From the Ashes (10 page)

No sounds of footsteps reached Jon’s ears, no audible indications of where the intruder was, what he was doing. Still coming toward the bedroom, checking out the kitchen, doubling back into the living room? But Jon waited. And waited. When the bedroom door in front of him started to inch open into the room, Jon started, his breath catching in his throat. The door stopped moving.
Damn,
he thought. Had he given himself away? What to do now? Yank open the door and rush the enemy like a Visigoth? Stay where he was and confront his enemy when the opportunity for a surprise attack presented itself? Or turn tail and climb out the window and down the fire escape to safety, to live to fight another day?

The decision was made for him as the door began to inch inward once more. The black metal end of a silencer peeked into the room. The intruder was leading with his gun. Not good.

Jon made a snap decision, yelled, and slammed his body against the door, catching the intruder by surprise and crushing his gun-toting hand against the jamb. He tried to wrench the gun from the intruder’s hand, but the grip was too tight. The man kicked the door from the other side, and Jon stumbled backward. A pair of dark, determined – and now, angry – eyes greeted him, the man clutching his injured right hand with his left. The intruder raised his gun and paused briefly, a flash of surprise crossing his face as his pallor blanched slightly – almost as though he felt he were seeing a ghost. Jon took advantage of the opening and swung the sword at the man’s outstretched hand, whacking his wrist with the blade’s dulled edge and sending the gun flying as the intruder’s hand flinched in pain. The man’s eyes were momentarily fixed on the gun that fell behind him in the hallway, and Jon used the opening to kick him squarely in the chest. The intruder sucked a mouthful of air as he stumbled backward. Jon raised his sword and charged forward to deliver another attack.

The intruder glanced toward Jon, some new thought flashing through his mind, and then reached for his gun on the ground. Jon got to him first and stabbed at his torso. The man twisted his body in an effort to avoid the blade, but it pierced his side. He cried aloud in pain, the fury in his eyes growing, both men losing all reserve and fighting for their lives like feral animals.

The intruder grabbed Jon’s right hand and squeezed his fingers in an iron grip, wrenching the sword from Jon’s grasp. The weapon tumbled out of reach – through the open bathroom door, just off the hallway. The intruder threw a slow left jab at Jon, who moved his head to the side just in time, the wind from the punch brushing his ear.
My turn,
Jon thought as he kept his momentum from the dodge going and delivered a left to intruder’s solid jaw, followed by a right to the solar plexus. The intruder wheezed as he fell to the ground, Jon panting with rage and exertion at his feet.

Then the tables turned. The intruder sucked in a deep breath of air, gripped his pistol between his feet, and flicked the weapon through the air and into to his left hand, wincing at the pain in his side. And just like that, the man had a gun in his hand again. Jon’s eyes widened as he saw the weapon pointed directly at his face. A voice in his head, barely audible over the pounding of blood in his ears, screamed one word:
run.

So he did. White drywall dust rained down on Jon’s head as the bullet intended for him passed through the space his face had occupied just moments earlier and pierced the ceiling overhead. He darted into Michael’s room, kicked the door closed, ran to the window, and hoisted himself over the sill with one hand, landing hard on the rusty fire escape outside. The bolts fastening the escape to the building seemed to give way as his weight hit the structure. A horrendous creaking, groaning sound emanated from beneath his feet, and Jon was all but certain that the whole stairway was about to let loose from the building, that he was about to plummet fifty feet to the alley below, to be mangled in a gruesome mess of blood and twisted steel.

But it held. Jon scrambled down the rickety stairs, swinging himself around the corner of each flight by pivoting on the inside handrail, a smudge of rust being driven deeper into his palm and fingers with each momentum-propelled turn. A
ping
of metal on metal ricocheted from somewhere near him. The bastard was still shooting at him. Jon instinctively lowered his head as he hurtled down the steps. Each time his feet hit the metal flooring, the rusting hulk creaked louder, seemed to lean further into the alley as its bolts were pulled from the brickwork. His footfalls crashed and echoed as he thundered down the derelict zigzag. Another
ping,
this one sending sparks from the handrail right next to Jon. Leaping down the last three stairs, he hit the final platform. The ladder was up, and one look at its rusted grooves told Jon that it wouldn’t lower in a hurry. And he didn’t have the time to fight with it, trying to get it to break free of its months or years of neglect.

