Out of the Dark

by Gregg Hurwitz

  Ricky followed with a kidney punch, the men grappling on the wreckage of the floor, planks poking up into them. The bullet wound at Ricky’s shoulder didn’t slow him at all.

  The big man quickly got the upper hand, rolling on top of Evan. One sweaty palm shoved into Evan’s jaw, twisting his head back so hard it felt as though it might pop off.

  The excruciating upside-down perspective gave Evan a whirligig view across the room, the front door hanging crookedly from one remaining hinge.

  A smaller man filled the frame, compact muscle and hunched build, silhouetted by light from the hall.

  Orphan A.

  The pressure on Evan’s jaw intensified. Evan sensed Ricky draw back a fist. If he landed a direct punch, it was over.

  Evan bucked, Ricky’s palm slipping off his face.

  For a suspended moment, Evan had both arms free. He grabbed blindly at Ricky’s grenade-loaded vest, fingers spread, gathering safety-pin rings in both hands.

  He caught a few and ripped them free.

  Stunned, Ricky looked down at his vest, now studded with live grenades.

  Evan flipped free, a grappling reversal. He knocked Ricky over, slapping him facedown into the crater of the floor. Then he rolled atop the big man and crouched with one knee planted between the impossibly broad shoulder blades.

  He looked up at the doorway.

  Orphan A’s hands moved and produced a pistol, a picture-perfect shooting stance. He was backlit, shadow and shape and nothing more.

  Evan’s backpack rested an arm’s length away. He grabbed it by a strap, hauled it into his gut, and curled over it.

  The grenades detonated, the effect propagating as one after another caught.

  Evan pressed himself into Ricky’s back, shielded by two layers of the man’s oversize Kevlar vest. Shrapnel flew up all around him, a cone of destruction, Evan in the eye of a man-made hurricane.

  And then he was falling, the already damaged floor giving way entirely.

  His stomach lurched as he tumbled into the void.

  He rode what remained of Ricky down and hit the floor below with a wet thud.

  A woman had backed herself against the headboard, clutching a sheet to her breasts as her panicked paramour stood at the nightstand, phone cord coiled around his bare ass.

  Evan stood up, one leg buckling before he righted himself.

  “Excuse me,” he said, and bolted for the sliding-glass door.

  Raking aside the curtains, he threw the lock and shoved the door open. He glanced back at the blast hole in the ceiling in time to see Orphan A step into view.

  Two muzzle flares lit Orphan A’s face, rounds embedding in the floor at Evan’s feet. The man holding the telephone screamed.

  Evan stumbled across the threshold onto the balcony of 214, straddled the stone ledge, and looked around. The neighboring balcony was out of reach. If he jumped down, he’d risk shattering a leg or blowing out a knee on the service driveway running below. He glanced up the driveway’s length, spotting a laundry truck as it rumbled away from a loading dock.

  Already he could hear sirens on the breeze, not far away.

  As Orphan A appeared on the balcony above, Evan let himself fall out of sight, gripping a stone post, his legs dangling.

  A round grazed the ledge above, showering stone chips across his head.

  Evan held, held, gauging the sound of the truck engine as it neared.

  The box truck coasted underfoot, and Evan swung away from the balcony, falling five feet and landing lightly atop the cargo area.

  He stood up, the breeze riffling his hair, and looked back. Before the truck banked around the building’s curve, Orphan A came into view on the balcony above. He stared across the widening distance at Evan.

  Evan stared back.

  The laundry truck turned onto the main road, wiping Orphan A from sight.

  36

  What We’re Not Dealing With

  Chaos.

  It was nearly impossible to focus amid the raised voices and overlapping arguments in the Oval. Bennett sat on the couch, leaning forward with his fingertips pressed together, taking in the crossfire. It was almost three in the morning, the air thick with stale breath and body heat.

