The Essential Sam Jameson / Peter Kittredge Box Set: SEVEN bestsellers from international sensation Lars Emmerich

by Lars Emmerich

  Nero disconnected the ignition wires, killing the motorcycle engine. He parked the bike on the curb, behind a shiny new truck, itself parked next to a dilapidated hovel. Nero shook his head. He never understood the lower-class penchant for squalid living conditions and beautiful, shiny cars.

  Nero walked down the block, looking between houses to spot the telltale 1980s satellite television dish that had always dominated his uncle’s backyard. It was a perfect landmark. And a necessary one for Nero, because he had never bothered to learn his uncle’s address.

  He didn’t spot the dish right away. He worried momentarily that he was on the wrong block. He double-checked the street sign. He was pretty sure he was in the right place, but doubt nagged at him. He continued down the block, head craned and eyes straining to glimpse the big white disk sticking up from the ground. He grew more nervous by the second, felt more and more exposed with each passing moment.

  Had his uncle taken the dish out of the yard?

  Did his uncle still live there?

  Was the old bastard still alive?

  Nero fought a strange combination of despair and panic. He had rested his hopes on successfully recovering the coffee can from his uncle’s place. It had taken on extreme importance in Nero’s mind. Because it was extremely important. He was dead in the water without it.

  He kept walking, searching, worrying about how suspicious he must have looked, like he was casing the place. Which, of course, he was.

  Finally, he found the dish, big and ugly and anachronistic, protruding from a weed-filled yard around the other side of the block. Nero felt equal parts relief and tension. Because now he had to go dig up the coffee can.

  He couldn’t be spotted walking toward someone’s house in the middle of the night. Great way to get shot, in such a neighborhood. He needed to find a stealthy avenue of approach.

  He walked back up the block until he found a house with a row of waist-high bushes arranged in a line perpendicular to the street. Precisely the cover Nero was looking for. He bent down as if to tie his shoe, then Army-crawled on his hands and knees between the hedgerow and a parked pickup truck, heading away from the street and toward the backyard fence.

  When he judged himself to be out of the line of sight from the street, he took a deep breath and stood, peering over the fence into the yard.

  He heard the rattle of a chain. A low growl followed. A watchdog. His innards clenched in instant fright. He hated dogs. And it would do no good to sneak around like a ninja, only to wake up a guard dog by hopping a fence. It would alert everyone in the neighborhood, not to mention the bored feds who were undoubtedly sitting in a car someplace on the other side of the block watching his uncle’s house.

  He snuck one house to the north.

  Another dog.

  He tried the other direction. He fought his nerves as he made his way south, wondering who might have been watching him from a window. It wasn’t smart to wander around back and forth in front of people’s houses at midnight. Someone was liable to walk outside with a shotgun, interested in having a wordless conversation.

  Nero peered over the fence into the backyard.

  No dog. “Hallelujah,” he breathed. He shook the fence a little bit, just to be sure. Nothing stirred.

  His heart raced. Go time.

  Nero scaled the fence, feeling the rotting wood creak and groan beneath his weight. He swung one leg over the top, then the other one, then lowered himself slowly and carefully to the earth.

  Mud. Nero felt his shoes sink. He cursed softly beneath his breath. Mud was great for a lot of things, but not stealth. Mud left footprints. He stepped out of the puddle and did his best to scrape the mud off his shoes onto the grass. But it was dark, and he couldn’t tell how successful he had been. He had no idea whether he would leave footprints en route to his uncle’s backyard.

  And he still had another fence to scale. Slippery shoes would be a hazard.

  He cursed, shook his head, and took his shoes off, setting them near the fence. He hoped he wouldn’t be called on to win a footrace. He doubted he could outrun even the fattest donut-munching flatfoot while barefoot.

  Nero low-crawled toward the fence separating the neighbor’s house from his uncle’s.

  Except that it wasn’t his uncle’s house. Avoiding the guard dogs had forced Nero to move further down the block than he had realized. Two more fences separated him from his uncle’s yard. The realization left him even more nervous. Adrenaline coursed through his veins, and he felt the blood pounding in his temples.

