The blond, scruffy-haired man twitched in his seat.
“What will happen if I push this button?” He moved his finger over the red button. The two men exchanged nervous glances. One started to rise in protest.
“Sit down.” Mark dropped the phone and jacked another round into the chamber. His mind was racing. Bits of information processed too fast for him to grasp what it all meant. He’d sort it out later. Tactical details flashed through his head, providing information—the cabin layout, windows and doors locked or open, possible hiding places.
The bomb had apparently been wired and was about to be placed into the phone when an argument had ensued. He presumed the disagreement was about who was going to detonate the device. The poor sap who activated the bomb would die in the explosion, and they all knew it.
Walking over to the scarred wooden table, he found a button that looked to be the right one, the one that had been on the top of the phone casing. He pushed it.
The two flinched as the red light came on.
“It’s ironic you should have this bomb in this very place at this very moment.” Walking around behind them, he shoved the end of his shotgun against the hairy one’s head.
But the guy, who was gaping at the bomb that was now activated and sitting just a few feet from him, didn’t seem to notice.
Mark pulled four zip-ties from his pocket and tied the men’s hands together. Then he hooked their free hands to the table legs, so that they had to sit with their heads on the table. The shorter man spit at Mark and cursed.
Mark wiped the saliva off his face and strapped the phone bomb to the spitter’s back with the duct tape that was sitting on the table. Despite their cursing and kicking, he managed to tape both men’s mouths shut.
Finished with the job he came to do, he walked out the front door and was struck by the fall hues that colored the mountainside. How could something so ugly exist in the midst of such beauty?
When he arrived at his car, he turned to look one last time at the little cabin sitting at the edge of the valley like a painting in an expensive hotel lobby.
He pressed the button.
A mushroom cloud rose to the sky, and the screeching squeal of ripping wood filled the little valley. A rush of wind charged up the hill and blew past his face, rustling through the trees and lifting red and yellow leaves from the forest floor in a brilliant kaleidoscope whorl.
Better here than in a crowded supermarket.
The simple thought did not justify what he’d just done. But he felt no guilt. He climbed into the Honda, anxious to go home, to kiss his wife and hold his daughter again. He had a feeling he would not only never feel guilt, but that he might even think of this day as the day he saved his family.
* * *
KIRK COULD FEEL BLOOD caked to his eyelids, which made opening them difficult. He carefully pried them apart and looked around. He was in a different cell, though it was the same as the last one—dark and cold.
His body shrieked in agony with every movement. Even breathing hurt, but he didn’t have a way of not doing that. Sitting up, he could see light coming from under the door.
Is it morning, or is it still night?
He couldn’t tell. All he knew was that he had to get out of there, because this time they would kill him. They would not be as stupid around him again, knowing he’d killed a few of their men already. He shivered as he remembered the woman and the little girl and hoped they were alright.
A plan. I need a plan. He didn’t know where he was, or even what country, for that matter. However, one thing he knew without any doubt—if he stayed much longer, he would die.
Pulling himself to his feet, he dragged himself to the door and began to pound and yell for a guard. He threw in a few remarks about their mothers and the stench that surrounded them, although he was not entirely sure what he was going to do if one of the Russians came.
The yelling worked. Loud footfalls announced an arrival. He backed away from the door. A masked guard carrying a machine gun burst into the room.
“I want to talk to the person in charge—your boss, the main pig leading this pack of swine. You understand, tough guy?”
The guard whipped the butt of his gun around, hitting Kirk across the jaw and sending him to the ground.
Spitting blood out onto the concrete floor, Kirk looked up from his knees at his attacker, who stepped aside when another guard came in with a chair. They tied him to the chair and blindfolded him like before. He clenched his throbbing jaw as every broken rib made itself known.
Okay, this could be good. At least I can die in peace.
A third set of footsteps resounded as someone else entered the room. Kirk could hear the sound of another chair as it scraped on the concrete, and it made him cringe.
“Detective Weston, you have been trouble for me. You killed some of my men, and you took two very important prisoners.” The voice came with an accent, but Kirk couldn’t place it. It was very familiar, but something was not right with it.
He smiled and felt his lip bust open. That meant the woman and child were still out there, hiding somewhere.
“What do you want from me?” His voice cracked.
The man chuckled. “You should have figured it out by now, Detective. Unless you are dumber than I thought.”
“You’re the mole.”
“Ah, yes. Then you have been paying attention.”
Kirk thought as fast as he could. This had to be an FBI or CIA agent. “What made you turn against your own kind? You some sort of religious wacko or something?”
“No, no.” He chuckled again. “Religion is for weak people. I don’t need God. I want his power. And soon I will have it!”
Kirk tried not to laugh. He needed more information before he was executed, and the guy seemed ready and willing to talk to his dying prisoner. “Let me guess, you’re one of these World Justice Agency freaks who thinks they can decide who lives and who dies, and it all went to your head. Am I close?”
By the silence in the room, he figured he hit on something. He could feel anger rising in the room.
