Bad Intent

by Jordan Cole

  “Kovac. Cuffs,” Metzer said.

  The guy whose name was Kovac dug into his pocket and handed Metzer a pair of zip-tie cuffs. Metzer held them out. Riley made his hands into fists, pressed against one another. Presented them in an acquiescent gesture. Metzer shook his head.

  “Other way around,” he said.

  Riley groaned. Shook his head and turned his fists over, so his fingers were curled in front of him. Much less range of movement that way. Harder to maneuver, harder to slip out. It had been worth a shot. At this point, every little edge mattered. But Metzer was no fool. He’d seen right through the ruse. He wrapped the zip-ties around Riley’s wrists and cinched them tight. Steel shanked plastic cutting into Riley’s skin. Not a ton he could do now. But he still had his arms in front of him rather than behind, which was good. Maybe the first slight misstep, on Metzer’s part.

  Kovac opened the door and pulled Riley out of the car by his hands. He landed with a thump on wet grass, hard against his stomach, losing his breath for a moment. Hands patting him down, removing his Smith & Wesson revolver and his Ka-bar knife. The earth around him slick and damp with morning dew. Heavy breathing and panting from the other side of the car. Agatha, still alive, working through panic. He thought about telling her to stay calm, then decided against it. Figured it wouldn’t do much good, given the situation.

  Metzer stood over Riley, his Glock still leveled. A heavy snick from behind. Riley’s legs lifted into the air. Kovac was tying them up with duct tape. Riley could feel it, looping around and around, until his legs were firmly wedged together. Now all he could do was roll. Maybe hop, if he could somehow maneuver into a standing position. But even that would be tricky. He arched his head. Saw Dallas’s lifeless form, still slumped in the driver’s seat. Riley could make out Agatha’s legs beneath the Town Car, shaking futilely.

  “Nice little stunt you pulled,” Metzer said. “Back in St. Louis.” Kovac dragged Agatha around the side of the car, so that she and Riley were lying side by side. She had been bound the same way, zip cuffs on the hands and duct tape on the legs. Her eyes were half-lidded, and her body sagged. It looked like the fight had gone out of her. Riley opened his eyes wide and gave her a fierce look, channeling every last bit of energy he had.

  Don’t give up. It’s not over yet.

  “What did you think?” Riley asked. “That I was just going to walk right into it?” He had flipped himself over so that he was lying on his back, hands bound in front of him. Metzer didn’t seem to mind. Keep him talking, keep him distracted. That was the goal, for now. Not much more of a long game beyond that.

  “A bent Fed,” Riley continued. “How much is Frazier paying you? Enough to sleep soundly at night?”

  Something on Metzer’s face that might have passed for a smile, on a normal human. He tucked the Glock back into his shoulder holster. Not his service weapon, Riley guessed. He wouldn’t want to risk losing it, on dirty business like this. But it was similar, something he was comfortable with. Maybe even the same exact model. No doubt Frazier could have procured a Glock with clean serial numbers. That was probably the first thing they did together, after linking up.

  “He’s paying a lot,” Metzer said. “And I sleep like a baby, every night.” Metzer fussed with his sleeves, adjusting the cuffs. A cheap suit, fraying at the hems. Still playing the part of the frugal bureaucrat, even now.

  “You mean you wake up every hour, crying and wetting yourself?”

  A harrier jet crashed into Riley’s kidney. Or at least that’s what it felt like. His vision blurred, shifting prisms of color dancing in his eyes. Nauseating pain flowed through him like a sump. Not a jet, but a boot, kicking him in the side. Kovac, exacting revenge. He loomed overhead, snarling and sniffing, while Riley writhed and moaned.

  “Relax,” Metzer said. “We got plenty of time for that.” Kovac said nothing. His H&K swayed back and forth in a tight pendulum along his waist.

  Riley laughed, a throaty, wheezing chuckle emerging from some manic part of him.

  “I didn’t quite feel that. Why don’t you give me another, princess?”

  Kovac complied. More pain, more fireworks. Riley’s vision darkened completely for a second and he nearly passed out. Rolling and cursing and spitting up globs of stringy mucous.

  “Stop!” Agatha yelled. “Stop it! Leave him alone!”

  Anger and hatred piercing his gut like a poison tipped sword. The logical part of Riley’s brain begging his animal Id to keep its mouth shut. The world turned white, dipped in a fuzzy eggshell aura, an all-consuming napalm rage taking hold. His body shaking.

