Paying Back Jack (13 page)

The condo was more than three hundred square meters, all of it with expensive teak wood, polished floors, modern glass tables with chrome legs, and wall-to-wall blinds. The artwork could have been in any large luxury hotel room—blotches of silver and gold foil with dabs of ochre on white and hazelish orange. There were half a dozen of the paintings. Each at first glance looked the same, but close examination showed that each had a significant difference from the others, leaving open the possibility of reading a message into it, or, at the same time, concluding that none of them had any meaning other than a riot of color and ragged lines and disjointed interfaces. The unit had been built for those grown fat with money. No one ever builds a unit for a sniper, thought Jarrett. If he'd had the cash for such a place, he'd have designed shooting positions from each room. That's the way castles had been built in the Middle Ages.

“We've forgotten how much our ancestors understood about the violence of the world.”

“Amen, brother,” Tracer replied.

Someone had sunk real money into outfitting the room. It was meant to impress, but Jarrett couldn't help feeling that the room had been designed by artificial intelligence rather than by a real human being who might live in the place. A full-sized pool table with the balls neatly racked had been set up in the middle of the living room.

“Nice place Casey rented,” said Tracer, rolling his eyes. He walked into the kitchen. “The pool table's a nice touch.”

Jarrett followed him to the kitchen counter where provisions had been laid out. But his mind was elsewhere; the pool table in the living room made him think of Hua Hin. He'd played a few games with an Aussie engineer named Ian MacDonald. He'd had red hair just like Jack and was a good pool player. “Yeah, I could see kicking back and spending time here.”

“Ain't that the usual short end of the stick? We do the job and miss out on this good living. Like being a plumber. Unclog the shit and then get pushed out the door.”

Tracer swung open the fridge and had a look inside. Casey had stocked it with jam, white bread, beer, and hot dogs. He looked over at the counter beside the fridge, where Casey had left out microwave
popcorn, potato chips, pancake mix, a pound of butter, honey, burritos, Cheerios, hot dog buns, and mustard. A wad of Villa supermarket plastic bags was stuffed in one of the drawers.

“Would you look at this shit Casey bought for us?” asked Tracer.

Jarrett smiled. “Looks like it was bought by someone who hasn't been to America for twenty-five years.”

“That's Casey. You want some popcorn?” asked Tracer.

“I'd rather wait alongside Kate.” They had over an hour, maybe two, to pass before the target appeared on a balcony some three hundred meters away.

Jarrett walked back into the sitting room and pulled back a stainless steel chair with wine-colored cushions. He stored the rifle case under the table. He unzipped the first bag and, holding the day scope to his right eye, looked out the window along the perimeter. He fitted it to the top of the rifle, working carefully, each movement precise, controlled. He double-checked each stage like a pilot in the cockpit of 747 waiting for tower clearance. A pilot didn't climb in and take off. There were procedures to follow, equipment to check and test, and possible problems to be discovered.

“Welcome home, Kate,” Jarrett said, feeding four rounds into the internal magazine. He ran his hand down the length of the weapon. “You be good to me, baby, and I'll be real good to you.”

“That's what you say to all your women, Jarrett.”

“Kate knows I mean it.”

“Well, she's just gonna have to trust you.”

Tracer squatted down, looking through an opening in the curtains with a pair of high-power binoculars. “I'd say that's three hundred meters. Not three-fifty.” Someone like Jarrett could use, with accuracy, any number of rifles inside five hundred meters. He had a 0.5 MOA rating—meaning that at five hundred yards he could put holes in one-inch groups between the eyes of a paper target. At three hundred or three hundred fifty meters, Kate was pure overkill, a sledgehammer to smash an ant.

Tracer pulled the beaded drawcord, opening the vertical curtains about a hand's length. He slid back the balcony door and the small tunnel of air blowing through the hole cut into the window gushed into a torrent of hot air, sending the room temperature soaring. He
felt it on his face and neck. Compared to the Gulf, though, the temperature hovered well within the comfort zone.

