by Michael Todd
He didn’t need to worry about it. The man had always been a better father and husband to them, anyway.
“Is everyone all right?” he asked as he scanned each one again but directed the question to Andy. He managed to mask his voice in a low, rough cadence.
The lawyer nodded and drew his family into a warm embrace. He nodded again, this time in thanks.
“Call the cops,” the operative rasped. The crashed van outside would bring the police there anyway, but if they registered a call of their own, it would reinforce that they had nothing to hide from all this. “Get the girl inside. She doesn’t need to see what happened out here.”
Andy caught and held his gaze for a moment and the two men shared a silent agreement before he and Jules pulled Abby into the house again. He looked back one last time to where their rescuer waited in the driveway.
“Thanks,” he whispered. Savage couldn’t do anything other than nod. He needed to get out of there. People had begun to stir, wondering what the commotion was about, and they would call the police if the Devers didn’t. He needed to get clear. There was no reason for him to get involved with the police.
When he crossed the street, he noticed the van was gone. He had no idea who had been in it, but apparently, he hadn’t killed at least one of the members of the kidnapping team and they’d managed to get away. Or maybe there were more than one. Anja would have to help him track the motherfuckers down. Maybe he could handle them with a little more dedication without having to worry about police or trauma to what was once his family.
Savage snuck through the houses across the street again and avoided the lights that clicked on all around him to slip through the hedge. He moved hastily and earned himself a few scratches from the shrubbery, but he didn’t have time to waste. His heart thudded but he reached the abandoned house without incident. His refuge was the only one that didn’t have people talking about calling the police.
He slipped inside, rushed to the room where he’d watched the Devers’ house for most of the afternoon, and packed his weapons. His movements were quick but precise. The adrenaline pumped through his veins and did an excellent job to make him faster and sharper than usual but lacked the jittery edge that would have caused mistakes on his part. He went through the motions almost on autopilot as he collected his things and made sure there was nothing left behind that would provide a clue to his presence in the room.
A few minutes later, he eased out the front door and closed it behind him, then locked it quickly. The ruined lockbox still lay inside the house as there was still someone who needed to make a living from selling this place. He did feel a little guilty about having to break into the house but made sure he left the key where it could be easily found.
Not for the first time that day, he thanked his lucky stars that Anderson had rented an electric car for him. He pulled quietly out of the driveway and accelerated away, careful to keep to the speed limit and not arouse any attention, and yanked the mask up and off his face hastily as he went. Very few things in the world were quite as suspicious as a man driving away from a crime scene at high speed while still wearing a mask and gloves. He couldn’t forget the damned gloves.
Anja had a habit of knowing when to keep quiet and knowing when he was in danger and needed to stay focused. She also seemed to know when he was out of said danger.
“I have a question, Savage,” she asked when he finally left the suburban area and joined the more heavily trafficked roads. The wail of sirens—what sounded like dozens of them—approached rapidly.
“Fire away, Control,” Savage said and eased his gloves off while he kept the car moving.
“Well, I know we’ve played the gang violence excuse to cover for you upping the number of people killed by firearms within the borders of the United States,” she stated. “But the men you killed were professionals and are probably known to the cops who will go there to bag and tag the bodies as we speak. You also killed them in an upscale residential neighborhood on the doorstep of a kindly lawyer and his lovely wife and adopted daughter. Considering all that and also that the cops will find needles instead of bullets in the bodies, how do you think they will manage to write this shit off as random gang violence?”
He had actually wondered the same thing but there had been no time to clean up. There had been even less time to guide the investigation away from him and Pegasus. The needles shattered on impact so they wouldn’t be identified completely, but they were trademarked by Pegasus. If anyone happened to know a thing or two about weapons development, they might be able to put two and two together.
Luckily, if it ever came to that, Pegasus had notified numerous officials across the country about missing company material in their development labs. Monroe, Anderson, and now Coleman too could simply blame it on stolen company property and even demand that the needles in question be returned to them under some kind of legal claim to stolen property once they were no longer relevant to the investigation. He wasn’t sure about the actual details, but he felt fairly certain Monroe would figure it out.
But it didn’t matter right now. What did matter was that he would leave the area as quickly and as subtly as he could, which meant his number one priority at this point was not to get caught.
“I don’t know,” Savage said because he doubted even Anderson, with all his contacts, could float the gang violence vote this time. He checked his rearview mirror to confirm that the flashing lights indicative of the police arriving in force definitely headed in the opposite direction. “I’m sure they’ll find a way.”
Chapter Seventeen
There was too much to easily process what had happened that evening. It had still been reasonably early when Anja had shared the news that there was no sign of the police even trying to come after him, and no indication that they might have tried to track an electric Audi that had driven away from the scene of the crime. There had been a couple of videos caught of it, mostly on the nearby security systems, but she was quick to scrub the evidence. The houses in the neighborhood might have fitted some of the best security on the market, but when it came down to it, she had hacked government security systems since her early teenage years. Access to the nanny-cam level systems these homes ran was something she could do in her sleep.
