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“It’s not my birthday,” Sara said. “It’s Bree’s birthday!”

Scott gave her a cheerful smile. “No, silly. Bree’s dead. Bree is dead. Happy birthday. Have some cake.”

Sara felt a wave of nausea wash over her and her throat tightened reflexively. She fought back the vomit that threatened to come spewing out of her. She took a step back. “What are you saying? What’s wrong with you?”

“Do you know freedom is a right?” Fortress was saying in the background. “Exploitation is a crime! Civil war on the Rock Highway, Hallelujah! Somebody give me a joint.”

“Do you want some cake?” Scott persisted. “It’s good! It’s blood-cake!”

“Bree is not dead!” Sara shouted. Fortress and Scott laughed at her.

“Have some blood-cake,” Scott insisted. He sliced through the creamy white icing with a chef’s knife, and blood came gushing out of the cake. It bubbled up over the icing, crimson red against the pure white frosting. It spilled across the platter and dribbled to the floor in a stream. Sara screamed.

She bolted upright. Her heart was pounding so fast she could hardly breathe. She glanced at the clock. It was ten p.m. She’d only been asleep for fifteen minutes. Sara crawled out of bed and leaned up against the post, trying to get hold of herself. Her stomach lurched with the memory of her nightmare, and the disturbing sound of Scott’s declaration:
Bree is dead, silly!

She fought the urge to vomit.

It had been Bree’s birthday
,
she realized. Back in August. Back when Scott left her. And Sara couldn’t even remember it. Had there been a party? She couldn’t remember that, either. Was the dream a clue? No, she decided. It was just a dream. It hadn’t meant anything. Just a dream…

“Yes, I know!” said a voice down the hall. It was Jim. Sara frowned. Who would Jim be talking to? Had the police caught up to her? She stealthed across the room. She bit her lip as she pressed her ear to the door.

“I told you, didn’t I?” he said. “Yes, right now!”

Sara wrapped her hand around the cold brass door handle. She pulled it slightly ajar and peeked out. Jim wasn’t in the hallway. It sounded like he was in the kitchen. She slipped into the hallway and crept closer.

“So what are you going to do about it?” Jim growled. He was talking on the phone, Sara realized. She hadn’t heard the phone ring. Jim had called someone. “Fine but you better hurry the hell up!”

Jim slammed the phone down on the counter and Sara stepped into the kitchen. “Who was that?” she said.

Jim jerked when he heard her voice. His eyes went wide. “It was uh… just a wrong number.”

“I don’t think so. Who did you call?” Sara took a step forward and Jim yanked a ten-inch chef’s knife out of the block on the counter.

“Get in the living room,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Sara backed around the corner of the kitchen island. “What’s going on?” she said. “Who did you call? Was it the cops? It didn’t sound like the cops.”

“Shut up, goddammit.” Jim moved around the counter and took a few steps closer, brandishing the knife. He was within arm’s reach now.

“It was
them
, wasn’t it Jim? You’re one of them.”

“It wasn’t supposed to go down like this,” Jim said. “You weren’t supposed to get hurt. You had to screw it all up, didn’t you?”

Sara swallowed hard. She felt sick to her stomach. Her pulse was pounding, her palms sweaty. The gun in her grip felt slick and dangerously heavy. She’d been holding it all along, down at her side, concealed behind her leg. She heaved it up and pointed it at Jim. “I’m leaving,” she said. “Don’t try to stop me.”

Jim’s eyebrows shot up. “A gun, Sara? Where the hell did you get a gun? That’s not like you.”

“How do you know?” Sara said. “I don’t even know who I am anymore, how could you possibly know?”

“Put the gun down. These people, they’re going to fix this. They can help you.”

Sara smirked. “Sure they can,” she said. “Just like they fixed Fortress. I’ve seen how they fix their problems. They tried to run me over today. Tried to shoot me, too. They’re the ones that did this to me. What did they do anyway, Jim? Did they drug me? Hypnotize me or something? What’d they do to make me lose my mind?”

If Sara didn’t know better, she’d have thought the look on Jim’s face was guilt. “Look, you don’t need to make this so hard. These guys work for the government. They know what’s going on and they can help you.”

