Guardian (10 page)

 

Chapter Sixteen

“K
harija seems to have decided to stay in the shadows for now.” Kitra sat on the end of Abu's hospital bed. “Why broadcast his location one day only to hide the next?”

“I should know?”

“Being he is a former member of whatever group you belong to, I thought you might have a clue to his motivation. You tracked him down rather effectively in Haifa.”

“We were alerted as soon as he used his credit card, as you have probably surmised.” Abu sipped water. “We received a tip when your ­people put out the alert for the police to look for him.”

“Ah.” Kitra rubbed her hands together. “You have your own spies, eh?”

Abu shrugged. “We are many.”

“I will have to make a note to dig a little deeper into your group.”

A few moments of silence passed.

“I think you know why Kharija exposed himself,” Abu said, setting his water down. “You put out the alert to find him. Which means you were looking for him for a reason. Why is that?”

Kitra smiled.
Observant bastard,
he thought. “We believe he was trying to draw the attention of the American.”

“Why?”

“He had him once. It seems he wants him again.”

Abu remained silent.

Kitra watched him for a moment before saying, “Any reason you can think of for wanting him?”

“I had no idea he even had the American until I interrogated the man you left in the schoolhouse.”

“Haddad, who also betrayed your order.”

“Yes. But before I killed him, Haddad made it clear to me Kharija wants the American in relation to whatever he is planning. Almost like the American is a missing input of a vital formula. What that is, I have no idea. Whatever he is up to, the more I learn, the more it unnerves me.”

“Why so?”

“Anyone who would willingly provoke a trained killer to chase them should be feared, do you not think?”

Kitra nodded. “Good point.”

Silence passed between them for a few moments. Abu broke it when he said, “How long have you been working in this field?”

“This field?”

“Intelligence.”

Kitra smirked. “A long time.”

“I figured as much.”

“Because of how old I am?”

“Because of how vague you are.”

Kitra let out a quick laugh. “As perceptive as you are, you must be in the same line of work.”

Abu shrugged. “I have dabbled, in my years.”

This time they both laughed. Kitra knew what Abu was doing. Knew he was trying to gain her trust. He would not succeed, though, no matter how hard he tried. But Kitra had to admit Abu was not a bad person to share a laugh with. Besides, she might be able to turn the tables and gain Abu's trust. Maybe then he would open up a little more about the order. It was worth a shot.

L
ooking at himself in the mirror, Mayyat reflected that he would have to thank Caldwell at some point for breaking his nose. The injury discolored his face in hues of purple and yellow. His cheeks had swelled. Black marks appeared under his eyes.

He reset the bridge on his own and taped it down with a splint. Two black eyes and a disfigured face. If someone managed to get a description of him to the authorities, they would not recognize him now. At least, not on first sight. That his complexion was not dark did not hurt, either. He could pass for Greek of Spanish any day of the week. In addition he shaved his head, to exaggerate his new appearance.

The boarding call for his flight came over the intercom. Mayyat checked his ticket: 30F. Time to get on.

He approached the ticket scanner, head held high, not afraid of anyone noticing his injury. When he reached it, a young brunette female took his boarding pass with a smile.

“I hope the other guy looks worse,” she said, and scanned the pass.

Mayyat nodded and said with a hint of a Spanish accent, “I know he feels worse.”

“There you go, Mr. Delgado.” She handed the pass back. “Enjoy Yuma.”

Mayyat winked. “I will.”

K
harija finished his prayers. He rose, sat on the motel room's couch and read from his Koran while waiting for Mayyat to call. An hour passed before his cell phone finally rang.

“What is the status?” Kharija asked.

“Progressing rapidly. I had a confrontation with the American.”

Kharija's hand squeezed the phone tighter. “Tell me he is still alive.”

“He is. Do not worry. A little more banged up than he was before, but he will live.”

“You could not subdue him and make this easier?”

“I underestimated him. I did not think he made me while following him. I had planned to capture him at his hotel once I finished searching his apartment. He doubled back on me. Very skilled at close-­quarter combat..”

Kharija relaxed a little. “What happened?”

Mayyat told him. Kharija shook his head the entire time he listened. “You are lucky you were not apprehended.”

“Yes, but it worked out. Besides, I acquired the information I needed.”

“Did you?”

“Yes. I just arrived in Yuma. The American will be coming for you soon. Have you made your new location known?”

