Among Thieves

Chapter Thirty-Nine

It all went so fast, Sally didn’t know what was happening. One moment she was looking at her father; the next she was airborne-twisting the way people fall in dreams, waiting for an impact that seemed never to come. Her hands were wrapped in tape, and paddled the air as she turned over and over in the fall. If it truly had been a dream, she would have woken with a start, heart racing, hands shaking as she breathed deeply to calm herself to a point where she might be able to get back to sleep.

She wasn’t dreaming, though.

When she hit the water, she experienced a pain greater than she’d known in her life. She went in headfirst, and as her forehead made contact, she thought she’d hit cement. Her neck snapped back, and it felt as if she’d been hit with a baseball bat. Next she felt the water. It spread out from her head down to her shoulders, and then engulfed her. She thought for a moment it was blood, spilling from a gash on her head, burning her with an icy-hot fire as it ran like a waterfall from what she could only assume was a mortal wound. It wasn’t until her lungs expanded that she realized what had happened, and then the panic truly set in. Her mouth was gagged, and as she breathed in reflexively the water flooded into her nostrils, through her sinus passages, and down her windpipe into her lungs. The sensation sent her body into spasms, her inability to breathe intensifying her body’s desperation. She involuntary gasped for more air. It was a vicious, self-reinforcing cycle.

In that moment she went under she knew she was going to die. She felt her life ripped away with complete certainty, and she experienced a torrent of memories and emotions. They assaulted her, violent and unbearable. She fought against them, thrashing back and forth as they closed in on her. Finally she gave in, and her body went still. She’d fought her entire life, but at that moment the fight was too much for her; at last she let herself drift with the current of the river.

Stone and Sanchez heard the shooting. “We gotta get in there,” Stone said. He started the car, but left the lights off.

Sanchez looked over toward the car where Hewitt and the other FBI agent sat. They were closer to the building, closer to the drive that wound around toward the back, in the direction from which the gunshots had come. Sanchez was hoping they would be moving in that direction, so she and Stone could maintain their surveillance-not only of Finn and his crew, but of the FBI as well. Hewitt and the other agent gave no sign of moving, though.

“What are they doing?” Sanchez asked no one in particular.

“They’re not doing a goddamned thing,” Stone said. “We’ve got to move.”

Sanchez still hesitated.

“C’mon, boss. We’ve got to get in there.”

Finally she nodded. “Okay, let’s go.”

Stone hit the gas. As he pulled out from the parking space he flipped the switch on the portable flashing light and reached out to put it on the roof of the car. Then he grabbed the wheel with both hands and pushed the gas pedal to the floor. They sped down along the side of the building, accelerating as they approached the corner near the river’s edge. As they neared the end of the drive, they passed the two FBI agents, still parked. Sanchez looked over at them, saw their faces illuminated in blue by the flashing light on top of the car, stretched in shock.

She turned her attention back to the assault. They were just about at the corner of the building when she pulled out her gun and readied herself for the confrontation.

When Liam’s foot hit the gas pedal, he breathed a sigh of relief. It was done: Malley and his people would be busy trying to save the girl, and Liam had the paintings. His mission was complete. He had succeeded.

He was still unsure how he would get the paintings out of the country; he didn’t even know where he would spend the night. He couldn’t return to the house in Quincy; the girl was probably dead, but he couldn’t take that chance-if she survived, the place was compromised. These were problems he could deal with, however. There were enough people in Boston still loyal to the cause. As for getting the paintings out of the country, it had been twenty years; the investigative pressure that had prevented Bulger from getting them out of the country two decades earlier was surely gone. Once his superiors learned that the mission had been successful, they would make sure that the paintings made it to Ireland.

He was thinking through his plans and gathering speed as he came around the corner of the building. He could do nothing when the car appeared in front of him.

He saw the flashing blue light first, and he instinctively hit the brakes with both feet. There was no way to avoid the collision, though; the police car was coming around the corner at full speed. He let out a scream of rage as he saw the front of the onrushing car disappear underneath his bumper. He could feel the van ride up onto the hood as it crumpled in toward the two silhouettes in the front seat. He saw them for only a split second before the air bags deployed in the van, and he was thrown back into the seat. It felt as though his nose was broken, but he ignored it. He was too angry to feel pain.

He flailed at the air bag with his arms, buying enough space to get out of the van. The door was bent, and he had to throw his shoulder against it before it gave way.

His mind was churning, assessing his situation. He had to deal with one issue at a time, and the first priority was making sure the police officers in the car were dead. If they survived, he would lose whatever head start he had, and law enforcement would be on him before he could move the paintings. Once they were dispatched, he could figure out his transportation problem-his van was totaled.

He staggered out of the van, looking back briefly to make sure the box with the paintings was still intact. That it was gave him a renewed sense of hope and urgency.

