Hunter: Perfect Revenge (Perfectly Book 3)

by Alice May Ball

  Special Agents never get tired of saying how they’re all marksmen. If he wanted to shoot me at that range, he wouldn’t need any marksmanship. He’d have a hard job not hitting Vesper, though. That was what I was thinking as I looked in his eye. I could have been looking at a stone. His eyes were like the eyes of a Roman statue. Round, hard and with no hint of anything inside.

  Outside the hotel, Daniels sniffed the air. We went up the stairs in a line. Me first, then Vesper. Daniels at the rear.

  At the door to the room, Daniels asked her, “So, Agent Cross, what is the nature of the evidence you were hoping to find here?” I didn’t like him using the past tense there.

  She didn’t miss a beat. “Going only by what the suspect has told me, Agent Daniels, I’m expecting material evidence connecting the suspect with the intermediary known as ‘El Guapo,’ including voice recordings. Also, material evidence in the form of cell phones and phone chips used in communications that may be components in a number of criminal conspiracies.”

  He had me open the door and go in first.

  “Not a bad haul. If any of it turns out to be there.”

  She followed Daniels in and shut the door behind her. “Oh, that’s not all I’m expecting, Agent Daniels.”

  “No?” Daniels’ automatic was in his hand. He was fast. No doubt about that.

  She said, “I’m expecting to uncover evidence pointing to your own complicity in said conspiracies.”

  He smiled. “When you first showed up, Agent Cross,” in no hurry, Daniels checked his weapon and cocked a round into the chamber, “I could see you were ambitious.” He raised the gun. Pointed it at me.

  She said, “You didn’t ‘happen’ to be in the lobby of the Algonquin, Daniels. You tracked my phone. Mine or Horse’s.”

  He smiled, “You know it’s routine procedure to track any devices believed to be in the possession of a suspect.”

  “Of course. But to make those connections, you would have to have been keeping an extremely close eye on Agent Schultz.”

  “Ah, yes. Schultz.”

  Her foot lifted and her leg snapped out, shooting her heel into the side of his head.

  He saw it coming, but he didn’t have time to get entirely out of the way, and she caught him with a glancing blow. The heel of her boot tore a long jagged slash above his ear that began to bleed immediately.

  Moving aside, he caught her ankle. He moved to bring the gun to bear on her. To be sure the gun went up, and not down, I had to dive right in front of him. When the gun went off, a searing lash ripped into the top of my forehead. I knew he’d killed me.

  Vesper was fast. She turned and shoved back. Daniels’ head hit the floor with a crack. As the world turned red and went dark, I was amazed I could still hear and know what was going on. And I was still standing. After a moment, something wet wiped across my face.

  I groaned, “I’m dead.”

  Dabbing at my face she said, “Manflu. There’s a gash on your forehead, Horse. It will bleed a lot. But you’re fine.” She handed me the cloth.

  Her voice was tenderer than I’d heard it before, an unhelpful observation in a complicated moment. She said, “It’s nothing serious, but you’ll bleed until we can get it sealed up.”

  I held the cold cloth against my head. Daniels was on the floor, groggy. His hands were cuffed around the radiator pipe.

  “That’s a favorite trick of yours, I see.“ Her eyes shone as she looked back at me. “Hey, you’re not going to…”

  She raised a hand and looked hard in my eye, “Stop that sentence right there. Do not say another word.”

  She fished two phones out of Daniel’s coat. “Tell me the passcodes, Daniels.”

  He didn’t move, like he was unconscious. I held the wet rag over his face and squeezed. Cold water and warm blood splashed right in his eyes and into his nose and mouth. He flinched, so we could see he was awake. I put my foot on his balls. “You like these?” Now his eyes were open.

  I looked in his eye as I told him, “Vesper’s bound by the rules,” I pressed a little harder with my heel. “Laws, Geneva convention. All that shit.” He flinched as I pressed “But I’m not.” His eyes widened. I pushed hard. He folded and his arm in the cuffs yanked and twisted with a nasty wet ripping sound.

  “Passcodes, asshole, or you can put any dreams of starting a white picket fence family life behind you.” He howled as I put some weight against my heel. Then he told us. Then, after Vesper nodded that they worked, I kicked him hard in the balls. She glowered at me. I shrugged.

  My forehead dripped blood onto his face as I bent down. “Don’t take so long with your answers next time. Asshole.”

  “Interrogation skills, Horse.” There was a wicked smile in her voice. “It’s all about building a rapport.”

  She got into the phones and was looking at the screens. Checking numbers, I figured. Absently she said, “Intimidation and mistreatment just doesn’t get the results. When they feel threatened, people will say anything. You know more than ninety-two percent of the evidence obtained through torture is completely useless?”

