Hunt the Lion

by Chad Zunker

  His father wanted to be found.

  Sam,

  Science Museum. Ground floor. Making the Modern World. Thirty minutes.

  —Marcus

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  Sam hustled the eight blocks from the coffeehouse over to the Science Museum, his shoes splashing rainwater the entire way. In the brief time they had, Tommy did his best to try to trace the message in reverse—and somehow verify it actually came from Pelini—but he hit nothing but dead ends. Whoever sent the message knew how to cover his tracks, even from someone as brilliant as Tommy. There was no way for Sam to know for sure it was Pelini unless he simply showed up. He could only hope it wasn’t all a trap sent to draw him out, with a deadly assassin waiting to greet him at the other end.

  He was certainly willing to take that risk.

  One way or another, this had to end.

  The Science Museum was a massive old building with an impressive row of columns at the front. Sam paused half a block away, surveyed the landscape directly in front of the building, searching for anything or anyone suspicious—or maybe even an early sign of the gray-bearded man. The rain was coming down harder now, making it difficult to see the many faces hidden behind umbrellas, hats, and coats with collars flipped up. He checked the time, moved his position to the opposite end of the block, hung out there for a few minutes. He still spotted nothing that alerted him to any danger.

  Finally, Sam stepped out from beneath a building overhang, hustled over to the front glass doors of the museum, then entered with a small group of other visitors. Inside the spacious lobby, Sam left his jacket hood up over his head, even though most other tourists were busy removing caps and coats and shaking off the rain. The museum was bustling with activity. He followed a vast hallway to the left, slowly navigating through crowds of people, eyes keenly taking in every face within his vicinity. He grabbed a map from a guest counter, noted that the Making the Modern World section was at the opposite end of the ground floor.

  Moving deeper into the museum, he stepped into a wide-open corridor. He felt completely exposed—there were hundreds of people everywhere. He walked through a section called Energy Hall with a true-to-life display of an old steam engine. Sam spotted the back of a man with a black trench coat ahead of him who looked like he could be Pelini. He briskly darted through a group of people, noticed the man stop near the entrance to Exploring Space. Cautiously stepping around for a better look, Sam exhaled in disappointment. It was not Pelini. Just another man with a beard.

  Checking the time on his phone, Sam noted he still had eight minutes left from the time stamp when he’d first received the message. Did Pelini know they were in the coffee shop? Had he been watching them the whole time? He moved into Exploring Space, found an even larger crowd awaiting him, all of them finding fascination in the old rockets and satellite displays. Sam kept moving, passing through the space section, until he finally found himself at the entrance of Making the Modern World.

  Pausing there, he took another deep breath, actually said a prayer.

  He checked the phone again—three minutes. His heart began to race.

  Stepping into the spacious hall, Sam found displays for old locomotives, planes, cars, computers—everything a person could think of that had modernized the world over the past hundred years. It was also the most packed section of the museum. Standing in the center, Sam wondered how the hell he was going to find Pelini in this mass of people. Or had Pelini already found him? Was he watching Sam right now?

  Sam kept moving. He couldn’t just stand there. He maneuvered in and around the hundreds of different displays, paying them little attention while closely studying every single person who crossed in front of him. He did this for nearly ten minutes without ever spotting the gray-bearded man. That’s when he started to get worried.

  Was this a trap? Did an assassin already have him locked down and was now just waiting for him to leave the museum so he could take Sam out? That same thing had happened to Mack back in Milan.

  Ten more minutes of anxious walking around. Feeling desperate, Sam considered going back to the front of the building. Then he spotted Pelini standing across the hall from him at about a hundred feet. Sam froze, locked eyes. The gray-bearded man was staring right at him, wearing a black trench coat with his hands stuffed in the pockets.

  Sam wasn’t sure what to do next. Should he walk over there? Would Pelini approach him? Why was the man just standing there without doing something?

  Sam took a step toward him. When he did, Pelini turned, began briskly walking away. What the hell? He followed, not willing to let the gray-bearded man out of his sight for even a second. Was he trying to lose Sam? This didn’t make any sense. He’s the one who wanted to meet. But Pelini was clearly trying to get away.

