Kill Fee (37 page)

P
arkerson stared at his cell phone. Lind wasn’t answering. Either he’d broken training or he’d been captured, and, frankly, Parkerson would have preferred the latter at this point.

If Lind was in jail, he would break down and talk. That was almost a certainty; Parkerson didn’t train his assets to resist interrogation. It didn’t matter. What did the kid know, besides a couple of fragments?

Anyway, if Lind was in jail, it would be on the news soon enough. Then Parkerson would know what to do. He would know if the kid had given the police anything they could work with. If there was even the slightest chance law enforcement was headed his way.

So far, though, none of the major news sources had reported anything about Lind turning up anywhere. His girlfriend was alive and in custody—she was a pretty, young Delta Airlines employee, said she’d befriended Richard O’Brien after seeing him at the priority check-in counter a few too many times. Parkerson shook his head. Lesson learned. No frequent-flier status for the next asset.

Caitlin Sherman was her name. She’d shown up at a police station in some pissant town south of Wilmington. The reports on the news didn’t have much except her picture and a police sketch of Lind. A description of the Mustang and a phone number to call. If they knew where he was going, they weren’t saying.

Parkerson stared at the kid’s picture on TV until it went away. Wondered where he would go. Parkerson hadn’t trained him for this kind of endgame eventuality. He’d always told the assets to get out and avoid detection. Get back to base. So maybe the kid was headed to
Philadelphia, the apartment. Maybe he was too brain-dead to remember it was compromised.

Or maybe he was headed to home base. Maybe he was coming back to the lake house. Parkerson mulled the thought over for a few minutes. Couldn’t shake the sudden chill. He picked up the Killswitch phone and dialed Wendell Gray’s number.

“It’s me,” he said when the asset came on the line. “How far away are you?”

T
he asset called David Gilmour set down the cell phone and kept driving. He had driven through the night, stopping twice for gas and Red Bull and coffee. Now it was midmorning and he’d put five hundred miles behind him. Now he was almost all the way home.

The asset was tired. His shoulder throbbed where the target had stabbed him. Blood had seeped through the shirt he’d wrapped around his wound. The asset hurt. He was sick of driving. He was more than a little afraid.

He’d failed to complete two assignments. Both of the targets had escaped. The man would be angry, he knew. The man would want to punish him. The man would make him endure the visions. He wouldn’t make them go away.

The asset shivered and kept driving, favoring his wounded shoulder. He glanced at the pistol on the passenger seat and pressed harder on the gas pedal. The old truck sped up. Soon he’d be back at the lake house. The man would be angry. But the asset would be safe.

Soon he would be safe.

W
indermere sat up straight. “Here he is,” she told Stevens. “Here’s O’Brien.”

They were sitting in a conference room at the FBI’s Charlotte office, papers spread everywhere, computers open and coffee mugs thrice refilled. Sun streamed through the windows. Morning had come and gone without any action, but now Windermere was excited.

Stevens hurried around to the FBI agent’s side of the table. Looked over her shoulder at her laptop computer. A face on the screen, a missing person report. A twenty-five-year-old kid with a shaved head and a wide smile. Malcolm Lind.

“Disappeared from the Army Vet Center in Durham almost a year ago,” said Windermere. “Fought in Iraq, caught an IED that killed a bunch of his buddies. Came home with psych trauma and fell off the map.”

Stevens stared at the screen. If he blocked out the kid’s smile, the light in his eyes, he could see the resemblance. Malcolm Lind was healthier than the man they’d chased through downtown Saint Paul weeks ago. His skin was better; he wasn’t so skinny. He looked vibrant and alive, and his smile was infectious. In Minnesota, he’d looked like a corpse.

It was the same guy, though. No question.

“Malcolm Lind,” said Stevens. “He have family?”

Windermere scrolled down the page. “Elizabeth City,” she said, nodding. “Wherever that is. Mom cleans motel rooms and stepdad’s a housepainter. Looks like they gave up the search a long time ago.”

“They’re in for a heck of a surprise.”

“Long-lost son found a year later, only he’s a brainwashed contract
killer? I’d say they’ve got a shock or two coming. You think he goes home?”

“What, back to Mom and Dad?” Stevens shook his head. “No, I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“He’s been gone a year. If he’s really brainwashed, I don’t think he cares about family anymore. I think he goes back to Killswitch.”

“So we’re back where we started,” said Windermere. “We know this guy’s name, but we don’t know where he’s headed. Some lake house somewhere.”

“Probably around here, if that helps.”

“Only marginally.” Windermere shook her head. “You looked at a map? There’s lakes everywhere. A hundred houses to a lake. We don’t have the time or the manpower.”

