Close Call (16 page)

Paul

Fixed habits could be
fatal, as anyone who'd ever been through a counter-terrorism or counter-kidnapping course knew, but people fell into them as easily as rolling out of bed. Even if they'd been trained, they tumbled back into their ruts after a week or two of mixing things up. Habit was a force on par with gravity, in Paul's opinion. And he could tell that Montoya had never been encouraged to vary his routine. Tonight would be no differe
nt. After the congressman gave a speech at the American Bar Association's banquet, Montoya would walk back to his tiny apartment, a converted garage near the congressional offices where many congressmen, s
enators, and staffers rented apartments or rooms. Many of them shared. Thankfully, Montoya didn't have a roommate, althou
gh a cute blonde slept o
ver from time to time. It was only six blocks from the hotel ballroom and the weather was good.

Paul waited in a stinking alley along Montoya's route, behind a restaurant and a dry cleaner. The smell of putrefying enchiladas wafted from the dumpster behind Tres Hombres. Just his luck the dumpsters hadn't been emptied in a week and the sun had baked their contents to a toxic sludge. He might never eat Mexican again. But he'd reconnoitered the terrain between the hotel and the apartment that afternoon and selected the alley as the best spot for an ambush. With any luck, Montoya'd be a bit drunk, easy to accost and shoot. The newspapers would write it up as another mugging and the cops would waste time bringing in the usual suspects. It might not be an “accident” in the sense the client intended, but it was close enough for government work. No one would think to call it an assassination. With small, precise twists, he fitted the silencer onto his weapon's muzzle.

A scuffle from his right caught Paul's attention and a scrawny tail slipped between two dumpsters. Rats. In Bangkok, they'd literally crawled over his head as he infiltrated the home of a rich VC sympathizer by wading through the khlong, breathing through a reed-like tube. Rotting fruit and God knows what else had bobbed around him on the dark water the locals used as both toilet and wash tub. The rats' claws had scraped his scalp as they'd leaped from his head to a pier littered with droppings from the morning's market. Paul shook his head sharply. He'd been thinking a lot about 'Nam lately, more than he had since his first couple years back, and it was distracting him. His pop's situation was distracting him. The gunshot wound—swollen and aching—was distracting him. Distractions landed you in prison. He needed to goddamn focus. He glanced at his watch. Any time now.

Footsteps approached. Paul tensed, holding his gun ready against his thigh. The steps stuttered to a halt and a shadow appeared at the mouth of the alley. Backlit by a streetlamp, the figure lifted a bottle to its mouth and guzzled. Not Montoya. Paul pressed himself back against the bricks, wincing as he jarred his injured shoulder. The clink of glass on concrete and a slurred curse told him the bum's bottle was empty. Good, maybe he'd wander off in search of more oblivion. On the thought, the man slumped to the ground, half in and half out of the alley, and began to snore, one hand reaching toward the empty bottle.

Shit. Paul eased away from the wall and paced silently toward the man. Maybe he could roust him, get him to move along before Montoya showed up. Wet snores issued from the drunk's slack mouth, and he didn't stir.

As he studied the man, Paul felt his irritation drain away. Jug ears stuck out from beneath his navy watch cap, and a half inch of grizzled stubble roughened his jaw and concave cheeks. He looked about seventy but could have been as young as fifty, Paul figured. Life on the streets was no fountain of youth. The sour-sweet odor of cheap bourbon floated off him, reminding Paul of the one time he'd seen his pop drunk, the day after they buried Paul's mother. Let the old guy sleep it off, he told himself. He wasn't any threat as a witness. As quietly as he'd crept forward, Paul melted back into the shadows.

Taking slow, deep breaths, he slowed his heartbeat and respiration, sliding into the meditative state that enabled him to wait for hours, when necessary, to ambush a target. He wasn't sure how many minutes had passed when more footsteps sounded. His abdominal muscles clenched as he became fully alert instantaneously. Montoya? No. At least two people, maybe three, moving faster than Montoya was likely to walk. Paul relaxed but held himself still, secure in the alley's shadows. They'd pass by and—

“He's here.”

The voice, young, taut with excitement, jarred Paul. Were they looking for him? How had they known—? His hand tightened around the gun.

“Fucking drunk.” This voice was higher-pitched, also buzzing with anticipation.

They weren't looking for him; they were after the bum, for some reason. A meaty thunk was followed by a groan and a confused, “Wha—?”

The pallid slap of flesh on unresisting flesh told Paul that the teens—he could discern two figures dancing around the homeless man—were beating the man. Before he could decide whether or not to intervene, the first voice said, “You got the lighter fluid?”

“Oh, yeah.” A sloshing of liquid and the scent of kerosene drifted to Paul. A giggle.

“No, no!” The terror-stricken denial came from the drunk, struggling to cover his head with his arms as the teenager directed a stream of fluid at him from a rectangular can.