  His vice president was talking at him—or, more precisely, talking at the top of his head. Victoria Donahue-Carr had a grating voice to begin with, but it reached new heights of stridency now. “—been in a seventy-two-hour knife fight with the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform—”

  Without moving he tuned his focus behind him to a heated debate taking place between his chief of staff and three senior advisers. “—have to get out ahead of the story on Wetzel to deflect—”

  “—only going to add to questions about what the hell is—”

  “—analysis on why Doug was targeted?”

  Donahue-Carr’s voice bored back in on the action. “—and believe me when I say, Jonathan, that I can’t hold off that congressional subpoena another minute. This is no longer a question. Something has to give.”

  “Quiet!”

  The room silenced.

  It was the first time Bennett had raised his voice since taking office.

  “Everyone out,” he said quietly. “Eva, bring in Naomi Templeton.”

  Eva Wong snapped off a nod. The longtime special assistant to the president, Eva had hastily been promoted to fill Wetzel’s shoes. Bennett couldn’t trust her as much as he trusted Wetzel, but then again trust was illusory, a lie that weak men drew false comfort from. Relationships were about holding influence, the right cards, the reins.

  Wetzel’s murder had been a shot across the bow from X. It had the added benefit of cutting off Bennett from his most trusted man, isolating him further.

  As the room emptied out, Naomi Templeton entered, blading her body as she moved against the current. The door sucked closed, and Bennett finally moved, pulling himself upright, knuckling his glasses back into place.

  “The files strapped to Wetzel,” Templeton said, “were lost in the explosion. We’re down to ash. What were they?”

  “You’re not going to offer any niceties about Doug’s passing?” Bennett asked.

  Templeton sat on the facing couch from which Donahue-Carr had assailed him moments before. “I’d prefer not to waste time,” she said.

  Bennett nodded. “I have no idea what files were strapped to him.”

  “The few scraps that we recovered had redaction markings.”

  He stared at her. She hadn’t asked a question, so he didn’t offer a response.

  “I’m assuming that they have something to do with you,” she continued. “Or else why send them onto White House grounds strapped to your deputy chief of staff?”

  Bennett said, “It appears clear that a would-be assassin was hoping to smuggle in the bomb on Doug to get it within range of me.”

  “We both know this wasn’t an assassination attempt,” she said.

  Bennett skewered her with eye contact. “It appears clear that a would-be assassin was hoping to smuggle in the bomb on Doug to get it within range of me,” he told her again.

  Her slender throat pulsed. She pursed her lips. Hesitated. Said, “I understand.”

  He softened his face, if barely. “I’m glad we’re clear.”

  “How about the photograph pinned to Wetzel’s tie?” she asked. “The murdered prosecutor? My guys pulled a screen grab from the footage.”

  “I assume Orphan X killed her and wanted us to know.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “I gleaned from the briefing that she’s had a long and storied career. Maybe she went after him or one of his interests in the past.”

  He didn’t like how Templeton was looking at him. “You’re implying,” he said, “that Orphan X has some kind of information on me.”

  “Or that he believes he does,” she said. “We’re clearly dealing with a highly paranoid suspect.”

  He noted that she’d adjusted her tone to strike a careful
note. They were talking beneath the words. His preferred kind of conversation.

  “If he did have any information,” Bennett said, “it would be classified at the highest level. Beyond your security clearance. Or anyone else’s. The content needn’t concern you.”

  A hint of perspiration sparkled at her hairline. “In this … scenario, why wouldn’t he just release what he has to the press?”

  “That’s no longer good enough for him,” Bennett said. “Theoretically. And, theoretically, he’d be uncomfortable leaving the matter in the hands of others. He’d have a healthy and justified respect for my ability to protect myself in the political arena.”

  “So what’s he telling you, then? With all this, the files?” Quickly, she added, “Theoretically.”

  “That he’s gonna keep digging until he finds what he’s looking for. And that he’ll let the world know. After.”

  She said, “After he’s killed you?”

  Bennett moved his head up, down.

  “To obliterate your reputation. Your legacy.”

