Collision (24 page)

32

Teach broke at ten-thirty Saturday morning. She gave them the name of the street and the apartment number—she had known about them for years, shortly after Pilgrim got the property under a false name, and let him think she knew nothing.

Jackie cleaned off the knife—not too much blood, the cuts had been shallow and strategic—and patted her on the cheek. “Lovely help you’ve given us. You’ve saved that girl a bad few hours. Now she can die an old lady.”

Hector gave her a cloth to sponge her face, her mouth, her legs. She trembled and he wondered if it was more from rage than fear.

“Let’s go. She’s coming with us,” Hector said.

“Us?” Jackie asked.

“You and me. We’re taking Pilgrim out.”

“I can handle it. Without help.” Jackie felt reinvigorated from the night; he’d gotten Teach to talk, a necessary job done right. His father would have been proud of him.

“I need to get back into the field.”

“I thought you just supervised.”

“Every manager should get his hands dirty now and then,” Hector said.

“Why bring Teach with us? Lock her up here.”

“I have a lot of guards here, and I don’t want to leave her behind. Where she might be discovered by my people.” A pause.

“Sure,” Jackie said with a nod and a half smile.

“I’ll pull the car up close to the house. Get her ready. I just need to get one thing before we go. In case Ben is there.”

Ben tapped the keys on Pilgrim’s laptop. He wrote a detailed report of every contract he’d helped Sam Hector win. As far as he knew, nothing in the deals was illegal—but certainly, elements of the contracts might raise watchdog eyebrows, in terms of timing, lack of competition, or inexact wording that might favor Hector more than other vendors. Most businesses in the real world hoped to make a profit; Hector Global worked a guaranteed profit, sometimes up to 15 percent, into every deal with the government. Charges that cost the company eighteen dollars were billed to the government at eighty. A number of contracts had been virtually no-bid; Hector’s only invited competitors were firms that were too small actually to do the work, rendering the competition moot. There had been delays in services rendered, with no delay in payment.

Ben put his face in his hands and took a long breath. He’d helped create this monster. And now—with contracts imperiled, with funding drying up—what would the monster do to survive? His work and smart counsel had helped Sam Hector win deals, made Hector richer and more powerful, with a grasping reach into every agency that surpassed that of senior elected officials.

Pilgrim came into the room, loading a clip into his gun. “I’m leaving. I want to scope out the site thoroughly before I meet her.”

“I hope you come back,” Ben said.

“If I don’t . . .”

“Then I’ll find a way to bring him down.”

“I would rather eliminate him with a bullet than a spreadsheet.”

“Whatever works.” Ben stood. “Good luck.” He offered Pilgrim his hand and Pilgrim shook it. He left without another word.

Ben sat down to finish his brain-dump on the laptop. He wrote every conversation he could remember with Hector regarding work for Homeland. Writing was peace, a return to normalcy, from the chaos of the past two days. But his shot arm began to ache with the typing. Now he just needed to compile a group of people to send it to—representatives and senators and State and Defense officials who didn’t much care for the contracting business—and convince them to take him seriously.

Since he was currently a fugitive, that would be difficult.

He got up, went to the kitchen, got a glass of water, needing to stretch his legs. He wanted to think.

Pilgrim’s sketchbook lay on the counter; a clear sign that he expected to return.

Ben picked it up. He was tempted to page through the drawings again but it felt like a violation. But he didn’t like leaving it where it might be forgotten if he had to leave quickly. He stuck the small black book in his shirt pocket.

He took his water and went to the window. The day had grown cloudy, gray skies the color of worn chains. He scanned the parking lot. Nothing odd. The construction crews weren’t working this Saturday on the massive construction next door; he heard the soft calming whisper of the wind.

As he closed the curtain and turned away from the window, a Lincoln Navigator turned into the lot.

He glanced at his watch. Pilgrim should be at the soccer fields by now. He decided to write down the list of people who were Hector’s political enemies and then find Internet access so he could start e-mailing them. He finished his water, refilled the cup.

A sound from the front door. A scrape. The lock clicked, being forced, and then the door was open, Jackie entering, gun out in front of him, sweeping the room, finding Ben.

“Hands on head and get down!” Jackie ordered. “Oh, this is going to be good, man. Seriously.”

