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To the left.
A small side corridor.
Elevator bank at the end.
With the blessed number 4 in bronze overhead.
A knot of people and a hotel employee with a luggage cart are expectantly waiting, and Jeremy looks up at the indicator light.
The red numeral says 14.
A second later.
It still says 14.
One of the hotel guests mutters, “Jesus, will that frigging thing ever get down here?”
Jeremy checks his watch.
It’s 11 a.m. on the dot.
Chapter114
BRIAN LAMOTTchecks the time and finds they are right on schedule—just south of Fort Lee, New Jersey—so he says to Alvi, “Hey, get ready to drop drawers in a few minutes! We’ll be passing the northbound fellows pretty soon.”
Alvi grins from his fireman’s seat and says something, but Brian can’t make out a single word for the roar of engines passing close overhead. Then a giant shadow, and sweet Jesus, look at that!
A blue-and-white helicopter is flying right in front of them. When it spins to one side, Brian makes out the badge and logo of the New York Police Department.
“NYPD?” he calls out. “Sure as hell are out of their jurisdiction. Maybe they’re helping the New Jersey State Police find someone.”
Brian holds on to that thought for only a few seconds before the helicopter lifts up and accelerates, heading down their line of track between Fort Lee’s pleasant, tree-covered suburban neighborhoods.
The helicopter stops, blocking their way, slowly rotating back and forth.
Brian looks over to Alvi, who’s staring at the hovering police helicopter.
“Shit, Alvi,” he says. “I think they want us to stop. I’m gonna check with Dispatch.”
He’s leaning over to the center console to pick up the phone connecting them to Hudson Valley Dispatch when Alvi calls out, “No! Brian, don’t pick up that phone.”
Brian says, “For Christ’s sake, are you nuts?”
The helicopter skips again down the track and pauses once more, rotating even more than before, back and forth, back and forth, demanding that attention be paid.
Brian’s hand is on the phone, but Alvi says, “Brian, you pick up that phone, I’m going to shoot you.”
He looks with disbelief at his conductor, who is standing away from his fireman’s seat and pointing a pistol at him.
Brian swallows hard.
“Alvi…what’s going on?”
His conductor, his coworker—his friend!—seems upset, and his Russian accent comes out as he quickly speaks. “Brian, I don’t want to hurt you. But you’re not calling Dispatch.”
Brian says, “Alvi, please…”
He motions with the pistol. “I don’t have time for explanations, or to tell you why, or how. You’re going to get up from your chair and step outside on the catwalk. There…you will have a chance if you jump. And start running away.”
