Kill Chain

by Meg Gardiner

  Shiver pulled her burglar tool from the door to the telephone and computer room in the hotel basement and shut the door behind her. She found the router, which ran Internet traffic for the hotel. At this time of night only a few guests were logged on. She plugged her handheld computer into the box. This was a long shot, but worth a chance. If their targets were online, and broadcasting in the clear, the port mirror she was setting up would show her exactly what they were doing, bringing up their screens on hers.

  Her mobile buzzed. It was Bliss.

  “They’re here. Room twelve thirty-one, Krung Thep wing.”

  “Got it.”

  “I hear someone talking inside. Check to see if they’re on the phone or online.”

  Luck. The phone line was not in use, but the Internet portal showed that somebody in the room was indeed online. She jacked into the router port and sat forward. Better luck: They were having a video conversation. The man on the screen looked sleepy but intense. Looked like he’d be a good lay, too, from that confident voice and the cool intelligence in his eyes. She watched.

  “He was a bounty hunter?” I said.

  “Boyd Davies specialized in fugitive recovery. He was not and never had been a federal agent.”

  “A bounty hunter. Holy Moses.” I looked up the river, trying to absorb this. “He tracked Dad and kidnapped him for the Sangers, didn’t he?”

  “That’s my bet. And when it turned out Phil didn’t have what they wanted, he thought he could get it from you.”

  “Do the authorities know this?”

  “Yes. Based on that, plus the ransom photo of your dad, Lily Rodriguez is opening a kidnapping investigation.”

  “Finally.” This was the first glimmer of good news I’d had since all this began. “Lily’s going to come through.”

  “But it doesn’t help you. You’re being sought for murder and unlawful flight. Look, I’ve talked to Drew Farelli, and the feds have to drop the charge of murdering a U.S. agent. But nobody’s ready to clear you.”

  That was no surprise. I nodded, sinking a bit.

  “Nicholas Gray isn’t backing off, is he?” I said.

  “No, he has his claws out. He still thinks you and your dad are dirty.”

  He looked down, as though something were weighing on him.

  “Jesse, what is it? Something else is bothering you.”

  “Yeah.” He ran a hand over his face. “I want you to turn yourself in.”

  In the hot night air, I felt a chill. The shadows etching Jesse’s face gave him a look of pain.

  Turn myself in? “No.”

  “Delaney, this is the place where you hold still, calm down, and listen to me.”

  “No.” The chill was running across my scalp. “Dad’ll die.” I was shaking my head. “What are you thinking?”

  “I tried to tell you when you were in L.A. You have to destroy the files and stop what you’re doing.”

  “And I tried to ask you—why? Do you know something I don’t? What did Dad’s message say to you?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Can’t?”

  “I can only beg you to trust me. No matter what happens, know I have a good reason.”

  I fell silent, watching his face. Of course I trusted him. But the plea in his eyes hinted at something worse going on.

  “Please, Ev, just . . .” He frowned. “What’s . . . There’s something moving around behind you. Is somebody with you?”

  “Jax.”

  His eyes widened. “Fuck me, what’s she doing there?”

  “Helping.”

  His mouth went wide as well. His gaze clicked past my shoulder.

  “What has she told you?” he said.

  “What do you mean? What do you . . .” I was feeling increasingly uneasy, as though I were on that narrow bridge that the old monk had mentioned, and it was rocking. “Blackburn, what’s going on?”

  He leaned on his elbows, fingers steepled against his forehead, face unsettled and intense.

  “Jesse?”

  “What’s she doing?”

  “Unlocking the encrypted information that her computer virus loaded onto my laptop. She’s going to alter it so we can give it to the Sangers without revealing certain information.”

  “What information?”

  “Jesse, what the hell do you know that I don’t?”

  “Where does Jax want you to go after this?”

  I hesitated. “Do you know?”

  The pain on his face had deepened.

  “Goddammit, Blackburn, what?”

  “I tried to tell you when you called me from L.A., and later at Wat Po, but we kept getting cut off. You have to stop. Go to the embassy and turn yourself in.”

