by Heskett, Jim
“Also,” Zach said, “this parking level isn’t that big. There are, maybe, fifteen other cars here. Would I really need to take a picture to remember my parking spot? I don’t know if it’s that realistic. I think they’ll be suspicious of this.”
“Baby,” Ember said, patting him on the thigh. “You’re over-thinking this. I’ll bet you there’s a good chance Helmut and Thomas — plus the four new Firedrake guys — are already here at the airport. They have to assume you’ll be looking to flee, so this is the most likely place to snatch you. And, even if it does take them a while to get here, don’t worry about it. You’ll sit right there with your laptop in your lap, head down, working on something.”
He sucked in a hitching breath, knee bumping up and down. “Okay. It feels weird, but okay.”
“It doesn’t matter if the plan doesn’t hold up to logical scrutiny. They want to find you, and they want to do it fast. Even if this social media picture thing feels fishy to them, they’ll still check it out. It’s too golden of an opportunity for them to miss out because they think it might be a trap.”
“I guess. You know this stuff a lot better than I do. I’m just nervous. I wish I hadn’t eaten that whole burrito for breakfast.”
She gave his knee a good squeeze and slid her fingers a little up his thigh. “Don’t worry. We got this. We are not going to let anything happen to you. Take deep breaths, don’t puke, and before you know it, we’ll be all done.”
“Okay.”
“Let’s go, while it’s still early. We need to do this before we start seeing civilian foot traffic in the garage.”
She kissed him before they left the car. Ember nodded to her two companions, standing over by a truck caked with dirt.
“You trust those guys?” Zach said, nodding at Layne and Serena.
“Well enough to invite them to a fight.” When he frowned at her, she decided to amend her statement. “They’re on our side. I’m not worried about them at all, so you don’t need to be, either. Everyone here has a job to do, so let’s do ours.”
Zach turned around and snapped a picture of the sign reading Section R Row 5 and then continued to tap on his phone. Layne and Serena approached, and everyone shook hands.
“We’re doing this?” Serena asked.
“We’re doing this,” Ember said.
“Alright, man,” Layne said. “Let’s get into position.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
EMBER
Five minutes had already passed. Zach sat in his car, head down, working on his laptop. Ember was the closest to him, hunkered down between the hood of his car and the concrete divider at the edge of the parking lot. The tac vest weighed her down, but no way would she roll into this situation without one.
She breathed, trying to shake off the events of last night at Pink Door. It had been reckless and sloppy. Ember couldn’t afford any distractions now.
There was only one way for vehicles to access the roof, and a walking bridge from the terminal for pedestrians. Her position shielded her from both. At this early hour, they’d received no foot traffic on the bridge. If this became a situation where they had to account for witnesses, then the whole game would change.
Zach’s window was cracked so Ember could feed him status updates from her observational spot. She figured this would be for the best, to help Zach resist the urge to crane his neck around every few seconds. That would tip off Firedrake to the ruse, for sure.
Layne and Serena were at strategic points nearby, each about a hundred feet away. Layne had put himself between a Toyota and a Subaru. Serena hid behind a construction barricade opposite Layne. They were both hidden, but within Ember’s eyesight, forming a triangle of area coverage. Layne and Serena had an effortless nonverbal communication between them. Ember admired that.
Five more minutes passed without incident. Not a single airport-goer had come walking this way, and no cars. The sun had barely risen, and Ember hadn’t seen a plane land since they’d been here. Perhaps more importantly, Ember had seen no one from the DAC. She had continued to receive the threatening texts and voicemails from fellow Club members angry about discovering her true identity. But none of them had found her yet.
As had happened over the last few weeks during any length of time Ember was alone with her thoughts, she dwelled. Not only on her failures last night, but on people. She dwelled on the faces of Charlie, Gabe, Isabel, and now Fagan. She kept picturing Fagan standing in front of her chore whiteboard in the Boulder Post Office, cracking dry jokes about separating out recycling while dabbing loose spit from the edge of her burned lips. Fagan, who had so much knowledge and wisdom to pass on, Fagan, who had been one of the longest-tenured members of Boulder Branch. One of the oldest in the entire Club. And, with one pull of a pistol’s trigger, Fagan’s light had gone out. Ember had been the one responsible for depriving the world of that woman. A woman Ember had idolized for three solid years in the DAC.
Nothing could bring her back. But Ember suspected that Fagan would want her to succeed. It seemed like a strange supposition, given that Fagan had tried to kill her four days ago. Ember believed it, though. Fagan would want Ember to get out from underneath all of this mess.
She wondered if those four faces would fade over time, the way she sometimes had trouble recalling the details of her little brother’s face. It seemed inevitable.
She flashed eyes at Serena and Layne to make sure they were both alert and ready. Of course they were. She didn’t have any need to doubt the professionalism of her two colleagues, even though she’d only known what they could do for a short time.
In the silence between planes taking off, Ember heard the echo of footsteps.
She felt a pulse of nervous energy shoot through her as four men in suits crossed the pedestrian bridge. They had come on foot, which reinforced her suspicion they had already been at the airport. Perhaps the attached hotel.
