Passenger 19

THIRTY-THREE

Davis spun an about face, and immediately spotted two more men with their eyes on him. They crossed the street quickly, taking an angle to cut him off. Davis made what he thought was the most unpredictable move — he dashed into the busy street.

Horns blared and tires screeched. He glanced left and right, and saw all four men in pursuit. He darted through the opposing lanes, dodging a motorbike, and on reaching the far sidewalk he found himself facing a five-story building with shops at street level. He turned away from the soccer player and his partner, and sprinted at top speed in an effort to outflank their pincher maneuver.

He failed.

The other two cut him off with fifty feet to spare. One white shirt, one green. Green reached under his shirttail and pulled a handgun, leaving Davis but one option — the store right in front of him. He burst through the entrance and sprinted down an aisle toward the back. Flashing past in his periphery were sets of dishes, Wedgwood and Mikasa, and along the walls he saw displays of silver flatware. The stunned sales clerk, a slim and well-dressed woman, stood at a counter in back, wide-eyed and speechless as she watched her new and only customer rush down the main aisle.

He aimed for an exit at the back of the sales floor, but as soon as he reached it Davis skated to a stop on the slick tile and cursed. The only rear exit was blocked, a sturdy-looking door secured by a thick iron bar and padlock. The only other opening in the storeroom was a high transom window, ancient glass scored to the point of being opaque and fortified by an iron grate. He heard the shop’s front door open, then his pursuers shouting at the clerk in Spanish. No way out.

His head swiveled as he searched for a weapon. There was only one — leaning against a wall, a four-foot length of lumber. He grabbed the two-by-four, held it by one end and punched out the window. Glass shattered and light sprayed down through the opening, broken shafts playing the dim storeroom like a chapel nave under stained glass. Davis backed against the wall near the passage to the sales floor. He didn’t have to wait long.

The gun was the first thing he saw, the barrel canted upward toward the broken window. Davis swung his club eighteen inches above that, and a head arrived right on schedule. The two-by-four connected, but not cleanly, and the man stumbled back. Davis’ second swing was better, crushing his gun hand against the door-frame. The gun flew to the floor, and the man in the green shirt doubled over with a shout of pain. Davis palmed one end of the two-by-four and used it like a battering ram, a pivoting arc that ended abruptly under the man’s chin. He collapsed in a heap. He’d barely hit the floor when the first shot rang out.

Davis threw his shoulders against the wall, hopelessly exposed. The only way out was the way he’d come in. He needed protection, and the only thing he saw was inside the showroom — an arm’s length away, a massive silver serving tray. It was oval, the size of a manhole cover, and looked nearly as sturdy. Davis lunged into the open as a shot zinged past. He grabbed the tray by the handles and raised it, both surprised and heartened by its weight. With the white shirt ten steps away, Davis held the tray like a shield and bull rushed the man. Three more shots echoed, ricocheting off the thick metal. Glass shattered all around, and in the reflection of a wall-length mirror he saw the white shirt shift to one side. Davis altered his momentum and made solid contact.

Both men went down in a spray of crystalline shards. Davis was the quicker to roll, and he delivered his best strike of the day, an elbow to the forehead that sent the man cold to the floor. He scrambled to his feet just as the other two burst inside. Fortunately, neither man had a gun, but one was brandishing a black truncheon. When it came in a blur Davis moved too late, and took a painful blow to his shoulder.

It might have been the pain that set him off. It might have been so many days of frustration, not knowing whether his daughter was dead or alive. There was also a chance these men were tied to the abduction. Anger is never a strategy, at least not a successful one, but at that moment it swept over Davis like a breaking wave.

The nightstick came again in a backhand swing, but such blows were rarely effective. They lacked force and momentum. Davis diverted the strike easily before stepping in and dropping a weighted elbow to the man’s collarbone. When he buckled, immobilized, Davis grabbed under his crotch, lifted the man, and sent him flying across the room like a Scotsman tossing a caber. The impact took out an entire row of display cabinets stocked with tea sets. The resulting explosion of ceramics might have been heard a block away. Before he could turn, the last man standing, the one in the soccer jersey, crowned him with some kind of vase.

