Killed in Action

by Michael Sloan

  But maybe Melody was different. Maybe there might be a way for her to be a part of his life. If he allowed her to be.

  “I’m living at the Liberty Belle Hotel on West Sixty-Sixth Street. I’ll be there in a couple of hours. Here’s a spare key to my suite, 1728. Let’s have a drink together.”

  Melody’s smile would have lit up half of Broadway. She took the key, slid it down her cleavage, since there wasn’t any other place she could have put it as far as McCall could see, then she moved out onto the dance floor.

  McCall walked out of Dolls nightclub.

  * * *

  He hadn’t seen the elegant man sitting on the far side of the dance floor with its gyrating crush of bodies moving in the psychedelic lights. He wore a dark blue three-piece suit, a red silk tie with chess pieces on it, a slim gold bracelet on one wrist. His dark hair was long and wavy.

  He wore the silver demon-claws skull on his right hand, and the silver band next to it, which was inscribed REMEMBER THAT YOU MUST DIE.

  The elegant man finished his gin and tonic and made his way through the nightclub out into the street.

  * * *

  Linda Hathaway was sitting at the bar in Bentley’s when McCall walked in. Sherry, the Asian hostess, gave him a hug. Then she escorted a party of six toward a table. McCall moved to the bar. Amanda was waiting for a tray of drinks. Gemma was standing, ogling her black gothic makeup with awe. Norman Rosemont sat on the barstool beside Linda, looking relaxed and happy.

  Gemma asked Amanda, “Can I do my makeup like yours?”

  “You don’t wear any makeup,” Linda said pointedly. “You’re three.”

  “But can I try it?”

  “You’ll have to ask your mom,” Amanda said. “I was six when I started getting into goth. My mom freaked out, but it grew on her. Thanks, Laddie,” she said, taking the tray of drinks from him. She smiled at McCall. “Hi, Bobby.” Then she rushed back into the fray.

  Linda stood up at McCall’s arrival, a little nervous. “I have to be at work in an hour, but you said to meet you here. What a great place! This is my friend Norman Rosemont.”

  Rosemont looked sheepish. “Mr. McCall and I have met.”

  “Really?” Linda turned back to McCall. “Norman turned out to be our landlord, can you believe that? When he saw the conditions we were all living under, he went to bat for us, but then the building almost burned right down to the ground!” Linda reached out and entwined her fingers in Rosemont’s hand. “He was a hero! He saved Gemma’s life!”

  “No, no, that wasn’t the way it happened,” Rosemont said, embarrassed for the umpteenth time.

  “That’s the way I heard it,” McCall said.

  “Norman is putting us all up at the Liberty Belle Hotel until we can move back into a new building,” Linda said. “He came with me for some moral support tonight.” It was obvious to McCall that more than casual affection had sprung up between her and Rosemont.

  Behind the bar, Andrew Ladd came over to them, looking quizzically at McCall. “What can I do for you, Bobby?”

  “This is Linda Hathaway. She’s working at a diner called the New York Minute in Chelsea. The clientele, to quote a police detective friend of mine, are ‘a little above pond scum,’ but she can’t afford to work anywhere else.”

  Laddie was way ahead of this. He smiled at Linda. “We’re hiring servers and bartenders right now. Fill out the application and you can start tomorrow. I know the New York Minute diner. They wouldn’t care if you gave them an hour’s notice.”

  Linda looked from Laddie to McCall, astonished. “Just like that? I mean, I do have restaurant experience and…”

  Laddie shrugged. “If Bobby says you need a job, that’s good enough for me.”

  McCall turned back to Linda. “You’ll like it here. Nice people, good crowd.” He started to move back through the restaurant.

  Norman Rosemont hustled to intercept him. “I don’t know what you had to do with turning my life around, but it’s clear to me that someone did, and Sam Kinney won’t talk.”

  “He’s an old spy. They don’t talk much.”