Paul's mind flashed to the water buffalo his squad had set alight one morning at dawn. He'd only been in country two weeks and they'd lost three men overnight, including their lieutenant, when VC jumped them outside a small village. Daylight and a two-ship of A-10 Warthogs flying CAS had chased away the VC, and Paul had never been sure whether the buffalo was revenge or celebration. All he remembered was the sting of the gasoline in his nose as Dawson—he'd bought it only two days later, torn in half by a Bouncing Betty—doused the dumb animal with gasoline stores from their Jeep and Manny tossed a lighted match. The agonized bellows as the buffalo went up in a sheet of flame, stumbled to its knees, and then staggered, lowing, into a rice paddy with a hiss of steam still haunted him. As did the laughter.

The click of a lighter and the flicker of the small, blue flame pulled Paul forward the three strides necessary. His field of view collapsed to a narrow tunnel, with the old man's tormentors at the far end. As the boy closest to him half turned, alerted not by any sound Paul made but by instinct, he brought his arm up and fired.
Phut
. The alley's rough brick walls absorbed the sound of the silenced shot. The bullet ploughed through the boy's temple and he sagged to the ground.

The other teen, standing near the mouth of the alley, hesitated. In the sweeping light of a car's headlights, Paul read the evil intent on his face. The hand holding the lighter started to move. Without remorse, he raised the gun and fired twice, hitting the boy in the neck and face. Surprise and pain glazed the boy's eyes as the force of the bullets slammed him back, onto the sidewalk. He dropped the lighter as he fell, and his body smothered the flame.

Paul stared down at the bodies for a moment, alert for movement. A buttery leather bomber jacket on one, crocodile boots on the other, a gleam of platinum on an outflung wrist … rich kids out for kicks.
Rot in hell
. His unusually savage reaction startled him, and he turned away.

“They tried to … they wanted to … ” the bum babbled. He fumbled with his grungy windbreaker, trying to shed the flammable garment. His hands were shaking so badly, from the liquor or fear, that he couldn't work the zipper. He wasn't looking at Paul, and Paul was certain he'd be unable to describe him, would have only a blurred memory of the evening's events by the time he dried out in some holding cell.

He leaned forward to help with the zipper, but the old guy's eyes widened in fear and he crab-walked backward. “Get away from me, mother fucker! Don't think I don't know. You're all in it.” Spittle flecked at the corners of his mouth.

In what?
Paul backed off a step.

“Get 'em off me!” The drunk began to scratch viciously at his arms and scalp. “They're all over me. Don't touch me!”

Understanding dawned. The DTs.

Hurrying footsteps approached and a woman screamed. A voice Paul recognized said, “Christ almighty! What's going on?”

Montoya. Shit. This mission was FUBAR. He was really losing it. With one last look at the bum, Paul loped down the alley to the door of the dry cleaning shop he'd jimmied earlier. Voices, sharp with excitement, floated from the front of the alley as he slipped inside the darkened shop that smelled of starch and chemical cleaners. He snapped off his latex gloves and shoved them in his pocket. Two deep breaths settled the last of his frustration. He eased himself out the front door onto the sidewalk, deserted at this hour except for a few people outside a bar two blocks down. He sucked in a deep breath, this time just to appreciate the clean air untainted by rotting food or chemicals, and then strode away from the late revelers and Montoya, headed for the Mall with its several Metro stops. It wouldn't do to use the one closest to the scene: if the cops were on top of things, they'd check the security videos.

At almost midnight, the air had cooled and the slight breeze felt good on his damp brow. Still, he was uncomfortably warm and the wound in his shoulder pulsed as if alive. Fever. He was sweating because he had a fever. He walked on, eyes searching the street for a likely sewer grate, saying a quiet “Good evening” to a young couple he passed. He wasn't much given to analyzing himself, but the irony of a killer shooting two killers and feeling righteous about it hit him as he walked. He didn't usually feel anything after a hit, not good, not bad, maybe just a twinge of satisfaction if it went well. What a lawyer felt when he won a case or a bricklayer felt when he finished a project. But tonight … what he did for a living was surgical compared to what those psychos were planning to do, had already done, according to news reports. Setting people on fire … Jesus!

He knew he should get rid of the gun and silencer, but when he spotted the gap in the curb he'd been searching for, he hesitated. He didn't have time to acquire yet another weapon. And the silencer was custom, hard to come by. There were no sounds of pursuit—he'd chance it. Cutting across the Mall, almost deserted at this hour, his steps slowed involuntarily as he neared the Vietnam Memorial. An uncompromising wall of black, the monument shimmered in the scant moonlight.

