His sergeant looked old and tired — except for those eyes. Blue-green glacial ice and nearly as hard, they dared him to comment.
Mr. Black said nothing as he removed a package from under his arm and tossed it onto the table. Wrapped in brown butcher’s paper and tied with string, it was a flat square the size of an extra-large pizza.
“What’s this?” asked Gallagher.
“A present,” said Mr. Black.
He placed the Zippo lighter on top.
“This, too,” he added.
Gallagher brought his scratching hand up from beneath the table to reveal a massive .44 Magnum Desert Eagle pistol. The Israeli-made weapon had enough stopping power to make regulation-issue body armor as useless as plastic wrap.
Mr. Black smiled thinly. Still paranoid. The eyes didn’t lie.
Gallagher laid the gun on the table and picked up the lighter. He rubbed its smooth gunmetal surface between his fingers before flicking it open and thumbing the flint wheel. It sparked and flared with a gentle orange flame.
“I lost this,” he said, “during the last mission. Where did you get it?”
“Desmond’s.”
Gallagher’s eyes narrowed. “Huh.”
“He always was a sentimental bastard.”
“Was?” asked Gallagher.
Mr. Black nodded at the brown package.
Gallagher eyes narrowed further as he tugged the string’s neatly-tied bow. The waxed paper opened in slow motion like a blossoming flower.
“Jesus Christ!”
Gallagher leapt to his feet, spilling his coffee as he scrambled back from the table.
“Desmond’s tattoo,” explained Mr. Black.
Gallagher’s lips curled into a snarl, but he remained mute. His eyes were wide and angry and, if possible, even harder than before.
That alone was worth it, thought Mr. Black. His old sergeant looked alive again.
Mr. Black produced the guard’s cellphone from his pocket. It was a perfect match to his own. He laid it on the table beside the ragged patch of skin, careful to avoid the spilled coffee.
“Nothing to lead back to you,” he said. “Clean. Unsentimental. What I do best.”
Gallagher swallowed, his gaze transfixed by the tattoo. It had shrunk since Mr. Black removed it from the guard’s muscular frame. Headless and without the bony ridges of the man’s spine to wrap around, it now resembled the severed tentacle of a mythical sea monster rather than a snake.
“Yeah.” Gallagher swallowed dryly. “What you do best.”
Mr. Black smiled. That’s all he ever wanted. A simple show of appreciation.
Gallagher moved back to the table and righted his coffee cup. He couldn’t take his eyes off the slab of rendered flesh.
“I can’t believe that bloody driver not only made it back across the border, but he bested Desmond, too. He was a damn fine Marine.”
“Wallace had help,” said Mr. Black.
“Oh? Who?”
“I don’t know yet . . .” Mr. Black reflexively reached up to touch the back of his head. The bump was prominent and tender. “But I will.”
Gallagher snorted, but it was less out of disgust than an effort to clear his nasal passages.
“How did this fucker even find out about Desmond? He was ordered not to have contact?”
Mr. Black told Gallagher about the police detective and his theory that Wallace must have tracked him down only to arrive at the same time Desmond was tying up loose ends. While monitoring the scanner, he had heard the police mention Desmond’s Mustang parked outside the detective’s house. It was only a matter of time before they arrived at the condo and discovered what was left of its owner.
“So what’s his next move?” asked Gallagher.
Mr. Black was confident Desmond hadn’t talked. He had also gleaned another interesting tidbit from the police chatter.
“Someone called 9-1-1 from the detective’s house and left the phone off the hook. I assume it was Wallace. He wanted the detective alive. That’s his only lead.”
Gallagher nodded and reached out a hand to hover a fraction of an inch above the frightening square of flesh.
“Desmond loved that fucking tattoo,” he said. “Hate to think of him being buried without it.”
“He should’ve held on tighter, then,” said Mr. Black dryly.
A reluctant smile fluttered across Gallagher’s dry lips. “You’re a sick bastard.”
