“What room is he in?” asked Luther.
“He up on the second floor, first door. Don’t nobody live in the place, man. It used to be a rock house, but—”
Luther didn’t need to hear the rest of the statement. He punched Gray Shirt in the ribs, knocking the air out of him. Then he slammed his forearm into his jaw, and the man dropped to the ground. Luther took the bullets from their guns and tossed them, and then he tossed the guns into the sewer grate at the curb.
“And no one’s dead,” Luther said to Hampton. “See how nice I can be?”
“Excellent,” said Hampton. “I can’t wait to find out Kraemer’s situation.”
Luther entered the building. The odor of decay and urine assaulted him. Dried blood and gang signs covered the wall of the stairwell he ascended. His mind was filling with memories of his life on the streets of Detroit. He’d been in many places like this. He’d watched them turn from homes filled with love and hope to abandoned shells, haunted by the ghosts of destroyed lives.
Luther got to the landing and approached the first door. He had to act quickly. This was looking more and more like some kind of setup.
Luther kicked in the flimsy door and entered with his P99 in hand. Kraemer turned and was startled, dropping his beer to the floor. He got up from the chair he’d been sitting in.
“About time,” said Kraemer.
“Don’t speak unless I ask you a question,” said Luther.
Kraemer said nothing. Luther looked around for a second, then back to Kraemer.
“I’m only going to ask you once,” said Luther. “Who sent you here?”
“A man named Luther Green,” said Kraemer.
Luther almost lowered his gun. Alex. He knew. Somehow he knew that Luther would be sent after him.
“And why did he send you here?”
“He said you’d know. Said you two worked together for Immigration and were on the trail of some bad men. I didn’t believe him at first. I mean, he looked like hell; his face was all mangled. He said he got that in Desert Storm. I was in the service, too, the marines.”
“What else did he say to you?” asked Luther, and now he almost wanted to laugh at the use of his name. Alex had not completely lost his mind. He still had a sense of irony.
“He gave me a lot of money and told me to keep coming here until a black man showed up asking questions,” said Kraemer. “You’re here, so I’m out.”
Luther read the man. He was scared of what he was doing, yet he seemed a little relieved to see Luther.
“Why here?” Luther asked, almost to himself.
“Said you’d know that, too. Look, I did what he asked. Can I go now? I hate this place, and them guys outside are gonna jack me sooner or later, I just know it.”
“How long was he here?” asked Luther.
“A few days. Luther found this place. Look, I thought he was some kind of stowaway, but he had government ID, and he said he was working on something big. I don’t want no trouble, you know? I was trying to help my country.”
“Think carefully,” said Luther. “Did he say anything else, anything at all?”
“No, but he did make me take him down to Veterans’ Hall one day. He went in empty-handed and came out the same way, but he seemed to be different when he came out.”
“Different how?”
“I dunno. Happy, pleased about something. And I didn’t ask him nothing. The man didn’t like questions, and I ain’t stupid.”
Luther lowered his weapon and told Kraemer to go, thanking him on behalf of Immigration. He also told him to wake up the two men outside, tell them that the cops would be here shortly, and to leave if they knew what was good for them.
Kraemer ran out, and Luther inspected the room. When he heard Kraemer’s car pull off, he went down and checked the street. They were all gone.
“Now what?” asked Hampton, who had heard everything.
“I check the room,” said Luther. “Then we go to Veterans’ Hall tomorrow.”
Luther went back to the room and found a few answers to his many questions.
“Why did he use your name?” asked Hampton.
“To prove that he knew E-1 was on the case and had figured out his deception. Why he felt so sure I would be sent, I don’t know.”
“Well, I know why the wolf chose East Baltimore. The government’s informational power is great, but only in large metropolitan areas or in places of affluence. It’s weakened in the areas of American life we care the least about.”
“The ghetto is a no-man’s-land to the government. Alex taught me that at E-1.”
Luther looked all over the small space again. There was only the bed and a little nightstand, so there was really nowhere to hide anything.
Luther swept the room three times but found nothing. He was about to leave when he stopped and laughed at himself, looking up at the ceiling. An old ball-shaped light fixture threw a sick yellowish illumination into the room. He saw something in the bulb. It was dark, and it looked like a sliver of fallen plaster.
“Got something,” said Luther.
He stepped up on the chair and unscrewed the light fixture. Inside, he found a four-megabyte Sony memory stick, the kind used in digital recorders.
“It’s a memory stick,” said Luther.
“A message?” asked Hampton.
“Presumably.”
From outside, Luther heard a car roar up, burning rubber. Taking a quick glance out the window, he saw the men he’d put down get out of a GMC truck with three other men.
“My friends are back,” he said.
“Get the hell out of there,” said Hampton.
Luther pocketed the memory stick and then moved out. There were too many of them for him to avoid casualties, he thought. He heard them coming up the front stairs and headed toward the back. As he made it to the rear, he could hear them going into the room he’d just come out of.
Luther pulled his gun and moved toward the rear door. He would run back to his truck and be gone before they knew anything.
