She blinked, her brown eyes growing moist and terrified. Terrified wasn’t a new look for Elsen—he evoked that just by walking into a room—but she wasn’t scared of him. That was new. The fact that she continued anyway was also new—stupid people would push, but he didn’t get the sense that this person was a standard San Francisco idiot. Something was wrong.
“Mister Elsen, please... I'll pay whatever you want… give you whatever you want… I don't care… please… just kill him…”
“You can offer as much as you like, ma'am. I do not—”
She cut him off mid-sentence. “If you don't, he's going to kill me.”
Kyle froze for a moment. “Pardon?”
Her first response was a choked sob, and she lowered her face so that her brown hair covered it like a curtain. “I don’t have much money,” she answered softly. “But I’ll sleep with you, as much as you want, if you’ll just—”
Kyle's voice grew colder than anyone in the bar had ever heard it. “Your husband is abusive, ma’am?”
*
At Kyle’s reaction, Anderson blinked. Wow. She struck a nerve... He reflected on the scars that dotted Kyle's body. Anderson turned to look at the woman. A brief glance of her posture – bowed, bent, submissive as a beaten puppy—made it clear she was really a victim of abuse. Anderson, very slowly, reached forward, touching her chin and lifting it so he could see her face—what there was of it behind the bruises.
Kyle’s voice had gone from “confused academic” to “hardened killer”. “Answer the question… please.” She nodded, still unable to speak. “Your address?”
She answered, and without explanation, Kyle stood and moved for the Ground Zero's exit. He spoke just before he reached the door. “Please remain here, ma’am.”
She rushed after him. “But…”
He glanced back at her, and she skidded to a halt. “Please remain here."
Kyle walked out, leaving the triplets and Anderson with the woman. Mac glanced around at his sisters and Kevin as Lotus gave the woman a glass of water.
“Well, that was strange,” Mac noted.
Mickie have a breathy sigh. “Not now.” She helped the woman seat herself. She managed a weak smile—she was attempting to be reassuring, and she wasn’t very good at it. Still, she was making the effort.
Mac went back to bartending, while Mickie stayed with the woman. Mac shook his head, confused about what had just happened. He shrugged it off and went about his business, assuming it was just another of Kyle’s eccentricities.
An hour later, Kyle walked back in to the Ground Zero, carrying… a hammer. Kevin glanced over at him. “Planning on doing some housework?”
Kyle gave small, amused smile. “I had to nail someone.” Kyle simply looked over at his client, eyes glittering for a second. “This was on the house.” He returned his attention to the glass of water he had left on the counter, waiting as Mac added two new ice cubes.
The woman left the Ground Zero a few minutes later, sad and afraid. Anderson, being the most deliberately insane person in the room, invited himself to escort the woman home.
*
Kyle had watched Kevin Anderson walk out the door, and said nothing. “Have there been any messages for me?”
Mac nodded. “One from Omega Corporation. It’s a rush job. They want to pay you a lot of money to make certain that someone dies within the next two hours.”
Kyle’s complete attention came to bear on the bartender. “I presume, then, that I am to kill an informant.”
“Yup. Someone named Edward Newton. How’d you know?”
Kyle glanced back the way Anderson went. He didn’t necessarily like the idea of killing Anderson’s Omega informant, but Kyle also needed his traitorous client dead. And, in the long run, how important could the information be anyway? “Just a guess. How much are they offering?”
“Let’s put it this way—you won’t need to worry about hunting down the guy who tried to kill you, and that’s just their down payment.”
*
Kevin Anderson had only been a little surprised by what he discovered waiting at the woman’s home. The woman's husband had been nailed to the roof, in the position of a crucifixion, hands lain down with one rusty nail each, and a drill bit had been rammed through his legs, pinning them to the tile. He had been left to suffer… his blood had dripped down all over the concrete.
