“I’m glad you don’t believe I can find you, Frank. I promise not to be vengeful, and kill everything you ever loved right down to your kids’ pet gerbil.”
This time, it was silent on Frank’s end of the conversation.
“Okay, let’s deal,” Frank said finally. “We know the safety deposit box is in Florida. We also know you’re heading there.”
“If you know everything, why don’t you get a court order and take the box? Oh, that’s right, whoever you’re in bed with would be on the DOJ’s radar, along with our little covert group. You could have played this straight up with me, Frank.”
“What? Keep financing your pretend world, give you a ready-made family, and throw all our other assets under the bus? You’re insane, pal. It doesn’t work like that. I follow orders, just like you used to do. I can see you don’t want the easy way back in. Why don’t I give you an alternate way out of this mess?”
“I’m listening.”
“We open the way into the bank for you and your sweetheart. You give us the flash drives. Then you and your family run along and live happily ever after.”
“I don’t think so,” Nick retorted.
Shit, there’ll be pros shadowing our way into the damn box
. “What is this all about anyway? We get the drives. I nail the bad guys and everybody’s happy. I might not even come looking for you under the right conditions.”
“Unlike you, they know where I live. We could out you to the whole world, Mr. Bestseller. We’ve already put the bug about your past in your US Marshall friends’ ears.”
“Then there wouldn’t be any reason for me not to release everything I have stored concerning the last ten years. How many people know where you live, Frank?”
“Wait a minute, wise guy, are you…hey, not bad,” Frank muttered. Nick waited patiently for Frank to sort out his complex conniving thought processes. “Would this square us, Nick?”
“Depends. If you feed me legitimate targets and manage to seal up any other possible leaks to this travesty, I could be persuaded to let bygones be bygones.”
“Say I give you a name or names and everything in the information department gets nice and tight. What happens to the drives?”
“Are you on them?”
“No, but a whole bunch of unintended consequences could arise if an unedited version of those drives hit the streets. It’s a deal breaker if I don’t get to pare them down for uninformed eyes.”
“One condition-I keep an unedited version of the drives. Also, my US Marshall friends get on your edited version list too. If I see anything out of sync you’re not taking care of, I’ll be able to remind you.”
“You’d be a damn target forever…oh -”
“Now you’re getting it,” Nick interrupted. “If my adopted family or I have any trouble at all, the unedited version would be out in the open, along with ten years of covert assassinations.”
“This extortion racket of yours is guaranteed to wear thin.”
“You’ll be in a position to make some really nice jumps in pay grade, Frank. I need you to post your proposition to me, including all the little details about why these names are the ones to take care of. I want a vid with you doing the presentation. We’re past the Texas Hold Em’ phase of this relationship. Put your cards on the table.”
“Agreed. How do I know you won’t kill me later anyway?”
“You don’t, but since I know you live in a fancy estate in Reisterstown, if I wanted you dead, you’d already be dead.”
“Christ!”
Nick pictured Frank’s hand trembling as he gripped the phone, looking wildly around in a panic. He could practically hear the thought streaming into Frank’s mind: ‘
The son of a bitch could be right outside my house
!’
“Don’t blaspheme. See, now we have the cards face up.”
“All right, I’m impressed.” Frank uttered what Nick wanted to hear in a wavering, hushed voice. “I’ll put together the presentation. It will be sent to your usual drop. Give me some time though…at least a day. Don’t do anything hasty, Nick.”
Nick leaned his head against the restaurant wall, imagining Frank at his desk in the study located in the east-wing of his estate. Having targeted Frank with his spotting scope in the past, he knew where Frank spent most of his time. “Quit glancing around your study like a caged animal. Everything’s going to be all right.”
Nick grinned when he heard a desk chair moving and the phone being juggled. “Will you relax? There’s no need to duck away from the window. I told you we have a deal. Just make sure you sell me on the proposition you present.”
Knowing the layout of Frank’s study intimately, Nick calculated Frank was probably hiding behind his bookcase. He confidently pondered what Frank was thinking at the moment as he leaned comfortably with his eyes closed, guessing Frank’s thoughts: ‘M
y God… is he really out there? Where the hell are my men?’