I am waiting for Nassir's men,
he thought, but he said, “Once you are finished, I will tell you. I do not want a repeat of Haifa.”

“I will get to work, then.”

Mayyat hung up. Kharija stared at the phone for a second before dropping it on the couch next to him.

Would Caldwell be coming soon? He could only pray that he would. But first Nassir's men had to arrive.

Kharija leaned back and closed his eyes and released a long breath.
Soon Nassir's men will be here. And then I will announce my location again. The American will come charging shortly thereafter. And perhaps I will have my family back at long last.

Perhaps.

Then he thought about Nassir finding one of the prisons and opening it. He swallowed hard and shivered a little, then opened his eyes, wanting to pray some more.

I
t was three in the morning when Mayyat reached Major Francis Greengrass's house. He drove by at the posted speed limit, checking for any signs of police protection, and spotted it right away. Two men in plainclothes in a parked car across the street. He kept driving.

He parked a few blocks away in the same residential neighborhood. All the houses looked the same. One story, slightly pitched roofs. The air was cool and dry. Much more like home. A welcome relief from DC's humidity.

Mayyat walked the few blocks and approached the car from the rear, avoiding the light of the streetlamps. The police seemed relaxed. They conversed. He heard music playing. What he understood as classic rock.

Not the most favorable conditions, but not the worst, either. He reached into his light windbreaker and rested his hand on the Glock. Like in DC, Kharija had made sure a new firearm had been waiting for him upon arrival in Yuma. This time in a locker at a bus depot.

Mayyat breathed deeply and drew the silenced Glock. He walked to the passenger-­side window, aimed, and fired one round into the side of the officer's head. The bullet ripped through the glass, leaving a tight spiderweb pattern behind it as it plunged into the man's cranium. His head rocked sideways as the bullet exited, spraying blood and brain on his partner.

The driver flailed and exclaimed obscenities and tried to draw his own gun. Mayyat squatted and fired another round, hitting the second man in the face. His body twitched and pumped blood all over the seat.

Mayyat reached through the broken glass and pulled the wallet from the first man's pants. He flipped it open. Aaron Jenner. The identification card of an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He dropped the wallet back inside the car.

It meant he would not have much time. The FBI probably had a reporting requirement. If neither of these two radioed in within the hour, a patrol might be sent out to investigate. Which meant he had to work quickly.

He hustled across the street, walked up to the front door of the house where he knew Francis Greengrass lived and kicked it, hard. The door exploded inward. Splinters flew from the jamb.

In the back of the house a man said, “What the fuck?” A woman mumbled something but Mayyat could not make it out.

He moved into the front of the house, scanning, looking for them.

There. A light flicked on at the end of a hallway. Movement. Mayyat pivoted and aimed.

The silhouette of a woman in the hallway. She saw him and screamed. Mayyat fired, and her head recoiled back and her body dropped.

“Becky!” the man screamed from the lighted room.

Mayyat moved forward toward the light. A door on his right opened. A little boy stepped out. “Mommy?”

One round to the head. The boy crumpled in the doorway. He kept moving.

“Becky!”

Mayyat reached the light. He turned and aimed inside. Greengrass lay in the bed, his torso heavily bandaged. In one hand he held a cordless phone, in the other a revolver.

“Put the gun down,” Mayyat said.

Greengrass shook his head. He was a big man with a flat top. Even though he was recovering from injuries, Mayyat did not want a physical encounter. There was no time for it.

“Put it down.”

“Fuck you, Hadji.”

“Do it now or I will shoot.”

“Like you just did to my wife and son.” Tears filled the proud man's eyes.

Greengrass raised the gun. Mayyat fired, hitting him in the chest. Greengrass rocked back on the bed, the gun dropping from his hand onto the mattress. His eyes stared at the ceiling and a long last gasp escaped his mouth.

Mayyat lowered the Glock and took a deep breath. Now the real work began. And time was short.

K
harija answered his cell phone. “Yes?”

“The third target is terminated,” Mayyat said, and hung up.

Kharija closed his eyes and prayed Caldwell would receive the message loud and clear this time. He prayed the man would take up the pursuit. He prayed this would all end soon.

Now if Nassir's ­people would only show up.

Kharija walked from the bed to the bathroom sink and ran the water until it was hot and steaming. He soaked a towel and wrung it out and padded his face with it. As he did, he noticed a shadow out of the corner of his eye flickering in the light coming from under the motel room door.

