Enemy of Mine

to the knowledge of what had occurred, but driving the story to a fever pitch. He’d assumed the worst, but finally, the Dubai government lifted its censorship blanket, and the news began reporting that both men had lived.

Not really caring about their corporeal status, Lucas focused on the political results of the attack, trying to find the standing of the envoy’s mission in Qatar. He’d checked back online several times during the day until he had finally found the story in front of him.

It made him both relieved and a little jealous. While all news outlets were reporting a simple mechanical failure, he knew for a fact what had happened. No wonder I had such trouble killing Pike. That guy’s a fucking predator. He couldn’t help but be impressed with the operation, precisely because it hadn’t made the news. With a pang of envy, Lucas realized that Pike and his team were better than anyone he had ever served with. He would have liked to recruit the man as a partner. We could really clean up.

He wondered if Pike had reflected on how he’d been able to prevent the deaths of the sheikh and the envoy. If he’d given a little thanks to Lucas for his help. Probably not, after talking to Jennifer.

He smiled at the memory, then reflexively moved his hand to his broken nose, the light touch bringing a stab of pain. Serves that bitch right.

Now sure his own mission hadn’t been sabotaged, he typed a different address into the computer. After it loaded, he typed in an administrator’s password, then began scrubbing the list.

He knew the envoy himself wouldn’t be trudging around the Middle East carrying a suitcase full of cash. No matter how much VIP treatment he got, it just didn’t make any sense. The risk of loss or discovery was simply too great, and he knew it wasn’t coming from the State Department’s budget in the first place.

If the envoy was truly transferring black cash, it would be coming from the CIA. Nobody else had the architecture or experience to bury a large sum of money from the scrutiny of Congress. Which meant a separate flight for the escorts, most likely ground branch case officers from the Special Activities Division.

Whoever was coming, he knew they’d be traveling as State Department employees. That being the case, they’d be using the State Department’s travel website to book their tickets in an attempt to blend in with the myriad other moves State did on a daily basis.

Before he’d had to flee the United States, he’d developed a solid business solving problems for various people, including a man named Harold Standish on the National Security Council. Standish had passed him administrative rights to the State travel website, and they had proven useful on several different operations. In the end, Lucas had ended up killing Standish, but had kept the administrative privileges.

He sorted the listing of travelers by date, then location, working backward from Qatar. He came up empty. The site listed nobody as traveling to Qatar from the State Department in the next four days. Probably because they’re all on that private jet the envoy’s using. But that didn’t explain the lack of the escorts. Surely they aren’t on the plane as well, flying all over the Middle East protecting a suitcase of wealth?

Don’t get panicked. Maybe they just haven’t bought a ticket yet. The conference was due to last for five days, starting from today, so they could be flying at any time. He decided to simply wait here in Frankfurt, checking back each day. At the end of five days, he’d just have to figure out something else to do for a living. Maybe the Far East. In the meantime there was plenty of female companionship one block from his hotel, in the Frankfurt red-light district near the Hauptbahnhof.

66

I was finishing up in Lucas’s hotel room when Decoy called to tell me no change.

“Still banging the keys in the Internet cafe.”

“Can you see what he’s working on?”

“Not without sitting next to him, but I’m close enough to see that someone really thrashed him. Both his eyes are black.”

I placed Lucas’s shirts back in the suitcase exactly as I had found them, then saw the leather satchel Jennifer had mentioned.

“Keep your distance. I’m almost done here. When he clears out, give us a call. Jennifer and I’ll take a look. You guys stay on him. Where is it?”

“Underground at the Hauptbahnhof. There’s a little shopping area here. Middle of the concourse, opposite the S-Bahn entrances. You can’t miss it.”

“Which box?”

“Third one from the left. Bank along the north wall.”

“Got it.”

Opening the satchel, I flipped through the trinkets until I found a keychain from Reno. A keychain I recognized. It was Ethan’s wife’s, who had been killed at the same time as Ethan. No way was the keychain a coincidence. Lucas had been there. Had murdered them. I dug around a little more and pulled out the other driver’s license Jennifer had mentioned. Someone else that bastard killed. I wrote down the data, then zipped the satchel closed.

I hadn’t found much about his future intentions, no receipts, ticket stubs, anything like that. But that was just gravy anyway, because I’d confirmed where he’d be sleeping tonight. Before exiting the room, I disabled the chain and the dead bolt, not wanting Lucas to be able to prevent my key-card from working. Satisfied, I jogged down the stairs to join Jennifer in the lobby, wondering if what I was doing was just.

Out in the desert it had seemed right. Even easy. Jennifer agreeing that he should be killed had been the icing on the cake. It had to be the correct path if even she thought so. Now, I wasn’t so sure. I would be the one pulling the trigger. Nobody else.

I’d lied to Blaine and let him fly on home, then broke the news to the team, attempting to convince them to assist. I’d told them it was strictly voluntary and strictly outside the Taskforce. This was personal, and I’d be the one doing the killing. Conducting surveillance was one thing, but there was no way I could ask the men to help me in the actual takedown of Lucas. When it came down to it, it would be a one-man operation, with the others long gone.

In the end, Jennifer had been right: They all came on board fairly easily. Knuckles was in immediately, even stating he didn’t mind the killing part. Decoy came on board as well, but Brett balked. I understood his reluctance, especially since we hadn’t ever been teammates. He didn’t know Ethan or his family, couldn’t understand the pain their loss had caused. Eventually the peer pressure got to him, and he agreed to conduct initial surveillance, but wanted nothing to do with the killing.

Now, after twenty-four hours and a night of rest, the feeling of righteousness had dissipated somewhat, and I was going through the motions of tracking Lucas mechanically, tamping down the passion of the act. I didn’t like how it was affecting me. I thought killing him would be just like any other combat action I’d been forced into, but it wasn’t, and the difference was starting to seep in.

I’d never taken a life in cold blood, purely for personal reasons, and a part of me was having a tough time coming to grips with the undertaking, even given the loss of Ethan’s family. Not so much because of the killing, but because of the repercussions. Killing in combat, for the defense of the nation or simply self-preservation, was something I could do and had done. Killing in cold blood was something else entirely, and I was fearful of what it might do to my psyche. I wasn’t guessing about the damage. I had a lot of experience in that arena.

I had lived in a cesspool of guilt and rage after my family died and knew intimately how powerful the subconscious mind was. I had no desire to return to that cancerous place and feared I was now freely volunteering to do so.

Another part of me, prehistoric and reptilian, relished the opportunity, the scar tissue that had covered it beginning to break down, giving it room to blossom. That part didn’t give a rat’s ass about the consequences. I could hear it chanting in the background, “Yes…yes…yes,” and it was growing louder. The bloodlust was unsettling.

I found Jennifer in the lobby and said, “Your information was spot-on. It’s his room.”

We started walking across the lobby and she said, “So? What’re you going to do?”