by Heskett, Jim
But now, right in front of him, was the solution. Instead of flinging snowballs, all he had to do was trigger an avalanche. One mouse click to get rid of Ember for good.
“Naomi,” he said, calling to her in the other room. “Do you know the password to Wellner’s computer?”
She poked her head back in the room, sliding her purse up onto her shoulder. “Yes. Why? I thought we needed to go.”
“Yeah. We do. This will only take a second. It’ll look better if I do it logged in from here.“ He stepped aside to allow her a path to behind the desk, then he waved a hand at it. “Please. This will take ten seconds, then we’re out the door.”
Frowning, she rounded the desk to sit. Her fingernails clacked on the keyboard for a few seconds, and then she raised her eyebrows at him. “What do you want to access?”
“The admin side of the global message board. There’s a way to send out an urgent announcement to everyone, right? Like, a way so that every single member of the DAC will see this, popping up on their phones, making their eyeballs pay attention?”
Naomi’s eyes searched the air for a second, then she licked her lips and clicked through a few menus. Once she'd finished, Marcus had a seat and began considering his magnum opus. He couldn’t help but smile as he composed a draft inside his head.
“What are you doing?” Naomi asked, hovering behind him with her hands on the top of the chair. Marcus could smell her perfume from here.
“I’m outing Ember Clarke as a member of the FBI. Once the whole of the Club knows her real name and knows she’s been lying to them for three years, I won’t have to worry about having her killed. A whole army of pissed-off assassins will do it for me.”
Chapter Twenty-One
EMBER
She paced back and forth in the motel room while Zach sat in the wooden chair next to the bathroom. Neither of them had spoken in at least sixty seconds, but the room felt thick with activity. Motion and sound. So far, they had been unable to come up with a foolproof plan to ambush Thomas, Helmut, and their newly arrived backup team.
She stopped and faced him. “When Thomas surprised you at your advisor’s office last week, did you have any hint you were being followed?”
He hesitated for a second, a guilty look on his face. Zach hadn’t told her about the campus ambush until a couple days ago. She didn’t blame him for keeping it a secret, because it had been a dumb move. Zach had banked on Thomas and Helmut not taking any action against him in public. People were assassinated or kidnapped in public all the time. With the entire population of the United States having their faces pointed downward at phones twenty-four hours a day, even public murders could occur with no eyewitnesses.
“Nothing made me think I was being followed. No hint at all.”
“How early before your meeting did you arrive? Where did you park?”
“About ten minutes before. There’s a brick parking garage across the street. I was there, on the second floor. You know, trying to be as careful as I could be, and I was sure I hadn’t seen anyone. I went down the stairs and across the street and into the building. From parking to entering my advisor’s office took about three minutes.”
She could see the frustration and guilt on his face, so she crossed the room and sat on the bed next to him. Her fingers laced inside his, giving his hand a squeeze. “I know, baby. I know you’re doing the best you can, and you’re actually not bad at this.”
“'Not bad,' huh? That’s high praise coming from my professional assassin-slash-FBI-agent girlfriend.”
Ember gave him a quick kiss. “You’d better believe it. The thing is, these people are professionals. Not Thomas Milligan, probably. He’s just an ambitious corporate asshole who thought he could parlay your talent with viral mutation into more power for himself. But Helmut knows what he’s doing. And this crew of guards he imported? We need to take them seriously, too.”
“Seems like it. But we’re doing okay, aren’t we? How many different motels have we been in over the last three weeks? Five or six? They only found us once.”
Ember had no trouble recalling the panic of Helmut showing up at the last motel room, the night after she and Zach had slept together for the first time. “Well, they only took a swing at us once. We don’t know how many times they found us. Maybe they had reasons not to attack the other times.”
“Yeah, maybe so. I didn’t think about that. Why wouldn’t they come for us if they’d found us?”
“It’s a strategy. Shooting up a motel room is a tricky operation to pull off cleanly. Huge potential for multiple witnesses, huge potential to leave DNA behind. The fact that they did decide to come at us last week is very telling. They’re either getting desperate or feeling over-confident. Or, it could be that their timeline for their goal is about to expire and we’re a loose end they can no longer keep around.”
“I don’t know anything about that stuff. That’s your area.”
“I could train you.”
He grinned. “You’d make me an assassin? I’m not sure if that’s the right career path for me.”
“No, not an assassin. I’m not one myself any longer, actually. At least, I’m no longer a contractor for the DAC. So it seems like I’ll be looking for a new line of work, too.”
Zach flashed a morose smile. “Firedrake is hiring.”
“Yeah, probably not the job I’m looking for. Any future employment is still contingent on me surviving whatever is coming at us next from these corporate assholes.”
Ember knew exactly what was coming next, but she didn’t need to spell it all out for Zach. First of all, she had to avoid dying at Marcus Lonsdale’s hands. Then, she had to invent a way to link one of Marcus’ crimes back to him, like the hired killing of Isabel Yang, or the murder of Gabe Jackson. Pinning Gabe’s death on Marcus would be hard. Probably too hard. There was an open police investigation into Gabe’s murder, with the motel room sealed and surveilled. If Ember wanted to glean evidence, she would have to mingle with the police in the midst of an active investigation. Too many complications. Isabel was a fed, so her murder had not gone public. Most likely, Marcus had exerted pressure to keep it under wraps, which meant Ember had the freedom to poke around without alerting law enforcement.
