The Sign (53 page)

He pulled out his guns and handed one to Rydell.

“This one will be quieter than that cannon you’ve got there. Go wide that way,” he whispered, gesturing for Rydell to move in from the left. “I’ll cut across from the right. And stay low.”

Rydell confirmed with a slight nod and slipped away in a low crouch.

Matt crept closer to the van. He hugged the cars, slithering through the narrow gaps between them, his eyes locked on the target. It was a Chevy work van. The big, long-wheelbase model. White and anonymous. He heard one of its doors clang shut and saw one of the men stepping toward the back of the van. The others were out of sight behind it. Matt moved in closer, sucked in a deep breath, and rose just enough to clear the roof of the car in front of him, gripping his handgun in a two-handed stance, ready to pump a couple of silenced bullets into Maddox’s men—but there was no one there. They were gone. His nerves bristled as he swept his gun left and right, his eyes and ears at Defcon five—then he heard a rustle off to the right, in the trees beyond the van, and saw a shooter emerge, pulling Rydell along with him, a silenced handgun pressed against the billionnaire’s temple.

Matt flinched, unsure about what to do—just as something hard nudged him in the back.

“Drop it,” the voice said. “Nice and slow.”

Matt’s heart cratered. They’d been expected. For a split second, the notion of making a move sparked in his mind, but the guy behind him cut it short with a sudden, hard punch to Matt’s ear that sent him down to his knees. He dropped his gun, and his vision went blurry. He stayed down for a moment, waiting for it to settle, and through his bleary veil, he glimpsed the vague outline of someone climbing out of the back of the van. It was Maddox, and—he wasn’t alone. He was dragging someone out of the van with him, yanking him by the neck, a handgun pressed against it.

Matt squinted, straining to cut through the fog in his head, but even before it lifted, the recognition was instant.

It was Danny.

He was there. He was actually there.

And very much alive.

Matt’s insides cartwheeled. He pushed himself to his feet, and the adrenaline boost coursing through him brought Danny’s face racing into focus. He gave Matt a pained smile. Matt nodded back and couldn’t suppress a broad smile, even though things weren’t looking too promising for them.

Maddox acknowledged Matt’s presence with a shrug, but his eyes registered genuine surprise when he saw Rydell.

“Well, what do you know,” he quipped, clearly pleased with the unexpected presence of the tycoon. “And people say there is no Santa.”

GRACIE
FLARED
. “What are they doing?”

The image on the laptop’s screen showed the two figures they knew to be Rydell and Matt putting their guns down and stepping back from the van in defeat. Seconds later, two other figures appeared from the van, tightly bunched, one behind the other.

“Is that a gun?” she asked, fear catching in her throat.

“Hang on,” Dalton said. He fingered the joysticks expertly and brought the Draganflyer down slightly closer for a better look.

The top view of Maddox’s extended arm grew bigger on the screen. And there was no mistaking the gun that was staring Matt and Rydell in the face.

DANNY
GRUNTED
against Maddox’s tight hold. “I’m sorry, bro,” he told Matt. “I couldn’t warn you.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He saw that Danny’s hands were tied together with plastic flex cuffs.

Danny glared at Rydell. “What’s he doing here?” he asked Matt.

“His penance,” Matt replied flatly.

Danny shook his head sardonically. His stare burned into Rydell. “Too little, too late, don’t you think? Or do you also have the power to raise the dead?”

Rydell kept quiet.

Maddox swung his right arm straight out, flicking his handgun in a horizontal arc from Matt to Rydell and back.

“Sorry to have to cut this happy reunion short, boys,” he said tersely, “but we’ve got to get going. So how about you say good-bye to your pain-in-the-ass brother one last time, Danny-boy.” He settled his gun sight on Matt and gave him a curious, almost respectful nod. “It’s been good knowing you, kid. You did really well.”

“Not well enough,” Matt retorted gruffly.

“No, believe me, you did real well,” he insisted.

Maddox raised the gun a couple of inches for a head shot, no emotion whatsoever registering on his face. Matt’s heart stopped at the thought of a bullet shredding into him—then Maddox whipped back as something slammed into him from out of nowhere, something big and black that rocketed out of the night sky with a stealthy whoosh and batted his arm off savagely to one side. His gun went flying off as Maddox howled, the chopper’s carbon fiber blades slicing through skin and muscle, and he fell to the ground in a burst of dark blood.

