled pages on the bottom of his pile, and fired, holding down the trigger to pump as much juice into the electric barbs as possible. The pages caught. He dropped the Taser and raced down the hallway.
Nick slowed as he topped the stairs, entering the promenade at an easy stroll. As anticipated, he did not make it far before one of the gathered bobbies spotted him.
“Oi! Mate! Over here!” It was one of the SO15 men. When Nick kept walking, the superbobby tried again, leaving the group and following after him. “Oi! Bob! I haven’t given you your search ord—”
The superbobby’s call was interrupted by an ear-splitting bell from the Tube station. Curls of thick smoke wafted up the stairs. The bobbies at the exit—as well as the superbobby who had started after Nick—turned their attention to this new excitement.
A few yellow jackets remained at their posts, still blocking the exit, but their attention was focused on the rest of the mob, rushing down the stairs to the Tube line. With both monitors equally occupied, no one was watching the long line of turnstiles in front of the train platforms. Nick reached the turnstiles, checked his six, and then vaulted over.
Seven tracks, each with their own platform, led straight out of the station beneath a wide arched roof and out across a bridge over the Thames. Nick hurried toward the bridge, keeping close to a long wall of restrooms and utility stations that separated the two central platforms. Fifty meters down, he crossed through a short passage to the platform on the other side, taking him completely out of view of anyone on the promenade.
Drake’s voice sounded in his earpiece. “You okay, boss? I’m hearing a lot of radio traffic. They say they’ve cornered one of us.”
“Just about,” huffed Nick, jogging beside a waiting train. “They had a big contingent at Cannon Street, and I had to improvise to get past them. You can add arson to our list of offenses now.”
“Nice. I’m on my way.”
“Negative. Stay put. This area is too hot. Wait for my call and we’ll set up a rendezvous.”
An automated voice from inside the train announced that it was preparing to leave. Without breaking stride, Nick stripped off his jacket, hat, and utility belt and tossed them into one of the cars. If the SO15 man who called after him earlier was worth his badge, he wouldn’t take long to put two and two together. He would have the trains leaving this station searched at their next stop. The stolen uniform gave him something to fin
d, something to push the bulk of their search miles away from here.
Shortly before he ran out of concrete platform, Nick felt icy particles pelting his face. He was out in the open, out from under the broad station roof, and it was sleeting. Even London’s weather had turned against him. Maybe ditching the police jacket wasn’t such a good idea. Two huge bell towers rose up on either side, and the roof and its fluorescent lights fell behind. The dark of the long railway bridge enveloped him. He could still hear the shouts of the yellow jackets back in the station, but they were distant, no longer threatening.
The train pulled out of the station and clacked across the bridge, covering the crunch of his boots on the gravel between the tracks until he was a good hundred meters from the station. At two hundred meters, he had reached the other shore. An old brown brick building with a high-pitched roof was pressed up against the left abutment of the bridge. Nick lowered himself over the side, dropped to the roof, and slid on his backside down the icy shingles until his heels hit a black half-pipe gutter. He had just started climbing down a thick four-story drainpipe when Scott came up on the comm link.
“Nightmare One, come in.”
Nick paused in his climb to flex his frozen fingers. “I’m up. Go ahead.”
“I have Lighthouse on the line for you. It’s the colonel.”
That didn’t bode well. Walker rarely spoke to his people via earpiece comms these days, not with the team’s ability to telecom almost anywhere. The colonel preferred face-to-face communication so he could scowl at his operators. Nick wiped his free hand on his pants and continued descending to the street. “Has there been a development?”
“A couple,” Scott replied. “And neither of them is good.”
CHAPTER 44
I’m worried about Nick,” said Drake as Chaya opened the door to her flat. His police radio continued to buzz with calls about the fire at Cannon Street, and he had not heard anything on his SATCOM piece since Nick ordered him to stand by.
Chaya motioned him inside. “I am worried, too, but there is nothing you can do for him.” She took the radio from Drake’s hand and turned it off. “If I have learned anything about your friend, it is that he can take care of himself.”
Chaya’s apartment was not what Drake expected. He had pictured cold colors and spartan contemporary furniture—the flat of a smart, ambitious young businesswoman who slept there but lived at the office. Instead, the colors here were warm and earthy. She patted the back of a low couch upholstered in silky burnt orange and gold. “Sit down and relax. And please, take off that ridiculous hat and jacket. They are too small for you anyway.” She cracked open the door to her bedroom. “I’ll be right back.”
Drake laid the bobby’s gear on a table near the kitchen bar and sank down onto the couch, resting his head back on the soft cushions. He breathed deep and detected a trace of some dark, intoxicating aroma. Maybe Chaya had lit a candle in the other room.
In the comfortable setting, the temptation to close his eyes and drift off was strong. After all, Nick had told him to sit and wait. This was an opportunity for some much-needed rest. Then again, Drake had grown accustomed to ignoring Nick’s orders.
He shook off his exhaustion and sat up, activating the SATCOM feature on his phone rather than using his earpiece with Chaya so close. “Nightmare One, say your status.”
Nick did not respond.
“Nightmare Four, are you up?”
Nothing from Scott either. He checked the phone. No signal.
“I hope you don’t mind.” Chaya emerged from the bedroom wearing maroon silk pajamas that hung from her slender frame. “This might take a while, and I couldn’t bear to spend another minute in that suit.”
“Uh . . . No, that’s fine.” Drake stumbled over the words as he slipped the phone back into his pocket. “If I had brought my jammies, I’d be wearing them too.”
