by Michael Todd
He stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist. Then, he shaved, combed his hair, and decided he needed a new haircut. Not high and tight like before, but short and possibly even stylish. He chuckled and murmured, “I’m not a military man now, so I might as well knock ʼem dead with my fine good looks.”
Thankfully, he remembered to pull the price tags off before he dressed quickly, so he didn’t look like Minnie Pearl. He filled his duffle with everything he owned. It was spacious and everything fit perfectly, even the new suit and dress shoes he’d purchased. He called for a taxi and walked to the front desk to return his key.
“Philadelphia International Airport, here I come,” he muttered, pressed the earpiece into his ear, shouldered his bag, and headed toward the motel’s front door.
Anja heard him end the connection and leaned back in her seat. It creaked softly as she leaned back as far as the seat would go before it flipped and she fell on her back. Any other employee would request a replacement with something that wouldn’t fall over and didn’t make annoying noises every time you sat down, got up, or leaned back. But the soft noises were comforting to her.
It felt worn, something that she had a measure of power over. Home was where the heart was, and to her, the heart came from the way that the A-key was already worn on her keyboard, the way the chair creaked, and the scratches on the floor from rolling her chair around instead of getting up and walking.
This was home. There were all kinds of psychological implications that came with what she did in this room, and she did spend a couple of quiet nights researching that. She had even talked with a few psychiatrists whom she was able to track down over the dark web. Most of them seemed to agree that it was a subconscious effort on her part to make a foreign location feel more like home. It made sense, and she didn’t think that it was really a bad thing. A part of her simply wanted to be reminded of a home that she was forced to leave.
And she was actually okay with that.
She gripped the sides of her chair and her eyes scrutinized the screen in front of her. While she had erased the video files from the cameras in the building, she had copied one of them for herself. Well, most of them, actually. The bulk of the footage was simply Savage lurking around the building and trying not to get caught.
There were some small tidbits that she was interested in keeping, though. A part of her wondered if she was drawn to it because she wanted to think that this was all some action movie that happened too far away for her to actually worry about. And yet the way that he had dropped away from the action and immediately worried about the men he’d all but annihilated was something that she hadn’t seen in the videos of him in action.
Anja remembered those. She’d watched them and pushed them away. Seeing someone stepping into a kill or be killed state of mind was…unsettling. She’d watched him knife and gun his way through assailants, some of them unarmed because he couldn’t risk taking prisoners or leaving potential enemies behind. He’d made that decision in a split second and punctuated it with a one-liner…and then had long conversations with the man. To actually see someone who could switch from one to the other without so much as a blink was definitely unsettling.
“Hey, Anja, are you coming?” someone asked from the door. She glanced up from the screen. Madigan stood in the doorway. She looked sweaty like she had just come from a workout.
“Coming…where?” Anja asked, tilting her head.
“Sal wanted to have a meeting to get an update on everything that’s happening in the States,” the other woman said and stepped into the room. “He’s getting Courtney, Anderson, and Robinson on a group call to include everyone on this. We need to have everyone on the same page, and that includes you. Especially since you’re the one holding most of the information we need.”
“Right,” she said. “Before we go, could you take a look at this for me?”
Madigan moved closer to the screen and narrowed her eyes as the video flipped to a man coming up a flight of stairs to greet a group of four men, a tie wound round his hands.
“Woah.” She chuckled and fanned imaginary heat away from her body in a theatric flourish. “That’s one good-looking man, right?” She immediately fell quiet as he looped the tie around another’s wrist. In silence, she folded her arms over her chest and watched the footage to the finish. It didn’t take longer than fifteen seconds and when it came to an end, she replayed it without comment. They watched the segment four times, and neither woman spoke throughout.
“Where did you get this?” Madigan asked with a slight frown. “Is that the guy Anderson hired to be his muscle? The one we all saw the video of?”
“Yeah. Shooting a surrendering man kind of sticks with you,” Anja replied and tapped to pause their fifth replay. “What do you think? I haven’t seen that kind of technique with any of the people around here before, not even you.”
“Well, there are special training regimens that you can take in the military,” Madigan said with a shake of her head. “The way that he closes like that, using a tie to wrap around his wrists to keep from injuring himself which in turn allows him to hit harder and more often? That seems like our boy had some training in urban warfare. It’s something that they get from the Israeli Mossad or the Brazilian Special Police Operations Battalion.”
“Huh,” Anja grunted. “You don’t usually think special police operations when you think Brazil, do you?”
“I know, right?” Madigan chuckled ruefully. “Anyway, the US government doesn’t like to advertise it, since we’re supposed to have the biggest and best powerhouse of military might in the world. But they do, on occasion, pick some of the best and brightest to have some unregistered extracurricular training. It looks like our boy here made the cut. Anderson probably knew about that when he suggested bringing him on. He’s uniquely qualified.”
The Russian nodded. “They told me he was one of the best. I thought that what I saw in the video was only an act of war, you know?”
