Flee, Spree, Three (Codename: Chandler Trilogy - Three Complete Novels)

by J. A. Konrath

  “What do you know about the area?” he asked.

  “Just that it was an old ammo production facility.”

  “It’s about two hundred miles northwest of here,” Tequila said. “It encompasses roughly thirty square kilometers, which equals about seventy-four hundred acres total. When it was built in 1942, it was the largest ammunition propellant plant in the world. At its peak, it employed over twelve thousand workers making smokeless powder, acid, oleum, rocket propellant, and mortar. The military ceased production after the Vietnam War and closed it down in 1997. Since then various companies have been dismantling, demolishing, and basically cleaning up the facility.”

  So he’d done a bit of research before taking the job. That’s probably what took him so long.

  “I’d guess the best point of entry is from the north, through Devil’s Lake State Park. There’s a perimeter fence, and no doubt cameras. Depending on where the prison is located in the facility, and depending on what kind of shape your sister is in when we get her, we may need to bring a vehicle.”

  “My sister is in a wheelchair. She doesn’t have the use of her legs.”

  Tequila went silent. We merged onto the expressway. I yawned, needing sleep even though I’d only been awake for a few hours and was still buzzing from the stimulants. I was physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. When I told Tequila I’d had a tough few days, it had been the understatement of the century.

  I sat back and closed my eyes, thinking about Fleming, about the horrors she was no doubt enduring. Then I thought about my other sister. Hammett.

  Hammett, Fleming, and I had once been a part of a secret government experiment to create a team of assassins indistinguishable from one another. Along with our four other sisters, now deceased, we’d each gone through training to be the best of the best, not knowing the others existed. Unfortunately, Hammett went rogue, which led to Fleming and me being disowned by our government. Now, like Hammett, we were enemies of the state.

  I needed to tell Tequila about Hammett, because she was a wild card. Though she certainly wasn’t working for the NIC, she still had an agenda that could interfere with mine. Worse, she potentially had a way of tracking me and Fleming. We each had GPS transmitter chips sewn into our bellies. Anyone with the right software and the right code could locate any of us to within a square meter.

  “You trust me enough to sleep?” Tequila said.

  “I’m not asleep.” I looked at him. “And I don’t trust anyone.”

  “Even your sister?”

  “Her I trust.”

  “Then you trust one more person than I do.”

  “What about Jack? Do you trust her?”

  Tequila shrugged. “I like her. She keeps her word. But she’s impossible to trust.”

  “Because she has morals,” I said, recalling my earlier conversation with her in the stairwell.

  He gave a slight nod. “She is hampered by her ideas of right and wrong.”

  “Maybe she’s onto something. Maybe if more people had morals, there wouldn’t be a need for people like us.”

  Tequila gave me another sideways glance, but this one wasn’t condescending. “The reason people like us exist is because there are morals. Those in power wish to enforce their idea of morality on others.”

  A cynical way to look at life, but I couldn’t disagree with him. I had limits. Lines I wouldn’t cross. Naturally I felt that if all people had the same limitations, we’d all get along better. But that wasn’t the answer. Wealth, property, religion, politics—they were all ways to gain and display power, and power at its essence was the desire to control people, to coerce them or force them into agreeing with you.

  “So that’s your philosophy?” I asked.

  “I don’t have a philosophy. I’m just a thug who hurts and kills people for money.”

  “Are there jobs you won’t take?”

  “No.”

  “You’d hurt women? Children?”

  “If I don’t do it, someone else will.”

  “So you really have no morality.”

  Tequila shrugged. “Moral absolutism is bullshit. There are always shades of gray. If you say you’re moral, you either have to live your entire life without ever hurting anyone or anything, or you’re a hypocrite. At least my way is honest.”

  Hammett also had zero morality. But I couldn’t make the argument that her way was the better way to live. Did that mean I was being dishonest with myself? I’d turned down assignments before, but there was always someone else to send instead, and the person I refused to kill wound up just as dead as if I’d done it.

  Imposed morality.

  Was that the fate of humanity? Either allow people to control others, or pure anarchy?

