At some point autopilot clicked on, the rituals of survival keeping him in motion. He got out, toweled off, rebandaged. In his bedroom he confronted the dresser, glaring at the bottom drawer with its false compartment bearing the bloodstained flannel—Jack’s very own Shroud of Turin.
Evan carried Jack’s shirt up the hall and across the great room to the free-standing fireplace, set it atop the pyre of cedar logs, and watched it burn. The coordinates by which he had charted the past eight years, up in smoke. As matter turned to air, he recognized that his own misguided sorrow and guilt had coalesced in the stiff fabric, as much a part of the shirt as the dried blood staining it. Even after no trace of the flannel remained, he found himself standing before the flames.
Returning to the bedroom, he pulled an unworn pair of dark jeans from the stack of duplicates. One drawer up were the fresh V-necked gray T-shirts, also neatly folded, also identical. A hinged wooden box in the closet held four Victorinox watch fobs still in the package. He took one out, clipped it to his first belt loop on the left side.
What did it say about him that he was so easily put back together? He’d long thought that it was a positive attribute, a testament to his durability, but now it felt artificial, unhuman. He was rebuildable, a snap-together Lego toy. His well-stocked drawers reminded him of the mac-and-cheese meals of his childhood, an assembly-belt existence from as far back as he could remember. And as far ahead as he could see. One mission would bleed into the next until the inevitable. If not Van Sciver, someone else. Evan would get older. His reflexes would get slower. Sooner or later he’d be a half-second too slow. Would he have balanced the books by then? And even if he had, would it make a difference?
Not a train of thought an assassin should engage in.
Exhaustion descended over him, a heavy cloud. That was it, then. He was tired. A good night’s sleep would purge his brain of this existential nonsense.
Heading back to the bathroom, he stepped through the hidden door in the water-beaded shower and into the Vault. A Hardigg Storm Case by the weapon lockers held a neat row of replacement RoamZone phones, each nestled in black foam. He plucked one out, slotting in a new SIM card, then dropped into the chair before the bank of monitors burdening the sheet-metal desk. A few clicks and he’d switched the phone service to a company in Bahrain.
He turned on the RoamZone—no messages from Anna Rezian’s referral—and plugged it into the desktop charger.
An impulse grabbed him. With flying fingers he called up Castle Heights’ internal-security feeds, then zeroed in on the lens positioned by the twelfth-floor elevator. He rewound at 3x, the digital footage herky-jerky.
There.
A few minutes ago, the camera had captured Mia walking backward with a man down the hall, reversing into the elevator, the doors zippering shut behind them. She’d gone to meet him in the lobby. That seemed noteworthy.
Evan clicked PLAY, let the doors part, freeze-framed on the man.
Ted.
The guy looked pleasant enough. Rumpled hair, work-casual clothes, black Chuck Taylors throwing in a dash of cool. A Web designer or an advertising exec, maybe. He’d know how to barbecue. CrossFit gym membership, vacations to Maui. A peaceful, ordinary existence, work and play and time to reflect.
He thought of Mia’s smile and wondered how dinner was going downstairs.
With Ted.
The RoamZone perched in its charger, awaiting the next call from the next client. Evan stared at it with enmity. It wasn’t just a phone. It was a collar and chain. For an instant he let himself imagine what it would be like to be free of it.
* * *
Plucked fresh from the living wall, basil, sage, and tomatoes sizzled atop the cooking eggs. With a dip of his wrist, Evan folded the omelet, completing the half circle, and then slid it onto a plate.
He’d woken early, meditated, and stretched. He couldn’t yet hang from the pull-up bar with his full weight, but if he tugged at it with his right hand, he could lengthen out the muscles of the arm. He’d required the jungle penetrator to bear him up the side of the Horizon Express, the cable attached to the grappling hook reeling him in on the deployed seat like a hooked fish.
At the store this morning, he’d stocked up on the basics—eggs, cheese, vodka. Now he sat, ate, and enjoyed the view of Downtown twelve miles to the east. The high-rises thrust up abruptly, a compact little skyline fit for a snow globe.
