by Neal Penn
He pulled up and took the first available space, noted the number, and got out of the car. He walked around to the passenger side and pulled out the briefcase and the jug of vodka. He popped the trunk and put the jug in first, but not before he’d taken a nice, long goodbye swig. Then, he opened his briefcase, took out the gun case, and left that in the trunk as well. Sorry, Miss Winslow, but guns aren’t all that safe in hands like mine.
So what was up with him and Noelle? It was so strange to see her grow hot and cold. It was nothing like her personality. Hot, yes, she could be hot. Most people would call her cold. She was something close to genius and a whole lot more comfortable with books than people. Crane thought that was why she’d changed focus and went for library science. She’d actually majored in psychology for her bachelors. But this back and forth rapid-fire switching was new, not normal. Was she melting a little? Maybe he had a shot with her now. He hoped so.
Crane walked leisurely to the shuttle bus station and arrived just as one was pulling away. He set his briefcase down and sat on the seat. Then he looked through the windows of the departing shuttle and his heart rate jumped. Bubble and Squeak were in the back, talking to each other.
Chapter Forty
Suit was still trying to figure out the best way to scare Crane.
“Take that goddamn cap off.”
“Fine. Jesus, all you had to do was ask.” Watch Cap shoved it into the pocket of his pants. “There, satisfied?”
“I’ve been thinking. You remember that time we had to get the combination for that gun safe?”
“That guy in Toronto?”
“Yeah. You remember how you wouldn’t hit the girl?”
Watch Cap raised his hands defensively. “She looked like my sister. I wasn’t gonna hurt her.”
“You don’t have a sister. I was thinking that—”
“God, how many times do I have to go over this? Even though she isn’t my real sister, she lived with us. So I always thought of my cousin as my sister.”
Suit shook his head. “She’s not even your cousin.”
“Charlie was Dad’s best friend, and we called him Uncle Charlie, so that made his daughter my cousin.”
“Who you think of as a sister.”
Watch Cap fixed Suit with a slightly dumbfounded look. How wasn’t he getting this? “Yeah, she’s like my sister.”
“But you fucked her?”
“Well, yeah, she was hot.”
“How can you think of somebody as your sister and fuck her?”
“Well, I wasn’t thinking of her like a sister when I was doing that.”
“You are a fucking retrobate.” Suit shook his head. “I was saying something – what was it?”
“What does that word mean, retrobate?”
“It means you’re a fuck-up. What was I talking about?”
“You were talking about that guy in Toronto with the combination.”
Suit nodded. “Right. So I’m beating the shit outta the guy and he gives us nothing. I tell you to start beating up his wife, right, and—”
“Yeah, but I wouldn’t do it because she looked like my sister.”
“She’s not … fuck, I’m not starting that up again. The point is, you say you’re not gonna hit her, and I say, ‘then cut off her fucking fingers,’ and the guy gives up the combination right there.”
Watch Cap shook his head. “I wasn’t gonna cut her fingers off either.”
“That’s not the point. The point is the guy gave it up because he was scared of what we might do to her.”
“Why are we talking about this?” The shuttle was pulling to their gate, and the two stood.
“Because that’s how we should scare Crane.”
“Threaten his sister?”
Suit stood speechless for a second as Watch Cap exited the shuttle. Finally, he stepped out. “You are the dumbest son of a bitch on the planet.”
Chapter Forty-One
Crane didn’t have any bags to check, only his briefcase, so he had an easy time checking in. He marveled a little at how well everyone treated him, but when he actually took the time to look at his boarding pass, he realized the Winslows had put him in first class. Nothing gets you service like money.
There was no sign of Batman and Robin anywhere, so he went up to the gate and found a bar.
He bought a double on the rocks, which set him back twelve dollars, and drank it quickly. It was still about a half hour before boarding but there was no sign of Noelle. He stood up, just a little unsteadily, and he walked back out of the terminal toward the airport entryway.
There she was. He could see her by the double doors. He started down the escalator.
Oh Jesus. She’d brought the dog, had Lolly in one of those travel crates. Did she expect him to take the damn dog with him?
He reached the bottom and walked up to her. “Elle, I can’t take Lolly with me. It’s near to impossible to find a hotel that will let you keep your dog with you. Hell, I might not even be able to get a rental car with—”
“I’m coming with you, Roddie.” She walked to the ticket counter and put the crate on the baggage check-in square. Then she walked back, took a large wheeled suitcase, and brought that too. The laptop case was there, too, so Crane took it and looped the strap around his shoulder. In five minutes, the dog and the bag were checked and she was back at his side.
“Look, Elle, I don’t think this is such a good idea.”
“It’s non-negotiable, Roddie.”
“But what if—”
“If I’m not there, you won’t even stay sober long enough to get to the hotel room. I’m coming, and that’s the end of it.”
Crane shook his head. “Alright then. I’m in first class, though. You bought a coach ticket, right?” She nodded. “Well, let’s see if we can upgrade it.”
