by P. R. Adams
“So how are you connecting the senator and Dong and Stovall?”
She took the data device from me and flipped through several interfaces until another image showed on the display. She handed it back. “It’s not all about the election.”
Dong and a young, hard-looking Chinese woman stood beside a limo parked outside a darkened building draped in shadows from tree limbs. Not real shadows, but the pale sort created by street lamps and other artificial sources. They wore light clothes, as if it might be a summer night. The image was a stark monochrome tinted blue, the sort of imagery gathered through specialized optics gear. Nighttime, usually. I rotated the image around, drilled in and out. Finally, I spotted what I was looking for: Someone was exiting the building. An older man. White-haired, in slacks and button-up shirt. Not beaten down by age, as he should have been based on the wrinkles and hair color. Someone used to laughing at little challenges, like age. I had a sinking feeling that if he turned his head slightly, a birthmark would become visible.
“Who’s the old guy?” I asked, even though I already knew.
“Anthony Wicker, an esteemed member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.”
“You say that like you don’t really consider them all that esteemed.”
“Remember how I said we can’t get involved in elections? Nothing stops these guys.”
I had to play dumb. Dumber than normal. “Wait. Isn’t the Chamber of Commerce about advancing corporate interests? If Dong represents the Chinese government, why would they meet with someone who works for corporations?”
“They aren’t. This was taken late last summer. Dong had just arrived here, stationed as an attaché, apparently reassigned from something big in Asia. He was posing as a representative of the old dragons. Not posing, really. He works for them undercover. Something of a double agent.”
“Shit.” It was the aspect of the intelligence world I hated. The kind of bastards I’d killed a few times after they’d shown their true colors. “So what’s it mean?”
“It means Dong knows what’s going on, Stefan.” That raised eyebrow again.
I kept on with the dumb look. Simple Idaho farm boy. Muscle. Know nothing. “What’s going on?”
She stared for a few heartbeats, then looked out the windshield. “What’s going on is the Chamber of Commerce have their own preference for who should be in the White House. Their candidate is named Anyone But Weaver. Follow now?”
I shook my head, and this time it was sincere. Did she know? Was she accusing the Chamber of Commerce of hiring a team to assassinate a U.S. senator? Was she tipping me off that she was on to me?
Lyndsey pursed her lips. “The odds of Weaver making it into the White House aren’t good. The odds of her making it out of that hospital aren’t good.”
“The Chamber of Commerce wants her dead? That seems a bit absurd, doesn’t it?”
“There are trillions of dollars at stake. For the sort of people we’re talking about, at least. They’ve spent their lives destroying jobs and wiping out little people. Taking that next step to actually kill someone? Not that big a deal. Hell, corporations used to do that all the time. Do some research: the Battle of Blair Mountain, the Ludlow Massacre, the Pullman Strike—plenty of times the government was complicit or actively took part in the murders for corporations. An organization like the Chamber of Commerce? They’re smart enough to keep their hands clean if they assassinate someone. Or at least they think they are.”
We passed the garage I’d pulled into to switch out cars the night of the drone attack. Lyndsey didn’t react to it, but we were in the area of the hotel.
I focused on the image. It sounded like Dong might be involved in funding the operation. Or he could be setting Wicker and his cronies up. “Does that mean you have evidence connecting this Chamber of Commerce group to the El Salvador twins?”
“Twins?” Her head rocked back as she snorted. “I like that. One less now. The report says you took Jose Funes down.”
“Ravi’s people did the heavy lifting. He was pretty severely damaged by the time he got to Weaver’s room.”
“Uh-huh.” She pulled the wraparound bubble shades from inside her jacket and slipped them on. Light leaked out from the edges where they didn’t seal completely against her skin. “Video from the hallway security cameras tells an interesting story. You watch it yet?”
“I doubt it will be as entertaining as actually living it.”
She stared at me through the shades. “You do live an interesting life, don’t you?”
