Headhunters

by Charlie Cole

  I couldn’t help but watch her and marvel at what she’d done. Five men down in under twenty seconds. I knew this had to be Kendrick’s daughter. She approached, reloading as she did and jammed the extracted magazine into the waistband of her jeans. I couldn’t stop the thought from escaping that Jessica could never have done something like that. And with that thought, I struggled as to whether or not that was a good thing.

  “Simon! Simon! Are you okay?” I could hear Billy squalling into my earpiece. I had to say something or he wouldn’t stop.

  “Jesus…” I breathed. “Why did you do that? Why did you shoot Max?”

  I could hear Billy convey the news to Nan and Jessica, since they were all in the van together. I only hoped that it kept them together and focused. We had one target down, but I was still in the game… for now.

  “I can only have one business partner,” Kendrick said. “And Max just wasn’t cutting it.”

  I looked at Max and could see the pool of blood that was gathering where his head rested on the table. I stood suddenly and shuddered. Kendrick stood as well, eyeing me to see what direction I’d go.

  I gestured at the guards, at Max himself. I stuttered, struggled for words.

  “Don’t you… Don’t you feel anything?” I asked finally.

  “Yes…” Kendrick began.

  “…recoil,” his daughter finished for him. They shared a smile then that chilled me to my core. Kendrick seemed to note my discomfort.

  “Son, it’s what needs to be done,” he said. “Don’t you see?”

  I didn’t shake my head so much as just tried to look away.

  “What is it that bothers you?” Isabelle asked. “Is it really that I killed them? Or is it that you wanted to kill Max yourself?”

  Kendrick reached for me and I pulled away but found myself backed up to the windows. I looked outside, down at the city.

  “You know why you took this job in the first place, Simon,” Kendrick said. “You knew what needed to be done. God knows, it’s not pretty, but it’s what’s required. We do what others cannot. What the public wants to have accomplished without knowing how it’s done. I used Max to draw out Burr. Max wasn’t necessary anymore. So we buried him. Simple as that.”

  I said nothing, but when I looked up, I realized that I could see their reflection in the glass, standing behind me.

  “Simon, I need to know what you’re thinking, son…” Kendrick said. His voice held no threat and that perhaps was the most dangerous kind. I never saw Isabelle as a threat and yet, she was the ace up his sleeve.

  I turned back to face them and took a step toward Isabelle.

  “You should have let me kill him,” I said, my voice flat. She examined my face, my eyes, and I knew the scrutiny that I was under. Then she did the last thing I would have imagined. She put her pistol in her pants, just in front of her hipbone and put her arms around my neck and hugged me.

  “I’m sorry for the people that you’ve lost,” she whispered. “It must be so hard for you.”

  I let it happen, not able to stop it. When she pulled back, I could only nod. I turned to face Randall Kendrick.

  “I want back into Blackthorn,” I said.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Randall Kendrick hugged me and I felt as if the room was spinning. He pounded me on the back, welcoming me home. I was his prodigal son. Although I didn’t remember if the prodigal son in the Bible stabbed his father in the back after he was welcomed home. I think I would have remembered that part if it had been in there.

  Kendrick held me by my shoulders at arm’s reach and looked me over.

  “I’m glad to have you back, son,” Kendrick beamed.

  I forced my lips to move, my cheeks to lift, made myself smile. Forced myself to make it look natural. The result must have been satisfactory because Kendrick laughed and slapped me on the arm. He put an arm around my shoulders and turned me to walk with him.

  “Mitchell Burr is on his way here,” Kendrick began. “He’s going to be bringing his personal body guards with him…”

  I prayed that Kendrick’s words were carrying through my hidden microphone and to my team. It was one thing for Billy, Jess and Nan. They were circling the city streets, removed from the danger, at least by proximity. But Ron Crawford and Geoff Spanner… they were coming into the building, heavily armed and anticipating a fight. The odds had just doubled against them.

