Jackal: Barrett Mason Book 3

by Stewart Matthews

  “Barrett?” She waved her hand in front of my face. “Are you there?”

  “Yeah.” I blinked until I was back in my own head. “Did you ask me something?”

  She ruffled her brow and looked me over. She knew something was wrong.

  “I asked if you think my father might have anything to do with... you.”

  I shook my head. “But it wouldn’t be impossible.”

  For some reason, she looked disappointed. I wouldn’t have been, if I were in her place.

  “Well,” Carolina sighed and put her fork down, “I’m too tired to eat. I’m going to go lay down for a while.”

  “That’s a good idea,” I said. “I’ll keep watch.”

  “Watch? For what?”

  “For your boss. For anyone else who might take an interest in where he is.”

  She nodded slowly, as she walked toward the bedroom in the hall, but I don’t think she really bought my reasons for staying awake. Which was smart of her. Her boss might come home. But I couldn’t kid myself anymore. I wasn’t staying awake for him. I didn’t want Carolina to run off.

  I couldn’t lose my chance to kill her.

  Chapter 23

  I SAT AT THE KITCHEN island, wrestling with what to do next. I was so detached from my surroundings, when I looked away from the clock above the stove and looked back, two hours had passed.

  At some point, I went to the living room. I knew this because my Glock was reconstructed, sitting on the marble countertop in front of me.

  Jesus. What in the hell had I gotten myself into? Killing some woman on Vance Greer’s orders just to get out of jail? But what kind of father would I be if I let Kejal grow up without me?

  My hand reached down into the pocket of my pants. Next I knew, my phone was in my hand, calling Greer.

  “Did you do it?” he asked when he answered the phone.

  Hearing his voice knocked sense into me. And anger. I wish I could’ve been right there next to him. Woulda done my damnedest to turn his face into ground beef. For me, for Carolina, for my family. For the whole wide world.

  “I want to know what in the hell this girl did that—” I checked over my shoulder to make sure Carolina wasn’t there, listening. I wasn’t sure if she spoke English or not, but I didn’t want to find out now. I saw nothing but empty hallway. “—that makes it right to kill her?

  “Is it even about her?” I asked. “Or is it about her boss?”

  His end of the call went silent. He hadn’t hung up. I heard a fan droning behind him. But I knew I flicked a nerve.

  “That isn’t for you to wonder about, Mason. The CIA says she has to go, so she has to go. And you’re the man for the job.”

  “I don’t want the damn job!” I nearly screamed. I checked the hallway again, to make sure I didn’t wake Carolina. Still no one there. “I’ve been monitoring this woman the entire damn day. She doesn’t fit the profile of a kill target. Not one bit. She’s not a danger to anybody!”

  I pressed the phone closer to my mouth.

  “What’s really going on here?” I asked. “Is this a message for her boss?”

  “No,” Greer said simply. But how could I buy anything he sold me? The man would’ve fed me any lie if he thought it’d increase the chances of me pulling the trigger on Carolina.

  “Then is it a test? A way to prove my loyalty after West Rock? You people think they got their hooks in me after I took their drug. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  “Please,” Greer said as if I was being paranoid.

  “Then it’s a honeypot,” I said. “You’re going to prosecute me for murder if I do this. Probably got the Venezuelan national police on notice. Soon as they hear a gunshot from my directions, they’ll throw me in jail.”

  “Really, Mason, why would I take you out of US custody and throw you into a foreign prison where we have less control over you? Does that make any sense?”

  “None of this makes any sense!” I hissed into the phone. I was sick to death of Vance Greer years ago. Now, I was somewhere so far beyond, I wondered if I wouldn’t loop back around soon.

  “And, for you, it doesn’t have to make sense,” Greer said. “It’s not your job to put the pieces together, Mason. That’s already done. Langley has the full picture of what needs to happen next. Your job is to do it.”

