The Second Life of Nick Mason (Nick Mason #1)(62)

Mason remembered the coffee shop near Homan Square. The man in the suit, his arm around Harris’s shoulders. That conversation, whatever it was about, was stored inside this box, too.

“He thought it would protect him,” Angela said, looking down at her hands. “He thought it would protect everyone. All of his men. And me.”

Mason hefted the thing in his hand. A couple pounds of hard plastic and computer parts, whatever else was in one of these things.

And enough evidence to bring down a whole squad of dirty cops.

“You need to get out of town,” Mason said, “and never come back.”

“Take me to 2120 MLK. This guy’s gonna let me stay there for a few days, then get me out.”

No surprise, Mason thought. There will always be a man to help you when you look like that.

They waited another twenty minutes. Then Mason pulled out from the loading dock and went back up the alley. When he got to Forty-seventh, he looked up and down the street, trying to spot the Hellcat or anything else fast enough to chase him down. He made the turn and drove at normal speed, hoping to blend back in. But he was ready to run again. One flashing light and he’d gun it.

He went to MLK and found the address. He pulled over in front of the house and waited for the door to open. When he gave her the bag, she unzipped it and took a quick look at the contents. She let out a breath and nodded her head.

“See ya around,” she said as she got out quickly and went to the door of the house.

Mason watched her go inside. Then the door closed behind her.

His cell phone rang. He took it out, expecting Quintero. I got your f*cking package, he was ready to say to him. Tell me where you are.

But it was Diana.

“Nick,” she said.

One word and he could already hear the fear in her voice.

“Diana, what’s going on?”

“They want to talk to you. Nick, get me out of here.”

Mason didn’t have to ask what she was talking about. He could already feel it burning a hole through the bottom of his stomach.

“Mason,” a voice said.

“Who is this?”

“This is Bloome. Bring that hard drive to me. We trade, the two of you walk away.”

Mason knew it was a lie. He wasn’t going to question it. It wouldn’t help him. It wouldn’t help Diana.

“Where are you?” Mason said.

He listened carefully as he was told exactly where to go.

“Your men are looking for my car,” Mason said. “You have to call them off.”

“Already done,” Bloome said. “No need to do this in the streets.”

“I’m on my way.”

He ended the call. Then he pulled out the M9 that Angela had given him. He checked the load. It looked like the clip had been full when she had fired it at him. So with one round in the chamber, that left him fifteen.

Fifteen shots.





31




As Mason looked down into the depths of the enormous quarry, he was already standing in the crosshairs of a high-powered sniper rifle. His friend Eddie Callahan was waiting in his vehicle by the gate, a Precision Pro 2000 trained at Mason’s back.

It felt like he was standing at the edge of the world. There was a four-hundred-foot drop straight down this sheer wall to the quarry’s floor. A thin line of cars ran along the highway on the northern rim, tiny pinpoints of light like distant stars. The space between here and there just empty darkness.

They’d been taking limestone from this place for almost a century, grinding it into powder, using it for roads, for cement, to build the skyscrapers of the city. He could taste it in the air as he scanned the canyon for any light, for any movement, for any sign at all that would tell him where they were. Where Diana was.

He had come through at the southeast corner, had gotten out of the car and unlooped the gate’s chain. The padlock had been unlocked, as Bloome had told him it would be. He had driven through the swirling dust to the edge, where a vehicle could start the long descent down the narrow shelf cut into the wall.

Mason took a breath and tried to clear his head. His plan was simple. He was going to save Diana. He was going to kill everyone else. Everyone he could find.

The hesitation he felt at the motel, that would be gone. The horror he felt at the strip club, that would be gone.

He would take all of the violence that had been forced into his life by Darius Cole and he would turn it all back on these men.

This is why he chose me, Mason thought. It finally makes sense to me. He didn’t want some premade killer from the cellblock. He wanted to make his own.

He saw the raw materials in me even then, sitting across the table from me in a prison cafeteria. Everything he’d ever need.

And now here I am.

Mason shook out his hands and took one more breath. Then he went back to his car.

As he drove down, crossing the city line, he had gone over everything he knew. He knew these cops wanted the black box that was sitting on his backseat. They needed to protect themselves. Once they had that, then they would kill him. They had to eliminate this threat, this soldier Cole had sent to fight in this war.

And then they would kill Diana. No other way to see it. Not only would she be a witness, even more important, she would be the one way they could strike back at Cole. She was his only weakness.