“Quit stalling,” Sara said angrily. “I know they’re coming. I heard you talking to them.” She edged away from him. “I’m leaving. Don’t try to stop me.” She nodded at the gun as a warning, and then took a step in the direction of the back door. Jim lunged at her. Sara saw the knife flashing towards her and reacted instinctively.

She jumped backwards and squeezed the trigger.

Jim’s swing went wide as the bullet struck him in the gut. The knife slipped from his hand and clattered across the tile floor. Both hands went to the wound, and he swayed precariously as blood spurted out through his fingers. Jim had a look of absolute disbelief on his face.

“Damn … what happened to you?” he groaned. His face was pale, contorted in pain. He stumbled forward and Sara danced back, out of the way. Jim crashed into the counter, and then slid to the floor. He sat there, hands pressed to his gut, staring up at her.

“Why’d you make me do that?” Sara said breathlessly. Jim’s face was ashen. She glanced down at the gun and then at the blood pulsing through Jim’s fingers. Bile rose in her throat. Her stomach lurched. She had to force herself not to vomit.

“Are you going to kill me?” he grunted.

Sara blinked and tears rolled down her cheeks. “Why, Jim? Why did you do this?” She stared at him and he stared back, unwilling to answer. But she knew. “They paid you, didn’t they?”

Jim’s gaze went to the floor. He still didn’t speak. After all he’d done to her, he couldn’t even admit the truth. Guilt was written across his face. Suddenly Sara was angry.

“You son of a bitch,” she said. “This whole thing is your fault. How much did they give you? How much was my life worth?” She clenched her teeth as she pointed the gun at him. Jim looked away from her. “Who are they? Why did they choose me?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

Sara moved closer, pressed the gun to his forehead. “Where is my family, Jim?”

He winced. “Please don’t kill me. I’m your friend Sara, remember? Remember?”

“I thought you were,” she said. “I know better now. Tell me what they did to my family Jim. I swear to God I’ll kill you.” Sara’s stomach lurched as she said it. She knew she couldn’t do it. Even after everything he’d done, she couldn’t kill the bastard.

“I told you,” he said. His face was panic-stricken. “Scott left you. I don’t know why. It was after…”

“After what?”

He swung his head away guiltily. He wouldn’t look her in the eyes. “After they took you.”

“Took me? What do you mean? What did they do?”

“I don’t know. It was after… that business meeting. In August. Very late.” Jim was slipping away. He was losing blood fast, and he looked like he might pass out.

Sara heard a car outside and she snapped back to reality. They
were coming. Maybe they
were already there. She snatched the phone off the counter and tossed it into Jim’s lap. Even after everything he’d done to her, she still couldn’t leave him to die. Jim seemed lucid enough to make one phone call. She’d give him that much. It was more of a chance than Jim would have given her.

Sara jammed the gun back into her jeans and sprinted for the back door. She jogged past the pool and down the slope, to the trail that ran along the hillside above China Beach. And then she ran as fast as she could.

Chapter 26

Konrad was at the Warehouse when Jim called. Stryker and the others had already gone back to the hotel, but Konrad was working late. He had plans to work on. He had a promise to keep, the one he’d made to Paolini. He hadn’t had time to work out the details because Stryker’s
Manchurian Candidate
had screwed everything up, and then led them on a wild goose chase across the entire city.

Konrad wasn’t anxious to kill Stryker, but he was desperate to get Paolini off his back. And frankly, it was going to be easier now because he had a genuine reason to kill Stryker. Konrad was very upset that he’d been forced to pull the trigger and kill Fortress himself. He didn’t like working that way. If Konrad was going to kill someone, he worked alone. There were no witnesses, no clues, nothing to come back and bite him in the ass. If he’d been in charge of the mission, he would have done it that way from the start. Stryker’s old-fashioned approach had jeopardized the entire operation. Stryker had proven that he was too out of touch to be in the game, and in doing so he’d brought a new level of exposure to everyone involved.

Konrad was starting to believe Paolini was right about Stryker. Maybe it was time to get rid of the old man. It still left a bitter taste in his mouth, though. It wasn’t right, taking Stryker out like that. There were rules, traditions. Retirees always got to make a run for it. If they were very good, they might even live for five or ten years. At least they had a chance. It wasn’t right, what Paolini wanted him to do.