“The WJA is a drop in the bucket compared to what I am capable of. They betrayed me. They left me, and now they are trying to kill me.” His voice rose as he stood up and paced in front of Kirk. “You’re one of them, aren’t you, Detective? You’re here to kill me?”
This time Kirk laughed out loud. “No. I’m trying to catch the WJA and the mole who works with them. I’m not a big fan of vigilantes, myself.”
He was beginning to put the pieces together. This man used to be in the WJA and now worked with the FBI. He was their inside guy. But now he was rogue, out killing and doing whatever else on his own. The WJA must have dropped him when he went psycho, and now he was trying to bring down the WJA.
“I gave top-secret information to them, but they tied everything back to me and tried to set me up. No one sets me up!” He leaned down to yell in Kirk’s ear. “Then you come along and mess everything up with your investigation. You stuck your nose into places where it doesn’t belong.”
“You killed a cop and his wife!”
“He was a liability, it had to be done. I’m going to take down the WJA by bombing every supermarket and school in this country—in their name—if that’s what it takes. The FBI, CIA and every other government organization will hunt them down without mercy.”
“So says you.”
Kirk felt the man’s harsh breath on his face as he screamed at him. “Who’s going to stop me?”
The three marched out of the cell, and the door slammed with a loud bang before he heard the sound of a key being shoved into the lock and turned. He was still tied and blindfolded, and he could taste blood as he licked his lips. But he had to stop the lunatic before he killed any more innocent people.
* * *
THE TERRIFIED WOMAN AND her child finally made it to the door of the small outbuilding, which was more like a shed than a building and unlocked. She breathed a sigh of relief
as they slipped inside without drawing attention to themselves.
Several electrical boxes lined one wall and two large machines, which she thought were pumps, sat in the middle of the floor like sleeping monsters, making a loud droning sound. They found a spot behind the larger of the two pumps and cuddled together in the warm room. After a few short minutes, they fell asleep.
The silence woke the sleeping woman when the pumps turned off. The lack of sound seemed almost louder than the noise. She yawned and rubbed her eyes, trying not to disturb her sleeping daughter. She ran their escape options through her head. As far as she knew, the gate was the only way out, but she didn’t know how she could get herself and her daughter through two sets of fences and guard dogs, especially in broad daylight.
The door rattled, and her heart jumped into her throat. She froze as a short guard with a submachine gun slung over his shoulder came into the little shed. He took out a cigarette and lit it, then took a long drag and blew out a puff of smoke.
When he finished the cigarette, he dropped it and ground it into the dirt with his heel. Then he leaned against the wall, slid to the floor and pulled his hat over his eyes. Within minutes, he was snoring. His loud breathing was erratic and choppy, but he was definitely out.
She looked down at her daughter, who slept with her head on the floor, then back at the guard. His gun rested against the wall next to his shoulder. She waited a few minutes, then slipped off her shoes and stood.
Barely breathing, she watched the sleeping man, trying to get up the courage to take his gun. From the look of the small pile of cigarette butts on the floor next to where he slept, he did this on a regular basis. Her stomach turned when he moved his arm.
She hesitated. I can’t do this. What if he wakes up? Then what? She swallowed. I’ve got to get it together, for both of us. I have to do what I have to do. Inching closer, she bent down and grabbed the weapon.
She pulled it to her chest just as the guard’s eyes blinked open. She tried to bring the gun around but couldn’t. All she could do was stand there, frozen. He didn’t move, either. Instead, he stared through her as if trying to plan his next move.
Then it hit her. He was asleep. His eyes were open, but unresponsive and empty. She slowly backed toward her daughter, who smiled in her sleep.
Sweet dreams, honey. Sweet dreams.
CHAPTER 25
MARK LOOKED AT HIS wife sleeping next to him.
She was so beautiful.
He didn’t know whether he was in a dream world or in the real world. And his mind wouldn’t stop trying to figure it out. Though it was the middle of the night, he’d awakened just to see if she was still there next to him. She was. He touched her soft shoulder, feeling the rise and fall of her breathing.
Time had a way of working out details. This gift, or curse he didn’t yet know which it was—had given him something. He now lived life full throttle, with a lust for living he’d never before known. It was as if he’d been given a second chance at life. He was not going to waste one minute of it.
A year had come and gone since he blew up the cabin, with life changing for him in ways that would make most men shake in fear and others turn green with envy. He now worked fulltime for the World Justice Agency and every day retrieved more missing parts of his memory.
It was as if he had a new instinct, a second set of instincts. He could see and feel what was going to happen in a situation and react with incredible speed. Not that he was psychic or anything like that. It was just an overwhelming sense of knowing. If a good thing was about to happen, he would feel it, feel the emotion before anything happened.
He’d shocked Isis by following her downtown and into the Merc Building’s underground parking garage, then into the elevator. “Hello, Isis. Going down?”
She tried to act innocent.
“Nine, five, two, huh? Clever. Spells WJA on the keypad of a phone.”
“I take it your memory has returned.” A small smile appeared at the corner of her mouth.
“Most of it. Maybe more than was supposed to. At least this time you don’t have to sneak into my apartment to convince me.”