  The man swiftly threaded through different groups of people, exited the hall for Making the Modern World, then entered an equally busy section of the museum called Welcome Wing. Sam could barely keep up with him. He wanted to take off at a dead sprint but knew that would only draw unwanted attention to himself.

  Hustling into Welcome Wing, Sam peered all around. Where the hell was Pelini? He then spotted him circling behind a crowded diner in the corner and headed straight for a rear museum exit. Sam cursed. This time he did start running. Ahead of him, Pelini pushed through the exit doors, where Sam momentarily lost sight, sending a cold panic through him. He had not come this far only to miss his chance to talk to the man.

  Spilling out onto the sidewalk, Sam jerked his head left and right. The rain came down in droves, making it difficult to see. There! He spotted Pelini rushing across a busy street, dodging car traffic, and trotting up the opposite sidewalk. Sam hustled forward into the same street as Pelini ducked into an alley between two apartment buildings. Sam was nearly crushed by a bus, jumped out of the way, then stumbled into the same alley as Pelini. Fifty feet up ahead, he spotted the back of the man.

  “Marcus! Wait!” Sam yelled, feeling desperate.

  His father never slowed; instead, the man darted right, following a path into yet another alley. Sam sprinted forward, splashing water up onto the legs of his jeans, his heart in his throat. He reached the next alley just in time to watch Pelini enter through a back door into what looked like an old warehouse building. Sam didn’t understand any of this. Why was the man running away from him?

  Reaching the same back door within seconds, he pulled it open, stepped into a damp and dark warehouse room with tall shelves stuffed full of wooden crates. It was eerily quiet inside. Standing there, he peered in both directions but couldn’t find Pelini anywhere. Where the hell had the man gone? Hearing a noise over to his left, he hustled in that direction, his wet shoes squeaking on the concrete floor.

  Sam spun around a row of shelves, nearly lost his footing. Squinting down the long row, he thought he saw a shadow of movement up ahead. Taking slow steps forward, Sam listened closely. He wiped moisture from his face, a mix of rain and sweat. He could feel his heartbeat thumping in his chest. He slowed, tried to calm down his breathing so he could better hear any movement around him. Nothing. Had the man managed to vanish on him?

  “Marcus!” he yelled at the top of his lungs, his voice echoing through the rafters.

  Just then, Alger Gerlach stepped out of the shadows ten feet in front of him, a gun raised in his right hand, pointed directly at his head. Sam was stunned. He was standing face-to-face with an assassin he’d somehow managed to evade on multiple occasions. But his luck had finally run out. Sam had nowhere to run. Not even his own unique mental gifts could get him out of this.

  To make things worse, his own father had clearly led him to this slaughter. His father had lured him into this warehouse so that the Gray Wolf could end his life. The wicked smile forming on Gerlach’s face told Sam the assassin was going to enjoy this moment.

  Two shots suddenly rang out from directly behind Sam, both hitting the assassin in the chest, causing the man to stagger backward. Sam spun around, spotted Pelin
i, who used his arm to shove Sam out of the way while he continued to charge forward. More shots rang out. Gerlach dropped to his knees, his gun hanging limply in his hand. Pelini put two more muffled bullets straight into the guy, who finally collapsed altogether. Pelini stood over him for a long moment to make sure he was dead.

  Walking up behind Pelini, Sam stared down at the man, Alger Gerlach—the Gray Wolf. Sam had been wrong. His father hadn’t lured him out of the museum to harm him—he did it to protect him. He must have known Gerlach was nearby.

  Pelini finally looked Sam in the eyes. “You okay, son?”

  Sam nodded. Standing there, he didn’t even know what to say. After everything he’d been through the past two days, it felt surreal to finally be face-to-face with his father again. Sam swallowed, tried to find the words.

