Kill Fee

by Owen Laukkanen

  She gave Ojeda the rundown. The whole story, from Saint Paul to Duluth to Miami. In the backseat, Stevens leaned against the window and stared out at the night. He listened to Windermere for a while, tried to keep his eyes open. Within a few minutes, though, he’d drifted off. When he woke, they were parked outside a hotel. Ojeda climbed from the car and walked them to the front doors. “Reservation’s in your name,” he told Windermere. “See you tomorrow.”

  Stevens stretched, yawning. “Christ,” he said, following Windermere into the lobby. “I’m ready for bed.”

  “Yeah?” Windermere turned and grinned back at him. “Get your sleep when you can, partner. As of tomorrow, we’re twenty-four seven.”

  59

  Lind rode Amtrak’s Silver Star through the night. He stared out the window, watching his reflection slowly fade as dawn broke over the Carolinas. The train trundled north through Raleigh and Richmond, Washington, D.C., and Wilmington, Delaware, and Lind watched the scenery pass and didn’t move much, drank bad coffee and tried not to sleep.

  Something had gone wrong in Florida. Lind could tell. He felt an emptiness gnaw in his stomach, a worry. He was counting on the man’s help to make the visions go away. The man had promised he would help. It was a promise Lind clung to. It was the only thing that kept Lind from blowing his own head off.

  The train pulled into Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station early in the evening. Lind stood, stretched, and filed off the train with the rest of the passengers. Rode the elevator up to the concourse and walked outside to the street.

  It was raining again. It was always raining lately. Lind ducked his head and walked into the city. He was soaked before he made it two blocks, but he hardly noticed. He walked back to his apartment, rode the elevator to his floor. Turned on the TV and every light in the place, brewed another pot of coffee, and sat down on the couch to wait for the man to tell him what to do.

  60

  Cameron Ansbacher,” Windermere announced. “That’s our dead yachtsman. Owns a shipping company.”

  Stevens caught her eye across the boardroom in the FBI’s Miami office. They’d commandeered the location for a temporary base of operations first thing in the morning. Now, with Roman Ojeda’s help, they’d set to work hunting down their shooter. “A shipping company,” he said. “And the boat’s owner is an importer.”

  “Coffee.” Windermere sat. “The guy imports coffee. Or that’s what he claims.”

  “So we’ve got a shipper meeting with a coffee importer on a mega-yacht in Miami Beach. How does this tie in with Spenser Pyatt and Eli Cody?”

  “I had Mathers go through our files on Pyatt this morning. He couldn’t find any connection. Ditto for Cody.”

  “How’s the kid doing up there in the cold?”

  “Mathers?” Windermere shrugged. “He ain’t happy, Stevens.”

  “Shit.”

  “Thought you didn’t care what turned him on, partner.” She grinned at him. “He’s a junior agent. You know how many times I got stuck shoveling shit in this office while everyone else got to run off and play cowboy? It’s a fact of life around here. Gotta put in your time.”

  Stevens shook his head. “Still robbed the kid of his trip to the beach.”

  “Still nothing, you big softie. Focus on the case.” She picked up a stack of paper, examined it idly. “Mathers couldn’t find anything linking Pyatt, Cody, and Cameron Ansbacher.”

  “Besides the fact that they were killed by the same shooter.”

  “Yeah,” said Windermere. “The shooter’s the same, but maybe that’s the only connection.”

  “That’s a pretty damn big connection, Carla.”

  “No doubt,” Windermere said. “I’m just thinking maybe we get further if we treat Ansbacher and Pyatt like two distinct crimes. Add up all the facts and look for similarities.”

  Stevens mulled it over. “Okay,” he said. “So what do we know about Cameron Ansbacher?”

  ACCORDING TO MIAMI PD, Ansbacher was a fifty-six-year-old American expatriate living on the island of St. Kitts. He owned a small shipping firm, as advertised: a couple of old cargo ships used mainly, it appeared, to transport goods from Miami around the West Indies. He’d been in Miami to negotiate a contract with one Hugo Peralta for the import of coffee beans from Colombia into the United States. From what the police department could gather, the deal was almost done.

