“I think that can definitely be arranged,” Spears said.
“Then it sounds like we have a deal. Can you think of the right way to consummate it?”
Spears rose to his feet, threw the flaps of her jacket aside, and studied her chest and belly. Yeah, she would work perfectly. With the broken rib and his overall weakened state, he was going to have to do this quickly. He searched her face for any sign of recognition, then gripped her roughly by the hips and spun her around. She braced her hands against the stone wall and shifted her rear end against his hips. He wrapped his left arm around her lower belly and pulled her tighter against him. With his right, he reached for the object in the sheath on his belt.
“Hurry up,” she whispered, grinding against him. “I’m ready. Just do it.”
Spears withdrew the knife from his pocket and opened the blade in one motion. With the next, he drove it into the side of her neck. Her heat flooded over his hands and her body thrashed against his. He squeezed her around the belly and shoved her flat against the wall as he jerked the blade hard enough to cut through her trachea. Her dying scream whistled from the bloody opening. He held her, facing the wall, until the blood no longer fired in arterial bursts, but merely poured over his hand, then lowered her to the ground.
He rolled her onto her back, stripped off her clothes, and studied her naked body for a long minute, evaluating every curve. It wasn’t the perfect setup, but it would do. He removed her medical kit from her backpack and tossed the contents until he had everything he needed, then rummaged through Newland’s clothes until he found her com-link, seated it in his ear where his had been before it was presumably lost in the cave-in.
“Report,” he whispered into the microphone.
“We’re still loading bodies into the first vehicle. Once we have the first half in the trunk, I’ll send it back to base with either Tillman or Niederhoffer, then start on the second.”
“Keep pushing it. We don’t have much time left.”
Spears silenced his microphone and went back to work. He turned Newland’s face to the side, raised the butt of his rifle, and slammed it down on her cheek. Her teeth skittered across the floor. He pounded the stock down, again and again, grunting with the exertion, his broken rib stabbing him like a knife. Newland’s cheek was split all the way back to her ear, her cheekbone and mandible pulverized, the outer rim of her orbital socket flattened in such a way that her eyeball hung from the socket and somehow seemed to look back at him. He drove the butt down twice more for the sake of thoroughness, then tilted her face upward and opened her mouth. There were several white nubs where the teeth had broken off at the gum line, but the majority had popped out cleanly. He tugged her shattered jaw down and swept his finger behind her tongue and down into her throat, but didn’t find any more teeth. If Trofino were to find one hidden back there, Spears’s deception would be spoiled too soon. All he needed was twenty-four hours, and then it didn’t matter what anyone else knew. He ground his heel on the mess of teeth and listened to them crack with a distinct sense of satisfaction.
He returned to the supplies he had procured from Newland’s kit and grabbed the bottle of isopropyl alcohol. Once he had splashed it all over her body, in her hair, and in her mouth, he cast the empty container aside, rolled her onto her stomach, and repeated the process with the chloraseptic scrub and the betadine, then returned her to her back. With the high-pressure butane lighter, which was stocked to serve as a cauterizing torch, he lit the fluid in the hair on her head and then between her legs, and watched the blue flames race across her body, meeting over her breasts and rising from her toes. The skin beneath the nearly translucent flames turned stark white through the goggles, then started to blister. Her hair singed quickly back to her scalp and pubis. The fire scorched her gums and her tongue as it followed the path of the alcohol down her trachea toward her lungs. Blood boiled from the gash in the side of her neck. Smoke wafted from her nostrils, harbinger of the flames that burned through her sinuses and fed on the cartilage in her nose, shriveling it to a skeletal hook. Her skin eventually crisped, then cracked like a dry riverbed. Pustulates seeped out from the fissure before hardening to the consistency of tree sap. Her fingers curled into claws and her toes folded backward. The tendons in her appendages tightened, drawing her arms and knees to her chest. When there was nothing left to burn, the flames extinguished themselves and left the body smoldering golden in his vision. Wavering pink heat rose from it. He watched them fade to blue and then finally out of the thermal spectrum.
But there was still one crucial detail that required his ministrations.
Spears aimed his rifle at what remained of her right eye and pulled the trigger. The IAR coughed and produced a crater where the socket had once been. He did the same thing to her other eye, then stood back to admire his work. Hair, eyes, teeth, fingerprints…all obliterated. A thorough autopsy and blood tests would give him away in a heartbeat, but he knew how Trofino worked. He was slow and methodical, meticulous to a fault. He would spend the majority of the morning stomping his feet about the condition of the corpse. When he eventually buckled down, it would take him forever to work his way through the charred flesh, layer by layer, to reach the undamaged subcutaneous tissues, bones, and organs from which he would quickly be able to ascertain genetic samples.
And by the time he did, it would be too late.
It was a shame about Newland, though. She did have potential. Spears only wished he felt badly about what he had done, but in the end, a commander had to do what was necessary to win the war, even if it meant sacrificing his own troops along the way.
