by David Levien
Halfway up the steps, Susan paused and looked to him. He gave her a wave, put his car in gear, and drove away. The Lincoln was long gone, but he had other places to go.
45
Waddy Dwyer was hungry and tired. He missed his wife and was, until five minutes ago, in great need of a piss. He knew one thing for certain, though: he was going to take it out on all of them. He had a gallon of petrol and a sleeve of Styrofoam cups, which he was tearing into strips and stirring into said petrol. He didn’t have the time or the wherewithal in his hotel room to make proper napalm by melting soap into the gasoline, but this would do quite nicely. The mixture, which was nearing the consistency of jelly, smelled comfortingly chemical and took him back to the defoliated jungles of his past. A two-liter soda bottle, a funnel, and a prepaid mobile phone—all the ingredients for a quality firebomb—most citizens had no idea these were sold at every gas station that had a well-stocked convenience mart. Whether they had need for a firebomb might’ve been another question altogether, but he unfortunately did.
Sitting around waiting for Banco to recover, or to fall weak enough for Dwyer to take his rifle away and finish him was one thing, but now that Banco was getting his doorbell rung by the big pro, the ultimate precaution needed to be exercised.
He’d followed the big pro and a pregnant blonde, his wife or girlfriend it seemed based on the solicitous hand placed on the small of her back, to an address that struck him as their home. He wasn’t sure but thought he might’ve been burned on the tail right there at the end. It disgusted him. With even one backup operative and an alternate vehicle it would’ve never happened. No matter. He’d take care of the car soon enough, and he’d be sterile once again. He ran the address but didn’t come up with anything by way of a name. The big pro was a pro after all and knew how to scrub personal information. There was another way to get the man’s identity, and it was somewhere he was going already. He still had lots to do. He kept on stirring.
46
Behr stood in the parking lot next to the gold Chevrolet Traverse that Teague drove, feeling conspicuous and hoping he wouldn’t have to wait long. He’d already been inside the office. More specifically the equipment room, where among the heavy-sided black plastic cases that housed sensitive and expensive surveillance equipment—bugs, voice stress analyzers, cell phone taps, GPS trackers, and the like, as well as the company’s large gun safe—he grabbed a simple low-tech set of gear: a ring of bump keys and hammer. One specially crafted bump key would open any pin tumbler lock of the same make, so he had 90 percent of the standard domestically produced locks covered with what he currently had jingling in his pocket. It was the simplest form of lock beating this side of a battering ram, and a lot more subtle.
Behr waved lamely at two departing coworkers who had caught a ride from the barbecue and come back to claim their cars. It told him the party was over, and he guessed Teague would be along soon. He considered slim-jimming his way into the Traverse or, better yet, smashing the window with the barrel of his Glock, and reviewing the contents of the car. There was nothing in it, Behr realized. Teague would know better. After another four or five long minutes in the day’s last light, a Buick Enclave rolled up, its windows open, Reidy behind the wheel and Malick in the passenger seat. Teague piled out of the back and walked toward him with that rolling gait of his, and didn’t break stride when he spotted Behr.
“What’s up, buddy?” Teague asked, hale and hearty, and inscrutable behind a pair of dark sunglasses as he neared the car.
“You tell me,” Behr said, squaring to him and stopping his progress toward the driver’s door.
“What’s that, big guy?” Teague said, his keys out.
“I want to know what’s going on,” Behr said.
“Nothing’s ‘going on,’ ” Teague said, all hint of jocularity now gone from his voice. “Unless you keep standing there, in which case we’re gonna have an issue.”
“Do we already have one, Pat?” Behr asked. Teague didn’t move, but his mouth fell open, and Behr was about to follow up with more pointed questions when Reidy honked his horn.
“You ready to go, Patty?” Malick called out. “Six dollar pitchers of Leinenkugel’s at Taps and Dolls. You coming, Behr?”
“No, he’s not coming,” Teague said, putting a shoulder into Behr’s chest, moving him back a step, unlocking his car, and getting in.
“See ya tomorrow, then,” Malick said, and drove off.
Teague’s Traverse revved and shot gravel at Behr and left him in a billowing cloud of exhaust. He stalked off toward his car, thinking about his next move with Teague and wishing he had something in front of him to punch.
47
Behr walked along the filthy, ground-down carpet runner of the second story hallway of 1701 Wilmette. He’d returned to the building, which was a low-slung cracker box, typical in this part of town, cheaply built and aging badly. It was a wonder that someone had bothered to install carpet in the first place. The front door’s Kwikset had proved to be of little challenge for the bump key. He wasn’t well practiced, but after he flat-hand buzzed every apartment except the one he was going to, announcing “Pizza delivery!” to the few answers he received, he was surprised that no one rang him in. So he slid the bump key into the lock, flexed the hammer back, and let it go with a thwap. He turned the key and heard the tumbler click open, and he was in. It was so easy and smooth his heart didn’t even get to racing.
But it sure was now, as he neared the door in question. This time the bump had to be slick and precise and he only hoped he got lucky again, because he didn’t know what was waiting for him on the other side. Behr slowed his pace and walked quietly up to the side of the door, keeping his back to the wall and his body to the side of the frame so he wouldn’t disturb the hall light sliding under the door into the apartment.