  God, what I wouldn’t have given then to be in the same room as Greer. To take his phone and shove it down his neck. To watch him turn blue.

  “Did you know Kejal is at the top of her class now?” Greer said. “Smart kid. Attentive too. She knew NASA doesn’t count Pluto as a planet anymore—she corrected her teacher twice today, actually.”

  “What?” Blood rushed up my neck. The top of my head felt like it was going to pop off. “Stay the hell away from my kid, Greer.”

  “No. And there’s nothing you can do to stop me.” He laughed. “Well, there’s one thing I guess. But you don’t have the good sense to realize it’s in your own best interest to do the work you’ve been given.

  “Or maybe you’ll figure that out in the two days you have left to do it.”

  He hung up.

  Chapter 24

  I SPENT THE REST OF the night thinking. Only way I could have slept is if someone knocked me over the head with a blackjack—which no one was kind enough to do.

  So, I sat at the island, paced around the kitchen, and wondered what a stranger’s life was really worth to me.

  Then, about dawn, I figured it out.

  Nothing.

  Not a damn thing. I’d killed so many people, I couldn’t hope to count. Put them all together, and I’d do it again for less than a penny.

  All of them tried to kill me in some way, sure. Carolina had too. Charged at me with a knife. But, still, I knew killing her was different. I knew it was clearly wrong.

  But God, I had to see my family. I couldn’t stand the thought of Kejal or Libby being without me. Wondering why I’d disappeared into the ether. Or if they never had the chance to wonder at all, because Greer killed them.

  Maybe I was weak. Maybe I was finding the inner strength to do what needed to be done to protect my family.

  Maybe I was neither of those things. Only a man who didn’t have the luxury of kidding himself any longer.

  Pale morning light spilled through a window at the front of the house. But that hallway leading to the bedroom where Carolina slept was black as a moonless night. Perfect for me.

  I picked up the Glock from the counter. And I walked into the hall. Felt like I wasn’t in control of myself anymore. Like something was picking me up, pushing me along.

  The bedroom door was still wide open. She trusted me. She didn’t lock herself inside or bar the way while she slept. I’d tricked her into believing I was a good person.

  Though tricking her for one night was nothing compared to tricking myself for thirty-eight years.

  I’d always been self-interested, now that I cared to look. I took from my brother, going to school, working ranch jobs, being a rowdy teenager while he dropped any plans for college to make sure I had food in my belly and a roof over my head.

  I took Kejal’s father from her—he lost his life by meeting with me. My way of trying to serve my country. And then, to add insult to injury, I took his daughter in. Denied her from her uncle, too. The only family she had left.

  Libby wasn’t spared from me either. I married her, then flaked out. Chose life as a big, tough Recon Marine over her, even when she was ready to put a budding career with the Annapolis Gazette on hold. And I washed out of the Corps, anyhow.

  I was always this low down. At least I knew it now.

  She was asleep on the bed. Wasn’t aware that I was creeping up beside her. Looked peaceful. Wouldn’t know that I’d put the bullet in her head. At least there was that. She wouldn’t die afraid, and she wouldn’t suffer long.

  The Glock weighed nothing at all in my hand. I slowly drew it upward. Pointed it outward, straight at Carolina’s forehead. My finger easil
y wrapped around the trigger. It was comfortable to me.

  The whole process of holding a gun and pointing it at something I wanted to die was second nature. I barely had to think about it.

  Something moved past the corner of my eye.

  No, not something. Someone. Through the window behind the TV. I hadn’t noticed the window last night—my attention was on the newscaster rattling through bad story after bad story. But here, there was a window looking out the front of the house.

  Elevated as the house was, I could see the whole yard. The bright, flowery bushes, the stream, the tops of the rock retaining walls.

  And the man crouched at the gate. Only a sliver of him: his dark pants covering his knee, the black helmet stopping over his eyes, the black glove on his right hand. And the front half of the AK-103 he cradled.

