by Heskett, Jim
Helmut only cared that it was a place where he and his men could inventory their weapons and assemble loadouts for an assault tomorrow. But where and when, Helmut didn’t yet know.
After the sun had set, he stood by the men as they arranged gear. Mostly, Helmut waited to the side, having delegated the tasks to prepare the assault. It’s what Thomas would have done, if he were here. Helmut had always admired Thomas’ ability to inspire men simply by being present and standing with proper posture. Something about a slouching man inspired no confidence. But, upright, with hands on hips and a flat smile on the face? Suddenly, such a person would be taken seriously.
Helmut’s phone rang, and he checked the screen to see an unknown number.
“Helmut,” he said.
“No, you’re Helmut. I’m Marcus,” the man said, with a touch of mischief in his voice.
Helmut gritted his teeth and took a deep breath. He didn’t care for tricksters, but so far, Marcus had been on the level. He knew quite a lot about Ember. Enough to make Helmut think he knew more, and to entice Helmut to proceed deeper into a murky relationship with the man.
“Tomorrow morning. I just texted you the map.”
Helmut held his phone away from his ear to check the message. The map coordinates showed an address in the mountains, about an hour from here. He wasn’t familiar with the area, but it looked to be at a much higher elevation than Boulder. That meant more snow, thinner air, and increased complications.
“What is this?” Helmut asked.
“That is the house where you will find Ember Clarke, right around seven o’clock tomorrow morning.”
“Why would you tell me this? What’s in it for you?”
“This benefits both of us. I wouldn’t bring it to you otherwise.”
“I need more details,” Helmut said.
“Look, guy, I’m going to level with you. I’m a federal agent.”
Helmut gripped the phone. “Excuse me?”
“Simmer down. I don’t care about you and the shady stuff your company is doing. Skirting testing regulations, paying off local officials, covering up sexual harassment at your offices… whatever it is, I really couldn’t give less of a shit. I mean that to say, I have no interest in arresting you, exposing you, pointing law enforcement in your direction. Not my business. Whatever Ember knows, whatever dirt she has on your company to make you want her dead? I don’t care.”
“Okay,” Helmut said, his brain racing. Thoughts bounced around like marbles in a blender.
“You know about the Denver Assassins Club?”
“Yes,” Helmut said. “I have heard of it.”
“Here goes, all my cards on the table: I had a connection with the DAC. I was making money from it and keeping it out of the FBI’s sights. Ember knows about me, and she’s working to expose me. I’m her boss, and I’ve convinced her to come up to the mountains to see me. Tomorrow, just after dawn. But, the thing is, it’s all a sham. I’m being ordered to do this because a few suits from the FBI are going to show up here to arrest her. I can’t stop this from happening. They will be here at eight. But, if you and your crew show up first at seven, all I have to do is fire a few ‘missed’ shots over your shoulders as you escape with her. It’ll look better in the report that way.”
Helmut pursed his lips and drew a long breath to consider. “I see.”
“I’m saying I’d rather have her end up with you guys than the feds, if I wasn’t making that point clear. Because then there’s no ugly trial where all this shit about me comes out… or you.”
“Or me? What does that mean?”
“I assume she knows things about your people you don’t want her to talk about, right? And, if she’s arrested and given a public platform, she might just name your company and expose whatever it is you’re willing to take such extreme lengths to hide.”
Helmut grunted but said nothing. Not only did Ember potentially know damaging information about Firedrake, but she would know where Zach Bennett had disappeared to. Helmut had a feeling he’d made it onto a plane without him or his people noticing.
Zach also had to die, too, and soon. No exceptions.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Marcus said. “So, here’s the deal. There are three roads to get to the house. But snow’s been dumping up here all day, and I’m not sure what will be open. But I will know the answer to that early tomorrow, and I can pass it along to you. Status update around six or half-past six.”
Helmut’s brow creased, thinking it through. Why would this man want to do this in such a remote location? Perhaps it would help keep all the events secret from local law enforcement. Still, all of this could be done in town, which seemed more like the FBI’s modus operandi. They liked big, public spectacle arrests.
That alone was weird, but it wasn’t a dealbreaker.
Despite his misgivings, Helmut didn’t know if he would be able to resist this offer. He had been unable to find Ember and Zach on his own. If there was a twenty percent chance Marcus was telling the truth and Ember would be at a certain place at a certain time, how could he pass it up?
“Agreed,” Helmut said. “We will be ready.”
Chapter Forty-One
EMBER
Her hands touched the tops of the tombstones as she passed. They were like icicles against her bare fingers in the night air. Her feet shuffled through snow, the tips of her shoes punching holes in the crunchy top layer. A cone of steam ejected from her mouth with each breath.
She didn’t know why she felt compelled to touch each tombstone, like a little kid playing a counting game, or like a drunk person using the world as guide rails in an attempt to keep balance.
Ember was neither a drunk nor a child. In fact, she didn’t know exactly why she was here, in this cemetery in Boulder. This stop hadn’t been on her late evening agenda.
