104
The asset stared at Parkerson with that slack expression of his. “Go on,” Parkerson told him. “Do it.”
Friday night. The asset had been at the lake house for five days. He’d responded well to the training so far. It was time to advance the regimen.
“Do it,” Parkerson told him. “You don’t want the visions to continue, do you?”
The asset looked exhausted. He’d been locked in the room with the visions for five days and four nights. Probably hadn’t slept more than twenty minutes at a stretch.
He’d stopped trashing the room, though. The bed remained fully made. The waste bucket stayed upright. He seemed to calm down when Parkerson came in the room. He seemed to trust Parkerson, seemed grateful for the food, for the reprieve.
“Do it,” Parkerson told him. “Do it for me.”
Slowly, the asset turned to the cardboard box beside the bed. Parkerson had picked it up on his way to the lake house. A gift for the asset. A test.
The asset reached inside the box and pulled out an orange cat. The cat purred and nuzzled the asset. The asset held it. Looked at it.
“Do it now,” Parkerson told him.
The asset gripped the cat tighter. The cat struggled. Yowled and clawed at the asset. The asset clenched hard and twisted the cat’s neck. Bones snapped and the cat spasmed once. Then it dropped, lifeless, into the cardboard box.
Parkerson nodded. “Good work,” he said. The asset seemed to relax a little. Parkerson kicked the box away. Held up the McDonald’s bag. “Let’s eat.”
105
It was nearly midnight when the plane landed in Las Vegas. Lind spent the flight alongside a rowdy bachelorette party. They drank, swore, and laughed so much there was no danger he’d fall asleep.
He walked off the plane and through McCarran International Airport, dodging slot machines and more wild crowds of partiers. The airport was a zoo, even so late at night. He waited forty-five minutes in a stifling taxi line before it was finally his turn to leave.
No more rental cars. Lind hardly registered the change in procedure. He’d listened to the man’s instructions, and now he followed them. That was that.
The taxi driver was an old man with a patchy beard and a smoker’s cough. He studied Lind in the rearview. “Where you headed, man?”
“The Flamingo,” Lind told him. “The Strip.”
THE HOTEL WAS EVEN LOUDER than the airport. There was a twenty-minute wait at the check-in desks. Lind watched the crowds mill around him, everyone smiling, squealing, hysterical, drunk. He suddenly felt very tired.
The desk clerk was young, his face pockmarked with acne scars. He checked Lind in and then squinted at his computer. “Says here we have a couple packages for you.” He grinned at Lind. “You forget your bathing suit?”
Lind shook his head. “No.”
The man shrugged. He disappeared through a swinging door and came out with the packages: a parcel, shipped by courier, and an envelope with Andrew Kessler’s name on it. Handed them to Lind, then glanced around the lobby and leaned in. “You need anything, brother?” he said. “Looking to party tonight? Want a girl?”
Lind thought about Caity Sherman and shook his head. Picked up the packages and his room key and rode up to his room in an elevator jam-packed with German tourists. Found his suite and walked in and sat on the bed. He wanted so badly to sleep. He couldn’t. As soon as he closed his eyes, he was back in that desert Humvee.
He switched on the TV and turned up the volume. Turned on all the lights and pumped up the air-conditioning. Walked to the window and stared out at the Strip, the vast crowds, the chaos. He stood at the window for a while, and then picked up the parcel and tore it open.
Another weapon. Another photograph. Inside the envelope was a Bellagio room key. Lind put the handgun and the key card in a drawer. He memorized the photograph and burned it in the bathroom wastebasket. Then he walked back to the window and stared down at the Strip, watching the partiers come and go until dawn.
106
Stevens caught the morning flight direct from Philadelphia to Minneapolis. Arrived at eleven and made it home five minutes before noon. He paid the cabbie and stood outside and surveyed his house for a moment, enjoying the sunshine, breathing the fresh air. Then he walked up the front stairs to the door.