  He was pressed up against the wall outside the property. And he was talking to someone. I couldn’t hear or see what, but the way his head bobbed, the way he motioned with his left hand—he was signaling to someone else.

  Which meant he wasn’t alone.

  Another man, decked out in dark clothes, carrying the same assault rifle, scurried on the other side of the gate. Going from the left break in the wall to the right.

  A third man followed him, but only about halfway. He crouched in front of the gate, then flipped open a black messenger bag on his hip, and pulled out something small and pale.

  Plastic explosives. He planted a glob of explosives on the gate’s hinges. They were going to breach.

  “Wake up!” I shook Carolina, then crouched beside her bed—I didn’t want to get spotted.

  She gasped awake. Her pupils were already wide as half dollars.

  “What? What?”

  “Does anyone know we’re here?”

  She blinked at me. She was only half awake. Didn’t understand.

  “Carolina, did you tell anyone we were coming here?”

  “No.” She yawned and rubbed her forehead. “Why are you on the floor?”

  “There are men outside,” I said. “If no one knows we’re here, I’m guessing they aren’t here for us. They probably want to have a chat with your boss too.”

  “What?” She cocked her head. Then looked at the window. Suddenly, she pushed herself forward. Her legs poked out from the sheets. She was going to get up and see, but before she could, I yanked her to the floor.

  “What’re you doing?”

  “Keep your head down,” I whispered. Then, I noticed she was only in her panties and t-shirt from yesterday. “And go put your jeans back on.”

  She crawled on all fours toward the window, then cut left at the end of the bed. She pulled open the lowest drawer on the dresser and snagged out a pair of folded blue jeans.

  I kept an eye on the window while she pulled them on. I held my head just high enough to see what they were doing at the gate. But I shouldn’t have bothered. Because the next noise I heard told me everything.

  A loud pop and a metallic clang split the air. Those plastic explosives they planted took the hinges off the gate, and the gate fell into the driveway.

  They were coming in.

  “Move!” I yelled. Carolina was scrabbling toward me on her hands and knees. I grabbed her by the back of her waistband and yanked her forward like a mother wolf dealing with a slow pup.

  “Let me go!” She shoved my hand away and crawled past me.

  “Get to the back door.” I looked out the window once more. Only brought my eyes high enough to see six men rushing toward us, with a handful more forming a perimeter near the wall. But I was out in the open enough to be spotted.

  One of them yelled something. He was thirty yards off, leaning against one of the retaining walls, his rifle in a good firing position, at the point of their formation. But I figured out pretty quickly that he saw me.

  A round popped off. Blew straight through the window, shattering it, and drilling into high into the wall behind me.

  I dropped backward, narrowly avoiding being shot.

  Carolina shrieked. Must’ve been pretty damned loud, because she was out in the hall, and apparently, they heard us through the busted out window.

  More of them opened fire. I didn’t see who or from where—I was too busy shimmying across the floor on my back, hoping a big shard of glass wouldn’t come down and cut off my foot as more bullets perforated the wall.

  On the floor, I felt the whole damn house shivering with every hit. Dust flew, chunks of plaster and glass fell everywhere. The TV caught a round or two and tipped forward.

  I worked my way out of the bedroom, still on my back, still holding my Glock like it had some magic shield that would keep me from getting poked full of holes. Before I knew it, I bumped up against Carolina.

  When I looked behind me—or up over my head—I saw her crouched into a little ball against the wall. Screaming and crying. A fire alarm or security alarm honked somewhere in the house.

  “Up,” I said. “Get up!” I don’t know if I was yelling at myself or Carolina.

  Next I knew, I flipped on my belly and launched to my feet. I grabbed the back of her neck, and forced her to stand up, but stay hunched over.

  The men assaulting the house had stopped firing sometime between me scooting backward out of the room and now, standing up in the hall, scurrying toward the kitchen with Carolina. The only reason they’d stop shooting was for one of their own entering their line of fire.

