CL Hart -From A Distance (51 page)

"If I have to," she said honestly.

"What is it that you want, LeGault?" He dropped the friendly, relaxed fagade. "Money?"

"No," she said, irritated by his attempt at bribery. "I want answers."

"Really?" He chuckled. "Money is much more fulfilling."

Ignoring his flip comment, Kenzie pushed on. "I'm supposed to be working for the government, so why have you being paying me?"

"Why?" He laughed outright, motioning with his hand matter-of-factly. "To kill people - isn't that what you do? You're very good at it, by the way."

The senator's comment didn't bother her, but it brought to mind her comment to the colonel, and the reason she had gone to Mexico in the first place. "Why Cori Evans?"

"Miss Evans saw the wrong thing at the wrong time. Simple as that."

"Simple as what?"

"She saw a payroll file that she shouldn't have seen. It was a connection to me, through my company, I could not afford to have made. It would be a little...difficult to explain why I had been funneling money to pay for a bunch of soldiers that were supposedly dead."

"So why have your company pay for Cori to move to Mexico to go to school? Why not just kill her here?"

"Because killing her here would raise too many questions. We couldn't have a bunch of state police sniffing around. We didn't know who she had talked to and we certainly couldn't afford to have her death be connected back to me. It was cheaper just to send her away."

"So then why send me down there to kill her?"

"If you had done your job, and Vasquez had done his, then both of you would be dead."

Vasquez?
The name of the shooter she had killed north of Guadalajara. "So he was there to kill me?"

"We had no choice. When you mentioned that you wanted to opt out of our little program, we had to do something."

There is that "we" again,
Kenzie thought as she scrutinized him and considered what he was saying. Winston Palmer was not nervous and he surely didn't look concerned, and that bothered Kenzie. "Who's the 'we'?"

He chuckled slightly, "Don't know all the players yet, my dear? Frustrating isn't it? Not sure who to trust, even those close to you have sold you out, that has to be annoying."

"But why? Why have you been paying me to kill people?"

Dropping his hands to his lap, he grew serious and stared hard into her eyes. "Are you really that nai've? For the money, of course."

"How does my killing people make you money?"

Palmer grinned smugly. "Taking out the right person at the right time puts you in control. When you control governments and companies, you manipulate how they do business and with whom.

It's very profitable. Government contracts, medical supplies, munitions - it's a great money making circle. You start the wars, supply the guns, treat the wounded, and on the outside fringe you control the prices of the commodities. It's a license to make money, and you, my dear, helped to keep it all in play."

He moved his chair slightly and Kenzie knew he was up to something.
Is he stalling...or waiting for someone?

"I've been making money off you for years, and you had no idea."

Kenzie's stomach churned with the truth of what he was saying. It was too much for her mind to grasp as she tried to keep herself aware of what he was doing and what he was saying. "I never would have gone along with it if I had known what you were doing."

"That's a little irrelevant now, isn't it?"

"Do you think I'm going to let you continue doing what you've been doing?" She moved slowly down the book-lined wall. She placed her hand on the edge of the shelf and concentrated on the man she knew she was going to kill.

The smile returned to the senator's face. "You can't stop me. After all the people you've killed, you're no different than I am. You did your job for the money, just like I did. I just invested better."

His smile froze and Kenzie saw the muscles in his neck grow taut. His gun cleared the desk as she grasped one of the miniature swords from the shelf behind her. In one fluid motion, she flung the lethal weapon as she dropped to the carpet a moment before he fired the gun. It was a small caliber pistol but the sound filled the room, echoing in her ears as she rolled to her feet. She stood before him, her body tensed for action, but it wasn't necessary. The miniature sword she had thrown was buried up to its tiny hilt just above his collarbone. It was not the target she had aimed for, but the spurting arterial blood told her she had succeeded nonetheless.

Senator Palmer had his hands to his neck, but he couldn't stop the flow of dark red blood oozing from between his fingers. His eyes were wide with surprise and disbelief as he watched her move slowly across the room toward him.

Kenzie climbed onto his desk and knelt in front of him. "I'm nothing like you! I didn't do my job for money," she said. "I followed orders because that was what I thought I was supposed to do."

The reality of death suddenly frightened him more than Kenzie did. "You bitch," he spat as the color drained from his face.

Kenzie's features turned dark with anger. "Who else is in on this with you besides Colonel Manuck?"

The senator coughed and sputtered as panic filled him. "Go to hell!" he said, tightening his grasp on his neck in a futile attempt to stem the escaping tide of blood. A cold chill slithered through his body, sucking the strength out of him. The feeling of helplessness was new to him, but he would not have to endure it for long.

"Was it just you and the colonel?" she demanded. The life in his eyes began to dim and Kenzie grabbed him by the hair. "Who else was in on this? Who else was involved?" She needed to know, but he had no answer. He was dead. "Who else!" she screamed into his face. She needed the information, but it wouldn't be coming from the senator.

"I can tell you."

