He tried to relax.
A bomb didn’t make sense.
Like the Nowhere Man said, Big Face needed Trevon alive and well to maximize his suffering.
He crawled back over to the kitchen table, then drew his eyes up so he could see the clock: 10 DAYS, 23 HOURS, 07 MINUTES, 54 SECONDS.
He watched till it counted down to 10 DAYS, 23 HOURS, 05 MINUTES, 30 SECONDS.
What could it be?
When it reached 2 MINUTES, he got a horrible feeling in his gut.
He stood up and went to his computer. He logged in.
The horrible feeling got worse when he saw he had an e-mail from Kiara.
Hey, Tre!
The program’s wrapping up a little early due to some funding issues, so I’m flying back a week from Thursday. I e-mailed Mama already but wanted to let you know. I probably won’t be able to get to a computer again to check e-mail but I hope you can go with her to pick me up at the airport. Miss you!
xo—K
His heart was pounding loud enough that he could hear it in his ears.
He double-clicked on the attached itinerary.
She was on a Spirit Airlines flight that landed at LAX June 29 at 12:35 P.M.
Today was June 18.
He squeezed his eyes shut, saw the numbers in his head, the days and minutes and seconds. He opened his eyes and looked over at the clock on the kitchen table.
They matched.
His jaw started watering like he was gonna throw up. Before he could, his cell phone rang. He fumbled it out. “H-hullo? Who is it, please?”
“Trevon.”
It was Big Face.
“Yes, sir?”
“They say a decapitated head can still see for three seconds, but I’ve always wondered. My thinking is that you’d pass out from the shock without so much as a blink of recognition. But when your sister gets home? We’re gonna find out.”
“Hello? Sir? Please don’t. Please let’s not find out.”
But Big Face had already hung up.
Trevon’s mouth watered even worse than before. He barely got the trash can out from under the desk in time.
41
Customer Service
Terrance DeGraw lived in Chatsworth off a winding canyon road on an isolated patch of land that might’ve once passed for a ranch. Yellow weeds covered the earth, and one of the walls of the stable had rotted away, revealing the empty stalls. The house was falling apart, windows shattered, screen door rusting on its hinges.
Evan parked and crossed through the front gate, dead leaves crunching underfoot. He didn’t get halfway up the front walk before the door opened and two men came out.
Evan identified Terrance immediately from Trevon’s description. Raw One certainly earned his sobriquet. Skin stretched taut across high, hard cheekbones. Lips pulled thin in a permanent scowl. He wore a T-shirt with the sleeves torn off, showing bony shoulders, and when the breeze picked up the hem, his ribs came visible, ridging the pale white skin.
The man at his side was more filled out, hefty and jittery, with an Amish fringe of beard hanging off his jawline. He held what looked like a Colt .45, the barrel pointed at the ground beside him.
“Can we help you?” Terrance said.
Evan said, “I hope so.”
They met halfway up the walk, the closed gate hanging crookedly behind Evan, the house looming beyond in all its Texas Chainsaw glory.
Evan jerked a chin at the front door. “You the only two here?”
“Why would you ask a thing like that?” Terrance said.
“Trying to figure out how many of you I have to kill today.”
Terrance coughed out a note of disbelief. “You hear that, Darren? He wants to know how many of us he has to kill today.”
Darren lifted the Colt and aimed it at Evan’s chest, his wrist loose, the pistol lolling lazily to one side. “Just us two.”
Evan’s ARES remained in his Kydex high-guard hip holster. There’d be no need for it.
“Mind telling us who you are, friend?” Terrance said.
“I’m the guy who killed Bo Clague.”
“Bo’s not dead.”
“When’s the last time you talked to him?”
Terrance licked his cracked lips but didn’t say anything.
“Wanna give him a try?” Evan said. “I can lend you my phone.”
Darren bunched his mouth a few times, as if he were working tobacco.
Terrance squinted at Evan. “You the one who called the chief earlier? We got word to be on alert.”
