Jeff Abbott - Trust Me

‘That’s odd.’ He clicked to the website. A password page opened for him to log in.

‘Why would you need a login?’ Aubrey asked.

‘I don’t know. Was he a big TV fan?’

‘Sports, mostly. The Bulls games.’

Luke remembered the toy basketball on Eric’s key ring, with the Bulls logo. ‘In the middle of hiding millions from killers, he goes to a foreign-based television fan site. It’s like getting a haircut in the middle of a funeral; it makes no sense.’

‘Log on, see what happens,’ Aubrey suggested.

He tried the versai11es password but it didn’t work. He pulled the password worksheet close to him and began to work through the possibilities again. None of them worked.

‘I can’t take another dead end.’

‘If it’s not a password that connects to his life with you… what else in his life?’

‘Well, his secret life.’

‘The Night Road.’ He entered the term, plain. It failed. He entered in variants, using the same number-replacement key as before.

The first few variants didn’t work, then he tried Ni8htRoad. The password was accepted.

The dark world opened before him.

He scanned the newly loaded page and saw a long list of postings. Some of the posters used the same login names they had used on the websites where he had found them weeks ago. Their postings inside the Night Road were calmer. Offers for advice on cleaning funds through cheap insurance policies, requests for help on how to use automatic rifles, suggestions on how shrapnel could make a real difference in civilian deaths. Trade in murder, in secrets, in stolen identities and credit cards. Celebrations over the bombing of the rail yard in Texas, the pipeline in Canada, the E. coli food scare that had spread from Tennessee across the nation.

A bazaar for violence, a marketplace for twisted ideas. Horror braided his guts. He had found these people, given them to Henry as abstract bits of psychological profiling, and now they were a community. Worse. A secret army, readying for battle at home.

‘Oh, my God,’ Aubrey said.

He did a search on the discussion forum for Henry Shawcross. For Mouser. For Snow. Nothing.

Then on Hellfire.

Nothing.

‘They’re celebrating the recent attacks, but they’re not talking about this Hellfire thing,’ he said. ‘Hellfire must be separate and distinct from the current attacks.’

‘Maybe they canceled Hellfire, if they don’t have the money.’

‘They don’t seem like the cancelling type. Or maybe the whole group’s not involved. Only a few.’ Luke logged out from the discussion group.

‘Why did you do that?’

‘They could have software recording every account that enters, every address, every password. I don’t want them to know that I’m here.’ He wiped his mouth. ‘I read about another community like this, set up in the Mideast by a weapons dealer to move explosives around the region. They could shut down, move their database and server, and the authorities couldn’t find them again.’

‘So take it to the cops.’

‘I will. When we know where to find a member who will talk. Otherwise they’ll just vanish into smoke.’

He opened the email program. Everything had been cleaned out, except one email. It read: Your kind offer is accepted and protection is extended. Meet LAP, 23rd at 7 PM for your getaway. – Drummond.

‘Do you know this Drummond?’ he asked. The message had been sent from a common online email provider, the kind of account you could set up in thirty seconds. The twenty-third was today; the rendezvous was in two hours.

‘No,’ she said.

‘ Protection is extended. This is the deal he told you about, for protection to save you two,’ Luke said. ‘We have to find out who this Drummond is.’

‘So we can make the same deal?’

‘Absolutely. I would very much like some protection now. Maybe Drummond can help us. We figure out who or what LAP is and get there in the next two hours.’

Luke accessed the internet, searched on LAP CHICAGO. He found references to a lawyers’ assistance program, lap dancers and a Lakefront Air Park. A private air park for general aviation.

Luke said, ‘This is the answer.’

‘He’s meeting someone at an air park?’

‘If he made the deal, part one is an escape route. Let’s go.’

She got up, touched the photos of Eric Lindoe, the bright-eyed boy with a wide smile and brilliant future awaiting him. She kissed her fingertips, pressed them to the photo, and then turned away.

They took the laptop, the money and the guns, and headed north toward Lake Michigan.

The Lakefront Air Park’s office was small, low, and sleek. The chrome and glass gleamed. They’d had to drive through long stretches of Chicago rush hour traffic, and the setting sun burned the sky orange. The light reflected hard off the mirrored glasses.

They’d parked Aubrey’s car in the small adjacent lot. ‘This is certifiably insane,’ Aubrey said as they walked toward the building. The wind, which had been cooling all afternoon, bellowed and they drew closer together, without thought.

‘You’re right,’ he said, ‘so no one will be expecting it.’

The air park’s offices were dim and, surprisingly, slightly shabby, as though all the money had gone into the architecture and design and there had only been stray pennies left for the furnishings. At one desk, a man in his thirties sat peering at a computer screen. He was of Asian descent, compactly built, a thin scar marring the corner of his mouth. He frowned at the screen – which Luke could not see – as though puzzling over bad news.

Luke took the lead. ‘Hey, I’m Eric Lindoe, I had a flight chartered for today.’

‘With who?’ The man cranked a crooked smile.

First roadblock. ‘Mr Drummond.’

‘Hi, Mr Lindoe. I’m your ride.’ He offered his hand. ‘Frankie Wu.’

Luke shook what he hoped was a dry hand with Wu’s. ‘This is your other passenger, Aubrey Perrault.’

‘Hi.’

Wu shook hands with Aubrey. ‘You’re shivering, Ms Perrault. You scared of flying? Don’t be.’

‘Terrified,’ Aubrey said, with a glance at Luke.

‘You and my wife. Actually she’s more scared when I’m driving. You’re in excellent hands.’

Aubrey offered a smile. ‘I feel better already.’

‘We’re fueled up and ready to go, Mr Lindoe.’

Where the hell are we going? He wanted to know. But he could hardly ask.

‘You don’t have more bags?’ Wu asked, glancing at their cheap knapsacks. They’d stopped and bought a couple of changes of clothes and nothing more. Luke had the gun and the laptop and the money they’d taken from Eric’s house in his pack, Eric’s key ring jangling in his pocket.

‘We travel light,’ Aubrey said.

‘Please explain that virtue to my wife.’ Wu shut off the computer, scribbled a note on the clipboard.

‘I only hope I brought the right clothes,’ Aubrey said. Good, Luke thought.

‘The weather in New York should be fine. Paris might be rainy by tomorrow.’

New York. Paris. Not one destination, but two. Was someone joining them in New York to go on to France? Luke felt a surge of panic – neither he nor Aubrey had passports. Paris wasn’t going to happen.

Paris. Where Jane was, the mastermind behind their kidnappings. He glanced at Aubrey; she gave the slightest of nods.

As he, Aubrey and Wu walked outside, across the tarmac to the waiting plane, he thought: don’t do this. Turn and run. Aubrey’s right, it’s crazy.

He kept walking toward the plane.

If he turned and ran, he would never know why the man he thought of as a father betrayed him. He’d never know who was after him; he’d be forced to live a half-life, always afraid, branded a murderer. No more turning or dodging. This lavish, expensive plane that was a dead man’s escape route was going to take him straight into the heart of the matter.