Andrea was in the kitchen when he walked in from the hall. She looked up from her sandwich and blinked. “You’re home,” she said, chewing. “You catch the bad guys?”
“Not yet,” he said. “Where’s your mother?”
“Work.” Andrea frowned. Paged through her magazine. “You didn’t solve the case? How come you’re home?”
“Guess I needed a break,” he said. “Couldn’t leave your mom high and dry for too long. Anyway, I missed you guys.”
He mussed her hair. Andrea swatted him away. “Dad.” She looked up at him. “So you just took a break? Is Agent Windermere still working?”
Stevens nodded. “She has a partner. This kid Mathers.”
“So she doesn’t need you. That’s why you came home.”
“We’re kind of stuck,” he said, sighing. “We reached a dead end. I figured maybe I should step back for a while.”
Andrea shook her head. “I don’t get it. The bad guy’s still out there?”
Stevens nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“So why aren’t you chasing him?”
“I told you, Andrea. Your mom—”
“Who cares about Mom?” Her eyes flashed. “This guy’s a killer, isn’t he?”
Stevens stepped back. “Andrea—”
“Well?” She looked at him. “There’s a murderer out there, Dad. You and Windermere need to catch him. You need to catch him before he comes after us.”
“Honey, he’s not going to come after us.”
“Coach Tomlin did.” Andrea was breathing shallow now, fast. She looked down at her magazine and bit her lip. “What if it happens again?”
Stevens looked at his daughter and felt his heart melt. “It won’t, honey. This guy doesn’t even know who we are.”
“Do you know who he is? Maybe he lives next door, Daddy. Maybe you work with him.” Andrea stood. “Catch him, Daddy,” she said. “Don’t just give up.”
She hurried out of the room, leaving Stevens alone in the kitchen. He lingered there, listening to his daughter stalk through the hall and upstairs. Heard her door slam, and sighed. “Damn it, kiddo,” he said. “I’m trying.”
107
Lind woke up breathless, on top of the bed. The TV blared beside him. Harsh sunlight glared in through the dusty window. It was daytime, midmorning. He’d been dreaming again.
He sat up and breathed deep, trying to calm his racing heart. Stared down at the carpet until the panic disappeared. Until he could hear the sounds of the TV over the roar of his pulse in his ears.
He brewed a pot of coffee and drank it all. Showered in ice-cold water. Didn’t look at himself in the mirror as he dressed. When he was ready, he stuffed the pistol in the back of his pants. Pulled his shirt over top and slipped the Bellagio room key in his pocket as he walked from the room.
The lobby was quieter this morning. The partiers were gone. It was still early for Las Vegas. There was plenty of time left to kill.
Lind found a Denny’s and ate a greasy breakfast. Then he walked, aimless, up and down the long boulevard. Wandered in and out of casinos until a few hours had passed. Then he turned and headed north, toward the Bellagio. Passed its majestic fountains without stopping to look, walked up the long driveway and into the lobby. He lingered there a moment, anonymous in the crowd, and then followed a sign toward the hotel elevators. The gun pressed into his back; the crowd ebbed and flowed, and the slot machines clamored. Lind pictured the man’s face. Imagined a life without the visions. He hurried his pace. It was time to complete the assignment
.
108
Windermere spent the day cooped up in that tiny office with Mathers. Despite the stall in their case, Mathers was in good spirits; he laughed and teased Windermere, attempting to prod her out of her funk.
It was Stevens’s fault. The BCA agent had turned tail and ditched her, headed back to his family and left her with a case that suddenly seemed unsolvable. Not that she could blame him. Rats off a sinking ship. Or maybe he just missed his wife.
Yeah, or maybe she’d scared him away. He’d scared himself away. They’d come close to something, she knew, closer than they’d ever come before. On the street outside the hotel, earlier in the week, she’d nearly . . . what, kissed him? Expressed her true love? Who the hell knew what she was doing. Or what he was doing, for that matter. That was why he’d recused himself. He was scared he’d do something wrong. And, really, who could blame him? It was good he was gone.