“Sorry,” Kevin muttered, “Kyle is usually tidier than this.” He glanced at his watch. “Excuse me, ma’am, I need to go meet someone for an appointment. Have a good day.” He looked up. “Although I think I’ll swing by later, in case you didn’t get all that cleaned up.”
Chapter 26: Letters from a Dead Man
Kyle Elsen slid into position on his belly, rifle ahead of him, loaded and ready. While the Assassin had gifted the rifle given to him by Instructor Hur—and he loved that rifle—he could make the shot with anything larger than a handgun...and possibly a snub-nosed revolver if he was on a closer roof. But that was a risk he couldn't expect to take, especially since he didn't know what Anderson's response would be to having his informant killed right in front of him.
“If you even zero your rifle scope on him, I'll blow your God-damned head off,” came a voice from behind him.
Kyle hesitated and cursed himself. How many brain cells did the alcohol kill? “Did Newton send you, or did Omega want to cancel the contract?”
There was the sound of a gun cocking, and a feminine growl. “Omega? Do I sound like a gardener to you?” came the light soprano voice. “Put the rifle down, slowly, or I will end you.”
“If you are not here about Newton or Omega,” Kyle began, “what are you—”
“You're pointing a rifle at Kevin. I dislike that.”
“You know I can kill you anyway.”
“Turn around, very slowly, and try making that threat again.”
Kyle rolled over slowly, and blinked. The woman held her pistol in one hand, and a grenade in another—the pin was pulled. He cocked his head, arched a brow, and said, “You really are a friend of Mr. Anderson's—he did that when I first met him. Do I know you?”
The petite woman with the bright blue eyes smiled. “Name's Mandy. Hi.”
“I am not targeting Anderson; I am targeting his informant, Edward Newton.” Kyle glanced back. Newton was moving towards Anderson. “I need to hurry, so if you will excuse me...”
“I believe you why?”
“On my honor as an Assassin—”
“I think your honor needs a good polishing, matey, given how you tarnished it with—how long were you drunk, anyway? You fried so many brain cells, I got behind you.”
Kyle grimaced, then glanced back at Newton. He was less than a block away from Anderson. If she didn't make up her mind in the next five seconds, he'd have to improvise.
Mandy thought for only one second, then nodded. “I'll be watching, and remember: if Anderson dies, you do.”
*
Kevin Anderson glanced at his watch, wondering when Edward Newton would show up. He once again pondered what the hell he was doing out there, waiting for an informant to bring him information he hadn't sought out in the first place.
Heck, I don’t have anything better to do, do I?
The impression Kevin had gotten off of Newton before was that he wanted to give him a few higher-level executives, maybe even think Kevin was going to eliminate them. The exec was certainly a mouse in training to become a rat.
Kevin waited, back to a wall at the middle of the block. Newton came up and burst out, “The biotech labs are working on a project. You’ll need to move quickly, because otherwise they’re going to get promoted above me. They…”
At that moment, Newton’s head exploded.
Kevin, who was far too used to this by now, barely blinked. He merely looked up, and there was Kyle Elsen, up on a rooftop, withdrawing and collapsing his rifle. Kyle, damn it, couldn’t you have waited until he was walking away from me, and I had gotten everythi
ng from him? In any event, I at least have something. Omega biotech division.
He threw a brief glare to Kyle, and then started running for Omega.
*
Kyle Elsen started to pack up his rifle as though Mandy wasn't even there, threatening him with a gun. Though, to her credit, she had already slipped away the gun, but she held onto the grenade—she was optimistic, not stupid. “For the record, if you kill Anderson, I'll find you, kill everyone you ever talked to, and then maybe I'll get around to killing you. Got that?”
Kyle glanced up from his gun, arched a brow, and then went back to his rifle. “I have no interest in killing Mr. Anderson. He … helps me.”
Mandy blinked, then shrugged. “Sounds like him.”
Kyle nodded slightly. “And what of you? What is your interest?”
