The Last Inferno

by Michael Cross

  Swimming parallel to the shoreline, I use up the air left in my scuba tank and discard it. I float to the surface and stick my head above water. I’m a hundred yards from Vargas’ house and opening the gap. His men are on the shoreline searching for me, playing their flashlights over the surface of the water. Thankfully, the night is so dark; I’m all but invisible to them.

  I have no doubt they’ll have a boat out to look for me, but that’s going to take some time. And by the time they get here, I will be long gone, my mission accomplished, free from Javier Vargas’ wrath, and free to move on with my life.

  What’s left of it, anyway.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Dude, are you okay?”

  I limp into Jafi’s office at the back of his shop and grimace as I drop down into the chair.

  “Just a graze,” I protest. “No big deal.”

  After the events at Vargas’ place, I got the hell out of Dodge immediately, driving back across the border and into Arizona that night. After ditching the SUV near the border, I stole a car from a dealership and drove it back to Tucson. After that, I found a small out of the way motel and used one of my personal cover IDs to hunker down for the night. I cleaned and wrapped my wound, then took a long, hot shower, and finally got some much-needed sleep.

  I woke up the next morning and scanned the news with breakfast but saw no mention of Vargas’ murder. It’s apparently either being kept under wraps, or the media hasn’t been tipped to the information yet. But I’m sure Temperance already knows. In fact, I’m sure she’s already making moves behind the scenes to ensure that her guy is put in charge. And she’s also probably waiting for word that I’d been taken off the board as well.

  “You get the Charger?” I ask.

  Jafi nods. “Yeah man, moved it out to the lot just like you asked.”

  “Good. Thanks,” I say.

  “What’s goin’ on, man?” he asks. “How’d you get yourself all shot to shit like this?”

  I chuckle. “It’s just a graze,” I say. “It’s hardly being shot to shit. Now, your Camry on the other hand…”

  I let my voice trail off and then laugh. Obviously not getting the joke, he looks at me with an expression like a confused puppy, which only makes me laugh harder.

  “The less you know, the better,” I tell him, my mood sobering quickly. “I’ve already put you in enough danger by involving you this much.”

  He shakes his head. “No way, dude. I’m glad to help,” he tells me. “You saved my life. I think I’m gonna owe you one ‘til the day I die.”

  “Nah. You earned a new life for yourself,” I say. “You put it all on the line to help me back in Jordan.”

  We both fall silent for a moment. He gets up and moves to a small refrigerator in the corner of his office and pulls out an energy drink for himself and hands me a bottle of Coke. I take it with a nod and twist the top off then take a long swallow.

  It’s then that my cell phone rings. I slip it out of my pocket to see that it’s Temperance calling me. I roll my eyes and motion for Jafi to be quiet as I connect the call.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Excellent work in Sonora,” she says.

  “I noticed it didn’t make the news.”

  “I’m sure it will when the time is right,” she replies. “There are some pieces in motion that need to be sorted out.”

  I chuckle, knowing that’s code for Vargas’s ardent supporters being purged by whoever Temperance’s puppet is. It happens whenever a new boss takes over— he gives supporters of the old regime a chance to kiss the ring, or they catch a bullet to the head. I have a feeling when the news of Vargas’ death breaks; it’s going to be when he’s found in a mass grave with his loyalists.

  “Where are you now?” she asks.

  “Just pull up my location on the tracker on the SUV you gave me.”

  She laughs softly. “Believe it or not, I didn’t have a tracker put on the car,” she says. “Call it a good-faith gesture.”

  Truthfully, I hear what sounds like sincerity in her voice, but I already know I can’t trust her.

  “So it seems like everything’s worked out for you,” I note.

  “Getting there,” she replies. “But more importantly, we’re putting the Tower in a better position to win this fight.”

  “And that’s what’s important.”

  “Indeed it is.”

