by Mark Allen
“You betcha.”
Even though his bladder was threatening to go ballistic on him, Cobb took a moment to look at the bullet-riddled Jeep out back. He whistled to himself when he saw the damage wrought by the chopper’s .50 caliber machinegun. Kain and Larissa were lucky to be alive. Well, if you could call two people who were being hunted by a Company kill-squad and a ruthless crime family “lucky.”
The call of nature finally consumed his curiosity. He quickly found his room and hurried into the bathroom. It wasn’t much bigger than a broom closet and the light flickered with a sputtering noise, but Cobb didn’t care. All that mattered right now was the toilet in front of him. Because happiness is an empty bladder.
Cobb flushed, washed his hands, and went back out into his hotel room. Not much to look at, but it was clean. He wondered how things were going back at his cabin. It was pretty obvious that Larissa’s old feelings for Kain had arisen once again. Or, more likely, had never left in the first place.
Pressing on the bed to test the springs, Cobb snorted to himself. Poor Lissy, always falling in love with assassins. Cobb fervently hoped Kain wouldn’t break her heart all over again, because it was a broken heart that had put those scars on her wrists and Cobb never wanted to go through those dark days again.
Cobb considered turning on the TV, but decided it was late and he needed to get some sleep. Not that he was tired. The unusual circumstances and strange surroundings served to suck the slumber right out of him as if he had mainlined No-Doz. Still, he had to try or he would be a zombie in the morning.
He crawled into bed and laid there wide awake for what seemed like forever but in actuality was only about three minutes. He didn’t regret giving up his cabin to Kain and Larissa, but right now he craved the warm familiarity of his own bunk.
He stared up at the ceiling and reflected on the story Kain had relayed to him. Sounded like he was eyeball-deep in shit and the only way out was to suck it up. This Macklin hombre seemed like a particularly nasty demon and Cobb knew all too well that some demons took a lot of killing before they went down for good. And if Kain’s old pal Silas was still breathing, that meant Kain was walking around with two bulls-eyes painted on his back. Cobb knew better than to underestimate the treachery of a friend and there was a lot of hate lurking between Kain and Silas, a hate only complicated by the fact that, assuming he was alive, Kain had punched a sliver through Silas’ eye. You didn’t lose an eye and not want some serious payback. Cobb hoped for Kain’s sake—not to mention Larissa’s—that Silas was dead and sucking on the devil’s knob right about now. If not, things could end very badly.
Cobb felt the darkness of depressing thoughts weighing down on him. He was hardly a prayer warrior, but he fired one off anyway. Never hurt to hedge your bets.
Praying made him think about God, which in turn made him grab his mortality by the scruff of the neck and stare it in the face. He was an old man, no denying that, and the grave lurked just around the corner. But the thought of dying didn’t really bother him, even though he wasn’t really sure what waited on the other side. Heaven? Hell? Disneyland? He had known plenty of people with plenty of faith, but when it came right down to the nitty-gritty, nobody could know for sure until their time came.
No, it wasn’t dying itself that scared him, but dying shamefully. As cliché as it was, he wanted to die like a man. He wanted to spit in the Reaper’s eye and tell him to shove that sickle or scythe or whatever he carried right up his bony backside.
When it was Kain’s turn to die, he would die well, of that Cobb had no doubt. And his turn might very well come while protecting Larissa. Cobb chuckled, struck by the irony. In order to protect his beloved granddaughter from killers, he had entrusted her into the hands of a killer. Talk about fighting fire with fire.
Cobb had no delusions about what Kain was, the cold-blooded ruthlessness, the blood that stained his hands and the sins that stained his soul. But there was nobody Cobb would rather have as Larissa’s guardian in these circumstances. Kain would die to defend her, would give his life for hers if necessary. As far as Cobb was concerned, that made up for a lot of shortcomings.
He hastily fired off another prayer. He didn’t know if it got any further than the ceiling, but it made him feel better, and maybe that was the point. Please, God, don’t let him die. You already took Todd away from Larissa; don’t take Kain too. Besides, I’m sure You know that this Colonel Macklin fella needs to die, so why don’t You do us all a big favor and let Kain cram a .45 down the cocksucker’s throat and make him eat a bullet.
