Richard Castle: Heat Rises

“It must be hell to live the life of Salman Rushdie.”

“I hope to write as well and live so long,” he replied.

“How did you end up here?”

Pascual Guzman cleared his throat in an obvious manner. “Faustino, if he’s a reporter…”

“Mr. Rook is more than that. A journalist. Which means he can be trusted. May I trust you not to reveal my secrets if I tell you about them, how is it said, off the record?”

Rook thought it over. “Sure, not for publication.”

“Pascual and his heroic group at Justicia a Garda saved me from certain death. I was the target of a contract killer in prison-that was the man with the blade-and more were being recruited. As you know a rescue like mine was logistically complicated and quite expensive. Senor Martinez, who is a man of sincere reform, raised funds here in New York to mount human rights legal efforts in Colombia, as well as to gain safe passage for me here to my glorious exile.” He chuckled and gestured to the basement he was living in.

“When did you get here?”

“Three weeks ago. I arrived in New Jersey after departing in a wooden cargo crate on a ship from Buenaventura, you know the place?” Rook nodded and thought of his tip from T-Rex in Colombia about the secret shipment sent to Guzman from there. But the secret shipment wasn’t C4, after all-it was Faustino Velez Arango! “As confining and dismal as my basement life appears, it is a paradise compared to what I left. And I have been much helped by openhearted New Yorkers, especially the pastor and parishioners of one of your churches.”

He reached into his shirt collar and pulled out a large religious medal on a thin metal chain. “This is St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers. Just last Monday a wonderful man, a priest who championed our cause, came here just to give this to me.” The author became drawn, creases appeared on his forehead. “I understand the poor man has since died, but what a kind gesture, don’t you think?”

“Father Graf gave that to you Monday?” Rook knew it had to be soon after the priest met Horst Meuller at his agent’s.

“ Si. The padre, he said to me, ‘It is the perfect medal for hiding.’ ”

Rook didn’t speak. He just repeated those words in his head as he watched the medal swing on its chain. His cell phone buzzed, startling him. It was Heat. “May I take this? It’s my girlfriend and I know it’s important… Look, I won’t say where I am.”

Martinez and Guzman shook no, but Velez Arango overruled them. “All right, but use the speakerphone.”

Rook answered just before she dropped to voice mail. “Hi, you,” he said.

Nikki said, “Took you long enough. Where are you?”

Martinez moved a step closer. “You first,” said Rook, and Martinez backed off a hair.

“Back at Grand Central trying to get a cab. Ossining was big, Rook. Huge.” He was afraid to say the wrong thing in such a pressure situation, and as he thought, she said, “Rook, are you OK?”

“Yeah, just eager to talk to you. But let’s do it in person.”

“Truly, this is going to blow you away. Shall I come to you? Are you still following your money?” There was a rustling sound and she groaned. “Hey, what are you-?” Nikki started to scream.

And then her phone went dead.

Rook bolted to his feet and finger stabbed the face of his phone, desperate to launch a callback. Heat’s cell rang and rang as he took a step toward the stairs. Guzman blocked him. “Don’t,” said Rook, “I have to go.” By then he was getting voice mail, “Nikki, it’s me, call back, OK? Let me know what’s happening. Soon as you can.”

“Nikki…” Pascual Guzman sampled the name aloud and turned to Martinez. “I thought I knew her voice. That was the police detective who called me in.”

“Me, too,” Martinez said as he shouldered up to Guzman. Rook tried to slide around the pair, but Martinez pressed the palm of his wide, manicured hand flat on his chest and stopped him.

“Guys, I need to go help her, come on.”

“And what’s this about Ossining?” asked Martinez, who had done time there.

From moments before, when he discovered that his money trail surprisingly led to the exiled human rights novelist, Rook had been watching his narcotics bribe laundering theory come unstitched before his eyes. Combining that with the fact that nobody in that basement had drawn a weapon on him-not even Martinez-he took a chance out of urgency. “OK, here it is,” he said, directing himself mainly to Faustino Velez Arango, who watched quietly from his chair. “My girlfriend is a cop who’s working a murder case that I don’t believe has anything to do with any of you.”

“This is still the murder of Father Graf?” asked Guzman.

Rook thought it over and nodded. Guzman pulled at his thick beard and spoke to Velez Arango in Spanish. Rook couldn’t understand all the words, but the tone was emotional. The exiled author nodded solemnly a few times. When they were done, Rook pleaded. “A life may be in danger. I can’t believe you, of all people, Senor Velez Arango, would hold a writer captive against his will.”

The man stood and crossed over to Rook. “I know that Father Graf did more than give me this holy medal. Pascual tells me that whoever killed the padre took away a saint on earth, devoted to our cause.” Then a trace of a smile eased some of his gravity. “And, of course, I have read your profile of this Nikki Heat.” He gestured to the steps. “Go. Do what you can to save her.”

Rook started off, but Martinez blocked him again. “Faustino, he will give you up.”

The novelist took his measure of the journalist and said, “No, he won’t.”

Rook dashed to the stairs and then, as an afterthought, said to Velez Arango, “One more favor?”

“ Que? ”

“I’ll need all the help I can get. Any chance I could carry that St. Christopher?”

Velez Arango folded his hand around the medal. “It is valuable to me.”

Rook said, “Tell you what. Keep my ten grand, we’ll call it even.”

Nikki Heat ran up Vanderbilt Avenue, threading herself upstream be tween the tight flow of pedestrians making their way to Grand Central. She glanced over her shoulder and could see him coming, his black ski mask astonishing the late afternoon business commuters who stopped and turned to look at the man who rushed through them. Those who weren’t stunned looked around, either for cops or to see if somebody was making a movie.

It had happened so quickly. Eager for a cab, Nikki had deployed her secret weapon in that neighborhood, which was to skip the organized taxi cue on Forty-second Street, a great place to make friends because the line is slow. Instead, she waited on Vanderbilt near the Yale Club, a favored drop-off spot and, therefore, an equally favored spot to snag a ride on the fly.

As she was on the phone to Rook, waiting out a suburbanite counting coins for the driver’s tip, the guy came up behind her. Heat didn’t notice where he came from. She only saw motion behind her reflected through the haze of road salt on the cab window. Before she could turn, one hand was stripping her of her cell phone while the other pulled her shoulder. The surprise of it took her off her game a beat, but Heat’s combat sense kicked in, and she spun, going with the momentum of the grab and then using her shoulder to ram her assailant backward into the green light pole near the entrance of the club. Down on his ass on the sidewalk, her attacker started his hand toward the inside of his coat, and Nikki ran.

Half a block north now, he was closing in. Heat bolted across Vanderbilt, risking exposure in the open road, so she wove and dodged to present a poor target. Her goal was to turn the corner at 45th and get inside the lobby of the Met Life, where security guards could help. Beyond that, Grand Central was replete with cops and Homeland Security.