by Michael Todd
“Well, a third-party security company wouldn’t know much about it, but Pegasus actually has a lot of military connections.” Jessica leaned in, already a little drunk judging by the way she had to hold onto the table to keep from planting her face on it. “I’m not supposed to know that, of course, but you hear things.”
He raised an eyebrow encouragingly, and she almost giggled before she lowered her tone. “Things like what happens in the Zoo, and the fact that Pegasus somehow gets their hands on specimens that are only revealed to everyone else months later. It’s hard not to notice it when you have the inside track, you know? Well, of course you do. You were in the Zoo, right?”
That had come a little out of left field, he noted. It was a probe on her part, which told him that she didn’t entirely trust him. Also, perhaps, that she had wanted to get him drunk in order to find any chinks in his armor. She’d also made the rookie mistake of reaching the drunk goal herself way before he did.
“Exactly like we practiced,” Anja whispered softly in his earpiece.
He still wanted to hear the story of how she knew so much about what happened in the Zoo, but right now, he would simply leave himself in her hands. If Jessica was to really believe him, he needed to nail this.
“Well, I was only in there for a couple of trips.” He focused his gaze on his beer and channeled some residual shame from his last operation into his performance. “I don’t think I really have what it takes to be a regular in there. There are some who survive and even thrive. I wasn’t one of those, and I doubt I ever will be. My first trip wasn’t that eventful—in and out to get some of those Pita plants. I was really surprised by how beautiful the place was. It was like walking on an alien planet right here on Earth. I don’t know how else to describe it.”
She nodded and leaned in closer. Like a trout on the hook, Savage mused. All he had to do was ease her in.
“It was the second time that—” He rasped in a deep breath, closed his eyes, and drew on the impotent rage he felt at losing all the men on his squad. His hands gripped the side of the table and he clenched his jaw.
“We went in there on another trip to get more of the plants,” he continued, careful to pitch his tone high enough that she could hear him over the music but not much more. “The first few days went by without incident. Then, there was this…massive thing—like a T-Rex, I suppose, although I know that sounds bizarre—right there with a blood-curdling roar.
“But we were a team of six, all dressed in the best armor the military could buy, and we managed to kill the damn thing…but barely. When we killed it, though, something in the Zoo changed. It was as if everything in the jungle suddenly wanted to kill us all. We only had a couple of seconds until all these monsters attacked in waves to avenge the death of the Rex. Things got blurry after that, like we were stuck in a repeat of shooting at waves and waves of monsters of all shapes and kinds. Every last one of them attacked wildly like they didn’t care about their own lives.
“Reload and start firing again. Fighting and fighting with no end in sight. It was afternoon when we started, but it was morning by the time we got out. Another team had come over and joined us. We were bolstered by their numbers, but we still lost about half our people. It’s weird.” He chuckled. “For the life of me, the whole thing is a blur, but thinking about going back…”
He let his voice trail off, drew in a deep breath, and took a long sip from his drink. For a second, he wasn’t sure if his performance had convinced her, but when he put his glass down, she put her hand on his.
“I’m so sorry you went through that,” Jessica said and squeezed his hand gently. “People don’t understand how everything in the Zoo doesn’t play by the rules of the world. Even our testing seems to be all over the place. There’s a set of rules in there, and we’ve scratched at the surface, but nothing along the lines of what we’ve seen before.
“I worked to test the goop they got out of the Zoo a couple of weeks ago. When it interacts with something human, it has the reaction that most people desire—it prolongs life and makes them younger, stronger, faster, and more virile. That’s why people buy it. Put it in with animal DNA, though, and there are all kinds of different reactions. I won’t go into it now, but there’s a different reaction between species. It’s difficult to put into words.”
