Kill Fee

by Owen Laukkanen

  Parkerson waited in the darkness. If the asset was around, he would have heard the hatch open. He would have come into the bedroom to investigate. Did that mean he’d gone?

  Nothing seemed to move. Nothing made any noise. Parkerson crept out of the closet and into the bedroom. Bumped into the bed and followed it to the doorway. The door was closed tight. There was light behind it.

  Parkerson pulled the door open gingerly, slow as he could. Peered out into the living room. Saw nobody from his angle, and pushed the door wider. Then he ducked back quickly. Wendell Gray was still out there.

  The kid was sitting in the living room, his back to the bedroom door. He’d set the pistol down beside him, and he wasn’t moving. He was just sitting there, staring at something in his hands: a picture. He stared at it and didn’t move.

  Slowly, carefully, Parkerson pushed the bedroom door open. Prayed Gray wouldn’t see his reflection in the dark windows. He crept into the living room and toward the asset and the gun. Then he stopped.

  The big hunting knife sat on the kitchen table, discarded. Gray would have carried it upstairs after he’d locked Parkerson away. Parkerson looked at the kid and the gun sitting beside him. Felt the throbbing in his nose, imagined the FBI agents at his door. Gray had fucked up. Lind had fucked up. They’d cost him Killswitch and they deserved to die.

  Gray still hadn’t moved. He was staring at that picture. It was a woman, Parkerson saw, an older woman in a floral-print dress. Parkerson hesitated, relishing the moment, the anger coursing through him alongside something darker, something scarier.

  Twenty years building missiles and bombs, he thought. Five years running Killswitch. Hundreds of bodies with my fingerprints on them, and I’ve never wanted to kill anyone so bad as I do right now.

  Parkerson glanced at the gun again. Shook his head. Too clean. He crept to the kitchen table and picked up the knife.

  200

  Stevens and Windermere crept through the trees, their guns drawn. The night was quiet around them, and very still. Save the dim light ahead, the grove was pitch-dark.

  Except there was a noise, too, Stevens realized, a muffled, erratic throb. It wasn’t music—there was no discernible rhythm—but it wasn’t natural, either. Stevens gripped his pistol tighter and kept moving.

  As they approached the light, Stevens could see it was coming from inside a small cabin, saggy and mossy and old. The windows were streaky and grime-stained, the light hardly much better. Stevens crouched beside Windermere and studied the place. “You see anybody?” Windermere whispered.

  Stevens shook his head. Then he looked again. “Wait.” A shadow moved on the wall, through one of the windows. After a moment, a man appeared, his back to the window. Stevens motioned toward him. “There.”

  “Parkerson?” said Windermere.

  Stevens squinted. “Can’t tell.”

  Windermere looked around the grove of trees. There were two trucks parked alongside the house, an old Chevy pickup and—she stiffened. “That’s a Ford Explorer, Stevens.”

  Stevens pointed at the window. “Yeah,” he said. “And that guy has a knife.”

  201

  The knife felt good in his hand. Better than he’d expected. Parkerson gripped it tight and advanced on Wendell Gray. The kid still hadn’t moved from the chair. Didn’t know what was coming. He held on to that picture like it was his last grip on sanity.

  Slowly, Parkerson reached for the gun on the table. Slid it out of Gray’s reach. Then, before the kid could react, he twined his fingers in Gray’s lank, greasy hair, dragging him to his feet. The kid struggled. Kicked and thrashed. Parkerson held the knife to his throat.

  “Your name’s whatever I say it is,” he hissed. “You belong to me now.”

  The kid fought. Parkerson wrenched his head back. Held the blade to his windpipe and realized he enjoyed the sensation, the power.

  Fuck it, he thought. This is fun.

  Then something moved outside. Just a shadow, and just for an instant, but Parkerson saw it. He looked up through the window and saw headlights through the trees. Multiple headlights. More shadows. He knew, suddenly, what they meant.

  Something thumped on the front stairs. Then the door. “Michael Parkerson,” a woman’s voice shouted. “FBI. Drop your weapon and surrender yourself.”