“You look like a little kid, peeking around the book case like that.” Nick gambled and won, hearing Frank’s breathing pick up.
“Nick, don’t do anything stupid. Like you said, we have a deal. I’ll have everything you need posted by tomorrow.”
“Sounds good, buddy.” Nick chuckled. “You know, a man like you should have some nice blinds instead of those sheer frilly curtains.”
“Jesus…”
Nick ended the call.
Oh yeah
. He went to the Cadillac and checked on Deke. With the sun visors up, vehicle windows cracked open, and the SUV recently air conditioned, the temperature inside was comfortable for the dog. Deke would be okay through the meal. Opening the passenger side rear door, Nick petted Deke for a couple minutes. The rear seat area was considerably cooler than outside, so he gave the dog a final stroke and returned to the restaurant. Rachel looked up questioningly. He could tell she expected the worst. He smiled to make her relax a little.
“Your food’s getting cold.” she informed him.
“After being out in the oven, I’d rather it was cold. Well, ladies, it looks like we stay in Ash Fork tonight. After dinner, we’ll go find a good air conditioned motel with a swimming pool.”
“All right!” Jean added her support enthusiastically. “It’s early. We can rent movies and everything.”
“What happens tomorrow, Nick?”
“Detour,” he answered, patting Rachel’s hand.
Chapter Fifteen
Double-Cross Again
Rachel sat near Nick’s sniper rifle, far back from the window, with the spotter scope in her hand. The suite Nick had picked out in downtown Denver was their third habitat in the two weeks since they’d arrived. She felt the usual guilt well up in her as she glanced over at Jean, sleeping in her bed with Deke lying at the foot of it. Nick insisted she be with them now, no matter what they had to do.
All of what seemed some scatterbrained nightmare he had thought up for a novel unfolded. First, they had watched Nick’s handler, a guy named Frank, give a detailed briefing as to how this man in Denver was behind the attempted hit on Rachel, Jean and Nick. Then Nick had run the transmission again, showing all the flaws in Frank’s presentation: his tone, body language, and even slight facial expression changes.
Rachel smiled, remembering how Nick had explained it.
“The prick doesn’t know I’ve spent months observing him. He’s a gambler. I’ll give him that much.”
“Maybe he’s just scared. He looked convincing.”
“We’re going to Denver. We’ll take our time. We’ll keep in touch with Frank. I’ll give him a time frame for when the job will be done. It would be easier for me to show you, rather than just string together words with no reference. I’ll make it educational, too, involving lots of geometry.”
“I hate math,” Rachel kidded.
Nick had been right. Rachel sighed, leaning back in her chair after glancing at the watch Nick had given her before leaving the room. They were staying at a nice Ramada Inn with an indoor pool for an entire week, checked in separately. Nick, Jean and Deke stayed in one room, and Rachel in the other. Nick explained that, when Frank did sweeps of new motel check-ins, they hopefully would not show up on the radar until moving to the next location. Three days later, Nick finished with his recon, identifying the optimal place to assassinate Senator Anthony ‘Tony’ Ambrose, the man Frank had fingered. The killing would be blamed on a tragic overreaction to the Senator’s continuing sponsorship of anti-gun legislation. Nick moved them out of the Ramada Inn, much to Jean’s dismay, and into an even plusher hotel near central Denver. From his new outpost, Nick was able to anticipate the most likely place a second team would be stationed to take Nick out after the Senator was dead.
Rachel shook her head, still somewhat disbelieving this could be happening as if they were using Nick’s template. But there was no denying the facts. Two days after Nick’s prediction, a sniper team had arrived in the very room where Nick’s sniper rifle was aimed. He had explained the angles, wind shear, and all the reasons for their appearance, as if he had called them to the very spot he anticipated. He’d spent two days finding every inroad to the sniper team’s room without being seen. Rachel looked again at her watch, breathing deeply as Nick had suggested. Her job was backup: relay positioning and movements in the room when Nick went in. She was only to shoot if he went down.
Five minutes later, Rachel scoped the sniper team’s room, waiting for Nick’s signal with her headset in place. She had all the lights off in her hotel room. Only a faint glow illuminated the sniper team’s room. They had one man on watch twenty-four hours a day, which is another reason Nick had waited this long.
