The Naked Edge

by David Morrell

  “The CIA?”

  Sprawled on a dark rooftop across the street, Carl listened to the radio transmission crackle and die. Like the men in the apartment building, he had an earbud and a miniature microphone. Unlike them, he had a small black box the size of a pack of cigarettes. This box, a radio receiver and transmitter, had a switch that allowed him to communicate with each man separately. For the past fifteen minutes, until the microphone had failed, he'd been able to eavesdrop on the conversation.

  He hadn't heard Aaron's voice in several years. It filled him with a welter of emotions: anger, regret, bitterness, a fond need to be able to return to that long-ago summer when they pretended to be soldiers caught behind enemy lines and hid among bushes, watching men and women holding hands as they strolled through the woods.

  Concealing himself behind a chimney, Carl raised an AR-15, sighted through its holographic scope, and waited.

  14

  The cell-phone numbers Cavanaugh pressed were for the landline at William's safe site. As the phone buzzed on the other end, he heard more sirens outside. Red and blue lights flashed beyond the window.

  “Hello.”

  “This is Cavanaugh. Put William on.”

  “Maybe he'll talk nicer to you than he does to us.”

  The phone made a bumping sound. Then William's voice said, “I hope this means everything's back to normal and I can get out of here.”

  “Afraid not,” Cavanaugh said. “There's been some shooting and—”

  “Some shooting?” the lieutenant said in the background. “I was with the Marines in the first Iraq war. I think we used less ammunition.”

  “Why don't I let Lt. Russell explain it to you so I don't say anything I shouldn't.”

  “Name, rank, and serial number,” William's voice cautioned. “Nothing else. Put him on the phone.”

  Cavanaugh handed the phone to the lieutenant, then looked at Jamie and Kim against the wall. Jamie impressed him with her composure, as if she'd been an operator all her life.

  But Kim was another matter. The pupils of her eyes resembled pencil points. Her brow was beaded with sweat, her withdrawal symptoms accelerating.

  Cavanaugh gave her a firm nod of assurance.

  “At the precinct in half an hour,” Russell said to the phone, then gave it back to Cavanaugh.

  “Yes, William?” Cavanaugh asked into it.

  “Name, rank, and serial number. No exceptions.”

  “I want you to call somebody.” Cavanaugh gave William a name and a phone number. “Tell him I need help.”

  When William heard the name, his response was, “He'll get their attention.”

  “Okay, we're ready to move this guy,” the ambulance attendant said.

  The attendant and his partner lifted the semiconscious man onto a Gurney and wheeled him from the apartment. Below, a clatter of equipment indicated that the gunman Jamie had wounded was being lifted onto a similar Gurney.

  “Hands behind your back,” Russell told Cavanaugh

  The lieutenant clicked handcuffs onto him.

  The policewoman did the same to Jamie and Kim.

  “Is the van here?” Russell asked a policeman.

  Cavanaugh managed to stand.

  Preceded and followed by police officers, he, Jamie, and Kim left the apartment. On the stairs, a camera flashed, a medical examiner and his team inspecting the other gunman Jamie had shot.

  Cavanaugh descended. The smell of burnt gunpowder widened his nostrils. He stepped over empty ammunition casings and left the building, confronted by the chaos of flashing lights, police cars, ambulances, and several hundred onlookers.

  15

  As Aaron emerged from the building into the kaleidoscope of lights, Carl almost pulled the trigger. Aaron had his hands cuffed behind him. He had policemen ahead of him, policemen behind him, and two women next to him. One of the women, Chinese, was the GPS computer expert whose apartment Carl had ordered watched. The other woman was the one he'd seen in Jackson Hole. Aaron's wife.

  Carl studied her. Tall, wearing slacks, with legs that drew his gaze from her ankles to her inviting hips. Athletically trim, with upward-tilted breasts that made him imagine standing behind her, cupping his hands over them. Glossy brunette hair that he wanted to stroke. Eyes so intense Carl felt their power even on the roof across the street. Aaron, you and I always had the same great taste.

