by M. A. Lawson
“Open your eyes,” she said, “and look at me.”
Otis complied.
“Billy’s dead.”
“How did you—”
“Listen to me, Otis. Tell me who hired you. If you don’t, I’ll put a bullet in your other knee. Nobody’s going to hear gunshots out here.”
“You’re going to kill me anyway,” Otis said.
“Not necessarily,” Kay said. “I tried to tell Billy that, but he didn’t believe me. I don’t care about you; I just want the guy who hired you. Give me what I want, and I’ll leave. I can always find you again if I need to.”
Otis didn’t respond.
“Otis, you’re running out of time.”
“I don’t know his real name. He goes by ‘John’ but—”
“Okay, have it your way,” Kay said, and aimed the gun at his right knee.
“Wait a minute! I’m telling you the truth. I don’t know his name. He called himself John. He’s a Chinese guy but—”
“Chinese-Chinese or Chinese-American?”
“I don’t know. He doesn’t have an accent.”
“Not good enough,” Kay said, and again aimed the gun at his right knee.
“Hold it! I know where he lives. I did another job for him once and I had Billy follow him after we got paid. I wanted to know more about him. He lives on the corner of Utah and Tennyson in the District. I looked at property records, but the house is owned by a property management company.”
“What’s the address?”
“I don’t remember. It was two years ago.”
Kay believed that the house belonged to a company. If “John” worked for the Chinese government, the house wouldn’t be in his name. And it was fairly close to the Chinese embassy.
Now what? What should she do with Otis?
Kay had killed nine men in her life: four drug dealers in Miami; three men who’d been involved in Callahan’s disastrous Afghanistan operation; and Quinn and Billy. She’d also caused the deaths of two other men in Mexico, the cartel men who’d kidnapped her daughter. But each time she’d killed, it had been an act of self-defense. She wasn’t an executioner. She believed that capital punishment should be carried out by the state, not vigilantes. But she couldn’t allow Otis to be arrested and tried, because he might expose the Callahan Group. She also couldn’t let Otis live, because he would probably call John and warn him that she was coming for him.
She didn’t see that she had a choice. Whether she wanted to be an executioner or not, she was going to become one.
She aimed the gun at Otis’s head, but before she could pull the trigger, she heard a motorcycle coming fast down the road. Who the hell was it? Whoever it was, she was going to have to deal with him as well.
A moment later, Kay heard the back door open—apparently nobody knocked when visiting Billy—and a man called out, “Hey, Billy!” Kay was ready to shoot, but Otis screamed, “Simpson. She’s got a gun. Don’t come in here. Kill her.”
“Shit!” Kay muttered. She thought about killing Otis right then, but he had already given her the location of the guy who’d planned the attack, and she didn’t see the point of getting into a gunfight with Simpson, whoever the hell he was. Then a man stepped partway out of the kitchen with a gun in his hand. Before he could shoot, Kay fired off a shot to keep him pinned down, then sprinted for the front door.
As she was leaving, she heard Otis yell, “Get her, Simpson, get her!”
Kay’s last thought as she went through the door was: Left my fingerprints on the doorknob.
As Kay had expected, the front of Billy’s house faced the Occoquan River, which was about seventy feet away. The front yard was only about a hundred feet wide, and on both sides of the house was untended forest, the trees fairly close together. Kay ran for the woods. With only the moonlight to guide her, she could barely see where she was running. She made it to the tree line and looked back at the house.
A man holding a gun stepped into the front yard—Simpson, she presumed. She realized that he must have been the driver of the U-Haul because the rest of Otis’s crew was dead.
She couldn’t see Simpson’s features, just that he was another big guy, like Otis, who appeared to be in good shape. She thought about shooting him but knew she wasn’t likely to fatally hit him from sixty or seventy feet. In fact, she might not hit him at all, and if she missed, he’d see the muzzle flash from her weapon and know where she was. So she wouldn’t take the shot, but if he followed her into the woods, she’d kill him.