Ben obeyed. His gun was still under his pillow on the futon. No way to get to it.

The door slammed closed. He kept his face to the gritty kitchen tile. He heard rapid movement through the apartment: Jackie seeing if Pilgrim lay in wait in the bedroom. He started to crawl for the futon and then Jackie was back in the bedroom doorway, gun aimed at him.

“I don’t get to rough your face up,” Jackie said. “But I’m still going to hurt you.” He leaned down and pulled the cell phone from Ben’s pants pocket, tucked it into his dark jacket. He was dressed in black, with black cowboy boots. His face was braced with a nose guard and bandages.

“Clear,” Jackie called to the other side of the door.

Sam Hector stepped inside, holding a woman in front of him. She was fiftyish, graying hair, a generous mouth, haunted blue eyes.

“Sam . . . ,” Ben started.

Sam’s smile was a crooked slash of arrogance.

Jackie hauled Ben up by his shirt, shoved him to the living room floor. Now the futon was four feet away from him; the pillow, hiding the gun, was at the opposite end. The woman—Teach, he presumed—sat on a chair, pushed there by Hector.

Hector stepped between him and the futon. He held a gun, aimed at the floor.

“It would have been easier if you came to my house, like I asked. The customer’s always right, Ben.”

“I hate being wrong,” Ben said, “and I was wrong about you.”

Hector gave a twitch of a shrug. “You’ve been wrong about a great deal, old friend.”

“I’m not your friend,” Ben said.

“True. And you’re not going to grow old.”

“Like Adam and Delia and your own guards down in Austin. You’re a murderer.”

Hector raised a hand, waved his fingers. “My hands are clean. Where’s your new friend?”

“Gone for good.”

“Give him his answers.” Jackie yanked Ben up from the floor, delivered a savage blow to the face that slammed Ben’s head into the wall. Ben felt a tooth loosen; blood oozed from his nose. The tip of the knife skimmed down to his stomach. “Or I’m playing cut-the-dick with you.”

A trickle of blood from his nose tickled Ben’s lip. “What did I ever do to you, Sam, except make your sorry ass
richer
. . .”

“You know I loathe people who delay. Where is Pilgrim, when’s he coming back?”

“He’s not coming back.”

“Jackie, check the laptop, see what he was doing,” Hector said.

Jackie went to the laptop, opened the recent documents menu item. “Writing a report about you and your contracts. Not very nice one. Paints you a real bastard, it does.”

“Delete it. See if there’s anything else interesting on the hard drive, then wipe it clean.” Hector tried the smile again. “You have been an unpleasant surprise, Ben. Seriously. I knew you had a brain, but I didn’t suspect the spine.” He eased down in front of Ben. “Where did Pilgrim go, Ben? I won’t let Jackie play with his knife on you if you tell me.”

Every time death loomed in the past two days, Ben had felt terror touch his bones, adrenaline igniting his blood. But now—the knowledge of death, no escape here—an odd calm gripped him. He had to protect Pilgrim, no matter what they did to him with knife or gun. The realization settled him. The lie was easy: “He went to your house to find Teach.”

Hector’s face—the mask that had fooled Ben for years—betrayed no reaction. Then Ben saw the barest twitch at the corner of Sam Hector’s mouth, a whisper of rage. “He’s not that stupid. Neither are you.”

Delay him. “How do you pretend to be a normal human being when you’re so clearly not, Sam? I trusted you, I was your friend . . .”

“Basic math: People are either help or hindrance.” He slid a sealed envelope from his jacket, tossed it on Ben’s lap. “If you don’t want to cooperate, Ben, so be it. I’ll show my cards.”

“I’m not interested.”

“You are. Open it.”

Ben tore open the envelope, pulled a set of photos free. The images hit him like a giant’s fist, crushing his lungs, flattening every thought in his brain.

Emily. Photographed with a telescopic lens, standing in the kitchen window in the Maui house in the moments before she died. Next photo. The same. Next photo, her clicking off the phone, looking pensive, almost looking up at the camera, a frown on her face. Then a photo of the kitchen window, a bullet hole marring the glass, Emily sprawled on the tiles.

The photos spilled from his hands onto the floor. His throat thickened, his chest tightened. “Why?”

Hector laughed.

“Why did you . . . Why?”

“You mean who?” Hector laughed, the cat batting the dying mouse.

