by PJ Tracy
Also by P. J. Tracy
Snow Blind
Dead Run
Live Bait
Want to Play?
Play to Kill
P. J. TRACY
MICHAEL JOSEPH
MICHAEL JOSEPH
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
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First published as Shoot to Thrill in the United States of America by G. P. Putnam’s Sons 2010
First published as Play to Kill in Great Britain by Michael Joseph 2010
Copyright © Patricia Lambrecht and Traci Lambrecht, 2010
The moral right of the authors has been asserted
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-0-14-196169-9
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Epilogue
From top to bottom and everywhere in between, Minnesota was a bleak and frigid place in January, whether you were shivering on a blizzard-swept western prairie or paralyzed under a foot of snow smack in the middle of Minneapolis. But there was no greater sense of winter desolation than on the north shore of Lake Superior, where the big water that looked like an ocean was forever pushing enormous blocks of sharded ice against one shore or another.
The past two weeks had been particularly cruel to the lake. A parade of low-pressure systems had stalled, battling each other for command of the winds, freezing the great body of water almost to the horizon line. It was profoundly disturbing to see something so powerful completely subdued, like King Kong in chains on a Broadway stage.
Randy Coulter had a lot of empathy for the lake, because he knew what it felt like to be the helpless victim of a greater force, trapped by circumstances he was powerless to change. But that was the old Randy – the new, improved Randy finally had the power to make things happen. And if he could muster the guts, he’d make something happen today.
The trail on the edge of the cliff provided spectacular winterscape views for the snowshoers and cross-country skiers who frequented the winter resorts along the shore,
Randy slipped out of his snowshoes and off the groomed trail, testing each step toward the edge of the cliff with a pole to make sure there was frozen earth beneath the wind-swept snow. The closer he got to the lip of eternity, the colder the wind that blew on his face. He began to despair, thinking that no would-be athlete would venture out on such a day, when the barometer rose and the temperatures plummeted. They were all inside their cozy cabins and resort rooms, frolicking in hot tubs or drinking in front of a fire, and Randy would be the only soul to see this cliff today.
He had to drop to the snow on his stomach to safely examine the magnificent sight over fifty feet below him. The shoreline bristled with stalagmites of frozen water that vaulted upward from the shore like monstrous icy teeth, just waiting for something substantial to gnaw on. ‘Beautiful,’ he whispered.
‘Hey. You okay?’
Randy nearly tumbled over the edge at the sound of a male voice behind him, and then looked over his shoulder and saw everything he would never be. From the logo on the Gore-Tex suit he knew immediately that the man drove a foreign sports car and had left a probably augmented blonde woman back in his cabin, and for a moment he felt himself shrink away, curl inside himself, until he remembered the
‘Are you hurt, buddy? How can I help?’
Randy closed his eyes. ‘I think there’s a body down there,’ he whispered, rising to his feet. ‘I didn’t know what to do …’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘No, really.’
‘Jesus Christ.’
‘Do you have a cell phone?’
‘Sure. Let me get a look first.’
‘Okay, but be careful. It’s a little slick out here near the edge.’
The man removed his snowshoes, moved cautiously toward the edge and peered over. ‘I don’t see anything.’
‘You have to come further this way. Those ice spikes block the view … oh, man, this is horrible, I’ve never seen anything like this …’ Randy felt the man’s hand come down firmly on his shoulder. Oddly, he found the touch comforting.
‘Take it easy, buddy. Just relax, take a breath. It’s down there?’
Randy didn’t have to fake the tears. They came on their own, and he couldn’t imagine why. ‘Right … down … there …’ he pointed, and when the man leaned forward to follow his finger, Randy locked his knees and braced his legs and pushed against the man’s back with all the strength he had.
The wind carried away the prolonged scream as Randy just stood there, looking out toward the horizon, his face
It looked like Mr. Gore-Tex was humping one of the ice stalagmites, and Randy thought that was pretty funny.
‘I told you t
here was a body down there,’ he whispered, then pulled a tiny video camera out of his parka pocket and hit the zoom button.
