Kill Fee

by Owen Laukkanen

The man ended the call. The asset put down his phone. Walked back to the bed and sat and turned up the TV. Watched infomercials and waited for dawn.

  145

  OneShot Custom Ammunition.” Stevens read the cover sheet off the fax and then looked at Windermere. “What’s this all about?”

  It was Monday morning. They’d been working all night, save a brief couple of hours when they’d crawled into various corners of the FBI’s Las Vegas office to sleep. There hadn’t been time to book hotel rooms, and as far as Stevens was concerned, none of them could afford that kind of time off, anyway. Killswitch had come and gone. It was time to work, work, work until somebody caught a break.

  Windermere swapped glances with Mathers. Mathers cleared his throat. “Carla had a brain wave in Philly,” he said. “Figured we’d check the ballistics on Johnny Thorsson’s murder weapon.”

  “FBI database didn’t have the gun,” said Windermere, “but apparently the ammunition used to kill Thorsson and Maria Nadeau was some kind of custom job.”

  “OneShot Ammunition,” said Mathers. “Available only by special order through the manufacturer.”

  “We figured we’d try and get ahold of their sales records, see if any names jumped out at us. And maybe put together a list of other unsolved shootings featuring OneShot Ammunition.” Windermere shrugged. “We thought at the very least it’d give us a few more threads to pull.”

  Stevens looked from Windermere to Mathers, and then down at the fax. “Well, all right,” he said. “Let’s check it out.”

  THE PEOPLE AT ONESHOT weren’t exactly receptive to Stevens’s inquiries.

  “Gonna have to ask you to call back with a warrant,” the guy on the phone told him, between bites of what sounded like a very large sandwich. “Can’t just go giving out information on our customers willy-nilly.”

  “Willy-nilly,” Stevens said. “I guess not.”

  “Wouldn’t be much help to you anyway,” the guy said, still chewing. “We sell thousands of custom rounds a month here. We’re a major outfit.”

  “I can tell,” Stevens told him.

  “We’re going to be one of the big boys pretty quick, you hear? Remington, Winchester; we’ll be up there right quick, you wait.”

  “I get you,” Stevens said. “So if a guy called up and wanted to order, say, a thousand rounds at a pop, you guys could pull it off, no sweat.”

  There was a pause. Stevens listened to the man chew. “Depends on the time frame,” the guy said at last. “How soon would you need it?”

  “You tell me. How long would it take?”

  “Month, maybe longer.” The guy swallowed. “Only a couple guys ever call in with orders that big, anyway. We don’t normally deal with the volume buyers.”

  “Couple guys, you said?”

  “Yeah, two or three. There’s this guy Rollins in Wyoming, he likes to shoot. Another guy, Draper, in Colorado. And there was Gardham, too. He ordered a shit ton, once, but we never heard from him again.”

  “Gardham, huh?”

  “Something like that.” The man stifled a belch. “Anyway, you want any more information outta me, you’re gonna have to call back with a warrant, understand?”

  “I understand,” Stevens told him, and hung up the phone.

  146

  Lind sat up in his bed, breathing hard. He looked around the bedroom. It was morning, he saw, or daytime, at least. He’d been sleeping.

  He’d dreamed. He remembered dreaming. He hadn’t slept well. His bed was damp with sweat and his heart was pounding, but he’d slept, regardless. The visions hadn’t kept him awake.

  Lind pulled himself out of bed. He was wearing yesterday’s clothes; they were wrinkled and tangled and sweaty. He changed out of them, pulled on fresh jeans and a T-shirt, trying to ignore the buzzing in his head, the dim panic behind his eyes. He didn’t know what it meant. There was no reason for it. He changed and walked out to the living room.

  She was there.

  The girl. Caity Sherman. She lay curled up on the couch, sleeping. Lind remembered he’d called her. She’d come over. He’d talked to her, and she’d put him to bed. Then she’d fallen asleep on his couch.

  The panic intensified. What had he told her?

  Caity shifted a little. Rolled over and blinked open her eyes. She rubbed her face and sat up. “Oh my God.”