  Nero peered over the fence, praying there would be no angry animal on the other side.

  All clear. He scaled the fence gingerly, taking care not to injure his bare feet on the old, rotting fence wood. It took forever. Maybe even longer than that.

  Despite his care, despite the slow pace that he used to get over the fence, he had to suppress yelps of pain on several occasions as his foot slipped. He jammed his toe into the rail, and the pressure from his body weight dug the pad of his feet painfully against the thin strip of wood. Shoes were a damn fine invention, Nero reflected, gritting his teeth. Life really must have sucked before them.

  He lowered himself down to the earth on the opposite side of the fence, and stepped into a nasty surprise. A thicket of weeds. Thorns. Thistles. Whatever the hell you were supposed to call them. He felt them biting into the skin of his feet. “Goddamn,” he groaned. It felt like things kept getting worse with each passing moment, like he was in some kind of a stupid television comedy. It wasn’t much of a plan to begin with, and it felt like it was unraveling.

  Nero stepped gingerly out from the weeds, praying for grass. Instead, he got rocks, small and sharp and jagged. He stepped gingerly across, wincing as the sharp edges bored into the bottom of his feet, biting his lip as his foot slipped painfully off of a large, jagged stone.

  He fell. His body slammed into the ground. The air rushed from his lungs. An involuntary ooof escaped his throat, loud and unmistakably human. His foot hurt like hell. He felt it with his hand. It felt warm and slick. Blood. “Shit,” Nero mouthed silently. What on earth had possessed him to take his shoes off?

  He heard a noise. It came from inside the house. A light switched on. Footfalls sounded from within.

  Nero flattened himself on the ground. He looked around for shelter. He was almost smack in the middle of the tiny yard, he realized. There was no cover anywhere. No place to hide. He held his breath, forcing himself to remain still, fighting an overwhelming urge to get up and run.

  The light went out inside the house. More footsteps, but growing fainter, moving away.

  Nero started breathing again.

  He crawled onward, aiming for a tall tree on the far side of the yard, planning to use it for shelter while he peered over the fence into his uncle’s backyard, hoping to stay hidden from any watchers in the front of his uncle’s house.

  He rose slowly, his eyes peeking just above the top of the fence, and spied the giant, ancient satellite dish, bought and paid for by honest taxpayers, by way of his uncle’s unemployment benefit. It looked just like Nero remembered it, stark and trashy, just like it looked on those rare occasions decades ago when he and his mother would trek out from Ohio to see her deadbeat brother, for reasons Nero still didn’t understand.

  It looked the same, but more dilapidated, more decayed. Waist-high weeds dominated the yard. Disused lawn furniture was strewn about, lumps of rotting plastic punctuating the feral landscape.

  Nero scaled the fence. He dropped into the weeds on the other side. A stabbing pain roared from his foot, through his leg, into his brain. Shards of broken glass dug into his heel. He stifled a cry.

  It fucking hurt.

  He dropped to the ground, the weeds now over his head. He examined his foot, pulled a broken shard from the fleshy part just in front of his heel.

  He sat still for a moment, letting the pain subside, regaining control of his thoughts, cursing the moment of utter stupidity that had
prompted his barefoot midnight foray.

  Then he crawled to the far side of the satellite dish. He wasn’t interested in the dish itself, but the support structure that held it up. The legs were built to last. Concrete anchored the metal posts. Colorado could get some impressive windstorms, and the satellite TV company didn’t want to have to come back out after every storm to replace hundreds of dishes.

  At least, that’s what Nero guessed as he searched in the darkness for the area just to the south of the southeastern-most support post, the one directly opposite the large tree. One hand’s distance away from the edge of the concrete. Always the same, with every hiding spot. One hand’s distance away from a major landmark, something with some staying power. That’s where he buried all his coffee cans.

  He used his hands to start digging. He pulled a couple of weeds up by their stalks, leaving loosened dirt in their wake, which made for slightly easier digging. He had a long way to dig, and he had only his bare hands. Six to nine inches. It was a lot, with no shovel.

