Kill Fee (27 page)

S
aint Paul, predawn. Nancy Stevens pulled her Taurus to the curb outside Holman Field, the Saint Paul downtown airport on the banks of the Mississippi. She looked across the car at her husband. “This is a new one. Minnesota BCA agent flies private FBI jet to Las Vegas. Why would you ever want to stay home?”

Stevens stared out the window at the airfield, where a chartered Cessna Citation waited on the tarmac. It looked flimsy and impossibly small. “I hate flying,” he said.

“You say that,” she said, “but you sure do enough of it.”

Stevens turned away from the plane to look at his wife. He’d told her he didn’t need a ride, would be just as easy in a cab, but she’d insisted. Now she sat bleary-eyed in a housecoat, staring out at the first hint of daylight. “I don’t have to do this,” he said. “I can stay.”

Nancy snorted. “What, after the FBI’s chartered you a jet? I don’t think so, Kirk. You’re going.”

He looked at her. “We never finished our conversation.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I guess this pretty much finishes it.”

“Nancy.”

She sighed and sank back in her seat. “I’m upset, Kirk. I don’t want you to go. The worst of it is, I can see Andrea’s point.”

He smiled, rueful. “Our little debate champ.”

Nancy smiled, too. “And I’m supposed to be a lawyer. But she’s right. You’re good at what you do, whether it’s Tomlin or Arthur Pender or whoever. Maybe I’m being selfish expecting you to stay home and work regular hours.” She looked at him. “Maybe you’re not meant for that.”

Stevens stared out the window. “Selfish or not, Nancy,” he said, “I want to do what’s best for this family. If you need me—if Andrea needs me . . .”

Nancy laughed. “We both know what she’d say.”

“If she needs help, Nancy, I don’t want to leave her. Even if she thinks my sticking around will lead the bad guys to our door.”

“She’s fine when you’re gone,” Nancy said. “She gets excited when she hears about your cases. This weekend is the first time she’s shown any signs of trauma.”

Stevens stared out the window. “Still,” he said.

“I’ll make an appointment with the doctor. We’ll see what he thinks. In the meantime, maybe it’s better you’re on the road if she’s going to stress out when you’re here.” Nancy leaned across and kissed him. “Just catch this guy and get home again safe. We’ll manage until you get back.”

Stevens wrapped his arms around her. Held her tight and tried to think of an answer. “I won’t go if you want me to stay,” he said finally. “I’m perfectly happy working cold cases at BCA headquarters, if that’s what it comes down to.”

Nancy shook her head. “No, you’re not, Kirk. You don’t have to pretend just to please me. You’re made for the blockbuster stuff, and I guess
I’ll have to deal with it. Just think twice before you try and play the hero, okay?”

She kissed him one more time. Then released the brake and idled toward the airfield. “And keep your grubby paws to yourself around Windermere, understand?”

P
arkerson woke early Sunday morning and drove out to the lake house. Turned off the projections and brought the asset breakfast. Coffee. “Drink up,” he told the kid. “You’re going to need it.”

The asset obeyed him, wordless. The training was working. The kid’s eyes were vacant. He looked tortured, shell-shocked. He looked ready for work.

It was too early in the training for this kind of maneuver. Far too risky. The asset could bug out and go catatonic, could revert to normal as soon as he hit the outside world. Looking at Wendell Gray, though, Parkerson didn’t believe it. The asset looked compliant. He looked totally pliable.

Parkerson turned the hose on him. Sprayed the kid down until he was soaking wet and shivering. Then he tossed him a towel and a stack of fresh clothes. “Put them on,” he told the kid. “Haul ass. Big day today.”

Typically, Parkerson liked to ease the kids into killing. A couple small animals, then maybe a man. Sometimes the assets didn’t make it that far. Sometimes they became training fodder for the next candidates. There was a symmetry there that appealed to Parkerson, a ruthless efficiency.

Never before had he trained an asset in the field. He’d been careful so far. This was a necessary risk, though, for Killswitch. Parkerson couldn’t
afford to disappoint a client. This would keep the program running smoothly.

The kid finished dressing. Parkerson led him out to the Cadillac. Drove away from the lake house and out onto the interstate, south toward the city and the airport. Parkerson parked in the economy lot. Then he turned to the asset. “This is field training,” he said. “Your first assignment. Understand?”

The asset stared at him, blank-faced. Parkerson slapped him. “I asked you a question, soldier. Do you understand?”

The asset nodded once. “I understand.”

“Better,” said Parkerson. “We’ll be traveling today. You and I are business colleagues, and friends. You will stay close beside me. You will engage me in conversation. If anyone else talks to us, you will be pleasant and civil, but you will allow me to carry the conversation. Understand?”

The asset nodded again. “Yes, sir.”

