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

by J. A. Konrath

  I started with a shower, rinsing the salt from my sore body and the smell of gasoline from my heat-damaged hair. Heath had left a nasty bruise on the side of my head, reddish purple stretching from my hairline to under my cheekbone. Minor compared with the other damage my body had sustained over the past few days. In fact, I’d accumulated so many injuries it was sometimes hard to see where one wound left off and another began.

  I did some stretches while the water beat down on me. The biggest hurdle to overcome when trying to function while in pain was stiffness. As much as stretching hurt, it helped me retain my full range of movement, which was essential when fighting for your life.

  By the time I dressed my wounds, wrapped myself in a towel, and emerged feeling somewhat human again, the room had been transformed into a beauty salon. Also wearing a towel, Fleming sat on one of the beds, her head swathed in tan goo and covered in plastic wrap. Wisps of hair scattered around her on the orange-and-pink floral spread. Holding the scissors and comb like a pro, she snipped away at a towel-clad Hammett, cutting her hair with reckless abandon.

  Even though my jealousy seemed even pettier after losing Julie and nearly dying on the island, the sensation of being left out of the Sister Club tweaked me as it had on the road trip to Maine.

  Fleming glanced at her watch and then at me. “Can you take over here?” she asked.

  Even more awkward than being shut out was the prospect of fixing Hammett’s hair. “You’re doing a great job.”

  “I have to rinse out my color or my hair is going to fall out,” she smiled. “You were in the shower a long time.”

  I had been, partly because the warm water had felt good and partly because I’d wanted to put off dealing with Hammett as long as possible. “OK.”

  Fleming handed me the scissors and comb and then lifted herself into her chair. As she wheeled away she said, “Might as well tell her now.”

  I wanted to pretend I didn’t know what Fleming was referring to, but it would be no use. If Hammett was going to help us get Julie back and stop The Instructor, she needed to know exactly what we faced.

  But I had a question I wanted answered first. “How’d they get to Julie?”

  Hammett sighed like I was the stupidest person on the planet.

  “How’d they do it, Hammett?” I repeated. Then I thought of another approach. “How did they get to Kirk?”

  Her expression went blank. A tell. When I didn’t want someone to know what I was thinking, I did the same thing.

  “How did Kirk get shot while you were there?”

  Hammett pressed her lips into a pale line. “Staying put was a mistake.”

  I could guess where this was going. “You went out to find them instead of keeping watch from the lighthouse.”

  “You can’t play defense with people like this. You sit back and wait for them to strike, and you might as well flop onto your back and offer up your belly.”

  Even though she hadn’t followed my orders, Hammett was right. And I should have been able to see their plan. It was what I would have done, after all—deceive the enemy, use their own defenses against them, take them by surprise—but instead of keeping a clear mind, I’d been afraid. I’d hunkered down, seen what I wanted to see. And then when the strike came, I’d underestimated it, and we’d been quickly overwhelmed.

  “You know I’m right.”

  I managed a grudging nod.

  “So why did you do it?” she asked.

  “We had to protect Julie. I couldn’t afford to risk her being hurt.”

  “Shit, Chandler. You risked all of us for Julie? Why would you do something so stupid? What makes this girl so important to you?”

  I had a lot of reasons for caring about Julie, but Hammett needed to know only one. “Have you ever heard of a place called Plum Island?”

  She frowned, a crease digging between eyebrows identical to mine. “Animal Disease Center, right?”

  “That’s not all they do there.”

  “Human disease?”

  “Take that a step further.”

  The shift was subtle, a twitch of her lips, a slight dilation of her pupils. I could see her mind fitting pieces together. It was disturbingly close to looking in a mirror.

  “Biological weapons.”

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “What does that have to do with Julie?”

  I forced myself to go Zen, to keep my emotions in check. It was something that normally came easy for me, but it had gotten exponentially harder these last few days.

  “Several years ago, Julie visited a free health clinic in New York. The next thing she knew, she awoke in a lab on Plum Island.”

  “Human experimentation?” Hammett asked.

  I nodded. “They injected her with a virus, an experimental strain.”

  “Exactly what virus are we talking about, Chandler?”

  “Ebola.”

  I’d rarely seen Hammett surprised, but at that horrifying word, her eyes flared.

  Then she shook her head. “But Julie’s still alive.”

  Hammett was catching on. Most people didn’t survive Ebola. The virus attacked the human body on a cellular level, liquefying tissue, turning internal organs into a bloody virus soup. Normal strains killed in days, and there was no cure. The strain I was talking about only took hours.

  I’d seen it up close and personal.

  It had been devastating.

  “Julie has a unique combination of antibodies,” I explained. “That’s why they picked her. She’s immune to Ebola.”

  “So now she’s a carrier.”

  “Yes.”

  “The Typhoid Mary of Ebola,” Hammett said. “Holy shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So we weren’t the target. She was. And you let The Instructor take her. You unbelievable dumbass.”

  I sat in the spot Fleming vacated. A heavy ache centered in my chest, and I worried if I thought about Julie too much, I might even start to cry. I needed to focus not on what had happened to her, or even what was happening now, but on getting her back, making her safe once again.

