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

by Lars Emmerich

  But Brock’s knowledge had come in handy. He had used the secrets as leverage to secure new clothes, some reading materials, and better food during his captivity.

  As they reentered Brock’s dank, musty cell, Hawk Nose’s demeanor changed. “I’m afraid it’s time for some unpleasantness. Please remove your pants and lie down on the mattress.”

  “Not so fast,” Brock quipped. “I always hold out until the second date.”

  Hawk Nose smiled in spite of himself. “Don’t flatter yourself, Colonel James. But I do wish to avoid having to deal with a gangrenous leg, so I’m going to clean your wound.”

  Brock obliged. He gritted his teeth. Cold hydrogen peroxide entered the wound once again, and searing pain shot through the depths of his thigh.

  As he thrashed in agony, he heard and felt something land on the mattress next to his head.

  Then he saw a bright flash. Hawk Nose had taken a picture of him.

  When the pain subsided and Brock was able to regain his faculties, he looked at the object next to his head. Today’s newspaper. Strange.

  72

  Alexandria, VA. Monday, 5:23 p.m. ET.

  Sam stared in disbelief at the report on her computer screen. Charles W. Landers. Brock’s boss?

  The angry little tyrant was evidently the owner of one of the telephone numbers that had turned up during Sam’s examination of the phone records belonging to the late Monsignor Worthington, Senator Frank Higgs, and CIA goon Avery Martinson.

  Brock had often shared his suspicions of Landers with her, but she was still surprised to see Landers’s name on the report. Corruption was one thing, but she would never have expected to find Landers tangled up with spooks. These spooks, no less.

  Time to pay Charlie a visit.

  Her cell phone buzzed. Someone had sent her a text message. She didn’t recognize the number. The message contained no words, but a rather large picture file was attached. Unusual.

  She opened the picture.

  A howl escaped from her throat, and tears of rage and torment came instantly.

  On her phone’s screen was a picture of Brock. His face was contorted in excruciating pain. The front page of today’s newspaper lay on the bare mattress beside his writhing body.

  73

  Alexandria, VA. Monday, 5:27 p.m. ET.

  The assassin was getting paid for two jobs at the same time, an exceptionally rare occurrence for a man in his line of work. Double-dipping was usually a great way to wind up dead, but in this case, the same employer was paying him for both jobs.

  He absentmindedly rubbed the scar beneath his right eye as he drove toward the address the Intermediary had given him. He glanced repeatedly at the photograph handed to him by the short guy with the big nose, shortly before the latter had sat the captured Air Force officer down for a chat.

  While he thought the man in the picture looked vaguely familiar, the assassin didn’t know that the photo was of a United States senator. That knowledge was deliberately withheld from him. While the killer was nothing if not professional, assassinating a senator was an extremely bold move, one not conducive to longevity and easy living. There was some small but nonzero probability that if the hit man knew his target was a US senator, it might prompt him to disobey his orders, something the Consultancy couldn’t tolerate at the moment.

  The assassin did know, however, that the man he was on his way to murder was protected by a number of armed FBI agents. That was more than an inconvenience, to be sure. FBI men were well trained as a rule.

  But they weren’t nearly as well trained as many of the other men he’d encountered—and defeated handily—during his illustrious clandestine career. The assassin’s brawn was impressive, but it was his brains that were truly remarkable. He had an instinct for hunting humans that few other men possessed.

  He exited the highway, driving faster than the speed limit but no faster than the DC traffic. It was nearly time to put his well-honed instincts to work.

  Farhoud and his van full of accomplices approached the house slowly. It was a white van, with “F & H Power Services” stenciled in large letters on each side. A ladder and several long sections of conduit were strapped to the utility rack atop the van. Power cords and other sundries hung in front of the rear door windows, obstructing the view inside.

  Six men jostled along in rumble seats in the van’s dark interior. They represented multiple religious faiths but shared a common affiliation. They were dressed in grungy overalls and hard hats, with large tool belts and bright orange traffic vests completing the disguise.

  They each carried two silenced handguns hidden within their overalls. Few people would glance at them and think “international terrorists,” but if their mission went poorly, that was exactly how their indictments would read.

  The odds weren’t in their favor. Their orders were to deliver the target alive and conscious enough to provide answers. It wasn’t a terribly difficult undertaking under most circumstances, but this particular individual was a US senator, currently under FBI guard.

  Farhoud’s voice was tense as he parked the van on the street in front of the brownstone. “Two in the Ford across the street, one on the corner, one more at the bus stop.” Hope I spotted them all, he thought.

  In the back of the van, one of the armed men peeled a horrendous fart. It drew laughs from the rest of the group of nervous but well-trained men, just the icebreaker they needed to help them appear inconspicuous as they exited the back of the van. It was a universal human phenomenon that smiling and laughing made one appear less suspicious. And less dangerous.

  They exited the back of the van, extending their laughter for the benefit of the FBI surveillance team.

  The men placed orange cones in the street to isolate the van from traffic. They left the van’s back doors ajar, utility equipment in plain sight of passersby and FBI agents alike.