He made his way to the Vault, cocked back in his chair at his L-shaped desk, and reread every last word of the printouts he’d taken from Jack’s cabin. They contained the starting points of the investigation into René Cassaroy, the trails the FBI was currently running down. The crime-scene photographs taken at the chalet seemed less useful, capturing the aftermath of the bizarre events. Bullet-riddled basement lab. Barn with two G-Wagons and a blue wrestling mat. Files spread across the Pakistani rug of the fourth-floor study, each one sporting a bright yellow evidence and property tag.
Evan set the papers to the side. It made no sense for him to follow the same tracks the FBI was. They had more resources and would be too far ahead. The question was, what did he know that the FBI didn’t?
He started with René’s escape. Jack had mentioned that the Bureau was looking into helicopter flight logs, so either the agents were on René’s heels already or he’d covered his tracks. René didn’t have to go in any one specified direction, which made it harder to—
Evan stopped, excitement pulsing in his chest.
Dex.
Severed hand, lifted out by helicopter.
His destination would have been set. A hospital. Not just a hospital—a hospital with a department of surgery and a helipad.
The FBI had no idea what had gone down in the ballroom, so they wouldn’t know to search for a patient missing a hand.
A quick Google spin gave Evan only three contenders within a helicopter tank’s distance of Chalet Savoir Faire.
To the databases. Whenever Evan did break-ins from his computers in the Vault, he went through a string of anonymous proxies, remote services that allowed him to go in with one IP address and come out with another. He routed through Shanghai, then Johannesburg, bounced between a triptych of Scandinavian countries, then popped through Colombia and Moldova for good measure.
He was ready to attack. Most hospitals relied on the Epic medical-records system, which Evan knew well. In no time he’d jimmied a few virtual back doors.
The second hospital rang the cherries. A six-foot-five male, 290 pounds, with a severed left hand had been admitted at 1:47 P.M. on Sunday, October 23. Name given: Jonathan Dough.
Heh.
The record noted that the patient did not—or would not—speak. He’d been seen immediately by a vascular surgeon and taken directly to the OR. He’d checked out early the next morning against medical advice. Payment had been made in cash.
Evan scanned the discharge forms. Most of the personal information had been left blank. But there at the bottom, a phone number was given.
Why would Dex, a mute, have a cell phone?
Already Evan was reaching for his RoamZone.
He dialed. It rang. And again.
A click as someone picked up. A heavy breath came across the receiver.
“René Cassaroy,” Evan said.
“You found the Easter egg I asked Dex to hide for you. I’m glad. I’ve been waiting for your call.”
It took Evan a moment to adjust to the sound of that voice again, especially here within the walls of his own place. He realized he was on his feet, pacing around the Vault. “Why’s that?” he asked.
“I wanted to talk to you. Set a few things straight.”
“There’s nothing you can say that will change what’s coming.”
“That’s where I tend to think ahead. You see, given what I know of you, I thought you stood a reasonable chance of getting out of that valley alive. I don’t know how you did it, but count me impressed. I’ve never had the opportunity to … behold a speci
men like you.”
“I’m planning to give you another chance. To behold me.”
“That’s what I assumed. Which is why I took out an insurance policy.”
“Which is what?”
“Despi.”
Evan stopped pacing.
“You thought you were clever knocking out a few of my surveillance cameras. But did you really think we couldn’t regulate you in that room? We had full audio. You should’ve heard yourself, pathetic and delusional, babbling into a broken phone, talking to … talking to whom? Who were you talking to like your life depended on it?”
“Myself.”
“I guess you were.” René laughed. “But my favorite listening came from the snippets we picked up of your conversations with Despi. The woeful tale of her kidnapping. How we kept a loving eye on her parents, her sister. We listened to you two form your fragile little bond. I know you care about her. I know you’d be upset if any harm came to her.”
Evan was gripping the phone too hard, the tension radiating up into his right shoulder, fanning the flames. “Yes,” he said. “I would.”
“We have men in Despi’s vicinity, watching her just as they did her sister, her parents. You’re familiar with the work they did there?”
“I am.”