She had already made the final visit to the condo over by campus. There hadn’t been much there to take. But she had grabbed a few things like the no-longer-available-for-purchase Rotorua Mud Scrub she guarded like the Hope Diamond, her vibrator, all the extra boxes of ammo and spare mags for her Enforcers, and the only Blu-Ray in her collection: a copy of Romy & Michelle’s High School Reunion. Since she had moved out two weeks ago to stay with Fagan, Ember hadn’t been keeping much at the condo, anyway. Only a bunch of memories from the last three years and a few crappy placeholder pieces of art on the walls. She would leave the latter items for the next owner who would probably pitch them into the dumpster outside.
Only a few hours to midnight. A few hours after that, Ember and Layne would venture up into the mountains in the area between Boulder and Nederland, where a mansion sat nestled in a small valley. There, Ember would either accomplish her mission and find justice for Gabe and Isabel, or she would die. There didn’t seem to be much room to land between those outcomes.
But what about justice for Fagan? Justice for Kevin? For Charlie? What about justice for the two graves in this cemetery?
Ember stood before the graves of Elizabeth Lanscomb and Robert Partridge. Two fake names for two Boulder Branch members who had died when an assassin came to poison Ember at the Post Office five weeks ago. As far as Ember was concerned, that had been the point of no return. At that point, collateral damage had come into the equation, and Ember had become responsible for blood spilled.
Six weeks of carnage, including the death of her mentor and the death of the President of the Denver Assassins Club. The murder of a Review Board member alone was a shocking development, let alone the President. And even that fact felt like a single fish in a sea of crazy facts during her black spot trial by combat.
All of this could have been avoided. If, six weeks ago in Rocky Mountain National Park, Ember had moved aside to let Niles have the contract. Or, if she could have finished early and done her exfil before he’d arrived.
Or maybe not. Maybe Wellner and Marcus would have found some other way to put Ember in the crosshairs. Maybe eventually arriving at a showdown with Mar
cus had been the only possible outcome of this journey from day one.
Ember sat in the snow in front of the two graves. Cold ate through the seat of her jeans. She hadn’t even known these two well, but for some reason, their deaths hit her in a way she hadn’t expected. Whereas before, Ember had pictured her six-week sentence to be a matter of facing off against assassins one by one, with the deaths of two Branchmates, it had become personal. The costs skyrocketed. Her actions had resulted in unforgivable consequences.
The graves were nondescript, sparse, only containing the fake names and fake birth and death dates of the two humans buried underneath.
Tomorrow, taking on Marcus in the mountains, Ember figured she might not return. She was glad now she’d had a chance to tell Zach she loved him. Earlier this evening, Ember had visited the jeweler and weapons specialist Jack Rothman in Lafayette. She had signed over power of attorney to the jeweler, with his promise he would make sure Zach received all her earthly possessions after her death. Rothman was a good man; she had no reason not to trust him.
Of course, a lot of her money was in the possession of the DAC, which she now understood was all controlled by Marcus. Nothing could be done about those funds. But Ember had squirreled away assets and valuables, including her spartan condo. As long as Zach received it all, that would be enough for her. In a financial sense, at least. She hated the thought of never seeing his face again. Never grabbing a handful of his perfect, round butt cheeks again.
But, in order to push ahead to what would come next, Ember had to pretend it wasn’t over. She had to pretend she would soon reunite with Zach in Michigan, and they would go cherry picking in Traverse City after all this, smiling and holding hands. In this fantasy, they weren’t looking over their shoulders; weren’t worrying about a sniper in a nearby tree waiting for the perfect shot.
Ember leaned forward and wiped snow from the tops of each of the two graves, then she dabbed a hand at the corners of her eyes. That was another thing she hoped to leave behind… too many tears in the last six weeks.
Soon, this would all be over. One way or another. She could take some comfort in that.
Her chest ached from the car crash. Her neck still stung from the bullet wound Fagan had given her, almost a week ago now. A dozen other bumps and bruises marked her body from an array of injuries over the last month and a half.
Ember pinned all her hopes on summoning the strength needed to see this course of action through to the end.
Zach waited for her in Michigan. She had to get back to him.
Chapter Forty-Two
MARCUS
DAY SEVEN
Sometimes, in the dead of night on the grounds outside this massive house, Marcus could see so many stars in the heavens he couldn’t begin to guess at their number. But early this morning, dense clouds turned the sky to milk and provided almost as much light as daytime. Like a continuous dawn.
But Marcus didn’t worry about stargazing at this early morning hour. He was too busy arranging his plan to care about the picturesque settings.
This house had a name: Castle in the Clouds. There were eight bedrooms, ten bathrooms, a screening room with a projector, a full battalion of exercise equipment in a mirrored room, plus an unlimited number of nooks and crannies. Marcus had even heard there was a bowling alley in the basement, but he’d never seen it. Marcus didn’t own this house. Technically, the US government did. It had been seized from one of the richest gangsters in American history, and now it sat dormant most of the year. Marcus used it as a home base whenever he felt like it, since there would be no record of his comings and goings.
The main building had multiple satellite structures inside a circular stone fence around the border. The grounds also housed a side garage, the toolshed, the barn, plus a collection of towers that functioned like hunting blinds. This is where Marcus and his men had stationed, keeping a watchful eye on anyone approaching the house.