“Is that why Darren’s here? Buddy system?” Evan shook his head. “It won’t help.”
Darren took a step forward, jabbing the .45 at Evan. “We should just do him here.”
Terrance held up a hand. “You heard the chief. He wants to talk to him.” He smiled. “The chief likes to take his time with folks. Give ’em his full attention.”
Darren said, “Doesn’t mean I won’t pistol-whip your ass into submission first.” The muzzle swung slightly right. “Or put a round through your shoulder.”
“Darren,” Evan said. “There are two of you and one of me. You have your pistol drawn, aimed at my critical mass from three feet away. We’re on secluded land far enough from the nearest neighbors that no one’ll hear a gunshot, and even if they do, they won’t think much of it. You’ve got the drop on me in every conceivable way. But I want you to look at me. Look into my eyes. And ask yourself: Do I look scared?”
“Yeah, actually. You do look—”
Evan’s hands blurred. He caught the barrel of the Colt in the thumb webbing of his right hand, shoving the pistol upward as his left hand chopped Darren’s elbow, forcing the arm to bend. The Colt .45 snapped vertical just as Darren tugged the trigger, the round blowing off his face.
Darren swayed on his feet, the pistol tumbling free, the front of his head little more than a bubbling sheet of red. He collapsed to his knees, clawing at himself, and then his weight tugged him forward and deposited him flat on his chest. He twitched on the weeds pushing through the cracked concrete of the walkway and then was still.
A moment of perfect silence followed, Terrance staring down at his friend, chin wobbling, mouth ajar as if trying to produce sound.
Evan stood calmly, as he had an instant before. The breeze was pleasant, scented of sage and rosemary.
Terrance gave a cry and lunged for the fallen Colt. Evan heel-hammered him, breaking the wrist.
Terrance rolled on the ground, gripping his hand, choking down howls.
Evan said, “Get up.”
Terrance obeyed and stood stooped, the Hunchback of Chatsworth. “The fuck, man. Who do you work for?”
“Trevon Gaines.”
“Oh, no. C’mon, man. That was just … that was just orders. What do you want?”
“I want to issue a complaint about Russell Gadds’s business practices. You’re customer service. I want to see the CEO. Right now.”
Terrance blinked the sweat off his eyelashes. “But he’s gone. Had to fly down to Lima and Paramaribo, straighten some shit out. I swear, man. I swear. But he’s back next week. Sunday night.”
“I’ll be waiting,” Evan said. “Tell me where.”
“Where what?” Terrance stared at the Colt on the ground by his feet, just out of reach.
“The place you took Trevon. The operation center.”
Terrance cradled his arm. “You’ll never get in there. Place is a fucking fortress. Especially after this clusterfuck with the … with the missing shipment. Competitors are smelling blood. Gadds has the office on high alert. It’s crawling with men. All of them tougher than you are.”
Evan shifted toward Terrance, and Terrance cowered, hugging his broken wrist.
Evan said, “I’ll take my chances.”
“Okay, man. Okay.”
“Where?”
Terrance gave him an address in the wholesale district downtown.
Evan crouched and picked up the Colt .45.
“C’m
on, man. Please. I got … I got people.”
The gunshot lifted a murder of crows from the ancient oak tree by the porch.
Evan dropped the .45 next to the bodies and walked back to his pickup.
The canyon was a rare out-of-service spot for his RoamZone, so he waited to drive out of the canyon before turning it back on.
It showed twenty-three missed calls.
* * *
“I’m sorry I called you so much,” Trevon said.
Evan sat across from him at the small kitchen table, the clock between them counting down to Kiara’s arrival. Darkness turned the windows opaque, the night sounds of East L.A. filtering through, a man bellowing drunkenly, someone laying on the horn with gusto, Mexipop blaring from a radio.
Trevon continued to jerk in shallow breaths so rapidly that he seemed at risk of hyperventilating. A Band-Aid still secured his glasses at one temple.