  “We’re not the good guys,” I said.

  The barest of smiles crossed Tequila’s lips. “Of course we are. We’re all the heroes in the movies of our lives. We can all justify everything we do. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to get to sleep at night.”

  I slumped down in my seat, closing my eyes. I wanted to prove him wrong. To go to sleep, with a clear conscience.

  But sleep wouldn’t come.

  I opened my eyes about an hour later, when I felt the truck start to slow down. We were coasting into a rest area.

  “Pit stop?” I asked.

  “Meeting our supplier. Do you have some money in that gym bag?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Easier to pay him than to kill him.”

  I had no idea if Tequila was kidding or not, and I didn’t want to know.

  He pulled into the semi lane rather than the car lane, and drove toward the tree line. Parked by itself was a black Corvette. And standing next to it…

  “That’s our supplier?”

  “Jack recommended him. Said he has everything.”

  I frowned. “Don’t kill him, no matter how rude he is,” I said.

  “That’s what Jack texted me.”

  I picked up my gym bag and followed Tequila out of the truck.

  “Hiya, hottie,” said Harry McGlade. “And which one of the dwarves is this?”

  Tequila’s eyes bored into him.

  “Ahh,” Harry said. “You must be Grumpy. I managed to find everything you needed, along with a few extras that you should find helpful.”

  I sniffed the air, smelling cocoa. It seemed to be coming from McGlade, and something about it was off.

  “Did you just eat chocolate?” I asked.

  “Nope. That’s my Axe body spray. Dark Temptation. Does it make you want to lick me all over?”

  “No. It’s making me nauseous.”

  “There’s also a deodorant,” he said, lifting his arm. “Smell.”

  I made a face. “That’s supposed to attract women?”

  “It should. It’s almost five bucks a can.” He swatted several flies that were buzzing around him.

  “You’re attracting something, all right. Where’s the stuff?”

  “It’s in the backseat.”

  “How much?” I asked.

  McGlade held up a pudgy hand. “First of all, ‘Thanks, Harry, for driving to Wisconsin and helping me out.’”

  I managed to say, “Thanks, Harry,” without chewing off the insides of my cheeks. “How much?”

  “Free,” he said. “As long as you bring it back. You break it, you bought it.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Why so generous?”

  “Remember those box seats to the Bulls game? When you spring your sister, you two owe me a date.”

  I folded my arms across my chest. “That’s what you want? Really?”

  “I won’t make sex mandatory, but I won’t discourage it. In fact, once I rev up the seduction machine, you and your sis will probably start wrestling over who gets first crack at me.”

  Ugh. “I’d rather pay you.”

  “There’s also that other option we discussed,” Tequila offered.

  “That’s the deal, babe. Take it or leave it.”


  I sighed. “I’ll take it.”

  “Seal it with a bump and grind?” McGlade gyrated his hips in a manner that made me unhappy.

  “How about a handshake?”

  We shook, and I realized for the first time that his hand wasn’t real. It was a very detailed prosthesis. And, incredibly, it began to vibrate when I held it.

  “Just had that installed,” he said, winking.

  Ugh.

  Tequila removed a large duffel bag from Harry’s backseat and set it on the trunk of the Corvette hard enough to bounce the shocks.

  “Ouch! Watch the paint job, Brainy Smurf! I just got this car!”

  Tequila stared at him again, in a way I wouldn’t want to be stared at. “You talk a lot.”

  McGlade scanned the parking lot, looking over Tequila’s head. “Who said that?”

  I put my hand on Tequila’s shoulder, figuring he was going to snap the private eye in two. But instead he surprised me by smiling.

  “You are completely without morals, aren’t you?” Tequila asked.

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing,” McGlade said, smiling back.

  Tequila glanced at me, not smug or cocky, just certain. Then he unzipped the duffel bag, and McGlade spent a minute describing all the goodies. And there were a lot of goodies.

