by Heskett, Jim
Kunjal was sitting on the bed, a bruise on one side of his face and a bump on the other. He looked tired, beaten down, on his last ounce of energy. Even his eyebrows seemed to have lost some of their trademark fluffiness.
“I didn’t really think pre-teen girl movies would be your thing, Kunjal, but I guess I was wrong about you.”
“This is not my house. I am staying with a friend for safety.” Kunjal flashed eyes at Zach. “Who is this?”
“This is Zach,” Ember said. “He’s okay.”
“I didn’t know you would bring him. He’s not DAC.”
Ember turned up her palms. “Technically, neither am I. Are you?”
Kunjal considered this for a few seconds, then shook his head. “The Holdings building is gone.”
The news hit her like a punch to the chin. “Are you serious?”
“I assumed you didn’t know, since you turned in your token. Angry members of the Club showed up to protest, and it turned violent. Maybe if Security hadn’t gone out to confront them, they would have shouted for a few minutes and then left. I don’t know.”
“What happened?”
“A group of them launched explosives all at the same time and brought the building down. There are many injured. Many dead. I managed to get out before the building came down on me.”
“That’s terrible. I’m so sorry.”
He nodded and pointed to a stack of yellow legal pads, sitting on a vanity alongside a collection of glittery makeup paraphernalia. “I was able to save my notes for A History of the Denver Assassins Club. Perhaps it no longer matters, though.”
Ember felt a gnawing in the pit of her stomach. She reached over and took Zach’s hand, who gave her a firm squeeze back.
“There’s more,” Kunjal said. “President Wellner died at the hands of his secretary, Naomi. She was seen leaving with a man named Marcus. Some of us believe this man is from the FBI. In the chaos, no one even questioned his presence there.”
Marcus Lonsdale had been at the Holdings building?
“Do you know this man?” he asked.
Kunjal gave Ember the eye, and she nodded.
“He’s FBI,” she said. “It’s true.”
“I know your name, Allison Campbell. This is one of many lies you have told. I called you because there was something I thought you should know, but I realize I may walk out of this house in handcuffs for my role at the Denver Assassins Club. If you are here to arrest me, can you leave my notes? They might still be useful.”
She shook her head. “I’m not going to arrest you, Kunjal. I don’t really even work for the FBI any longer. It's complicated. I’m sorry I lied to you. I lied to everyone, and that’s something I’m going to have to deal with.”
His face softened. “Whatever your name is, I like you. You have been good to me in my short time at the Club.”
“I appreciate that. What’s this piece of information you need to tell me?”
“I overheard some conversations yesterday before it all went bad, and I believe I have now pieced together a rough timeline. David Wellner and Marcus Lonsdale were in business together. Marcus referred contracts to the DAC from government files, and he received a cut. In exchange, he helped divert law enforcement’s attention away from the DAC.”
Ember sat back, sucking in a breath. She let go of Zach’s hand so she could transfer a layer of sweat from her palms to her pants. It made so much sense. And that meant Marcus must have definitely been the one to leak her identity to all the remaining members. A way to convert an army of trained killers to his side, without them even knowing.
“This is bad?” Zach asked.
“Yes,” Ember said. “This is bad.”
Before she could elaborate on her answer, her phone buzzed. She took it out to find Layne’s name on the lock screen. She held up a finger to the two others in the room and took the call.
“Ember,” Layne said, panting.
“What’s up?”
“I found Thomas Milligan. He’s in Fort Collins right now, but he might not be here for long. I have a small window. Very small.”
“What are you saying?”
“This man… he planted the child porn in your boyfriend’s apartment?”
“Probably not personally, but he gave the order. What are you going to do?”
“No time to wait for backup. I have a window, and I’m going to move on it, now.”
Chapter Thirty-One
MARCUS
Marcus held a newspaper in one hand and a Zippo lighter in the other. He had owned the Zippo for twenty years. Easy, reliable, dependable. He always assumed one of the reasons they could last forever was how simple they were inside. Fewer moving parts meant fewer pieces that could fail. That correlation of simplicity to success translated into many other aspects of life, he’d found.