But no Thomas Milligan. No Helmut. She resisted the urge to pop up to look to see if those two were trailing.
The four new arrivals stopped once they were within sight of Zach’s car. All four drew weapons. Definitely the same four Helmut had greeted at the airport.
“Here we go,” Ember muttered, pistols in her hands. Then, a little louder, to Zach: “Don’t react to my voice. But, be ready to duck down and pull the vest over you.”
She could see Zach’s hand inching toward the kevlar vest in the passenger seat.
Serena left her position and skulked toward the four, since she was behind them. Layne didn’t look like he could come out of hiding yet without revealing himself. Ember watched Serena move. She was as silent as air, as small and quick as a fox. Her shoes made no sounds as they padded across the damp surface of the open-air garage. Quite an impressive sight to witness.
Serena came up behind the four of them as they were walking toward the car. She held up two pistols and pulled the triggers at the same time. Up until that second, none of them had any idea that an assassin was standing three feet away. She shot one in the back, and he dropped immediately. The other round didn’t hit straight on, and it winged him in the upper arm.
So, Serena was skilled, but she wasn’t perfect.
Ember jumped up. She slapped the hood of the car, and Zach dove, taking cover, scrambling for the vest. Ember raised her pistols and opened fire. She pelted one of them with bullets, and he staggered back toward Serena.
Serena took the cue and blasted him in the head. Two left. Both of the remaining goons seemed still a little confused by the multi-directional attack.
Layne came out of his hiding spot at a sprint, with a hulking hand cannon of a pistol barking bullets at the two remaining Firedrake men. His first shots missed, but Layne wouldn’t need much time to readjust. The initial attack had lasted less than two full seconds.
The goons wised up to their inferior position and split up, each diving in opposite directions. One of them raised his gun and spit shots at Layne as Layne tumbled. He hit the ground and r
olled past the edge of a motorcycle, barely big enough to shield his hulking frame. Ember didn’t think he’d been shot, only taking cover, and that was confirmed when he popped back up and continued firing, killing one of the last two.
The final standing goon was so concerned with bullets coming at him from Ember, he didn’t see Serena prowling behind him. Ember halted her gunfire so she wouldn’t hit her colleague.
Serena grabbed the man by his hair, pulling his head back and exposing his neck. She dragged a knife across his throat at the same time Layne put a few closing bullets in the ones on the ground.
As the echoes of the shots died down, an eerie quiet filled the air. No planes were roaring overhead at the moment. Ember looked into Zach’s car and saw him there, hands on top of his head, vest covering most of his back. The rear window had apparently been shot out at some point, with glass littering the backseat. She tapped on the window, and he looked up. He gave her a thumbs up. A smile on his face that looked close to genuine. For a normal guy who had limited experience with lethal situations, he was adjusting to a life of peril at an extraordinarily fast rate.
Ember took a step out into the open area to check on her colleagues. Layne was on his belly, still aiming his gun. Serena stood behind the man she’d killed, knife in hand.
Three of the goons were motionless. The fourth was on his back, blood pouring out of his mouth. His arms and legs were wiggling, but Ember could tell by looking at his eyes that he only had seconds left to live. No need to finish him off.
Where were Helmut and Thomas? The whole point of this had been to draw them out. For all Ember knew, they were watching it go down from a safe distance and were now calling the police to have Ember and Zach arrested. It was always easier to get to someone if they were already locked up in jail. Maybe that had been part of their plan all along.
Maybe Thomas and Helmut were fine with throwing expendable underlings at them in the meantime.
“Everyone okay?” she asked.
Layne grimaced as he rose to his feet. “Caught one in the vest, but i’ll be okay.”
With everyone mobile, no time to stand around. If the cops didn’t show up soon, some civilian looking to exit the airport would stumble on them.
“We gotta move!” she shouted. “Pack it up!”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
THOMAS
They were late. Unlike the four men Helmut had brought to Denver to assist with the mission to kill Zach and Ember, Thomas and his number one assistant had not stayed at the airport hotel. They had reserved rooms at the Mountain View, which was nicer and more quiet than the hotel literally at the airport. Also, Thomas liked having a little distance between him and the men. It helped establish the pecking order and remind them he wasn’t one of them.
With his empire crumbling before him, Thomas wanted to do everything possible to maintain his position. Firedrake was on its last legs. Thomas had bet everything on Zach to complete the failsafe project. He had passed on other opportunities to make a name for himself within the Draconis family.
He could have climbed aboard the Yellowstone project but had opted not to do so, because Zach had seemed—at least, at the time—like a much more secure bet.
This was his bed. He had no choice but to sleep in it.
All Thomas could do now was to implement damage control. To erase Zach, his meddling bitch girlfriend Ember, and then to start from scratch. Maybe not even at Firedrake. All possibilities were open before him, good and bad.
One of the men had seen Zach’s social post about ten minutes ago. Something about it seemed hinky to Thomas; why would Zach post a picture of his current whereabouts online? It had to be an accident. But would someone as intelligent as Zach make that mistake, even if he were harried and in a panic?
