Desert Dark

by Sonja Stone

  “Kick it!”

  She tries again, this time making contact.

  “And your knife.”

  She pulls her knife from her waistband and tosses it down.

  “Sit down,” he instructs, waving his gun toward the chairs.

  Nadia sits. As the dean circles his desk, she reaches into her hair and clicks on the recorder in the pencil.

  Dean Wolfe picks up the telephone and dials an on-campus extension. “Get down here. I need some help.” He hangs up the phone.

  “What happened to Jack?” She has trouble forming the words.

  “It’s a shame about Jack. He had the potential to be a fine agent. That is, until you came along.” Dean Wolfe raises an eyebrow and shakes his head.

  “I don’t understand.” Stall him. Make a plan.

  “Jack possessed a single-minded determination regarding his career goals. That’s why I chose him to investigate you. He was the perfect recruit: eager, intelligent—but malleable. Not like you. From the moment I read your profile I knew you’d be trouble. But Jack . . .” He sighs. “Jack disappointed me. We supplied all the evidence he needed, but his feelings for you interfered with his job. He told you, didn’t he? That I still suspected you.” Nadia doesn’t answer. “I knew I’d lost him.”

  Past tense. Jack was malleable. Jack’s already dead. “How will you explain two student murders?” she asks. She hears Hashimoto Sensei’s voice in her head: Be smart, Nadia-san. Keep him talking. You are stronger than this.

  “Won’t everyone be surprised when they find out you and Jack were both working as double agents. We’ll plant the gun that shot Alan between your mattress and box spring. We’ll throw in a couple one-way plane tickets to Afghanistan. Imagine, terrorists right here on our own campus.”

  “But Libby and Alan know it wasn’t me. We were together when Alan was shot. Are you going to kill them too?”

  “No one will doubt you were working with someone. Your accomplice has been apprehended already.” The dean points to Jack’s body on the carpet. “I understand he was not with his team when the shots were fired. Trust me, Nadia. I’m doing you a favor, taking care of this situation in-house. If Alan’s grandfather gets a hold of the people he thinks shot his grandson, things will take an ugly, ugly turn. You would be praying for death.”

  So he does know. “What do you mean?”

  “Never you mind.”

  The noise in her head begins to quiet. “Who are you working for?”

  “You’re full of questions tonight, aren’t you?”

  “You’re going to kill me anyway; why not indulge my curiosity?” The steadiness of her voice shocks her.

  Dean Wolfe smiles. “I work for America.”

  “You’re not CIA.”

  “No.” He shakes his head. “The CIA can’t do what we do. The CIA merely identifies problems. My organization eradicates them. We are called the Nighthawks. We’re not bound by the rules of the United Nations. We do what the president is incapable of—we protect the citizens of the United States of America by any means necessary.”

  Nadia slips her hand in her pocket. She wraps her fingers around the deer gun. He won’t kill me here if he doesn’t have to—too messy. But if he takes me to the desert, my body may never be found.

  “We are a small assembly of men and women who know what goes on out there. We have no red tape to cut through; we do what needs to be done. If that means we eliminate an enemy of the state, we do so, regardless of his—or her,” the dean pauses to glare at Nadia, “international standing. It is absurd that known enemies of this great nation are allowed to create and maintain nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. I don’t care what the Geneva Convention states. Anti-American organizations must be abolished.”

  “And Damon is part of this?” Nadia guesses.

  “Damon’s done all he can for us. He isn’t a team player. He went over his contact’s head, refused a direct order—to kill you, by the way—and jeopardized our entire operation. A man who won’t follow orders makes for a useless agent. I knew he’d fail us eventually. Damon has no ideology. He is motivated by his need for vengeance. Once he completes his revenge fantasy, he will have no loyalty to us whatsoever. The shot in the canyon was meant for Damon, not Alan. It’s a shame too. We put a lot of time and money into that boy. Maybe too much time, as it turns out. He’s smarter than we knew.”

  “How so?”

