by Chad Zunker
Gerlach smiled at the memory.
He repositioned himself, eye to scope, and took a few deep breaths.
He could feel the adrenaline begin to pump in his veins, like it always did when he was ready to engage a new target. While in most sports, adrenaline could enhance an athlete’s ability to perform at the highest level, it was not an advantage in shooting at a distance. Gerlach closed his eyes, counted slowly to five in German. Eins. Zwei. Drei. Vier. Fünf. The nerves settled and gradually vanished. His breathing was normal again. Zen-like. Perfect calm spread through his entire being. Mind. Body. Soul. Spirit. He was in another place. A necessary place. A killing place.
The Gray Wolf waited.
FORTY-TWO
Sam was back on the sidewalk in front of Hebbard’s yellow town house, his mind continuing to churn out questions after finding his own baby picture in the man’s home office. How had Hebbard gotten it? Was it really true? Was everything he’d thought about his father a complete lie? Had his mom chosen to hide the truth from him for some reason?
Processing through dozens of different conversations he’d had with his mom over the past year, he searched for answers. One particular conversation stood out—a conversation they never got to finish, interrupted by the doctor just a few hours before her death. She’d told Sam that she needed to share something important with him. He could remember her exact words. It’s something I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time, from the first day you showed up in Houston, but I never felt quite right about it. Honestly, I was afraid you’d get angry at me all over again.
Sam felt numb. Was this what she wanted to say?
While he was standing there, still dazed, a black kid of maybe ten, wearing jeans, Nike basketball shoes, and a Pelicans NBA jersey, came bouncing right up to him.
“Yo, mister, got something for you.”
Sam looked down at the smiling kid. “Me?”
“Yes, sir.”
The kid held out a folded piece of white paper.
Sam took it. “What’s this?”
The kid shrugged. “Beats me. Some lady up the street gave me twenty bucks to bring it over and give it to you.”
Sam unfolded the paper, read it. Short and sweet.
Jackson Square. Ten minutes.
“Who gave this to you?” he asked the kid.
“Some lady on the corner over there. I was minding my own business, and she said she’d pay me to walk this over to you.”
Sam peered over toward the corner, didn’t see any lady.
“What did she look like?” Sam asked.
The kid shrugged again. “I dunno. Black hair, gray jacket.”
Sam felt a spike of adrenaline. Black hair, gray trench coat? It had to be the same woman from Mexico City. The same woman who’d given him the windbreaker while he was inside the federal police building and met him at El Ángel to give him his so-called assignment instructions. How had she found him? How could she possibly know he was in New Orleans?
Had he been followed? No possible way.
He suddenly felt very uneasy and exposed.
Sam briskly walked the five blocks to Jackson Square. His eyes were bouncing everywhere. Any sense of false security he’d felt after getting out of Mexico alive and making his way to New Orleans had disappeared. He stepped out onto Chartres Street next to Jackson Square and maneuvered slowly through the crowds of tourists gathered around the street artists, musicians, and performers. He glanced over toward Saint Louis Cathedral, as well as the Presbytère and Cabildo, the buildings on its right and left, but saw no one staring right back at him. A street band was pumping out jazz as a large group gathered around them. Sam crossed slowly through the crowd, searching for the mystery woman in the gray trench coat.
He stepped out into the landscaped grounds of Jackson Square. He paused behind a giant water fountain, scanned the circular sidewalks. His eyes moved slowly left to right, stopping at the statue of Andrew Jackson, and then continuing on from there. Then he spotted her. She was sitting alone on a bench under a tree, just waiting. Same woman. He was sure of it. She wore the same gray trench coat as last night in Mexico City. Only she was now wearing sunglasses. He surveyed the area all around her, looking for her two bodyguards. He didn’t spot anyone at the moment, but surely, they were around somewhere.
His hands felt sweaty, his heart racing.