Simpson stood there looking around for a couple of minutes, then went back into the house. He knew she was armed and was probably afraid to hunt for her in the dark. He wasn’t a total idiot.
Kay started walking back toward her car, moving as quickly as she could in the darkness. She wanted to get to Utah and Tennyson as soon as possible. Then she stopped. She could see Otis’s pickup parked in Billy’s backyard and had an idea. She sneaked over to it, keeping her eye on the back door in case Simpson came out, opened the passenger-side door, and placed her cell phone under the seat. Now Prescott’s technicians would be able to track Otis using the phone. It occurred to her then that Prescott could have been using the iPhone to track her movements, but if she had done that, Kay didn’t see that it mattered. Later, she realized it mattered very much.
Ten minutes later, Kay was back in her car, headed toward Washington. It was time to get John, whoever he was.
• • •
PRESCOTT COULDN’T HEAR ANYTHING. She’d heard one shot after Simpson arrived and wondered if he’d killed Hamilton. But she doubted that. Hamilton was just too damn good—or too damn lucky.
23
DAY 4—1 A.M.
How bad are you hit?” Simpson asked Otis.
“Bad. She blew out my knee. Go into the bathroom and see if you can find something to stop the bleeding.”
“We gotta get moving,” Simpson said, “before the cops get here. I’ll help you—”
“She’s not going to call the cops. She’s going after the guy who hired us.”
“Are you sure?” Simpson asked.
“Yeah. Go find a first aid kit.”
Otis thought briefly about calling John to warn him that Hamilton was coming for him, but decided not to, at least not now. He was in too much pain and needed to focus on his own situation. John could look out for himself—plus he suspected that John had lied to him about who he worked for.
Simpson came back holding a white box with a red cross on it. He cut Otis’s jeans with a jackknife and placed two big Band-Aids over the entry wound—there was no exit wound—then wrapped tape around the knee to make sure the Band-Aids stayed in place.
“Where were you when I called you,” Otis said. He’d been pissed that Simpson hadn’t answered when he’d called him earlier, but now he was glad. If Simpson hadn’t arrived when he did, Otis was sure that Hamilton would have killed him.
“After the job, I went to see my mom and I forgot to take the damn burner phone into the house with me. Stupid, I know, but I’m not used to having a second phone. Anyway, when I got your message I headed over here as soon as I could. Sorry.”
“Well, I’m not. You saved my life.”
“Where’s Billy?” Simpson asked.
“That woman killed him, or so she said. Take a look outside and see if you can find him.”
“What if she’s still out there?”
“Be careful,” Otis said—and Simpson laughed.
Simpson came back a couple of minutes later. “Billy’s dead. She shot him. And it looks like she beat the hell out of him first. Who was that woman?”
“Her name’s Hamilton. She’s the murderous bitch who killed Quinn.”
Otis pointed at the piles of cash and gold bars sitting on the coffee table. “Put all that back into the big gym bag and bring Billy’s bod
y inside. He doesn’t have many friends, so it could be weeks before anyone figures out he’s dead. Then put your Harley in the back of my pickup. Billy’s got some ramps outside that he uses to get his ATV onto a trailer.”
“Okay,” Simpson said, “but why?”
“Did you see the Prius?” Otis asked.
“Yeah.”
“It belongs to Ray’s sister, so we need to get it out of here. It’s too long a story to go into, but I took Shirley to a motel in Lorton, where she’s probably passed out. Anyway, we gotta get the Prius out of here and we can’t leave your bike here for somebody to find.”
“Are you going to be able to drive?” Simpson asked.
“Yeah. My truck’s an automatic, so I can drive just using my right leg. Anyway, we’ll drop off Shirley’s car, and then you and I . . . Simpson, we’re going to have to run. We’re up against some really bad people, and we need to find a place to hide where they can’t find us.”