It could be a trap, but Thomas didn’t see that they had the option of not going. If they had a chance to catch Zach, they had to take it. He and Ember were too slippery to give up an opportunity like this.
And Thomas’ reservations didn’t matter, because Helmut had mobilized his men, and Thomas had scrambled to join Helmut to rendezvous with them there. Thomas had been barely out of bed, sitting on the floor with his legs crossed. Dressed, but in no mood to race out and engage with the day before having his morning meditation. Breathing deep, in the nose and out the mouth, he focused on a particular stretch of beach outside of Trinidad named Houda Point Beach. He pictured waves lapping the sand and the boulders half-submerged at the water’s edge, always wet and shiny from the sea water.
But Helmut had knocked, frantic, holding up his phone as soon as Thomas had opened the door. “It’s him,” Helmut said in his muddled voice. His phone displayed a grainy picture of Zach’s car, taken from above. “This pic is confirmation from our guys’ hotel room. He’s in the parking lot. Garage, top level, west side.”
“We have to hurry,” Thomas said as he jogged around the room to collect his shoes.
“The men are already mobilized. I didn’t think there was a need to wait. We should be there almost at the same time.”
Thomas agreed and snatched the rest of his clothes to finish dressing in the car ride over. But he and Helmut had not met up with the men before their intercept, because of a nasty car accident on Peña Boulevard.
A semi had spun out on the slush and ice in the street, keeling over on its side and blocking an entire lane of traffic. The four closest cars behind it had smashed into the truck’s top, which was now on its side.
Chaos and mayhem everywhere. Traffic formed in an instant behind the wrecked cars, pushing back along this six-lane road.
Thomas and Helmut had come along only thirty seconds later, and Helmut had been prescient enough to divert into the ditch next to the road to avoid any further pileup. When the cars in front of him suddenly stopped because their world had become an orchestra of brake lights, they didn’t have much choice.
“What do we do, sir?” Helmut said. Since biting his tongue last week, Helmut’s voice had improved significantly in the last couple of days. He still spoke like someone with a speech impediment, but Thomas could understand him now, at least.
There were cars everywhere. Traffic lined the street with the early morning flight commuters trying to reach the airport. Horns honked, and curse words flew like shrapnel from rolled-down windows.
Thomas pointed across the street to the lane traveling in the other direction. “Go back through and around! We can’t be late.”
Helmut diverted left, back across the street, headed for the median to pass the accident. First, he had to navigate the traffic jam, which was quickly filling with even more cars. Helmut drove perpendicular to the traffic, trying to weave through them to the median on the other side. He plotted a narrow course and made it to the sloped concrete median, then drove onto it and raced forward, past the mangled semi truck.
The whole escapade had taken no more than two or three minutes for them to breach the stoppage, but it had been long enough. Along the way, Thomas used Helmut’s phone to call each of the men, but none of the four answered.
When they arrived at the top level of the parking garage, with the nose of the car barely poking out from the edge of the concrete pillar so the occupants of the top level wouldn’t see them, Thomas witnessed pandemonium far worse than the accident.
These men couldn’t accept phone calls because they had been brutally slaughtered.
Helmut put the car in park, engine running, teeth gritted, growling something under his breath in a language Thomas didn’t know. For several seconds they both sat, staring.
Thomas opened his door. The four elite soldiers Helmut had arranged to join them in Denver were all dead on the pavement, pools of blood around them. One had his throat slit. It looked like a massacre, one they hadn’t seen coming at all.
“Sir,” Helmut said, and then stopped, apparently not knowing what to say after.
Thomas gripped the open car door, pressing his thumbs into the window until they ached. “She has hel
p. I don’t care how rough-and-tumble she is, she didn’t do this by herself.”
“Maybe so. We need to go. We can’t stay here.”
Thomas slid back in the car, his ire like boiling water poised to eject the lid off the pot. “The other day, you told me you could get ten. Ten men. This wouldn’t have happened if you had done that.”
“I did the best I could on short notice, sir. Most of the rest were unavailable.” When Thomas said nothing, Helmut cleared his throat. “Sir? What do you want to do?”
“We need more. Send for more men. I don’t care if they’re in the middle of other projects, or on vacation, or out on golf courses. This is priority number one. I want them here.”
Helmut nodded as he put the car into reverse and backed around toward the garage exit. “How many more?”
Thomas gawked at him, eyebrow raised, as if it were a stupid question. “Get them all here, Helmut. Every single one of them. And I want them here before dark this evening. I want them here today.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
EMBER
The assassin drove into the Marriott's service entrance, about four miles from the airport. Serena and Layne were in one car, idling near a dumpster. Ember checked the angles to the street before pulling up next to the car. Since Helmut and Thomas hadn’t made it to the battle of the parking garage, they were probably hunting right now for the perpetrators.
Taking an extra moment to study the scene never hurt. Not only because of the dozens of other assassins around the greater Denver metro who were looking to put an end to Ember Clarke.
The area behind the hotel seemed free of danger. She put a hand on Zach’s knee and gave it a squeeze. “You coming? This concerns you, too.”
“I’ll wait here.”