The Executioner's Game (14 page)

“If you stop now, I'll spare your family,” said Alex, getting up.

Luther said nothing, but he was sure Alex was not bluffing. Luther had already made his peace with Rule 35. His family was in some danger this night—they were Alex's backup plan. And in that same moment, he had a notion of exactly what that plan was.

“
I got a package?
” He heard his mother's voice. A bomb. The bastard had sent his mother a bomb.

Alex smiled in the darkness, that crazy thing that passed for a smile.

“The gravity of my being here has not occurred to you,” said Alex. “Either you give in to me or they die.”

Luther was enraged, but he quelled his anger. Alex wanted him to be angry. Strong emotion would throw him off. Luther swiftly assessed the situation. If there was a bomb, he'd have to get Alex quickly. If there wasn't, then it didn't matter. In either case he had to act in a measured fashion. He would not blow getting the wolf just to save his family. It sounded bad, but that was his job.

Luther blocked a kick and caught Alex around the neck. Alex drove his heel into Luther's foot, and Luther yelled. He threw Alex aside and jammed an elbow into his ribs. Alex countered with a blow to Luther's jaw, dropping him. Alex was about to administer a lethal blow when Luther heard a popping sound
and saw Alex's head bob forward. He fell on his face, revealing Hampton standing behind him.

“Where the hell were you?” asked Luther.

“Shit, it's dark out here,” said Hampton. “You're lucky I didn't hit
you
.”

“What did you hit him with?” asked Luther, getting up.

“The newest knockout drug. It's a neural-impact compound that literally shuts down portions of the brain.”

“Good,” said Luther. They couldn't have Alex waking up in the middle of transport.

“Okay,” said Hampton. “You do what you have to do to him. I don't want to see it.” Hampton gave Luther a solemn look. He did not like the idea of executing an unconscious man. Shooting or killing someone in the heat of battle was one thing, but now that they had Deavers safe and sound, taking him out seemed barbaric.

“I'm not going to kill him,” said Luther. “Not until I talk to him.”

“What!?” Hampton almost yelled. “You said we'd take him first, but I assumed that you meant to eliminate him soon after.”

“Marcellus,” said Luther. He never called Hampton by his first name, and the use of it now made him pay close attention. “You cannot deny that something is wrong with this mission. Just trust me a little while longer. Meet me back at the base. I'll explain later.”

Hampton walked off muttering. He was a creature of duty, and the rules meant everything to him. Luther hoped that Alex hadn't been right about the dangers Hampton might present.

Luther carried his prize away. There was no sign of Nappy, although Luther did see specks of blood by light of the street-
lamp, which meant that Nappy had come back across this path. Although there was no one in sight, Luther was sure some jogger or dog walker had spotted or heard the fight and would call the police.

Luther thought about what Alex had said about the bomb as he drove off onto Woodward Avenue, his mission successfully completed. But there was no cause for celebration. Luther was miles away from his family and would never get to them in time. He doubted that his old mentor had left much of a margin for error. They were both trained killers, after all, and this was the deadliest of games.

Luther Green quietly accepted the fate of his occupation and the awful consequence that his family would probably be dead by the end of the night.

Alex was safe in the cab of Luther's Ford and sleeping peacefully. Luther quickly took out his cell phone and called his mother. He expected to hear a busy signal, a continuous ring, or, worse, nothing at all—all signs that the house had been blown to hell—but instead he got a ring and the line was picked up. He heard loud chatter in the background.

“Hello,” said Luther.

“Luther?” said his mother.

“Yes,” he said, trying not to betray the relief he felt. They were all still alive—for now. “Hey, who's there with you?”

“Just me and your father,” she said.

He wanted to start asking her about what kind of package had arrived, but he didn't have time. His family had to get out of that house immediately. If he told her about the bomb, there would be too much explaining to do, and when it got out to the press, he'd be pulled from the mission.

“Mama,” said Luther as calmly as he could. “I need to see
you and Daddy right now. Meet me at that restaurant we were at.”

“Sweet Georgia's?”

“Yes.”