There wasn’t a single person at the Parker Post Office to greet him this evening as he and his entourage had arrived. The building was a mess. Windows blown out, papers from the building scattered all over the lot, doors leading into the building left wide open. It was as if everyone had decided to run, all at once.
The exterior basement door to the Parker Post Office had been shut, however. At least, that probably meant no one had been rooting around down there. Marcus had no trouble opening the basement door, where the historical records of the DAC were kept. He doubted his name appeared on any of the records in this dusty tomb, but he couldn’t be sure. Better to be rid of all of it.
Time for a fresh start. Time to cut his losses and blow town before things became too complicated. But, before that, he still had a chance to grab these restless natives and use them for his own purposes.
If he could pull it off, which was no guarantee.
In the basement, he found a hallway with a desk set up for a security station, but no one sitting at it. He used the flat surface as a staging area to separate the newspaper into its component parts. Out came Sports, Business, Comics, Lifestyle. Each one, he tightened into its own tube to act as a torch, then he lit them one at a time. Sports went into the first room on his right. Lifestyle, the room on his left.
He swept along the hall until he'd tossed a flaming hunk of paper into each room, and now the fire sprang to life in several spots. His eyebrows started to singe and then smoke infiltrated his lungs, so he backed out of the hallway and into the parking lot to watch it burn through squinted eyes.
He stood proudly as the flames punched out the remaining first-floor windows and consumed the basement and then ground level. When Wellner had first told Marcus about the DAC’s arcane practice of shunning digital records for manual ones, Marcus had thought it a dumb idea. But now, he felt eternally grateful they’d made his tracks so easy to cover.
There were few feelings as satisfying as cleaning up. Knowing that anything incriminating had been erased. Marcus had always been careful, and just because there were literal and figurative fires all around him didn’t mean he would stop noting the details now.
“Pleasure to burn,” he mumbled to himself as the flames reached the second floor. He had to scoot back a few feet as the expanding blaze warmed his face.
Marcus checked his watch. It might have been better to burn the records during the day, when the flames wouldn’t attract as much attention. But beggars couldn’t be choosers. Marcus had a schedule to keep. In two days, he had plane tickets booked. A nice long vacation far away from America. Far away from DC, and far away from any of this mess. A long vacation to determine if he would be able to come back to America as if nothing had happened, or if he might need to continue traveling to some place with no extradition treaty.
He did have a couple of tasks to complete before then, however. He had a plan. A plan to set up Ember for a trap by manipulating Serena Rojas and making them think they had the upper hand. Not an easy thing to pull off, because Ember wasn’t dumb. She was a vindictive and heartless manipulator, but at least she wasn’t dumb.
Marcus heard footsteps approaching
from his right, and he looked over to see an elderly black man crossing the parking lot, eyes wide, mouth open, looking at the Parker Post Office engulfed in flames.
“Who the hell are you?” Marcus said.
“Randall,” the man said, absent-minded and slack-jawed. “I was in charge of security for those archives that are now up in smoke.” He pointed at the exterior basement door. “For the last five years, that was my workstation.”
Marcus shifted a hand closer to the 9mm in his concealed carry holster, watching the flames reflected in the man’s midnight eyes. He didn’t seem all that upset about it, more like baffled and confused and unsure if this fire was real or not. “You okay, Randall?”
“I suppose. For half a decade, I protected those documents. Now, it doesn’t matter much anymore if we have records of our past, does it? The Club is gone. That’s what I’m hearing.”
Marcus shrugged. “Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, que será to que será.”
“Who are you?” Randall said, now looking at Marcus for the first time. The old man seemed to have one eyebrow permanently raised.