  If I get loose, they’ll have to identify you from dental records, Metzer.

  But he couldn’t. Struggling against the zip-tie cuffs just pulled them tighter. The duct tape was like an iron ring around his legs.

  “Easy,” Metzer said. A slight breeze ruffling the few hairs he had left. He lowered himself into a squat, beside Riley. Shaking his head like a disapproving parent.

  “If you had just gotten arrested like you were supposed to, this would have been a lot easier,” Metzer said. “Would have been over a lot sooner, too. But what can you do? There’s always a backup plan. That’s how we operate. Took longer, but I knew I’d get you in the end.”

  Riley tried to speak. Too much pain, exploding his synapses. He wheezed out an unintelligible response.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Metzer said. “And what I said before? About St. Louis? I was being facetious. Obviously you weren’t going to just waltz in and meet an FBI agent at a restaurant or in the park. I had always planned to give you Fletcher. I mean, he was in the papers. You could confirm his existence independently of me. Open the exchange of info, establish some trust between us. Honestly, I didn’t expect you to actually find him. That worked out better than I could have hoped. I imagine he’ll be joining you two soon.”

  “And what if we hadn’t found him?” Agatha said. Spitting her words out through gritted teeth. “Were you going to go through and kill all the rest of my co-workers?”

  “Shut up,” said Kovac. His hands tight around the stock of the H&K.

  “It’s all right,” Metzer said. “She’s had a rough couple of weeks. Deserves a few answers, before it’s too late.” He turned toward Agatha, turning over his palms smugly. “I don’t know, sweetheart. I’m sure I would have thought of something. Trapping you was not exactly brain surgery. You two were on the run with no one to turn to.”

  “Not true,” Kovac said. He pointed to Dallas’s corpse, chuckling. “They turned to him.”

  “You’d think a former merc like yourself would be more careful,” Metzer said, shrugging in Riley’s direction. “But Dallas was real eager to give you my number. Aiding and abetting. The Bureau takes that kind of thing quite seriously.”

  “I know what this is all about,” Riley said, the words sputtering out in fits and starts. Some of his breath back now, the pain in his side dulled from a nuclear blast to a mere cluster bombing. “I saw what you were working with, back in St. Louis. When we made you strip, looking for a wire. No wonder you’re so messed up in the head. If I had a dick that small, I’d be pretty pissed off too.”

  Metzer’s expression didn’t change.

  “Nice try, but you’re not going to rile me up,” he said. Suddenly, headlights swept over all of them. An open-topped Jeep burst out from the forest, roaring across the lawn, tires spinning furiously over the slick grass. It skidded to a stop about twenty yards away. Metzer smiled.

  “Anyway, looks like it’s time. Fun’s about to start.”

  Two people riding in the Jeep. The first person to emerge was in the passenger seat. Walking staunchly, with an almost regal air. Dressed sharply in pressed slacks and an army jacket bearing detailed insignia. His shoes shined so fiercely Riley could see them gleam even in the darkness. Buzzcut on his head, his face a relief map of crags and furrows. Somewhere north of 50 years old. It was Frazier. Had to be. No one but a general would be as imperious as this ass
hole. Still trotting around in his dry-cleaned outfit in the middle of the night. He strode over toward Metzer like he was about to meet a dignitary or world leader. Kovac saluted. Metzer didn’t. Just stood there with his arms crossed.

  The other guy was the driver. He came trotting over in a brisk jog, dressed all in black, like Kovac. No visible weapon. Riley had never seen him before. He was short and wiry, full of energy. A special forces guy, for sure. Probably ran 10 miles every morning for the hell of it. He possessed none of Frazier’s bombast or Metzer’s nervous tension. Just a stoic, business-as-usual expression on his face. Like he’d been in this situation, many times before.

  He’s the one to watch out for, Riley’s subconscious told him. He’ll make the rest of these guys look like boy scouts.

  Then Riley saw Agatha’s face. She was looking at the new guy, also. Her mouth twitching in fear. Drawing breath in short gasps. Inching backward on the grass, maybe without even realizing it. Suddenly, Riley knew. The driver was Scott Amundsen. The man who had harassed her, back at her office. A dangerous professional who also liked to stalk and toy with people. The worst of the worst. The driver walked over to Agatha and bent down.

