Terminal Vendetta (A Diana Weick Thriller Book 3)

by Cate Clarke

  “We have to do something!” Wesley screamed at her, his face red with tears. His wrists were bleeding, worn from the zip ties. His nails were all broken and chipped. There was a brief moment when Amita felt a very small twinge of guilt. But it was fleeting and unreliable, just as everything else was in her life, even her prisoners.

  Quickly, but not running, Amita left the bathroom, rushing down the hall while she checked the time on her phone. Agents would be in soon. Reina, perhaps, even sooner. They had to hurry. The best way to get the boy quiet again would be to save his father. If she didn’t, who knew what noises would wail out of him until she rectified a situation she wasn’t responsible for.

  If the boy hadn’t put so much stress on him, if he hadn’t encouraged his father to make this bold escape, he likely would have had enough strength and energy to make it just the few more days that she needed them to.

  From the supply room, she clicked open the glass box and took out the AED in its red box.

  But when she placed it next to Rex Tennison’s still body and Wesley’s tear-streaked cheeks, it was clear that the boy had no idea what to do.

  “Move,” Amita muttered, crouching down next to the father and preparing the AED. She placed one of the gray panels on his chest and the other on his side. Wires hanging between Tennison and the blue remote in Amita’s hands, she jammed her thumb down.

  Tennison seized, his whole body flopping but then returning back to the stinking infection that he’d become. She didn’t want them to die. That had never been in the plan, but it could be an unintended consequence of all this. Another form of discipline dished out for her. That wouldn’t surprise Amita in the least, for God to punish her in this way.

  “Please,” Wesley pleaded from the other side of Tennison’s body, spit flying out from between his lips and covering his father’s unmoving torso.

  She pushed the button again. Tennison lurched up, down, and then still again.

  Pressing two fingers into his neck, Amita shook her head and sighed.

  “Again,” Wesley demanded.

  “He’s gone,” Amita said flatly.

  Wesley snatched the remote out of her hands. She pointed the gun at him but he didn’t even react to the barrel of the pistol, staring down at his father’s frozen eyes—blue and wide, the yellow reflection of the bathroom lights swirling in the placidity.

  Another racketing of sobs and the boy pressed down on the remote. For the final time, Tennison’s body moved up and down like someone had plunged a knife into his chest and yanked him up from the hilt.

  One heavy wet breath came out of him. His eyelids flickered, shadowing the reflections in his irises.

  “Dad,” Wesley said again, flailing himself forward and wrapping his arms around his neck, crying into his chest.

  It was surprising—this amount of grief and sadness. She sat back on her heels, staring at their embrace. This was not how the death of Amita’s father had gone. Mostly just arguing over wills and recounting the rare moments when their father hadn’t been off travelling for work.

  “You have to let us go,” Wesley said, his speech muffled by his father’s torso. He lifted his head slightly to say, “We have to get him to a hospital. I’m not doing this again.”

  “I can’t take you to the hospital,” Amita replied. “She can’t know that you’re here.”

  “Who can’t?”

  “Your mother.”

  Wesley peeled himself off of his father, placing his hands on his legs, rubbing his palms against his pants. He did a quick scan of the bathroom—the cleaner that he’d thrown at her face across the small room. He could get there. But not before she shot him clean in the head.

  “Despite what you may think of me, Wesley,” Amita said. “I do not want either of you to die.”

  “Then let us go,” Wesley said. “What’s the point of holding us here?”

  “So she thinks that you’re dead until the job is complete.”

  A slight smile of disbelief appeared across his face as he said, “You’re just using us.”

  “Of course,” Amita replied. “You think I would do this for no reason at all?”

  Wesley looked her up and down and she did the same to him. She wanted to keep these looks, this conversation very minimal. The less they knew the better. They could have walked away from this so easily if they had made different choices. Now what was she to do? Just let them walk away and out of her office into the streets of London? Their survival had never been a necessity, but it had always been a possibility. Until now.

  Wesley seemed to sense the same thing, his hands curling into fists, his gaze intensely locked on to his father’s struggling body. A certain frustration weighing on him.