  Chaim, the sharpshooter, remained in the shadows inside the van, his weapon trained through the open doors, his sight centered on the head of the FBI agent stationed on the corner of the street.

  One of the men in utility worker’s garb walked across the street toward the sedan containing two of the FBI men. He wore a friendly smile, and motioned for the driver to roll down his window. The driver complied.

  It was a fatal mistake.

  Before the window had rolled a quarter of the way down, the smiling man had drawn his suppressed handgun and fired a round through the driver’s forehead.

  Then, as the driver slumped forward, he placed a round in the passenger’s chest. The instant bloom of crimson made it obvious that the passenger hadn’t been wearing his bulletproof vest, but the terrorist wanted to make sure. He fired a second round, this one through the man’s left ear.

  Simultaneously, Farhoud reached the agent standing watch near the bus stop. Farhoud carried a clipboard, the kind with flip-top writing surface atop a storage compartment.

  “Hey buddy. Ya got a sec?” Farhoud smiled as he brought the clipboard forward, behaving as if he were going to read something off the paper strapped to the writing surface.

  As the FBI agent opened his mouth to reply, Farhoud made his move.

  In one smooth motion, he lifted the clipboard open, pulled out a silenced pistol, and shot the agent in the stomach. The agent wore a protective vest beneath his jacket, but the force of the bullet’s impact caused him to double over. Farhoud shot twice more, hitting the man in the neck and head.

  Through his rifle’s sight, Chaim saw a change in the facial expression of the agent standing on the corner. He sees.

  Chaim applied pressure to the sensitive trigger, and a slug closed the hundred-foot gap between the end of the barrel and the FBI agent’s temple in one-twenty-eighth of a second. The agent’s death was instant.

  It took less than fifteen seconds for Farhoud’s team to take out all four FBI agents in the security detail.

  Two more men in utility garments rang the doorbell of the brownstone.

  FBI S
pecial Agent Alfonse Archer heard the doorbell.

  I shouldn’t be hearing the doorbell, he thought.

  At least not without a prior warning from the security detail stationed outside, delivered via two-way radio.

  He picked up the walkie-talkie and queried the security men about who might be on the stoop.

  Silence answered.

  He queried again.

  The doorbell rang again.

  He spoke into the radio a third time.

  No answer.

  It hit him in a flash.

  Sonuvabitch. “Senator, get to the basement!”

  Higgs had already started moving. “I knew better than to trust you clowns,” he muttered as he lumbered toward the basement door.

  The senator’s heavy footfalls were audible outside the house, Archer was certain, and it only got worse as Higgs began clunking his way down the stairs.

  Archer positioned himself with a view of the doorway, his service pistol drawn. He racked a shell into the chamber.

  Just as the pistol’s slide returned to its resting position, the front door of the brownstone exploded off its hinges, splinters flying into the entryway.

  The assassin turned the mid-sized sedan onto the one-way street. He advanced slowly, but not too slowly. Orange cones constricted the lane width, and a utility van idled on the street.

  He checked the address. Oh, shit. The van was parked directly in front of the house containing his mark, and two men in bright orange vests and overalls stood on the doorstep.

  Something else was wrong. A man in a suit lay in a pool of red beneath the bus stop sign, his head wrecked.

  A quick glance to his right confirmed his suspicions: two more dead men—obviously Feds—sat slumped in the car directly across the street from the old house.

  Don’t see that every day, the assassin thought wryly.

  How many men did it take to kill an entire FBI security detail? Didn’t matter how many it took. It just mattered how many they used.

  It was always better to spend a little time figuring things out before charging into the middle of an evolved situation. He sped up and drove past the house.

  As he advanced down the street, he noticed that the van’s back doors were open. No telling who was lurking inside the van.

  Another dead guy on the corner, most of his head missing.

  They’re not paying me enough to die here today, the assassin with wolf’s eyes thought to himself.

  He turned right at the corner without stopping. Tires screeched and a horn blared as a minivan narrowly missed hitting his car.

  He sped half a block away and stopped in the first open parking space.

  He patted the 10mm Glock pistol beneath his jacket, felt his pocket for the switchblade knife, and took the car keys with him as he exited the vehicle.

  The assassin ran back toward the corner.

  “STOP!” Archer bellowed. He was within a hair’s width of pulling the trigger as the two men in orange vests burst through the wrecked doorway.

  One of the men threw his hands in the air. “Whoa! Hey! Easy, buddy! Someone called in a gas leak! Can’t have the house blow up just because nobody answers the door, now can we?”

  Archer hesitated for a moment, and that was all it took. The second man in utility garb dove out from behind the first, silenced semiautomatic firing in Archer’s direction.

  The first round missed. The second bullet didn’t. It hit Archer in the left bicep. Pain seared through his upper arm as the slug bounced off the bone.

  His weapon clattered on the hardwood floor, and he fell onto his back. He scrambled to find his pistol, then scurried the few feet into an open bathroom door, slamming it shut behind him.

  Archer sat on the commode, pistol trained at the door, blood oozing from his arm, and waited for the intruders to walk into a bullet.

  Down in the basement, Frank Higgs heard the commotion above him. Here we go again.