“She’ll be left alone if you leave me alone,” René said. “So decide if your need for revenge is worth her life. You’ve failed her once already.” The brief pause was underscored by the faint hum of the connection. “If I get the tiniest indication that you’re within a hundred miles of me, I will have her gutted.”
“What makes you think I’ll give you the tiniest indication?” Evan said, and cut the line.
66
Banged Up in All the Right Ways
“How’d it go? The Somali-pirate routine?” Tommy Stojack ambled across the cave of his armorer shop, passing warped speedloaders, cutting torches, a stray crate of antitank grenades with Cyrillic lettering on the shipping label. He reached into a jumble of ARES pistol frames stacked like chicken bones atop a Pelican case. Each frame was a forging of aluminum—basically a solid piece of metal shaped like a gun.
Evan said, “It went just fine.”
“You rescue the princess, slay the dragon?”
“Something like that. I came to settle the bill.”
Evan handed Tommy a thick roll of hundred-dollar bills. Tommy hefted it, as if gauging its weight, then smiled his gap-toothed smile and tapped the roll into his shirt pocket.
Evan looked at the aluminum forging. “You said you had the upgrades for me?”
Tommy crossed his arms, mock annoyed. “‘Hey, Tommy, by the way, thanks for producing a cutting torch, a suppressed subgun, and a skiff for me out of thin air from ten states away on twenty-four hours’ notice.’”
“Right,” Evan said. “Thank you.”
Tommy jabbed at Evan with a forefinger that had been blown off at the second knuckle. “‘And a grappling fucking hook.’”
“And a grappling fucking hook.”
“‘And how have you been, Tommy?’” he said, circling his hand in a prompt.
Evan said, “How have you been?”
Tommy shrugged, dropped the shit-slinging routine. “Nothing but high-speed, low-drag antics here. This new broad I’m seeing, she wanted me to try yoga. I told her I wasn’t in touch with my inner vagina enough, ya know?” He raised that stub of a forefinger. “Then I tried that shit. And I realized. I’m not in touch with my inner fuckin’ SEAL enough.”
“It’s that hard?” Evan asked.
Tommy dug through the mound of ARES frames, grabbed one in particular. He’d machined out the interior, drilling the pivot points for the fire-control group. Pistol frame in hand, he limped back toward his workbench. “Those skinny bitches, they can balance on a pinkie finger for longer than I can stand up anymore.”
“So you’re doing yoga now?”
“Hay-ell no. But I will tell you. Yoga pants? Best invention of the past hundred years. Let’s just say downward dog gives me upward dog. But even that ain’t worth it.”
Tommy half tilted, half fell into his rolling chair. Though he never talked about where or how he’d served, he had enough hearing loss, blown-out joints, and surgical scars for Evan to know he’d been a tip-of-the-spear operator. He was banged up in all the right ways. Now he worked as a contract armorer for various government-sanctioned black groups, specializing in procurement and R&D. Or at least that’s what Evan had gleaned. Their conversations had always been light on proper nouns.
Tommy’s shop, a desert-baked building rearing up from the sand in off-the-Strip Vegas, looked like an auto shop from the outside. Few people knew its location, and fewer yet had earned the right to visit. Tommy kept a surveillance camera at the door, which he‘d unplugged when Evan called on him.
Tommy took a swig of black coffee across a lower lip packed with Skoal Wintergreen. “I got no interest in working out no more. Makes no sense at this point. Spend what? Two hours a day? They say exercising can add seven years onto the end of your life. But I figure those seven years are about what you get if you add up all the hours you’d spend sweating your sorry ass on a treadmill. So I figure, why not skip all that misery, live out the good days, and hit the dirt when it’s time?”
He rolled the chair away from the ammo and over to his smoking station, an ashtray made from a ship’s battered porthole. A Camel Wide lipped out from the edge. He pulled on the cigarette, then dropped it into a red keg cup filled with water.
A kick of his combat boots set him shooting back across the floor toward Evan. Even as he glided, he popped a new slide assembly onto the aluminum frame. “Don’t get me wrong. I don’t wanna slow down. You know me—Animal from the Muppets is my spirit animal.” He leaned over the pistol at his bench, adding the extras. “But man, I’ll tell ya, more and more I feel like I been shot at and missed and shit at and hit.” He paused to flex his remaining nine fingers, working out a cramp.
