He drove out of the garage and stepped on the gas. There were sirens in the air, police cars down the block. Lind searched the sidewalk, but didn’t see the attacker. He kept his foot planted and sped away from the scene.
152
The man called David Gilmour listened to the target’s footsteps recede in the stairwell. He leaned against the open doorframe and clutched his shoulder where the target had stabbed him. The wound hurt. It was deep. The pain wasn’t entirely unpleasant.
The target was escaping. The asset knew this. He was already gone. The asset looked at the pistol in his hand. Its grip was smeared with blood. His blood. The bastard had stabbed him.
The target had escaped. He’d taken the girl with him. The asset stood in the doorway a moment. Then he straightened.
Extricate yourself without being detected.
He retreated into the target’s apartment. Found a clean T-shirt in the bedroom and wrapped his wound as best he could. Then he walked back into the hallway. There was someone waiting.
A man. A young man in black-framed glasses. He peered out at the asset from his own doorway. Saw the blood. Saw the gun. His eyes widened. “Holy shit, man. What are you—”
The asset shot him. Once, in the chest. The man staggered backward into his apartment. The asset waited until his door had swung closed. Then he walked to the elevator and pressed the call button down.
153
Parkerson was in his office when the Killswitch phone rang. He checked that his door was closed and then answered. “Are we good?”
A pause. Then a long breath. “No.”
“Jesus Christ.” Parkerson felt every muscle in his body get tight. “What the hell happened?”
“The target escaped,” the asset said. “He injured me with a knife. Then escaped before I could kill him.”
“Shit.” Parkerson ran his hand over his face. “Shit. Are you wounded? Were you seen?”
“I’m not wounded. Not seriously.”
“But were you seen?”
The asset paused. “One person. I eliminated him.”
“God damn it.” One witness dead. And Lind still alive. Parkerson wondered if this was what a heart attack felt like.
“There was a woman with him also, sir. With the target.”
“Impossible,” said Parkerson. “The target doesn’t know any women. You had the wrong unit.”
“Negative. I entered unit 1604, as instructed. The target was waiting inside the apartment with the woman. I neutralized them and found the gun under the sink. Before I could eliminate either of them, however, the target attacked me. Then they both escaped.”
“Jesus Christ.” Parkerson sat back in his chair. “Where are you now?”
“I’ve returned to the hotel and am awaiting further instructions.”
“Keep waiting,” Parkerson told him. “I’ll call you back shortly.” He hung up the phone. Then he exhaled, long and slow. Jesus Christ, he thought. How the hell am I going to fix this?
154
Holy crap.” Caity Sherman shook her head and tried to focus her thoughts. “What the hell just happened?”
Richard—or Andrew, or whatever his name was—didn’t answer. He was driving. They were out of the city now, headed south on the Delaware Expressway. Richard hadn’t said anything since he’d thrown her in the car. Before that, she could barely remember.
“Where are we going?” she said. “Say something. Please.”
Richard kept driving. Caity looked at his face and shivered. His eyes were blank. His face was expressionless. His apartment had just been invaded by a crazy psychopath and he should have been absolutely losing his shit. He wasn’t even sweating.
Caity, meanwhile, was scared enough for the both of them, and by now they’d put a good fifteen miles between themselves and the attacker. Her head hurt. She was pretty sure she had a concussion. Somebody had just tried to kill her and she had no idea why. “Richard,” she said. “Andrew. Where are we going?”
Richard blinked and looked at her. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” Caity looked out the sports car’s side window. Saw industry, warehouses. She shivered again. “You’re just driving.”
“Yeah.”
He was into something serious, she could tell. He was a part of this madness. Real people would have cornered the first cop they saw. Explained the situation and let the professionals handle things. Richard hadn’t even looked for a cop. He just drove.
Now he pulled out a cell phone. Held it to his ear and waited. “Yes,” he said. “There was a problem.”
He listened. Caity listened. The man on the other end said something. “I had to leave the apartment,” he said.
Shit, she thought. That’s putting it mildly.
“Interstate 95. Southbound.” Richard glanced at her. “A civilian. She was in danger.” He looked at her. Bit his lip and shook his head. Suddenly, there was emotion in his eyes again. There was fear. “No,” he said. “No. She was in danger.”
Caity shivered and looked out the window. The highway was grim and featureless. It occurred to her that Richard might be taking her somewhere to kill her. She looked at him and tried to convince herself she was crazy. She couldn’t.
“I understand,” Richard said. He looked out the front windshield. “Exit 6. Just across the state line.” Another pause. “I understand.”
Richard ended the phone call. Signaled right and cut across two lanes of traffic to the Exit 6 off-ramp. “We’re safe,” he said. “My boss is coming to get us.”
155
Parkerson stared at his cell phone. The target had escaped. He was safe. And he’d brought a woman with him.
A woman. Parkerson rubbed his eyes. What was the kid doing picking up girls? And why the hell had he lied about her?
He’d told Parkerson she was a civilian he’d protected. Had flat-out denied she’d been inside his apartment. The asset had sworn the girl was inside when he’d arrived. She was Lind’s goddamn friend. And he’d lied about her.
