Page 72 of Nobody's Hero

Koenig nodded. Switchback stairs were split-level, U-shaped staircases with two flights per floor, facing 180 degrees from each other with a small landing platform in between. They saved space compared to more sweeping staircases.

‘Fire escape?’ he asked.

‘Wrought iron. External. We won’t need to cover it, though; it goes down into the alleyway, and that comes out on the same sidewalk we’ll be on.’

‘We’ll check it out anyway,’ he said.

The alley was clean by New York standards, but it was still an alley. It wasn’t a thoroughfare. You couldn’t walk into it and come out at the other end. It was closed. And that meant trash and city debris had nowhere to go. Once it was in, it stayed in. Swirling and dancing in the air, obeying the laws of aerodynamics. The alley was wide enough for a horse and cart but not a modern garbage truck. It was why the dumpsters were nearer the entrance than the back wall. If every dumpster in New York had to be dragged thirty yards to get emptied, the city would grind to a halt.

The alley separated two converted warehouses. The fire escape was the usual iron structure. A sharp-edged urban jungle gym. Ugly and clunky. Put up to comply with industrial building code with no thought to aesthetics. It clung to the bricks like metal ivy, fixed there by rusty iron bolts.

Satisfied the alley held no surprises, Koenig rejoined Draper on the sidewalk.

‘Can you see the alley entrance from the bar?’ he asked.

‘I think so.’

‘OK, I’ll do from now until around ten p.m. You take over while I get some sleep, and when the bar closes, we’ll do walk-pasts until the morning. It’s the best we can do.’ He paused. ‘But I hope these morons don’t take too long. I already feel like an idiot.’

Part Three

Out of Left Field

Chapter 76

While Koenig prowled the Lower East Side, Chinatown and SoHo, Jakob Tas, Cora Pearl and Konstantin were doing some prowling of their own. They were in New Silloth, a fishing village in Maine. It had a thriving arts community, but the tourists hadn’t yet found it. Not in the kind of numbers that turned villages into amusement parks. New Silloth’s primary source of income was still the lobster and haddock they pulled out of the gin-clear water, not ice cream and ‘I ? Maine’ T-shirts.

They’d just eaten fried-haddock sandwiches, extra pickle, extra tartar, in a café that stayed open for the whiting and cod fishermen. One cold beer each. The fish was delicious, caught that morning and perfectly cooked, but Tas hadn’t enjoyed his. He was anxious, and his meal wasn’t sitting right. It was heavy in his stomach. Like cement.

Or a tumour.

Which was ironic, he thought. It was a tumour that had started all this. Lit the blue touchpaper. And it was the tumour that made him uniquely qualified for this job. Hislastjob. He winced. Thinking about what was in his stomach made him think about the pain. It was back. The last of the fentanyl had leached from the patch on his arm. He had two patches left but didn’t want to use a fresh one yet. They made him drowsy, and this was a critical part of the operation. He needed to be alert for the boat.

Except there was no boat. It was late. It was late and he didn’t know why. If there was a problem, the Australian was supposed to call. Tas checked his cell again. Made sure he had a signal.

‘Don’t worry, boss,’ Pearl said. ‘He’ll be here.’

Tas frowned. He didn’t like relying on others at the best of times. The Australian had come highly recommended, but Tas hadn’t worked with him before. He was untested. And until proven otherwise, untested meant unreliable. But nor did he like looking weak. And he’d caught Pearl sneaking glances lately. Like she knew there was something wrong. Maybe she’d seen the patch. She’d only ever looked at him with fear. Now he thought he could see pity. He didn’t like that either.

He slipped his phone back in his pocket. ‘Let’s get some fresh air,’ he said.

Konstantin and Pearl finished their beers while he paid the cheque. He left a large tip. Large enough to be remembered.

As soon as they were away from the lights of the café, he grabbed Pearl by her hair. Pulled her head back and pressed a punch-dagger into the soft part of her lower jaw. He pressed until he drew blood. The punch-dagger was short-bladed with a T-shaped handle, designed to be held in a closed fist with the blade protruding between the middle and ring fingers. When it wasn’t being used, it was concealed in his belt buckle. A custom job, not off the shelf. Good enough to fool airport security. Tas kept it sharper than an obsidian scalpel.

‘Do I look worried, Cora?’ he said quietly.

She gulped. Carefully. ‘No, Jakob,’ she whispered.

‘Then why did you tell me to stop? Are you giving orders now?’

Pearl recognised a rhetorical question when she heard one. She didn’t respond.

‘What about you, Konstantin? Doyouthink I look worried?’

Konstantin, who rarely spoke, was saved when Tas’s cell rang.

The punch-dagger was out of Pearl’s throat and into Tas’s belt buckle faster than the eye could see. It fitted with a barely audiblesnick. Tas grabbed his cell and pressed the answer icon.