Evan said, “That’s okay.”
“She gets home on the twenty-ninth.”
“Then we’ll have to solve the problem before then.”
“Can you?”
Evan said, “Yes.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
Russell Gadds would get back from his trip to Paramaribo and Lima in one week, which gave Evan a four-day window to eliminate him and his operation before Kiara hit U.S. soil.
Cat-Cat rubbed up against Evan’s calf, and he leaned over to scratch him. The cat hissed, clawed his knuckles, and then scuttled away.
Charming.
Trevon didn’t seem to take note. “I have no Mama no more. No relatives. I’m a orphan now. All by myself.”
Evan stared at him.
“If they kill Kiara,” Trevon said, “I’ll be all alone in the world.”
“I won’t let that happen to you.”
Trevon’s chest shuddered with each inhalation. Evan rested a hand on his shoulder for a few minutes until his breathing slowed. “Will you stay just till I fall asleep?” Trevon finally said.
“Sure.”
Evan followed him to the bedroom, and Trevon climbed heavily into bed. He adjusted the stuffed frog beside him and lay in the darkness. “Will you turn the TV on, please, sir? It’s good to have a house full of voices.”
Evan clicked on the television and sat in the same spot on the floor, his back to the wall. It was quiet for a long time, just the Channel Five sports anchor running down scores and Mexipop pumping from up the block.
Trevon said sleepily, “We don’t cry and we don’t feel sorry for ourself.”
Evan wasn’t sure if Trevon was talking to himself or to Evan, so he said nothing. A few moments later, Trevon’s breathing grew regular and took on that familiar rasp.
As Evan rose to sneak out, a breaking-news update cut in on the television. “—confirmed that President Bennett will appear before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform this Friday to respond to long-standing questions about improper relationships with defense contractors before he assumed office, one of a host of scandals that have plagued Bennett since he’s taken office. The press secretary stressed that this is a voluntary appearance, that Bennett is devoted to full transparency, and that he is eager to set the record straight.”
Evan paused in the doorway before easing out of the room. He had the sense that another stopwatch had begun, another clock counting down the days and minutes. But he felt excitement also, a quickening of the blood.
At last he had a time and place. A When and Where.
Now he just had to nail down the How.
42
Cut Both Ways
The wholesale district, known on official zoning maps as Central City North, was an unlovely throw of warehouses, refrigerated-storage facilities, and factories slapped down between the L.A. River, Alameda Street, and the Union Pacific Railroad Line. It was even more depressing at night. To the north sparkled the not-quite-famous downtown skyline, a jagged rise of domino tiles. The glow of the city backdropped rows of palm trees that shot skyward like frozen fireworks, all tails and bursts.
Evan had set up on the roof of a commercial bakery, posting up next to a vent that smelled of yeast. Various pipes exhaled cumulus clouds of condensation, shrouding him from view.
The elevation gave him a good vantage over the high fence next door lined with privacy filler strips and topped with concertina wire.
Terrance DeGraw was right. A fucking fortress. The cinder-block building was virtually windowless. A control pad and a security-controlled metal door defended what seemed to be the sole point of entry; the other doors had been boarded up with metal plates. Anyone who entered was trapped inside.
Of course, that could cut both ways.
The front entrance opened now, a fat man emerging, and as the door swung shut, Evan glimpsed the front room. It had been reinforced as Trevon had described, a DIY sally port with blastproof walls. A cadre of armed men came visible for a moment. Evan doubted they were the only guards posted up inside.
The fat man boasted a handgun on either hip like a Turner Classics cowboy. He joined four others already patrolling the area like junkyard dogs. News of their colleagues’ untimely demises must have reached them by now, as they were clearly on highest alert, covering all sides of the building. Carrying AK-47s, they circled the various shipping containers littering the yard, moving in and out of cover.
If Evan picked off one or two with a sniper rifle, the others would fall back to reinforced positions.
