At her first glimpse of Jordan and Ronnie, Cait felt a rush of relief greater than she could have imagined. Her problems were far from solved, but now she wouldn’t be alone. She saw Jordan frequently at work, and elsewhere, but the sight of the two of them together brought her back to grim months in Baghdad and the way she had felt when the three of them had been together. A new courage filled her, along with a glimmer of hope.
“They’re not stupid,” Lynch said, his surprise evident.
“No, they’re not,” Cait agreed.
The guys had parked at the curb in front of the tanning salon next to Wendy’s. They’d walked to the Wendy’s parking lot but immediately slipped into a bus shelter, partially hidden by the dirty, scratched-up Plexiglas. Ronnie had a Red Sox cap perched on his head and a thin, dark scruff of goatee. Jordan had buzzed his hair short to match the stubble where his beard had been. They wore jeans and T-shirts they had probably pulled on in seconds when they’d learned she was in trouble.
“Let’s go,” she said, and climbed out of the car.
The dome light did not go on. Lynch had taken care of that during their first stop. Cait slid her gun into her rear waistband and the go-phone into her pocket, then she opened the back door and extricated Leyla from her car seat. The baby’s eyes opened and she looked around, blinking dreamily, but the moment Cait held her close, she put her head on her mother’s shoulder and sighed contentedly.
Lynch left the Caddy unlocked and they started along the sidewalk toward the Wendy’s parking lot.
“Quiet,” Lynch said.
“It’s the middle of the night.”
He said nothing more but they both glanced around cautiously, checking up and down the street, looking down a side alley, before picking up the pace as they headed for the Plexiglas bus shelter. Cait knew they were being too paranoid—no one knew they were here except for Ronnie and Jordan—but she had accepted paranoia as the only rational response to the ruin of her life.
The guys saw them coming. Ronnie stepped outside the bus shelter, face etched with concern.
“Oh, my God, thank you for coming,” she said, hugging him with one arm as she cradled Leyla in the other. Ronnie bussed her cheek and then planted a gentle kiss on the baby’s head.
“How could I not? Jordan’s not the only one who loves you, y’know?”
As he spoke, Cait saw Jordan emerge from behind the Plexiglas. He smiled, and his eyes lit up when he saw Leyla. He kissed her sleeping head.
“If you wanted to come visit Ronnie, you could’ve just asked,” he said. “We could have carpooled.”
“Funny guy,” Cait said.
Jordan’s smile faltered and for the first time she saw the real depth of his concern.
“I guess now’s not the time for funny,” he said.
Cait took his hand and stood on her toes to kiss his cheek, clasping his fingers tightly. “It’s the perfect time.” She glanced at Ronnie. “So glad you’re both here.”
Lynch nudged her. “Get inside. We’re too exposed out here.”
Ronnie and Jordan both took his measure, trying to figure out who he was and what he was doing with Cait, but they obliged, stepping back into the bus shelter. Cait followed, but Lynch turned his back to them, on guard. He’d untucked his shirt to cover his gun, but Cait could see the bulge of it against the fabric. The guys were armed as well, Ronnie strapped at the ankle and Jordan carrying at the small of his back, like Lynch. They knew there had already been a firefight tonight and none of them were taking any chances.
There were two entrances to the shelter, one at the front and one at the back. The metal benches inside were engraved with graffiti, but otherwise it was clean. She sat on the edge of a bench, comforted by her friends and by the weight of her daughter in her arms.
“Talk to us, Sarge,” Jordan said. “ ’Cause on the news, they’re saying some ugly shit.”
It hurt her heart to even hear him say that. Quiet, handsome Jordan—a hell of a man, but still with the shy demeanor of a boy. When they had returned to civilian life and begun to work together, they’d had to learn to relate to each other on civilian terms. They had helped each other figure out how to live an ordinary life, complete with paychecks and office parties and watercooler gossip. Now all of that had been obliterated, and they were carrying guns again—at war, again.
“Please tell me you don’t believe any of it.”
Jordan arched his eyebrows in surprise. “ ’Course not.”
Lynch stuck his head in. “This isn’t the place, Cait.”
“I know, I know,” she said, then turned to the guys again. “Look, we all know there’re some devils in D.C. Some of them want Leyla, and they’re not the only ones. I had al Qaeda or something on my back doorstep. Neither side has good intentions—”
“Listen to yourself, Cait,” Ronnie said.
She froze, hating the tightness of his voice. “What?”
“All right, Washington has some shady bastards, but the whole government isn’t corrupt. Not enough to hunt a seven-month-old baby. You never should have run. If you just talk to the FBI, go public, it will all get straightened out.”
Cait stared at him.
Jordan ran a hand over his stubbled head, mystified. “Dude, are you listening? You saw the news. They’re calling her a terrorist. People are after the baby. She’s not talking to anyone until we can make sure they’re safe, guaranteed protection or whatever.”
Ronnie scratched at his arm, drew a hand across his mouth. “It’s already guaranteed.”