  “And you keep blaming me for them showing up,” Hammett continued. “You’re the one who led them there. That’s why they went in with tear gas. To take her alive. They were probably surprised to see us.”

  I didn’t respond. Comb in one hand, scissors in the other, I started to snip. Cosmetology school hadn’t been part of our training, but I’d taken courses in my free time. Maybe Hammett and Fleming had, too. In our line of work, it never hurt to know how to change your appearance.

  “Don’t you think you should have told me this earlier, Fearless Leader?”

  “I didn’t trust you. I still don’t.”

  “And because you didn’t, you let The Instructor snatch a biological weapon from under our nose.”

  I wanted to say that Julie wasn’t a weapon. She was a person. But, yet again, Hammett was right. If I’d emphasized Julie’s importance earlier, Hammett would have stayed close.

  I had thought they were after us, and I’d been wrong. And now I’d endangered not only Julie, but the entire world.

  “I blew it,” I said softly.

  “No shit. You are the Queen of All Fuckups.”

  I compartmentalized my feelings, shoving them away, and snipped away in silence, trying to lose myself in the mundane task.

  “Careful there, dumbass. If the world is ending because of you, I at least want my hair to look good.”

  I didn’t reply.

  After giving Hammett an uneven, punkish cut, I slathered on the platinum-blonde dye, getting ready for the pink and purple highlights we’d apply later. We were both silent as I worked, and I was grateful Hammett didn’t prod for further information about Julie.

  Since my hair was now a blond pixie, I was going to go very dark, and once Hammett’s color was on, she applied mine. Fleming was shooting for a specific look, and when she emerged from the shower with light-blond hair that matched the clip-in extensi
ons we’d purchased, it seemed like we might be on our way.

  “You two have your chat?” Fleming asked.

  “Yes,” Hammett answered. “There’s one thing that makes no sense.”

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  I expected another insult. But instead, Hammett said, “The Instructor’s detachment, they were wearing gas masks, but not any kind of hazmat gear. A unit with that much training isn’t easily expendable, not even for The Instructor. Why would he risk them getting sick?”

  I thought for a second, then winced at the obvious. “Maybe they’ve been inoculated.”

  “There’s no immunization for Ebola.”

  “There is for this strain.”

  Fleming twisted in her chair to stare at me.

  I nodded in answer to her unasked question.

  Hammett looked from me to Fleming and back again. “What did I just miss?”

  “There was a vaccine,” Fleming said. “It was developed by a medical researcher named Pembrooke.”

  “So this Pembrooke is working for The Instructor?”

  “He’s dead,” I said. “Years ago.”

  “You killed him?” Hammett asked.

  “A man named Jonathan Kirk did.”

  Hammett narrowed her eyes on me, as if sensing there was a much bigger story, and I was relieved she didn’t ask for more details, because I wasn’t about to give them. Some things were too personal to share, especially with Hammett.

  “So where’s this vaccine he developed?”

  “My blood.”

  “Wait a minute here,” Hammett said. She moved away from me and sat on the second bed. “You were infected with Ebola?”

  I gave a nod.

  “Damn,” Hammett said. “Does it affect the brain, causing overwhelming stupidity?”

  “Stop acting like a bratty kid,” Fleming told Hammett. She rolled her chair toward me. “When did they take your blood?”

  “It must have been after you fished me out of Lake Michigan, I woke in the hospital, handcuffed to the bed, an IV pumping sedatives into me. At the time, I assumed the needle marks were from the IV or something they’d given me.”

  “So The Instructor knew about Julie even then,” Fleming pointed out.

  So that settled it. Hammett couldn’t have been the one to betray our location. The tracking chip that I hadn’t known was in me had led The Instructor to Julie some time ago, either the night I’d taken her to the island or another visit after that. In addition, Julie had indeed been the target of the raid, and I had to wonder how long The Instructor had been planning whatever he was putting into motion now.

  Hammett folded her arms over her chest. “Well, I’m not going anywhere until I get that vaccine.”

  “Does the first-aid kit have an FBTK?” I asked Fleming.

  She nodded.

  Fleming reached into the compartment of her chair and rummaged for the field blood transfusion kit. After cleaning off my arm with an alcohol pad, Fleming unwrapped the needle.

  “And I thought we were going to paint each other’s toenails next,” Hammett said, baring her forearm and grinning. “This is a lot more fun.”

  Heath

  “You’ve had the best training the world can offer,” said The Instructor. “What you do with that training is your choice.”

  His codename was Heathcliff, and he set his carry-on on the conveyor belt, his shoes in a bin, and stepped through the metal detector. The TSA agent was hot, a petite blonde with pink cheeks and a mouth in the shape of a bow. Just the type of woman he wouldn’t mind having search him for weapons. Tonight, she passed over him without a flicker of interest and turned her attention to an older woman behind him who looked like she came straight out of a clean-cut family sitcom, a real terror threat.

  Just as well.

  After seeing Chandler again, this little wisp of bland would only disappoint him.

  Mmm, Chandler.