There was no one in the corridor, and Behr bent and saw he was dealing with a Weslock. It wasn’t an expensive brand. They sold by the boatload at Home Depot. A sixteen-pound sledgehammer would do the job for certain, but that wouldn’t allow for much conversation once he was inside. He fingered through the keys on his ring and found the Weslock equivalent. He removed it from the ring to prevent any telltale clinking noise. He grabbed a deep breath, crouched, and slid the key into the lock. One last quick look up and down the hall. He flexed the bump hammer. And bang.
He turned the key—which rotated—and stood. Twisting the knob, he put a shoulder into the door and found himself inside a dimly lit, foul-smelling little apartment. A man around thirty years old with black hair and long sideburns, and sporting faded ink, rested on a filthy bed. He jolted in surprise at Behr’s entry and began reaching for something, though he was hardly able to move. In the grainy half-light Behr made out the silhouette of a weapon, a rifle, leaning against the wall on the far side of the bed. With a lunging stride, Behr crossed the room, rolled along the foot of the bed, and knocked the weapon away from the man. They wrestled for a moment, but the man was weak. He groaned and gave up nearly instantly, shrinking back against the edge of the bed. Behr got control of the weapon, raised it at the man, and gestured him up with the barrel. As the man climbed to his feet with much effort, Behr’s thumb found the safety and he discovered the weapon was ready to fire.
Behr took a step back to give himself room and noticed the man’s skin was mottled, as if he’d been doused with acid, but before long Behr recognized it as a skin condition, probably vitiligo. He also noted, with little satisfaction, that the assault rifle he held was fitted with a flash suppressor and brass catcher and was military grade. It was the same one that could’ve killed him, the one Breslau had suggested was home-modified. He was staring at the shooter.
“Who are you and where are you from?” Behr demanded.
The man didn’t answer, but it wasn’t due to defiance. He was doubled over clutching a wound on his side. There was an IV bag of saline hanging from a nail in the wall. The tube had ripped loose from the man’s arm during their str
uggle.
“I’m not going to hurt you. You understand English?” Behr said.
The man nodded.
“You know who I am? You recognize me?” Behr said.
The shooter nodded again. Behr noticed food and drink on a countertop in a kitchenette.
“Someone’s been here, bringing you supplies?”
The man nodded a third time.
Behr took a step forward. He kept one hand on the pistol grip of the assault rifle and used his other to move the shooter’s hands back. He saw that a round had entered low on the man’s left hip and ripped away the flesh at his flank. What remained was a viscous dark green that was going black.
“Did I do this to you?” Behr asked.
The man nodded.
“Who trained you? Who hired you? You were hired, weren’t you?”
“Yes,” the man croaked, revealing a Hispanic accent.
“Why were you shooting at—” but it was all Behr was able to say. He heard a single digital beep, then a hiss, and an instinct beyond any training he’d ever had caused him to throw himself on the floor behind the bed as the apartment exploded into a ball of orange fire.
Gasoline fumes and flames ripped through the air of the apartment as Behr reached and yanked the shooter down. But it was too late. The guy had caught a big stripe of a viscous, flaming substance that stuck to his back like a paintbrush slap. The man screamed as Behr tried to roll him on the floor and squelch the flames with his hands. While the flames didn’t spread, they just kept burning, down deeper into the man’s back, searing through his clothing and then his flesh. Behr found a blanket and tried to smother the flames, and finally had some success right around the time he realized he needed to get out of the apartment because it was burning around him. The heat was overwhelming—and worse than that, he was suffocating as every bit of oxygen in the place was consumed by the blaze.
The door was cut off by fire, so Behr grabbed the rifle, tore away a melted window shade, and smashed out the glass.
“One way out,” Behr gasped.
He grabbed the man’s charred and limp body and fed it out the window feetfirst and hoped for the best. Gravity sucked the man out of his grasp and Behr heard a thud before he grabbed the window sash, sprang through the opening, dangled, and dropped. He hit the ground with a painful roll and sucked in cool, fresh air and saw he’d ended up right next to the shooter, who was still and emitting a whimper as plaintive as any sound Behr had ever heard. He looked for some unburned flesh near the shooter’s wrists and forearms—there was little—and hoisted the man up and over his shoulder and headed for the front …
48
Enough was bleeding enough.
Dwyer had to admit it to himself. The solo play was over. Dwyer had been inside. He’d brought Banco some Gatorade, a sandwich, fresh bandages. He’d left some simple saline intravenous fluid and tubing. He’d explained he couldn’t get the more therapeutic stuff without a license, and that he was working on it. He’d left him something else too, a last surprise. It was just under the lip of the kitchenette counter. The mobile phone’s internal clock was timed for fifteen minutes. Dwyer planned on being across town, under the shower nozzle in his shite hole by the time everything was finished. He was just leaving, taking his time, sitting in his car for a bit, making sure he’d thought everything through, when the big pro showed up.
Bugger me, Dwyer thought, another few moments and they would’ve been face-to-face. He watched the big pro go to the door, try something with the buzzer, wait a bit, and then set about letting himself in.
