Into the Crossfire

by Lisa Marie Rice

  Outlaw was seriously annoyed at having his work interrupted, though. And by someone who knew what he was doing. Fuck, another few minutes and the lady would have talked. She’d been terrified. He could still feel the deep tremors running through her. He’d even been tempted for a second there. The bitch was a real looker and Outlaw liked his women just a little scared. Made them real accommodating.

  But he knew better than to mix sex with the job. It was the kind of mistake that could have gotten him killed in the service and the kind of mistake that would cost him money in his new job. So sex while working was off the table, always.

  The job wasn’t done. He’d just sat down to her computer when he’d heard the key in the lock and had barely made it to the door and turned out the lights before she walked in.

  And a couple of minutes later, the big asshole from across the way picked the lock and came in and the whole mission had gone FUBAR in a second.

  It was a very good thing that the guy cared about Nicole Pearce. Outlaw had seen it in an instant and realized that she was his get-out-of-jail-free card.

  He’d tossed her at the window, knowing that if the guy didn’t catch her, she’d fall nine stories to her death and he’d never get the info. But he also knew the guy would rather catch her than him.

  Up on the rooftop, Outlaw went to the southern edge of the building. Only two feet separated this wall from the next building. He tossed the trolley suitcase and his briefcase over onto the next roof and jumped.

  This building had a service elevator from the roof to the garage, and a quarter of an hour later, Outlaw was dressed in his banker’s suit and driving away in his rental.

  Next stop—Nicole Pearce’s house. She would either go home and he could get the job done there or if she didn’t, he’d grab the dad and force her hand.

  Outlaw had never understood the hostage thing. There wasn’t anyone in the world he’d give something up for. You could blow up any head you wanted and he didn’t care. But for the rest of the world, it was a surefire winner. There were people who’d give up anything if you held a gun to a loved one’s head. Or knee or elbow, promising to shoot the hostage to death, piece by piece.

  Ah, yes. That always got results.

  Outlaw parked two blocks from Nicole Pearce’s house, then made his way in the dark to the back of the Pearce house.

  It wasn’t a wealthy part of town. The houses were small, about sixty years old, most of them badly kept.

  He knew how to move in the dark, it was in his bones. He ghosted from tree to shrub to wall, ending up crouching behind the Pearce house, looking out over the backyard. It was the best-kept house on the street, sporting a fresh paint job. The garden was well tended, with neatly trimmed shrubbery and flowering plants and a recently mown lawn. Someone worked hard.

  There were lights on in every room downstairs. It was ten thirty. Pretty soon the household would be going to bed, if there was an old man in the house. Outlaw would make his move a few hours after lights out, when the father would be deep in sleep. He leaned his ear against the wall. There were voices in the room, a male rumble and the lighter tones of a woman, but he couldn’t make out the words.

  Well, he’d come prepared. That’s what they paid him for.

  He entered the combination to open his suitcase. Inside the lining was a soundless electric mini-drill and a snake mike with inbuilt microcamera. He carefully drilled a hole through the exterior wall of the house, the drill so silent he could barely hear it inches away. He broke through at floor level and threaded the mike and camera into the hole.

  Shit!

  The room was set up like a hospital room. There was a high cot surrounded by medical instruments, an IV tree, a bedside table with pills, a man in a wheelchair. A woman in a nurse’s uniform bending over him.

  Outlaw pulled his eye away and sat with his back to the wall.

  Well, fuck. Nicole Pearce’s father was sick. How the hell could he have known? It’s not as if it was on her website. That complicated things, because the geezer might die on him and he’d instantly lose his leverage. And that bag hanging from the IV tree would probably have a sedative in it. Outlaw could end up having an unconscious hostage.

  Not to mention the fact that the nurse was contractually obliged to stay awake and by his bedside all night.

  Shit. This was supposed to be fucking easy.

  At least the nurse would be easy. And he had a preloaded syringe of adrenaline he could always shoot into the geezer. It would work.

  He’d wait until all the lights went out, then break in. The place had no security, none. No cameras, no burglar alarm and he’d seen the locks on the front and back doors. Pathetic. These people deserved what was going to happen to them.

