Luthecker (32 page)

“You kept them in a storage facility?” Yaw asked, incredulous.

“I kept them safe.” Sam answered, without looking back.

He led them into the building and down the concrete hallways, up two floors, pulling keys from his pocket as he approached a large 10x15 unit. He unlocked the garage-style door and with one strong pull rolled it open, the roar of the pulleys rolling on metal tracking echoing throughout the steel and cement surroundings.

Yaw’s jaw tightened at what he saw. Camila picked up his emotional response instinctively, and she gently took hold of his arm to calm him.

Inside the storage unit, four small young Vietnamese women, haggard and terrified, were huddled in a corner, wrapped close together in an old blanket. Three men, none of them over one hundred and thirty pounds, did what men did, and stood defiantly in guard over the women, ready for anything, nothing but fear in all of their eyes. Pots and pans were piled in the corner, along with empty water bottles, and a handful of belongings.

“They’ve been fed, and have a bathroom down the hall they use.” Sam stated.

They all stared at Yaw, afraid of him most because he was the biggest. He immediately held up his hands, palms out, to indicate he was not a threat.

“We are here to help you. We’re going to take you some place safe.” He said to them as gently as he could, his voice cracking with emotion. For some reason, he thought back to the campfire, and Mawith, recalling the conversation about where he was from, and he remembered what the old man said about who and what he was.

“I swear this to you, on my life.” He added.

Camila looked at him.

“I’ll go pull the van around front.” Chris said.

HIT

M
arcus Stern stared down at the empty tumbler that had held his Grey Goose Kamikaze only ten seconds earlier. It had been his fifth one of the evening, and his head was swirling in a haze created by the alcohol, the bar cacophony, and the mixed thoughts about the last seventy-two hours.

“You want another one?” The bartender asked. Stern waved him off.

Fucking Luthecker, he thought.

A middle-aged woman at the other end of the bar smiled at him and he looked away. He reached into his pocket, pulled a C-note from his money clip and tossed it on the bar, waited for his change.

His bonus for finding the fugitive Luthecker and bringing him in was two-hundred grand. Two-hundred fucking grand to sell his soul. For some reason the thought of it now made him sick to his stomach. He realized that he had no idea what it was that Luthecker had done that had earned him the label of threat to National Security. He realized that he himself was truly nothing but a gun for hire. He hadn’t thought about it before, but that scrawny-as-he-was-creepy little punk-ass was right- his Grandfather would have flat out disowned him for this.

He tried to piece it together. Tried to timeline his life. It hadn’t started this way, that’s for sure. When he joined the service, it was to defend his Country. It was pure. He remembered the barely containable pride he had felt when he first donned the uniform.

Iraq was a total clusterfuck. He was in denial before. But now he admitted it to himself. Fraud. Waste. Needless death. It was those things, and worse. Like most Veterans, he survived by doing his best to keep his fellow soldiers alive, and when it was all over, trying to forget.

His grandfather was his father’s hero. That made him his. He remembered the man as larger than life when he was a child, and as a legend later, in his father’s stories. He looked at his right forearm. At the faded tattoo of his Grandfather’s unit.
Christ.

Fucking Luthecker.

He wished he could clear his head. His mind raced from one thing to the next. He looked at the empty glass in front of him. For the first time, he wondered if he might have a drinking problem. He was officially on vacation from his Coalition Assurance job. He was still supposed to check in, but he hadn’t. He didn’t think he could ever go back.

The bartender returned with his change and he left it all and added another C-note as a tip. He got up from his stool, and headed for the exit, thinking a walk in the cool air might take the wooze off, might clears his head, might help him think.

He hadn’t talked to Wolfe, even though his partner had called him several times. Fuck him too, he thought. He had grown tired of the man’s constant condescending attitude. Endless bullshit from a complete burnout. Crotchety bitch laid down years ago. Loser. What was it that Luthecker said?
Beware the wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Right. Fuck it. And fuck Brown most of all. Fuck’em all. He shook his head. His anger was everywhere, and he didn’t understand it. He decided he really did need the air.

