The Rule Of Nine Part 33

"Herman is following Thorn. He says there's n.o.body tailing him."

"No, that can't be right," she says. "Let me talk to him."

I hand her the phone. She's still lying down under the covers, head on the pillow.

I start to get dressed.

"Herman, this is Joselyn. What are you doing?" She listens for a moment. "Yeah, but my people told us to stay away from him. They have it covered. Give them some credit. You're going to mess things up. Now get back over here."

He says something to her, but I can't hear it.

"Here, he wants to talk to you." She gives me the phone back. "Tell him to come back to his room," she says.

"Paul!" Herman is shouting into the phone.

"Yeah." I put the phone up to my ear as I hold my pants up with the other hand. "The sign out in front of the garage says 'Colonial Parking,' right over the door. Big white block letters. If you step out of the hotel and turn right, you can't miss it. It's right across the street."

"Wait for me," I tell him.

"I'm just gonna stick my nose inside to see if he's there. He might be tryin' to slip out another door. And if he's got a car, at least I'll get the license plate number."

"No!"

"Get over here as quick as you can," he says. Then he hangs up.

Herman smiled at the attendant in the gla.s.s booth as he walked into the garage. He strode with confidence, as if he was heading to his parked car inside. Then as soon as he made the turn where the attendant couldn't see him anymore he immediately slowed down.

Herman knew he'd made a mistake the moment he pa.s.sed through the door. The light was all wrong. But it was too late. He was already committed. He moved toward the wall and tried to stay in what shadow there was as he moved toward the line of cars in the second aisle. From what he could see from the outside, that was the route Thorn had taken when he entered.

Herman slipped one hand into his pocket and tried to melt his huge frame into the concrete wall while he inched his way along. He walked until he was opposite the long, narrow driveway that made up the second aisle in the parking garage.

From here he could see straight down the long row of vehicles, all the way to the other end of the building. There were cars parked nose in on both sides, with the painted arrow on the floor pointing in this direction. The garage was one way, with traffic weaving up and down each aisle.

Herman listened for the noise of an engine starting and scanned the aisle on both sides looking for backup lights. But he didn't see or hear anything.

"d.a.m.n it!" I tell her.

"What's he doing?" says Joselyn.

"Herman followed Thorn to the garage across the street, now he's going inside."

"Who, Thorn or Herman?" she says.

"Both of them."

"Why didn't you tell him to stop?"

"I did. He wouldn't listen." I pull my s.h.i.+rt over my head and slip on my shoes sans socks.

"You're not going over there?"

"I have to." I press my phone into the holster on my belt and strap it down.

Joselyn throws the blankets off and starts to get up.

"Where are you going?" I ask.

"With you."

"No, you're not."

"Why not?" she says. "If the two of you can be terminally stupid, why can't I? Herman has rocks in his head. And you're not much better. Neither of you listen," she says. "The FBI and the police have Thorn covered. I have it from on high. You can trust me on this."

"Tell that to Herman," I say.

"I did. He wouldn't listen. In other words, he doesn't trust me," she says.

"It's not just you. Herman doesn't trust anybody," I tell her. "Herman believes what he sees with his eyes and smells with his nose. I think that's how he's stayed alive this long."

"So it'll serve you right if the FBI busts both of you for interfering with their investigation." She has her bra on and is pulling up her pants, searching for a top. "And if they do, don't call me to come post bail," she says.

I glance at her and smile. "You mean if I called, you wouldn't come?"

She looks at me, trying to maintain a stern expression. "I don't know. What I want to know is why men are so stupid."

"Probably has to do with the yin and the yang," I tell her. "Testosterone versus the female hormone."

"You mean estrogen?"

"Yeah, that's the one. It's why women find it so easy to manipulate us. It gives you that whole s.e.xy package," I tell her.

"Yes, that along with intelligence," she says. "Don't try to patronize me and don't change the subject. If you guys want to think with your d.i.c.ks, that's fine, but don't ask me to put my body on the block with friends in the future unless you're willing to cooperate."

"You stay here," I tell her.

"Oh, sure." She has her top unb.u.t.toned and no shoes on her feet. "I'll just lie back down and go to sleep," she says.

"I'll grab Herman and be back in a flash." Before she can answer or follow me, I'm out the door. I hear one of her shoes slam against the inside of it before it can close.

Thorn was down on one knee between two parked cars about twelve vehicles down the aisle in the garage. He looked at his watch to check the time. This morning he was on a very tight schedule, and he had to keep moving.

Thorn knew that the three of them had been following him since before his last trip to Puerto Rico: the lawyer, his investigator, and the b.i.t.c.h Joselyn Cole. Thorn had been tipped off, been given detailed information and then told not to worry, that everything was taken care of. It wasn't then, but it would be now. He had to get them off his back and keep them off for at least one hour. That was all he needed. After that it wouldn't matter. By noon it would all be over.

