84
Kylie followed the men down the stairs, seeing her window of escape close. They reached the bottom, one in front and one behind, and she knew she needed to do something. If she wanted to live, this was it.
The floor had grown crowded in the hours since they’d entered, the entire area full of an eclectic mix of Saturday patrons, some in suits with neat haircuts and others sporting Mohawks and torn, raggedy clothes.
They threaded their way by the bar and the ring-nose girl shouted, “You guys closing out?”
The men around her kept walking. The barmaid shouted at them again. Kylie pulled the jacket of the guy in front, saying, “She’s talking to you.”
He looked at her, then the barmaid.
She held up a tab, waving it about, and said, “Are you guys closing out or what?”
He said something to the man behind her, in a language Kylie didn’t understand, then walked to the bar. The man behind her followed with his eyes. She saw her chance break open, as fleeting as a star burning out in the night sky.
She took off running.
* * *
The police slammed the panel van doors, and we started trundling to wherever we were going, two goons in the back giving me the stink-eye, like they were going to jump me. I suppose I should have felt apprehension. Or elation. But I felt neither. I’d just caused the compromise of the entire Taskforce, but I’d also saved hundreds of lives. In the end, neither mattered to me, because I’d sacrificed Kylie’s life to do both.
I’d failed. Again.
Jennifer was shackled next to me. She rubbed my thigh, glancing at me out of the corner of her eye. I leaned back into the wall, ignoring her, and she followed suit, not giving up. I sighed and looked at her.
She said, “We did good, right?”
I gave a tired grin and said, “Yeah. We did real good.”
I saw it wasn’t a question, but a statement. She said, “Pike, we had to make a call. We had to.”
I heard her words and felt ashamed. I’d just sat on the ground while she risked everything she had to save over eight hundred innocents. And she was now propping me up.
I looked at her, trying to come up with some suitable commando team-leader crap. Something that would let her know how much I thought of her sacrifice. What came out surprised even me.
“I . . . love you.”
She snapped her face toward me, her mouth hanging open in shock. Our earpieces came alive, saving me from my mistake.
“Pike, Pike, this is Retro, you there?”
I glanced at the goons in the corner of the van and said, “Yeah, I’m here.”
“Blaine’s working the extraction and thinks he’ll get you guys out clean, but I’ve been doing some digging with the Taskforce. We interrogated Seamus after you left. He says the guy with Kylie is named Colin Butler. He lied about him being in Ireland. Colin Butler’s credit card was just used here in London. In Camden.”
The words coursed through me like I’d just touched an electrical outlet, bolting me upright. The goons saw my movement, and I leaned back, closing my eyes. I said, “I need to get out of this wagon. Right fucking now.”
“Pike, we can’t do that. We’ll get you out at the station.”
“We don’t have the time for that. We lose this thread and she’s gone. Get me out.”
“How?”
“Put on Blaine.”
There was a fumble of the earpiece, some static, then Blaine. “Pike, Retro’s told me what he found. We’ll start working it.”
I said, “Call Kurt. Tell him. Then wreck this vehicle. I want out in the next five minutes.”
“Pike . . . that’s not going to happen.”
“You call Colonel Kurt Hale right fucking now. Tell him what you have. Ask him for guidance. Then stop this wagon.”
I heard nothing else. I looked at Jennifer and said, “Get ready for a crash.”
* * *
Kylie heard the man behind her shout, and she darted through the crowd, knowing he was right behind her. She jerked a man off his feet, causing him to stumble into the path of her pursuer, and kept running, trying to remember the floor plan.
She cut around the corner of the bar, seeing the exit door and freedom. She started running toward it and saw the man who had gone to the bar spring into view, wildly looking around.
She crouched behind a foursome, scooting left, toward an alcove, knowing the other man was closing the distance behind her. She saw the bathroom to her front, a line of girls outside. She sprinted toward it, ducking below the crowd.
She leapt down the stairs, passing the line and ignoring the yells from the girls waiting. A woman tried to stop her, shouting about cutting the queue, and she slammed her into the wall, springing forward into the bathroom. Two girls at the mirror looked at her in astonishment, and she said, “Don’t shout. Don’t say anything. Please.”
She looked around the room in desperation and realized she’d just boxed herself in. Nothing had changed, and there was no way out.