“You should know.”
Gallagher’s smile vanished. “I don’t want Wallace hanging around down here. He’s already caused too much trouble.”
“I could stake out the hospital,” said Mr. Black. “He’s bound to—”
“No,” said Gallagher sharply. “We make him go where we choose.” He furled his brow and curled his lips into a sneer. “It’s time to get him back onto the path we set. I want him rotting in jail. Alone and without hope. I want him to fucking suffer. To never know—”
A noise from the other room made Gallagher blanch. He pointed at the parcel. “Put that the fuck away. Quick.”
Mr. Black carefully refolded the brown waxed paper and retied the string. He had just finished when a strikingly handsome woman entered the kitchen.
Mr. Black had seen her before, but never up close.
She had long curly hair the color of a sunset.
CHAPTER 49
Wallace stood alone in the middle of the deserted shopping mall. His voice was hoarse from shouting; his ears rang from the devastating hollowness of no reply.
A giggle. A footstep. The shadow of two boys running down an empty corridor.
“Wait!”
He raced after them. Reached the end. T-junction. Two more corridors. He swiveled his head. Left and right. Both deserted.
Another giggle.
Behind him.
He turned.
He was no longer in the mall.
Two boys, not his sons, were sitting together on a familiar vinyl bench seat. They had some kind of paperback comic book in their hands. The interior illustrations were black and white. The writing on the cover was Japanese.
Other seats were filled with passengers. Tourists, mostly, but also daily commuters returning from work.
Wallace turned around. He was driving the bus. The windshield wipers were moving rapidly. An unexpected summer storm stripped leaves and branches from the ancient cedars in historic Stanley Park and turned the gutters into churning rivers.
He had been reassigned from his usual route in North Vancouver to help with increased traffic across Burrard Inlet. He didn’t mind the change, although he was always nervous during the first trip on an unfamiliar route.
He drove the #257 Horseshoe Bay Express that shuttled commuters and tourists from downtown Vancouver through Stanley Park and across Lions Gate Bridge to West Vancouver. After a quick stop at popular Park Royal Mall, he would carry a full load to Horseshoe Bay where B.C. Ferries would sail his passengers to either the tranquil Sunshine Coast, Bowen Island or across the Strait of Georgia to distant Vancouver Island.
He drove past the turnoff to the aquarium and headed into a narrow three-lane tunnel of trees that led to the seventy-year-old suspension bridge. As one of only two routes across Burrard Inlet, the center lane of the bridge needed to change direction several times per hour to accommodate traffic patterns. At its most congested, it could take over twenty minutes to cross the five-thousand-foot span. When traffic was light, it took less than two.
Wallace kept to the right as traffic was heavy and the rain was fierce. The green light above the center lane was flashing, indicating that direction of traffic was about to change. Wallace checked his mirrors. Cars in the center lane were begrudgingly falling in behind him, clearing the way for the imminent rush of oncoming traffic.
The light in the center lane turned red and for a moment there was some elbow room. An entire lane empty of traffic on his left. While to his right, a narrow sidewalk, short concrete barrier and metal railing was all that separated h
im from a deadly two-hundred-foot drop to the busy shipping lanes below. Yellow phone boxes blurred past, a recent pilot project that offered direct access to a Crisis Center for those yearly dozens considering the final leap.
Wallace glanced in the mirrors again. His heart skipped and began to race.
A small red car was roaring up on his left, taking advantage of the empty lane, its windshield wipers moving so fast they were a blur. Behind it, a dark SUV had made the same dangerous move, egging the little car on and giving it no room to fall back.
Wallace quickly glanced forward. Two lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic were baring down like an invading army of snarling, supercharged mechanical beasts.
The little red car wouldn’t make it. It didn’t have the muscle to fight the wind, the rain and the rapidly narrowing gap.
Wallace couldn’t brake. In this weather, with a hundred impatient drivers chewing each other’s bumpers, a multi-car pileup was a certainty.