He walked down the sidewalk toward her, feeling hesitant with every step. His eyes continued to dart in all directions, looking for others. Nothing felt right about this. Yet he had no choice. These people still had Natalie. Like it or not, he was their pawn.
When he was within five feet, she stared up at him.
“Thanks for coming,” she said, a grim smile.
“What do you want?” he demanded, not hiding his anger.
“My client desires an update on your progress.”
“How the hell did you find me?”
“That’s not important.”
“It’s important to me.”
She patted the bench next to her. “Calm down and have a seat.”
“I’d rather stand.”
She sighed. “Please don’t make this difficult, Sam. I’d rather not call help over.”
That’s when he spotted her two sidekicks standing beside a tree, fifty paces to his left. They looked as thick and menacing as ever. He reluctantly sat next to her on the bench.
FORTY-THREE
Tommy Kucher munched from a bag of Funyuns.
He sat in front of his bank of computer screens in a dark room inside the dumpy second-story apartment he’d rented for three years, since he’d first made the move to DC. Back in Chicago, his mom and younger sister still lived in the house where he grew up. Mom had been a special-education elementary teacher for twenty years. His sister was a senior in high school and had already been accepted into Harvard. He’d never admit to it, but she was even smarter than he was. His efficiency apartment housed a tiny bathroom and an even smaller kitchen. There was a futon stuffed in one corner of the room. A beanbag in the other. Posters of his favorite Western movies covered the walls. More than thirty of them. He’d been collecting them since he got the place. The L-shaped desk was directly in the middle of the room, five computer screens sitting on every corner. The cushioned swivel chair he’d bought at a consignment store was held together with duct tape.
Tommy had no real job. At least nothing traditional. He considered his work in his computer lair his calling. Someone had to hold the world’s governments and powers accountable. So he and his team of hackers did their deal every day, their fingers pecking, their faces bouncing screen to screen. No concept of time. No need for much of a life outside the walls of his apartment. Very little need for real money.
Tommy’s dad had introduced him to computers and networks when Tommy was only eight. That’s when they built their first computer together in the garage. A computer engineer by trade, his dad was glad to finally find something that Tommy enjoyed that they could do together, since Tommy never showed much interest in sports, cars, or other typical boy hobbies. They spent hours every night in the garage. Tommy guessed they’d built more than a hundred computers together by the time his dad died unexpectedly when Tommy was only sixteen. Police called it a suicide. Two uniformed cops showed up at the door and told his mom they’d found his dad parked in his car in Burnham Park along the banks of Lake Michigan with a bullet hole in his head and a revolver in his lap.
Tommy was suspicious from the start. They’d had plans that very night to start a new project. His dad was excited about it, and so was Tommy. There was no way his dad would’ve pulled the trigger. There was no suicide note, no explanation, no hint to anyone that his father was on the verge or capable of such a thing. Tommy knew his dad worked for the government. Up to that point, he hadn’t paid too much attention—he was a self-absorbed teenager, after all—so he wasn’t even sure which department. But he’d noticed some digital files marked “Classified” on his dad’s home co
mputer. When two of his dad’s so-called colleagues showed up at the house the next morning, flashing government badges in his mom’s face—still teary—and demanded his dad’s work computer, Tommy’s suspicions grew.
Tommy did his first hack job on the government.
It wasn’t an easy job. Someone on the inside had tried to wipe Daniel Kucher from existence, along with all his files. Tommy pieced it together. His father was working on a special project for the State Department. Millions of dollars had suddenly gone missing. His father had traced it to a high-level department head, and the morning of his death, he’d turned his findings over to his boss. As it turned out, based on private and encrypted message exchanges Tommy discovered, his boss was also in on the crime.
Tommy anonymously turned his discovery over to a reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, the story broke, and months later, a total of four men were indicted for crimes against the government and for the murder of his father. No one ever knew how the reporter got the information. But Tommy knew what he would do with the rest of his life.
