An agent slapped handcuffs around his wrists while another tore into the bag.But they all stared in disbelief as a cascade of crushed aluminum cans fell onto the street.
“What the hell?”Wyandott muttered.
“They’re mine, fair and square,” the old man cried, as they pulled him to his feet.“Anthony gave them to me.”
Wyandott turned.“Who the hell is Anthony?”
“The man who owns the newsstand.I pick them up once a week, regular as clockwork.Everyone knows.Anthony doesn’t care.He saves them for me.”
A knot was beginning to form in the pit of Wyandott’s belly.He pivoted and pointed toward the stand.“Check it out!”Two of the agents were already running as Gant’s car slid to a halt near the curb.
Gant strode toward Wyandott with murder in his eyes.“Have you lost your mind?”
Wyandott hunched his shoulders and thrust out his jaw.“Mind your own damned business.”
“This is my city.That makes it my business,” Gant yelled.One of the agents came running.“Sir!You’d better come take a look.”
Everyone converged on the stand, leaving the old man handcuffed and alone in the street near his cans.
The bags were gone!
“This is impossible,” Wyandott muttered.“We didn’t take our eyes off of this stand for a second.Not a damned second.”
Gant stepped inside, and, as he did, caught his toe.He staggered, then looked down.A certainty came over him that they’d been lying in wait for nothing.Chances were that the bags had disappeared seconds after Ryder had left
“He didn’t take them out, he took them down,” Gant said, pointing toward the slightly raised edge of a lid covering the opening that led down to the sewers.
Wyandott paled.“Hell.”He grabbed his two-way.“Ambrewster… is that bug sending?”
The radio crackled, and then the man’s voice came over the air loud and clear.“No sir.Everything is status quo.”
Gant was on his knees and pulling at the lid when several of the agents followed his lead and began to help.A flashlight was produced, and even though they were yards above them, and it was black as a devil’s heart down below, there was enough light to see two empty bags lying at the foot of the ladder.
And they had their answer.The signal wasn’t sending because the bags were more or less right where Ryder had left them… minus the three million dollars that had been inside.
The radio crackled again.Wyandott jerked.
“Captain…this is Tucker…come in, sir.”
“Go ahead.”
“Sir, we’ve been following Marlow as you ordered.He parked his car and went into the courthouse at fourteen hundred hours.We have men stationed at every exit and he has yet to come out.”
Wyandott was starting to worry.He kept thinking of the threat Justice had made to his face.This wasn’t going down as he’d planned.
“I want to know if he’s inside.Look for him, dammit, and don’t stop until you do.He’s mixed up in this somehow, I know it.”
* * *
Ryder turned off of the highway without slowing down and skidded to a halt in front of the mansion.He was out of the car before the dust had time to settle.
But when Roman came around the house on the run, Ryder paused at the front door with his hand on the knob.He could tell by the look on his brother’s face that something had happened.
“What?”
Roman grabbed him by the arm.“Gant just called me.The drop went sour.The kidnapper went underground into the sewers.He’s got the money and all they’ve got left are those damned bags.”
Disbelief, coupled with a pain Ryder couldn’t name, nearly sent him to his knees.It was coming undone.