Still ten feet above the ground, Jon scrambled from side-to-side on the bottom platform – mainly to find another, quicker way down, but the additional perk of presenting a moving target for the gunman above didn’t hurt either. He spotted a closed dumpster a few feet down the alley from the fire escape. Another
ping,
another spark. This time the shot had hit the ground right where Jon would have been standing had he continued his stride before he had halted to look at the dumpster. The dumpster had saved his life once simply by distracting him, he reasoned subconsciously in the span of milliseconds. Perhaps jumping onto it might provide a more long-term salvation.

Another
ping,
this one hitting the floor of the level just above him, right over his head. It was now or never. He got a running start of a few steps, grabbed the rusty metal railing with both hands, hoisted himself over, and flew downward, fearing both a bullet from above and a broken ankle or leg from below. He received neither. As soon as Jon hit the lid of the dumpster, he collapsed his legs and let his momentum carry him into a somersault. Relieved that his move actually worked – on his first try and while wearing the backpack that he had all but forgotten about in the excitement – he heard a
crack
from just behind him as a bullet penetrated the thick hardened plastic of the lid. Reaching the edge of the dumpster, he rolled off, landed on his feet, and hit the ground running, bobbing and weaving as he ran in an effort to throw off the gunman’s aim. One more bullet hit the ground behind him as he kept flying down the alleyway until he reached the corner of the building.

He turned, briefly, in mid-stride, to see if his attacker was following him down the fire escape. The gunman was still in Michael’s apartment, his upper body stuck out the window Jon had exited from, loading another magazine into his pistol. Even from that distance, Jon could see the fanatical look in the man’s eyes, a look he wouldn’t soon forget. And then the look changed to one of intense concentration as the gunman extended his arms and aimed his pistol at Jon.

A split-second later, the muzzle flashed and a shard of brick exploded from the corner of the building. But Jon had already darted around the corner and down the street.

Enrique Ramirez cursed in Spanish, then pulled himself back into the apartment. With his good hand, he pulled the window closed, and latched it shut. There was no use going after the guy now. He had too much of a head start, and Enrique wouldn’t be able to keep pace with the bleeding wound in his side. With his tongue, he probed the inside of his mouth, sweeping around the teeth on the right side of his jaw, trying to find the source of the blood he tasted. No teeth knocked loose or out, but the inside of his right cheek was raw where it had been sandwiched between knuckles and molars. He slowly made a fist with his right hand. It hurt like hell, but he hadn’t broken anything. Thank God. But it had been enough to screw up his aim, enough to make him the first Division agent in fifty years to leave a witness.

A photograph on a bookshelf caught his eye. The target from last night – Michael Rickner – smiling for the camera alongside the guy Enrique had just chased from the apartment. He thought the guy had looked familiar. At first, he thought he might have been the ghost of the other day’s kill. Was this Rickner’s brother then? What was it with this apartment, with this
family? Twice
he had been caught unawares by the brothers. Never before, in nine years with the Division, had he made a mistake. Now he had made two in as many days.

He stumbled to the bathroom, stripped to the waist, grabbed a blue towel from the rack, and pressed it to his injured side. It was bleeding pretty badly, but the damage seemed to be superficial. Seeing that there was no medicine cabinet in the room, he bent down, mindful of the tender muscles in his side, and rummaged under the sink for a first-aid kit. Finding one, he stood, set it on the counter, opened it, and procured a handful of cotton balls, a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, a roll of gauze, and a package of butterfly bandages. After cleaning the wound with the cotton balls and the peroxide, he closed the wound as best he could with the bandages, then wrapped the gauze around his torso, covering the slice in his side with four layers. He tossed the bloody cotton balls into the toilet, pocketing the rest of the gauze roll and another handful of cotton balls for later.

