The Cure Page 18

  66

  Bic cursed to himself. The angle he had from the second-story walkway sucked, otherwise he’d have hit the Farmer right in the back of the head. As it was, he now had to reposition himself for the kill shot. It was then he realized that the Farmer had dropped the grenade onto the counter directly above Gracie. He had to do something. The grenade was about to roll over the edge of the counter. He’d only moved a few steps when Jaco and the other men opened fire at him from flanked positions on the other side of the lobby.

  From a new position behind a six-by-four bookcase loaded with children’s books, Bic watched the Farmer scatter to the right with his firearm, aiming to pick off anyone who attempted to escape from behind the desk. He was about twenty feet away from Gracie, up against the same wall the counter was attached to, behind a marble column that jutted out from it.

  Bic used the massive case full of books as a shield to advance his position directly above the Farmer’s location. He growled as he heaved the bookshelf from the second story.

  The massive object smashed down onto the Farmer.

  At the desk, the grenade dropped to the floor.

  Quinn scrambled out, grabbed the grenade, and chucked it into the middle of the room. The thing exploded midair. Glass from the shattered ceiling rained down like falling daggers.

  It was at this point that Bic noticed Mack had just entered through the main doors. Apparently, he was the only one who’d noticed.

  One of Jaco’s men made a run for the escalator to the second-floor walkway. Mack squared up his shot, fired, and dropped him.

  Mack opened fire in Jaco’s direction. Jaco, covered in glass and weaponless, bolted toward the arched corridor leading back into the library. Bullets pockmarked the walls around him.

  Bic repositioned as he saw Jaco’s other man firing at Mack. The stone wall above Mack’s head, weakened by the grenade blast, crumbled, leaving Mack in a fine mist of concrete dust.

  The man charged towards Mack, firing at him, forcing him to retreat.

  “Hang tight, Mack,” Bic muttered as he lined up to shoot the man in the back of the head.

  The side of the guy’s head exploded before he had a chance to fire. Bic looked over and saw Quinn standing from behind the counter, his gun extended.

  Quinn pulled Gracie up, then they both hopped over the desk.

  The Farmer covered in shards of glass, blood puddling around him from his broken back, raised his gun slowly at Gracie.

  Bic took aim. Fired.

  The gun clicked on an empty chamber.

  He looked around frantically. A bullet-ridden flag on a four-foot pole stuck out of the wall above him. He pulled the pole from the wall and leapt from the second floor onto a reading table. He tucked and rolled and landed on the floor.

  He sprang up, ran ten feet, and plunged the pole into the Farmer’s chest, driving it through to the other side. Blood sprayed from his gaped mouth.

  Quinn led Gracie out the main doors.

  Bic reached down and grabbed the gun from the Farmer’s dead hands. When he stood, he locked eyes with Mack.

  Both looked toward the door Jaco had just fled through.

  67

  They’d cleared the stacks and a couple of learning rooms. With no sign of Jaco, they stood in the center of the room next to a colorful display of African art.

  Mack gestured toward the opposite side of the room. “He must have gone into the stairwell.”

  Bic nodded and walked toward the door. Mack followed. There were two sets of stairs.

  “He could have gone up or down,” Mack said.

  Bic pointed at a shard of glass on one of the steps and followed the clue as he headed down the stairwell leading to the basement.

  “Maybe we should go after Gracie,” Mack said with his gun drawn over Bic’s shoulder.

  “The guy, is he one of your guys?”

  “Quinn? He’s FBI. Not my guy though.”

  Bic shot him a look.

  “Don’t worry. He saved my life. She’s in good hands.”

  Bic continued down. As they rounded a staircase, Mack cleared his throat. “You recognize this guy we’re chasing?”

  “His name’s Jaco Ivanov.”

  “Former associate of yours?”

  “No,” said Bic.

  “Right,” said Mack. “But someone hired this guy to kill Gracie, so he’s, uh, sort of like you, then, isn’t he?”

