“I’ve got a fix on Marchment’s GPS,” Gunnar said. “He’s at the St. Regis Hotel.”
Ramses wove through the congestion, braking and accelerating in sudden bursts, jerking the wheel to merge the SUV into gaps that hardly appeared large enough.
“I need an address,” Ramses said.
“Two East Fifty-fifth Street.” Gunnar’s laptop bounced on his thighs, forcing him to hold it in place with one hand and type with the other. He minimized one window and maximized another. “Just off Fifth Ave.”
“What the hell is he doing there?” Layne asked.
“Meeting with Slate Langbroek,” Mason said.
Gunner turned to face him and did an almost comical double take.
“Langbroek’s in town? Why in God’s name would he be here when the entire city’s about to be enveloped in a cloud of Novichok?”
“My thoughts exactly,” Mason said. His phone vibrated and he answered it without checking the caller ID. “Mason.”
“James?”
His father’s voice caught him by surprise.
“Now’s not a good time, Dad.”
“Are you still in the District?”
“Not anymore.”
Ramses locked up the brakes and the tires screamed.
“What was that?”
“Like I said, not the best time.”
“Please tell me you aren’t back in New York.”
“I’m going to have to call you back.”
“You need to get out of there, son. You’re in over your head. I was just informed that we have verified intel of a possible terrorist threat in Manhattan.”
“You’re certain it’s in New York City and not Philadelphia or D.C.?”
“Just get out of the city. Let counterterrorism handle it. From what I understand, you’re not even supposed to be there.”
“Turn left here,” Gunnar said. “Two more blocks and it’ll be on your left.”
“Look, Dad. I—”
“Please, James,” the senator said. Mason detected a note of pleading in his father’s voice that he’d never heard there before. “For once in your life, do as I ask.”
He felt a pang of guilt, but there was nothing he could do about it. Someone needed to stop the Scarecrow and he was the only one who could do it.
“I’ll take it under consideration.”
“You have to be the most exasperating—”
Mason terminated the call and stuffed the phone back into his jacket pocket.
“Like I said, Langbroek’s movements are cloaked, so I can’t tell you when he arrived,” Gunnar said, “but there’s definitely someone registered in the Imperial Suite at the St. Regis under his name.”
“Is Marchment with him?”
“All I can say is that his GPS beacon’s static at that location.”
“Drop me off at the front door,” Mason said. “You guys make sure no one slips out the back.”
“What are we supposed to do if they try?” Layne asked. “Arrest them?”
Mason didn’t reply. Arresting Langbroek was the furthest thing from his mind. All he cared about was preventing the release of the Novichok, by any means necessary.
An eighteen-story Beaux Arts monolith rose above them, an opulent stone monument to the luxury and excess of early twentieth-century industrialism. He craned his neck in an effort to see the top. Somewhere on the highest floor was a man he believed to be a member of the Thirteen.
Mason threw open the door and jumped out before Ramses had even stopped. He rounded the trunk and sprinted across the street toward the black-and-white awning above the entrance to the hotel. A porter in a green vest made a move to greet him, but Mason blew past him with a flash of his badge. He ran straight across the marble-tiled lobby to the elevator corridor and paced back and forth in front of four golden doors until one finally opened.
A man in a black jacket with platinum name tag strode toward him, wearing a forced smile and carrying a short-range transceiver.
Mason pressed the button for the top floor again and again until the golden panels whispered shut in the concierge’s face. The floor shuddered and he watched the numbers climb as he ascended.
His heart hammered against his rib cage. He clenched and unclenched his fists. Felt the reassuring weight of his Glock in its holster.
The man registered in the Imperial Suite was one of the richest and most powerful men in the world. He was also directly responsible for the murder of Mason’s wife and the subsequent annihilation of her family tree. He’d used the Thorntons to help modify a flu virus deadly enough to decimate the global population and thrown them away when he was done with them. He’d conspired with the Hoyl, and now the Scarecrow, to murder millions of people, and for what? Mason’s former partner could romanticize it all he wanted, claim the Thirteen were saving the world from drowning in its own numbers, but when it came right down to it, Kane had been wrong. This was all about the money. Langbroek stood to make billions from a medication designed to counteract the symptoms of the very gas he intended to release.
