by Joshua Hood
It was almost noon when he used the last of Vega’s cash to rent a Cadillac CTS in Destin. Might as well drive in style, he thought, taking the keys from the man behind the desk.
“Will there be anything else, sir?” the man asked.
“I think that will do it,” Hayes said, shoving the paperwork into his back pocket.
He crossed the lobby to the door on the west side of the building. Like all windows this close to the Gulf of Mexico, it was tinted and gave the impression of a premature dusk. But Hayes wasn’t fooled. He’d spent enough time in the Florida Panhandle to know what was waiting for him on the other side. He paused to slip the dark aviators over his eyes before opening the door.
The noonday sun pounced like a golden jaguar, and even with the shades, Hayes found himself squinting against its glare. Across the lot the midnight blue Cadillac shimmered in the heat. By the time Hayes made it to the door, his back was wet with sweat.
The Caddy had been sitting out in the sun all day and the interior was hot as an oven. Hayes left the door open and started the engine, noting that the previous occupant had left the A/C cranked to full. The fan kicked on with a rush of hot air that smelled of stale cigarette smoke and suntan oil, and Hayes waited for it to run cold before closing the door.
He buckled the seat belt over his chest and pulled the iPhone he’d picked up in Tallahassee from his pocket. Hayes held his thumb over the sensor, and after unlocking the phone, accessed the phone-tracking app JT had sent him. He typed Annabelle’s number into the search bar, and a moment later a blue dot appeared on the map.
He pulled out of the lot and turned east on Harbor Boulevard, following the road past the T-shirt shops, bars, and high-rise condos that lined the strip. With summer in full swing, the road was packed with out-of-towners in minivans and large SUVs on a yearly pilgrimage to the Gulf Coast.
Forty minutes later Hayes passed a white sign with navy blue letters welcoming him to Seaside, Florida. He let off the gas, watched the speedometer fall to the posted thirty miles per hour, and followed the GPS dot to a beach access on the south side of the road.
He parked the Cadillac under a silver palm and got out, his heart pounding at the sight of the pewter Honda Pilot parked at the front of the lot. It was Annabelle’s car, the one he’d bought to replace her Accord a month before Jack was born.
This is a bad idea, the voice said.
But Hayes wasn’t listening. He had made up his mind, and for better or worse, he was going to see it through.
He followed the wooden ramp through a break in the sand dunes, past the ochre sway of the sea oats and salt grasses swaying in the breeze. The ramp doglegged at a set of stainless-steel showerheads, where a group of children were cleaning the sand off their feet. The sight inspired him to kick off his own shoes.
Hayes flashed a smile to one of the kids and carried his shoes the final five yards through the dunes onto the cocaine-white beach. He stood there for a moment, savoring the warm sand beneath his feet, the gentle crash of the turquoise breakers rolling in through the surf zone, before he pulled the phone from his pocket.
He turned to the left, lining up the dot with his current position and then checking the distance to target readout. Twenty yards. Here goes nothing.
Hayes started across the beach, his eyes darting back and forth behind the dark sunglasses, scanning the mass of sun-kissed bodies lining the beach.
Then he saw them. Annabelle sitting on a beach chair, her blond hair tied up in a bun on the top of her head. Jack sat next to her on the ground, his hair white as cotton in the sunlight. Hayes moved behind the white lifeguard tower, wanting nothing more than to run down the beach, kiss Annabelle’s lips, and lift his son high in the air.
You know what that would do, the voice warned. In fact, just you being here puts them at risk.
Hayes looked down at the phone, wanting more than anything to call Annabelle. Tell her how much he loved them both. But watching their smiling faces, Hayes couldn’t bring himself to ruin their moment.
It’s time to go, the voice ordered.
“See you guys soon,” Hayes said, his voice barely a whisper. Then he turned and headed back the way he’d come, a contented smile spreading across his face.
EPILOGUE
WASHINGTON, D.C.
The black Lincoln Town Car turned onto Embassy Row, the tires swishing over the fresh rain that left the asphalt wet and glinting in the streetlights. In the back, Levi Shaw adjusted his tie and looked at the single sheet of typed paper in his hand that contained his resignation.
It’s finally over.