Matt was already moving as the Draganflyer crashed heavily into the van’s open door—he rammed his elbow back into the shooter behind him, yelling, “Go,” to Rydell as he spun around and pushed the man’s gun hand away while battering him with a cross that ripped his jaw out of its sockets and sent him tumbling to the ground. Matt went down with him, fighting for the gun, but the man’s hand was like a vise around his automatic and he wouldn’t let go—they wrestled for it like starved, rabid dogs fighting over a bone, until the gun spat out a shot that caught the shooter in the gut and he flinched back in agony.

Rydell wasn’t as quick or as effective—he was grappling with his shooter, his hands clasped around the man’s wrist, struggling for the gun. The shooter pulled him in and suckered him into a head butt that caught Rydell flat across the bridge of his nose. Rydell’s legs caved in and he ragdolled. Matt rose in time to see the shooter spin around, his gun rising to align itself on Matt—

—then the shooter jerked back to the tune of a couple of silenced coughs. Matt blinked. It took him a second to realize what had happened, then he saw Danny gripping Maddox’s gun tightly, a thin tendril of smoke spiraling out of the muzzle of its silencer. Danny stared at the shooter’s inert body for a beat, then turned to Matt, his face locked in disbelief at what he’d done—

Danny opened his mouth to say something—

Matt’s eyes went wide—

“Watch out,” he blurted, but—

It was too late—Maddox had already sprung to his feet behind Danny. He crashed into him as Matt dived for the gun that had fallen from his shooter. Matt managed to grab it before Maddox made it to the gun Danny had dropped—only Danny was blocking a clear shot. Maddox’s eyes met Matt’s for a nanosecond before he shoved Danny toward Matt and scurried back away from them, and disappeared behind the van.

“Move,” Matt yelled to Danny, pushing him away, bolting after Maddox—he charged around the van and into the thicket of trees that edged the parking lot, but the darkness had swallowed his quarry up. Matt fired a couple of rounds out of frustration, but he knew he wasn’t going to score a hit. Maddox was gone.

The lot went eerily quiet. Matt turned, scanned the area, then stepped around Rydell and his fallen shooter and joined Danny. He embraced him with a big bear hug. Pulled him back and ruffled his hair.

“Merry Christmas,” he told him.

“Best one ever,” Danny replied, his face all lit up with nervous relief. Rydell got up and joined them. Danny faced him for a beat, a hard, angry glare simmering in his eyes. Then he balled his fists and whipped up his still-tied arms in a big, curving swing that caught Rydell on the cheek and knocked him to the ground. Rydell spat out some blood, but stayed down for a moment. Then looked up at Danny, who was just looming over him.

Matt looked on curiously. “I couldn’t have made it here without his help, bro,” Matt told Danny.

Danny eyed Rydell a couple of more seconds, then turned away and shrugged dubiously. “It’s a start,” he grunted.

“Can we get out of here now?” Matt asked, stepping across to help Rydell up.

Rydell looked toward Danny. “I’m sorry,” he said, his words laced with genuine regret.

“Like I said,” Danny said as he walked away, “it’s a start.”

Less than a minute later, they were in the van, pulling away from the hotel’s parking lot and easing past the long rows of parked cars that lined the roads on both sides.

They’d changed motels for safety, moving to a different side of town, just in case—although with Maddox badly hurt and a lot of his men dead, they were starting to feel like maybe the crosshairs had lifted off them a little.

Danny and Matt were in their own world. They had a lot of catching up to do and took turns filling each other in on their tortured journeys.

“I’ve got to call Mom and Dad, let them know I’m okay,” Danny said enthusiastically, still fired up by his escape.

Matt had skirted around mentioning them, but he couldn’t duck it any longer. He held Danny’s gaze as he tried to find the words to tell him what had happened, but Danny read his expression before he’d eked out a single word.

“Who? . . . Mom?” he asked.

Matt nodded, but his pained look held more portent than just one parent.

“Not . . .
both
?” Danny mouthed the words in total disbelief.

Matt nodded again.