  “Damon has amassed evidence against us. But his time is limited; we know how to find him. Sadly, if he’d died in the canyon, you wouldn’t be here. We would’ve handed his body to the CIA. With Damon’s death they’d have their double, you would be exonerated, everybody goes home happy. But our shooter missed.”

  She doesn’t bother pleading—swearing to keep his secrets. Wolfe is not stupid. “Your cause sounds just,” Nadia lies.

  “Don’t bother, Miss Riley. I have no thoughts of recruiting you. I didn’t want you here, and I don’t want you there.” Wolfe strolls to the door. “Where is he?” He looks into the sitting room.

  As he turns his back, Nadia leaps from the chair and rolls across his desk, firing at him as she launches herself over the wood. Her head hits the lamp and it shatters on the floor, leaving the room in darkness. Wolfe responds faster than she expects. He drops behind the abandoned chair and fires back. A searing pain pierces her side, like she’s been stabbed with a hot poker. She slides off the back of the desk and falls to the floor.

  Her ears ring from the closeness of the short-barrel shot. She can’t remember if the deer gun is a single-use weapon. To be safe, she tosses it aside and withdraws the second gun from her pocket. Her eyes rapidly adjust to the darkness. She pulls herself into the empty space under his desk. Wolfe’s heavy breathing surrounds her. The heaving sound closes in from all around—both sides, above her.

  She realizes she’s making the noise.

  I can’t stay here. I’m trapped. Nadia holds her breath and listens. The ringing continues. It’s all she can hear. She crawls to the side of the desk. With her back against the wood, she pokes her head around the corner.

  Wolfe has left his position behind the chair. She scans the room, looking for a dark shape or movement.

  Can I make it to the door? Is he still in the room? He’ll shoot me in the back when I run. Maybe he left—is he in the sitting room waiting for me?

  Nadia creeps around to the front of the desk. She crouches on her knees and peers through his doorway into the sitting room.

  She hears a whisper on the carpet near the broken glass. He’s on the other side of the desk. She’s a moment too late.

  “Drop it,” he says from behind.

  He’ll kill her. She has no doubt. These are her last moments on earth. Death closes around them, watching, waiting.

  “Drop it!” he yells.

  She rolls onto her back and fires. She hits his right shoulder. The force of her shot knocks his arm back as his weapon discharges. His bullet screams past her ear. It lodges into the floor beside her head.

  Wolfe drops his gun as he cries out. He touches his shoulder. He stares at the blood on his fingers. His face reddens and twists in anger. He drops to his knees, grabs at her neck. She pushes her gun into his abdomen and fires again. The feeble click, click of an empty gun responds.

  “Single-use, Nadia,” the dean grunts through gritted teeth, squeezing her throat. Flecks of spit fly from his mouth and land on her face. His breath is heavy and sour. “You should’ve paid closer attention to your training.”

  His grip tightens around her neck. She claws at his hands but they’re like steel. She tries to force her arms between his, to push his hands apart, but his elbows are locked. No oxygen finds her lungs—no blood pumps to her brain. She doesn’t have much time.

  Sensei’s voice in her head: Seven seconds.

  “Less mess,” he whispers, “but such an ugly way to go.”

  Six seconds.

  Nadia’s face grows hot. The pressure behind her eyes buil
ds to an unbearable level. Darkness swallows her peripheral vision; all she sees is his sneer. Five. The room quiets. Four. Her body weakens. Three. She remembers the poisoned pen. Two.

  She slips the pen from her sleeve and clicks out the tip. With her last second of consciousness, she jabs the sharp, poisoned needle between his ribs.

  Wolfe releases his grip and grabs at the pen. Nadia rolls onto her side, retching. Each inhalation feels like knives in her trachea. The dean leans forward. His shallow breathing rasps through his mouth in quick, tiny breaths.

  He falls face down and lays motionless beside her.

  She feels weak, and very tired. Nadia touches her stomach. The burning continues and she doesn’t know why. Her hand is wet, the color of dark wine. The blood still seeps. Her shirt clings to her; a warm, sticky wetness.

  The urge to drift off is overpowering. She always thought at the moment of death she’d find the will to fight, to live. But she doesn’t have the strength. She doesn’t care anymore. She just wants to sleep.