  Do it, Carl told himself. Shoot. But no matter how much he wanted to, he mustered the discipline that he had not possessed while he and Aaron had been in Delta Force and later when they'd worked for Global Protective Services. No “I” in “team”? I understand that now, he thought.

  No self-control? Not then. Not when I took out that sentry with a knife instead of obeying the order to kill him with a sound-suppressed pistol. Not when I stabbed that crazy fan when he pulled out a knife and attacked that rock-star babe. No, I learned my lesson, Aaron. You and Duncan taught me that lesson. I spent a lot of time on shit jobs learning that lesson. Stay cool. Keep the mission in mind. Don't get distracted. Don't screw things up for a moment's satisfaction. I learned that lesson so well, I could teach you. But if I shoot, I'll never get off this rooftop and make it to where Raoul's waiting with the car. Right now, there's only one thing more important than killing you, and I'm so cool, so disciplined, so in control, that's what I'm going to do.

  Carl pulled a transmitter from his pocket. When he pressed a button, a green light flashed. Then he pressed a second button.

  16

  Uneasy, Cavanaugh stood at the entrance to the building. Partially blinded by the flashing lights, he watched attendants wheel the injured gunmen toward two ambulances. We got what we need, he thought. When they're conscious, we can question them. We can find out where Carl trains his men.

  “I want an officer in each ambulance,” Lt. Russell said.

  Two policemen stepped toward the vehicles as the attendants shut the doors, and suddenly the ambulances heaved, explosions shattering their windows, blasting their rear doors open. The shockwaves knocked the ambulance attendants and the policemen to the pavement. Others stumbled back. Bystanders ran. Many screamed.

  “Bombs?” Russell spun toward Cavanaugh. “What the hell's going on? How did—”

  “Wyoming,” Cavanaugh said, trying to recover from his shock. His skin itching from wariness, he nudged Jamie back with him into the cover of the building's vestibule. Kim noticed and retreated with them as Cavanaugh scanned the roof on the opposite side of the street. He lowered his gaze toward the windows and the entrances to the brownstones, but the emergency vehicles and the flashing lights made it difficult to see much of anything at street level.

  “Wyoming? What are you talking about?” Russell demanded.

  Emergency personnel ran toward the ambulances. Smoke drifted from the open doors.

  “That's where this started.” Cavanaugh stepped deeper into the building, Jamie and Kim following. “A hit team tried to kill me there, also.”

  Russell stared.

  “When two members of the team were about to be captured, their car blew apart,” Cavanaugh told him.

  Russell stared harder.

  “We think the team's leader planted a bomb under the car and used a remote control to detonate it—to keep them from being questioned. Earlier, somebody on the team shot a sniper working for them, presumably because he couldn't be counted on to keep his mouth shut.”

  “You're telling me, the guy who organized this attack watched from down the street and blew up his men when he saw them being carried out alive?” Russell asked in dismay.

  “He might be out there even now,” Cavanaugh said, prompting Russell to turn and scan the street with the intensity that Cavanaugh did.

  “How the hell could he put a bomb on his men without them knowing about it or us finding it?”

  A frenzied voice shouted from one of the ambulances, “They're blown in half at the waist.”

  “The plastic sheaths,” Cavanaugh said.
r />   “Sheaths?” Russell's voice was raw.

  “For the knife each man had. Your people took the knives but left the sheaths. The plastic must have had explosive in it, along with a miniature detonator.”

  For the first time, Russell was speechless.

  “Carl was here, watching us go into the building.” Cavanaugh felt a chill. From the building's vestibule, he stared toward the crowd across the street. “Maybe he's still watching. Maybe he's up on a roof with a rifle. Lieutenant, have you still got that earbud and microphone?”

  Russell pulled them from a suit pocket.

  “Put the radio receiver in my ear,” Cavanaugh said, feeling helpless with his hands cuffed behind him.

  Russell hesitated, then did what Cavanaugh wanted.

  “Please put the battery back in the microphone and raise it to my mouth,” Cavanaugh said.

