Hammer raised the sight to his eye again and cinched down on the trigger.
He took a deep breath.
He steadied himself.
Could he kill an innocent, a child?
“You’ll be stopping World War III, Ray. Pull the trigger. That’s an order.”
Hammer didn’t have the patience to repeat what he’d said about taking orders from Whitcombe.
He took another deep breath. Steadied himself. And closed his eyes.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Adam Winters stepped towards the house, one slow step after the other. His captors told him he would probably die, that someone would likely get the code, write it down, and then put a bullet through his head. The door was only a hundred yards away but it seemed farther; miles and miles, and it didn’t matter how slowly and how much he dragged his feet or how carefully his eyes glanced over the bodies in camo-gear strewn on the ground, bleeding out, and already dead. He breathed in the slight metallic taste in the air.
None of it mattered because his mother hadn’t come for him when she’d said she would.
She hadn’t picked him up under the bridge. These folks had, and just like everyone else in this horrible game, they wanted to use him as a pawn. Except this time he had no bargaining power. There was no money coming to him, and nothing he could use to escape, to get away from his life in Tokyo or here.
Adam’s life in Tokyo didn’t seem so bad now. It was exactly what he wanted. Some stability, constant reassurance, the pleasure of routine, of heading out the door to school in the morning, a heavy backpack filled with books, an iPad, a coffee in his hand, the warm sensation running down his throat, a smear of chocolate licked off the top of the lid—that was what mattered.
Being a mercenary, being a spy, making money, getting away from everything—none of that mattered, except for maybe getting away from his mother. She hadn’t come for him. That’s how little he meant to her.
Adam wanted to run. But, what good would that do? What good had it done him so far? Every time he’d run, he’d been caught, hit by a car, dragged through the dirt, staring up at the muzzle of a gun. But, there in front of him was a house, something solid, brick, a familiar-style door, just like any other front door.
Maybe they wouldn’t kill him. Maybe they would. He was just a kid. If he played that angle, told them he wouldn’t say anything, that he’d just go home and that would be the end of it, that he’d cover the tattoo with a knit-cap for the rest of his life. Hell, they could tattoo over it or remove it. It didn’t matter, so long as he was alive, so long as he got to breathe in the fresh air for one more day.
But that seemed unlikely, and tears spilled over and ran down his cheeks and formed tiny pockmarks of wet on the concrete parking lot.
No, he wouldn’t run this time. He’d stay the course. He’d face the consequences of his choices, of his actions. He realized suddenly, and with a deep sadness in his chest, that he’d grown up, and now the only thing left to do was to face the music of whatever awaited him inside that single-story brick house.
He approached. Closer and closer.
Adam spat a wad of phlegm on the ground.
He dragged his feet another pace, lifted his chin and walked as steadily as he could.
All the way there, his whole body shook.
Chapter Thirty
Hammer coughed and yanked the muzzle sharply.
He pulled hard on the trigger once, twice.
Each of the handlers crashed to the ground.
The kid kept walking straight ahead as if nothing had happened, as if he was a zombie in a trance.
The two men walking out to meet the boy swiveled and their guns lit up and smoked, and Hammer felt something sharp dig into his ankle. He looked down to see Solomani Rodriguez grimacing up at him, his shirt torn above the shoulder, blood and tendon flapped uselessly. His fingernails dug deep into Ray’s skin. Hammer hit the ground and returned his attention to the two men with their guns blasting in his direction.
Whitcombe was already halfway down the hill, out of sight. He moved awfully fast for a man with a gut.
“Are you okay?” Hammer asked Rodriguez, knowing full well he wasn’t.
The big man kept the grimace on his face, tried to pretend it was a smile, “Fine. Just dandy.”
A bullet bit the dirt next to Ray, and soil splashed up into his face. He crunched it under his teeth and spat it out, and fired off two more clean shots. They dropped the remaining two guards. But the boy kept moving, step by aching step, towards the door.
Ray scanned the house, saw movement behind the windows—the submachine guns, no doubt. He waited again, and there it was, just a flicker in the window behind the glazed mirrored glass. He pulled the trigger, and someone cried out. The glass smashed, and a sporadic burst of rapid fire dissipated noisily and harmlessly into the air.
Thankfully, no planes flew overhead today because, this close to the base, they’d be low, and a wayward bullet would be enough to send them scrambling back to base.
There was a crack that sounded like a .22 shot, and the submachine gun fire stopped dead.
Hammer turned his attention to another window, fired one shot to smash the glass, and there in a dark outfit, ski mask pulled low, stood a special operative, SMG at the ready.
Ray aimed at his chest and the man jerked backwards, away from the window, dropping his weapon.
How many more were in there? Hammer couldn’t be sure, but he could tell that one of them had a shotgun and several of them were armed with assault weapons.
He wasn’t about to run across the parking lot. And yet, the kid continued walking, virtually unharmed. He was only three yards from the front door when it opened, and a woman with fiery auburn hair reached out a hand and pulled him into a tight embrace.
Hammer saw the double barrel shotgun just before the door closed and everything fell silent, except for Rodriguez, who was wrapping his chest with a strip of fabric from his pantleg. He swore and muttered under his breath.