  “Nothing like me,” Bic frowned.

  “How so?”

  “I never enjoyed it,” Bic said.

  Bic opened the door at the bottom of the stairwell and both men entered at the ready. Mack scooted to his right, taking aim at the mechanical room entrance.

  Bic then looked into the mechanical room through the door’s large wire-glass window, then opened the door.

  On the left side of the massive room, two large boilers at least ten feet in height hummed monotonously. The rest of the walls were lined with workbenches, carts, and shelves filled with every kind of tool imaginable. There was a potent smell permeating throughout.

  Mack pointed to the large boilers, two 25-foot-long steel cylindrical tubes on their sides. It was a perfect spot to hide. Mack and Bic approached from opposite sides.

  As he did, he was trying to place the smell that was now beginning to make him feel lightheaded.

  He regained focus and popped around the corner on one knee, staying low, he aimed.

  In the shadows of the boiler, there was nothing except Bic on the other end.

  Suddenly, the smell got stronger, and another sense kicked in from a slight hissing sound. He reached down and felt the floor. It was wet. He brought up his hand and took a whiff.

  “Paint thinner.”

  He walked to some shelves along the back wall of the boilers. Here everything was wet. He took a closer look. Several cans and containers were capless and upended. On closer inspection, he noticed all were flammable liquids.

  He took another whiff at the air. Rotten eggs.

  “Oh, no,” he said. It was mercaptan, the chemical added to gas for easy detection.

  He yelled to Bic, “We need to get out of here.”

  Mack and Bic started toward the exit when they were stopped by a pool of liquid pouring in from underneath the door.

  In the wire glass window on the other side of the door, Jaco appeared with a flare in hand and a red plastic gas can.

  Mack took aim to shoot.

  “Don’t shoot,” Bic growled, staying his hand. “The gas.”

  With a wickedly triumphant glow, Jaco ignited the flare.

  He then waved goodbye and disappeared from the window.

  Instantly the exterior of the door burst into flames. A blanket of fire rolled into the room. Mack turned to see Bic removing a manhole cover from the storm drain flood protection system and tossing it aside like a Frisbee. Bic descended and Mack followed, diving head first into the drain and crashing down into two feet of water.

  He stayed underwater for as long as he could, worried the gases inside the sewer might ignite.

  Finally, unable to hold his breath any longer, he came up for air. The basin was illuminated by the flames above.

  From the smell, or lack thereof, he realized he was in a storm drain, not a sewer. They were in a well about eight feet deep. At the water line were two 10-inch pipes attached to the basin.

  Mack looked at Bic in amazement, knowing he’d saved his life again. Bic didn’t say a word as he looked at the flames in the maintenance room above through the opening they’d both just dove through.

  The room above filled with rancid smoke, pushing the poisonous fumes downward.

  Mack coughed. “I don’t think we are going to be able to ride it out down here.”

  Bic tore off one of the sleeves of his shirt and dunked it in the water, then wrapped the sleeve around his face. “Get ready to follow me.”

  Mack hurried as he pulled his sl
eeve off and wrapped his face.

  Bic submerged his whole body underwater, then erupted upward. His massive frame sprung out of the hole with the power of an Olympic gymnast.

  With all his might, Mack jumped upward. He grabbed on to the outer edge of the manhole frame. It was hot, very hot, and as he pulled his body upward Bic grabbed him by the back of his shirt, pulling him up into a room that was now alive and raging with hellfire.

  68

  Gracie and Quinn entered the elevator of a high-rise on LaSalle street just blocks from the Harold Washington Library. After staking out the place for a moment, Quinn walked in and talked with a security guard. Gracie watched as he shook hands with the man, and clasped his shoulder warmly, laughing. He headed back out.

  “Give it a moment…” The guard walked away.

  “Did you just,” Gracie started.

  “Hold that thought. Follow me, exactly. I’m going to keep us out of view of the cameras.”