Did hitmen have ethics?
Konrad wondered. Maybe, but there was more to his unease than a crisis of conscience. The whole situation had made Konrad doubt Paolini’s judgment. If she’d do that to Stryker, what might happen to Konrad down the road? Would she use him up and then burn him the same way? Those were things he had to think about. He already knew the answer to that particular question.

Like everybody else in the business, Konrad had assumed that at some point, he’d disappear. He was thinking Eastern Europe. He could speak Russian fluently, and men with his skills were in high demand in that part of the world. He’d been there before and it was nice enough, at least in the summer. The winters were hell, but Russian women knew how to keep a man warm at night. And they didn’t have the hang-ups of American women. They were unpretentious, cerebral. They were generous lovers. And the accents… christ, he loved the way they talked.

That was a long way off, though. In the meanwhile, he was going to have to put up with Paolini for at least a decade. That wasn’t going to be easy. Not only was she a rotten old harpy, she was also deceitful and dangerous. He was going to be watching his back for years. But if he killed Paolini –as he was sorely tempted- then he’d have to go deep undercover. The OSS would stop at nothing to find him. It would be more trouble than it was worth.

Konrad was deep in his plotting when the phone rang. Jim was on the other end of the line, and he was frantic. Sara Murphy was in his house. She’d come to him for help. Jim had no idea what to do.

“What if the cops followed her?” he said. “I can’t be connected to this shit. I can’t. I never should have gotten involved in the first place. What was I thinking?”

Konrad did his best to calm Jim down. “What did you tell her?”

“Nothing. She’s mostly worried about her family. I said I’d help her find Scott tomorrow.”

“Good, don’t tell her anything else. Where is she right now?”

“She’s in my room, asleep.”

“Good. Keep her there. Don’t let her leave. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Konrad didn’t take the Suburban. He’d given it a beating on the golf course and the cops were probably watching out for it. Instead, he drove one of the rentals, a rugged little Subaru hatchback. It wasn’t exactly Konrad’s style, but when the rental agency had confirmed his SUV reservation, they didn’t mention the vehicle’s make. By the time he found out, he was stuck with it. That was why he’d gone out and bought the Suburban in the first place. He found it for sale on Craigslist for two grand. The owner was selling it because it wouldn’t pass the smog test. Konrad picked it up for a steal, with plans of dumping it after the job. Now, after what he’d done to it, he was glad he’d bought it. Not many vehicles could have taken that abuse and still gotten him home.

Konrad had heard good things about Subarus, but he’d never dreamed of driving one. He preferred vehicles with a little more weight to them. That Subaru could have fit in the back of most of the vehicles Konrad drove. On the bright side, if the thing broke down he figured he could probably pick it up and carry it.

When Konrad got to Jim’s house, everything looked quiet. He parked out front and then knocked quietly at the door. When he didn’t get an answer, Konrad turned the handle. It was unlocked.

He found Jim on the kitchen floor in a puddle of blood. His face was pale and his eyes were dilated, but he was still conscious. “What the hell happened?” Konrad said. He knelt down next to Jim and pulled his hand away from the wound. A puddle of dark blood went dribbling down his shirt.

“She had a gun,” Jim grunted in a rasping voice. “Can’t believe it. Sara had a gun.”

“Ah, that’s my fault,” Konrad said. “Where did she go?”

“Out back.” Jim threw his eyes in the direction of the back door.

Konrad went to investigate. He returned a moment later, shutting the door behind him. “You talked to her,” Konrad said. “What did she say?”

“Not much,” Jim mumbled. “She’s terrified. Can’t tell her ass from a hole in the ground.”

“Good. Did she say where she was going?”

“No.” Jim winced. He looked at Konrad uncertainly. “Are you going to call an ambulance?”

Konrad glanced around the room and took it all in. He was trained to notice details but there were no subtleties about Jim’s lifestyle. Big screen TV, leather sofa set, hardwood furniture. The wine collection on the wall was worth a few grand and Konrad suspected there was a cellar, too. Jim had done well for himself. Konrad wondered how much of it the OSS had paid for.

Konrad didn’t set up that arrangement. That had been Stryker’s doing. Old school. Stupid. Konrad stood up, and leaned back against the counter. “You’ve got a nice place,” he said. He pulled out his .45 auto and twisted the suppressor onto the end of the barrel. Jim’s eyes went wide.