  “I will close this door again,” Amita said. “And you will stay here until the job is done. Or I can be finished with this now. You serve the same purpose to me alive or dead.”

  “Just…” Wesley managed. “Let us out of here, into your office or whatever and get bandages for Dad. Then, we’ll do whatever you want, okay? We’ll keep quiet. We won’t go anywhere.”

  Certainly, the boy was in no position to negotiate, but Amita wasn’t immune to emotion, though all of her previous romantic endeavors did like to shove that in her face. So she agreed. If not just to prove a point.

  She set them up in the armchairs, keeping them tied still but looser and with more give. She cleaned up the broken shards of the mirror and wiped down the bathroom. With a couple of emails and a text to Reina, she cancelled all of her meetings over the next three days, giving herself and Weick just enough time to get what they needed done.

  Chapter 19

  Diana Weick

  Tok, Alaska

  Sleeping in the cabin was uncomfortable. It was hot and dry, the logs absorbing all of the moisture in the air. Fortunately, they had one of two beds, Hoagland negotiating his way into the other one. Axtell and the other soldier were in the living room, on the couch and on the floor. But the temperature wasn’t the only thing keeping Diana up. She couldn’t even bring herself to close her eyes and instead spent the night staring out the window into the Alaskan wild. It wasn’t just Amber lying next to her, so chiseled and annoyingly handsome. It wasn’t just the memories of Rex and Wesley that spun at the front of her mind every time she closed her eyes. It was Taras Kushkin keeping her awake.

  All of the information from the files—she wanted to share it with Amber, but she couldn’t bring herself to break him out of sleep that they both so desperately needed. She got up early, in hopes that he would do the same but when she went out into the kitchen of the cabin, Amber just turned over and went back to sleep.

  Axtell, on the other hand, was wide awake. She gave Diana a light smile as she entered the kitchen, the kettle rumbling on the old stove.

  “Coffee?” Axtell whispered.

  “Please,” Diana said.

  “You’re up early,” Axtell noted.

  “And late.”

  “Ah…” Axtell nodded but said nothing further. There was no bonding or conversation between the two of them, just sitting at the linoleum table sipping on too-strong coffee. There was a silent understanding. They both had secrets on one another, ones that didn’t need to be discussed but that needed to be solved without the interaction of the other. Axtell’s role in all of this was muddy now because Hoagland was still alive. But, with the news announcing that he was dead and the military pretending he was, maybe Axtell would be the one in line for the VBA position anyway.

  Hoagland was the one that woke everyone up, groaning and muttering, bones and muscles creaking with every step across the cabin.

  “We’d better get moving,” Hoagland said, flopping down onto the couch. He was shirtless, his gut hanging out over jeans, his shaved silver hair catching in the rising sun coming in through the dusty windows.

  “Are you ready?” Axtell asked, standing up from the table, giving Diana one last glance.

  “I was ready three days ago,” Hoagland mutter
ed. “Maybe if they hadn’t sent you, I would have already been out of here.”

  Though Axtell kept her face still, there was a slight twitch at the corner of her mouth. Hoagland was a misogynistic dick. Diana knew that already but hearing him talk out loud, belittling another woman soldier, he forced her to chew on the inside of her cheek to keep from saying anything.

  Like he’d sensed the tension, Amber stepped out of the bedroom, completely groomed, readied, and packed.

  “Maybe, if they hadn’t sent you,” Hoagland turned to Diana, “those guys wouldn’t be on our trail.”

  “What?” Diana raised her eyebrows, standing up from the kitchen table.

  Amber stepped between them.

  “Maybe if they hadn’t sent me,” Diana snapped, “you’d be buried under the rubble of that safe house.”

  “Well nobody did send you, did they?” Axtell piped up, crossing her arms and leaning against the kitchen counter. Her white wifebeater was tucked into the military pants of her uniform, her triceps lean and intimidating with her arms crossed.

  Amber and Diana looked at each other.

  “That’s right,” Amber said. “Independent.”