In the meantime his luggage from Puerto Rico would catch up with him at the hotel. Thorn would be free to select any one of the three fresh pa.s.sports from his suitcase and disappear, vanish forever into the luxury of a multimillion-dollar retirement.

He didn't have to wait long. A few seconds later he heard footsteps moving in the shadows of the garage. They were coming from the direction of the sunlit entrance at the ticket kiosk out in front. He saw the large silhouette as the man moved slowly. He stayed away from the cars as if he knew that the blind s.p.a.ces between them represented a risk. Instead, he kept his back to the front concrete wall of the building, where he knew there was nothing behind him.

The man stalking him tried to stay in the shadows, but given the bright morning sunlight and the fact that he was backlit against the opening of the garage entrance, it was impossible.

Thorn could have easily threaded the silencer on the small Walther PPK in his pocket, and even at this distance could probably hit the man at least three times without missing. The guy was that big. But he didn't want to take the chance, not with the ticket attendant in the kiosk out in front. Besides, the Walther might not drop him. Instead, Thorn stuck to the plan, waited, and watched. He would use the gun only if one or both of the other two showed up. Thorn had arranged it all in the garage directly across from their hotel to make it as convenient as possible.

Herman started to wonder whether he might have lost him. He scanned the distance across the garage over the tops of the cars and noticed at least one lighted exit sign on the back wall as well as a bank of elevators leading to the offices upstairs. Thorn could have taken either one and slipped away.

The garage was quiet. Most people were already at work. Herman looked back toward the entrance, thought for a moment, then turned and started toward the next row of cars, the third aisle down.

Before he could take a second step, he heard a scratching sound on the concrete somewhere behind him and off to the right. He stopped, turned, and looked. He was certain that the noise had come from the aisle in front of him, and close.

Herman took a tentative step toward the line of cars, then decided he couldn't be sure which side of the aisle the noise might have come from. He moved as silently as he could on the rubber soles of his running shoes, one hand plunged deep in his pocket, the other balled into a fist.

Thorn slipped down onto his chest and looked under the car. He could see the shoes of the big man as he came straight down the center of the aisle between the two lines of parked cars. No doubt he was checking between each vehicle on each side as he pa.s.sed them, trying to make sure that no one got behind him. It was a good tactic as far as it went, but Thorn could see that he had already blown it.

Thorn waited until the man was almost even with the other side of the car he was peering under and then, without warning, he suddenly bolted upright, stood straight up, and looked right at him.

Herman stood there wide eyed. Adrenaline shot through his body. He recognized Thorn immediately. The only thing he couldn't see was the man's hands, to tell if he was holding a gun.

Thorn took a step out from behind the car and Herman realized that the only thing in the man's hand was the briefcase.

Liquida would have preferred Madriani. But he knew that unless he could get the lawyer alone, sooner or later he would have to deal with the big investigator. So it might as well be now, when he had the element of surprise. He came at him with catlike quickness, the deadly stiletto in his gloved hand behind him.

Herman took half a step forward and was about to lunge toward Thorn when the searing pain in his back, up under his ribs, froze the soles of his shoes to the concrete floor. Suddenly Herman couldn't move. He reached with his one free hand behind his back and felt the warm blood as it pulsed from his body. Herman knew instantly who it was and that the sharp point still jammed in his back had pierced a main artery.

Liquida's blade found that magic place that paralyzes with pain. The big man's knees buckled. As he went to the concrete floor, Liquida went with him, holding the knife in place and moving it around for maximum damage.

Herman tried to call out, but he couldn't. It was as if his voice was paralyzed. He realized he could no longer draw air in his lungs, as the blade had punctured one of them and blood began to fill it.

"You got him?" said Thorn.

"He's mine." Liquida withdrew the knife from its victim, straightened up, and looked over at Thorn. "Go. I'll finish up." Blood dripped off the tip of the stiletto as he stood there like a butcher over his quarry.

"Good work," said Thorn. He turned and ran toward the exit sign at the back of the building.

Liquida watched him as he went. He stood there, his feet straddling the big, bald black man he had seen in every dark dream since that night in Costa Rica almost a year before. Liquida looked down at him. "I will make it quick, but you must know before you die that I have found the girl. Madriani's daughter will die next, before he goes into his own grave."

Liquida leaned down, drew the nine-inch stiletto back for the death plunge into the man's chest, and felt a searing fire erupt from his right shoulder blade, all the way through to the muscles under his arm. He jumped back quickly, like a man who's been snake bitten. He reached across his body with his left hand to grip his dead right forearm at the wrist.

