The Collectors

Chapter 65

“They’ve gone into the Smithsonian Metro entrance,” Reuben said, eyeing the small screen Stone was holding as the group raced across the Mall and pushed their way through the panicked crowds and small blocks of police.

“That’s why we picked that exchange spot,” Stone answered.

“But the Metro will be jammed,” Milton said. “How will we find them in there?”

“We took a page from Trent and company. You know the chemical wash they put on the letters in the book to make them glow?”

“Sure, so?” Milton said.

Stone said, “I injected Trent with a chemical provided by Alex Ford that transmits a signal to this receiver. It’s like the man’s glowing for us. Using this, we can pick him out of a crowd of thousands. Alex and his men also have a receiver. We’re going to pin them down.”

“I hope it works,” Caleb said as they forced their way through the swells of people. He rubbed his neck. “I want to see them rot in jail. And no books to read. Ever! That’ll serve them right.”

Suddenly, screams poured out of the station below.

“Come on!” Stone shouted, and they dashed down the escalator.

While Trent and the two men were waiting for the next train, a pair of agents disguised as maintenance workers had approached from their rear. Before they had a chance to draw their weapons, both men fell forward with gaping bullet wounds in their backs. Behind them Roger Seagraves, wearing a cloak, replaced the silenced pistols in his twin belt holsters. The noise of the crowds had covered the suppressed shots, but when the men fell, and the people saw the blood, the screams started, and panicked citizens began running in all directions. An instant before one of the agents died, he rallied, pulled his gun and shot one of the hooded men in the head. As this man dropped, the detonator device he still carried in his hand clattered to the stone tile floor.

A westbound train roared into the station and disgorged still more passengers, who ran headlong into the growing chaos.

Trent and his remaining guard used this panic to jump onto one of this train’s cars. Seagraves did likewise, but with the riptide of the crowd he could only manage to scramble onto the next car down.

Right before the doors closed, Stone and the others fought their way through the mass of people and clambered aboard. The train car was packed, but Stone checked his tracking device and saw that Trent was very close by. He scanned the interior and finally spotted him at the other end. Stone quickly noted that only one hooded man remained with him. The problem was that at any moment Trent or his bodyguard could spot them.

A few moments later Alex Ford and several other agents ran through the crowd, but the train was already pulling out. He yelled at his men, and they ran back out of the station.

Inside the moving train, Stone said, “Reuben, sit down, quick!” Reuben towered over everyone and thus was the one most likely to be spotted. Reuben pushed some teenage boys out of the way and sat on the floor. Stone ducked down and kept his gaze on Trent. He was talking to his bodyguard and holding his hands up to his ears for some reason. Facing the way he was, Stone couldn’t see Roger Seagraves in the car behind him, watching him through the glass. Seagraves had been stunned to see that Caleb and the others were still alive. He was lining up for a shot to Stone’s head when the train sped into the next station and lurched to a stop. People pushed and pulled to get on and off, and Seagraves was levered away from his kill position.

The train took off again and gained speed rapidly. Stone was now making his way through the crowd toward Trent. He palmed his knife, keeping the blade tucked against his forearm under his sleeve. He visualized plunging the knife up to the hilt into Trent’s chest. Yet that wasn’t his plan. He would kill the guard, but Stone had no intention of cheating Trent out of spending the rest of his life in prison.

Stone was closing in on his target when his plans were foiled. The train rocketed into Metro Center, came to a stop, and the doors burst open. Metro Center was the busiest station in the entire subway system. Trent and his guard jumped through the open door. In the next car down Seagraves did likewise. Stone and the others pushed their way out and into a crush of passengers rushing to and from trains arriving and departing on two different levels and from several different directions.

Stone kept his gaze on Trent and the hooded figure next to him. From the corner of his eye he saw two men in white jumpsuits heading toward Trent. What he didn’t see was Roger Seagraves slide a small metal object out of his pocket, pull a pin with his teeth and let it fly, even as he turned his back and made sure his ears were plugged.

Stone saw the oblong cylinder sail past him through the air and knew instantly what it was. He whirled around and screamed to Reuben and the others, “Get down and cover your ears!” A couple seconds later the “flash-bang” went off, and dozens of people around it collapsed to the floor holding their ears, covering their eyes and screaming in pain.

Trent and his bodyguard had been unaffected by the explosion. They’d put ear protectors on and had averted their gaze from the “flash” part of the flash-bang.

Stone, woozy despite having put his face to the floor and jammed his coat sleeves into his ears, looked up and saw shoes and feet flying in front of him. As he tried to get up, a large man fleeing the panic barreled into him, knocking him down. Stone felt the tracker fly out of his hands, and he watched with a sickening feeling as it slid across the floor, over the edge and onto the tracks under the train as it pulled out of the station. When the end car cleared the station, he lunged to the edge and looked down. The box had been crushed.

He turned back around and saw that Reuben had attacked the hooded man. Stone sprang to his friend’s aid, not that the big man needed it. Reuben put the smaller man in a half nelson, lifted him off the floor and slammed him headfirst into a metal pole. Then Reuben flung the man away, and he slid across the slick floor as people scrambled to get out of the way. As Reuben stormed toward him, Stone hit him from behind, knocking his friend down.

“What the hell—” Reuben grunted as the shot fired by the man sailed by overhead. Stone had seen the gun and knocked Reuben out of the way just in time.

The hooded man rose on one knee and prepared for a point-blank shot but was dropped by the impact of three rounds in his chest fired by two federal agents who came running up followed by uniformed police.

Stone helped Reuben up and looked around for the others.

Annabelle waved from a far corner, Milton and Caleb beside her.

“Where’s Trent?” Stone called out.

Annabelle shook her head and held her hands up in a helpless gesture.

Stone stared hopelessly around the crowded platform. They’d lost him.

Suddenly, Caleb screamed, “There, going up the escalator. That’s the man who kidnapped me. Foxworth!”

“And Trent!” Milton added.

They all looked upward. At the sound of his alias Seagraves glanced over his shoulder, and his hood fell away, giving them all a good look at him and Albert Trent, who was beside him.

“Damn,” Seagraves muttered. He maneuvered Trent through the crowd, and they raced out of the train station.

Up on the street Seagraves pushed Albert Trent into a cab and gave an address to the driver. He whispered to Trent, “I’ll meet you there later. I’ve got a private plane ready to take us out of the country. Here’re your travel papers and new ID pack. We’ll get your appearance altered.” He shoved a thick wad of documents and a passport into Trent’s hands.

Seagraves started to slam the cab door shut and then abruptly stopped. “Albert, give me your watch.”

“What?”

Seagraves didn’t ask again. He ripped the watch off Trent’s wrist and closed the cab door. It drove off, a panicked Trent looking back at him through the window. Seagraves planned to kill Trent later, and he had to have something belonging to him. He was very angry about having to leave his collection behind, because he couldn’t risk returning to his house. And Seagraves was also upset because he hadn’t been able to get any items from the two agents he’d killed in the Metro.

Well, I can always start a new collection.

He ran across the street to an alleyway, climbed into a van he’d parked there and changed his clothes. Then he waited for his pursuers to appear. And this time he wouldn’t miss.