  “So nobody asked and yet, you still find a way to get yourself in trouble, Weick.” Hoagland laughed a little, leaning back on the couch, spreading his hairy arms over the back of it.

  “I saved your damn life!” Diana made a move forward and Amber stopped her, putting a palm on her chest and giving her a slight shake of his head.

  “Okay, but why?” Hoagland asked. “You know why that Polack and those young guys are after me, don’t you? But you’re choosing not to tell the United States military….purposefully withholding information from the ones who gave you your entire life and your celebrity cameos. Because, why? Who are you really working for, Diana Weick?”

  She hated the way he said her name. It rolled between his fat lips like smoke cycling off his tongue, hissing and soft. Going back to the inside of her cheek, Diana chewed, flashing her eyes between Amber, Hoagland and Axtell.

  “I’ll answer your questions...” Hoagland leaned forward, folding his hands between his knees. For a moment, the way he sat reminded her of Rex. The inside of her cheek began to bleed, the taste of iron in her mouth. He said, “If you answer mine.”

  Diana gave Amber a second intense look, and he took his hand off her chest, stepping out of her way, raising his hands by his ears and not hiding how he felt about any conversation with Hoagland.

  The major general patted the cushion on the couch next to him, picking at his teeth with his tongue as he looked her up and down. Diana held back something, strong language or vomit—she wasn’t sure. Her boots squeaked against the wooden floors as she took a step closer to him but didn’t sit down.

  “Fine.” Hoagland looked to Axtell and Romano for confirmation that Diana was the crazy one and not him. “The least you can tell me after all this hubbub… is the why.”

  “Why do you think somebody would want to kill you, Hoagland?” Diana asked, taking a moment to peer out the thin curtains to the wilderness outside. The closest cabin was about fifty feet away from theirs, but vacancy couldn’t be that low at this time of year, especially for being out in the middle of nowhere.

  Hoagland chewed on his mustache, a very different color than the hair on his head.

  “That comes with the territory,” Hoagland replied. “Plenty of people want to kill me.”

  “Surprise,” Diana stated. He narrowed his eyes. “It’s not about you, specifically. It’s about the position that you were supposed to get.”

  “Position?”

  “Don’t play dumb.”

  Diana rounded the coffee table, putting herself in the middle of the cabin, staring across it to hold his gaze. Axtell and Romano were on either side of her, now suddenly appearing as if it was them against Hoagland and not the other way around.

  Amber was pouring himself some tea.

  “You mean the VBA deputy position?” Hoagland asked.

  Diana nodded.

  “Well, lucky for them…” Hoagland said. “I can’t take it now considering that, in the eyes of everyone else except for who’s in this room, I’m dead.”

  “Right. Which means…” Diana trailed off, looking to Axtell on her left. With her palm, Axtell smoothed down the top of her hair, a twinge of nervousness in her eyes—some of the first emotions Diana had seen on her.

  Uninterested in any conversation that didn’t have to do with him, Hoagland said, “Okay, my turn.”

  “We’ve gotta get moving,” Diana said.

  “No way, sweetheart,” Hoagland snapped. “My questions first.”

  From behind her, Diana heard Amber sigh and sip loudly on his tea.

  “Did you really take down Kushkin by using an office chair?” His slight laugh rumbled.

  “Really?” Diana rolled her eyes. “Yes.”

  “What’s Jay Leno like?”

  “Kinda a dick.”

  “I knew it.” Hoagland grinned. “Ratanake lived with the bottle, didn’t he?”

  Diana stiffened, squeezing her hands at her sides, resisting the urge to flip the coffee table onto his lap. There was a moment of silence, Diana fuming and ruminating over the question from this absolute dickhead. He didn’t deserve any answers or any information about a soldier like Dominic Ratanake. Especially about the struggles that he dealt with every night, every time they were separated.

  “Okay, fine.” Hoagland sighed. “Touchy subject.”

  He stood up from the couch, leaning back with both hands on his hips, jutting his gut forward. Throwing on a t-shirt and then a jacket, letting them all watch, Hoagland moved for the door.