That wasn’t simply an assumption on his part. Those were Anja’s own words as she gave him a play by play update on what she was working on while he headed back into the city and away from most of the sirens that still screamed loudly enough to be heard a good distance away. From what he caught on the radio, there was a fair amount of news coverage of the incident as well.
“We have live reports coming in from just outside the city of Seattle,” declared a young, attractive woman who had recently bleached her hair blonde. “These shocking reports are from the charming suburb of King County, where the inhabitants of a quiet neighborhood of family homes have been exposed to shocking images of violence.”
The image cut to shaky cam footage of the police surrounding the Devers’ driveway with tape as curious onlookers gathered. The three bodies were covered in tarps and footage included them being examined by paramedics.
“From the firsthand witness accounts of the neighbors, the shooting occurred sometime between 6:45 and 7 in the evening, just as the sun was setting,” the reporter continued as the cameras focused on her once again. “Three gunmen invaded the home of Andrew Devers while he and his wife and daughter were preparing dinner and attempted to kidnap them, according to police reports.”
“Stepdaughter,” Savage corrected with a gentle shake of his head.
“Other reports suggest that a van that crashed into the mailbox of a neighboring home might have been involved. As the family was dragged out into the driveway, another group of gunmen, whose numbers are still unknown, assassinated all three with a weapon the investigating officers still haven’t been able to identify.”
The image cut to a tall, well-built man in a police uniform with only a hint of male pattern
baldness in his greying hair. “We have our detectives looking into the details of what might have happened, but initial reports point toward the rising surge of gang violence spreading into the city.”
“Called it.” He grinned and Anja cackled into her comms. He supposed joking about the death of three men by his own hand probably wasn’t in good form despite the fact that they had aimed to harm Jules, Abby, and Andy. But when someone had been involved in the life as long as he had and faced death as often as he did, they needed ways to see the humor in it, even if the dark variety was all they could find.
The camera returned to the attractive reporter. “The officers in charge of the investigation have taken the Devers family into custody for their own protection, as well as to provide more detailed statements on their attackers and the mysterious group that saved them from being kidnapped. As yet, there is still no indication as to whether Andrew Devers was involved in any criminal organization that might have made him a target for such an attack.”
“Is that the story they’re running with?” Savage asked and scowled. “Seriously, you could not find a more vanilla guy. I’m absolutely certain he comes to a full stop at every stop sign.”
“That is what you’re supposed to do, right?”
“Yeah, but nobody actually does it. Cops tend to turn a blind eye unless it’s done blatantly and puts lives at risk or something like that.”
“Well, they have to do something to keep the ratings up,” the hacker commented. “The truth is very rarely as dramatic as we’d like it to be, and sometimes, they need to come up with some random and crazy prediction based on the facts available to persuade people to tune in next week.”
“Honestly, you should know by now that the truth is often a lot crazier than people give it credit for.” His chuckle was dark. “Seriously. You’re a Russian hacker living, from what I can tell, a hop and a skip away from an alien-spawned jungle that’s out to kill everything even remotely human that enters it. For myself, I’m a former black-ops operative who has had his death faked by the government. But when you tell the American people any of that, they’re quick to write you off as a crackpot conspiracy theorist living in the mountains while wearing a wide assortment of aluminum foil hats.”
“Isn’t it tin foil hats?” Anja asked seriously.
“Hats of many assorted foil types,” he grumbled. “Either way, these people ignore the real stories as being too crazy and out there, and when they’re presented with the truth of the matter, they scoff and write you off as crazy. That is some bullshit right there.”
Anja chuckled. “Well, you clearly have feelings on the matter.”
“You are Goddamn right.”
He pulled into a nearby hotel she had identified as the kind he should stay in. By that she meant it had enough vacancies to allow him to get a room of his choice while it was full enough to make sure he didn’t draw too much attention. It was also the kind that was upscale enough to have decent enough service while it lacked the kind of security that would be dangerous for him. Most importantly, it was amenable to cash bribes to ensure they didn’t need to put a name into the registry.
But considering that Savage traveled under another fake ID anyway, that part wasn’t so important to him on this trip. He warned the bellboys away from his weapon-filled duffle bag for long enough to check into a quaint little room on the fifth floor.
“Okay,” the hacker said when he was in the elevator. “I’ll put my contacts through the griller to find out where this contract on your family is and see if I can’t have it reversed somehow.”
“That sounds like a plan,” he said, stepped out, and strode toward the room he’d been assigned.
“What will you do?”
