It didn’t take long to figure out that he was in the Blue Ridge Mountains, northwest of where he lived. He tried to sort out what to do, his thoughts interrupted by spurts of intense pain. John Grove had been shot with his Glock. He guessed the Paragon file in Spirax’s system would be erased. They would have figured that out by now.
A number of times he swerved onto the shoulder or into the other lane. The burns made him shout as he clutched the steering wheel. The pain came in waves. Since he was more alert now, the agony was more acute, more unbearable.
A half hour later he entered the LLC driveway and parked the Jeep in the shed. Gripping the handgun, he staggered into the woods, leaves crunching beneath his feet. The eerie muted trill of a male screech owl made him pause once.
It took him five minutes to find the tunnel entrance. Five more to reach the lower barn level. He remembered his promise to Janet to find her husband’s murderer. The same person would have been sent to kill her, and he had brought the killer to her by downloading the Paragon file. He swallowed on a dry mouth.
When he checked, he found the Paragon copy deleted from his computer. And Grove’s passwords no longer gave him access to Spirax’s data.
He had no proof for the police. And any police report he made would trigger involvement by the military—they would move quickly to get any Blackhood operative out of police scrutiny. And then they might follow the trail from Grove to MultiSec to General Vegas and the friar Sotelo—and discover that he had broken his Blackhood Op oath of secrecy.
Tom Bellue’s murder was already classified as a burglary. His wife’s death would make it appear that the same man had returned because he knew a woman would be alone in the house. Grove’s death would look like a robbery.
His torture wasn’t as easily explainable, but it wasn’t enough evidence for the police to act on. And if the men he had left in the Blue Ridge were dead, and his phone was found there, he would be implicated.
He checked the cameras and sensors. All photographs of any intruders had been erased. From the cabinet he retrieved another phone and synced it with his computer so he would get text alerts.
There was no evidence of a break-in. He wondered how they had managed to get the other deadbolt bars open on the barn door. Maybe a powerful magnet. Someone had to have told them. Christie. He didn’t want to believe that, but who else was there?
The security access to Spirax’s system must have been monitored without Grove’s knowledge. A possibility. The only one that made sense.
He still had no idea how the Paragon file was connected to the Komodo Op, and who in Spirax or MultiSec was making life and death decisions. MultiSec’s CEO, Torr, most likely. But he had no proof. Whoever was behind all this had money and power.
He needed allies on his side or things would be maneuvered against him. Shivering with pain, he bent over for a few minutes. Everyone had a breaking point. It felt like his was near.
CHAPTER 36
Flaut was walking on the ceiling by the time Torr called him. He had already chased two lines of white heaven and now sprawled naked on his couch. A taped Best of Breed dog show played. Lacy rested nearby.
“Did it go all right with Janet Bellue?” Torr’s voice was flat.
“Perfect.” Flaut doubted Torr wanted to hear the particulars of how he had persuaded the woman to talk.
“What did she tell Steel?”
Flaut stroked Lacy’s neck. “Some vague suspicions, and Beatles and blitz at three.”
“A file and access code. Bellue hid a copy of his audit in the system.”
“What Tom Bellue handled in terms of pain to hide that is a record in my book.”
“Good job. Money’s on its way.”
“Steel?”
Torr paused. “He’s on the run. Leave him alone for now. I’ll call you.”
The connection ended and Flaut hung up. A cold glass of whiskey rested on his stomach and droplets of water dribbled down his hard muscles. He made a decision, sat up, and got dressed.
CHAPTER 37
Steel took the tunnel to the house.
Nothing looked disturbed. Whoever had searched the house had assumed he would be dead and didn’t want to give the police any reason for suspicion. It gave him some comfort that his home wasn’t torn apart.
He sat in front of the kitchen cabinet that had the cubbyhole. Pulling out the vegetable cans sent tremors through his torso. He removed the board and grabbed the leather pouch. Empty. Except for the SIG Sauer. The flash drive and twenty thousand in run money were gone.