Not a pretty prayer, but Cobb figured God got the point.
******
When Cobb awoke a few hours later, he instantly felt that something was wrong. He had slept badly, tossing and turning on the unfamiliar bed. The sheets were tangled in sweaty knots around his legs and feet, which felt hot and clammy. But the sensation he felt was not one of discomfort, but one of menace. Everything was too quiet, too hushed, as if the world had just shut up. It was an unnatural silence and Cobb didn’t like it, not one bit. His skin crawled.
He turned his head toward the window. Thin gray light seeped through a gap in the blinds, letting him know dawn had arrived. But that uneasy feeling continued to churn his guts. He listened for a sound, any sound, in the semi-darkness of the room. But all he heard was his breath rattling in his throat and the too-fast beat of his old ticker. Panic hit him for a moment—maybe he was having a heart attack. No, wait, that couldn’t be it; he didn’t feel any pain in his chest.
He took several long, deep breaths, forcing his heart to slow down. It finally did, but the feeling of unease still clung to him like a second skin. He had to get back to Larissa and Kain right now. Something was wrong. He could feel it.
He hurried into the bathroom, splashed some water on his face, dried with a towel, got dressed, and opened the door.
He never heard the shot that took him just above his belt buckle. Just felt the blow of the bullet blasting through him, the burning pain of things inside him being torn apart. He was flung backward as if struck by the hand of God and landed in a sitting position against the side of the bed. When he clasped his hands over his belly, something that reminded him of hot maple syrup spilled over his fingers, which suddenly began to shake.
Oh God, I’ve been shot!
He suddenly felt the overwhelming urge to stand up, but when he tried to, agony forced him back down with a strangled cry. Whatever he faced next, he would have to face on his knees. The knowledge was a bitter taste in his mouth, worse even than the pain that now gnawed on every nerve.
He looked at the open door, a rectangle of gray light. For just a second he could see a military-style Hummer parked outside, then a hulking figure filled the doorway, blocking out the light. The man was nothing but a silhouette; Cobb couldn’t make out his features, but he could certainly make out the pistol in the man’s hand. Cobb knew enough about guns to recognize a Glock when he saw one. This one sported a suppressor, which explained why he hadn’t heard the shot that drilled him. The scumbag was probably using subsonic ammo too. Not a lot of noise.
The silhouetted man didn’t speak. Just stood there, exuding menace. Finally, he reached for the light switch and in the sudden illumination, Cobb saw the horrible scar stretched across his throat like a shiny grin. “Macklin…” Cobb said through pain-clenched teeth. “You bastard.”
Macklin stepped into the room and closed the door. To Cobb, it sounded like a coffin lid clicking shut. He knew he didn’t have a holy chance in hell of leaving this squalid little room alive. Larissa, he thought. I’m never going to see her again. Tears burned his eyes but he refused to let them fall. Macklin would take pleasure in them and Cobb would be damned if he’d give the sick psychopath anything to smile about. Instead, he tried to steel himself for what would come next.
Macklin holstered the Glock and crouched down in front of him. His frigid gaze scrutinized Cobb like a viper sizing up its next victim. “Looks like you w
ere in the wrong place at the wrong time, Mr. Cobb.” Macklin’s voice was a barely intelligible rasp.
Cobb started to reply, but got interrupted by a coughing fit that left his lips spackled with blood. “So you know who I am,” he finally managed to say.
“After we tracked Kain’s Jeep to this location, we naturally had some questions and your friend Joe was nice enough to tell us about his stolen truck and the fact that you brought it back. Eventually, he told us all about you. Took a little persuasion, but that’s something at which I excel. Once he gave up your name—and room number, obviously—I just ran you through the Company databanks and now I know pretty much everything there is to know about you.”
“Just like God, huh?”
“Close.”
Another blood-flecked coughing fit gripped Cobb. Good Lord, he thought, I am messed up bad. “If you’re God,” he said once he could speak again, “I think I’d rather suck the devil’s dick.”
