Final Target: Six Assassins Book 6

by Heskett, Jim

  Two voices filtered in and became clearer when the door shut behind them. One voice was heavy and dark, with a touch of east coast accent. The other voice was more even and measured, no accent detectable.

  “Where did you leave it?” asked the dark voice. “Because if we drove all the way out here to come up empty-handed, I’m not going to be happy.”

  “I’m not sure. On a shelf, I think,” said the lighter voice.

  “I can’t believe what a dumbass you are.”

  “Keep talking about my ass.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Let’s make it quick. I don’t like being here without him.”

  Ember stayed low, listening to the men’s footsteps shuffle along the dusty floor. They were looking for something. She tried to measure the sound of the footsteps to figure out where they were in the room, but it was too much of a challenge. With all this junk everywhere, she couldn’t gauge the distance of the echoes.

  “Got it,” said the light voice. “Aww, shit. The battery died. That’s why the locator app thing didn’t work. I shoulda known.”

  “Figures,” said the other guy. “You know if he was here, and you came back hunting around for your phone, dicking around in his place of business unsupervised, he’d have your head.”

  “Good to know Tyson isn’t here, then.”

  “That’s another thing. If anyone hears you calling him ‘Tyson’, that’s your ass, too. It’s Mr. Darby. You keep playing with fire, you know what’s going to happen.”

  “Another good reason he’s not here, I guess. I don’t even know where he is.”

  “He’s on an airplane right now, but he wants us all at Pink Door first thing in the morning.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I didn’t lose my phone, dumbass, so I got the text.”

  “Oh, right. Well, I’m good here. Let’s go. This place feels like my grandparents’ basement.”

  “Did you touch anything? Anything at all?”

  “Come on, are you kidding me? Are you trying to convince me that if a single lawnmower blade was out of place, somehow, he would sense it like a jedi and just know we'd been here? Come on. This place is like the dumpiest dump I’ve ever seen. I could throw down a cot and an oil lamp in one corner and no one would find me for weeks.”

  The other guy grumbled, and soon came more shuffling of feet. A couple seconds later, the door shut behind them, and Ember waited. And waited.

  Eventually, she put Omar White’s job application in her pocket and slinked over to the front door to leave.

  Chapter Sixteen

  WELLNER

  DAY FOUR

  David Wellner adjusted his eyeglasses as he paced left to right, from one side of his office to the other. It wasn’t a large room, so it took him less than a full second to complete the route. He was now a couple of days dry from the bourbon prison, which was good, because he could finally think clearly and string coherent thoughts together. But stringing coherent thoughts together turned out also to be not so good, because Wellner saw nothing except pain and suffering in every direction.

  Much of it, he had caused himself. His actions, his inactions, none of it had been on a path toward peace and prosperity.

  He had made an appeal. Half a dozen messages full of impassioned pleas for the Branches to broadcast for their members. He had spoken with important individual members at various Branches. For every solicitation he sent out and every commitment to rein in the violence and come to the negotiating table, there were two or three more attacks. Assassins were dying over nothing, multiple times per day now. They didn’t even know why they were at war. At least, that was the impression Wellner got. They were fed up, angsty, ready to fight, all full of anger and with access to high-powered weapons.

  And Wellner had no idea what to do about it.

  He rounded his desk and sat in his chair, with eyes on the drawer containing his revolver. It was loaded, ready to go. No safety to get in the way.

  He didn’t know if Jules was in the building yet, but if he saw her face, he didn’t think he would be able to stop himself. He had so little power left, but he knew one thing he could do: clean house.

  Wellner didn’t know where this would all end, but he knew where it had begun. Jules Dunard had been massaging her insurrection for months now. A few weeks ago it had stepped up, beginning with a little chat at the monthly dinner at her house. Pulling Historian Kunjal aside to whisper in his ear, with both her and Kunjal making eyes at Wellner while they spoke in the shadows. Of course, they would later claim it was all about the black spot and the secrets they had unearthed regarding its sordid history. But Wellner still suspected a conspiracy.

  Would killing Jules stop the civil war tearing apart the Denver Assassins Club? Probably not on its own. But maybe it would show the remaining members how seriously Wellner was taking all of this. How he was willing to rip up the status quo in the name of Club fidelity.

  Maybe her death would grab attention and persuade the rest of the Branches to stop the killing long enough to listen to his pitch for peace. He could use it as a calling card for his ability to get things done and to command the respect of those with sway.

  He opened the drawer and looked down at the pistol below. Cold and silent, loaded and ready to go.

  Before he could grip it, his door flung open. There stood Naomi, gorgeous and elegant in black leggings and a blue sweater. Her curves popped from every angle. Her full lips looked wet and plump, as always.

  But her face seemed riddled with panic. She stood there, brow creased, hands clasped together across her waist. She seemed on the verge of crying, screaming, or both.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “David, there are people here. Branch members. A lot of them, right outside the building.”

  “I don’t understand. Branch members here for what?”