But Ember only had a couple days left to do that, because apparently Marcus was leaving Denver soon, and he was likely to disappear for a while after. Probably, he would vanish right after dropping off a report to his boss about how Allison Campbell had gone rogue and become a killing machine out in Denver, and then Ember would find herself facing federal prison time for many of the DAC’s activities. Without a way to point the finger at Marcus, Ember couldn’t stop that train.
This whole mess with Helmut and Thomas Milligan was yet one more complication she had to deal with. Plus, there were people like her former Branchmate Kevin who were angry about Fagan’s death. Just because Ember had turned in her token wouldn’t mean they had forgotten about that.
With the Club in such disarray, she didn’t know if anything would come from Kevin’s revenge fantasies. It seemed like most Club members had bigger worries on their collective plates at the moment.
Not too different from a normal day for Ember Clarke, but definitely on the more complex side. Her brain buzzed, and she needed to clear her head so she and Zach could attack their problems from a fresh angle.
She stopped pacing and pulled back the bedspread, exposing this bed’s gray sheets underneath, for a moment wondering if they should acquire a handheld black light for closer inspection. Probably better not to know.
She flashed her eyes at Zach and then toward the bed. With a wink, she leaned over and patted the bed sheet a couple times to drive her point home. “You wanna?”
Zach stood and immediately lifted his shirt up over his head. Despite all their anxiety and tension, she could see it all melt away from Zach’s face with the prospect of getting laid. “I definitely wanna.”
Ember grinned at him as she unbuttoned her jeans and
slid into the sheets, beckoning Zach to join her with a flick of the wrist.
Chapter Twenty-Two
MARCUS
He finished typing the message to expose Allison/Ember to the entire remaining membership of the Denver Assassins Club. A rush of blood went to his crotch as he clicked the button to send it to everyone.
He’d planned to drive Naomi up to the mansion he was renting in the mountains, but that might be too far. They might just need to get a room at the closest motel so he could have his way with her as soon as possible. Naomi wouldn’t mind. She was always down for sweaty fun, especially since he wasn’t in town often.
Within seconds, secured email notifications would race across the internet from one SSL-encrypted tunnel to another, pinging phones and laptops and sparking the fire that would send a hundred trained assassins after her. Or eighty, or fifty, or however many were left.
His only regret was that he probably wouldn’t be able to watch her die. No, that would happen in secret.
Five or ten of them would band together to track and capture Ember, then they would torture and kill her in a dark basement somewhere in Denver’s underbelly. It’s not as if the killer or killers would post pictures on social media to let Marcus know.
He sighed. Oh well, at least that was one task he could cross off. He’d delegated it to a highly skilled group of underlings (who had no actual idea they were his underlings), so he would have to assume it would get done. No guarantees, of course, with a target of Ember’s caliber, but the likelihood of success was higher than if he’d tried to take her on himself.
Marcus still had a few more things to do in Denver before he could leave for his vacation. A couple more bits and pieces to clean up so when the storm arrived, his name would be nowhere near it.
A desire for a cigarette hit him, that familiar pulse of yearning in his chest that felt much like a rush of fear. He reached into his pocket and took out the pack, but there was only a single, broken cigarette left. He could have sworn he had at least four left in the pack.
“Shit,” he muttered. Naomi vaped, so she wouldn’t be of much help to him. He couldn’t stand ingesting nicotine out of those little devices; they looked like breathalyzer tubes to him.
“Oh, no,” Naomi said, her voice dripping with terror.
Marcus pivoted in the chair toward her as she stood by the window, staring at the chaos outside. Hands like claws, her fingertips strained white by pushing against the glass window. Her brow was knitted, lips pursed, ample chest pumping up and down as she sucked rapid breaths.
“What?”
“Not good. Not good. Come see this.”
Marcus crossed the room to look down with her. There were still about twenty disgruntled Club members outside. Building security had gone out to take the fight to them, to keep them away from the building. That had happened several minutes ago, and they had not returned for a second helping.
But when Marcus followed Naomi’s pointed finger, he realized it wouldn’t matter. Six or seven of these assassins had broken off from the main cluster, and they were now unloading crates from the back of a truck. Marcus had a strong suspicion about the contents.
“The crates?” Marcus asked. “Is that what you’re talking about?”
“I think I know what’s in them.”
A moment later, an assassin cracked open the top of one, revealing three rocket launchers inside. They had four of those crates. Twelve rocket launchers? They could bring the whole structure down if they fired all of those at the same time. This building was seven or eight stories tall. That would be a lethal mess of concrete collapsing, if they stuck around to watch the fireworks.
“Son of a bitch,” Marcus said, and Naomi pulled closer to him to grab his hand.
“What do we do?” she asked.
He shook his hand free. “No time. We have to go, now. They’ll be ready to fire those things in about thirty seconds.”