  He had hated hitting her, but at least he hadn’t been forced to take her life. And even though Scarlett had torched the island after their departure, his money said Chandler wouldn’t succumb to a bit of napalm and fire.

  Chandler was la encarnación del fuego herself…the embodiment of fire.

  Heath adjusted his eye patch. If she was someone else, he would have killed her for taking his eye. La venganza would be in his blood.

  But with Chandler, the only thing in his blood was lust.

  Besides, she might be useful.

  He collected his shoes and bag and made his way out of security. The airport of Portland, Maine, was small, and he was lucky to only have one stop at Dulles on his way to his ultimate destination. Maybe while he was in the DC area, he should stop in and say hi to The Instructor.

  He smiled, amusing himself. Of course, he had no way of knowing where The Instructor currently lived. No one did. Even his name was hidden.

  Unless it happened to be El Diablo.

  There were many devils in this life, and The Instructor was certainly one.

  Heath was lucky the plan called for him to split from the others once they had the girl. He was grateful not to have to see The Instructor right now. That man could read micro-emotions like no one he’d ever known. The Instructor would question Heath about seeing Chandler again, just to judge his reaction. The old man might even sense that Heath wasn’t being fully forthcoming.

  Heath had to be careful. The time was near. Soon the game would play out—though to Heath, this was never a game. But whatever it was called, he would win.

  All he needed was a little help.

  Years Ago…

  Her codename was Fleming, and she’d just killed a man.

  She used a corner of the sheet to wipe down the syringe and fitted it into the ambassador’s shaky hand, his thumb firmly on the plunger. His lips were already blue, his breath coming shallow and with difficulty. It wouldn’t take long now. The second dose she’d given him was more than enough to shut his system down.

  Permanently.

  She pulled back the sheet and removed the condom from his limp body. The sex had been surprisingly good this time. It was a shame the bastard used his diplomatic connections to pad his own pockets. Selling explosives to a terrorist group targeting a school filled with children made it hard to feel bad for him. She’d been with him two weeks now, gathering intel, determining exactly who he’d sold to, where his lethal merchandise had gone. And tonight she had delivered the coup de grâce. Killing was never pleasant, but justice for a man like this held a certain amount of satisfaction.

  Even if it was a shame to kill a man who was so talented in bed.

  She climbed out onto the plush rug and moved around the room. From the moment she’d entered the five-star hotel, she’d made a mental note of each item she’d touched. Now she wiped each clean: the bedside lamp, the doorknob leading into the powder room, the mirrored coffee table in the sitting area, the glossy end caps of the butter-soft leather sofa.

  She moved around the suite naked, leaving her dress on the floor of the bedroom. If the bodyguards outside entered for any reason, embarrassment at seeing the boss’s woman naked would send them back into the hall, giving her a chance to escape before they demanded to see the ambassador.

  Once she’d erased all signs of her presence in the suite, she flushed the condom and returned to the bedroom. The ambassador was no longer breathing, his skin already starting to cool. She left the bag of heroin on the nightstand, tourniquet limp around the man’s arm, the syringe resting on the sheets where it had dropped from his hand. If she was lucky, the bodyguards wouldn’t disturb him until morning, allowing him to party it up the rest of the night.

  Fleming dressed in her black bra and panties and pulled on her dress, a slinky black sheath, then gathered her strappy Jimmy Choos. She retrieved her evening bag from the chaise where she’d tossed it and moved to the bank of windows looking over the sparkling lights of Milan.

  The bag was extraordinary, sparkly silver and much more useful
than it looked. Fleming emptied the cash and lipstick from the bag, sticking both in her cleavage, then she unfastened the silver ornaments on either side of the purse. The strap was made of a thick wire that was woven throughout the body. Fleming unwound it, transforming the handbag into thirty meters of wire, then she removed the locking mechanism on two of the adjacent windows and slid them both open.

  The night was warm, a light breeze carrying scents of roses from the balcony garden across the alley and exhaust from the street.

  Picking up the wire she’d unwound, Fleming dropped one end out one window and the second out the other, the wire straddling the short stretch of wall in between. She retrieved the ornaments—actually a set of hand clamps to prevent the wire from ripping into her palms—and placed them on the wire. She wound the wire between her legs, over her specially designed panties, over her hip and across her chest, around her back and out her shoulder, positioning one clamp on the incoming section of wire and one where it fed out. She lowered herself out of the window, back first, her shoes dangling from her fingers, her bare feet against the building’s exterior.

  Fleming realized many people had a fear of heights, and she was glad she wasn’t among them. Ever since she was a girl, she loved climbing trees. Her father had taken her rock climbing for the first time when she was only eight, and later that summer, she was grounded for practicing rappelling off the roof of her apartment building.

  Even though she was only five stories up, looking down on the city made her feel powerful and free, almost as if she could spread her arms and fly. While killing was a necessary part of her job, this type of thing was the portion she actually enjoyed. Testing herself physically. Performing feats few had mastered. Tonight’s descent from the building was tame compared with the things she could do, but it was satisfying nonetheless, and she smiled as she lowered herself silently down the building toward the alley below.

  One story.

  One and a half stories.

  With more than three stories left to go, she felt a tremor in the wire.