Yvette began crying softly. Chasen sat next to her on the bed and put an arm protectively around her. "They gave me three options," she sobbed, laying her head on his chest. "I could either d-die, or become their prostitute, or... meet you."
"Me specifically?" Chasen asked, slowly falling backward and taking her with him so they were both prone on the bed.
She shook her head and rolled over to cuddle with him. "One night another girl took me to Phillips restaurant and pointed out you and some others as Justice Department lawyers in the bar there."
"You and I met at Phillips," Chasen said, and kissed her tenderly on the lips, her mouth softening under his.
"Yes," she said. "I came back several times until I was able to get you alone."
"Why me?"
"I liked you," she said. "You seemed nice... gentle. I swear I didn't know what they wanted me to do. All I knew was that they promised to forget my debt if I did them this favor and got to know you. I guess then I f-fell in love."
Her hand was resting on his hip, massaging softly, exciting him. While he was still able to think, he sat up and took off his shoe, pulling out the piece of paper.
"Here it is," he said. "Will this end it?"
"I hope it doesn't end us." She took the paper from him. "Unzip me, will you?"
He pulled down the zipper tab on the back of her dress, his hands shaking from excitement. When she stood and let the dress slide to the floor, he discovered she wore nothing under it, her body more beautiful than he remembered.
Yvette stepped out of the dress and picked up a videotape from the top of the television set. "Here's the tape," she said, tossing it on the bed. "It's yours. It's all over now."
From her purse on the dresser she extracted a plastic bag full of white powder. "They also said to give you this, to show there are no hard feelings."
Chasen took the bag from her, staring at evidence of the other vice he had picked up since he met Yvette. There was a lot more cocaine there than he had ever imagined existed, at least several ounces. Had he not already sold his soul, he would have given back the drug. But in for a penny, he figured, in for a pound.
"Why don't you get undressed," she said, the tip of her tongue moistening her already inviting lips, "while I make sure the door is locked."
He nodded. His fingers were already unbuttoning his shirt as Yvette walked out of his sight, through the entry hall to the door, the paper locked firmly in her grasp.
Quietly she opened the door. A man stood just outside. When he saw that she was naked, he grinned.
Without a word, she handed him the piece of paper, winking as she closed and locked the door.
3
The image was fuzzy — bright white, dull pink interspersed with splotches of reds and yellows. Burnett grunted and pulled away, using the small sewing machine screwdriver to adjust the Bushnell scope's focus. He moved up to the eyepiece and fine-tuned with the screwdriver.
The image sharpened, the cross hairs pulling into fine black lines in the center of the focus. He could see her now, his mystery woman, in the bathroom on the third floor of the apartment building that served as off-campus housing for J. C. Smith University, across Freedom Drive from his boardinghouse. Burnett didn't know her name and didn't care. AH that mattered to him was that he held her life in his hands on a daily basis. Any time he wanted to, he could snuff her out, penetrate her, possess her in ways that other men never could. The power of it excited him, and he wiped at a line of sweat on his upper lip with the back of his hand, which wore a leather glove with the fingers cut out.
She stood naked in front of the mirror, steam from the shower drifting from behind the plastic curtain. Her jet-black hair spilled out of her hands as she piled it atop her head to fit beneath the shower cap with daisies printed on it. The cross hairs of the rifle rested about the middle of her arm. Leaning back, he cranked up the tripod just a notch, bringing the sights up to the middle of her head.
"Yeah," he whispered, his breathing shallow.
He took a step back from the sights, enjoying the feel of his superior position, enjoying the darkness of his room. The Brown Precision rifle that the scope was attached to was silhouetted on its tripod against the dim light that entered his room from the outside. He ran his hand softly, lightly along the length of the fiberglass stock, pausing for a second at the bolt before pulling it back hard.
He leaned down to the sights again. The woman entered the shower, her form just a bare outline against the pale-pink shower curtain. He cranked up the sighting just a touch, again going for the hint of a head, as if she were a deer hiding in the brush.
