The Zebra Network

Chapter 25

They entered the city from the south a few minutes past eight, the tracks angling away from Lake Michigan, morning traffic in full swing on the Dan Ryan Expressway. In the distance the Sears Tower rose up into the cobalt-blue sky. Chicago hadn’t got much snow, what there was lay in dirty piles. It looked extremely cold outside.

Stephanie had worked on their makeup again this morning, giving them a sallow, used-up look. The transformation was complete. Looking at himself in the mirror, McAllister could believe that he wasn’t himself. He looked almost military.

The train had slowed down in the city. They entered the tunnel that would bring them into Union Station downtown. Stephanie got up as McAllister flipped on the compartment lights, and she took her gun out of her coat pocket. She took the clip out of the butt of the gun, cycled the round out of the firing chamber, reloaded the bullet into the clip, snapped the clip back into the gun, and cycled a round back into the firing chamber, checking to make sure the safety catch was on before she stulled the gun back into her coat.

She looked up, catching McAllister watching her. “I meant it, what I told you last night,” she said, the tenderness that had been in her eyes while they made love gone.

“Don’t become one of them,” he said.

“I don’t want to hear it,” she snapped, a catch in her voice. She was frightened but she was also angry.

“We can’t fight them all, not this way.”

“No?”

“No,” McAllister said. “You’re going to do it my way, and you’re going to follow my instructions.”

“Up to the point that someone tries to arrest me. I won’t let it happen.”

“You’d shoot an innocent cop trying to do his job?”

“If need be,” she said evenly.

McAllister held out his hand. “Give me your gun,” he said. She backed up a step and shook her head, her left eyebrow rising. “No.”

“Not that way,” McAllister said. “I want your gun.”

“Goddamnit, David…” she started to protest when someone knocked at their door, and he held up his hand for her to keep silent.

“Yes?” he called out.

“Five minutes until the station, folks,” a man’s voice called back.

It wasn’t their porter from last night. “All right, thank you,” McAllister said.

“If you’ll just let me in, sir, I’ll give you a hand with your bags,” the man said, and there was something about his accent that was suddenly bothersome. There was a connection somewhere. McAllister had heard that voice before, or one similar to it. Where?

The door handle turned slowly. “I’ll get you a redcap in the terminal, sir.”

The accent was Italian. A snow-covered road, a dark-brown Thunderbird. A man in a bombardier jacket. It was the same accent. New Jersey. Mafia. The Mafia controlled a segment of the Teamsters union. Cabbies, train porters?

Stephanie’s eyes had grown wide. She had made the same connection. She grabbed her gun out of her coat pocket.

McAllister motioned for her to move aside as he pulled out his gun and flipped off the compartment lights, plunging them into darkness.

“All right,” he called out. “Just a moment please.” He moved to the door and silently slipped the lock. He glanced at Stephanie, then yanked the door open.

A short, heavyset man with thick features, a blue watch cap perched on the back of his head, stood there, his right hand inside his sheepskin jacket. His mouth dropped open when he caught sight of McAllister. “What?” he stammered.

McAllister grabbed a handful of his jacket and pulled him into the compartment, spinning him around, and slamming him up against the bathroom door, his pistol against the man’s neck, his left hand holding the man’s gun hand in place. Behind him, Stephanie closed and locked the door, then turned on the compartment lights. The man’s eyes were bugging half out of their sockets, and he kept swallowing over and over, though he did not resist.

“The window shade,” McAllister said. Stephanie lowered it.

“It’s a mistake,” the man croaked, talking difficult because of the gun jammed into his throat.

“No it’s not,” McAllister said. “Who sent you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man said, but it was obvious he was lying.

Stephanie reached around and pulled his hand out of his coat, and then reached inside and pulled out his gun, a big.357 Magnum with a thick silencer tube screwed onto the end of the shortened barrel. A devastating weapon, especially at close range. “Who sent you?” McAllister demanded, pressing the barrel of his gun even harder into the man’s throat. “Now, or I’ll blow your neck apart!”

“I don’t know,” the man croaked. “We got orders from out East that you and the broad were coming in on this train. I got on at Dyer.”

“Orders from whom?”

“I don’t know, I swear to God I don’t know. We just got a call, that’s all.”

“Is someone waiting in the station for us?”

“No,” the man said. Stephanie brought the barrel of the silenced Magnum up against his temple. “Yes… yes,” he cried.

“How many of them?”

“Four. A redcap, two by the stairs, and a cabbie outside.”

“How will we recognize them?”

“They’re all dressed like me, except for the redcap.”

“Then what?” McAllister asked. “What were your orders? Specifically.”

“Just to take you, that’s all.” The train was slowing down, coming to a stop. Stephanie cocked the Magnum’s hammer.

“Oh, Jesus and Mary, mother of God,” the man stammered. “I was supposed to kill you. If that didn’t work, you’d get it on the platformor out on the street. Somewhere. We weren’t supposed to fail. This was a big job.”

“Who sent you? You’ve got to have a name.”

“I don’t know, I swear it.”

