by Sam Jones
“Oh-kay,” Billy said. “Now you’re just being an asshole.”
“I’m throwing you a bone here. My people could have shut you down or put you in a box multiple times in the past few days.”
“Well, then why didn’t you, I Spy?”
“Because you got close to Sykes. We’ve been trying to find him for months, and you almost did the job for us.”
Billy took a beat. “Sykes is your end game in all this?”
The raven-haired man nodded.
“Well,” Billy said, “I had him in Chicago. Well, technically he had me, but I suppose you already know all about that.”
“Just bits and pieces.”
“Bits and pieces? I thought you had the word Intelligence in between Central and Agency.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. You’re slippery. It’s been hard to stay on you.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment, coming from a spy. Tell you what: if you guys get lost and just let me do my thing, maybe I can nab Sykes, and we can all meet at a diner afterward for some celebratory brunch. You said it yourself: I’m the only one who’s even gotten close to him.”
The raven-haired man stepped closer to Billy. “Look, man. You’ve got a lot of stones. I’ll give you that. And it’s yielded you results. But it’s over, kid. I mean it. You keep going down this road, you keep acting like some kind of hotshot maverick who likes to just shoot at every problem, sooner or later it’s going to come back and bite you in the ass.”
Billy smirked and looked away. “Man,” he said. “Everyone on the planet has this whole life ‘thing’ figured out except me, don’t they?”
The raven-haired man pointed a finger. “This is wisdom,” he said, “being gifted to you from someone who’s been in this game double the time you have. You’re gonna end up on a one-way collision course with fate unless you take a hot second to reevaluate—”
“Didn’t you have something to tell me?” Billy cut in as he stopped in front of a closed-down bodega. “About Sykes? About the war? It’s getting late, man. Hit me with it, or I’m doing the electric slide out of here.”
The raven-haired guy turned around. “When Sykes was in Vietnam, he was recruited into a unit. This unit was tasked with…” He thought of a way to say it. “Special assignments.”
Billy flexed his eyebrows and whistled the opening intro to the A-Team. “What kind of ‘special assignments’?”
The raven-haired man chose his words carefully. “Ones that didn’t give two shits about any kind of red tape.”
“A kill squad.”
The raven-haired man shrugged—he would neither confirm nor deny the accusation.
“What can you tell me about this little band of misfits Sykes was a part of?” Billy asked.
“Very little,” the raven-haired man said. “I can tell you that it was a tight group, only a handful of men, including a captain. One day, near the end of their run, the unit was on a mission when they came across a village.”
“Where?”
“That’s classified.”
“All right, dick.”
“In that village,” the raven-haired man continued, “Sykes’s unit carried out a, uh…well, an atrocity. A massacre, to be more precise.”
Billy felt a knot developing in his stomach—words like “massacre” weren’t usually thrown around casually in a conversation.
“Say again?”
“We only have tidbits of what happened,” the raven-haired man said, “but we found out that Sykes’s unit wiped out a village of about sixty people. Ages seventy down to six. Some of what happened was caught on film by the unit’s captain. It was a dirty little secret he held onto until his conscience was making him lose too much sleep over it.
“Couple of months ago he sends those pictures to a reporter at the New York Times. One of them was this nice little black-and-white of Sykes standing over a dead woman and her kid that he had just mowed down with an M-16. There was other stuff that happened as well. Just let your imagination run wild, and it’s probably an accurate summation of the things that unit was doing to those villagers.”
Billy let out something reminiscent of a hiss, turning away from the images the spook was projecting in front of him.
He was absolutely repulsed. The thought of Sykes, a man he thought he knew, disregarding human life—the life of a child’s nonetheless—made him want to blow his lunch.
He couldn’t stop shaking his head. His eyes were wide, the air around him starting to feel thinner with each breath that he drew. “How did the papers not print this thing when they got ahold of the photos?” he asked the raven-haired man, trying to steer away from the shame of Sykes and back to the facts pertinent to the case.
“Let’s just say that we’re chummy with certain journalists over there,” the raven-haired man said.
“Jesus Christ,” Billy said.
Everyone is a snitch.
“What about the captain of this unit? Did you talk to him? What’s he got to say about all of this?” he asked.
“We were on our way to pick him up when someone, probably Sykes, shot him to death and burned down his house.”
Billy closed his eyes. “What about the other members of the unit? Have you talked to them?”
“The captain wasn’t the only other one who ended up in the morgue. One got a bullet to the head down in Phoenix, and another one took a nosedive off a condominium complex in Santa Monica right before the captain was barbecued inside his little log cabin. Two other men in the unit bit the big one recently in a helicopter crash that followed a shootout in Little Havana…”
Billy’s eyes went wide.
Rudolpho.
“Son of a bitch…”
The raven-haired man looked toward the car holding Maria and the other two spooks. “You can thank yourself and your girlfriend there for that one,” he said as he took a quick glance at Maria in the back seat.
“You snagged their bodies once they got identified, didn’t you?” Billy said.