A staggering number of variables crowded his mind this morning. First, Marcus had to make sure his guards were in place to protect him. He had twelve stationed around the house. These were his guys, with their loyalty secured by drowning them in tax-free cash payments.
He wasn’t worried about them. Marcus worried primarily about the other players involved. First, Helmut and his people. He had about twenty foot soldiers in his quiver. The fat-mouthed European had been suspicious on the phone, but Marcus had given him an offer too juicy to refuse. He had believed the lie about FBI agents coming to arrest Ember, and that would give Helmut not only a sense of urgency but also of timing. Marcus felt the most sure about manipulating Helmut. He had agreed to wait for Marcus’ signal to come up the eastern entrance to the grounds around the house.
Next were the remaining members of the Assassins Club. Marcus didn’t know the exact count, but he figured there were about fifty of them left. Maybe more, maybe less. He didn’t think all of them would come, but he expected quite a few would. Marcus had been feeding info through the message board to various key members at the Branches.
The problem with managing the DAC members was their lack of central leadership figure to use as a liaison. Marcus wanted them all to arrive at the same time, too, and to come up via the western entrance to the house. That was the plan, but this loose collection of assassins would be the hardest to control.
Finally, there was Ember. Marcus fully expected Ember and possibly his former contractor Serena Rojas to show up as well, based on the info Marcus had given her at their meeting the other day. And he was working on a way to manipulate them to travel up via the southern entrance to the property. Helmut’s people, DAC, and Ember all had to be kept in separate channels of arrival, or this wouldn’t work.
The only way this whole plan worked would be if everyone showed up at the same time, so they could all kill each other. In most circumstances, controlling the strings on so many puppets would be an impossible task. But, up here in the mountains, Marcus had one primary advantage: the roads. They were all winding and small, prone to avalanches and obstructions. With a few adept underlings along the various roads, he could close and open these paths at his discretion, forcing cars to divert, to go ahead, or to wait behind seemingly all-natural events like downed trees or snow too deep to drive through. Controlling the arrival time and methods of his guests were the top two priorities.
Once they were all en route, he could speed one and slow the others, or vice versa.
Then, he had men stationed at both the east and west perimeters of the fence line, so they could start shooting to make each side think the other was attacking. Once that happened, they could close the roads leading out and keep these combatants trapped inside the fishbowl until they all eliminated each other.
Then, Marcus would escape from a tunnel under the house to a secret exit into the canyon on the north side of the fence where a gassed-up snowmobile waited for him, buried underneath a camouflage of tree branches.
So far, everything seemed to be working. He would control the timing of the arrivals by making sure his people stayed in communication. If the DAC arrived much earlier than Helmut’s people, he would keep the western road closed until then. In addition to his security team, he had half a dozen men dedicated to this specific task, as well as to monitoring Ember’s approach. They would trigger a series of smaller avalanches on certain roads to make sure Ember had only one path leading to the house.
Also, they had to take care in how much manual adjustment they did. None of the people coming to the house were stupid, and they would be suspicious of too many detours and obstructions. A lot needed to go right.
Marcus swept his binoculars from left to right, squinting through the snow. Heavy weather made seeing anything a challenge as he pulled his gray coat close against the frigid air. He tried to check the sky to estimate how many minutes until sunrise, but he couldn’t read the sun through the thickness of the cloud cover.
“Sir,” came a crackly voice over a walkie-talkie. One of his men.
<
br /> Marcus took a breath, feeling a little lightheaded. The altitude bothered him this morning. He thumbed the button. “Go ahead.”
“I just received a report that our two main targets are traveling on Black Gulch Road. They’re about twenty minutes out. Lots of snow and ice on the road, so it’s slow going. But it seems like we won’t have to do much adjustment of the route.”
Marcus breathed a sigh of relief. Of all the variables, Ember had been the least predictable. He had hoped she would wait until the middle of the night or early morning to arrive, and that was turning out to be true. He’d banked on the idea that Ember would need the previous day to prepare and would want to make a pre-dawn strike.
Also, he’d hoped to be leaving the grounds already, but he still had time. He’d needed to make sure everything was in place for the big finish, to put all the players on the right board at the right time. The details were critical in a puzzle like this one.
“They’re a little early, but it’s okay. We can still do this. Make sure Stone Road is blocked off when they get there, and that puts them on a path to come up the south entrance. A single downed tree across the road should take care of it.”
“Copy that. Also, there are two groups traveling along the other two routes. The eastern group is moving faster, and will be here about ten minutes before the western group.”
Marcus gritted his teeth and pumped a fist in excitement. “Perfect. Let’s get that western road open ASAP, and be a little slower on clearing the eastern side. If we time this right, we’ll slow them down just enough. And make sure the teams out by the roads have clear paths back. We need them at the house as soon as they’re available.”
“Understood, sir.”
Marcus slipped the walkie back into his pocket and took one last look around. It might actually work. He descended the ladder on the side of the hunting blind so he could slide into position. In a few minutes, this house and the surrounding grounds would be filled with up to a hundred trained killers, hopefully all neutralizing each other and solving all of Marcus’ problems in one fell swoop.