Charlie led Drummond out of the office, at the same time using Drummond’s shoulder to keep weight off a new knee injury relative to which his old gunshot wound felt like a paper cut. The glass-walled vestibule at the far end of the hallway showed West 112th to be as crowded now, in the middle of the night, as it ordinarily would be at midday during a street fair. Dogs yelped at the strange rumbling below-ground. Residents with coats thrown over pajamas gawked, through the haze of streetlamps, at towers of smoke rising from sidewalk grates. Charlie heard them speculating: “student prank,” “science experiment,” and, the overwhelming favorite, “terrorists.”
“My guess would be a cigarette,” Drummond said in earnest. “Eighteen percent of all nighttime fires begin when a person falls asleep while smoking.”
“My guess would be penthrite and trinitrotoluene,” said Fielding, climbing from the dark remains of the stairwell, assault rifle in hand. Dust gave him a ragged edge.
The shock of seeing him hit Charlie nearly as hard as the blast current. He probably would have fallen if he weren’t clutching Drummond.
Drummond studied Fielding as if trying to remember who he was. “Interesting theory,” he told him meanwhile.
Although the lights were off in the hallway, Fielding’s extensive wounds were apparent from blood that slicked much of his face and body. Yet he approached without evident impediment, his rifle blinking orange along with a changing traffic signal outside, his finger on the trigger.
Charlie looked to Drummond for guidance only to find Drummond looking to him the same way.
“Should we tell him about the security blanket?” Charlie asked, intending it for Fielding’s ears.
“That is a decent bargaining chip,” Fielding said. “An hour ago. In case it comes up in your next life, a man with an honest-to-goodness security blanket doesn’t resort to blowing himself up.” He flicked his rifle at a bare stretch of hallway. “Now, both of you, back up against the wall.”
Charlie raced to conceive a way he and Drummond could defend themselves. There was nothing in reach, save a light switch and the carpet sodden from the fire sprinklers. The people milling outside the front vestibule couldn’t see them through the doors and all the way down the dark hallway, and probably wouldn’t be able to hear a cry for help, or intervene in any case. The huge bank of fluorescent tubes directly above Fielding’s head held more promise: They might come on with enough flash or pop to distract him long enough that his rifle could be knocked away. Also the people on the street might be able to see in. And, at some point, Drummond might blink on too.
As he and Drummond backed toward the wall, Charlie tried to telegraph his intent to him. “Fifty-fifty proposition,” he said.
Drummond gave no sign of acknowledgment. But would he under the best of circumstances?
Trying to be discreet, Charlie flipped the light switch with his elbow.
The lights didn’t come on.
Glancing up at the dark bulbs, Fielding said, “Talk about your metaphors.”
“Actually, it’s a better metaphor than you know,” Charlie said.
“I’ll humor you: Why?”
“My father might be out, but now the whole world can see what you’ve been up to.” With an air of expectation, Charlie peered over Fielding’s shoulder, toward the street. He was primed to fly at Fielding if he bought the bluff or for whatever reason turned as little as an eyelash that way.
Fielding only smirked. “This can’t be the there’s-someone-behind-you trick.”
A series of gunshots, in such rapid succession that the sounds blended together, jolted the corridor. Glass shattered with near-matching clangor.
Fielding slumped against the wall opposite Charlie and Drummond.
Charlie snatched Fielding’s rifle out of the air. “That worked out a lot better than I hoped,” Charlie said, battling disbelief.
Looking toward the street, Fielding’s face dropped into an expression of shock. “You-!”
He fell the rest of the way to the floor. Blood spilled from his chest and darkened the water pooled on the carpet. He didn’t move, and wouldn’t again.
Any relief Charlie might have felt was superseded by surprise of his own, along with apprehension, as the shooter stepped through the newly created gap in the vestibule’s inner door.
“Why, if it isn’t Helen,” Drummond said warmly.
Her hair was red now and matted by what appeared to be dried blood.
“Actually, it isn’t Helen,” Charlie said, aiming Fielding’s rifle at her. He wished taking out Fielding signified that she was on their side. Given her track record, it was a good bet that she had a different agenda.
“I’m really Alice Rutherford, NSA,” she said. “I was watching from a bar across Broadway when you were brought in here, Charlie. It got to be a while. Then came that gigantic explosion. I was a little worried.”
“I don’t mean to be unappreciative,” Charlie said. “It’s just that, sooner or later, everybody in your line of work tries to kill us. And you…”
“I’m sorry I deceived you the other day.” She dropped her gun to her hip. “If I’d known then what I do now, I wouldn’t have let you set foot outside the senior center-at the least I would have called you a tank.”
“And now that you know what you know?”
“I don’t know what I can tell you to win your trust in the time we have-or the time we don’t have, I should say. The people outside probably have figured out by now where the gunshots they heard came from. And any moment this building, if it’s still standing, will be swarming with officers from every intelligence agency you’ve ever heard of, including my own, who all have you two as numbers one and one-A on their most wanted list. Having just killed the superspy whose orders they have been marching to, there’s not much I’ll be able to say on behalf of any of us-I’ll be on the list too. But if you’ll come with me now, and if we can just make it across the Hudson and to Newark Airport, we can get away on the private jet I have standing by with dummy flight plans.”
Based on intuition as much as any factor he could identify, Charlie was inclined to join her; he suspected he would have felt similarly had she merely suggested they try to get a cab. “At least a private jet is an upgrade from the places people usually try to kill us,” he said, lowering the rifle.
She smiled. “That’s a start.”
They both looked to Drummond.
“I’d really like to go to Geneva,” he said, “for some reason.”
“It’s possible,” she said. “We could try for Polish airspace, where we won’t need any documentation. From there, we’d still have the little matter of eluding every law enforcement agency in the world.”
“What, no air forces?” Charlie said.
“Not if we’re lucky.” She stepped into the reception area and raised a window overlooking the alley. The din of the crowd seemed to triple in volume. Sirens of arriving emergency vehicles shook the frosty air.
Drummond turned to Charlie. “Is it too risky?”
“Definitely,” Charlie said. “But that works for us.”