by Jane Seville
D cleared his throat. “And, uh… yer okay with leaving it at that, are ya?”
Jack stared at him. “Don’t we have to?”
“I dunno.” D met his eyes. “Do we?”
Jack’s mouth opened and closed a few times. “D… what—”
“Jack, I… I done a lot a thinkin’ these past weeks, and especially last night. Don’t think I slept at all. Just lyin’ there thinkin’, mostly. Thinkin’ ’bout what you gotta do, and what I gotta do, and all the fuckers want either or both of us on slabs. But mostly thinkin’ that…. Well, I know how it’s s’posed ta be it fer us now. We’re s’posed ta part ways and not look back, right?” Jack nodded. “Ya know what I’m thinkin’ now?”
“What?”
“Fuck that.”
Jack choked out a surprised bark of laughter that was half a sob. He reached out and grasped the back of D’s neck, bringing their foreheads together. “Really?” he whispered. He felt D nod.
“You still gotta do what you gotta do. And I gotta do my thing too. But… that ain’t forever.”
“I’ll be in Witsec,” Jack said. “I’ll have a different name, I don’t know where I’ll be living….”
D drew back and took Jack’s face in his hands. “I’ll find you. You hear me?” Jack nodded, a lump rising in his throat. “I’ll find you.”
“H… how long?”
“I dunno. Could be years.”
Jack met his eyes. “I’ll wait.”
They sat there staring at each other for a long moment. The honking of Jack’s cab outside broke into the silence, and D looked away. “You better get goin’.”
Jack nodded and got up. Each step heavy, he took his bags outside, held up a “just a minute” finger to the driver, stepped back inside the room and shut the door behind him. D had pulled on his jeans and was standing there staring into space. “D,” Jack said.
He looked up, and Jack felt the words rocketing up his throat. I love you. You don’t have to say it back. You already said it, not in so many words. But I want you to know, I want to say it, I want you to hear it and believe it. I love you. He opened his mouth, then saw the warning in D’s eyes and the words shriveled up behind his lips.
They met each other halfway and wrapped up in a tight embrace. Jesus, just let me get out of here before I lose it completely. D drew back and ran his thumb over Jack’s lips, silencing him. He sighed. “You be careful.”
“You too.”
“I’m always careful.”
“I’ll have armed men protecting me; you won’t.”
“Nope. Just myself.”
Jack stood there paralyzed. “Say it again,” he whispered.
D cupped his cheek and lifted his head to meet his eyes. “I’ll find you,” he said, low and implacable.
Jack nodded. He leaned in and D met his lips, quiet and calm. Jack gave his face one last quick nuzzle and then jerked himself away. He turned and opened the door, practically leaping through and slamming it behind him so he didn’t have a chance to look back.
~~~~~
D leaned up against the closed motel room door, his hands flat against its cheap wood veneer as if he could still feel Jack somewhere on the other side. He took a breath, pulled himself together and picked up his cell phone.
“Witsec, Churchill.”
“Yeah, it’s D.”
“Where’s Jack?”
“He jus’ left. He’s on his way ta meet ya.”
“Good. What’d you tell him?”
“Nothing specific, but I know he thinks I’m leaving town right away.”
“What’s your plan?”
“You find Petros yet?”
“No.”
“Well, that’ll be high on the list. Then I’ll see if I can’t figure out if anyone’s accepted hits on Jack.”
“D, you’re a wanted man yourself. Won’t you be recognized?”
“Nah. I got a few tricks up my sleeve. Besides, I hardly ever work out East. Don’t guess the hit on me will be as high priority out here. Might slip by. What kinda security you got set up fer him?”
“He’s staying at the Hyatt in downtown Baltimore. Standard protection conditions apply: no one in any of the rooms above, below, or on either side, he travels only by secure elevator, marshals at the door.”
“Mmm. Sounds all right. Look, I gave him a personal firearm.”
“I’ll look into getting him a permit to carry concealed.”
“Good. I appreciate yer trouble.”
“You’re welcome, Dane.”
D went still and cold. “What’d you jus’ call me?”
“That’s your name, isn’t it? Captain Anson Dane, late of the United States Army Special Forces.”
D sat down hard. “Fuck.”
“I don’t mean to startle you, but I thought you ought to know that I know who you are.”
“Who else knows?”
“Nobody.”
“Don’t you fuck with me.”
“I’m not. Listen, I’m telling you because you ought to know somebody’s been digging into your military record.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Listen, you left a print. At that gas station that blew up outside Stockton. It was baked into the gas pump handle.”
“Fuck. I don’t leave prints.”
“You did this time. Now, your identity’s been pretty well scrubbed clean, and Anson Dane is dead, isn’t he? Last military record is that of an honorable discharge in 1996. Then there’s a record of a man by that name dying in a car crash in Redding, California, except when I dug into it a little deeper the vital stats of the body that was recovered from the resulting fire don’t match the ones in your military record, and it just so happens that the date of the crash also coincides with the last time anyone ever heard from your brother, Darrell, although property and utilities continue to be paid in accounts under his name.”
D sighed. “That print will fuckin’ end me.”
