The Betrayer by Daniel Judson Page A

Johnny was difficult for her.
    “I don’t really
have a lot of time,” Johnny said.
    Cat nodded. “So let’s
get to it.”

    She’d brought along a laptop
computer and quickly set it up on the metal desk, then stepped aside with
Fiermonte so Johnny and McVicker could watch a video playback.
    It was grainy surveillance
video that showed a motorcycle pulling to a stop on a city street. Color
footage, but no sound. A time and date stamp ran along the lower edge of the
frame. Today’s date, just shy of one in the morning.
    Nearly twelve
hours ago.
    The camera that
had taken this footage was motion-activated — the fact that there was no shot
of the empty street prior to the motorcycle entering the frame made that obvious.
The helmeted rider backed the motorcycle till its rear tire touched the curb,
then lowered the kickstand with his heel and killed the motor. It was after the
rider had dismounted that he removed his helmet.
    Despite the poor
quality of the image, and the limited lighting of the street, Johnny
immediately recognized his kid brother.
    Leather jacket,
jeans, backpack.
    Johnny glanced at
Cat, then looked back at the screen.
    Jeremy had removed
his leather gloves and was tucking them inside the helmet. Then he did
something that struck Johnny as strange. He looked up and straight into the surveillance
camera.
    And waved.
    Had he parked
there on purpose? Had he known the camera would be there? Johnny asked Cat what
street this was.
    “Clinton, north
of Delancey.”
    Johnny nodded and
continued to watch.
    Jeremy exited the
frame, then, after a quick cut, reentered it immediately. Johnny read the time
stamp. Nearly fifteen minutes had passed from the time Jeremy had exited and
re-entered.
    But now Jeremy
was moving fast. His gloves were on but not his helmet. He was still wearing
the backpack. He reached the bike and mounted it, scrambled to insert the key
and turn the ignition. He was looking at something out of frame, something in
the direction from which he had come.
    It appeared for a
second as if he were about to pull the helmet on, but another quick look in
that same direction caused him to drop the helmet to the pavement. Upon
landing, its visor broke free, became airborne, and then landed several feet
away. Leaning forward and grabbing the handlebars, Jeremy pulled in the clutch
with his left hand, stomped the foot peg shifter down into first gear with his
left foot, and then released the clutch, cranking the accelerator with his
right hand.
    His back wheel
spun slightly on the wet pavement, the bike fishtailed, but Jeremy expertly
eased back on the accelerator and quickly regained control.
    A figure entered
the frame just as Jeremy sped from it.
    A man — a large
man. The long bill of a baseball cap obscured his face. In his right hand was a
handgun fitted with a suppressor. With his left he kept reaching up and pressing
his fingertips to his left eyebrow, then pulling his hand away and looking at
it as if he was checking for blood.
    The large man
exited the frame, too, following Jeremy, then re-entered it one more time. According
to the time stamp, barely two minutes had passed. The man was running, but he paused
to scoop up the helmet, though he either didn’t see the visor a few feet away
or didn’t care about it. Johnny noted that the man was no longer carrying his
handgun. With the helmet in hand, he continued running and exited the frame.
    The video ended there.
McVicker stood back and Johnny looked at Cat.
    “We found the
visor,” she said. “There was some blood on it, and we’re assuming it belongs to
Jeremy’s attacker. The fact that his eye was bleeding and he grabbed the helmet
means Jeremy must have hit him with it at some point. It’ll take a few days to
get DNA.”
    “Do you know any
of what happened off camera?”
    Fiermonte
answered. “He fired shots at Jeremy.”
    “How do you know
that?”
    “There were
witnesses. Four of them, coming out of the Delancey.”
    Johnny