  “And then Ansbacher stepped aboard Peralta’s yacht and caught a bullet in his brain,” said Windermere. “No deal.”

  “No deal.” Stevens stared out the window to the highway beyond. “Huh. So maybe someone didn’t want Ansbacher importing that coffee.”

  “Like a competitor? Like our shooter’s some kind of murderous shipping magnate?”

  “Who knows? The timing is suspicious, is all I’m saying.”

  “Ansbacher was scheduled to fly back to St. Kitts on Monday morning,” said Windermere. “Maybe it’s a coincidence he was murdered on Peralta’s yacht. Like it was the only time our guy could get to him before he flew home.”

  Stevens threw up his hands. “Shit. We’re just guessing at this point.”

  Ojeda poked his head into the boardroom. “Hey, guys,” he said. “Got a present for you.”

  “Is it security footage?” said Windermere.

  Ojeda shook his head. “TSA’s still being a bastard. But I have someone I want you to meet.” He ducked back from the door. Ushered in a companion, a heavyset woman with dark eyes and a set jaw. She held Stevens’s gaze like a challenge.

  “This is Officer Oneida Ware,” said Ojeda. “She thinks she saw our shooter.”

  Ware glared at Ojeda. “Don’t think anything. I saw him. I saw them both.”

  Stevens and Windermere swapped glances. “Both?”

  Ojeda laughed from the doorway. “I’ll get Officer Ware a coffee. I think you’re going to like what she has to say.”

  61

  Stevens watched Oneida Ware sip her coffee across the boardroom table. The airport traffic cop stared back at him over her cup.

  “We shut down O’Brien’s alias,” said Stevens. “Put a hold on his corporate credit card, too. No way he should have been able to skate undetected.”

  Ware put down her cup. “Wasn’t skating alone,” she said. “Like I said, he had help.”

  “Who?”

  “Middle-aged white guy. Real clean. Nice suit. Blocked the rental car ramp in his Cadillac. I heard the commotion, a bunch of horns and whatnot, came out of the garage, and saw the Caddy was abandoned. Was about to call for a tow truck when the driver came back with your boy. Piled him in the car and drove off.”

  “He intercepted O’Brien,” said Stevens. “Then they bolted.”

  “You remember the guy’s face?” said Windermere. “Maybe we can get a sketch out. Put his face on the street.”

  “I can try,” said Ware. “Don’t know how much good it would do you. Guy was your everyday old white man, like I said.”

  “You remember anything else about him?” said Stevens. “About the car?”

  “The car, yeah. Was a gray Cadillac. Four doors. Plates from out of state.”

  “What kind of out of state?”

  Ware shrugged. “North Carolina, maybe? I didn’t get a clean look.”

  Stevens made a note. “Anything else?”

  “Nah. It was fast.”

  “But you’re sure he’s the guy.”

  “Yeah.” Ware frowned. “I seen the drawings you all passed around. It’s the same kid. Spooky eyes, like he was sleepwalking.”

  “That’s our guy,” said Windermere. She looked at Stevens. “Let’s get Officer Ware to a sketch artist. Try and get a read on this mystery accomplice. If the TSA’s not going to help us, this might be our only shot.”

  62

  Parkerson drove north up Interstate 95 until h
e hit Savannah, Georgia. Then he made a detour.

  He’d spent the night thinking about the asset, about the Miami job. He kept seeing the target’s head explode, the asset’s blank eyes. The kid was a genuine killer. A credit to the Killswitch program, and he’d gotten out of state clean. There were still too many new applications, though, for one asset to handle. It was time to expand the program.

  He turned east onto Interstate 16, bombed across Georgia through Macon to Atlanta, where he found a cheap roadside motel with a vacancy sign, and parked the Cadillac for a few hours’ rest. It was nearly five in the morning; the eastern horizon was just starting to show light. Parkerson had been surviving on Red Bull and adrenaline for the better part of two days.

  He slept until nearly noon, and when he woke up he showered and drove to a shopping mall, where he bought fresh clothes and a toothbrush and changed in the mall bathroom, splashed cold water on his face, and examined himself in the mirror. His eyes were bloodshot and sunken, his hair unkempt; he needed a shave. He was starting to look like one of the assets himself.

