Headhunters

by Charlie Cole

  I walked between them and entered the elevator. I reached for the button. The guards turned in unison and attempted to enter the elevator car.

  “Fuck off,” I growled. I glared at them hard and something in my expression must have sunk in, because they both stepped back. I hit the button for the 13th floor with my thumb.

  A second later my earpiece crackled to life. It was Nan. I’d be in constant communication with the team as the operation proceeded.

  “Simon?” she whispered.

  “Yes?” I replied.

  “I’ve got the medical report you requested,” she said. “The one for Randall Kendrick?”

  In the chaos of the day, I’d completely forgotten.

  “Sorry it took so long,” she said. “It was buried in a clinic in Bethesda, Maryland. I just got it back. And I think I owe the clerk there a date now.”

  “What’s it say?” I whispered.

  “Well, a lot,” she replied. “But long story short, here’s the deal. According to the doctor’s report, Randall Kendrick has terminal cancer. He has less than two weeks to live.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  I felt my heart crushed in my chest. It wasn’t so much a surprise as it was a devastating confirmation of suspicion. I had watched Randall Kendrick over the years. Watched him work. Hours… hell, days at the office on end. I’d told myself that the thinness, the gaunt look, the deepening hollows of his cheeks, that they were all just signs of a man waging a personal, endless war. I could imagine the toll it took on him. But to know this, that the cancer was eating away at him, it brought me up short.

  “Are you sure?” I whispered to Nan over the radio transmitter. I don’t know what other answer I would have expected.

  “I’m sure,” Nan said. She was quiet then. Her usual harsh demeanor had softened. She knew, whether I intended for her to know or not, that Randall was still a friend. It didn’t change my mission. It just didn’t make it any easier. And Nan stayed quiet out of respect.

  “I’m sorry,” she said at last.

  I nodded, then remembered she could not see me.

  “Thank you.”

  The elevator doors opened and Donovan’s security team was waiting for me. There was four of them and I immediately dubbed them the Stooges. Curly grabbed me by the arm and yanked me out of the elevator. I didn’t resist. He pushed me up against the wall while Shemp frisked me. When they found nothing, Larry looked at their leader and shook his head. Moe, the smart stooge, nodded and opened the office door. I didn’t bother making any cutting remarks. I just wanted to see Kendrick.

  I entered the offices through the heavy double doors. The space was a combination of an office and comfortable living space. Isabelle Athabasca sat at one end of the room in a leather armchair. She had a wireless laptop in front of her and a Bluetooth headset in her ear. She was speaking in an Asian dialect that I didn’t recognize. She looked in my direction and smiled. The warmth of her expression unsettled me a bit.

  I walked past a desk that I imagined a receptionist would sit at in a normal office and saw Max. He was sitting in an overstuffed chair near the floor to ceiling windows.

  “I never thought I’d see you again,” Max said. His voice held a hint of danger as if his threat was skating just under the surface.

  “One can always hope,” I replied. “Where’s Randall?”

  Max waved his hand dismissively and sipped his drink.

  “He’ll come around,” Max said. “Have a seat.”

  I didn’t and Max didn’t seem to notice.

  “You got his attention, you know,” Max said. “He likes you. Wanted you to come back… God knows why…”

  Max’s last words were swallowed as he hoisted his glass again. I was amazed to realize that he was letting his guard down, letting himself relax. Was he enjoying the moment? The thrill of the sale? Knowing that he would be selling the secrets and getting paid for his iniquities? Kendrick could sell the DHS secrets that Max stole to a dozen different buyers within mere hours. And the financial reward would set him up nicely anywhere from the Cayman Islands to Geneva Switzerland.

  “Coffee?” the voice came from behind me. I turned and saw Randall Kendrick. He stood there at ease and offered me a mug. I was unsure if I should punch him or hug him. In the end, I just took the coffee.

  “Mmm… that’s good,” I said. “Colombian?”

  “Jamaican Blue Mountain,” Randall replied with a smile. I sipped again and recognized the smooth flavor. My nerves had been so wired before that the subtlety of the blend had escaped me.