  This isn’t so bad. Nadia closes her eyes to succumb to the ocean of peace.

  Someone shakes her. “Leave me alone,” she whispers, her voice inaudible.

  “Hold on!” The voice is too loud, intrusive in her silent space. “Please, hold on! An ambulance is on the way!”

  Summoning all her strength, Nadia opens her eyes. The last thing she sees before her heart stops beating is Hashimoto Sensei leaning over her.

  70

  DAMON

  TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13

  7:24 AM

  Damon tries to control the rage building in his chest. His thoughts wander back to the canyon and his blood pressure spikes, squeezing his heart. The cold air whipping across his face doesn’t cool him—it infuriates him. Reminds him of a drill back in Baltimore. His trainers filled a hot tub with ice water in the dead of winter and made him stay in till he passed out. Then they’d warm him up and do it again.

  Tortured and starved him in the name of education. He’d only been fourteen.

  Deep breaths, man. You’ll get yours.

  He hadn’t chosen this line of work. He’d been recruited by the director of the public library—the man who’d greeted him and his little brother every week. The director had been impressed with Damon’s book choices: organic chemistry, evolution, the art of warfare, true stories written by ex-military. Occasionally he and Damon would grab a sandwich after the library closed. Then one night Roberts joined them.

  Damon refused their first few offers. Yeah, the money tempted him, but risking his life to serve his country wasn’t how he planned to make a buck. Plus, he was responsible for Gabriel: picking him up at school, dropping him at the rec center. He told Roberts, “Even if I wanted to join you—which, no offense, I don’t—I’ve got my little brother.”

  But after Gabriel’s death, they got through.

  The pickup truck driving him from Phoenix to the small border town of Nogales, Arizona, skids to a dusty stop. He jumps down from the bed. “¡Gracias!” he calls to the driver, tapping on the tailgate. He waits in the shadows, watching the empty intersection, thinking about his little brother. If Damon hadn’t been so self-involved, if he’d joined the Nighthawks the first time they asked, Gabriel would still be alive. Damon would’ve known what he was seeing, known what to do.

  He’d identified the vehicle. Picked the driver out of a lineup. And because of some stupid technicality, that son of a bitch walked right out of the police station with his high-priced lawyer. The police couldn’t do anything.

  Agent Roberts came back to him a few months after Gabriel died. Didn’t say a word, just touched his shoulder and handed him a Polaroid. The man who killed his baby brother, face up on the pavement, eyes open wide. His blood filling the cracks in the concrete. A bullet hole in the middle of his head. He’d seen that shot coming.

  The next day, Damon Moore began his training.

  He considers heading back to Phoenix straight away to seek his revenge, but common sense outweighs his anger. He’ll get even with Hayden. If he goes now, it’ll be like showing up late to the party. And he makes a point of never being the last man to arrive.

  Anyway, it’ll be a lot more fun if Hayden doesn’t see it coming. Damon pictures him now, scared, pacing the floor. Every noise shooting fear through his body.

  He better hope I get to him before Granddaddy Cohen figures out what went down.

  A block away, on the corner of Mariposa and Grant, Damon finds the pay phone with the false bottom. The trap door is hidden under the heavy metal box that collects the coins. He slides his knife along the edge to loosen the seal. These phone booths are scattered across the country in case an agent needs to bolt.

  At the start of his training Damon spent hours memorizing the locations, four to a state. Every weekend for two years, while his mother thought he was stocking shelves in a warehouse, Damon studied the ins and outs of clandestine operations. He pored over the manuals: lock-picking, cover and concealment, basic code-breaking, escape and evasion. And a never-ending list of Black-Ops case files.

  The box is stuck. Damon jams his knife inside, up to the hilt, and then sharply twists. Basic physics. He pries the metal. Inside, he finds the plastic-wrapped package. A truck drives by his corner and slows. Damon slips the parcel under his arm and bends down to tie his shoe. The truck moves on.

