“Just a minute.” Kirk tapped his laptop’s keyboard, verified the name against the list of potentials his employer had sent him. Yes, the rear admiral had been an employee of the Pentagon’s Project Sanguine, but based on Colberg’s work schedule and job responsibilities, the computer told Kirk there was only a 61 percent likelihood of a match. Not enough to go on.
“I need more.” He held up the phone. “Prove it or-”
“All right, listen. Colberg helped design the extremely low frequency technology back in the eighties. He was on the original team. The first one to man the station.”
“That’s not proof.”
“Check his background. He wrote a paper back in 1979 on 3 to 76 Hertz radio waves and the use of the ionosphere in transmission technology.”
It took Kirk a few minutes before he found anything online, but at last he was able to pull up a PDF of the symposium paper written by then Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Alan Colberg.
It wasn’t 100 percent conclusive, but in this business, very little was. He would confirm everything when he met with the admiral.
Good.
The person who’d hired him for this job would be pleased.
Kirk spoke into the phone, to the man with Erin. “All right, bring her back and we’ll get started.”
“What?” The blood drained from Dashiell’s face. “You said you’d let her go!”
“Yes.” Kirk pocketed the phone. “I did.”
“I’m telling you”-Dashiell’s voice was taut with fear, with the revelation of what was happening-“it’s Colberg. You have to believe-”
“I do believe you.”
“But you swore you’d-”
“Mr. Collet,” Kirk interrupted. “Part of my job involves telling people whatever is necessary to convince them to give me what I want. It’s nothing personal.” Kirk unholstered his Italian-made. 45 ACP Tanfoglio Force Compact and pressed the end of the blue steel barrel against Dashiell’s left thigh. “This is for wasting my time with your stalling.”
“No, you have to-”
Kirk squeezed the trigger, and Dashiell Collet screamed.
Then screamed even louder when Kirk fired another round into his other leg.
Judging by the position of the barrel, Kirk was pretty sure the second bullet had shattered Dashiell’s femur. The bleeding from both wounds was steady, not gushing, and Kirk didn’t think the femoral arteries had been torn. Untreated, he would eventually bleed out, but he should survive at least a couple hours. Long enough to watch.
Kirk set the gun on the table to his left. It took him only a moment to gag him. “You could have stopped all of this if you’d just told me right away what I wanted.”
Dashiell’s eyes were bleary with pain from the gunshots. His head sagged, and Kirk feared that the blood loss was affecting him more quickly than he’d anticipated. He slapped his cheek. “Look at me!”
The man seemed to refocus.
“You need to know that Erin’s death and everything that precedes it will have been your fault for inconveniencing me for the last three hours.”
Although obviously disoriented, Dashiell pulled against his bonds once again but then winced terribly as his leg tensed. He tried to cry out in pain, but the gag swallowed the sounds.
Kirk unlocked the side door so the building would be accessible to his partner. As he was returning to the table, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Only one person had the call-in code for this number.
Valkyrie.
Precisely the person he needed to talk to.
Kirk tapped the phone’s screen, but before he could speak, the electronically masked voice on the other end said, “I was watching the video feed. I saw your man take the girl.”
“He does good work,” Kirk said. “We got what we wanted. Dashiell’s contact is Rear Admiral Colberg. At the Pentagon.” Kirk arranged the items he would be needing for his time with Erin. The tape. The ropes. The cuffs.
“You should have left the girl out of this.”
If there was one thing Kirk Tyler did not like, it was having to explain himself. “I wouldn’t have done it unless I believed it was the most prudent course of action.” He decided not to mention his plans regarding the girl.
“The most prudent course of action.”
“Yes.”
“That’s what you thought.”
A pause that made Kirk somewhat uneasy.
“You should have left the girl out of this,” Valkyrie repeated. But this time the words had a tighter edge to them. “This was sloppy.”
“It was efficient.”
“Efficiency means limiting collateral damage, decreasing exposure-”
“You weren’t here.” He had never cut Valkyrie off midsentence before, but he wasn’t in the mood for a lecture. “Don’t question my decision.”
A longer pause this time. “In lieu of what I’ve seen tonight, I’ve decided to have someone else finish the job.”
Kirk felt his grip on the phone tighten. “That wouldn’t be wise.”
“I told you when we started that there would be consequences if anything was mishandled. This situation with the girl-I consider it mishandled.”
A warning flared through Kirk’s mind.
He’s watching you.
Kirk drew his Tanfoglio again, scanned the shadows of the warehouse. “You do not want to do this.” He clicked through the possible places Valkyrie or one of his men might be hiding. Saw nothing. “You pull me from this and I’m coming for you.”
“Good-bye, Kirk.”
And before Kirk Tyler could respond, the cell phone he was holding beside his ear exploded, ripping off his forearm and most of his head, sending a frenzy of blood and brain and splintered skull across the table. As his body dropped clumsily to the ground, tiny globs of gray matter dribbled onto the concrete, and Dashiell watched in horror-thinking only of what would happen to Erin and to him when the dead man’s associate arrived.
Alexei Chekov was halfway through the Grand Inquisitor scene in The Brothers Karamazov when he heard from Valkyrie asking him to come in and clean up a mess.
“You remember Kirk Tyler?” the voice said.
“I’m familiar with him, though we’ve never actually met.” Alexei’s English was impeccable, as was his Russian, Arabic, and Italian. When Valkyrie had first contacted him, he’d noticed a sentence structure that suggested someone who’d either studied in or grown up in the States. Because of this Alexei had chosen American English for their conversations.
“I’m afraid you won’t have the opportunity.”
“He disappointed you.”
“Yes.”
Alexei placed a bookmark and set down the novel.
Valkyrie.
In early Norse mythology, a Valkyrie was a goddess who flew over the battlefields deciding who would live and who would die-a job strikingly close to his own. The myths evolved over time and turned Valkyries into beautiful, angelic creatures who rewarded fallen heroes in paradise.
Death and rewards. Who lives and who dies-the ultimate decision.
Valkyrie filled Alexei in concerning Dashiell Collet and his daughter and all that had happened at the warehouse. “It’s not far from where you are,” Valkyrie explained. “I want you to dress Dashiell’s gunshot wounds, take care of Tyler’s body, then call an ambulance for Mr. Collet. I want him alive in case we need to speak with him again.”
