nose, and he worried beneath his calm exterior.
They could not risk losing even one of these contests, but a gentleman did not play dirty.
He had his standards of gamesmanship.
Damn it.
CHAPTER 9
Out in the Boston suburb of Malden, Jim and Adrian and Eddie were nothing but shadows in the dense darkness as they approached a half-finished office building. The structure was part of a shaggy, abandoned development that had some fifteen or more of the suckers . . . and not a single one of them was in use or even completed. Which suggested the financer/owner was bleeding mortally from his bank account.
Assuming he hadn’t already toe-tagged himself with Chapter 7 paperwork and jumped into a liquidation grave.
The unit they’d come to see had a circle of lawn that cut into the balding forest in back, and the three of them stayed among the trees while surveilling the layout: The five-story-high skeleton was up and sealed with plum-colored glass windows, but there were no lights on and nothing but packed dirt for the parking lot in the rear.
Place was utterly abandoned.
Well, by lawful visitors, that was.
Illegal trespassers were streaming in, their cars and trucks forming a surprisingly orderly row not far from where Jim and his boys were.
Looked like the intel from that fireman back at the gym had been solid.
“You know,” Adrian said, “I could get in the ring. Throw some fists. Maybe a human or two.”
Jim shook his head. “I don’t think we need that right now.”
“In an earlier life, were you a pair of brakes?”
“Try a brick wall. Come on, let’s get down there.”
Blending in among the other men heading for the back entrance, Jim searched for Isaac—in the unlikely event the guy had gotten out of jail and still wanted to fight. But more significantly, he kept his eyes peeled for someone who looked like a soldier: hard, tight in the head, and there to get a job done instead of play spectator.
He was after the one who was supposed to kill Isaac.
With the way the XOps team worked, it would be somebody they’d both worked with: Given the amount of screening and training and proving ground you had to go through to get on the team, there was a limited pool of guys who made it, and new recruits took years to develop. Jim had been out only about six months; he was going to know the assassin.
And so would Isaac.
“You guys head in,” he said to his boys as they came up to a door propped open by a cinder block. “I’m going to hang out here. Let me know if you see Rothe.”
Except he was going to bet they didn’t. If the soldier was here at all, he’d be hiding somewhere and scoping out who had come before making himself known. After all, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that getting popped by the police was tantamount to sticking a red flag in your ass.
Which was why in some respects, intercepting the assassin was even more important than running into Isaac.
As Eddie and Ad slipped through the fire door, Jim faded back so that he was standing in the lee of the building. Which was out of habit rather than necessity—no one could see him.
Another bene of being an angel: He could choose when he was visible to mortals.
Lighting up a Marlboro that he kept as hidden as his leather jacket and his combats, he tracked the crowd as it filed in. Tonight’s peanut gallery was made up of your standard-issue Joes: Lot of junior-varsity beer guts—that in another five years were going to be state champs. Patriots and Red Sox hats only. Couple of Chelmsford High School sweatshirts.
When the influx became just a trickle, he was ready to curse. Maybe he should have infiltrated the damn jail—although that would have been complicated. Lot of eyes, and even though he could pull off the not-there, if he had to kill somebody or save someone? He’d make any audience schizoid and probably show up in a blurry “Aliens Exist!” article in the
A lone man emerged from the ring of trees. He was huge and the black windbreaker he wore did absolutely nothing to shrink the size of his shoulders. As he approached, he walked like the soldier he’d been trained to be, swinging his gaze around and keeping both hands in his pockets—likely gripping one or maybe two guns.
“Hello, Isaac . . .” As soon as the name left his lips, Jim was struck by a powerful, inescapable pull that made the man not just a target, but a destination.
The original plan had been to find the guy and throw him on a plane out of the country with some resources —just to help him along his way.
Now, though, he realized he needed to do more than that.
Chalking up the sea change to seeing Rothe for the first time since that night in the desert, Jim did not run up to the guy or shout his name or do anything that would spook the fucker. Instead, he summoned illumination to himself, calling it out of the darkness by agitating the molecules around his body.
He made sure his hands were up and his palms were empty. And that Isaac was the only one who saw him.
Isaac’s head snapped around. And a nasty-looking gun appeared from out of that windbreaker.
Jim didn’t move and just shook his head, the universal sign for “I’m not here to cap your ass.”
When Isaac finally came forward, he took no chances. As he stepped up, another gun came out of a pocket to hang discreetly at his side. Both weapons had silencers and blended in with his black track pants.
For a moment, the pair of them just stared at each other like a couple of idiots, and Jim had an absurd impulse to hug the motherfucker—although he doused that quick. One, there was no reason to be a nancy. And two, it would likely get him shot at point-blank range: XOps soldiers weren’t snugglers—unless they planned on killing someone.
“Hey,” Jim said roughly.
Isaac cleared his throat. Twice. “What are you doing here?”
“Just passing through. Thought I’d take you to dinner.”
That got a slow smile, the kind that smacked of the past. “Payback?”
“Yeah.” Jim’s eyes traced the rear lot and saw only a couple of stragglers. “You could call it that.”
“I thought you were out.”
“I am.”
“So . . .” When Jim didn’t immediately answer, the guy’s icy eyes grew shrewd. “He sent you to kill me. Didn’t he.”
“I needed a favor and it was expensive.”
“So why are we talking?”
“I don’t take orders from Matthias anymore.”
Isaac frowned. “Stupid ass. He’s going to hunt you now, too. Unless you blow my head off here and now.”
Jim put his cigarette between his teeth and held his palms out. “I’m unarmed. Pat me down.”
It was entirely unsurprising that Isaac disappeared one of his guns, and with his free hand, did a quick review of Jim’s territory.
That frown rode the guy’s brow even harder. “What the fuck are you thinking.”
“Right now? Oh . . . let’s see, that you should not be fighting in there, for starters. After all, I’m assuming you’re not here as part of the popcorn-and-Raisinets set. Instead, I want you to come with me and let me help you get out of the country safely.”
Isaac’s voice was ancient as he shook his head. “You know I can’t trust you. I’m sorry, man. But I can’t.”