But as he moved into the backyard, Luther felt a hand grab his gun hand. He turned just in time to catch the thick end of a baseball bat in his other hand. It was the big man Luther had put down earlier. They struggled with each other as Luther saw behind the big man a new one, a dark man with dreadlocks—holding a long machete.
“Move!” said the man with the machete. He voice was rich with a Caribbean accent, and he was trying to chop Luther with the large blade.
Luther kept the big man between him and the machete as they struggled. The big man shifted his weight onto Luther and forced Luther to let go of his gun to keep his balance. Luther dropped it into some thick weeds. He lifted his knee into the big man’s groin, and the man let go of the bat. Luther gave the big man an elbow to the side of the head, sending him stumbling to one side.
The dreadlocked man quickly advanced with the blade, but suddenly two loud pops sounded behind Luther, and the man was hit in the chest. Luther turned to see Hampton, with a gun, out in front.
Luther went back to the big man and finished him with a series of punches to the face, then found his gun and ran to the far end of the yard where Hampton was waiting.
“Thought you needed help,” said Hampton.
“I had it under control,” said Luther.
Right then a shot rang out, just missing them. They looked up and saw a man holding a gun leaning from a window on the second floor. Luther and Hampton swiftly moved away and ran off before they got another bead drawn on them.
They moved as fast as they could back to the Ford, got in, and drove away.
Silence permeated the car for a while. Luther was clearly upset. Hampton looked a little shaken but seemed basically calm.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Luther. “Why did you do that?”
“I could hear the struggle. It didn’t sound like it was going good. I made a judgment.”
“If I needed help, I would’v
e asked for it,” said Luther. He was upset, but Hampton might just have saved his life. “Nice shot,” Luther conceded, smiling. “That a new gun?”
“Baby Eagle, nine-millimeter,” said Hampton. “I wanted something with more punch. I modified it with a little computerized balancer that steadies it. I was third in my marksmanship class, you know.”
“The guy who just got shot sure knows.”
“You think he’s dead?” asked Hampton. There was a note of concern in his voice.
“Maybe,” said Luther. “You hit him high, though, and he was a big fella, so it could go either way.”
Hampton only nodded. He seemed just a little rattled by what could have been his first kill. “So let’s hear that recording,” he said to change the subject.
Luther drove to a side street some miles away, and Hampton opened his laptop and placed the memory stick inside. Alex Deavers’s voice sounded on the tiny speakers. It was familiar to Luther but had a rough, scratchy edge to it now.
“I assume that your orders are to eliminate me,” he began. “I’d expect as much from Kilmer. In a way it’s a sign of respect. I’ve already died once, so it won’t really matter.” There was a brief silence and then: “I could tell you why I’m doing this, but I’m sure this recording will find its way to E-1, and I don’t want them to know how much I know. The agency tried to eliminate me, and now that they’ve failed, it’s fallen to you. I’d ask you to turn back, but I know you won’t. It’s too late anyway. Your life is now probably worth about as much as mine.” More silence. Then: “If I were you, I’d kill my TWA,” he said casually. “More than likely he cannot be trusted.”
Luther resisted the urge to look at Hampton. He felt Hampton stiffen beside him.
“My mission is paramount to all others,” said Alex on the recording. “So if you persist, I will kill you.”
The recording ended. Luther played it again, this time trying to see whether there were any nuances he’d missed. There were none. Alex sounded cold and determined, just the way Luther felt on the inside.
“He’s insane,” said Hampton.
“Because he wants you dead?” asked Luther. He smiled at Hampton.
“Not remotely funny,” said Hampton. “He wants to kill us both. And it’s standard procedure to try to turn members of a team against each other.”
“He referred to E-1 as ‘them,’” said Luther. “Does that mean he’s allied with our enemies?”
“Possibly,” said Hampton. “We have to get that recording to E-1 for analysis. I’m sure I heard background noises that can be pulled up. Maybe we can figure out where he made it.”
“I wouldn’t get my hopes too high,” said Luther.
Hampton dialed in to E-1 to transmit a digital copy of the recording.
Luther watched his partner and tried to get his head back into the mission, but the confidence with which his prey had called for the death of Hampton echoed persistently in his mind.
Encounter
Alex Deavers’s body flew out of the transport. For a moment he felt powerful, as if he’d lift into the air and keep flying forever. Then something slammed into his body. Wind exploded from his lungs, and he heard the distant sound of his own voice.
When at last he descended, he fell through thick bush, which slowed his body and finally deposited him on his back.
He was motionless for a moment. And then he felt something. His hand. There was something moving inside it. He glanced over and saw he was still gripping the secretary’s briefcase.
In the distance he heard yelling and gunshots. Gorman was disposing of the others who were not yet dead. When they didn’t find him, they’d come looking.
Slowly Alex moved. Then he stood and was hit with a wave of pain that sent him back down. He dropped the briefcase. The left side of his body was burning. His left arm was fractured and his left leg was sprained badly, but he was alive, or at least he thought he was.
He heard the bushes rustle. They were coming, he thought. Gorman and whoever was with him were coming to find and kill him.
