But Mark had no choice. He propelled his body forward, following his own momentum and pushing to move faster than he ever had in his life.
He thought he was dead. The semi’s headlights engulfed Mark, blinding him as they did.
But Mark didn’t break stride, even though he was convinced that his innards were about to erupt against the mass and force of the speeding semi. When he made it to the other side of Washington Boulevard, tumbling to the ground when he reached the shoulder, it was a shock. The rhythm of Mark’s heartbeat lessened from terror to relief, and though he was panting, he peeled himself off the concrete. Dale was scaling the cemetery’s wrought-iron fence, and Mark was on him, narrowing the distance between them as Dale struggled to push himself up and over.
Dale cleared the hurdle when Mark was only steps away, but just as Mark was about to jump up and grab hold of the fence, Dale turned and fired two bullets in his direction. His shots were wild, as Dale loosed both bullets with an awkward motion of his body. Still, it was enough to send Mark leaping off the fence, and it bought Dale some time.
Mark couldn’t even venture to guess what Dale was thinking, if he was looking to kill his former protégé for self-preservation or if he simply craved seeing Mark dead out of spite. The last thing Mark could do confidently was predict what Dale wanted, and that made it impossible to predict what he was going to do.
Regardless of what Dale wanted, Mark knew he had to move carefully and quickly. He entered the cemetery facing a copse of cherry trees. Though seasonally stripped of their flowers, the trees were clustered far too densely for Mark’s liking. He stepped past the first row of trees, knowing he was crossing a deadly Rubicon. Hiding somewhere amongst the trees, Dale was laying a trap for him. One of them, Mark was certain, wasn’t going to leave this cemetery alive.
Mark did his best to search around every darkened crevice between and behind every tree before taking each step. He wished he had a gun, or even a jagged shard of broken glass. Anything he could use to defend himself. But he was back to where this whole thing started, stripped of everything but his guile. He listened for any kind of sound—maybe Dale’s ragged breathing, or Dale snapping a twig as he maneuvered to spring his trap—that would break the night’s silence. But there was nothing.
Until Mark heard a gun’s hammer click behind him. Mark froze and closed his eyes. He wondered how much he’d feel of the bullet that was about to tear through the back of his head.
“Unbelievable,” Dale said. “I knew you were a resourceful and relentless bastard, Mark, but Jesus. Escaping Russia? Making it back to the U.S.? That’s no small feat. Too bad it all ends, right here, right now.”
There were so many questions Mark wanted to ask. He knew pleading for his life was pointless, but deep down he didn’t care why Dale had chosen to use him as a pawn in his plot. There was only one single thing Mark wanted to know:
“Why?”
“Excuse me?” Dale asked.
“Why did you do this?”
Dale laughed. “You think I’m the one trying to destroy the government? Let me explain something to you, Mark: I’ve been involved in politics since I was nineteen years old. And you know what I’ve seen over all these years?
“A backsliding into an apathetic, useless system of government, where men and women who are supposed to be the voice of the people will tell you, without an ounce of shame, that their top priority is to protect the interests of the moneyed elite who stuff their coffers.
“And when things don’t go their way, what do they do? They threaten to shut it all down. It’s their greatest dream—to get rid of tax regulations and safety regulations and environmental regulations so their corporate masters can run this country with no one to stop them. The barbarians are banging on the gate, Mark. Rome is burning. But no one wants to do a thing about it. No one except me.
“I’ve dedicated my life to this job. To this country. But I’m one of the few left who remember that this job used to be about building the government up so it could fulfill the fundamental role of serving the public. These spineless weasels—they want to tear it down? So be it. I was going to throw a nuclear bomb in the entire system and give them exactly what they want. And then, then, maybe they’d learn. Maybe they’d see the value in what it is we’re supposed to be doing.
“Call me a traitor. Call me whatever you want, I don’t care. Because I know that I was doing this, all of this, to save my country.”
Mark shook his head. He pitied Dale, but he also felt a strange kind of empathy toward his former mentor. No one knew Dale’s passion better than Mark, and as dangerous—and insane—as his reasoning was, Mark knew it was coming from a place of fierce love and loyalty. Dale did sacrifice his life for this job, that wasn’t an exaggeration. Mark had seen him give so much of himself—sacrificing rest, relationships, his own well-being, and more—to the people he represented. To Dale, the job was a sacred vow. And Mark knew that having to live a life where he saw everyone betray that vow, so casually and so regularly, had to eat Dale up inside. To the point where he couldn’t take it anymore.