“You goddamned murdering bastard—” Ben yelled, but then Teach bolted from the floor, threw herself at Hector. She closed a hard grip on his throat—Ben saw the astonishment in Hector’s eyes—and Ben jumped up, grabbing for Hector’s gun. Hector wrenched free from them both, kicked Ben in the face, sent him sprawling. Hector powered his pistol into Teach’s stomach and fired.

Teach collapsed, eyes open, mouth clenched. Ben got up again and Hector slammed the pistol into Ben’s face, kicked him in the stomach, to the carpet.

Lying on the floor, Ben’s eyes locked on Teach’s. She blinked once, twice, stopped, tried to speak.

“Jackie.” Hector watched Teach, the gun steady on Ben. When she stopped breathing he prodded her with the foot. “Dump her ass in the bedroom.”

Jackie picked up Teach’s body and carried her into the bedroom.

Ben crawled to the futon. He could hardly breathe. The gun. The pillow. His only chance to get away and to kill the son of a bitch.

“I suppose it’s rude to point out I’ve taken everything from you,” Hector said. “Your wife. Your good name, your business. Your dignity.”

“Why . . . why?” Make the smug murdering bastard believe he’d broken Ben. He got a hand under the pillow, crouching as though he feared a kick or a blow from Hector. He shivered, spat blood. Emily. She had changed him in life, and now that he knew the truth of her death he felt changed again. Determination filled him like an ache in his bones. Not a moment’s hesitation.

“You’re going to tell me where Pilgrim is, Ben, because I know you. You’re weak. You’ll trade me the information for an easy death. You want to look under Teach’s clothes, see the cuts?”

His fingers touched the gun. Hector would shoot him as soon as he drew it, and even if he stood his ground and managed to kill or wound Hector, Jackie would attack him from the other room. The odds were dismal.

But otherwise, they would kill him and wait for Pilgrim to return. Death was doing nothing. He thought of Pilgrim’s words:
Sometimes the smartest move in a fight is to retreat
.

“Delia told me all about New Orleans,” Ben said, plainly, and for a moment surprise slackened the clench in Hector’s face. Ben flung the pillow straight at Hector’s head and swung up the gun that lay underneath it. The feathers exploded from the pillow as Hector fired a shot through its center. But Ben emptied the clip in Hector’s direction as he ran for the window. Hector threw himself backward and behind the kitchen counter for cover. Ben’s spray of shots pocked the counter, the wall, punctured the refrigerator, as he ran the ten feet.

Hector rose to return fire but Ben hit the window.

The closed, dusty curtains caught Ben as he jumped through the glass, the heavy fabric protecting him from the jagged shards. His momentum carried him onto the landing. Stopping or taking the time for the stairs meant death, and he rolled without hesitation, slid himself under the metal railing of the walkway, dropped one floor to the grass below.

The apartment stood at a corner, and if he ran to his right he’d be wide open, they could shoot him from the second floor. So he ducked under the walkway, ran in the opposite direction, hit the corner. He could hear their footsteps starting to barrel down the stairs.

Try to do what they don’t expect
. He turned a second corner; the chain link dividing the complex from the neighboring construction was just ahead. If he was lucky they’d decide he was still running north, when he was back-tracking south on the opposite side of the building. Ben went over the fence, ignoring the barbed wire that tore at his arms, his khakis.

“There!” Jackie’s voice, from the parking lot to his right. He’d been spotted.

Ben hit the sand and ran into the maze of the construction. The building was U-shaped, as it faced the street, its unfinished sides open to the elements.

Now he looked back. Hector was at the Navigator’s wheel, plowing through a gate on the side of the fence, Jackie running behind the SUV. Drawing his pistol.

Ben dodged wheelbarrows, stacks of drywall, an idle forklift. The Navigator roared behind him. He dodged to the left, and Jackie, behind the Navigator, fired.

It was either get shot or be run down. He kept going straight, the SUV always between him and Jackie, and running through piled debris where the Navigator couldn’t go. Supposedly. He glanced behind him and the Navigator plowed through the construction junk, sawhorses and broken drywall flying, ten feet behind him.

Ben jumped up onto the foundation and headed for an interior wall that was already erected; he needed cover. He went around the wall as gunfire hit it with a low, vicious whistle.