Freefall

by Adam Hamdy

  Wallace looked at Ethan, who couldn’t hold his gaze. “You knew? When we came to see you at the Cromwell Center, you knew?”

  “You were a target,” Ethan replied, finally looking up. “You were the enemy. That’s all I knew.”

  “Smokie got himself arrested on trumped-up charges so he could get to you in Rikers, but you survived, and you . . .” Steven took a long breath. “You stopped Max.”

  He looked round the room, taking a moment to compose himself.

  “Smokie told me he was going to force the government to regulate the internet, to end the era of anonymity, bring order to the Wild West. He said it was a way to honor Erin’s memory. I agreed to finance them, to give them access to Erimax’s security software.”

  Steven shook his head and sighed.

  “I regret doing that with all my heart. Smokie’s people rewrote my anti-virus software so that it mined people’s computers, revealing whatever dark secrets they had concealed on their hard drives. It’s the sort of thing foreign governments have done to high-profile individuals for years—chief executives, politicians, presidential candidates—but my modified software enabled us to do it on an industrial scale. He’s using that information to blackmail people to force the Online Security Act into law. When I found out he’d started killing people who refused to cooperate, I tried to stop him, tried to get the other members of the Foundation to listen. Smokie despises me for it. He called me a traitor and said that when it came down to it, I love my money more than the memory of my children. He cut me off. Ethan was the only one. The rest follow him blindly. Ethan agreed to stay with Smokie, to become a double agent. That’s how we know Ash is still alive.”

  “Where is she?” Wallace asked.

  “I don’t know,” Ethan replied. “Smokie’s paranoid. He doesn’t trust people at the best of times, and I think he suspects me. I only know the order he’s given: she’s not to die until he has you.”

  “Why? Why does he want me?”

  “When they came for you in Afghanistan, what did you think?” Steven asked. “Who did you think was behind it?”

  Wallace lowered his gaze as he replied. “You.”

  “He knows if he kills me, my estate, all the money he’s using, my technology, everything gets parceled up and given to charity. But if he frames me for your death, I’d go to jail and he’d find a way to rule my business unchallenged. Nobody would ever question me having a motive to kill you, and I’ve got the means to reach you anywhere in the world. So he made your attempted assassination as loud and expensive as possible. Like I said, he’s sharp. He’s also malignant. He took it as a personal affront that you killed . . .” Steven trailed off. “That you killed Max. Smokie doesn’t handle failure well.”

  Wallace felt tremendously awkward at the mention of Steven’s son. Even though Max had been a killer, and Wallace had acted to save himself and Ash, there was no getting around the fact that he had been the one who’d ended Max’s life. “Who did they find in the river?” he asked, eager to change the subject.

  “Some poor girl they found who looks like Agent Ash,” Ethan replied. “They hacked and replaced Agent Ash’s dental records. Smokie wanted people to think she was dead so they’d call off the search.”

  “How come you don’t know where she is?”

  “Like I said, I don’t think he trusts me. We used to be close, but . . .” Ethan trailed off. “I was watching the equipment room, where we store weapons and combat armor. I knew they’d gear up before coming for you and I convinced Jackie, the guy with gold teeth, that they were a man short.”

  The room fell silent, save for the gentle sound of air flowing through the vent above them.

  “Smokie isn’t going to all this trouble to stop anonymous trolling,” Steven said. “He’s planning something else. We don’t know what.”

  “I don’t care what he’s planning,” Wallace replied. “I just want Ash back.”

  Ethan shrugged. “I’m out. By now, Downlo, the driver, will have checked your hotel room. He’ll have told Smokie what happened. They’ll know I turned.”

  “Not if you say I shot them, that I escaped and you tried to chase me down,” Wallace countered.

  Ethan looked at Steven for guidance, and the older man nodded slowly.

  “It’s a big ask,” Steven noted. “You’ve already done so much.”

  “She doesn’t deserve to die,” Wallace continued. “Not because of me. Not because of this. You can find her and we can save her.”