  “Oh yeah,” Hoagland said as he adjusted a backpack against his shoulder. “Who you working for?”

  “Me.” Diana turned to him.

  “And who does he work for?” Hoagland used a stainless-steel container filled with coffee that Axtell had made for him, leaving none for anyone else, to gesture to Amber. Pushing back from the kitchen table, Amber turned slowly, looking to Diana and the major general.

  “Independent,” Diana said.

  Hoagland caught her eyes, challenging her stare, challenging the lie. Diana didn’t need to bring Amita Voss into this, not now. She didn’t trust Hoagland for one, and for two—she really didn’t know what role Voss was playing in all of this yet, other than that she had asked Amber to help Diana in this battle against the Readers. I mean, that had been all it seemed.

  Until she read those files from Taras.

  But Amber couldn’t know about her past. If he knew about her past, he probably would have no incentive to stay on Diana’s side. Maybe he would just head back to London, back to his cubicle.

  “Back in my day,” Hoagland cleared his throat and continued talking as they followed him out of the cabin, bags in hand, “we didn’t have terrorists like these ‘Readers.’ Even our enemies were real men. They didn’t cry and whine about the way the military treated them. They did what they were told because they were soldiers, and they didn’t need anything more than that. But now we’ve got these wishy-washy millennials telling us what to do and the way we should run our government from their fucking cellphones. You know who’s next in line for that VBA position? Now that I’m ‘dead’? All they’ve got for options are two ladies that are going to quit in two years to have babies. They’re doing it to look progressive, catering to fucking Twitter hashtags. They’ll see soon, though… it’s just going to make it easier for those guys and the Polack to get what they want. With me out of the picture, they’re going to get everything.”

  The car door slammed as Hoagland got in the passenger side. Captain Romano got behind the driver’s seat, and Axtell, Diana and Amber got in the other car—Diana deciding to stay in the backseat by the files.

  “He’s a real charmer,” Diana murmured when they were in the safety of the car. She leaned forward to Axtell. “He knows you’re the one in line for that position, right?
”

  “Yes,” she said. “He doesn’t care what I think.”

  “He doesn’t care what anyone thinks,” Amber piped up.

  Hoagland was overwhelmingly ignorant. Soldiers like him were the whole reason that the Readers did what they did—that traditional toxic attitude of military men doing what they were told just because they signed a piece of paper. And there was a brief moment where Diana understood what the Readers were doing and what they were trying to change. And that moment led to a certain complacency because Diana realized that men like Hoagland deserved to have their power stripped—their money drained from their accounts. Even if it wasn’t her responsibility to do so, they deserved to be punished.

  Chapter 20

  Cameron Snowman

  Washington DC

  The only thing that had gone off without a hitch so far had been the visit to Laird. Everything else, everyone else, was one step behind. David and Zabójca had once again failed at killing a fifty-something-year-old man. Though, they didn’t really need to anymore. They’d gotten what they needed in Korea. It still would have felt so satisfying to see at least a picture of a bullet in that guy’s head.

  They hadn’t announced the official chosen candidate for the VBA position, so Cameron and Asher were sitting ducks, waiting on the edge of their phones and computers, wasting their time.

  “Carson?” Cameron asked.

  “Dead.”

  “Winslow?”

  “Dead.”

  “Who did we not try from that squad? Branscomb?” Cameron looked up from his laptop. Asher looked at him, giving a slight smile and a shake of his head. “Yeah, you’re right. That guy will never turn.”

  Standing up from the desk, Cameron rounded the small apartment. They were just outside of DC, an apartment they’d rented for cheap when they needed a place to kill time. There was a cot in one corner, and three mismatched desks lined up in somewhat of a triangle in the middle of it. There were papers scattered, some taped lazily to the wall—maps of Vauxhall Court and Kushkin’s territory. The itinerary for Ratanake’s funeral. Messages from Amita Voss, pleading for something. She was always asking for something. That was a woman that Cameron had no trust in. But there seemed to be this odd faith between her and Zabójca. Maybe it was an age thing but every time he’d had an opportunity to kill her, he hadn’t even tried to take it.