Jarrett positioned Kate on the dining room table. Finding a gap in the curtains, he smiled. He pulled up a chrome-backed chair, wrapped himself around the adjustable stock of the M24, and looked through the telescope sight. Had the impact of the car crash jiggled the sight? There was no way to know. He was like a paratrooper waiting for the jump light to be switched on, sweating out the downtime. If anyone else packed his chute, he could never be certain that that man hadn't gotten a little careless or cut a corner. A soldier's life depended on keeping to exacting calibrations, knowing even the slightest variation could be fatal in the field. Working as a private contractor, he was constantly fighting with the suits to maintain the military way, even when it hurt the bottom line. But suits weren't warriors, and bottom-line men had no problem using anyone off the street to pack a chute. He'd insisted on Mooney's being the one to line up the right weapon. Tracer had backed him up, and Casey had, too.

Tracer moved away from the window, circled the table with his rifle, squatted, looked through the sight, and then walked over and sat on a sofa a few feet to Jarrett's right. Tracer removed an envelope from his jacket and, from the envelope, an A4-size photograph of the target: a late-middle-aged Asian man, gray hair combed back, large teeth, eyes disappearing into slits, smiling one of those “I'm on top of the world” smiles. The man in the photo was about to find out just how interconnected and dangerous that world had become. Tracer handed the photo to Jarrett, who studied the man's face. He looked like someone who'd had a good life. Looking at the face, Jarrett reminded himself that this was the man who'd had Casey's son murdered. The target had earned his destiny with Kate; he'd earned his fate.

The target's name, Somporn, translated as “warrior from the magical golden land.” The golden land maybe. But the target was no warrior and whatever magic he clutched onto wasn't going to rescue him once he stepped onto the balcony.

“That's a picture of our target and his mojo around his neck,” said Tracer.

“Chinese?”

“Chinese, Thai, Japanese … don't know, don't care.”

“Isn't he running for some position?”

“He's a politician. One less won't be a bad thing.”

Tracer walked over and looked down at the picture. Somporn wore an oval amulet the size of a softball hanging on a gold chain around his neck. The light from the camera's flash reflected off the amulet. The man thought he had some powerful mojo protecting him, but Tracer grinned, showing teeth, shaking his head. “That is some sorry mojo he's got around his neck.”

Jarrett put the photograph on the coffee table. He'd seen the face before. Casey had shown him a photograph in Baghdad and said that this was the man who needed some killing. “He killed my boy,” Casey had said.

Somporn had switched on his high-voltage smile in the photograph. It was a politician's false smile. Jarrett thought about his own company. He had known executives at LRAS who pulled that kind of smile at briefings. They looked friendly, like an uncle at graduation, the man with a warm heart and the compassion of a saint. It inspired confidence and trust. Only a few people ever saw the real face behind the smile. It never showed up in any photographs. Kate would help him look for that true face, and focus on it for a second before sending a final message straight through the amulet. They had another hour or two to go.

Tracer broke into a wide smile.

“What's so funny?” asked Jarrett.

“I was thinking about driving through Pattaya. I had the window open and sea air filled the car. I inhaled, held my breath, thinking how I love that smell.” The thought had transported Tracer to an enclosed space in his mind where that smell lingered.

Jarrett glanced over at the pool table, closed his eyes, and said a little prayer for Jack. He remembered the smell of the sea as he helped his father, Harry, break into a beach house on the Gulf of Thailand, under cover of soft waves slapping the wharf and the screams of a man in extreme pain.

Smoke drifted across the living room and down the corridor. The acrid cigarette smoke mixed with a familiar scent of the sea and something else. Burning flesh. They'd heard MacDonald's screams as they entered the house from the rear, working their way forward through
the kitchen, following the sharp, shrill voice of pain, creeping down the long corridor until they reached where MacDonald was being held. They crawled into the room, split up—Harry going to his left and his son, crouching low, moving to the right. Neither of the men inside must have had any training or one of them would have been watching the door. Instead, both men stood with their backs to the main corridor, as if no one in the world was expected to interrupt them. Also, it took only muscle, not training, to do what they were doing to MacDonald.