“No it won’t, because I buried it.”
“You what?”
“Don’t tell me I’m risking my career because I already know that. Look, you put your neck on the line to save my witness’s life. What I’m telling you is that when I went back to your military records I found that someone had accessed them recently.”
“When?”
“Last March.”
D thought back. March rang no bells and raised no alarms. “I got no fuckin’ idea who’d do that.”
“Well, nobody knows about the connection between the Dane identity and you except me.”
“Guess I better stay on yer good side, then.”
Churchill chuckled. “You help me keep Jack alive through all this and we’ll be good.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
“All right.”
“Oh, and uh…,” D trailed off.
“What?”
“You take care a him,” D said, unable to keep the hoarseness from his voice. “You take care a my Jack.” He was laying himself bare, more than he’d ever done, but it somehow wasn’t as scary as he’d always thought it would be.
There was a long pause. “I will.” Churchill hung up.
D flopped backward onto the bed, his head spinning. Jesus, now my nuts’re in the fire fer sure. Who the hell’s been pokin’ in my records? And now somebody knows my name. I think I trust Churchill, but anybody knowin’ is one person too many.
Oh, fuck it all. Yer identity was circlin’ the drain anyway. You’da hadta give up a lot a shit now that D’s hunted by God knows who-all anyhow. And if yer thinkin’ a havin’ some kinda life with Jack….
He shut down that line of thought at once. It did no good to spin pipe dreams, not yet anyway. He’d meant what he’d said to Jack. But meaning it and making it happen were two different things.
He turned over and pulled a pillow close. It still smelled like Jack. He buried his face in it and sagged into the lumpy mattress, moorless and undone, drifting now without his anchor.
Chapter Tw
enty
Jack sat waiting for Churchill on a bench in Baker Park, his duffel bag sitting by his side. It was a beautiful day. It’d be fall soon, and the season felt welcome. It felt like home after months in the desert. Soon he’d be back for real, back in Baltimore, the city where he’d spent most of his adult life.
That life seemed like a mirage now. Something imagined, remembered like a story he’d been told by his parents instead of something he’d lived through.
Your old apartment is there. Your practice. Your car, your belongings. You left it all here. Your whole life.
No. You just left your life back in that motel room.
Jack shut his eyes and sighed, the wind lifting his hair off his forehead.
It can’t be helped. And it’s just for now.
He let himself hear D’s voice again.
I’ll find you.
“Jack?”
He opened his eyes to find a man standing in front of him. He was tall and thin with startlingly red hair and a prominent Adam’s apple. He looked like a math teacher. He was wearing a suit with no tie, his white button-down shirt open at the throat.
“Yeah?”
He smiled. “I’m Paul Churchill.” He stuck out his hand. Jack rose and shook it, reassured. “Goddamn, it’s good to finally meet you.”
“You too.” Jack’s smile broadened. Churchill was exactly the opposite of what he’d been expecting, and that was somehow comforting.
“Come on. Let’s get you out of here.” He took one of Jack’s bags and they walked to the street, where Churchill’s car was at a parking meter. They loaded the bags and got in.
“Where are we going first?”
“First, I’m going to take you to the hotel. You must be exhausted from that long drive.”
Jack nodded. It wasn’t the drive that had been exhausting. “Yeah.”
“Well, the best I can do for now is let you get a shower and some breakfast, because I’m supposed to have you at the U.S. Attorney’s office by noon.”
“Where they will ask me the same questions eight hundred times.”
“Yeah, probably. Look, it’s for your own good. Whatever high-priced lawyer the brothers have hired will do whatever he can to make you look like an idiot or a criminal yourself.”
Jack ground his jaw. “Let him try. I didn’t go through all this just to be broken down on the stand. I’ve been grilled by some of the toughest, meanest attending physicians on Earth during rounds. I can handle it.”
Churchill chuckled. “I’ve gotta say, Jack, you are a prosecutor’s wet dream as a witness. No criminal record. Not only are you not getting anything from testifying, you’re actually risking your life. You were a totally innocent bystander to the crime. Plus you’re a doctor, which means automatic intelligence and respect points with a jury, and as you say, you’re used to high-pressure situations, so it’s hard to trip you up on cross-examination. Salie ought to be getting down on his knees and kissing your ass.”
“Salie?”
“Yeah, Brad Salie. He’s the prosecutor handling this case.”
“Is he any good?”
“Yeah, he’s good. He’s tough. And he’s spent the past five years trying to build a case against the brothers.” Churchill was steering onto I-70 toward Baltimore. “You want to stop somewhere and get a coffee? Go to the bathroom?”
Jack shook his head. “I’m okay.” A few beats went by; Jack could feel Churchill’s eyes on him. “What?”
He sighed. “Jack, I know about D.”
Jack blinked. “Who?”
“Don’t give me that.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The hit man who was supposed to kill you but ended up protecting you.”
Jack nodded slowly. “Huh. You come up with that all by yourself?”
“No. I’ve been talking to him on the phone once a week all summer.”
That was enough to knock Jack’s train of thought right off the rails. “What?”