“Doesn’t matter,” the raven-haired man said, covering for the obvious. “Either way, it’s clear that Sykes had recruited them into assisting him. He’s pulling the strings on this little operation of his. He has to be. He’s the only one left. He’s the last—”
The raven-haired man stopped himself, almost leaking the name of the unit.
“Well,” he said, going with the simplest throwaway way to rephrase it, “Sykes is the last one in the group. After that captain sent in those pictures, we’re pretty sure Sykes started knocking off all the members of his team one by one, with the exception of the guys that joined him, the guys you killed in that helicopter.”
Billy digested the info. “How’d Sykes find out you were onto him?” he asked. “When did you realize he and Kruger were one and the same?”
“That’s classified. But we’re pretty sure he’s killing off his own guys.”
“He’s just covering his own ass. But covering for what is the question.”
The CIA man squinted. “What do you mean? It’s for the massacre at the village. Plain and simple.”
Billy shook his head—he knew Sykes better than that.
“No,” he said, taking a quick glance around for any potential eavesdroppers. “He killed those people in that village for a reason, a good enough reason to bring him out of hiding years after the fact to pick off the remaining members of his team that were there. He didn’t just murder those villagers for the hell of it. He may be on the other side of the line, but he and his cronies are covering up for something much bigger.”
“Not everything is some kind of deep conspiracy,” the raven-haired man said. “Most likely scenario is that Sykes and his unit went a little…nuts. This is not first time someone flipped out over there in the shit. It was a long war. A lot of things happened. Sykes is just one of many guys whose brain got fried from the exposure.”
“Well,” Billy said, visceral memories of the war playing back in his head, “I
guess that’s what happens when you drag out an unnecessary conflict that ended up turning good men into animals. But nonetheless, I know Sykes. He may have turned, but he’s not the kind of guy to do something like killing an entire village of people without cause. I promise you that.”
“I’m not so sure. I think he’s worried about blowback, so he decided to dig a ditch for all his old teammates just to be safe.”
“Horse shit. Why would he have such an ornate display in Little Havana? With the helicopter? With the red-eyed sideshow clown he’s got working alongside him? Something’s up, man. Sykes has something in the works. He practically said so himself.”
“Agree to disagree.”
Billy knew the CIA rep was only giving him parts of the puzzle. The guy was pretending like he was in the dark about the details and skeptical as to the grander scheme going on behind the war crimes he was divulging.
But Billy knew the guy knew more than he was letting on.
Midwestern James Bond here is holding out on me.
He’s jerking me around.
He just wants to know what I know.
It wasn’t a shock, though. The guy was a spy at the end of the day—lying was part of the job.
“How did Sykes become an FBI agent?” Billy asked the raven-haired man. “How could he get away with working for the CIA during the war and then the feds afterward? Isn’t that some kind of conflict of interest?”
The raven-haired man stepped away from the wall he was leaning against. “When the war was over,” he said, “the unit was shut down. Sykes wasn’t working for us. We cut all of the men in the unit loose after we got all of our boots off the ground over in ’Nam. We didn’t care what they chose to do with the rest of their lives, just as long as they kept the ones they had during the war quiet. When Sykes made a move to join the bureau, we checked in on him to make sure secrets were being kept intact. He seemed to be on the up-and-up. We were exhaustive, so we had no objections to him wanting to play Elliot Ness.”
“Yet the guy wiped out a gaggle of innocent people during his tenure with you without you knowing it.”
“It was bad oversight.”
“Real bad oversight.”
Billy thought about it. “So,” he thought out loud, “Sykes gets a job with the FBI, hides this secret about his unit…and then one day wakes up and decides to fake his death during a sting and go rogue. Why? Why would he do that?”
The raven-haired man tilted his head. “I think you know more than you’re letting on, Reese.”
“Same,” Billy said.
“Whatever is happening with Sykes,” the raven-haired man said, “we’re going to get him. Without your help. Your role in this entire thing is done.”
“Look—”
The raven-haired man held up his hand. “I’m giving you a pass here, Reese. But you’re done. Tonight. Right now. Everything you were just told was done out of nothing more than professional courtesy. I’m trying to let you know you’re about to get in over your head before you end up being in over your head. You’re out. Done. Gone. And believe me; listen to me when I tell you that if you attempt to try to float any of this information to anyone—you’ll be underground within the hour. Are you following me?”
Billy took a beat.
Spy Man means it.
Every word.
“Yeah,” he said. “I follow.”
The raven-haired man took a beat. “Good. Now tell me what Larry Yurek told you. Everything. All of it.”
“Nothing much of value,” Billy said. “At least nothing you didn’t already tell me.”
“Say it anyway.”
Jerk him around too…
Billy said, “Yurek told me that Sykes, operating under the name ‘Kruger,’ hired him for a job, and then Sykes tried to take him out using those dipshits back at that convenience store. Well, not tried. Succeeded.”
“What did Yurek say about this job he was hired for?”
“Not much. Just that he was going to be flying in a shipment of some stuff for Sykes.”
