by Chris Holm
Hendricks knew the Feds’ playbook in situations such as these. They’d expect him to panic—to flee. To get as far from the scene as he could before they locked the county down. And they’d respond accordingly. So let them give chase, he thought—as long as it wasn’t actually him they were chasing.
Sometimes you survived by the bullet, or by the blade. Sometimes you survived by tradecraft, spotting tails and squashing bugs. But sometimes, survival came down to nothing more than swagger—bluffing big and playing it to the hilt. Problem is, you go all-in on a bluff and someone calls it, you go bust. Which ain’t so comforting when it’s your life that’s on the line.
Hendricks knew he was in deep shit. What he didn’t know yet was how deep. He’d been set up—of that much he was sure. The timing of his assailant’s attack suggested he hadn’t ID’d Hendricks until today—otherwise, why try to take him out in so public a venue? And it seemed clear that Leonwood wasn’t in on the scam. A good sign. It suggested that whoever was behind this was operating alone, rather than marshaling the full resources of the Council, who—given that this gig fell into his lap after intercepting their communiqués—were no doubt the ones behind the hit. The fact that his assailant was keeping his cards close to his vest pointed to a freelancer; he was hoarding intel to preserve his value to the organization and ensure they couldn’t take care of Hendricks themselves and then kill him, too.
Problem was, Hendricks had no idea who the hell this guy was, or how to find him. And until he did, he remained exposed. Every job would offer his guy another opportunity to bag him. Every communication, every contact point, would place whomever Hendricks was talking to—friends and clients both—at risk.
And that was just the half of it. It wouldn’t be long before the Feds found out who Purkhiser really was—if they didn’t know already—and looked into his supposed Seychelles account. Hendricks never intended to leave Purkhiser’s money in that account. Lester had set it up to automatically transfer to several of Hendricks’s other accounts within seconds of deposit, after which he’d close the one that Purkhiser had access to—a fail-safe against Purkhiser double-crossing him. Hendricks had no idea how fast the Feds might chase down that first account, or whether they could trace it to the others. Which meant he’d have to sever ties with all his Seychelles accounts—and forfeit any funds within. So not only was there no fucking way he’d see a dime of today’s payday, this shit-show of a job actually cost him dough.
Wait—today’s payday. The result of a surprise reversal on Purkhiser’s part, and too big a number for Hendricks to’ve resisted.
That weasely bastard, Hendricks thought. Purkhiser knew that son of a bitch was gunning for me. Purkhiser helped the fucker set me up.
It took the edge off failing to prevent his death, at least.
Now all that was left was getting out of Pendleton’s alive.
The hotel’s upstairs hallway looked like a high school twenty minutes past the final summer bell: doors left swinging open, detritus scattered about—clothing, bits of trash, a half a turkey club. An ice bucket lay overturned beside one room, ice water bleeding into the carpet, a stack of food-caked plates beside it. Hendricks watched through the wire-crossed safety glass of the fire door for a hundredcount—his cowboy boots in his hands, the concrete warm beneath his stocking feet—before he eased the door open just enough to slip out. He counted another hundred before he actually did so, easing the door closed so it wouldn’t echo down the stairwell. He knew SWAT would typically take their time breaching the hallway in which they assumed he was trapped—letting him sweat awhile in the dark to keep him off-balance—but he couldn’t discount the possibility that by discharging his zip gun, he’d accelerated their time line. If that had happened, there was a chance they were peering into his decoy ductwork at this very moment and reconnoitering the landings up and down from there as well. He didn’t want to give them any reason to turn their cursory search up the stairwell into anything more aggressive. Subterfuge was his only ally in getting out of here.
