by Ty Patterson
Broker nodded, and after another hour of discussions, he caught an evening flight back out of Reagan Airport.
It was when he was passing a bookstore at JFK, that a book cover caught his attention – a drawing of Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock, the most successful sniper in the Vietnam War.
Broker knew the story of Hathcock, the most famous Marine Corps sniper who broke just about every shooting record when he was in the Corps and won the Wimbledon Cup, the US Long Range High Power Championship.
Hathcock had 93 confirmed, witnessed kills in Vietnam, but he himself believed he had taken out upward of 300 enemy personnel.
Broker stopped and stared at the cover as it dug something deep in his mind and brought up images of marksmen, shooting distances, targets, and positions and close-range shooting. That thing in his mind that made connections between random events and discovered logic and reason and purpose, brought up numbers, and suddenly everything fell in place.
He remained oblivious of his surroundings for long seconds, the curses of passengers behind him lost in the air. He started jogging, then sprinting, and reached the exit and searched for a cab, all the while trying various numbers on his sat phone and finally got through one.
‘Tony,’ he shouted, ‘get–’
A black van wheeled in front of him, its doors swung open, and Broker bitterly realized he was outwitted when he saw muzzles pointed at him.
The gunmen, masked and silent, snatched his phone, thumbed it off, and drove him to his apartment block. They whipped off their masks when they reached it and prodded him to the entrance, past his security code at the main entrance, up the passkey-coded elevator, and up to his floor.
He didn’t recognize any of them, but recognized the build and their moves – they were the gang’s best hitters, experienced mercenaries who’d joined the gang. He stood in front of his apartment door, ferociously thinking of ways out, hoping beyond hope that the one factor he was counting on turned out right, when a blow to his head from behind brought him to his knees. He was grabbed by his shirt and pulled upwards, his vision darkening, and a gun jabbed in his ribs. The message was clear, he had to disarm the security on his door and enter it.
A split second of hesitation and he was hit again, harder, almost losing consciousness, and pulled up again, the gun ramming harder in him. With shaky fingers, he entered the code, swiped his finger, and looked in the eye scanner, and the door swung open.
He was flung inside, stumbling, and when he looked up, despair flooded him.
The four of them were there in front of him, all bunched close together, several heavies behind them. Bwana and Roger had gone out, and he’d been hoping against hope that they hadn’t returned yet and would be the rescue team. He saw Bwana shrug in resignation at his glance, and both Roger and Bwana fell as rifle butts hit them.
Another hood brought Broker to his knees with a rifle. Dimly, he heard a voice yelling at them, ‘Don’t fucking move a muscle.’
He coughed, a ribbon of blood spooling from his lips, sagged back as he was pulled up, and jerked once as cold water was poured over his face. He retched drily, wiped his face with his shirt, and breathed deeply, sight returning to him slowly. Bwana was still on his knees, though the hitters had stopped raining kicks and blows on him, his breathing loud and harsh in the silence of the room.
There were six hitters behind the four; Rocka and the kids were to the right of them. Lisa and Shawn were in shock, their eyes wide and blank, mercifully not comprehending the events before them. Beyond them, Broker saw the lighted skyline of the city through the darkened glass wall of his apartment.
There was one hitter with his gun aimed at the family, two behind Broker, nine heavies in all. Bwana, Roger, Chloe and Bear were not tied or restrained in any way, but were bunched so close together that any aggressive action was impossible.
Soft footsteps sounded, and a huge man glided into view, wearing a sports jacket over a tight T-shirt and jeans, his litheness of movement belying his size, a panther on the prowl, his hawk eyes inspecting the scene before him, a thin smile breaking on his lips when they lighted on Broker.
‘Broker, I presume,’ he said in a cultured voice. Scheafer, born and battle-hardened in Kosovo, had acquired a cultured accent and had slowed down the pace of his delivery. Murderer, rapist, thug, killer, and torturer, he might be, but who said refined speech didn’t go along with that job.
‘You’ve decimated half my gang. What I built in five years reduced to a fraction in less than a year,’ he said, a savage expression crossing his face. ‘It all ends today, though.’