  Ethan wavered. “I’m gonna need an injury.”

  “You sure you want to do this?” Steven probed.

  Ethan nodded. “I have to set things right.”

  “Tyrese, can you take care of it?” Steven asked.

  “Flesh wound to the shoulder?” Tyrese suggested.

  “Yeah,” Ethan replied reluctantly. “And you’d better knock me around a little.”

  “OK.” Tyrese shrugged as he moved toward the door.

  Steven stood and approached Ethan, placing a hand on his arm.

  “Find her,” he said. “But be careful.”

  Ethan nodded and followed Tyrese out of the room.

  When they were gone, Steven returned to the table and eyeballed Wallace as he slid into his seat. They sat silently, watching each other.

  “I’ve got to ask you something,” Steven said at last. “Did you have to shoot him?” His eyes were glistening, tormenting Wallace with memories of what he’d done.

  “He’d have killed us both,” he replied flatly.

  Steven wiped his eyes and nodded sadly.

  “You must be tired,” he said in an artificially formal tone. “I’ll show you somewhere you can rest.”

  Wallace followed Steven’s lead and rose from his chair. His legs felt weak and unsteady and his heart was thundering in his chest, trying to keep pace with the thoughts racing through his mind. There were so many questions, so many implications of what he’d just learned, but the one that troubled him most, as Steven led him from the room, was that his life was now in the hands of a man whose children he had killed.

  65

  Tyrese took Ethan into one of the basement plant rooms and used a suppressed SIG Sauer P239 to drill a hole in his left shoulder. The bullet tore into his black jacket and cut a ragged wound through the fleshy ball of muscle above his bicep. Ethan retched and thought he might be sick, but Tyrese took his mind off the pain with a couple of hard slaps to the face, which brought his cheeks up in ripe bruises.

  Tyrese Bishop had served with Steven Byrne in the First, and was fiercely loyal to his wealthy friend. If Steven had asked Tyrese to shoot him in the skull, Ethan had little doubt he’d already be dead, but thankfully, after the slaps, the big man offered his hand.

  “Nothing personal,” he said, giving Ethan a firm handshake. “Be careful with Smokie. He ain’t right in the head.”

  He steered Ethan through the building, and by the time they hit the cold night air, the searing agony had faded to a painful throb. Tyrese wished him good luck before retreating inside, leaving Ethan alone to place a call to Smokie. Feigning a frantic tone, Ethan used the code they reserved for unsecure lines, and arranged to meet.

  As he steered the Camry north along Amsterdam Avenue, navigating Manhattan’s sparse pre-dawn traffic, Ethan thought about Tyrese’s diagnosis. Smokie wasn’t right in the head. Ethan hadn’t noticed it when they’d first served together in the Rangers, and he’d naively thought that Smokie’s tough exterior concealed a decent man.

  Ethan came from North Carolina, and his people had a long tradition of military service. He’d been given his first shotgun for his eighth birthday and knew how to stalk game by the age of twelve. For him, the Army hadn’t just been a job, it had been a very real manifestation of his love of America, a sacrifice he bore so that others could enjoy the rights and privileges that made it the most incredible nation on Earth. Ethan had always assumed that his comrades were motivated by variations on that theme, and his posi
tive prejudice had tainted his ability to understand Smokie.

  Even after his discharge Ethan hadn’t realized the true nature of the man leading the Foundation, because he’d taken the job at the Cromwell Center to help sell Max’s deception, to give him an unassailable alibi. Ethan hadn’t been exposed to Smokie as he’d built the Foundation, recruiting new members and creating a private army that was embedded in powerful institutions across the globe. Only Smokie knew how far it extended, and when Ethan finally emerged from the Cromwell Center and rejoined the operation, he realized that he was witnessing the creation of something truly terrifying.