  “No.”

  “Then . . .” He searched my face, as though memorizing the sight. “You’re going to be arrested.”

  “Have faith. I’ve made it this far, and now I’m with Jax. I can do this.”

  “No, you can’t. I told the FBI that you’re in Bangkok.”

  20

  Shiver said, “Son of a whore.”

  The FBI knew Delaney was here in Bangkok. This was a nightmare. And the man on the screen looked regretful, looked like he knew he’d done something damaging. She called Bliss.

  “What?”

  “Move. Now. Get in and get the information.” Shiver yanked the cable from the router. “Leave the phone line open. I’ll be listening.”

  She grabbed her computer and dashed out.

  Upstairs on the twelfth floor, Bliss inserted an electronic master key into the door lock. It opened with a heavy click. She paused, waiting to make sure nobody inside had been alerted by the sound. After a few seconds she eased the door open. She heard a woman talking on the telephone.

  “No. I don’t care about protocol. Put me through to the head.”

  Bliss slipped noiselessly into the room. She saw the note the bellboy had slipped under the door. Pressing herself against the wall, she crept across the entryway. The black woman was pacing in the center of the suite, cell phone at her ear.

  “Well, I’m not in London. I can’t come in.”

  She was facing the window, but would be turning in a few seconds. Bliss took the injector pen from her pocket and inched into the room.

  It felt as if a phosphorous grenade had just detonated in front of my face. I gaped at Jesse.

  “You did what?”

  “You need to get off the street one way or the other. And I couldn’t get through to you. Evan, I’m sorry, but this is the only way to keep you safe and do what your father asked.”

  White flash, heat, the sense of disintegration. My life, my faith. The night, behind the phosphor shock, felt like coal slurry. Damn it, I slept with this man; I gave him my love, my loyalty, my trust. I wore his engagement ring, his pledge, his—

  “Unbelievable bastard.”

  “I don’t expect you to agree with this, or do anything except—”

  “You treacherous shit.”

  “—but you have to take it calmly. This is what your dad expects me to do, and—”

  “You absolute prick. Blackburn, do you—Son of a bitch. Don’t you know what this means for Dad?”

  “You can’t give the file to the Sangers.”

  “Jax is—”

  “It doesn’t matter that Jax is with you.”

  “The hell it doesn’t. Jesse, you don’t know what you’ve done. Jax is going to fix this.”

  “No. Delaney, your dad told me, in absolutely crystal terms, that Jax is in danger too. He knew she might get involved. He does not want her to mess with the file. He thinks it will get her killed.”

  “Killed? I think that’s a risk she’s willing to take.”

  But why was Dad so adamant? National security? After all the garbage that had been dumped on him, was he still hanging onto his loyalty and sense of duty?

  Unlike my bastard fiancé. My hand was clenched. If I could, I would have punched him through the screen and knoc
ked him onto his ass.

  “Jesse.” Stupid son of a bitch, absolute shithead. “What did Dad tell you? I need to know. All of it. Now.”

  Abruptly, he wasn’t looking at me. He was frowning past my shoulder.

  “Ev, something’s wrong.”

  “What?”

  “In the room—”

  A hard crack echoed right behind me. I spun and looked over my shoulder. All the air left my lungs.

  Whack, again they hit the plate-glass window. I jumped to my feet. Jax and another woman were fighting. Grappling, kicking, punching. Whack, the attacker smashed Jax’s head into the window. The glass cracked.

  My skin prickled. Jax was sagging against the window, the glass bulging and crunching. The attacker grabbed her by the hair and clouted her head against the window again.

  Gooseflesh ran across my skin. Every nerve in my body screamed, Run. It was the goblin blonde. But I couldn’t bolt. From this balcony, there was only down.

  Jax was in trouble. And if she fell, I would have to face the blonde alone. I tossed my computer onto a chair, picked up the table it had been sitting on, and opened the sliding glass door.

  “Ev—” The words dried up in Jesse’s mouth. He stared, appalled, at his computer screen.