More confusion. Why would whoever had found the flash drive lie to Rusack? Maybe to see if he would come up with another copy elsewhere. And he had. The barn computer.
Or maybe the lone masked intruder had been on his own and found it. His head throbbed because of his clenched jaw, which was in reaction to the pain that still wracked his body. It was hard work going upstairs.
The safe in the closet was intact. He opened it up. Nothing had been touched. Either they didn’t find it or had opened it and left the contents alone.
He walked to the bathroom and slowly pulled off his tattered shirt. A dozen red, raw burns marked his stomach, chest, and upper arms. He took aspirin. After one rough night the pain would be substantially reduced. Wincing at every touch, he put cream on the burns, followed by taped nonstick gauze and a soft cotton shirt.
Going down the stairs was easier and he sat in the dark in the living room, trying to untangle the night’s events. He called Kergan. No answer. And his voice mail was turned off. He left his new number.
He needed to hear another voice. Debating on how wise that was, his emotions finally won out and he called Christie. Voice mail. It made him feel acutely alone that on a planet of over seven billion people he had no one to talk to.
His throat was parched. The effort to get off his chair seemed monumental. Walking hunched over, Glock in hand, he limped into the kitchen and downed a glass of water.
His phone beeped. Text alert. Someone was walking in from the front gate. The camera showed Rusack.
Rusack wouldn’t know he wasn’t living here. It must have taken him a while to find his address and drive out. Maybe he had cleaned up the bodies of his friends.
Steel thought about it, went to the back door, and unlocked it. Then he backed up against the wall behind the door. In a few minutes the knob turned and the door slowly opened. A gun appeared. Then Rusack.
Steel shoved his gun into the man’s ribs. “Drop the gun.”
Rusack complied.
“Step forward.”
Rusack did, and Steel kicked him between the legs. Rusack fell to his knees. Steel followed with a hand strike to the neck, which sent Rusack unconscious to the floor.
Hurting Rusack felt good, but the pain caused by his actions made him woozy. He kicked Rusack’s gun—a S&W 9mm—farther inside. It slid across the living room floor.
He waited for Rusack to come to, and then forced him to crawl on all fours. “Try to get up,” he said softly from behind, “and I’ll shoot you between the legs for starters.”
Rusack groaned and crawled to the barn. At the door Steel made him stop so he could unlock it and punch the key code.
Once inside, he ordered Rusack to crawl past the VR platform to a four-by-four post and sit with his back against it. Steel got strands of rope from a wall hook and tossed them to him. “Tie your ankles together, tight. Then your knees.”
Rusack obeyed, and Steel said, “Hands behind the pole.” He put a zip tie around his wrists, and then tied the man’s hands together. Lastly he wound rope around the man’s thick chest and the post a half-dozen times.
Satisfied, he dragged a chair over and sat down in front of Rusack. It hurt too much to stand. He stared in silence at Rusack.
“What do you want?” asked Rusack.
Giving a crook
ed smile, Steel walked to a cabinet near the computer station, where he retrieved an extension cord and a pocket knife. Rusack watched him return to the chair. Using the knife, he cut off one end of the cord, peeling back the plastic insulation. He held it in his hands, staring at Rusack.
“What do you want?” repeated Rusack.
Leaving the wire on the chair, he plugged the other end of the cord into a wall socket. He picked up the live end of the wire and dragged the chair closer to Rusack and sat down.
“Tell me what you want!” Rusack blinked at the wire.
Steel rolled the cord back and forth between his thumb and finger. “I want to hear you scream.” Slowly he extended the wire toward Rusack’s face.
Rusack jerked his head away. “I’ll tell you anything you want!” he said frantically.
Stopping a half-inch from Rusack’s averted face, he said softly, “I’m going to ask you some questions. Keep in mind that if you lie, and I don’t make it back, there might not be anyone in this barn for weeks. You’ll die a slow death.”
