Chapter 18
The helicopter started to swerve and turn as the stabilizer in the rear overcompensated and threatened to send the bird into an uncontrollable tailspin. I threw myself into Langdon’s arms, pushing my face into the nape of his neck.
“Langdon, what’s happening?” But I realized instantly that he didn’t know any better than I did, and all I could do was guess. Is this sabotage? Did John Alister plan this all along? Was this his way of taking care of Langdon Cane from the very start? Could he be that clever, that devious, that… evil?
But I already knew the answer to that.
Unless I’ve become too much of a liability. Could it be that by winding up in the public eye, I’ve inadvertently gotten myself and Langdon and our poor pilot murdered?
Langdon and I clung to one another as the bird struggled to stay airborne. My heart was pounding in my chest, pushing my blood through my veins to the point of bursting them. My muscles were tight, my tendons stretching, my body shaking as the helicopter went into what seemed to be its death throes.
The cabin stank of gas fumes, and I knew it could erupt into a ball of fire at any second, incinerating us instantaneously.
I looked up at Langdon, and he looked down at me. We didn’t speak; there was no time and no need for words. But I could see in his eyes and feel in his arms that he was at peace, that he was ready to accept death without regret, even if being by my side brought it upon him so tragically young. Langdon had everything in life and even more, but when he looked at me with that calm smile, I knew he was disinterested in the luxuries of his fabulous lifestyle and ready to turn his back on all of them if I couldn’t be by his side.
And I could no longer imagine life without Langdon, so the only regrets of my last moments in the world were that I’d brought death to the only man I would ever love, that the price he had to pay was so terribly steep and so seemingly certain. I’d have thrown myself out of that helicopter and to my death if I thought it would have saved Langdon.
But neither of us had that choice or that chance.
The helicopter shook, and I could feel us descending. Langdon and I strapped ourselves in, though it struck me as futile. I looked out the window to see the city getting bigger fast as we sank toward it, spinning and shaking. The harbor and the docks kept replacing one another in the window as the pilot tried to keep the forced landing steady, safe… survivable.
Langdon and I held hands in those last few seconds, each of us holding so tight that we nearly became a single person. It was as if our flesh were melding, our bones conjoining.
I whispered to him, “Just you, just me.”
“Just us,” he said, his eyes fixed on mine as the ground raced up in the window outside.
We hit with a hard crunch of bending metal and shattering glass. The engine was grinding above us as waves of energy pushed up against the bottom of the crippled copter. The rotor groaned and smoke wafted around the outside of the cabin.
Once the bird came to a rest, Langdon asked me, “Are you alright?” I nodded as we tried to pull our seat belts open.
The pilot came out from the cockpit. “Get out now!”
I pulled at my seat belt, but the lock was jammed. “I can’t get loose!”
The pilot said, “We’re gonna blow!”
Langdon pulled a jackknife out of his pocket and, holding the blade, threw the handle out in a single swift motion, flipping it up and catching it before slashing the seat belt in front of me. The strap pulled away and Langdon pulled me to my feet. We ran with the pilot out of the helicopter, my feet scrambling beneath me as Langdon pulled me along. The sudden cold of the New York night braced me, pulling me out of the heat. We ran, heads low as fire trucks approached from the other side of the dock.
The helicopter exploded behind us, sending a wave of hot energy pounding into us from the rear. We were pushed forward and I fell to the cold, greasy concrete, the explosion ringing in my ears.
Langdon and the pilot pulled me back to my feet, and we stumbled a bit further before turning to see the copter sitting there engulfed in flames. Any evidence of sabotage was almost certainly being incinerated—along with our chances of success or possibly even our survival.
***
Sherman Mathers shook his head, leaning back in a creaky little chair in his moldering little office. Phones rang from the bullpen outside, a dozen muttered conversations filling the big room. “If he did try to kill you, which sounds unlikely, that isn’t my department. Try the FBI down the hall.”
Langdon waved him off, sitting next to me in one of two small chairs facing the agent’s desk. “They’ll never bite on that without proof, mate.”
I added, “And violation of federal trade restrictions is your department, isn’t it?”
“I thought something might jog your memory,” he said with a snide tone, shaking his head at some information he was reserving for himself. “So what have you got?”
“He’s been buying up shares in Langdon’s company, AussieGarb, and right now he’s got somebody back there trying to buy out a big enough chunk of his board of directors to launch a hostile takeover.”
Sherman sat there, decidedly unimpressed, one eyebrow raised. “That it?”
“That’s not enough?”
Langdon said, “He wants to start a third company to… ah, what’s the point?”
“There isn’t one,” Sherman said. “Look, I’ve been going after people like John Alister for twenty years, and I’ve been on him personally for almost ten months. But we got nothing, okay? Squat, bupkis!”
