Page 82 of Nobody's Hero

‘She’s an adult and we’re out of options.’

‘You know her best, Bess,’ Draper said. ‘What do you think? Will she do it? And if she says yes, is she even up to it?’

Carlyle considered the question carefully. ‘She’s a tough old bird, but she’s very ill.’ She paused a beat. ‘But we don’t have a choice. Ben’s right: we can’t take them with us and we can’t hand them over. But you’re right as well: we can’t let them starve to death. Someone has to stay with them. It can’t be either of you, and it can’t be me. That leaves Margaret. I say we ask her.’

‘Margaret,’ Koenig called out. ‘Grab your tea and pop over here. We have a favour to ask.’

But Margaret didn’t answer. She was staring out of the window. She seemed transfixed by something happening outside.

‘What is it, Margaret?’ Carlyle asked.

She didn’t answer.

Carlyle joined her friend at the window. She peered out as well. She turned, her face paling. ‘There are men on the street,’ she said. ‘Men with guns.’

Chapter 87

Koenig and Draper double-timed to the kitchen area. They peered out of the window. Carlyle was right. Thereweremen with guns outside. They had them under their coats. Koenig caught a glimpse when a blast from a street vent lifted one guy’s coat like it was Marilyn Monroe’s white dress. Submachine guns. Perfect weapons for an urban assault. They were on the sidewalk opposite Hobbs’s apartment. A black van pulled up beside them. The panel door slid open. Three men climbed out and joined their colleagues on the sidewalk. That made seven. They made no move to enter the apartment. They were standing around, like office workers after a fire alarm.

‘They must have been on the apartment,’ Koenig said. ‘They were watching it, just like we were watching.’

‘Why didn’t we see them?’ Draper asked. Annoyed.

‘We were improvising; they had time to do it right.’

One of the men reached into the van and hauled out a briefcase-sized box. It was black. Looked like the president’s nuclear football. Koenig recognised it immediately. It was a military-grade jammer. Expensive, best part of a hundred thousand bucks.

Draper pulled out her cell phone. ‘I still have a signal,’ she said. ‘I wonder why they didn’t arrive with it powered up.’

‘That thing will knock out every phone in a ten-block radius,’ Koenig said. ‘And no matter which route they took to get here, they’d have had to pass an NYPD precinct. And if a precinct’s comms goes down without warning, they don’t mess around. They assume it’s terrorism. Everyone with a badge gets out on the street. Last thing these guys want.’

Draper stared at her cell like a teenager checking their Instagram likes. ‘Losing my signal will be their starter pistol then,’ she said. ‘I’m too far away to see what model they’re using, but military jammers don’t take long to warm up. Five minutes, tops.’

‘If that.’

Her cell phone chirped a song Koenig neither knew nor liked. Draper answered it.

‘Yes? . . . Where the hell is that? . . . OK, tell her she can have anything she needs . . . I’m about to lose my signal, but I’ll reestablish comms as soon as I can.’

She ended the call.

‘Jakob Tas’s phone went dead in Maine,’ she told Koenig. ‘A fishing village called New Silloth.’

‘That mean anything to you, Bess?’ Koenig asked.

Carlyle shook her head. ‘I don’t know anyone there.’

‘As luck would have it,’ Draper said, ‘a woman on my payroll has a hunting cabin less than an hour away. She’s already on her way. Rachel’s ex-FBI, so if there’s anything to find, she’ll find it.’

‘First bit of luck we’ve had,’ Koenig grunted.

‘Feels that way, doesn’t it? Anyway, assaulting a building is your area of expertise, not mine. How do you want to do this?’

‘We have the stairs; they have the numbers,’ Koenig said. He watched two of the group outside split off and head to the alley. ‘Must be relegated to covering the fire escape. That leaves five for me to deal with.’ His SIG was tucked uncomfortably into his waistband. He reached for it and ejected the magazine. Pulled back the slide and held it to the rear. Checked the working parts weren’t clogged with threads of denim. He’d seen it happen. It was clean. He released the slide and pressed home the magazine. ‘We can’t let them reach the apartment. How about I go downstairs while they’re all standing together?’

‘No,’ Draper said firmly. ‘We won’t get away with that again. They aren’t like the goofballs at the airstrip. There are more of them. They aren’t wearing stupid armour. They have the right weapons. And if they know what went down in Scotland, they’ll be expecting you to come straight at them.’

‘We call nine-one-one then. Wait for the NYPD, then hit them from both ends.’

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