• • •
PRESCOTT STILL COULDN’T HEAR ANYTHING, but the GPS monitor showed that Hamilton’s phone was still near the Occoquan River. What was she doing?
• • •
AFTER DOING EVERYTHING Otis had told him to do, Simpson asked, “We ready to go?”
“No. One more thing. Find a rag or something and get rid of prints. Doorknobs, these chairs, the bathroom. Then find some bleach and slop it everywhere you see blood.”
Five minutes later, Simpson helped Otis out to the pickup, then he got into Shirley Brown’s Prius and followed Otis to Lorton.
• • •
PRESCOTT HEARD A CAR DOOR SLAM and saw Hamilton’s phone begin to move. The only thing she could hear was a man who sounded like he was groaning in pain. It was probably Otis. But if Hamilton’s cell phone was with Otis, where was Hamilton?
Hamilton’s phone was now moving toward Lorton, and fifteen minutes later it stopped near a motel. Prescott heard a man say, “Help me out of the truck. I need to talk to Shirley.”
Fifteen minutes later, Hamilton’s phone was moving south. There were now two men in the vehicle, and they were going on and on about Otis’s knee and the trouble they were in. At one point Otis asked, “Are you sure this guy’s all right?”
“Yeah, Younger’s a good guy. He’ll let us stay at his place,” Simpson said.
Prescott drummed her fingers on the desk. It was obvious that Hamilton wasn’t following Otis and Simpson. She was going after the man who lived on the corner of Utah and Tennyson.
Prescott no longer wanted to listen to Otis and Simpson whine, but decided it might be prudent to keep tabs on them. She called an agent named Beckman. The fact that it was now after one in the morning didn’t bother Prescott at all.
Prescott liked Beckman. She was a young, attractive woman and reminded Prescott in some ways of Kay Hamilton: gutsy and smart, but a bit too mouthy for Prescott’s taste.
Prescott told Beckman about the cell phone in Otis’s truck and told her to use portable monitoring equipment to follow Otis and Simpson and report back. If the men split up, she was to stick with Otis. She said Beckman could get a mug shot of Otis from Brookes but it would be several years old. “By the way,” Prescott said, “Otis and Simpson are armed, so try not to get killed.”
Prescott called Brookes and told him to begin monitoring Hamilton’s personal cell phone, then called two other agents, a couple of reliable old warhorses named Tate and Towers. She described Hamilton and told them to head down to the corner of Utah and Tennyson immediately and watch for Hamilton, making damn sure that Hamilton didn’t catch them. If she did, Prescott wouldn’t fire them; she would send them to an NSA listening post off North Korea, where they would remain until the end of their careers.
24
DAY 4—1:30 A.M.
Forty minutes after leaving Billy’s house on the Occoquan River, Kay was parked on the corner of Utah and Tennyson. She didn’t know which of the four corner houses belonged to the man whom Otis called John. There were no lights on in any of them, which was what you’d expect at this time of night.
Three and a half hours later, the sun rose and Kay could see the houses more clearly. One of them had a kid’s big-wheel tricycle in the front yard, turned over on its side. Another was a mess: the yard untended, the siding in need of a coat of paint. There was no way to tell which house belonged to John, so Kay hoped that the occupants would venture outside soon so that she could see if one of them was Asian.
She thought about calling Prescott with an update but decided not to. She didn’t want to get into an argument with her about what she was doing or give Prescott the chance to stop her. Which made her think about the call Prescott had made to her while she’d been sneaking toward Billy’s house. She sure as hell hoped that Prescott didn’t call again, not with the phone, even though the ringer was off, sitting under the passenger’s seat of Otis’s truck. In any case, she wasn’t going to talk to Prescott until after she’d identified John.
Two hours later, at seven a.m., while Kay was fighting to stay awake and dying for a cup of coffee, a woman came out of the house with the big-wheel trike, tugging on the arm of a truculent boy. They got into a car parked in front of the house and drove away. At seven thirty, an overweight woman in her fifties came out of another house, carrying a briefcase, and trudged slowly down the street, most likely toward a bus or Metro stop. She moved like she was walking to her own execution.