  They easily avoided what little security the building had. They boarded the elevator and once Quinn pressed the badge he had lifted from the guard, they headed toward the twenty-ninth floor.

  “You okay?” said Quinn.

  “Nothing about this is okay. Do they really teach you how to be all James Bondy in FBI school?”

  “Funny. No. I took extra credit courses. Don’t worry Gracie, we’ll get you through this.”

  They walked down the long hall to apartment number 2957. Quinn knocked solidly on the door.

  No answer. Quinn knocked again. This time louder.

  “Mr. Surewood?”

  After a second’s long wait, Quinn reached into his pocket and pulled out a couple of tools.

  Gracie looked left, then right, then spoke softly. “Are you doing what I think you’re doing.”

  Quinn stuck the thin rectangular piece of metal with a serrated L at the end into the keyhole. “All you have to do,” he whispered, “is apply just the right amount of tension in the direction the key should turn.”

  Next, he put a thin paperclip-like piece of metal with a L hook upward into the keyhole above the tension wrench. “A typical lock has five pins, so all we have to do is push all of the pins up while keeping the right amount of tension and…” The lock clicked. “Voila. After me.”

  “I can’t believe it,” said Gracie. “Well, I’m a terrorist. Why shouldn’t I pick a few locks while I’m at it?”

  “Let’s start with the obvious,” said Quinn. “Desk, nightstand, coffee table.”

  The apartment was a typical bachelor pad, with no trace of a woman’s touch anywhere. Eighty percent of the furniture budget in the living room was spent on an Alienware computer system and a massive flat screen. A gamer’s chair even still had a warm can of soda in the cup holder.

  “I’ll take the bedroom,” Gracie said.

  In the bedroom were a platform bed, a nightstand, and a great view of just north of Chicago’s skyline. On the nightstand was some pocket change and a sales receipt. No book. She peeked in the closet. It was a smelly mess. Dirty clothes piled on the floor in front and about twenty Air Jordan boxes stacked up in the back.

  “A girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do,” Gracie mumbled to herself as she began digging into the pile of dirty clothes.

  “Found it,” Quinn yelled.

  “Thank God,” she muttered.

  She went out into the kitchen where Quinn was sitting at the table thumbing through the book.

  “Did you find anything?”

  “There’s a message on the inside cover.”

  She leaned over. “That’s Steve’s handwriting,” she said excitedly. “To all the hard-working men, the man eaters are coming for you… SavoTay xoxoxo.”

  “Do you know what it means?”

  She smiled. “No idea. One of Steve’s riddles.”

  “Glad it makes you smile.” Quinn said, unamused. “I might know someone at Langley who could take a stab at cracking it.”

  “Can’t risk it,” said Gracie. “I’ll figure it out. I just need time.”

  She hugged the book to her chest and closed her eyes. “C’mon, Steve, speak to me,” she whispered.

  69

  The room was engulfed in flames. Both men were on one knee, trying to stay just below the fat clouds of rolling smoke. The challenge of escaping a fire was not the heat, but rather making sure the smoke doesn’t overcome you.

  “No matter what, do not stop,” Bic instructed as he pointed to the door.

  Bic hunched low in a starting block position. Mack did the same, as if Bic was the fullback and he was the tailback following him through the hole.

  Bic took off, and Mack followed. A couple steps in and they were running through fire. The heat was unbearable.

  At the door, which was glowing hot and licked by flames, Bic dove shoulder first. Mack plowed into Bic’s body with everything he had. The door blew off the hinges, their bodies tumbling into the hallway.

  A maintenance man covered them with foam from a fire extinguisher, putting out any flames on them.

  Bic stood, his body smoking and covered in white foam. “Thank you,” he said, and walked off.

  “Appreciate it,” said Mack, flashing his FBI badge. “Now, any discreet exits you mind pointing us to?”

  Once outside, they were picked up by a man in a town car who didn’t ask any questions, and didn’t care that they were wet with sewage and smelled like a cocktail of smoke, moldy water, and chemicals.