Jeremiah nodded. She was really passionate about this stuff, he realized. Again, that wasn’t a bad thing, but the fact that she worked for someone like Carlson said that she needed to get a grip on her curiosity. She didn’t strike him as being the shady type, but she was vulnerable. Self-control was necessary if only to ensure that the benefits weren’t reaped by the wrong people. Or that she didn’t unwittingly participate in human torture or the nefarious scheme behind some evil science experiment.
He breathed deeply and prepared to resume the conversation, but his gaze flickered back to the men he’d noticed before. They hadn’t moved. While they weren’t close enough to hear the conversation between him and the doctor, they were obviously waiting for something. He simply wasn’t sure what. There was a possibility that someone had recognized him, of course, but he doubted that.
Concern prickled behind his calm. He needed to get away. Right now, he needed to be able to talk to Anja in private.
“I’m sorry,” he said and cringed inwardly at how abrupt it sounded. “I need a second to go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”
“Of course.” Jessica nodded. She looked a little embarrassed like she felt bad for drawing out what had to be bad memories. If they actually had been his, he wouldn’t have felt too much empathy with her feelings. But considering that he was the liar in this case, he couldn’t help but feel bad for the situation he’d put her in.
He pushed up from his seat, gulped the last of his drink, and replaced the empty glass on the table before he turned and headed toward the bathroom. He put a little effort into the show and staggered every third step to make it seem that he was drunker than he really was. He wouldn’t try to oversell it, though, as he hadn’t been there long enough to make fully drunk even remotely plausible.
It was possible that he was a little tipsy. That was something that could happen after you’d downed a full pint of beer and a shot of whiskey on an empty stomach. He moved closer to the bar and confirmed that the men eyed him every step of the way. Savage coughed and slid his hand over the bar top as he glanced casually around to check that the men maintained their surveillance. The bartender, rushing to fill orders, placed one of the empty plastic bottles of soda on the counter. When he turned away, Jeremiah calmly picked it and held it casually at his side.
Instinct told him that he should prepare for a fight. He needed it to be both fast and quiet. Obviously, he didn’t want his date to realize that they had been followed there, but the question remained—were they there for him, or for her?
The way the two men slid from their seats to follow him told him that it was the former. They were there for him, and they weren’t there to watch. Which begged the question of how they knew who he was. The limo driver at the compound had seen him, of course. While it had only been a glimpse, that would be enough for a smart man. And Carlson seemed like the kind of man to make sure that the people in charge of his safety were the best of the best.
That was…worrying.
“What are you doing, Jer?” Anja asked. She had her eyes on the security feed, and she could tell that he now moved toward the bathroom and held a bottle in his hand.
“Something drastic,” he whispered under his breath.
Chapter Nineteen
“I’m serious, Jer, if you need my help, let me know,” the Russian said as he stepped into the men’s room.
“There are two men here to kill me—and possibly our good doctor, as well,” Savage replied. He kept his voice low as he moved through the bathroom. Dozens of small decisions needed to be made, all in a couple of seconds, and everything had to be performed to perfection. If not, he definitely wouldn’t walk
out of that bathroom. He had a weapon of his own this time, but he wouldn’t be able to initiate a battle that only he knew was starting. He didn’t have the element of surprise. Two trained killers were about to follow him in there, and he needed to be ready for them.
One of the two bathroom stalls was occupied, which meant that nothing could happen while a customer was in there. His would-be assassins knew that as well. The simple fact, though, was that it gave him a little more time.
The operative stepped into the second stall, placed the bottle on the back of the toilet, and looked around. Thankfully, it was still early enough in the night that the toilet paper hadn’t been exhausted by drunk patrons, which gave him precisely what he needed. He sat on the closed seat and quickly yanked out as much of the paper as he could before he stuffed it into the bottle. It was slow work—and immensely stressful when every second counted.
The bathroom door opened. His fingers trembled in a familiar tension response and his heart thudded at a mile an hour. He knew his body had begun to prepare itself for action in the way that only it knew how. While he knew it was necessary, he also knew that he needed to keep himself under control. It wasn’t easy, even under the best of circumstances, to stuff toilet paper through the narrow hole of a soda bottle. Perversely, it seemed so much more difficult now that his fingers were jittery from the sheer volume of adrenaline that pumped through his body.