The car braked and turned.
The hotel. The car pulled around to the front and stopped and my door opened.
Light from the lobby lit up my side of the car. “I didn’t give you my address.”
“You didn’t have to.” She lowered the shades. “It’s my job to figure things like that out, Stefan. And I’m good at my job. Damn good.”
“Thanks for the ride.” I put a foot out, then froze at a soft intake of breath.
“This Weaver thing. It’s a mess. There’s going to be a lot of fallout when everything settles. You might want to get the hell away before then.”
The lobby light seemed to call me, like a flame calling a moth. I stepped out. “See you again, Lyndsey.”
“Wait.” She pulled something out of her jacket pocket. “You ever see something like this?”
It was a palm-sized device, black, with smooth curves and surface. “No.”
“Came off one of Ravi’s people, the one who died protecting Weaver’s daughter. I’d watch that one if I were you.”
“The hospital people know you took it?”
She smiled and the door closed.
I wasn’t sure what to make of everything Lyndsey had revealed, and I didn’t have time to give it much thought. Heidi was waiting for me in the lobby, decked out like the morning we’d driven to Wildwood to meet our benefactors. Her jacket and pants were gray instead of blue, but she had put in the same effort with her hair and makeup.
She shoved a suit bag and shoebox at me, then walked past. “Change on the way. They’re waiting.”
The limo pulled up as we exited the lobby. Neither of us said anything until we were driving.
As I pulled the clothes out of the bag, I asked, “Were you tracking me?”
She leaned back and closed her eyes. “You have a data device for a reason. What happened?”
“What do you know so far?”
“An attack at a private hospital. Multiple fatalities. Security staff have yet to determine whether they’ll engage Metropolitan Police.”
“They’ve engaged the police. For now. I doubt they’ll provide much help.”
“They’re understaffed and overworked, and that’s not the point. What happened?”
“Well, the good news is there’s one less cyborg assassin out there.” I tugged my shirt off, felt a twitch in the shoulder that had blocked Maribel’s swing. I hoped it would work itself out without another visit to the impatient Dr. Jernigan. “The bad news is Weaver slipped back into a coma.”
“She was out of her coma?”
“You hadn’t heard that? I thought maybe everything was coming through your connections.”
That got me an icy glare. “Did you have a chance?”
“Almost. We were alone just before the attack, but…” I tossed my jeans onto the floor and pulled the dress slacks on. “So what’s this about?”
A shrug meant to be nonchalant ruined by the nervous shake in her hands. She clasped them in her lap. “They called twenty minutes ago, just after you started moving closer.”
“Why don’t we ask them what happens if she dies in this coma? It’s not from an assassin, right? I didn’t hear yet what caused her to go back under, but it wasn’t our friends from El Salvador. We should get paid, right?”
“Ask them yourself.” She set an elbow against an armrest and massaged her temples while clenching her other hand into a fist.
I concentrated on making myself pr
esentable. By the time I finally had my feet in the shoes, the limo was slowing and turning onto smaller, ill-kept roads. Towering lights glowed as brilliant as stars over a fenced-in construction site, empty at this hour. Gates rolled open, and the limo turned down a road that seemed as much covered by mud as snow. Water splashed against the undercarriage, and the limo rocked as it sped over ruts, rocks, and dirt mounds. We passed skeletal concrete and steel structures that seemed ready to collapse, then headed toward a large, snow-covered, flat field. I pulled out my data device and checked: we were in what remained of Redskins Arena, the last standing NFL stadium, scheduled to be turned into some sort of gigantic storage facility.
The limo stopped at the edge of the field. Lights arced down from the cloudy sky, like a meteor swarm. I could make out a general shape using ultraviolet vision: low and broad, with sleek, swept-back panels at the front and rear. It was like a sporty limo but flying. The drone of fans was audible now.
It landed about sixty feet away, and gull wing doors lifted. The limo door opened.
