Relentless

by Jonathan Maberry

  I omitted everything about Casanova, though, and I didn’t bother providing any explanation as to why I’d broken into the processing plant in the first place. That was need to know, and they didn’t.

  As I typed, I could see them in the laptop screen’s reflective surface. The silent figures clustered behind me as if ready to take a family portrait.

  “No,” I told them.

  Ghost looked at me and then at the wall behind me. He came and put his head on my thigh. “It’s okay,” I lied. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  When I looked at the reflection again, there was nothing behind me but empty wall. I could smell something, though. A burned-meat stink. I tried to close it out, grinding my teeth together so hard my jaws hurt.

  I finished the report and emailed it off, got up, walked into the bathroom, and threw my guts up in the toilet. Then I crawled back into the shower, wrapped my arms around my head, and totally lost my shit.

  CHAPTER 112

  PHOENIX HOUSE

  OMFORI ISLAND, GREECE

  Bug came out of his office at a dead run.

  He found Church in the canteen, sitting down with a cup of coffee, a plate of vanilla wafers, and a stack of reports. Bug skidded to a breathless halt.

  “What is it?” asked Church.

  “It’s Germany,” he said. “Damn, boss, this is nuts.”

  “Sit,” said Church. “Take a breath and tell me.”

  “First, Joe trashed his MindReader substation. He’s gone dark again.”

  “That was expected.”

  “And we now know for sure why he was in Berlin. Toys called me from the parking lot of some black site prison with an unpronounceable name.”

  Church stiffened. “Das Verarbeitungszentrum?”

  “Yeah. That one.”

  He explained that Toys, Violin, and Harry Bolt had tracked Ledger to the prison in hopes of making contact and either offering support or—ideally—bringing him in.

  “The prison is gone, man,” said Bug. “I hacked into the news and police feeds, and it’s basically a burning crater. Total loss of life—all the guards and all the prisoners.”

  “And Colonel Ledger?”

  “That’s the thing,” said Bug. “They saw him get out. Him and Ghost. But they also saw a team of Fixers there, and they were wearing that body armor.”

  “Which may explain the explosion,” mused Church.

  “Eve was with them,” said Bug. “Violin thought she was running the crew.”

  “Now isn’t that interesting?”

  “Toys said that Joe mentioned a place in Germany he couldn’t get into and a prisoner named Casanova. I did the background, and he was on Kuga’s team.”

  “Yes,” said Church. “Intelligence from one of our agents—Mia Kleeve, call sign Magpie—helped put him there.”

  “Okay, well, Eve and her Fixers brought someone out, but Violin says it wasn’t Casanova.”

  “How sure is she?”

  “You know Violin,” said Bug. “She’s sure. She gave me a good description, though, and I ran it through Q1. Looks like the guy they liberated was a lot more dangerous than Casanova.”

  Church leaned back and exhaled slowly through his nostrils. “And you’re going to tell me it was Dr. Dejan Brozović.”

  “Um … yeah…”

  Church picked up a cookie, looked at it, set it down, and pushed the plate away.

  “Molecular biologist and organic chemist.”

  “They broke him out to work on R-33, didn’t they?”

  “Yes,” said Church. “I’m afraid that’s exactly what they did.”

  CHAPTER 113

  SCANDIC BERLIN POTSDAMER PLATZ

  BERLIN, GERMANY

  Peggy Ann Gondek sat in the cushioned armchair beside her hotel bed and punched in a series of coded numbers on a satellite phone.

  She nibbled a carrot stick as she waited for the call to go through. There was a towel spread on the duvet. She unzipped a small clamshell case and began lining up the items she needed. Mil-Comm TW25B lubricant, a thin aluminum rod, a bottle of cleaning solvent, and a brush for a .22 barrel. The call had to be routed through several security steps, so she began disassembling the Ruger SR22 that was her personal favorite. The model, not the specific weapon; she always disposed of her guns and knives before crossing borders and then picked up new equipment.

  She dropped the magazine, checked the breech, and made sure there was no round in the chamber. Then she rotated the slide lock lever to the vertical to unlock the slide from the frame.