He needed to remain calm and composed. To simply burst out and attack anything and anyone that crossed his path wouldn’t achieve what he wanted, and it sure as fuck wouldn’t end well for him. This was a situation that demanded skill and precision, not mindless violence.
The door of the stall beside his opened and the blissfully ignorant man stepped out. He’d no doubt head back to the bar to join his friends, unaware of the kind of violence he had barely escaped. Savage wanted to keep the collateral damage to a minimum. And while Carlson was known for his disregard for the body count left by his actions, he couldn’t kill indiscriminately either. Even the ex-CEO made some effort to disguise his killings and cover his well-heeled tracks.
Mum was the proverbial word in this game. Savage’s time had been cut down to however long his newest non-acquaintance took to wash his hands.
It wasn’t that long, he realized after only a few seconds. The man was probably drunk enough that his hygiene wasn’t very high on his list of priorities. After a quick splash and dash, the man left the bathroom in what sounded like a hurry.
His time was up.
“I don’t have eyes in there, Jer,” Anja said and sounded genuinely concerned. “Anything you do will have to be on your own.”
That reality hadn’t really entered his thought process. It wasn’t like he hadn’t lived his whole life that way. Well, that wasn’t entirely fair. Most of his operations had been carried out after months of planning and arduous hours of research by people who would never receive any medals or recognition for their efforts. Once they had done their part, he charged in, killed people, and hauled others out, whether they wanted it or not. Of course, he wasn’t given medals or recognition for his efforts either, so they were all essentially in the same boat there.
At least the people who ran the intel didn’t have to deal with the actual battle and risk life and limb. And, of course, when the mission went bad, they also didn’t have to die or fake their death to ensure that none of the paperwork on a black op ever reached the Pentagon, much less any elected officials. The kind of rules that black ops played by would unleash a host of indictments on any number of people. And those people were usually the kind who weren’t indicted, which made for dangerous repercussions.
Oddly enough, he wasn’t even mad about that. There were people out in the world whom you simply didn’t touch, and Savage knew well who were and who weren’t off limits. The fact that he had been left alive and given money and the opportunity to disappear wasn’t something he would forget. He didn’t exactly forgive those assholes for ruining his life, but he was well aware that he had nothing to gain and everything to lose if he clashed with them.
He refocused on the tissue-filled bottle and knew it was as full as it would get. Satisfied, he adjusted his right shoelace so one side was left with a much longer section before he drew his knife and cut a piece off. Old habits died hard, and he still used the extra-length round nylon braided ones and probably always would. They were a godsend in an emergency, and he still had enough to still tie his boot.
Max had supplied an extended barrel for his pistol, and for some reason, today was the day he’d chosen to fit it. He jammed the barrel into the bottle. It was a tight fit, but it needed to be to accomplish his purpose. With deft movements, he slipped one end of the shoelace through the trigger guard, wound both around the neck—one from each side—and made sure to secure them as tightly as he could. He gripped the pistol and its new, improvised suppressor and slid it into his jacket pocket before he stood, rolled his neck and shook his hands, and stepped out of the bathroom stall.
He gritted his teeth and his stomach lurched sharply when his gaze settled on the two men waiting for him. They stood far apart, and both had their hands on their weapons, prepared for the possibility that he might decide to come out shooting. The distance between them ensured that even if Savage hit one of them, the other would be out of angle for a clear shot on his part and could easily gun him down. Why they had waited for him to step out of the stall was what stirred his curiosity.
Then again, they wouldn’t want any trace of the violence that was about to ensue to remain once they’d left. They were ready for a shootout if they were forced into one, but there were better, simpler ways to eliminate someone like him in a public area that didn’t leave bullet holes and shell casings all over the damned place.