It hurt like hell, but vases make lousy weapons because they have no density. With a broken ceramic handle in his hand, the man stood looking at his much larger opponent, obviously out of ideas. Davis started with a compact left, followed by a not so compact right. His fists arced down like a windmill gone amuck, and when the soccer player wobbled, Davis lifted him lengthwise, took a running start, and sent him headlong down a row of cabinets that stretched the length of the showroom floor. His head swept through sets of crystal goblets, two trays of figurines, before encountering the side of a very sturdy display case. One that held something called Baccarat. The big cabinet rocked back on its edge, hesitated for just a moment, and then crashed to the floor in a burst of glittering chips.

Davis fell still. He was battered and bloody. He was sucking air like a train at the top of a mountain. Four men lay motionless on the floor. Pretty much everything was on the floor. The carpet of glass shards and shattered ceramics was two inches deep in places. Behind the lone surviving counter, Davis sensed a presence, and the young saleswoman rose cautiously. First he saw her raven hair, then two wide eyes, and finally the rest as she stood straight. She looked at him dumbly, then surveyed what was left of her shop.

“Do you speak English?” he asked.

She nodded.

“You should call the police.”

She looked at him questioningly, then set her eyes on the man splayed on the floor near her demolished Baccarat cabinet. The clerk pointed down.

Davis looked at the soccer player. He’d come to rest on his back, but was beginning to stir. Next to him on the floor was small leather wallet that had been thrown clear on the final impact. Only it wasn’t exactly a wallet. It was a credential holder, and had fallen open perfectly to display a picture of what the man used to look like. Right next to that was his badge.

Davis heaved a long, heavy sigh. “Shit!”

“A china shop,” said a dumbfounded Larry Green after hanging up his phone.

Sorensen looked at him blankly. “What?”

The two had met for dinner, intending to discuss options for helping Davis. Heavy plates of a Thai wasabi creation had just reached their table when the call interrupted.

Green expanded, “Jammer just waylaid four policemen and converted a Wedgwood factory outlet into a beach of ground glass.”

Sorensen hung her head. She knew how much Jen meant to Jammer. She also knew it wasn’t in his nature to wait serenely for the world to turn.

“He never has been the patient type,” she said.

“That’s all good and fine when you’re turning over charred airplane parts in a Kansas cornfield. This is different. From what you tell me, he’s dealing with some pretty ruthless people who have high connections right here in the Beltway.” Green shook his head. “I should have known better than to send him down there. It was a disaster in the making.”

“Is he okay?” she asked.

“Jammer? He’s indestructible, you know that. But he’s definitely highlighting himself. That call was from my boss at NTSB, Janet Cirrillo, who has received some very specific guidance from the State Department.”

“The State Department?”

“It seems their prevailing view is that Jammer is an embarrassment to our nation. She’s been told in no uncertain terms to get him out of Colombia before he causes, in the Secretary of State’s words, ‘irreparable damage to a long and peaceable relationship with a vital strategic neighbor.’”

Sorensen looked at him doubtfully. “He won’t come. Not without Jen.”

“You and I know that.”

“So you’re not going to pull him out?”

He sighed. “I’ll leave a message on his phone. He’ll ignore it.” Green watched her spin her fork aimlessly in her food. “Tell me… how are the two of you doing?”

“Jammer and I? As in personally?”

He nodded.

“Not as well as we should be — the usual.”

“He’s never been one for spilling his feelings, but I can tell he really likes you, Anna. Goes into a funk every time the two of you split.”

“Does he?”

“I knew Diane. He was the same way about her when the squadron deployed. Send him to Italy, and he’d be fine for the first week. After a month he was miserable.”

“Maybe that’s one of our problems,” she said. “Ghosts can cast pretty long shadows.”

“And daughters?”

“No,” said Sorensen. “I know how much Jen means to him, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. In fact, that’s what worries me now. Worst case, if she doesn’t come back… I don’t know if Jammer could handle that.”

“Could any of us?”

Sorensen looked up plaintively. “You said you could help him.”

“I said I was working on some options.”

“Well, now’s the time.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right.” Green picked up his phone.

As he dialed, Sorensen kept playing with her food. In time her worry gave way to the slenderest of smiles.

“What?” he asked as his call rang.

“For real? A china shop?”

Green only shook his head.