  “You’re still here,” he said.

  “I’m sorry.” She stood, fixing her clothing. “I must have just— I was waiting for you to fall asleep. I didn’t mean to—”

  Lind shook his head. “I don’t sleep much,” he said.

  Caity stopped and looked at him. “I heard you,” she said. “You were having nightmares, it sounded like.”

  “They’re not nightmares. They’re visions.”

  “Visions?” Caity frowned. “Visions of what?”

  Lind walked to the couch and sat down. Rubbed his eyes, trying to chase off the panic. The man wouldn’t like this. The man had told him to stay in the apartment and wait for instructions. He wouldn’t be happy that Caity Sherman had come over. He would be angry that she’d stayed the night.

  Caity sat down beside him. “Richard,” she said. “Visions of what?”

  “My name isn’t Richard,” he said.

  “Sure it is,” she said, frowning. “I’ve seen your ID. I checked you in at the airport, remember?”

  The panic was growing. A blackness behind his eyes. A buzzing in his ears. Lind shook his head, tried to chase it. “My name isn’t Richard.”

  She sighed. “So what is it, then? Rick?”

  “Andrew.” He took his ID card from his wallet. “My name is Andrew Kessler.”

  Caity took the ID from him. She studied it. Looked at his face and then back to the picture. “Your name’s Richard,” she said, shaking her head. “I remember.”

  “No,” he said. His vision tunneled. “My name is Andrew Kessler.”

  “That’s a fake ID. It doesn’t even have the right address.” She stared at him. “You’re creeping me out, man.”

  Lind rubbed his face again. Held his hands over his ears. The buzzing wouldn’t disappear. The black panic. She couldn’t be here. She shouldn’t. “My name is Andrew Kessler,” he said again.

  The girl grabbed his face. Turned him to look at her. “Your name’s Richard,” she said, peering into his eyes. “What the heck is wrong with you, man?”

  147

  Wendell.” Mathers looked up from his computer. “Wendell Gray, former U.S. Marine. He went missing from his home in Atlanta sometime last week.”

  Stevens circled around to the junior agent’s computer. Looked over his shoulder at a picture of Wendell Gray, a good-looking twenty-something with an easy smile and a buzz cut. “Our guy has long hair,” he said.

  Mathers nodded. “This is before the war,” he said. “They don’t have a recent picture of him, but according to the missing person’s report, he’s since grown his hair out.”

  “Wendell Gray.” Windermere frowned. “Where is this coming from, Derek?”

  Mathers sighed. Rubbed his bandaged cheek absently. “Plugged ‘Wendy’ and ‘soldier’ into the computer, Carla,” he said. “Started playing around with various other names. Didn’t take long.”

  Stevens looked at Mathers. Then at Windermere. There was something happening between them, meaningful looks. Stevens cleared his throat. “He went missing sometime last week, you said?”

  “Guy was kind of a loner, apparently,” Mathers said. “Screwed up in the head from the war. Didn’t show up for a psych evaluation on Wednesday, and the Vet Center asked Atlanta PD to have a look at his apartment. Found the place deserted.”

  “When’s the last confirmed sighting?” said Windermere.

  “Sunday. Gray had group counseling sessions at the Vet Center, bunch of soldiers with shell shock, PTSD
, psych issues, whatever. He walked out of there, and that’s the last anyone’s seen of him.”

  “Family?”

  “Broke contact. They haven’t talked to him since he came back from Iraq. No work connections, either. He was living off disability checks.”

  Stevens studied the picture of Wendell Gray on Mathers’s computer screen. “Well, okay,” he said. “Let’s see what Larry Klein thinks.”

  148

  The man called David Gilmour found the target’s apartment. It was a nice building, tall and clean. Gilmour waited outside the front doors until a woman came out with a little gray poodle. Then he ducked in and hurried through the lobby to the elevator.

  He rode the elevator alone to the sixteenth floor. Walked out when the doors opened and surveyed the hallway. It was the top floor of the building. There were only four apartments this high. On one end of the hallway was a fire door. The asset walked to it and pushed it open. A stairwell. An escape route.