Hendricks was on the seventh floor. The hotel portion of the Pendleton’s casino complex stretched twelve stories high. Hendricks chose the seventh floor for two reasons. One, he knew any systematic search of the building would begin at top and bottom, meeting somewhere between four and nine depending on occupancy, so the middle floors afforded him the most leeway with regard to time. And two, Pendleton’s had dome cameras mounted at the end of every hall—not a problem to his left, because the hallway jagged around a corner four rooms down, but a huge problem to his right, where the camera at the end of each hall had a clear shot of the fire door. Everywhere but the seventh floor, that is. On the seventh floor, some member of the cleaning staff had left the utility room door open in his or her haste to flee—even though the shooting downstairs had lasted only minutes, word spread quickly through the Pendleton’s complex, sending patrons and employees alike into hysteria—and the door, prevented from closing by an abandoned cleaning cart, now blocked the camera’s sight line to the fire door.
Hendricks had half a mind to leave a tip.
He padded silently through the abandoned hallway— neither slinking nor hurrying, and affecting a look of fright and worry in case anyone was watching his progress through the peepholes in their doors. A good quarter of the doors were open—some wide, some kept ajar by the brass-plated ovals of the interior door latches, protruding from the door frames like bookmarks—but many were still closed, and Hendricks had no way of knowing how many of those rooms were actually occupied.
Hendricks snatched the ice bucket up from the hall, scooping as much of its spilled contents back in as he could manage. He popped his head into every open door he passed, examining at a glance the open closet space inside like some hard-boiled Goldilocks. Too big. Too small. Too showy. In one case, the dimensions were about right, but he thought the odds of him walking out unspotted in this enormous woman’s pink chiffon dress unlikely.
Then, finally, he hit pay dirt.
Once he’d found what he was looking for, he closed the door behind him and threw the bolt. He removed the wad of cash Lester’d sent him—rolled tight and rubberbanded—from his pocket and set it on the nightstand. Then he stripped naked, folding his clothes as flat as he could and placing them between the mattress and box spring.
The room belonged to Norm and Patty Gunderson of Parker, South Dakota. Hendricks knew this because of the tags on their luggage and the printed Google driving directions on the nightstand. They must have skedaddled in a hurry, because the TV was still tuned to KMBC’s coverage of the shooting. As Hendricks riffled through their belongings, he couldn’t help but feel sorry for them. The suitcase was filled with patterned polos, iron-creased denims, and wrinkle-free blouses in a cascade of Easter pastels. The closet held two pairs of khakis and two dresses as appropriate for Sunday service as dinner out. Below them on the floor was a pair of boat shoes—a little small for Hendricks, but they’d have to do—and a pair of sensible, low-heeled pumps. There were no ties, sport coats, or any other indications of business-wear to be seen.
The Gundersons were on vacation.
Hendricks wondered if they’d ever take another one.
Hendricks padded naked to the bathroom and eyed himself in the mirror. Nothing I can’t work with, he thought. Sure, his shoulder hurt like hell, and his body was a road map of bruises, but apart from the cuts drying sticky-red on his left hand, a half-inch-long knife wound across his Adam’s apple—bleeding, but superficial—and some slight swelling on his right cheek, his injuries weren’t the sort most folks would notice.
Pawing through Patty Gunderson’s dopp kit, Hendricks found a pair of tweezers. He ran his left hand under the bathroom tap, rinsing away the drying blood, and found that although he’d been cut multiple times by the shattered rocks glass, none of the cuts were deep. Carefully, he tweezed free what few shards of glass remained, dropping each of them into the trash.
That done, he grabbed a hand towel a
nd filled it with ice, pressing it to his swollen face until the worst of the puffiness had receded. A faint dusky smudge streaked below his right eye, riding the tangent of his orbital socket’s curve across the meat of his cheek, and would likely darken in the hours and days to come. If that proved the worst of his problems, Hendricks would consider it a win.
The shower stung like needles against his skin, and ran pink from clotting undone. Hendricks scrubbed himself clean and then stood beneath the water until it ran clear. When he was finished, he toweled off gently and disinfected his hand with a goodly helping of ol’ Norman’s Aqua Velva. It smelled like Hendricks’s first foster father— a hard, mean man—and it burned like perdition, but it made a fine disinfectant.