  He kept working, conscious of the noise he was making, suddenly paranoid that it would wake his drunken uncle, that it would alert the cops sitting in the cars across the street, that it would cause dozens of searchlights to be trained on his face. The unhelpful workings of a frightened mind.

  Nero forced those thoughts out of his consciousness and focused on getting the job done.

  It was dark, and he couldn’t tell how far down he’d dug. It felt like he had been shoveling dirt with his fingers forever, like the hole had to be seven feet deep.

  Where the hell was the can?

  A moment of panic seized him. What if it wasn’t there? What if his uncle had found it? Blown all the cash on vodka and hookers? Sold the gun to a pawnshop, for more vodka and hookers?

  Nero felt rage swelling up in his chest. He rose to his knees, used both hands to scrape deeper and deeper into the earth, flinging the detritus out of the way. Sand wedged painfully beneath his fingernails. He felt layers of skin scraping from his fingertips. It hurt like hell, but he kept going, faster than before, digging with a grim, manic determination, thinking of the things he would do to his uncle if the coffee can was gone. He thought of breaking into the house, of choking the skinny bastard with his bare hands, of breaking his skinny little neck. Worthless old coot.

  Nero’s hand hit something hard. Metallic.

  His irrational rage turned instantly to glee. He accelerated his pace yet again, exposing the sides of the can, clearing dirt off the top. He ran his fingers around the lip of the can, building space, rocking it back and forth, loosening the soil, feeling the sides of the can flex under the strain.

  Nero worked faster, harder. Would everything still be inside? Could someone have played a cruel trick? Could they have removed the contents but replaced the can?

  Nero shook his head. He had to get ahold of himself. The strain was getting to him. He felt like he was losing his mind.

  Finally, he freed the can from the ground. His fingers protested as he lodged them beneath the plastic lid, gritted his teeth, and peeled it up from the lip of the can.

  Nero shoved his hand down inside. He felt hard, cold metal. Old, but familiar. The snub-nosed .38 revolver. He wrapped his hand around the grip, liberated the gun from the coffee can. The shiny barrel gleamed in the starlight.

  Nero had mixed feelings about the gun. If he were apprehended again, it wouldn’t look good at all. Particularly since the serial number had been filed off.

  On the other hand, life on the streets was no picnic.

  He tucked the gun into his belt.

  He reached his hand back into the coffee can. He felt a cylinder, made of paper, held together by a rubber band around the center. He felt his eyes well with joy. The money was still there. Four big wads of cash. Twenty-five hundred each. Ten grand, total.

  Salvation.

  He shoved the cash in his pockets, replaced the can, replaced the dirt, tamped it down, hoping the lingering signs of his presence weren’t too obvious. It was impossible to tell in the darkness, but he wanted to leave no trace of his midnight foray.

  Nero stood, slowly, pausing at a crouch, keeping his head below the height of the fence to make surveillance from the street difficult.

  He heard a car engine. He turned to look.

  His blood turned to ice.

  A cop car. Moving slowly, deliberately, right to left.

  Nero’s bowels threatened a frightened revolt.

  A searchlight switched on, an inferno of painful white brilliance, originating above the mirror on the driver’s side of the cop car. It played over the front of the house, then meandered to the sides.

  Nero flattened himself against the earth, praying the sudden motion hadn’t given him away. He felt sick with adrenaline. His heart pounded. He felt certain it was audible from a block away. His breath came in short gasps.

  The searchlight bathed the side of the house, then invaded the backyard. It paused on the satellite dish.

  Nero’s fingers curled around the earth and weeds. He whispered silent prayers.

  The searchlight stayed over him an eternity, moving over the big dish.

  Then the light moved down, intruding all the way into the backyard through an open gate next to the house.

  Nero thought he might piss himself.

  He could see his own shadow reflected in the tall weeds behind him.

  Surely, they saw him. They had to have seen him.

  Nero contemplated standing up, hands in the air. He was armed. He didn’t want to be shot. His muscles tensed, ready to push his torso upright, ready to surrender.

