“Deavers is clearly a loose cannon,” said Kilmer. “If he was injured in the explosion, he might be mentally imbalanced. We don’t know what he’s planning, but it can’t be good. We can assume that when you catch up to him, he will try to eliminate you just as he has every other agent he’s encountered. I will not send an agent after him without teeth in his orders. So do you accept the terms?”
Luther took just a moment, but in that instant he relived his history with Alex, an exceptional man who had introduced Luther to the world and his role in it Alex was a friend, but Luther was a creature of duty. E-1 was not unlike a sports team, a place where personal achievement never outweighs a common cause. The goal of the team was to win at all costs, and in that regard Luther had no choice.
“Yes, sir,” said Luther. “I do.”
“You start today,” said Kilmer.
“I need to know what Alex was in Africa for.”
“He was protecting the secretary and making sure the country’s covert positions were being held. The secretary didn’t know anything about that.”
Luther waited a second for Kilmer to keep talking. When he didn’t, he asked, “And his E-1 assignment…?”
Kilmer’s look didn’t waver, and neither did Luther’s. Luther had as much as said to the director that he knew he was holding back vital information. Operatives always had multiple assignments. They received their cover, their stated assignment, and beneath it all there was usually a task specifically for E-1 that came from the director himself.
Kilmer looked at Luther with the blank stare of a man who’d been raised in the agency. It was a look that told nothing but spoke volumes to Luther, who knew Kilmer was measuring his response and the value of the information. Then Kilmer did something Luther wouldn’t have thought possible—he laughed.
“If you hadn’t asked me, I’d’ve thought I’d selected the wrong agent,” said Kilmer.
Kilmer went back to the screen and hit a button on his desk. The screen flashed E-1 MISSION FILE: DIRECTOR’S EYES ONLY. The file appeared, showing a picture of an African military man.
“Alex’s E-1 mission was to eliminate this man, Supreme Commander Ngamu Behiddah of the Congo region. Behiddah was planning a coup and was allied with several other strongmen known to be hostile to the U.S.”
“Behiddah was also rumored to be a terrorist sympathizer,” Luther added. “But he was killed by one of his own men, I thought.”
“Deavers is an expert in elimination,” said Kilmer. He smiled ever so slightly.
Luther admitted being a little jealous. He had checked that story when he saw it, thinking it was an agency hit. But there were no telltale signs of E-1 on it. All the evidence pointed to Behiddah’s subcommander as the killer.
“So I assume it wasn’t Behiddah’s people who paid Gorman,” said Luther.
“No. After Alex’s elimination of Behiddah, all Behiddah’s men were rounded up and killed by his successor.” Kilmer looked at Luther with his unreadable stare again, but this time Luther knew what he was thinking.
“Was Alex clean?” Luther asked. “Did we try to backwash him?”
“Backwash” was a field term for the elimination of an assassin after he’s completed his mission, in order to clean or “backwash” any witnesses. This was done when an agent was dirty and the agency was onto him.
“No,” said Kilmer. “I think Alex might be insane, and right now he may believe that we tried to kill him. Under this delusion he might be allying with our enemies.”
“You think he’s a traitor?” asked Luther.
“I think he’s sick and extremely dangerous,” said Kilmer, looking gravely serious. “There are a lot of secrets in that head of his. We need to keep them there by eliminating him. Good luck.”
Luther said goodbye, stood, and left the director’s office. When he stepped outside, he was immediately met by Thomas, who had an envelope in his hands.
“This is the file and your instructions,” Thomas said, handing the thick packet to Luther. “Mr. Hampton is your tech and weapons adviser as usual, and the director will expect contact at all key junctures by the usual channels.”
“Thanks,” said Luther.
Luther took a few steps and then almost bumped into Frank Hedgispeth, a fellow E-1 agent. Frank was a good agent, but he and Luther had never had an easy relationship. Frank stuck close to home when he could and worked the system for advancement, while Luther did fieldwork. They’d been rivals throughout training, and they’d probably be rivals for power within the agency one day.
“Hey, Luth,” said Frank. Luther hated being called “Luth.” It was an asinine nickname, but that was Frank’s way, always too damned friendly.
“Hey, Hedge,” said Luther, remembering Frank’s E-1 academy name.
“Back in the old U.S., huh?” said Frank.
“Yes, good to be back.”
Thomas had been standing nearby through all of this. Luther shot him a glare, and Thomas scampered off to his desk.
Luther turned back to Frank, who was looking cocky and smug as usual. Luther was sure mat Frank wanted to brag to him about something.
“So what you been up to?” asked Luther.
“Nothing much,” said Frank. “Hey, did you hear about the Terrorism Task Force in South America? It was coordinated to foster U.S. antiterrorist policies. Some radical political leader opposed it, but he died a month before.”
Luther knew in an instant that Frank had headed up that effort and taken out the leader. An agent didn’t speak directly of his prior missions. He talked about them as if they were news stories.
Frank’s father was a congressman from New York, an ex-military and ex-FBI agent, and his mother was, of all things, an ex-marine. They’d gotten rich working for military suppliers after retiring from the service. They’d brought young Frank into the fold as a full-fledged government blueblood.