  Naomi opened her mouth to answer, but a loud noise interrupted her, followed by a gentle shake of the building. It felt to Wellner like the aftershock of an earthquake. The building had vibrated, jiggled a few inches left and then right. A cluster of stacked papers collapsed from the top of a nearby desk and skittered across the floor.

  “What the hell was that?” he asked.

  “I was going to tell you. One of them has a grenade launcher.”

  “You’re joking.”

  She gave a grim shake of the head. “What are we going to do? There must be twenty of them out there, ready to storm the building. Please, David. We need to do something... right now. I’m freaking out.”

  He stood and realized he was gripping the revolver in his right hand. Naomi frowned at it, but didn’t say anything, so Wellner didn’t explain himself.

  He wandered over to the window and looked down at the chaos outside. There were indeed twenty or twenty-five assassins out there. Some had their faces covered, some with no pretense to hide their identities. Wellner recognized members from Parker, Golden, Boulder, and Westminster. In a way, it was nice to see them all standing together, instead of fighting with each other. Finally, after a couple weeks of brutal war, they had found a cause to rally behind.

  Except that cause seemed to be destroying the Holdings building and killing everyone inside it.

  A crew of five security guards filtered out of the building, hands resting atop holstered weapons. Wellner took a breath. The guards wouldn’t stand a chance. They were hired guns, and even though he’d made sure they were well-trained, he’d never expected them to have to face off against a swarm of ruthless assassins.

  The five formed a line, twenty feet away from the crowd, some of whom also lined up opposite. For a few seconds, they argued back and forth. Wellner couldn’t hear the words, but he had no trouble reading the body language. The guards were tense but maintaining a collective calm as they pointed fingers and barked commands. The assassins opposite them looked like they had no intention of dispersing as they had been ordered. They held their weapons down, but ready to point and fire. Soon, more of th
e assassins joined the line, hopelessly outnumbering the guards.

  “This isn’t good,” Wellner said. “The guards should abort.” He grabbed Naomi by the elbow. “Patch into the Security feed. Tell them to come back inside the building. We need them in here, protecting us, not on the front lines. This isn’t going to end w—“

  Before he could finish the sentence, the first shot came. One of the assassins had whipped out a 9mm and put a bullet between the eyes of one of the security guards. Within two seconds, all of them were firing. The guards attempted to gain cover, hunkering down, but it didn’t last. Within a minute, every single security guard had died. The ranks of the assassins seemed to have barely taken a hit.

  The line broke up. One face looked up at him, scowling. Wellner stepped back from the window, gasping breaths. He felt lightheaded. Woozy. Dehydrated.

  “What do we do?” Naomi said again, her voice rising.

  “How many security guards do we have on duty?”

  She shook her head. “It’s still early. Most of them haven’t come on shift yet.”

  And the ones who were here probably would find a way to slip out a side door and run for their lives. There was no sense in taking on an army of trained assassins. Anyone with a brain would see no path to victory in this situation.

  “This is bad,” Wellner said, absent-minded and soft. His heart thumped. His hands were sweaty. The gun felt heavy in his hand.

  He looked out through his open office door. The door to his waiting room was also open, and he saw both Kunjal and Jules pass by in the hallway. Jules had mentioned to him that as soon as Kunjal had returned, she would schedule a Review Board meeting to unseat Wellner from power. Today was that day apparently, which meant Jules could call all of them upstairs for an emergency meeting at any time. She would present her evidence and then strip away the only thing he cared about. This office.

  And he knew it wouldn’t take much.

  She might insist on the Board meeting, even with all this chaos outside.

  That couldn’t happen. He took a step forward and found his legs to be weak. He needed to sit down.

  No. This had to happen now. He would power through it and make it happen. If he did nothing else right today, he would succeed at this one thing.

  “What are you doing?” Naomi asked.

  “I’m going to go kill that bitch so I can end this.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  ZACH

  Zach Bennett angled his body to squeeze between a Toyota and a Honda that had parked a little too close together. Not that he was afraid of setting off a car alarm if he brushed up against one, but they were both covered in muck from the last snowfall and he wanted to avoid getting too dirty.

  Now that he had abandoned his apartment and was living out of a suitcase in various motel rooms across the greater Denver area, he tried to put off laundry day for as long as possible. Just the thought of lugging a basket into a sad motel laundry room with a roll of quarters banging around in the pocket of his sweatpants made him long for real roots once again. For a place to call his own again. A couple weeks of sleeping in strange beds didn’t help, either.

  But he knew it was worth it. Better being alive and doing laundry in a motel than dead in smelly clothes.

  Zach had had a chance to leave Denver last week. He had sat in Ember’s car, in the airport’s drop-off lane at the departures terminal, and he could have walked in and bought a ticket to anywhere. He could have been done with it all. Ember had admitted her real name to him—Allison Campbell—and all about the Assassins Club she'd joined in Denver. It would have been the perfect time to flee and to say goodbye to her as well.

  But Zach knew two things that would keep him in Colorado, at least for the time being.

