Aurora(81)

Thom forced his eyes away from the remains and sat down in the driver’s seat, moving quickly to the task at hand. He turned to the arm rest, slid both hands alongside it, and pushed at the two spots that Brady had shown him, one under the front lip and the other along the exposed edge. Thom’s greatest fear had been that he’d remembered incorrectly how to open the magic-box gizmo. He’d figured if it came to it, he’d rip the thing apart with a crowbar, but that wasn’t necessary. The box clicked smartly under his grip, and he flipped it open on the first try.

It was empty. That had been his second concern. So the Scandium, the gun he’d been most familiar with, was gone. Maybe it was somehow still on Brady’s person, but, please, God, let’s pray it didn’t come to that. There was still one other possibility.

Thom turned to the center console of the car, trying not to let his eyes flick up to the rearview mirror, eager to avoid even an accidental glance into the back seat. He lifted the armrest and slid back the recessed panel, revealing the tumblers of the lock. He spun them around a few times, pleased to find they moved easily, still in good repair. He stared at them for a long moment.

He didn’t know the combination. Goddamn it, he wished he’d paid better attention when Brady was briefing him on this. Had Brady picked a code and not told him? That seemed like an awfully big hole in the disaster plan. He couldn’t imagine he would have allowed something like that, not in a million years. He must have chosen the combination himself, there was no other sensible way to have done this.

He tried his birthday: 1-1-8. Nope.

He tried Aubrey’s: 2-2-3. Nope.

He tried both his parents’, no luck. He tried Ann-Sophie’s and each of his kids’, nope, nope, nope, and then, just as panic was beginning to take hold, a nonsense question flitted through his brain, unbidden—“Do I feel lucky?”—and all at once he remembered that he did know the combination, he’d picked it carefully, and he’d even created a mnemonic to remember in case he was ever in this very situation. Magnum Force was one of Thom’s favorite movies, in particular the oft-quoted Eastwood monologue where he stares down the punk, extolling the destructive virtues of his possibly empty .44 Magnum, and delivers his famous line, which was what went through Thom’s mind now.

“Do I feel lucky?”

He sure did. Thom spun the tumblers, stopping on 0-4-4, squeezed the handle on the front of the MicroVault gun safe, and flipped it open. The Glock was still there.

Thom exhaled, pulled the gun out, and popped the clip, the way Brady had taught him. There were thirty-two rounds inside it. He snapped it back in and turned to get out of the car. As he moved, a glint of light caught his eye. He looked up, not into the rearview mirror itself but at something dangling from it.

It was a Saint Christopher medal. Thom realized, in that moment, that he’d seen it before, that in fact he’d been looking at it for the past four years, from the back seat of the customized Suburban in which Brady had always driven him. In that car, Brady had kept it wound tightly around the post of the rearview mirror, so the medallion portion just barely peeked out from underneath. He must have thought Thom wouldn’t notice it that way. But Thom had seen it often and several times had been on the verge of asking Brady to please keep his religious iconography to himself. But Thom had always stopped short, meaning to check in with HR first. The last thing he wanted to do was face some bullshit religious-rights lawsuit and end up looking like an abusive jerk in the press, even though it was his goddamn car.

But that was then. Now Thom looked up at the medal, dangling freely from the rearview mirror, unabashedly displayed by a man no longer worried about his boss’s opinion but who had been very much worried about his life and limb as he headed out on a perilous cross-country mission that he never should have been sent on in the first place. Thom felt a vibrant rush of shame rise inside him, color creeping up his neck and into his cheeks.

Setting the Glock on the seat, he reached up, unhooked the medallion’s chain from the mirror, and looked at it. There was a carved image of Christopher, slogging across rough terrain with a walking stick, and a tiny, floating infant Jesus above his head, to whom Christopher’s head was turned, gazing upward beseechingly. The words SAINT CHRISTOPHER were etched into the medallion across the top, and at the bottom the simple request PROTECT US.

Thom got out of the car, opened the rear door, and regarded Brady’s remains. His faithful employee’s head was crammed against the back seat at an unnatural angle. Rigor had set it firmly in that position, and Brady’s distorted posture was fixed in time now.

Nobody had protected Brady.

Thom spread the chain wide, bent into the car, looped it over Brady’s head, and arranged the medallion so it hung neatly over the remains of the dead man’s chest.

“I was an asshole, Brady. I’m sorry. Thank you for everything.”

He closed the door, picked up the Glock off the front seat, and headed to Aubrey’s house.





33.





Aubrey’s house

Aubrey turned at the sound of Celeste’s scream and Rusty pushed through the front door, shoving her into the room. Aubrey shouted, but Rusty was quicker. He had a plan and the element of surprise going for him. Before she could fully react, he’d clamped a strong hand over her mouth and nose, stepped inside, and kicked the door shut behind him.