“I’m a big girl, Roddie. I don’t need to sit next to you on the flight.”
Crane decided against saying anything and the two headed to the gate. She sat in one of the hard plastic waiting chairs and he put the laptop on the chair next to her. “I’m gonna find a restroom before we board,” he said. “If they call the flight before I’m back, take the laptop on. Otherwise, I’ll bring it with me when I board.”
He walked past the newsstand and the mini-Starbucks cart until he saw the restroom sign. The path took him past the bar, and he paused a moment to look longingly inside before moving on.
There was a long line at the women’s restroom, but the men’s was oddly empty. It had the antiseptic smell of bleach, and the odd quiet that a public restroom produces no matter how busy the location. He located a urinal and used it.
As he was washing his hands, he saw Bert and Ernie in the mirror.
He turned around, palms up. “I don’t want any trouble. I told Ne—”
“If you don’t want any trouble, you better just forget about the Winslow sisters. Leave things alone and get back to following lonely men.” The guy sounded like a caricature, like some kind of tough guy Bugs Bunny would clown while diving into a rabbit hole.
“What?”
“Are you deaf?” This was the guy in the cheap suit. “Stay the fuck away from the Winslows and their business. Mind your own.”
It wasn’t Nero at all.
Chapter Forty-Two
Sage had upped the ante, forced the company to take notice and forced them to expend resources to deal with the death of the two contractors. He had some kind of plan, but what the hell was it? Why now? It didn’t make any sense.
The CEO eyed the folders, thick with a ream of paper in each, which Gladys had delivered to his desk an hour and a half ago. He’d already been through half, scanning, cataloguing, and synthesizing the information as he did.
All of the other subjects had experienced psychotic break at about the same time as Sage, relative to when the therapy was administered. Somewhere between fourteen and sixteen years after the upgrade, the mind just snapped.
For most of them, it was simple in
stability. They started killing people during a silent reconnaissance mission. They shut down in the middle of an attack. Two of the subjects ate their guns with no warning.
For some, like Sage, they just stopped. They just stopped being killing machines and disappeared.
It was just that Sage was better at disappearing than the rest of them.
So why had he reappeared? How had he suddenly become a killing machine again? They were unanswered questions, variables, and he hated variables more than anything else. Variables made missions fail. Variables changed simple operations into difficult operations.
He pressed the intercom button. “Gladys?”
“Right away, sir.”
He let go of the button before he realized he hadn’t actually asked for the drink. It didn’t matter. Gladys brought it in and set it down in front of him. He thanked her and went back to reading.
Forty minutes later, he had the answer. It was buried in the theoreticals prior to the project’s start: some propeller head by the name of Wilkins said the alterations to the DNA would eventually spread to the neural pathways, the spine and brain. There would be a period of time when erratic behavior replaced consistency until the mutations were complete. Then, ideally, the brain function would be normal, or even better.
But the effect had been so delayed they’d missed the connection. Nobody thought the body would still be transforming fifteen years after the application. So, evidently Sage’s mind was back to normal again, or better than normal. He did a quick calculation in his head. Sixteen years plus one or two since the novels were conceived and written. Sage had spent more than twenty years without his faculties or at least in some kind of an altered state. Jesus, twenty years.
Gladys’ voice came over the intercom announcing Aiken, and he took the call.
“Sir, the outside talent has arrived and will take the first shot in an hour or so.”
“Excellent. Is this talent any good?”
“You wouldn’t want this person to target you, sir.”
“Okay, that’s well and good. I mean, can this person avoid getting caught?”
“We have no worries there, sir. Absolute professional. Long and successful history.”
“Maybe we should be targeting Sage.” He sipped his bourbon and allowed himself a small glimmer of hope.
“Much better at straight target acquisition than investigation, sir. Maybe if we flushed out Sage first.”
“Well, we should know if our bird dog flew the coop in just an hour or two.”
“Bird dogs wouldn’t … uh, never mind.”
“Let me know when the first hit happens.”
Chapter Forty-Three
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re now beginning our descent to the Minneapolis-St Paul International airport, so the captain has turned on the seatbelt light. Please return to your seats and put your tray tables in their upright, locked position.”
Crane groaned as the stewardess’ voice on the speaker woke him. What a waste of first class seating.
Cagney and Lacey had left the restroom without another word, none of the rough posturing of the past few days. He’d made it to boarding in time to take the laptop from Noelle, but the vodka tonic he’d ordered pre-takeoff had just put him right to sleep in the large, comfortable chair. He shook the cobwebs out of his head as he waited for the plane to land.
Noelle had already reserved a room with Crane’s credit card in a Marriott close to the Viking Pub, and she was adamant that the bar should be their starting point. Crane was looking forward to another drink anyway. The airplane touched down, and Crane stood and stretched as it taxied. A stewardess looked at him and smiled. He wasn’t sure if first class made a man more attractive or just immune to the ‘wait until the seatbelt light is turned off’ rule.
