“I know you will, Agent Stevens, and I’m not calling to light a fire under your ass. I just ducked into the office this evening and came across something I thought you and Agent Windermere should have a look at.” He paused. “There’ve been reports of an attempted shooting in Las Vegas. An unidentified man broke into a suite at the Bellagio and fired on the occupants.”
Stevens scratched his head. “You think it’s related to Killswitch?”
“I’ve seen the police sketch, Agent Stevens. It’s your guy.”
“God damn it.” Stevens looked around the room, helpless. “So he did it again.”
“To a point,” Harris said. “The shooter didn’t kill anyone. Didn’t even draw blood. Fired a shot through the ceiling and ran.”
“Didn’t kill anyone? The target’s—”
“Still alive, Agent Stevens. And still in Las Vegas.”
“I’ll be damned.” Stevens kicked off the covers. “Thanks for the heads-up, sir. This is huge.”
“Try and wake up Windermere, would you? And get your asses down to Vegas and talk to that target.” Harris ended the call. Stevens stared at the phone for a moment, his thoughts racing. If Harris was right, then O’Brien had bugged out. Somehow, Killswitch had failed.
Nancy rolled over beside him. Stevens turned to find her staring at him from underneath the covers. “They—”
“I heard,” she said. She rolled over to stare at the ceiling. “Just don’t get yourself killed, Kirk.”
117
Windermere woke up in Mathers’s bed with her phone ringing and the big lug snoring beside her. It was dead dark in the room. Her head hurt. The clock on the night table read half past one.
Windermere let the phone ring a minute. Lay back and stared into the darkness and tried to decide how she felt about what she’d done with Mathers.
They were both adults. Mathers was a good-looking guy, and she liked him. He didn’t come off as a whack job, and he was pretty damn good in bed. She’d had fun with him, and now it was over, and in the morning they could go back to work.
This was the part of the whole ordeal where she was supposed to feel guilty, she knew. She was supposed to look over at Mathers, at the junior agent’s broad expanse of back, and wonder what the hell she had done. Windermere sat up in bed and pulled the sheet around her. Looked at Mathers, listened to him snore. Didn’t feel guilty at all, to be honest.
She wondered if Mathers would be weird in the morning. If he’d think of what had happened as anything more than a fun night in a strange town with a good-looking colleague. She hoped not. The last thing she needed right now was a boyfriend. After Mark, hell, she’d pretty much resigned herself to spending the rest of her life alone.
Mathers was a young kid. He was a good-looking cop. No doubt he had plenty of girls chasing him. He wouldn’t jump to conclusions. He’d understand she wasn’t looking for any repeat performances.
The phone was still ringing. Loud and insistent. Windermere chased Mathers from her mind and fumbled for the phone on the nightstand. Three missed calls. Shit. She answered. “Windermere.”
“Carla.” Windermere’s stomach flipped. It was Stevens. “Guess I woke you.”
“You know I don’t sleep, Stevens.” Windermere swung her feet over the bed and hurried into the bathroom. “What’s up?”
“I got a call from Drew Harris just now. Said he heard something out of Vegas that might help our case.”
Shit. “My boss called you?”
“Said he couldn’t get ahold of you or Mathers. You guys hit the clubs or something?”
Windermere locked the door and turned on the light. Caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and quickly turned away. She sat down on the toilet and ran her hands through her hair. “Turned in early,” she said. “So?”
“So listen,” he said. “Harris is keeping tabs on our case. Apparently the whole Bureau’s watching.”
Mathers knocked on the bathroom door. “Carla?”
Shit, shit, shit. Windermere covered her phone. “One second,” she said. “Be right out.”
“You on the phone?”
“Home base,” she said. “Be out in a minute.”
“Who was that?” Stevens asked her when she was back on the line. Windermere shook her head, rubbed her eyes, laughed at her predicament.
“Room service,” she said. “I skipped dinner. You said something about Vegas.”