  “That lunch at the Russian Tea Room where you showed me those terrible bites on Gemma’s arms and legs. I didn’t give a damn about it. I didn’t frankly care about anything. But I was very wrong.”

  McCall looked over at Linda Hathaway, who was sitting in a booth filling out her job application with Amanda’s help.

  “I’m just trying to tell you…” Then the irritation dissipated from Rosemont’s voice. He held out his hand. “Just thanks.”

  McCall shook his hand. “Sometimes you have to step back to look at where you are.”

  “And what about you, Mr. McCall? Can you do that?”

  “It doesn’t work that way for me.”

  McCall walked out of Bentley’s.

  * * *

  It look James Thurgood Cameron four days to try to put his life back together. Matthew Goddard had disappeared from the intelligence complex in Virginia. No one knew where he had gone. Control ascertained that Peter Wintrop, a high-level spymaster whom Control knew by reputation, had taken charge of The Company. He was one of the first calls Control made. Control made several discreet calls and found out that the colleagues he’d known in The Company had been fed a carefully documented lie. That Control was out of the country on a highly classified mission in the Middle East, a cover that must not be broken. He must not be contacted in any way. The staff and the higher-level officials at the Company had signed agreements saying that James Cameron didn’t exist. Two of Control’s colleagues who had wanted to know what the hell was happening had disappeared. Control knew that meant they’d been eliminated. Records at The Company had been deleted. No trace of James Cameron would be found … by anyone.

  The rogue Company assassins who had been brought in to protect the insidious terrorist plot had been well camouflaged. They had reported only to Matthew Goddard. Once Control had talked to Peter Wintrop, these rogue assassins had been searched for, but not found. Control knew that most of them had been taken out in Texas. The three Croatian agents who had kept Control a prisoner in the house in Virginia, Tom Renquist, the assassin whom McCall had killed in London, the blond twins, all had been eliminated.

  Control was certain that their sole purpose had been to protect the three bothers—Tom Coleman, Dr. Patrick Cross, and Bo Ellsworth—so that the plot against the United States could be carried out. Control and Gunner were trying to piece together how Tom Coleman had come to fight with the Insurgents in Syria. That intel had been carefully protected. Documents that were just now being discovered pointed to Matthew Goddard as the head of the conspiracy. Control didn’t know what had fueled Goddard’s hatred of his own country. It was more than money. It was obviously a deeply held belief, fueled by the Jihadists who were at war with the United States. Matthew Goddard was now a high-profile traitor that all of the intelligence agencies, and NATO, were trying to find.

  Control moved his wife, Jenny, and his two teenage daughters, Kerry and Megan, from the rented house they’d been living at in Denver, Colorado, back to Washington, DC. They were going to rent a colonial house just outside DC in Easton, Maryland, on the Chesapeake Bay, where they would again have anonymity.

  When Control flew in to DC, he was picked up by Jason Mazer, a Company Control. He had gone to ground, as McCall had surmised, when Matthew Goddard had started his witch hunt for Control. Mazer had kept a low profile until Control called him.

  Mazer drove Control out to his house in Arlington, Virginia. A FOR SALE sign was on the front lawn. Control walked up the flagstone path to the porch and looked through the windows. No furniture was in the hallway, in the living room, or in the kitchen. Control walked around the line of butternut trees to the McMansion on the right. It also had a FOR SALE sign on it. Control walked onto the front porch and looked in the windows. No furniture, no paintings, the stillness of dead air. Control met up with Jason Mazer as he walked back from the house on the left.<
br />
  “Also for sale.”

  Control looked at the modern farmhouse he’d lived in for years. It was time for him to make a new beginning. He climbed back into Mazer’s BMW, and Mazer pulled away from the cul-de-sac. Control would be investigating the people who McCall had said were living in the three houses. But he knew they would be long gone.