The words sunk in fast. Cait shot to her feet, clutching Leyla to her, stunned that Ronnie would betray her but knowing he must have been frightened and confused by the news stories and tried to do the right thing.
“Lynch—” she started.
The old man stepped into the shelter. “We’ve gotta move.”
For a second she thought he was reacting to what Ronnie had said, and then she heard the roaring of engines and the squealing of tires and the static crackle of a distant radio. Ronnie started trying to tell them to calm down, that it would be all right. Jordan hit him so hard that his head snapped back and he staggered against the Plexiglas shelter.
“Son of a bitch!” Jordan shouted, grabbing a fistful of Ronnie’s T-shirt and hitting him twice more.
Ronnie staggered and went to his knees. As he tried to rise, Jordan went to kick him but Cait caught him by the wrist and got him moving out of the shelter. She released him and drew her gun, saw Lynch do the same, and the three of them started running toward the Caddy—but too late.
Police cars tore out of connecting streets and shot from the alley beside a nearby donut shop, blue lights flashing but running without sirens. One by one they skidded to a halt, officers jumping out, weapons drawn. They’d boxed in the Cadillac—Lynch’s stolen car wasn’t going anywhere. On the roof of an office block across the street she saw several snipers taking position.
Squads of cops and FBI agents in bulletproof vests and flapping jackets ran from alleys and storefronts and hustled to join the party.
“Sergeant McCandless!” someone said over a buzzing bullhorn. “Think about your baby. Surrender now, for Leyla’s sake.”
Hate raged in her. They still wanted Leyla. It had been the very worst thing they could have said.
“She’s all I think about,” Cait whispered, starting back into the shelter. “This way.”
Voss ran to a patrol car, her gun aimed at the sky. Turcotte slammed up against the vehicle beside her and leveled his own weapon, taking aim over the police car’s roof.
“Goddamn bus stop,” Turcotte snarled. “Nobody’s gonna have a clear shot.”
“Yeah,” Voss agreed, but she didn’t see that as a bad thing. She wanted an opportunity to talk to Cait McCandless and if that meant through the open door of the bus shelter with the woman and her friends still armed, that was all right.
She unclipped the radio from her belt. “Hold all fire,” she said. “Repeat, hold all fire. Anyone puts a bullet anywhere near that baby, I’ll shoot you myself!”
The whole street took a breath. Car engines rumbled and the Wendy’s sign buzzed with electricity. The Cadillac that had brought McCandless and her baby here was completely hemmed in. This was good.
Voss turned to a police sergeant with a bullhorn and held out her hand. He gave it to her and she toggled the switch, getting a burst of feedback, then moved around beside the car to get a clearer view of the bus shelter, and to make sure that McCandless could see her.
She lifted the bullhorn to her lips, and a gunshot cracked the night sky. The bullhorn smashed into her mouth just as something slammed into her left shoulder and spun her around. Voss sprawled on the ground, blood quickly filling her mouth, and bright pain blossomed in her shoulder.
As shock began to set in, she tried to make sense of it all—the angle, the impact—and she knew the shot had not come from the bus shelter. Someone on the roof across the street had pulled the trigger on her, aiming for her head, not anticipating the bullhorn. The shoulder wound was a ricochet.
Tried to kill me, she had time to think, just before shock overwhelmed her and she sank into darkness.
The instant she heard the gunshot, Cait knew they had to run. If she was going to die, she would die trying her best to protect her baby girl, not standing still waiting for a bullet.
“Your car!” she snapped at Jordan. “Go!”
Lynch didn’t hesitate. He darted out the back entrance of the bus shelter and ran low across the lot toward a small stand of trees. Cait held tightly to Leyla as a volley of shots rang out.
“Cait!” Ronnie said, drawing the gun he’d worn strapped to his leg. “Don’t!”
She took aim at his left eye. “If my baby dies, you as good as killed her.”
Jordan grabbed her arm. “Leave him. Run.”
But before they could follow Lynch, Ronnie shouted Jordan’s name. Cait thought he might shoot, but instead he tossed something to Jordan.
“You’ll need these, dumbass,” he said, a world of sorrow in his voice.
They were his keys. The car they’d arrived in had been Ronnie’s. Cait looked at him, saw that he realized what a mistake he’d made, and then he made a break for it, racing out the front of the shelter onto the sidewalk and into the street. He took aim at the sharpshooters on the roof across from them and started firing. Before it even happened, Cait could see his death in her mind’s eye.
She bumped Jordan and then the two of them were running, following Lynch, who raced from the trees toward Ronnie’s pristine Ford Mustang. Leyla woke and started wailing in Cait’s ear and her chest tightened at the sound as it always did. A Hartford cop ran out to try to stop them and Lynch shot him in the leg. The officer shouted as he fell, dropping his gun. Bullets flew, plinking the hood and sides of the Mustang, but by then Lynch had flung open the door and climbed into the back.