“He asked me not to tell you, but I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t know. I think he’s just too used to keeping secrets.”
Jack just stared. “Are you telling me you’ve been in touch with him all this time?”
“Yep.”
He didn’t know why he was even surprised. “Goddamn him. He never thinks I can handle anything. And after he gave me that big song and dance about how you couldn’t know about him.”
“No offense, Jack, but I knew you had to be getting help. It wasn’t too likely that you could have escaped someone like him on your own.”
“Which is exactly what I told him! He said you’d have no choice but to buy it!”
“He wanted to make sure I’d accept that you were out of pocket, which he knew I’d never do unless I was sure you were protected, so he went behind your back and contacted me so I’d know you weren’t alone.” Jack could only shake his head ruefully. “Does that piss you off?”
“I guess it probably should, but I don’t seem to have much piss-off left in me. I’m sure as hell not going to waste what little I’ve got on him.”
“Look, I’ve talked to the agent who works with him at the FBI, and I know what he’s done for them, but… he’s still a professional killer, Jack.”
“You don’t know him,” Jack said, flatly. “No one knows him but me.”
~~~~~
D came out of a Best Buy in Towson with a new laptop under one arm. He got in the car and found the nearest Panera, home of delicious pastries and free Wi-Fi. He’d had the Best Buy geeks configure the laptop. He had to think for a moment to remember the password to his personal server, but once there he downloaded and installed his usual firewall, then sat back and waited while his security suite installed.
Jack is somewhere in this city, right now.
The thought was like passing by a house where someone was grilling in the backyard. You could smell it, but it wasn’t yours, and you couldn’t just barge into their home and demand a burger, no matter how your mouth watered.
The computer configured to his satisfaction, D opened the browser and typed in the IP address from memory. The network, a blank white screen with a single line of text entry, was as inscrutable as always.
He couldn’t sign in as himself. Every hit man in the country was gunning for him. Fortunately, no one, not even X, knew that D was not one hit man but several. When he’d started working for the FBI he’d seen the advantage in cultivating alternate identities through which he could keep track of what was being said or rumored about himself, and it provided additional ways to undercut the business without compromising his primary identity. Since very few people in his line of work knew what anyone actually looked like, it was easy enough to keep separate personas. He thought for a moment, then signed in as Lincoln, identified by a random string of letters and numbers D had to keep in his head. Over a year ago he’d signed into the network as Lincoln and announced that he was taking a sabbatical in Turkey. People got suspicious if any particular person disappeared for too long.
The site didn’t have a welcome screen, or a forum, or a chat room, or even any text. It was another white, featureless series of empty windows, except one. A small frame in the lower-right corner identified the users currently signed in. He scanned the names. Hmm. I know Frost… there’s Carver… Dorian, that sounds familiar…. There were a disturbingly large number of handles he didn’t recognize, although his profession did have a high turnover rate. His ten-year career was unusually long, and he’d been out of circulation for several months.
He didn’t have to wait long. A window opened up on his screen with a message from Frost. He’d actually met Frost in person, as Lincoln, and cooperated with him on a couple of two-man jobs.
Welcome back.
Thanks.
How was turkey?
Hot. Brought back some shiny new toys.
When’d you get back?
D thought fast. A week ago.
You hear? Sig’s dea
d.
Seriously? How?
D killed him.
You’re fucking kidding me. Why?
Word around the campfire is D backed off a mark. Ran into Sig in LA, killed him.
Yeah? What mark’d he back off?
Some surgeon, witness against the Dominguez bros.
Contract still active on the surgeon?
No, it’s taken.
Who’s got it? D could only hope Frost didn’t think his interest was suspicious. He probably wouldn’t. The thing about professional killers was that they were paranoid and isolationist, but gossipy.
I tried to put in a bid but the bros already have a couple vendors lined up. JJ got the close hit.
D sighed. JJ was smart and sneaky, and would be tough to throw off. Who else?
First hit went to Carver. If neither of them get him, bidding might open up again, or else the bros will just do it themselves.
What about D? You bid for that?
All the hits on D got canceled. No bounty.
D frowned. That wasn’t a good sign. If all the contracts on his life had been withdrawn, that could only mean that whoever had blackmailed him into killing Jack had decided to find him and deal with him themselves, without involving an independent contractor.
Someone’s taking that personally, then. You know who?
No, but whoever it is must have balls made of solid iron. D is too damn hard core and I wouldn’t touch a hit on him no matter what the bounty was. The guy’s a phantom.
D grinned to himself. A perk of having alternate identities was the chance to hear what your colleagues really thought of you. I heard Petros is in town.
Yeah. The brothers got him in so in case the surgeon gets away he can take care of it. And if he gets bagged, they’ll let Petros play with him for awhile first, you know?
D’s stomach turned over. He’d seen the remains of people that Petros had played with, and his mind’s eye showed him an image of Jack with his eyeballs gouged out, fingers chopped off one by one, slowly disemboweled and burned with hot irons before he was finally allowed to die.
Guess I’ll come to Bmore and see how it plays out.
Yeah? I’m in Lauderdale. Got more drug lord jobs than I can handle.