In one fluid motion, Kenzie let go of Palmer's hair, scooped up his gun from the desk, and spun around. "Who the hell are you?" she asked the young Asian standing in the open doorway.

"My name is Derek." He stood rigid, then bowed slightly. "Derek Lee. I was his," he gestured toward Palmer's slumped body, "driver slash assistant. Although slave might be a better name for what I was."

Kenzie kept the gun aimed squarely at his chest. Her mind was spinning with everything she had learned from the senator and she didn't know what she should do. "What are you doing here?"

"I live here. I heard the shot and I came to see what happened." Derek looked over at the still body of his former employer. The only real emotion he felt was relief.

"Were you aware of his business dealings? Did you know what he was doing?"

"Not all of it, but yes, some of it. I believe you're referring to Maquinar."

"Maquinar?" Kenzie recalled seeing the word written several times inside her file. "What is Maquinar?"

"You are. He is...or rather was. Him, Colonel Manuck and - I think the answers you require...may be in there." He bowed his head toward Palmer's desk. "May I?"

Kenzie gestured him forward with the gun, but she kept the weapon trained on him as he descended the steps and crossed the room. Going behind the desk, Derek knelt down in front of a floor safe and spun the dial.

"You have the combination?"

"Senator Palmer considered me insignificant and invisible, doing things in front of me that he should not have, but I'm astutely observant...and far more honorable than he was." He opened the safe and pulled out a thick white portfolio with the name MAQUINAR written on it in red. "I don't know all that they were involved in, but I suspect it was totally illegal and highly immoral."

Kenzie laid the gun on the desk and accepted the package. Did it really hold the answers she was looking for? Judging by the weight, it held a lot of something.

"You need to go," Derek said cautiously. "Someone may have heard that shot. I can give you five minutes and then it will be my duty to inform the police. He was a senior senator, after all, though it was self defense."

Moving toward the doors, Kenzie stopped and looked back at Derek. "Why are you doing this?"

Standing over the man he had loathed for so long, Derek felt no loss or remorse. "Like I said, he was not a lawful or moral man, and he did not live an honorable life. But I did not have the courage or ability to stop him. He promised me years ago that he would help my family come to this country. Instead, they work for one of his companies in Thailand, under deplorable conditions for very little money. I did not have the means to bring them here, or to give them their freedom at home." He stepped away from the man who had financially restrained him, and looked at Kenzie. "I'm free now, and so are you, but you must leave...now."

She took a step toward the door and then turned back to the desk. Scooping up the gun, she spotted Palmer's cell phone and grabbed that as well. Her gaze fell on the open safe. Moving to the other side of the desk, she collected the stacks of crisp new bills and handed them to Derek. "I don't think he'll need this anymore. You deserve it, you and your family."

Holding the cash in his hands, he shook his head. "I could not accept this. This money was made from people like my family."

Kenzie stopped at the open doors and turned back to him. "That's why they deserve to have it."

Derek pondered her rationalization and then bowed. When he straightened, Kenzie was gone.

Kenzie was thankful the cab driver was still waiting for her as she climbed back over the stone wall.

"Where to now?" the driver asked as she slid into the backseat.

That's a good question.
"Just drive," she said as she unwound the string securing the white portfolio file. The file was thick and she knew she would need time to look through it.

Chapter 24

Cori and the judge booked themselves into a hotel and waited. The minutes ticked by at an agonizingly slow pace. The judge had spent the afternoon on the phone doing what he could to keep himself busy, hoping to connect some of the pieces of the never-ending puzzle. Cori paced, picked at her nails, watched some TV, had a shower, and then paced some more. She decided that being on the run with Kenzie was better than waiting and wondering where she was. The judge assured her that Kenzie was well-trained and could take care of herself, but it did little to quell Cori's rising anxiety. Standing at the window and looking out into the dark of the night, she wondered for the umpteenth time where Kenzie was and whether she was okay.

It was well after midnight and neither of them was tired or sleepy. They had not heard from Kenzie and the judge was beginning to worry about how long he should wait before he started to make some of his questions more official. If something had happened to her, how would they ever know? Looking over at the young woman lying nervously on the sofa, he wondered what he was supposed to do about her. If something happened to Kenzie, could he keep Cori safe?

The cell phone on the end table rattled noisily, startling them both. The judge scooped it up and quickly flipped it open. "Hello?"

"It's me."

The judge nodded, affirming it was Kenzie, and Cori breathed a loud sigh of relief. "Where are you?" Judge Woodward asked.

"At a gas station, somewhere downtown." Leaning against the trunk of the taxi, Kenzie rubbed her tired eyes. "I've been riding around in the back of a cab half the night."

"We've been worried about you," the judge said, watching Cori.

Kenzie closed her eyes as an ache of loneliness welled up inside her. She wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around Cori and leave the rest of the mess to someone else. Unfortunately, Kenzie knew if they started to run now, they would never stop. They would never be safe unless she brought all of the players down. She had to finish Maquinar.