Alex grabbed the case and got to his feet. He fought off the dizziness, then walked as fast as he could through the dense cover. He struggled with a sickness he felt rumbling in his belly.
He felt his foot hit the ground, and it gave way a little. He’d stepped on the side of a small hill. He bent down and saw two holes in the side of the hill, partially obscured by some tall grass.
The men were moving closer.
Alex quickly ran to the other side of the hill. He got on his knees and felt around the front of the mound. He found a flap of earth and grass. It looked natural but did not feel that way. He pulled on it, and a door opened up. It was a military field bunker. The soldiers dug them, mapped them, and used them to hide away from enemies.
Alex crawled inside and went to the other end, where the holes were. He waited. Soon men moved by, looking around. He heard Gorman’s voice yelling, cursing, trying to find him.
Alex lay still. He fought the pain in his body as the men moved on. He hoped none of the locals with Gorman were military who knew about the bunker. Soon he felt dizzy again, and darkness over-took him. His last thought was that he still had the case.
These images gripped Alex Deavers as he walked along a street in South Philly. He was hurting all over. His body had been aching constantly since he’d been blown from the secretary’s plane in Africa. He was taking a variety of medications, but the pain seemed to come and go as it pleased. Then again, his sources for the medicine were not exactly the best. You could get anything on the streets, but you took your chances. He’d never been made sick by any of the bootleg meds, so all in all it was good. He’d rather the stuff not work than be laced with poison.
Alex had opened the secretary’s briefcase, and there in the jungle he had learned the awful truth. He knew what he had to do. He’d never been a religious man, but he was certain that having his life spared was some kind of divine act. He had a mission, and this time it did not come from men. He’d been saved from death to avenge a wrong and perhaps redeem his own troubled soul.
Alex had gone to a nearby village and rested and healed with the help of a local family. When he was strong enough, he went after Gorman. He covered himself as best he could, hiding his scarred face with a hooded robe and then later a surgical mask. The mask was great. People kept far away from him, fearing he had something contagious.
It wasn’t hard to track his prey. To get out of Africa and elude the government, Gorman had gone through Egypt, where there were many people who would help you for a price. There Alex had found evidence that Gorman was in Germany.
In Germany, Alex found security tight because of terrorist threats. But he was adept at slipping checkpoints, and he kept away from crowded places.
He’d found Gorman in the home of a high-class prostitute. Luckily the woman wasn’t home when Alex got there. Alex subdued Gorman and then tried to get information from him. Gorman was tough, but after having all the toes on his right foot smashed with a hammer one by one, his tongue loosened.
Gorman had been paid to kill the secretary by some men who said they worked for a Syrian national. He didn’t believe them. He thought they were fronting for someone else, but he didn’t care. Gorman was tired of his life in federal service and wanted to retire while he was still young, so he took the loot and helped hatch the plan.
Gorman didn’t have any relevant information on the men, and Alex believed him. No good agent would ever give his name or a traceable alias. But the whole thing stank of a government op, and the most damning piece of evidence Gorman gave up was that the men who’d paid him insisted that the briefcase the secretary had carried had to be destroyed, along with its contents.
Alex interrogated Gorman for a while longer, getting the number of the account where his blood money was deposited. Once Alex had verified that the funds were there and made arrangements to access them himself, he killed Gorman as slowly as he could.
Alex th
en got a local surgeon to work on his face and fix it as best he could. It was a meatball job, and he still looked as if the left side of his face had been caught in some kind of machinery, but it was better than it had been. After the surgery Alex left Germany for Britain. This trip was not an easy one. E-1 had eyes and ears all over the country, so he had to spend quite a bit of Gorman’s filthy money to swing the escape.
When he got to England, he sought out his old lover, Lisa Radcliff. He found her, and as soon as she was over the shock of his face, he told her the whole story. Lisa had always been a friend and a great agent. He desperately needed an ally, someone to help him with his grand mission. Lisa would understand, he thought. He was wrong.
She tried to talk him into turning himself in, and then she tried to force him. He should have known better. Lisa had a big heart, but she was low on cynicism and was loyal to the agency. He had to put her down. It wasn’t easy. Lisa’s skills had not diminished over the years, and she hurt him badly before he snapped her neck.
That seemed a long time ago, Alex mused. How long? Months? Weeks? He couldn’t completely remember. His mind wasn’t what it used to be, since the accident. No, since the attempted murder, he corrected. They tried to backwash me, he thought. He still had trouble believing it.
Alex now walked the nighttime streets of Philadelphia. It was dark, and he preferred to travel at night, for obvious reasons. He wore a black coat and a black fedora with a wide brim. He moved quickly, not stopping to notice or be noticed. The night was cool, and there were never many people about after sundown.
Alex headed south. He didn’t like to drive, and it was harder for anyone to keep up with him on foot. If he got stopped by the cops in a car, they might ask questions, and that would lead to fatal consequences. Besides, it was much harder to see the damage to his face in the dark while he was walking and wearing his big hat.
Two young men approached on the other side of the street. They were typical denizens of the inner city: black, loud, and brash. They looked like dealers to Alex, and that was a safe bet.
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