“Yeah, some people can simply flip that switch,” she said, and an odd, haunted look slid through her eyes. “Come on, Sal’s still waiting, and you need to bring everyone up to speed.”
Anja nodded, leaned in, and closed the video player. “Yeah, I’ll be right in.”
Chapter Eleven
Carlson sighed and shifted to a more comfortable position. This city will be the death of me! He absolutely knew it. The sports fans, in particular, were dreadful to deal with. Considering that he was from Boston, there wasn’t much that would change that. People in Boston hated people in Philly almost as much as they hated people from New York. That was essentially drilled into their DNA, so there wasn’t much anybody could do about it. It probably had something to do with the original colonies back in the Revolution days.
He suppressed his irritation and plucked a glass from the limo’s bar. From the heft, it was made of crystal—for the most part. Even though he was forced to hire everything from a third party these days, he always made sure that anything that catered specifically to him was top-of-the-line. Which meant that the amber liquid in the decanter with a similar amount of crystal in the making had to be at least thirty-year-old scotch as he’d personally requested. He poured five fingers of the liquid into his glass, replaced the decanter, and took a moment to inhale the rich aroma before taking a sip. It burned in the most delicious manner all the way down his throat, which prompted him to take in a deep breath and inspect it again.
There were problems. He wasn’t sure what they were exactly, but he knew they were there. He’d read into Courtney’s particularly troublesome history after Covington had been spectacularly outplayed by the woman. It was impressive. There weren’t many trained soldiers who survived that long in the Zoo, much less specialists, and she had been in it from the beginning. He’d read some therapy session the woman had attended in which she’d complained about having to live in the shadow of her academically accomplished father. There was also the fact that he’d been
the one to get her working on the goop project in the first place, but there was something about her that…well, that scared him.
Of course, she had to go. There were problems that she couldn’t even begin to comprehend which started with where the goop came from in the first place. Allowing her into the project would end badly, he knew it. Something was in the works—some kind of serious trouble. It was on the horizon, but everyone was too concerned with their attempt to get their share of the loot to see it. Not Carlson, though. He saw the bigger picture.
That didn’t mean he couldn’t respect the woman he was up against as a real competitor, as well as her teammates. The rest of her squad were still in the Zoo. Anderson, who had been squeamish about what Carlson and Pegasus had done there had been brought in as the inside man. And now, somebody else had joined her team. Or somebodies. He still wasn’t sure. The video footage had predictably turned up squat, which meant that they had someone with technical skills on their side. Honestly, how did four men end up in the hospital without so much as a peep to the men and women on the other side of the security team’s radios? That worried him.
If he didn’t know any better, he would have thought that Courtney had pulled it off. She had, after all, taken care of the goons whom Covington had sent after her with impressive skill. He’d read that report too—and it made for some fun reading—and yet he knew that she wouldn’t risk herself by taking this on personally. He was also aware of the fact that she hadn’t left the conference room for the duration of the meeting.
Someone had come up the stairs and taken out his security team, one that he’d picked personally for his own protection. He or she had made it all the way to the rooftop where he was alone and vulnerable, with no eyes watching, and simply left.
That didn’t make sense. If they had him out in the open like that and didn’t take the shot, it meant that he wasn’t the target. They were after something else and considering that they were gone by the time he’d discovered his team in the stairwell, it could only mean that they had probably acquired what they came for.
Carlson shook his head. He couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that medical personnel were already on the scene before he’d even made the call. Why would someone who had beaten his people up like that bother to make sure they received medical attention?
It didn’t add up. The only way that it made sense, to his mind, was if they were somehow unaffiliated with Anderson or Monroe. Which was possible, he was willing to admit, even if it was unlikely. Who would want to come after him? No, that was a metaphorical can of worms that he wasn’t willing to crack open just yet. He’d save it for the congressional hearing.
He stepped out of the limo as it came to a halt and didn’t bother to wait for the driver to open the door for him. Never let it be said that he was a lazy fuck who couldn’t get his own hands dirty. He smiled at the pleasantly confused expression on the driver’s face, pulled a fifty-dollar bill from his pocket, and slipped it to the man in a smooth handshake.
“Thank you, sir.” The driver tipped his hat with a soft chuckle and slipped the bill into his jacket pocket.
“No, thank you.” Carlson felt the midday sun begin to bake through the black silk suit he wore. “You made some excellent time. I’ll be sure to mention that to your boss.”
He didn’t wait for a response but proceeded across the open tarmac to the private jet that already taxied toward him. He hadn’t liked submitting this travel to the new powers that be, but he still needed to kiss the ring, no matter what else he was supposed to do.
A man in a suit and sunglasses carried what looked like an Uzi under his jacket and waited at the door of the jet. After the recent developments, he simply couldn’t be too cavalier with his own security. The guard spoke quickly into a wrist-mounted radio as the executive climbed the steps into the cabin, where a pretty, young blonde stewardess waited for him. She smiled and guided him to one of the seats.
“We’ll take off momentarily, Mr. Carlson,” she said with a smile. “Can I get you anything to drink?”
