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

by J. A. Konrath

  “I’d like to say good-bye to her, if that’s possible.”

  Chills rose over Fleming’s skin. Julie really did understand.

  Nothing Fleming could say in response would be adequate, so she turned to the girl and took her into her arms.

  Fleming held her for a long time, and when Julie finally pulled away, they walked back to the van in silence. When Fleming opened her door, Sasha gave a little trill of a purr, then closed her eyes like her still-sleeping master.

  After reaching the other side of the sound, the rest of the trip was blessedly uneventful. Bradley woke as they circled Flanders Bay and directed the rest of the way, until they turned off a back road and into a long, straight, concrete drive flanked by trees.

  The house rose at the end. It was huge, turrets spiking into the sky like some kind of fairy-tale castle.

  “Bradley, I want to kiss you.”

  He beamed. “You like it?”

  “It couldn’t be more perfect.”

  “There is a fence around the property. This drive is the only approach to the house. Well, this and the waterfront. But there are security cameras all along here. We should be able to see anyone’s approach long before they get here.”

  “And here I was just thinking that it’s beautiful.”

  “I’m a quick study, aren’t I? I mean with the spy thing?” He winked at her.

  “I’ll say,” she said, not thinking of spycraft at all.

  Fleming pulled the van to the side of the house, climbed into her chair, and lowered it to the pavement. Bradley walked to the side door, Sasha in his arms, and punched the lock code into the number pad. Like clockwork, the door buzzed and unlocked, and he opened the door and stood there grinning.

  Julie waited for Fleming, then walked behind her to the house, as if staying close in case Fleming needed help.

  “Pick out a room,” Fleming said. “It looks like there are plenty.”

  “I’d like to face the ocean. Is that OK?”

  “I think that will be nice.”

  “Once we settle in, then what do we do?”

  “We wait to hear from Chandler.”

  And Hammett. She’d gotten a voice mail saying, “It’s done,” but nothing since.

  Fleming couldn’t help but wonder if Hammett was done as well.

  Hammett

  “Celebrate life when you can,” The Instructor said. “It doesn’t last long.”

  Hammett opened her eyes, expecting to see the face of God.

  She didn’t expect God to look like Harry McGlade.

  “Hiya, hottie. Thought I’d lost you.”

  She was in bed, an IV in her right arm, her left in a cast. But this wasn’t a hospital. It looked like a hotel suite.

  “You’re in a hotel suite,” he said. “Been here for about sixteen hours.”

  “Who patched me up?” she asked, surprised by how strong her voice was.

  “Hospitals have to report gunshot wounds, and you’ve got a famous face. But I have friends in low places, and lots of money to pay them. Doctors, concierges, paramedics. Believe it or not, when I got your call I was already on the way to Toronto.”

  “How?”

  “I planted a tracker in your bag. When I realized you were in Canada, I drove up from DC, planned on surprising you. But I didn’t expect to find you in the bushes by that stone thing, the Inupchuck.”

  “Inukshuk. It’s a Toronto landmark on the shoreline.”

  “I know. I had to Google it.”

  “You saved me,” Hammett said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No prob. Why’d you call me, of all people?”

  Hammett answered honestly. “I didn’t have anyone else.”

  McGlade reached out and squeezed her hand. “Funny thing. I don’t, either.”

  “I trashed your ’Vette,” Hammett said, staring into his eyes. “And lost all your gear.”

  “Sounds like you owe me a lot.”

  “Also, I gotta tell you, I think you’re fun in a sleazy kind of way, but you aren’t my type at all.”

  Harry grinned. “You aren’t my type, either. I’ve got a thing for hot psychos, but it usually doesn’t work out well for me. So I think we should keep our relationship purely physical.”

  “I’m OK with that. Also, I have another favor to ask. I’m going to need a ride back to the states, and ID to cross the border.”

  “And how are you paying me for all of this?”

  “How about a combination of money and sex?”

  “That’s my favorite combination.”