The b.l.o.o.d.y stiletto toppled from his numb fingers and rattled onto the concrete pavement at his feet. His right hand had no feeling. Liquida was unable to grip or even close the fingers of his right hand into a weak fist.

Blood poured from the wound under Liquida's arm as Herman lay on his back, his head raised up off the pavement. He was smiling. The open four-inch ceramic blade from Thorn's exotic folding knife was in his right hand as his vision began to blur. He reached out feebly with the blade and drew it across the fading form of Liquida. In his final delirium his sight had lost any sense of depth.

The Mexican was standing three feet away from him, fury in his eyes.

Herman's head settled back onto the concrete as his vision went dark and what shallow breath was left abandoned his body.

With his right arm hanging limp at his side, Liquida kicked the knife out of Herman's hand. It skidded across the concrete and under one of the cars.

Liquida was breathing heavily as he heard the pounding of feet on the pavement coming this way. He turned and looked and saw the form of a man running into the dark parking structure from the sunlit outside. He looked down at the dying form at his feet, reached around and felt the warm blood oozing down his own back, and decided that discretion was the better part of valor.

I get only a fleeting glimpse of a running form in the distance as I walk and then run down between the lane of parked cars. I see the spreading pool of blood from under Herman's body as I jump and curse and pound my hands on my thighs.

"HELP!" I yell at the top of my lungs. "Anybody! I need help now!"

I am down on both knees hovering over Herman, the man who has saved me so many times. There is blood on his chest but I see no wounds, yet the pool on the concrete beneath him is spreading. "Call an ambulance! I need help!"

Herman is trying to say something, but he's unable to speak. He mouths the word "Liquida" and points with a trembling finger toward the b.l.o.o.d.y stiletto lying on the concrete. He tries to say something else: "Ssss...Sa..." and loses consciousness.

I roll him over onto his stomach. It takes all my strength. As he goes over I see the wound in his back still oozing blood, then a spurt and bubbles of air.

"That's good," I tell him. I get down in Herman's ear. "Stay with me," I tell him. I tear off my s.h.i.+rt, pulling it over my head. "d.a.m.n it! Can you hear me?" I scream at the guy in the kiosk out front. "There's a man dying, I need HELP NOW!"

I press my s.h.i.+rt against the open wound to seal it, using my knees to apply as much pressure as I can, then grapple for my phone with a b.l.o.o.d.y finger. I hit the b.u.t.ton and look for a signal. Nothing. The concrete of the garage has my phone sealed off. I drop it onto the concrete and yell for help.

"What's happened?"

I turn my head. It's the guy from the kiosk.

"Call 911. Get an ambulance. He's been stabbed."

He runs for the door.

I press down on Herman's back, trying to clear the blood from his lungs while pressing the s.h.i.+rt against the wound with my knee.

I am wondering where the police and the FBI are as I try to stanch the bleeding and get him to breathe. I still see bubbles from the wound as I press down on his back.

"They're on their way." The parking attendant from the kiosk is behind me. Then suddenly two or three more people. One of them is a nurse. She grabs her large handbag, reaches inside it, and finds a sandwich in a plastic bag. She opens up the bag, tosses the sandwich, flattens the bag out, and says: "Move that!" She's talking about my b.l.o.o.d.y s.h.i.+rt.

She lifts Herman's blood-soaked s.h.i.+rt, pulling it out of the way, and places the plastic sandwich bag directly over the open wound. "Here, help me get his belt off."

I roll him up onto his side, reach underneath, and unbuckle it.

She grabs the buckle end and yanks it several times until it comes free from his pants. She puts the belt under his chest, tells me to lay him down flat on his stomach, and fastens the belt directly over the plastic bag and the wound. She runs the open end of the belt through the buckle and pulls it as tight as she can. She puts her knee against the center of his back and pulls harder. "I know this looks bad, but it's a sucking chest wound and I have to seal it off or else he'll drown in his own blood."

I notice that the bubbles stop.

She opens Herman's mouth, reaches between his teeth with two fingers, and scoops out blood. She does this two or three times, each time reaching back farther toward his throat to clear his airway.

We roll him onto his back and she starts doing heavy compressions on his chest as I open his mouth, move his tongue out of the way, and try to blow air into his lungs.

FORTY-FIVE.

Zeb Thorpe had been in the command center at FBI headquarters since shortly after six that morning. He was called in early on an emergency in New York and was busy watching live images on a screen as transit authorities, police in New York, and construction workers tried to stabilize a cement truck and pull it away from an open cavern over the Fulton Street subway station.

Transit police had managed to stop the truck, but four of the eight rear wheels on the dual doubles were already over the edge of the hole.