  “Hello again,” he said. Agatha stared up at him, trembling. Like it took everything she had to keep from screaming.

  “Scott.” A small voice, no louder than a whisper.

  “Not anymore. They call me Whitehall around these parts. You regret turning down that date now?” He smiled.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Just stay quiet. It will be over faster.”

  Then Scott, or Whitehall, or whatever his name was, stepped back. Deferred to Frazier with a curt nod. Frazier swept his stone gaze across Riley and Agatha, bound and helpless on the grass. Watching for a long, silent moment. Riley expected some sort of speech. A puffed-out chest, a lot of bluster about manpower and resources and anger that it had gotten this far. Maybe an appeal to the higher powers at work, forces beyond their control. But Frazier did none of that. All he did was point to Agatha, and say, “Get her in the Jeep.”

  Agatha began to scream. Riley twisted, flexing his wrists until his tendons felt about to burst. Impossible. He was hopelessly stuck. Whitehall and Kovac grabbed both ends of Agatha and hoisted her up like a piece of cordwood. She struggled. Shaking violently, yelling words like stop and please and don’t. It didn’t matter. They started to carry her away.

  “Don’t say anything,” Riley shouted to her. “You stay quiet, you stay alive.”

  Frazier kicked him in the face. Consciousness faded in and out, like someone adjusting a TV antenna. Two of his teeth dislodged and went tumbling into the dirt. His mouth and nose filling with blood. Riley rolled onto his side, so he wouldn’t suffocate. The pain secondary to the choking, drowning feeling, his airways clogging like stopped up sewer pipes. He pressed his face into the grass and vomited up a mixture of blood and bile.

  “What about Riley?” he heard Metzer ask, faintly, like Metzer was standing on a mountain somewhere very far away.

  “He killed his commanding officer,” Frazier said. “Perverted the chain of command. I don’t care if it’s the Army or a merc outfit or McDonald’s. There’s a divine order to things, one that Clay Riley does not respect.”

  “So what do you want us to do?”

  “Bury him alive. We brought a box. And shovels.”

  For a moment, Metzer actually seemed taken aback by the request. His mouth opened slightly, and his brow narrowed. Then he nodded. Snapped off a casual salute. Stayed where he was while Frazier returned to the Jeep. The engine started, and Frazier and Whitehall drove away, with Agatha bound in the backseat behind them. Kovac came walking over. In his left hand, he carried two shovels, with thick wooden handles and shiny new iron spades. In his right hand, he dragged a long silver box. Almost like a footlocker, but bigger. About the size of an average man. He stopped in front of Metzer. Laid the shovels on top of the box, looking down at them apprehensively, like he was dreading the labor he had to perform.

  Metzer picked up one of the shovels and pressed it into the Earth. Testing the soil. Came up with a chunk of dirt and flung it backward over his head. A lot of exertion, not a lot of result. Riley figured it would be at least an hour of digging if they were to carve out a hole big enough for the box--and himself. Metzer shook his head, angry.

  “You believe this shit?” he said to Kovac. “What do I look like? A goddamn ditch digger?”

  “Orders are orders,” Kovac said, shrugging. “Frazier wants things his way. When it’s over we’ll be done with all this. Get our bonuses. Got no problem digging a hole for an extra 50 grand.”

  Riley was coursing with adrenaline. The prospect of a live burial was doing wonders to deflect from the pain in his side and busted mouth. His tongue moved helplessly over the gaps in his teeth, pressing against his bloody gums. He was decomposing already. One foot in the grave, literally. He forced himself to speak, mutter some words, anything to delay the inevitable.

  “Going to let Frazier make you his bitch?” Riley asked. “Doing his grunt work while he rides around in his Jeep like King Shit?”

  “You know what?” Kovac said. “Asshole’s actually got a point, for once.”

  “Yup,” Metzer said. Kicked Riley again, but not hard. Almost like a friendly tap. Compared with the previous blows, Riley barely even felt it. “But them’s the breaks, Clay. How ‘bout this? You stay quiet and let us get this done quickly, I might be merciful. I’ll put a bullet in your head before we toss you in the box. Quick and painless, like your buddy Dallas there. But you annoy me, I’ll do what Frazier asked. What do you say? We have a deal?”

  Riley said nothing.

  “Smart man.”