Hendricks filled the sink basin and, with Norm’s disposable Gillette, removed the ratty bristle of horseshoe mustache he’d sculpted from his stubble for the job. He used Patty’s tweezers again, this time to thin his eyebrows some and change their shape, softening his standard frown from one of determination to one of worry. He eyed his handiwork for a moment and then picked up the razor once more, using it to take his sideburns up to an unfashionable forty-five-degree angle. The end result was a man who looked little like the cocky cowboy who’d sauntered into the casino this morning. A dab of Patty’s concealer on the bruise beneath his eye, and his transformation was complete.
All that was left to his plan was to wait. So he sat down on the edge of the tub, a bathrobe tied around his frame, to do just that.
He wasn’t waiting long.
The rapping was loud and sharp. Seven in a row, meant not to be ignored.
“That you, Patricia?” Hendricks called, dropping the drawl he’d been affecting in favor of a tone more broadcast-neutral. “Don’t tell me you forgot your key again! Well, hold your horses—I’m in the bathroom!”
He splashed some water on his face—avoiding his makeup job as best he could—and grabbed the razor from the vanity. Then he headed for the door. Hendricks had scarcely disengaged the interior lock before the electronic lock buzzed—unlocked from the outside—and the door swung in toward him. Outside was a blazered, khakied mound of flesh with a buzz cut and spiral-wired earpiece— Pendleton’s security—and a more compact but no less intimidating man in full-on body armor aiming an automatic rifle at him—FBI SWAT. For a millisecond, Hendricks calculated the odds of taking them—grab the SWAT guy’s barrel, force the gunstock into his throat, turn the weapon on his cohort once he crumples and releases it—but he dismissed the thought as soon as it flitted through his consciousness. Fighting wasn’t going to get him out of here.
So instead, he threw his hands in the air, the razor clattering to the floor, and he let out a not entirely manful scream, cowering at the sight of the gun.
“It’s all right, sir—but I’m going to have to ask you to calm down while I search your room. Are you aware, sir, that you’re bleeding?”
“What? I—” The security guard gestured to his own neck, and Hendricks echoed his movement as if uncomprehendingly. He touched the knife wound on his neck and acted surprised when his fingers came back bloody. “Oh!” he said. “Oh, my! I was shaving when you two—and then the knocking startled me, and...wait—what do you mean you have to search my room? What the heck is going on here?”
The two men shared a glance, and the security guard said, frowning, “There’s been an incident. A shooting just off the gaming floor. Can you tell me, sir, who’s registered in this room?”
Hendricks backed away from the doorway, feigning terror. “Me and—I mean, N-n-norm and Patty Gunderson,” he said. “You think the shooter is up here?”
Another glance at each other, a confirmatory nod, and their features softened. “No,” said the SWAT agent. “The shooter’s down. But we think he may have had an accomplice. We’re just covering our bases,” he added, in what he seemed to think was an encouraging tone.
“Was anyone hurt?” Hendricks asked.
No reply. Instead, the two men fanned out inside the room. They checked inside the shower. Under the bed. Behind the heavy curtains.
“Oh, God,” Hendricks said, allowing a note of hysteria to creep into his voice, “was anyone killed?”
“Clear,” said Security.
“Here, too,” SWAT replied. Both acted as though Hendricks wasn’t even there.
“Please, you have to tell me—my Patricia is down there! Patricia Gunderson? She—we...” Hendricks made a show of marshaling his wits, and started over. “I had a little too much to drink with dinner last night—my stomach can’t handle whiskey like it used to—so Patty thought she’d let me sleep it off awhile while she tried her hand at craps. I prefer cards to dice, myself, and she’s got this thing about this being our vacation, like she can’t leave my side for more than a trip to the can, you know? I kept telling her, you want to play, go play, but she never listens to me...”
“Uh, sir?” SWAT said, trying to nudge Hendricks back on track.
“Yes. Right. Anyway, I was feeling lousy, so she let me sleep in and headed downstairs herself. Six hours ago, this must’ve been. You don’t think she’s hurt, do you? You don’t think she’s...”
At that, Hendricks began to cry.
“Sir,” said Security, “I’m sure your wife is fine. We’re going to need you to lock your door and sit tight awhile, okay?”
