Chapter 1
A
failed mission. There had been so few of those at Onyxx that it was hard to swallow. But what else could you call it when the kill-file that had been recovered was a fraud—a fake that had led to an agent’s death, and started the killing?
What they had tried to prevent had begun. And there would be more to come. There were close to a hundred names marked for death in the infamous kill-file.
Merrick entered his office in a sour mood. He’d just faced his superiors upstairs and conceded that mistakes had been made. He had been forced to explain that somehow Holic Reznik had switched the file, and what they had recovered was a rearranged version of the master copy. A useless list that was meant to mock and torture. To twist the knife a little deeper.
Holic was a master game player. Somehow he’d managed to hand off the original to a class-act assassin who was as loyal as he was talented. Someone Holic trusted—Merrick had seen the twinkle in the devil’s eyes when Holic had spoken of his replacement. He had seen the supreme elation that the killing had begun, and that he had outsmarted them.
They were left with a useless file with dates and names out of sequence, with a nameless assassin on the loose willing to do whatever Holic asked of him.
Holic was under lock and key, but the smell of death was still ripe in the air. He was laughing at them from his cell, and it made Merrick want to strangle the bastard.
“Damn you, Holic,” Merrick muttered as he stood at the window in his Washington office. He was tempted to open his bottom drawer and pour himself a drink. He needed one, but he’d been considering joining AA. The booze had become too important, a daily necessity. Hell, he’d been slamming shots a dozen times a day for fifteen years, and it was finally catching up with him.
The truth was he hadn’t dealt with Johanna’s death. The guilt was still eating him from the inside out, and he preferred living with his pain. He deserved no better. Certainly not solace, or to be freed from his guilt. Johanna was gone, and he was the reason her life had been cut short.
Merrick slipped behind his desk and opened the report he’d received on the dead British Intelligence agent. Alton Bromly had been thirty-six, single and a veteran with a number of successful missions to his credit.
He scanned the data on how and where he’d been killed. It had all the signs of Holic’s signature assassinations—one shot, right temple. Ammunition type, a Nato-standard SS109.
“Amazing,” Merrick muttered. If he didn’t know it was a physical impossibility for Holic to make the hit, he would say that their cell guest at Clume was a magician. But Holic was no magician.
He’d been locked up behind bars for three months.
So who had pulled the trigger on Bromly? Who the hell was Holic’s sharpshooter replacement?
A loud rap sounded at the door, and Merrick closed the file. “Come in.”
Pierce Fourtier entered. Like Sly and Bjorn and the other agents under Merrick’s command, Pierce had earned the Onyxx tag of rat fighter. On Merrick’s quest to find the toughest men alive for his special-ops team, he’d ventured to New Orleans to an underground club where knife-fighting had become a high-stakes game. Where only the best and the toughest survived. It was there that he’d first seen Pierce Fourtier. The man had given new meaning to the saying “splitting hairs.”
“You wanted to see me.”
“Come in and have a seat, Pierce. The killing has started. An agent was hit yesterday.”
“An agent on the list?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“In the Czech Republic. The market square at Brno. Alton Bromly, nine years at British Intelligence. Know him?”
“No. How do we know it wasn’t random?”
“It was a signature shot. One shot, right temple. Holic’s caliber. The point of entry wasn’t off even by a millimeter.”
Pierce relaxed in the chair in front of Merrick’s desk. He was dressed in a brown T-shirt, jeans and a pair of alligator-leather Western boots. He had an unmistakable Southern accent, wore his black hair ultra-short, and his bayou-bred heritage on his sleeve.
The Acadian was six-one, went two-twenty, and had lazy brown eyes that rarely expressed a fraction of what he was thinking. Those eyes had given him the nickname the Sleeper due to the unruffled dead calm that surrounded him in the midst of a crisis.
It was rumored that the Sleeper was the son of a voodoo priest in Louisiana. But no one knew for sure. Pierce’s past was as mysterious as the little town of Le Mystère which he called home.
“So what you’re saying is Holic Reznik handed the kill-file to an associate before we captured him in Austria?”
“In Bjorn’s report he says Holic doesn’t believe in the buddy system. No partners. Holic doesn’t trust anyone. But it looks like he’s trusting someone.”