  Riley had no intention of being buried alive, regardless of Metzer’s whims. He would dislocate his wrists and club Metzer with his arms before he let them lock him in that box while he was still breathing. But it wasn’t time for that, just yet. Stay alive, see what happens next. He had maybe an hour to think of something good. He was battered and bruised, leaking blood. It wouldn’t be easy. But there was no other choice.

  Metzer stuck the shovel in the ground again. Flung back another spadeful of dirt.

  “You wanna help me here?”

  Kovac reached into his pockets and came out with a pack of cigarettes. Drew one to his lips. Patted his pockets again.

  “Lost my goddamn lighter. You got one?”

  Metzer shook his head. Kovac groaned. Looked down at Riley.

  “What about you?”

  “My friend that you killed might.”

  Kovac nodded. Went over to the town car and to Dallas’s body, still slumped over. Dug around in his pockets and found a lighter. Came out with a small revolver as well, that they’d forgotten to take in the earlier excitement. Another tiny oversight. Kovac tucked the revolver into his waistband and lit his cigarette. Took a deep drag and came back over to Metzer and Riley.

  “Thanks,” he said. All hard feelings gone. Easier to forgive, Riley guessed, when you weren’t the one about to be buried alive.

  Kovac took the other shovel, balancing it over his shoulder. Cigarette dangling from his mouth, the tip glowing cherry red. He was savoring the smoke, enjoying whatever moments he could before the arduous digging started. Riley’s head felt like a pinball machine. He tried to control his breathing, forcing himself to think. Metzer dug another chunk of soil out of the earth, the shovel impacting the ground with a heavy thwop.

  Then there came another sound. Loud but strangely muffled, like someone banging a gong in a giant fish tank. Dirt geysered into the air, about ten yards from Kovac's feet. Metzer raised his head.

  “The hell was that?”

  Riley knew what it was, and he guessed Kovac did too, because by the time Metzer had asked the question, Kovac had already dropped flat on the ground, shielding his head with his hands.

  “Someone’s shooting!”

  Someone was shooting, all right. To Riley’
s ear it sounded like a subsonic .223 round, fired with a suppressor. A long-range rifle. Impossible to tell which direction it had come from, in the dark with the suppressor. Relatively far away. From his vantage point on the ground he couldn’t see a muzzle flash.

  The rifle fired again. By now Metzer had wised up and joined them in a prone position on the grass. This bullet smashed into the Town Car, a high-pitched ping following the crack of the gunshot. Whoever was shooting was either firing blind into the dark, or giving them deliberate warning shots.

  Another shot. This bullet kicked up dirt a few yards from Metzer’s head. Maybe they weren’t firing blind after all. Metzer’s eyes widened and he panicked. Bolted toward the farmhouse in a desperate sprint.

  “Wait!” Kovac yelled. He moved into a crouch and went for the Town Car. Riley had spotted the muzzle flash from the last shot, and he assumed Kovac had, too. It came from the west, in the tree line behind the farmhouse, maybe 300 yards away. Another shot hit the Town Car, shattering one of the headlights. Kovac went left, looping around toward the eastern end of the farmhouse in a low run, trying to get clear of the shooter’s line of sight. Riley wriggled and flopped, moving toward the vehicle. It was only ten yards away, but it felt like a mile. He moved mere inches with every attempt. Finally, he gave up and started rolling. The world turning over and over, dizzying him. Another shot fired. Where it impacted, Riley had no idea. He felt his shoulder hit the left rear wheel of the Town Car and he stopped rolling. Blinked away the vertigo, trying to regain his equilibrium. Looked up.

  The trunk was open.

  Only slightly. Hanging in the air just so, a fraction of gap above the top of the bumper. Riley thought of Dallas, still slumped in the driver’s seat. His weight must have popped the trunk release lever after he’d been shot. Riley wormed his way up onto his knees and used his fists to nudge the trunk open all the way. Swung his momentum forward so that his head and torso dipped inside. Used his arms to root around, straining to see, searching for anything he could use to free himself. There were empty boxes. A discarded sweatshirt. Cracked pairs of sunglasses. No good. Then his arms brushed along a plastic bag. Felt something solid inside. Working slowly with his fingers, he was able to turn it over and dump it out. A small box fell out onto the carpeted base of the trunk. With a picture of a Swiss Army knife on the side.