“Why haven’t the police arrested him?” He hated how his fear brought the formal out in him.
Stein snorted. “A friend is giving him a bogus alibi.”
“So what do you want me to do? Get him to confess?”
Harry laughed at Matt’s suggestion. “We don’t give anyone a shot at redemption.”
“We don’t solve problems,” Chalmers said. “We eradicate them.”
“You’re going to kill this guy,” Tripplehorn explained.
It wasn’t a shock. When this went south, he knew it was going all the way to China, but it still left him cold. He was glad the poor lighting hid his expression.
“Don’t worry about the cops. We’ve got them covered,” Harry said.
Stein handed Matt a small semiautomatic. “It’s untraceable. Just use it and lose it.”
Harry went into fine detail about how Matt should stalk and kill his prey. Matt nodded, taking in the words, but he was too numb to comprehend the ABCs of killing a complete stranger. When Harry finished his speech, the Taskmasters drank and joked amongst themselves for a while. Matt drank but didn’t join in the hilarity. He waited for them to have their fun and take him home.
They dropped Matt off first. Harry followed him to his apartment block’s entrance, under the watchful gaze of the other Taskmasters. He stuck out a hand for Matt to shake.
“Now, you’re cool with this, right?” Harry asked.
“Yeah, of course.”
“You went a little quiet on us.”
“Well, you know.”
“Yeah,” Harry said, nodding. “It’s a big step up from bar brawls every other night, but this will be good for you. This will put some meaning in your life. Look, don’t worry, son. It’ll go great. You’ll see.”
Matt attempted a confirming laugh. “Yeah.”
“Remember, this guy isn’t innocent. He’s guilty as hell. You’re just doing what the law can’t. You just have to keep telling yourself that.”
“That helps. Thanks.”
“So the Taskmasters can trust you? There’s no going back after tonight.”
“You can trust me.”
“Good man.”
Matt sat at his kitchen table with a mug of coffee in his hands, watching the dawn creep up on the city. Daylight spilled over the skyline, casting fingers of light between the gaps between the buildings. Sleep hadn’t come easy, not while a loaded gun and a picture of the person he was meant to kill sat out on the kitchen table. This was way beyond bar brawls. He had to kill a man. If he failed to follow through, his imagination didn’t have to wander too far to know what the Taskmasters would do to him.
He’d made such a hash of his life. The really embarrassing thing about it was he didn’t know how he’d achieved the feat. There were no excuses for his predicament. He wasn’t a total idiot. He was reasonably smart. His parents had been good people who’d only wanted the best for him. So how come he couldn’t hold down a job or go for a drink without bruising his knuckles on someone’s face?
Terrance Robinson left his bank job twenty minutes after 5, having had a pretty easy day of trying to arrange loans at a branch of Bank of America. Matt knew this because he’d spent the day in Westlake Plaza watching Robinson through the glass-fronted building. He’d even gone into the bank to ask about opening an account, just so that he could get a close-up look at the man he was supposed to kill. Matt didn’t get the impression that Robinson’s child-killing escapade weighed heavily upon him. He was easygoing around his colleagues and the people at the sandwich place where he went for lunch, and he negotiated rush hour traffic with infinite patience.
Robinson pulled up in front of his home on Queen Anne Hill, a respectable slice of suburbia where nasty crimes could be hidden from the world. He parked on the street to let his two sons, around seven and nine, continue playing a little one-on-one in the driveway. Pulling his tie off, he jumped into the fray, snatching the ball away to attempt over-ambitious layups, which his offspring managed with equal accomplishment.
Matt slid past the Robinson home and parked a couple of blocks away. His aged Ford Escort stuck out in the neighborhood, but he wouldn’t be staying long.
He wandered back up the street for a closer look. Excited giggles and shrieks carried on the air. Robinson exhibited no signs of remorse about his deadly action and the lives he’d wrecked. A man like that deserved to die, didn’t he?
“Hate is the key,” Chalmers had said during their meeting. He tapped Robinson’s file. “To kill him you have to hate him. Read what this man has done and hate it. Stare at his picture and hate him. Do that and this will be easy.”
Matt watched the man at play with his children. Did he hate Robinson? He’d let that girl die instead of doing the right thing. He despised Robinson for that, but did he hate him in the way Chalmers and the Taskmasters wanted him to hate him?
Matt found himself staring at the kids and not their father. Killing Robinson meant destroying those boys’ lives too. Devastating another family didn’t make up for what had already happened. Matt couldn’t kill Robinson. He returned to his car and drove to the one place that would end this game.
Matt stopped his car in front of the Seattle Police Department’s West Precinct and stared at the industrial- looking building. In there was salvation. Harry told him he could make him a better man and he had. He was going to do the right thing. He didn’t know what he was going to say, but he was planning to spill it all-the Taskmasters, their clubhouse, the unregistered gun, Terrance Robinson, the lot. He guessed he’d be dropping himself in the crapper along with everyone else, just by association with these madmen, but he couldn’t help that. The Taskmasters had to be stopped and he had to take some responsibility for once in his life. He left the car parked on the street and went in.
The clean and modern but drab reception area was awash with people. Victims wandered around waiting to be helped, while those in custody needed a different kind of assistance. Cops floated between both sides of the law, in front of and behind the bulletproof barriers. Matt stopped a passing policewoman reading a report.
“Hi, I wonder if you could help me?” Matt said. “I need to talk to a police officer about a crime.”
“You’ll have to check in first,” she replied, and pointed at the occupied people behind bulletproof shields. The policewoman went to leave, but Matt sidestepped her to counter her escape. Her features tightened.
“I’m not here to report a stolen VCR or anything. This is important,” he said, scanning the room for eavesdroppers.
The policewoman read his face to determine whether he was genuine or a whack job. She made her decision after a long moment. “Wait here.”
She retreated into the depths of the building after punching a code into a door marked
“Officer Hansen says you want to speak to someone?”
Matt didn’t answer.
“Sir?”
Matt still didn’t answer.
“I don’t have all day.” An edge of irritation crept into the cop’s voice.
Matt wasn’t answering because he recognized two familiar faces in the crowd-Harry and Tripplehorn-and both of them were wearing police uniforms. His urge to do the right thing for once turned to lead in his throat and he struggled to swallow it down.
“I’ve made a mistake,” Matt said, backing away.
The sergeant placed his hands on his hips. “What?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Is this a joke?”
Seeing the Taskmasters there, it did seem like a joke-a bad one. Matt continued to back away, tuning out the angry cop. The Taskmasters, engrossed in their conversation, hadn’t spotted him and he wanted it to stay that way.