They both rushed out of the office. Marcus had hoped to pilfer a memento, like Wellner’s glasses or something. But there was no time for that now. Maybe he could come back to the rubble later and grab something useful.
They fled out into the hallway. Naomi first turned toward the elevator, but Marcus grabbed her hand. “No! Stairs. Stairs are safer. These stairwells are built like tanks.”
“That way then.” She pointed back in the other direction, down the hall. They dodged between various people running around this floor like wind-up toys. Administrators, security people, various government officials. None of them seemed too concerned with what Marcus and Naomi were doing, because they were all having their own individual freak-outs.
Marcus didn’t recognize most of the people in the hall, because he used Wellner as a layer between him and them. But he did recognize Jules Dunard, and she gave him a raised eyebrow as he and Naomi tore through the crowd to reach the stairs. Marcus didn’t bother to acknowledge that stuffy bitch. He stayed focused on Naomi and reaching the stairs.
For a brief second after, however, he considered grabbing Jules’ hand and pulling her into the stairwell with him. If there DAC were to survive, they would need a familiar face to lead them. Someone they trusted. But, on the other hand, the DAC was probably kaput, so saving Jules wouldn’t matter.
If she lived, then so be it. He didn’t want to waste any more time.
He flung back the door to the concrete stairwell and rushed inside, Naomi clinging to his hand for dear life, trailing him close. They thundered down the steps, taking them two at a time, hands locked so they wouldn’t trip each other. Behind him, the secretary spy babbled and whined, and Marcus had to tune her out so he could focus on hauling maximum ass.
One flight, then another. There were other people in the stairwell, some running up, some running down. No one seemed to know what to do. His internal clock told him about twenty seconds had passed. Maybe five more seconds before they had their RPGs locked and loaded. Then, would they fire, or would they demand someone come out and take them seriously? Hard to anticipate their next move.
Marcus and Naomi reached the second floor landing. One more flight of stairs to go. His heels ached in his shiny dress shoes, because he hadn’t expected to run for his life today. She still babbled, still cried, still was like an unwanted dog barking in his ears.
First-floor landing. A green EXIT sign lit up the darkened space. Marcus didn’t know if this door led directly outside, or somewhere else. No time to discuss it. They had to make their way out, and might have only a second or two left to do it.
Marcus took one step toward the door when he heard the explosion. Like a thousand firecrackers going off at once. The building tilted. It jittered. Naomi screamed as the world turned sideways. She had been holding his hand, but she jerked away from him as chunks of concrete dislodged from the walls and ceiling. They seemed to hover in midair for a second, as if confused which way gravity wanted them to go.
Marcus leaped toward the door and grabbed hold of it. He spun around to see a hunk of stair concrete as big as a motorcycle smack Naomi in the chest and take her to the ground. Her mouth opened to scream in surprise, but no sound came out.
Or perhaps it did. It was unbelievably loud in here, and he couldn’t even think straight.
A fluorescent light fixture came off the wall and crashed next to her, the exposed wires at the end crackling with the last bits of electricity from the battery inside trying to keep it powered. Marcus thought he could taste smoke in the air, and a mist of powdered concrete hovered in front of his eyes.
Naomi wailed and tried to break free, but there was no way. She was pinned to the ground with a mass of concrete on her chest. Blood came out of the corner of her mouth. She struggled to hold her head up, straining her neck muscles. Eyes wide, mouth open, sucking in shallow breaths and appearing unable to fill her lungs.
“Help me,” she wheezed, looking up at Marcus. Pleading, desperate, her eyelids dimming.
He checked around the stairwell. He could hardly see any
thing in the dark, with only the electric sparks from the destroyed light providing any view. But his feet were surrounded by stray hunks of concrete. Rubble on the floor thicker than dirty clothes in his college dorm room. Plus, he could definitely smell smoke now. Somewhere above his head, a fire was now raging, and the smoke was coming through the stairwell. In another ten seconds, he might succumb to smoke inhalation and die on the floor next to Naomi.
“Sorry, babe,” Marcus said, then he pushed through the exit door, out to the rear of the building.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a young, brown-skinned man in tennis shoes fleeing, with a cluster of yellow legal pads under his arm. The sprinter raced out into the street, away from the area with the attackers. He looked back at Marcus and cocked a furry eyebrow, but said nothing. He soon disappeared in the opposite direction from the scrum.
Marcus took a few steps away from the building. He coughed, and now he could feel the dust from pulverized concrete and drywall in his lungs. He looked up at the building, half of which was now simply gone. It no longer existed. He could literally see into a cubicle farm on the third or fourth floor as fires sprouted all over. A lifeless hand dangled out of a cubicle, over the edge of the building.
And then he heard sirens coming from nearby, so that was his cue to get the hell out of here.
Chapter Twenty-Three
EMBER
Ember laid on the bed next to Zach. Sweat cooled on her exposed skin, giving her a little shudder. She pulled the sheets over her body to warm up. Next to her, Zach drummed his fingertips, panting, still with a hint of a satisfied smile across his lips. But they weren’t only basking in the afterglow. They were trying to figure out how to survive the next few days.