Morgan wasn’t reassured. “There are pictures of you two together online, aren’t there? Connections in social networking sites and whatnot? Meaning that anyone with an Internet connection could easily find out that he’s your boyfriend?”
“I . . . I guess . . .”
“Dan, don’t hound her,” said Jenny.
“We need to go right now,” Morgan said with adamant resolution. “Take only what you can’t live without.”
“Again?” exclaimed Alex.
“Could you just stop for a minute and explain?” demanded Jenny.
“There’s no time! We need to get moving right now.”
“No,” said Jenny, firmly. “I need you to tell me what’s going on before we pick up and leave again.”
He looked at her, ready to argue; but he was incapable of speaking harshly to her, even in this situation. Instead, he took a deep breath. “I know how the Agency works,” he said, hurriedly but methodically gathering up items that were strewn around the cabin. “They won’t be just tapping our phones. They’ll be monitoring the people we’re likely to call. Family. Friends. And, unfortunately, that includes boyfriends.”
“But I called him from a pay phone, Dad! How will they know it was me? How are they going to find us here?”
“You mean even if they weren’t listening in to the call?” he said, without looking up from packing. “They would still check out the number and send someone out here regardless. And this place is registered under a known alias of mine. If we hadn’t called their attention to this area, they never would have found us. But now it won’t take them long to put two and two together. We need to go. Now.”
He walked toward the loose floorboard to retrieve the hidden items, when he noticed Neika scratching at the door. “Quiet!” he mouthed, holding up his hand and perking his ear to listen over the low rumble of the generator. “There’s someone out there,” he whispered. “Get under the table.”
An ashen Jenny ushered Alex below and then huddled underneath it, as well. “Dan, what are you going to do?”
He picked up the rifle from the table and switched off the light, immersing the cabin in darkness. “Stay put. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He patted Neika, who was still clawing frantically at the door. “Sorry, girl, but you’re taking the lead on this one.”
“Dad, no! What if she—”
“She could save our lives, honey. Sit tight.”
He opened the door, and Neika shot out of the cabin, her syncopated gallop rustling the undergrowth. He followed her into the darkness, treading as lightly as possible, the sound of her footsteps and her intermittent grunts leading him through the dim, branch-filtered moonlight. She ran off ahead of him into the blackness. He continued to run after her until he heard her yelp and then tumble to the ground. Someone was out there. Someone had gotten her. He raised his rifle, but it was no use. There was nothing to see or target.
He stepped behind a tree and listened intently until he heard footsteps. Someone was running around him on his left. He stepped out from behind the tree and, aiming to the extent that he could, fired. The boom of the rifle echoed in the silent woods and left Morgan’s ears ringing. He tried and failed to listen for the footsteps, until he heard, behind him, the click of a flashlight. The sudden light projected his own shadow, huge and ominous, onto the trees in front of him.
“Drop the rifle,” said a harsh, accented male voice from behind him, “or I will make you drop it. And I promise that if I do, you will be dead before it hits the ground.”
The man could have been lying for all Morgan knew, but this wasn’t a time for taking chances. Not when he was the last line of defense for his wife and daughter. He tossed the rifle aside, and it made only the slightest noise when it fell on the soft forest ground.
“Cobra,” the man said. “How nice to make your acquaintance.” Morgan turned around. In the pale reflection of the flashlight, he could just make out that the man’s face had a crooked ugliness, and its cause was a diagonal scar that ran from his cheek to his forehead. It was a face he knew from photographs, and he also knew the reputation that went with it.
“You’re Wagner, aren’t you?”
The man only offered him a lurid grin in response. “That is your family in there, is it not? Your wife and daughter?”
Morgan didn’t respond. But of course, he didn’t have to.
“Come on,” the man said, motioning toward the cabin. “Let’s have a chat together, all of us, shall we?”
Having no choice, Morgan started walking toward the door. It felt like marching to his own execution.