“I’m death, my friend. The destroyer of worlds and all that. I’m the one who gives and takes away, and I’ve decided to take this all away, because I can.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Yeah, I know you don’t, Randall. But I’m the one pulling the plug. I’m going to make you all murder each other, and I’m going to make you think it was your idea. That’s how it works. That’s the smart way to do it.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because I’m tired of these toys and I want new ones. Because you’re all more trouble than you’re worth. There’s no blood left to squeeze from this stone. That’s why, my friend.”
“Are you a member?”
At first, Marcus turned up his palms, but then he decided to answer the question. “Not a member, exactly. I’m more like a silent partner. You know your fearless leader, David Wellner?”
“I do know him.”
“I was his boss, sort of. We were supposed to be equal partners, but, in practice, it didn’t work out like that. He always struck me as the sort of person who thrived better being managed, rather than being the manager.”
“I heard he died when the Holdings building collapsed.”
“Not quite. He was most definitely already dead by the time the building came down. His secretary Naomi stabbed him in the heart and watched him bleed to death in his own office.”
Randall stared at the fire, still seeming confused. Marcus was starting to wonder if this guy had taken a recent thump to the head. He seemed like he was in shock, or had a concussion, or had eaten a handful of happy pills.
“Naomi?” Randall said. “I met her once. Such a pretty girl. Did she really stab him?”
“Uh-huh. She sure did. I watched it happen. Then, I was going to drive her to the nearest motel room and bang her silly to celebrate, but she died when the building collapsed. Karma, I guess.”
“Why are you telling me all this?” Randall asked, frowning.
“Sometimes, it helps me to vent. Also, in two more seconds, you won’t be around to remember it.”
“What?”
Marcus pulled his gun and put a single bullet in Randall’s forehead. The older man didn’t even know he’d been shot as he fell. That same quizzical expression would stay locked on his face in death.
A burning window frame broke off and fell to the ground, tumbling within a few feet from Marcus. He barked a laugh and hopped back a full step to keep clear. He continued to back up toward his car, where one of his men opened the passenger door.
“Sir,” the man said.
“I know, I know,” Marcus said. “We need to get out of here. I just wanted to watch it burn for a few minutes. Makes my dick plump. Can’t you allow me my simple pleasures?”
“It’s not that, Mr. Lonsdale.” The assistant held out his phone, showing a picture of a white guy in a suit. He was prim and handsome, a little taller than Marcus. But they did have similar looks; same hairstyles, same preferred cut of a suit. But Marcus knew right away this man wasn’t a fed. Probably a junior executive in Silicon Valley at some cash-rich startup that made reusable drinking straws out of turtle shit or something like that.
“What am I looking at?” Marcus said.
“This man is Thomas Milligan. He works for a biotech company in California.”
“Sure, I guessed as much from the picture. Why should I care?”
“His Chief of Security is a brawny Eastern European Guy named Helmut.”
Marcus chuckled. “A little on the nose with that name, but sure. Please stop the foreplay and tell me why I need to know about Thomas and Helmut.”
“Because last week, Helmut attacked Ember Clarke and her boyfriend Zach Bennett at a motel room in Denver. Thomas’ company is Zach’s employer. Seems like they’ve decided to let him go, and Ember is supposed to go as well. They’ve been trying to kill her for a couple weeks.”
Marcus reached out and took the phone, studying the picture. He could feel the heat from the building fire on his back. “Interesting. Very interesting. Another player in the mix?” He handed the phone back to his guy. “Actually, now that I think about it… this will fit into the rest of our plans perfectly. Open up a line of dialogue. These yokels are going to help us kill the DAC, and they don’t even know it yet.”
Marcus smiled, taking one last look at the building. The fire had spread, turning the night sky so bright, Marcus wished he had sunglasses. “It’s a shit show, but maybe we can still make something beautiful come from it.” He turned back to his guy. “Get on the phone and order the rest of the troops to Denver, stat. It’s time we put things in motion for the endgame.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
LAYNE
In the empty parking lot sat a lone trailer. Layne watched it from the bushes across the street. He had seen Thomas Milligan park next to it and then enter alone. Layne doubted anyone lived inside and instead thought of it like a trailer a construction company would use as an on-site office.