She was his now, all his, not like other women, pushy women who expected too much from a man, women who wanted to control men without respect for the natural dominance of the male. No, his mystery lady was his alone to do with as he chose — her life or death all in his power.
A single bullet lay on the table next to the tripod. Burnett scooped it up and squeezed it in his hand. A 458 Magnum, it was big, big enough to rip away half the mystery lady's head and still bury itself deeply in the wall behind. He could do it to her, do it right now if he wanted.
His lips were dry. He licked them, then leaned forward to drop the cartridge into the open chamber. It went in clean, snug. He leaned down to the scope again, his fingers idly toying with the bolt. She was still in the shower, still in his sights, and the desire was nearly overpowering.
He grabbed the bolt hard, shoving the bullet into the guts of the rifle. She was now a finger twitch away from the experience of her lifetime. He laughed low. He was in control, his finger tracing and retracing the trigger guard as he watched her open the shower curtain and step out of the tub.
His finger ached for the trigger, longing to share its power with the object of his affections. He touched it, backing off only slightly. How far could he pull it without actually firing the gun?
The phone rang loudly. It jerked him away from the weapon, dropping him heavily from the emotional peak he had climbed.
"Shit," he spit, groping his way through the dark room until he found the phone under a pile of dirty fatigues. This had better be good. He ripped the receiver off its cradle and brought it to his mouth.
"Burnett," he said.
"Mr. Burnett," came a soft-spoken voice, one he recognized from previous conversations. "This is Jericho."
Burnett turned and took a furtive look through his window. Hundreds of feet distant, his mystery lady's light was just one of many. "Yeah," he said, running a gloved hand across his severe crewcut. "I was beginning to think I wouldn't hear from you no more."
"You're hearing from me now," Jericho responded, "and I have the job I promised you."
"Sure," Burnett said. He was skeptical. Nearly forty people had responded to his ad in Soldier of Fortune magazine, but they'd either been reporters looking for an easy story, or people who wanted their spouses knocked off for a share of the insurance money. "I want you to know that I'm going to have to have enough bucks up front to finance my end of things."
"Would a half million in unmarked cash help in that regard?" Jericho asked.
Burnett forced his voice to professional calm. "That should be sufficient," he said, then struck out blind. "With another half million due on completion of the mission."
Jericho's voice came through with a chilling undercurrent of humor. "Done," the man said. "Now listen carefully, here are your instructions. Go to the Greyhound bus depot in downtown Charlotte. In the men's room, in the third stall from the left, you will find a key taped to the back of the commode. That key will open a locker there in the terminal. In the locker will be a small valise, containing your down payment plus a list of targets. The more quickly you dispose of the targets, the better your chances of living to spend all that money — understood?"
"Yeah," Burnett said. "But how do I get back to you to collect the rest of the cash when I'm done?"
"We'll just have to trust each other, Mr. Burnett. How do I k
now that you won't simply take my half million and leave the country?"
It was Burnett's turn to laugh. "If you knew me, Jericho, you'd know that I'd probably do this for nothing. I'm a man who loves his work."
"I'll take you at your word," Jericho replied. "Please take me at mine. When you conclude our business, I'll be in touch, with the rest of the cash. It's not a bad deal considering the fact that I'm overpaying you fourfold in just the first installment. If you never heard from me again, you'd still come out way ahead."
"Right," Burnett said, finally getting on even footing. "And if I didn't come through, you'd probably hire someone else and pay them more to come and kill me."
"You're very perceptive. I think we'll enjoy a satisfactory association."
"Third stall from the left," Burnett repeated, trying to implant the instructions firmly in his mind.
"Would you like to write it down?"
"Yeah... sure." Burnett looked around the darkened room, having no idea where to find anything to write with. Third from the left. "Got it."
"You're on your own at this point," Jericho said. "Don't wait too long to get started."