The elevator dinged to announce Mason’s arrival. The doors opened on a tan-carpeted hallway, at the end of which were the twin paneled doors of the Imperial Suite. On the other side was a monster the likes of which the world had never known. Or at least one of thirteen.
Mason knocked.
His stealth phone vibrated against his hip, but he silenced it.
Knocked again.
His pulse thumped so hard in his temples that the edges of his vision throbbed. He listened for voices on the other side. For the sound of approaching footsteps.
Again, his phone vibrated. He sent the call to voice mail with a swipe of his thumb.
All he had to do was reach underneath his jacket, draw his weapon, and with one bullet he could end the greatest threat to humanity that no one would ever know about.
He raised his fist and pounded on the door hard enough to make it rattle in its frame.
Only silence from the other side.
His phone vibrated again and he realized he’d been played. A man accustomed to hiding his movements wouldn’t stay under his own name. The Scarecrow had already been waiting when Marchment arrived. He unholstered his phone and answered it.
“Goddamn it, Mason!” Layne said before he could utter a single syllable. “You need to get down to the parking garage. Right now!”
The ground seemed to fall out from beneath him.
He hooked his Bluetooth to his ear and transferred the call. Stepped back, braced himself, and landed a solid kick right between the handles. The doors parted with a loud crack and slammed into the walls to either side of the foyer. He drew his weapon and entered in a shooter’s stance.
“There’s a laundry cart down here,” Layne said. “The cloth kind. With a lot of blood soaked into it. And it’s still damp.”
A table with fresh flowers was set in the entryway. The ornamental lighting reflected from black marble tile so glossy that it looked like an oil spill, save for the twin tire tracks running down the middle. To his left: a corridor terminating against a wall displaying original artwork, to either side of which was a doorway to a room outside his range of sight. Straight ahead was the master bedroom. To his right: the living room, where an end table rested on its side beside the lamp that had once stood upon it.
“It looks like someone wheeled the cart out of the service elevator and to a space reserved for delivery vehicles,” Layne said.
There was a black-and-white-patterned area rug on the hardwood floor. A mahogany coffee table surrounded by formal furniture covered with decorative pillows. Red velvet drapes hung beside circular recessed windows that reminded him of rifle sights. The one straight ahead overlooked Fifty-fifth Street and seemingly the entire city to the north, while the one to his right revealed a view of the sky above Park Avenue, marred by a high-velocity blood spatter on the glass. An iPhone rested on the cushion of the window seat, its screen a crimson smear.
Marchment had been standing right where Mason was now when someone approached him from behind and waited for him to turn around before bludgeoning him upside the head.
“It’s not a public garage, is it?” he asked.
“Valet parking only.”
“So it’s access-controlled. The Scarecrow had to have a code or key card to get in.” He hurriedly checked the master bedroom. There were no suitcases or toiletries. He smelled something sweet, a scent that didn’t mesh with his surroundings. “This was his plan all along.”
“What?”
“We’re being set up.” Sirens erupted in the distance. “Get out of there, Layne. Langbroek was never here. The Scarecrow lured Marchment up to the suite and took him. And we walked right into the trap.”
He remembered the expression on the face of the concierge in the lobby. He’d recognized that something was wrong and undoubtedly called security straight away. They’d probably been watching their cameras when he kicked in the front door of their twenty-grand-a-night Imperial Suite and were already on their way up.
Mason holstered his pistol and ran for the door. Bolted across the hall and into the open stairwell at the same time the elevator dinged at the far end of the corridor. The white marble stairs were ornamental, designed for aesthetics over functionality. They were surprisingly steep and narrow, the railings polished wood with elaborate gold banisters. He jumped to the landing. Grabbed the rail. Swung around the tight curve, past a curtained window. Hit the next set of stairs, going way too fast, and nearly went sprawling into the seventeenth-floor hallway. Regained his balance and propelled himself toward the next flight. Skipped down them as fast as could.