Something primeval rippled down Paul's spine. Despite frequent visits to DC, he'd never come to the Vietnam Memorial. Now it loomed in his peripheral vision. It dared him. He swung to face the wall and it glowered blackly. Slowly, slowly, he approached. Stopping a bare eighteen inches away, he could almost see his reflection. Almost, but not quite. He didn't see the men whose names scarred the polished granite either. Dawson's name would be there, and Manny's. Lieutenant Dixon, Jesus Gutierrez, and that boy from Kansas—Mathieson. Other names and faces churned in his head. Men Paul thought he'd forgotten. They were nothing but memories and names chiseled into stone. They weren't
here
. That print that was so popular, the one with the vet touching his hand to the memorial and the soldiers in the wall connecting to him—it wasn't like that. He was the only one here.

Warmth flushed through him, sending tingles to his fingertips. He'd survived it all, he thought, recognizing the savage emotion that rose in him as exultation. He was alive. Goddamned fucking alive. These men, they'd never left 'Nam. Coming home in a body bag didn't count. A capricious gust of wind knocked over a tribute of flowers in a metal vase. The clink roused Paul and he righted it, collecting the silk poppies and restoring them gently to the vase. He hesitated a moment, then turned his back on the wall and strode across the dark expanse of the Mall to the Metro station.

Sydney
Sunday, August 6

Reese woke Sydney at
seven o'clock the next morning. “Church starts at eight,” she said. “Better get ready.”

Half awake, Sydney blinked at her sister standing at her bedside, bony-slim in a cami and undies that doubled as sleepwear, freckles standing out on her chest. She had six-pack abs, Sydney noted ruefully, and some serious biceps. She wanted to complain about being wakened, but went with “You go to church?”

Reese nodded without a hint of self-consciousness. “I do. I make a point of trying different churches wherever I am. I've been to Baptist services and Catholic ones, to evangelical revivals, cowboy church, and Quaker meetings. Don't ask me why, because I don't know. It's something I do. I'm not leaving you here alone, so up and at 'em.” Reese turned away, clearly considering the conversation finished.

More intrigued by a side of Reese she'd never guessed existed than annoyed by the early wake-up call, Sydney slid out of bed.

St. James Episcopal Church was only a half mile from the townhouse, and they walked to it. Lowering clouds like bursts of diesel exhaust locked in a mugginess that dampened Sydney's skin before they even reached the church. The interior was a cool relief. Reese selected a pew in the back, and they seated themselves just as the priest and his acolytes started up the aisle to the turgid strains of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” Sydney wished the organist would speed up so the hymn wasn't so dirge-like. At Nana Linn's funeral, it had sounded like a promise. She sang. Reese didn't.

Once seated for the lessons, Sydney looked around. Only a handful of elderly parishioners, mostly women, worshiped in twos and threes at this early service. She pegged a young couple half a dozen rows up as tourists, and briefly eyed the sixtyish man across the aisle studying the bulletin before deciding he had recently lost someone important to him, probably a wife since he was alone, and was searching for a way to make sense of his loss. She couldn't pinpoint why she thought that about him; he struck her as both hesitant and purposeful. Maybe it was something to do with the shaft of violet light from a stained glass depiction of the Last Supper that gave his jowly face a melancholy tinge.

Throughout the service, Sydney tried to worship, tried to ease herself into the familiar cadence of the liturgy Nana Linn had loved, but her mind kept returning to Jason and the events since his murder. She hoped the police would let her attend his funeral in New York. Not until the priest led the small congregation in saying “O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, grant us thy peace” did her heart and mind focus on the altar.
Grant me your peace, Father,
she prayed, going forward to take Communion. Reese stayed in the pew. By the time they'd said the Prayer of Thanksgiving and sung the recessional hymn, she felt better, lighter.

When they left the church, the sun was rising and, with it, the humidity. Sydney felt the strands of hair along her face begin to curl. It was going to be a scorcher, the kind of day that made moving to northern Michigan seem like a good plan. She wanted to ask Reese what she'd gotten out of the service but didn't want to presume on their new relationship, with its foundation that felt no more stable than a bog. She didn't know where Reese's hot spots were, what she might consider prying or even criticism. Sydney did know that she wanted the chance to see if she and Reese could bridge the crevasse that had kept them apart for most of their adult lives. It was strange, she mused, keeping up with Reese's long-legged stride. If someone had asked her a week ago if she cared if she ever spoke to her sister again, she'd have said no. Now, though, she cared. A little bit.

They reached the townhouse and stood just outside the front gate. Mrs. Colwell peered at them from behind the lace curtain at her front window. The curtain dropped back into place when Sydney waved. A swell of irritation rolled through her, but she stifled it. Reese put her thoughts into words.

“Nosy old bat.”

“She's probably lonely,” Sydney said, trying to be charitable.

When Reese slanted a brow at her, she grinned. “No, you're right. She's a nosy old bat.”

“You know how to find Jimmy's stables?” Reese asked.

Sydney nodded. “Yes. And I've got directions to Emma Fewell's place, too. Montoya texted that she's willing to see us this afternoon.”

“Then let's change and saddle up,” Reese said, “and go brace Junior. I'll bet he's just as full of shit as his daddy.”

“No bet.”