  The view was skewed, the video feed gone staticky. The camera was tilting, showing the balcony and a floor and the bottom half of the plate-glass door into the hotel room.

  Jesus Christ.

  Inside the room two people were tangled, battling against the window. Someone had gotten the jump on Jakarta Rivera—

  “Ev, can you . . .”

  The video jerked, disintegrated into stripes, came back in pieces. He saw her throw open the door and go in.

  Shiver rushed through the lobby. “Out of my way.”

  The concierge glanced up, his face souring as she dashed for the lifts.

  “Hold that.” She jumped into the lift before the doors closed, cramming herself in among half-drunk Taiwanese businessmen and florid British tourists, and pushed twelve.

  She was thrumming like a radar gun. She knew what she’d seen on her computer screen. Bliss fighting Jakarta Rivera. Bliss hadn’t gotten in a clean blow, and now the American was fighting back. Damn, Bliss—second time in two days she had missed a clean jab. And the Delaney girl was going to throw her weight in as well. It was messy and was getting worse. She was going to have to finish it.

  The lift rose slowly. Lights were lit for every single floor. She watched, wanting to rip the panel out, slay all these reeking people, and fly to the twelfth floor.

  They were enmeshed, sliding to the floor just inside the balcony window. Blood was everywhere.

  I swung the end table, bringing it down like a club onto the blonde’s shoulder. She cried out. I raised the table again, but, slick as an eel, she dropped Jax and spun at me, fingernails out to gouge my eyes. Her teeth were clenched, god-awful decayed hillbilly teeth.

  I turned my head and tried to get the table in front of me for protection. She wrestled it loose from my hands and swung it at me. It hit the side of my head with a sound like—God, that hurt. I saw stars. Pain rang off the bone.

  Jax climbed to her feet, planting her legs wide as if her balance were out of reach. She crouched, staring at the blonde, cat eyes focused, winding up to strike. Blood was running from the side of her mouth and smeared across her cheek up into her scalp.

  The blonde swung the table again. I put my arm up and—ow—it caught my forearm, and then my arm refused to follow directions. The next thing I knew, I was facedown on the floor, with the blonde on top of me.

  Jesse gaped at his computer screen. The video was fuzzy, the sound nothing but static, but he could see it, the attacker, something frenzied and weightless. What the hell was that thing in there with Ev and Jax, a teenager on angel dust?

  Evan was on the floor, flat out, the blonde dropping on her back, fingers going into her hair and slamming her face against the carpet. Then reaching to the desk, yanking a cord loose and—

  The video broke into pixels again.

  He raked his fingers into his hair, eyes scouring the screen, thinking, Come on, come on . . . and with a scritching sound, the video popped back.

  The blonde had grabbed a computer cable and was wrapping it around Evan’s throat like a garrotte. Fucking shit.

  He had a loaded Glock nine lying in a drawer six feet away and it didn’t matter. He was nine thousand useless miles away. He scanned the screen. In the room, on the coffee table, there was a bottle of wine with a note attached. If that was hotel stationery . . . He smacked the keyboard and zoomed in. Shangri-La.

  He grabbed his phone and dialed, staring at the screen. He heard the phone ring, heard Drew pick up, and didn’t let him talk. “Farelli. You have to call the FBI and call them now.”

  My hands went to the cord around my neck, clawing, digging to pull it loose. It was a visceral, unnatural, wrong feeling, and no—my breathing was going, and I was squirming, clawing, and where the hell was Jax?

  And like that, the weight was flung off my back, the cord went slack, and I yanked it loose, rolled over, and saw the blonde tossed against the nightstand. She shook her head to clear it, gave Jax a blazing glare, and bunched herself to spring.

  Jax grabbed her laptop computer and smashed it down on the blonde’s head, edge on.

  It hit with a hideous crack. The blonde slumped to the floor, arms falling to her sides. Shoulders heaving, Jax raised the laptop and brought it down again, bashing her as if with a stone adze. The cracking sound turned wet and dull. The blonde crumpled against the nightstand, head sagging. I clutched the desk chair and climbed to my feet.