Rusack’s eyes widened. “What do you want to know?”
“Who hired you?”
“Quenton.”
“Where were you supposed to go tonight after you finished the job?”
“King’s Bar in Richmond.”
“What time?”
“Soon as I was done.”
“Then what?”
“Nothing. I sit and wait.”
“Where can I find Quenton?”
“You can’t. He’s never in the same place twice.”
“How do you get in contact with him?”
“I don’t. I finish the job and get paid by messenger.”
“Why did you come back here?”
“You don’t do a job right for Quenton, you’re good as dead anyway.”
“What else do you know?”
“Nothing.” Rusack stared wide-eyed at the live wire next to his face.
Steel didn’t believe him. "Where’s my silenced Glock?"
"Gone. I made a hand-off to someone in a car before I came here. Didn’t see them. Don’t know who."
Steel set the wire on the floor next to Rusack’s leg. “If I don’t like your answers, we’ll play some more.”
Rusack looked up at him with a drawn face. “What happens if you don’t come back?”
“You better hope I do.”
Using his phone, he found the address for King’s Bar, locked the barn door, and walked back to the house. Putting on a light jacket, he stuffed the Glock in his belt in front and Rusack’s S&W in back.
From the kitchen he got a butter knife and walked into his study. Wincing, he knelt and lifted up a rug. With the knife he pried up one of the four-inch-wide oak floorboards. It squeaked and popped up, revealing a narrow, rectangular combination floor safe.
Spinning the dial, he opened the safe and lifted out ten grand. It wouldn’t be enough for what he needed, but fifty grand probably wouldn’t be enough either. He put it into his jacket pocket. Another twenty was in the safe, as well as a silencer for the Glock. Staring at the silencer, he decided to leave it. It would make the Glock harder to conceal.
After tapping the board back in place, he replaced the rug. He was going to take the tunnels but decided that would take too long. The opposition wouldn’t be organized yet. He held the advantage and time mattered.
It took another painful walk through the woods to return to his Jeep in the LLC garage. On impulse, he checked beneath the front passenger seat, and found his phone. He would have to trash it. Then he had a long drive. It would take a few more shouts out of him.
CHAPTER 38
Flaut parked his car just west of the south stretch of Steel’s place. He strode into the woods with Lacy at his side, walking north a good distance before turning east.
Coming in from the west would be safer for him. After the two men tried to kill him, Steel had enough sense to have set up security at obvious choke points. Flaut didn’t want to trip those, and he also didn’t want Lacy to get hurt.
He had floated down from the ceiling an hour ago, and now it felt like only two feet of air separated his feet from the ground. The Walther PPK/S rested in his pocket, but he didn’t think he would need it. Steel wasn’t living on his property anymore.
The night was warm and he wore all black. Tennis shoes, jeans, gloves, and a sweatshirt. Not wanting his pale skin to show in the moonlight, or in a camera, he also had a black stocking mask pulled down over his head. A sling bag held a laptop, among other things.
Lacy remained at his side. He was glad she could be in the woods. He would have to remember to brush her later. That reminded him of donations he needed to send to the Humane Society and PETA.
An old incident came to him, one he remembered often.
“You stupid, dumb kid.” The bearded, overweight man backhanded the blond-haired boy stuck to his leg and yanked the whining puppy on the leash. The puppy slid across the cracked linoleum to the man’s feet.
“I’ll train him, he’ll learn,” the boy said. Blood trickled from his lip as he sprawled on the floor, wide-eyed.
“He’s made the last mess of his life.” The man disappeared into the dark of the backyard, leaving the door half-open.
“Mom!” The boy turned to the woman who stood by a sink full of dirty dishes. She wore an old nightgown, her face lined with wrinkles and framed by messy blond hair. She held a whiskey glass and took another drink. Her bloodshot eyes didn’t seem to see anything.