Macklin smiled thinly. “You’ve got balls, old man, I’ll give you that.”
“You’ve got balls too,” Cobb said, “and if you don’t mind, I’d like to chop the suckers off and hang them from my rearview mirror. I think they’d make a pearl of a conversation piece.”
Macklin chuckled, but it was a cold sound without mirth. “Let me lay out the situation for you.” He pointed at Cobb’s wound. “You’ve been gut shot and you’re going to die. Unfortunately, gut shots are notoriously slow and you’ll probably live for at least another three hours and those hours will be spent in excruciating agony. That’s the bad news.”
Cobb was feeling some of that excruciating agony right now. He did his best to hide it, but the sweat beading his forehead betrayed him. “Thanks for putting such a rosy spin on things. Now why don’t ya get to the point before those three hours are up?”
Macklin retained his cruel, razor-thin smile. “The point is,” he said, “there’s also some good news, and the good news is, if you tell me where Kain and your granddaughter are holed up, I’ll give you a quick death. How’s that for a reasonable offer?”
“I’ve got a better one,” Cobb countered. “You tell me what I want to know, I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
Macklin’s features were so stone-faced inscrutable they deserved a place on Mt. Rushmore. “All depends on what you want to know,” he said.
“Like it matters,” Cobb retorted. “I’m a dead man no matter what. You could tell me who really killed JFK and it wouldn’t make any difference. But all I really want to know is how you found the Jeep here.”
“There’s an electro-magnetic tracking device attached to the frame of the Jeep and linked to a Company satellite, so I always know where Kain is, as long as he uses the Jeep. But now the Jeep is here and Kain is not and quite frankly, that pisses me off. So do yourself a favor and tell me where he is.”
“One more question,” Cobb said. “When did you put the tracker on the Jeep?”
“I sent a couple of protégés to his house a few days ago. They attached the device before they initiated the strike and got themselves killed. Now I’ve answered your questions, so it’s your turn to answer mine—where are they?”
“Go to hell.”
Macklin sighed. “Fine, we’ll do this the hard way.” He yanked Cobb to his feet and threw him on the bed. Cobb landed in a pile of blood and pain, his savaged guts wrenching a terrible cry past his lips. Those lips turned to pulp when Macklin smashed the cry back down his throat with a brutal backhand.
Using plastic restraints, Macklin bound Cobb’s hands and feet and then used a knife to cut away his clothes. The old man endured the indignities in silence, for there was nothing he could do about it. On his best day he was no match for Macklin’s strength, let alone on a day like this, with a hole in his stomach where his navel should have been. Blood loss had shocked his system way beyond the point of any resistance. He was utterly at Macklin’s mercy and Cobb was pretty sure the man didn’t even know the word.
Macklin gagged him, pulled on a pair of latex gloves, and went to work with methodical, surgical precision, submerging Cobb in a hell of agony beyond anything he could have fathomed. Still, it took nearly an hour to break him and before the information was pulled from his bleeding body and spilled from his mashed lips, thirty-eight percent of his skin, nine teeth, seven fingers, four toes, and one testicle lay in a messy pile next to him.
Macklin removed his dripping gloves. “There was no need for all this pain. All you had to do was tell me what I wanted to know. But unreasonable men like you always want to play hard. Well, was that hard enough for you, old man?”
Cobb laid there in a dark world of blood and agony. He could feel death creeping closer and welcomed its arrival. His swollen lips moved, pleading for an end to the pain. But Macklin just stared at him with dead eyes like a slab of meat. He seemed to be drinking in Cobb’s agony as if it was the elixir on which his soul thrived. When he finally moved, it was not to deliver the mercy blow, but to go into the bathroom. Cobb heard the sound of water running and the tink of metal against porcelain as Macklin washed the blood from his knife.
Even through the agony afflicting every atom of his being, Cobb felt an acute sense of failure. He had broken, had told Macklin where to find Larissa and Kain; the betrayal burned like bitter bile deep down inside him. He not only wanted to die, he deserved to die for what he had done.
