The Punisher

PART ONE

CRIME

15 June 1840 Hours

Crossed wires. Not a good omen.

At one P.M. this afternoon, Divisional HQ pulled the plug on Ares. Two years of work, one agent’s life, my family’s sanity . . . all of them almost went right down the drain then and there.

Took almost three hours of Weeks massaging egos and making phone calls before they restored support to the op, gave us the green light again for tonight.

I heard about this only twenty minutes ago-a message Weeks left in my voice mail box. I don’t think he would have told me at all, but he had to make sure word hadn’t reached me some other way, that I knew we had a go.

What happened was this: OCB had sent a memo out, six months ago, asking all Tampa-based ops to clear everything through them. Protocol, pulling rank, whatever you want to call it-all we had to do was send them a note about what we had planned for this evening, and we would have been okay.

The memo never got sent. Weeks made noises about having delegated that task to Clark or Shannon, but that’s bullshit. It’s totally on him, totally his fault OCB had no paperwork about Ares. Something’s happened to him in the last year, since he settled in here as AIC. He lets things slide, slip through the cracks . . . he wasn’t like this before, God knows. Maybe it’s age-maybe it’s his divorce. I don’t know. Doesn’t really matter.

This afternoon, OCB was talking to the Tampa PD about something else, and our op got mentioned.

They, naturally, went through the roof.

Called Washington, faxed over their memo, and had all the support we’d lined up-local law enforcement, logistics, Justice Department-withdrawn. Said Ares had the potential to interfere with ongoing surveillance they were running.

Lucky Weeks was able to convince Washington that our op had to take priority-national security concerns trumping OCB’s attempts to get the dirt on a local dirtbag name of Howard Saint.

I’ve heard of him, of course-he is big down here, and getting bigger-but haven’t yet had the pleasure. Doubtful that I ever will-Saint and I travel in different circles.

On top of which, after tonight, I am out of Florida entirely, not likely to return.

Op is only a few hours away. Must prepare.

[Entry Ends.]

ONE

Trouble was coming.

Howard Saint saw it through the polarized lenses of his Persols, through the tinted glass of his limousine, through the throng of well-wishers and paparazzi crowded around the entrance to Saints and Sinners. Trouble in the form of a round, balding man in his early fifties, a businessman in a light blue windbreaker he had no reason to wear on this warm Tampa evening. A windbreaker that bulged suspiciously underneath one armpit as the man pushed his way through the crowd and headed for Saint’s limousine as it pulled up to the curb.

“Reston,” Saint said softly, a faint smile on his face. “What an idiot.”

“Howard? What is it?”

Saint turned. His wife, Livia, next to him in the back of the limo, was leaning toward him, trying to peer through his window.

“Peter Reston,” Saint repeated, pointing. “He’s brought a gun. No doubt intends to use it on me.”

Livia saw the man and frowned in disgust.

“For God’s sake. I told you he was going to be a problem.”

“You were right.” Saint didn’t bother adding that he’d suspected as much himself, after the ugly scene in Reston’s offices last Friday. After the man had realized that the business he’d spent his entire life building was now worthless, that his only chance at avoiding bankruptcy was to sell his assets (at a fraction of their actual worth, of course) to Saint Holdings. To Howard Saint, the architect of his fall.

The realization had not—needless to say—made him happy.

“You bastard,” Reston had said, rising from behind his desk, his face twisted in hatred. “You cold-blooded, double-dealing bastard. I trusted you.”

Reston stood over Saint, both hands clenched into fists, literally trembling with anger.

“I’ll kill you, Howard,” he said. “I swear to God I’ll kill you.”

Saint had looked up at the man and given him the same faintly amused smile he wore right now.

“Don’t be an idiot, Peter,” he’d said, and stood up himself. “You’ll do nothing of the kind.”

The two men had faced each other then, eye to eye, almost toe to toe, barely a foot apart. There was a floor-to-ceiling mirror behind Reston’s desk—Saint remembered looking at it, seeing himself and Reston reflected in its surface, and thinking that the contrast between the two of them couldn’t have been greater.

Reston, red-faced, sweating, shaking, crammed into a suit that had probably last fit him a dozen years ago, about when it was last in style. Saint in a black, crew-neck T-shirt and gray blazer (the outfit Livia preferred him in, above all others) looking tan, fit, calm. Commanding.

“My advice to you is to deal with the facts,” he told Reston calmly. “Reston Motors is mine. Take the offer I’m making for your assets—the inventory, the database programming, the body shop—and start over.” He flashed a smile. “Just stay out of the car dealership business. A little friendly advice.”

Reston glared. “Fuck your friendly advice. And fuck you, Howard.”

For an instant, Saint thought the man might swing at him. He wouldn’t have minded that—a chance to complete the man’s humiliation by bloodying his nose—literally.

But, of course, Reston did nothing of the kind. Perhaps he’d seen Saint’s own willingness to fight, and thought better of it. Or perhaps he was just a coward.

Or perhaps, he’d just wanted to run home to bring a little equalizer to bear. The bulge hidden underneath his windbreaker.

“Pathetic,” Saint said, and tapped on the glass between the driver and passenger compartments. The barrier lowered— Dante, who was driving tonight, had a hand pressed to the earpiece in his right ear, was nodding even as he turned around.

“We have a problem,” Saint said. “Reston’s here.”

“Yes, sir. Lincoln just spotted him. How do you want to handle it?”

“Quietly,” Saint said.

Livia leaned forward in her seat. “Permanently.”

Saint smiled.

Reston had called him cold-blooded, which was certainly the case, but his wife was the single most ruthless, relentless person Howard Saint had ever met. Those who turned against her, those who hurt her . . . she made them pay a thousand times over. A survival trait, no doubt, acquired during her singularly brutal childhood in Ybor City. He’d long ago given up on trying to cure her of it. In this instance, there was no need to.

In this instance, she was right.

“As Mrs. Saint said,” he told Dante, “permanently.”

“Yes, sir.” Dante spoke quietly into the small microphone in his lapel, relaying Saint’s instructions, as Saint himself sat back and squeezed his wife’s hand.

Livia was wearing a simple red dress, low-cut and fairly short, which she made look anything but simple. Chanel, of course, as were the wrap and the hat she’d chosen to complete her ensemble. His wife’s taste was exquisite, and expensive, just as his was. One of the many reasons they made such a perfect couple.

“You look beautiful,” he said. “They’ll put you on the front page of the society section tomorrow.”