“But it's Saturday night,” said Theresa. “It's probably crowded. Why don't you just come over—”

“No time,” Luther cut her off. “Just come.” He tried to block out images of his family blown apart, but he couldn't. He saw his mother dismembered, lying in the street amid the still-burning debris of her beloved kitchen. And he saw his father split into tiny, bloody bits all over the street.

“Okay.”

“Mama,” said Luther, “that package you received. Where is it?” He still struggled to stay measured.

“It's in the living room,” she said. “Don't know what's in it or who sent it. I tried to open the darn thing, but it has no way to open that I can see.”

Alex must have used a security container so that the bomb would go off when he wanted it to.

“Okay,” said Luther, “I might as well tell you. I sent that box. It's a surprise. Just leave it at home, and I'll open it for you later.”

“Okay,” said Theresa. “Come on,” she called. “Let's go, Roland.”

Luther hung up and drove as quickly as he could to his mother's house. He fought the images of fire trucks and police crowded around the charred remains of the house. He was fighting with himself about all of this. He wasn't supposed to care. Rule 35 didn't call for your family to be killed, but it was a possibility that any agent had to deal with. However, this mission was like no other he'd ever been on, and the rules, as sacred as they
were, didn't seem to apply anymore. He'd already broken them anyway by not killing Alex, he thought.

When he got to his mother's house, it was still standing. The family car was gone, and the house looked deserted.

For a second he thought that maybe the bomb was a fake like the one in New York, but it was unlikely that Alex would bluff twice.

Luther still had Alex safely tucked in the cab of the Ford. He would find the device and disarm it. Alex couldn't have rigged anything too elaborate—he hoped.

He found the pretty box in a hallway closet. Luther took the box and left his mother's house as fast as he could. On the way out, he jostled a few things and left a window open. His family would think they'd been burglarized.

Luther took the box into his Ford and pulled away. He didn't know how much time he had before it went off. He drove about a mile to a deserted area and then looked at the box. Sure enough, it was in a security case, which Luther easily opened by pressing a sequence of hidden latches.

Inside, Luther found a BEP 12 that was wired and hot. BEP stood for Blake Explosive Pack, a powerful and deadly device. The bomb had a timer with several hours still left on it. If Luther hadn't found it, it would have detonated late that night.

Luther disarmed it and headed back to the safe house. He was relieved, but unsettled at how close he'd come to losing his parents.

Nappy's freshly bandaged arm throbbed dully as he pulled up to his mother's house. The girl who had done it for him was a nurse at one of the local hospitals, and for a fee she'd doctored him and some of his men many times in the past. Thank God he hadn't been hurt worse, he thought.

He was sure he'd get an earful for not finding Jewel, but he wanted to let his mother know that he was still on the case.

He didn't know how he was going to deal with the murderous Wolf and his even deadlier friend. Maybe, if he was lucky, they'd killed each other. That was unlikely, he thought, and in the next instant he was rooting for Wolf's friend. At least
he
hadn't tried to kill Nappy.

He knocked only once on the door before it opened and Rita stood there, looking evil and pissed off.

“It's him,” she said over her shoulder.

Rita stepped back and walked into the house. Nappy followed. In the living room, he found his mother sitting next to a still-
frightened Jewel. Upon seeing her uncle, Jewel flew from the sofa and ran to him.

Nappy was so relieved he ignored the pain that shot into his arm when his niece embraced him. “Where were you?” he demanded.

“This man grabbed me, a white man,” said Jewel. “He took me to a room in the back of the mall and locked me in. He took my cell phone.”

“Who did he say he was?” asked Nappy.

“DEA,” said Jewel. “He said he was going to raid our house, and he didn't want anyone to get hurt. He had a badge and everything. I was there for a long time, and finally mall security let me out. They thought I was crazy.”

“We found your boyfriend,” said Nappy, looking angrily at her.

“She's my responsibility,” said Tawanna, standing up next to Jewel.

“Mama,” said Nappy, “she's having sex with a grown man.”

“I know,” said Tawanna.