Heidi nearly slipped on the hard snow when she got out. “That’s our ride.” It came out unsteady.
“I see they’ve abandoned concerns about being conspicuous.” I climbed out and offered a supporting hand.
She declined.
I followed her over the treacherous ground, never too far behind.
The interior of the flying vehicle was spacious and smelled like it had just come off the assembly line. There were two seats, one running the width of the front third of the vehicle, the other running from the driver’s side of the back third to a midpoint. A bar stocked with water and small bottles of liquor filled the gap between the rear seat and the passenger side wall. Gold carpeting absorbed the water from our shoes and obliterated any trace of mud. When the doors closed, the air quickly warmed.
Droning filled the cabin as the fans revved up, and we quickly gained altitude. The exterior lights I’d seen on the vehicle’s descent flashed, alternating from white to amber to blue. In no time, we were high above the arena, and the city lights were a dim constellation visible to the south as we banked.
I helped myself to a water and polished it off before we landed. Our total flight time was about fifteen minutes. It was dark out, but I could make out a rolling lawn, a wooden fence, and a large building—a mansion—with a concrete driveway.
It hit me as we descended: the same place we’d taken Ichi to for treatment the night Nitin had been killed.
We landed next to two other flying limos, one of them even more sporty. Someone, or more likely some thing, had cleared snow from the landing area out to stone steps that led up to the side of the mansion where I’d parked before. Light glowed weak and unsteady from inside the mansion—a fire. The air was cold and sweet.
There were no guards visible between us and the mansion, and I couldn’t sense any uncertainty in Heidi, but I wished I had my R60 at that moment.
She led the way, taking us through the back door as she had Danny that night. Voices murmured barely louder than the pop of embers cracking. I smelled cedar smoke—pleasant and comforting. It was cool inside.
Heidi knew the way to the den where I’d paced anxiously while the Greeks worked on Ichi. Our silver-haired conspirators were there, sitting on the exquisite furniture, watching the fire burn. They held huge glasses full of a dark red wine in hands that should have been covered in liver spots and freckles.
Birthmark—Anthony Wicker—turned, made the sort of face he would if he’d been served some common person’s meal, and said, “I hope the ride was satisfactory.”
Heidi strolled to the fireplace and held her hands in front of the flame. “Very.”
I listened for any hint of unannounced guests, then walked to a spot between Little Man sitting on an accent chair and Trimmed Eyebrows sitting on a matching settee. I mentally tagged them: Charles Roberts and Nigel Chambliss.
And the rest of the esteemed Chamber of Commerce.
They looked up at me, and Roberts pointed his wine glass at a footstool near the fireplace. “Take a seat, Mr. Mendoza.”
“I like standing. It feels good making you look up to me.”
Heidi shot me a warning look.
Wicker sipped some wine, leaving a dark red slick on chapped lips. “You have any idea why you were summoned, Mr. Mendoza?”
“Our target’s still alive and you’re growing impatient?”
Wicker took another drink.
I shoved my hands into my pockets, imagining what it would be like to wrap cybernetic fingers around his pompous neck. “Well, she has slipped back into a coma. And the odds of her coming out of it are probably not—”
Wicker sneered. “We’re paying for her elimination. If we had known she was going to expire of old age, we wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of hiring you.”
“Well, you did, and now you’re about to—”
Roberts turned and graced me with his patient smile, the little king on his throne indulging his impetuous ally. “You’ve done remarkably, Mr. Mendoza. None of us could have expected someone else had the same idea as us.”
Chambliss nodded and muttered, “An unfortunate situation.”
“Yes,” Roberts said. “But we were told you were ideal for this job because you excelled at overcoming adversity. Did your unfortunate situation in Korea change that?”
Unfortunate situation. Having my limbs destroyed and my eyes taken away was an unfortunate situation. Two years of torture and mindfuckery was an unfortunate situation. Lyndsey’s assessment of these men was correct. They couldn’t possibly care less about one person’s death. “There are some things you can’t change in a person,” I said. “Not once they’re put into place.”