Mandy smiled as she stepped backwards towards the edge of the roof. “I'm someone who wants to keep him alive.” She got to the edge, nodded, and said, “Ciao,” before she back-flipped over the edge—the bungee cord around her waist all that kept her from being a smear on the pavement.
Kyle blinked, shook his head, and continued packing up his rifle. Had San Francisco gotten stranger since he quit drinking, or had he been too drunk to notice?
*
Omega’s biotech division wasn’t heavily guarded for several simple reasons. One, they didn't have a large sign advertising what the place was, and two, it looked like the average office building. Most of the stuff they had wasn’t worth guarding, and nothing worth stealing could be stolen—biohazard level 5 diseases. Biohazard level 4, diseases like Ebola, apparently weren’t good enough for them.
Kevin Anderson approached the corner building without hurrying, just a passerby on a casual stroll. As he passed, he spotted two security guards out front, three cameras to monitor the doors, and several biometric devices to make certain no one would get past the front door.
Kevin turned the corner, stepped into an alley next to the building, and then screamed, long and loud, as if in pain. The two security guards charged toward the corner to come to his aid. Kevin didn’t expect the first guard to literally run into his elbow strike as he came around the corner, so the spy inadvertently crushed his throat. As the man was busy trying to breathe, his partner finally caught up, coming around the corner and crashing into him.
Kevin spun out of the way as they fell. Before the second guard could recover, Kevin stomped on his kidneys a few times. A quick grab and grapple later, the guard was against the wall, wrist against his back, pressing high against his spine.
Kevin slipped a fountain pen out of his pocket and pressed it behind the man’s left ear, whispering, “Tell me which of you the biometrics are programmed to ID, or I start cutting pieces off you and play Mr. Potato Head until something works.”
Thankfully, the idiot didn’t know the difference between the sharp point of a pen and a knife. “Both of us.”
Kevin dropped him, and checked the partner. He was dead. Lucky man.
Ten minutes later, Kevin came back from around the corner wearing an Omega security officer’s uniform and cap. The cap prevented the cameras not only from seeing his face, but also from seeing him press the guard’s eyeball to the iris scanner. All that could be seen on the camera was his back as he pressed a severed hand against the palm reader.
He walked through the building and discovered why there was so little security outside. The inside was wired to the hilt. Laser tripwires, motion detectors, everything Kevin had read about in spy school. Thankfully the hat prevented any of the facial recognition programs from spotting him, and there was a beacon sewn into the collar of the uniform. The electronic signal from the beacon made him invisible to the building’s electronic surveillance.
He walked right up to the main offices without a problem....
But when he opened the door, then there was a problem.
Six execs were there, with five security guards around them in defensive positions.
*
Mac shut off his terminal, and burst out laughing. It was a few moments before he finally fell out of his chair, clutching at his sides. He was laughing so hard it was starting to hurt, but this was worth the discomfort.
“Mic!” he called out, “Get Kyle! I might actually be able to get a laugh out of him!”
About five minutes later, Kyle walked through the office door, his eyes flat as he closed it behind him. Mac was again chuckling softly. He motioned Kyle to a seat, but the assassin remained standing.
“You wanted to speak to me.”
Mac nodded, the chuckle growing a little louder. “You’re never going to believe this one. We’ve found out who tried to kill you…” Mac giggled. “Want to know why he did it? He did it…” the giggle was becoming louder, growing into a full laugh once again. “…because he was…” a hand went around his ribs. “…Trying to get his boss’s girlfriend in the sack!” With that, he fell out of his chair, whooping with laughter.
Instead of waiting for Mac to recover from his own sense of the absurd, Kyle stepped forward, glancing at the computer screen on the desk. The situation needed to be dealt with, and waiting for Mac to recover would have been a waste of time.
The man’s name was Walter Dunn, middle management for Wal-Tech, and in the same post for more than fifteen years. Dunn had slowly been taking cash from company accounts and had managed to keep the accountants from finding out. If Dunn had that much ability, he might have even been able to blow up the monitor with an overload triggered by a computer virus.