“What about Gardham? The OneShot stuff. He’d have to have an address to pick up the ammo they were sending him.”

“And a purchase permit if he was buying guns,” said Windermere. “Except there’s no record of a Thomas Gardham applying for any such permit in the entire state. And nobody seems to have an address for him, either.”

“OneShot will. If we come back with a warrant.”

“Yeah,” said Windermere. “But what are the odds they give us anything useful? I doubt Killswitch leaves his real address out in the open.”

Stevens walked to the end of the long table and stared out the window beyond. “How the hell did Malcolm Lind just disappear, anyway?” he asked Windermere. “Nobody saw anything?”

“Took a while before anyone realized he was missing,” said Windermere. “Aside from his weekly meeting with the psychiatrist, he didn’t leave his house, apparently. His parents didn’t have the time or the money to come to Durham more than once a month. Time their next visit rolled around, Lind was a ghost.”

“Or a zombie.” Stevens looked across the table. The phone book lay
open in front of him, and he paged through it idly. Pizza delivery menus and car mechanics and a message from the chamber of commerce. Stevens stopped. He flipped back a page. “Wait a second.”

Windermere looked up from her computer. “Give me something good.”

Stevens stared down at the page. He’d made it to the front of the phone book. There was an information section, a little mini-guide to the region. The message from the chamber of commerce and a couple of maps. A list of major industries in the region, important employers. One industry in particular stood out.

“What?” said Windermere. “You got something or what?”

Stevens looked at her. “Every time we try to get an angle on Killswitch we get stonewalled by the Department of Defense,” he said. “We never figured out why.”

Windermere frowned. “And?”

“Fort Bragg is a hundred thirty-five miles from here,” Stevens said, reading. “That’s a monster army base. A hundred fifty thousand people. Houses the U.S. Army command, the reserve command, special ops, and the 82nd Airborne.”

“So you think this guy’s military? He’s some kind of soldier himself?”

Stevens shook his head. “I don’t think so. Our guy couldn’t run Killswitch on a base without attracting attention. He wouldn’t be free to dash off to Vegas and Miami as he pleased.”

“So, what?” Windermere stared at him. “Enlighten me, Stevens, please.”

Stevens showed her the phone book. “Defense contractors,” he said. “Outside the base. There are hundreds of them in the region, big and small. Four of the top ten contractors in the country are based in Charlotte. If our guy’s a big enough fish in one of these contractors’ ponds, he’ll have Defense Department clearance and the freedom and resources to move.”

Windermere thought about it. “He’d have money. Enough for a Cadillac and a lake house.”

“And a brainwashing habit. That can’t be cheap.”

“Freedom, too, like you said.” She paused. “Except, why does he have to live here in Charlotte? Looks like there’s a hundred more contractors out by the base.”

“Close to the airport. Thomas Gardham flew into Vegas and out in the same day. That means he was at the airport here in Charlotte early in the morning and late at night. No way he drives over two hundred fifty miles on top of that.”

“If he lived near the base, he could fly into Fayetteville,” said Windermere. “Or Raleigh. I see your point.”

“So we assume he’s local,” said Stevens. “That narrows our field of candidates considerably.”

Windermere grinned at him. “Nice work,” she said. “Now let’s see how many defense contractors drive Cadillacs.”

L
ind drove south through the morning and into the afternoon. He drove the speed limit with the wind in his ears; he didn’t listen to the radio or look out at the scenery. He stared straight ahead through the windshield and tried to remember.

It was early afternoon when the first memories started to stir. He’d driven through Richmond, Virginia, and the highway branched out. Interstate 95 continued south toward Fayetteville and, miles distant, Savannah, Georgia. To the southwest, Interstate 85 forked off toward Raleigh-Durham.

Durham. Lind turned onto I-85 without thinking. Followed the highway to the middle of the city, where he stopped at a gas station and bought
a Red Bull and a map. “I’m looking for a hospital,” he told the man at the counter. “For soldiers.”

The man nodded. “The Veterans Center,” he said, reaching for a pen. “Lemme see that map.”

Twenty minutes later, Lind parked the Mustang outside the hospital doors. It looked just like it had in the visions: tall, square, and clean, eleven stories of modern brick centered in a vast medical complex. Lind stared in at the building and remembered walking to the curb, unsteady, leaning on the man to guide him. He remembered climbing into the Cadillac and letting the man buckle his seat belt, remembered everything before and everything after.

Lind shivered and turned up the heater. He didn’t get out of the car. He didn’t look around the hospital grounds. He’d found what he’d come for. He shifted back into gear and pulled out of the lot. Closed his eyes at the stop sign and tried to empty his mind. Then he opened his eyes and kept driving. He didn’t know where he was going, but he followed the visions.