“Well, at the last place I confined myself to my room, but tonight, I think I need a little liquid therapy, so I’ll visit the bar I saw in the lobby.” He pressed the keycard to the room’s lock and entered. It wasn’t anything to write home about, but the queen-sized bed and the notification of free Wi-Fi above the TV were all he really needed. He tossed his duffel bag onto the bed and turned toward the door.
“I might need your help as the night wears on, so I’ll ask that you don’t get too drunk,” Anja said quietly.
“I didn’t intend to anyway.” He chuckled. “I only need a little something to take the edge off. It’s been a long day.”
“Oh, and keep your earpiece in,” Anja said. “If I have to call and text you on your damn cellphone again, I’ll make sure the Internet is flooded with porn with your face and name attached.”
“Understood.” He didn’t believe she would, although he had a sinking feeling she could very easily deliver on the threat. Either way, it wasn’t really worth the risk. If she wanted to listen to him getting mildly sloshed, that was on her.
They’d told him that involvement with a professional team like this would be hard work but the pay was good, and he would be able to retire in a couple of years with more than enough money to pay off the loans he’d taken against the house. More than a few of his army buddies had recommended he enter the freelance business, even if it was part-time. He didn’t have a family to maintain, and he needed the money. It had been relatively easy to decide he might as well get into the business that, so far, had been populated mostly by criminals who couldn’t do the job right.
A team of trained and experienced members would wipe the floor with the competition, make a lot of money, and pull away before things went bad.
But things had gone bad—very bad, and in the most spectacular way.
Charles Tells—once known as Charlie but since nicknamed Chucky due to the scars left on his face after a landmine had gone off a little too close to him—wasn’t the kind of man to scare easily. He’d been through tough spots before, including ops that had gone sideways and had shifted from a clear objective to a get out and survive kind of deal. All in all, he’d been through all kinds of hell.
But this was supposed to be the easy part. The promise was that he would cash in on all the training the government had given him while they forgot to deliver the kind of money he was owed for his particular skills.
There weren’t many people in this business. Fewer still who had the skills they did.
Of course, most of their team was now gone and had burned themselves on the job. Reports already started to show up on the news about three bodies and a crashed van nearby. They didn’t appear to have any pictures of the van itself or the plates, but that would only delay the police for a limited period. When rich people like those living in that neighborhood were involved, the police had ways to make sure that virtually anything that was missing could be found.
But none of that really mattered anymore. They were finished. It had been a six-man team and they were down to two. Braken had been driving and had been shot two or three times by the man they had barely seen in time. The stranger was dressed in black, wore a mask, and carried a gun.
Chucky had been seated in the passenger seat. Grant was in the back, waiting to help them get the family inside. It had been a solid plan but someone had fucked them over. The man had waited for them, already in place to protect the family.
The merc grimaced. He had been hit in the shoulder too, although he couldn’t find any bullets in his wound. In fact, he wondered if his wound wasn’t actually caused by some of the broken glass. There was a lot of it inside the van, especially after it had crashed into that damn mailbox. Braken was killed on impact and he’d managed to get himself together, drag the man out of the way so he could take the driver’s seat, and get them the hell out of there. Grant, their man in the back, had walked away with a bump on the head and maybe a concussion, and he was the lucky one. Chucky had gotten them out of there, ditched the van at the drop-off spot, and driven away in the new one to take them the hell out of Dodge.
Only then had they had the time to check the news and their wounds. Chucky still couldn’t find any bullets in his shoulder, and while he’d initially assumed it
was glass, when they tried to haul Bracken’s dead body out of the van, they didn’t find any slugs in him either. He had heard about weapons currently under development that didn’t leave much in the way of shrapnel or bullets behind, but those rumors had been around for decades, probably since the Kennedy assassination.
“What the fuck happened in there?” Grant asked while he pressed ice to the side of his head. “I thought we were in clean. Who was there to protect them?”
“That’s what we need to find out.” He probed his shoulder gently. Every time he moved, he could feel something dig in deeper and bite, much like a splinter that had gone way, way deeper than they tended to go.
“How?” his companion asked.
“The contract was posted online.” He scowled as he thought things through. He remembered seeing Alfonso run through the details that had been sent to them. “If there were other teams looking into it who declined because they knew something we didn’t, I’d want the information out there, and so would all the other teams who work jobs like this. It’s a common and professional courtesy issue. No one wants to work for someone who doesn’t post the full operational details and uses that to underpay in the contracts.”
Grant shook his head. “What happened?”
“Someone was covering the family,” Chucky said and stated the obvious. “Someone good enough and well equipped enough to knock us out of the running, and from the news, kill Alfonso, Eddie, and Murdock. The family’s safe in police custody, but I think we can put money on this person still covering them, so another attempt is pointless now. We need to make sure no one else tries the contract without knowing what they’re walking into. It’ll be a charnel house otherwise.”
“Professional courtesy?”