“Great. Well, I gotta go. Nice seeing you, Frank.”
“Listen, there are three of us here now. Let’s go out and have some fun.”
Luther glanced at the big map and saw the three gold buttons in Virginia.
“Who’s the third?” asked Luther.
“Bane,” said Frank, and then he smiled knowingly.
“I’ll take you up on that,” said Luther. He really didn’t want to hang out with Frank, but he did like Sharon Bane, and he hadn’t seen her in ages. “Where are we meeting?”
“X Club,” said Frank.
“It’s a meat market.”
“Well, I’m feeling carnivorous today,” said Frank.
Luther smiled and walked out of the director’s office. He felt Frank bore holes in his back as he did. He moved into the elevator lobby. There was something on his mind as he got into an elevator and made his way out of E-1. The thought stayed with him as he went through an exit security check. Kilmer wanted to make sure you were the same person leaving as you were when you came in.
Luther walked into the bright sunshine as the nagging notion pulled itself out of that pool of doubt that lay beyond his loyalty to his superiors. He’d kept this feeling at bay while he was talking to Kilmer and the others at E-1. Agents were too adept at reading people, and what he was thinking was dangerous at this juncture of the mission.
Information, he said to himself.
Kilmer had said that Deavers had executed his E-1 assignment, killed the target, and later killed Gorman and escaped “in possession of that information, too.” Then Kilmer’s brow had furrowed and his eyes had widened as if he’d made a mistake saying the sentence. The word “too” suggested that there was additional information in Alex’s possession. If that were true, why hadn’t Kilmer said anything about it? Was it information from Deavers’s E-1 assignment? Was it just a poor use of words?
These were troubling questions, thought Luther, as troubling as the prospect of killing Alex Deavers.
The Hookup
Luther got into his car and drove away from the facility. It was a mild spring
day, and he couldn’t remember seeing a more beautiful one. When summer set in, it would get hot and sticky in the D.C. area, and he’d want to be anywhere but here.
Luther didn’t head straight home. He went to a nearby mall, where he did some light shopping. He delighted some kids in an arcade while playing a shooting game called House of 1,000 Corpses, where he used two guns to blast zombies to bits. His score had been almost perfect through three levels. When the kids asked what he did for a living, he’d said, “I’m a kind of a cop.”
Luther took in a movie and then had dinner at a sit-down restaurant later, where he flirted with a waitress who gave him her cell-phone number. When he got home, it was going on nine o’clock.
The E-1 condo was a modest place just outside the capital. It was a secure building owned by a retired agent who did daily security sweeps. Luther examined his doorjamb and found his polycord seal still intact. Polycord was a transparent spray that hardened into a sealant after application. If anyone had been inside without his permission, the seal would have been broken.
Luther put his electronic key in the lock and heard the series of clicks on the other side, signaling that the computerized security system was disabling itself. He went in, took a quick nap, and then started to get dressed. He put on a hard-driving tune by Tupac. He’d have to listen to whatever crap they played at the X Club, so he’d listen to some good music beforehand.
Luther got dressed in jeans and a black mock turtle that showed off his physique. He glanced at himself in the full-length mirror in his bedroom and was pleased with what he saw. Luther struggled with his handsomeness. It was a good thing at times, but in his heart he felt that too much investment in it might lead to pride, and that was a weakness, something that could be exploited by counteroperatives. A man could be made weak if the right woman came along and the man’s belief that he was entitled to her only added to his proclivity to wander away from his obligations.
He put on his leather jacket and was about to go when he was hit by the feeling that he shouldn’t. Whenever he was on a mission, he wanted to deprive himself of everything pleasurable, diverting all desire to the intent to succeed. Going out to a club to engage in the sexual rituals of the day seemed like an unnecessary digression. He had to find Alex Deavers, and that was all he would let himself think about.
Luther suppressed this feeling. It was simply a part of the mission mentality, he told himself. In fact, he would have been spooked if he didn’t feel this way. He always worked things through in the beginning.
Luther walked out of his condo and engaged the security system. If breached, it would sound an alarm for building security and a corresponding one at E-1, where a strike team would be dispatched to his place. He’d be notified as well. He reseated the door with a layer of polycord and set out.
The X Club was alive with music, bodies, and one-night dreams. The women were beautiful and scantily clad. Luther was again reminded that he hadn’t been with a woman in a while, and the admiring stares were getting to him. He ignored the ones from the men.
It was difficult for him to let go of his training in such a place. Even with all the stimuli, he saw things that others might have missed. Two of the waitresses were making drug deals. There were eight bouncers in the place, but only one of them would be trouble to kill. The others he could dispose of in less than five minutes with the proper weapon. In fact, with all the noise and distractions, he could probably kill a couple of people before anyone caught on.
Luther didn’t see Sharon Bane or Frank anywhere, so he copped a seat at the bar and waited. He ordered a Rémy martini. The bartender, a beefy white kid with long hair, made a fine one.