  Parkerson dried his face and walked out of the bathroom. On the way out of the mall, he bought a pair of cheap sunglasses and a Braves hat—a ready-made disguise. He drove the Cadillac into a leafy suburb in the northeast part of town, found a back road office complex, a couple of restaurants, and a sketchy talent agency. He parked across from a nondescript commercial low-rise and watched the building’s front doors from inside the car.

  It was a busy day, and Parkerson watched people walk in and walk out for a couple of hours, listening to more Bach and fighting the exhaustion and adrenaline that seemed to come at him in waves.

  THEY BEGAN TO ARRIVE a little before three. Men, mostly, a couple of women. Most of them were still young, in their mid-twenties or so. Veterans, all of them, come for counseling or medication or simply a place of refuge. All of them potential new assets.

  Parkerson knew that the average American citizen would find his actions reprehensible. The patriots would froth at his exploitation of traumatized veterans. Frankly, he didn’t care. These soldiers were his best workers. They trained better, they killed better, and they didn’t make mistakes.

  As far as Parkerson was concerned, this was capitalism. This was no different than the railroads’ employing Chinese laborers because they worked harder, or Andrew Carnegie’s fighting the unions in his steel mills because they wanted unfair concessions. This was the pursuit of productivity, the American way. Soldiers made the best assets, morality be damned.

  Parkerson watched the veterans arrive. Some came with friends and family; they were dropped at the doors out of minivans and midsize sedans, the drivers waiting until they’d disappeared inside the building before they idled slowly away. Parkerson ignored these candidates. He didn’t need nosy relatives asking questions, pushy mothers, fathers, wives. He waited, and focused on the young men and women who came alone.

  It was five minutes past three when Parkerson saw him. As young as the rest, and solitary. He walked across the parking lot, slow, from the road. Like he didn’t realize he was late.

  He had long, greasy hair and a peach-fuzz chin. Circles under his eyes, as though he hadn’t slept in weeks. Just looking at him made Parkerson feel tired again. The kid crossed the lot, glanced in the Cadillac as he passed it. Parkerson met his eyes and knew in a split second that this was the one. He wore the same blank expression as Lind.

  The kid walked to the low-rise and paused at the doors. Stood there for a moment, not looking at anything. Then someone opened the door and came out of the building. The kid hesitated, and then slipped in through the open door.

  Parkerson stared after the kid and saw dollar signs. That’s the guy, he thought, his adrenaline ramping up again. That’s my next asset.

  63

  Ware said North Carolina plates.” Stevens stared at his computer screen. “Virginia plates aren’t much different, if you don’t get a clean look.”

  Windermere circled around the table and peered over Stevens’s shoulder. “Triple A Industries has a Richmond P.O. box,” she said. “That’s where you’re going with this?”

  Stevens nodded. “Maybe this guy’s Triple A Industries.”

  “And, what, the shooter’s his partner? They make these hits together?”

  “I don’t know,” said Stevens. “Where was this guy when Spenser Pyatt was murdered?”

  Windermere stared at the screen for a moment. “We’ll get the sketch to Richmond police,” she said, straightening. “Have ’em look out for gray Cadillacs. Who knows? Maybe our man checks his mail.”

  “If he hasn’t gone underground yet,” said Stevens. “We definitely spooked him. Could be they turned tail and ran for the border.”

  “It’s a lot tougher to disappear than people think,” said Windermere. “If we can find a loose thread to pull, we can unravel this case, Stevens. We just need a lead on these guys.”

  “Mathers making any progress?”

  Windermere shook her head. “Not yet. He’s pretty much stonewalled on Spenser Pyatt, though. As far as he can figure, there’s no connection to the Ansbacher killing whatsoever. I have him trying to chase down Philadelphia O’Briens right now, maybe pick up the trail from that end, but I still think we have a better chance chasing our killer down here.”

  “Yeah,” said Stevens. “But how?”