Jericho hung up then, leaving Burnett to stare at the receiver in his hand. There'd be little chance of his waiting long to get started. This was the life he had chosen for himself and now someone had dropped enough cash on him to make the dream come true. Goodbye post office pay.
Suddenly he realized the phone was buzzing dial tone, and he hung it up and moved back to the rifle, to peer intently through the scope. She was gone, and the bathroom was dark. He pulled back the bolt, the cartridge popping out into his hand. Soon, very soon, it wouldn't be a game anymore.
He could hardly wait.
* * *
Mack Bolan pulled the plastic top off the Styrofoam cup and brought the steaming coffee to his lips. It tasted bitter, metallic.
Brognola had gotten him this apartment on New York Avenue, barely a mile from the White House, furnished with a generous allotment of electronic equipment undoubtedly appropriated from GAO warehouses. Wiretap confirmation still wasn't forthcoming, but Brognola had told Bolan not to let his agents worry about that temporary omission. That statement meant, "You're on your own, Lone Ranger. Don't get caught."
"We've got it set, Mr. Belasko," came the voice of Benny Young from the bedroom.
"Right there," Bolan called. He walked through the spacious living room, where several lamps stood on the polished wood floors, and walked into the bedroom. Four people occupied the room, their sleeping bags and personal articles filling the floor space. They were young, younger than he remembered ever being, and were eager to succeed on their first real assignment as Justice Department investigators. Bolan didn't want to be the one to tell them that nothing from this mission would go into the active files, and that the satisfaction of doing the right thing was the only reward they'd take away from this assignment.
Benny Young sat on a folding chair in front of a large electronics board, switching toggles on and off as he ran a troubleshooting check. Standing beside him was a woman named Carol Niven. She studied the board carefully, trying to commit it to memory. Sitting cross-legged on the floor playing gin were Roy Carver, a black man who wore a permanent scowl, and redheaded Neal Lomax, both hardcases who had washed out at the CIA farm in Pennsylvania and taken a transfer to Justice. Brognola had said they were too "political" to work for the Company, which, translated, meant that they questioned orders on ideological principles, not a good trait in a job that required shifting allegiances on an almost daily basis. None of that bothered Bolan as long as they did the right thing under pressure.
"Are we on stream?" he asked Benny as he picked his way around sleeping bags and portable radios to get to the board.
"Yes, sir," Benny replied, flipping a last toggle that made the whole board light up. "We've got all ten houses wired through here. The lines are voice-activated so they'll record only the conversations as they are placed, and shut themselves down with silence."
"What if there's more than one phone call at a time?" Bolan asked.
The woman answered. "This will record up to five conversations simultaneously, each one going onto a separate cassette."
"And if you want to monitor," Young went on, "the turn of a dial will give you live sound right here."
"Good." Bolan was satisfied with the arrangements so far. "This will get us started."
"Started doing what?" Carver asked.
"That's a good question." Bolan pulled up a folding chair and sat down. He tried another sip of coffee and grimaced as he put it down. "I'm not going to lie to you and build this up into a big thing, because it probably isn't. As Hal told you, we're doing a little interdepartmental surveillance to make sure there are no leaks in witness protection. What it amounts to, basically, is taking shifts here at the board and some shadowboxing with people who aren't conforming to their routines."
"What are we looking for, exactly?" Lomax asked, putting down his cards and turning to face Bolan.
"Contacts," Bolan replied. "Anything out of the ordinary. If addresses are being leaked, they're being leaked to somebody. Hopefully, if a leak is there, the wiretaps will pick it up or a stakeout might turn up something. It's a long shot, but one that won't waste a great deal of time. If there's a leak where we're most concerned, something's probably going to happen soon."
"It seems to me," Young commented thoughtfully, "that the damage may already have been done."
"I told you it was a long shot," Bolan replied. "Though it's possible that leaks of this nature could perhaps be ongoing."