Then he walked back into the hallway to survey the damage. Bullet hole in the ceiling, two in the bedroom wall above the bed. Nothing a little toothpaste – the poor man’s spackle – wouldn’t fix. He’d have to ditch the gun soon enough, anyway, and by the time the bullets in the ceiling and wall were found –
if
they were found – the weapon that had fired them would be long gone, with nothing for Ballistics to trace the projectiles to.

And then there was that unsightly blood trail. That much blood in an apartment, especially one that was so recently the scene of a police investigation, was bound to raise some questions. Add that to the fact that the blood belonged to a military veteran who was supposed to be dead, and some real red flags would start to go up. Enrique felt his face growing hot, his indignation with the Rickner brothers mounting, his anger at himself and his carelessness reaching a fever pitch. He kicked the sword at his feet, which flew across the floor and bounced off the baseboard. Releasing a deep sigh, he bit his bottom lip and shook his head in disappointment. How had this happened? But now, more importantly, how would he put it right?

First things first. Take care of the scene. From the bathroom, he grabbed the toothpaste – which, thankfully, was white, so it matched the walls and ceiling. From the kitchen, he got a small butter knife, which he then used to apply the toothpaste-spackle to the bullet holes, wincing as he stretched to reach them. That taken care of, he returned the toothpaste to its place and pocketed the knife.

And now, for the blood.
He toweled the blood off his shirt, then put both the shirt and the towel in the bathtub. Using a bottle of bleach he found under the bathroom sink, he poured it liberally along the hallway, the bedroom, and everywhere else he had leaked. Returning to the tub, he poured the bleach over the towel and the shirt, rinsed the pinkish runoff away, then repeated. When he was content that they wouldn’t leak color or DNA, he wrung them out, then poured bleach around the tub and down the drain. More bleach went into the toilet and the blood-soaked cotton balls floating within. Then he flushed the whole mess down the toilet and poured still more bleach around the bowl, flushing again to make sure all the blood was gone. Next, with a scrubbing brush he found under the kitchen sink, he rubbed the bloodstains on the carpet into oblivion. He scoured the walls and other surfaces to ensure that no arterial spray had been missed.

Except for the faint chemical smell, and the soon-to-be faded splotches of carpet, his tracks were covered. The bullet holes in the alley would be attributed to gang warfare or a drug deal gone wrong, and nothing more would be thought of it. Enrique was safe. He found a few unscented tea candles in a kitchen cupboard and lit them, hoping to burn away most of the scent. Staring at the sword lying on the floor, he made a snap decision to take it with him. That would accomplish two things: remove potentially critical evidence, and, at least symbolically, disarm one of his enemies. He wanted to snap the sword in half, but he restrained himself.
Focus your anger,
he told himself.
Channel it.

Next order of business: finish what he had come here for in the first place. He walked back to the bedroom and saw his prize. The laptop sat on the desk to the left of the doorway, just waiting to be taken.
This
was how easy it should have been. Pick the lock, walk in, grab the laptop, and leave. And it would have been that easy, if only Rickner’s brother hadn’t���

Enrique took a deep breath. He’d get to dealing with the other brother. One thing at a time. He didn’t need to be distracted and make
yet another
mistake. The laptop was unplugged, but, looking around, he spotted its coiled power cord lying in the open suitcase nearby. May as well take it too, Enrique decided, although the model was common enough.

He flipped open his cell phone and punched in a number.

“Yes?” replied Greer’s breathless voice on the other end.

“The package is secure.”

“Excellent.” Enrique thought he could hear a car horn in the distance on the other end of the line.

“Good to hear,” Greer responded. “I knew you wouldn’t let us down. Corner of Massachusetts and Eighteenth. Black Lexus with Nevada plates. Front passenger window will be cracked. Password exchange Bravo-Three-Seven-Romeo. After identity is verified, pass package through window to female EDA officer inside.”

“Massachusetts and Eighteenth. Black Lexus, Nevada plates. Bravo-Three-Seven-Romeo. Pass package through front passenger window. Understood. When, sir?”

“One hour. And Ramirez?”

“Sir?”

“You’ve done your country a great service. And loyalty like that will be rewarded. Sooner than you know, my son.”

Enrique swallowed. “Thank you, sir.”