by Jon McGoran
Rocks and grit pelted her back and shot past her, tumbling onto the dirt on either side of her legs. A chunk of concrete big enough to have instantly killed her sailed over her shoulder, inches from her head.
For a moment, she was overtaken by thick dust. But then it stopped and she didn’t, still running until she was in the clear. She sprinted past the chain link fence. She stumbled on the rubble, lost her footing and fell, but rolled into it and came out of it in a three-point stance.
Corson smiled at her wryly.
Behind him were eight ringers, including Boden and Dudayev, and, miraculously, Okoye.
She turned and looked back at the roiling ball of dust behind her, the chunks of concrete still settling onto each other.
Nine of them had died back there, including whoever had come down the steps behind her as she was already running out. If she had turned to look back, to see who it was, there would have only been eight survivors.
It chilled Keen to think about it.
Okoye shuffled over and helped her away from the rubble.
“You okay?” he said, haltingly.
Keen nodded, then moved away from him, bent over and coughed out the grit in her mouth. The pain in her side flared, but she tried not to show it.
She still had the transmitter in one hand and the knife in the other. She leaned against the bus and in the best imitation of cliché toughness she could muster, she used the tip of the bloody knife to clean her fingernails.
She was pretty sure no one was buying it, but she didn’t care. All she cared about at that moment was flicking the knife back and forth over the transmitter sending another message, just in case. A longer one: “H-A-V-E… T-N-T… L-A-S-T… R-N-D… T-M-R… W-A-I-T… 4… S-I-G-N-A-L”
Corson walked over and stood in front of her. “Got a hangnail?” he said, smirking as she finished.
“No,” she said, putting the knife through her belt. “Not a scratch, actually.”
He snorted and walked away from her.
She was surprised he wasn’t more upset, and also that they were just standing around, but then she realized the dust was still settling. The PMCs were still coming in from the perimeter. They didn’t yet realize that Yancy was missing.
After another minute or so, it seemed to dawn on Corson. He looked over one shoulder, then the other, confused. He looked at his watch. He laughed nervously then called over one of the PMCs and whispered in his ear. The PMC huddled with his comrades, then they all ran back out and swept the perimeter.
Keen looked away whenever Corson’s eyes came anywhere near hers.
She was fascinated on some level, wondering how he would respond. Had he and Yancy been friends? They seemed to have history, but she couldn’t see either of them as capable of actual human affection. There was something in Corson’s eyes, though, something that resembled pain.
His cell phone started ringing and he answered, looking back at the RV as he did. He muttered a few words, but mostly listened, his face hardening. He looked up and Keen looked away. She felt Corson’s eyes rake across her and a moment later she looked back. His expression was fire and venom as he looked at the rest of the ringers.
They seemed oblivious and she tried her hardest to look the same.
A few seconds later, the PMCs returned with the lead shaking his head.
Corson said something into his phone before putting it away. He glanced at the rubble pile and shook his head. Keen was pretty sure he muttered, “Dumbass.”
He stepped toward the group and quietly said, “Line up.”
She wasn’t sure anyone else heard him. They completely ignored him.
He took a step closer, and screamed at the top of his lungs, “I SAID LINE UP!”
They all jumped into formation, eying him warily and unsure what was wrong.
“The camera in the back went offline before it happened,” he said. “We know it was not an accident.”
He was scouring their faces with his eyes. They looked back, tough but bewildered. They had no idea what he was talking about. And Corson didn’t care. He wasn’t talking to them. He was talking to whoever killed Yancy. He was talking to Keen.
He laughed. “Yancy is still in there, apparently. He did not make it out.” He scratched his nose and laughed again, to himself. “It’s not like Yancy to get himself killed. I can’t think of the last time he let that happen.”
The ringers looked at each other, like they were wondering if they were supposed to be laughing along with him. None dared. Keen was pretty sure that was wise.
“We’re processing the footage from the drones. One of them should tell us what happened. It’s possible that idiot Yancy got himself killed. But unlikely. Much more likely that one of you did it, and that is a clear violation of the rules. And a serious one.” The muscles in Corson’s temples were throbbing and he paused for a second before continuing. “Whoever is found responsible will be expelled from the Dead Ring. But if you are in this for the fame, the notoriety, you will get it. Because when we find out who did this, you will get a show of your very own. Just you.” His voice was rising, louder and more ragged. “Twenty-four hours a day of torture, worse than anything even you sick reptiles could imagine. And if anybody here tries anything like that with me, we will track down your entire family, your second cousins and grandnephews, your best friends from kindergarten, anyone you ever loved, or even said hi to. And as we roast them over a spit and skin them alive, I will tell them again and again that it is you who is responsible for their terrible pain, for the agony that will drive them out of their minds until they are begging to die so they can haunt you in hell!”
His chest was heaving by the time he was finished; his face dripping with sweat and his eyes filled with hatred and rage and something that she was stunned to recognize as fear.
The PMCs gathered on either side of him, their rifles raised and aimed at the ringers. Corson looked at them closely, as if trying one last time to intuit who had killed Yancy. Then he shook his head in frustration and snarled, “Get on the bus.”