“We’re out of time,” he whispered. “Now that the Scarecrow has Marchment, he’s free to release the Novichok.”
He paused on the sixteenth floor. Pressed his back to the wall. Hoped the men on the top floor hadn’t heard the echo of his footsteps from the marble stairs. Waited for them to pass the mouth of the stairwell on their way to the Imperial Suite, but they saw through his deception. A man with a broad chest and dark hair leaned over the railing.
“He’s down there!”
Mason hurled himself to the next landing. Rebounded from the wall beside the window. Launched himself down the next flight.
A drumroll of footsteps overhead, coming down fast. Three men at least. One of them called for backup.
The wail of sirens grew closer. It wouldn’t be long before the police had the building surrounded.
“You have to go without me,” Mason whispered. “I’ll call you if I make it out of here.”
Around one bend, down the stairs, around another. And another and another.
The sixth-floor landing blew past beside him. It sounded like he was distancing himself from his pursuers, but he couldn’t spare a glance up and risk giving up ground in the process.
A riot of voices flooded the stairwell from below.
He knew exactly what that meant.
A second security unit mounted the stairs from the main floor. They were going to attempt a pincer maneuver to catch him in the middle. Such a bold move undoubtedly meant they’d already disabled the elevators, so he’d find himself trapped if he attempted to elude the men on one of the few remaining floors between them. Even if there was a second stairwell on the far side, security was likely already rushing straight up it, with someone remotely coordinating their movements from a control center with a bank of monitors.
By the time he reached the third floor, he could see the hands of the men gripping the rails as they ascended. They couldn’t have been more than twenty vertical feet down.
He maintained his pace. If a confrontation was inevitable, then he’d rather force the issue with the men coming up. With his momentum, he could easily take down two of them. Any more than that and he ran the risk of the team above him catching up. Maybe he could take them all, but not before the police had every exit covered.
At the same time he hit the second floor, the shadows of the men coming up the stairs fell upon the landing below him. A pair of men rounded the bend a heartbeat later. Their eyes widened at the sight of him and they reached for their weapons.
The footsteps from above grew ever closer. Someone shouted that they had him surrounded.
Two more men appeared on the landing below him. One of them raised his hands in a placating gesture.
Mason climbed up onto the railing. He was twenty feet up, twenty-five at the most. If he bent his knees on impact and rolled to dispel his momentum, he might not break his legs.
“Let’s not make this any harder than it has to be.”
“Too late for that,” Mason said.
He stepped out over the nothingness and felt his stomach rise into his chest.
One of the security guards instinctively reached for him as he plummeted past.
Mason seized the opportunity and caught him by the wrist. Pulled him hard against the rail, nearly right over the edge. Used the momentum to swing to the first-floor landing. Barely cleared the railing. Let go and was airborne for a split second before he hit the ground on his side. Slid into the hallway. Popped up and ran down the remaining stairs. Past the lobby and through the door to the street. Darted left and dove behind a van parked against the curb as a police cruiser screamed past. Rolled over the curb and beneath the undercarriage. Scurried out the other side on the asphalt. Lunged to his feet and sprinted toward the opposite sidewalk, using the van to screen him from the exit as his pursuers burst from the door.
He’d barely rounded the corner when he heard shouting behind him. Row houses and leafless deciduous trees blew past to either side. Entire city blocks passed in a blur. The voices and sirens faded into the distance. He hurdled the wrought-iron fence enclosing the stoop of a five-story unit and landed in the recessed stairwell of the garden-level apartment.
Mason removed his stealth phone from its holster and called Gunnar, who answered on the first ring. He sighed in relief and slumped to his rear end on a crust of ice and dead leaves.
“I’m going to need a ride.”