  Outlaw settled with his back to the rear left-hand corner where he could keep an eye on the front and back of the house, stretched his legs out, preparing to go into sniper’s lethargy for a couple of hours, when every cell in his body went on red alert.

  A squad car pulled up outside the Pearce house. Two cops in the front seats. The passenger window rolled down and Outlaw could hear the squawk of the radio. The guy riding shotgun pulled a mike from the dashboard attached to a curly wire, put it up to his mouth and talked, staring out the window at the façade of the house. The cop listened to a static-filled voice, then got out of the car, hand on the grip of the Beretta 92 in its holster, clearly preparatory to doing a look-see. He was wearing body armor and he looked alert.

  He started walking toward the side of the house.

  Jesus fucking Christ.

  Outlaw melted into the shadows, moving beyond the cop’s vision, thinking furiously.

  Now there were two cops to take out, besides the nurse. Count in Nicole Pearce and her father, that made five fucking bodies. His usual fee didn’t cover that. Particularly not snuffing cops. Cops never gave up on cop killings. There was no such thing as a cold case when a cop was offed. It remained hot till the end of time.

  Outlaw’s hits were carefully planned and even more carefully executed. No improv, no surprises. He’d avoided capture so far because he left nothing to chance. No prints, no DNA, nada. He was meticulous, almost surgical in his precision.

  Tonight he was being forced to work on the fly, leaving behind a trail of dead bodies, two of them cops.

  Furious, he pulled out his Blackberry and sent an encrypted message.

  Job now requires taking out two cops, a nurse and sick old man. Will need backup. Awaiting instructions.

  He was well hidden behind a neighbor’s tool shed and was prepared to wait all night for instructions, but it wasn’t necessary. Fifteen minutes later, he had an answer.

  Check your bank. Then do it. Expenses OK.

  When he checked his bank account, there was a payment for $1,000,000 there. Shit, for a cool million and a half, he’d off an extra two cops, a nurse and a sick geezer. Particularly since he had the element of surprise.

  Killing two cops was serious stuff, though. He’d have to take the money and disappear for a while. A year, maybe more. There was a small property he’d bought in Costa Rica. He could add to it, make himself real comfortable. Dollars went a long way there. He could stay off the grid for a long time.

  His gun was untraceable: he’d loaded the magazines wearing latex. He turned everything over in his mind, planning it step by step until he knew it was feasible.

  It was a go.

  He waited. The cops rang the doorbell and talked to the nurse, then went back to the patrol car and called in a report.

  He quietly made his way back to the rental Lexus and pulled out. A couple of minutes later, he was pulling up beside the Crown Vic parked outside the Pearce home.

  He buzzed down the window, a smile on his face. He knew what the cops were seeing. A perfectly normal guy in a suit driving an expensive car, clearly lost. He pasted a sheepish expression on his face.

  “Good evening…officers.” He let his eyes go wide, as if just noticing they were in uniform.<
br />
  “Sir,” the uniform in the driver’s seat said.

  Outlaw widened his smile. “I need some help here. I think I’m really off base. My GPS is on the fritz. I’m looking for the Gaslamp Quarter, and I’ve been driving around in circles for the past hour.”

  “Well, you’re going in the wrong direction. You’ll have to—” The cop never finished the sentence. A red hole blossomed on his forehead and a halo of pink mist surrounded his head. The pink mist erupted around the other cop’s head, too. There had only been the softest of sounds, completely inaudible to anyone even five feet away.

  There was no one within five feet. There was no one within a hundred feet.

  Outlaw had heard the cops checking in. This would be a routine surveillance. They’d only check in a couple of times in the shift, but it would be well to move fast now. As sure as hell as soon as the two cops didn’t report in, this place would be swarming with cops.

  He wanted the whole job over fast. They’d be searching airports, bus and train stations.

  Time for backup.

  Outlaw had a list of collaborators, ex-military all. Men more than willing to use their gifts and training in the private sector.