Except Windermere missed him. That was a fact, annoying as it was. She was a goddamn FBI agent, and a good one. No way she should be pinning her emotional well-being on any man, least of all Stevens, god damn him.
Windermere struggled to push Stevens from her mind. It would have been easier if the damn case was going anywhere. If they had any momentum whatsoever. Right now, they had a name and a city and a hired killer’s website. They had cops watching a P.O. box in Richmond, Virginia, though apparently Killswitch never, ever checked his mail. They had a string of shell companies and Internet IP addresses hidden behind a Department of Defense security wall that, from what Windermere could ascertain, they could never breach.
This whole case hinges on what the DoD’s hiding, she thought. Give me ten minutes of server access and we put our killer away.
It wasn’t happening. So, what, she and Mathers were just going to keep working through phone books, trying to find O’Brien? That was what passed for police work these days?
Fuck it.
Windermere looked up from her laptop. Stared across the cluttered desk at Mathers. The kid was hunched over his own computer, comically oversized for his tiny chair. Windermere stifled a smile. “Mathers,” she said, “I’m dying over here.”
Mathers looked up at her. “Thank God,” he said, stretching. “Thought I was the only one.”
“We can’t keep doing this,” she said. “We’re treading water. Somewhere, our guy’s out there, probably ready to kill again, and this bullshit is driving me insane.”
“So what do you want to do?”
Windermere looked around the tiny office. The reams of paperwork, the maps, the names crossed off lists. One giant haystack with one tiny needle. A goddamn treadmill of monotony. She ran her hands through her hair. Rubbed her eyes.
“Toss me Sebastian Morgan’s statement,” she told Mathers. “Let me have a look through it one more time.”
Mathers searched through a mound of papers and came out with a file. Slid it across the desk. “What are you thinking?”
“Not thinking, Mathers,” Windermere said. “Fishing.” She paged through the file. Then she looked up. “I guess they never found the murder weapon, huh?”
“Nope. NYPD figured our guy ditched it somewhere.”
Windermere thought for a moment. “What about the bullets?” she said. “They run any ballistic analysis?”
“Not sure,” Mathers said. “You want I should check?”
Windermere settled back in her chair. If the FBI, by some miracle, had the murder weapon fingerprinted in its ballistics database, it might be possible to trace the gun to another crime. And maybe that crime would produce the loose thread that would unravel Killswitch, once and for all.
“Please,” Windermere told Mathers. “Give New York a call. Maybe this time our Hail Mary works.”
109
He found the target’s room without a problem. Followed the signs to the bank of elevators, showed the room key to the security guard, and joined a group of young people in a crowded car. They piled off on the fourteenth floor. Lind rode alone to the thirty-fifth.
He had memorized the target’s room number. Now he walked down the long corridor, reaching back for his pistol and disengaging the safety. He gripped the gun tight in one hand and knocked on the target’s door with the other.
There was no answer from within. No movement behind the pinprick peephole. The light behind it stayed constant. Lind gave it a minute before he knocked again. Still no answer. He slid his key in the lock and felt the lock disengage.
Slowly he pushed the door open and crept into the room. The gun was heavy in his hand, the steel slick. Behind the door was a long hallway, dark, save for a thin beam of light coming through the curtains in the room at the end.
The hallway opened up into a spacious living area. There was nobody waiting, no movement. There were no lights on anywhere. Lind checked the whole suite: the kitchenette, both bedrooms. The sheets were tangled and lived in; there were clothes on the floor. Bottles in the living room, half-empty glasses. Thin lines of white powder and a baggie of pills, but no people. The target was gone.
Lind stood in the dark living area and waited. Gripped the gun tight and hoped the target would return quickly. He realized he was nervous.
It was a new kind of nervous. It wasn’t the sensation he normally felt as he waited to complete an assignment, the sick fear that he would fail, that the target wouldn’t show, that he would disappoint the man. Lind knew the target was coming. The target always came. The man was never wrong. No, there was something else unsettling Lind. He felt a hint of panic when he tried to explore it.