“But this shell corporation—”
“There’s nothing criminal about it unless he’s doing something illegal with it, and buying stock ain’t illegal. Anyway, I’m telling you, the Alister Fashions investigation has been shut down.”
“Shut down.” Langdon repeated. “You mean bought off. How much did you get?”
“I don’t like what you’re insinuating.”
Langdon huffed. “I didn’t think I was insinuating anything.”
“We’ve got very limited resources here, okay? This is the government. They don’t give us any time or money or cooperation. What kind of help did we get from anybody at Alister Fashions? Zero. Now it’s too late. You two wanna be heroes? Go volunteer at Habitat for Humanity. But as far as this office is concerned, there is no Alister Fashions.”
I said, “What about all that crap about doing the right thing, about stopping people like him from abusing the system?”
“Sorry, sweetheart, but people like that are the system. So if you two are done standing there with your self-righteous glowering, maybe I could get on with my job and actually do some good for somebody.”
Langdon and I could only turn to one another, agreeing without words that we needed to pick a different direction and do it quickly.
***
I wasn’t that comfortable admitting that I knew where Flynn lived. But I’d told Langdon, and the rest of the world, that I’d dated him just once, so it wasn’t that big a deal. I didn’t like the knowing little glances Langdon kept shooting me as we stood in his apartment hallway, but I knew he was only teasing me, and I tried not to let it bother me.
Flynn opened the door, but as soon as he saw us, his eyes went wide and he tried to slam the door shut. Langdon stuck his boot into the doorway to stop him, and the door swung ajar as Flynn backed up into his little apartment and we stepped in uninvited.
The cramped living room was filled with cardboard boxes, taped up and addressed to Los Angeles, California.
Pricey, I thought to myself. He must have gotten a payoff.
Langdon said, “Nice to see ya again, mate. Lookin’ good.”
“Stay away from me,” Flynn said, holding his hands up to keep us back.
“Take it easy, pal,” Langdon said. “We’re just here to talk a bit, yeah?”
“I don’t like talking to you,” Flynn said.
“Or you’re not allowed to,” I said, stepping in front of Langdon. “We need answers, Flynn, and we know you’ve got them.”
“I’ll scream,” Flynn said, backing himself toward the window and the fire escape beyond. “This time I’ll sue, I really will.”
“I’m not gonna hurt you, mate. But I think if you were gonna sue me, you’d be suing me right now.”
I added, “But you can’t do that, Flynn, you can’t and you won’t, and we all know it.”
Langdon added, “And we know why, mate. Because you’re in John Alister’s back pocket.”
“I… no, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Alright, mate,” Langdon said, “that’s fine. We thought you might wanna talk to us directly, but if you’d rather contend with the Australian government—”
“The—? What? No, wait, what’re you talking about?”
Langdon broke a smile. “Yer talkin’ to an official Good Will Ambassador for the great country of Australia, pal.”
I said, “Langdon, really?”
“That’s right, for the United Nations an’ all. It’s mostly a ceremonial position, for publicity, things like that. But that still makes me a national representative, and assaulting me the way this red rascal did could constitute an act of war!”
Flynn’s green eyes shot around the little apartment as if he was looking for an escape and knowing he wouldn’t find it. Even the window and fire escape provided little opportunity, and he seemed to know it.
“I don’t know anything.” Flynn said. “Like I told Alister, I don’t know a goddamned thing!”
Langdon asked, “Told him when?”
“Lots of times over the past week. He kept coming to visit me in the prison hospital, asking about you two, if I was working with you. He thought we set this all up to sue him or something.”
“Yeah,” I said, “his wife shared that theory with us.” Giving it a little more thought, I reasoned out loud, “So that’s where he’s been popping out to.”
Langdon asked Flynn, “How much did he pay you?”
“For what?”
“To come at us in the park, mate!”
“Nothing, I… he didn’t have anything to do with that.”
I asked, “Then why would he be paying you?”
“He… he wanted to settle the whole thing, didn’t want me to sue him.”
But I pressed the point. “Sue him for what? Langdon’s the one who punched you. Why would Alister be worried that you’d sue him?”
“He just didn’t want the publicity one way or another.” Flynn’s voice cracked. “At least, that’s what he said. I dunno, what do I care? A hundred grand’s a lot of money, and thanks to you I didn’t have a job!”
Langdon shook his head. “That don’t ring true, mate. Why would Alister care if you sued me or not?”
“I dunno, man! Just don’t hit me, please don’t!”
“I’m not gonna bloomin’ hit ya, mate!”
“I might,” I muttered. “Who’s the other person in on all this?”
Flynn looked at me with a confused cock of his head. “I don’t know who you mean.”
“Alister’s gotta have an operative,” I said, “and we all know he’d never have used you. You were a pawn, Flynn, but we’re looking for the bishop, the queen—”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
Langdon rolled his eyes. “Who is Alister working with outside the company?”