  “So, what’s your plan?” I asked.

  The words were no sooner out of my mouth than the doors to the office opened and agents walked in. Blackthorn field agents. A dozen of them.

  And leading the pack were Agent Brock and Agent Vaughn. Kendrick waved them over. I just tried to breathe. I’d had my hands full with Kendrick and Isabelle Athabasca. Now with a dozen Blackthorn agents and Burr’s security team on their way. I feared the worst. A bloodbath.

  “Simon… Mitchell Burr is a terrorist on American soil,” Kendrick said. “Moreover, he’s a murderer. In truth, he played a hand in the events that took you away from your family. That lead to Claire’s depression…”

  He didn’t need to say more. I looked from Kendrick to his daughter and back.

  “Will you let me take him?” I asked.

  Kendrick regarded me closely, examining me. I could see behind him the agents working. They were loading the bodies of Max Donovan’s men into black body bags. I heard the harsh zipper of one and then saw it carried from the room. Then another. Then another after it. I wanted to tell them not to forget about Max… poor dead faceless Max, but Brock and Vaughn were tending to him themselves. They’d moved his body, cleaned the table and moved an ornate vase from an end table to the coffee table where the bullet hole had been. It was as if Martha Stewart had joined CSI… no unsightly evidence of homicide when your company comes over.

  I choked back a laugh that sickened me and for a moment thought I might vomit. I put the back of my hand to my mouth and turned away, unable to look at the ghastly task.

  “Not today, son,” Kendrick said.

  I looked back at him, questioning.

  “Not today?” I asked. “What—?”

  Kendrick began to answer, but faltered and began coughing. It began as a polite clearing of the throat, then a hacking, phlegmy spasm. I put my hand on his shoulder to steady him and offered him my handkerchief.

  “Thank you,” he gasped.

  I looked up and saw Isabelle looking at me. Her eyes were both accusing and alarmed. I could only give her a sympathetic smile. She shook her head slowly, not understanding. Kendrick was still hunched, coughing into my handkerchief and I managed to raise a finger to my lips before he straightened up.

  “Are you okay, my friend?” I asked.

  “Okay… okay…” he wheezed. He cleared his throat, adjusted his tie and stood up straight at last. He apologized and pocketed my handkerchief that was flecked with blood now.

  “Burr… Burr is the gatekeeper… of hell,” Kendrick breathed.

  I thought he’d lost it. Just absolutely given up his last vestige of sensibility and gone off the deep end. He’d coughed so hard his sanity had fallen away, leaving only hopeless madness. But I was wrong.

  “Burr will take the DHS files,” Kendrick said,” and he will split them up and sell them.”

  “Sell them…” I repeated, digesting his words.

  “To sleeper cells within the United States,” Kendrick said. “To domestic terror groups like the Michigan Militia of the Oklahoma City bombing, renegade paramilitary organizations, the Afghans. Any Middle Eastern warlord with a grudge against the United States would want a piece of that pie.

  “If those records got out, you could expect bombings in federal buildings, airports and schoolyards. There are enemies of the state who would absolutely rip this country apart with the information from those files.”

  “So why not kill Burr now?” I asked.

  “The DHS files are the biggest honey pot we’ve ever uncovered,” Kendrick said. “The opportunity tha
t this holds, to get those files out into the open… every player in the international terror community will come calling. Max Donovan…” Kendrick pointed at the body bag being carried out, “…was a small fish compared to a man like Mitchell Burr. Max Donovan led to Burr, Burr will lead to the heads of the terror networks.”

  I swallowed hard, thinking of this. When I’d been in parochial school growing up, I’d learned that the devil tells lies by telling the truth half the time. There was truth and value in what Kendrick said. But the lie, the big ugly lie that was buried beneath, still smelled rotten.

  “But for your plan to work,” I said. “We need to let those files out into the open… We would need to sell those files to terrorists…”

  Kendrick waved a hand dismissively.

