By the time Jane arrived at the car, Gilberto would have identified the air intake for the ventilation system. She would spray most of the remaining chloroform into that aperture. Maybe the concentration of the chemical within the vehicle would not be such that Hendrickson would entirely lose consciousness, but it was all but certain that he’d at least be disoriented and easily disarmed.
But now, no slightest thread of light was woven through the black fabric of the garage. Jane stood in the dark, and the dark stood in her, the latter being the darkness of both her past actions and lethal potential. And looming over all was the other darkness that her restless mind could not escape considering: the darkness beyond the world, into which had been taken her mother and her husband, perhaps there to await her, into which she’d sent bad and brutal men, perhaps there to await her.
7
South of the airport, the limousine accelerates on MacArthur Boulevard, past business parks where some of the nation’s most successful corporations have offices. The grounds are beautifully landscaped. But seen through the heavily tinted windows, the trees lack full color, and the lawns appear bronze. The sleek glass buildings darkle skyward and seem to torque, as if some heretofore unknown cosmic force is passing in waves of distortion through the world, leaving behind a grim new reality.
Booth Hendrickson is accustomed to having subordinates at his disposal: armed men comfortable with extreme violence; platoons of attorneys to use the law as a bludgeon; entire bureaucracies adept at destroying his enemies with ten thousand paper cuts.
Sometimes in the act of coitus and more often in dreams, he thinks of himself as a cunning wolf in human form. Although he has no doubt that he is always the leader of those with whom he runs, he is no lone wolf and is at his best in a pack, where there is power in numbers and a shared sense of purpose, rightness, destiny.
The pistol in his hand, a Kimber Ultra CDP II in 9 mm, weighs less than two pounds even with eight rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. It is all he can rely on in the absence of a pack.
He moves from the forward-facing seat to the longer starboard-facing bench on his left and slides toward the driver’s compartment.
When the limo stops at a traffic light, if he fires four times through the partition, into the back of the chauffeur’s head…
No. If he kills the driver, Booth will remain trapped in this locked compartment. Lacking a foot on the brake and with a corpse slumped against the steering wheel, the car will drift into oncoming traffic.
Maybe he can break out the privacy panel in the center of the partition. Reach through and put a gun to the driver’s head. Demand that he unlock the doors.
But what if the panel doesn’t give easily? What if it doesn’t give at all? Or what if he can break out the panel—but the instant that he reaches through, the alerted driver Tasers him to shock the pistol out of his hand or slashes him with a knife?
He puts the Kimber on the seat.
He tries both of his phones again. Neither works.
The limo is cruising at fifty miles per hour, maybe faster. In minutes they will be at Simon’s house.
If Jane Hawk is there—and she will be there; he’s certain now that she will be there—she’ll interrogate him. She’s captured and grilled several other Arcadians, individuals who seemed too cunning to be taken prisoner, too tough to be cracked, and she’s broken them all, gotten from them what she wanted.
She’s even gotten to David James Michael, the billionaire who was a founder of the Techno Arcadian movement, although he had been wrapped in multiple layers of security. If she can take down D.J. in spite of all his resources, she can get her hands on anyone.
Until now, Hendrickson has never felt more than fleetingly vulnerable in his adult life, not since his mother ruthlessly forged him throughout his childhood. She has made him into the closest thing to one of Nietzsche’s race of supermen that any mortal can be. Anabel has bent poor Simon, cracked him, almost broken him. Made of far stronger stuff than his half brother, Booth was the ideal base material she needed to shape a son of steel.
In addition, he hasn’t felt vulnerable because he has never imagined that Jane Hawk can know of his role in the conspiracy. He now realizes there’s one way she might have deduced his involvement. But that is for later consideration.
If she captures him, she will not break him. Not him. If she is an irresistible force, she will find that he is an immovable object.
Nevertheless, he prefers to escape her clutches and avoid the unpleasantness that other Arcadians have experienced at her hands. The only reason to let himself be taken to her is to kill her. But he isn’t likely to be able to do that when she has orchestrated his abduction and enjoys the advantage.
He pockets the dead phones and picks up the pistol just as a cloud moves off the sun and a stream of warm light pours through a cutout in the limousine roof. The square of glass—or acrylic—hinged on one side and seated in a rubber gasket to seal out foul weather, is not a sunroof, but an escape hatch.
Some years earlier, a party of six or eight women, out for a birthday celebration, had instead been chauffeured into tragedy, not in one of Simon’s cars, but in that of another company. A fire had broken out in the undercarriage and in a flash penetrated the passenger compartment. For whatever reason, the driver had not pulled off the highway fast enough in response to the women’s screams, had not been quick enough to unlock the doors. In less than a minute, all were afire; none survived. Since then, new limousines in California were required to have escape hatches.
Exiting by that route will be fraught with risk. Besides, he regrets that he is wearing a suit, a shirt, and a tie by Dior Homme, with Paul Malone shoes, an ensemble that cost him more than $5,400. Some if not all of these garments will be damaged.
He holsters the pistol.
Once more the limo slows, possibly for a red traffic light.
In expectation, Hendrickson rises from the seat and stands in a crouch, swaying with the movement of the vehicle, getting a grip on the handle that will release the escape hatch.
The car comes to a full stop.
He twists the handle. The hatch drops open.
When he stands to his full height, his head and shoulders are out of the limo. He straddles the cabin, one foot on a seat, one on the bar, rattling the glassware and dislodging cubes from the ice bin as he thrusts farther out of the car. Gets his arms through the hatch. Levers up. Drags himself onto the roof.
8
Until the words HATCH RELEASE appeared on the dashboard display simultaneously with a triple-beep warning sound, Gilberto Mendez had no indication that his passenger suspected he was being abducted. Gilberto put down the privacy panel and turned and saw kicking feet disappear through the ceiling. He heard Hendrickson on the roof, heard him coming off it and down the starboard side of the car.
Although stopped at a red light, five vehicles back from the intersection, in the middle lane of three lanes of traffic, Gilberto threw open the door and got out, reaching under his suit coat to put a hand on the Heckler & Koch. Crazy as it would be, he nonetheless expected a worst-case scenario: Hendrickson coming around the car with a gun, a public shootout.
But then he saw the man on the farther side of the limousine, dodging between two sedans in lane number one, hurrying forward between the waiting vehicles and the sidewalk.
9