  Control had called Emma Marshall in London. She was relieved to hear his voice. Control had asked her if she would consider returning to the United States, to The Company. She had said, “Oh, God, yes, please!” and that she had been considering matricide if she had to go on living with her seventy-six-year-old mother in Camberley for much longer. She would pack her things and see him in Virginia.

  Control walked into the Company complex of buildings on the morning of the fifth day. He asked for a pass at the security guard’s desk in the lobby of his building and was given a new one. He took the elevator to the sixth floor, walked down the corridor, and opened the door at the end. The Company offices looked the same to Control as the day he had walked out of them. There were some new people he hadn’t seen before. He saw a couple of shadow executives, who acknowledged him, who had been apprised that he had returned safely from a highly classified mission.

  Emma Marshall jumped up from her desk when Control walked in. It had been vacant since Samantha Gregson had mysteriously disappeared.

  “Good to have you back, sir.”

  Control noted that Emma’s white blouse was undone almost to the waist, her skirt was a mini, and her eyes were mischievous.

  Some things weren’t supposed to change.

  “Good to be back.”

  Control walked into his office. The furniture had been moved back to where he remembered it. A photo was on his desk of Jenny, Kerry, and Megan. His in-box was full. His laptop was on the desk. Control sat down and said, “It’s too bright in here.”

  Emma knew that her boss liked it moody, and she subdued the lighting. She brought him a Starbucks Guatemala Antigua coffee and told him he needed to respond to several messages immediately. Then she closed the office door.

  A small card was on Control’s desk. He opened it. It said, Welcome home, and was signed Robert.

  Control sat back and took a deep breath. There would be extensive meetings at the Pentagon, the CIA, and Homeland Security about the aborted attacks on American soil. Reports would be written and committees formed and intelligence data gathered. Control would be called to the DIA, the NSA, and the White House.

  For James Thurgood Cameron, it was good to know that he existed again.

  CHAPTER 51

  Megan Forrester was doing a fashion shoot in the Pierre Hotel on East Sixty-First Street. Lights were set up at one end of the lobby with its black-and-white-checkered marble floor. Crew members were tweaking trims and a second AD was grouping extras. McCall found Megan at a makeup table being fussed over by three assistants, getting ready for the next shot. She was wearing a stunning Pamella Roland laminated-lace trumpet gown with a velvet waistband. Megan looked up at McCall’s approach, a little fearful, McCall thought. Obviously she had not fully recovered from her ordeal. The makeup girls and hairdresser continued their feverish activity. McCall spilled the turquoise mother-of-pearl buttons onto the makeup table.

  “These came off the shirt you were wearing a couple of weeks ago in an alleyway off Essex Street.” McCall had a diamond earring in his other hand. “And you dropped this in that same alleyway.”

  Megan was suddenly wary and self-conscious. “Were you there that night?”

  “No. I picked up the second earring from a person of interest the police are talking to.” He dropped the other diamond earring into her outstretched palm. “Better to have the matching set.”

  Megan dropped the earrings onto the makeup table. “Thank you so much. These were a gift from my mother.”

  “Have a good shoot.”

  McCall turned to leave.

  “Who are you?”

  But McCall had already moved through the ornate lobby and out into the street.

  * * *

  McCall knew Melody had already entered his hotel suite because he was assailed by the scent of her perfume. The curtains at the windows were open, moonlight shafting through them. Otherwise the suite was in darkness. Melody had kicked off her shoes and her blue dress had dropped right to the floor on her way into the bedroom. McCall was convinced again that she was wearing nothing else. The kaleidoscopic lights from the dance floor at Dolls had outlined her figure in perfect detail.

  McCall took one more step toward the bedroom door before he sensed the danger.

  Matthew Goddard’s condescending voice said, “Turn around very slowly, old son, and please keep your hands out in front of you.”

  McCall turned. Matthew Goddard wore the same blue pin-striped suit with the red silk tie with the chess pieces on it. His features were lit by the moonlight. A thrill was in his eyes, as if this were something that real agents did in the field. He had always been an observer, the man who picked up the pieces after an aborted mission. Now he was directing the action, and he liked it. He held a Walther compact pistol in his right hand.