  After less hesitation, Russell did.

  “Carl?” Cavanaugh asked.

  All he heard was static.

  “Carl, I know you're out there. You're probably watching the entrance to this building.”

  More static.

  “Carl, I think I know how you've been training your recruits. Remember those visualization courses our special-ops instructors arranged for us to take. We couldn't get over how fast visualization accelerates the learning curve. You used that technique reinforced by movies and video games, right? It's an efficient way to program someone.”

  Only static.

  “I don't know what your objective is,” Cavanaugh said into the microphone Russell held in front of him. “But I know you're behind all this, so there's no point in continuing to try to kill me. It won't make a difference. Nothing's going to divert suspicion from you. So quit taking the risk. I'm a worthless target.”

  Cavanaugh strained to listen to the plug in his ear, to ignore all the distracting shouts, doors slamming, the drone of automobile engines before him, the rumble of footsteps on stairs behind him.

  The static changed subtly. Carl's voice, unheard for so many years, said, “You should have been a better friend.”

  Then the static changed again, as if the transmission ended.

  Cavanaugh told Russell, “You can put the microphone away. He's gone.”

  “Carl?”

  “Carl Duran,” Cavanaugh said. “You and I have a lot to talk about.”

  Russell pulled a two-way radio from his belt. “Randall, get a SWAT team down here. Tell your men to check the roofs.”

  “What are we looking for?” a voice asked.

  “If I'm to believe what I'm hearing: the prince of darkness.”

  “Who?”

  “A guy who doesn't leave loose ends. I'll get you a description as soon as—”

  “Six feet tall,” Cavanaugh said. “Lean. Women find him attractive until they discover he almost never smiles. Strong arms, particularly his forearms, from working with a hammer and anvil.”

  “A blacksmith?” Russell asked.

  “A master knife maker,” Cavanaugh said. “He spends a lot of time thinking about blades and sheaths. I guess it finally occurred to him how sheaths could be weapons, also.”

  Russell stared toward the ambulances and the blood on their shattered windows. “Yeah,” he said, “you and I definitely have a lot to talk about.”

  PART SIX:

  THE KNIVES OF OLD SAN FRANCISCO

  1

  Kim threw up again.

  A policeman hurried toward a door in the harsh corridor, only to be blocked by Lt. Russell, who suddenly opened the door. Russell was accompanied by two other grim-faced men, one white, the other black: William Faraday and John Rutherford.

  “. . . sick,” the policeman explained to Russell, pointing toward the holding cell. “The Chinese woman's throwing up.”

  “My client demands medical help,” William said.

  “And believe me, counselor, she'll get it. I'll send for the police chief's personal physician if that'll make you happy.”

  “Nothing makes me happy.”

  “I already got that impression.” Russell turned to the policeman. “Send for a doctor.”

  The group marched along the corridor, stopping in front of the cell, where Russell motioned for an officer to unlock the door.

  “Hi, William. Hello, John,” Cavanaugh said as they stepped in.

  Kim threw up again.

  “What's wrong with her?” Russell asked.

  “Back injury,” Jamie explained. “She needs a pain killer.”

  “Like more of those OxyContin pills we found in her apartment?” Russell asked.

  “Those pills belonged to the attackers,” William said.

  “Yeah, right,” Russell said.

  “In the frenzy of the moment, the pills fell out of a gunman's pocket,” the attorney said. “That's the sort of man who'd be capable of that kind of violence. A pill popper. A drug addict.”

  “Whatever you say,” Russell told him.

  “And you had plenty to say.” William turned to Cavanaugh. “I told you to volunteer nothing but your name and your vital statistics.”

  “It's nice to see you, too, William.”

  “But the lieutenant tells me you pretty much gave him your life history. If you want to be your own attorney, why drag me down here?”

  “Hey, I thought I was doing you a favor, freeing you from your safe site,” Cavanaugh told him.