“Yeah. Right. So according to Harris, some kid snuck into the Bellagio with a pistol today. Broke into a guest suite on the thirty-fifth floor. From the LVPD description, it sounds like O’Brien.”
“Shit.” Windermere stood. “Holy shit. He kill someone?”
Stevens paused. “No,” he said. She could tell he was smiling. “That’s the best part. He bugged out for some reason. Got away, but the target’s still alive.”
“Still alive,” she said. “And we’re sure it’s Killswitch.”
“Young kid, skinny, matches the description. LVPD’s faxing you a sketch and some security cam stills, but on the surface it sounds pretty damn close.”
Windermere looked at herself in the mirror again. Looked a hell of a lot less tired than she had five minutes ago. “Good stuff, Stevens,” she said. “How soon can you meet us on-site?”
“Vegas? I figured you guys could—”
“Bull,” she said. “This is your lead. You’re working it with us. Don’t act like you don’t want to be here.”
He paused. “You know I do.”
“I’ll get you a flight, Stevens. See you in Sin City.”
She ended the call just as Mathers knocked on the door. “One second,” she told him. Then she stared at her reflection. Stevens, she thought. Mathers. Sin City. Things were bound to get messy.
No time for that now. She had a lead to work. Windermere pushed away from the mirror and opened the bathroom door. Found Mathers waiting for her, wrapped in a bedsheet. He smiled at her, sleepy. “Everything cool?”
Windermere brushed past him. Looked around for her clothes. “Rise and shine, big guy,” she said. “We’re going to Vegas.”
118
Saint Paul, predawn. Nancy Stevens pulled her Taurus to the curb outside Holman Field, the Saint Paul downtown airport on the banks of the Mississippi. She looked across the car at her husband. “This is a new one. Minnesota BCA agent flies private FBI jet to Las Vegas. Why would you ever want to stay home?”
Stevens stared out the window at the airfield, where a chartered Cessna Citation waited on the tarmac. It looked flimsy and impossibly small. “I hate flying,” he said.
“You say that,” she said, “but you sure do enough of it.”
Stevens turned away from the plane to look at his wife. He’d told her he didn’t need a ride, would be just as easy in a cab, but she’d insisted. Now she sat bleary-eyed in a housecoat, staring out at the first hint of daylight. “I don’t have to do this,” he said. “I can stay.”
Nancy snorted. “What, after the FBI’s chartered you a jet? I don’t think so, Kirk. You’re going.”
He looked at her. “We never finished our conversation.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I guess this pretty much finishes it.”
“Nancy.”
She sighed and sank back in her seat. “I’m upset, Kirk. I don’t want you to go. The worst of it is, I can see Andrea’s point.”
He smiled, rueful. “Our little debate champ.”
Nancy smiled, too. “And I’m supposed to be a lawyer. But she’s right. You’re good at what you do, whether it’s Tomlin or Arthur Pender or whoever. Maybe I’m being selfish expecting you to stay home and work regular hours.” She looked at him. “Maybe you’re not meant for that.”
Stevens stared out the window. “Selfish or not, Nancy,” he said, “I want to do what’s best for this family. If you need
me—if Andrea needs me . . .”
Nancy laughed. “We both know what she’d say.”
“If she needs help, Nancy, I don’t want to leave her. Even if she thinks my sticking around will lead the bad guys to our door.”
“She’s fine when you’re gone,” Nancy said. “She gets excited when she hears about your cases. This weekend is the first time she’s shown any signs of trauma.”
Stevens stared out the window. “Still,” he said.
“I’ll make an appointment with the doctor. We’ll see what he thinks. In the meantime, maybe it’s better you’re on the road if she’s going to stress out when you’re here.” Nancy leaned across and kissed him. “Just catch this guy and get home again safe. We’ll manage until you get back.”