  “And can we stop and pick up a friend of mine? His name is Kirk.”

  “Kirk? I’m jealous.”

  “Kirk’s a dog.”

  “Now I’m aroused. Are you too weak for a blow job?”

  Hammett laughed. “Hell no. Bring it on, McGlade.”

  Chandler

  “My training has made you who you are,” The Instructor said. “You are nothing without me.”

  When dawn finally started chewing on the eastern edge of the sky, I had cleared the trap of drags and was heading into the mountains. It was the tail end of monsoon season, but although bushes, cactus, and some scrubby grass sprang up everywhere, the gritty soil was already bone dry. Unfortunately, the arid conditions hadn’t stopped the insects. They’d been after me all night, swarming around my face, buzzing in my ear, and leaving every bit of exposed skin itchy with welts.

  Pain wrapped my rib cage, making each breath torture. I kept going, pushing one foot forward then the next, picturing the pain moving up my spine, and when it reached my shoulders, blasting out into the air like a laser. I wasn’t sure if Hammett’s trick helped or not anymore, but I did keep moving, and at this point, that was something.

  I’d checked my GPS tracker many times during the night, keeping myself moving predominantly north. Now with the day’s light, I shoved my flashlight into my backpack.

  With the sun came the heat, and although the desert hadn’t cooled off overnight as much as I’d hoped, the difference the sun made was dramatic. In hindsight, I should have kept some of the gasoline from the truck. Wiping gas on exposed skin cooled it as it evaporated, much better than sweat did. But I’d been so intent on destroying the Ebola I’d missed that trick.

  With sunrise, I faced another problem as well. I would be visible to helicopters and planes flying overhead.

  I had to stay alert.

  By the time the sun was fully over the eastern horizon, the temperature was well into the hundreds, and I could already feel sunburn tightening the skin on my face. My fingers were swollen as well, clumsy and hard to bend, and I felt as if an ice pick was lodged in the inside corner of my right eyebrow.

  My last conversation with Hammett drifted through my mind. About being a hero. About how it felt. By now she must have her answer. Either that or she was dead.

  I guess I had my answer, too. With Heath’s help I’d stopped the plan to infect Mexico City, and now that I’d destroyed the virus, I suppose I could be considered a hero. But I didn’t feel valiant or strong. I didn’t feel vindicated.

  All I felt was alone.

  And thirsty.

  The air stirred, sending dust devils whirling around rock and brush, rising toward the cloudless sky. Birds came awake, quail cooing from the arroyos, a cactus wren belting out its raspy call, staccato as a machine gun. A Gila woodpecker poked its head from the hole it had made in one of the fat saguaros. Cicadas started their chant, crescendoing until I could hear nothing else, and then dying out only to begin the song all over again.

  By the time the sun climbed to midmorning, I could feel stored heat radiating from the rock, nature’s pizza stone. I took one of my last sips of water, but it had grown so hot, I could barely feel it in my mouth. It did little to soothe the dryness of my throat and tongue, nothing at all to slake my building thirst.

  My legs felt heavy, the pain of my injuries increasing, each step fast becoming torture.
My toe plowed into a rock, sending it bouncing, and a scorpion skittered beneath my feet.

  I had to watch the path in front of me. A misplaced foot might send me rolling down the rocky slope, never to get up again. An unaware step might land on a snake as it slithered from its nighttime hidey-hole to soak up the rays.

  By high noon, I could feel the heat of the rock through my boots. My back was no longer wet, my sweat evaporating into the dry desert air as soon as it squeezed from my pores. I drank the last drops of water and let the plastic jug drop to the desert floor.

  The beat of a helicopter sounded overhead. I peered into the sky, but I saw nothing but the lazy wheeling of turkey vultures, following, waiting for my death.

  The helicopter could be a trick of my water-starved mind, but I couldn’t risk that it was real. I headed farther into the mountain, keeping close to juts of rock and clumps of creosote bush and mesquite. Branches ripped at my arms and snagged my backpack. Rocks skidded under my boots, and twice I nearly fell.