They'd stripped him to the waist, his white skin broken by a frost line of freckles that ran across his shoulders. He'd been tied to a chair, rope wrapped around his chest and waist. In front of MacDonald on an office table sat a computer, and on the terminal screen a young and rich-looking man smiled. Under his photograph, spaces were allotted for a log-in and password. Once logged in, they were in a bank computer system, one located in the Channel Islands. A wisp of smoke poured from Varley's nostrils. Jarrett recognized him from earlier at the pool hall, the one with the build of a quarterback and a gold earring in his right ear. Varley slapped MacDonald's face, the force whipped his head to the side, and his chin dropped.

The other guy was forty pounds heavier than Varley. Daws looked to be the size of a fat man's walk-in fridge, big, powerful hands ready to drive a fist into MacDonald's face. He had the face of a disappointed day laborer. Just like at the pool hall, Daws waited until Varley told him what to do. MacDonald whimpered, chest heaving in and out as he pleaded with them to stop. His speckled shoulders sported a row of small red festering craters burnt into his flesh.

“I already told you, I can't access the account on my computer,” said MacDonald.

“You fuckwit,” said Varley. “Transfer the fucking money. Do it now.”

“But I can't.” MacDonald sobbed. “I would if I could. Believe me.”

“Give me the password.”

“I gave it to you,” shouted MacDonald. His face twisted with fear and hatred, making him nearly unrecognizable as the man he'd played pool with earlier.

“But it doesn't fucking work.” He burned MacDonald with the cigarette.

An animal-like bellow came out of MacDonald's mouth—agony and hopelessness, the sound of pure grief. To one side of the computer was a bowl of red chili pepper mushed up into a fine liquid paste. Varley dipped his finger into the bowl and showed it to MacDonald.

“Please, please.” MacDonald had no other words left.

“I think you are fucking with us.” Varley drew his finger across the burns on MacDonald's back.

Daws became angry. “We did a guy earlier. Looked just like you. We don't have time for your shit. Varley asked you nice. I asked you politely and you won't help. All the shit is on your computer. We can get someone to hack it and get the information. It's not going to be hard.”

Varley puffed on the cigarette until the end glowed and then slowly pushed it against MacDonald's back as Daws held him in the chair.

Harry pointed at a holstered handgun resting on Varley's hip. He then held up a second finger, pointing at Daws, who struck MacDonald on the chest with the barrel of a pocket-sized .38. Jarrett had seen it before in the pool hall; it was the .38 MacDonald carried in an ankle holster. He must've seen that on TV or in a movie and thought it was a smart move. Yes and no. In his case, he'd have been better off throwing it in a dumpster. The first thing Varley and Daws would have done was to frisk him, and his protection scheme had done nothing but add to their arsenal. They would've laughed at him.

Both Jarrett and his father had heard enough to know that these men had killed Jack. It didn't take any imagination for Jarrett to understand what his father intended to do about Jack Malone's disappearance. Daws and his big mouth had eliminated all the guesswork. All that was left was the timing, and that gave them an advantage.

Jarrett had taken cover behind a sofa to the right. Hovering on the other side, Harry signaled the countdown, holding up his hand, lowering one finger at a time, until his hand was a fist. He rolled out on the floor first.

“Stand back and drop your weapon,” Harry said, prone on the floor.

Daws came around holding the .38 and Harry shot him twice in the chest. The big man's eyes blinked, rolled up in his head, and he crumpled. Varley ducked, pulling out his gun. Jarrett had time to circle around far enough but MacDonald blocked his shot.

“It's not looking good,” said Harry.

“Depends how you look at it.” Varley stepped forward and squeezed off two rounds in Harry's direction.

Jarrett's cluster was a tight three rounds into the side of Varley's head. He stood up and walked over to MacDonald, knelt down, and untied his arms. Tears spilled down MacDonald's cheeks; sobbing, he leaned forward, coughing up blood and spit. “They were going to kill me.”

Harry checked the two bodies. “They ain't gonna kill anyone now,” he said.

Jarrett sat on the sofa, shaking his head. “You got a boat?”

MacDonald nodded.