  He didn’t need to check a Rolodex or his cell address book. Every number he needed in his life he had committed to memory. He pulled out his Thuraya satellite cell phone. The records were kept in Saudi Arabia. The US government could not eavesdrop and could never requisition the records. Not even the NSA could listen in.

  The phone at the other end was picked up immediately. It was past midnight, but the voice was alert. Warren Wilson, ex-Army, specialist driver, good mechanic, good shot. But above all, he had a boat and he lived in San Diego.

  “I’ll need a hand for twenty-four, maybe thirty-six hours. Fifty grand.” Outlaw kept the amount low to leave room for negotiation.

  “You got it. What do you need?”

  “A safe place for a couple of hours for an interrogation. Then a boat to take me to near Cabo San Lucas in Baja and a car from there.”

  Silence for a moment, then Outlaw heard tapping sounds, someone on a keyboard. “Okay. I’m sending you the GPS co-ordinates of an abandoned waterfront warehouse right now. My boat will be anchored right outside. I’ll get a buddy of mine to meet us at Cabo with a car. It’ll cost you, though. $150,000 because I need to give something to my buddy down in Baja.”

  “Deal.” Outlaw flipped the cell closed. That went well. He’d been willing to go up to two hundred grand.

  He parked the car right in front of the Pearce house. Even if someone noticed it, it didn’t matter. The rental had been with fake ID and Outlaw had switched plates with another Lexus at the airport. By the time they straightened it out, he’d be south of the border.

  He walked calmly around the house, gun held down by his thigh. Time to pick that pathetic back-door lock, get rid of the nurse and get the old man to the warehouse.

  He had to move fast. It was late and he wasn’t even halfway through tonight’s killing.

  “You okay?” Sam asked for the millionth time. He shot another worried glance over at Nicole, noticing all over again how fucking pale she looked. Every time he saw the dried blood on her temple he winced, because it could have been worse than some broken skin and clotted blood. It could have been a hole.

  He knew exactly what that beautiful head would have looked like if the fuckhead had pulled the trigger. Gun residue stippling the creamy pale skin surrounding a neat round hole that wouldn’t be so neat and so round on the other side of her head.

  Sam had seen so many dead faces, dead people in his time, hundreds of them. So it wasn’t hard to picture a Nicole with a hole in her head, collapsed to the floor of her very small, very pretty office where she created miracles with languages and was working hard to develop a fascinating young company. Sam knew exactly what her dead face would look like, he could see it on the insides of his eyelids when he closed his eyes.

  Her eyes, so lively—the irises that amazing cobalt blue—lifeless, like beautifully colored marbles. Her skin, ivory with the rosiness of good health right underneath, would be the color of ice, and just as cold. All that grace, all that beauty, gone in an instant.

  That was if she’d had a bullet blown through her head. Being thrown out of a ninth-floor window conjured up an entirely new set of ghoulish images.

  Sam had watched, helpless, as the carabineer of a good friend snapped open during mountain training in the Cascades, dropping the man 150 feet to crash onto the rocks. Sam and the rest of the team had gone back down the mountain to pick up the remains of their fellow soldier. Every bone in the body had been broken and it had been like a sack of marbles except for the torso, which had cracked open and spilled out about a yard of intestine.

  Nicole, after plunging nine stories to the sidewalk. Christ, that one was enough to give him nightmares, too.

  Nicole turned and drummed up a smile for him. Something in his face must have betrayed what was going through his mind, because she laid a hand on his arm. “I’m okay, Sam. Really. Just a little shaken up.”

  Not as shaken up as he was. His fucking hands trembled.

  Whoa.

  There was no such thing as a nervous or overly sensitive SEAL. They just didn’t grow them nervous, and if they were, they were weeded straight out in selection.

  Sam was known for being cold-blooded. During training in the shooting house with live ammo, a pencil-dick geek had come and wired them up and taken blood samples after each session. Doubtless sent by Christians In Action. CIA refused to reveal the findings of the study but Cakewalk Potowski, who never met a computer he didn’t like and couldn’t crack, found the results buried deep in the heart of Langley.