He moved to DC two years later, right out of high school.
While Tommy was monitoring activity for Sam online, looking for any alerts on the reappearance of Rich Hebbard, he received a sudden and unexpected direct message on his computer screen. It startled him because no one on the outside should’ve been able to send him a direct message—nobody should have access to his system in such a profound way. Tommy prided himself on being a ghost. On being untraceable. He ran his operation completely off the grid. If someone ever tried to track him down, they’d first be bounced from Buenos Aires to Calcutta to Shanghai to Moscow. And the list went on from there.
They would never arrive at his apartment in DC.
Tommy nearly flipped his chair over, then straightened up.
Who had done this? How was this possible?
He moved close to the screen, read the message in the box.
Call Sam. NOW! Tell him to run. He’s in Jackson Square. You have maybe sixty seconds before he’s dead.
Tommy felt his throat tighten. Because someone had penetrated his impenetrable network to get him the message, he took it very seriously. He didn’t know how they’d done it, and that caused him severe anxiety, but Tommy didn’t feel like he could worry about that just yet. He really hated phones. Hated making direct calls. He hated exposing himself. But what choice did he have? If he hesitated any longer, Sam could be dead, and Tommy knew he could never live with himself. He felt trapped, panicked. He cursed, recognizing that he’d already allowed fifteen seconds to tick off. Sam could be dead in forty-five seconds.
Tommy picked up his secure phone, dialed the number directly.
FORTY-FOUR
“I want confirmation Natalie is okay,” Sam demanded.
The black-haired woman stared at him for a moment, pressed her lips together.
“I’m serious,” Sam insisted. “Or I walk away.”
“I don’t think you’re in a position to make demands, Sam.”
“I don’t care what you think.”
“Fine. I’ll see what I can do.”
Sam felt his cell phone unexpectedly buzz in his front pocket. There was no reason anyone should be contacting him right now. It buzzed again, letting him know that it wasn’t a message but someone calling him directly. Who? He didn’t want this woman even knowing he had a phone, but he needed to know who was calling him. He reached into his pocket, pulled out the phone, stared at the screen. He was shocked. Tommy. The name Maverick was on the screen with a DC phone number. Why the hell would Tommy be directly calling him?
“Sam . . . ,” the woman said, trying to grab his attention.
“Give me a second.”
Sam stood, stepped a few feet away, and answered it.
“Tommy? What the hell?” he whispered.
Tommy screamed at him. “Sam, are you in Jackson Square?”
“Yeah, man. How’d you know that?”
“Run! Right now! Don’t ask any questions, just run. Someone is about to kill you.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
Tommy screamed even louder. “Now, Sam! Run!”
Sam turned back around. The woman was watching him curiously. She had no gun. The goons were still by the tree. However, he trusted Tommy with his life, so he turned around again, took a step forward, and broke into a full sprint. Within his first step, something hit his backpack. It collided with so much force that it nearly knocked him over. He stumbled to the grass, peeked over his shoulder. There was a huge hole in his backpack. He flung it off, scrambled to his feet. He felt something buzz right past his face. Sam cursed. Someone was shooting at him. He ducked his head lower and sprinted as fast as he could back toward the huge water fountain. Right when he passed by the fountain, he heard something puncture the stone and ricochet. He kept running forward, straight toward the crowds of people. He hated to put others in danger, but he had no choice or he was a dead man. He moved in behind the jazz band and a large black man playing a tuba. When a bullet punctured the top of the tuba and knocked it completely out of the man’s big hands, people in the crowd suddenly realized that all was not right. A man yelled, “Someone’s shooting!” and panic quickly ensued.
Sam kept his head down as he scrambled away with the rest of the crowd. Then he saw someone—a man from his past. He was standing behind a column on the steps of Saint Louis Cathedral. The man was not panicking like everyone else. It was a blur—the chaos making everyone understandably crazy—but Sam was sure it was him. He knew that face well. He thought he’d seen it pop up in random places over the past six months, including at his mother’s funeral. Sam was nearly knocked over by another man who collided with him while fleeing. When Sam regained his balance, he looked over and could no longer find the familiar face by the column.