  “It wouldn’t all be genuine data,” he said. “Not all of it anyway.”

  My heart picked up a beat.

  “What are you saying?”

  “We replace most of the data with bogus intel, just so that we can track its sale and distribution,” Kendrick said.

  “Most of the data… what’s not bogus then?”

  “Well, we have to leave some things that are genuine, otherwise the data doesn’t test true,” Kendrick said. “They’ll know we’re selling something bogus, so we filter in some genuine data and have them test that.”

  “People will die…” I said. My voice sounded hollow, even to my own ears.

  “People would die anyway,” Kendrick replied. “But we can save more this way. We can stop the people behind it. There are casualties in every war, son.”

  My knees felt weak as he continued on. I could hear him, but the words soaked in slowly, like a delayed broadcast.

  “My Rose died in this war, son,” Kendrick continued. “Your Claire died because of this son of a bitch, Burr. But because of their sacrifice, you and I have saved thousands of lives.”

  I wanted to scream at him. Punch him. Stab him. Shoot him. I cared for this poor, sick man and part of me wanted to believe that it was the cancer that made him this way. That it had eaten into his brain and turned his world upside down.

  But I knew of no cancer that made a man evil. What Kendrick had was a moral cancer. A battlefield cancer of one who’s seen so many soldiers fall that a few more didn’t matter. It didn’t frighten me that my friend, Randall Kendrick, was going to die. I could accept that, albeit sadly. But what truly frightened me, what chilled me to my core was the manner in which he’d lost his way. I’d respected Randall once. Thought him to be a great man. And now, I saw him adrift from the world, his moral compass spinning wildly with no true north.

  “I understand,” I said at last.

  Kendrick patted my shoulder and excused himself. He took my handkerchief from his pocket and I could hear the low rumble working in his chest and it pained me. He’d bide his time here, but once in the men’s room, I imagined he would hack and cough until whatever vileness was caught inside of him let loose. A shudder ran through me. I saw Brock return and reach to help Kendrick but the old man waved him back and Brock, for his part, seemed relieved not to have to touch him.

  “What’s going on?” Isabelle asked, appearing at my side as I looked after him.

  I looked at her. She was beautiful in an exotic way. I remembered what she’d done to Max… to his men… and I stayed my distance.

  “He asked me not to tell you,” I replied. The truth sounded refreshing in my mouth and I enjoyed speaking it.

  “The hell with what he wants,” she growled. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “What do you think is wrong with him?” I asked.

  She pondered that for a minute and realized that I didn’t want to answer her.

  “Is it cancer?” she asked. “Lymphoma?”

  I shrugged and half nodded.

  “God damn it, tell me!” she shouted.

  I turned and looked at her and couldn’t manage to summon the emotions, so I answered her simply.

  “He’s dying because he misses his wife,” I said. “He misses Rose. And all this fucking bullshit is sucking the life out of him. So, if you’re so anxious to put a bullet in someone, do your father a favor…”

  I don’t really remember anything after that except for a faint feeling of déjà vu, only this time when I’d run off my smart mouth, I hadn’t gotten hit by my father’s shovel, but by the barrel of Isabelle’s gun.

  ***

  I woke slowly, clawing my way up into consciousness, but it was a reluctant climb. With consciousness came pain. With sleep, the pain eased. I lost the battle three times before finally opening my eyes. I cracked them only open a little.

  My left cheek was throbbing in a sharp, biting pain. The right side of my head was a pulsing ache. My brain struggled to comprehend for a second until I realized that Isabelle had hit me with her USP pistol and the front sight had tore into my cheek. I’d gone down hard and hit the other side of my head on the floor. It all made perfect sense. It didn’t make my head hurt any less, but it did make perfect sense.

  “He’s awake,” I heard a voice say.

  I lifted my head and felt as if my neck were not up for the task of keeping my skull upright on my shoulders.