After a few moments of this, Hammer knelt down, and tied the fabric tight over the wound.
“You’ll be alright. You need medical attention though.”
The big man looked up at him. “And you need support.”
Hammer handed Rodriguez his Smith and Wesson and a fistful of .44 Magnums.
“Thanks.”
Frank Whitcombe, half-crawled, half-rolled, as he pulled himself over his belly and up the hill.
“You sure will need support, because you’re going in, Ray.”
“What did I tell you about orders?” Hammer replied..
“SITFU,” said Whitcombe. “You’ll do it ‘coz the kid’s in there.”
Ray considered this a moment. “No,” he said. “It’s not because of the kid. It’s not because he’s in there. I’ll do it because I choose to and because it’s the right thing to do.”
Whitcombe chortled a deep booming laugh. “I knew you had it in you.”
Hammer cracked the magazine. It was empty. He looked down at Rodriguez who held up a handful of cartridges for the G36 and another magazine, it was also empty. Hammer took the cartridges and the empty magazines and reloaded them. Things could easily get noisy.
“You got any more?” he asked. Rodriguez gritted his teeth and shook his head.
“Shit,” said Ray, and felt each of his pockets. He pulled a handful of ammunition out of one pocket, but it was the wrong caliber. He handed the .44s to Rodriguez to go with the Smith and Wesson.
“You cover me.”
Rodriguez loaded the Model 629.
Ray realized he still had the .38 Special from Jacinta. He knew it contained a message inside, so he pulled the cartridge open and unwound the message. It seemed like the right time, especially now he was about to walk into a firefight with only half a magazine.
“What’s that?” said Rodriguez.
Hammer just shook him off. He read the note, his eyes flitting over the letters. It was only short.
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Frank Whitcombe behind this | Big payday plus promotion | He wants both | He makes money on weapons sales | Warheads to China | Codes to North Korea | World War III
Ray folded it back up, placed it inside the cartridge. He then placed the fake .38 Special back inside his pocket and glanced down at where Rodriguez lay poised to provide cover. “You ready?”
Rodriguez sucked in a deep ragged breath. “When you are.”
“It’s no thanks to you, Whitcombe,” said Ray as he raised the Heckler and Koch and fired off a single shot into each of the remaining windows at the front of the building.
He waited.
When no one fired back, Hammer swung the G36 forward and launched himself over the top of the hill.
Rodriguez sprung up and started firing.
Six. Five. Four. Three shots.
Ray was at the door.
Two.
One.
Hammer barged his way inside.
Chapter Thirty-One
A storm raged inside Adam, and relief washed over his body as he let out one agonizing sob after another and buried his face on his mother’s chest. He sucked in ragged breath after ragged breath until his shirt was damp with his self-loathing.
He jerked his head up to look into her eyes as she stroked the back of his hair. He tasted sea salt and mucus and tried to spit out the words that were broiling inside him.
“Wh . . . wh . . . why?” he asked.
She glanced down at him, her eyes flicked up to the tattoo on his forehead, her hand stroked his hair once more, and then she turned her gaze away. She kept her mouth shut.
He tore himself back away from her. “For this? For this?” he said, pointing at the scars on his forehead.
She swallowed, and didn’t answer.
“Or is it for this?” he said, spinning and running his finger up and down his back, indicating the scab that was full of grit and dried crusty blood.
“I . . .” she started.
“Didn’t mean it?” asked Adam. “Didn’t mean to have your son almost killed several times. You didn’t mean for him to be taken hostage by armed men working for the Chinese government? Or was that all part of your plan? Were they working for you? You wanted me to learn how life really is?”
“Adam!” she scolded.
“No!” he fired back. “Fuck you, Mom! Fuck you!”
A fine film covered her eyes and she stepped forward, her arm reached out to touch him. He stepped back. She took another step, threw the other arm out, grabbed both of his shoulders and tried to bring him in.
But he pulled back, wrenched himself away.
“How dare you!”
“It’s complicated, Adam. You were the only person I knew who had the skills we needed.”
“Seriously!” spat Adam. “You just moonlight as a spy.”
“I’m not a spy, Adam,” she said. “I work for an organization. Hell, I started out as a volunteer, and now look, I run the joint. We’re against nuclear proliferation. Our entire aim is to stop this kind of thing, to prevent war. I’m sorry I had to involve you, but I needed someone with your skills, with your intelligence, with your ability with computers to get inside the base and to find those codes before the North Koreans or the Chinese had them.”
“You know what, Mum?” said Adam. “I don’t care why you’re doing it. Just leave me out of it. Leave me out of your life! Just pay me the fifty grand you promised, and you’ll never see me again.”
His mother sighed deeply. Her tears mixed with his own on her damp shirt, her makeup ran, and Adam felt a conflicting urge to hug her and punch her. He wasn’t sure which he wanted to do more. He chose to do nothing. Instead, he turned, and was gripped on the back of the neck by a large man who pushed him forward and towards a mirror.
There in the mirror he saw his own face for the first time in weeks.