‘Maybe not for all of you,’ he said, glancing at Chloe. ‘This little one, now, I just might keep. That other one’ – he nodded in Elaine Rocka’s direction – ‘is too old. No use for her.’
She looked at him steadily, her voice clear and firm. ‘On the farm we used to put down rabid dogs and foxes. Your mother should’ve put you down at birth.’ She fell heavily as he stepped to her and slapped her savagely.
‘Bitch. In Kosovo, women knew their place. Fucking and children. That’s all their purpose was. In your country, you’ve been given too much freedom.’ He glared at her for a moment and turned back to Broker.
‘Why’re you here? Any of your thugs could’ve killed us,’ Broker asked him, asking him anything to buy time. He didn’t have a plan, they didn’t have a plan, but every minute they bought gave them an opportunity to think of one.
‘I brought him,’ a new voice replied, and a figure stepped into view behind Scheafer, a hand on his shoulder.
A figure they knew very well.
Chapter 44
Deputy Director Isakson.
His professional façade was replaced by an air of contempt as he surveyed them all, his eyes flicking over all of them before swinging back to Broker.
Broker realized how it must’ve gone down. Isakson’s presence at the apartment would have lowered the alertness of Bear and Chloe, with the Fed probably presenting Scheafer as a Marshal to them. Scheafer’s men would’ve swiftly entered the apartment, overpowering them, and when Bwana and Roger entered, they would’ve been felled by the concealed heavies.
‘You don’t seem very surprised to see me,’ Isakson sneered at him. ‘Your guys, on the other hand… I think they’re still not believing it.’
Roger and Bear turned their burning eyes on him, underlining his comment.
Broker answered him slowly. ‘For a traitor, you did everything right, better than Hanssen. You probably wouldn’t have been made.’ He fought the urge to launch himself at Isakson and ram his smirk down his throat.
‘I was at the airport, and it was a book cover that made the connection for me. I realized Hamm’s gunman at the hotel couldn’t have missed you, shouldn’t have missed your heart or head. You were a couple of steps ahead of Rolando, closer to the gunman and just ten feet away from him. At that range, those shots weren’t a lucky accident, not when Rolando’s shots were more lethal.’
Isakson was silent, and after a pause Broker continued. ‘The bullets went where they were intended to – your shoulder, injuring you, but not fatally. Rolando, on the other hand, got lucky. When I met him at the hospital, he said he’d stumbled just at the moment your gunman shot him – that saved him. Of course, then, I didn’t attach any significance to his words.
‘Then the poster and print of Mount Everest in your two offices – you had some fascination for that conquest. But it wasn’t just that, was it? Everest was conquered in nineteen fifty-three, a year divisible by nine. The four digits added are divisible by nine. Twenty-ninth of May. Two, nine and five. Their product is divisible by nine. There are so many links to the number nine in that date that they should’ve jumped out and slapped me in the face the first day I met you.’
Broker grinned at Isakson through his split lips as he saw the FBI man’s face tighten.
‘Shattner’s journal had one more page that we didn’t share with you, since we didn’t trust the FBI or t
he cops. That page referred to the “nine” the gang used to access messages. You probably made that code on the spot as you leant back in your office and your gaze fell on the date.’
He grinned wider when Isakson didn’t respond, his silence acknowledging Broker’s deduction.
‘Why? You’re the second most powerful man in the FBI? Why, you bastard?’ Roger asked him, and if eyes could set fire, Isakson would’ve been ashes.
Isakson laughed. ‘That’s the most common question heard in law enforcement. You overrated assholes, I became the second most powerful man in the FBI just because of this.’ He gazed scathingly at Roger.
‘I came across Scheafer many years back, before he started the gang, during a drug raid. He was hiding in the garage, and I was the only agent to see him. We had a few words, and his proposal intrigued me enough that I let him go. I figured I had nothing to lose, and truth to say, I had already contemplated this idea. I didn’t really think he would get in touch again, but he did, and from there, my career took off. I “busted” some deals of his, and in return I made sure we looked the other way when he wanted me to. It worked for both of us.’
