The Second Life of Nick Mason (Nick Mason #1)(49)

Now, five years and change later, Mason was sitting in his car, reliving that whole night.

The Port District was right there in front of him, glowing in the night. A turn of the head and there was the dry dock, mostly hidden in darkness.

The newspapers were still stacked in the box on the backseat. He picked them up, switched on his interior light, and paged through them. They were in reverse order, so he saw his own face on the first front page. Being led into the station, his hands cuffed behind his back.

Mason leafed through to another front-page photo, the Chicago police superintendent standing behind a microphone, telling a roomful of reporters that even though it was a federal DEA agent who was killed, today all divisions and rivalries were forgotten. Today, Sean Wright was one of them.

One more front page. The day after the bust, the trophy shot, with a line of cops standing behind a table, bags of white powder spread out in front of them. He looked at the photo closely. Something didn’t look right.

There should be more, Mason said to himself. All those hours we spent dragging the stuff off that boat, this is how much of it actually made it to the police station? Just enough for the photo op.

Mason switched off the light and sat in darkness again. He put the newspapers down and started driving, retracing their escape route. He went down Ewing, the street quiet, with everything closed up for the night.

Why did we come this way? Why didn’t we get right back onto the expressway, start making time for Detroit?

When he got to the bridges, he felt the same claustrophobic feeling as the concrete and iron closed in around him. The same cheap sodium light giving everything an otherworldly glow.

The street was empty and he was alone under the second bridge. He slowed down as he got to the exact spot. Here’s where Finn got shot. Here’s where Finn died, sitting on the seat next to him.

He came out from under the bridge, to the place where the cops were waiting for them. This exact spot. Of course. This is where they were waiting.

He stopped the car in the middle of the street, opened the door, and stepped out. He looked back at the bridges, at this perfect funnel that would bring anyone coming down that street right into your lap if you happened to be waiting right here.

That’s exactly how it happened, Mason thought. All those cops had to do was sit here and wait for us. Sit here and wait for McManus to lead the trucks into the trap.

He remembered what Eddie had said to him about McManus being out of the truck before the first shots were even fired. He remembered what he had seen with his own eyes—McManus firing only at the agents behind them, never at the cops in front of them. He panicked when he saw the agents blocking his escape.

It was all stacked against them that night. Everyone involved, right down to the man who put the team together in the first place.

Mason, Eddie, Finn . . . they never had a chance.

Everything else that happened, Mason said to himself, from going to prison and losing my family to meeting Darius Cole and making this deal to come back. And everything I’ve had to do, killing one man, planning on killing another . . .

It all goes back to that one night. The night we were betrayed.





23




Mason had two and a half seconds to kill five men.

He had a Glock 20 in each hand, the same type of gun he’d used at the motel room. He’d never fired with his left, but the first two men had to be done together. Take out the first bodyguard, then the second. Easy shots, then move on to the drivers. Keep firing and all five men will be dead. If he does it in two and a half seconds.

Time slowed down as the bullets ripped through the two bodyguards’ chests, hearts blown apart before they even knew it was happening. Then the two drivers, each with a gun drawn from his belt and half raised when he brought his 20s together and the men were dead before their brains’ signals reached their trigger fingers.

Now it was just the fifth man, Tyron Harris, who didn’t have a gun after all, just a laptop bag that he held out in front of him like a shield. Two and a half seconds barely gone, but Mason could take his time. He could breathe and look down the sight of the one gun in his right hand. Finish his job and walk away.

But then Harris’s bag was already falling and behind it he saw the two barrels of the sawed-off shotgun. He heard a sound and saw the flash from one barrel as it took away his hands and his guns. Another sound and another flash and his chest was gone. Just enough time left to look in Harris’s face as he heard that same sound a third time.

He opened his eyes and sat up in his bed, breathing hard. The morning sun was shining through the window.

It was a chime. A doorbell.

He got up and put some clothes on, meeting Diana just as she was coming down the stairs. It was early, but she was already dressed for work.

“Are you expecting someone?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

He went down and opened the door. Lauren was standing on the little cement porch with Max sitting patiently at her feet. As soon as he saw Mason, the dog went past him and up the stairs, into the town house.

“I had my car today, so Max and I thought we’d stop by before work,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

He stood there for a moment, trying to figure out the best way to handle this.

“I thought, from the other night . . .” she said, her face starting to turn red. “I mean, we talked about me bringing him over . . . And you didn’t come to get Max yesterday, so . . .”