by James Cook
Eric sat down heavily in the chair to my left, facing me from the L-shaped wall of the waiting room. He stretched out his injured leg and leaned close. “How bad is it?”
“Lung. Left side, through and through.”
“Jesus. Is she going to be okay?”
“I don’t know. Allison’s working on her right now.”
Another pause. “How…who do you think did this?”
I sat up and leaned my head against the wall behind me, eyes closed. A great, yawning emptiness had opened in my chest, the flesh excavated and the air drained out, leaving only a vacuum. A cold feeling had started in my stomach and was slowly emerging outward, crawling like frost into my arms, my hands, my face. My lungs and throat felt like they were filled with sand. My biceps and the muscles in my lower back screamed from the adrenalin-fueled abuse of carrying a hundred and forty pounds of woman a quarter-mile at a dead sprint. I focused on that pain, reveled in it, let it fill up my mind. Anything was better than the encroaching emptiness.
“It’s my fault,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“I know who shot her. They did it because of me.”
Eric put a hand on my shoulder, gripping tightly. “Gabe, what are you talking about? You’re not making any sense.”
“It’s the same person, Eric. The one who sent those men to capture me. The one from the mission in New York.”
The hand withdrew. “Tanner?”
I nodded.
I heard him sit back, and opened my eyes to look at him. He was holding his chin in one hand, brows knitted.
“There’s no way to be sure about that, Gabe. Remember those insurgents we captured? They were Alliance troops. This could be retaliation. Maybe they sent a sniper team to harass us. Maybe they targeted Liz specifically because she’s the mayor.”
“It’s possible, but I doubt it. The Alliance would gain nothing by killing Liz; the town would just elect another mayor. And if the sniper is captured and confesses, it could provoke open war with the Union. They don’t want that, at least not yet.”
I stood up and began pacing the room. “I should have known this wasn’t over. I told myself what I wanted to hear, and like an idiot, I believed it. And now Liz is paying the price.”
Eric caught my arm as I went by, stopping me. “Hey, calm down and think for a minute. You don’t know for sure who the shooter was, so don’t jump to conclusions. It could have been anyone.”
“No, it couldn’t. That shot came from half a kilometer away.”
“Lots of people could make a shot like that.”
“When it’s snowing and visibility is shit? When there’s no place to set up an elevated firing position? That shot came from the forest, Eric. You know how hard it is to hit a target through limbs and branches, even when they’re bare. Whoever did this knew exactly where to be, and exactly when to be there. They knew Liz and I go for walks in the afternoon. They watched us, they gathered intel, and they waited for the perfect opportunity. This wasn’t just some random retaliation by the Alliance. This was the work of a professional.”
Eric lowered his forehead into his hand, voice growing insistent. “Gabe, do you have any idea how many soldiers and special forces types have defected to the Alliance? Thousands of them. How many snipers do you think they have? I would say at least a few hundred.”
“Then why didn’t they shoot me too, Eric? They could have, easily. But they didn’t. Why is that?”
Eric opened his mouth, but nothing came out. After a second or two, he deflated, sinking back into his chair.
“One of the many lessons I taught you, Eric, is that the simplest answer is most often the correct one. Remember?”
“Yeah. I remember.”
“So what’s the simple answer here? The Alliance stands to gain nothing by assassinating Elizabeth, but a lot of people know who I am. They know I played a key role in defeating the Legion last year. They know I bring a lot of trade to Hollow Rock, and that I oppose the Alliance. So bearing all that in mind, why kill Liz and not me?”
It was a long instant before he spoke. When he did, his voice was barely audible. “They wanted to send you a message.”
“And?”
“They wanted to hurt you.”
“What does that tell you?”
He leaned forward, clasping his hands. “That someone is very pissed off at you. That they watched you for a while to figure out how to hurt you. They found out about you and Liz, and then they spotted a pattern—your afternoon walks. They figured out the best place to strike from, and waited for you to show up.”
