Hardbingers rj-10 Read online

  Smith paled and broke out in another sweat. But he wasn't backing down.

  "I've told you all I can."

  Jack made note of the fact that he didn't say all he knew.

  He wondered if his bluff would work. He wasn't in a black enough mood to drill into someone's shinbone. This jerk most likely broke into the wrong house. Under other circumstances Jack might have loaded him in his trunk and dumped him in the swamp, leaving him to get out of the tape himself and find his way home. But that cyanide-tip changed things. Jack wanted more. Maybe plugging in the drill and revving it a few times as he brought it toward Smith's kneecap would prove a tongue loosener.

  "Okay. You're going to make me hate myself in the morning."

  As he rose he reached for the round, but Smith got there ahead of him. His taped hands darted up and grabbed it, then raised it to his mouth.

  "Jesus!" Jack shouted. "What are you—?"

  He leaped forward and grabbed for the hand, but too late—the round went into his mouth. Jack dropped the pistol and tried to pry Smith's jaws apart but the guy was struggling and thrashing and twisting his head back and forth to prevent Jack from getting a grip.

  Finally Jack felt Smith's throat work, and then the man stopped struggling and smiled at him.

  "You jerk!" Jack shouted. "What you do that for? As soon as that seal melts, you're a goner."

  Jack imagined Smith's stomach acid working on the seal right now.

  Smith shrugged. "You were going to torture me, then kill me, so I decided to skip the torture part."

  Jack shook his head. "I was just kidding about that—trying to scare you. Sadism isn't my bag."

  Smith stared at Jack. He must have seen the truth there because he hung his head and sobbed. Once.

  Jack leaned forward. "You think you could puke it up?"

  Smith shook his head. "No. Too late."

  "Well, all right then. Since there's no turning back, why not come clean? Who were you supposed to hit?"

  Smith hesitated, then said, "I don't know."

  "Come on—"

  "I never get a name. Just a description and a time and a place."

  "Do I match the description?"

  "Close enough, but you look like anybody."

  "Yeah, well, I work at that. When was this supposed to go down?"

  "Tomorrow afternoon, but I was supposed to get here early and set up."

  "Who sent you?"

  Before Smith could answer his eyes rolled up and he started flopping around in the tub like a hooked fish. He made grunting noises as he flailed his taped arms and kicked his legs.

  Jack could do nothing but watch as his face turned blue and he arched his back to the point where it looked like he'd snap his spine.

  And then he collapsed into a flaccid, silent lump of flesh.

  Jack watched him a full minute for signs of life. None. He sat back on the toilet cover and wondered why these things happened to him. All he'd wanted to do was pick up his father's war medals, catch a few hours sleep, and be on his way.

  Now he had a body to dispose of.

  Shit.

  He picked up the pistol and popped the magazine: eight more cyanide-tipped rounds within. Starfires were perfect because of their big cavity. He worked the toggle to eject the chambered round. Now he needed a way to dump the nine cartridges without poisoning someone.

  lie look a towel from the rack, unscrewed the suppressor, wiped it down, then wiped down the pistol too. He went to stow them back in the High Sierra bag but decided to give it one last, thorough search.

  He upended it and dumped everything onto the bathroom floor. He checked all the end and side pouches and felt around inside for hidden compartments or a phony bottom panel.

  Nothing else.

  Just a change of underwear, a shaving kit containing an electric razor, toothbrush and toothpaste, a jar of Bed Head hair gel, a box of Starfires, yesterday's Miami Herald, a battered old John D. MacDonald paperback, a Manta Ray baseball cap, and sunglasses.

  The banality of the pile depressed Jack. Who was this guy? Who'd sent him? And for whom?

  Probably never know.

  Jack used the towel to replace the pistol and suppressor in the bag. Since the sunglasses would take fingerprints, he picked them up with the towel as well. He was about to drop them back in when he noticed that they looked familiar. Too familiar.