The whole situation made Parkerson’s head hurt. After Miami and Las Vegas and now the bullshit with this girl, it was clear that Lind was no longer the reliable drone he’d once been. He was a liability now, unpredictable. Altogether too human.
He had to be stopped.
THE ASSET CALLED DAVID GILMOUR answered his phone. “Sir?”
“The target has been located,” the man told him. “He’s parked off Interstate 95 just across the Delaware state line. Exit 6. Find them.”
The asset stood up and walked to the door. “Interstate 95,” he said. “Exit 6.”
“He’s driving a black Ford Mustang coupe. The woman’s still with him. Terminate them both.”
The asset nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Call me when you’ve completed your mission,” said the man. “We’ll bring you home. But treat the target with caution. He has a gun in that Mustang. And he’s dangerous with a weapon.”
The asset couldn’t help grinning. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I’ll eliminate them both.”
He rode the elevator down to street level. Found the rental car where he’d parked it and settled behind the wheel. Slipped the target’s pistol between the driver’s seat and the center console and pointed the car at the highway, feeling his wound throbbing and looking forward to settling the score.
156
Andrew Kessler.” Windermere put down the stack of manifests. “Flew in direct from Philadelphia Friday evening and left Saturday afternoon, right after things went sideways at Bellagio.”
Mathers stood. “That’s O’Brien,” he said. “You want I should run through the Philadelphia phone book? Try and find him?”
“You can try,” said Stevens, “but I don’t think you’ll find anything. Kessler is probably another alias.”
“How can you be su
re?”
Stevens looked across the conference room at the junior agent. “I don’t think Killswitch is foolish enough to send his operative in under his real name,” he said. “Especially after what happened in Miami.”
Mathers typed something into his computer. “I have an Andrew Kessler at 1585 Euclid in Camden, New Jersey,” he said. “We move on it tonight and bag this guy.” He looked at Windermere. “Right?”
“An alias,” said Stevens. “Just like Alex Kent and Allen Salazar. We move on Kessler, we’ll find a terrified man with no connection to Killswitch.”
“You don’t know that,” said Mathers. “Anyway, what else do we have?”
Stevens stared across at the kid. He’d been quiet all day. Had labored at his computer and hadn’t said much. But once or twice Stevens had caught him staring in Windermere’s direction when he thought nobody was looking.
What the hell’s this about? Stevens wondered, though he figured he had a pretty good idea. The kid had a crush on Windermere. Well, didn’t everyone?
Anyway, he was right. There wasn’t much else to go on, as far as Killswitch was concerned. The guy manning the phones at OneShot hadn’t given Stevens much to work with, and as far as unsolved shootings were concerned, few forensic techs in the country bothered to catalog the brand of bullet used in the murders they worked. Windermere had a stack of files trickling in, but it was short and, as of now, inconclusive.
The investigation in Vegas was moving just as slow. O’Brien—or Kessler—had waylaid a cab to take him to the airport. The cabbie didn’t say much beyond what Stevens and Windermere already knew. The Bellagio’s maintenance crew had found a pistol in the lake out front of the hotel, a 9mm Beretta with the serial numbers shaved. So far, Vegas PD had been unable to trace it.
That pretty much summed up O’Brien. Wendell Gray and his partner were similarly enigmatic. Airport police at McCarran had found a dark blue Honda Civic in long-term parking that matched the description of the car that had run down Larry Klein. In the trunk was a Remington with a scope, along with a pistol and a couple pairs of sunglasses and “Viva Las Vegas” hats. So were the hats, for that matter. And the car had been reported stolen Sunday morning and wiped clean for prints before the killers abandoned it.
Killswitch was good. He’d waltzed his men into Las Vegas right under their noses, murdered Julio Ramirez, and waltzed back out again. And nobody—nobody—had been able to get a decent read on him.
Mathers looked at Windermere. “We have to check Kessler out, right?”
Windermere was quiet a moment. Then she shook her head. “We’ll get agents in Philadelphia to take a look at Kessler’s address,” she said. “No sense in our flying all the way back for nothing.”
“Philly’s where the action is,” Mathers said. “There’s nothing for us in Vegas. Not now that Ramirez is dead.”
“Philly’s where O’Brien is,” said Stevens. “I don’t think O’Brien’s a factor anymore. We want to get ahead of Killswitch himself.”
Mathers frowned at him. Then he turned to Windermere, who nodded. “Stevens is right,” she said. “O’Brien flubbed the job. If Gray is really his replacement, it’s him we’re after.”
Mathers snorted. “Of course you would say that.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Mathers shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.”
“You mean of course I’d side with Stevens,” said Windermere. “That’s what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah,” Mathers said. “Exactly.”
“Because why, Derek? Because I like him better?”
Stevens stood up. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s take a step back a moment. This isn’t about who likes who better.”
Mathers shook his head. “You have no idea.”
“Shut up, Derek.”
Stevens looked at Windermere. “What am I missing here?”
“Nothing,” Windermere said, glaring at Mathers. “You’re right. This isn’t about me, or either of you. This is about how we’re going to find Killswitch. Okay?”