  Shit.

  Parkerson pressed the knife against Gray’s throat and fumbled for the pistol with his free hand. Found it just as the Feds kicked down the door.

  Two of them. The man and the woman. They’d interrupted his dinner and they’d chased him out here. God knew how they’d found him so fast. Parkerson kept Gray between himself and the doorway, a human shield. Raised the pistol and the Feds ducked away. Disappeared into the blackness.

  “I’ll kill him,” Parkerson told them, his hand slick on the knife handle. “Try anything stupid and I’ll slit this kid’s throat.”

  The man spoke. “You don’t need to do it, Michael,” he said. “This is over already. Don’t make it worse.”

  “Fuck you,” said Parkerson. “I decide when it’s over.” He looked around quickly, from the doorway to the windows. Outside, the shadows moved. The headlights blurred. There were so many headlights. There were cops everywhere. Soon they’d have the whole place surrounded.

  Parkerson inched Wendell Gray through the living room toward the back door. There wasn’t much time. The woman cop peered in the doorway. Parkerson fired a shot, and she ducked away, quick. “Don’t you fucking try it,” he said, backing toward the door. “Don’t you dare.”

  202

  Windermere stared across the tiny cabin at Parkerson and his hostage. Who the hell’s this kid? she thought. Then she knew.

  David Gilmour. Wendell Gray. Somehow, he’d made it back down from Delaware in time to turn an arrest into a goddamn hostage scenario, though why Parkerson would take his own brainwashed killer hostage, Windermere didn’t have time to consider.

  Guess it’s everybody for himself at this point.

  Parkerson had a knife pressed tight to Wendell Gray’s throat. He had a pistol pointed clear at the doorway, his eyes wide and his face flushed bright red. His nose was broken and bloody, his every wheezing breath frantic. He was panicking, clearly. He was a ticking time bomb.

  Wendell Gray stood slack and uncomprehending. He stared at Windermere with Malcolm Lind’s empty eyes as Parkerson manhandled him through the cabin toward the back door.

  Windermere kept her eyes fixed on Parkerson. Called out to the backup in the trees. “He’s headed out the back door. And he has a hostage. Somebody get over there now.”

  Parkerson shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He fumbled with the door with his gun hand, pulled it open, and stepped onto the threshold. Brought the gun up again and yanked Wendell Gray’s head back. Pressed the knife to his windpipe.

  Windermere leapt up. “No.” Parkerson grinned at her, a sick, humorless smile. Then, in one motion, he slit Wendell Gray’s throat.

  Windermere squeezed the trigger as Wendell Gray slumped to the floor. Too late. Parkerson dropped out the doorway, laughing, maniacal. Her shots found only darkness. He was gone again.

  203

  He was close now.

  He could smell the lake through the ruined driver’s-side window, that same fresh smell from the first time he’d arrived. He remembered this intersection, could picture the view out over the water. The sun had been setting when they’d pulled up here. The lake was lit up with sunlight like diamonds. He’d stared out at it, at the holiday people on their docks and in their boats. He’d felt a sudden sense of peace. Then the man turned the wheel and drove into the trees. That sudden peace disappeared, as quick as it arrived.

  Lind waited at the intersection. He was close now. The lake house lay to the left, in a thick grove of trees. The man would be there—if not now, then soon. Lind would be waiting for
him.

  Except there were lights down the road, headlights and confused shadows. Shouting. The sharp crack of a gunshot. Lind stiffened.

  He spun the wheel over and idled out of the intersection. Drove down the lake road and pulled onto the shoulder. In the distance, he could see police cars. Lots of them. Well, good. Let the police catch the man. Let them bring him in. Lind had done enough killing for one lifetime.

  Except the shouting wasn’t stopping. More gunshots now, two of them, in quick succession. The shadows seemed to dance in the trees. No police in the world could slow down the man, Lind knew. Not the man who’d brainwashed him. That man was too powerful.

