by Vicki Hinze
He pulled into the parking lot. Gravel crunched under his tires and his stomach rumbled. Maybe he’d grab some dessert, too.
After that miserable meal at home, he needed to cleanse his palate and clear his head of bad thoughts. About Mandy and Liv, and definitely about his son and daughter and that manipulative tyrant of a woman he had the misfortune to call his wife. Never in his life had he met anyone so evil—and between his criminal law practice and his extracurricular NINA ventures, he’d routinely interacted with a lot of raunchy people.
But even their worst didn’t come close to the low-down things that occurred under his own roof. His family won the prize hands-down for scraping the bottom of the barrel.
His former family.
Yes. The excitement returned. In his new life, he had no family. He liked that, and he intended to keep it that way.
Now, he could finally choose. The persistent heaviness on his chest lightened. In a couple weeks, after he settled it, that too would become a distant memory.
Earlier tonight, he’d choked down their last lousy meal together and then he’d cited needing to work and left. His wife hadn’t bothered to ask where he was going . . . and he hadn’t bothered to tell her.
That rebellion, after years of toeing her lines in the proverbial sand, had felt good. Really good.
That was all over now. From this point forward, he controlled his life.
Finally!
He swung into an open parking slot next to a rusted out pickup, got out, locked the door, and then headed across the parking lot to the little brick building. His legs felt half numb. Guess he needed to move around a little more than he needed coffee and dessert.
A sleepy guy sat on a stool behind the register. Charles nodded and walked on, through the store to the back café. Three other people sat in two of its six booths. He walked to the far end away from them and sat down in the worn-out booth with his back to them, discouraging conversation. The cracked green vinyl stabbed into the backs of his legs.
A waitress in her sixties, wearing too much makeup and too short a skirt for a woman her age, set a clear plastic glass of water on the table. “Hey. What can I get you?”
Should he risk eating here? He was a little hungry.
Why not? You’re already living dangerously, right?
He looked at the waitress. “How about a pastrami on rye and a large coffee. Black.”
“Coming right up.” She walked away, crackling her chewing gum.
He stretched and sipped at the water. To make the flight out of New Orleans to Tokyo, he’d have to drive the rest of the night. The coffee would help keep him awake. From Tokyo, he took a two-hour hop. He could sleep then.
“Jackal.”
The whisper from behind him caught him off-guard. An icy chill streaked up his spine. Charles didn’t turn around—didn’t have to turn around to recognize that voice. NINA had found him. Already. How?
Paul Johnson walked to the opposite side of the booth and then sat down, his suit impeccable, his shirt crisp. How he managed that, Charles had no idea.
The geriatric waitress bounded over. “What can I get you, hon?”
“Coffee, please.”
“Anything to eat? Your companion’s having pastrami on rye . . .” she said, attempting to entice him.
“No, thank you.” Johnson glanced her way. “Just the coffee.”
When she’d gone, Johnson focused on Charles, his face expressionless. He didn’t utter a sound, just waited for Charles to explain himself.
His throat dry, he did his best not to shake. Johnson shouldn’t know him. “And you are . . .?”
His eyes turned stony. “Don’t even go there. You know who I am, and why I’m here.”
He definitely knew. NINA definitely knew. How Phoenix had discovered the truth, Charles didn’t know. From the very beginning, he’d been so careful . . .
The waitress must have picked up on the tension at the table. She placed their orders before them without a word, then quickly left.
Charles glanced down at the sandwich. His last meal. His stomach curled then coiled into fist-sized knots. “How long have you known?”
“Your real identity?” Johnson sighed, sipped over the steam in his white mug. “We’ve always known.”
The coils clenched tighter. Total failure. “So Liv died for nothing.”
“Actually, she died because we needed her to die.” Johnson sipped from his steaming cup. “Mmm, decent coffee for a hole in the wall.”
“Why?” Charles asked. “She didn’t even know you existed.”