The driver slowed in front of a white stone mansion with a manicured lawn and eased up the circular drive. Built in 1901, the Townsend House, with its acre garden, was the last of America’s gilded mansions and the current home to the Cosmos Club.
The Cosmos Club was the pinnacle of status in Washington, D.C., and membership was restricted to the über-elite. Among its most notable members were three former presidents, two vice presidents, a dozen Supreme Court justices, and Senator Patrick Mendez.
Which is the reason Shaw found himself outside.
“This won’t take long, George,” Shaw said, climbing out of the car and adjusting his tie before stepping through the door.
Everything about it, from the monochromatic marble tile of the lobby to the gilded chandeliers whose warm glow accentuated the man behind the desk’s disdain at the sight of his approach, was meant to remind men like Levi that they didn’t belong.
“May I help you, sir?” he asked.
“Levi Shaw. I’m here to meet Senator Mendez.”
“He is in the library. This way, sir.”
Shaw found Mendez pacing back and forth in front of a window, his cellphone pressed to his ear.
“I understand that, sir, and I can promise you that I am addressing the situation. No, sir, I was not aware of Jefferson Gray’s actions and will do my . . .” Mendez held up his index finger and motioned for Shaw to take a seat in the oversized leather club chair to his right.
He shook his head and calmly addressed the senator. “I won’t be here long enough for that.”
Mendez’s eyes ticked to his face, then down at the paper in his hand.
“Mr. Speaker, I’m going to have to call you back,” he said, hanging up on the phone. “You know who that was?”
“No.”
“The speaker of the House. Now, if I can tell the third most powerful man in the world that I need to call him back, I can tell you to take a seat.”
“Like I said,” Shaw replied, handing over his resignation, “I’m not sticking around.”
Mendez looked at the paper. “How long have you been with the CIA?” he asked.
“Almost thirty years.”
“Thirty years,” Mendez said, his eyes switching from the paper to Shaw’s face. “I can’t imagine how much shit you’ve been force-fed in thirty years. I can use a man like you,” Mendez added, balling up the paper.
“Senator—”
“Just hear me out. This thing in Venezuela was bad business, but you handled it. Cleaned it up. Took care of Hayes when no one else could. Now you have a chip in the game. You come work for me, and I’ll make sure Treadstone has permanent funding.”
“I’m done,” Shaw said.
“I don’t think you understand the way this works. I’m not asking you,” Mendez said, getting to his feet and stuffing the crumpled ball of paper into Shaw’s handkerchief pocket. “I’m telling you. Now get the fuck out of my face.”
* * *
—
Two blocks away, Adam Hayes made his way to the rear of an abandoned three-story row house. He shrugged out of the coyote-brown Eberlestock Switchblade pack and set it on the ground at his feet. Hayes knelt beside the bag, unzipped the side flap, and pulled out a twenty-inch Kodiak Bear Claw tool before
turning to the window.
With a pry bar on one end and a fork on the other, the Bear Claw looked like a miniaturized version of the Halligan tool fire departments around the world used to force entry into burning houses, and despite its diminutive size, it worked as advertised.
Hayes jammed the lip beneath the rotted wood of the window, grabbed the handle, and tugged on it until the lock popped free. With the window open, he returned the Bear Claw to the pocket, tossed the bag inside the room, and climbed up after it.
The bottom floor was a mess. Most of the windows on the west side had been broken out and were now replaced with sheets of plywood to keep out the elements. In the den, someone had spray-painted gang signs and profanity across the brick fireplace.
Hayes scooped up the pack, found the stairs, and followed them up to the third floor. He found a room on the north side of the house where someone had painted a target on the wall with black spray paint. Used syringes were stuck like darts all around the bull’s-eye. The room stank of stale urine and burnt flour, and it was so bad that Hayes almost gagged when he came in.
The only piece of usable furniture was a sagging old table, which he dragged into the middle of the room, centering it in front of the window. Once he had the table where he wanted it, Hayes laid the bag on the surface and unzipped the flap.
Hayes was a professional and had learned long ago that when it came to weapons and tools, it was better to “buy once, cry once.” Which is why when he decided to have a custom hunting rifle built, he went to Brandon Ward of Mountain Top Gunworks. Everything about the rifle, from the eight-hundred-dollar folding Manners stock to the thousand-dollar Proof composite barrel, was built to Hayes’s specifications and designed to be light, accurate, and deadly.