  He glanced at the pistol on the passenger seat. People were still shouting. Somebody was shooting. Lind stared down at the grove. Knew the man was escaping. He killed the big Ford’s ignition and picked up the pistol. Reached for the door handle and climbed out of the car.

  204

  Windermere ran to Wendell Gray. “Help,” she screamed. “Someone call a damn ambulance.”

  Gray lay on the floor, making burbling noises. There was blood everywhere. Windermere rolled him over. Put her hands on his throat and tried to cover the wound. Apply pressure. Do something.

  It was no good. The wound was too deep. The kid was going to die, and there was nothing Windermere could do.

  She looked up just in time to see Stevens blow past her, gun drawn. Heard shouting outside. More gunshots. She kept her hands on Wendell Gray’s throat and watched Stevens disappear. Whatever she tried, the blood kept coming.

  Still, she stayed with him. Kept pressure on his wound. Held him close and urged him to hang on, screamed again for the ambulance, for help, anything. Swore at the kid when she felt him slipping. “Don’t you fucking do it,” she told him. “Don’t you die on me yet.”

  Gray stared up at her with those zombie eyes. His pulse weakened. Windermere held him, tight as she could. She was too late. The wound was too deep. The kid died in her arms.

  Windermere let him go. Looked down at her bloodstained hands and the pistol beside her. The dark night and the chaos beyond. Wendell Gray lay there, unmoving, dead on the dirty wood floor. Windermere wiped her eyes. Slammed her bloody fist down.

  “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck.”

  205

  Parkerson fled through the woods, dodging dark trees and uneven ground as he ran from the grove. Behind him, spotlights flashed and men shouted. Parkerson turned back with the pistol and fired a couple shots, wild. He kept running.

  He zagged through the forest, down the slope to the shore, running hard, his heart in his throat. Ahead of him was the lake, inky and black, and he slowed as he reached the water, hands on his knees, his fingers slick with Wendell Gray’s blood. He stood there, out of breath and giddy, replaying the asset’s last moments in his mind.

  A real killer, at last.

  The shadows moved behind him. The voices got closer. No time to waste. Parkerson straightened and ran again, parallel to the shore. The terrain was lumpy and uneven, the ground soft. He misjudged his footing and the shoreline gave way, nearly sending him splashing down into the water. He regained his balance and kept running. The cops were far behind him. They didn’t know the lake like he did. He could disappear into the darkness.

  Parkerson ran past a couple big houses, the new ones. Reached the old lots with their trailers. A dock jutted out to the lake. A path wound its way up to the road. Parkerson ducked into the trees. Started up the slope to the road. I’ll flag down a car, he thought. Anyone. Hijack the ride and maybe take a hostage. Get the hell away from here.

  He crept through the trees. The road lay just ahead. The cops still hadn’t seen him. They were too far away. Parkerson felt a wave of triumph. No way they’d catch up. He was practically free.

  206

  Stevens burst out of the forest and found himself at the lakeshore. He stopped and stood still a moment, searching the night. He’d seen Parkerson cut this way as he ran from the cabin after he’d slashed Wendell Gray’s throat. Now, though, he was gone.

  It was dark as coal out. No moon. The forest was vast and labyrinthine and Parkerson knew the terrain. He’d be impossible to track if he made it away from the shore. They’d have to wait and pray they caught him come morning.

  There, though, up the shoreline. Something splashed in the water, a rustle like a miniature avalanche. Stevens squinted along the bank. Thought he saw something in a shadowy copse of trees. A branch shaking. A hint of movement. Maybe he doesn’t want to hide out, he thought. The road back to town’s that way. Maybe he wants to escape.

  Stevens glanced the other way, down the shoreline. Saw nothing but black forest. Turned back and stared across at the thin copse of trees again, stared hard. There was something in there, definitely. Something moving.

  Stevens checked his pistol. Glanced back toward the grove, the lights of the police, the voices. Then he crouched down and crept forward, quiet as he could, down the shore.