  I don’t know the purpose of the call. She’s not a pat you on the back, rah-rah sort of woman. Is it to confirm that I’m still alive? Is it to get me to give her my location so she can send the hit squad to me? I have to wonder if she knows the mystery man from the Hellfire Club contacted me. If she knows he put me onto her and what she’s doing.

  “So the job is done. We held it together,” I say. “Now we’re done.”

  “We’re never going to be done, Echo,” she replies. “Not so long as we both work for this organization.”

  “I was clear when I said I wouldn’t work with you again,” I tell her. “I’m done with you. Do you understand me? I do not want you calling me again.”

  “There’s no need for this to be a hostile relationship,” she answers smoothly.

  “We’re done, Temperance.”

  And that’s when it hits me. She’s tracking my phone. I don’t know how, I thought I’d disabled it, but I just know, down in my bones, that she’s somehow tracking my phone. I disconnect the call and look over at Jafi, concern flowing through me. I pulled him into this, and now, if I don’t do something, he’s going to be caught in the crossfire.

  “You need to get out of here,” I tell him. “Now.”

  “What’s goin’ on, man?” he asks. “I thought we were gonna talk about—”

  “We will. Just not here. And not now,” I tell him. “You need to get out of here, Jafi. Just go home and wait for me. There are some bad men on their way, and they will kill you if they find you here.”

  His eyes widen, and an expression of fear crosses his face. But he takes my advice and darts out of the office and heads for the front door. I opt to go out the back and make my way around the buildings out to the street. There’s a smoothie shop on the other side of the street, across from Jafi’s computer repair store, with a counter in the front window. I go in and order, then take a seat at the counter.

  I only have to wait about fifteen minutes before I see a couple of large men walking down the street and stop in front of Jafi’s shop. On the outside, they look normal and ordinary, if overdressed for Southern Arizona. They’re dressed in jeans, boots, and t-shirts under their bulky coats. I watch as one goes into the shop while the other loiters out front near the newspaper racks.

  A couple of minutes later, the man comes back out and shakes his head at his partner. Together they walk back down the street and climb into a dark SUV that’s got another pair of goons in it.

  Watching the SUV drive off confirms it for me. Temperance wanted me eliminated and sold me out to the Hellfire Club. She obviously doesn’t want knowledge of her alternate revenue stream and side deals with the cartel bosses to get out.

  Something is most definitely going to need to be done about her. And soon.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “It took some doing, but I was able to locate and access a private email address that belongs to Temperance,” Justice says.

  I’m sitting at the table in a hotel room in Virginia a few days after Temperance sent the hit squad to take me out. Right now, I’m on a video conference with Jafi, Justice, and Nisha. After conferring with both of them, I thought it was time to bring Nisha into the loop on everything and lay it out for her. The Tower needs to make a move on Temperance, and they need to do it soon.

  “And how do you know it belongs to Temperance?” Nisha asks.

  “She logged into it from home,” Justice explains. “I was able to trace her activity from multiple sites and cross-reference it with her civilian identity.”

  “What you’re looking at are emails between Temp
erance and somebody named Sean Moore—which I’m sure is just a cover ID,” I say. “Temperance is obviously feeding this Moore information about me, with the goal of having me killed.”

  “I got access to a burner phone that belongs to her. Or at least, one of her cover IDs,” Jafi adds. “There are texts between her and somebody in DC making arrangements. It’s all coded, but I think Echo was supposed to be killed in Sonora as a victim of the cartel.”

  “And when that didn’t work, she figured she could take me out in Tucson,” I jumped in. “I watched the hit team trying to find me with my own two eyes, Nisha.”

  On the screen, Nisha looks stunned. I don’t know what the relationship between the two women is, but it’s one that is obviously deep and meaningful to her. That she’s having trouble accepting the fact that Temperance is co-opting the Tower to meet her own personal objectives shows me as much. But it’s right there in black and white. It’s no longer an abstract theory, and the truth of it can’t be denied.

  She looks like she’s had the wind knocked out of her. I feel bad for her. But at the same time, her friend tried to have me murdered. And I will not apologize for doing everything in my power to protect myself. If this causes an irreparable rift between Nisha and I, so be it.