  “You get into the phones OK?”

  She looked up with a grin. “Yup. Perfect, thanks.” I really loved that grin. I could have fucked her right then. She might not have liked it so much, though, having her treacherous colleague as a captive audience.

  Then, more serious, “He sent a text message like five minutes ago. Must have been just as we got here.” She looked up, “It gives the location of the hotel.”

  I looked over her shoulder at the phone. I knew the number. “Show me the call lists.”

  She held up the two phones. I didn’t know ay of the numbers on one. On the other, the one with the text message, about half of the calls were to or from the number I used for El Guapo. I took the phone from her and pressed the number.

  After about two rings, the voice I knew on the end said, “Why the fuck are you calling me now?”

  “I think I’ve got something of yours.”

  There was a pause and his voice dropped a notch. “Horse.” He didn’t sound so pleased to hear from me. “You’ve got some fucking survival skills, I got to say that.”

  “Coming from you, that’s something. You’ve stress tested them pretty extensively in the last few days.”

  “Okay.” he said, “What is it you want?”

  “Daniels is kind of tied up right now,” I told him, “I wondered if you’d like him back.” I hung up. I didn’t wait for him to reply.

  “This room’s about to get pretty crowded. We should get out of here.”

  We took Daniels’ phones, along with his wallet and his keys. “Take his shoes, Horse.”

  “You like them?”

  “Makes it all the harder for him to leave. That’s in case he can get free.”

  I had to admit, he looked pretty motivated. I pried the shoes off his feet. Nice, expensive shoes, too. He didn’t look at all pleased. I took his socks, too.

  “Tell you what,” I told him, “I can call the cops. Tell them you’re here.” His eyes widened. “The Bureau, too, if you’d like. You can play a fun game guessing who’ll get to you first.” Then I leaned nearer to his ear. “Which would you like it to be, Daniels? The cops, your colleagues, or whoever El Guapo’s going to send for you?”

  I ripped a sheet, stuffed his own sock in his mouth and gagged him.

  “I need to get back to that computer. Fast.” Vesper said, “And we need to get out of here.”

  OO LATE, I hoped that Daniels hadn’t heard what I said. Our now deceased SAC had been involved in the conspiracy, of that I was pretty certain now. Daniels, too, there couldn’t be any doubt. The Russian gangster, Vassily admitted he had a connection with the ‘boilerhouse project,’ and I knew already that Commissioner Butler was implicated.

  It was starting to feel like everyone in the city was a part of it except for me and Horse. And his comrade, Noah. I wondered whether he had gotten clear.

  Horse and I he
aded down the narrow, rickety stairs and got in another cab back to the Algonquin. The two hotels could have been in different universes and times.

  The receptionists in both greeted us with a similar mistrust and dislike, but the guy in his greying undershirt in Alphabet City, that was just his way. Here in the splendid uptown lobby, the prim woman tried to pretend that she was glad to see me, but it hadn’t gotten any easier for her than it had been the last time.

  She gave Horse a nice enough little sparkle though, as she led us back into the business suite. I told her to send some coffee and a first aid kit.

  “And a couple of bourbons.” Horse added. Holding the cloth tightly to his head. He seemed to have stopped the flow of blood, but I was pretty sure it would gush as soon as he let go.

  “Drinking, Horse? Now?”

  “I’m guessing you want us to go tackle the most corrupt cop in the State of New York. In the process, I’m liable to have the FBI, the cops and the most evil fucking maniac hunter killer El Guapo can come up with trying to kill me. And you don’t want me to have a shot of whiskey?”

  He sat next to me, “Do you special fucking G-Persons have no sense of fun and adventure?”

  I looked into his eyes and my gaze flicked from there to his lips and back. He touched my hand. He kissed me. That was nice. Very nice, in fact. Overall, I’d say it was pretty damned diverting. I was still climbing all over him when the sweet-looking dragon receptionist came back. She definitely had a distracted look as she set out the tray with the pot of coffee and the bourbons.

  She brought over a first aid box and opened it on the wide desk. She said to Horse, “Would you like me to look at that for you?”

  Firmly I said, “Thanks, but we’re good here.”

  Her ass twitched prettily at Horse as she hustled away. I slapped his cheek. He liked that, too. I kissed him again. He kissed me back. Long and slow. Deep and soulful.

  He pulled back and licked his lip. “Do you have much more to do on that computer?”

  “I compressed the contents of the disk and put a password on the file. Now I’m just waiting for this upload. One more thing to do after that and we’re good to go.” Before he asked, I said, “Yes, I can probably do most of the things while the upload is going on. It’s just a short email ready to copy out to about a dozen addresses.”