  There was a click on the line.

  “Hello, Mrs. Gondek,” said a cultured voice. “Have you found our friend?”

  “I have,” she said.

  “Good,” said Church. “We’re going to need to make contact with him. Where is he now?”

  “He just got back to the hotel.” She gave the name of the hotel but did not know the room. “Don’t suppose you heard anything about an attack on a processing plant in Wannsee?”

  “That was our friend?”

  “It was.” Peggy Ann pushed the spring forward toward the barrel very carefully and pulled it outward to remove the spring. “He got to the hotel less than an hour after things went boom. And he looked quite … frazzled. So did the poor pooch.”

  There was the slightest pause on the other end of the call. “Is he safe?”

  “At the moment? Sure. Overall? No, I wouldn’t say so.”

  Another pause. “Is he in control?”

  Peggy Ann picked up the brush rod and sat tapping it thoughtfully against the gun barrel.

  “Define ‘control,’” she said.

  CHAPTER 114

  HOTEL NEUER FRITZ

  FRIEDRICHSTRASSE 10

  BERLIN, GERMANY

  Eve sat against the headboard of the big king bed, trying to muster the courage to make a call. Daddy had given her two assignments—eliminate Casanova and exfiltrate Dr. Dejan Brozović. One task had been satisfactorily accomplished and the other almost certainly so. The whole building was a burning tomb. But almost certain was not the same as absolutely certain. Would it be enough for Santoro?

  She hoped so. Daddy giving her this mission was a big thing. The final test before he could tell Kuga that she was a completely reliable field operative.

  Cain and Abel were outside, watching the elevator and the door. She didn’t want them around when she told Daddy about what happened at the processing plant. She didn’t want them to see her cry.

  Her cell phone lay on the pillow next to her. Where Adam’s head should be. Every time she looked at it, she saw his face overlaid as if he were there but made of hollow glass. Twice she’d tried to touch him, and both times, she’d jerked her hand back from the nothingness.

  “I love you,” she murmured.

  The ghost of Adam smiled at her.

  “Love you, too, babe,” he said.

  Tears rolled down her cheeks, mingled with snot from her leaking nose, hanging from her cheeks, and fell onto her chest.

  “I hate you for leaving me, you selfish prick,” she snarled and pounded her fist down on the mattress. It passed through him, and he dissipated like smoke. The jolt made the cell phone slide off the pillow. Eve took a steadying breath, pawed the tears from nose and mouth and cheeks, and returned the phone to the pillow.

  “I’ll always love you, Eve,” Adam said softly. He touched her face, and Eve shivered. Goose bumps rippled along her thighs and up the outsides of her arms.

  “Big dummy,” she told Adam. “Going off and leaving me.”

  When she spoke to him like this, her voice was ten years younger. The voice of the girl Adam rescued from the home where they’d both been incarcerated. That bothered her.

  Eve had swallowed a Xanax, but it hadn’t hit her bloodstream yet. The lag time tempted her to take another, but she didn’t. Not yet. Last thing she needed was slurred speech or, worse, to puke her guts up while giving her report.

  Eve closed her eyes for
a moment and looked inward and downward. In her mind, there was a big movie screen playing, and she was seated in the middle of the front row. As she watched, Joe Ledger drew his pistol, aimed it with great care at Adam, who stood with his hands raised in surrender. A cruel smile of sexual delight wormed its way onto Ledger’s mouth as he slipped his finger into the trigger guard. Adam’s mouth was open, his lips forming words, pleas … begging Ledger for mercy. But the big killer’s smile became an orgasmic cry of wet delight as he pulled the trigger and shot Adam in the mouth, blowing the top row of teeth in, ripping through tissue and bone and nerve and exiting in an explosion of blood and brains. Adam stared for a moment in disbelief and then the light—that beautiful pure and perfect light—went out of his eyes, and he collapsed back and down.

  Eve closed her eyes, squeezing them shut with such intensity that it forced tears out, shedding them between her lashes.