Alan squinted hard at his three faces in the Tiara’s bathroom mirror, trying without any real success to bring a single reflection into focus. But even with his vision swimming and pixilated by vodka, he could see enough to know he looked like a Picasso portrait of Liza Minnelli. His false eyelashes were drooping like tired spiders, spinning crazy webs of mascara down his cheeks, and his smeared lips looked slightly askew, a scarlet counterbalance for his cockeyed wig that was tipping to the opposite side.
His billowy white dress had also suffered the indignity of his twelve-hour party day, and it was shedding pearls like a vomiting oyster.
He cringed as he tried to tease out snippets of the evening from his memory, but there were a lot of black spots in the matrix. Sweet Jesus Lord Almighty, he was drunk. How many martinis had he had? Two at home, another four or five at Camilla’s place for sure, and then there had been an unrelenting succession of those disgusting, tragically pink cocktails here at the club, pushed on him by the new Dominican bartender who’d been so guileless in sharing the various intimate locations of his body piercings.
The thought of needles being poked into certain sensitive areas of a male’s anatomy sent his stomach into turmoil,
When he finally felt sturdy enough, he pushed himself into an upright position and aimed his compass for the nearest exit. The night was young, there were still some A-list parties he was planning to attend, and he needed to sober up before he did, especially if he was going to perform. Fortunately, Camilla had given him the key to her condo, which was just a few blocks away if he went as the crow flies and took the riverside walking path. He’d take a shower, drink some juice, and he’d be up and running again just in time for the drag show.
It was never easy negotiating the path along the Mississippi in four-inch stilettos, even with your sense of equilibrium intact; and it was harder still when you were wearing a fabulous pair of Dolce & Gabbanas you just had to have because they were fifty percent off at Neiman’s, even though they were a size too big. He’d stuffed the toes with cotton balls and had doubled up some duct tape and put it in the heels, because dancing to ‘It’s Raining Men’ wasn’t exactly a minuet, and he needed the extra security. But he was still slipping in and out of them as he half-careened, half-bulldozed down the path, and at one point he stumbled, fell, and came to lying in a nest of damp, putrid-smelling weeds so close to the river, he could hear the hiss of water in his ears.
He could also hear Wild Jim’s psychotic, drunken rants echoing in the darkness: ‘Crazy faggot! Crazy faggot, crazy queen, fell down and broke his crown!’
Wild Jim was a fixture along this stretch of the Mississippi,
‘Yoo-hoo! Jimmy!’ he called in his best soprano lilt. ‘Where are you? Come here and help Mama up!’
Wild Jim answered with a grunting salvo of unintelligible expletives from somewhere above him on the embankment.
‘Puh-leeze, Jimmy,’ Alan needled. ‘Come help your mama.’
‘Stop talking shit. You crazy faggots are messing up my river and always talking shit.’
Alan giggled and stared up at the stars, wondering if he’d ever be able to muster the strength to pull himself up. And in truth, he wasn’t sure he wanted to, at least not yet. It did smell down here, and the ground was damp, but it was surprisingly peaceful in this little hollow where the riverbanks absorbed the urban cacophony of the streets above. If Wild Jim would only shut up, he might actually consider taking a little nap right here.
He had no idea how much time had passed before he finally struggled to his feet, and as he did, he heard the rustle of grass coming from somewhere behind him, drawing closer. He hadn’t ever expected that Wild Jim would actually show himself – he had a big mouth, but he usually stayed out of sight.
It was a delicious, naughty surprise to feel two powerful
He heard the splash when his hero first stepped into the river, but didn’t process the implications until he felt himself being lowered into the water. His first thought was for his shoes; his second for his dress; but both of those major tragedies were blasted from the ruins of his mind when the man pushed him to the bottom and pinned him there. Alan held his breath dutifully, looking up through the water, waiting to see what came next in this kinkiest of all encounters.
It wasn’t very deep this close to the shore; maybe five inches over his face. Less than half a foot of water between Alan and oxygen. Suddenly that became very important, but by the time he realized that nothing came next, that this was the grand finale, it was too late for his tortured lungs. He struggled mightily, but only for a few seconds before his body told him to gasp, gasp now, and he had no choice but to open his mouth wide and take in his first drink of the Mississippi River. He didn’t struggle much after that.