  Smokie had fooled them all. His tough exterior didn’t conceal a decent man. It strained to hide the true horror of what he was: a ruthless psychopath who had taken a simple, undeniable platitude—equality—and used it to garner support from people who were too idealistic to recognize the darkness that lay at his heart. They’d all believed that his upbringing, his rise from the streets, his understanding of real poverty gave him an unassailable claim to be the voice of the Foundation, but looking back he’d used the facade of authenticity to beat down rivals and cement his position. And now only he knew the full extent of the Foundation’s reach, and, like the dictators they’d so often mobilized against, no one individual or cell could see the whole picture, making it impossible for a rival to emerge.

  Once he’d started to have doubts about Smokie’s true agenda, Ethan had questioned why the Foundation had devoted its resources to Max Byrne’s personal vendetta, and found himself wondering whether Smokie might have recognized the opportunity it presented. Ethan and Mike probably had the next strongest claims to leadership, and exiling them to the Cromwell Center for the duration of Max’s operation was a strategic masterstroke. It seemed altruistic, but supporting their former comrade took his two biggest rivals off the board while he consolidated his power.

  Ethan had seen Smokie’s true face when he’d received news of Mike Rosen’s death. This was a man who’d served with him, who’d helped him start the Foundation, one of their brothers who deserved their honor and respect, but Smokie had barely skipped a beat and immediately mobilized to cover up Rosen’s identity and set another team to work tracking down Wallace. When Ethan had read about the hanging of the British journalist, Sylvia Greene, he’d challenged Smokie and the man’s reaction had confirmed his suspicions that the Foundation was involved. Ethan was glad he’d chosen to side with Steven Byrne, who had also come to regret his decision to give Smokie assistance.

  Ethan had felt relief killing the two men in Wallace’s hotel room. Their deaths had brought his double life to an end, and he would no longer have to suppress the constant fear that he’d be discovered. The stress of facing Smokie, knowing how the violent man would react to betrayal, had been almost too much to bear. Now, wounded and exhausted, he was returning to the viper’s pit, having killed two of his lieutenants. Ethan knew he couldn’t afford to give anything away. One last mission, he told himself. One last dance with the devil and you can put things right.

  Beneath his jacket, Ethan could feel his T-shirt was sodden with blood, but he ignored the pain of the wound and resisted the urge to apply compression. A grotesque mess would help sell his story. He slowed as he passed the large stone school that lay to his east and made a right turn on to 141st Street, continuing for a couple of blocks before pulling into a parking spot outside the Mobilization Initiative. Born of Smokie’s genius, the Mobilization Initiative was a charity he’d established that gave the Foundation cover for its operations in the United States and overseas. He’d talked Steven Byrne into financing the organization with an eighty-million-dollar donation, some of which had gone toward the purchase of the four-story stone slab building on the corner of Convent Avenue, opposite St. Luke’s Church. The rest of the world had swallowed the feel-good tale of a former gang member turned military hero who’d started a transformational charity that lived up to its motto, “Working for a better world.” It was sufficiently bland and wide-ranging to cover almost any activity in every corner of the globe, giving the Foundation a presence wherever it needed one.

  Ethan staggered out of the Camry and crossed the sidewalk, before grabbing hold of the cold metal handrail and pulling himself up the stone steps. The world took on a distant, airy feel as he neared the main entrance and he wondered whether it was a symptom of his wound, or the result of stress. If Smokie didn’t buy his story, he had no illusions about what would happen. He punched the entry code into the keypad beside the double doors and they slid open, allowing him to cross the small lobby and take the elevator up to the fourth floor of the silent, deserted building.

  The elevator released him into a small reception area where the bright faces of myriad children beamed down at him from framed photos lining the wall. Ethan smiled darkly, marveling at the ease with which Smokie had created an illusion of benevolence. He staggered down the corridor toward the executive offices, aware that his sodden jacket was dripping a trail of blood along the carpeted floor. Little crimson splashes that might signal to others that the charity was not all it seemed.

  He slowed as he approached Smokie’s office, which lay at the very end of the corridor. He could hear muffled voices as he neared, and trod silently as he drew up to the closed door. He placed his hands on the frame, ignoring the stab of pain that radiated from his shoulder as he pressed his ear against the door.