“I really have no idea what you’re talking about,” Flynn said, still recoiling. “But why don’t you go down to Rikers and talk to Lisa Ling? She was the one fucking him, not me. Maybe she knows!”
***
I hated going to places like Rikers Island, but of course they’re designed that way. Every moment was meant to be torture, to break a person down both physically and mentally. It seemed cruel, but it was hard to deny that a lot of the people there probably deserved to be there. Maybe they had to be broken down and rebuilt before society could trust them again. I’d never given much thought to the penal system before, but now in just a short time I’d been exposed to it from almost every angle, and it was opening my eyes to a world of suffering and pain. It made me glad I’d been spared for as long as I had been.
The clangs of the barred doors echoed in the hallways, footsteps clacked against prisoner-polished floors, and the smell of disinfectant hung heavy in the recycled air.
Langdon and I sat on one side of a bulletproof glass window. A little telephone was connected to the partition. A guard escorted Lisa Ling into the room on the other side of the glass. Her hands were cuffed, and an orange jumpsuit hung baggy over her dwindling frame. When she first saw us, her eyes went wide and she gritted her teeth. I could see that she was using all her strength of will to restrain herself, knowing that she could never hurt us the way she undoubtedly wanted to.
She glared at the guard, a burly woman who only shrugged and sat her down on the other side of the glass.
Langdon picked up the phone on our side and held it between us, waiting for Lisa Ling to pick up her phone, which she finally did.
Langdon started out by introducing himself, but Lisa was quick to say, “I know who you are, Tarzan. And I know Jane here, too.”
She didn’t look good. Wrinkles were already appearing around her almond-shaped eyes, and her black hair seemed to be going gray before my very eyes. I said, “I’m sorry about what happened in the conference room, Lisa.”
“Me too,” she hissed, “I wish I’d killed you when I had the chance, and your scumbag boss too.”
Langdon said, “You play your cards right, you might just get the chance.” Noticing my glare, he added, “At takin’ down John Alister, anyway.”
“You’re full of shit,” Lisa said, the hardness of prison life already reflecting in her bitterness and vulgarity. “I’m up against the People of New York City. What can some foreigner do about it?”
“But I happen to know they stuck you with a public defender, and they’re the most overworked lawyers around! They get an average of seven minutes to prepare a case, luv. That means you’ll never get outta here.”
“But Langdon’s got high-priced lawyers, Lisa. They can do things a public defender just won’t bother to do.”
“That’s right,” Langdon said. “I mean, look at ya, yer half-crazy just sittin’ there. I’ll bet when you did what you did you were temporarily insane!”
Lisa sat behind that glass, her eyes darting around as she thought about it. “Alright, yeah, okay, that’s right, he told me all about it.” But one glance between us told both Langdon and myself that Lisa Ling would say anything to get herself out of that hellhole, and the next few words out of her mouth proved us right. “He wants to buy your company, right?”
“AussieGarb,” I said.
“Right, so… there you go. When do I see my new lawyer?”
Langdon huffed. “We’re gonna need more than that, luv. Who’s the operative? What’s his connection to my business back home?”
Lisa thought about it, her little mouth hanging open just a bit. “Oh, um, he… he said he was going to have you murdered, use Barbie here as a distraction.”
“Murdered, was it?” Langdon’s eyes sank to shrewd, narrow slits. “How?”
“He didn’t say. Didn’t know yet, I think. Had to get you out here first.”
“That so?” I said. “And he told you this? Why?”
“He wanted my help, obviously! I know certain people who might… know certain people.”
I asked her, “Then why didn’t he do it? Why did you freak out and try to kill us?”
“I… I…”
Langdon shook his head. “You’re full of shit, luv.”
“No, I know what’s going on here! You need me to get out of this alive!”
“Sorry,” I said. Langdon stood and I followed his lead.
“Wait!” We stopped and turned, Langdon still holding the phone between us. Lisa looked at us, long and hard. A low rumble started to leak out of her throat, a twisted smile stretching across her face. “It’s too late,” she said in a voice I hardly recognized, a voice that seemed barely human. “You don’t fuck with a man like John Alister and come out of it unscathed! Look at me, I know better than anyone! If you’re here now, it means he’s already struck the final blow. It’s already too late!” Her chuckle grew into a feverish cackle, and two guards approached from behind and pulled the phone out of her hand.
But Lisa Ling just ignored them as they dragged her away from the glass partition and toward the door. Her eyes were still fixed on me in a murderous rage. “Someday I’ll come for you! I’m gonna kill you, you little bitch! You hear me? I’m gonna kill you both!”
They dragged her out of the room, and Langdon and I shared a knowing glance. There wasn’t much else to do or much else to go on. We had to take a more direct approach. But we also knew what was at stake, and how precious and perhaps how little our remaining time together would be.