  Eliminate the target and extricate yourself without being detected.

  The asset walked back down the hallway to unit 1604. Hesitated in front of the door. He heard voices. A man’s voice. Had to be the target. Then he paused. There was another voice. A woman’s.

  The asset looked up and down the hall. Replayed the phone conversation with the man in his head. Unit 1604, the man had instructed. There is a man waiting. Nothing had been said about any woman.

  The asset lingered by the door. Felt a slick creeping blackness at the base of his skull as he wondered what he should do. The man wanted the target dead. He didn’t say anything about a woman. Well, hell, the asset would kill the woman, too. A little bonus.

  The asset straightened and turned to the door. Felt something like excitement, anticipation. He imagined the target dying in his hands. He hoped he wouldn’t have to use the gun.

  The asset raised his hand. Made a fist and knocked on the door.

  149

  Larry Klein squinted at the picture of Wendell Gray. “That could have been him,” he said. “I don’t know. He had long hair and sunglasses, though.”

  Stevens nodded. “It’s an old picture.”

  “I was a little bit tipsy, see,” Klein said. “From those one-dollar beers. And it all happened so fast.”

  “LET’S ASSUME WENDELL GRAY IS OUR GUY,” Stevens told the FBI agents as they rode the hospital elevator down to the parking lot. “Let’s just see where it takes us. Based on Miami and Minnesota, what do we know?”

  “They probably flew into town the night before and flew out immediately after the fact,” said Windermere. “There’s no Wendell Gray on any FAA manifests—you’re welcome, I checked—but that’s hardly a surprise.”

  “Probably used an alias,” said Stevens. “Gray and O’Brien both.”

  “And the third man, too, for that matter.”

  “Exactly,” said Stevens. “So we check the FAA manifests for any suspicious trips into Vegas this weekend, likely from the Eastern Seaboard. O’Brien probably arrived Friday night. Gray and his partner on Saturday.”

  “And then what?” said Windermere. “O’Brien took off Saturday night with the job left unfinished? Why didn’t he stick around and kill Ramirez himself?”

  Stevens pictured the kid on the security footage at the Bellagio, the look on his face as he’d waited for the elevator after failing to kill Julio Ramirez. He’d been scared. Just for a moment, the fear had shown through.

  “He bugged out,” Stevens said. “Couldn’t do it. Something clicked in him and he couldn’t kill Ramirez.”

  Windermere stared at him. “So Killswitch brought a couple more killers—Gray, and whoever—out here to finish the job.”

  “Exactly,” said Stevens. “Gray and his partner are O’Brien’s replacements.”

  “Christ. How many more of these zombie bastards are there?”

  “I don’t know,” Stevens said. “But Killswitch is controlling them all.” He looked at Windermere. “We have to find this guy.”

  150

  The girl stared at him. “Who are you, Richard?” she said. “Andrew. Whatever. What the hell is your deal?”

  Lind didn’t answer. Her questions made his head hurt. Made the black panic grow colder. The blood pounded in his ears, and he looked away. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  He could feel her eyes on him. “There’s something wrong with you,” she said. “I can’t be here.”

  Lind heard her footsteps and didn’t move to stop her. He knew he should let her leave. The man would want it that way. Pretty soon she’d be gone and everything would be fine.

  Except it wouldn’t. The visions would come back. The man would give him more assignments. Somewhere, deep down, he knew he needed her to stay. “Stop,” he said, standing, unsteady. “Please.”

  Caity looked back at him from the edge of the living room. “You scare me,” she said. “I’m sorry, Richard. I have to go.”

  “Please,” he said. “Don’t.”

  She studied his face, her brow furrowed. “You have some issues, man,” she said. “Seriously. I mean—”

  There was a knock at the door. One single knock, loud. Caity froze. “You expecting somebody?”

  “No,” Lind said. “Never.”

  There was another loud knock. Then the door splintered open with a sound like a gunshot. Sagged off its hinges and fell inward. Caity screamed.

  There was a man on the other side of the door. Tall and long-haired and lanky. He stared in at Caity and Lind, his eyes cold and emotionless.