  He found sutures and tape and wiped the blood from his forehead. “It’s a long gash. Couple of inches. There’s some scorching either side too. It could do with cleaning up before it’s closed.”

  His eyes twinkled. “Field medicine. I’ll wipe it with alcohol, find some superglue and tape over it.”

  His eyes burned on my clothes as he slugged back one of the bourbons. He lifted the other tumbler and held it toward me. I shook my head.

  I wanted it, but I couldn’t afford to let my guard slip. Time was tight and I had to stay focused. I couldn’t risk it. Not now.

  He got his gash cleaned up some and put a Band Aid over it. He looked like an overgrown schoolboy who’d been in a scrape.

  The investigation still drove me, but I was also aware that Horse and I were still on at least one kill list each, from that moment at Carmine Monreale’s house. If I couldn’t bring the unraveling strands of this lethal mess into some order, he and I were both at deadly risk.

  ER JAW TIGHTENED and a fire burned in her eyes. I asked her, “What do you plan to do?”

  “Do? I’m going to arrest them and take them in.” She looked at me, “It’s my job. It’s what I do.”

  There was the line between us. I could feel it. She was the law. Driven by duty. It reminded me of my own tours of duty. Times when orders were all you needed to propel you. Times when the picture in front of your eyes was only of the action you needed to take. Comrades under threat, a village in danger? You knew what you had to do. Choices were made for you. No messy thinking. Just act. Inside, I envied her certainty. And, for a moment I wished we were on the same side.

  It almost made me chuckle. Thinking about her working on contract for El Guapo. Or Carmine. Or Vassily. No, Vesper wouldn’t ever come over to work my side of the street. Over here, duty wasn’t part of the job.

  Honor, only sometimes, though even that was really only for the mob guys. The tribes. The Italians, the Irish. Czechs, Serbs and Russians, they all had their blood feuds. Revenge. But when a contractor, someone like me got involved, I wasn’t avenging anybody’s cousin or their uncle or their daughter. I was just the hammer. The ax.

  Could I cross the street to Vesper’s side? That idea actually did make me laugh. Thinking about all of her co-workers in their suits. Following the rules. Bureau policies. Getting to work on time, jostling for promotions.

  No, avoiding life in that kind of a rat-run was a big part of why I did what I did. I picked my work and I did it my way. Nobody came to me at the end of a job, telling me it was time for a performance review and ‘feedback’ from the team.

  “What?” she peeked over her coffee cup. The look in her eye, I wanted to stretch her across that desk. Sweep away the keyboard and screen, rip her pants off and fuck her. Glass walls around the business center, though. Could be a bad idea. Her chin tilted up, “What’s making you laugh?”

  “You.” She frowned so I said, “Me,” then she looked puzzled. When I said, “Us,” she stood. She started grabbing her stuff together to go. It gave me a pang deep in my stomach. I touched her arm.

  I took a breath. Tried to fix the scent of her so I could remember it. Her face tightened.

  “Not now,” and her eyebrows pleaded. This was why I didn’t have deeper and more lasting relationships with women. They’re fucking complicated.

  I kissed her. That often simplifies things.

  The way she struggled, she was fighting to pull closer and to pull away, both at the same time. The churning of her body made my cock swell and stand like an eager animal. When I pulled us apart, her body was still clinging to me and her hands clawed at me.

  She felt it like I did. The time we had together now, it wasn’t enough. And we couldn’t even use it to the full, do what we both wanted to do.

  But it was all the time we would get. If we could get through the next few hours alive, we would have to part. Go back to our own sides of the street. Maybe peer across a crowded scene one time, see each other stood up against opposite walls. Like young teenagers at a church dance, desperate for each other but unable to cross the floor.

  There was no way that she could cope with colleagues and superiors asking, ‘Still seeing the mob guy?’

  Come to that, my work would get complicated if people were forever asking, ‘You meeting that FBI broad later?’

  No, this was it. It wasn’t nearly enough and it was all we were going to get.

  She pushed the heel of her hand against my chest. Pushed back and bit her lip. “We have to go. There must be…”

  Over her shoulder I saw them. Crouched, in black helmets and Kevlar. Sliding into position by one windowed wall.

  I had the presence of mind to yank the memory stick out of the side of the monitor before I flipped the table forward. Vesper was trying to turn and I had to literally throw her to the floor. At the same time the glass wall in front of us shattered and two smoke grenades rolled in. I pulled a pistol and shot the other glass wall.

  Shouldering one leg of the table, I dragged it to the busted window wall and pulled Vesper with me. I moved fast it didn’t seem likely the inch thick table would stop much ammunition, but it was all the shield we had. I hefted the table into the corridor.