A silence hung between us for a while, the two of us staring off into space. Orderlies and nurses walked by in their scrubs carrying tubes, gauze, and a suture kit. They glanced through the opening to the waiting room, faces curious. I imagined what they must have seen—one of us seated and sweating despite the cold, and the other grim-faced, fists clenched at his sides and covered in blood. A smallish man with Arthur on his nametag finally worked up the courage to step gingerly into the room and offer a nervous smile.
“Mr. Garrett, sir? I, uh, need to take your clothes. Do you have something you could change into?”
I looked at Eric, who unwound the strap of a messenger bag from his shoulders and held it out to me. “Undershirt, bush jacket, pants, and a coat just like the one you’re wearing,” he said.
“That’ll do.”
As I turned toward the bathroom, Eric stood up behind me and leaned on his cane. “What are we going to do about this, Gabe?”
I spoke over my shoulder. “What do you think?”
*****
It was nearly two hours before Allison stepped out of the ICU. She took a few minutes to clean herself up, and then joined Eric and me in the waiting room. Her expression was not encouraging.
“How is she?” I asked, a ball of ice where my stomach used to be.
“She’s stable for the moment. We got the worst of the bleeding stopped and re-inflated her lung. The bullet missed her ribcage, and it looks as though it didn’t tumble or deform as it passed through. Small miracle, that. If it had struck a rib going in, things would have been much, much worse. That being said…Gabe, you should probably sit down.”
It is never a good thing when a doctor asks you to sit down. The flesh of my cheeks began to tingle, and my vision narrowed a bit, going gray at the edges. I took the doctor’s advice.
“How bad is it?”
“It’s a good thing you got her here as fast as you did. You increased her chances significantly by doing that.”
I waved the comment away, growing impatient. “Again, how bad is it?”
She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose between two delicate fingers. “Under ordinary circumstances, she wouldn’t be in very much trouble. If I had all of the equipment and drugs of a pre-Outbreak hospital, I could have her back on her feet in a few days. But my resources are severely limited. It’s not the wound itself that worries me; we can treat that. It’s all the complications that go with it. You see, a wound like hers could result in-”
“I know the complications you’re talking about,” I interrupted. “I’ve been shot through the lung before.”
She paled a bit. “Oh.”
“What are her chances, Allison?”
She spread her hands in front of her, palms up. “If I can somehow get the supplies I need, her chances are very good. If I can’t...I don’t know. Maybe seventy-thirty, if that.”
“In favor?”
Her face fell, eyes brimming with unshed tears. “No, Gabe. Against.”
I don’t know how long it was before I moved again.
Allison kept speaking, but her voice was muffled, traveling a vast distance to reach me. Absently, I noticed a strong grip on my shoulder, but I couldn’t figure out who it belonged to, nor did I care. My eyes tracked down to my hands, and the small streaks of blood caked there. I had cleaned them in the bathroom, but some of it had stuck stubbornly, refusing to be sc
rubbed away. It was dry in some places, and wet and sticky in others, adhering to the creases between knuckles and the little black hairs between finger joints. I watched my hands spread out on my knees and turn vertical as my legs extended, standing me up. A red tinge had obscured my vision, and a voice boomed in my head.
Don’t be the hunted. Be the hunter.
I walked to the bathroom, barely feeling my legs. The water from the sink was ice cold and came out in a trickle. There were a few tiny flecks of black in my palm as I splashed a handful over my face and rubbed it into my eyes. It felt good, so I did it again. The roaring in my ears faded until it was just a far-off rumble, like crashing waves on a distant shore. The color came back into the world and I could see clearly again, the gauze of red receding. I stood up straight and heaved in a deep breath, staring into the mirror. A grizzled, scarred man with close-cropped hair, a heavy brow, and luminescent gray eyes stared back. The eyes were red around the edges, black rings circling underneath. I looked like a weary, hunted thing.