The man who stood behind Mark, pointing a gun at his head, he was the same man Mark had always known. Fundamentally. Dale had just been warped, twisted, and driven to ends he’d never imagined possible. Considering that, Mark understood one other thing: Dale wasn’t a killer. He could scheme and plot, he could do terrible things that ruined lives, if it was all in the service of some greater good. And that was a far cry from pulling the trigger and killing a man—a man who’d once been close to him—in cold blood.
Mark counted on that logic as he whipped around, praying he was right.
And he was, partially. Mark spun on his heel and batted the gun away. Dale hesitated, just enough for the bullet to blast over Mark’s head.
Mark screamed and charged Dale, forcing him back, hard, into a nearby tree. Dale groaned, and Mark used the moment of weakness to knock the gun from his hand.
Dale, though defeated, still had some fight left in him. Mark’s wild swing had left him open, and Dale took advantage. He delivered a right cross to Mark’s chin, following it with a couple of left-handed jabs that ended in a right hook. Mark fell back onto his knees, his head ringing.
“You never could just stay down, could you, Mark?” Dale said striding forward. “I had it all in the palm of my hand, and you ruined it.”
Dale drove an elbow into the back of Mark’s head, and Mark collapsed into the dirty ground. Two kicks pounded Mark’s ribs, then a third turned him over on his back.
“They’ll never try me, Mark. The scandal it would cause—our country couldn’t take it. Hell, our president couldn’t take it. Not to mention I have dirt on nearly every single person who has the power to pursue legal action against me.
“But you?” Dale said as he dropped onto Mark’s chest. He drove his fist into Mark’s face, and he could feel the bones in his nose shatter upon impact. “You’ll be sent back to Russia. And what they’ll do to you—you have no idea the cruelty and agony that awaits, you stubborn bastard.”
Dale punched Mark again, and again, the second blow so hard that Dale had to shake out his fist. Mark’s bloody head lolled to the side.
Through his blurred vision, Mark spotted a splintered tree branch on the ground, just past his reach. He stretched out his arm and could feel a sliver of its jagged end, though not enough for him to grab.
“Princeton boxing,” Dale said as he closed his hand back into a fist. “And I still spar to this day.”
Dale shifted his weight on Mark, and it was just enough for Mark to stretch out his hand the extra two inches he needed. As Dale was about to drill Mark with another combination of punches, Mark grabbed the branch and swung it across his body. It connected with Dale’s face, sending him tumbling off Mark’s chest.
All Mark could do was crawl away and hope clarity would soon return to his punch-drunk head. He was about to stand up and get ready for round two when he heard Dale charge after him.<
br />
Dale screamed as he attacked, and Mark had just enough time to sidestep his lunging body. They both fell to the ground, hard, and they simultaneously spotted metal glinting in the darkness in front of them:
The gun.
Mark and Dale sprang ahead, using each other’s bodies for leverage to propel themselves forward. They scraped their way toward the gun and, as they did, Mark realized that Dale—who was in full control of his senses where Mark was not—was moving faster and would get to the gun before he could. Which meant Mark had to fall back on what had become his greatest asset the past few days: He had to think and adjust on the fly.
Dale grabbed the gun, but Mark was waiting for him. When Dale spun around, gun in hand, he was met by a fist that smashed directly into his face. The blow caught Dale off guard, and before he could get his bearings, Mark was already on top of him. Now, it was his turn.
Mark drilled his right fist into Dale’s face, over and over, and he used his free hand to block Dale’s attempts to bring the gun around. Mark buried his knuckles into Dale, thinking of the hell he’d gone through with each punch. His separation from Sarah. Having to kill Oleg, Viktor, Gregori, and the two other agents. Holding Ania in his arms as she died. All of it, every bit of anguish he’d stored inside, he released on Dale. He punched the man responsible for all of it until Dale stopped moving.
Still cautious, Mark grabbed the gun out of Dale’s hand and then got to his feet. Just as he trained it on Dale’s head, bloodied and battered, his mentor’s eyes flickered open.
“Do it,” he mumbled. “Kill me.”
Mark had every reason to. Every justification. But he couldn’t. Every life he took, even though they were taken in self-defense, made it feel like those souls were now clinging to his own, weighing it down. He didn’t need another.
“No,” Mark said, throwing the gun away from him. “I won’t let you off the hook so easily.”
Mark heard the sound of a dozen sets of boots swarm from every direction. He had a split second to see men in army fatigues, assault rifles at the ready, before he was tackled to the ground.