Mac picked himself up off the floor, still chuckling as he dusted himself off. “All right, Mister Murderer. You have anything you want me to do, or am I done?”
Kyle nodded. “Hack his accounts. Transfer the rest of my fee for the kill into the proper account. Whatever’s left over, you can keep for you and your sisters.”
Mac nodded, smiling—considering those amounts, there would be enough there to pay for the Ground Zero’s monthly supplies, maybe more.
Kyle tapped Mac on the shoulder, breaking him out of his reverie. “Get it done. Now.” He turned for the office door, clearly intent on leaving the bar. His fists were clenched—he was ready to go back to work.
*
One of the Omega Biotech execs looked up and glared at Kevin Anderson in his security uniform. “What took you? We wanted extra security an hour ago. You’re it? Fine, we’ll take what we can get. I guess they couldn’t find any other guards without family in the city.”
Kevin blinked, making sure to look as confused and clueless as he felt. “Sir?”
The executive sighed, the bullied and harassed paper pusher. “You have no family in the city, correct?”
From the way the others looked at Kevin, if he had family, he would have been shot. “Of course not, sir.”
He nodded. “Good. We don’t have room on the plane for another family.”
Another family? Wow... This doesn’t sound good.
The exec was an older gentleman, and on his desk only one lone frame with what looked like a picture of a wife and two children. “The plan is simple,” he continued, “everyone on this mission will be paid ten thousand dollars, and a free pass to civilization on the East Coast. No questions will be asked on the other end.” He smiled. “They'll allow anyone over, even with a questionable past.”
Kevin blinked. Civilization? Home? No questions asked? It wouldn’t be hard for any one of my old superiors to believe that I had joined a Corporation’s security forces. And if they have that much pull, they might be able to camouflage my existence entirely. Kevin’s smile was big and broad and genuine. “That is so, so great!”
He nodded. “Good. The plane takes off in an hour. We will be in Washington in six hours. The bio-agent will be dropped during takeoff.”
Another blink, but Kevin said nothing, smile frozen on his face. There had to be a catch, didn't there?
Kevin fell into line as the other guards moved to grab a biohazard chest. From what little I rememb
er from WMD School back in Virginia, a small phial of a strong bio-weapon could take out a small town. But a whole chest? It explains why Omega has a branch in San Francisco. If a bio-weapon got out, and the whole population died, who would notice?
Think, Kevin, think. Omega buys a lot of wasteland not worth developing... because of San Francisco. Insanity here is a disease, and should the rest of civilization touch the mouth of hell, it would spread like a plague...But what if San Francisco were no longer a problem?
Omega deals in two things—biohazard cleansing and terra-forming. Hell, after Israel had taken over the Middle East, Omega helped make the desert bloom, a green and fertile place from Morocco to Pakistan, from the Sudan to Turkey...and now from San Francisco to Chicago?
If I could pretty up and sell over a thousand miles of beachfront property at whatever price I wanted, to people who would have no choice but to pay for it … if I owned five thousand square miles of freshly terra-formed land that could be molded and shaped to whatever their hearts desired—for a price … I could charge whatever I wanted to whomever I wanted …
I would make a killing.
All I'd need to do was eliminate one little obstacle: remove the survivors of San Francisco. After all, they're officially dead; I'm just correcting a clerical error.
Kevin walked to the armored SUVs with the rest of the guards and the execs. They would ride all the way to the airplane.
Kevin smiled at the thought. Just think about it, though, I can be home in no time … half a day. No one could touch me due to the Omega goon squad. No one could tell them I was not a member of their security force, since this branch would have been totally annihilated. I can see Henry. I can let mom and dad know I'm not dead. I could see Mandy. I can go home...
It was all Kevin could do not to start crying in front of the other guards. At last, there was a possibility that this nightmare would be over in hours. Left to his own devices, Kevin would only leave with the next political changeover in the White House … if then.
Codename: Winterborn (The Last Survivors Book 1) Page 29