  “You got some wires connected wrong, sweetie,” murmured Adam. “I mean, you know that’s not how it happened, right?”

  “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you,” she said helplessly. “It is how it happened.”

  “Okay, babe,” said Adam, “whatever you say. Whatever you want it to be. It’s all okay.”

  She felt his hand touch her leg, tracing the outlines of the brace she wore over the knee Ledger had destroyed with another bullet.

  “You know I’ll always be right here,” said Adam. “Right by your side.”

  It took her a long time to open her eyes. The cell phone was still on the pillow. Adam was barely an outline. But he was—as he said—still there. By her side.

  “You’d better make that call,” suggested Adam. “Don’t want to keep Daddy waiting.”

  “He’ll be mad,” she said in a tiny voice.

  “So, let him be mad. You got the right guy out of there, didn’t you?”

  “I suppose…”

  “Then you accomplished your mission.”

  “We lost most of the team. Almost all of the Righteous are gone.”

  Adam laughed. “You think Daddy cares about that stuff?”

  Eve sniffed. Shrugged.

  “You still came out with the right prisoner. And that other guy? Casanova? He’s dead for sure. No way he walked out of that place. Daddy’s going to be really happy with you, babe.”

  “But … but … Ledger was there…,” Eve protested. “I saw him on the body cams. He got away.”

  “That wasn’t your mission, Evie sweetheart,” insisted Adam.

  She nodded but didn’t feel entirely convinced.

  “Look, babe,” said Adam, shifting a little on the bed—enough that the phone slipped off the pillow—“just call him. Pull the bandage off. Let him yell if he wants to, but just know you did what he sent you there to do. You’re his daughter. He loves you.”

  After a long string of moments, Eve reached through Adam’s chest and picked up the phone. She did not see his eyes change from their perfect deep summer sky blue to a swirl of ugly green and brown.

  She punched in the number and held her breath until the call was answered.

  “Hello,” said Rafael Santoro.

  CHAPTER 115

  THE PLAYROOM

  UNDISCLOSED LOCATION

  NEAR VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA

  Rafael Santoro closed the lid of the flip phone very slowly, quietly, and placed the instrument neatly on his desk blotter, just to the left and below center. He considered it, then adjusted the angle so that it perfectly aligned with the other items on his desk.

  He was a small man. Middle-aged, thin, wiry, and fit. There were scars on his swarthy skin. Old, faded ones that were hidden by his tan, and newer ones that looked like flattened pink worms. His hair was intensely black but swirling with silver lines, his lips full and sensual. People who didn’t know him well told him he had a gentle smile.

  He looked at the phone as if he could see Eve. His fractured little adopted daughter. A prodigy whose abilities outweighed her eccentricities. At least for now.

  Then he swiveled his leather chair around to face the tall man who stood by the wet bar, a tall glass of superb Japanese single malt in his hand.

  “And…?” asked the other man. Kuga looked like a younger Kevin Costner. Broad-shouldered, all-American good looks, piercing blue eyes, and a very expensive smile.

  “Dr. Brozović is on his way to the safe house,” said Santoro. “He will be on a plane first thing in the morning.”

  “He okay? Last thing we need is him with his brains scrambled.”

  “Eve says that he was rescued without injury. He is confused but is cooperating with her.”

  Kuga sipped his whiskey. “Good. What about the team?”

  Santoro hesitated, searching for the right words to frame his response. “There were casualties.”

  “How many?”

  “Four Fixers exfilled with Eve.”

  “Only four? Ouch. You can’t tell me that a bunch of prison guards took down most of a top-tier strike team. Every goddamned one of them was juiced and jacked. They should have been able to walk into a military base and kick ass. Shit, we’re counting on higher levels of opposition for G-55. How in the hell can—”

  “He was there,” interrupted Santoro.

  Kuga froze. “Who? Who was there?”

  Santoro fought to keep his voice calm as he spoke the hated name. “Joe Ledger.”

