Дэвид Балдаччи - The Sixth Man

It was all doable. Fifty-fifty, maybe sixty-forty her way if she hit all her marks at the exact right moment.

Calculation was complete, except for one variable. Sean would be safe by now. Had to be. Safer than she was in any event. She opened her eyes.

Before she could move, however, the pistols fired.

SEAN HEARD THE SHOTS and turned back toward the park and away from the cabstand at Columbus Circle. Panicked, he spoke into his mic. “Michelle? Michelle, are you okay?”

No answer.

“Michelle!”

Silence.

Sean turned to run back into Central Park.

People seized him.

“What the–” He grabbed his gun.

There were two men.

“Move, move,” one said into his ear.

“Who the hell are–”

“Kelly Paul,” the second man hissed into his ear. “Now move.”

“But my partner–”

“No time. Move.”

They hustled him back into the park through another entrance.

A minute later he was pushed under a blanket on the floor of one of the horse carriages that was making a slow meander through the park. The two men disappeared and the driver, wearing a shabby, old-fashioned top hat and long black rain slicker, flicked his whip and the horse increased its pace.

When Sean started to pull the blanket down, the driver said, “Keep it on, mate. Not out of the woods yet.”

That was when Sean felt a body next to him. He gripped a leg and then a hand and then what felt like a breast.

“Wow, your timing really sucks.”

“Michelle?”

He maneuvered the blanket around until he could just make her out in the dark.

“What the hell happened back there?” he asked.

“Tight spot. Probably wasn’t going to make it, but turns out we had some reinforcements in Central Park too.”

“It’s Kelly Paul.”

“Figured, yeah.”

The horse clip-clopped through the park and back out onto the street.

“So much for a fast getaway,” said Michelle.

The driver heard this and said, “Sometimes slow is best. The other side just hightailed it after a decoy we sent out. You can come up for air now.”

They both slid up in the seat and pulled the blanket down at the same time.

The driver turned sideways and looked at them. “Cut it close.”

“Yes we did,” Sean agreed. “So you know Kelly Paul? How?”

“Not going there.”

“That’s a big favor you just did us.”

“You’re lucky she’s on your side.”

“What about the guys in the park? The shots?”

“Your friend here disabled three of them. Bones busted, all out cold. The shots you heard were the pistols of two others going off right when we hit them. Apparently they had orders to take your lady out. Their shots missed, obviously, though not by much. Our equipment didn’t. They’ll live. The scene will be cleansed. The police report will never be filed. Never happened. Officially.”

“Lot of weight behind them,” said Michelle.

“Obviously.” The man turned back around.

Sean said, “So Kelly had planned for this?”

“She plans for everything. She said you two were the tip of the spear. But a spear also has a handle.” He tipped his hat. “We’re the handle.”

“Thanks,” said Michelle. “We owe you.”

Over his shoulder the driver said, “You two ever took the full carriage ride?”

“No,” said Sean. “And I don’t think we have time to do it now.”

“We’ll take a rain check, though,” said Michelle quickly, snatching a glance at Sean.

The driver slowed the carriage near an intersection.

“Straight down that street. There’s a car waiting, red four-door Toyota. Bloke at the wheel is named Charlie.”

Michelle shook his hand. “Thanks again. I’d be dead right now if it weren’t for you guys.”

“We’d all be dead if it weren’t for some guys,” said the driver. “Just stay alive so we didn’t waste the effort.”

They stepped down from the carriage, walked off in the gloomy rain, found the car, and were soon on their way to Penn Station.

They retrieved Michelle’s Land Cruiser from a nearby garage, gassed it up, and were on their way north before midnight. Michelle had changed the license plates on her SUV, replacing them with a pair of sterilized ones, just in case.

As they left Manhattan behind them, Sean reached out his hand and gripped Michelle’s arm. “Like the guy said, we cut it close. Way too close.”

“But we’re alive. That’s what counts.”

“Does it?”

She glanced at him as she changed lanes and accelerated. “What do you mean?”

“Can we both really keep doing this until it comes to the point where way too close instead becomes, ‘If she’d just not gone through that other doorway’?”

“We both take risks. It could be you too.”

“You take far more risks than I do.”

“Okay, so what?”

He removed his hand, looked away, and watched the wink of big-city lights in the side mirror until they disappeared from view.

“Okay, so what?” she said again.

“I don’t know where I’m going with this.”

“I think you do know.”

“Okay. If it were just the two of us, you’d be dead.”

“You did the best you could. And the alternative was what? Do nothing?”

“Maybe that would’ve been the smart thing to do.”

“Smart for our safety maybe, not so good for trying to solve the case, which happens to be our job.”

When Sean didn’t say anything she added, “We’re in a dangerous business. I thought we both understood that. It’s like playing in the NFL. Every Sunday you know you’re going to get your ass kicked but you do it anyway.”

“Well, players retire too, before it’s too late.”

“Not many do. At least voluntarily.”

“Well, maybe we should think about it. Seriously think about it.”

“Then what would we do?”

“There’s more to life than this, Michelle.”

“Is this because we slept together?”

“Probably, yes,” he conceded.

“So now we have something to lose?”

“Us, we have us to lose. Maybe you could… you could do something else.”

“Oh, I get it. I’m the girl. Let the big strong guy do the heavy lifting, play the hero while I stay home in pumps and pearls and bake the cookies and pop out the babies.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“In case you missed it, slick, I can take care of myself.”

“I’m not denying that.”

“So if you’re really gung ho on this domestication thing why don’t you stay home and play house, and I’ll kick down the doors and shoot the guns?”

“I can’t live my life that way. Always worried that you wouldn’t come home.”

She pulled off at an exit, drove the truck onto the shoulder, slammed the gear shift into park, and faced him.

“Well, how do you think I’d feel if I were the one waiting at home?”

“The same as me,” he said quietly.

She nodded. “That’s right. The same as you. At least if we’re out here together, we have each other. We can rely on each other to get us both home every night.”

“And if we both take it in the end? Like what almost happened tonight?”

“I can’t think of any other way I’d want to go out. How about you?”

After a long moment of silence he tapped the steering wheel. “Put it in gear. We’ve got a job to do.”

“So we’re on the same page now?”

“Actually I’m pretty sure we always were.”

THE SUV HAD SCREECHED to a halt on Fifth Avenue, the door had opened, two burly men had jumped out, lifted Peter Bunting completely off the pavement, and thrown him into the vehicle before he knew what was happening. The truck had raced off and he’d found himself squished between his two captors. They said nothing in response to his questions. They never even looked at him.