by Chris Holm
“Sir!” one of the men called. Who, Yancey didn’t know. Bellum’s matte-black ballistic masks rendered them indistinguishable from one another.
“What is it, son?”
“Come look at this.”
The man panned his flashlight across a digital camcorder on a tripod and the filthy sheet that it was pointed at, which hung from the wall, a makeshift backdrop. Beside the sheet was a workbench. Yancey wandered over and inspected it. On it were two combat knives. Three handguns. A Kalashnikov. A MAC-10. Assorted maps, blueprints, and bomb schematics. A cling-wrapped brick of plastic explosive the dusky orange of Wisconsin cheddar. And two partially assembled suicide vests festooned with braids of multicolored wire and studded with ball bearings.
Yancey poked at the vests. Examined the schematics in detail. Hefted the MAC-10, testing its weight. He ejected the magazine, peeked inside, and reinserted it with a click. Then he trotted over to where the terrorists lay and crouched beside them so he could see their faces.
“Evenin’, gentlemen,” he said. “Long time, no see.”
One of the men stared at Yancey, hatred glimmering in his eyes. The other’s eyes were shut tight. Tears streamed down his cheeks.
“Jesus, Waheeb. I never pegged you for being such a whiny little bitch. You should take a lesson from al-Nasr here and man up. You’re embarrassing yourself.”
Al-Nasr attempted to reply, but the gag prevented it. Yancey watched him with amusement for a moment, and then removed it.
“Do not speak to Waheeb this way,” he said, his English heavily accented. “He is ten times the man you will ever be.”
“If you say so,” Yancey said. “Since you two are still alive, I’m guessing Bakr must’ve been the one piloting the boat. Does that mean he drew the short straw or the long? I can never tell if you people are serious about dying for your God or if you’re all just beating your chests and secretly hoping one of your buddies will volunteer.”
“Bakr was a hero,” al-Nasr said. “He died with honor. We should all be so fortunate.”
“You think? Because I think he was a fucking coward who killed a bunch of innocent people for no reason. A worthless piece of human trash too dumb to realize he’d been misled for his whole miserable life. I bet he died with shit-stained trousers.”
“I would not expect you to understand his sacrifice.”
“Let me tell you what I understand. I understand that Bellum brought you here to train you to better fight Assad, and in return you promised us intel and freedom to operate within your territory. I understand you disappeared from the safe house we set up for you right around the time a massive cache of Semtex went missing from our training facility. I understand a member of the local mosque we recommended told you that this place was vacant and suggested you could hole up here without attracting attention. What I don’t understand is why you decided to dick us over or where you got the boat and bomb schematics, because they sure as shit didn’t come from us.”
“Suffice to say, we have some very generous friends.”
“And here I thought we were your friends—but apparently you’d rather bite the hand that feeds you than free your homeland from oppression.”
“You think we owe you loyalty?” Al-Nasr’s face showed disdain. “We owe you nothing. Allah will reward us for what we’ve done.”
“Yeah? Be sure to say hello to Him for me.” Yancey raised the MAC-10 and loosed a flurry of bullets into al-Nasr and Waheeb. He didn’t ease off the trigger until the gun clicked empty and the two men were scarcely more than meat and gristle.
Bellum men came running but lowered their weapons when they realized there was no threat. Yancey’s ears rang. The room stank of voided bowels and spent ammo.
Osborne, red-faced with fury, grabbed Yancey by the lapels. He had three inches and forty pounds of muscle on Yancey, easy. “What the fuck was that?” he asked.
Yancey dropped the MAC-10 and placed his hand on the wooden grip of his revolver. “Get your goddamn hands off me. Our orders were clear.”
“But if we’d had the chance to question these assholes, we might’ve discovered who helped them carry out the attack!”
“Sure, unless the Feds caught wind of the fact that we had suspects in custody and took them from us before they cracked. What do you think would happen if the world found out that Bellum brought these fucking towelheads into the country under false pretenses and gave them access to explosives? I’m guessing that scenario ends in prison sentences, and I’m not eager to play bitch for the same lowlifes I spent twenty years putting away.”
“When we brought them here, we had no way of knowing that they planned to double-cross us.”
“Listen to yourself. Do you really think that matters? The longer these two remained breathing, the greater the chance that Bellum’s role in the attack, however inadvertent, would be exposed. If you’d just put them down when you came in, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“My men and I aren’t trained to shoot people who don’t pose a threat.”
“Well, then, I guess you should be thanking me for saving you the trouble.”
“You think I ought to thank you? I—”
Yancey held up a finger to silence him. His phone was humming in his pocket. He took it out and answered it. “Hello, Mr. Wentworth. Yes, it’s done. Thank you, sir, but our tac team deserves most of the credit—they did good work.” He covered the mouthpiece of the phone and said to Osborne, “Anything you’d like to add, or are we good?”
Osborne fumed but said nothing.
Yancey terminated the call. Then he knelt, fished a handkerchief from his pocket, and used it to wipe his prints off the MAC-10.
“Comb this place from top to bottom,” he said. “Take the Semtex and anything else that could lead back to Bellum. Then send teams through the surrounding buildings to look for witnesses and cameras.”