  “Agent Vaughn?” I asked.

  Vaughn was sitting across from me and nodded, smiling.

  “Good morning,” I mumbled.

  “It’s nearly midnight,” he scoffed.

  “Of course it is,” I replied, nonplussed.

  I tested my neck, my head, felt my cheek. Everything still worked.

  “Could I get some—“ I began to ask.

  A hand tapped me on the shoulder and offered me something. I held out my palm. Two caplets were dropped. I looked up.

  “Agent Brock,” I slurred, not having to act disoriented nearly as much as I’d hoped. I looked at the pills. “Cyanide, I presume?”

  “Here, take them,” Brock handed me a glass of water. I swallowed the caplets and drank the water, then belched. An agent on the other side of the room stifled a laugh and I tried to find him but couldn’t.

  “I can’t believe you let a woman kick your ass,” Vaughn said with a smile. He’d been given a bandage across his nose from our last meeting. It was still swollen and from the new bump in it, broken.

  “Well, I kicked your ass and she kicked mine, so what does that tell you?” I asked with a smile.

  Brock and Vaughn looked at one another, then back at me.

  “That’s a tough woman,” Vaughn agreed. Brock nodded beside him.

  Randall Kendrick approached. He motioned for his agents to be on their way and they were. Vaughn even slapped me on the back as he walked away. Kendrick dropped into the seat across from me. He was smiling and shaking his head.

  “Son, what the hell did you say to her?”

  I shrugged and put a hand to my cheek. Brock reappeared for a moment and offered a towel with ice inside.

  “What? Oh, thanks, man,” I said and Brock disappeared. Kendrick was still looking at me, waiting for his answer. “She wanted to know about you… your condition…”

  “What did you tell her?” he asked. His voice was sensitive and I missed him as a friend.

  “Nothing at first,” I replied. I pulled the ice away and showed him my cheek. “Your daughter can be very persistent. Just like her old man.”

  Kendrick chuckled.

  “Did you tell her?” he asked.

  “She figured it out,” I replied.

  Kendrick looked down at his shoes and nodded sagely, then let out a quiet laugh. “I suppose it was inevitable.”

  “I told her she should put you down,” I confessed.

  Kendrick gave me a hard stare, then broke out in a gust of laughter.

  “No wonder she clocked you, son!” Kendrick couldn’t help himself from laughing and I couldn’t help but join him.

  Finally he settled back and looked me over.

  “I’m going to tell you something, and I want you to take it in the spirit that it’s intended,”
Kendrick said.

  “This can’t be good,” I replied.

  Kendrick waved his hand dismissively.

  “You’ve… moved on in life, Simon,” he said. “You’re here with us now. You’ve decided on the life that you want. But… I’m never going to see the end of this operation.”

  I understood what he was saying.

  “But you will. My daughter is here… Simon, I want you to have the life I couldn’t have. The life I couldn’t complete.”

  “Randall… what are you saying?”

  “I want you to take over Blackthorn operations when I die,” Kendrick said.

  For a long moment, I couldn’t breathe. The sentence still hung in the air, the words ringing in my ears.

  “Are you serious?” I asked.

  Kendrick nodded.

  “I am. More than you know,” he said. “There’s something else, too.”

  I was afraid to ask.

  “What is it?”

  “I want you to run it with Isabelle at your side,” Kendrick said.

  My mind faltered at the notion.

  “Isabelle?”

  “I think you two would be good together,” Kendrick said.

  “What?” I said, louder than I intended. “She just pistol-whipped me!”

  “These things happen,” Kendrick replied, eyes pleading. “She’s just upset. You can understand that, can’t you?”

  If I had doubted whether or not Kendrick had lost his mind, it was confirmed to me now. He was pushing his empire out in front of him. His legacy was in motion in his own mind. All he needed was for everyone to agree to his grand scheme and I seemed to be the only one who didn’t see the wisdom of his ways.