  She shakes her head. “To what end? I don’t understand why she would do any of this.”

  “Money? Power? By getting into bed with the Vargas cartel, she put herself in a good position to control the flow of money the Tower received,” I postulate. “She sells me out to both Vargas and the Hellfire Club to clean up loose ends. Compromises the identity of three operators in a data breach. And now the other two are dead. She wasn’t expecting me to survive either. But now, having me take out Vargas and installing her own puppet, not only is she guaranteed a nice personal revenue stream, her hold on that cash pipeline is even tighter. She’s playing three games at once and profiting very handsomely.”

  “This is unbelievable, Echo,” she says. “I—I don’t even know what to do with it all right now.”

  “I’ll deal with her on my own,” I say.

  “No. You won’t,” she replies, her voice suddenly cold. “You will leave this for me to deal with.”

  I level my gaze at her. “You’re too close to this, Nisha,” I say. “It’s obvious—”

  “I said I’d handle it,” she snaps. “And I will. I don’t want you getting anywhere near her.”

  I pause for a long moment but finally nod. “Justice and Jafi will send you copies of everything they’ve found,” I tell her. “You’re going to need the evidence.”

  “I’m on it, man,” Jafi says.

  “I’ll send it over tonight,” Justice adds.

  Nisha looks stricken, and her face is etched with sadness. I watch as she draws in a deep breath and composes herself. She sits up straighter and looks into the camera, her expression firm and controlled.

  “Echo, there will be consequences for you,” Nisha says. “For digging into Temperance the way you did. Especially with a civilian. I’ll do what I can to protect you from the worst of it—”

  I knew going in, they wouldn’t be thrilled with me enlisting Jafi to help me. Anonymity is our strength, after all. But when the rot is inside the organization, you sometimes need to go to extraordinary lengths to cut it out.

  “Honestly, the Tower should be thanking us— Justice and Jafi especially,” I say. “If not for them, Temperance’s betrayal would have never been brought to light. And she would have continued selling out our operators to the Hellfire Club.”

  “And I will make that case,” she says evenly. “I’m just warning you to expect some blowback for all of this. Temperance is not without influence and allies.”

  “Whatever comes my way, I’ll handle it.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  I find myself driving through Reston, Virginia. It took some time, but Nisha’s contact finally got back to me. And she was right; he’s skittish about meeting me. It took a minor miracle to get him to meet me tonight at all.

  But having been in the business as long as I have, I understand his paranoia. I was never as paranoid as this guy seems, but I get it in principle. He doesn’t know me. Doesn’t know what I’m about or what I’m even doing. All he knows is that Nisha vouched for me and that thankfully carried some weight with him.

  The meet isn’t until tonight though, so I’ve got some time to kill. Which is why I’m parked across the street from the house. My house. It looks different now, but I still recognize it. It’s a parakeet yellow now, the white with blue trim having been painted over. And they tore out the tree that stood in the front yard— the tree I’d hung a tire swing on for Ryan— putting in water features and other lush landscaping.

  It doesn’t look the same. But I know it’s the same house I shared with Mandy. The house we were raising Ryan in. As I stare at it, I find myself awash in thousands of memories, most of them filling my heart with joy and putting a smile on my face. I remember the good times I had in that house. The laughter and the love that filled it. It wasn’t always perfect, but it was pretty damn close to it.

  But the immeasurably deep grief kicks in, too. The memory of what I lost grips my heart as tightly today as it ever did. And it squeezes my heart to the point I think it might simply explode one day.

  I see a woman I don’t recognize walking her dog on the other side of the street. She’s passing by in front of my old house. Her eyes are fixed on mine. She’s got her cell phone in her hand, and I see her trying to surreptitiously snap a picture of me and the car. I chuckle and shake my head. We always did have a bunch of busybodies around here. But then, it’s also part of what made the neighborhood so safe.