“He’s bumping it,” Dwyer said aloud. It was clear enough to him, even from down the street, what the big pro was doing. He’d seen better, but the bloke wasn’t half bad at it. The man was dogged. He was a hunter.
Dwyer’s anticipation grew as the big pro disappeared inside. Two for the price of one, Dwyer thought. His eye went from building to dashboard clock and back as he waited. And then he heard the muffled crump. There was the sound of breaking glass. Smoke appeared from the far side of the building. Then he couldn’t believe his eyes at what he saw next: the big pro giving a fireman’s carry to Banco’s limp body. Dwyer opened the car door and set a foot on the pavement, ready to run straight at him and put two in his dome before he knew what had happened, but then a series of residents made their way, coughing and frightened, out the front door of the building. It was show enough for Dwyer. He put the car into Drive and took off before the police and emergency services arrived to set up a perimeter.
Now, pacing around his room, Dwyer took out his mobile. Going it alone was one thing, but he’d have to be a frigging idiot to go any further so. He dialed a number from memory and waited while it rang, and then he heard the familiar voice come through.
“ ’Ey?” It was his boy, Rickie Powell, a hard Sandhurst chappie and regular hooligan who’d earned his nickname “Ruthless” many times over.
“Oi, Rickie. Dwyer. Where are ya?”
“Waddy, ya fuckin’ Cambrian! On Ibiza.”
“Work?”
“Nah, ’oliday.”
“Bewt. Which side?”
“Which side? You think I’m in Ibiza Town with all them rich quiffs? I’m in fucking Sant Antoni, getting smeared on cider and porking fat German chicks.”
“Sorry to interrupt your vital mission, but I’m on a damage-limitation job and could use you to rally up.”
“Fucking ’ell. Can do.”
“Tidy.”
“You’re doing me a big favor. These Bavarian twats can drink their weight in beer, I’m goin’ broke …”
It went on like that for another five minutes before Dwyer snapped to and asked, “Can you come in on a blank, then?”
“Not without flying back to Leeds first. Me blanks are in the safety deposit box at the bloody bank—just have my legitimate passport with me,” Rickie told him.
“Come on straightaway, then, no matter,” Dwyer said. “Go and get yourself packed, we’ve got work to do …”
49
Behr sat with his back against an ambulance on the dusty lawn in front of the building, coughing out smoke. He’d given his name and brief description of what had transpired, first to the 911 operator when he called in the fire, then again to the first patrolman on the scene. He watched while paramedics and the police and fire departments arrived simultaneously and put out the building fire, which they’d managed to contain to a few neighboring apartments, made sure the residents were safe, and EMS tried to stabilize the shooter. A paramedic gave Behr water and oxygen and cleaned and bandaged the burns on his hands, which were only first and second degree.
He’d been lucky. The shooter had been far from it. They had him on a stretcher, on his side since his back was so badly burned. One paramedic hung an IV and placed an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth, while the other worked the radio.
“We’ve got a male—Hispanic, I believe—in his thirties, late or early unknown … Abnormal respiration … We have black nasal and oral discharge … Burns greater than sixty percent of his body … Deep burn pattern … Chemical accelerants …”
The care-giving paramedic spread gauze along the burned man’s back and looked up at his partner. “Christ, I think this guy’s been shot—lower left quadrant. Not too recent either … He’s septic.”
“Probable GSWs, lower left quadrant,” the one on the radio said into the handset.
“Repeat. Did you say GSWs or burns?” a voice came through the radio.
“Yeah, GSWs. Burns also.”
“Shit, he’s shocking,” the one on the ground said. “Pulse two ten, and spiking.”
“Let’s move him, stat,” the radio op said.
“Trying to stabilize him first.”
“Nothing to move if we wait, partner.”
“Roger that, let’s roll.”
“He’s hypovolemic, we’re on the move,” the radio man said into the handset.
They used straps to secure him to the gurney and carried
it toward the ambulance. Behr got a chance to see the shooter’s face as he went by—his lips grossly swollen, one eye glassy and blank, the other burned shut, the hair on the back of his head gone. Whatever information the man had may as well have been locked away in a Swiss vault. Behr didn’t have much experience with serious burns, but he didn’t see the guy making it.
Behr stood as the ambulance was closed up and did his best to order his scrambled thoughts. He’d tracked down the shooter. The man was for hire, some kind of pro—ex-military, a mercenary—something he didn’t see every day. Someone—his support or handler—had brought in supplies. And someone had firebombed him. Or Behr. Or both of them. He didn’t get much further than that, because as the ambulance sped out, sirens wailing, a dark Crown Vic rolled onto the scene and a familiar, unwelcome figure climbed out. It was Lt. Breslau, chesty and overheated in his suit, his jaw in major pump mode over a lump of gum.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You need further medical treatment?”
“No.”
“Good. What kind of Caro business brings you out into this mess?” Breslau wanted to know.
Behr could only stare him in the face. “Unofficial,” finally came out of his mouth.
“Who’s the well-done slab of meat they just carted away?” Breslau asked.