Cops and FBI agents came running. They hadn’t blocked in the Mustang—presumably because Ronnie had been the one to call them—and now they were learning what a mistake that had been. Cait fired twice in the air, not willing to randomly kill people when she couldn’t be sure who among them was an enemy. They fired at Jordan but no one even took aim at her. A bullet grazed Jordan’s shoulder blade and he staggered forward, barely managed to keep his feet under him, and then dove into the Mustang through the door Lynch had left open. As Cait followed, Leyla screaming in her arms, Jordan scrambled into the driver’s seat, jammed the key into the ignition, and the engine gave a lion’s roar. He slammed it into gear and turned the wheel, spinning in a half circle that nearly threw Cait and Leyla out onto the street. The door swung wide. She had to throw her gun on the floor in order to reach out and grab the door to slam it shut, and then she snagged the seat belt and tried pulling it around them both.
“No. Get on the floor!” Jordan yelled.
“Screw that.”
One of the back windows blew in, safety glass scattering everywhere. Lynch fired through the broken window and then rolled the other down. As he did, Cait strapped herself and Leyla in and plucked her gun from the floor.
By the time she glanced around, gun at the ready, looking for someone to fire at, Jordan had aimed the Mustang at a cluster of police cars blocking off the street west of the Wendy’s. He jerked the wheel to the left and floored it, and she saw his target—the place on the corner where the curb had been cut and graded for wheelchair access. Half on the sidewalk, they shot past the cordon, the front right quarter of the Mustang slamming into the rear of a police car. The shriek of metal gave way to Leyla’s shrieks, but they were through, tearing through the intersection and headed away from the scene. Unmarked cars—maybe FBI, maybe police—gunned out of parking spaces, but Jordan veered around them to cut himself a path, and a dozen police cars tried to navigate through the mess he left behind.
Gunshots chased them, plinked the trunk. A bullet came through the rear windshield, splintering it with cracks, and lodged in the dashboard in front of Cait. She glanced back and saw Lynch bleeding from a wound in his side. He’d caught one back there and the crimson stain on his shirt was spreading, but he looked all right for the moment.
Sirens blared. Engines roared. They were coming.
Jordan cut the wheel and as the Mustang shot into a narrow side street, she saw a sign that made her want to cry.
“Dead end, Jordan! It’s a dead end!”
“I got it,” he said, hands gripped tightly to the wheel. He glanced at her, eyes full of fear and love, and she understood for the first time that this sweet, shy man was not just her friend, that he cared deeply for her, and maybe always had.
It didn’t help.
“I got it!” he said again.
The old apartment houses and duplexes were dark. A kid’s tricycle lay overturned on the sidewalk. Cars too nice for the neighborhood were parked nose to nose with rusting heaps. But as they rounded a curve, she saw the dark, sprawling silhouette of an elementary school ahead. Its parking lot was the dead end.
Blue lights flashed way behind them, but the cops had not missed the Mustang’s turn. They were following.
Jordan raced the car past the school and across the baseball field behind it, toward a chain-link fence. But just as she was about to speak again, she saw the opening in the fence, a path that came in from a neighborhood on the other side of the baseball field. The Mustang barely fit between two concrete pylons, which scraped the sides of the car as Jordan steered between them, and then they were past the fence and into a warren of old brick townhouses, narrow streets, and turns. Jordan took a right, floored the accelerator, and just when blue lights should have appeared behind them, he turned left and went down a hill, underneath some kind of highway overpass, and up into a road construction site on the other side.
Cait could barely breathe as she ran her hands over her crying baby, searching for any sign of injury.
Less than a minute later, the Mustang crawled along an alley running behind a pool hall, a liquor store, and a small Irish pub. Jordan’s aged but well-loved Mercedes sat parked by a loading dock behind the liquor store. He pulled up next to it and killed the engine, exhaling with relief.
Cait felt a moment of almost hysterical elation. A car the cops hadn’t seen. No broken glass. No bullet holes. She wondered how far they would get, if they could make it to the place where Lynch’s associates, his Resistance, would be waiting.
And then she thought of Ronnie.
“I’m so sorry I got you into this,” she said, taking Jordan’s hand. “You and Ronnie.”
He hid his grief poorly, but made the effort, squeezing her fingers. “Don’t be sorry. I promised you a long time ago I’d always be there when you needed me. And here I am. Ronnie … he thought he was helping.”
“I know.”
“It was stupid,” Jordan said. “He should have trusted you more.”
She searched his eyes, their gazes locked for a lingering moment.
“Let’s get moving,” Lynch muttered behind them, a hand pressed over his wound. “I try not to get shot more than once a night.”
Somehow his gravelly voice seemed to comfort Leyla, who ceased her wailing. Cait looked at Lynch and realized what he had done for her—for them—and knew they would live or die together from this moment on.
She nodded at Jordan, and they all abandoned the Mustang. At some point they would have to stop and deal with the wounds Lynch and Jordan had sustained—the latter just a graze off his clavicle—but not here.
It occurred to Cait as she climbed into the Mercedes that she had nothing for Leyla now. No milk, no bottle, no car seat … nothing. They had the clothes on their backs and their guns. Until they could stop somewhere safely, that would have to be enough.