“I need your help.” Nash unzipped the hoodie to reveal his blood-soaked T-shirt. “I can pay in cash.” He dropped his backpack to the floor at the rabbi’s feet.
“Oy,” the old man said. Nash’s knees threatened to buckle as the rabbi ducked under his arm to support his weight and led him to an industrial-size stainless steel kitchen. “If you’re going to pass out, do it up here.”
* * *
WHEN NASH CAME to, he was stretched out on one of the stainless steel workstations, watching the rabbi drop the last of his instruments into a stainless steel bedpan. The rattle must have been what had woken him. Nash glanced at the pan full of instruments. He eyed the bullet and bloody gauze with distaste, wondering if he’d just traded that bullet for a lifetime of hep C.
“You want I should call a doctor?” Rabbi Yaakov said when he caught the frown on Nash’s face. The old man snapped off the latex gloves with equal disgust. “The Institute sees to it that I’m well equipped. I use only sterile instruments.”
Nash did not dare question the man’s medical practice further.
Mossad took care of its own.
Besides which, beggars couldn’t be choosers. Any emergency room staff would have to report him to the authorities.
“I need a plane.” Nash pushed to sit up and then dropped back to his elbows. He turned and then threw up into the bedpan. “Preferably one with a pilot,” he said, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “To Denver.”
CHAPTER THREE
Less than twelve hours later
IDLING IN A black Ford Explorer on the crimson and gold tree-lined drive, he could pass for any other parent waiting for his son or daughter after school.
Except the snowcapped mountain license plates had belonged to an abandoned junker in an overgrown backyard. And the tamper-resistant expiration stickers had been lifted off a newer vehicle.
Grit scratched his sleep-deprived eyes like sandpaper. He removed his Ray-Ban Predators and wiped at his weary lids. If he closed them now he wasn’t sure he’d ever open them again. Replacing his sunglasses, he pulled his ball cap lower.
The three o’clock bell signaled an end to the school day and the school week since it was Friday. Boys and girls poured out of the building, clamoring to be heard above the final peal. Mallory had put him in a private school, which made the boy harder to find. But not hard enough for anyone looking.
Not that he believed she’d hidden him out of fear or as a precaution. If that were the case, she and the boy wouldn’t be living in the same house she and her sister had grown up in.
He was sketchy on the details of the past seven years, but he knew her mother had passed away some time ago and that her father now resided in a nearby nursing home.
Nash glanced at the dated surveillance photo on the seat beside him. Hell of a thing not to know your own son. But he would have recognized the boy anywhere, right down to the Transformers T-shirt—it could have been his own second grade photo staring back at him.
Nash spotted Benjamin among a group of boys in uniform skipping down stairs despite being weighted down by backpacks bigger than they were. Quickly folding the photo along worn creases, he tucked it back into his pocket. As he watched, a man in a black turban approached the group of small boys. Nash reached for the door handle but pulled back at the last minute as a dark-skinned boy broke off from the crowd and ran up to embrace the lucky bastard.
Nash relaxed his grip on the Glock in his lap hidden beneath a newspaper.
He should have known better. His enemies wouldn’t be that obvious. If they even looked like his Middle Eastern brethren.
The group of second grade boys thinned out as they reached the sidewalk, with two of them breaking off in one direction and Benjamin in another.
“Damn it!” Nash checked his mirrors and then shoved the Explorer into gear. She didn’t seriously allow the boy to walk those six blocks to the house alone, did she?
After everything he’d seen and done these past seven years, he wouldn’t let a kid wander next door to his own house, let alone down the block in his own neighborhood. Urban jungles were some of the most dangerous.
As he pulled away from the curb, a teenage girl with two-toned, blond-on-black hair, rushed up to Benjamin. He heard her simultaneously scold him for not staying put and apologize for being late. The apparent babysitter and the boy continued down the block toward a rusted-out red Volvo.
The combination of an old car and a young driver didn’t make Nash feel any better about his son’s safety. But he drove on without so much as a glance in passing. Turning left at the third stop sign, he avoided the unmarked car parked across the street from his former in-laws’ home, which now belonged to Mal—not just his former sister-in-law, but also his son’s aunt and guardian.
If not for that familial connection, he would have braked at his first opportunity and snatched the boy right then and there. He checked the rearview mirror as the Volvo stopped at the same intersection before continuing toward the house.
Nash turned right at the alley and slowed the Explorer.
Modern pop tops punctuated the row of American Craftsman homes that made up the old Washington Park neighborhood that lay within spitting distance of downtown Denver. He’d scouted the area earlier. The stakeout appeared to be limited to the two Feds sitting in a black sedan out front.
At least a dozen federal agents should have been swarming the place by now. Unless, of course, they thought he was dead like the two federal marshals assigned to protect him.
In which case, they should have taken even more precautions.
He winced as a spasm in his side reminded him of his narrow escape and just how much blood he’d lost at the scene. Shoving back the brim of his ball cap, he swiped the beads of sweat forming on his brow.
Focus, Nash.
He tugged the ball cap back down and then took a familiar left turn out of the alley. He knew these lanes well—he’d grown up here.
After he’d entered the service, his mother had moved back East to be with family. As far as Sabine Nash knew, her only child—a convicted murderer—had died a coward in prison. He’d had to rely on Rabbi Yaakov to see that his mother paid a visit to their relatives in Israel for the time being. He didn’t have the time to get both her and his son to safety. Nash beat back a twinge of guilt.
Thank God his father hadn’t lived to see this day.
Though it was unlikely anyone from the old neighborhood would recognize him, including his own mother, Nash continued straight instead of taking another right. He didn’t want to drive past the old house where he’d grown up just in case their elderly neighbor, Mrs. Rosenberg, had lived to see her eightieth birthday.
* * *
MALLORY PUSHED HER father’s wheelchair, enjoying the relatively warm autumn weather as they strolled the parklike grounds between the assisted-living facility and his nursing home. The late afternoon sun reflected off the pond as they followed the winding path toward a chorus of honking geese who were making a pit stop on their way south for the winter.
“Slow down, Margaret! You’re driving too fast.”
“It’s me, Daddy, Mallory. Mom—” There was no point in bringing it up again. He’d just relive the pain of losing his wife of thirty-five years. Or worse, would only feel frustrated because he couldn’t remember her at all. “Mom couldn’t make it today.”
“Mallory?” He cranked his neck but couldn’t turn his head far enough back to look at her, so he shifted his frail body to face her. “I have a daughter named Mallory.”
“I know.”