Chapter 65 - The Breakout on Atlantic Avenue
Glass and broken plastic showered the pavement as I tore across the intersection. The driver of the transport van was dazed, slumped over the deflated steering wheel airbag, but the passenger door was already being kicked open from inside.
Pendelton didn't hesitate. He fired one deafening round into the engine block of the van, the bullet cracking like a whip through the quiet Brooklyn neighborhood. The radiator erupted in another jet of white smoke, and the armed man attempting to exit scrambled back inside, seeking cover behind the armored door frame.
"Sarah! The rear latch!" Pendelton shouted, keeping his revolver trained on the front cabin.
I reached the back of the van and grabbed the exterior emergency handle. It was locked from the inside. Without wasting a breath, I pulled Carlo’s service revolver from my waistband, pressed the barrel directly against the locking cylinder, and pulled the trigger twice.
The lock shattered. I yanked the double doors open.
Inside, Clara was shielding Sofia with her own body on the floor of the cargo bay. One of the plainclothes guards in the back was drawing a sidearm, his face bleeding from the collision.
Before he could level the weapon, I lunged forward, grabbing the barrel and twisting it upward into the reinforced ceiling. The gun discharged into the metal roof with an ear-splitting crack. I slammed my elbow into his temple, following through with a vicious knee to his ribs. He groaned and collapsed backward across the bench seat.
"Out! Both of you, out now!" I yelled, pulling Clara to her feet.
Clara scooped up Sofia, who was clinging to her neck with an iron grip, her face buried in Clara’s scarf to muffle her screams.
"Pendelton!" I called out, backing away from the van. "The car is wrecked!"
"Take the Town Car!" Pendelton shouted, his breath ragged as he backed toward the idling Lincoln. "The steering column is intact! Go, Sarah!"
"I’m not leaving you here!"
"You have the evidence, Miss Vance!" the old lawyer commanded, his gray eyes flashing with an authority I had never seen before. "If Julian takes you, Marcus died for nothing. The court hearing is in ninety minutes. If you aren't inside the rotunda before Julian seals the building, none of us survive this day!"
Sirens were already wailing in the distance—the high-pitched, urgent yelp of NYPD cruisers responding to the shots fired call on Cheever Place. They were coming from the precinct just four blocks north.
"Pendelton, please!" Clara cried, tears cutting tracks through the dust on her cheeks.
"Thirty years ago, I failed Marcus," Pendelton said softly, looking at Clara with an expression of profound peace. "I let him walk into that archive alone because I was afraid of losing my license. I won't fail his daughter."
He turned away from us, planted his feet on the cracked pavement of Atlantic Avenue, and raised his Colt .45 toward the end of the block where the first two police cruisers were skidding around the corner, lights flashing.
"Go, Sarah!" he screamed. "Save the child!"
I swallowed the lump of ice in my throat, shoved Clara and Sofia into the back of the Lincoln, and leaped into the driver’s seat.
The heavy V8 engine roared to life as I threw the transmission into reverse, spun the wheel hard, and backed through the cloud of steam. Behind us, I saw the police cruisers screech to a halt. Pendelton didn't fire at them; he slowly dropped the revolver onto the hood of the wrecked transport van and raised his hands into the air, intentionally blocking the narrow one-way street with his own body and the wreckage.
He was buying us minutes with his life.
I slammed the Lincoln into drive and accelerated down Atlantic Avenue, weaving through delivery trucks and yellow cabs toward the Brooklyn Bridge.
In the rearview mirror, Clara held Sofia tightly against her chest. The little girl looked up, her brown eyes wide, staring at the forensic evidence bag sticking out of my jacket pocket.
"Sarah?" Sofia whispered. "Are we going to court?"
"Yes, Sofia," I said, my voice hardening into steel as the granite towers of Manhattan rose across the river before us. "We’re going to court. And we’re going to show the entire city who Julian Sterling really is."
Clara leaned forward, resting her hand on my shoulder. "Sarah... Julian controls the courthouse. His private detail will have every metal detector, every elevator, every corridor covered. How do we get inside without being arrested on sight?"
I glanced down at the forensic bag, then at the cassette tape resting on the passenger seat.
"We don't use the front doors," I said, steering the heavy car onto the ramp of the Brooklyn Bridge. "Marcus didn't just build the safehouses, Clara. In 1988, his construction firm built the subterranean expansion of the New York County Supreme Court. He left an emergency service shaft that connects the subway tunnels under Centre Street directly to the judge's private robing room."
Clara gasped. "The old steam conduit beneath the tracks."
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"Julian thinks he’s a politician who controls the law," I said, pressing the gas pedal down until the engine screamed. "He forgot he’s the son of an architect."
***