  Which put me on the spot. I did NOT want to sleep with this guy. Maybe after we saved Fleming, she could take one for the team. She seemed to be much more liberated than I was when it came to men. Though I was beginning to understand the hypocrisy and inherent evil in imposed morality, a large part of me did want to impose some of my morals on Harry McGlade. Either that or let Tequila kill him.

  When we finished, Tequila shouldered the bag, and McGlade stuck out his hand. His real one.

  “I’m Harry McGlade, by the way.”

  “Tequila.”

  They shook, and it seemed friendly enough.

  “Bring her back for me, Tequila. She owes me a date.”

  He winked at me again, slapped Tequila on the shoulder like they were best buds, and then climbed back into his Corvette.

  When we got back in the truck, Tequila said, “So are you gonna—”

  “I don’t want to discuss it.”

  “With that guy?”

  “This topic is closed.”

  “Apparently you don’t refuse any jobs either.”

  That was the last we spoke to each other until we reached Baraboo.

  Hammett

  “The enemy of your enemy can be your friend,” the Instructor said. “Or they can be one more enemy.”

  Hammett’s boss had booked the conference room at Crazy Clown’s Motel and Waterpark in the tacky midwestern tourist trap known as the Wisconsin Dells.

  Coulrophobia. Fear of clowns. And why not? Clowns were just plain creepy.

  On the positive side, it was as inconspicuous a location as imaginable. And it being the off-season, it was incredibly cheap. Hammett hadn’t stayed in a fifty-nine-dollar-a-night room since, well, ever.

  On the minus side, the hotel was crawling with children and water-based attractions, both of which she hated. Training at Hydra involved being repeatedly drowned, and like Chandler, Hammett hadn’t ever fully recovered from it. Being in a cheap motel, surrounded by indoor waterslides and pools and the ever-present stench of chlorine, made her foul mood even fouler.

  As for children, seeing them reminded Hammett of herself as a child, and she didn’t like to go there.

  The conference room, like the entire facility, was tacky, cheap, and falling apart. Plastic drapes with a palm-tree pattern. Threadbare carpet. A Formica conference table with some chips in it, revealing the particleboard beneath. Colored linoleum chairs with splits in the cushions and flimsy aluminum legs. Hammett had requested some pitchers of water, and they’d brought clear plastic carafes and matching plastic cups, opaque from years of dishwasher abuse, lukewarm and without ice.

  If she hadn’t been working, Hammett would have hunted down and sanctioned the motel’s managers and owners, on her own dime, just to show her displeasure. But she was there to interview possible members of an assault squad, and had no time to pursue her baser needs.

  Her boss had set up the potential candidates. The talent pool was limited to who was available and in the immediate area, and Hammett hoped to make it quick so she could leave this terrible excuse for lodging. She’d find someplace else to sleep tonight after the op, even if it meant breaking into a nice home and killing the homeowners. There was no way in hell she’d stay at the Crazy Clown, which had balloons painted on the dresser and a mattress the width of a pizza box, no doubt resplendent with dubious stains and bedbugs.

  While she waited for the candidates to arrive, Hammett logged in to her tablet PC and checked up on her sisters. As expected, the GPS blip on the screen indicating Fleming was in Baraboo, at the black site hidden beneath the defunct Badger Ammo factory. Chandler’s blip was heading north from Chicago, no doubt going after Fleming.

  Hammett had a score—a big score—to settle with Chandler. But Fleming was the mission, so that bit of vengeance would have to wait. As her mind conjured up deliciously awful scenarios where Chandler begged for mercy and Hammett refused, she reviewed the encrypted CVs of the men who were attending the meeting. Standard freelance grunts, none of them really standing out except for a South American who did some stuff that Hammett had to reread three times to make sure she truly grasped its depraved depths.

  Hammett heard the approach of footsteps from the outside hall. The first to arrive was a white guy, early thirties, who opened the conference room door a crack and poked his unshaven face through. He had wide eyes and an expression somewhere between amused and alarmed.

  “I’m Jersey,” he said.

  There was no one named Jersey on Hammett’s list. She crossed her legs, her ankle sheath within reach.

  “Who are you looking for?”

  “Oh. Uh, looking for Carl. Carl Phillip Thompson.”