The boy heard a sharp yelp, then silence.
His face burned as the image weakened. If his father was still alive, he would keep him in a chair for months before he was through with him. But the image held no promise so he let it fade.
At one point the clouds cleared and Lacy stopped. So did Flaut. To their left, fifty feet away, a deer stared at them. Illuminated in moonlight, the doe’s eyes shone like bright dots before the creature turned away and darkness claimed it again. Flaut loved the dark for what it hid.
His fingers clenched and unclenched rhythmically. When Torr had paused on the phone, he perceived something. All his years of persuading, and detecting lies, left him with a sense of what people tried to hide beneath their spoken words. Torr had lied to him about sending him after Steel and his teeth grated over that.
He scanned ahead. Even a half hour of fresh air didn’t stop the white heaven from making him feel lighter than his two-hundred pounds. He could respond almost as well like this as when his mind was clear. But with someone like Steel it was a risk.
The darker image of the house appeared. He stopped, took a leash from his pocket, and tied Lacy to a small tree. Stroking her neck, he whispered, “Lie down, girl.”
She complied and he stroked her a few more times.
He strode to the house, stood by its southwest corner, and listened and watched. The driveway was empty. The swing was nearby. Walking to it, he pushed it lightly, sending it back and forth. He noted the stake with Rachel carved into it.
He walked to the barn door. Heavy steel and double locked. From his sling bag he pulled out a set of specially designed pins, two of which he inserted into the deadbolt lock.
In his teens and twenties he had spent a lot of time breaking into places and getting past locks. Steel had an above-average deadbolt lock so it took him ten minutes.
Finished, he pulled out a canister of invisible UV powder and sprayed it on the keypad. A portable, battery-charged black light showed the fingerprints on the keys. Six keys had been used. He had a good sense for these things too. It only took him a dozen attempts before he had the door open.
He entered and pulled the door closed behind him, rendering the barn pitch black inside. Gun in hand, he ran his palms along the wall until he found the light switch. Turning it on, he saw the computer station, which lit up his eyes, a
nd a man tied up against a post. The man wasn’t blindfolded or gagged and stared over his shoulder at Flaut.
“I can guarantee ten grand if you get me out of this,” said Rusack.
Flaut slid the three door deadbolts, and then went to the computer console. He took the covers off the equipment, impressed by what he saw.
“Look, I’ll make it fifteen grand, you untie me right now,” Rusack pleaded.
Flaut didn’t look at him. “Where’s Steel?”
“He left an hour ago. Went into Richmond. Be at least two hours before he’s back. Help me kill him and I’ll give you fifty grand. We have time to get ready.”
Flaut turned on the VR equipment and ran his hands over the peripherals. Bringing out his laptop, he plugged it into the computer. When he was younger he had spent years hacking computers. He was past Steel’s passwords and onto his desktop in minutes.
He booted the VR program. While it came up, he opened a file on his laptop and transferred it to Steel’s computer, and then used the VR program to access it.
Rusack stared at the monitor.
Flaut put on the VR goggles and sat in the computer chair, waiting.
***
The Taliban soldier’s baggy clothing was ragged and he sat on a wooden chair in a dimly lit room with stone walls and a dirt floor. A scraggly turban covered his head and his sandals were worn and dusty. His gaunt, bearded face held sunken eyes and his hands were tied behind his back, his legs tied to the chair. In the shadows, two Afghan soldiers flanked the prisoner.
Flaut strode up to the bare feet of the prisoner.
A table of implements stood to the side. A gun, for the end, rested on the table. The floor and walls were otherwise bare so the prisoner had nothing to focus on, except Flaut.
Flaut smiled at the two Afghan guards, who stood at loose attention behind the prisoner. They smiled back.
He nodded. The guards tied one of the prisoner’s hands to his thigh. Flaut stepped to the table and picked up a thin sliver of a knife. Then he walked up to the trembling prisoner and stared down at him.
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