Savage realized that they now waited for him to make a move. If he wanted to regain the element of surprise, he needed to be quicker on the draw than they would be. And he needed them to be relaxed about his preparedness in the situation.
He inhaled slowly and forced out a burp as he leaned against the side of the stall. With a soft, inane laugh, he moved to the sinks and made sure to add a slight stagger to his step. Again, he wouldn’t attempt to indicate that he was fully drunk, only enough to make them think that their opponent in this fight wasn’t at his full capacity.
His gaze tracked their movements in the mirror as he turned the tap on and let the water run until it was icy before he dipped his hands into the flow.
“There’s no need to make this messy,” one of the men said and stepped in closer behind him. Savage noted that the bathroom door had already been locked. Nobody would be able to enter or interfere.
“Make wha’ messy?” he asked and carefully added a hint of a slur to his intonation as he dried his hands. “I…didn’t make a mess in there, I swear. I aimed and everything. And I put the toilet seat down too. I don’t know why since this is the men’s room but it seemed like the right thing to do.”
The two men exchanged a glance, and the one farther back shrugged. The suggestion of confusion between them told him they didn’t actually know who he was. In their minds, he was merely a threat that needed to be handled—which meant that he wasn’t the actual target.
Fuck.
The closer man withdrew what appeared to be a piano wire from inside his coat. In doing so, his hand moved away from the firearm. Savage adopted a bewildered expression but watched the man in the mirror as he moved closer and eventually blocked his comrade’s line of fire when he raised his hands to draw the garotte up and over his target’s head.
Using the guise of discarding the paper towel allowed him to drift his left hand under his coat. He raised the pistol in almost the same motion and used his image in the mirror to aim. It was a point-blank shot, of course, but he only had one attempt.
A look of surprise contorted the man’s face when he felt the elongated, bottle-barrel of his pistol shove into his ribs at the same moment that he tightened the wire around his qu
arry’s neck. It tightened and loosened almost immediately as the man hesitated and tried to decide if he was better off using the garotte or if he needed his gun.
He didn’t have the time to choose.
Savage pulled the trigger and the garotte tugged for a second as a bullet punched into his assailant. The sound was still loud but not enough to penetrate the dance music that played outside. Besides, it didn’t sound like a gunshot—more a soft pop like a bang snap. His attacker released the garotte, his eyes fixed in a look of shock and surprise as he stumbled back a step.
His partner wasted a second before he realized what had happened. That was all Savage needed as he spun, ready to confront his second assailant. It proved to be a second or two, considering that the man’s own long suppressor had to clear the holster too, which provided time for the operative to grasp the now dead man firmly around his neck with his free hand.
He circled, the movement slow and awkward as he held the dead weight of the first assassin between himself and his opponent as a shield. Hopefully, the blood from the bullet hole in the man’s chest wouldn’t be a problem—how the hell would he explain leaving the bathroom soaked in blood to his date? Anxious to end it now, he shoved his weapon under the first man’s arm and squeezed the trigger. The weapon snapped with the same dull pop and a bullet hole appeared in one of the doors beside the target.
Damn. Maybe the drink had affected him a little more than he realized. It should have been a simple, contained kill at close quarters. Or maybe, a part of his brain analyzed around his adrenaline, he’d lost his edge after all that time in the hospital—and his human shield wasn’t lightweight, either, so the dead arm slowed and restricted his movement. Either way, there was no time to evaluate it.
The assassin’s gun was clear and now aimed at Savage. The corpse jerked when a slug pounded into it. Thankfully, he hadn’t tried to take another shot, or his aim would have been thrown even wider. His human shield already had two holes in him and the chance that he would be on the receiving end of the third was high. The first shot had probably been one of impulse. His adversary would definitely fire again. He was good enough and they were close enough that he would find his target through his partner and didn’t have to hesitate. The man was dead already, and there was no need to even attempt to shoot around his body.