  “Jax.”

  She took a whacking baseball-style swing and slammed the laptop across the blonde’s face. She toppled over, eyes dull, arms lolling like Raggedy Ann. Blood chugged from a gash in the ugly depression on the top of her head.

  I stumbled across the room. “Jax, stop.”

  Chest heaving, she tossed the laptop on the bed. The computer was smeared with blood and something worse. Swaying on her feet, she stared down at the blonde.

  “Animal,” she said.

  She drew back her heavy boot and kicked her in the face. The blonde’s head snapped around like a tetherball and flopped down against the carpet.

  “Fucking animal.”

  She kicked her in the chin. The sound was sickening. A smell hit my nose as the blonde’s bowels let go. I put the back of my hand to my mouth, trying not to gag. Jax drew her foot back again.

  I shoved her away. “Stop it.”

  She pointed at her, fingers shaking. “Check her pockets.”

  No way, none in hell, was I going to touch her. She was dead. The smell was horrible. Jax shoved me in the shoulder, pushing me toward her.

  I slapped her arm away. “No.”

  Blood glistened in Jax’s hair. Sweat beaded brightly on her forehead. Her shoulders were shaking as though she’d just been pulled from ice water. She glared at me, angry and half-crazed, and then looked around at the floor in confusion.

  “Where’s the needle?” She scanned the floor. “She stuck me with something. It’s . . .” She touched the back of her shoulder and held out her hands, watching them tremble.

  Warily I raised my hands to her shoulders. “Sit down.”

  She pressed her eyes shut, put a hand to one of her ears, and worked her jaw as though trying to clear her head of an unwanted sound. “Ears ringing.”

  “Sit down. Come on.”

  Before I could catch her, she dropped like a pile of wet laundry.

  The video crackled again. Jesse tossed his phone down and pressed his fingers to his forehead, trying to understand what he was seeing. The blonde was down, broken, possibly dead. In front of the bed, Jax had collapsed on the floor. Evan was bent over her, trying to lay her out flat, talking to her, positioning her head so she had a clear airway. Helplessly he smiled, almost ridiculously chilled with relief. ABC, just the way he’
d taught her—airway, breathing, circulation.

  And Farelli was contacting the FBI. They’d get to the Thai cops and the embassy’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security.

  Beneath the static and background noise he heard her voice, and a moaning sound.

  “Jax, lie still. Can you hear me?”

  Jax raised a hand and pawed at her arm. Her speech was slurred.

  “What?” Evan leaned down closer to Jax’s face, as though trying to hear better.

  In the background, the light shifted. The smile fled from his face. Even blurred, he knew what he was seeing: the door to the room being opened.

  Somebody was coming in. And Evan was on this side of the bed, on the floor, bent low over Jax. Even if she turned her head she wouldn’t notice.

  “Evan!” As he shouted, he knew it was futile. The television was blaring, the intruder was silent, and Jax was moaning. Ev couldn’t hear him. She didn’t know. He grabbed his phone, stabbing in the number she’d given him.

  In the background a figure slid into view. He couldn’t help it; he drew back from the screen as though magnetically repelled. It was a wraith, another one. And she was staring straight at Evan.

  21

  Leaning close to Jax’s face, I struggled to keep her in our dimension, conscious and breathing. I wanted to cry; I wanted to scream; I wanted to get out of here. Jax was sweating and shaking.

  “Lon . . .”

  “I’m here. Lie still.”

  “Lon . . . on.”

  “London?”

  “Heard.” She glared at me. “She heard.”

  “Who?” I glanced at the blonde. She was still dead. “I don’t understand.”

  She seemed to reach inside herself for a place to anchor her eyesight. Gritting her teeth, she grabbed my arms.

  “She heard me. On the phone.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Jax, she’s dead.”

  “She had a cell.”

  I looked around, thinking that the blonde had been too busy attacking us to be bothered making a call. I heard a noise, an annoying electronic tune. Jax put a hand to her ear again, as though to quiet the ringing in her head.