  I give her a wave, start the engine on the Charger, and pull away from the curb. I go ahead and make the drive to DC. I’m going to be early. But whatever. I’m too keyed up to sit in a hotel room right now. I feel like I’m coming to the endgame here, and I want to get this show on the road.

  I check my watch and see that it’s five past seven. Digger—the only name he would give me— is late. I sit on the park bench, watching the people strolling by, enjoying a nice evening out. Some of them young couples, some parents out with their children.

  There’s something about being in Washington DC that just seems to fill me with an energy I don’t feel in other places. There’s a vibrancy in this town that resonates deep inside of me. Maybe it’s because it’s this country’s seat of power. I don’t know, but there’s something about this place I feel really connected to.

  I rack my brain, trying to recall why it is this place resonates with me. Try to find that connection. Why I feel so vibrant. But as with so many things, I run into that opaque wall that’s keeping the rest of my memories from me. And for whatever reason, there’s something about being here in DC that makes that wall feel thicker. Stronger. Higher.

  It’s like my mind is trying to protect me from some bit of knowledge or something. And no matter how hard I batter my fists against it, I can’t make a single goddamn crack in it.

  I feel the man take a seat on the bench next to me. He folds one leg over the other and stares out at the park. His presence makes my hair stand on end and sends a tingle down my spine. It’s what makes me certain that it’s Nisha’s contact rather than some random person taking a break on the bench. It’s that sixth sense I’ve developed over all my years in the field.

  “Nisha sends her regards,” he recites the agreed-upon phrase to acknowledge we are who we say we are.

  “Tell her I say hello,” I recite my part.

  He’s not what I expected, to be honest. He’s older. I’d peg him in his seventies or so. He’s got a white, neatly trimmed mustache, white hair that’s been cut close to the scalp, and vibrant blue eyes. He’s neatly dressed—he looks like a man who’s fastidious about his appearance. He’s wearing slacks, wingtips polished to a glossy sheen, a camel-colored overcoat, a plaid scarf, and a herringbone newsie hat atop his head. He looks like a man out of
time. A 1950s anachronism existing in 2020.

  “I don’t know what you think I can tell you, son,” he starts. “I tried to explain to Nisha that I likely don’t have the information you’re looking for.”

  “Well, I appreciate you agreeing to meet with me anyway.”

  “Not that I had much choice,” Digger says. “I left this life a while ago. I’m out of the game. Have been for a while. But Nisha told me what happened to you, and I said I’d try to help out.”

  I listen to the man’s voice carefully, replaying each syllable in my own mind and comparing it to the voice of the mysterious man from the Hellfire Club who tried to recruit me. It’s not a match.

  “I appreciate that.”

  “Doin’ it for her. Not you,” he says. “I owe her. A lot.”

  “Either way, I appreciate it,” I repeat. “So, do you know who I am?”

  “Only by name,” he says. “You were coming up as I was walking out.”

  I watch as a young set of parents walk down the path with their young daughter between them, each of them holding one of her hands. It reminds me of that day at the carnival. The day Mandy and Ryan died. We’d walked down the midway with our son between us just like that. I feel a heaviness in my chest. My heart grows thick with emotion. I choke it all down though. I can’t afford to lose myself in it right now.

  “Why did you get out?” I ask. “Most operators have to be carried out of his life.”

  He sighs. “I’m from an older generation if you couldn’t tell. Back in the days when things were clear-cut. I knew what I had to do, and I could do it. But these days, things are dangerous. Tower, Hellfire Club, invisible wars… it’s more dangerous than it’s ever been. The mission changed. We’re no longer fighting outside enemies, son. We’re fighting each other, and that’s not what I signed up for.”

  I nod, actually understanding exactly where he’s coming from. I can see why he’d get out. But there’s another part of me that thinks he should have stayed in. Should have fought alongside us. Our oath requires us to fight enemies, both foreign and domestic. And the Hellfire Club is a domestic enemy, unlike anything this country has ever faced. Part of me thinks this man should have chosen a side and stood for something.