Danny’s face tightened, drowning with confusion. Then it just crumpled with profound grief. Matt had already told him about Bellinger’s murder. The triple whammy hit him real hard. He sank to the floor and gripped his head in his hands, feeling as if his veins were flooding with lava.

A more somber mood enshrouded them as Danny told Matt of his despair during those two years. How he’d tried to sneak an e-mail out to him and been caught. How he’d contemplated suicide. How they’d threatened him and drugged him after that.

“You’re here now,” Matt finally told him. “You’re out and you’re safe.” Matt smiled. “And that’s way more than either of us had a couple of days ago.”

“Tell me more. About Mom and Dad. About how it all happened,” Danny asked him.

IN AN
ADJACENT
ROOM
, Rydell stewed alone. He’d found it as uncomfortable to be around Danny as Danny found it to be around him. He also had a lot on his mind.

It was over, that much was clear. Once Gracie returned, the story would blow wide open. And then, whichever way you looked at it, his life was over too. His role in it would be part of the story. A big part of it. There was no way anyone was going to shield him from it. Not Gracie, not Matt or Danny, not Drucker. And even if they’d wanted to, there was no way they’d be able to do it. Not in this blog-rich age. And he wasn’t prepared to run either. It wasn’t his style. Besides, there was nowhere for him to run to. No, he’d be there to face up to what he’d been a part of.

The hardest part of it all was thinking about what it would do to Rebecca. It would be nothing short of devastating. It would follow her for the rest of her life. His mind kept churning it, desperate to find a way to mitigate that, to keep her out of it, but there was nothing he could think of that could do that.

BY
THE
TIME
GRACIE
and Dalton finally joined them a couple of hours later, the reunion was a bittersweet, subdued celebration. Yes, they were all safe. Yes, Danny was alive—and free. And Gracie and Dalton were about to become superstars. But there was a downside to the forthcoming media feeding frenzy too. A downside well beyond Rydell’s very public downfall. One that looked far more daunting the more they talked about it.

In the background, a TV was switched on, replaying the evening’s events in an almost continuous loop, with all kinds of talking heads coming in and out to comment on it.

“What’s this going to do to all those people who were out there celebrating tonight?” Gracie asked, pointing at the screen, her voice edgy with concern. “And not just them, but everyone around the country who was tuning in. Everyone around the planet who’s been buying into Drucker’s scam, for that matter. What’s going to happen to them? How are they going to take it?”

“What’s the alternative?” Dalton countered. “We can’t let the lie run. We’d just be digging all those people a deeper hole for Drucker to push them into. The sooner we end this, the better.”

“I know.” Gracie nodded. “It still feels wrong. It’s lose-lose.” She rubbed the bridge of her nose, then spread her fingers out and massaged her forehead. “I hate this,” she groaned.

“Finch was murdered because of it,” Dalton reminded her.

“Vince too,” Danny added. “And Reece. And many others.”

Gracie heaved a ponderous sigh. “They were killed to keep it quiet until Drucker was ready to pull the cover off. And now we’re going to do it for him.”

“We have to do this,” Danny chimed in. “The longer it runs, the more painful it will be when the truth comes out.”

Gracie nodded grudgingly, then said to Rydell, “I’ll need you to go on the record. We’ll need the evidence.”

Rydell nodded somberly. “What choice do I have?”

She shifted her gaze across the room. “Danny?”

He nodded. “Hell, yes.”

Gracie acknowledged it, then slumped back in her seat, a frustrated, haunted pallor to her face.

Rydell turned to Danny. “How were they planning on doing this? Do you know? How were they going to expose him?”

“They made me design a debunking software. They were going to run it over him once they were ready to out him.”

Rydell pressed. “What does it do?”

“It simulates a breakdown in the technology. Like if you’re watching TV and the signal breaks up. It makes it go all jumpy with static, then it just crashes. It’s designed to be minimally counterintuitive. What you’d expect to see if the sign was a fake. It’ll conjure up a broadcast that’s going haywire.” Danny gave him an uncomfortable smile. “It was either that or a huge Coca-Cola sign.”

“What if we don’t do this and it never comes out?” Gracie threw in, thinking aloud. “I mean, what if there was a way to get Drucker and his guys to keep their mouths shut?”

“The evangelicals would get to keep their new messiah, and Darby and his friends on the far right would get to choose our next few presidents,” Rydell observed gloomily.