He reached the exit to the bar, and pushed the door open. He stepped outside. The breeze caught his face. It felt good. Like he had walked straight into a meat cooler.

The phone in his pocket buzzed. He pulled it free, checked a text message. Speak of the devil. It was from Wolfe:
Need to meet asap. Very important. It’s about Luthecker.

If it would’ve been about any other subject, Stern would have blown him off.

Time and place.
He sent back.

• • •

Nikki sat on the end of her brother’s bed as he stirred. When she had brought him home from the hospital, he had insisted that she not worry about him, and had encouraged her to go have dinner with her new “friend”. She had tried to tell him with a look that she would prefer not to, without being rude to her guest, but in his condition he had missed the signal. Still, she had promised him she would be back to check on him by 9PM, which allowed her to put a cap on Philip Miller’s expectations.

She waited until he finally opened his eyes. She smiled at him.

“Hey.” She whispered.

“Hey back. Since when did you start dating a cop?”

“I’m not dating him. He’s just a friend.”

“He seems nice.”

“He is.”

“A bit pushy though. And a little old for you maybe.”

“I said I’m not dating him.” She gently reminded him. “How are you feeling?” She asked, changing the subject.

“Fine. No more pain meds. After today. All I do is sleep.”

“You need rest.”

“No more pain meds.”

“We’ll see.” She said, not wanting to argue the point. “I found us a two bedroom.” She added, changing the subject.

“Cool.” He replied, barely above a whisper, giving a brief thumbs up, and she could see that he was beginning to drift off again.

She kissed him on the cheek.

“Rest up. I’m home for the night. If you need anything, just holler.”

He was already asleep.

She carefully stood up from his bed, took a deep breath, and gathered her thoughts. She had completely forgotten about her dinner plans with Miller, but he hadn’t been offended, and had been very helpful in bringing Ben home, being polite and courteous throughout the process. She knew he was attracted to her, but she had been honest, and even though he had been a bit persistent, he had not been disrespectful.

After making sure her brother was resting comfortably, she exited his bedroom, closing the door behind her.

“How’s he doing?” Miller asked, sitting on the couch, as he watched Nikki exit the bedroom.

“He’s fine. He’s asleep.” She answered. She approached the couch, but remained standing.

“Thank you for your help. And dinner.” She said to him.

“My pleasure.”

They stood across from one another for an awkward moment before Nikki spoke.

“Look, I don’t want you to think I just used you to get to Luthecker.”

“I don’t think that. I volunteered to help.”

“And I appreciated it.”

“Just friends, right?” He replied. “But over time, who knows?” He added.

She smiled at him, not answering, and gave him a hug.

“It’s getting late.” She started, before the doorbell rang, interrupting.

Her heart sunk as it came to her who might be at the door, this time of night. She stood a moment, unmoving. The bell rang again.

“Are you expecting someone?” Miller asked.

“No.”

“Is everything okay?” He asked, reading the look on her face.

“Yes, it’s fine, it’s just- It’s my ex.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

“No. Just let me talk to him a minute.”

Miller watched Nikki as she walked around him and towards the front door.

Her heart raced. She opened the door and confirmed that it was in fact Michael.

“Hi Nikki. It’s so good to see you. Can I come in?” Kittner asked.

• • •

He watched from across the street as she let the target into the apartment, and closed the door behind him. He had been tracking the target, Michael Kittner, starting at the airport, and, with a certain amount of professional discretion, had followed him to his hotel. The target had barely taken the time to check in before going directly to where intelligence reports told him exactly where he would go next- The primary target’s location, the apartment rented in her brother’s name, which he’d already staked out earlier. When he followed the target from the airport to the home of the primary, he had simply driven his van to the Southwest corner of the street, a position where he knew from earlier reconnaissance he would have a clear shot into the apartment’s front windows from the van’s rear door gun porthole.