  Forgetting about prints, he held them up and stared through the lenses. No darkening—he could see the shower head perfectly. Yet when he flipped them over… impenetrable tinting.

  A band of cold iron tightened around his gut as he jumped up and hurried to his own gym bag. He pulled out the shades Davis had given him and held them side by side with the dead guy's.

  Identical.

  Unless he'd stolen or found these, the guy in the tub was a yeniceri.

  3

  Jack drove along South Road until he came to Pemberton Road. The intersection lay on the outer limits of Novaton and, because this was the site of the hit and run on his father, he'd become well acquainted with it during his last visit.

  The roads crossed in the swamps on the border of the Everglades and the area was as deserted now as then. More so now since the sun still had two hours to go before it cleared the eastern horizon.

  Jack pulled over, got out, and popped the trunk. He grabbed Smith by the armpits and hauled him out. Then he dragged him to the shoulder and rolled him into a drainage ditch. No water, so no splash. He tossed the gym bag—pistol and all—in beside him.

  He kept one round.

  He'd looked up the number of the Novaton PD before leaving his father's house, and when he reached Route 1 he called it on his TracFone.

  "Yes, I'd like to report a crime. I saw what looked like a body being dumped near the intersection of South and Pemberton. Thank you." He cut the connection.

  There. That ought to set Novaton's finest into motion.

  If not for the cyanide-tipped slugs he might have left Smith there as gator food. He could have disassembled the pistol and tossed it piece by piece into the swamp as he drove along South Road, but he didn't know what to do with the bullets. Anya had instilled a deep respect for the embattled Everglades, and he didn't want to add even a small amount of cyanide to its woes.

  This way the Novaton cops would find him before anyone else; the cyanide hollow points would become their problem.

  The big question now was, where to from here?

  If he pushed it he could make it to the Fort Lauderdale rendezvous on time. His head told him to go there. Who knew when all the stars would again be aligned this way on the road to Bosnia? If he blew this, he might not have another chance before the baby was born.

  But Smith's sunglasses added a major wrinkle, urging him to forget all that and find out what the hell a yeniceri assassin was doing in his father's house.

  So which was it? The marina or the airport?

  Whatever his final decision, he had to head north on Route 1, so he kept driving, hoping he could resolve this by the time he reached Fort Lauderdale.

  4

  The pain awakens him.

  Another Alarm—and so soon after the last.

  Then he plunges into that other place, the flashing gray space where he is shown things yet to be—things that must be prevented, and things that must be done.

  The pain knifes through his brain and the lights flash. He is aware of his bed under him and he grabs the mattress as he feels it begin to spin. The flashes cycle faster and faster until they coalesce into a vision…

  A restaurant… a copy of The New York Times lies on the counter where an attractive woman is paying the cashier… the headline concerns a Bay Ridge apartment linked to terrorists and runs above a photograph of a building.

  The woman has short blond hair and carries another life within her.

  The Oculus has seen this woman before. She appeared in another Alarm… two months ago… in November. In that one she was standing on a curb, waiting to cr
oss Second Avenue when a truck went out of control and struck her, killing her. He saw the driver of the truck: Zeklos.

  That Alarm was stomach turning, but nowhere near as painful as the one that followed a month later.

  But real life had not mimicked the November Alarm. Zeklos missed the woman—some of his fellow yeniceri said on purpose due to a lack of resolve—and crashed into another truck instead.

  Now the same woman, still with child, but not alone. A dark-haired little girl stands beside her, holding a candy bar. She appears to be pleading but the Oculus cannot hear what she's saying.

  The clock behind the counter says half past one.

  The vision fades to gray, then lights up with the woman standing on the exact same corner as the last time, only now she is holding the child by the hand while the child munches happily on the candy bar.