Not again!
Only this time he grabbed his pistol.
How could they have found me already?

The shadow expanded until all the light disappeared. Had someone secured the light outside?

Kharija raised the gun and pointed it at the door, ready for whatever came through. He slowed his breathing and steadied his aim.

The light returned, seeping under the door in ever increasing increments. It started at the far edges, and when Kharija looked at it, he saw light and shadow and light. But then the shadow shrank or the light expanded until the two sides met in the middle and there was no more darkness.

How is that possible?

Before he could question it further, he noticed movement to his left. Another shadow danced in the light, this time coming from the bed lamp. He pivoted and aimed, expecting to see a person charging across the room at him.

What he saw instead froze any response he might muster.

A black cloud floated over the bed, moving toward him. As it did, it rippled and flexed, its shape constantly changing, like a lung expanding and contracting. He heard insects. Flies buzzing and locusts singing. Then he saw them, flying in swarms inside the cloud.

My God!
He fired shot after shot after shot. Whether the bullets hit anything or passed straight through the thing, he did not know. What he did know was they failed to halt the cloud's advance and a second later it enveloped him.

It pinned Kharija's arms against his sides. It squeezed his hand until the bones broke and the gun fell from his hands. He screamed, only to have his mouth filled with flies and locusts. They bit his tongue and lips and face and every inch of exposed flesh.

The room faded away, surrendering to blackness. His whole world turned dark. And thankfully, his consciousness quickly followed.

 

Chapter Seventeen

“C
heckout time.” Mike looked up at the guard and pointed at his chest with his thumb. The guard nodded. “Yes you, Mr. Mystery Guest.”

Mike rose from the bench and walked past several drunks and an addict twitching and mumbling in the corner and out of the holding cell. He turned. Glenn stood at the end of a concrete block hallway. Mike nodded but Glenn turned and headed out of sight.

“You're a lucky fuck, you know that?” the guard said. “Must be nice to know someone up on high.”

Mike eyed him. Short and squat. Napoleon complex to the hilt, he bet. Probably talked a good game and loved to pick fights. Part of him wanted to take him up and smash his head into the concrete block wall. But Mike was too banged up to blink, let alone fight. So he let it go and walked away.

Outside the station, Mike found Glenn standing with his hands in his pockets, staring off into nowhere.

“What, no hugs and kisses?” Mike said.

“Fuck you, Mike.” Glenn shifted his gaze and fixed him with his dead eyes. Mike couldn't match them. Never could and probably never would. “Do you know how much shit I had to jump through to get you out?”

“Must have been a lot since it took damn near twenty hours,” Mike said as he watched an empty cigarette package blow by.

“Twenty hours is a miracle. You think it's easy getting a guy with no identification or name on any public record out of jail after he's apprehended on a Metro train with an unregistered firearm and bleeding like a stuck pig? Jesus Christ, Mike, you're lucky you're not in an orange jumpsuit and being held on terrorism charges in Gitmo already.”

Mike winced as he leaned against a parked car and folded his arms across his chest. “Sorry, Glenn. I'm hurting and tired.”

“How bad?”

“Three stitches in my head. Twelve in my leg. Restitched my shoulder. Wouldn't give me a new sling, though, the fuckers.

“Well, you deserve all the pain you're feeling.”

“What?”

“Just get in the car.”

Mike bit his tongue and climbed into Glenn's Cadillac DTS. Something had his boss's blood up, and he was pretty sure it wasn't just his voyage on the Metro. Better to let him cool down and ease the information out of him than argue.

They hit the road, heading toward Mike's hotel. The radio off. No sound except the tires rolling over pavement and horns honking in the distance.

Glenn shook his head. “Do you have any idea how fucking stupid you are?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You made a tail and you didn't call for backup. Didn't even call me. After all the shit that's happened. Then you fucking confront the asshole on your own like you're some kind of gunslinging cowboy. Did you regress to a fucking rookie fresh out of Quantico? Did that fucking demon you claim to have confronted make your head soft or something?”

“I wasn't thinking straight. Just reacting.”

“No shit. You're acting like you've got oatmeal for brains. As soon as you made him you should have called me. I could have had assets in place to pick him up either at your hotel or back at your apartment. Instead, you took him on and lost him.”