“All the reasoning, inside information, and final positioning in the world won’t get it done,” he explained to her after observing the team for a day. “Waiting, covering all the angles, and patience is the only way to get the shot and protect your ass. They’ll be hot to trot at first, but as hours and days pass, they’ll get sloppy. I can tell they haven’t worked together long. They’re already getting
antsy. No way to get the drop on them if the spotter’s doing
his job, but as you’ll see, I will get the drop on them.”
“Confidant, are we?” Rachel had kidded him.
“I better be,” had been Nick’s grim answer.
Rachel heard Nick’s single click in her headset, which meant she needed to be in position. It was a hundred meter shot Nick had told her he hoped to God she wouldn’t have to take.
“It’s not that I don’t think you would,” he’d said. “It’s because my hoped-for setup will be history if you have to take the shot. Remember, first pad of the finger, slow movements only, and squeeze the trigger. I should have at least one of them down, even if I’m dead. Put another round through him, too, anyway. Repeat the procedure striking both men. Pack up. Get in the Escalade with Jean and Deke. Head for parts unknown. I’d suggest Idaho, North Dakota, or Utah. Find a very small community. There’s a hundred grand in the false bottom of the Escalade I showed you. It’ll get you through until you find work.”
Rachel grabbed his hand before he left, moving her body into him. “What made you decide to adopt me and Jean?”
“When you invited yourself to sit down with me at the restaurant,” he answered with a grin. “I like a woman who shows an interest.”
Nick repeated the single click, meaning he was at the door.
“Hold.” Rachel sighted in on the shielded sniper nest covered with bedclothes. “One man at the gun. Other out of sight…he’s approaching the gun…back turned to you…”
Rachel jerked in spite of knowing what would happen next, glad she had remembered to keep the pad of her finger off the trigger until ready to shoot. Two crackling charges felled both sniper team members. Nick stayed low to the floor, jolting the men until they were unconscious.
He closed the door and hurried to the fallen men. He disarmed each of them, while keeping the silenced muzzle of his own weapon covering them.
“Everything’s okay, Rach. Neither of these boot camps is armed. This is an insult. How dare Frank send ‘Beavis and Butthead’ after me?”
Rachel laughed.
“I’m going to be a few minutes longer than I’d hoped. Without any silencers, I’ll have to rig this up the old-fashioned way. Pack up. I’m going to hit the good Senator tonight.”
“What?” Rachel yelped incredulously, cringing as Nick put a knife into the fist of one downed man and forced it into the chest of the other. “We’re…we’re not in position for the shot.”
“The most righteous Senator Ambrose is in bed with his mistress,” he explained, while positioning the stabbed man over his comrade and using his hands to crush the man’s skull under him with a stone flower vase. “That’ll teach you to stab me, you varmint.”
Rachel laughed again, unable to look away from the horrendous killing of two unconscious men, ending in a cartoon dialogue joke. She glanced again at her daughter guiltily.
Go straight to hell. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars. You’re as big a monster as he is.
* * * *
Nick waited for twenty seconds more, making sure the two men were dead. He took a black plastic bag out of his pocket, and loaded in his two Taser guns, H &K.45, jacket, and gloves. Taking out a fresh pair of Nitrile gloves and donning them, he left the room, making sure the door locked. With the ball cap down low over his face, he made his way out of the building by his planned route.
“I’m going to the Cad. I’ll drop off this stuff and pick up my next outfit for the visit to Senator Ambrose.”
“Why do you have to kill the Senator?”
“Because Frank was right about one thing: Ambrose is trying to kill us.”
The tone of his answer prompted Rachel to dispense with the questioning.
“We’ll be packed and ready to leave when you get back.”
Nick parked the Escalade around the block from the apartment building where Senator Ambrose’s suite was located. Putting on a dark blue windbreaker and ball cap, Nick carried a small shoulder bag with him to the alleyway entrance. He used the access code stolen during his first days in Denver, and made his way up the stairwell through the predawn silence. Outside Senator Ambrose’s door, he listened intently for a few moments, before using his access card to get in. After shutting the door silently, Nick took off his shoes. Seconds later, he stood at the entrance to the Senator’s bedroom, where the outlines of two bodies breathed in varying degrees of sleep.