The Old Man(45)
Thinking about his bosses reminded him that the biggest threat in the next few minutes would not be from the old man. It was unlikely that the intelligence people had told him everything they thought, suspected, or planned to do.
He assumed the pose of a man waiting for a cable car. He leaned forward as though to stare down Market Street, but when he leaned back he felt a hand settle against his spine.
“Don’t look surprised and don’t turn around.” It was the old man’s voice.
The old man must not have come in a car or approached from a distance, or Julian would have seen him. He must have been here when Julian arrived. Julian looked down the street in the other direction and used the turn of his head to get a glimpse of him.
The old man had let his facial hair grow into a layer of white bristles on his face. A knit cap covered his head, and he wore a hooded sweatshirt with a down vest over it. He looked as dirty and unkempt as the homeless men who had been sitting on the sidewalk, but he didn’t smell like a man who had been sleeping rough in alcoves at the entrances of buildings. The old man said, “Are they really going to take my offer?”
Julian shrugged. “They said to tell you it’s a deal.”
“They’ll leave me alone?”
“That’s what they said.”
“And they’re going to tell the man in Benghazi that I’m dead?”
“I passed on everything you said. I didn’t leave anything out.”
“I know they agreed. I want to know if you think it’s true.”
“You have no right to expect me to predict the future. I’d just be making a guess.”
“Would you be willing to bet your life on them?”
“I’m already betting my life on you. What’s in your hand? A stabbing spike?”
“You’re wearing body armor, aren’t you?” said the old man. “I’m asking you. Would you make a deal with them?”
“If you give up the money, what will you lose?” asked Julian. “If you walk away, how long before they get the money anyway?”
The old man gave a quiet laugh. “As soon as I saw you here, I used a cell phone to set off the electronic transfer. The money is now in the account of the US Department of the Treasury.”
“I don’t know how they’ll feel about that,” Julian said.
“I said I’d deliver it to the US government, not hand it in cash to some faceless agents.”
“Hard to blame you. For me, anyway.”
“Good. Do us both a favor. Stay where you are for five more minutes and pretend you’re still waiting. Otherwise they might think something’s gone wrong, start shooting at me, and kill us both.”
Julian no longer felt the pressure on his back. He looked down the street with exaggerated impatience.
The old man moved away, holding a dollar in his hand, looking at it as though he were reading the denomination. Then he was among the homeless men again. He stopped to pick up the blanket he must have been sitting on, and kept going. He rolled up the blanket loosely as he limped along Market Street. He was almost to the corner of Fifth when he slipped into the glass enclosure at the BART station entrance. As he moved toward the downward escalator, two men rushed to intercept him.
The nearest one was wearing a short raincoat. He reached out to grasp the old man’s hood. “No, you don’t,” he said.
Henry Dixon threw his blanket over the man’s head, swung his arm in a circle to wrench the hand off his sweatshirt, clasped the man in a bear hug, and hurled him down the escalator.
Next was a red-haired man wearing a Giants warm-up jacket. He lifted the back of his jacket with his left hand as he reached for the pistol holstered there with his right. The move put both of the man’s hands behind him for a second, which gave Dixon enough time to drive a sharp jab into the man’s nose and kick him in the groin. When the man doubled forward, Dixon slammed his face against the railing of the upward escalator. He pushed him halfway down the up escalator, and then bent over to pick up the man’s pistol while the moving stairs brought the half-conscious man back up to Dixon’s feet. He shoved the pistol into the marsupial pocket of his hooded sweatshirt, knelt by the man, and said, “I thought we had a deal.”
The man’s eyes rolled and he was spitting blood. “I don’t know what you’re talking ab out.” Bystanders had begun to gather behind them, some perhaps thinking Dixon was trying to help the man, but most of them seemingly paralyzed, not knowing what to do except wait their turn to go down the escalator.
Dixon pulled the earpiece wire that hung from the man’s ear, took the radio, and hurried down the escalator. He skirted the motionless body of the man under the blanket at the bottom and stepped to the turnstiles. He slid the ticket he had brought with him into the turnstile and withdrew it, reached the BART platform, and rushed to the open door of the train that was loading. He ducked in with the crowd and held on to a vertical bar while the train car’s doors slid shut. The train moved forward, picking up speed.
He took off the down vest before the train reached the Civic Center station, then took off the sweatshirt before the Sixteenth Street station to reveal a dress shirt, tie, and sport coat beneath. Before the Twenty-fourth Street station he took off the rubbers that had covered a pair of dress shoes. He rolled the extra clothes into a bundle before the car slowed on its approach to the Glen Park station.