  He looked around for an exit, and settled on one of the windows that opened just below ground level. He picked the one with the pile of furniture stacked beneath it, which he then climbed to reach the window’s escape latches.

  The mechanisms were designed to let occupants remove the entire window quickly in case of an emergency.

  This certainly qualified as an emergency, Higgs decided as he clambered atop a dust-caked reclining chair, his arms outstretched to work the latch mechanism at the top of the window.

  The left lever rotated out of the way easily enough.

  The right one wouldn’t budge. Rust surrounded the hinge, and a layer of dried grime jammed the contact point between the wall and the window.

  He pulled harder, resulting in finger pain but no movement of the latch.

  Higgs heard footsteps running through the house above him, punctuated by a blast from a handgun. He felt his innards clench with fear. An animal noise escaped his lips.

  He torqued harder on the window latch. More pain, but no movement.

  He needed something to pound the latch out of the way. He scanned the room for anything he could use to force the window mechanism free. My kingdom for a hammer.

  There were pieces of two-by-four construction wood strewn about, but they were too thick to fit within the tight space.

  Higgs considered just smashing the window, but knew he’d have to climb through the jagged pieces of glass in order to escape into the yard.

  He heard shouting, doors slamming, and more rapid, loud footsteps in the house above him. Gotta do something, even if it’s wrong.

  An idea struck. He descended from atop the recliner, dashed across the basement, and snatched two pieces of construction wood from a pile on the floor. Another gunshot sounded in the house above him as he ran back to the window and climbed on the furniture.

  Higgs jammed the end of one two-by-four section against the rusted hinge mechanism. Using the cement window frame as a fulcrum, he jammed the second piece of wood up against the first, and pressed his considerable weight against the lever he had created.

  It didn’t budge.

  He made a second attempt, this time gathering momentum before slamming his shoulder into the lever. A loud “ping” rewarded his effort. The rusted pin holding the latch in place sheared, and the latch flew free.

  Higgs flailed awkwardly, then tumbled off the dusty recliner and onto the hard cement floor.

  Free of its restraints, the window tumbled from the frame, bounced off the soft recliner, and shattered noisily on the floor.

  The movement above him stopped, then rapid footfalls moved toward the basement entrance. They heard the crash.

  Higgs clambered to his feet and climbed back up on the chair. He placed a foot on the top of the recliner’s back, pressing it into the basement wall, hoping that it wouldn’t slide out from under him before he could pull himself through the narrow opening.

  The footsteps on the floor above quickened, and Higgs felt fear course through him. He jumped up into the window opening.

  And got stuck.

  His legs no longer reached the top of the chair. His fingers grazed against the top of the metal window well, but he couldn’t grasp the ledge to pull himself through the opening.

  He couldn’t move.

  He heard the basement door open, and loud footsteps pounded down the stairs toward him.

  Panic set in, and his legs kicked wildly in the air. I’m going to die here.

  His thrashing grew more intense and frantic. He couldn’t grasp anything to pull himself through.

  Out of nowhere, a hand reached into the window well and pulled on Higgs’s outstretched arm. “Give me your hand! Hurry! I heard the shooting inside! You gotta get out of there!”

  Higgs reached. The man’s hand clasped around his. A mighty jerk nearly separated his shoulder. A second pull freed him from the window.

  Higgs’s body trembled as he stood up and climbed out of the window well, the stranger again pulling on his left arm. “Hurry, man, you gotta get out of there
before they see you! This way!”

  Higgs did his best not to trip and fall as he dashed toward safety behind the dark-skinned young man in an orange utility vest.

  “Quick, into the van, before they see you! We’ll get you out of here.”

  Higgs followed the young utility worker across the front yard of the brownstone at a dead sprint. I might just get out of here alive!

  The assassin sprinted down the sidewalk toward the safe house, his hand unholstering his 10mm handgun by instinct.

  As he neared the corner of the long row of apartments, he moved his body against the building for cover. He stopped at the edge of the building and peered around the corner.

  He saw the dead agent on the sidewalk across the street. He saw the blood-splattered windshield containing two more dead FBI men. He saw the red traffic cones encircling the utility van.

  And he saw two men running across the lawn—one athletic young man in a utility vest and overalls, and a portly old man doing his best to keep up.

  He was over a hundred feet away, but that didn’t matter. His eyes, one bluish-grey and the other starkly hazel, had been blessed with exceptionally keen sight.

  The assassin raised his pistol, steadied his hands against the side of the building, and took aim at the plump man running comically across the lawn.

  Stay relaxed, he thought. Just one shot is all it takes. He held his breath, aimed, and squeezed the trigger.

  Higgs was propelled by fear and adrenaline across the yard, trying hard to keep up with the lithe young utility worker dashing toward the open van parked on the street. Just a few steps further.

  Something slammed into his skull with immense force. He fell heavily to the ground.

  He vaguely registered the sound of more gunfire as he lost consciousness.

  Down. But is he dead? The assassin dashed across the open space between the edge of the building and a parked car on the street. He had made the move instinctively, both to change locations after the sound of his pistol gave away his firing position, and to see whether his shot had killed the man he was sent to kill.