  “Why do you do it, Bic?” Mack said after a couple of minutes of silence in the back of the car.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Mack looked at him. “Your job. Why?”

  Bic took a long pause as he gazed out the side window, then turned back to Mack.

  “I don’t do it anymore.”

  “Ok, fair enough. Why did you do it then?”

  Another long pause. “It’s complicated.”

  “Give it your best.”

  “You’re starting to bug me, Mack.”

  Mack chuckled. “And you almost cost me my life once. Granted, you saved it, but I still think I’m entitled to an answer to my question.”

  “It has to do with what happened with my father when I was a kid.” He looked at Mack. “You know the story. But like I told you at Tidwell’s that day, I’m done. And I’ve kept my word. I’m no longer for hire.”

  Mack nodded. “Okay.”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  He looked at Bic. “I said, okay.”

  Bic called up to the driver. “Stop right up here.”

  “Where are we?” said Mack.

  “Where I’m staying. I need a change of clothes.”

  Mack watched him exit. “You wouldn’t happen to have anything in a 42 medium, would you?”

  70

  They stopped at Mack’s hotel after Bic’s, for a clothing change, and then took a different town car to a storage unit facility on the South Side. The place had been abandoned, and was a broken-down shell of small buildings. The perimeter was surrounded by a run-down chain link fence on grass littered with fast food wrappers, broken beer bottles, and cigarette butts.

  “That’s odd,” said Mack.

  “What?”

  “The razor wire on top of the fence.”

  “What about it?”

  “You don’t notice?”

  “I ain’t got all day, Mack.” Regardless, Bic studied it, trying to see what the other man saw.

  “It’s brand new. It’s obviously been installed well after this place was abandoned.”

  Bic stared at it for a moment, looked back at Mack, then got out of the car. After retrieving a duffle bag from the trunk, he gave the roof a tap and the car drove off.

  He grabbed a key from within the bag, opened the padlock on the gate, and they entered. Mack followed Bic down the center road, where weeds of all sorts sprung up through the cracks in the pavement. Mack conti
nued to play with his phone, making several attempts to turn it on. Waterlogged, it appeared to be broken.

  Deep inside the facility was a seemingly endless row of storage units with rusted out garages, door after door. No locks on the doors. Some of the units were open, with deserted, picked-over junk tumbling forth, the vomit of past lives staining their mouths.

  “Nice place,” said Mack. “I’m thinking of wintering here.”

  Bic turned to a closed metal door with a mixture of rust and peeling orange paint on its surface, just like the others. With no lock, it didn’t appear to be anything special, until Bic pulled one of the bricks away and punched a code into a keypad hidden behind it. The gears of a motor kicked in and the door began to rise.

  “Hang on,” said Mack. “You own this place?”

  “I do.”

  “And you let it fall by the wayside just to hide this one unit?”

  “I didn’t let anything happen. It was already abandoned. I actually did some repairs to stop it from being condemned.”

  Mack followed Bic into the unit. The door closed behind them, and fluorescent lights illuminated a large room full of composite sketches of a black man covering the walls. They appeared to be all the same man at different phases of his life. In the center of the back wall over a desk was a map of the US, with notes and dates written all over it.

  Mack stood next to a well-used punching bag hanging in the middle of the room. Bic took a seat at the desk and raised the cover of a laptop.

  “You’ve been after this guy for quite a while,” Mack said.

  Bic continued typing on his keyboard.

  “Who is he?”

  “Someone I’ve been looking for. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Your father?” Mack made one of his intuitive leaps that made him, in part, such a great agent.

  Bic studied the other man for a moment, then nodded. Twice in ten minutes Mack had surprised him—which meant he bore closer watching.

  “These pictures span quite a few years. How long has it been?”

  “Long enough. I found a message from Tony.”

  “What’s it say?” Mack lunged forward to look over Bic’s shoulder.