He carried the laptop to the front of the plane and was finally stopped by a stewardess who gently reminded him that until the plane was actually against the walkway he’d fall about eighteen feet when he tried to get out. He smiled back. Apparently she was flirting after all. Didn’t she know he was an alcoholic disbarred lawyer who made a very poor private eye?
It was the first class seat. It was a ticket to getting laid. He almost found himself sorry Noelle was with him. Almost.
The stewardess kept at the small talk and actually slipped him her number, scrawled on the back of a Delta Airlines business card. He took it and put it in his pocket without committing to call.
The plane finally stopped and she opened the hatch for him. He walked out and caught a burst of cool air as he travelled down the walkway and out into the arrival area. He glanced at a map to see where the baggage carousels were located and sat down to wait for Noelle.
A fat man came off. Two women that looked like malnourished supermodels came off. That was the extent of first class. Then came the sea of humanity that made up coach. They trickled through the gate like confused ants, and he chuckled to himself, already feeling snobbish about having traveled first class.
The chuckle died instantly, though, when he saw Oscar and Felix step through the gate. The guy in the suit caught his eye, nodded at him, and walked with his partner into the terminal. He hadn’t seen them board, didn’t know they were on the flight. Assholes.
He considered firing up the laptop to find a restaurant for lunch. He was feeling generous with the Winslows’ money, and anything he bought on the trip would find its way to an expense report.
Before he had a chance, though, the phone rang. He flipped it open. “Hello.”
“Where the fuck is she, at your house?”
“Jesus, Ty. What is she, your pet tarantula?”
“Fucking funny, asshole. I told you to stay away from her.”
“You also said, ‘Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll use my connections at the bar to make sure you keep your license.’ You know, that was right before you told everyone you had no idea I was breaking the law to protect our clients.”
“Where the fuck is she, Crane?”
“Goodbye, Ty.” He flipped the phone shut and shook his head. How the hell had he ever gotten into business with that guy?
He tried to remember what he was doing before the call when he noticed nobody was getting off the plane.
Noelle never came out.
Suddenly, Ty’s question made a lot of sense. Where the fuck was she?
Chapter Forty-Four
Sage figured Tommy was good for a while. The little whore probably woke up freaked out, and a guy like Tommy spends his whole life writing about violence without ever once witnessing it. He was pretty sure he could count on his discretion for the next few weeks while they finished the book.
As for the company, well, they’d be so damn busy covering up the contractor deaths that he wouldn’t have to worry about them for a while either.
He thought about the Costa Rica job. In some ways, he wanted to change the ending, maybe have Strike Fortley go down in a blaze of glory. That wasn’t what happened of course, but it might make a better ending than ‘in the middle of the firefight, Fortley snapped and shot his own team, three of the locals, and blew up a house full of women and children’.
Yeah, the readers probably want the hero’s death. It would also make it easier to call the series over and move on. Maybe he’d just end it like the rest, another successful clandestine mission completed. Then he could just let Tommy keep writing them, make up all the stories himself.
He’d have almost half a million set aside in a few weeks, and the Costa Rica novel should add another seventy-five to a hundred. He could already live like a king for the rest of his life in ninety percent of the world.
Still, maybe he could live in Europe if Tommy kept sending him money every month.
No. I need to get rid of Tommy. No illusions.
What about the company? His father wasn’t there anymore. He saw that on a quick reconnaissance mission six months ago. There was a different CEO entirely now.
In the early days, he’d thought about c
oming home and killing his father. How could the bastard have let him go through with the project? But much as he thought about it, he could never bring himself to do it. His father was dead and the girls were still back in Marbury.
Thinking of his sisters brought a pang of regret to his mind, and he actually felt himself tearing up a little. I didn’t think I could cry any more.
It didn’t matter. His reflexes were too conditioned. They’d piss him off and he’d end up snapping their necks. It was probably only Tommy’s bulk that kept that from happening before. Why haven’t I killed Tommy?
It was a good question. He’d killed hundreds of people since he left the company. Hell, some bum would get a good look at his face and he’d panic and break the guy’s back. Why not Tommy? He knew the answer, although he skirted around it.
Tommy had been, for the last fourteen months, his best friend. His only friend. He hadn’t had a friend since he left home. That was it; a man that looked like a flesh version of the blob was his only real connection to humanity.
And I’m gonna have to kill you, Tommy.
Maybe not. Tommy said they could put up the books from anywhere. Maybe Tommy could come with him to Trinidad or Mexico or wherever the hell he ended up. They could build ramps for his chair. It was a possibility. All they needed was an internet connection and the eleven or twelve missions left in Sage’s head.
It’s not a goddamn possibility. Nobody forgets a sight like Tommy Norwood. Nobody. Tommy would have to go. He would have to die and Sage would be alone in the world again.
Alone and anonymous and safe.
Chapter Forty-Five
It only took a smile and a promise to call to get the stewardess to let him back onto the plane. His heart beat faster in his chest, until he could feel it, imagined it bruising the back of his ribcage.