  Windermere walked around the table to the wall of windows. Stared out at the bleak landscape: low-rise office buildings, the highway. They’d been over this all morning and half of the afternoon. The shooter was gone. And nobody had any answers.

  Stevens’s cell phone began to ring. He answered. “Kirk Stevens.”

  “Stevens, it’s McNaughton.” Even eighteen hundred miles away, Stevens could sense the excitement in his old colleague’s voice. “You got time to chat?”

  Stevens sat up. “Always.”

  “You’ll notice I’m working on the weekend,” said McNaughton. “All for you. Feel free to thank me with cash.”

  “I’ll send flowers. What’s up?”

  “Couple of things I figured you maybe could use. First, I found a Post-it note in Eli Cody’s desk. Just a word and a series of numbers. Didn’t make sense, but I stored it away. Figured I’d check on it later.”

  “Sure,” said Stevens. “I bet it’s later now.”

  “Correct. We got into Cody’s bank accounts this morning. He was pretty much broke, like we figured. At least relatively speaking.”

  “Relatively speaking.”

  “I mean, he comes from a family of multimillionaires,” said McNaughton. “At the time of his death, Cody had exactly fifty-four thousand, one hundred and twelve dollars and eighty-eight cents to his name.”

  “Not exactly a fortune.”

  “Exactly. Here’s the weird part. In the week before he was murdered, Cody made two hundred-thousand-dollar payments to a numbered bank account on the Isle of Man. First payment a week before his death. Second payment was initiated on Saturday afternoon, completed Sunday morning.”

  Stevens straightened. “Just after Spenser Pyatt was murdered,” he said.

  “I guess so. I mean, yeah. That’s more your area of expertise. Point is, the numbered bank account matched the numbers I found on Cody’s Post-it note.”

  Stevens frowned. “You said there was a word on that Post-it note, too,” he said. “What was it?”

  McNaughton paused. “Killswitch,” she said. “The word was Killswitch.”

  64

  The minivans began to return at ten minutes to four. Parkerson watched them from the Cadillac. At five minutes past four, the office doors opened and the veterans started to emerge.

  Some of them came out in pairs, some in groups. Some talked to one another, even laughed, though not many. They shook hands or waved good-bye, or walked alone to the cars and minivans at the curb. The minivan
s pulled away. The veterans dissipated. Parkerson waited.

  Finally, the shaggy-haired kid came out of the building. There was a woman beside him, a brunette, middle-aged. The kid towered over her, even slouched as he was. He stared down at her as she talked to him. Didn’t say a thing. Finally, the woman stopped talking. She looked at the kid. They looked at each other. Then she seemed to sigh. Her shoulders deflated. She patted the kid on the arm and went back inside the building.

  The kid felt around in his pockets and came out with a cigarette. Lit it and started across the lot. He passed the Cadillac again, and if he recognized it he didn’t show it. He just walked, empty-eyed, out to the street.

  Parkerson idled the Cadillac after the kid. Followed him down the block to a bus stop and waited in an adjacent lot. The kid stood at the shelter for ten minutes. Then the bus came and he climbed aboard.

  Parkerson followed the bus until it stopped in front of a vast concrete apartment tower. The doors opened and the kid stepped down to the curb. He walked toward the tower. Parkerson followed. Parked the Cadillac outside the front doors and watched the kid walk into the lobby. There was a bank of mailboxes along the wall. The kid took out a key and opened a mailbox, stared inside a moment, and then closed it again. Then he walked to the elevators.

  Parkerson climbed out of the Cadillac as the elevator doors shut. He walked into the lobby and checked the number on the kid’s mailbox. Then he called another elevator and waited.

  Parkerson rode the elevator to the eighth floor. He walked down the hall until he found the kid’s apartment number, and he stood in the hall for a minute or two, straining to hear through the flimsy wooden door. He heard a TV but no voices. Finally, he knocked on the door.

  There was no answer. Parkerson knocked again. Waited. Heard the lock disengage. The door swung open and the kid stared out at him, no recognition in his eyes. Parkerson looked past him into the apartment. It was a studio suite. An immaculate bed—looked like it had never been slept in. The TV on, loud. Bed aside, the place was a mess. There was nobody else in the room.