“He’d have to if he wants to get the job done. He’s at Clume, and unless he’s got an inside contact to get him out of there, he’s not going anywhere.”
“This confirms that the file we recovered is a rearranged version of the master. The bitch is, we have the names sanctioned for assassination, but we don’t have the correct dates, or the locations we need to stop it.”
“So Bromly was on the rearranged kill-file we have.”
“Yes. But not number one.”
“Holic must have anticipated capture,” Pierce concluded.
“I can’t believe he would allow that. Besides, in the report Bjorn filed, he states Holic had plenty of time to run.”
“That’s true. He did. So the question is, why didn’t he?”
“He had transportation out of the country, and yet he stayed on Glass Mountain until you and Bjorn got there.”
“He believed his wife betrayed him. He hates Bjorn,” Pierce pointed out. “Health-wise, he was a mess, but he’s not used to losing.”
“What are you saying? His pride kept him there? That doesn’t make sense. Why not just disappear to an island and plot revenge and enjoy his fat bank account while he recovered?”
Pierce shrugged. “He’s a complicated bastard. His wife’s betrayal could have colored his judgment. He’s human after all. We did trick him. He never expected two more agents riding to the rescue. Bjorn’s impersonation plan worked. Holic never suspected that it wasn’t Bjorn and Nadja on the helicopter. He was fooled completely, all the way to the end. He might be locked up at Clume, but I don’t doubt he’s been busy inventing a new game.”
“You don’t believe he allowed us to corner him on that mountain?”
“No. I think he was outsmarted. But that doesn’t mean he’s ready to surrender even from behind bars.”
“And the fake kill-file?”
“Holic leaves nothing to chance. His spotless record proves that. Maybe a simple precautionary measure just in case.”
Merrick felt a chill race up his spine. They were dealing with a madman. Holic was secured behind bars, but the kill-file was still out there in the hands of someone just as talented as the master.
He watched as his agent rubbed his shoulder, and it reminded him that Pierce was slow to recover from one of the bullets he’d taken on Glass Mountain three months ago.
“How’s the shoulder doing?”
“It still gives me a little trouble now and then. But I’m good. Have you talked to Bjorn about Holic? Does he know the file he and Nadja recovered was a fake?”
“Not yet. When he hears he’ll be back here on the next flight.”
“And you don’t want that?”
“Nadja’s pregnant. Right now she needs him more than I do.”
“You getting soft, Merrick? A year ago you would have hauled his ass back here no matter what.”
Merrick cleared his throat, not liking the way Pierce was eyeing him. “There’s more. I’ve spoken to Polax from EURO-Quest. He claims the Quest agent that Bjorn killed at Groffen was definitely working for the Chameleon. He believes that the body we’ve got on ice at the lab isn’t the Chameleon. He says the Chameleon didn’t die in Greece. That he’s still alive.”
“Impossible.”
“I agree. The Chameleon is dead. I need to believe that. But our experts haven’t been able to ID the body as the Chameleon. It keeps coming up as Pavvo Creon. But we know that’s not possible. He’s been dead for fifteen years. I have to tell you that I’ve been playing around with the idea that maybe Polax is right. Maybe we’re about to see the Chameleon rise from the dead.”
“If he’s alive he could very well be the force behind Holic’s new game. But I’m still convinced that the Chameleon is dead.”
“Yes, he’s dead. That has to be him lying on that slab. But there could be someone in his organization who is pulling Holic’s strings. We know that the Chameleon’s mobocracy is still running full-throttle across the country. We know that promises were made between him and Holic. Maybe Holic is now loyal to a new man. As you said, he takes his spotless record seriously. It’s true the kill-file originated with the Chameleon, but whoever has picked up the reins could still be influencing Holic’s actions.”
“Enter in Holic’s love for money, and his equal contempt for us, and there you are,” Pierce added. “A binding relationship that even death won’t sever—or a change of rank at the top.”
“The Chameleon’s dead,” Merrick said again.
“I’m with you on that. I was there that day in Greece. I watched that yacht blow sky-high. We have his body at the morgue.”
“A body with someone else’s face and matching blood type,” Merrick reminded.