  Then he watched Pelini suddenly groan, clutch his chest, drop to a knee. That’s when Sam realized his father had also been shot in the exchange of gunfire with Gerlach.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  Pelini pushed himself up against a metal shelf, sat there on the concrete floor, breathing heavily, both hands pressed up firmly to his chest. Sam noticed the blood now seeping through his father’s shirt and covering his hands. He wasn’t sure what to do. He didn’t have time to process any of his complex feelings at the moment. His father was bleeding to death right in front of him.

  Kneeling next to him, Sam said, “We need to get you to a hospital.”

  Pelini shook his head. “No.”

  “What are you talking about? You’ve been shot. You’ll die if we don’t get moving.”

  “There’s no time for the hospital,” his father insisted. “You have to go get the boy and take him to the safe house.”

  “Charlie?”

  “Yes. He’s in my hotel room.”

  Pelini didn’t expound or seem surprised that Sam knew about Charlie. Sam could only presume that his father had somehow renewed contact with Lucinda over the past few hours, and she’d filled him in on Sam’s encounter with her in Le Tréport. It would also explain how Pelini knew to make contact with Sam through Tommy.

  “What safe house?” Sam asked.

  “Outside the city,” Pelini said, coughing up blood. “They’re waiting for me. You have to take Charlie there.”

  “Who’s waiting for you?”

  “People you can trust, Sam. I promise.”

  Pelini recited an address. Sam committed it to memory.

  “Is he really . . . my brother?” Sam asked, still finding the question surreal.

  Pelini nodded. “Yes.”

  “I don’t understand . . . how?”

  Pelini coughed several more times. “The boy’s mother was one of my best assets in Moscow because she was a mistress to Vladimir Zolotov. Natalia regularly gave us valuable intel and risked a lot to get it. We began a courtship several years back that lasted longer than it ever should have, considering the circumstances. She got pregnant.”

  “So Zolotov thinks the boy is his?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where’s Charlie’s mother?”

  “Zolotov had her killed two months ago. The mole we’ve been hunting leaked information to him that she was a CIA asset. I knew I had to get the boy out of harm’s way. If Zolotov ever got suspicious and discovered the truth about Charlie, there’s no telling what that monster might do with him.”

  “So Black Heron was all a ruse created by you to get the boy?”

  Pelini shook his head. “No, the operation was real. The list exists. I only planned to get the boy in addition to everything else. None of this was supposed to happen. I underestimated the level of betrayal I was really facing.”

  “So then, where the hell is the list?”

  Reaching into his coat pocket with his bloody right hand, Pelini pulled out a small flash drive, held it up for Sam to see.

  Sam cursed. “You did steal it out from under us?”

  “Nonsense. The list was stolen from our safe house when they ambushed the team. I’ve spent the past two days hunting it back down, which is why I’m here in London instead of with Lucinda right now. I couldn’t let them get away with it. Someone has to pay for the deaths of my friends.”

  “And you know who that someone is?” Sam asked.

  “I do now.” He nodded at the flash drive. “It’s all on here. You have to get this to Director Barton. Take it with you to the CIA safe house. Protect it at all costs, Sam, or many more people will surely die.”

  He held it out in his bloody palm. Sam reached over, took it.

  Pelini wiped his mouth with blood-soaked fingers. “I want to thank you for what you did for Lucinda. She’s still alive only because of you. That means something to me, son.”

  “I only did what I had to do to survive.”

  “That’s not true. You have something deeper inside that drives you. Something that makes you a better man than me. Don’t ever lose it.”

  Sam was finding this all a bit overwhelming. Why did it take a bullet to the chest for his father to be finally willing to have a real conversation with him? Realizing he was working with limited time, Sam asked Pelini the question that had torn him up inside from the moment Lucinda had told him he had a brother.

  “Why did you go to all this trouble to get the boy?” he asked, swallowing.

  There was clearly a second unspoken question, but he couldn’t get himself to say it. Why would Pelini go get this son when he’d never made any effort to rescue his first son? Even with his father lying there dying, Sam felt a renewed surge of anger push up his spine that made him grit his teeth.