Wallace shoved open his side window and stuck out his arm. He waved it about frantically, trying to warn the car to brake and pull in behind him.
The driver didn’t notice or couldn’t see him through the blinding rain.
Suddenly, the driver downshifted and the little car’s engine squealed in protest as it attempted a final burst of speed to squeeze by Wallace’s massive front bumper.
“Hold on!” Wallace screamed to his passengers.
He pumped his brakes and felt the bus lurch, but it was too late. He saw the two occupants of the car as it swerved in front of him. For a moment the picture froze in high-definition clarity. A woman, her face as white as death itself, clutched the steering wheel. In the back seat was a young, dark-haired girl, her mouth stretched in a terrified scream, pink tonsils vibrating at the back of her throat.
The small red car crunched against his front bumper, but it didn’t have the momentum to stop from being swallowed whole. The front of the bus lifted off the ground, its tires bursting and massive rims spinning like buzz saws as the two vehicles crashed through the barrier and slid over the edge of the ancient bridge.
Wallace woke up screaming — the nightmare, the too-real memory, still playing in his head.
CHAPTER 50
The red-haired woman didn’t acknowledge Mr. Black. With her head held low, chin tilted to bosom, she glanced at the table, walked to the sink and rinsed a cloth under the tap.
When she returned, she wiped the spilled coffee and lifted the brown paper package.
“Don’t open that,” said Gallagher. “It’s private.”
“I’ll put it by the sink,” she said. “Does your friend want coffee?”
Mr. Black tilted his head, trying to see the woman’s face beneath her long, curly bangs. She wasn’t young, but time had been kind to her. The wrinkles around her eyes appeared to be mostly from laughter and her delicate pale skin had been jealously protected from the sun. Her lips were a cupid’s bow of pink rosebud and yet something about them appeared unyielding.
Mr. Black glanced up, suddenly aware that the woman was studying him with the same intensity.
He smiled. Not to be friendly. And he could tell from the narrowing of her eyes, and the slight tremor in the soft square of skin between, that she understood.
Her eyes were as green and untrusting as a cat’s.
“If you don’t want coffee—”
“I do,” said Mr. Black. “Black.”
The woman retrieved a fresh cup from the cupboard and filled it to within a hairline of the brim. Despite its fullness, none of the coffee spilled over the lip when she placed the cup in front of him.
A challenge?
Mr. Black lifted the cup to his lips and took a long sip. He didn’t spill a drop either.
The woman filled Gallagher’s cup before returning the pot to its burner.
“Leave us,” said Gallagher.
The woman hesitated.
“I was hoping to—”
“Later!”
Gallagher’s lips curled and he made a noise in the back of his throat that reminded Mr. Black of a feral dog that had attacked them during a mission in the sand. The dog had sprang from nowhere and savagely ripped out Corporal Penner’s throat before Mr. Black had done the same to it.
The woman left the room with her head hung low once more.
Mr. Black raised an inquisitive eyebrow.
“I don’t know,” said Gallagher irritably. “She keeps moaning on. The sooner I get rid, the better.”
Mr. Black sipped his coffee, his gaze drifting across the table.
Something was missing.
He glanced over to the sink. The brown package was there. He had watched the woman move it and sensed her concern over the uncomfortable feel of what lay within.
He hadn’t noticed her pocket Desmond’s phone.
Her hands had been steady.
She wasn’t scared.
She was cunning.
CHAPTER 51
Laurel rushed into the room, her eyes wide with alarm. Wallace sat on the edge of the couch, his back hunched, wiping a sheen of cold sweat off his brow.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “I heard a scream.”
Wallace looked up. “Yeah, sorry. Bad dream.”
“Your wife and sons?”
Wallace shrugged. “That was part of it.”
“It’ll be the stress,” said Laurel. “It digs up our darkest stuff.”
“And it does a damn skilled job, too.” Wallace sighed and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “You find out anything?”