He had grown up. His face was firm, his jaw set in a grim, hard determination, and his eyes flashed with an anger that he’d only been able to imagine before this all started, when he was being forced to go to a school that he didn’t like, forced to leave the country, friends who he loved. That wasn’t anger. That was petulance. This—this was real.
Adam’s eyes made their way up to the codes, written in reverse lettering and numbering so that in the mirror they read properly. His forehead was pocked with a number of small scars and scrapes and scabs that distorted the tattoos. He couldn’t read the code, not properly. Some of the numbers were so distorted by blood and scabs that it would take a while for them to heal or to be pulled off and cleaned so that the ink could be read. He turned and shot his contemptuous eyes at his mother.
“You know what? You give me a job, pay me whatever I ask, and treat me as a colleague with my own skills and talents, the reason you brought me into this operation in the first place, or,” he said, “I walk right out of that door and go to the nearest Chinese embassy.”
“Oh yeah?” said his mom. “And how will you do that? Your two handlers are dead, Adam. You’re a kid. You’re 15.”
“No,” said Adam. “I’m a man. I’ll work it out.”
He turned and strode past the big guy and towards the door. The guy followed after him, but Adam’s mother shook her head.
“Let him go.”
Just as Adam was about to reach the door, the frame shook and the wood splintered. The door crashed from its hinges to the floor in front of him.
He froze.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Hammer lunged forward and grabbed the kid. He put one arm around the boy’s neck, and the other reached down to his thigh and pulled a knife. He held it to the kid’s throat. The auburn-haired woman stepped forward, her arms outstretched, her fingers long, slender.
“Don’t kill him! Don’t! Please,” she said. “It’s not what it looks like.”
“Then what the hell is it?” said Ray, slinging his G36 over his shoulder with his free hand. He counted the number of goons with his peripheral vision, never taking his eyes off the woman with the auburn hair and the tears in her eyes.
“We want the codes, yes,” she said.
“And?” said Ray, taking the knife off the kid’s neck and waving it encouragingly.
“And we need them, only to disarm the weapons. If they fall into the wrong hands, even in the US government’s hands, they could start World War III.”
Ray had spent half his life in the Marines. He knew about the protocols, about why they needed the nuclear weapons, and what was to happen if they were compromised.
He knew the codes would have been changed remotely if the people who’d lost them in the first place had reported them missing. But, judging by what Whitcombe had said and by the message in the bullet, it was highly unlikely the codes had been changed, or the theft reported. It was just another black-market transaction, a weapon going missing and reappearing somewhere else for use by someone else: another government, another agency, maybe the Chinese, maybe this lot, whoever they were.
“We never meant for it to go this far,” she said.
“Who’s ‘we’?” asked Ray.
“We, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Organization for a Healthier, Safer America.”
“That’s one hell of an acronym,” said Ray.
Her lip curled up at the corner of her mouth. “It’s as important as it is long,” said the woman with the auburn hair.
Ray loosened his grip a tiny fraction, and the kid didn’t even squirm, but the other corner on the other side of her mouth flinched upwards.
“Besides,” she said, “he’s my son.”
Ray opened his mouth, closed it again. “How do you feel about tattoos?”
The curling lips unfurled into a full-blown smile. “They’re all doing it these days,” she said.
“What’s your relationship to Whitcombe?” asked Ray.
“I don’t know who he is,” said the auburn-haired woman. “I work for Okai Hatashi. It’s our other name. It’s easier to say than a huge, long acronym.”
“The old woman? . . .”
“One of ours. The men on the base took her out . . . your lot. Marines.” The smile morphed into a sneer. “A violent pack of scumbags,” she said. “They lost the weaponry in the first place. It was their mistake that landed the B61s in our hands, and now we have an option to prevent war, to stop this stupidity, this craziness.”
“Some marines may be stupid,” said Hammer, “but the rest of them, they’re just taking their orders and doing their jobs.”
“Their orders?” she said. “Is that what you’re doing?”
Hammer flinched, and rested the knife back against the boy’s neck. “I’m retired,” he said.
The kid finally squirmed and struggled but Ray clamped a huge hand down on his shoulder and pressed hard into his pressure points.
“Screw you.” he spat.
“Looks like you’re doing a good job of retirement,” said the auburn-haired woman, and she stepped closer to Ray. She placed a hand on his cheek. “I’ll show you the plans.”
She drew out an iPad, held it up so he could see.
“This is what we’re trying to do. We’re not trying to prevent the military from protecting Americans. We’re trying to prevent the kind of trades and illegal deals that go on with military equipment, the sales of weaponry to foreign agencies from North Korea to Iran to Palestine, all across the world… We have agents stationed everywhere in an effort to disrupt nuclear proliferation, to prevent World War III, to prevent destruction, to keep people safe and happy. My son happened to get caught up in this because I made a bad decision, because I brought him into this. I needed his computer skills. That’s on me,” she said. “Now you have to make a decision. You have to decide whether these weapons fall into the wrong hands, and whether my son dies, whether all of this is in vain.”
Hammer shook his head.
There were heavy footsteps on the concrete outside. He let go of the kid, pulled the G36 around and fired two harmless shots into a wall, another two shots into another wall, another two shots into the one next to it.
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