“I’ll have a scotch on the rocks, darling, thank you.” He forced a charming smile as he buckled into his seat.
“Of course,” she responded crisply and walked away as the plane moved across the runway again. A few seconds later, she placed a glass with an amber liquid swirled over three ice cubes in front of him.
“Our chef will prepare your lunch once we’re in the air, Mr. Carlson,” she said. “Until then, we ask that you please remain in your seat and observe the fasten seatbelt and no smoking sign. Please enjoy your flight.”
Carlson nodded and leaned back in the plush, leather seat as the plane gradually accelerated. While he wasn’t particularly fond of flying, doing so in luxury could assuage any bad feelings. He simply couldn’t imagine what the people who had to fly coach went through.
“I hate flying coach,” Jeremiah muttered and tried to stretch his legs as he made his way with the rest of the passengers toward the baggage claim. It hadn’t been that long a trip, but the flight had been overbooked, which meant that he had been crammed like a sardine into a giant flying tube of aluminum for a few hours. Honestly, that would not improve anybody’s mood, even on a good day. A bruised rib and issues with closed spaces on top of that made him a very unhappy customer when he finally stepped off the flight.
Which meant that he didn’t give a solitary flying fuck about who might be concerned about him talking to himself. Well, he wasn’t really talking to himself, but he didn’t see the need to share that he had a Russian woman talking to him through an earpiece. People were paranoid enough about flying in this day and age. It was best to simply let them think that he was crazy.
“Well, I would have tried to get some first-class tickets, but they were all out,” Anja replied.
“Really?” he asked.
“No, genius,” she snapped. “Having someone like you show up as a first-class passenger on the flight list with money from Pegasus would raise all kinds of red flags—the kind we don’t need raised. Nobody questions a couple of hundred bucks lost from the budget, especially if it’s quickly replaced. And that’s all it costs for a quick flight to Charleston, which is what you needed. Now, all you need to do is rent a car and get your ass over to where Carlson is getting his corporate kiss-ass on.”
It was a pain in the butt, but he’d requested the longer route. Irrespective of what happened down the line, he needed to be sure that no one could tie him directly to Carlson or even his location. Under the radar sometimes meant the painful delays.
“Which one of my IDs should I use to rent it?” he asked and already knew that he would pay cash for it. He pushed through the crowd and hovered impatiently at the baggage claim. It would have been much quicker and easier to simply use a carry-on, but that wasn’t an option with a mobile life. He had no real base, and his entire life—literally—was in that damn duffle. Finally, the baggage came through and he snatched his off the conveyor belt and pushed through the crowd once more. He tried to walk slowly, but every instinct told him to keep moving and get the hell out of there.
“You look like you’re about to have an aneurysm while having a colonoscopy,” Anja snarked. “Why do you look so uncomfortable? You’re on the way to get the job done. You’re doing what you do best, right? There’s no need to be all…uptight about it.”
“It’s not that,” Jeremiah said and kept his voice low as he looked around. Airports had all the cameras that someone like Anja would want, but it left him feeling a little uncomfortable. He didn’t like knowing how easy it was for her to get around the kind of security that was supposed to protect these places.
“What is it, then?” she asked. “Come on, your ass is all clenched, your face is twisted… You’re making me nervous, Jer.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said with a hint of sarcasm. “I feel…naked.”
“You could do with getting naked,” she replied immediately, almost as if she’d waited for the opportunity
. “Preferably with someone else. Guy or gal. I don’t judge.”
“That’s really not what I meant,” he snapped. “I’m sure there would be TSA agents crawling up of my ass for saying this, but I need some weapons. Something. Knives, guns, anything. I like to think that I’m a good match for any Kevin-imitating sonofabitch, but in the end, there’s only so much I can do with the little I can get my hands on. There’s a limit to the number of bones I can break with sticks and stones.”
“I think I can help you with that,” she replied. “Kevin? Who’s Kevin?”
“Come on, you have all the references down pat, but you don’t know about Home Alone and the tiniest epitome of bad-assitude called Kevin McCallister?” he asked and managed to sound horrified. “Anyway, if I have to track Carlson everywhere I go, I’ll need something to defend myself with. I guess I could probably pick a hunting rifle up in the nearest Walmart, but they still require a background check and I don’t think that either of my IDs can stand up to that kind of scrutiny. I know there are always ways around all that, but my contacts either think I’m dead or are on the other side of the fucking world.”
Anja sighed softly into his ear. He scowled and tried not to snap at her and insist that she stop doing that. While he didn’t much care to have the people in his ear respond like that, he could tolerate it if they didn’t behave like they knew they had a very captive audience.
“What?” he demanded finally.
“Well, I have some contacts in the area,” she replied. “They aren’t really the most respectable folks, or the most trustworthy, but they won’t ask for IDs. And they do think that I’m a force to be reckoned with, so there is a small deterrence factor that you can count on. It’s not much, but I think it should be enough. I’ll get in touch with them to see if they’re packing and are willing to take on a new customer.”