“Come into the kitchen,” she said. “I got what I could.”
ON THE kitchen table, Laurel spread out five sheets of paper fresh from the printer. Each one showed a grainy black and white mugshot of a former Marine, along with discharge dates and other relevant details.
She slid one of the print-outs to the side. It showed the border guard they had left tied up in his condo.
“That’s Desmond Morris,” she said. “We already know his story. He was part of the three-man unit that went rogue.”
She slid a second sheet to the same side. It showed a young man with a head so round it could have been a soccer ball. “Michael Shepherd, explosives expert. He also went rogue, but my contact says he died on a construction site in New Jersey six months ago. The official investigation ruled it an accidental detonation during a demolition, but my contact says he wouldn’t be surprised if Shepherd triggered it on purpose. He took the discharge hard.”
Laurel slid a third sheet over to join the other two. The man’s face was so densely black, and the quality of the print-out so poor, it was difficult to make out anything but the whites of his eyes.
“Tennyson Bone was the third member of the rogue unit and, from all accounts, its instigator. His list of confirmed kills is impressive, although I’m told that’s not the whole story. My source tells me they shouldn’t have cut this one loose. He even scares the generals.”
Wallace pulled the sheet closer to him and took a hard look. “This could be the man who showed up at the guard’s house. Does he live around here?”
“His address is listed as Chicago, but mail has been bouncing back to the Corps. They have no idea where he is.”
Laurel pointed to the two remaining print-outs.
“These are the Marines who were rescued. On the left is Lance Corporal James Ronson. He was the communications specialist. More geek than killer, but incredibly essential. Without him, your unit is deaf, dumb and blind. He would have made a prize catch for al Qaeda.” She paused. “On the right is the unit’s leader, Sergeant Douglas Gallagher. He would have taken his capture as a personal insult. From what I could gather, he sounds like the type of man who would save the last bullet for himself rather than be taken alive.”
“Why were those two kicked out of the Corps?” asked Wallace. “They couldn’t have disobeyed orders if they were being held prisoner.”
“It’s what happened after,” said Laurel. “The part that didn�
��t make the newspaper.”
“Which was?”
“My contact says everything is sealed away, but he skimmed the reports before they were buried.” She grinned. “The generals treat him like a butler, but there’s not much he doesn’t see or hear. During and following the rescue, unofficial estimates put the number of dead in the encampment at close to fifty. Unfortunately, not all of them were combatants.”
“What does that mean?” asked Wallace.
“They went on a killing spree and it didn’t matter who crossed their path. If you weren’t a Marine, you were dead. Men, women, children, even livestock was slaughtered. My source estimated that less than a dozen of those killed were al Qaeda. There is no official estimate since some of the bodies were rigged with explosives to take out anybody who tried to move them later.”
“Christ,” said Wallace. “They pissed off the wrong Marines.”
“Nobody would weep for the insurgents,” said Laurel, “but the villagers don’t have a choice. Most of them aren’t protecting al Qaeda because they want to. It’s purely a matter of survival.”
“And none of this made the papers,” said Wallace.
“Not a peep. If it did, those five men would never have been discharged. The Corps buried it fast and deep and as quietly as possible.”
Wallace moved the five sheets of paper around. He placed the dead man and the guard to one side. They didn’t have a current address for the black man, but Wallace was now sure he had to have been the one with the gun at the foot of the stairs.
He tapped the print-out of Lance Corporal James Ronson.
“J. Ronson,” he said. “He created the fake photo.”
“Looks like it,” said Laurel.
“But Gallagher’s the unit leader? The one they’re all loyal to?”
Laurel nodded. “Does his name mean anything to you? Anything at all?”
“Nothing,” said Wallace. “I wish to hell it did.” He sighed wearily. “Do we have an address for either of these two?”
“Sergeant Gallagher has a post-office box. It’s in Washington state, so we know he’s nearby. I’m still trying to track down a residential address. It must be rural.”
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