The auditorium was dimly lit, and very cold. Outside the temperature was reaching for the mid-eighties; in here the air conditioning was set to keep an audience of a thousand comfortable. No one had told the maintenance staff that there would be less than fifty attending this seminar, and now all of them were huddled in the front two rows, freezing whatever body parts were exposed, which, in some cases, were considerable.
Special Agent John Smith was gathering his thoughts just offstage. In his thirty years with the Bureau he’d never given a single speech; never taught a class; never spoken at a press conference; never dealt with the public in multiples. He was a behind-the-scenes workhorse. Most agents were, walking through entire careers without leaving a ripple. He’d interviewed a lot of suspects, of course, but most of them were handcuffed in a locked room – a literal captive audience. And yet here he was, six months out from mandatory retirement, finally facing the prospect of being the sole focus of a crowd’s attention, really nervous for the first time in his career.
John Smith’s life had always been about as ordinary as his name. His parents loved, but did not spoil, the one and only child they would ever have. And they loved each other, even now, as they grew old and stayed happy in
He’d been a good kid, smart to a degree, but no genius by anyone’s estimation; raised with the strong values that were common back when people had to be civilized enough to deal face-to-face. He was sent on to adulthood with a college education and a middle-class sensibility that would see him through life with only a few potholes along the way.
He’d been in second grade, eight years old, when he’d first learned how to fold a flag; how important it was that it never touched the ground or was left flying after dark or in the rain. These were lessons written into school curriculums then; a learning assignment as important as multiplication tables, although no second-grader could imagine why, or think to question it. They only knew that if they did it properly, they might be chosen to exit the stifling classroom without supervision to lower the flag from its pole at the end of the school day.
Every time he passed a car dealership or a Perkins restaurant that flew those monstrous flags from towering poles, he thought of those second-grade respites from times tables and spelling bees when he and two others who had earned the privilege had been excused from the class to perform the duties of tradition and pomp. The funny thing was that they found something else on that empty playground, where they fled for freedom from the teacher and the confining classroom; something almost spiritual that seeped into your memory without you ever knowing it was there. He still felt the red and white stripes and the
He did not become the superhero he wanted to be in comic-book kindergarten, not the super agent he’d hoped to be when he first went down the FBI path, but not a failure, either. Just a man in the middle, as most men were. He believed in God, family, his country, and the Constitution, and still, none of that had prepared him for the audience he faced now.
He took his place at the podium and looked out over the motley collection of humanity that was probably the world’s only hope of solving this particula
r case, and a direct reflection of the Bureau’s desperation.
There was a cluster of normalcy on one side of the aisle – ten FBI agents dressed in the customary suit and tie, all sitting together in one section. Paul Shafer, the Minneapolis special agent in charge, sat on the aisle seat of that group, looking self-righteously indignant to be present at a seminar where the law and law-breakers shared the same space. Smith had to hold back the nasty smile. Shafer was still young enough and gung-ho enough to believe he’d be part of this exclusive, frighteningly powerful club of suits forever. Wait until he found out the FBI’s sell-by date crept up a whole lot faster than he’d thought it would.
Then again, because a little gung-ho of his own still gasped for breath every now and then, Smith could almost sympathize with Shafer’s discomfort when he looked on the other side of the aisle. There were young and old, body piercings and tattoos, a few beardless boys who looked like they’d just walked off the set of Revenge of the Nerds, and a
‘Most of you have an understandable reluctance to work with the FBI,’ he began, looking over the audience with a very slight smile. ‘Probably because most of you break several Federal laws on a regular basis.’ Nervous laughter from the audience. ‘Oddly enough, this is why you were asked here today. Your hacking ventures have brought you to our attention, won you an FBI file of your own, and, legality aside, your skills have impressed us. Now we need your help tracing an anonymous, extremely sophisticated network operating through several foreign proxy servers in countries that will not grant the United States access to their servers, which is why our own Cyber Crimes Unit has not been able to trace the users of this network.’
‘Dude. Are you seriously asking us to hack into servers in hostile countries so you can catch one of our own? First off, we don’t kiss and tell. Second, we could go down for years on something like that.’
John looked at the man who had actually had the guts to stand up and speak. It surprised him that it was one of the nerds, probably 120 pounds soaking wet with a chest that looked like a safe had fallen on it. ‘Certainly not. The FBI would never suggest or condone such a violation of international law. We ask only that you use your own unique