  The room went dead still. Kuga gaped at him. And then he whirled and hurled the whiskey glass at the big mirror over the couch, which exploded in a shower of jagged splinters that slashed the leather. He swept his arm along the top of the wet bar and sent $5,000 worth of quality whiskey and brandy crashing to the floor. The bottles smashed apart and filled the air with the abusive stink of a distillery factory floor. The door banged open, and two Fixers entered, their sidearms drawn.

  “Get the hell out!” roared Kuga, and they fled.

  He stormed through the room, kicking over the coffee table and knocking everything onto the floor. “How the fucking hell is Joe fucking Ledger at that fucking prison? How, Rafael? How? Does that mean he knows? Christ on a stick … does Ledger know?”

  Santoro walked into the middle of the storm and stood right in front of Kuga. For a fragile moment, the taller man loomed over him, fist bunched, arm cocked, ready to strike. Santoro’s arms were at his side, and fast as he was, there was no way he could have blocked or evaded that blow.

  And it stopped Kuga cold.

  The tall American stood panting, face flushed to a hypertensive scarlet.

  “Does he know, Rafael?” asked Kuga again, and this time, his voice was soft. Desperate. Even afraid. “Does Ledger know? Why else would he be there? Does Church know?”

  “I don’t know, my friend,” said Santoro, placing his hands on Kuga’s broad shoulders. And it was a mark of how important this moment was that he meant that word. Friend. He meant it, and Kuga felt it.

  “Do … do we need to stop the plan?”

  Santoro gave Kuga’s shoulders a squeeze, then dropped his hands. “Eve said that Dr. Brozović was liberated from his cell without incident. The violence at the processing plant was centralized in two places—the bunkhouse where the staff was sleeping and the corridor outside Casanova’s cell.”

  Kuga turned and walked over to the window, his lips pursed, eyes narrowed and calmer.

  “Casanova doesn’t know about the American Operation. As far as I know, all he was ever told was that there was one planned.”

  “Yes,” said Santoro. “He knows that, and he knows about R-33. It was Brozović who possessed the knowledge that could damage us. Eve insists that Ledger got nowhere near the wing where he was kept.”

  Kuga nodded but said nothing.

  “As for Mr. Church,” said Santoro, wincing a little at the name, “I believe Ledger is still acting alone. There’s been no team action, even when such a choice would have been tactically necessary to prevent Ledger from taking undue risks. No, he’s out there on his own.”


  “He’s doing a hell of a lot of damage alone,” said Kuga caustically.

  “He is. And sometimes a single man may accomplish what a full team cannot.” Santoro paused and then came at it from a different angle. “My surmise is that there are other hits we don’t know about. Maybe several. I think our Colonel Ledger is not merely slamming around collecting scalps. I think he is more in control than we give him credit for. Bear in mind, he was a police detective before he worked for the demon Church, and he’s learned a lot about international politics and espionage tradecraft. Including interrogation strategies.”

  Kuga grunted and sat forward. “Well, that’s an ugly damned can of worms. You think he’s been getting names from his showier hits, killing some and using coercion on others?”

  “It’s possible, even likely.”

  “And those blabbermouths wouldn’t fess up because they know how we’d react. Anyone who talked to him would take that information to their graves rather than risk a visit from a Fixer … or from you.”

  “Sadly, yes.”

  Kuga suddenly laughed. It was short and bitter, but genuine. “Goddamn, Ledger is pulling a Rafael Santoro on us.”

  The little Spaniard’s face showed no amusement. “We need to review what each of the people at those locations knew. Most are like Casanova—they know there is an American Operation and that it is tied to materials coded as G-55. But our circle of factual knowledge about the actual operation—the dates, location, intent, and timing—is very tight. I cannot offhand think of a single person, not even Alexander Fong, Gerald Engelbrecht, or Mislav Mitrović, who knows enough to matter.”

  Kuga rubbed his eyes and blew out his cheeks. “So … who does that leave?”

  “The leaders of the four Fixer teams and HK, of course, but they’ve all been confined to the Pavilion,” said Santoro. “Gerald Crumby in London, the Cat in Romania, and maybe three others who are here in this house.”