“We knew the Chameleon had had plastic surgery and taken Pavvo Creon’s face.
“But his blood, too?” Merrick shook his head, then came out with the reason he’d asked Pierce to join him in his office. “Here’s the deal. I thought you might do the leg work on this one for me since Bjorn brought you in at the end, and you’re familiar with the mission’s details and its outcome. It’s not too physical or dangerous, both considerations since you’re still in recovery. Most of this work can be done from here, with minimal travel.”
“Why not put Jacy on it? He was the controller for Bjorn. He knows the details, and probably has all the data meticulously filed for instant access. He’s the better man when it comes to details.”
“I asked him, but he turned me down. He says he’s retiring from Onyxx.”
“I don’t believe it. Give him a little more time. It’s not easy to shed a skin that fits, and this business fits him and his talents. As much as we would like to deny it, we all fit the mold. I hear he’s finally out of the wheelchair.”
“It’s true. Vic Kandle tells me he’s got a heavy limp and it’s permanent, but other than that, he’s on a comeback.”
“That means he’ll be getting bored up there on that Montana mountain one of these days.”
“We can only hope.”
“This kill-file…Onyxx is still convinced it’s on a time schedule and targeting active agents?”
“We believe it’s the Chameleon’s hate list. And the targets aren’t all field agents. But all are government intelligence of some kind. Not all the targets are active. There are a few retired names on the list.”
“I take it our names are on the list, too?”
This was the amazing part Merrick didn’t understand. “My entire team is on the list. You and the other rat fighters. Men I’ve worked with in the past, but not me.”
“You’re not on it?”
“Damn strange, don’t you think? I should top the list. We’ve been enemies for fifteen years.”
“That’s more than a little strange.”
“Our problem is, we’re back to square one now that a replacement has started to make Holic’s hits for him. We’re hunting for an unknown face, with no data on where he comes from.”
“And that’s where I come in?”
“Like I said, the paperwork on this can be done from behind your desk. With minimal leg work. I’d like you to schedule an appointment with the authorities in Brno, and check out the market square where the hit took place. Get in touch with British Intelligence and find out everything you can on Alton Bromly and his activities over the past nine years. Your nose is one of the best we have. You’ve always been able to see things no one else sees. Maybe we’re missing something.”
“Is that a nice way of saying I have a criminal mind?”
“No offense, but your past, as you said, fits the mold.”
“I know why I was asked to join Onyxx. And it wasn’t my good looks,” Pierce joked.
Merrick handed Pierce the file on his desk. “It’s all in there. Everything we have on Bromly and his years of service to Interpol. Look it over on the flight. Prep your deviant mind. There’s also a copy of our bogus kill-file in there.”
Pierce took the file. “Has Holic talked?”
“I’ve interrogated him a number of times since we locked him up. He claimed from the moment we captured him that the file wasn’t authentic. I didn’t believe it. I had no reason to until yesterday.”
“Have you talked to him since Bromly was hit?”
“Last night I flew up to Clume to see him. And now, after talking to you, I think you’re right. Holic has a new agenda.” Merrick opened his drawer and pressed Play on the tape recorder. “I took a recorder with me last night and taped my conversation with him.”
Within seconds Holic Reznik’s Austrian accent filled the room.
“You’re back, Merrick. Does that mean the killing has begun? Your silence must mean it has. And now you’re here to ask me who has filled my shoes,
ja?
”
“Who is your replacement, Holic? Who has the kill-file?”
“If I tell you it would end all the fun. I told you that your kill-file was a fake, but you didn’t believe me. Do you believe me now? The look on your face tells me you do.”
“Who is your replacement, Holic? Give me the name of the man who has taken up your cause.”
“A ten-million-dollar question. Are you willing to match that?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Look at my hands. I can barely feed myself thanks to Bjorn Odell and that bitch, Nadja Stefn. I’m too young to live my life sucking my food through a straw. A heavy price to pay for killing a few insignificant people, don’t you think?”
“I’ll ask again. Who has the original kill-file? Who shot Alton Bromly?”
“Perfection has replaced perfection, that’s who. Like fine wine, it’s all in the fruit and how it’s taken care of while it matures on the vine.”