Jeffery Deaver - The Vanished Man

"Nothing," Constable responded. "I didn't say anything."

"Oh, I thought you did."

"No."

Though he wondered if he had. Made some comment, uttered a prayer.

He returned to the table, where the lawyer looked up from a pad of yellow foolscap that contained a half dozen names and phone numbers, which Constable's associates in Canton Falls had just provided in response to their questions about what Weir might have planned, where he might be.

Roth looked uneasy. They'd just learned that a man with a rifle had made an attempt on Grady's life in front of the building a few minutes ago. But it hadn't been Weir, who was still unaccounted for.

The lawyer said, "I'm worried that Grady'll be too spooked to deal with us. I think we should call him at home and tell him what we've found." Tapping the sheets. "Or at least give this stuff to that detective. What was his name? Bell, right?"

"That's it," Constable said.

Moving his pudgy finger over the sheet of names and numbers, Roth said, "You think anybody here'll know something specific about Weir? That's what they'll want, something specific."

Constable leaned forward and looked at the list. Then at his lawyer's watch. He shook his head slowly. "I doubt it," he said.

"You… You doubt it?"

"Yeah. See this first number?"

"Yeah."

"It's the dry cleaner on Harrison Street in Canton Falls. And the one below it's the IGA. The next one's the Baptist church. And those names?" the prisoner continued. "Ed Davis, Brett Samuels, Joe James Watkins?"

"Right," Roth said.

"Jeddy Barnes' associates." Constable gave a chuckle. "Gosh no. They're all made up."

"What?" Roth frowned.

Leaning close to his lawyer, the prisoner stared into the man's confused eyes. "I'm saying that those names and numbers're fake."

"I don't understand."

Constable whispered, "Of course you don't, you pathetic fucking Jew," and slammed his fists into the side of the shocked lawyer's face before Roth could raise his arms to protect himself.

Andrew Constable was a strong man, strong from hiking to remote hunting and fishing grounds, from dressing deer and sawing bones, from chopping wood.

Paunchy Joe Roth was no match for him. The lawyer tried to rise and call for help but Constable struck him hard in the throat. The man's shout became a gurgling sound.

The prisoner pulled him to the floor and began pummeling the bleeding man with his cuffed fists. In a moment Roth was unconscious, his face swollen like a melon. Constable dragged him back to the table and propped him up on it, his back to the door. If one of the guards happened to glance in again it would look as if he were reading the papers, head down. Constable bent down, pulled off one of the lawyer's shoes and socks and wiped the blood off the table as best he could and covered the rest with documents and pads of paper. He'd kill the lawyer later. For now, for a few minutes at least, he needed this innocent-looking tableau.

A few minutes – until he was free.

Freedom…

Which was the whole point of Erick Weir's plan.

Constable's best friend, Jeddy Barnes, the second in command of the Patriot Assembly, had hired Weir not to kill Grady but to break the prisoner out of the notoriously secure Manhattan Detention Center, transport him to freedom over the Bridge of Sighs and ultimately into the New England wilderness, where the Assembly could resume its mission to wage war against the impure, the unclean, the ignorant. To rid the land of blacks, gays, Jews, Hispanics, foreigners – the "Them" that Constable railed against in his weekly lectures at the Patriot Assembly and in the secret websites subscribed to by the thousands of right-thinking citizens around the country.

Constable now rose, walked to the door, looked out again. The guards had no clue about what had just happened inside the interview room.

It occurred to the prisoner that he ought to have a weapon of some kind and so he lifted a metal mechanical pencil from the lawyer's bloody shirt and then nestled the butt of the pencil in the wadded-up sock to protect his palm. The sharp point would make a fine stabbing implement.

Then he sat back, across from Roth, and waited, thinking about the plan created by Weir, or "Magic Man," as Barnes called him. It was a masterpiece, involving dozens of tricks of the illusionist's trade. Feint and double feint, careful timing, clever diversions. It began with Weir carefully planting the idea with the police that there was a conspiracy to kill Grady. The Reverend Ralph Swensen laid the groundwork for this by making one attempt on the prosecutor's life. The bungled killing would reinforce the cops' belief that there was a plot to kill the prosecutor and they'd stop looking for any other crimes – such as the planned jailbreak.

Weir himself would then intentionally get caught during a second attempt to kill Grady and be taken to detention.

Meanwhile, Constable was supposed to do some misdirection of his own. He'd disarm his captors by being the voice of reason, pleading his innocence and winning sympathy and luring Grady to the courthouse this evening by offering to incriminate Barnes and other conspirators. Constable would even try to help track down the illusionist, further disarming the police and giving him the chance to deliver a coded message about his exact location in the detention center, which Barnes would pass on to Weir.

When Grady arrived, Hobbs Wentworth would try to kill the prosecutor but whether he succeeded or not didn't matter; the important thing was that Hobbs would divert the police from the detention center. Then Weir – who was roaming free in the building after faking his own death – would sneak up here in disguise, kill the guards and break Constable out.

There was one more part to the plan – an aspect that Constable'd been looking forward to for weeks. Just before Weir arrived at the interview room, Jeddy Barnes had told him, Constable was "supposed to take care of your lawyer."

"What's that mean?"

"Weir said it's up to you. He just said you're supposed to take care of Roth so he's not in the way."

Now, watching the blood drip from the lawyer's eyes and mouth, he thought, Well, the Jew's took care of.

Constable was wondering how Weir would kill the guards, what kind of disguises he'd have with him, what their escape route would be, when – right on schedule – he heard the distinctive buzz of the outer door. Ah, his chariot to freedom had arrived.

Constable dragged Roth off the bench and dumped him in the corner of the interview room. He thought about killing him now, stomping on his windpipe. But he supposed Weir had a gun with a silencer. Or a knife. He could use that.

Hearing the click of the key in the lock of the interview room. The door swung open.

For a split second he thought: Amazing! Weir'd managed to turn himself into a woman.

But then he remembered her; this was the redheaded officer who'd been with Detective Bell yesterday.

"Injury here," she shouted as she glanced down at Roth. "Call EMS!" Behind her one guard grabbed a phone and the other hit a red button on the wall, sending a klaxon alarm braying into the hallway.

What was going on? Constable didn't understand. Where was Weir? He glanced back at the woman to see the pepper spray – the only permissible weapon in detention – in her hand. He thought fast and began moaning loud, holding his belly. "Somebody got in here! Another prisoner. He tried to kill us!" Hiding the sharp pencil, he clutched his bloody hands to his belly. "I'm hurt. I've been stabbed!"

A fast glance outside. Still no sign of the Magic Man. The woman frowned and looked around the cell as Constable slumped to the floor. Thinking: When she gets closer he'd stab toward her face with the pencil. Maybe hit her eye. He could get the spray away, blast her in the mouth or eyes with it. Maybe hold the pencil to her back; the guards would think it was a gun and open the door for him. Weir had to be close – maybe he was just outside the security doors.