CHAPTER 28
Morgan trudged heavily into the cabin, with the killer named Wagner holding the gun on him from behind. The assassin was holding, Morgan now saw, not a firearm but a tranquilizer gun. But what really caught his eye was the man’s face. The scar, though long healed, was deep and disfiguring. It started on his left cheek, swept up to take a chunk from his nose, seemed to pull up his right eyelid by an unseen string, and ended in a diagonal slash through his right eyebrow, giving him the appearance of a permanent scowl. His face was sunken, and he had tiny eyes and a thin nose, which made him look ratlike, despite his solid build.
Morgan knew the man, Ingolf Wagner, by reputation. He was an East German defector, ruthless and cruel by all accounts, who took pleasure in killing his marks. His brutality, it was said, was matched only by his skill with a bowie knife. And this man was going into a cabin where Morgan’s wife and daughter waited. It was, for Morgan, the stuff his worst nightmares were made of.
As they entered, Morgan scanned the room for a way to turn the tables on the assailant, for any potential weapon; but there was nothing he could have reached fast enough. He wasn’t going to risk the man opening fire with Jenny and Alex in here, even with just a tranquilizer gun. He had to bide his time and look for an opening.
“Stand up,” said Wagner to Jenny and Alex, who were still huddled under the table. They emerged slowly, nervously. Alex was trembling, and tears were streaming down her face. Jenny put her arms around her daughter and held her tightly, staring at Wagner protectively, waxing with aggressive hostility. Alex, on the other hand, seemed far diminished. Despite her sinewy strength, the girl now appeared small and fragile. Morgan caught the assassin leering momentarily at Alex before averting his eyes.
Bastard.
“Sit down. You first, Cobra. Hands flat on the table. Move a finger, and I’ll cut it off.” He bent over, his eyes mere slits, and whispered, “Try anything funny, and your wife and daughter will not be so pretty anymore.”
Keeping an eye on them, Wagner began examining the cabin. He picked up the suitcases one by one, opening them and spilling their contents onto the floor. Morgan’s blood boiled at seeing the man paw through his wife’s and daughter’s underwear, his beady eyes lingering just a second too long on a lacy pair that must have belonged to Alex. Murderous thoughts welled up in Morgan’s mind. Stay cool, he thought. Make a move now, and we’re all dead.
“Can I help you find anything?” asked Morgan, with mock solicitousness.
“Shut your mouth,” Wagner said gruffly, barely looking up from his search. He proceeded to pour out the contents of Morgan’s duffel. He quickly rifled through the various items and then walked over to where Morgan was sitting.
“You know who I am, don’t you?” His voice was a cool, menacing growl.
Morgan stared him in the face. “Yeah, I know who you are.”
“And you know what I do to people who don’t cooperate.”
Morgan glowered at him.
“Good. I just wanted to make sure I set the right tone.” He paced, circling the table. “See, Cobra, there is something I would like your cooperation with. And it’s so much easier if I don’t need to establish the consequences of your being uncooperative.”
“Let my wife and daughter go. Once I hear them drive away, we can talk.”
The man laughed, a hacking, barking laugh. “No, no, t
hat’s not how it works. You are going to die, Cobra. That is what I am getting paid for. But if you play ball, as they say, your family here might make it through tonight.”
Morgan knew he was most likely lying. There was nothing in it for him to leave living witnesses after he got what he wanted, and from what he had heard about this creature, he was a ruthless, vicious hit man. As long as it was up to him, Morgan was convinced, Jenny and Alex would never get out of this alive. But the way he looked at Alex also told Morgan something: the man was undisciplined. Let his desires get in the way of the mission. This made him especially dangerous and unpredictable, but it could also make him sloppy. Morgan had to play along and stay alive as long as possible, while he waited—and hoped—for Wagner to make a mistake.
“What do you want from me?” asked Morgan.
“That’s more like it,” he said with inordinate satisfaction. “I was told you need to be eliminated because you’ve become—how did they put it?—a grave liability. But that is not the whole story. You’ve got something with you, something that some people are quite desperate to get back.”