Chapter 70
The pleasure of watching the Dead Ring was a multifaceted thing, with different types of pleasure at different stages. But all of them were exquisite, and all of them due their rightful attention and enjoyment. Watching the actual rounds was the most intense, the most delicious, but the excitement of the lead-up was an integral part of it. So was the mellow afterburn that immediately followed, slowly coming down from the high, savoring it, basking in the flood of images and memories.
Even the damned Cowboy was learning not to interrupt it.
But once again the afterglow of watching the Dead Ring was ruined by the failures of associates and underlings.
The building had come down in an impressive explosion, but by far the best part of it was the narrow escape of the woman, Le Chat, and the even narrower failure of the man running behind her. The image of his face, his eyes opened so wide they looked like the skin around them would tear. The pure effort he was putting out, knowing it was absolutely everything he had, and knowing, in the end, that it was not going to be enough.
As the charges went off, he had somehow found a little more something from somewhere, but as the rubble started raining down, the grim truth was obvious in those terrified eyes. He didn’t give up, not for a second. Not even when a chunk of concrete caught him behind the ear. He kept going. Barely visible in the hail of rubble and dust, his eyes dull from the injury, but his hands and feet scrambling to get out. Then another chunk hit him, and another. In an instant, he was a bloody, pulverized mess, but still pulling what was left of himself across the debris-strewn floor, until finally the building gave out and came down on top of him. There was a glimpse of red, and then nothing.
That’s what he was savoring when he noticed something wrong down there.
He tapped at his keypad and one of the technicians put a hand to his earpiece and said, “I don’t know, sir. It looks like Yancy is missing.”
The
Cowboy looked back and forth at them, trying to determine what was going on. To his credit, he remained silent.
The technician cycled through the camera feeds, until one of the screens showed Yancy, patrolling the outside of the building with his rifle. He had just come around to the rear of the building when he got a notice from his watch and he turned to go back, wearing that same stupid grin as always.
The camera shook, and then it went out.
“Someone might have killed the camera,” the technician said. He cycled through the other cameras, the mounted ones and the drones, but none of them showed what had happened to Yancy.
The technician touched his earpiece, then got up and brought a phone to the back of the room.
“Where’s Yancy?” the Ringleader hissed into the phone.
“We… we don’t know, sir,” Corson replied.
“You let those savages kill him?”
“We don’t know, sir. He might have gotten himself killed.”
“If you can’t keep things under control, there is no point keeping you. Do you understand that?”
Corson went quiet as someone else spoke to him. He said, “Yes, sir,” then he was gone.
The Ringleader breathed deeply, regaining his calm, trying to salvage a last wisp of the afterglow that he’d been denied.
Then a phone buzzed in the room and quickly stopped.
There were strict rules about phones in there.
The Cowboy said, “S-sorry.” He looked like he meant it. “It’s my wife. I told her it was just for emergencies.”
The phone started buzzing again and Tindley picked it up. “What is it?” he whispered harshly into the phone. “I t-told you not to c-call me today.”
As he listened to whoever was on the other end, in the back of the room, the Ringleader tapped at his keypad. One of the guards jammed the barrel of his rifle into the Cowboy’s ribs and plucked the phone out of his hands. He ended the call then dropped the phone and crushed it under his boot.
The Ringleader emerged from the shadows. “No phones,” he said. “You know that. Break another rule and we will crush you, instead.”
Chapter 71
Corrello was helpful as always. He’d been glad to hear from Red, at first. Then Red had asked, “What do you know about Michael Hoagland and Edward Stannis?”
Corrello had gone quiet after that. So quiet that if not for the sound of his breathing over the phone, Red would have thought he was no longer there. Then Corrello said, “A lot. What do you want to know?”
“Well, to start with, are they alive?”
“I don’t know for sure about that. No one has seen either of them in years. No one I trust not to be full of crap, at least. But I do know this. I worked with both of them. They were both crazy in their own way, but Hoagland was a different sort of crazy. Hoagland is supposed to be dead, and Stannis is supposed to be alive. But the story ain’t always the true story, you know what I mean? I’ve heard some things.”
“Like?”
“Well, for one, Stannis himself told me one time that he was in the room in Peru. He said it wasn’t no narco terrorist attack or anything like that. He said the board of directors and senior management wanted him to be there when they told Hoagland he was out on his ass and they were selling the company to Stannis. But Stannis said he knew Hoagland was a nutjob, and he figured something might be up. Stannis was suspicious as hell, so when he goes in he hangs back by the door. Apparently, Hoagland must’ve somehow caught wind of the deal and didn’t like it. Stannis said the vindictive nutjob pulled the pin on the grenade himself, says, ‘This company lives by me and dies by me,’ or some crap, and he tosses the grenade onto the table. Stannis said he managed to get outside before the thing went off. Watched the whole building come down. The place was crawling with Hoagland’s men, and they put out the fire, but by the time they got back inside, it was like a barbecue, all these little pieces of cooked meat in there. His words, not mine. But he also said there was a big hole in the wall, shaped like the conference table, and the conference table was gone. He thinks Hoagland somehow managed to lift up the entire conference table, use it as a shield.”
