Kill Fee (33 page)

P
arkerson stared at his cell phone. The target had escaped. He was safe. And he’d brought a woman with him.

A woman. Parkerson rubbed his eyes. What was the kid doing picking up girls? And why the hell had he lied about her?

He’d told Parkerson she was a civilian he’d protected. Had flat-out denied she’d been inside his apartment. The asset had sworn the girl was inside when he’d arrived. She was Lind’s goddamn friend. And he’d lied about her.

The whole situation made Parkerson’s head hurt. After Miami and Las Vegas and now the bullshit with this girl, it was clear that Lind was no longer the reliable drone he’d once been. He was a liability now, unpredictable. Altogether too human.

He had to be stopped.

THE ASSET CALLED DAVID GILMOUR
answered his phone. “Sir?”

“The target has been located,” the man told him. “He’s parked off Interstate 95 just across the Delaware state line. Exit 6. Find them.”

The asset stood up and walked to the door. “Interstate 95,” he said. “Exit 6.”

“He’s driving a black Ford Mustang coupe. The woman’s still with him. Terminate them both.”

The asset nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Call me when you’ve completed your mission,” said the man. “We’ll bring you home. But treat the target with caution. He has a gun in that Mustang. And he’s dangerous with a weapon.”

The asset couldn’t help grinning. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I’ll eliminate them both.”

He rode the elevator down to street level. Found the rental car where he’d parked it and settled behind the wheel. Slipped the target’s pistol between the driver’s seat and the center console and pointed the car at the highway, feeling his wound throbbing and looking forward to settling the score.

A
ndrew Kessler.” Windermere put down the stack of manifests. “Flew in direct from Philadelphia Friday evening and left Saturday afternoon, right after things went sideways at Bellagio.”

Mathers stood. “That’s O’Brien,” he said. “You want I should run through the Philadelphia phone book? Try and find him?”

“You can try,” said Stevens, “but I don’t think you’ll find anything. Kessler is probably another alias.”

“How can you be sure?”

Stevens looked across the conference room at the junior agent. “I don’t think Killswitch is foolish enough to send his operative in under his real name,” he said. “Especially after what happened in Miami.”

Mathers typed something into his computer. “I have an Andrew Kessler at 1585 Euclid in Camden, New Jersey,” he said. “We move on it tonight and bag this guy.” He looked at Windermere. “Right?”

“An alias,” said Stevens. “Just like Alex Kent and Allen Salazar. We move on Kessler, we’ll find a terrified man with no connection to Killswitch.”

“You don’t know that,” said Mathers. “Anyway, what else do we have?”

Stevens stared across at the kid. He’d been quiet all day. Had labored at his computer and hadn’t said much. But once or twice Stevens had caught him staring in Windermere’s direction when he thought nobody was looking.

What the hell’s this about?
Stevens wondered, though he figured he had
a pretty good idea. The kid had a crush on Windermere. Well, didn’t everyone?

Anyway, he was right. There wasn’t much else to go on, as far as Killswitch was concerned. The guy manning the phones at OneShot hadn’t given Stevens much to work with, and as far as unsolved shootings were concerned, few forensic techs in the country bothered to catalog the brand of bullet used in the murders they worked. Windermere had a stack of files trickling in, but it was short and, as of now, inconclusive.

The investigation in Vegas was moving just as slow. O’Brien—or Kessler—had waylaid a cab to take him to the airport. The cabbie didn’t say much beyond what Stevens and Windermere already knew. The Bellagio’s maintenance crew had found a pistol in the lake out front of the hotel, a 9mm Beretta with the serial numbers shaved. So far, Vegas PD had been unable to trace it.

That pretty much summed up O’Brien. Wendell Gray and his partner were similarly enigmatic. Airport police at McCarran had found a dark blue Honda Civic in long-term parking that matched the description of the car that had run down Larry Klein. In the trunk was a Remington with a scope, along with a pistol and a couple pairs of sunglasses and “Viva Las Vegas” hats. So were the hats, for that matter. And the car had been reported stolen Sunday morning and wiped clean for prints before the killers abandoned it.

Killswitch was good. He’d waltzed his men into Las Vegas right under their noses, murdered Julio Ramirez, and waltzed back out again. And nobody—nobody—had been able to get a decent read on him.

