BAD DEEDS: A Dylan Hunter Thriller (Dylan Hunter Thrillers) (52 page)

There was a line at the counter to his left. He squeezed between the people waiting there and the small tables to his right, heading toward the back of the place, where the restrooms were. Nothing suspicious about that.

But this was one of his favorite choke points when he ran surveillance detection routes. Across from the restrooms was the rear exit. He pushed out through it—and right into the lobby of the corner office building that housed all the stores. He immediately darted left and ducked down the stairway.

The stairs led into a large basement restaurant. Only a few tables were occupied. He had eaten here before, so he waved to the man behind the bar and said hi to the waitress as he walked the length of the restaurant.

At the far end he reached a flight of steps that led up and outside again. This brought him right back onto Connecticut, and just around the corner from where he had entered Starbucks.

He was grinning as he emerged back into the sunshine. The tail would be watching the Starbucks entrance, waiting for him to emerge. He would wait there a long time.

He walked back up Connecticut, heading north again. Instead of taking the Metro back to his apartment, he decided to return to the office, then fetch one of his cars from the underground garage. Nothing like sowing more confusion in whoever was tailing him.

In the middle of the block, he noticed a break in the traffic. He didn’t want to stay visible on the sidewalk any longer than he had to, so he decided to cross right there. He stepped off the curb and trotted across the broad thoroughfare. As he approached the other side, a car pulled abruptly out of a parking spot next to him. The driver spotted him at the last instant and laid on his horn. Hunter had to do a little hop-skip around the vehicle to avoid getting tagged.

Back on the other side of the street, he continued on. He tried to puzzle it out along the way.

This was the second time in a few weeks that he’d spotted someone following him. This guy looked hard, a professional. Maybe an operator. Not good.

Who was following him—and why?

He watched Hunter duck into the Starbucks, and frowned.
Another coffee—that soon?
It didn’t make a lot of sense.

He had good intuitions. As an operator, you always had to be sensitive to things that seemed off, out of place. Plus, he didn’t like the fact that he no longer had eyes on his target.

So instead of waiting for him to emerge, as he normally would do, he followed him right in, just five seconds behind—

—only to spot him hustling out the back exit.

Shit!

He pushed past the people in his way and hit the exit door just as it was closing shut. He found himself in the lobby of the office building. In front of him stood a bank of elevator doors, all closed. To his right, the lobby exit back onto K. But there was no sign of Hunter over there—and he’d had no time to go outside this quickly.

Then he noticed stairs on his left, leading into the basement.

He rushed down there fast. Found himself in a small hallway. A men’s room was nearby. He pushed his way inside. Saw that it was empty.

He spun back outside and moved down the hallway. It opened into the lobby of a restaurant. He looked around the spacious area—then spotted Hunter at its far end, trotting up stairs that led back outside.

Weaving through the tables, he hurried after him, feeling the stares of the bartender and waitress on his back. He now was about ten seconds behind the guy.

Coming out onto the street, he found himself right back at the Metro entrance. He rushed around to the escalator, looked down the long descending column of stairs …

He wasn’t there.

Standing on the corner, he looked around wildly, feeling a rising sense of panic. Up and down Connecticut. Up and down K.

Nowhere to be seen.

Then he heard the sustained blare of a horn up the street. His eyes automatically veered there—

—and spotted him, on the street, dodging a car—making a funny little dance-skip around it, then trotting up onto the sidewalk.

Something crawled across his spine.

Why was that little hopping move so familiar?

He ran up the sidewalk on his side of the street, desperate to keep up, but knowing in his gut that it was pointless. The guy had made him. And he was deliberately trying to lose him.

When he reached the next intersection, he knew for sure that it was hopeless. The light was now against him, and an unbroken stream of rush-hour traffic roared down Connecticut, blocking him from crossing. He tried to keep Hunter in sight; but after a few seconds he vanished.

He couldn’t believe it. How could he have blown it—again?

How could this guy know he was tailing him? How could a mere reporter—

He felt the tingle across his spine again.

A reporter with a fake name. With no background. Who knows how to run a surveillance detection route through a choke point to lose a tail …

And then that little move out there on the street, so familiar. Where had he seen that before?

He closed his eyes. Felt people moving around him on the sidewalk. Focused, trying to conjure that image again in his memory …

Then knew.

It stunned him.

He drifted up Connecticut, walking obliviously now. In a couple of minutes he found himself outside the Mayflower Hotel. Damn, he needed a drink. He entered the ornate vault of the lobby. Its gleaming marble floors and walls, glittering chandeliers, bronze fixtures, and gilded decor barely registered. He found his way to a bar, a more contemporary spot with high stools, mirrored pillars, globe light fixtures, and flat-screen TVs.