He smiled arrogantly. ‘You stupid fools, we played you all along. Wheat was meant to be found. He was a crooked agent, turned by Hamm, but the way we set up our drops with him, he was our decoy, and you guys fell into that trap. You’ll find the floorboards of his home and car stuffed with cash. His Laundromat was where he collected the gang’s cash. It was so simple that no one got it. Go in with dirty laundry, come out with clean laundry wrapped around his payment.’
‘If that’s the case, why this? Wheat is dead. There was no need for you to out yourself to us,’ Broker asked as he edged closer to the two thugs behind him. Closer reduced the chances of gun use.
Scheafer snapped, ‘We couldn’t risk that you hadn’t stop digging. I’ve never underestimated my enemies. That’s why I’m alive, they’re dead.’ He glared at Isakson. ‘Enough of this show and tell.’
He turned to bark orders to his henchmen and paused when Broker held his hand up. ‘How’ll you explain our deaths? There are too many powerful people who know about us and our involvement in this. They won’t rest till they get to the bottom of our deaths.’
Isakson gave a chilling smile. ‘I’ll personally lead the investigation. I’ll never rest till I find out who your killers are.’
He nodded at Scheafer, putting distance between them.
The glass wall shattered with a tremendous explosion, and a wave of air blasted in.
Something clattered on the floor, a voice shouted out, ‘Flash-bang,’ and the four of them threw themselves to the floor.
Chloe hurled herself sideways, bringing down Rocka and the kids, and covered them with her body. We know this drill. We train in this manner, she thought.
Isakson and the gang squeezed their eyes shut, bracing their body for the explosion, some of them covering their ears.
The five of them alone saw the masked, black-suited figure rolling in a split second behind the exploding glass.
The figure knelt, and two spits rang out from his shoulder, bringing down the hitters behind Broker.
The figure moved, and a shadow blurred through the air.
Chloe expertly caught the Sig, reversed it in one fluid motion, and took out the hitter over her.
The best of the Special Ops or SEALs have reaction and response times measured in fractions of seconds, training and combat honing them to knife-edge perfection.
The hitters were good, but their reflexes were dulled, and the deception slowed them down further.
By the time Scheafer had realized and opened his mouth to shout, Bwana, Roger and Bear were engaged with six of his men, hurling themselves underneath their rifle lines, Bwana flying horizontal, a fist going deep into a thug’s midriff, doubling him over, almost going through him, his feet crunching the groin of the one next to him.
He smashed the head of Midriff on the floor so hard that the glass in the room trembled.
He rolled over on top of him, snatched the dead man’s M4 and, holding it like a pistol, fired it point- blank in Groin’s head, then took out two more hitters who were pointing their guns at Bear.
Still lying on the dead man’s head, he swung the rifle on the remaining two thugs, and saw Bear and Roger had them well under control.
Bear had similarly gone under another hitter’s rifle, and had grabbed it by the barrel and pulled it toward his own body, catching the man by surprise.
The gangbanger stumbled forward, and Bear used the momentum to strike under his chin.
One hundred and eighty pounds of Bear, all hard muscle and rock, met an unprotected chin. No contest.
Roger dispatched his hitter even quicker.
He struck lightning fast, using the momentum of the upward swinging rifle against the hitter.
His hand caught the barrel and flung it up and into the face of the sixth man, breaking his nose, and head-butted him into unconsciousness.
He winked at Bear, and they turned on Isakson.
Isakson was down, out of action.
Broker had staggered to his feet and had thrown himself at Isakson, wrenching away the FBI agent’s gun from its shoulder holster.
All this before Isakson had realized there was no stun grenade, and by the time comprehension returned to him, Broker had hammered him on his chest and over his wound till Isakson lay bleeding and unconscious.
Scheafer was quicker and faster, a lifetime of war and danger bringing out the animal in him.
He spun toward the black-clad figure, his gun arm straightening, and staggered back and fell as a block of concrete – the Watcher’s spinning kick – smashed into his head.