Mathers held her gaze for a moment. Then he shook his head. “Fine,” he said. “So how do you suggest we do it?”
Stevens reached for the stack of manifests again. “Wendell Gray and his partner,” he said. “We find them in here.”
157
Let’s start with an easy one.” Caity Sherman stared at Lind from the passenger seat of the Mustang. “What’s your name?”
They were parked outside a deserted Jiffy Lube off the interstate. Traffic blew past in the distance; night was starting to fall. The air was noisy and unsettled outside. Lind shifted in his seat and looked out the window. “I need you to talk to me,” Caity said. “I’m afraid, Andrew.”
Lind couldn’t look at her without the panic welling up. He shook his head. “My boss is coming,” he said. “Everything will be fine.”
“I don’t care about your boss,” Caity said. “If you don’t talk to me right now, I’m going to get out of this car and flag somebody down and tell the police the whole story. Understand? You need to start talking to me, Andrew. Right now.”
Lind felt his stomach churn. “No police,” he said.
“No?” Caity looked at him. “Then you’d better start talking. You said you failed an assignment. Right?”
Lind looked at her. Tried to shake off the buzzing in his head. “Yeah,” he said.
“Good. What kind of assignment?”
The buzzing intensified. Lind shook his head again. Couldn’t clear his thoughts. You can’t tell her, he thought. The man won’t approve. The man won’t be happy if you tell her what you’ve done. He’ll kill her. He’ll kill her, and he’ll kill you. He’ll never make the visions go away.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t remember.”
Caity shook her head. “Come on. You fly all over the place. You were flying to Houston the last time I saw you. What did you do there?”
The blackness was starting, behind his eyes. Caity’s voice was like razor blades to his eardrums. His brain swelled until his skull wanted to burst. Lind closed his eyes and squirmed in his seat.
“No?” Caity said. “What about Miami, then? I checked you in to that flight, remember? What did you do in Miami?”
Miami. Lind closed his eyes. Saw the target on the yacht. Felt the kick from the rifle as his finger pulled the trigger. Watched the man’s head explode.
You had to do it, he thought. The man promised he’d make the visions go away. You had to do what he told you.
Lind heard the screams in his ears. The crack from the gun. He saw the target stagger backward and drop to the deck.
“What did you do in Miami?” the girl said.
Lind saw the man in Duluth, scrabbling and clawing. Saw the bottle of liquor tipping onto the floor. He saw the white-haired man in Saint Paul, the shouts and screams as he fell onto the cobblestoned driveway. He saw the adulteress in Manhattan and the movie executive in L.A. The terrified kid in the man’s basement. He saw the blood, everywhere.
“What did you do, Andrew?” The girl wouldn’t stop talking. “Who the hell are you?”
The man won’t like this. The man will kill her. He’ll kill you, too. You’ll never be free from the visions. Never. The man will make sure you suffer forever.
The man was wrong, though.
Lind opened his eyes. Looked across the car and fought to keep his eyes on her face. Fought the blackness behind his eyes, the panic. The visions that threatened to engulf him. Caity. Caity Sherman. He focused every last ounce of strength on her eyes. “I can’t do this anymore,” he told her. “I just can’t.”
158
Mathers looked up from his computer. “I know we don’t care about Philadelphia anymore,” he said slowly, “but it sounds like shit just got real.”
Windermere and Stevens swap
ped glances. “Define ‘shit getting real,’” said Windermere.
“Nobody knows the whole story yet,” Mathers said, reading from his computer, “but there was a shooting in a downtown apartment this afternoon. Somebody’s penthouse got invaded.”
“Deaths?”
Mathers nodded. “Next-door neighbor,” he said. “Shot in the chest. Sounds like he was an innocent bystander, though. Police think the real target got away.”
“How do they figure?”
“Penthouse 1604 was broken into. There were signs of a struggle. The man who lived in the penthouse escaped, as did the shooter.”
Stevens caught Windermere’s eye. She shrugged. “Who owns the condo?” he asked Mathers. “Who’s the target?”
“Unknown target,” said Mathers. “Condo’s owned by a corporation called Kodiak Shore, but the neighbors say it was a young man living there.” He turned to Windermere. “Description sounds a hell of a lot like O’Brien.”
“Anybody see the shooter?”
Mathers shook his head. “No.”
Windermere didn’t say anything for a moment. Then she turned to Stevens. “O’Brien muffed the job. Killswitch came up there to fire him?”
“Could be,” said Stevens. “Kind of a quick turnaround, though.”
“Either way, we need to be over there,” Mathers said, standing. “No way we sit around chasing needles in these manifests now that O’Brien’s on the run.” He looked at Windermere. “Right?”
Stevens surveyed the office. “I’m not so sure,” he said.
“What the hell do you mean?”
Stevens looked up. Found Mathers glaring at him, fire in his eyes. “Listen,” he said, “we get up to Philadelphia six hours from now if we’re lucky. That puts us six hours behind O’Brien and Killswitch. We’ve spent this whole investigation playing catch-up. Only way we take them down is if we get ahead.”
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