  He wasn’t alone.

  Melody stood naked and unmoving beside him. Goddard had his left hand clamped on her left shoulder. The Walther pistol was pressed tight to Melody’s neck. Both of them were standing at the low coffee table.

  “Now reach into your right jacket pocket,” Goddard rasped, “and take out your Glock 19 and throw it as far across the room as you can. This Walther will not move a millimeter from her neck.”

  McCall reached into his jacket pocket.

  “Grip it by the stock.”

  McCall lifted the Glock 19 out of his jacket and threw it across the sofa to the far side of the room. He took two steps toward the coffee table. The silver demon-claws skull gleamed on Goddard’s right hand, the silver ring beside it with its etching: REMEMBER THAT YOU MUST DIE.

  “You and your mercenaries killed my men,” Goddard said. “But did you think they were the only assassins working with me against the American government? There are a hundred of us, and the number is growing exponentially. This was just the first wave of patriots in the new world order.”

  “So you’ve been working for the Jihadists in Syria and Iraq?”

  “We work for the forces who are ripping this world apart. These assassins are shadowy and untraceable. You won’t find out anything about them. I’m sure Control has already put the best cryptographers in The Company to work to try to decipher the hieroglyphics on the back of the silver skulls.”

  Something caught McCall’s eye on the coffee table. He didn’t think it could be seen from where Goddard was standing, masked by a silver bowl of candies.

  “Do they have any significance at all?” McCall took another step toward the coffee table.

  “You’ll never find out,” Goddard said in his singsong rasp. “It’s not a code that can be broken.”

  McCall became aware that Melody was moving slightly. Her hand had traveled down her body until it was below her breasts. McCall couldn’t see in the intermittent moonlight what she was doing, but her hand stayed at her navel. She gasped suddenly.

  Goddard pressed the barrel of the Walther tighter against her neck. “Keep still!” he hissed.

  Melody gave a little whimper of fear.

  But it wasn’t that.

  It was in pain.

  McCall realized what she had done. His eyes flicked back down to the coffee table, then back to Goddard’s face. His eyes were feverish.

  “There’s a mystique about you, old son. You’re a legend. But even legends fade away after time. Memento mori. Remember that you must die.”

  Things happened all at once, as time slowed down for McCall.

  Melody reached up and stabbed something small and sharp into Goddard’s wrist on her shoulder.

  When he gasped in sudden pain, she half turned out of his grasp.

  The Walther pistol wavered for
a fraction of a second from her neck.

  McCall picked up the slim throwing knife from the coffee table and threw it at Goddard’s face with a flick of his wrist.

  The blade went into his right eye.

  Goddard fell back, firing the Walther into the air. He crashed down to the floor. McCall grabbed Melody and held her tightly. He looked down at Goddard’s supine figure, the blade sticking obscenely out of his eye socket.

  McCall gently took the sharp object from Melody’s hand.

  It was an open safety pin she had unfastened and slid out of her navel, which was bloody where she had tried to get the pin undone. McCall dropped it onto the coffee table.

  “Is he dead?” she whispered.

  “Yes.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  McCall let her go. She walked a little unsteadily around the couch, picked up her blue pumps and her blue dress from the floor, and disappeared into the bedroom. McCall heard water running in the bathroom. He retrieved his Glock 19, returned it to his jacket pocket, and dialed his iPhone. When Kostmayer answered, McCall said, “I need a cleanup at my hotel suite, number 1728 at the Liberty Belle Hotel.”

  “Anyone else hurt except your target?”

  “My date for the night is a little shaken up.”

  “Dating and you don’t mix too well,” Kostmayer murmured. “I’ll bring Jimmy with me.”

  McCall disconnected. Melody came out of the bedroom in her blue dress. She had on her blue pumps. McCall moved over to her.