Mark remained silent, furiously so, as his face was shoved into the dirt and his hands were twisted behind his back.
And just like that, he was in handcuffs once again.
30
The sun’s waning light shimmered off the ocean, sparking a kaleidoscope of color on its surface. There was no sound other than the lapping of waves on the white beach—and Mark’s phone, vibrating on the table next to him. It had been ringing all day, and Mark was considering chucking the damn thing into the ocean. But he knew he’d just get another phone, and they’d get that number as well. It was best to answer and just be done with it.
“Hello?” Mark said groggily, as if he was just waking up. He wasn’t; he was just that relaxed.
“Mark Strain,” the voice on the other line said. “I imagine, right now, you’re staring at waves crashing against a tropical beach. Am I right?”
“You are, Senator Griffin,” Mark admitted. “That’s exactly what I’m doing.”
Everyone knew about Mark’s settlement from Uncle Sam, which was as excessive as it was swift. Shipping off an innocent man in the dead of night without so much as giving him a phone call—let alone a lawyer and a trial—was costly, and it was one check Mark was happy to cash. After settling with Mark—and hinting they were not only making amends but also, hopefully, buying his silence, meaning there’d be no tell-all book in the years to come—the government did what it did best: It got in its own way. The Feds launched a probe and members of Congress delivered strong words about terrorism and Russian interference in democracy, but Mark knew it wouldn’t go anywhere. In his own twisted way, Dale had been right. It probably gave him a lot to think about as he awaited trial in whatever federal penitentiary he’d been locked away in.
Mark got up from his seat. The hot sand burned his feet for the first few steps he took toward the water, but he got used to the heat by the time he was halfway there.
“Listen, I’m going to be blunt,” Griffin said. “My team needs you. I need you.”
Mark laughed. “Me? Okay, I’ll bite. You need me for what?”
“I’m making a run at the White House in the next cycle, Mark. And I want you part of my team. You’re determined, you’re smart, and let’s be honest, you’re a God damn American hero.”
“That’s very flattering,” Mark said as he stood on the edge of the beach, right where the ocean met the sand.
“My aim isn’t to flatter, it’s to recruit,” Griffin said. “I know you, Mark. A man with your talents and drive, this is the role you deserve. This is the big time—I’m offering you everything you could ever want.”
Mark turned his head; a wide, satisfied smile ran across his face. Sarah, standing next to him, returned his smile. She brought Mark close and placed his hand over her bare belly, which was beginning to show her pregnancy.
“I’m sorry,” Mark said, “but I already have everything I want.”
Mark threw the phone into the sand behind him and moved closer to Sarah. He wrapped his arms around her and placed his head over her shoulder. Together, they stood at the edge of the beach, the ocean’s water dancing over their feet, watching the sun set.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Every time I sit down to write my acknowledgments, I realize how incredibly lucky I am to be able to write books, and I get more and more grateful. I’m so lucky to do this, and have so much gratitude to the people who help make it possible.
In the case of The Throwaway, I owe a debt of gratitude to Phil Westren and Alex Tse, who trusted me to tell their story. Brendan Deneen, my amazing editor (who is also one heck of a writer), gave me the opportunity of a lifetime. Thank you all for bringing me into Mark Strain’s world.
My agent, Jason Yarn, is never far from heart (or my in-box). Thank you, as always, for your dedication and guidance, both of which are invaluable.
My family, miraculously, has shown me so much patience through the ups and downs of writing a book and being a writer; I love you all, and the best world I create is the one we get to make together.
And, of course, you the reader. Thank you for taking this journey with me!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MICHAEL MORECI is an up-and-coming comic-book writer who knows how to deliver great characters dealing with intense situations. His comics include the critically acclaimed sci-fi trilogy Roche Limit and the military horror drama Burning Fields. He’s also written Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman for DC and Planet of the Apes for Boom!, and his other original titles include the Hoax Hunters series, Curse, ReincarNATE, and the forthcoming 1985: Black Hole Repo. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Part Two
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Part Three
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapt
er 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE THROWAWAY
Copyright © 2018 by Michael Moreci
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Arcangel/Mohamad Itani (Man armed with a gun)
Getty Images/walrusmail (Russian buildings)
Cover design by Faceout Studio, Tim Green
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates
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New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Forge® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-06501-8 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-7150-2 (ebook)
eISBN 9781466871502
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First Edition: June 2018
The Throwaway Page 29