  Soon I was no longer able to focus on the threat of aircraft or whirling vultures, instead directing every ounce of focus into putting one foot in front of the other.

  One of the side effects of dehydration was going crazy. I’d heard stories about people stuck in the desert losing their way, wandering in circles until they fell prey to heat stroke or burrowed into the ground to escape the heat only to roast like a pig at a luau.

  My mind wandered to Fleming, the sister I’d always wanted. She’d saved me many times before, by being my lifeline during missions when I’d known her as Jacob, and by pulling me from Lake Michigan after I’d drowned.

  I sure hoped I’d see her again.

  I stumbled on, down one rocky peak then up another. Checking my GPS. Moving north. Always north.

  My breath came in a shallow pant, my heartbeat’s patter impossible to control, even with all the techniques for regulating my body. My concentration was fast becoming shot. Thoughts wandering.

  A sound rattled in my ears, mixing with the rapid thrum of my heartbeat. I had to have water. Any kind of water.

  A movement caught my eye, and simultaneously the sound fit into place. A rattlesnake, right in front of me, its tail raised, warning me off, threatening to attack.

  Without thinking, I stepped forward in a stomp, landing right on the rattler’s head. Its body writhed for a few seconds, and I ground my boot into the dirt until it stopped moving.

  Damn. Maybe I still had something left.

  Hammett’s stupid story flitted along the edges of my mind. The urine. The snake.

  I had to admit that right then if I’d been able to urinate, I’d drink it without a thought. So would drinking snake’s blood be so bad?

  I fumbled with my pocket, my fingers too clumsy to pull my knife from tight denim. It took three tries, but I finally extracted it. It only took one to slice off the snake’s head. Then I lifted the limp body to my lips.

  The blood was warm, and my mouth was too dried out to taste, but I could feel the wetness, and that alone made me want to cry with gratitude, if only I could spare the tears.

  Chalk up another point in Hammett’s favor.

  After draining every drop I could from the snake, I tossed its body to the ground, folded my knife, slipped it in my pocket, and continued my walk. By the next peak, I’d forgotten all about the feel of liquid in my mouth. The need for water was again throbbing in my head, as if the snake’s blood was nothing but a mirage.

  My mind wandered to Julie, how I’d left her on the island alone for years, and how I’d let her down when it really mattered. If I ever saw her again, I would hug her tight and never let her go. I would gladly kill anyone who tried to hurt her. I’d gladly die for her.

  I thought of how my stepfather had blamed me for everything, how I knew that in some cases, he was right. In others, he was a pure, unadulterated asshole, and I felt as if I might be starting to understand the difference.

  I hadn’t really thought about my birth since I’d found out I was one of seven identical sisters, all sculpted from a young age to be spies. But now I had nothing to do but think. And it was easier to let random ideas scroll through my mind than focus on the predicament I was in or what I really wanted: water.

  I imagined what it would have been like to grow up together. To know Fleming from childhood. To fight with Hammett over Barbie dolls and Nerf guns. I wondered what the others were like as well. What their lives were like. If any of us would have gotten along if we hadn’t been enemies from the moment we met.

  A muscle in my calf seized, and I lurched forward, struggling to keep my footing, trying to stretch out the cramp so I could walk, knowing I was in for much more as my muscles begged for moisture and were denied.

  And still I walked on, shuffling up to one rocky and brush-crowned peak only to be presented with another.

  I thought of Kaufmann, my parole officer, my savior when I was fourteen. Hammett hadn’t killed him, but she might as well have. She was there. She had a hand in making it happen. And yet I was pretty sure I no longer hated her.

  As disturbing as that realization was, I had a feeling Murray Kaufmann would be proud. If he were here, he would probably believe Hammett could be rehabilitated. After all, he’d believed in me.

  He was a better person than I was.

  So was Lund.