He crawled back, then whirled suddenly and grabbed and pulled Elaine Rocka as a shield in front of him.
He wiped his face on her shoulder, baring his teeth in triumph as he saw the Watcher sheath his gun.
He reached down his side to pull his blade from its ankle sheath, but she saw her chance in the split second his attention had diverted, and she sagged suddenly, letting him bear her weight.
Off-balance for a second, he let her fall, and then the Watcher was on him, raining a hammer fist on his right shoulder, numbing it, and another hammer broke his nose, spraying them both with blood.
The Watcher’s left leg swung up and kicked Scheafer in the groin, and as the gang leader doubled over, another hammer fist slammed in the back of his neck.
Scheafer roared and bulled into the Watcher, head-butting him in his midriff, and his massive hands wrapped around the Watcher and squeezed like a vice, his barrel body exerting inexorable pressure.
The Watcher stepped backward to throw him off, raining blows on his back, but his heel tripped against Elaine Rocka’s ankle, and he fell, twisting his body at the last minute so that they fell away from her.
Scheafer fell on top of him but didn’t let go of his grip and, while falling, kneed the Watcher in the groin.
Scheafer pounced on the Watcher’s upper body like a cat and pinned his right hand with his left hand the size of a bear’s paw.
Simultaneously with a sinuous move, he pulled his knife and struck it at the fallen man’s chest.
The Watcher desperately blocked his knife arm with his left, the two men straining, sweat and blood dripping off Scheafer and painting the fallen man’s face.
The Watcher kicked up with his legs to dislodge Scheafer, but the 5Clubs leader held firm, his weight an immovable stone on the supine man’s midriff.
Scheafer hissed, ‘Now you die,’ and put all his body behind his knife hand, his eyes glittering as they bored holes in the Watcher’s eyes staring back through the mask.
The Watcher strained desperately, trying to free his mind from the white heat of the groin pain, trying to compartmentalize his ribs being crushed by Scheafer, felt his left arm give a millimeter, and then another millimeter, and felt Scheafer’s mouth go wide as he scented victory.
He focused on th
e pain and wrapped it in a ball and made it smaller and smaller and then shaped it into a point and flung it deep inside where life and death began, and lanced the ball of fire within.
The ball exploded, drowning out the pain, and the fire streamed through him, and he sagged back suddenly, his left arm going slack, and Scheafer fell forward on top of him, his knife point piercing the Watcher’s black skin suit.
Scheafer suddenly lost his smile and his eyebrows creased as the knife encountered resistance, the customized body armor underneath the Watcher’s skin suit blunting its cutting.
The Watcher reared forward and head-butted Scheafer.
He followed it with another vicious head butt that split the attacker’s right eyebrow, and blood flowed thickly down Scheafer’s face.
Scheafer howled as the Watcher freed his right arm and struck his eye, another hammer-fist blow crushed his ear, a rapid double blow to his eyes took away his vision, and he fell sideways.
The black-suited man slithered from underneath Scheafer and gripped his knife wrist in steel and twisted and turned it around, breaking the joint, and his free hand clamped on Scheafer’s neck.
He felt the ball of fire flow through him to his extremities, through his shoulders, down his arms and to his hand gripping Scheafer’s knife wrist. The knife reversed deep into Scheafer, all one smooth fluid motion.
The Watcher leaned forward and whispered, ‘I’ve been dead a long time.’
Bwana looked on awestruck – the two figures had been fighting so closely and so rapidly that they hadn’t risked a shot at Scheafer.
He glanced quickly at his companions and saw the same expression on their faces.
When he turned back, the masked man had risen to his feet.
He looked back at them, his eyes dark and expressionless through his mask.
The city peered over his shoulder through the broken window, holding its breath, and time slowed, even the breeze slowed.
The Watcher took a step back toward the gaping hole, his gaze steady on them.
‘Wait, who are…?’ Broker’s words were lost in a loud explosion as the entrance disintegrated, and a NYPD ESU team broke in.