  Caity screamed again. The man came for her, quickly. Grabbed her by the throat and threw her against the wall. She made a sound like a deflating basketball. Slumped, her eyes lidded. The man came for Lind.

  Lind didn’t think. He was trained for this. The attacker came at him, reached for him. Lind swatted him away. Backed up and regrouped. Threw a punch that caught the bigger man in the stomach. The man didn’t flinch. He kept coming.

  Lind swung again. The man blocked him. Countered with a punch of his own. Lind saw it coming, tried to duck away. The punch caught his left shoulder and sent him reeling across the room. His shoulder tingled, went dead. The attacker kept coming.

  Lind fought with his right hand. Tried to dodge the man’s punches. The man was quick for his size. His punches packed power. Lind caught him once in the jaw. Froze him, momentarily. Then the man countered, an uppercut that knocked Lind off his feet.

  The man loomed above him. Lind sat up, breathing heavily, searching for a way out. Across the room, Caity Sherman moaned. Struggled to stand up and collapsed in a heap. The attacker looked at Lind with the hint of a grin. He hadn’t said anything. He’d just come in and destroyed.

  He’s going to kill you. He’ll kill you and Caity unless you do something, fast.

  There was a gun in the kitchen. The man had given Lind two pistols, SIG Sauer P220s, told him to hide one under the sink and the other in the car. Use only in emergencies. This was an emergency.

  The attacker followed Lind’s gaze. Grinned at him, a soulless, evil grin. “Go ahead,” he said. “Get the gun.”

  Lind stared at him, his mind struggling to process. The attacker knew about the gun. He leered down at Lind, breathing hard. Leaned down with both hands open and reached for Lind’s throat.

  Lind rolled away from him. “Caity.” Caity Sherman looked up at him, slow. Her eyes were dazed, unfocused. “There’s a gun under the sink,” he said. “Get it.”

  The attacker laughed in Lind’s face. Crossed the living room toward the kitchen. Lind pushed himself to his feet. Had to move. Bolted across the living room just as the attacker opened the cupboard door and came out with the pistol.

  “I was going to kill you slow,” he said. “You had to ruin it.”

  Lind flung open a cupboard drawer. Came out with a carving
knife. Flung himself at the man as the man turned around, plunged the knife deep into his shoulder. The man screamed. Dropped the gun. Swung at Lind with his free hand and caught him flat in the face, knocking him back across the kitchen floor.

  Lind picked himself up. Watched the attacker pull the bloody knife from his shoulder. The gun was five or six feet away. The attacker was still closer. Lind looked at Caity, and then he looked at the door.

  Time to go.

  He ran to Caity. The attacker dove for the gun. Fumbled with it, his hands slick with fresh blood. Lind pulled Caity to her feet and hurried her out the doorway. “Come on.”

  Lind pulled Caity down the hall to the fire escape door and shoved her through. There was a noise behind him, and Lind turned back and saw the attacker in his open doorway, leaning against the ruined frame, clutching his shoulder. In his other hand, he held the gun.

  Lind locked eyes with the attacker once more. Felt a chill run through his body. Then the man raised the gun. Lind spun through the doorway, hit the stairs. Heard the door slam shut above him just as the gun went off.

  151

  Lind half dragged, half carried Caity Sherman down the fire escape stairwell. “Hurry,” he told her. “We gotta move.”

  Caity was still dazed. She moved slowly, said nothing. Let Lind maneuver her down toward the parking garage.

  There were no sounds from above. No doors slammed open. No gunshots. The only sounds in the stairwell were their own pounding footsteps and Caity Sherman’s gasps for breath. Lind hurried her down as fast as he could go.

  He didn’t know who the attacker was. Couldn’t imagine who wanted them dead. All he knew was that he needed to get away, and quickly. And he knew instinctively that he should save the girl.

  They ran down the stairs, endless flights. Caity lagged behind him. Lind pulled her onward. They reached the parking level and he burst through the door, ran through the dim lot to his car. Shoved Caity into the passenger seat and slid behind the wheel.