“Any deviation from these boundaries will result in your immediate and dishonorable discharge from duty. You’ll be returned to your room, and I’ll leave you to your visions.”

The asset flinched.

“If you complete this task, I’ll make the visions disappear and return you to your normal life. Understand?”

The asset looked at him, for the first time with hope in his eyes. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I understand, sir.”

“Good.” Parkerson reached for the door. “Let’s get started.”

L
ind sat awake on the couch. He hadn’t slept. Hadn’t closed his eyes. Thing was, he barely felt tired.

He kept replaying the Las Vegas assignment in his head. The whole disastrous day. He kept seeing the target, his face, his wide eyes. Heard his desperate voice and his panicked gasps for air. Saw the gun pressed to the target’s temple. Then . . . nothing.

Something had happened in that Bellagio suite. It was like he’d come out of the blackness for a moment—like, even through the panic, things were suddenly clear. Now, though, Lind couldn’t remember. It was like chasing a dream. Every time he thought about what had happened in that suite, the truth seemed to slip further and further away.

He remembered breaking into the target’s room. Remembered standing in the shadows and waiting. Remembered walking out of the casino afterward, dumping the gun in the lake. Anything in between, though, and his head hurt. He couldn’t think for too long or he’d feel like he wanted to jump out a window.

The man had called him again, after he’d arrived home. Given new instructions. “Don’t leave the apartment,” he’d said. “Don’t talk to anyone. Wait for my orders.”

Something was wrong. Lind knew it somewhere deep inside. It had come to the surface during that botched assignment, a sick realization that he’d done terrible things. That he did them because the man told him he had to.

That was why he’d walked away. Because, beneath the panic and the awful fear, he’d recognized for a moment that something wasn’t right.
He’d failed the man. He hadn’t completed the assignment. But the assignment was wrong. He’d known it, briefly.

Caity Sherman’s phone number sat on his coffee table. Lind had been staring at it all morning. There was something about her that felt different from the man and the assignment and the visions. There was something that made him realize he was wrong.

Except he couldn’t think, not clearly. Every time he tried to think about Caity Sherman he felt the panic start to rise in him again. Felt his head start to pound like there was a demon inside. He couldn’t think about Caity, and he couldn’t think about Las Vegas. He couldn’t think about anything for long.

Lind shook his head. He picked up Caity’s phone number and walked to his phone. Pushed the panic as far down as he could and dialed the number. Waited as the phone rang. Then she picked up. “Hello?”

The blackness lurched up inside him again. Overwhelming. Lind reeled and steadied himself on his kitchen counter. Tried to keep his eyes open. Caity cleared her throat. “Hello? Who is this?”

Lind gritted his teeth. “I did something,” he told her. “Something bad.”

S
o we’re cool, right?” Windermere looked at Mathers across the aisle as the plane banked on its final approach for Las Vegas. “I mean, about last night?”

Mathers looked out the window. “Yeah,” he said. “I mean, I guess so.”

“I just don’t want things to be awkward,” she said. “We’re both adults.”

Mathers had been quiet all morning. He’d tried to maneuver her back into bed once she’d come out of the bathroom, but she’d fended off his
advances, fled for her own room and a hot shower, where she’d thought about Stevens and Mathers and what awaited in Vegas.

Then she’d met Mathers in the lobby, had spent the cab ride to the airport trying to finagle a couple seats on the first flight to the desert, and by the time she’d talked her way onto a packed US Airways 737, she was too tired to do more than tiptoe around the subject in between futile attempts at napping.

Now, though, as the plane approached Sin City—and Stevens, waiting on the ground—Windermere realized she was going to have to hit Mathers with a heavy dose of real talk.

“You’re a lot of fun, Derek,” she said. “I don’t regret last night. But I’m not looking for much more than what already happened. I don’t want this to impact our work.”

Mathers looked around the plane, jammed full with rowdy bachelor parties and sorority girls. “Or your relationship with Stevens,” he said.

Windermere blinked. “Pardon?”

“It’s obvious you two have a thing going.” Mathers shrugged. “I don’t know, Carla. I think you’re pretty cool. I think we get along.”

“Yeah,” she said. “We do.”

“If last night was it, then that’s fine, I guess. But I like you. I can see us going places. And to be honest, I wouldn’t mind if we did.”

He looked at her, his mouth turned up, but shy, nothing at all like the cocky smirk he’d flashed at her over fondue last night. Windermere tried to hold his gaze. Then she looked away.

Shit,
she thought, staring out the window at the casinos on the Strip.
This is about to get real goddamn messy.

T
he asset hung beside Parkerson like a scared dog. Lingered and kept his mouth shut and didn’t bug out, behaved himself through security and onto the plane.

The flight passed uneventfully. The asset stared out the window and didn’t say anything. Didn’t move. Parkerson wondered what he was thinking. He wondered again if his plan wasn’t risking too much.