Luther caught the scent of perfume coming from his left side. It was subtle and wafted just under the other smells of the place. He could feel her now behind him, moving closer, deliberate in her approach. He was excited, but he didn’t turn. That was the first mistake men made with women, giving them too much attention, making them feel that they, the men, were not the ones in control. Even though it could put one’s life in danger, the rules of the predator nonetheless applied.
He waited.
“Can I squeeze in?” asked a woman’s voice very close to his ear.
Luther didn’t say anything. He just shifted his weight and got off his barstool, sliding his drink over. The woman slid in next to him, smiled, and cocked her head to see his face better.
She was pretty and obviously a mixture of several ethnicities—most notably Asian, which was strong in her almond-shaped eyes. She wore a little leather skirt whose top stopped just below her belly, showing off her muscular stomach, which she was undoubtedly very proud of. The swell of her chest caught his eyes, and her dark hair was cut short and feathered nicely.
She was a stunner, he thought, but his face betrayed none of that sentiment. A beautiful woman doesn’t want a man she thinks is easy or eager. She wants what she shouldn’t have.
If a woman goes through all the bother of getting dressed in sexy attire, fixing her hair, and spending God knows how much on all this, she is not going to hook up with some man who she thinks just wants to put his dick in her and disappear. She wants something more, something special, and if she can’t get it, she’ll go home alone with her fantasy.
“Thanks,” she said.
“No problem,” said Luther. He looked at her and didn’t stop. He stared directly into her eyes and dropped all pretext from his mind. She saw this, and curiosity started to rise in her face. Luther then turned away, just enough to break the connection.
“Do I know you?” she asked.
He waited a beat, then another, just long enough for her curiosity to peak again. Then he said, “I’m the man you came here to meet tonight.”
“Really?” she asked. “Never heard that one before.”
She was about to say something else when Luther took her hand and led her to the dance floor. She followed him with an amused look on her face.
“I don’t suppose it would make sense to resist,” she said.
“It would,” said Luther, “but where’s the fun in that?”
They embraced and moved with each other. The song, a bumping, forgettable hip-hop tune, was five times faster than the tempo they were dancing, but they took no notice. Luther was excited and didn’t even try to stop the erection building in his pants. He pulled her close to him and felt her hands exploring.
“I’m Tomiko,” she whispered.
“Jordan,” said Luther. It was the name of a good friend he’d gone to school with.
“Black and Korean, if you’re wondering.”
“I wasn’t, but it’s nice to know.” Luther said this to her in Korean.
“Oh! You speak it?” she said, surprised. “I’m not so good. What did you say?”
“That it was nice to know.”
“You are surprising,” said Tomiko. “What kind of black man speaks Korean?”
“Just me,” he said, smiling.
Tomiko looked at him for a moment, seemingly unable to respond to his statement. For a while, they merely felt each other’s embrace, and Luther could sense that she got his meaning.
“You don’t seem like the kind of guy who would come here alone. Where are your friends?”
“They’re late,” said Luther. “You?”
“My cousin and her friends invited me here on my layover.”
They stopped dancing and went back to the bar. It was full, and so they just stood by it, leaning on a bare corner. They talked for twenty minutes or so about nothing. She asked Luther about himself, and he cleverly avoided telling her anything.
Luther was preparing to start a line of conversation designed to get Tomiko to go to bed with him when he spotted Frank on the other side of the room. Frank saw him, waved, and started to wade through the crowd.
“There’s my friend,” said Luther.
“It’s okay,” said Tomiko. “My people got here while we were dancing. I gave them the ‘I’m with someone promis
ing’ sign.”
Luther smiled dutifully, but in truth he had seen her give that sign, a cute little gesture whereby she tugged at her earring absently. Tomiko wore diamond studs, and a woman might rub, push, or scratch them, but a tug? That was a sign.
She gave him her phone number. He didn’t offer his. Tomiko went over to her friends, who bubbled with excitement about the handsome man she was with. Luther watched her go but made sure he turned away when she got to her table.
“Nice ass on her,” said Frank as he walked up. “No need to let it go for me.”
“I didn’t,” Luther said.
“What did you tell her your name was?”
“Jordan,” said Luther.
“Nice. Let’s get a table.”
Luther and Frank walked over to a raised area up and away from the dance floor and grabbed a little table. There were not many people in this area, as most of the action was focused on the dance floor, the surrounding tables, and the bar. They ordered drinks, and Luther could already tell that Frank was up to something. He was jovial and laughing just a little too much. Frank was very intelligent, but he lacked the one quality that would make him a great agent. He had no instinct, that innate ability to know behavior and how to behave, to see and to hide. He stank at it, so before Sharon Bane walked in, Luther knew he had been set up.
Sharon Bane was pretty and doe-eyed, with a frame that was deceptively feminine. Underneath her all-American, girl-next-door looks was a hard woman who was trained in the deadly arts and bragged that she could bench-press two and a half times her weight.
Sharon was wearing a pair of tight jeans and stiletto-heeled boots. Her top was thin and airy and showed just a hint of her bra underneath. She wore little or no makeup, but her skin was so smooth that it was hard to tell sometimes. Her hair was neatly tied back into her trademark ponytail.
The Executioner's Game Page 4