Johnson laughed. “For a smart man, you’re incredibly dense.” Johnson set down his mug. “Her daughter was engaged to a Shadow Watcher, and you actually think everyone on either side hasn’t turned over every rock to find out all there is to know about both of you?”
The truth smacked Charles between the eyes. “You set me up to kill her.”
“You did fine on that front without any help from us. But your sacrificing her to save yourself was entirely predictable.” Johnson pulled a paper napkin from the dispenser and folded it into a neat square. ” You’ve always done it—with her and your daughter.”
Something in Johnson’s body language alerted Charles. He’d seen it too often in clients, witnesses, and jurors to miss it. “Are you telling me I didn’t kill Liv?”
Johnson nailed him with a level look. “You shot her.”
He had, but there was something . . . They expected he would shoot her. Had they prepared her? “Is Liv dead?” Charles didn’t know what to think. Not now, not about anything.
Johnson’s narrowed eyes gleamed. “Officially, yes. She is dead.”
Afraid to assume, Charles pushed, mindful that to get the right answers, he had to ask the right questions. “So what you’re saying is, unofficially she isn’t dead.” Was that possible? He’d fired the shot, seen her blood stain her blouse, pool on the floor where she’d fallen. His mind raced. Liv alive? Was that remotely possible? He shoved at his plate. It scraped across the table. “I don't believe you. I watched her die.”
“Did you?” Johnson took another sip of coffee.
Charles thought he had. She’d looked dead, though he hadn’t checked her pulse for fear of leaving evidence on the body. He would have sworn, but now, looking at Johnson, Charles wasn’t sure. Wait . . . Wait. Mind games. Phoenix, or someone with NINA, knew he was running, and now they were playing mind games with him to torment him. Johnson was notorious for torment. He thrived on it. “She’s dead,” he told Johnson. “Mandy was at the scene. She saw Liv’s body. So did Detective Walton and the M.E. and half the Maddsen police force.”
Johnson paused a long second, retained his icy calm, and his face didn’t twitch. That tell of his warned when he was emotional, and it was nowhere to be found. “Mandy never went inside the house. Can’t contaminate an active crime scene.”
“What about the others? Cops were all over the place in there.”
“Cops, you say?” Johnson paused. “Hmm, were they now?”
“I saw them.” He’d been in the side yard across the street with binoculars. He’d seen everything.
“Really? Are you positive?” Johnson twisted his mouth, leaned forward and laced his hands on the tabletop. His cufflink winked in the weak florescent light. “Or did you see what we wanted you to see?”
Beyond scared, Charles grew angry. “To pull off what you’re suggesting, Walton, the M.E., and every cop out there would’ve had to have been NINA affiliates. Do you expect me to believe Phoenix—NINA—arranged that and staged the whole thing?”
“Not being involved, I wouldn’t know.” Johnson held up his cup, signaling the waitress for a refill. “You do know well, however, that NINA and Phoenix compartmentalize, revealing operational details on a need-to-know basis.”
True. No one conducting any aspect of a mission knew the entire mission, only that part for which he or she was responsible. It was safer for everyone that way—and it added ad
ditional layers of protection and distance for the honchos. One can’t disclose what one doesn’t know.
The waitress carried over the coffeepot and then poured.
“Thank you.” Johnson looked up at her and smiled.
It chilled Charles to the bone. Phoenix, or someone above him, must have staged everything except him pulling the trigger. Yet he’d shot Liv in the chest. He’d seen the blood . . .
Maybe he hadn’t. Had he seen anything a vest and fake blood couldn’t produce? He scanned his memory.
“Ah, reality finally bites.”
It could have been staged. Charles frowned at Johnson.
“Another fact to consider, should you be suffering lingering doubts or delusions,” Johnson said, straightening his forefinger from where it’d been curled around his mug. “In your experience, how many new homicide investigations have gone from being opened to cold-cased—unofficially, of course—in under seventy-two hours?” Johnson hiked a shoulder. “In my experience, which admittedly isn’t as extensive as yours, that’s way too fast.”
He’d been duped.