The gray-bearded man.
The man behind the curtain last fall who’d played puppet master with Sam’s life.
The face of Marcus Pelini.
FORTY-FIVE
The FBI jet landed in New Orleans at the old Lakefront Airport, and two agents from the local field office quickly grabbed Lloyd and Epps in a black Suburban with darkly tinted windows. Lloyd had arrived just in time to hear news of a sniper shooting in Jackson Square. He believed it had to be associated with the Gray Wolf—although there were no deaths reported yet. That gave him pause. Alger Gerlach rarely missed or made mistakes. It was why he was a legend and paid millions of dollars. So what happened?
The Suburban thundered through the streets of New Orleans before finally dropping them on the curb outside Jackson Square. There were more than a dozen police cars already on the scene. Several areas were blocked off with official yellow police tape. A large crowd of tourists encircled the blocked-off sections. A brown-haired man around fifty with a neatly trimmed beard met them on the sidewalk. Lloyd had interacted with him several times over the years: Jeff Caldwell, special agent in charge of the New Orleans field office. Caldwell wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a blue tie, and dark dress pants.
“Hey, Jeff,” Lloyd said, eyes already taking inventory of the chaos.
“Spencer,” Caldwell acknowledged.
“What do you know?”
Caldwell glanced behind him, over at Chartres Street near Saint Louis Cathedral. “Multiple shots from a distance. Two wounded. A musician got hit in the arm. A woman in the ankle. They’ve been taken to the hospital but nothing too serious. We’ve ID’d a shot that hit the water fountain and chipped the stone. And we found a black backpack in the grass with a bullet hole in it. There are some clothes inside, some toiletries, along with a bundle of rope, some duct tape, and other random tools, which is odd. No identification on the backpack.”
“You having it checked out?” Lloyd asked.
Caldwell nodded. “Full diagnostics. We’ll see if we find prints or fibers.”
“Any witnesses?”
“No one that spotted a shooter.”
“Anyone spot who they think was the target?”
Caldwell eyeballed him. “You’re thinking Callahan?”
“Of course.”
“Well, no one has mentioned anything that matches his description yet. But it was total chaos out here as soon as the first bullets started flying.”
“What about location?”
“My guys are working it right now. We think the shooter was inside the Pontalba.”
“Where’s that?”
Caldwell turned, pointed at a four-story redbrick building that snugged up next to the square. “They’re going room by room right now.”
A thirtysomething agent with blond hair and the standard dark-blue windbreaker approached their huddle with a tablet in his hands.
“What do you got, Manny?” Caldwell asked.
“Security video from outside Café Pontalba.”
Manny held the tablet out for all to see, punched a few buttons on the screen. Suddenly, they could see a wide shot that started with the artists and musicians on Chartres Street and captured all the way to those walking through the landscaped grounds of Jackson Square. One moment, everything was normal. The next, complete chaos broke out, with people ducking behind trees and scrambling to get away from the rest of the crowd.
“Run it again,” Lloyd said, squinting.
They all watched it closely again.
“There!” Lloyd said, pointing. “Can you enhance that and run it back?”
“Yes, sir,” Manny said, focusing in on the area where Lloyd had pointed and rewinding the security video.
The video showed two people in the distance sitting on a park bench. It was not a close-up shot but clear enough to see that it was a man and a woman. The man was wearing a backpack. He suddenly stood, looked to be talking on the phone, and took off running. That wouldn’t have been odd in itself, as everyone was dashing for freedom—except that the man started running before any gunfire. Manny widened the screen enough to follow the path of the man, who sprinted through Jackson Square, behind the water fountain, and then got lost from the video in the crowd along Chartres Street.