  Pelini seemed to sense it, reached over, put his hand on top of Sam’s hand. “I’m truly sorry, Sam. For everything. More than you’ll ever know. I knew I couldn’t make the same mistake I made with you. I was absent once, and it caused a tremendous amount of pain and suffering. I wasn’t going to let that happen to Charlie.”

  Sam felt his chest tighten, his eyes growing wet. He fought with everything he had to hold back his shaky emotions. “It’s not too late,” he pleaded with his father. “We can still get you to a hospital. You can still make it through this.”

  “No!” Pelini shook his head. “I won’t risk the lives of both of my sons to try to save my own. I’ve made my bed. I refuse to let either of you die in it with me.”

  This time tears did start falling down Sam’s cheeks.

  “You have to get moving now,” Pelini urged him. He pulled out a card key. “This is to my hotel room. Get Charlie to the safe house. Take care of your brother.”

  Sam took the key, nodded.

  He wanted to argue with his father, to beg him not to die right then and there. But he knew it was pointless—this was the end. Another explosive coughing fit. This time it continued for several seconds, until his father spit a load of blood out on his chest. Then his face went completely pale, and he stopped breathing.

  His father was dead.

  FIFTY-NINE

  Sam raced down the streets of London in the pouring rain.

  He possessed a flash drive in his pocket that supposedly contained the CIA asset list and identified the traitors who were behind the intelligence leaks that had left a long wake of dead people—including his father—and had put Sam on the run for the past two days. Buried in his other pocket was a hotel key that opened the door to the only family he still had left.

  The small hotel was about a mile away. Even running through the rain, Sam covered the distance in less than seven minutes. Soaking wet, he hustled up the front steps of the hotel and dipped into a small lobby. A clerk behind the front desk turned to stare at him. Sam didn’t even bother to slow down. Hustling through the lobby, he was inside an elevator carriage five seconds later, ascending to the third floor, his heart in his throat. What would he say to Charlie? Would he tell him he was his brother?

  Down the third-floor hallway, Sam found the door to Pelini’s room. He paused a moment to catch his breath and tried to wipe the moisture from his face. He no
ticed he still had some of his father’s blood on his hands, so he used his shirtsleeves to wipe away as much as possible. Ear to the door, he listened, thought he could hear a kids’ cartoon playing loudly on a TV inside the room.

  One more deep breath. Then Sam stuck the card key in the slot, opened the door. It was more than a simple hotel room. Pelini had booked a suite with two separate bedrooms and a full-size living space. That’s where Sam found Charlie, sitting cross-legged on the carpet only four feet away from a large flat-screen TV inside a cabinet. The boy was wearing a blue T-shirt, jeans, red athletic shoes. Charlie was so glued to the TV that he didn’t even notice Sam had walked into the room.

  Sam approached the boy cautiously so he wouldn’t alarm him.

  Within five feet, he knelt, grabbed the boy’s attention. “Hey, Charlie.”

  Charlie finally turned, stared at Sam, his forehead wrinkling. In that moment, Sam felt it was as clear as day, as if he were staring directly at a younger photo of himself. The boy looked exactly like him. There was no question they were brothers.

  “Leo?” the boy asked, surprised.

  Sam smiled. The boy was sharp. Even though he had been half-asleep the other night, Charlie remembered his brief encounter with Sam and the fake name he’d used while pretending to be a security guard.

  “You can call me Sam now,” he told the boy in English. “What’re you watching?”

  “Batman,” Charlie replied, eyes back on the TV.

  “Cool. I love Batman.”

  He sat with the boy for a few minutes, just trying to allow Charlie to get comfortable with his presence. It didn’t seem to be a problem. Charlie was lost in the cartoon and immediately began telling him all about what was happening in the TV episode—the good guys, the bad guys, and how Batman was going to save the day. He said he’d seen this cartoon a thousand times already. While cloaked with a Russian accent, Charlie’s English was nearly perfect. Sam complimented him on it. The boy smiled shyly, again mentioned that he had a private English tutor, as well as tutors for Chinese, French, and Arabic. Sam wasn’t surprised, since he’d been living in such affluence. Charlie said English was his favorite because all the best superheroes were from America.