  As the light changes, they step off the curb… and then, without warning, a white panel truck runs the red light and slams into the two of them, sending them flying. If he were seeing this with his eyes, the Oculus would have squeezed them shut. But since the scene is playing inside his head, he is compelled to watch. And in the driver seat of the truck he sees one of his yeniceri: Cal Davis.

  The vision fades to gray, and then the gray fades, and with it, the pain.

  The bed stops its vertiginous whirl but the Oculus doesn't move.

  A yenigeri in an Alarm means the Ally needs this done.

  Why? he wonders. Why does the Ally want this woman dead? The little girl wasn't in the previous Alarm. Does it want her life too, or is she merely collateral damage?

  How will their deaths affect the fight against the Otherness?

  And why must it fall to him to order their deaths?

  He wonders if the Otherness is behind an Alarm like this, if it somehow taps in from time to time. But that can't be. He's tuned in to the Ally, and that's where the Alarm came from.

  But although the Ally has never in his experience been cruel, he knows it can be merciless.

  5

  "Hi, Abe."

  "Jack? From the boat you're calling?"

  "I'm not on the boat."

  "There's been a problem?"

  "No. I changed my mind."

  "A joke, right?"

  "Afraid not."

  "Gevalt!"

  In the ensuing silence, Jack reevaluated his decision. It hadn't been an easy one. During the drive back, every time he'd lean toward boarding that boat, he'd think about those sunglasses and those bullets. In the end it all had come down to those damn cyanide-tipped bullets. They kept reminding him of the LaGuardia Massacre. It made no sense, he knew. Different caliber, and car-ried by someone who was anything but an Arab. If he'd found a Koran in Smith's bag instead of a novel, the decision would have been made right then and there. But John D. MacDonald didn't incite the slaughter of innocent people.

  Then he'd remembered Joey Castles's dying words after they'd hit the Islamic center.

  "It's bigger than them. Something else going on."

  That had done it. The "something else" left him no choice but to head back to New York.

  He'd waited till he'd reached the airport and bought his ticket before calling Abe. He didn't want to disappoint his oldest and best friend, but…

  "I'm sorry, Abe. I know you spent a lot of time—"

  "Months I spent."

  "I know. And I know you called in some favors, but I just can't leave the country right now."

  "People have been put in place, schedules have been rearranged, space has been made…"

  "I know, I know, and I'm awfully sorry, but something important has come up."

  "What could be more important than this trip?"

  "I'll explain when I see you."

  He heard Abe sigh. "This I've got to tell you, my friend, a replay may not be easy. May not be possible even. Someone's going to be very upset that he went to all this trouble for nothing."

  "I'll pay him for his time and trouble—cover all expenses and then some. He'll have his profit."

  "Profit isn't everything. There's the matter of respect, which is very important to this man. I'll call him. Maybe he'll be less upset if he should have advance notice, although much in advance this is not."

  "Thanks, Abe. I'll make it up to you some way."

  He broke the connection and glanced at the departure board. Still had half an hour before takeoff. Should he call Gia?

  Probably best not to. Better to explain in person instead of a cryptic phone conversation. He didn't think he was unreasonably paranoid. With his pay-as-you-go TracFone, calls were traceable to his number but not to him, since all subscribers were anonymous. But his calls weren't encrypted and were traceable to whomever he called. With Homeland Security and the Patriot Act in swing, no telling who might be listening in.

  He'd wait till he was ready to stop by, then call Gia to give her a heads-up that he was back in town, and tell her he'd explain everything in a few minutes when he got there.

  He wondered how she'd take the news. She'd been ambivalent about his new identity, but would she see the sudden change in plans as a lack of commitment to the baby?

  No. She knew better. And she'd understand once he explained his reasons.

  The call came over the speakers that his plane was boarding.

  6

  Ybarra, one of the yenigeri on duty, placed a folded copy of the morning Times on the Oculus's desk.

  "As requested, sir."

  "Thank you."

