Lethal

Either VanAllen was really good at playing dumb, or he truly was in the dark, which was even more alarming.

“Where are Mrs. Gillette and the child?” he asked. “They’re my chief concern.”

“Mine, too. Which is why I’m here and she’s not.” Coburn lowered the pistol to his side.

VanAllen followed the motion, looking relieved that he was no longer staring into the bore. “You didn’t trust me?”

“No.”

“What reason have I given you not to?”

“None. I’d just hate to leave you out.”

“You mistrust everybody.”

“A life-preserving policy.”

VanAllen nervously wet his lips. “You can trust me, Mr. Coburn. I don’t want this fouled up any more than you do. Is Mrs. Gillette all right?”

“Yes, and I want to make damn certain she stays that way.”

“You believe she’s in danger?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Because she has incriminating information on The Bookkeeper?”

On the outside chance that VanAllen had lied about wearing a wireless mike, Coburn wasn’t about to answer that question. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to order the local P.D. to call off the manhunt for me. Like you, I’m an agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in performance of my duty. I can’t have a bunch of trigger-happy yokels on my ass.”

“Crawford isn’t going to shrug off eight murders.”

“Homicide detective?”

“For the sheriff’s office. He’s investigating Fred Hawkins’s murder. He sort of inherited the warehouse murders when Fred-”

“I get the picture,” Coburn said, cutting him off. “Talk this Crawford into granting me a reprieve until I can bring Mrs. Gillette in safely. Then I’ll thoroughly brief him on the warehouse shootings and Fred Hawkins.”

“He won’t go for it.”

“Twist his arm.”

“Maybe if you gave me some exculpatory information that I could pass along-”

“Thanks, but no thanks. Your office leaks like a sieve and so does his.”

VanAllen sighed, looking worried. “It all relates to The Bookkeeper, right?”

“Right.”

“And it’s big?”

“Right again.”

“Can’t you tell me anything?”

“Can. Won’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because if you were supposed to know, Hamilton would have already told you. He would have started by telling you about me.”

The man winced, as though it pained him to hear that. He also must have sensed Coburn’s resolve and decided that trying to bargain was pointless. “Okay, I’ll do my best with Crawford. What are you going to do?”

“Disappear. I’ll bring Mrs. Gillette in, but no one will be given notice. I’ll choose my time and place.”

“I’m not sure that’ll fly.”

“With who?”

“Hamilton. He said to tell you that time is up.”

“Hamilton can go fuck himself. Tell him I said so. Better yet, I’ll tell him myself. I’m still on the trail of something, and I intend to finish the job that he assigned me. If you need to go back to him with something, tell him that. Now, let’s get in the car.”

“What for?”

“We’re gonna make it look like I’m going peaceably.”

“Look like?” VanAllen glanced around, and again, Coburn thought that if he was faking his ignorance, he was good at it. “Look like to who?”

“To the snipers who’ve got me in their crosshairs.”

“Who would want to shoot you?”

Coburn frowned at him. “Come on, VanAllen. You know who. And the only reason they haven’t taken me out already is because they still wouldn’t know where Honor Gillette is. You and I will get in the car and drive away.”

“Then what?”

“At some point between here and your office in Lafayette, I’ll get out. When you arrive, surprise! I’m no longer in the car with you. Whoever balks first is the person you arrest immediately, because that’s the person who had the snipers in place. Got it?”

VanAllen nodded, but Coburn hoped he felt more certainty than his nod demonstrated.

Coburn said, “Let’s go.”

VanAllen turned and walked to the driver’s side of the car and opened the door. The dome light came on, convincing Coburn yet again that the agent had no field experience. But he was glad of the light because it afforded him a check of the backseat. There was no one crouched between the seats.

He opened the passenger-side door and was about to get in when he sensed motion in his peripheral vision. He turned toward the train. A shadow streaked past the gap between two of the freight cars. Coburn dropped to look beneath the train and saw a pair of legs on the other side of it sprinting away. He started crawling in that direction and was almost under the train when a cell phone rang.

Coburn swiveled his head, caught VanAllen as he reached for the ringing telephone attached to his belt.

Coburn looked beneath the train and at the man fleeing from it.

Then to VanAllen, he shouted, “No!”

Honor was winded and her left side was cramping, but she continued to run at full tilt. She hadn’t thought the train tracks were that far from the paint and body shop garage until she began covering the distance. Running in darkness over unfamiliar ground made it even more difficult.