He lifted the rifle with his right hand, pulled a suppressor from the sleeve inside the bag, and screwed it over the threads at the end of the barrel. Hayes had spent months looking for the lightest suppressor on the market before stumbling across the Texas Silencer Company. While most manufacturers were still using steel-bodied suppressors, Texas Silencer’s Outrider was made from titanium, and at twelve ounces, it weighed half as much as its closest competitor.
With the suppressor secure, Hayes lifted the rifle and a small sandbag from the pack and climbed onto the table. He made sure the table would hold his weight before removing the protective caps that covered the spiked tips at the end of the bipod and then extended the legs and set the rifle on the table.
Hayes positioned the sandbag under the buttstock and made a few adjustments. When he was sure that the rifle was level, he settled his cheek to the stock and looked through the Nightforce NXS 8-32x56 scope mounted to the rail.
He adjusted his body, shifting the rifle’s scope onto the second-story window two blocks away.
The view through the scope blurred when Hayes twisted the magnification ring to thirty-two power, but he patiently refined the parallax knob, making tiny adjustments until he had a crystal-clear view of the two men talking inside the Cosmos Club.
Mendez was holding a sheet of paper in his hand and Hayes squeezed on the bag under the stock. The compression of the sand nudged the buttstock toward the ceiling, and the muzzle dipped, allowing Hayes to read what was typed on the paper.
A resignation notice? What game are you playing, Levi? he asked himself.
He watched as Mendez crumpled the paper into a little ball. At any other time Hayes would have laughed at the shocked look on his former boss’s face.
But not now.
Hayes realized that despite all of Shaw’s bluster, the man had no idea how to handle men like Mendez.
But I do, he thought.
Sitting behind the gun, Hayes was in control. It was his time to impose his will on those who wanted to kill him, and no one was going to get in his way. Hayes began an all-too-comforting ritual. He shoved the magazine into the rifle and leaned forward, pressing his weight into the buttstock.
The bipod began to slide, before it finally dug into the table. Hayes placed his cheek softly on the buttstock and worked the magnification knob until the reticle cleared. Range, two hundred meters, no wind.
When he was satisfied that he had everything the way he needed it to be, Hayes pressed the Bluetooth into his ear and waited for the cloned cellphone to ring.
A moment later the earpiece chirped in his ear.
“That was quick,” he said, slipping into a Boston accent.
Mendez’s voice oozed through the Bluetooth. “Mr. Speaker, I sure am sorry about that.”
“Not at all.” Hayes smiled as the senator stepped in front of the window, his cellphone to his ear. “You are a busy man.”
“Just trying to do the Lord’s work,” Mendez answered.
Hayes made a final adjustment to the scope before his right hand found the bolt.
The Defiance bolt action shoved the bullet silently into the chamber, and Hayes dropped his eye off target. He took a deep breath, forcing his heart rate to slow, and then he looked up.
“You really thought you were going to get away with it, didn’t you?” Hayes asked, dropping the accent.
There was silence on the other end. The only sign that Mendez had heard the question was the look on his face through the scope.
“Hayes—no, listen, we can—make a deal,” Mendez stammered.
“You can make a deal with Vega when you see him,” Hayes said before pulling the trigger.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Joshua Hood is the author of Warning Order and Clear by Fire. He graduated from the University of Memphis before joining the military and spending five years in the 82nd Airborne Division. He was a team leader in the 3-504 Parachute Infantry Regiment in Iraq from 2005 to 2006, conducting combat operations in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. From 2007 to 2008, Hood served as a squad leader with the 1-508th Parachute Infantry Regiment in Afghanistan for which he was decorated for valor in Operation Furious Pursuit. On his return to civilian life he became a sniper team leader on a full time SWAT team in Memphis, where he was awarded the lifesaving medal. Currently he works as the Director of Veteran Outreach for the American Warrior Initiative.
Robert Ludlum was the author of twenty-seven novels, each one a New York Times bestseller. There are more than 225 million of his books in print, and they have been translated into thirty-two languages. He is the author of The Scarlatti Inheritance, The Chancellor Manuscript, and the Jason Bourne series--The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Bourne Ultimatum--among other novels. Mr. Ludlum passed away in March 2001.
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