The client had assured Parkerson that his target remained in the city. He’d changed hotels, and bolstered his security, but he’d stuck around as scheduled, until his flight late that afternoon. The client had promised to have a man on the ground, waiting with details. A clean weapon and access to the target. In return, Parkerson had offered a discount. Hated giving money back, but what could he do?

The plane’s engines slowed and the aircraft started its descent, circling low over the desert so that those inside could sneak a peek at the spectacular casino resorts on the Strip down below.

Viva Las Vegas,
Parkerson thought.
Viva Killswitch.

S
tevens landed in Las Vegas early, the sunrise having paced the chartered FBI Citation over the Midwest. He climbed off the plane at the private jet terminal, bummed a ride to McCarran International, and settled in between the baggage claim and a bank of slot machines to wait for Mathers and Windermere.

He hadn’t slept much all week, and the cramped Cessna hadn’t offered much in the way of space to stretch out. He’d spent the flight staring out the window, watching dawn overtake the small plane and thinking about his daughter, hoping he was doing the right thing.

He should have been exhausted. He wasn’t. He was wired. Somewhere in this city, amid the cacophonous jangle of slot machines and the crush of tourists, a man had faced down Richard O’Brien and lived. No way Stevens was sleeping until he talked to the guy.

O’Brien had failed. He’d left his target alive. From what Stevens could tell, there was no reason for it. He’d snuck into the target’s room, apparently with a key card. He’d ambushed the guy. Waved the gun in his face and shot a hole through the ceiling. Then he’d walked.

A scare tactic, maybe? A threat? Or maybe the gun jammed. Maybe the kid’s weapon misfired and he didn’t have a backup. He couldn’t kill the target, so he ran. Either way, Stevens needed answers. And somewhere in this city, there was a man who could give them.

Windermere and Mathers arrived just after nine. They walked through the terminal, bleary-eyed, coffee cups in their hands. Windermere gave him a half smile when she saw him. “Stevens,” she said. “Hey.”

Stevens hesitated. “Hey,” he said. He grinned at her, awkward, for a second. Shook Mathers’s hand.

Windermere and Mathers swapped glances, and then Windermere cleared her throat. “Been here long?”

“Couple hours. I hate it already.”

“You ready to work?”

He nodded. “Just waiting on you.”

“Good,” she said. “Let’s talk to this guy. Unless you’d rather hit the slots first.”

Stevens glanced at the machines. “Already lost my whole stake. I got nothing better to do than chase Killswitch.”

Windermere grinned at him. “Well, okay,” she said. “Let’s go get him.”

C
aity Sherman stared at Lind, her face a mask of concern. “What is it?” she said. “What did you do?”

Lind stepped back, allowing her into the apartment. She paused in the foyer, looked in at the living room, the sunlight streaming in through the windows. “This place looks even better in the daytime,” she said.

Lind followed her gaze. It was impressive, the apartment, vast and open and stylish, though he’d never really noticed. It was far nicer than any home he’d lived in before the man—

Lind felt his throat constricting. He couldn’t think about before. The panic suffocated him. He ran his hands over his eyes. Leaned against a wall. The girl—Caity, her name was Caity—put her hand on his shoulder. “What’s going on?” she said. “Are you okay?”

Lind opened his eyes. “I’m okay,” he said. “I’m just—fine.”

Caity took his arm. Led him into the living room and sat him down on the couch. He heard her walk away, heard the tap running. Then she was back beside him, pressing a glass into his hand.

He drank. He was thirsty. Emptied the glass and she refilled it for him. Then she sat down beside him and studied his face. “What’s going on, Richard?”

Lind set the glass down on the coffee table. The man wouldn’t like this, he knew. The man was already displeased. He’d told Lind to wait for new instructions. He would be angry if he knew about the girl.

Except she kept calling him Richard, and that wasn’t his name. Maybe she didn’t know his real name. Maybe she didn’t know who he was. Every time Lind thought about it, his head hurt even more.

He knew he didn’t want to kill her. He didn’t want her to leave, even. Every time he looked at her, he felt the panic again, but he felt something else, too. Something better. Something like the clarity he’d felt at the Bellagio.

“You said you did something bad,” Caity said. “What was it?”

Lind hesitated. “I failed the assignment,” he said, finally.

“Wait, what assignment? Like, for school or something? What did you fail?”

He shook his head. Couldn’t tell her. If he told her, she would leave. He couldn’t let her. Caity put her hand on his. Squeezed. “I’m sure everything’s fine,” she said. “Everybody makes mistakes, Richard.”

Lind didn’t say anything. Didn’t bother to tell her his name wasn’t Richard. He sat and let her hold his hand, felt the warmth of her body close to his, and he closed his eyes and tried not to think about anything. Tried to keep the panic at bay.