  “They were both drilled at close range.”

  Ethan recognized Downlo’s voice.

  “I’m gonna need someone to cover Jackie’s load.” Smokie’s deep, drawling voice was unmistakable. If he was grieving for Jackie, he was keeping his feelings buried deep. “I’ll keep pressing the Bureau bitch for something on Wallace. She ain’t got no fight left in her. You and Deuce take on Archangel. I don’t want nothin’ knockin’ us off track.”

  Deuce had served with them in the Seventy-fifth, but Ethan had lost all respect for his former comrade, who seemed incapable of doing anything other than blindly following Smokie. Deuce was a cut above Smokie’s gangbangers, and if he was being tasked with a job, it would have to be important.

  Ethan became aware that Smokie and Downlo had fallen silent, and thought he could sense movement on the other side of the door. If they caught him listening to their conversation . . .

  He reached for the handle and fell against the door, tumbling into the room for added effect. He collided with Downlo, who immediately frisked him, checking for a potential threat to their leader.

  “Fuck, man!” Downlo exclaimed. “You’re bleedin’ everywhere.”

  Smokie was leaning against his huge desk. “Why didn’t you say you’d been shot?” he asked angrily.

  “I didn’t think,” Ethan replied. “I fucked up. It’s been a long night,” he added, collapsing into one of the two leather couches that dominated Smokie’s large office.

  “Call the doc, tell him we’re sending him some more business,” Smokie instructed Downlo, who immediately produced his cell phone. “What the fuck happened?”

  “He shot Jackie and BB before I could get to him. We fought but he clipped me and then ran. I chased him down, but the man moves. I tracked him west, tried to tail him, but he’s sharp. He changed cabs, then hit the subway. I couldn’t keep up, and the bleeding got so bad it started to draw attention. That’s when I called you.”

  Ethan could feel Smokie’s intense gaze upon him.

  “Yeah, Doc,” Downlo spoke into his phone. “Yeah, I know what time it is. We got a casualty. Yeah, I’ll bring him over.”

  “Shit,” Smokie sighed as Downlo hung up. “Killing Wallace was meant to take Byrne off the board. But from what that FBI bitch has said, Wallace knows enough about the Foundation to be a threat. I want everyone lookin’ for him.”

  Downlo nodded. “I’ll spread the word.”

  “Downlo’s gonna get you to the doc. Why don’t you wait down the way? There’s somethin’ we need to talk about,” Smokie said.

  Downlo helpe
d Ethan to his feet and steered him toward the door. As he stepped into the corridor, Ethan was relieved that Smokie had bought his story, and glad to be leaving the office alive. But something nagged at him, and as he retraced his steps to the elevator, he wondered what Smokie and Downlo were talking about.

  66

  The adrenaline flowing through Bailey’s body couldn’t fight his fatigue, and he slept most of the journey west, his head lolling against the car window as Frank drove them to Oxfordshire. He woke as they were speeding through the Stokenchurch Gap, a steep chalk cutting that took the M40 from the Chiltern Hills down to the Oxfordshire plain. Dawn’s ethereal fingers were reaching across the patchwork landscape, and the hazy sunlight made Bailey squint.

  “How ya doing?” Salamander asked him.

  “I’ve been better,” he replied, his mouth gummed up with thick saliva.

  “Don’t I know it,” Salamander smiled.

  Frank pulled into the services at Junction Eight, and while he was filling up with fuel, Salamander brought Bailey up to speed.

  “I’ve checked the place out. It’s a detached house in the middle of the village,” he said, showing Bailey a Google Map image on his phone.

  The house stood in the center of a walled garden that abutted the churchyard, at the heart of the tiny village of Cuddesdon. Even though he was tired and wrung out, Bailey was still sufficiently alert to recognize that something seemed wrong.

  “Doesn’t feel like a safe house,” he observed. “It’s too central. Too many eyes watching people coming and going.”