Morgan’s mind was working. Wagner was playing mercenary, trying to make an extra buck by working both sides. “Who the hell told you that?” asked Morgan, feigning ignorance.
“Who is not important,” he said. “You have a memory card hidden somewhere, and I want it. Where is it?”
“Do you know exactly what it is you’re looking for?” Morgan asked.
“Why?” said Wagner. “Do you want to tell me?” His eagerness belied his intentions. He wanted to use the pictures himself, for blackmail or leverage.
“The pictures show that a CIA operative and a major war contractor are working together to smuggle opium from Afghanistan,” Morgan said, slowly and deliberately. “Opium, I might add, that funds the militias that are killing our boys over there. It’s the sort of thing that’s going to make a lot of very powerful people very nervous, and you’re going to be in possession of those pictures. They will know you saw them, examined them. Are you sure you want that? Someone’s got the stones to be double-crossing the CIA here. What makes you so sure they’re going to let you live after this? That they won’t send someone after you like they sent you after me?”
Wagner scoffed. “I’m not an idiot like you, Cobra. I won’t be found. Unlike you, I don’t have anyone holding me back.” He looked at Jenny and Alex. “And unlike you, I don’t care. What I care about is that I get the money.”
“And how much are they paying you?” Morgan asked.
“More than you can match,” retorted Wagner, laughing his hideous, barking laugh. “No, Cobra, you cannot buy your way out of this.”
“Who was it?” asked Morgan. “Who sold out the CIA? Who’s paying you?”
“You know,” said Wagner, “I’m getting tired of all this goddamn talk.” He grabbed Alex by the hair, and she yelped as he pulled her to her feet. Unsheathing his knife, he brought it to rest against her throat. “Enough with the goddamn games, Cobra. I know you have the memory card with you, and you are going to get it for me.” He tugged at Alex’s hair, and she let out a small whimper. The knife, a long, wooden-handled bowie gleaming in the soft light, looked sharp enough to slice through bone. “Isn’t that right, sweetheart? Tell Daddy I won’t hurt you if he does as I say.”
Morgan ground his teeth, his fists balled so tightly, his nails dug into his flesh. He wanted nothing more than to rip out the bastard’s jugular.
“All right,” Morgan said, defeated. “You win. I’ve hidden them right here in the cabin.” He got up and walked backward, slowly, toward the corner, keeping his hands plainly visible. He crouched down and, with his right hand, lifted the loose floorboard.
“You had better not even be thinking about pulling out a gun on me, Cobra,” Wagner said. “You try anything, and your little girl here goes first.”
“Easy now,” said Morgan. “I’m just doing what you said.” Morgan removed the shopping bag from the hole, lifting up his hand to show that it wasn’t a gun.
“Bring it over here.”
Morgan walked over, hands outstretched, and held the bag out for Wagner. The assassin couldn’t take it without first letting go of Alex, who nearly stumbled forward, trembling.
“All right, sweetheart, you can sit down,” he said, keeping the knife at her throat. “Give it here,” he said to Morgan.
Morgan handed over the thick folder. As he handed over the little plastic memory card, he fumbled, and it fell on the floor of the cabin, at his feet.
“Here, I’ll get it,” said Morgan, bending down. But instead of picking up the chip, he wrapped his fist around the deer-antler lamp that Jenny had placed on the floor. Before Wagner could react, he swung it hard, diagonally upward. The heavy base hit Wagner in the face, sending him reeling back. Before he could recover from the blow, Morgan swung again, connecting with the man’s temple, and this time the assassin staggered and fell back hard on the wooden floor.
In a blind rage at the assassin’s threat to his family, Morgan struck once more with the lamp, and this time the wooden base broke off, flying low to a corner of the room. Morgan bashed him with the now-free deer antler again and again, and the bones of the man’s skull cracked sickeningly. The man convulsed and finally fell limp, his face beaten to a pulp, blood pooling around his head and seeping through the cracks in the wooden floor.