“Did he think Hoagland survived?”
“He didn’t think so at the time. He said they found pieces of the conference table a quarter mile away down the side of the mountain, but they never confirmed finding Hoagland’s body. He said he sometimes wondered if maybe Hoagland got out of there alive.”
“What do you think?”
Corrello laughed, raspy and tired, betraying a wisdom that was usually hidden when he spoke. “I think I don’t know, but Stannis and his wife— Hoagland’s widow—disappeared a couple months later. Maybe they retired to some island somewhere, but that’s not the kind of guy Stannis was.”
“You think it was Hoagland?”
“I think seeing your rival steal your company and your wife might be enough to bring a guy back from the dead. I think Hoagland was a vindictive nutjob with motive and a year to heal from whatever happened to him in Peru, if he survived.”
“Why did Stannis go along with the whole narco terrorist attack story?”
“I don’t know. Better for the brand, I guess,” Corrello said. “So you’re asking if I think Hoagland is alive. Does that mean you think he’s behind this whole Dead Ring thing?”
“Perhaps. It would be hard to imagine him pulling it off, injured as he was, and without Hoagland Services at his disposal.”
“He was a very determined guy. And I’ll tell you this—Hoagland’s men, the mercenaries that worked for him? They worshipped him. Like a god. Like it was some kind of cult. When Stannis came in, he gave them all raises and bonuses and stuff, but a lot of them left anyway. No one seems to know where they went.”
“You think they found out Hoagland was alive and joined him wherever he was.”
“I don’t know. That could explain how he’s been able to get away with it. Plus, the guy did a lot of dirty work for a lot of dirty people, all around the world. Back when he was alive, or, you know what I mean. He had his thumb on a lot of people in high places and a Rolodex full of sickos that might go in for this kind of thing. You going after him?”
“Perhaps.”
“Well, in the interests of you still being around to keep giving me money, let me tell you this. If it is Hoagland, one thing he’s shown is that if he thinks he’s going down, he’s taking as many people with him as he can.”
Red got off the phone as Dembe pulled the car into one of the parking spots once set aside for the teachers at Cavelier Elementary School.
Inside, Cooper was talking to Aram and Wall. All three of them looked up as Red walked in.
Red met Cooper’s eye as he walked straight into Cooper’s office. Cooper followed him.
“So, I understand the last round of the Dead Ring is tomorrow?” Red asked, as Cooper came in and closed the door behind him.
“That’s the information we got from Keen.”
“So we have one last shot at this. What’s your plan?”
Cooper glared at him for another moment, as if deciding how to proceed. To his credit he recognized that whatever the plan, it had a better chance of success with Red’s input.
“We’re four minutes out by helicopter. Since this is the final round and we won’t have another chance, as soon as Agent Keen activates the TNT the tac team will take off. There’s no reason to hold back, so we’ll time it to arrive at exactly five minutes.”
“I want to be notified when she is on the move, when and where they stop, when the transmission starts. I want to be kept in the loop.”
“Fair enough.”
“Once the tac team lands, then what happens?”
“Our teams will sweep in, clear the site, and extract Agent Keen. Percival and his team will locate the control room and pick up Hoagland.”
Red laughed. “The CIA? I thought we agreed this was your operation, Harold. Aren’t you concerned the CIA might be more interested in whateve
r intelligence Hoagland has to offer than in bringing him to justice?”
“What are you saying?”
Red lowered his voice, knowing Percival and the other two CIA agents were somewhere in the building. “I’m saying they’re going to be more concerned with getting Hoagland out alive than getting Keen out alive.”
Cooper shrugged. “I think that’s overstating it, but regardless of whatever arrangement you think you made with Percival, this is the deal I had to agree to in order to keep the operation alive.”
“Apparently Ed Stannis once claimed that he was in the conference room in Peru when Hoagland Services’ entire board of directors and senior management was killed. He said it wasn’t narco terrorists. It was Hoagland himself. He found out they were going to sack him and sell the company out from under him, so he took them all out instead. Almost took himself out in the process.”
“So what’s your point?”
“My point is that if Hoagland has the slightest inkling he’s going down, he’s going to set off whatever holy hell he can to take as many other people down with him.”
Chapter 72
Riding back to the campground this time, the PMCs stood at the front and back of the bus, with their rifles trained on the ringers.
Corson seemed different. His face was pinched, not smirking.
No one said a word the entire trip, not even Boden and Dudayev.
Okoye looked out the window the whole time. His eyes looked blank and Keen worried he had gone catatonic, or worse. But when they approached the campground, he sat up straight and shook his head, blinking and yawning, as if he had been asleep with his eyes open.
When they finally got off the bus, a few ringers started walking toward the cabins, but they stopped when Corson said, “Line up.”
He didn’t say it loud, but the PMCs provided added emphasis, leveling their rifles at the crowd of ringers. Everyone assembled into lines, quicker, neater, and quieter than they ever had before. There were nine of them left. Three rows of three.