Caity Sherman. He kept thinking about the girl. He’d thought about her on the flight out, on the cab ride to the hotel. He’d thought about her all morning as he wandered the Strip. He’d thought about her, he realized, while he dreamed.
He knew he should have killed her. He knew the man would be angry. He shouldn’t be thinking of her now, in this hotel room, on assignment. He should be focused on the target. On pleasing the man. He should be focused on making the visions go away. But he couldn’t.
He couldn’t stop thinking about Caity Sherman. The way she’d smiled at him. The way she’d laughed and teased him. The way her face had fallen when he’d tried to brush her aside. Lind caught himself hoping he hadn’t hurt her feelings. He hoped he would see her again.
This was bad. Lind knew it was bad. He felt the panic behind his eyes whenever he saw her. The buzzing like a million hornets inside his skull. He felt like he wanted to claw his brain out through his ears.
Still, he couldn’t escape her. He stood in the target’s dark room and thought about Caity Sherman, fighting the waves of panic and trying to stay calm. He stood there for a long time. He started to feel worried. He started to wonder if the target wouldn’t come.
Then he heard voices, and a key in the door. Laughter from the hallway, and a fresh beam of light. The target was here. Lind gripped his pistol tighter and tried to push Caity Sherman from his mind.
110
A man and two women. They came into the room, laughing, dressed for the pool. The man went for the cocaine on the table. Dragged a woman with him. The second woman fumbled with the light switch. Then she saw Lind and screamed.
Lind stepped out of the shadows. Leveled the gun at the man as the women shrank back. He was a big guy, the target, slick hair, middle-aged. He wore a towel around his waist and a gold chain on his neck, and he glared at Lind, masking confusion with anger. “What the fuck, man?” he said. “Who the fuck are you?”
The woman screamed again, from the corner. Lind knew he would have to kill them, too. Collateral damage. They’d seen his face. The man would expect them to die.
The target stood, his palms up. “What do you want, man? Who are you?”
It was an easy assignment. He would shoot the target, and then he would shoot the women. Then he would leave. Quick and clean. An easy assignment.
The target took a step toward Lind. Lind took a step with the gun. The target drew back. The women gasped from the corner. The target’s anger was gone now. “What do you want, man?” he said, his voice high-pitched and frantic. “You want money? Whatever you need, man, it’s yours.”
Lind didn’t reply. He brought the gun up to the target’s face. Reached out and grabbed him by his gold chain. Twisted it, dragging the man closer. The target gasped for air, begged, the gun to his temple.
Pull the trigger. Pullthetriggerpullthetriggerpullthetrigger.
Lind saw the man in Duluth. Saw the man in Miami. Saw the blood. It seemed to fill the hotel room, and it belonged to the Miami target, the Saint Paul target, the Hollywood executive, and the New York adulterers. It was the blood of the terrified soldier, chained to that brick wall.
Lind tried to shake his head clear as the target begged for his life. Gritted his teeth and felt that awful panic rising, pounding in his ears like a drumbeat. His world shook and shattered. He closed his eyes and saw Caity Sherman. Saw blood. Heard the gun roar and realized he’d pulled the trigger.
The target screamed. The women screamed. Lind opened his eyes, expecting carnage. Instead, he saw gun smoke. A bullet hole in the ceiling. The target clutched at his ear. Lind had missed him.
The target struggled. Gasped. Swore. He’d dropped his towel; he fought in a blue Speedo for his life, his body fat and unremarkable and pathetic. He clawed at the chain around his neck. The women screamed again, a chorus, never ceasing. The panic roared in Lind’s ears. The whole world was one narrow tunnel, his ears staticky noise. He knew he had to kill the target.
He couldn’t.
Lind let go of the target’s chain. The man wrenched free, scrabbled backward, across the room. Lind fought more waves of panic. He lowered the gun. Somewhere in the chaos, he realized he should run.
Kill Fee Page 20