Stevens wrapped his arms around her. Held her tight and tried to think of an answer. “I won’t go if you want me to stay,” he said finally. “I’m perfectly happy working cold cases at BCA headquarters, if that’s what it comes down to.”
Nancy shook her head. “No, you’re not, Kirk. You don’t have to pretend just to please me. You’re made for the blockbuster stuff, and I guess I’ll have to deal with it. Just think twice before you try and play the hero, okay?”
She kissed him one more time. Then released the brake and idled toward the airfield. “And keep your grubby paws to yourself around Windermere, understand?”
119
Parkerson woke early Sunday morning and drove out to the lake house. Turned off the projections and brought the asset breakfast. Coffee. “Drink up,” he told the kid. “You’re going to need it.”
The asset obeyed him, wordless. The training was working. The kid’s eyes were vacant. He looked tortured, shell-shocked. He looked ready for work.
It was too early in the training for this kind of maneuver. Far too risky. The asset could bug out and go catatonic, could revert to normal as soon as he hit the outside world. Looking at Wendell Gray, though, Parkerson didn’t believe it. The asset looked compliant. He looked totally pliable.
Parkerson turned the hose on him. Sprayed the kid down until he was soaking wet and shivering. Then he tossed him a towel and a stack of fresh clothes. “Put them on,” he told the kid. “Haul ass. Big day today.”
Typically, Parkerson liked to ease the kids into killing. A couple small animals, then maybe a man. Sometimes the assets didn’t make it that far. Sometimes they became training fodder for the next candidates. There was a symmetry there that appealed to Parkerson, a ruthless efficiency.
Never before had he trained an asset in the field. He’d been careful so far. This was a necessary risk, though, for Killswitch. Parkerson couldn’t afford to disappoint a client. This would keep the program running smoothly.
The kid finished dressing. Parkerson led him out to the Cadillac. Drove away from the lake house and out onto the interstate, south toward the city and the airport. Parkerson parked in the economy lot. Then he turned to the asset. “This is field training,” he said. “Your first assignment. Understand?”
The asset stared at him, blank-faced. Parkerson slapped him. “I asked you a question, soldier. Do you understand?”
The asset nodded once. “I understand.”
“Better,” said Parkerson. “We’ll be traveling today. You and I are business colleagues, and friends. You will stay close beside me. You will engage me in conversation. If anyone else talks to us, you will be pleasant and civil, but you will allow me to carry the conversation. Understand?”
The asset nodded again. “Yes, sir.”
“Any deviation from these boundaries will result in your immediate and dishonorable discharge from duty. You’ll be returned to your room, and I’ll leave you to your visions.”
The asset flinched.
“If you complete this task, I’ll make the visions disappear and return you to your normal life. Understand?”
The asset looked at him, for the first time with hope in his eyes. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I understand, sir.”
“Good.” Parkerson reached for the door. “Let’s get started.”
120
Lind sat awake on the couch. He hadn’t slept. Hadn’t closed his eyes. Thing was, he barely felt tired.
He kept replaying the Las Vegas assignment in his head. The whole disastrous day. He kept seeing the target, his face, his wide eyes. Heard his desperate voice and his panicked gasps for air. Saw the gun pressed to the target’s temple. Then . . . nothing.
Something had happened in that Bellagio suite. It was like he’d come out of the blackness for a moment—like, even through the panic, things were suddenly clear. Now, though, Lind couldn’t remember. It was like chasing a dream. Every time he thought about what had happened in that suite, the truth seemed to slip further and further away.
He remembered breaking into the target’s room. Remembered standing in the shadows and waiting. Remembered walking out of the casino afterward, dumping the gun in the lake. Anything in between, though, and his head hurt. He couldn’t think for too long or he’d feel like he wanted to jump out a window.
The man had called him again, after he’d arrived home. Given new instructions. “Don’t leave the apartment,” he’d said. “Don’t talk to anyone. Wait for my orders.”