  “Well, you didn't do me any favor—” Lt. Russell pointed toward the black man next to him. “—bringing in the FBI. At the start, I figured you were bullshitting me to try to talk your way out of that shooting. Now the director of the FBI's counterterrorist unit invokes national security.”

  “Bottom line,” Rutherford told Cavanaugh. “You're coming with me.”

  “But that doesn't stop me from trying to untangle this mess,” Russell said. “We managed to get fingerprints from the men who were killed in those blasts. It won't be long before we find out who they were. Maybe that information will lead us to your ex-buddy Carl Duran.”

  “Won't help,” Cavanaugh said. “You'll discover they got out of prison recently. Probably within the past six weeks. They were doing time for violent offenses, but they each went to a different prison, and they didn't know each other before they went in.”

  Russell asked Rutherford, “Is this more bullshit?”

  “Afraid not.”

  “Then enlighten me,” Russell told Cavanaugh. “Show me how smart you are. How did these guys wind up together?”

  “Carl approached them when they got out of prison, and in a brief time, he turned them from being rough criminals into operators.”

  “How?”

  “I think Carl selects his recruits on the basis of their capacity for violence, their ability to learn, and their need to be somebody important. They're wannabes, guys who'd love to be in Marine Recon, the Rangers, Special Forces, or the SEALs, just to show how tough they are and force people to look up to them. But they don't have the character and the discipline to make the grade. Approach them when they're fresh out of prison with no prospects and no money but a powerful urge to let off the anger they've been building up. Pay them. Flatter them. Use visualization and other accelerated instructional techniques. Give them a chance to play with guns. Six weeks later, their egos are so pumped, they'll do anything to prove to Carl they deserve his respect. Just as important, they're the kind of guys nobody cares about and nobody'll miss. If Carl thinks they're in a position to be captured and questioned, he blows them up. It's like they never existed.”

  “That's quite a theory,” the lieutenant said.

  “Help me prove it,” Cavanaugh said.

  “You suggested I look at places where Carl Duran lived,” Rutherford interrupted, “including where he was stationed in the military. We searched for a pattern of cats and dogs that disappeared. Or maybe they didn't disappear. Maybe they showed up in alleys or ditches, with their guts sliced open and their heads cut off. The police and the humane societies had records
of clusters like that. In Iowa City, just before Duran moved away. In Nashville, Tennessee, just before he moved from there. In Columbus, Georgia, next to Fort Benning, where he started his Ranger training. In Tacoma, Washington, next to Fort Lewis, where he got more Ranger training. In Fayetteville. North Carolina, next to Fort Bragg, where Delta Force is trained. Especially just before Duran moved to another base or when he left Delta, there was a high incidence of mutilated animals.” Rutherford paused. “Then the bodies started turning up.”

  “Bodies?” Russell asked.

  “Winos and homeless people. All of them stabbed to death. Other winos and homeless people spread a rumor about a man who stalked them at night. Under bridges. In storm culverts. In parks and alleys, in abandoned buildings and junk-filled lots. The rumors were about this man kicking drunks awake or knocking cardboard boxes over and making homeless people crawl out. He gave them a knife and told them to fight. Then he went to work. But the patterns of the cuts showed that he took a long time to finish them off.”

  “Yeah,” Russell said. “The prince of darkness.”

  Kim threw up again.

  2

  After the doctor left, Cavanaugh and Jamie studied Kim where she lay on the bunk.

  “An ambulance is coming,” Jamie assured her.

  Pale, Kim managed to nod.

  “The doctor says you're in stress from withdrawal.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Two in the morning.”

  “Longest time I've gone without Oxy since last spring. At least, I'm not shitting my pants yet.”

  “The doctor says he's taking you to a detox clinic,” Cavanaugh said.

  Kim nodded weakly again.

  “He says you asked to be taken there,” Cavanaugh added.

  “Hey.” Kim ran her tongue along her dry lips. “I'm into withdrawal this far. I might as well go all the way.”

  Cavanaugh noted that Kim didn't qualify her statement by saying she would try to go all the way. “Don't worry about your job. It'll be there when you come back.”