“I said I'm sorry—­”

Glenn slammed on the brakes. Before Mike could say anything, a right cross hit his jaw and rocked him into the door. Horns blared behind them. Mike rubbed his mouth and swallowed blood and looked at Glenn. His boss's face was beet red, his eyes on fire. Mike considered punching the asshole back but held firm. Not here. Not now.

“What the fuck, Glenn?”

“I'm holding you responsible, Mike. I know I made you my rogue agent, sent you across the globe to kill on command. But I didn't sign up for this shit. And I won't take the heat for your stupidity any fucking more.”

Horns blared at them. ­People shouted for them to move.

“You're not talking about favors and political heat, are you?”

“No, I'm talking five more dead bodies.”

It hit him like a semi truck barreling down the freeway at full speed. “Greengrass?”

“And his wife and son. And the two FBI agents assigned to watch the house.”

Mike grabbed his stomach, leaned forward and rested his head on the dashboard. His soul deflated. Glenn started driving again.

“How?”

“Shot. All of them. Then he severed Greengrass's legs.”

Mike wanted to puke.
It's my fault,
he thought.
I killed them.

“I'm sorry, Glenn. Fuck, I'm so sorry.”

“Save it.”

Mike rubbed his face, wishing he could reverse time and handle Kharija's man the right way. What had he been thinking?

“Your boy was in a hurry when he did it,” Glenn said. “Looked like he tried to write something on the wall in Greengrass's blood but only got one shape done.”

“Shape?”

“Yeah, he drew a heart.”

Mike rocked back, his pulse hammering. “Take me to my apartment.”

“No way.”

“Either take me there or I'll jump out and go on my own.”

Glenn glanced at him and then nodded. “Okay. But we're not there for long.”

M
ike walked into his apartment and headed straight to the nightstand. He yanked it out, snatched the pouch, opened it, and then threw it across the room.

“Fuck!”

He punched the wall three times in rapid succession. The first cracked the drywall. The second went through completely. The third only served to widen the new hole. Then he paced back and forth, flexing his hands into fists, the knuckles of his right hand covered in white from the drywall.

I'm going to fucking kill you, Kharija. Slow. Cut your legs off and make you dance on the stumps.

He stomped into the kitchen, threw open the cupboard and pulled down the half-­empty bottle of Johnnie Walker. It felt at home in his hand. He set a glass down and filled it with two fingers worth and knocked the whiskey back.

It burned as it raced down to his gut. A good burn. A burn he missed. A burn that soothed his nerves. He poured two more fingers, knocked it back, and then put the bottle away. His head floated a little but his anger abated enough to regain control.

He left the apartment and headed back to Glenn's car, parked in front. As he climbed in, Glenn said, “We stop for Happy Hour?”

“I needed a fix.”

“Did it work?”

“For now.” Mike faced Glenn. “The heart was meant for me.”

“I'm guessing you're going to tell me how you know that.”

“I had a drawing in my go-­stash. The only personal thing of hers I have. But he found it and he wanted me to know it.”

“Shit.” Glenn tapped the steering wheel. “No way could he know her location, right?”

“I don't even know where she's at. Her mother took her. Wanted me out of their lives a long time ago. And I respected her wishes. But I'm not going to risk the chance he does know, either. This asshole has proven he can find ­people connected to me. Find them and butcher them. No way am I going to let this guy run around the country looking for my daughter. Cora isn't going to suffer because of something her dumb-­ass dad did.”

“I take it you're going to give this guy what he wants, then?”

Mike nodded. “Kharija wants me to come after him so bad, well, he pushed the right button. I'm going to find him and carve his fucking eyes out.”

“Well, don't hold back or anything.” Glenn started the car. “I'm assuming you're going to want to hit the road right away?”

“Bet your ass.”

“I'll take you by the hotel and then the airport.”

“Why are you suddenly so supportive?”

“One, I don't want this guy killing any more ­people on American soil. If that means you have to leave to stop it, then I'm all for it now. Two, you're a fucking political nightmare right now. I want you gone so I can smooth shit over with the Bureau and local authorities. Three, I want these fuckers dead. And you're the best person who can make them dead.”

I'm a killer,
Mike thought.
It's what I'm good at. But I hunt wolves, not lambs now. I protect the flock.

Temms, Katherine, Greengrass and his family, and two FBI agents. Gone. Seven lambs eaten by a wolf.

“Do you want to call Kitra and let her know I'm coming or do you want me to?” Mike asked.

“Nah, I'll take care of it.