Dead Six

crime lords in history and an all-around bad dude. Prior jobs performed for the man had left me independently wealthy, but with a lot of scars and a trail of bodies from here to Moscow. “Come on, guys; let’s go.”

“Our employer insists that you are the only person who can complete this assignment. Your knowledge of languages, of disguises, your ability to blend in with any culture, to infiltrate any group, and your gift for violence are legendary. He spoke very highly of you, that there is no place safe from you, no item you cannot steal, no target you cannot eliminate. You, sir, are the best of the best, and he is prepared to compensate you generously for your valuable services.”

It didn’t matter how much money he was talking about, because it just wasn’t worth it. “Tell him to find somebody else.”

The fat man laughed, but it never reached his eyes. “Our employer said you would say that.” He placed a manila folder on the table and shoved it toward me. He passed other folders to Carl, Train, and Reaper. “He said you should look at this before you make any rash decisions, Mr—” And then he called me by my real last name.

I froze. There was no way he could have known that. He opened the folder.

Pictures. Lots of pictures.

My crew began to flip through the pages of their files, eyes widening in shock, mouths falling open. Carl began swearing in Portuguese. Reaper, dumbfounded, stood and pulled his Glock from his waistband, letting it dangle, folder still open in his other hand. Finally, he raised the gun and pointed it at the fat man’s head and snarled, “You’re threatening my mom?”

“Of course.” The fat man wiped his brow with a silk handkerchief as he began to read from my folder. “Mr. Lorenzo, your adoptive family consisted of six siblings, oh my, I do love large families. Robert, Jenny, Tom, George, Pat.” He shoved a list of addresses toward me, paper clipped to a series of photos. “Big Eddie knows where each of them lives, where they work, what they do, and how to reach them at any time. Should you attempt to contact them, Big Eddie will find out, and he will be most displeased.”

“They know about my daughter?” Train asked in disbelief, his big hands crunching the edges of the folder.

“You bastard.” I knew he was not bluffing. Eddie was capable of anything. They must have been gathering this information on me for years.

“All five of your siblings are married. You have nine nieces and nephews, with one bundle of joy on the way,” he told me as he passed me another stack of photos. School photos. I was across the table before he knew what was happening, my knife open and pressed hard between his second and third chin.

He didn’t even flinch. “Your mother lives with your sister Jenny now, still in your hometown. On Tuesday evenings she goes to her book club. During the week she babysits while Jenny goes to work as the night manager of an International House of Pancakes.”

I twisted the knife, and a small trickle of blood splattered on his white collar. His little pig eyes were hard and cold as he stared me down. “Your oldest brother, Robert, is, surprisingly enough, a federal agent. I take it he has no idea what you do for a living. He has a lovely home in the suburbs, a beautiful wife, a son, and two lovely daughters. You will take on this assignment or Big Eddie will take care of them first. You know how he feels about police officers.”

“And if I just cut your throat and disappear?” I hissed, leashed anger bubbling to the surface.

“You won’t. We’ve studied you. You will do what it takes to protect your family. Plans are in place so that if I do not return, or if you are not observed attempting to complete this assignment, then your family will pay the price. You may try to warn them, you may try to protect them, you may even attempt to locate our organization. If anyone is capable enough to try, it is you. But you cannot save all of them. You know how great our employer’s reach is, and there is no place in this world where you can hide them all. At the first sign of a failure to fully cooperate, a terrible bloodbath will be on your head.”

He wasn’t bluffing. Eddie was more powerful than most governments, a shadowy figure involved in every criminal enterprise on the planet. I had never met him, and like many who had done his bidding, I suspected he wasn’t a lone individual at all, rather a very ruthless organization. Either way, if Eddie wanted somebody dead, it was only a matter of time. I withdrew the Benchmade, wiped the blood on the fat man’s shirt, folded the blade, and put it back in my pocket.

I lived under an assumed name. We all did. In this world, anything that was precious to you became a liability, potential leverage against you. How had Eddie found them? Where had I screwed up? I knew that if I tried to warn them, even if they believed me, there was no way I could protect them all. I slowly sat back down. My crew followed my example.

“That’s better. Here is your mission packet. There are three phases. As you can see from the deadline, time is of the essence.”

I opened the proffered folder, read a few lines, then laughed out loud. “You’ve got to be kidding. This is impossible.”

“The clock is ticking, Mr. Lorenzo. Complete this mission or we will kill everyone you have ever loved.” He gestured at the mushroom dish. “Are you going to finish that?”

“Shoulda just shot him,” Carl muttered before downing the last of his beer. He crushed the can in his fist and tossed it out the fourth-floor window of our seedy Bangkok hotel room. Odds were that the can hit a tourist or a prostitute. “Suicide, this job, I tell you that. Better to run.”

Train rubbed one callused hand across his face. Haggard, he looked like he’d aged ten years in the last hour. “And then what? Hide? Where are we gonna go?”

“We aren’t the problem,” I stated. Each of us was fully capable of going to ground and totally disappearing. The four of us exchanged knowing glances. If we thwarted Big Eddie, we were going to be knee-deep in dead babies. I hadn’t even spoken to my family in years. They thought I was some sort of international businessman. I sent them a Christmas card once in a while, that kind of thing, but it wasn’t like we were close. I’d checked out of the normal world. But I couldn’t let my brothers and sisters pay for my sins. They weren’t like me. They were good people. They were the only people who had ever shown me any kindness in my miserable youth.

We were quiet for a long time as my crew mulled over our predicament. Finally, I broke the silence. “Eddie’s men will be randomly watching these people. As soon as any one of them is contacted, they’ll kill all the others. We could maybe save some, but I don’t want to take that chance. I’m in. If any of you want out, I understand. Take your share and go. If Eddie sees that I’m on my way to the Mideast, he’ll know I’m working the job. It might buy you some time to get to your people.”

Reaper immediately raised one bony hand. “I’m with you, boss.” He was the youngest member of my crew. I had hired him in Singapore, where he’d been avoiding extradition to the US for a host of felony charges, and put him to work as our technical geek. I was the closest thing he had to a father figure, and that was just sad.

“This is going to be the toughest thing we’ve ever done,” I warned. “There’s no shame in backing out. We’re probably going to get killed if we’re lucky or thrown into the worst kind of prison you can imagine if we’re not.”

“I’m in,” Reaper repeated with a lot more force than you would expect from looking at him. I had known that whatever I had voted for, Reaper would have my back.

I nodded. “Carl?”

My oldest friend grunted as he leaned forward in his chair. We had worked together for a very long time. When we had first met, Carl had been a Portuguese mercenary helping to overthrow an African government. Between the two of us we’d killed piles of people in dire need of killing, and a quite a few who had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. We’d robbed, conned, stolen, and murdered our way across four continents. The contents of Carl’s folder were a mystery. He was like my brother, but I didn’t know what he had left behind in the Azores all those years ago. He wasn’t exactly the conversational sort.

Carl shrugged. “Whatever . . . I’m in.”

The last member of my crew hesitated. I knew that Train’s folder contained pictures of his estranged wife and little girl. Omaha, Nebraska wasn’t out of Eddie’s reach. Train’s ex had divorced him while he had been serving time. She didn’t like being married to a criminal, but she apparently had no moral problems cashing the checks he mailed to her after every single one of our jobs, either. Train loved his young daughter more than life itself, and I could see that fact roiling around behind his eyes as he made up his mind.

“I can’t,” he said simply. “Sorry, Lorenzo.”