  One, he was not done with Firedrake and Thomas Milligan. He didn’t think they were done with him, either. With the sort of bottomless resource pit a company like Firedrake had, Zach didn’t have any reason to think they wouldn’t be able to find him in Alaska or Jamaica or Bali. Besides, what would he do in Jamaica, a college dropout with not much real-world work experience? Get a job at a restaurant somewhere, or drive a taxi in Kingston? He didn’t even like reggae music.

  No, he couldn’t run from Firedrake forever.

  And the second thing keeping Zach anchored in Colorado: Ember Clarke herself. Zach now realized that in the short span of six weeks, he had fallen in love with her. Doing so had not been his intention, but his heart had taken these actions without his brain’s consent.

  He’d only realized this a few days ago. And not in the sort of romantic comedy movie way where he saw her bathed in a golden light and all his doubts vanished with a single look.

  It had come to him as a series of scientific conclusions. Zach had learned she had lied to him about her previous occupation, her current occupation, and even her name. He still didn’t know for certain that she had stopped lying to him. And yet, he wanted her. Learning the truth about Ember didn’t change how much he wanted to be with her. It didn’t stop him from missing her any time she wasn’t around. It hadn’t changed the feeling that if they were separated for any considerable length of time, he would not be okay. Maybe he would never be okay again.

  Zach looked up to Row D as a plane thundered overhead. Denver International Airport had two main outdoor parking lots—east and west—as well as covered garage parking structures on each side. Hunting for this one car in all that space might seem like a ludicrous mission, but Zach was feeling reasonably confident about his educated guess. He had followed the target to the airport, then the target headed toward the east parking lot, somewhere in Section 1, then Zach had lost him because of a traffic jam.

  But the car had to be here somewhere.

  Being both the hunter and the hunted at the same time was a strange feeling for Zach. But, then again, he had been through a lot of strange feelings since Ember had walked into his life. He was almost used to it now.

  He pushed on to Row E and caught a whiff of a blue bumper. His heart pulsed in his chest. He quickened his pace, while also keeping his eyes wide and ears honed. He didn’t want to run into the target, only observe.

  Zach turned around the edge of the row of cars and saw exactly what he was looking for. A blue Jaguar. The target was nowhere in sight, though. The car was clean and shiny, not a scratch on it.

  What was Helmut doing at the airport long term parking? Had he gone somewhere?

  Zach took his phone out of his pocket and dialed. He tried to calm his racing heart as he waited for her to answer.

  “Hey, sexy,” Ember said.

  “Good morning. Last night was amazing.”

  “Yes, it was. That’s why I was surprised to wake up alone today. Where did you go?”

  “Sorry I didn’t say goodbye. You looked so peaceful, so I thought I would let you sleep in a little. Plus, I had to get out early to work on a project.”

  “A project?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay,” Ember said in a measured and questioning tone. “Where are you?”

  “I’m at the airport.”

  “I see. What are you doing there, at a place where you know they could be actively looking for you?”

  “Right. I can see how you might be a tiny bit worried. But, for the past couple days, I’ve been doing something, and I don’t think you’ll like it, but I’m headed somewhere with this.”

  Ember sighed. “Are you going to tell me, or do I have to guess?”

  “I’ve been tailing Helmut, trying to find out what his and Thomas’ plan is. He’s parked in the area people usually park for long term. What do you think that means?”

  “Whatever it means, you’re swimming with sharks. These people are dangerous, Zach.”

  “I know.”

  “So why are you doing it?”

  Zach pursed his lips. “I’m not sure, exactly. But, either way, I may be onto something. This just feels weird. And I could use your help. How soon can you get to the airport?�
�

  “I’m not that far from there, actually. Maybe twenty minutes?”

  Zach held his phone out and opened the maps app so he could share his current location with her. “Come meet me. Let’s find out what they’re up to.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  NAOMI

  The secretary scowled at the gun in David Wellner’s hand, gripped in his palm, slightly vibrating. His finger was on the trigger.

  “I’m going to go kill that bitch,” he said.

  Naomi knew who he meant. He was going to leave his office and waiting room, make the short trip down the hall, and put a bullet into Jules Dunard. Wellner had been building up to this for weeks as she’d watched his mental state deteriorate further and further. His slide into paranoid insanity hadn’t been a gradual one… it had bubbled up one day and the slope had increased each week. Wellner was unstable. Naomi knew as much. But she considered part of her job to be reining him in, keeping him on the right side of logic and focused on the goals in front of him.

  She took a step back, blocking the exit to his office.

  This move made his head dip, and he glowered at her. “What are you doing?”

  “David. Pull your head out of your ass. We don’t have time for this.” She pointed toward the window. “There are twenty angry Club members outside right now, and they all want to burst in here and turn this place into mayhem. For all we know, they plan to capture us and trade us for ransom. We can stop that from happening, but only if you let go of your Jules obsession right now and focus on what’s important. Focus on what’s in front of you. Dealing with Jules can wait for another time.”

  His shoulders slumped, finger still on the trigger. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. None of this.”

  As his posture continued to retreat, she took a step closer to him. She maintained eye contact, keeping her gaze firm and focused. “I know. Nothing is how it’s supposed to be right now.”