The truth revealing itself to him so slowly did bite Charles. Hard. “Is Olivia still alive?” He tried to keep the hope that she was out of his voice but wasn’t sure he’d succeeded.
“I’m afraid only Phoenix can answer that question. You can ask him yourself, of course.”
She had to be working with NINA. Why else would it engage her on this? It wouldn’t. Had she betrayed him, too? Betrayed him, or been a forced participant? It could have come down either way. “Why did Phoenix want her dead?”
“I told you once. Weren’t you listening?” Johnson seemed irritated. “Her daughter was engaged to a Shadow—“
“No. I’m not buying that.” She’d broken off with Tim and stayed away from him with no contact whatsoever. “There’s more.” Charles thought a second, spun scenarios and landed on one that made sense. “The Shadow Watchers made a connection between Liv and NINA—or it feared they would.” NINA would definitely want her dead before that could happen.
“Maybe you’re not totally dense,” Johnson said. “Though it wasn’t the Shadow Watchers.”
“Then who was it?”
“A special team of active-duty operatives. One of them is particularly troublesome. He goes by Omega One. We had to have Homeland Security intervene to, shall we say, protect our interests.” Johnson sat back. “But that’s no longer relevant to you. Neither, for that matter, is Olivia.”
Because you betrayed NINA. You’re a dead man.
Charles read between those lines to the unstated but obvious just fine. “So what happens now? You kill me here, in the parking lot, or what?” Resignation inched into his tone. He couldn’t run or hide. If NINA wanted him dead, he would be dead. He couldn’t survive against their will any more than anyone else had been able to do it, and both Johnson and he knew it.
“Actually, for now NINA wants you alive. It has plans for you.”
That surprised Charles. “Plans?” They weren’t going to kill him? How . . . odd. “What plans?”
Johnson nodded. “You’re going to go to your daughter’s wedding tomorrow and walk her down the aisle.”
“I—I what?” Johnson couldn’t have said anything that could have set Charles further back on his heels. What was Phoenix up to now?
“You heard me correctly. Phoenix has decided to give you an opportunity to redeem yourself. We’re the only two in NINA currently aware of your attempted unauthorized exodus, by the way.” He rolled his shoulder. “If that were not the case, this . . . reprieve would not be possible.”
His heart beat hard and fast. “Why does Phoenix want me at Mandy's wedding?”
Johnson circled the rim of his coffee mug with his thumb. “Unfortunately—well, fortunately for you—you happen to be known as the father of the bride. That gives you a unique advantage we can’t substitute on such short notice. So you get to live.”
“For . . .?” Did he die after the wedding? Just how long a reprieve was this?
“For the purpose of observing and learning as much as you can about the Shadow Watchers and their methods,” Johnson said, answering a different but equally important question. “They’ve cost our organization a great deal of time and money and sidelined a number of key personnel. We’d like to inhibit their future efforts by any and all possible means. You’re going to help us do that.” Johnson watched a brawny man walk by and on to the restroom. “Phoenix thinks your daughter being married to one of them gives you the best access. If you want to live, which you clearly do to have made all your future plans, you’ll use that access for us.”
“You don’t understand. This won’t work.” Charles frowned, unsure if disclosing this was a benefit or would earn him a bullet now. “They’ve surely made the connection and suspect I’m Jackal.”
“I do understand, and you’re correct, at least in part,” Johnson said. “They currently suspect both you and Olivia as Jackal.”
“But she’s dead, so they’re focused on me.”
“You’re assuming again, Charles. Surely you’re beyond that same mistake.”
On this, he wasn’t mistaken. With her dead, they had to have their sights focused squarely on him. “So you’re sending me into the lion’s den to be slaughtered.”
“Slaughtered? At your daughter’s wedding?” Johnson pulled his lips back from his teeth. “I don’t think so. Remember who you’re dealing with, Charles. We’d make the wedding a bloodbath. They won’t.”
Johnson didn’t make sense. Charles hated having to ask for clarification, but he hated stumbling around in the dark more. “What?”