"Am I late?" came a voice from the door. Bolan looked up to see Joan Meredith standing in the doorway with an armload of takeout food in white paper bags. "Nobody ever thinks of bringing food to these things."
"All right!" Carver said with enthusiasm. "The brains of the outfit just showed up."
"It's just hamburgers and fries," Joan explained as she passed a bag to Carver.
Lomax grinned. "Sounds like heaven to me." He reached into one of the bags.
"The last time I saw you," Bolan told Joan, remembering a firefight in San Francisco, "you had a cast on your arm."
"And the last time I saw you, you said you'd stay in touch."
Bolan shrugged. "So... we're in touch," he replied. "Everyone, this is Joan Meredith... an associate."
There were introductions all around, and Joan settled into the discussion. Bolan was glad to see her. She looked good, a little sadder and wiser, but it agreed with her.
"Officially," Bolan said once they got started again, "we don't exist, nor does this investigation."
"Then who the hell sanctioned it?" Carver asked, frowning.
"I don't know," Bolan replied. "But I trust Hal Brognola, and I'm going to ask you to trust me. What we have here are ten names, from the attorney general down through the secretaries who work in witness protection and relocation. All of these people have worked with the computer programs where the information is held, all of them possibly have, or have had, access to this classified information."
"I'm assuming you're joking," Carol Niven said, "when you say the attorney general is suspect."
Bolan looked her dead in the eye. "I don't joke," he said. "The attorney general is line two. And I mean what I say," Bolan said harshly, ready to take the edge of fun off the proceedings. "I'm telling you this, if there is or has been a real leak, the person or people responsible will do anything to keep their identity a secret. We'll keep this flexible; we'll keep it liquid — but if it turns serious, be prepared for anything."
He pulled a small stack of index cards out of his pocket, handing some to each of the others and keeping several for himself. "Tonight, we'll spend a little time at one of the suspects' residences, trying to get a feel for their habits, bedtimes, etcetera. Benny, you'll take the first watch on the board. Tomorrow we'll get to work on their morning and lunch routines. Fortunately they all work at the same place, so that should make th
ings somewhat easier. Keep it loose. Follow your instincts."
"What if we get caught?" Niven said.
"You have no official standing, and none of the rest of us has ever seen you before. So don't get caught."
* * *
"This is bullshit, Burnett," Rex Jasper said as he followed the man down the long, tiled hallway that led to the men's room in the bus station basement. "Ain't nobody gonna leave a bunch of money laying around a bus station."
"You'll see bullshit in about five minutes," Burnett replied, pushing through the doorway and into the vacant, brightly lit john. "Coolie, take the door."
"Coolie" Powell, so named because of the long queue in which he wore his dark hair, stationed himself by the bathroom door while Burnett and Jasper approached the five stalls opposite a small bank of sinks. Powell and Burnett were both wearing the fatigue shirts they had worn in Vietnam, with the sleeves and airborne patches cut off. Jasper wore his traditional Hawaiian shirt with a cowboy hat, a large buck knife hanging from his belt.
Burnett stopped at the third cubicle from the left. He'd had nothing but a steady stream of disbelief from Jasper ever since they'd gotten in the car to come down here, and he'd had about enough. He tried to open the door of the stall and found that it was locked.
"What the hell..."
"It's a pay toilet." Jasper laughed. "You're not only gonna get screwed, you're gonna hafta pay for it!"
"Shut up and give me a quarter."
"If I had a quarter," Jasper said, "you think I'd be following you around like Mary's little lamb?"
Burnett scowled at him, then raised a jungle-booted foot, smashing the door open and knocking it right off the hinges.
"Damn!" Jasper said. "Don't make so much noise. I gotta pocketful of nose candy on me. If the cops..."
Burnett swung around to him, grabbing the front of Jasper's shirt and twisting hard. "What the hell are you doing bring dope into a situation like this?" he demanded in a harsh whisper. "I oughta cut your throat right here, you son of a bitch."
The Killing Urge Page 4