“That could take all night.”
“Then it takes all night. We’re on the one-yard line, son. Let’s not fumble now because we forgot to dot our i’s or cross our t’s.”
“Yes, sir,” Osborne replied through gritted teeth.
“Good man.” Yancey clapped him on the shoulder condescendingly and headed for door, lighting a fresh cigarette as he stepped once more into the fog.
Cameron sat in the rancid muck that had leaked out of a rusty dumpster and tried to use the hole’s jagged edge to saw through her zip-tie handcuffs. She couldn’t see what she was doing because her hands were behind her back, but her wrists burned with every downstroke, and blood dripped freely from her fingers.
I’ll be pissed if I survive this only to die of tetanus, she thought.
Earlier, as soon as Yancey’s footfalls had been swallowed by the fog and Cameron knew she was alone in the backseat of the Caddy, she had curled into a fetal position and tried to bring her hands around front by sliding them past her butt and pulling her legs through. But she was bound too tightly, the V made by her arms too narrow.
The exertion winded her. Yancey had stuffed a pair of balled-up dress socks in her mouth, and she could barely breathe through her nose because it was crusted with dried blood. If I want to get out of here, she thought, I’m going to have to get rid of these goddamn socks.
She’d opened her jaw as far as she could and pushed at the socks with her tongue. It seemed to take forever, but eventually, she succeeded in getting them out. She licked her lips and spat lint onto the backseat.
Yancey had engaged the rear child locks. With her hands and feet bound, she had no hope of climbing into the front seat and unlocking the door. That left one option…and it was going to be noisy.
Cameron scooted into position. Drew her knees up to her chest. Kicked the Caddy’s back right window as hard as she could.
The car shook. Her legs ached. But the window didn’t break.
She tried again. Still nothing.
Automatic gunfire echoed through the night. Cameron shuddered with terror and willed
herself not to cry. Then she doubled her efforts.
On the seventh kick, the window shattered. She threw herself out of the aperture and landed face-first on the pavement, her hands useless behind her. For a moment, agony blotted out the world. It took every ounce of will she possessed not to scream.
With some assistance from the car, she’d managed to stand. She tried to hop away but soon toppled and was forced to inch along on her stomach. The fog enveloped her. Eventually, she wriggled around a corner, out of sight of anyone near the car.
She’d found herself in an alley between buildings. It was shrouded in long shadows, its only illumination the distant streetlights through the fog. Her first thought when she’d crawled behind the dumpster was to hide, but then she saw the hole and thought the edge might be sharp enough to sever her bonds.
Now, Cameron wondered about the gunfire. Hoped that Yancey had been killed. But she kept sawing because, deep down, she knew he hadn’t.
She heard sounds coming from around the corner, a muffled curse and a fist pounding the Caddy’s roof in frustration, and she realized he’d returned. She froze and tried to breathe as quietly as she could.
Seconds passed that way, or maybe hours, or maybe years. Then she caught a whiff of cigarette smoke, and a voice nearby said: “There you are, you little bitch. Didn’t I tell you that I’d be right back?”
Cameron cowered. Tried to kick him with her bound feet as he approached. He slapped them aside, hoisted her up by her hair, and punched her twice in the gut.
The air whooshed out of her like a bellows. She doubled over in agony. Yancey used her momentum to throw her over his shoulder. Then he carried her back to the car.
As he stuffed her in the trunk, she begged, “Please don’t kill me.”
“Don’t worry, kid. I’m not gonna kill you—not until you help me get Segreti back, that is.”
37.
WE NEED TO TALK.”
The voice was male and had a smoker’s rasp. The number was Cameron’s.
“Where did you find this phone?” Hendricks asked.
“That’s what we need to talk about. See, I’ve got your girl.”
Hendricks’s stomach dropped. “What girl?”
“C’mon, jackass. You know what girl. Cute little thing. Fresh-faced, resourceful. Well, a little less fresh-faced than she was before I got my hands on her, to own the truth. Anyway, she’s got your number in her contacts and no one else’s.”
“That chick doesn’t mean a thing to me,” Hendricks bluffed. “She’s a groupie. A dilettante. A spoiled little rich kid looking for a thrill. I’ve been trying to shake her all week.”
“Is that right.”
“Yeah.”
“Then why are there twelve missed calls from you on her phone?”
Hendricks took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Why don’t we skip to the part where you tell me what you want?”
“It’s simple, really. I’ve got someone you’re interested in. You’ve got someone I’m interested in. Seems to me we ought to make a swap.”
“What makes you think I’ll give up Segreti that easily?”
“If you don’t, this little bitch’ll die slow.”
“So you say. For all I know, she’s dead already.”
There was a rustling on the other end of the line. Then, away from the phone’s mike: “Say hello to your buddy, darlin’.”
“M-M-Michael?” Hendricks’s heart ached when he heard the tremor in Cameron’s voice.
“Hey, kid. You okay?”
“Whatever Yancey tells you, don’t believe hi—”
Cameron’s words came out in a rush, and just as quickly, Yancey yanked the phone away. “I think that’s enough for now,” he said. “So, where and when you wanna make the swap?”