His head was throbbing as he walked around the front of the van and looked into the front seat of the unmarked police car. There were two of them, and they were shaken, but alive. The woman in the passenger’s seat looked a little older than Liam. She was shaking her head, trying to regain her bearings. She looked up at him, confusion on her face. A younger man was in the driver’s seat next to her, already struggling to free himself from the air bag. The steering wheel was bent forward and looked as though it had been pushed back toward him, though it didn’t appear that it had gone far enough to cause any bodily damage. Instead, it just hindered his efforts to get out of the car.

Liam raised his gun and pointed it at the woman. She looked at him through the cracked window, comprehension coming to her slowly through the fog of the crash. Then she shouted, “No!”

A gunshot rang out, and the woman jumped. She didn’t struggle against the pain, though, and now it was Liam who was confused. He looked down at his gun and saw that he hadn’t pulled the trigger. The gun was still held aloft, and it seemed to have tripled in weight. He looked at the woman in the car with consternation, and raised his gun slightly with great effort.

A second gunshot rang out, and this time the force of impact spun Liam on his axis. He was knocked back onto the hood of the unmarked police car, facing the rear of the car. He could see a large black man twenty feet from him, pointing a gun at his head. “Don’t move!” the man said.

Liam looked down and saw two dark stains on his shirt: one on his left shoulder, one on his chest. Only then did he realize that he’d been shot. “You bastard,” he said. His breath was weak, and it came out as a whisper. He struggled to get more air in his lungs. He looked up at the man. He was advancing, his gun still leveled. Liam realized he still had his gun in his hand and he raised it, pointing it at the man with the gun. “You bastard!” He shouted it this time as he went to pull the trigger.

He never felt the third shot. It hit him just above the right eye socket, shattering his ocular ridge and traveling through his brain before blowing out the back of his skull. His body slumped back onto what was left of the hood of the police car, and then slid to the ground, leaving a deep red stain in its wake.

The FBI agent who had shot him moved forward and nudged him with a toe, just to make sure he was dead. There could be no doubt.

His mission was over.

Finn wasn’t expecting the cold. He jumped before he had time to think, and when he hit the water all the muscles in his body seemed to contract at once. His head popped out of the water and he took a second to orient himself. He took a deep breath and pushed himself under, swimming down with all his strength.

His eyes were open underneath the water, but they were useless. He could see nothing. So, instead of using his eyes, he used every other part of his body, flailing about with his arms and legs, hoping to knock into Devon or Sally. It seemed like a pointless strategy, but he had nothing else, so he kept it up. After a moment he surfaced again to take another breath, then went under again.

It didn’t take long for him to lose hope. He felt tiny and impotent in the water, and the odds of his finding either Sally or Devon seemed astronomical. Still, no matter how long the odds, he owed them every last chance.

As he rose to surface for the second time, his hand grazed something off to his left. He reached out in that direction, but as he did, he lost his wind, and accidentally sucked in a lungful of water. He swam up, breaking the surface, coughing and spitting. Somewhere in the distance he heard gunshots. He took another deep breath and dived in the direction of the object he’d felt.

It took only a few strokes under the water before he felt it again. He reached out and grabbed for it. A shoulder, he thought. He used both hands to inch along the limb until he could grab on to the arm. He pulled the body over, wrapped an arm around the neck, and then kicked with all his strength for the surface.

He knew it was Devon before he broke the surface-the body was too big to be Sally’s-and the realization was devastating. It had been several minutes since Sally had gone into the river. The chances of finding her now were gone. She was lost.

Finn paddled over toward the wall at the edge of the river. He could hear Devon spitting up water. “Koz!”

Kozlowski was nowhere to be seen.

“Koz!” he yelled again. “Where the hell are you?”

Kozlowski’s head appeared over the edge of the wall. “Here!” he yelled.

Finn worked his way over. “Pull him out,” Finn said. “I’m going back for Sally.” Finn grabbed on to the wall and pulled Devon over. Kozlowski reached over the wall and took hold of his arm. Devon ’s eyes were closed, and he was still choking on water. His face looked ghostly white.

“No,” he spat out. “Sally!”

“I’m going back for her,” Finn said.

“Please!”

“I’ll do everything I can to find her,” Finn said. “I swear.”

Kozlowski started pulling on Devon ’s arm, lifting him from the water.

“No!” Devon said one more time. His eyes opened, and he looked at Finn. “Get her out first.”

Finn looked at him, not comprehending. Then his eyes followed the path down Devon ’s other arm-the one still dangling in the water-and saw that his hand was grasping a wrist just under the water. A small hand extended from his grasp, and the arm disappeared into the black water.

Finn reached out and grabbed hold just below Devon ’s hand and pulled. He could feel the body moving fluidly. “Take her!” Finn shouted to Kozlowski.

Kozlowski let go of Devon and reached over the wall, grabbing hold of Sally’s arm. He hoisted her up as if she were a toy. Devon slipped under the water briefly when Kozlowski let him go, but Finn grabbed him and held him afloat. A moment later Kozlowski appeared again and reached down to pull Devon over the wall.

Finn was left alone, and he clung to the stone wall that kept the river in its place. He was breathing hard, shivering against the cold. After what seemed like an eternity, Kozlowski grabbed hold of his arm, and he felt himself lifted up out of the water.