“Did he say what kind of stuff?”
“No.”
“Did he say where?”
Billy had already made the decision to lie.
“No,” he said. “He was getting ready to tell me when the idiot twins rolled up and started blasting.”
“What about partners? Anything like that?”
Nicky the Nickel Nurser.
“No,” Billy said. “Nobody.”
“He didn’t say anything? Did he give you any indication of where the drop was taking place? Any kind of details? Anything at all?”
“Nothing. We talked for less than a minute. By the time he opened his mouth…”
He shrugged.
The raven-haired guy looked Billy over for some kind of tell, some kind of crack in his response, any indication of a change in the cadence of his speech or a subtle twitch in his eye that would connote to the raven-haired man that Billy was being less than honest with him.
But the raven-haired man found nothing. As far as he knew, Billy was telling the truth.
But the fact was that Billy was just a real good liar.
Lying was part of the job.
The raven-haired man turned away. “We’ll be in touch, Reese,” he said as he started walking back toward the Lincoln. “I trust you’ll find your way back to your place in LA. Take a load off for a couple of days. You’ve earned it.”
He arrived at the car, said something to Maria, and got inside. Seconds later, Maria slipped out and stepped onto the sidewalk. The sedan then quickly made a U-turn, turned the corner, and fled the scene.
Out of sight, out of mind.
“What was that all about?” Maria asked.
Billy was still staring in the direction the sedan had jetted off in. “Oh, you know,” he said. “The usual: A little bit of truth, a little bit of bullshit.”
“What did that guy say to you?”
Billy faced her. “He said that Kruger killed a gaggle of civilians back during the war. Now Kruger is killing off everyone that was on his team because all of that is about to blow back on them.”
“Kruger’s CIA?”
“Was. Kind of. I’m not sure.”
Maria was completely incredulous. This just keeps getting better and better.
“What else did the guy say?” she asked.
“That was pretty much it, other than him threatening me, naturally. That’s been happening to me a lot lately, by the way. I don’t know if you’ve noticed.”
“What does your gut tell you?”
“They told me to fuck off,” Billy said, “but I think they want us to keep on this.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I think they’re letting me clear the path for them until they can get a chance to nail the bad guy and take the credit.”
“How do you know?”
He looked at her.
“That’s always been my job, man…”
Maria took a breath. Held it. Released it. “Well now what?” she asked. “My captain’s trying to pull me in off the streets. The body count is stacking up, especially after this nonsense at the minimart.”
“That wasn’t your fault.”
“Doesn’t matter.” She gave him a look. “I’m guilty by association now, apparently. Something about ‘encouraging’ you.”
Billy winced. “Sorry about that…”
Maria patted him once on the back. “Don’t sweat it,” she said. “You’ve actually turned out to be a half-decent guy. For the most part.”
Billy let off a toothy grin and a thumbs-up. “Hey, thanks!”
He then became lost in his thoughts, scrambling to arrange the tidbits of facts that the raven-haired man had given him into some kind of coherent narrative.
“I lied to him,” Billy said to Maria.
“Lied to him about what?”
“About what Yurek told me.”
“What did he tell you?”
“He said that K
ruger hired him to move a shipment of merchandise for him soon. Didn’t say what, but he did give me a location.”
Maria waited for the rest.
“Bogotá,” Billy said, staring at her like he was looking for some kind of approval of a plane ride to Colombia.
Maria took a beat. “You know, I think in any other circumstance I would tell you that this is over, that we’re in too deep, we don’t have a shot, we don’t even know where to look in Bogotá, whatever.”
“So,” Billy said, “what are you going to say this time?”
“I want Kruger,” Maria said, “him and his rat-eyed friend. He knows where that girl is. And even though I have a hard time accepting the fact that she’s most likely dead…I still need to know. I have to know. And they both have to pay for whatever their roles were in that whole thing, even if the odds aren’t in my favor.”
Billy was just as skeptical as Maria.
He was also just as motivated.
And also just as unwilling to back off.
“Neither of our employers are gonna to be too happy about this,” he said. “I’m supposed to be headed back to DC as we speak. Hell, they might just take me out back and shoot me by the time we finish sorting this circus out.”
“Same.”
“That okay with you?” Billy asked.
“Fine by me,” she said.
“Well,” he said, moving back toward the direction of the minimart a few blocks away, “looks like we’re going even further off the radar then, Detective Delgado.”
“Delightful. Who’s driving?”
“I believe the honor is mine. My car’s back at the bar where I met Yurek.”
“Splendid,” Maria said, joining alongside him as they began to make the trek back. “I guess all we need now is a lift to Bogotá. And a clue as to where the hell we start looking once we get there.”
The solution came to Billy quickly.
He grinned.
“I think I’ve got that covered…”
39
NICKY THE NICKEL Nurser.
According to records he was five foot six, scrawny, sported a bad mullet and an even worse sense of style that he was currently brandishing with acid-wash denim, a pink shirt with geometric patterns, and a fanny pack toting around his passport and about one hundred grand in clean, crisp bills.