“We’re ruthless. They’re not. It’s their flaw, and we exploit it with monotonous regularity.”
“They’re not stupid. They won’t tell me anything,” he insisted. “And, even with the wedding, they’ll never let me walk out alive.”
“You’re going, Charles.” Johnson stripped the veneer from his tone. “Either to your daughter’s wedding or straight to the cemetery. It’s your call. I’m up for either.”
That was blunt enough to hit home. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it. I said, they’ll kill me on sight.”
“On any other day, they might. But not on Mandy’s wedding day. Not to spare you, of course. To spare her.”
“Spare her? From what?”
“You have no idea who they are, do you?” Paul let his impatience and disdain show. “Hard to believe you made the cut. NINA’s typically far more discerning. You really should do your research.”
“Would you just tell me your point?”
“I already have. Lazy and inattentive. It’s amazing that you’ve survived as long as you have with us. You really should pay closer attention.” Johnson frowned. “These men are nothing like us.”
Everything in him wanted to object to Johnson’s aspersions, but being on borrowed time, he didn’t dare. Visions of his new life faded. He tugged them back, held on tight. He’d find a way. There had to be one. He wasn’t nearly so dense as Johnson claimed. Hopefully, he’d be gone before Johnson or Phoenix came to understand that. “Meaning?”
“We do whatever, whenever, wherever to whomever. They don’t.”
“You told me this. We’re ruthless and they’re not.”
“They’re principled.” Johnson grunted. “They’ll want a decent wedding for your daughter. It’s sad, really.”
“Why is it sad for them to want a decent wedding for her?”
Johnson leveled him with a cold stare. “It isn’t. It’s sad that they care, and you do not. You’re her father and you couldn’t care less. That’s not only sad, it’s pathetic—even by our standards, or lack of them.” Johnson cleared his throat. “But relax. If they’d made the connection between you and NINA, you’d already be arrested or dead.”
Charles took the hit about Mandy because he deserved it. He didn’t care. About Liv, however, he cared very much. He had to find out if she was alive, which meant he ha
d to talk with Phoenix. “Statistically, I agree with you. But not enough time has elapsed since Mandy first contacted Tim for them to get the required clearances.” This was a small comfort.
Johnson’s expression turned icy. “They’re Shadow Watchers, Travest. They don’t need clearances. You should know that, too.”
“Former Shadow Watchers,” he said. “Small but distinct—“
“Do you really think that makes a difference?” Johnson’s disgust etched into every line on his face. “If so, you’re even more incompetent than I thought.”
Did it really make a difference? Charles had assumed it would, but now he accepted the flaw in his thinking. “No, not really.”
“Phoenix will be at the wedding. If you get into trouble and you’re lucky, perhaps you’ll have backup. Frankly, that could go either way. It depends on whether or not he sees you’ll be of future value.”
Hopefully, Charles could buy himself enough time to revise his plans and stay alive. “We’ve never met, just talked on the phone. How will I know Phoenix?”
Paul smiled. “Don’t worry about that. Phoenix, and everyone else there, knows you. If they choose to reveal themselves, they will.”
Charles was afraid to ask, but he had to know. “What about after this wedding? What am I supposed to do then?”
“Go home to your family, of course. Keep living your life the way you have been, and await further orders.”
Everything in Charles rebelled. “I can’t go back to that woman, Johnson. Or to those spiteful kids. You don’t understand. They know about Liv and Mandy. I don’t have a home with them anymore.” And once his wife discovered he had raided their accounts, he wouldn’t have a life anywhere else, either.
“You don’t have a choice.”
Johnson seemed pretty cocky for a man who’d tangled with the Shadow Watchers twice before and lost both times. He’d landed in prison and had been forced by NINA to confess to the murder of his brother, Edward. After a while, the organization had bought him out—at a steep price. NINA owned Johnson for life.
That’s what being on the losing end of a tangle with the Shadow Watchers could do to a man.