  I’d never thought about how alike the two men were. How every time either one looked at me, I could sense they saw the person I wished to be, not the one I actually was. How that was the thing that I loved most about them.

  Kaufmann had looked at me that way up to the moment he died. Kindness and hope and forgiveness in his eyes.

  Lund had eventually recognized what I really was, and for the first time since he’d left me in that farmhouse, I didn’t feel pain at the thought. I felt relief.

  Or maybe that was just delirium.

  I was growing dizzy now, and Filena’s jeans and T-shirt chafed against my skin. I’d seen a man die from dehydration once in Tunisia. A gun dealer I was sent to kill, he’d escaped into the countryside when my attempt to ambush him on his way to his remote estate had fallen apart. I was waiting at his property when he’d made it back a day later, mumbling gibberish and vomiting blood through blackened lips. He’d collapsed less than fifty meters from his home, and I’d left him where he’d fallen, not even offering him a bullet to ease his passing.

  If there was such a thing as an afterlife, I bet he was watching me now and laughing.

  I couldn’t help a little chuckle myself. Not about dying of dehydration and heat stroke, but at how ironic it was that I’d spent most of my life with a fear of drowning. Never had it occurred to me that I’d die begging for water with each step. Just as it had never occurred I would end up killing four of my sisters after a lifetime of longing for siblings. Or that I would feel anything but animosity toward Heath.

  I plodded on, thoughts mixing with thoughts until they no longer made sense. Tired, so tired. My muscles cramped. My throat rasped. My will to live ebbed with each step.

  Water.

  I’d fallen into training with The Instructor, because it would let me become somebody worthwhile. I’d stayed because I was good at it, but I had to wonder if there wasn’t more to it than that.

  I did bad things to bad people. Made myself inhuman, unfeeling. And although there were only a handful of people in this world who cared about me, I’d managed to hurt most of them and let the others down.

  And for what?

  A shadow whirled around me. Glancing up I spotted four turkey vultures now, soaring in circles, their naked heads and necks sticking like spindles from their bulky, feathered bodies.

  I didn’t want to punish those who cared about me. I didn’t want to punish myself anymore. This spy bullshit was for the birds.

  I let out a laugh, the sound rasping in my throat.

  “I quit.”

  My tongue felt swollen and stuck to the inside of my mouth, making my words sound more
like an indiscriminate bellow than any kind of bold statement. But the idea had taken hold of me, an idea I’d toyed with before and ultimately pushed away. But this time, I was done pushing. This time I was embracing it with both arms.

  “I quit.”

  I disintegrated into a fit of coughs.

  Regaining my breath, I gathered what little saliva I could, sucked in a breath of parched air, and shouted into the sky. “You hear that, you fucking vultures? I quit.”

  No more Hydra. No more killing. No more having to abandon and betray and be despised by those who loved me. I no longer wanted to wish I was someone I wasn’t. I wanted to be proud of the person I was.

  It was a little anticlimactic, perhaps. I’d been disowned by the government I’d served and now topped their Most Wanted list. But now the breakup was coming from my side, too, and it was the most glorious, out-of-body experience I’d ever had.

  Whether I made it to Highway 8 or died trying, I was free.

  I staggered another hundred feet before I recognized what was up ahead. A road. An SUV parked on the shoulder. The figure of a man standing outside the driver’s door.

  Border patrol?

  At this distance and through eyes so parched I could hardly keep them open, it was hard to tell.

  I didn’t care.

  Stumbling toward the vehicle, I prayed it wasn’t a mirage. I’d done my part, saved the people of Mexico City. I was finished. Imprison me, put me on death row, make an example of me for the world—nothing the government could do mattered anymore.

  Water.

  The agent would have some.

  Water.

  It was all I could think of.

  Water.

  I should have recognized him right away, his posture, his rolling gait as he crossed the road and dodged through brush and scrub and cactus toward me. He hunched forward slightly, as if in pain, and that might have been what threw me off, but when he looked up and I saw his eye patch and his gorgeous, scarred face, I cried out.