“I haven’t said I’ll do it, yet.”
“Oh, you’ll do it, but if I were you, I wouldn’t take too long to come to that conclusion. If I don’t hear from you soon, I’m liable to get bored.”
“Keep this phone on,” Hendricks said. “I’ll be in touch.”
He hung up before Yancey had a chance to reply. When he tried to slide the phone back into his pocket, he realized he was trembling. The air around him suddenly felt too close, too stale, too musty. He leaned heavily on the boat beside him for a second. Then he decided he needed to get the hell out of the warehouse. Without a moment’s concern over who might see him, he pushed out into the darkness, gulping air as he walked down the pier.
The night was cool, silent. The fog was even thicker than before. Hendricks could feel it part around him. It smelled of ocean—salt, sulfur, and rot—and blunted the lights along the waterfront, reducing Hendricks’s world to ten square feet of murky gray. He felt trapped, floating in the void between day and night, life and death, between his desire to avenge Lester and his wish that no one else be sacrificed for his cause.
Close behind him, a throat cleared.
Hendricks wheeled and drew his gun. He was unaccustomed to being snuck up on. Fever had rendered him weak. Distracted. Off his game.
It was Segreti. Hands in pockets. A sympathetic frown on his face. He didn’t flinch when the .45 came to a stop an inch from the bridge of his nose. He just stared calmly down the barrel until Hendricks lowered it.
“You okay?” Segreti asked.
“Honestly? Not really.”
“Lemme guess: Yancey’s got your friend.”
“She’s not my friend,” Hendricks replied. “The truth is, I hardly know her.”
“Clearly, Yancey sees things differently, and whatever else he is, he ain’t stupid.”
“Yancey can go fuck himself.”
“No argument here, but that don’t help the girl none.”
“Hey, she sought me out, not the other way around. I never asked for her to get involved. I came here to find out what you know about the Council so I can take them down. The smart play would be for you and me to walk away and not look back.”
“Guys like us ain’t always cut out for the smart play. Besides, I’m not sure taking on the Council qualifies as one. What’s your beef with them anyway?”
“Last year, they hired a hitter to come after me. He killed my partner.”
“I’m sorry to hear it. Listen, not for nothing, but I know a thing or two about the Council, and betrayal, and revenge. The path you’re on…no good ever comes of it.”
“So what do you suggest I do instead?”
“Big picture? No fucking clue. But there’s a girl out there who could really use your help. That seems as good a place to start as any.”
“You know he wants me to trade you for her, right?”
“Yeah, I figured. Just like you probably figured he plans to screw you over and kill all three of us.”
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
“Then I guess the question is, what’re we gonna do about it?”
“Actually,” Hendricks said, “I have an idea—but it’s not a good one. You’d be nuts to go along with it.”
“Will it save the kid?”
“I think so, yeah.”
“Do I get to live?”
“If you’re very, very lucky.”
Segreti laughed. Genuine and unself-conscious, it echoed loudly through the night, blunted only slightly by the fog. “Easy, pal,” Segreti said eventually. “Try not to oversell it.”
“I don’t want to bullshit you. I want you going in eyes open.”
“Fair enough,” Segreti said. “Let’s hear it.”
38.
THE TRUNK HATCH opened, and cool, clean air rushed in. Cameron’s eyes fluttered. She whimpered as she stirred, the sound muffled by the socks once again in her mouth.
“Up and at ’em,” Yancey said. Then he slapped her awake and dragged her out of the Cadillac by her hair.
Tears welled in her eyes. Her face and scalp burned. She tried to get her feet beneath her, but after a night spent zip-tied in the trunk, her limbs were clumsy, leaden, unrespon
sive. She wound up lying on the concrete, its chill leeching through her clothes.
They were in a parking garage, empty on this level except for the Cadillac. Dawn threatened but had yet to break. The world outside was bathed in blue, its details blurred by fog.
“I’m gonna remove your gag and cut you free, but if you scream or try to run, I swear to Christ I’ll shoot you. Understand?”
Cameron nodded.
He sliced through her zip-ties with a utility knife and pulled the socks from her mouth. Cameron coughed so hard she thought she might throw up. He’d stuffed them in way farther than last time, and his extracting them had triggered her gag reflex.
“Here,” he said, uncapping a bottle of water and handing it to her. “Drink this.”
She took a cautious sip. Swished it around her mouth. Swallowed, wincing. Then she gave the bottle back to him, her hands shaking so badly, it spilled.
“That’s all you want?”
She colored. “I…I have to pee.”
Yancey made her squat behind the Cadillac while he watched. The moment seemed to stretch on for hours. As she was zipping up, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the window. He’d beaten her so badly, she didn’t recognize herself.
“These are for you.” He placed a floppy hat and oversize sunglasses on her head. “Now gimme your hands.”
She did as he asked. He zip-tied them again—in front of her this time—and draped a cheap plastic tourist poncho over them.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “What’s happening?”
“That’s up to your buddy. He called a few minutes ago. Said be ready to move come sunrise. Guess you must mean something to him after all.”
“You won’t beat him, you know. He’s too good.”
“Funny. That’s exactly why I think I will.”