Brown had said he wanted it clean, and it would be cleanest to take them out in one place, at the same time. It would also be easiest for him to shoot from a short distance, eliminating the variables and unknowns of direct confrontation. He could easily arrange the apartment and the bodies to tell whatever story he wanted it to -- domestic incident, jilted boyfriend, murder-suicide, all after the fact. He was a sniper by training, a cleaner by profession, and had eliminated terrorists and political “unfriendlies” overseas much the same way in the past. Although this was his first domestic operation since being hired by The Coalition, he saw no reason why this strategy would be any less effective here.

He examined the exterior of the apartment, assessing the real time conditions. It was a ground floor unit, and there were two windows on the front face of the apartment, one on either side of the entrance. One overlooked the kitchen, the other, the living room. The two areas combined with the entrance made up the entire width of the unit. The bedroom was back and to the left of the entrance. The lights in both the dining area and living room were on. They would more than likely choose the kitchen table, or the couch, to socialize. It didn’t matter to him which. He wanted to get this done quickly, while they were together in the same place. This would be over in a matter of minutes.

He checked his watch. 9:28pm. He checked the street. Deserted. The two streetlights between the van and the apartment building created deep shadows where he could easily find cover should he need to exit the van for any reason. The woman in the adjacent apartment building who took her poodle for a walk between 9 and 9:30pm every night, had done so, and she was in for the evening.

He picked up his weapon of choice for the assignment, a Russian made SV-99 short-range police sniper rifle, intended for actions such as taking out lights, guard dogs, or, as in this instance, silent anti-personnel work. It was built for and mounted with both suppressor and targeting scope. It was lethal enough in the right hands at 22 caliber, which was a common enough round size so as not to create unusual scrutiny, as long as no one knew to look beyond standard ballistics testing.

He opened the small sniper porthole located in the van’s right-side rear door, and carefully placed the rifle in the handcrafted gun mount. His intelligence file had told him the woman had no relationships in the city, save for her brother, who was currently in the hospital, recovering from a car accident. Other than one afternoon when she went into the LAPD Metro Precinct to verify the identification of someone in connection with her brother’s accident, she had spent her last five days at his side. The other target, who had arrived from New York, was her former boss and ex-boyfriend. He didn’t need to know any more than this. He saw movement in the window overlooking the living room, set his sights, and waited for his shot.

• • •

Vincent Wolfe sat quietly in his car, waiting. He didn’t remember an actual moment in time where he last felt this level of nervousness, but instead recalled his anxiety as a montage of combat experiences early in his career. His meeting with Brown had been unexpectedly disturbing, to say the least. The man was downright obsessed to the point of lunacy with the target of their last mission, Alex Luthecker. The Coalition Properties leader had quizzed him for nearly an hour on his exact interactions with the captured fugitive, far beyond what he had been written up in their report, going as far as questioning his loyalty to Coalition Assurance and even Country before being satisfied that Luthecker had not corrupted him in any way. But that was the least disturbing part of the conversation. What came next put Wolfe in an extremely difficult position, one that he had never experienced in all his years of service.

Brown had told him that his partner, Marcus Stern, had been corrupted by his interactions with Luthecker, so much so that he had become a threat to National Security. He was off the reservation, as Brown had put it, and needed to be brought in. And if he refused, he needed to be put down.

At first, Wolfe could not believe what he was hearing. It was true that the tempestuous young soldier had not checked in, and had even dismissed Wolfe’s attempt at contact. Luthecker had clearly gotten in the young man’s head. Wolfe had witnessed this himself in the transport plane and again in the police precinct. And it was only at the mention of Luthecker’s name did Stern even agree to meet. But to Wolfe, this was not an indication that Stern had been corrupted or was in any way a threat.

Brown had made it clear that he was not interested in Wolfe’s opinion. The former decorated Army Colonel and head of the most powerful company in the world was resolute to the point of maniacal. His calm but authoritarian manner had a distinct threat woven into it towards the end of the conversation, Brown taking an unmistakable with-us-or-against-us stance, telling Wolfe directly, “If he doesn’t come in, I am ordering you to take him down. If you fail to follow through, I can only assume you are in league with him, and I at that point I will have to take appropriate action. Is that in any way unclear?” To Wolfe it was very clear. He knew that “appropriate action,” meant he would have a bulls-eye on his back as well.