  Hammett exercised her incredible self-control by not sighing in mental anguish. “Phillip?”

  “Phillip? Oh, shit. The F sound messed me up. Fred. Carl Fred Thompson.”

  Charlie Tango Foxtrot. So this moron was here to audition. That was the problem with short-notice calls.

  “You said your name was Jersey?”

  “Name’s Ned. Ned Fracktel. People call me Jersey.”

  Fracktel was on the list. Explosives expert. Supposedly one of the best. Hammett cast a casual glance at his fingers, and he was only missing one. A good sign.

  “Come in. Have a seat.”

  “Is there coffee?”

  “Just water.”

  The man walked in, obviously shaky. He needed coffee like a dude with dysentery needed an enema.

  “You’re from Jersey?” she asked.

  “No. Omaha.”

  “Ever lived in Jersey?”

  “Naw.”

  “Own a lot of sports jerseys, Ned?” Hammett was determined to find out how he got his nickname.

  “No. When I was twelve I blew up a cow with some dynamite. Jersey cow. Lucky break. I almost did a Nigerian dwarf goat. Hate to be called that as a nickname. Doesn’t really roll off the tongue, you know? Doesn’t really fit me, either.”

  “Did you bring your equipment with you?”

  “Brought some. Can access more, depending on the job. What’s the job?”

  “I’ll explain it when the others arrive. You’ve done break-in work?”

  “Lots. Metal. Rock. Even reinforced shit. Not as much fun as wetwork. I like the squishy stuff. Blood is pink when it vaporizes, like a party balloon. You think we could call for some coffee?”

  “No.”

  Hammett spent three minutes listening to Jersey drum his fingers on the Formica, growing more and more annoyed. By the fourth minute, she was imagining creative ways to kill him, beginning with cutting off his remaining nine fingers and making him swallow each one, without coffee.

  The door to th
e conference room opened abruptly, and Hammett hadn’t heard the approach. Two men stood there, neither centered in the doorway. The one on the left was tall, dark black, almost movie-star handsome, sporting canvas khakis, matching tan Colorado boots, and a loose-fitting black sweater, bulky enough to be concealing all sorts of weaponry beneath it. He looked every inch a military badass, including the intense stare lacking any spark of empathy. On his right, in a tailored sharkskin suit, was a brown-skinned Latino. Also attractive, trim, his jacket cut for a shoulder carry, same empty eyes, his ice blue.

  “I came for tea,” he said, the slightest Mexican accent. He gave a slight head point to his partner. “That’s Casper from Texas.”

  Hammett took a quick glance at her list, then brought her focus back to the men. She had a good guess as to who these two were.

  The black man, a former Force Recon Marine named Isaiah Brown, frowned slightly. “Casper? Should I call you a beaner?”

  The Mexican was Javier Estrada, a freelancer who worked with the Alphas, a badass paramilitary team who protected the major drug cartels. He shrugged. “Sticks and stones, brother.”

  “I get it,” Jersey said, pointing and nodding. “A spook and a spic.”

  The guns that appeared in the duo’s hands were drawn and aimed at Jersey so fast that Hammett felt immediately aroused.

  “I’m Jersey,” the explosives guy said, raising his hands. “No offense meant, guys. Poor white trash, grew up ignorant, never learned about diversity. Shooting me would be a waste of lead.”

  Neither man’s gun hand wavered. These were serious bad boys. And Hammett liked bad boys.

  “Tuck in and zip up, gentlemen,” she said, “there are kids and clowns all over this shitty hotel. Sit.”

  Isaiah shrugged, tucking his Colt 1911 back into his pants. Javier cracked his neck to the side like Pacino in Scarface, then holstered his Glock 36 slimline under his left armpit, the jacket fabric draping smoothly over it. They sat on opposite ends of the table, both away from Jersey.

  “You’ve worked together before?” Hammett asked. Their curriculum vitae showed they each had ample experience, but didn’t mention them as known associates.

  “Met a few years back at a gun show,” Isaiah said, “then again in the lobby a few minutes ago.”