“Sit tight? Sit tight? How do you expect me to sit tight while Patty could be bleeding to death God knows where?” Then, with no small measure of steel: “You have to take me to her. You have to take me downstairs.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible, sir.” This from SWAT. “We’ve got a job to do. You wanna help, you’re gonna have to stay put until we complete our search.”
“No.”
A pause. “No?” said SWAT, incredulous. “Are you aware you’re defying an officer of the law?”
“So arrest me,” Hendricks said. “Shoot me if you want. But please, for the love of God, take me downstairs to find Patty.” Though SWAT was resolute, Hendricks saw doubt in Security’s eyes and redoubled his efforts. “If you don’t, I swear I’ll follow you the whole way. You’ll be putting me in danger, and Lord knows, I’ll slow you down.”
That did the trick. Security piped up. “Ah, hell, Cy, what’s the harm? Let me take this guy downstairs to find his wife.”
SWAT was unconvinced. “You can’t abandon me up here—I need you to open the doors. My team’s spread thin enough as it is.”
“It’s a fucking card key, for God’s sake. I think you can manage.”
The SWAT agent stepped into the hall and radioed down to his commander. They conversed a second—muttering punctuated by bursts of static. When he returned to Hendricks’s borrowed room, he looked irritated. “Fine,” he said to the security guard. “Straight down. Straight back.” And then, to Hendricks: “Report directly to the holding area—they’ve set up triage for the victims there, and they’re taking a head count of all evacuees. If your wife’s been injured or”—he swallowed, searching for the proper euphemism—“otherwise accounted for, they’ll know it.”
Hendricks’s features showed relief. Under the circumstances, it wasn’t hard to muster. “Thank you—thank you both so much! I can’t tell you how much this means to me.” He made for the door, all puppy-dog enthusiasm. The security guard stopped him with a hand to the chest.
“Uh, sir?”
“Yes?”
The guard and agent shared a look, both grinning at the kind if ineffectual man standing before them in nothing but a bathrobe. “Don’t you think you ought to put on some clothes first?”
In that moment, Hendricks knew his cover was cemented. These men would pose no problem for him now.
“Clothes! Right!” he said, flashing them a wan smile. He grabbed a pair of underwear, a blue polo with red and white stripes, and a pair of jeans from the Gundersons’ suitcase. He hooked the boat shoes with a finger in each shoe back and tossed them and his clothes onto the bed. Then turned his attentio
n to the two armed men. “Uh, fellas? You mind giving me a little privacy?”
The two men turned around, their gazes trailing toward the ceiling. Hendricks dropped his robe and dressed quickly, mindful of the many bruises that blossomed across his taut, scarred warrior’s frame. If they’d glanced back, or caught his reflection in the mirror on the wall beside them, all his subterfuge would be for naught.
But they didn’t look back. And clothes on—pinching shoes and all—he was Norm Gunderson once more. Loving husband. Hapless guest.
He snatched up his bankroll off the nightstand and stuffed it in his jeans pocket. Then, leaving the SWAT agent to canvass the seventh floor alone, Hendricks and his escort headed toward the elevators.
Toward freedom.
29
“Agent Garfield? You might wanna get over here. This guy’s got some information you’re gonna wanna hear.” The triage tent was bustling with activity, makeshift cots overflowing with the dying, injured, and just plain terrified—first responders flitting back and forth like flies among them. Garfield wended his way through it toward the woman who called to him—a cute twenty-something paramedic. A half an hour had passed since the SWAT team had declared the ballroom clear. Nearly an hour since Leon Leonwood was executed by Thompson’s so-called ghost— for she and Garfield were certain that’s who it was.
Thompson was rattled by her experience in the banquet hall, of course, as well she should’ve been, having faced down what she thought was certain death. Garfield didn’t need the phantom throb of his long-healed bullet wound— a parting present from the Mara chapter he’d worked so hard to infiltrate—to remind him what that was like. He saw it in the worry lines around his eyes every morning in the mirror. He felt it gnawing at his insides every time he went into the field.