Macklin returned from the bathroom and Cobb nearly sobbed in desperate relief when he saw the pistol in his hand. Here, at last, was the end. “You’ve been very helpful, old man,” Macklin said, coming to a stop at the foot of the bed. “Must sting a bit, knowing you helped kill your own granddaughter, but I want you to know I appreciate it.”
The pistol rose, slowly, and Cobb followed its rising trajectory until it came to a stop. The black hole at the end of the suppressor stared at him with hypnotic, unwavering intensity, and then Macklin pulled the trigger. There was no pain, just the heavy impact of the bullet hitting him between the eyes. In his last slivered nanosecond of life, he had only one final thought.
Forgive me, Larissa.
And then he was gone.
CHAPTER 16
When Kain awoke shortly after dawn, he didn’t move; just laid very still, listening to the sounds of the cabin and the surrounding woods, using his finely-honed instincts to probe for any hint of threat. He did it automatically, no thought, the process as natural to him as breathing. He doubted he would ever be able to wake without instantly going on full-alert. Life in the shadows had embedded such actions deep in his psyche like DNA.
Rain no longer rapped on the roof, but Kain saw droplets on the window, so the showers had stopped shortly before he woke up. Outside, raindrops would be clinging to the leaves and the woods would be hushed, the kind of quiet found only in nature.
Beside him, Larissa stirred, caught in that neutral zone between sleep and wakefulness. Her body pressed against him and Kain could feel the warmth of her naked skin. One of her arms was draped across his chest with an intimate familiarity that Kain found soothing. Sometime in the night, the covers had slipped down and he could see the smooth curve and swell of her breast. He remembered touching her last night, the feelings that had flamed through him with fierce ferocity and shattered his self-control. Even now, looking at her as she lay peacefully beside him, he felt the desire to surrender once again to what lay between them.
Larissa’s eyes flickered open. For just a moment, Kain imagined she was looking at him. But of course, that was impossible. She would never look at him or anyone else ever again, thanks to Macklin. She made a soft murmuring noise and stretch languidly, reminding Kain of a cat. “What time is it?”
“Not sure,” Kain said. He had taken off his watch during their hours of passion last night and had no idea where it was now. Probably lying on the floor with the rest of his clothes. “Judging from the light coming through yonder window, I’d say it’s about an hour past dawn.”
She smiled at him. “Did
you just say ‘yonder’?” Her hand rested on his chest, her fingers gently caressing. Her eyes sparkled with amusement.
“Yeah, so?” He felt her touch and had no desire to move away. It just felt so right and so wrong, all at the same time.
“Seems like a pretty poetic word for a guy like you.”
“I have my moments.”
“Yes, you do.” She pressed even closer to him, her breath warm on his neck. “And I wish this moment could last forever.”
“Larissa...”
She reached up and touched a finger to his lips. “Shhhhh. Don’t say it. I know, okay? I know. But that doesn’t change how I feel.”
“I’m sorry.”
“That doesn’t change anything either.”
Kain made no effort to pull away, knowing it would hurt her if he did. He had hurt her in the past by walking away from her love and he was hurting her in the present by refusing her love. Would there ever come a time when he didn’t hurt her? Sure, a voice in his head answered. When you’re dead.
Kain didn’t like to admit it, but that inner voice was probably right. He’d be doing Larissa a big favor by sticking his .45 in his mouth and blowing his brains out. Pretty morbid thoughts for first thing in the morning. Here they were, embroiled in a war, the past and present on a collision course that could only end in blood and carnage, and they had been given a moment’s respite, a break from the battle. So what did he do with those precious moments of peace? Think about having a hollow-point with his morning cup of coffee. Clearly he had some issues.
Larissa’s finger traced the ridge of his collarbone. “You got quiet all of a sudden,” she said. “Penny for your thoughts?”
“They’re not worth that much.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“Some other time.”
“Do you promise me there will be some other time?” she asked softly.
Kain recognized that this was a pivotal moment, an opportunity to open his heart, share the emotions bottled up inside him and maybe change the course of his life. All he had to do was tell her what she wanted to hear. But instead he heard himself say, “I can’t make a promise I don’t know if I can keep.”