At eight a.m., a taxi pulled up in front of the third house, and a moment later, a tall, very striking Asian man dressed in an expensive suit came out. The guy looked like a damn movie star. She didn’t know for sure if this was the man she was looking for, but he had the same height and build of the man she had seen at the high school in Falls Church.
The man got into the cab and Kay followed. When the cab pulled up in front of the gates of the Chinese embassy, she was sure she was following the man Otis called John.
Kay thought about going back to his house and breaking in so she could ID him, but then thought, why take the risk? She no longer had the NSA phone but she still had her personal cell. If she could get the guy’s picture, Prescott could probably identify him.
She parked across from the embassy in a No Parking zone. She needed John to leave so she could snap a headshot, and wondered how long she’d have to wait. She would have killed for a cup of coffee and a donut. Having nothing better to do, she called Eli.
“How’s Callahan doing?” she asked.
“Better. The nurses told Henry that the antibiotics are beating back the infection and the pneumonia. He’s still not out of the woods, but things are looking up.”
“You still have Henry watching him?”
“Yeah. What have you been doing?”
She hesitated. “I don’t want to say too much over the phone, but I found the guys who put Callahan in the hospital. I took care of one of them but couldn’t finish the job. I’ll explain everything the next time I see you. Right now I’m waiting for the guy who was behind the whole operation.”
“Jesus, Kay. Are you by yourself?”
“Yeah, but I’m safe.”
“Where are you? I’ll meet you.”
“No. I just want to ID this guy. Look, I gotta go now. I think I see him coming.”
She didn’t see anyone coming. She just didn’t want to argue with Eli.
• • •
AT TWELVE THIRTY—about lunchtime—John did come out of the embassy. He was with a short, plump Chinese woman. They were chatting; John seemed completely relaxed. They stood on the curb, apparently waiting for a cab. John glanced over at Kay but she wasn’t concerned. As far as Kay knew, John had never seen her before. She was just a woman parked in a car looking at her cell phone.
She rolled down the driver’s-side window and snapped John’s picture when he wasn’t looking in her direction. It was a profile shot but good enough for
facial recognition. She had what she wanted. Now it was just a matter of making Prescott tell her who this guy really was.
• • •
FANG ZHOU WAS with the ambassador’s secretary. He suspected the woman was in love with him. She bored him to tears and she was unbelievably homely, but he took her to lunch periodically, sent her small gifts and flowers occasionally, and once took her to a show at the Kennedy Center. He tolerated her company because she kept him informed of things the ambassador was doing, including anything the ambassador said about him. He knew the ambassador was not his friend, and Fang was glad he had someone to watch him.
As Fang and the secretary passed through the embassy gate, he glanced across the street and saw an attractive blonde parked in a No Parking zone.
“So where would you like to go for lunch today?” Fang asked the ambassador’s secretary, and she named a place they’d been to before, a place that served oversized portions the woman clearly didn’t need.
As they waited for a cab, the secretary began to prattle on about something the ambassador’s wife had said to her, apparently something rude, but Fang wasn’t listening. He was thinking about the operation. As best he could tell, the bold actions he’d taken had succeeded. At least there’d been no reports of a Chinese spy being arrested at Zytek. He looked over to see if the pretty blonde was still parked across the street, but she was gone.
• • •
PRESCOTT WAS EXHAUSTED. She’d spent the entire night in her office and had only caught a brief nap on her couch. She wondered if anyone would notice she was wearing the same clothes she’d been wearing yesterday.
Tate and Towers—the team she’d assigned to watch Hamilton—had been giving her periodic updates. They’d caught up with Hamilton at about two in the morning. She was sitting in her car on the corner of Utah and Tennyson. At eight a.m., Tate had called again and said that Hamilton had followed an Asian man to the Chinese embassy.