Mathers looked at Windermere. “We have to check Kessler out, right?”

Windermere was quiet a moment. Then she shook her head. “We’ll get agents in Philadelphia to take a look at Kessler’s address,” she said. “No sense in our flying all the way back for nothing.”

“Philly’s where the action is,” Mathers said. “There’s nothing for us in Vegas. Not now that Ramirez is dead.”

“Philly’s where O’Brien is,” said Stevens. “I don’t think O’Brien’s a factor anymore. We want to get ahead of Killswitch himself.”

Mathers frowned at him. Then he turned to Windermere, who nodded. “Stevens is right,” she said. “O’Brien flubbed the job. If Gray is really his replacement, it’s him we’re after.”

Mathers snorted. “Of course you would say that.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Mathers shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.”

“You mean of course I’d side with Stevens,” said Windermere. “That’s what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah,” Mathers said. “Exactly.”

“Because why, Derek? Because I like him better?”

Stevens stood up. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s take a step back a moment. This isn’t about who likes who better.”

Mathers shook his head. “You have no idea.”

“Shut
up
, Derek.”

Stevens looked at Windermere. “What am I missing here?”

“Nothing,” Windermere said, glaring at Mathers. “You’re right. This isn’t about me, or either of you. This is about how we’re going to find Killswitch. Okay?”

Mathers held her gaze for a moment. Then he shook his head. “Fine,” he said. “So how do you suggest we do it?”

Stevens reached for the stack of manifests again. “Wendell Gray and his partner,” he said. “We find them in here.”

L
et’s start with an easy one.” Caity Sherman stared at Lind from the passenger seat of the Mustang. “What’s your name?”

They were parked outside a deserted Jiffy Lube off the interstate. Traffic blew past in the distance; night was starting to fall. The air was noisy and unsettled outside. Lind shifted in his seat and looked out the window. “I need you to talk to me,” Caity said. “I’m afraid, Andrew.”

Lind couldn’t look at her without the panic welling up. He shook his head. “My boss is coming,” he said. “Everything will be fine.”

“I don’t care about your boss,” Caity said. “If you don’t talk to me right now, I’m going to get out of this car and flag somebody down and tell the police the whole story. Understand? You need to start talking to me, Andrew. Right now.”

Lind felt his stomach churn. “No police,” he said.

“No?” Caity looked at him. “Then you’d better start talking. You said you failed an assignment. Right?”

Lind looked at her. Tried to shake off the buzzing in his head. “Yeah,” he said.

“Good. What kind of assignment?”

The buzzing intensified. Lind shook his head again. Couldn’t clear his thoughts.
You can’t tell her,
he thought.
The man won’t approve. The man won’t be happy if you tell her what you’ve done. He’ll kill her. He’ll kill her, and he’ll kill you. He’ll never make the visions go away.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t remember.”

Caity shook her head. “Come on. You fly all over the place. You were flying to Houston the last time I saw you. What did you do there?”

The blackness was starting, behind his eyes. Caity’s voice was like razor blades to his eardrums. His brain swelled until his skull wanted to burst. Lind closed his eyes and squirmed in his seat.

“No?” Caity said. “What about Miami, then? I checked you in to that flight, remember? What did you do in Miami?”

Miami. Lind closed his eyes. Saw the target on the yacht. Felt the kick from the rifle as his finger pulled the trigger. Watched the man’s head explode.

You had to do it,
he thought.
The man promised he’d make the visions go away. You had to do what he told you.

Lind heard the screams in his ears. The crack from the gun. He saw the target stagger backward and drop to the deck.

“What did you do in Miami?” the girl said.

Lind saw the man in Duluth, scrabbling and clawing. Saw the bottle of liquor tipping onto the floor. He saw the white-haired man in Saint Paul, the shouts and screams as he fell onto the cobblestoned driveway. He saw the adulteress in Manhattan and the movie executive in L.A. The terrified kid in the man’s basement. He saw the blood, everywhere.

“What did you do, Andrew
?
” The girl wouldn’t stop talking. “Who the hell are you?”

The man won’t like this. The man will kill her. He’ll kill you, too. You’ll never be free from the visions. Never. The man will make sure you suffer forever.