He’d been in there for only a couple of minutes. Long enough for Layne to call Ember to give her the heads up. There was no way to know how long Thomas would stay or what he was doing. Layne had a suspicion, though. With the death of his crew this morning at the airport, it would make sense for him to want to pack up and leave. Maybe return in a few days with reinforcements. In the meantime, erase anything incriminating.
Any minute now, the target would emerge from that door and leave the area. No time to wait for backup.
A single street lamp lit up the parking lot, and Layne had no trouble crossing it without being seen, as far as he knew. The trailer had a few windows, but the blinds were drawn on all of them. He could see a shadow moving around inside, paying no attention to the world outside.
Layne drew a pair of twin knives as he eased up the wooden steps outside the trailer. He kept his eyes on a set of large and pointy icicles hanging down above his head. Then he reached up and tried the door. It was unlocked.
For a second, he thought about the man inside. A man who had tried to frame Zach Bennett with child pornography. Layne didn’t know Zach well. But anyone who could peddle child porn—or, at the very least, participate in the sharing of it—was a danger to society. Layne Parrish would not abide the degradation of children. Ever. In any manner.
He flung the door open and leaped inside. There, standing ten feet away, was Thomas Milligan. He had a glass of brown liquid in one hand, the other holding up a document. He was squinting at it. Papers were in disarray all around him. Boxes sat open, some overflowing with contents. Just as Layne had suspected, this was a clean-out.
Thomas whirled toward the new arrival. “Who the hell are you?”
Layne didn’t answer. He pushed up the sleeves of his hoodie, exposing the tattoos blanketing his arms. Thomas flicked his eyes down at them.
Layne raised his knives and took a step to close the dis
tance. Thomas chucked his glass, which missed Layne and splatted dark alcohol on the wall behind him.
Layne held both of his knives aloft and waited for Thomas to make another move.
“Who are you?” Thomas asked again, looking more incensed than anxious.
“I’m a friend of a friend. After everything you’ve done, the two of them deserve to be here to end you. But I saw a chance and I had to take it. Today’s the day you pay for your miniature terrorism. I don’t know you, Thomas Milligan, but I’m very familiar with your kind.”
“You don’t know shit,” Thomas said. “If you had any idea who I work for, you’d be quaking in your damned boots.”
“Maybe so. But I’m not wearing boots, and your bosses aren’t here right now to save you.”
Thomas’ confidence seemed to falter. Layne thought he saw the man’s eyes quivering.
“My people will back any second now.”
Layne gripped his knives. “That’s okay. This won’t take very long.”
In a flash, Thomas pivoted toward a Colt revolver sitting on the desk behind him, but he was too late. Layne raced within two feet, then he jabbed a heel toward Thomas’ left calf, striking it. Layne heard the man’s knee pop.
Thomas cried out and sank to the floor as his leg gave out.
Layne swiped one time across his throat.
He gurgled, both his hands shooting to his neck. Blood squirted out from between his fingers as his eyes bugged out and he scooted back on the floor. His mouth opened, trying to speak, but no words came out. Thomas looked at Layne, pleading. Layne could see the utter terror on his face, knowing his life was rapidly leaving his body.
“Next stop for you is hell,” Layne said. He crouched, waiting for the man to attack, or crawl toward the door, but he did neither.
“I don’t enjoy killing people,” Layne continued. “But you are a nasty piece of work. Zach Bennett sends his regards.”
At the mention of Zach’s name, the man’s eye grew wide, then dimmed. He bled out in ten seconds, but Layne knew there was still a flicker of life deep within his brain. Strange and fascinating how human biology worked. Layne was no sadist, but he found himself curiously watching this despicable example of humanity flicker and die. Milligan’s hands fell away from his neck and his gaze settled on a blank spot on the wall.