The wind helped Demidov find his destination. He followed the odor of feces and burning trash to the moonlit clearing where bottles and plastic bags studded the wrecked vehicles in bizarre decoration. Again, it reminded him of Vladivostok. Even the can of kerosene he carried brought back memories.
There was one light burning in the sagging trailer at the far side of the clearing. Demidov circled the trailer once, then again, before he climbed carefully up the broken steps at the back door. After listening for a minute, he caught the stem of the handle in a pair of grip-lock pliers, and twisted. The lock came apart with the small whine of inferior metal.
He slid back into the shadows and waited. One minute. Two.
Ten.
The trailer remained quiet, motionless but for the occasional quiver beneath the rising wind.
Demidov waited some more. If he was a religious man, he would have prayed, but his only god was power, so he simply waited, listening.
No noises came from inside the trailer.
Quietly he skimmed over the broken steps and through the door, a shadow dancer taking his place on a shabby stage. Any small noises he made were simply part of the performance, the night and the wind and the forest dancing together.
The inside of the trailer smelled like the clearing, with an overlay of sour pizza and beer. His target was facedown on a lumpy couch, snoring into the crook of his arm. Crushed beer cans lay scattered on the floor like a fallen house of cards.
A loaded, cocked pistol waited among the cans.
Demidov had planned to question the target, but experience told him that even intense pain couldn’t cut through some alcohol stupors. He set the kerosene can aside, picked up Tommy’s gun, and frowned.
Damp salt air magnified sound like a megaphone. Demidov wanted to be off the reservation and out of sight before any alarm went out. He put the little pistol out of reach without bothering to wipe it. There was no chance of fingerprints; his thin, black driving gloves covered all manner of problems.
Demidov reached into his long leather coat and pulled out one of his own guns, an SR-1 Vektor. Eighteen rounds, quite reliable as long as the safety was put out of commission with thin tape. With the correct ammunition, the Vektor was capable of penetrating body armor, cars, walls, and light armor plate.
But tonight he was loaded for a much more fragile target. Swiftly, silently, Demidov walked forward. Habit, not necessity. The target’s snores were louder than the wind. With his gloved left hand, he reached between Tommy’s legs, found his testicles, and squeezed hard. Sometimes a sudden, brutal shock of pain could wake up even the most sodden drunk.
Tommy made a sound rather like that of the back-door lock giving way, but his eyelids didn’t open.
Demidov gave another crank, twisting as he squeezed.
With another whine, Tommy tried to curl protectively around himself. His body didn’t respond. He was under too deep.
His eyelids quivered and stayed closed.
With a word of disgust, Demidov released the other man’s slack flesh. He knew men who would have enjoyed trying to wake Tommy up, but Demidov wasn’t one of them. To him, torture was a means to an end, like kerosene or a silencer. A tool, not a pleasure.
If he had been worried about misleading the authorities, he would have simply poured kerosene and let them decide if it was accident, suicide, or murder. But all he was concerned about was making sure the job got done. Once, such a weapon as his had been rare outside of Russia, too distinctive to use overseas. The modern weapons trade had changed that. Using a Vektor was no longer like leaving his name written on a corpse.
Demidov took out his 9 mm pistol, pulled a sofa pillow over the target to limit the back splash of gore, and shot Tommy twice in the head.
Moving quickly, Demidov poured kerosene on and around the body. He lit it with matches the dead man had dropped. When he was sure that the fire would take hold, he went out the same way he had come in, a dark dancer moving through the forest.
19
DAY THREE
ROSARIO
2:37 A.M.
The sirens had already awakened Emma. She was just getting back to sleep when her cell phone vibrated and warbled on the motel’s end table. With an impatient movement she snagged the phone.
“What,” she snarled.
“I’m out front in your Jeep,” Mac said. “In three minutes I leave without you.”
“I have the keys.”
“I don’t need them.”
The line went dead.
Emma had slept fully clothed-shoes, socks, jeans, and a black pullover-too exhausted after her turn watching
Twenty seconds after Mac had hung up on her, she was in the parking lot of the motel.
Sure enough, he was sitting at the wheel of her Jeep. Wires dangled from the console. She got in the passenger seat, threw him the keys, and shut the door very quietly when she really wanted to slam it.
“Is it
“Not directly.”
He went down a side street, turned onto an eastbound feeder street, and flipped on the lights.
“Where’s your truck?” she asked.
“Crapped out, waiting for a new water pump.”
Silence.
Emma turned toward him. “You have about ten seconds to tell me what the hell is going on. If I don’t like what I hear, I’m going to reach into my girly purse, pull out a Glock, and turn you into splatter patterns.”
Mac gave her a sideways look and started talking. “I have a police scanner at my house. There was a fire on the rez. They’re talking about arson. One crispy critter in the ashes.”
She grimaced. She’d seen-and smelled-enough of that kind of death in Iraq to last her a lifetime.
“I don’t know how firemen stand it,” she said.
Mac didn’t have to ask what she meant.
“Some of them turn vegetarian for a while,” he said. “Then they get over it and go back to rare beef.”
“Glad to know I wasn’t the only one.”
“Where?” he asked.
“Baghdad. You?” she asked, wondering if he would lie.
Or if his file had.
“Afghanistan,” he said shortly, accelerating onto the highway, “well beyond any city.”
“Out with the tribes?” she asked casually.