For the next hour, he sucked down martinis and pondered what he had learned.

This guy, this “Dylan Hunter,” was no reporter. Or if he
was
a reporter, then that was only his cover. The dude was a lot more. He was an operator—like himself.

But more: Incredibly, this same dude had been
the shooter
out there in Linden, at the safe house, almost exactly one year ago. The shooter who took out Muller at an impossible range. And who then
waved at him
as he escaped …

His mind reeled at the realization and its implications. Through the haze of the martinis, he tried to sort through them.

The man who had hired him only wanted him to follow Hunter, find out where he lived, find out who he truly was. Find out something that could be used against him. Those were his marching orders.

But now there was a problem. Hunter had been the real sniper that day—not
him.
For what reason, he didn’t have a clue: He had no idea who the guy was working for. But now he was more than a surveillance target. He was a danger. A personal danger to
him
. If it came out that Hunter, and not he, had whacked Muller, then his credibility was shot. And so was his career.

He stared at himself in the mirrored pillar before him.

You’re losing your touch, you know. You were good, once. The best. But maybe you aren’t what you used to be.

The client had made it clear that Hunter wasn’t to be killed.

But he had other ideas about that.

The client.
Now he had to explain to the guy why he had lost track of Hunter once again. Damn.

Well, like they say in court, truth is a defense. Why don’t you tell him the truth about the guy—at least some of it. Maybe you can bring him around. Get the green light to take him out. Score another big payday, and get rid of a professional threat, all at once. Problem solved.

He drained the last of his current martini, threw a wad of cash on the bar, and left.

An hour later he was back in his hotel room across town, seated on the edge of the king bed, sipping coffee and mentally rehearsing his lines.

Finally, he raised the encrypted sat phone from his lap and punched in the sequence of numbers.

After half a minute, he heard the client’s voice.

“Yes? Do you have news for me?”

“Oh, I have news for you, all right. Are you sitting down, sir?”

“Get to it.”

“Mr. Hunter is not what he seems to be. I can confirm that his name is an alias. And now I can also tell you why. The guy is an operator. I mean, he is involved in special ops, probably as a merc, like me. Or maybe some intel agency. But his reporter gig is just a cover.”

The client was silent for a few seconds.

“And just how would you know this?”

“This afternoon, I finally picked him up and started tailing him. I was discreet about it. But he made me—I mean, he detected me almost immediately. He then did a series of maneuvers to lose me—the kind of tactics that only a highly trained intelligence officer or spec ops guy would know how to do. He did it all brilliantly, if I must say so. Which now explains why I lost him at the EPA a month ago. Sir, I’m telling you that this guy is a real pro.”

He let that bait dangle for a few seconds, then moved to set the hook.

“Since that day at the EPA, I’ve been studying his published articles, trying to learn more clues about him. I wondered how he managed to get all the information that he puts into those articles. Well, a trained intel officer would know to get it. He may have access to resources that you can’t imagine … The bottom line is that this man who calls himself Dylan Hunter poses a much, much bigger threat to you than you’ve assumed. If you don’t mind my saying so, sir, I think you ought to chew on that for a while, then decide whether you need to change your current strategy toward this individual.”

The phone remained silent for almost a minute.

“What you have told me is fascinating,” the client said slowly, his voice steady. “You have indeed given me much to ‘chew on,’ as you put it. And you are correct: Dylan Hunter apparently represents a much greater threat to my interests than I had imagined. It is clear that we shall have to do something about him. I shall be back in touch very soon. Thank you. You have restored my confidence in you, Mr. Lasher.”

Lasher felt the grin spread across his face.

“Thank
you
, Mr. Trammel.”

“
HUNTER
delivers in a way few thrillers do … a fantastic debut thriller.”

—Stephen England, author,
Pandora's Grave
and
Day of Reckoning

“… a terrifically paced suspense novel with a killer premise
. If you're a fan of Lee Child's Jack Reacher series, I suspect you'll like
HUNTER.
”

—Randy Ingermanson, author,
Writing Fiction for Dummies

“… will keep you up at night turning pages
.
”

—Neil Russell, author,
City of War
,
Wildcase,
and
Beverly Hills Is Burning

This book relied so heavily on the assistance of others that it is really a team effort. That my name is alone on the cover is an injustice. In fairness, dozens of remarkable people played decisive roles in producing it. So while this list is long, I want their contributions to be on record.

When I published
HUNTER
, I said that my “beta readers”—the volunteers who generously read, critiqued, and corrected the manuscript before publication—“saved my butt.” They caught innumerable errors, typos, and problems that my tired eyes missed.