  Turned out the SEAL team’s heart rate and the cortisol and catecholamine levels—the stress hormones—remained stable even under live fire. Sam’s heartbeat hadn’t altered even when a flashbang went off in the room.

  The geek, with an alphabet soup of letters after his name, had concluded the report with the morose observation that “efficient counterterrorism agents appear to have an essentially inhuman nervous system, not subject to the normal flight or fight reflex that has been part of the human legacy for ten thousand years.”

  Fuckhead called them aliens?

  Well old pencil-dick would have been astonished to see him now. His heart was pounding in his chest, still. Every time he started to calm down, he’d get an image of a dead Nicole right there in front of his eyes—head blown apart or body cracked open, take your pick of nightmares—in living color, and he’d start sweating all over again.

  Sam was normally a fast, good driver, but right now, he was driving as if carrying sweating TNT.

  He could barely concentrate on the road. Nicole in the car with him just ate up all his hard disk. Having her by his side and driving seemed like mutually exclusive things.

  He didn’t want to hurt her in any way. Sam had intercepted her on her way toward the window, but her right side had crashed into a bookcase. Sam turned corners like a seventy-year-old grandmother because he couldn’t stand the thought of her jostling against the car door.

  “You’re not okay.” Sam ground his teeth. “You nearly died. Twice.” Just saying it made his heart rate pick up even more.

  “Yes, I know. Believe me, I know.” She gave a deep sigh, her slender hand tightening on his arm. “But I didn’t. That was entirely thanks to you. You have no idea how grateful I am that you can pick locks like a pro.”

  “Well, goddammit, that’s another thing,” Sam said heatedly, aggrieved. Happy that anger chased a little of the fear away. “Why the fuck didn’t you put in a security system? The guy just fucking waltzed into your office, just about anyone off the street could just fucking—“

  His cell phone rang and he put it on speakerphone. “Yeah?” he barked.

  Mike’s deep voice came through, slow and reassuring. “Our guys gave a perimeter check outside Nicole’s house, talked to the nurse, checked on N
icole’s father; everything’s okay. They’ll be relieved tomorrow morning and another two-man team will take over.”

  Nicole slumped in relief, eyes closed. “Thanks so much, Mike.”

  “Yeah. No problem.” His voice grew louder. “So the old man’s taken care of, Sam. You hold up your end. Make sure nothing happens to Nicole.”

  “Oh yeah. Count on it.” If Sam had to tie her to a chair and stand guard, he would. “Did you get a face off our camera?”

  “Yeah. Harry got two really good shots, one full face, one in three-quarter profile. He sent it as a JPEG here to headquarters. It’s already in the system. If this guy so much as jaywalked in the past ten years, we’ll know about it. I’ll stay here until we get an answer, and I’ll let you know right away.”

  That made Sam feel better. Once they got the fucker’s name, they could find an address and he could go kill him. Discreetly. He’d take care of it himself. Just disappear for a day or two, do the job and then nothing else would ever threaten Nicole again. He wouldn’t let it.

  “Good,” he grunted. “Stay on top of it.”

  “You bet. Harry’s with the building night guards right now, trying to figure out how he got in and out. We’ll nail him. Don’t worry about that.” He closed the connection.

  Nicole turned to look at him. “I’m really grateful for all you’re doing for me, Sam. And all that Harry and Mike and Mike’s police officer friend are doing.”

  A bruise was starting to blacken at her temple and he could see dark flesh under her light white shirt along her right shoulder.

  He shuddered.

  “You’ve stepped into something nasty, Nicole.” He picked up her hand and raised it to his mouth. “We’ve got to keep it far away from you and from your dad while we track it down. But you’ve got to help us, honey. You’ve got to come up with what he’s looking for. We need to know that to keep you safe.”

  Nicole rubbed her forehead with her free hand, looking troubled. “You think I don’t understand that? I do, believe me, I do. I keep running over everything that might be in my computer and I come up with basically nothing that could possibly be of interest to anyone. Wordsmith simply doesn’t get vital or confidential texts to translate. Though we will, you can count on that. And we’ll charge top dollar for them. Oh yeah.” She smiled at the thought.