“The second vehicle just left, sir,” Keenan’s voice crackled in his ear. “Seven bodies total, cross-checked against the mission log. Everyone’s accounted for.” He paused to let Spears know that he recognized the significance of finding all of the men from the log. It blew Spears’s story about the potentially injured man out of the water. “What are your orders?”
“We’re at the end of the tunnel leading west from the point where you found me,” Spears whispered. He unscrewed the suppressor from the barrel of his rifle as he spoke. “There’s something down here with us. I can’t quite see it from where I…Jesus Christ!”
He fired a trio of bullets down the long tunnel toward the sea with a staged war cry that he could hear even over the deafening report. His ears ringing, he tugged the com device out of his ear, spiked it on the ground, and stomped it into a jumble of components.
That would bring Keenan running.
No doubt about it.
Spears studied Newland’s carcass for a moment, then walked back toward the smaller chute above the hill of fractured bricks. Within five minutes, he heard Keenan’s elbows and knees banging on the metal as he scurried toward Spears’s position, his rifle clattering ahead of him.
Spears seated his IAR against his shoulder and sighted down the end of the tube. He saw the barrel of Keenan’s rifle first. The moment Keenan peeked his head out to survey his surroundings, Spears fired straight into the aperture of his goggles.
It was the least he could do for Keenan.
A warrior deserved to see his fate coming.
THIRTY-SIX
Seattle, Washington
5:04 a.m. PST
Porter felt more impotent than he ever had in his life. There had been no choice but to watch the men retrieve the corpses from the ruins, toss them into their trucks, and drive off into the night. He had no backup. He and Sturm were outnumbered and outgunned. A direct confrontation would be suicide, and he couldn’t help but wonder if they were even still on the side of the right. There was no support from his superiors. Both the FBI and the police were in someone’s pocket, and the Department of Defense had given a private contractor license to turn the waterfront into a war zone.
If his count was right, they were now down to no more than three men in the ruins. He was going to have to make a decision soon. Those odds weren’t insurmountable, especially if they maintained
the element of surprise. But if push came to shove and he and Strum took out Phobos’s men, while they were going against direct orders, they would be crucified.
And, he was ashamed to admit, there was a part of him that hoped these men would handle the girl for him so that he wouldn’t be forced to do so himself.
For Sturm’s sake, as well as his own.
They crouched side-by-side against the rocky edge of Salmon Bay, a hundred yards to the north of the pier that hid the westernmost exit. From this vantage point, they could see both of the western egresses and the one to the north, where the SUV was parked. He held Sturm’s left hand in his right, more to prevent her from breaking cover and bolting back into the ruins than as a gesture of any kind of physical or emotional support. For a moment, it had smelled like meat roasting on a barbecue, but that had faded around the time the first shots were fired. After the sudden spat of gunfire had ceased several minutes ago, there had been only one more shot. Both he and Sturm recognized the sound of a coup de grâce when one was dealt. She feared it meant that the men had found the girl and finished her off. He wondered if it wasn’t the other way around and that none of the men would be returning to the surface to reclaim their vehicle.
Either way, they could only wait so much longer. If the men didn’t emerge soon, they were going to have to go in after them, regardless of the consequences.
He could feel Sturm’s stare on the side of his face. Her patience was gone and he could almost hear the gears clanking in her head as she formulated her words. It would be an ultimatum, he knew. She was going to go down there, with or without him.
She had just drawn a breath to speak the words when there was movement in the shadows under the pier. Porter pulled her down, flat against the rocks beside him, and watched a solitary figure draw contrast from the darkness. At first, it appeared hunched and misshapen, its gait staggering and uneven. When it stepped out into what little moonlight permeated the rain clouds, he saw why.
Sturm gasped beside him. He rolled on top of her and used his body weight to hold her in place. She struggled against him, but he secured solid leverage.
A flash of lightning illuminated the figure. The aperture of the man’s night vision goggles pointed toward the black SUV as he ascended the incline. He wore a sagging backpack and his rifle slung over his shoulder, but it was what he carried in his arms that drew Porter’s attention. He glanced down at Sturm and saw her expression of anguish, the tears glistening on her cheeks. A sound that positively broke his heart crossed her lips, and he had to look away.
The man carried a small body against his chest. Even from this distance, Porter could tell it had been burned to a crisp. Its thin arms were retracted to its chest, its wrists furled under as though palsied. Its knees were bent at a sharp angle, its feet hooked back upon themselves. The ligaments and tendons had contracted to such a degree when they cooked that the body was contorted into a hellish construct that barely resembled human. It looked so small in his arms, so diminished. It was hard to believe it had ever contained a life force at all.
“We can’t let him get away with this,” Sturm said through bared teeth. Her sorrow had metamorphosed into rage in the blink of an eye. Her voice rose in volume, but the man was far enough away that he didn’t appear to hear. “We have to do something.”
The trunk of the SUV opened and spilled light onto the ground at the man’s feet. He heaved the remains into the back, drew a tarp over them, and slammed the door closed again.
“There’s nothing we can do,” Porter whispered.
“The hell there isn’t.”
She pushed against his chest with one hand and tried to draw her pistol with the other. He grabbed her wrist before she could do anything she’d regret and looked directly into her eyes when he spoke.