Something was wrong. Lind knew it somewhere deep inside. It had come to the surface during that botched assignment, a sick realization that he’d done terrible things. That he did them because the man told him he had to.
That was why he’d walked away. Because, beneath the panic and the awful fear, he’d recognized for a moment that something wasn’t right. He’d failed the man. He hadn’t completed the assignment. But the assignment was wrong. He’d known it, briefly.
Caity Sherman’s phone number sat on his coffee table. Lind had been staring at it all morning. There was something about her that felt different from the man and the assignment and the visions. There was something that made him realize he was wrong.
Except he couldn’t think, not clearly. Every time he tried to think about Caity Sherman he felt the panic start to rise in him again. Felt his head start to pound like there was a demon inside. He couldn’t think about Caity, and he couldn’t think about Las Vegas. He couldn’t think about anything for long.
Lind shook his head. He picked up Caity’s phone number and walked to his phone. Pushed the panic as far down as he could and dialed the number. Waited as the phone rang. Then she picked up. “Hello?”
The blackness lurched up inside him again. Overwhelming. Lind reeled and steadied himself on his kitchen counter. Tried to keep his eyes open. Caity cleared her throat. “Hello? Who is this?”
Lind gritted his teeth. “I did something,” he told her. “Something bad.”
121
So we’re cool, right?” Windermere looked at Mathers across the aisle as the plane banked on its final approach for Las Vegas. “I mean, about last night?”
Mathers looked out the window. “Yeah,” he said. “I mean, I guess so.”
“I just don’t want things to be awkward,” she said. “We’re both adults.”
Mathers had been quiet all morning. He’d tried to maneuver her back into bed once she’d come out of the bathroom, but she’d fended off his advances, fled for her own room and a hot shower, where she’d thought about Stevens and Mathers and what awaited in Vegas.
Then she’d met Mathers in the lobby, had spent the cab ride to the airport trying to finagle a couple seats on the first flight to the desert, and by the time she’d talked her way onto a packed US Airways 737, she was too tired to do more than tiptoe around the subject in between futile attempts at napping.
Now, though, as the plane approached Sin City—and Stevens, waiting on the ground—Windermere realized she was going to have to hit Mathers with a heavy dose of real talk.
“You’re a lot of fun, Derek,” she said. “I don’t regret last nig
ht. But I’m not looking for much more than what already happened. I don’t want this to impact our work.”
Mathers looked around the plane, jammed full with rowdy bachelor parties and sorority girls. “Or your relationship with Stevens,” he said.
Windermere blinked. “Pardon?”
“It’s obvious you two have a thing going.” Mathers shrugged. “I don’t know, Carla. I think you’re pretty cool. I think we get along.”
“Yeah,” she said. “We do.”
“If last night was it, then that’s fine, I guess. But I like you. I can see us going places. And to be honest, I wouldn’t mind if we did.”
He looked at her, his mouth turned up, but shy, nothing at all like the cocky smirk he’d flashed at her over fondue last night. Windermere tried to hold his gaze. Then she looked away.
Shit, she thought, staring out the window at the casinos on the Strip. This is about to get real goddamn messy.
122
The asset hung beside Parkerson like a scared dog. Lingered and kept his mouth shut and didn’t bug out, behaved himself through security and onto the plane.
The flight passed uneventfully. The asset stared out the window and didn’t say anything. Didn’t move. Parkerson wondered what he was thinking. He wondered again if his plan wasn’t risking too much.
The client had assured Parkerson that his target remained in the city. He’d changed hotels, and bolstered his security, but he’d stuck around as scheduled, until his flight late that afternoon. The client had promised to have a man on the ground, waiting with details. A clean weapon and access to the target. In return, Parkerson had offered a discount. Hated giving money back, but what could he do?
The plane’s engines slowed and the aircraft started its descent, circling low over the desert so that those inside could sneak a peek at the spectacular casino resorts on the Strip down below.
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