Wicker set his wine glass down on an end table with a loud clank and fixed me with a sour glare from his moss-colored eyes. “Hearing that is refreshingly good news. Circumstances have undergone a change. Since you are well-equipped to manage that, your employment can continue.”
“Thank you.” It came out through clenched jaw.
Roberts’s eyes glittered in the firelight. “Aren’t you curious what the change is, Mr. Mendoza?”
I shrugged. “I’m not a mind reader.”
Roberts and the others chuckled. “The senator’s daughter has become problematic.”
My heart jumped into my throat. “The senator’s daughter?”
Roberts looked to Wicker. “McFarland, isn’t it?”
“Gillian McFarland.” Wicker brushed his hands against each other in distaste.
Chambliss shook his head. “She’s a pretty thing. So young.”
Wicker rolled his eyes. “You can hire ten women much prettier to work away the shame.” Then Wicker turned his attention back to me. “Both of them. You have two days. After that, we’ll seek out alternatives. And we’ll expect reimbursement for expenses incurred already.”
I dug my fingers into my thighs with enough pressure to register simulated pain. Heidi’s eyes told me to let it go. “You’re changing the contract. We had an agreement: five million, one person. Now you want to pay less for two kills. You’re businessmen—you know better.”
Wicker scowled, but Roberts laughed—a raspy, dry sound. He raised his wine glass in toast, took a drink, then said, “You’re right, of course. It’s only fair. So consider it a new contract, with a requirement that you fulfill both to receive payment for either. Hmm? How does that sound? Ten million dollars? And there are no restrictions on how you finish off the young Miss McFarland.” He slapped the armrest and laughed again. “We’ll leave that to your imagination.”
The others chuckled and nodded, their silvery hair and wrinkled skin sickly pale and lifeless in the firelight.
Heidi turned from the fire. “Two days isn’t much time. We’ll need to begin planning immediately. Stefan?”
I fought the urge to slaughter them all, to snap their brittle bones and hurl them into the fireplace. Their laughter followed me out into the night. In the flying
limo, Heidi shook her head and signaled that she suspected the vehicle was bugged. She then pulled the small liquor bottles out of the bar and began making her way through each one.
Alcohol wouldn’t drive out the sickness burning through my gut like corrosion. Nothing could drive away the realization that I was now boxed in. Either I killed the woman I’d fallen in love with, or I would have to betray my team and turn away ten million dollars.
Assuming that was even an option.
Chapter 26
The limo ride back to the hotel was miserable, not just for Heidi’s silent descent into a drunken haze but for the chill the heater couldn’t break, even after I changed back to my jeans and jacket. No liquor could wash the taste of bitter defeat from my mouth. The smug, silver-haired bastards had outmaneuvered me. I was a caged animal, tortured and beaten into submission.
Who do you work for?
Devils in business suits.
I helped Heidi up to her room, got her shoes off her, and slid her under the covers.
She grabbed my hand as I stood and said, “I don’t blame you for it all going wrong. You understand? You’re a victim, like me. Neither one of us could see what was coming.”
“Sure.” I pulled my hand free.
Her breathing leveled off quickly. Something rattled off my foot as I walked past the bathroom door. A pill bottle, amber, the auto-dispense lid open. I set it on the bathroom counter, next to a few other bottles. It wasn’t just the alcohol tearing her apart, but whatever prescription drugs she was getting by with.
Never a good look. Usually an easy way to an early exit. It explained some of her behavior, too.
I slipped into the hallway, found Danny standing there, waiting.
He looked past me. “She asleep?” he asked.
“She had a little too much after the meeting.”
His look said he knew what meeting. “What happened?”
“Some new contract requirements, and a new contract. They want Gillian dead, too.” There. Stated, out in the open. No dancing around it.
He looked away. “You…were you two getting along? She seems kind of pretty.”