  “Yes,” Bennett said.

  She exhaled. It seemed she’d been holding her breath.

  “So,” he said. “Do you understand what we’re dealing with? And what we’re not dealing with?”

  “I do.”

  “Thank you, Agent Templeton.”

  He waited for her to exit.

  The questions surrounding Wetzel’s death could be deflected, yes, but Bennett was already taking incoming fire from enough fronts that his presidency was nearing a crisis point.

  Crisis management, he’d learned, generally balanced on getting others to focus on a different crisis, one of his choosing. Bait and switch, sleight of hand, a gentle tap to send the news cycle into a different spin.

  Phones were omnipresent at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, always within arm’s reach. He leaned for the nearest table and dialed the assistant secretary.

  Two minutes and thirty seconds later, Eva Wong appeared, pad and pen in hand, her razor-straight bangs cut high on her forehead. “Mr. President.”

  “Tell the congressional committee that I will be happy to appear next week—voluntarily. There is no need for a subpoena, and there is not to be a subpoena or I will stonewall them for the next three and a half years. When’s the press briefing announcing Doug’s death?”

  She fumbled through her stack to check. “We have it at ten A.M.”

  “Hold another in the late afternoon regarding my cooperation with the committee. We need voters to know how obliging and transparent I am. That I’m eager to help them get to the bottom of this and to set the record straight. That there’s no smoking gun here.”

  She was scribbling notes furiously. “Mr. President, given the timing, a hearing could be—”

  “Eva, I have the vice chair and five of nine committee members in my pocket. It’s a dog and pony.”

  He watched her attempt to digest this.

  “But the vice president said—”

  “What Victoria doesn’t understand is that I’ve also been busy these past seventy-two hours.”

  He stood to convey that Wong was dismissed. Still jotting notes, she took a few backward steps toward the door. “Sorry,” she said. “Just trying to keep up.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said, bestowing upon her a rare smile. “You’ll figure out how this works soon enough.”

  37

  My Business

  Crouching outside the 24 Hour Fitness at the Sherman Oaks Galleria, Evan unscrewed the impostor outlet he’d installed three days prior. Though he’d flown a circuitous route home, he’d driven here straight from the airport in the inconspicuous Ford Taurus he used as one of his many backup vehicles.

  He popped off the outlet’s cover plate to access the microSD slot. After withdrawing the card, he sat on a metal bench by the elevator and accessed the footage on his laptop. He played it on 5x fast-forward, slowing down to look at particularly hulking men, of which there were quite a few. He focused on patrons only as they exited the gym, since that provided the best view of their forearms.

  He was looking for those half-skull tattoos that Trevon had described.

  It took him three-quarters of an hour to get a hit. A man pushed out through the gym’s glass front doors wearing a deep-collar tank top torn down the sides to show off bulging lats. The shoulder straps were thin, stretched up over his traps, giving the shirt an oddly feminine vibe, like a bikini top designed to expose maximum flesh.

  As the man lowered his arms and headed for the elevator, walking directly toward the hidden lens, the half-skull tattoos came clear.

  Evan rewound until he spotted the man on his way into the gym and then checked the time stamp of his arrival: 3:57 P.M.

  On a hunch he zipped the footage forward to 3:50 the next afternoon. Sure enough, at 3:59 the same man appeared.

  You don’t build muscle like that without committing to a routine.

  Evan pulled out his RoamZone and called Trevon Gaines.

  He answered right away. “Hello?”

  “Trevon. It’s me. How are you doing?”

  “I’m okay, thank you. How are you?”

  Goal for the Day #3: Ask a personal question when someone asks you one.

  “No,” Evan said. “I actually mean how are you doing?”

  “Oh. I’m awful. They made me take bereavement leave from work, but I don’t like … um, I don’t like when I can’t go to work. And now I’m just sitting here at home trying not to think certain thoughts in my head. And I didn’t get to fill out my shift reports and they’re just sitting there at work all not-filled-out and we always do our job and do it well, but they won’t let me come back for two whole weeks.”