She laughed, slipping into her tiny kitchen. “I am certain you would be.”
Drake heard the clink of glasses and the splash of pouring liquid. While he watched Chaya work, he noticed a set of three pictures, hanging one above the other on the narrow column of wall at the end of the bar. Each depicted a chess game in abstract perspective from the level of the board, and each featured the queen in the foreground. From the bottom picture to the top, the queen moved closer to the viewer, each time with more pieces lying on their sides behind her.
“I like these chess paintings. Do you play?”
Chaya returned with two glasses of wine. “I dabble.” She pressed a glass into Drake’s hand and sat down cross-legged at the end of the couch. “And you?”
“It’s not really my game.” He set the glass down on the coffee table. “Too much thinking.”
She giggled in the midst of a sip, nearly spilling her wine, and raised a delicate hand to the corner of her mouth to catch a wayward drop. “You’re too funny.” She locked his eyes and touched the red liquid to her parted lips, gently sucking it in. “And too modest. My instincts tell me you are quite the chess player.”
With that, Chaya set her glass on the table. She stretched and ran her fingers through her hair, arching her back so that the silk shirt lifted, exposing her flat stomach and small naval. “The game of chess is not always played on a board,” she said, bringing her hands to her lap again. “It is a way of life—making your moves, anticipating your opponent’s. I think you understand that more than you let on.” She extended a leg and playfully pushed at Drake’s thigh with the sole of her bare foot. “You strike me as a man who enjoys the thrill of the hunt even more than the taste of the kill.”
The vibe that Chaya was sending out left little room for interpretation. And she was right, this was Drake’s form of chess. He loved the hunt, bandying flirtations back and forth, inching closer to the prize. Maybe that was why he kept pushing Amanda away, so he could start the game all over again, but how long would she keep coming back to the board?
At the thought of his girlfriend, Drake shifted uncomfortably. Chaya slowly pulled her foot back and tucked it underneath her thigh. She glanced down at his glass and folded her arms, pouting. “You’re not drinking your wine. Is something wrong?”
Drake patted the cell phone in his pocket. “Nick could call at any moment. I need to stay alert.” Then he glanced around the room. “So . . . can you show me that file?”
Chaya relaxed her defensive posture and rocked forward onto her knees, resting a hand on his shoulder. She pushed him back into the cushions. “There’s no rush. If we’re going to crack this case, we need to get out of our own heads for a few minutes.”
One knee at a time, the lawyer crossed over his lap, her scented hair grazing the top of his head, her fingers lightly tracing the line of his collarbone as she passed. On the other side, she sat back on her heels and gently pushed him into a half turn. She dug the heel of her palm into his back and slowly ran it down to his waistline.
“Is that incense?” The trace Drake had noticed before had grown to fill the room.
“That is Nag Champa. I burn it when I want to loosen my brain cells and refocus. Do you like it?”
“It’s . . . um . . . nice.” He leaned back into her hands and closed his eyes. “I don’t know that it’s helping me focus, though.”
She rose up on her knees and pressed herself against him. Her lips brushed his ear. “You might be right about that.”
The powerful incense and the sultry purr of Chaya’s whisper took Drake deeper into a relaxed state, deeper into his semiconscious mind. But the face he found there amid swirling oranges and reds was not Chaya’s. It was Amanda’s.
And she did not look happy.
His eyes popped open and he jerked upright, bumping the coffee table with his knee and nearly toppling the wineglasses. “Nope. Focus is back. Let’s have a look at that file.”
In the instant his knee hit the table, Drake could swear
he saw a wisp of powder spiral up from the bottom of his glass, but the flicker of pink dissolved as quickly as it had arisen. He stared at the sloshing red liquid, trying to clear his mind. The thought occurred to him that he had really seen nothing at all, just a trick of the light playing in the wine.
“Shhh.” Chaya’s grip tightened on his neck and she pulled him back in to her. She rested her cheek against his and slid her hand down the front of his Lycra shirt. Her fingernails raked his chest. “You must learn to relax, Drake Merigold. Close your eyes.”
Her words caught in his clouded brain. Merigold? Shouldn’t she have said Martignetti? He fought her command, keeping his eyes open, fixed on the distorted, double reflection in the wineglasses. There he saw a twisted vision of the lawyer raising something above her head. It gleamed in the lamplight.
Drake shot to his feet, grabbing both Chaya’s wrists and throwing her to the couch as he spun away. She immediately lunged, slashing at him with a gold-handled dagger. The blade was black, made of the same alloy as the Hashashin knife dropped by the Istanbul sniper. As Drake stumbled backward the tip sliced through his shirt, missing his abdomen by the breadth of a hair.
He kept backing away, rubbing his eyes. “What are you doing?”
“Come back to the couch, Drake. Drink your wine. Fall asleep in my arms with my lips pressed to yours.” She rotated the knife to point downward, raised it high, and advanced a step. “Isn’t that a better death than this?”
The incense had become a choking, pungent haze. Drake’s eyes watered. He rubbed them, trying to bring her back into focus.
“A little fuzzy?” asked Chaya, circling him on the balls of her feet, her little toes spread into the thick fibers of the yellow rug. “I might have added a few extra ingredients to the Nag Champa. I am well used to them. You are not.”
Drake steadied himself by placing a hand on a stool next to her bar. He pressed a hand to his ear. “Nightmare One,” he gasped. “Nick, come in.”