7

Jack fought the numbness his mind yearned to yield to and forced it to focus. He shuttled between the garage and the skyway, getting the lay of the land and not finding much in the way of potential escape routes.

To the north lay the runways, the East River, and Rikers Island. If he didn’t get out of here soon, Rikers might be his new home.

To the south, past Ditmars Boulevard and Grand Central Parkway, the glowing house windows of Jackson Heights beckoned.

East offered only dark expanses of marsh and more of the East River. The west had possibilities, but involved long stretches of exposure.

He had to get down to the highway.

Jack fell in with a group heading from the skyway to the garage. No one spoke. Shock was the order of the day.

As they entered the fourth level and scattered toward their respective cars, Jack took the elevator down to the ground floor. Crossed to the outer rim and hopped over the wall. Cut across an access lane to a low concrete wall. Hopped that, landing on a patch of bare ground. Directly ahead, across a scraggly winter lawn, lay Grand Central Parkway.

All that stood between Jack and freedom was an eight-foot, chain-link fence with a barbed-wire crown.

Blue-and-white police units and sinister black SUVs kept roaring in and out along the airport access roads.

That fence… that damn fence…

Couldn’t go over it. No big deal physically—he could easily climb the links and throw his sweatshirt over the barbed wire—but he’d be spotted for sure.

Had to find another way.

Jack lay flat and began to belly crawl through the cold, dead grass. When he reached the fence he turned and crept along its base, feeling his way, searching for—

His hand slipped into a depression in the dirt. Knew he’d find one somewhere along the line. Inevitable that some dog at some time would want to get past the fence. To do that it would dig. And one had dug here.

Not deep enough to allow Jack through, but okay. The dog trough gave him a head start. All he had to do was make it a little deeper, strip down to his underwear, and slip through.

He pulled out his knife and flipped it open. A sin to use a Spyderco Endura as a digging tool, but…

At least the ground was still soft. Though cold, winter was a couple weeks off, and the ground hadn’t frozen yet.

He began to dig, loosening the dirt with the knife blade and scooping it out with his free hand…