  Which meant at least one of them was crawling through the broken window right now.

  When we hit the kitchen, I heard him cussing in Spanish from the bedroom as glass cracked and crunched. Probably cut himself by accident.

  “Get down.” I shoved Carolina down on the far side of the kitchen island, and fit myself next to her. We had good cover from the bedroom hallway here. “Stay right here—don’t put your head up for anything. Got me? Not a damned thing!”

  Her eyes were wide with terror. Clear white, but ready to burst into tears at any second. But that didn’t make me think less of her. That she could even get up and move while under fire showed she had more courage than most.

  I brought my eyes an inch over the top of the marble counter. I had my Glock ready. Perched next to me on the edge of the counter. All I had to do was rotate the muzzle forward on the counter’s edge and pull the trigger.

  Only problem was I had to get a little lucky. I was sure the guy in the bedroom wore body armor. 9mm might penetrate. Might not. I just had to hope the force from the bullets would knock him on his ass.

  Then, under the sound of the alarm, I heard his footsteps. The shuffling of his feet over the carpet of debris. He was close. In the hallway.

  I wasn’t ready for what came next. His arm whipped around the corner. Something small and black arced through the air. It hit the front side of the island and dropped to the floor.

  On the back side, I covered Carolina’s ears with my arm, bowed my head and shut my eyes as tightly as I could

  The thing he threw was small. But it made a sound that left my brain rattling in my skull. It filled the whole house with concussion and light. The sensation was like stepping on a lit mortar on the 4th of July—I felt my guts shaking.

  Couldn’t dwell on it. I lifted my head. My vision was blurry. But his black figure slid across the opening to the hall. He was unmistakable against the white walls.

  My Glock found its own way. It barked in my hands. Barely heard it over the ringing in my ears, but the shots connected.

  He fell backward.

  I lurched to my feet. My knees were weak, but I steadied myself against the island as I trudged forward.

  My eyes told me there were two of them, laying belly up on the floor. But that would’ve been impossible. I knew I was still shaking off the flashbang.

  But I couldn’t let that be an excuse. My life depended on it. So, I fell forward. Landed chest to chest on him, but I got my knees under me. He was coughing and wheezing. I straddled him and hammered an elbow straight into his
nose.

  It crunched. He tried to slip away from me, but I couldn’t let that happen.

  I pounded my fist down on his throat. He grabbed his neck and kicked his feet. He wasn’t coming after me now. So, I grabbed his rifle and got up to my feet.

  That flashbang was still working its way through me, but I kept my legs under me. I moved into the hall, keeping the rifle at my shoulder. I couldn’t exactly look down the sights, but from room to room in this house, I could spray and pray.

  I pressed my back against the wall next to the bedroom door. There would be more in there. They wouldn’t let this man go in alone. At least, I figured there had to be more behind him.

  When I popped my head around the open doorway, I was right.

  Two more. One hoisting the other through the window by his arm. The guy coming up the window saw me first. He had just enough time to make a quick, surprised noise before I pulled the trigger and hit both.

  He fell back outside. The man on the inside slumped forward, hanging over the open window.

  I thought about pressing my luck. Pushing forward, taking up a firing position at the window. I’d be able to rain lead down on them as they came up the hill.

  Too bad for me, took too long making a choice. Another small, black thing soared through the missing window. It looked like a bird on a kamikaze dive. I thought it was another flashbang, so I crouched with my back against the wall outside the bedroom, held my ears and closed my eyes.

  I was wrong.

  The blast from the grenade shoved me forward. My face smacked into the wall opposite me, ringing my bell. But I was conscious enough to notice shrapnel needle into the plaster just above my head.

  Dust seeped into my lungs. I brought my fingers from my ears and blinked my eyes. My throat burned like I’d swallowed battery acid. I wiped my brow with the sleeve on my dark shirt. When I pulled my arm away, it was wet with blood and grime. I had no idea if it was mine or someone else’s.