Evan thought of Assim with his hand tremors and unsteady gait, the physical toll of a lifetime of rough play. Was this what was in store for them all? A hard end to a hard life?
I wanted you to get out. I wanted you to have a chance.
It was nearly impossible for Evan to recalibrate to the fact that Jack was still alive, that when he heard Jack’s voice in his head, it was not from beyond the grave.
Tommy had said something.
Evan snapped to. “What?”
“You lose your holster, too?”
“Yeah. I need a Kydex high-guard.”
“I know what you use.” Tommy scooped the wad of long-cut tobacco from his lip, thumbed it into an empty Red Bull can, washed out his mouth with more java sludge. “How’d you misplace your gear? Got held up by a troop of Girl Scouts?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Ain’t they all.”
Tommy handed over the new 1911. Eight in the mag, one in the spout. High-profile straight-eight sights. Low ambidextrous thumb safety, since Evan preferred to shoot southpaw. Aggressive front-frame checkering. Extended barrel, threaded for a suppressor. Beavertail grip safety so it wouldn’t fire if not in hand. Matte black to disappear in shadow.
It wasn’t merely sterilized—it had never had a serial number.
A ghost weapon that, like Evan, did not exist.
Evan hefted the ARES. “It’s lighter.”
“Bet yer ass it’s lighter,” Tommy said. “Thing practically floats. But everything else is as lined out as the steel Wilsons I used to make you.” His biker mustache shifted above his grin. “It’s just homemade.”
Evan handed him another wad of hundreds and stood.
“Hold up, hoss.” Tommy slipped the cash into his shirt pocket. “When have I ever let you leave without test-driving a new gun?” He chinned at the sand-filled steel pipe slanted downward next to the cutting torch. “Eyes-and-ears are in the bin.”
Evan donned protective gear and then fired a full mag down the mouth of
the pipe. The gun, tuned with throat-ramp work, fed smoothly.
When Evan turned around, Tommy had tugged out his earplugs, one cheek gathering to the side in a fan of wrinkles.
“You okay?” Evan asked.
“Tinnitus. From all the…” Tommy waved a hand by his head. “I live with it nonstop, pretty much. I think of it as a reminder of all the shit I’ve done. Jiminy Cricket in there, making sure I don’t forget a red second of it.” His smile was bittersweet. “Every year I feel like I’m hangin’ on to a little less. And for a little less. You know?”
Evan clicked the ARES into his Kydex holster. “I know,” he said.
67
What Was Missing
CraftFirst Poster Restoration would have been a sweatshop if everyone weren’t so well paid. Rows and rows of foreign workers toiling over screw presses and wet tables, spraying surfactants and dabbing at one-sheets with needle-thin paintbrushes. The operation, located at the back of an industrial park in Northridge, made money in a variety of ways. The woman at the helm specialized in bringing rare posters and documents back to their original form. She also happened to be the finest forger Evan had encountered.
He had spent the past week poring over the investigation documents and pounding the databases, looking for any buried thread that might lead to René Cassaroy. Chasing down leads in the IRS documents, he’d uncovered a host of addresses on various continents. Many forwarded on to additional addresses in Croatia, Togo, the Republic of Maldives, and other nations lacking extradition treaties with the U.S. Evan had plenty such addresses himself, some no more than an office front set up to throw trackers off course. To get beyond the long arm of the FBI, René had probably retreated to one of these countries, but which one was anyone’s guess. Evan could spend a lifetime trekking around the globe, knocking on doors, staking out P.O. boxes, and talking to shady middlemen—unless he produced a concrete lead.
Which was why he was here.
Way across the floor, Melinda Truong balanced atop a ladder, reaching for a box at the top of a rise of industrial shelving. A sea of male workers milled nervously at the base of the ladder, calling up to her with gentle admonitions and offers of help. As she grabbed the box, one hip swung wide in a balance-beam correction, her waist-long black hair flinging wide like a flicked horse tail.
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