Morgan got up, panting, blood splattered on his face and shirt, feeling the relief of victory. Then he turned to Jenny and Alex, and only then, upon seeing the look of horror in his daughter’s face, did he realize what she had just witnessed. Alex, who was too squeamish to watch even mildly graphic action films; Alex, who at age eight had insisted they have a funeral for a bird that had hit the living room window and died; sweet, sensitive Alex, who opposed aggression on principle, had just seen him lose control and kill a man in an act of naked violence.
“Alex . . .” he said, but he didn’t know what to tell her. He wasn’t sorry. He couldn’t be sorry, after the bastard had threatened his wife and daughter. But he was afraid, at that moment, that he might lose his daughter, anyway.
“Why don’t we go into the bedroom, sweetie?” said a breathless Jenny, putting a comforting if shaking hand on her daughter’s shoulder. She nudged Alex, who then walked, wordlessly, through the doorway, looking blankly ahead. Jenny lingered with Morgan just enough to whisper to him, “I’m sorry, Dan. You just saved our lives—I know that. You did it to protect us. She’ll understand it in time. She’ll come around. Just . . . let me talk to her alone for a while.”
She gave him a gentle touch on the shoulder before walking into the other room with Alex and shutting the door behind her.
Damn.
Morgan knew there was nothing he could do now about Alex without making things worse, so instead, he did something that always warded off apprehension—focusing on practical matters. He needed to dispose of the body, which was the least of his troubles, considering that they were in a national forest. Their greatest problem was the fact that they had been found out and needed to get the hell out of there quickly. Once they realized that this one was dead, they would send another. And then, as he pondered this, he heard the rumble of a car outside, approaching the cabin.
Morgan hurriedly searched the dead man’s body and found what he was looking for—his concealed weapon, a five-round Ruger snub-nosed revolver, strapped to his ankle. He took it out, unlocked the safety, and rested his finger on the trigger. Whoever was coming, this time he would have more than a rusty rifle to fight them off with. He wouldn’t get taken by surprise. This time, he’d be ready.
He barged into the bedroom. “Someone else is here,” he told Alex and Jenny, who were huddled together on the bed. “It isn’t safe. Follow me.” He opened the window, which led to the outside, behind the cabin. He let his wife and distraught daughter climb out first and then hopped over himself. “Stand flat against the wall. If you hear gunshots, run into the forest, and don�
��t look back.”
The beam from the headlights went out, and then he heard the car door slam. Morgan skulked around to the side of the cabin, stepping carefully so as not to make a sound. In the dim light of the moon, Morgan could barely make out the parked car, which he identified as a Ford sedan. He heard footsteps approaching the door. They were light on the soft ground, but they still seemed too heavy to be T’s.
Well, whoever it was, Morgan wasn’t taking any chances. His grip tensed on the gun. This needed to be quick. Aim and shoot, no thinking. He heard the doorknob and the squeak of the front door. Morgan took a step beyond the corner and . . .
Crack.
Underneath his left foot, just a tiny twig, but it was enough. Morgan caught the fleeting glimpse of a man darting into the cabin, narrowly escaping twin bursts from Morgan’s weapon. Well, no point in subtlety now, thought Morgan, and he fired twice into the cabin, shattering the glass in a front-facing window.
Morgan ceased fire and crouched behind his GTO, checking his ammo. One more bullet. He looked around and found that he could see the reflection of the light streaming out of the cabin on the window of the stranger’s sedan. He raised his weapon, lying in wait. He could normally hit a fly at this range. But he only had one bullet. He’d have to make it count.
The silhouette of the man at the door appeared in the reflection. Morgan breathed deeply. He’d have one chance at this.
He shot up and swiveled in one quick motion, taking aim and ready to shoot.
And then he saw the man’s face. He gasped in surprise and lowered the weapon. His hairline had receded, making his already high forehead, now wrinkled, look even higher. New lines marked the face, and his hair had been dyed dirty blond, but he was as familiar as ever.
Standing at the door of the cabin was Peter Conley.
Termination Orders Page 16