  “Shall we sit?” Randall asked.

  The surreal nature of the meeting was not lost on me. Max Donovan was an industrial spy and traitor to his country. Randall Kendrick was a rogue director of an antiterrorist agency so secret that it may never exist past his death. And I was a wanted fugitive for the murder of a friend. And yet we were all sitting together to have a drink.

  Not for the first time, I wondered when the doors would open and Kendrick’s people would pour in, guns blazing and take me down. But as the moment stretched on, it never happened. And so we sat and sipped our brews and allowed the situation to settle over us.

  “It’s done,” Isabelle said from across the room. We turned to look at her and saw that she was walking toward us. When she’d worked at the office, her demeanor had always been businesslike, straightforward. She’s never seemed the sort to initiate or enjoy smalltalk. Her movements had always been crisp and clipped, sparing no extra motion. But out of the office, Isabelle was a different creature all together.

  She walked toward us with a feline grace, hips rolling, swaying side to side in a way that was intoxicating. Her smile was inviting, yet dangerous. For the first time, I wondered what kind of a threat she truly was. How much was here that I wasn’t seeing.

  “Who bought?” Max shot back.

  “Mitchell Burr,” Isabelle purred. I was taking a sip of my coffee as she said this, trying to seem disinterested, but when I heard the name I could feel the heat rise in my cheeks. I recognized the name. In fact, I knew the man.

  I tried to look away but Randall Kendrick’s eyes caught mine. What I saw there disturbed me. Where I expected to see triumph, instead there was sadness. It was a look of “Do you see what I have to deal with here?” Kendrick’s expression was pleading to me. I couldn’t say anything, not with Max beside us, so instead I cocked my head a fraction, questioning.

  “Fantastic!” Max boomed. “I really thought the North Koreans had a shot at it, but I’ll take Burr’s money in a heartbeat.”

  “He’s transferring half the money now,” Isabelle continued. “And half upon delivery.”

  I fought back the question, but mercifully, Kendrick asked it for me.

  “He’s coming here?” Kendrick said, eyebrows lifting.

  Isabelle purred the affirmative and sauntered away. Max chuckled, lifted his glass, finishing his drink and stood, following her.

  “Get him on the phone, Ms. Athabasca,” Max said. “I want to be the first to congratulate him.”

  Max stood beside Isabelle’s desk while she dialed for him.

  “What’s going on here?” I asked Kendrick. I was leaning forward, elbows on knees. Kendrick did the same, mirroring my posture. It was a skill I’d learned in recruiting, to rise or fall to the level of the person that you’re trying to recruit. I could change the cadence of my speech, my vocabulary to reflect the person I was after. It made them comfortable and put them at ease. The same was true of posture. It became almost a monkey-see, monkey-do dance. Kendrick was reflecting my movements, trying to bring me in.

  “I know you are aware of Mitchell Burr,” Kendrick began. Of course I was. Burr was the point man for domestic terrorism in the United States. It would have been one thing if Burr were an arms dealer. It was something else entirely that he had an agenda. I had read his file when I’d first worked on bringing in Burr. He had served in the first Gulf war and had felt betrayed by his country and so had t
urned on them.

  Mitchell Burr was the case I’d been on when Claire had died.

  “Of course, I know him,” I said.

  “Then you know how much it means to bring him in,” Kendrick replied.

  “Are you telling me that you did all of this to bring in Burr?” I asked. “It’s that important to you?”

  “No, Simon… It’s that important to you.”

  Kendrick fixed his eyes on me, but there was no malice there. If my father had been more understanding in those early days, he may have looked at me like that when he was trying to teach me something.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I lied.

  Kendrick blinked once and then sighed, smiling at me.

  “Simon, it’s me,” he said. “It’s Randall. I know, okay?”

  I felt the tears well in my eyes and fought them back. It would do no good to posture for Kendrick. I knew he’d see through it.