  The weight of the thick envelope feels good in his hands. He slices it open: tucked inside is a passport with no photo and a unisex name, a loaded gun, a prepaid Visa card and three thousand dollars cash. He’s sure his former employers don’t mean for him to benefit from the stash, but they haven’t had time to clear out the boxes.

  Damon waits until the Shop-Mart opens. He’s tired, but alert—on the lookout for irregular activity. He watches the first wave of staff and customers as they enter the store. Everything looks cool, so he goes in.

  He buys new clothes and clean shoes—a half-size too big in case anyone tries to track him, a roll of double-wide clear packing tape with a matte finish, and an iron. A pack of razor blades, and he’s good to go.

  He stops by the photo shop to request a passport picture.

  In the bathroom he uses the baby-changing station as an ironing board. He cuts a piece of tape the length of a passport page. With steady hands, he smoothes the tape over the photo. He irons the page to heat-seal the edges and trims the excess with a razor blade.

  Within the hour he’s Jordan Phelps.

  He studies himself in the mirror. I wish it hadn’t gone down like this.

  Damon’s long-range mission was, of course, to score a spot in the CIA. He’d enter at ground level, but his handlers were confident he’d quickly climb the ranks. The Nighthawks wanted access to Project Genesis, currently in development at the CIA. Scientists would be working on it for at least another ten years. They’d finish right around the time Damon would receive full clearance.

  According to Agent Roberts, “Project Genesis will catapult the security of the United States to an impenetrable level.” The technology was insane. With Genesis, a satellite orbiting earth had the power to locate any person on the globe, provided the government had a speck of their genetic material. One microscopic flake of skin or a tiny hair from a razor.

  Genesis analyzed the material, transmitted the information to the satellite and based on the individual’s unique genetic code, located the host within a half-mile radius. After tracking the subject, a deployed guided missile finished the job.

  A GPS for DNA.

  The Nighthawks were pissed because America hadn’t nuked the entire Middle East after 9/11. A bunch of guys in the CIA had resigned right after that and started their own agency, with an insurance business as their cover. Damon didn’t care about their ideology then, and he doesn’t care now. Roberts did what no one else could—but he only found the driver. Damon saw three men in the SUV that killed his brother. And he means to ferret out the rest.

  Roberts promised that every available Nighthawk r
esource would be at Damon’s disposal, in exchange for his service. And the pay was outstanding—his mom needed financial help and he knew it. He’d created letterhead, designed a webpage and opened a bank account: The Littlest Angels, a fake charity that offered financial assistance to single mothers who’d lost a child. Every month, he cashed his paychecks and sent her a check.

  She never said the actual words, but she will always blame Damon for Gabriel’s death. She’d told him a thousand times, You are your brother’s keeper. And he takes that weight—it is absolutely his fault. He will spend the rest of his life hunting down the men responsible for his brother’s death.

  The Nighthawks were his way in.

  “Guess I’m gonna need a new plan,” he mumbles. He changes his shirt so it doesn’t match the passport photo.

  The parking lot is mostly empty when Damon steps outside. Employees park in the back, so that’s where he’ll boost a car. No one will notice for hours, and by then he’ll be halfway to Baltimore. Like Nadia, Damon happens to be especially suited to this line of work. He’s smart and strong. He knows people—deep down and right away. Knows how they think, what they feel. And his flexible moral compass could only have helped his future as an agent.

  He throws his old clothes and the leftover tape, along with the iron and razors, into the dumpster. His shoes go in a second dumpster across the street. He selects a white, late-model sedan. Inconspicuous, no flash. He jimmies the door and climbs inside.

  Five minutes later, he’s on his way to Tucson. He eases the car onto the expressway and cracks the window. The cool breeze chills the sweat on his skull. Against his will, pictures of that morning fill his head, as they have so many times. The memories come in flashes, like photographs tossed onto a coffee table, one by one. Gabriel, his sweet baby brother, with his quick laugh and his tiny teeth. His little hands. His fat cheeks. He followed Damon everywhere.

  He sighs as his adrenaline dips; fatigue will soon follow. Not much longer. He turns on the radio and takes a few deep breaths to wake up. In three hours he’ll be on a plane, racing toward Baltimore-Washington International Airport.