As the numbness faded, a lancing pain tore through my stomach, doubling me over. I gasped raggedly, clutching my waist and stumbling against the wall. The agony was intense, ripping into me as if it were a living thing. I had a strong urge to curl around it and crawl into a corner, to find a dark place and sink down to its farthest depths and never come out. I wanted to kill something with my hands. I wanted to tear the flesh from my face. I wanted to break myself against an ocean wall. My knees gave out, dropping me to the ground. I sat hunched and miserable, odd little pained noises ripping loose from my chest.
It was too much. Every time something good came into my life, something always shattered it. Every time I found hope and light, something snuffed it out. Every time I tried to build something, fate found a way to burn it down. And I had no one to blame but myself.
And Tanner.
“Tanner,” I whispered.
The knife of agony in my gut burst into a thousand shards, unleashing fire in my chest, in my arms and legs. Its heat burned behind my eyes, ached in my teeth. I stood up and trembled with the power of it, fists clenching until blood squeezed through my fingers.
Did he think there would be no consequences? Did he think it was going to be that easy? That I would meekly accept my punishment and let it go?
The simplest answer was clear.
I’m coming for you, Tanner. And hell is waiting.
TWENTY FOUR
Eight years ago,
New York City
Anja’s fingers traced a dime-sized circle of scar tissue on my ribcage. It had a larger twin on my back, roughly the diameter of a golf ball, where a 7.62mm projectile had extracted several ounces of meat and bone on its way out.
“You have many scars, Tom McGee,” Anja said, raising her head from my shoulder. Her blond hair cascaded down her face, curving along the line of her cheek. With her glasses off, the effect of her eyes was startling.
“I haven’t always been an executive.”
“You were a soldier?”
I nodded without saying anything, seeing no point in denying it. Best to let her come to her own conclusions and not give up any information. Play the part of the recalcitrant, traumatized war veteran. It wasn’t much of a stretch.
“You must have been in combat. These are bullet wounds, and this looks like shrapnel. How did you get them?”
“I fell down the stairs at church.”
Deep, velvety laughter followed me as I got out of bed and crossed the room to the windows, stopping along the way to tug my pants back on.
“You do not like to speak of the war, do you?”
I crossed my arms and remained silent, staring down at the bustling humanity along Park Avenue. Several hours had passed since we retired to my room, and we had made very productive use of that time. Her body had turned out to be every bit as strong and pliable as it looked, possessed of delicious flexibility and stamina. We explored each other until our energy flagged and we lay exhausted on rumpled sheets, bodies intertwined in the fading afternoon light.
“I have heard that those who have seen real fighting do not like to talk about it. That you have nightmares and flashbacks. Is this true?”
“You ask too many questions, Miss Renner.”
The sheets rustled as she climbed out of bed and walked up behind me, feet padding quietly on the floor. When she reached me, her lips traced a tingling trail up my spine, soft tongue brushing against my skin.
“Perhaps I like you, McGee. Perhaps I would like to know you better. We have had a very pleasant time these last few hours.”
“I’m going back to Phoenix on Monday.”
“And I am going back to Guadalajara. That does not mean we cannot meet again. Perhaps in Paris or Milan next time?”
I turned around and pulled her into my arms, putting on my best contented smile. What I felt at the moment, however, was pretty damn far from contentment. There had been no word from Tanner or Rocco, and I was beginning to worry about them. They should have taken Villalobos into custody by now. I had hoped Anja would fall asleep and I would be able to slip quietly out of the room and find them, but apparently, my efforts to fatigue her had fallen short.
She reached up and traced her fingers over my lips, head tilted back for a kiss. All thoughts of the mission faded as I accommodated her, pulling her against me and feeling her hands slide down the front of my pants. Warm fingers closed around me and began stroking gently, drawing an involuntary moan from my lips.
“Again?” I whispered.
“It has been a long time. I am hungry.”