She looked confused but didn’t say anything. He’d been assigned to help Isis complete a few easy assignments. He loved her attention to detail. She was a cool and in-control-of-herself kind of woman. She planned every case with precise direction and never missed anything. He enjoyed learning from her, and she was willing to help him and teach him any way she could.
He was surprised that Solomon could not explain his dreams or how he could see into the future. His foreknowledge didn’t happen all the time, and after the first time, the insights came in short bursts, like a bad headache or a daydream.
Solomon finally told him, “You’ve been granted a gift, son. Don’t waste it. If it wasn’t for your dream, your family would be dead right now.”
K was supportive of his new job and never asked him to explain what he was doing or where he was when his work took him late into the nights on a few occasions. “I don’t deserve you, babe.”
“I know,” K said, “but you’ve got me. Now run along and go be a hero.”
He wondered how much she knew or what she thought he might be doing with the odd hours he worked. He doubted she bought the working for the government thing, and he didn’t expect her to. It was a nice story to tell the neighbors at backyard barbeques. It meant a lot to him to know she loved, trusted and supported him.
They paid off the house—rather, Solomon paid it off that Christmas. He’d become part of the family and loved Sam as if she was his own granddaughter. Solomon came over for dinner often and sometimes played dress-up with Samantha. Bracelets and lipstick on the older man made quite a sight, but Sam loved Solomon’s attention, and that was enough for him.
Today, Mark had to take the Taxi over to Vermont, where two brothers had been on a killing spree. They’d kidnapped eleven girls, usually from the local high-school hangout. It had taken the authorities ten months to find six of the girls. Their bodies were almost unrecognizable.
He cringed when he saw the file. The brothers had done horrible things to the girls, as if it was a sport to them.
WJA had sent in one of their undercover women. It was easy to make her look like a teenager. She’d been in the school only two weeks before she was taken. WJA had a tracking device on her, and Mark was going in to get her out.
He would be gone two days, between the rescue and the hit. He hoped to be back in time for the weekend. Zipping up his suit, he crawled into the Taxi and hit the start button. It was hard to believe, but he rather enjoyed using the device. It still made him a little sick afterward, but it sure saved time.
* * *
“MARK, WE NEED YOU. Come in immediately. We have something you need to see.” Isis’s urgent voice on his cell phone made him press the accelerator and promise to be there as fast as traffic would allow.
He closed the phone wondering what would make her sound so nervous. Nerves were not normal for Isis, but he was willing to do whatever needed to be done. Maybe the case involved an important person, maybe even a celebrity.
As usual, the streets were jammed with cars, bumper-to-bumper, and the cacophony of horns and swear words. It took thirty minutes to go five blocks. But it was New York, where the sound of cursing was an essential part of the city’s daily symphony.
Mark smiled at Mr. Able, who was reading the morning paper. “You ready to celebrate the new year?”
“You bet. I got all the grandkids a bucket of candy and noisemakers.” He chuckled and waved Mark in.
“That should make for happy parents.”
“Ha! It’s good for ‘em.”
Mark laughed. “Have fun!” He stepped through the door. It took a few minutes to get through all the checkpoints, but it had taken just forty-five minutes from the time Isis called him to the moment he sat down in his chair in the conference room.
Only three other people sat at the table—Big B, Isis, and a ma
n named Johnny Jamison. He was a Class-D sniper who’d been active for over ten years. He had a mustache that looked like a caterpillar roosted under his nose, but he was in great shape for a fifty-something.
“Okay, we all here?” Johnny looked around the room with brown, flat eyes. “Solomon wanted me to get started with the briefing. He’ll be down in a few minutes.”
The room was silent as everyone looked at Johnny. Isis was taking notes on an electronic device that seemed to float in the air in front of her. Big B fidgeted with the toothpick in his mouth. Mark noticed everyone seemed to be avoiding his gaze. He frowned.
A picture of a tall man with a scruffy, blond beard and curly hair appeared on a screen that hovered in the middle of the large, wooden, conference table. “This is Tripp Maddock. He goes by the name of Geoff Martin and has been underground until just recently. These pictures were taken here in New York. He’s been running with Detective Weston, Detroit PD. We don’t know the nature of their relationship, but we have reason to believe he’s involved with our FBI contact.” Mark remembered talking with Isis about a case she was working on. They had taken out a prison filled with rapists and murderers. Detective Weston had been investigating it, so they’d had to get him out of the way until the case was under control.
But it didn’t work. The kidnapping seemed to make him even more determined. In the meantime, their contact went rogue and hooked up with the leading crime boss out of Russia. They were trying to expose the WJA and would do anything to make that happen.
“Now, this trail gets twisted here. We all know Detective Weston. He was kidnapped about an hour ago. We have reason to believe Tripp Maddock had something to do with it. We know he has close dealings with a Russian general named Taras Karjanski, and we believe he has teamed up with our FBI contact.”
A picture of a rough-looking man with a thick, black beard came up on the see-thru screen. “This is General Karjanski. He’s our main target, what is called the Don of the Russian Mafia. He has Weston, and he may have others.”
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