  “Simon, it was the project you were working on when Claire passed,” Kendrick replied. “I know, son. Okay? The bombing in Atlanta. It was Burr. We knew that. The federal building with the daycare center… it wasn’t lost on me, son. I knew what it meant for you to capture Burr. You looked at the pictures of those kids in the wreckage and the rubble and… I know… you saw your own children there. It could have been your kids, my friend. So you poured your heart into that case to keep it from becoming your kids…”

  Jesus, he had me… He’d profiled me… He knew me…

  “But the work took you away from Claire,” Kendrick said. “And regardless of where that blame lies… she is gone now. You worked to protect your family and the family was destroyed because of the work.”

  I nodded and rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands.

  “We can get him,” Kendrick said. “Together.”

  I looked at him and could sense the steel in him, even now.

  I didn’t know if Kendrick felt remorse for what he’d done. But he was somehow trying to make things right. I looked over at Max, still on the phone with Burr. Isabelle stood behind him, arms crossed, looking at us, smiling coolly.

  “Who is she?” I asked finally.

  “Isabelle?” Kendrick smiled. “Isabelle has become one of my best agents. She started at Donovan & Associates months before you did.”

  I looked at Kendrick, then at Isabelle.

  “I’m surprised no one else has seen the family resemblance,” I said quietly.

  Kendrick smiled at that.

  “Rose and I had one child,” Kendrick said, nodding to Isabelle.

  “Why did I never hear about this?” I asked.

  “She was traveling,” Kendrick sighed. “First to university in Oxford, then recruited by the CIA because of her talent with languages. Isabelle was my access into the intelligence community when I started Blackthorn. We kept ourselves separate for years. Now, she’s retired from the Agency. Now, she works for me.”

  I didn’t like the way the meeting was going. There were too many cards that Kendrick was holding. I had to find a way to keep him off-balance.

  “Does she know?”

  “Know what?” Kendrick replied

  “About the cancer…” I said. “That you’re dying.”

  Kendrick’s coffee mug stopped halfway to his lips. The mug held there for a moment, then continued on.

  “We’re all dying,” Kendrick said finally. “But I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention it to her just yet.”

  I nodded. Somehow I could understand that.

  “Why didn’t you tell me though?” I asked.

  “Because you were not ready,” he replied.

  I pondered that. Not ready… what did that mean? Before I had a chance to ask him. Max returned with Isabelle. He eased down into his overstuffed chair the way a snake slithers onto a rock.

  “He’s coming,” Max said. “Burr will be here within the hour.”

  “And what do you get out of this, Max?” I asked.

  “Not to be flippant,” Max replied, “But I get a payday. In the end, that’s why everyone works at the job that they work. To get paid. Some people would be sanctimonious and tell you that they like the challenge or how rewarding their work is… that’s all bullshit. People work to get paid.”

  “And what’s your payday for this, Max?” I asked.

  “I’m too much of a gentlemen to discuss numbers,” he said.

  I rolled my eyes at Kendrick, who stifled a laugh.

  “You’re so full of it, Max,” I said. “Tell me this then… why did you have to kill Tom? And Chris? Was that worth what you’re getting paid?”

  I realized the lines were blurring slightly. Max and Kendrick seemed to be working together and their crimes seemed to be so co-mingled that peeling them apart was nearly impossible. However, it was to my advantage to deal with only one adversary at a time. At the moment, Max seemed to be the easiest target.

  “You just don’t get it, do you?” Max said. He aimed a thick finger in my face accusingly. “That’s just the way business is done. You can’t leave loose ends.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Kendrick agreed, looking at him.

  In my earpiece, I could hear the voice of Billy Bender.

  “We’re recording your conversation,” Billy whispered. “We’ll have audio tapes for the trial when these guys get charged.

  Billy was a law school grad and I understood his perspective. Criminals were prosecuted. But sitting there, I knew that these people would never see the light of a court room.

  “We’re beginning the hack now,” came the voice of Nan over the earpiece.

  I needed to stall for whatever time I could get.

  “You didn’t have to kill them,” I said.

  “Chris was a liability,” Max explained as if I were a child. “We took him out to put the blame on you. We needed to sacrifice someone for the DHS theft and you were a likely suspect. In the end, it really doesn’t matter.”