  207

  There was something moving down there, Lind could hear it, a rustling in the bushes, hushed and furtive. Down the road the shouting had slowed. Now and then someone called out from the darkness, but the action had faltered. The urgency was gone. There’d been no more gunshots.

  Lind stood by the Mustang and looked down toward the lake. It had been a picture-perfect postcard the first time he’d seen it. Now it was nothing but shadows and gloom.

  The rustling stopped for a few seconds, and then started again. An animal in the woods, hiding from a predator. Gathering whatever courage it could find to make an escape.

  Lind waited.

  There were sirens in the distance. More police cars. More cops.

  They’d called for backup. They hadn’t arrested the man. The man had somehow broken free, and now he was in the woods somewhere, hiding in the blackness, trying to escape.

  And meanwhile, this thing, whatever it was, rustled closer. Lind stood by the Mustang and listened to it approach. The sirens were getting closer, but they weren’t close enough yet. The man could still escape if he was lucky.

  The thing in the brush approached. Lind listened and suddenly felt calm. He held the pistol loose in his grip and waited.

  208

  Parkerson crept out of the brush and up to the road. Glanced back toward the lake house, the police cars clustered in the grove. There was still plenty of commotion back there.

  He grinned to himself. The cops had no idea. He could hike the roadway until he found a car. He’d be on the interstate in ten minutes, with nobody the wiser. He turned away from the grove and started up the road. Then he stopped.

  There was another car parked out here, on the shoulder, maybe twenty feet away. He’d been so focused on the police that he’d missed it. It was a dark, low-slung sports car, a black hole in the night. Parkerson looked and felt a sick recognition. It was a Mustang, a black one.

  The asset stepped out of the shadows. Andrew Kessler. Richard O’Brien. Malcolm Lind. Parkerson watched him approach. In his right hand, the kid held a gun.

  Behind Parkerson were the cops. Ahead was the asset. Parkerson stood in the middle of the road and watched the asset come closer. Gripped his own gun in his sweaty hand and knew, suddenly, that he would never use it. The asset’s hand was steady. His gaze was unwavering. But there was life in his eyes. There was pain.

  “I didn’t want to do this,” he said quietly.

  He looked at Parkerson, dead calm. His eyes never blinked. Parkerson wet his lips. “Malcolm,” he said. “Please.”

  209

  Stevens followed the shoreline to the thin copse of trees. Crept to it slowly, his Glock raised. Peered inside. Then around. No one there.

  Nothing moved on the shoreline. Back toward Parkerson’s cabin, there was shouting now and then, but none of it triumphant. Every call was a question, and, so far, no answers.

/>   Stevens looked around. Beyond the trees was a long expanse of land, a grassy lawn parallel to the lake. It was wide open and risky. Parkerson wouldn’t have dared to cross it, no matter how desperate he was. The trees, meanwhile, continued up to the road. Stevens crouched low and started up the slope. Figured Parkerson would have maintained his cover as long as possible.

  He reached the end of the trees and looked up to the road. Saw movement on the embankment and knew he’d been right.

  Parkerson.

  There was another man with him. Smaller. Thinner. They were just standing there. Stevens squinted into the darkness, trying to make out the second man’s face. He couldn’t. It was too dark to see much.

  The second man stood there, his arm outstretched, and Stevens realized with a chill that he was holding a gun. A pistol, black as night, aimed at Parkerson’s chest.

  Stevens pushed himself forward. Before he ran more than a yard or two, though, the second man pulled the trigger. The gun roared, and Parkerson staggered back. A split second later, he fell to the ground.

  210

  Parkerson heard the shot. He saw the explosion. Felt the bullet catch him in the chest and reeled backward, feeling pain like a fire. He brought his hand to the hole and felt blood. Then he fell.

  The asset stood above him. Parkerson stared up, at his face and the smoking gun. “I’m your only friend, Malcolm,” he said, clutching his wound and feeling more blood between his fingers. “Who’s going to chase the visions for you now?”

  The asset said nothing. He looked down at Parkerson, his eyes all sorrow and resignation. He studied Parkerson a long moment. Then he pulled the trigger.