If he made a full-frontal assault through the gate, he could take out several, but there’d be no getting through that reinforced-steel security door to the others waiting inside.
He wanted them all.
He wanted to eradicate Russell Gadds’s operation like Gadds had eradicated Trevon’s family.
Gadds didn’t return until June 25. That afforded Evan some much-needed time to devote his attention to Bennett.
Given Bennett’s Friday appointment on the Hill, Evan had to get home and start assessing the variables and charting the plan of attack. When he thought of the airtight security measures in place, he felt a creeping concern that Candy McClure might be right, that the job was impossible.
And after the promise he’d made to Trevon, he couldn’t get killed in D.C. That wouldn’t just be inconvenient. It would be inconsiderate.
He stared down once more at the heavily armed guards and the daunting barriers of razor wire, cinder block, and steel. Between Russell Gadds and Jonathan Bennett, Evan faced two herculean challenges.
In his next life, he vowed, he’d be a Starbucks barista.
He drew back from the edge of the roof and vanished into the billows of rising exhaust.
43
Wolves in Wolves’ Clothing
The morning gave way to afternoon, not that Evan could tell inside the Vault. His eyes ached, and his hands cramped from pounding the keyboard for hours. He’d risen at 5:00 A.M. for a workout and then gone straight through the looking glass of his shower wall to the Secret Service databases, burying himself in route assessments, security updates, and GPS imaging of the blocks between the White House and the Hill.
Choosing the exact method was even more challenging than he’d anticipated. The plan, such as it was, had to be impeccably executed. He whittled away at the options until he saw maps and calculations floating ghostlike behind his lids when he closed his eyes.
It was barely, barely possible.
But not as a solo operation.
As he neared the eight-hour mark at his desk, he rose and stretched his stiff back.
Vera II eyed him from her glass bowl.
“I’m not bad at asking for help,” he told her. “I just prefer not to.”
She sagely withheld further counsel.
He paced in front of his desk, the projected classified data scrolling over his body, shadow and light, shadow and light.
Now that he’d had more time to scour the Secret Service databases, he’d seen that they did not contain a single
detail pertaining to the 1997 mission. Whatever mystery President Bennett was guarding against, he’d kept it even from the agency sworn to protect him. Evan was beginning to think that the secret had been redacted so thoroughly that it now existed only in Bennett’s mind. If so, Evan would never get the answers he sought.
Sitting heavily in his chair, he brought up the Drafts folder of his Gmail account.
“You there?”
A moment later: “i’m in calculus. so yeah. this shit is boring. + easy.”
“Glad you’re getting the most out of your education.”
An eye-rolling emoji bleeped onto the screen.
He grimaced, fingers poised above the keyboard. Then he typed: “I can’t find anything about 1997 in the Service databases.”
“97? like the mission Dear Leader wants you dead 4?”
“That’s right. I’ve checked call logs, visitor records, official movements, off-site meetings. Maybe I’m not looking in the right places. Anything you can scare up with your algorithms or whatever, let me know.”
“algorithms. yer cute.”
“Need me to open up a portal to get you on my system?”
The light rippled within the Vault, and he realized that Joey had replied inside his own computer, projecting her answer onto the wall before him.
“dummy,” it read, “i’m already in.”
Vera II smirked at him.
He typed, “Oh.”
“i’ll look into it after class. any luck picking your spot?”
“Yes. Can you do some route analysis? I need specs on wind factor, visibility, height above target, distance, ease of access, stability, etc.”
“not remote. haveta be onsite for that. happy to fly to d.c. it’d get me outta this final.”
“Not safe. I’ll figure it out.”
He deleted the rough draft, erasing their correspondence.
He stood up and paced around some more, doing his best not to think about the bottle of Tigre Blanc waiting for him in the freezer. A few fingers of ice-cold vodka might take the edge off the upcoming phone call he had to make.
He plucked his RoamZone off the desk, glowering at Vera II. “All right, all right.”
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