  Not yet, a voice said inside his head. Don’t give up yet. Make them come get you. Don’t do anything stupid.

  He lay there, inhaling the scent of the earth, willing himself to slow his breathing, to calm himself, to stay still. His chest heaved with each panicked breath. He closed his eyes. His panicked mind pictured the cell at Homeland, pictured Special Agent America and that smug smirk of his, pictured the slack-jawed lackey and his open-faced, dead-eyed meanness, thought of the throwaway phrase that said it all: in cases like yours, we take the gloves off.

  He thought of Penny, and the kids. He thought of his favorite chair at home, the one in front of the TV, where he sat to watch the game.

  Nero closed his eyes tighter, willing himself to stay calm, to stay still.

  Surely they had seen him. Certainly they were coming for him. It was only a matter of time. There would be footsteps and shouts, imperious commands, the sounds of pistols being drawn, racked, and leveled at him. Nero was certain of it. He was going back to prison.

  But they didn’t come.

  One minute passed. Maybe two. Maybe more.

  Nero opened his eyes.

  Darkness. A cool breeze. Weeds and leaves rustling. Nothing else.

  The cop car had moved on. The searchlight was no longer blazing over his uncle’s house.

  Was it possible? Had they really not seen him? Had he really pulled it off? Nero’s arms and legs shook. He felt terrified and giddy, minuscule and giant all at once.

  He waited a few minutes longer, just to be sure. Then he stood, unsteady on rubbery legs, never straightening above a crouch, remaining beneath the fence line, moving toward the side of the house, back the way he had come.

  He realized that he was crying. He wiped his eyes.

  Then he scaled the fences, tiptoed through the rocks and weeds and broken glass, found his shoes, put them back on, climbed over the last fence, crawled along the hedgerow to the sidewalk. He stood, walked as confidently as possible to the motorcycle, reconnected the ignition wires, started the engine, and drove away.

  He had made it.

  At least, that’s how it seemed.

  30

  As the minutes passed, Sam became more and more certain she had miscalculated. She had not expected the response to be warm and welcoming, but she’d been counting on the element of surprise to catch them off guard, back on their
heels.

  She looked at her watch. Forty-five minutes. Any surprise the Russian gangsters might have felt had surely dissipated. They were forming a plan. Probably getting ready to execute it. Maybe getting ready to execute her.

  Forty-five minutes. Thirty minutes longer than she had given Dan to come after her. “Where are you?” she said aloud.

  She felt a sudden sense of dread. Dan was never late. Especially in an operational environment. She began to wonder if her inability to locate the rental car earlier wasn’t due to something other than good tradecraft on Dan’s part. Clearly, they had made her. Maybe they had also made him.

  She looked around the room for the zillionth time. No change. It was still a prison cell, designed from the floor up to keep people in, undoubtedly used for pulling fingernails out and gouging eyeballs to win turf, intimidate rivals, ensure compliance, enforce loyalty.

  Time to get resourceful. Sam surveyed the contents of the room. It was a short survey. Two chairs and a table. The chairs were wooden, with little metal discs on the bottoms of the legs. There were scuff marks on the floor from years of use. Sam lifted the chair and looked at it, felt its heft, assessed its construction. It felt light enough to wield but sturdy enough to do some damage.

  She re-examined the glass, wondering for a brief second whether she could get the chair through it. Not a chance. The glass was designed to stop bullets. A chair had no prayer.

  She re-examined the door frames, thinking maybe she had missed something earlier, some way out, some crack she could exploit, a lock she could pick. But there were no weaknesses. There was no lock on the inside. There was clearly a deadbolt on both doors, but the latch was accessible only from the outside, and only with a key. On the inside was only a brass faceplate. No keyhole. No way to take advantage of her lock-picking prowess.

  She looked closely at the door frame. Metal. Out of place in the ancient building. Installed with a clear purpose. Sam couldn’t tell for sure, but she figured the doors would also be made of steel, to prevent anyone from kicking their way out.