abduction?”
“What abduction?”
“A young girl.”
“We’d have picked that up. She’s here to assist Massey because you’re here. That’s all I know.”
“How many of your kind are here, besides you two?”
“Just the two of us.”
“We both know you are lying. There are at least two more of you here, many more than that within fifty miles of us. No way your handlers would hold back after all the failed, under-gunned attempts to take me.”
The cutout knew that they had been close to catching Styer on three occasions. There was the team member Styer had taken out in New Orleans, another member Styer had left crucified in Seattle, and one he’d tortured to death and left in a car trunk at the airport in Mexico City.
“You can join us,” the cutout told him. “Control told us to tell you that if we caught up with you.”
Styer walked over casually, tapping the blade of a survival knife against his thigh. “If you failed to kill me, you mean?”
“Our orders are to give you an opportunity if possible. He thinks you could be a valuable addition to our cell.”
“I could be useful,” Styer said. “But even if it’s true, sooner or later a new control could decide my skills are less valuable than repaying me for leaving egg on the group’s collective face. I don’t trust anybody in a control position. Should I? Would I be able to trust him? Or your friends now that I’ve killed your partner?”
The cutout nodded. “You wouldn’t be the first transplant we have. My partner was collateral damage.”
“But I am an old man in our specialized business. My years of usefulness would be few.”
“They don’t confide in me beyond need to know. I’m just a watcher.”
“And not a very good one, based on how easy it was to take you. How did you people know I was here?”
“I don’t know,” the man said truthfully. “I suppose NSA picked the intel out of a conversation over the wires.”
“A key in on the toothpick thing, no doubt. I have certainly developed an affection for the taste of clove. So Keen and Massey talked about me over the wires?”
The cutout lowered his gaze. All he could do was move his head. “Just get it over with,” he said.
“What’s your hurry? Valhalla is open twenty-four/seven.” Styer reached up and drew his blade down the cutout’s forearm. Blood rushed from the wound, which, due to the sharpness of the instrument, merely felt like a dull pressure. Pain was something the cutout was conditioned to ignore-to a point, at least. But, as if Styer were reading his mind, he reached behind the chair and lifted a bottle of bleach.
“I can’t just take your word for it. I know you understand that. We can’t just take each other’s word, can we?” Styer said, looking out at the coming dawn. “We have time to talk. I want to see how much I can learn from you first. You’d do the same for me, I am sure.”
Styer tugged the cutout’s left nipple out and used the blade to excise it. The sensation was similar to having a concentrated jet of cold air aimed at the spot. He would not tell Styer anything useful, because he didn’t know anything that could be useful. Styer probably knew that already. The cutout could take a great deal of pain, and Styer was sadistic, which meant this was going to last a very long time.
58
SATURDAY
Winter climbed out of bed and was getting dressed when he heard Brad open the back door. Seconds later he heard Ruger’s steady barking from the backyard. He slipped his gun rig on over his wool vest and went downstairs, where Brad stood at the back door in sweatpants and a T-shirt looking out through the screen. He whistled several times in rapid succession.
“Ruger after a rabbit?” Winter asked.
“I don’t know,” Brad said. “She’s going to wake up the neighborhood. This isn’t like her. She always comes when I call her.” He whistled again.
“Come back from the door,” Winter said, drawing his Reeder and moving to a window in the den for a better view. In the wash from the porch light, Winter could see the dog standing at the picket fence, looking out at something from between the slats.
“Get a gun,” Winter said. “Cover me from here.”
Winter took his high-intensity flashlight from the vest pocket. Hurrying to the front door, he opened it as silently as possible and moved around the house, his trigger finger flat against the receiver, aiming the.45 as he went. When he got to the fence he turned the flashlight on, aiming the light spot and the gun at a figure seated at the base of a tree with his back resting against it. Winter slipped through the gate, keeping the shape illuminated.
The seated man wore all black, assault boots, and a knit wool balaclava with eye and mouth holes in it. His gloved left hand held a pair of night vision goggles, and in the dew-coated grass next to his right hand lay a silenced HK SOCOM Mark 23 with a noise suppressor. Much of the left side of his head was missing, and a red toothpick had been jammed between his front teeth.
Using his flashlight, Winter quickly scanned the neighboring yard. Thankfully there were no lights on in that house.
Winter clicked on the thumb safety of his cocked.45 and waved Brad out before he moved over to the body for a closer look.
He heard Brad and Alexa talking as they approached the fence, Brad commanding the dog to stop barking. Lights from a car pulling into the driveway washed the garage and trees in Brad’s backyard. Winter prayed it wasn’t the cops.
“What is it?” Alexa asked.
“Looks like a dead body,” Brad replied. “That’ll be my father coming for breakfast before he does his early rounds at the hospital.”
“What are you kids doing?” Winter heard Dr. Barnett ask as he approached the fence.
“Stay back, Daddy,” Brad said.
Dr. Barnett ignored his son’s warning.
Brad opened the gate for the others to enter the yard where Winter was using the harsh light to study the dead man.
“I’ll call the police,” Brad said.
Ruger whined.
“You
“This is a city matter,” Brad replied.
“Hold up,” Winter told him. “We need to think this through.”
“Who is he?” Brad asked. “Is it…?”
Winter looked up at the three faces. “It isn’t him. But he did this.” He pointed at the toothpick.
Dr. Barnett came through the gate, knelt beside the corpse, felt the wrist for a pulse, and lifted the head for a look at the wound while Winter held his light for him. “This neighborhood is going to hell.”
“Excuse my father’s humor,” Brad said.
Winter checked the dead man’s pockets. He removed a folding knife with a four-inch blade and three extra magazines for the HK. The corpse had an earpiece connected to a radio unit secured inside a jacket pocket. A green light on the radio showed that it was on. Winter turned it off. Reaching around behind the man, Winter worked a wallet out of his back pocket and opened it. “New York driver’s license. Andrew Mark. Manhattan address. Credit cards. Several hundred dollars in cash. Business card says he is an importer. Twenty-nine years old. Picture of two small children and a woman.” There was also an automotive key in the wallet.
After laying out the items, Winter removed the right glove and inspected the corpse’s heavily callused hand and the chronometer on his wrist.