We kissed again, and I was about to start edging her back to the bed when a garish ringtone cut through the room. Anja broke off the kiss and released me.
“Scheisse.”
She walked over and snatched her iPhone from the foyer table, frowning at the display. I leaned against the windowsill and admired the firmness of her breasts, the trimness of her waist, the muscular curve of her rump. She was, without a doubt, one of the most stunning women I had ever seen. As she ran her finger across her phone’s screen to unlock it, I heard the simple chime of my own device on the bedside table.
“Shit.”
I picked it up and saw Tanner’s call sign on the display. About damn time. I walked to a corner and answered it.
“McGee.”
Tanner spoke quickly. “We’ve been compromised. Kill Renner. Track me on your locator app and find me as soon as you can. Acknowledge.”
I almost answered with a simple ‘acknowledged’, but stopped myself. An efficient, single-word response dripping with militant familiarity would give me away. Instead, I kept my voice jovial and said, “Don’t worry, Marty, I’ll take care of it. You just enjoy your vacation, all right? I’ll see you in two weeks.”
He hung up.
I stood still for a moment, unable to move. Behind me, Anja spoke into her phone. “Are you sure? Yes, he is. But I don’t understand… All right. I will be there shortly.” Her thumb stabbed the disconnect icon as she stomped over to her purse. Her posture was agitated, shoulders stiff, movements hurried. Alarm bells rang in my head.
“I am sorry, McGee, but I have an unexpected problem to deal with.” Her hand dipped into her purse, rummaging around. I began to edge closer, shortening the distance.
“And what is that?”
“You are not who you say you are.”
Her hand came out of her purse and I caught a silhouette of something long and cylindrical with the unmistakable curve of a trigger guard underneath. She raised it and pointed it at me, the lines of her body stark and beautiful in the moonlight. There was a roaring in my ears, and the world seemed to slow down, making Anja’s movements painfully slow. A pale silver beam shone through the window on her face, illuminating her eyes in sparkling, piercing blue, all the warmth and passion now gone from them. They were the eyes of a shark, a crocodile, a predatory thing.
The muscles of her right forearm shifted as her finger tightened on t
he trigger. I had less than half a second to live.
The cellphone.
My hand whipped forward, snapping at the wrist, sending the phone streaking across the room. One of its rounded corners caught her squarely in the left eye and she cried out, hand clapping to her head. The gun shifted slightly and let out a single chuffing sound along with a small metallic clank. There was a faint tug at my arm, and behind me, I heard a whap of lead bursting into wood paneling. By the time Anja regained the presence of mind to line up another shot, I had closed the distance and lashed out with a kick. The ball of my foot caught the inside of her wrist and sent the pistol flying across the room.
Without hesitation, Anja launched a punch at my groin. I tried to dodge, but wasn’t fast enough. Her fist grazed my testicles and a burst of liquid fire erupted in my lower abdomen. Gritting my teeth against the pain, I countered with a reverse elbow that snapped her head back and sent her reeling. She swayed drunkenly and fell on her butt, eyes rolling back in her head, jaw already swelling. I staggered away until I hit the wall, struggling not to fall to my knees and vomit.
“Anja, just stop for a minute. There’s no need to do this. Let me take you in. No one will hurt you.”
Her eyes cleared, and she scrambled to her feet, fists clenched, eyes welling up with tears. “You lying piece of shit! I gave myself to you! How could you do this to me? I trusted you!”
“Anja, I-”
The tears vanished as she came at me again, pivoting into a spinning back kick. Her heel nailed me in the solar plexus, driving the wind out of my lungs. I let out a startled oof and doubled over, struggling to draw a breath. Anja followed up with a right hook that caught me on the chin, and then an uppercut that I managed to dodge. The miss threw her off balance, giving me a chance to lunge forward, wrap my arms around her, and lift her in a tight bear hug.
“Anja, for Christ’s sake, just stop!”