  “Did the cops talk to you?”

  “Yeah. I did like you said. I didn’t even have to act.”

  “Okay. I’m going to text you a picture of a man.” Evan took a screen shot of the man and sent it. Over the line he heard the ding of the arriving text. “I want you to tell me if he’s Muscley One.”

  “I don’t … I don’t want to look.”

  “Trevon. I need you to look.”

  “I’m too scared.”

  Evan took a breath, held it. “We don’t cry and we don’t feel sorry for ourself.”

  He could hear Trevon breathing across the receiver. Then some rustling came over the line. “That’s—” His voice cracked. “That’s him.”

  His terror was undeniable. What did it feel like to behold the face of a man who’d slaughtered every single person you cared about?

  “Thank you, Trevon.”

  “What are you gonna do to him?”

  “You don’t want to know that.”

  Trevon said, “Okay.”

  Evan cut the connection.

  It was a bit past two o’clock now, which gave him some time before Muscley One appeared.

  At an athletics shop downstairs, Evan bought some workout gear. He went out to his car and changed.

  In the privacy of the driver’s seat, he took stock of his injuries. His cheek stung beneath his left eye, where he’d picked out a half dozen splinters that had embedded themselves there when he’d blasted through the floor of the Watergate room. The superficial cuts on his elbows had mostly healed, but one laceration hurt every time he bent his arm. He made a mental note to dig in it more later in case he’d missed a sliver of glass. After the firefight, he’d detoured on his way out of D.C., executing a break-in at a key location. He was getting his pieces into position on the chessboard, one painstaking move at a time.

  Refocusing, he fished in his backpack and came out with a metal case the size of a deck of playing cards. Inside were two dozen ovals of silicon composite film, each vacuum-sealed inside a glass tab that resembled a microscope slide.

  The fingerprint adhesives.

  He removed one.

  He caught himself rubbing his eyes and realized how exhausted he was. Setting his internal alarm, he napped deeply for an hour and fifteen minutes and awoke
refreshed.

  Leaving the ARES 1911 behind in the glove box, he rode the escalators back up and picked the lock of a service door on the gym’s lower level. Coming up the stairs, he pretended to stretch on the mats behind the check-in desk, giving him a clear view of the elevators through the glass front doors.

  3:50.

  Customers trickled in at intervals, pressing their index fingers to the print reader on the front counter. When the sensor blinked green, they passed inside.

  After an eight-minute wait, the elevator doors parted, revealing Muscley One.

  Evan walked briskly to the check-in desk. “Hey, man,” he said to the sales associate. “Someone just puked in the Jacuzzi in the locker room. It’s a mess, and it looks like a fight might break out.”

  “Shit.” The guy snatched up the phone, his voice issuing over the PA system. “All personnel to the locker room.”

  He hung up and hustled to the back.

  Alone at the check-in counter, Evan pulled the glass slide from where he’d tucked it into his waistband. He cracked the seal, carefully removed the transparent fifty-micron film, and laid it across the fingerprint reader. Once exposed to air, the adhesive acted like candle wax; it had a thirty-second window to receive an impression before it hardened.

  He sensed a big form looming behind him.

  “C’mon, dude. Move it. You’re taking all day.”

  “Sorry,” Evan said, and stepped aside.

  He pretended to tie his shoelaces while Muscley One pressed his finger to the sensor. The laser read his print through the transparent film, the green light clearing him to enter.

  As Muscley One ambled away, Evan peeled the print from the reader, reversing it onto his own finger pad, where it clung and hardened. He circled the counter quickly so that he was standing before the computer monitor.

  Over the tops of the exercise machines, Evan sensed movement—the sales associate emerging from the rear hall, returning to his post.

  Swinging the reader around, Evan pressed his appareled fingertip to the glass window. The green light came on again, the member identity popping up on the screen.

  Bo Clague.

  Beneath the photo, an address in Panorama City.