  As Ybarra left, the Oculus picked up the paper but did not unfold it. He feared the headline. If it said nothing about the Bay Ridge apartment, the woman and the child would have another day, perhaps more, to live. But if the story was there…

  He took a breath, held it, then unfolded the paper. The air blew out of him in a choked whoosh when he saw a headline identical to the one in the Alarm.

  He closed his eyes and lowered his head. He'd have to gather the yeniceri. He'd have to tell them about the Alarm. He'd have to send them out to kill that woman and child.

  The Oculus rested his elbows on the desktop and pressed his eyes against the upturned palms. At times like this he wished he hadn't been born with the gift. Because, in its own way, the gift was a curse. The Alarms could not be ignored—the Ally saw what was to be and demanded action. The enormity of the responsibility was appalling. If he kept the Alarm to himself, what would be the consequences? The Ally was not capricious. If it told him that a situation had to be addressed, then that was what must happen. To ignore it would be tantamount to aiding and abetting the Otherness.

  He wished he were like any other man, wished he could wake up in the morning and go about his business without the crushing burden of the gift, without worrying about when the next Alarm would sound.

  But the only escape from the Alarms was death. At times he'd considered that option, but then he'd think of poor Diana, and of how his mantle would fall on her shoulders when he was gone. He wished to spare her for as long as possible. For that reason alone he vowed to live to a ripe old age.

  But now he had to deal with the matter of the Alarm.

  He buzzed downstairs. Ybarra answered.

  "Gather the yeniceri. We've had an Alarm."

  7

  Gia hung up her coat and rubbed her hands together. Cold out here.

  She'd put Vicky on the school bus and had scurried back to the warmth of the house. She filled the kettle and turned on the TV. A little tea, a little news, and she'd get to work on the studies for that dust jacket.

  Over the years Gia had developed good working relationships with the art directors of a number of publishing houses. Sometimes she received detailed instructions on what they wanted; other times, like this one, she received no directive beyond, "Something bucolic, with a house in the woods."

  She'd dipped into the manuscript they'd sent her—a dreary tale about a middle-aged college professor's extramarital affair with a student—until she found an obsessively detailed des
cription of the woodsy retreat that served as their trysting place.

  Now all she had to do was come up with a couple of rough ideas, dab a little paint on them to show the color scheme, and bring them in. The art director would choose one, make his comments on composition and color, and then Gia would begin the actual painting. Sometimes it was a chore, sometimes it was fun, but either way, commercial art paid the bills, leaving her time for her personal paintings.

  But working on anything today would be difficult. Maybe impossible. Jack hovered over her thoughts. She wondered how he was—where he was—and if everything was going as planned. He'd sailed off into the unknown not for himself, but for the baby. He was trading everything he'd struggled to become, everything he was, for fatherhood.

  She blinked back a tear and flipped through the channels until she came to Headline News. She stopped there for a quick rundown of what was going on in the world. Too-familiar footage of the smoking crater in the Staten Island storage facility flashed on the screen. She was raising the remote to switch the channel when the scene shifted to a view of a brick-fronted apartment house. "Bay Ridge" popped onto the upper left corner of the screen.

  "—BI officials have revealed that traces of the same compound that caused the Staten Island explosion were found in an apartment in this building in Brooklyn along with Arabic writing on the walls."

  Gia felt her gut clench—and that seemed to spur a kick from the baby. The so-called "terrorism expert" who followed didn't make her feel any better.

  "From the amount of plastic explosive estimated in the Staten Island blast, I think we can assume that these individuals were out to do a lot of damage. Nothing like nine-eleven, of course, but considerable."

  Gia rose and turned off the kettle. What if there were other "individuals" with other caches of explosives? If so, she didn't want Vicky locked down in a school if all hell broke loose.

  She hurried to the closet. It wasn't rational, and it was most likely an over-reaction, but she didn't care. She wanted her little girl with her today.

  Looked like Vicky would get a second day off this week.