“She’s gone, Layne. You can’t change that now. The only thing you can do is avenge her—”
“That’s the plan.”
“—and wind up in prison for the rest of your life.”
“That’s all up to you, Porter. You do what you have to do. My decision’s already made.”
She struggled against him again. He wasn’t going to be able to hold her down indefinitely, and he wasn’t entirely convinced that he should.
“We need to do this by the book,” he said. The driver’s side door closed and the engine started with a roar. The taillights cast a red glow over the rubble. “We can still take him down. You and me.”
She bucked her hips against his and tried to raise a knee into his groin when he shifted his weight. She knew her window of opportunity was closing fast.
“We won’t be able to touch him if we allow him to leave,” she nearly screamed. “No one’s going to let us near him. You’ve already seen what kind of power he has at his disposal.”
The SUV’s tires grumbled over the gravel and weeds. It was nearly to the fence and the main road beyond.
“Do you trust me, Layne?”
“Let me go before it’s too late!”
He leaned his face down over hers until their noses touched and their lips were only a breath apart.
“Do you trust me?”
Her eyes searched his, probing deep inside him, reaching into the very core of his being.
The chain link fence closed with a resounding clank. A moment later the tires splashed through the gutter and onto the wet asphalt.
And then the SUV was gone.
Porter released her wrist and slowly rolled off of her, his eyes never straying from hers.
She averted her stare, crawled up the hill, and spoke with her back to him.
“You’d better be right.” She climbed over the crest and started across the weeded lot. “I’ll never forgive you if you aren’t.”
Porter stood and watched her walk away, her head hung in misery.
He wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if he was wrong either.
He only hoped he would be able to figure out a plan soon, because right now, he didn’t have the slightest clue. Phobos had a seemingly impenetrable shield. He was going to have to get creative.
Sturm slipped through the gate and disappeared from sight, leaving him standing all alone in the ruins, wondering how in the hell he was going to make this right.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Seattle, Washington
7:52 a.m. PST
It was going to be a banner day for the city of Seattle. In a matter of hours, they would be able to secure the funds they needed to make his vision come to life. From where Mayor Elgin Marten stood on the patio behind the Bertha Knight Landes Cultural Center, his jet-black gelled hair glistening under the sun and his wintergreen eyes on the horizon, he could see into the future. The high rise lofts, the statuary along the waterfront, the sun reflecting from the steel and smoked glass, the trees, the families, the restaurants and coffee houses, live music spilling out onto the street from trendy clubs, all of it. This was his dream, and soon it would be his reality. All of these decrepit buildings would be gone, memorialized in the center behind him through the rose-colored glasses of revisionist history. Gone would be the crumbling docks where his grandfather had slaved for next to nothing right up until the point where he had dropped dead, the stench of a century’s worth of decomposed fish, and a past that might have defined the city as it was, but had no place in the modern era. This development would be his crowning glory, a feather in the cap of the governor who had once upon a time been a lowly mayor. The thought of his grandchildren playing in a green park beneath the shade of elm trees and at the foot of a statue dedicated to him and his vision made him smile.
But there was still much work to be done.
The project was already seven-figures in the black and all they had to show for it was this one, albeit glorious, building and about two hundred thousand tons of rubble they couldn’t afford to clear. They could probably raise enough money through the sale of municipal bonds to finance the roads and foundations, but it was going to require a massive infusion of private f
unding to build up into the sky. Promises would need to be made, tax credits dealt like playing cards, and future considerations guaranteed. And all it would cost him personally was his soul. His advisors had already game-planned the night ahead: what they should offer to whom, how much they should expect from specific businessmen, and what each potential contributor would require in return. Selling their overpriced plates of salmon, chicken, and steak wouldn’t raise enough money to put a Porta-John on the boardwalk. This dinner was about networking. He liked to think of it as a big game hunt. He was going to stalk a herd of some of the richest and most powerful men and women in the country and pick them off one by one. Of course, they undoubtedly looked at him the same way. They wanted to gauge not just him personally, but his future value. Ten million dollars was an enormous amount of money to invest, but the cash would be well spent if they wound up with an eventual senator in their pockets.
He supposed that should have bothered him on some level, but there was a price one must be willing to pay for greatness.
And he was prepared to pay it in spades.
It was still early and he had a thousand things left to do. He had only swung by long enough to see with his own eyes that everything was progressing at an acceptable pace, motivate the various supervisors and planners in charge of the event, and make sure that there was nothing that was going to complicate this, his finest hour.
The grounds looked sharp. Better than that. They looked spectacular. He had been warned that the patrons would need to stay off of the fresh sod, but that was of no consequence. They could always buy more. It was just grass, after all. And the fences had been rearranged to his exact specifications. The painted banner with the future skyline looked perfect from here. The partygoers would be able to look to the south and see his vision as it would one day appear. The massive piles of rubble were hidden in their entirety, and the only thing that one would be able to see beyond the fences after dark would be the lights of the skyscrapers downtown.
Predatory Instinct: A Thriller Page 22