The man was wrong, though.

Lind opened his eyes. Looked across the car and fought to keep his eyes on her face. Fought the blackness behind his eyes, the panic. The visions that threatened to engulf him. Caity. Caity Sherman. He focused every last ounce of strength on her eyes. “I can’t do this anymore,” he told her. “I just can’t.”

M
athers looked up from his computer. “I know we don’t care about Philadelphia anymore,” he said slowly, “but it sounds like shit just got real.”

Windermere and Stevens swapped glances. “Define ‘shit getting real,’” said Windermere.

“Nobody knows the whole story yet,” Mathers said, reading from his computer, “but there was a shooting in a downtown apartment this afternoon. Somebody’s penthouse got invaded.”

“Deaths?”

Mathers nodded. “Next-door neighbor,” he said. “Shot in the chest. Sounds like he was an innocent bystander, though. Police think the real target got away.”

“How do they figure?”

“Penthouse 1604 was broken into. There were signs of a struggle. The man who lived in the penthouse escaped, as did the shooter.”

Stevens caught Windermere’s eye. She shrugged. “Who owns the condo?” he asked Mathers. “Who’s the target?”

“Unknown target,” said Mathers. “Condo’s owned by a corporation called Kodiak Shore, but the neighbors say it was a young man living there.” He turned to Windermere. “Description sounds a hell of a lot like O’Brien.”

“Anybody see the shooter?”

Mathers shook his head. “No.”

Windermere didn’t say anything for a moment. Then she turned to Stevens. “O’Brien muffed the job. Killswitch came up there to fire him?”

“Could be,” said Stevens. “Kind of a quick turnaround, though.”

“Either way, we need to be over there,” Mathers said, standing. “No way we sit around chasing needles in these manifests now that O’Brien’s on the run.” He looked at Windermere. “Right?”

Stevens surveyed the office. “I’m not so sure,” he said.

“What the hell do you mean?”

Stevens looked up. Found Mathers glaring at him, fire in his eyes. “Listen,” he said, “we get up to Philadelphia six hours from now if we’re lucky. That puts us six hours behind O’Brien and Killswitch. We’ve spent this whole investigation playing catch-up. Only way we take them down is if we get ahead.”

“So okay, Kirk,” said Windermere, “how do you propose we get ahead?”

Stevens looked at the stack of passenger manifests. Sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, trying to work out a shortcut. “What other flights left around the same time as the Philadelphia flight Sunday afternoon?” he said.

“Hundreds,” said Windermere. “You saw the airport.”

“I mean within an hour or two, tops. Killswitch likes to get his assets out immediately after the kill. Ramirez died around two in the afternoon. That means the killers probably flew out between three-thirty and five, right?”

Windermere glanced at Mathers. Mathers sighed. “If you say so.”

“So narrow it down,” said Stevens. “What are we working with?”

Windermere picked up a printout. “Dallas, Los Angeles, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Charlotte—”

“Charlotte,” said Stevens. “Oneida Ware said Killswitch’s Cadillac had North Carolina plates. Wendell Gray disappeared from Atlanta shortly after Killswitch was in Miami. He could have swung through and picked up Gray on the way home.”

Mathers frowned. “Kind of tenuous, isn’t it?”

“Maybe,” said Stevens. “Let me see the Charlotte manifest.”

Windermere handed over the stack of paper. Stevens read through it. Windermere’s FAA buddy had included arrival information for every passenger on the list. Now Stevens scanned the page, looking for a pattern. Found what he was looking for near the bottom.

“Gardham,” he said. “There it is.”

Windermere looked at him. “You sure?”

“The OneShot guy mentioned somebody named Gardham had put in a major order for ammunition. Now here’s a Gardham, Thomas, in the manifest. Flew in from Charlotte Sunday morning, accompanied by one David Gilmour. Both flew out on the afternoon flight. That’s a hell of a quick turnaround.”

“Few hours,” said Windermere. “Just enough time to kill Julio Ramirez.”

“I’m guessing Gardham is probably Killswitch himself,” Stevens said. “He came to Vegas with Wendell Gray in person.”

“And then flew back to Charlotte once Ramirez was dead. Just like he bailed out O’Brien in Miami.”

Stevens grinned. “Exactly.”