  “What about Chris’ audit team?” I asked. “Did you kill all of them, too?”

  “There was no need,” Max replied. “I approached Chris myself. Offered a little profit sharing program on the sale of the merchandise. I told him that you were on board with it, so he went for it. No one else on his team even knew.”

  I hadn’t known that. Max made the deal with Chris in my name. Chris had only done it because he thought it had come from me. He was dead now because of the trust he’d invested in me.

  “And Ellis?” I asked.

  “Tom Ellis was a whistle blower,” Max said dismissively. “No one likes a whistle blower.”

  “Can you believe this guy?” Kendrick said to me, jerking a thumb in Max’s direction, laughing. He was laughing, but Kendrick’s eyes were dead. Max was laughing now too, slapping his knee and raising his glass, then pointing at me like I was a fool, the court jester come calling. I said nothing, but watched them both in shock.

  “Isabelle, my dear,” Kendrick said at last. “Could you bring that gift for Max over here?”

  “What? A gift?” Max chortled in amusement and surprise, like a kid at Christmas, his day only getting better and better.

  Isabelle approached the back of Max’s chair and I turned to see her bring up a Heckler & Koch USP pistol in a two-handed grip, aimed at the back of Max’s skull.

  I wanted to say something, tried to say something, opened my mouth to croak a word of warning, but nothing came out. I did not know if it was an inability to speak that stopped me, or simply an unwillingness to stop what I saw to be the inevitable. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kendrick looking not at Isabelle or Max, but at me. He knew what was happening, had no doubt of her capabilities. His regard was on me and how I’d react to it. The moment hung in the air for an eternity and I imagined that I could see everything happen in slow motion. Isabelle’s finger tightened on the trigger, squeezing it, until at last, the hammer fell.

  The USP went off with a resounding crash and I immediately felt like my eardrums had exploded.
The muzzle flash of the pistol backlit Max’s head in what would’ve looked like an ethereal halo had that moment stood alone in time. But it did not and in that same moment that the gun fired and the muzzle belched fire, I saw the hollowpoint bullet exit through the front of Max’s face in a spray of blood and tissue. The slug passed through his skull, splintered a hole in the coffee table and buried itself in the floor. Max’s body slumped forward and fell between Randall and I, hitting the table with a sickening wet smack.

  “Holy shit…” I wheezed. I could hear radio chatter through my earpiece and wished I could pluck it out and throw it away, but that was impossible just now. The voices sounded distant and muffled in the aftermath of the shot and I pushed them out of my brain. My eyes were anchored to Max’s dead body. He looked so small. Not the powerful man he’d been a moment before. No, nothing close to that now.

  My hand went to my chest. I’d felt the concussion of the shot through my ribs. I could feel my heart hammering away and I knew then that I was in woefully beyond my depths here.

  I heard a sound behind me, to my left. Voices, running feet. It was the Stooges. Max’s people outside the door. They were coming in. Acting on instinct, I lunged from my chair, going for Kendrick. His eyes went wide just before we collided.

  I hit his chair high enough and tipped him over backwards a moment before I heard the gunfire begin. I rolled over the top of Kendrick and came to a stop with the armchair between us and Isabelle.

  I peeked over the chair and saw her then. To say that I’d never seen that side of Isabelle Athabasca is an exponential understatement. But the beauty, the sheer deadly grace in the way she moved… I couldn’t look away.

  She fired doubletaps, two closely spaced shots in rapid succession. The first two men through the door dropped in their tracks, dead, one falling over the body of the other, lifeless before their bodies hit the floor. She moved then, spinning to take cover behind a desk. She ejected the magazine in her pistol, rammed another home and let the slide slam shut. The entire operation took place in the breadth of a second. While she was reloading her weapon the other two stormed through the door. The one was almost on us when two rounds slammed into him. I looked over and saw Isabelle already aiming at Moe, the last stooge standing. He tried to run. Isabelle shot him once in the back in the doorway. He fell in a pathetic splay of arms and legs. Isabelle approached him and fired once more into his prone body.