W
indermere dropped another stack of printouts on the conference table. “Damn it,” she said. “This guy couldn’t drive a Porsche?”

Stevens eyed the stack. “Lot of Cadillacs in this town?”

“Tons.” Windermere flopped in to her seat. “And most of them gray. This is every Cadillac in Charlotte cross-referenced with a list of known employees for the four major defense contractors in the city. As you can see, we’re still in needle-and-haystack territory, Stevens.”

Stevens nodded. “Sure,” he said, “if we’re relying on the North Carolina Department of Transportation to do our detective work for us.”

Windermere frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Check this out.” Stevens circled the table and spun Windermere’s laptop to face them. “While you were killing trees, I was doing some research of my own.” He typed in a few keystrokes. Then gestured to the screen. “Who’s that?”

A man, middle-aged. Receding hairline and a weak chin. Bore more than a passing resemblance to the sketches Oneida Ware and Larry Klein had produced. Windermere frowned. “Thomas Gardham?”

“Looks familiar, right? His real name’s Michael Parkerson. Senior vice president at Magnusson Aerospace. I’m hoping you’re going to tell me he drives a gray Cadillac.”

Windermere studied the man’s face. “And you found him how?”

“Google,” Stevens said. “Searched out the websites for each of our four major contractors. They all had lists of their top executives. Magnusson had pictures and a bio.”

“Lives outside Charlotte with his wife and two kids,” Windermere read. “Played ball for the Tar Heels. He’s one of yours, Stevens.”

“A middle-aged white man. The root of all evil.”

“I meant a ballplayer,” she said, grinning, “but yours works, too. Great computer work, by the way. Maybe you’re not as out of touch as you look.”

“Took a while to figure out, I won’t lie. First thing, I had to Google what the Internet is.”

Windermere slapped his arm. “Funny. This guy drive a Caddy or what?”

Stevens reached for the printouts. “Let’s find out.”

T
he asset called David Gilmour pulled the old truck off the interstate around China Grove, North Carolina, just as he’d been instructed. He followed Highway 152 west through forest and patchy farmland, the afternoon sun dipping low in the sky and glaring harsh through the Chevy’s front windshield.

The asset drove through Mooresville to Interstate 77, where he pulled into a gas station parking lot and unfolded a map. When he’d figured out his location he pulled out again, crossed the interstate, and continued west.

The man’s instructions were good. The asset found the lake house with no problem. It sat on one skinny arm of a much larger lake, the shore crowded with mobile home trailers and boat sheds and new, monstrous mansions. The lake house itself sat in a grove of trees, hidden from the neighbors and the narrow access road. The asset pulled the pickup into the trees and parked alongside the house, killed the ignition, and sat in the stillness, letting his muscles relax and testing the wound in his shoulder.

The wound throbbed. The T-shirt was saturated with blood, dried and crusted. The asset unwrapped the shirt, slowly, and examined the wound. It gaped at him, ragged and raw. It smelled bad. The asset looked at the wound and hoped the man arrived soon. The man would be able to help him.

The asset climbed out of the truck and into the stillness of the grove. It was early spring, and the lake was still largely deserted. The house sat dark amid the trees, seeming to sag from the weight of the shadows. The
asset suddenly felt afraid. It was a new fear, quite different from the panic that came with the visions. He realized the house made him nervous.

The asset stood beside the truck for a long time, studying the house. There were no other cars in the grove. The man hadn’t arrived yet. The asset wrapped his good arm around himself and shivered a little. He stood there, indecisive. Then he pulled out the cell phone and called the man. The man picked up. “Yeah?”

“I’m here,” the asset told him. “At the lake house.”

There was a pause. “I’m just about to have dinner,” the man said. “You’re going to have to wait for me.”

The asset looked around. “I can wait.”

“Let yourself into the house. Stay out of sight. There’s a spare key in a little cup under the deck. Go inside and wait for me. Just sit there and wait, understand?”

“I understand,” the asset told him.

“Don’t touch anything. Don’t go wandering off. I’ll be there when I can.”

“I understand.”

The man ended the call. The asset put the phone away and looked at the house again. Something gnawed at his insides, and he realized he didn’t want to go in. Something scared him in there, though he didn’t know what. He looked back at the road and felt his head start to buzz. Felt the panic creep in as he thought about leaving.

He couldn’t leave. The man wanted him here. His orders were to go inside and wait. He would wait.

Quickly, before he could stop himself, the asset reached in the truck and came out with the pistol and the knife. He stuffed the pistol in his waistband and circled the house to the deck and bent down to the dirt, scratching in the shadows for the cup and the key.