“This was a big job?” Stephanie asked. “Yeah, yeah, important, like I said.. “Like Baltimore?” Stephanie asked. “Yeah, like Baltimore…” the man said.

At the last instant McAllister realized what was about to happen, but he was powerless to stop it. He managed to step back as Stephanie moaned, the sound animallike, coming from the back of her throat, and she pulled the trigger.

The man’s head was slammed violently against the bathroom door, a large piece of the back of his skull blown away, his eyes and nose and mouth filling with blood as he crumpled on the floor dead.

Stephanie stood, violently shaking, the big gun in her hand pointed at the inert figure on the floor. “Oh, my God,” she cried softly, tears streaming down her cheeks.

The train had come to a complete stop. Outside in the corridor they could hear the sounds of departing passengers. The others would be waiting on the platform for this one to show up or for a young couple to get off. They were going to have to get out of here now, while they still had the advantage of time, and of their disguises.

“I killed him,” Stephanie was blubbering. “My, God, his. head..

McAllister stuffed his gun in his belt and took Stephanie by the shoulders, pulling her around. “Stop it,” he snapped.

She looked up into his eyes. She was on the verge of collapsing. “Listen to me, Stephanie. It was either him or us. He was sent here to kill us both. There was nothing else you could have done.”

“I shot him,” she said.

“Yes, and now we have to leave. Immediately.” He took the big Magnum from her hand, laid it on the couch, then helped her on with her coat, stuffing her gun in his pocket, and pulling on his coat. He picked up their three bags.

“No,” she said, suddenly coming out of her daze. “David, they’re out there waiting for us.”

“They don’t know what we look like yet. Nor do they know that this one has failed. But we don’t have much time. You’ve got to pull yourself together. Now!”

She was shaking her head and she started to back away. McAllister dropped their bags, grabbed her arm with one hand and slapped her in the face, her head snapping back and a cry catching in her throat.

“We have to get out of here, Stephanie! Now!” McAllister said. She took a deep breath, nodded and straightened up. “Yes,” she said. “I’ll be all right. We have to leave.”

She averted her eyes from the body on the floor as McAllister again picked up their bags, listened at the door for a moment then opened it and stepped out. A young couple coming up the corridor stopped respectfully to let them get out of their compartment and close the door. McAllister nodded at them, and smiled, then headed for the end of the car with a limp, Stephanie shuffling along directly behind him.

They would have to get away from the train station as quickly as possible. It wouldn’t take long for someone to discover what had happened. Coing to ground and lying low for a few days was no longer one of their options. Speed was their only defense.

Do the unexpected. Strike back. Hit them until it hurts and they begin to bleed. Keep them off balance. Frighten them into making a mistake.

The porter helped McAllister down from the tall step, and then took Stephanie’s arm and helped her.

“Hope you folks had a nice trip with us,” he said pleasantly. McAllister nodded absently as his eyes scanned the busy platform.

A large man in a redcap’s uniform stood about twenty feet away, watching them, but then his gaze was diverted as the next passengers were helped down from the train.

Stephanie took McAllister’s arm and together they walked slowly down the platform to the gates, then past a big knot of people, among them two men dressed in sheepskin coats intently watching the departing passengers, and then they were on the escalator going up to the main ticket hall. The cavernous, ornately decorated station was decked out for the holidays. Christmas music played from the public address system, interrupted only when train announcements were made. There were a lot of people hurrying back and forth. Two police officers stood by the main doors.

“Easy,” McAllister said under his breath, Stephanie’s grip tightening on his arm as they headed directly across the hall.

The two cops barely glanced at them as they reached the doors and stepped outside into the very cold morning. A stiff wind was blowing off the lake. Taxis were coming and going. The driver of one of them near the head of the line, was dressed in a sheepskin jacket, just like the others below on the platform and the one who had come aboard the train for them. And like the others, he looked their way for just a moment, registering the fact they were not his targets, before his concentration went back to the doors.

McAllister tossed their bags in the backseat of the lead taxi and he and Stephanie got in. “Is there a hospital nearby?” The cabbie looked at them. “You sick or something?”

“My wife is going to have a baby,” McAllister said with a straight face.

For a moment a startled expression crossed the driver’s face, but then he grinned and laughed. “Yeah, sure, a baby,” he said. “Mercy Hospital is just a few blocks from here, that be okay?”

“Just fine,” McAllister said. “Actually it’s my ticker.”

“You going to be okay, mister? I mean is this an emergency?”

“Slow and easy,” McAllister said, his accent broad, southern. “That’s the ticket.”

They got off in front of the emergency room entrance, and as soon as the taxi was gone, they walked through the hospital to the front where from a pay phone McAllister called for another cab, this one out to O’Hare Airport.

While they waited for the cab to arrive, McAllister went into the men’s room where in one of the toilet stalls he quickly broke down both of their guns, unloading the clips and distributing the parts and the bullets in all three suitcases. They would check their bagsthrough, rather than try to carry them aboard. He didn’t expect any trouble.

“Where are we going?” Stephanie asked, her manner lethargic for the moment now that they were out of immediate danger, and the realization of what she had done suddenly hitting home.

“Los Angeles,” McAllister said. “It’s time to strike back.”