Nappy was silent for a moment. He looked into his mother's eyes, then to Jewel, and he saw it, the solidarity of the women against him. His mother had known and had done nothing.

“You knew?” he said incredulously.

“There are things a lot worse in this world than a young girl having a boyfriend.”

“Ain't this a bitch?” said Nappy, shaking his head in disbelief. “You call this being a mother?”

“I'm not going to listen to
you
insult me in
my
house, boy. Get out, and don't come back as long as you're dealing in filth. Go.”

“I'm not leaving here until we settle this thing with Jewel,” said Nappy. “I-”

Just then he heard the familiar sound of a gun cocking behind him. He looked over his shoulder and saw Rita holding a .45 on him, aimed at his chest.

“The woman said get out,” said Rita. “Which one of those words don't you understand?”

Nappy turned completely toward Rita and took a half step. He was shaking with anger. His fists tightened, and this time nothing would stop him from tearing the old woman apart one limb at a time.

“Go on,” she said, raising the gun to his face. “Give me the reason.”

Nappy stopped and turned back to his mother, but she was already pulling Jewel away from her uncle. Nappy again looked at Rita and the big gun.

“That's your ass, old bitch,” Nappy almost snarled at her.

“Maybe,” said Rita. “But right now you're
my
bitch.”

Nappy tried to smile, to hide the fact that he had just been punked by an old woman. He went to the door and walked out.

Nappy got into his car, mumbling curses. He had a man just two streets over. He was going to get a gun and come back and settle with Rita tonight. He wasn't going to hurt her, he told himself. He would just let her know who the man was. He started his car and drove off.

When he stopped at a light, a dark SUV pulled up next to his car. He saw only a glimpse of the face in the passenger seat, but he recognized the grim visage of one of his rival street dealers, a man called Lynch.

Nappy thought about all the time he'd spent working with Wolf, all the time he'd tried to make his newspaper legit. He thought about the information provided by Wolf and how de
lighted it had made Nappy to know that he'd been right all these years about the government and how that knowledge seemed to lift him up and away from the source of his funding, the street.

He thought how those days spent away from the street were like years in the drug world, which moved fast. He could see the breakdown of his troops as they sensed he was slipping and felt the confidence a man like Lynch engendered in the feeble young minds of inner-city drug dealers who were all looking for lost fathers. He had abandoned them in their quest for manhood and their brief share of the American dream, the same dream he was working hard, through his newspaper, to reveal as a fraud. Irony, he thought, was a muthafucka.

Nappy saw the barrel of a gun move in front of the evilly smiling man and then the bright light of the muzzle flash as it fired point-blank into his face.

Luther took Alex to a new location, a house in the city of Ferndale that he had arranged for through the agency in anticipation of capturing the wolf. It was a small place that sat back from the street. The front yard was wide and long and away from every other house on the block, perfect for what he had in mind.

Luther had called the restaurant and left word for his family that he'd been detained on business. His mother would be angry, but angry was better than dead.

“What took you so long?” asked Hampton.

“I had to steal a bomb from my mother's house,” said Luther.

“What!?” said Hampton. “Where is it?”

“In the Ford. Alex sent it to my family.”

“You brought it back here?” Hampton looked alarmed.

“It's disabled. Let's get him secure first,” said Luther.

“It wasn't our mission to secure him, Luther,” said Hampton.

“Let's not argue now,” said Luther. “Help me.”

Luther and Hampton put Alex into a patio chair which
Hampton had modified with secure devices. The chair was made of thick, heavy wrought iron. They chained Alex's arms and legs and then checked him for weapons. Alex had another smaller Japanese dagger, a .9mm gun, and three steel flying stars. Luther placed these items far away from the still-unconscious man.

Then he took out his Ion and got onto the E-1 secure network. Kilmer answered his private line on the first ring.

“Hello, sir,” said Luther. He put the director on the speaker so both he and Hampton could hear.

“I would hope this is good news,” said Kilmer.

“It is, sir,” said Luther. “My mission is complete.”

“Good,” said Kilmer, who couldn't hide the excitement in his voice. “So what does the postmission situation look like?”

“There's cleanup to do, but for the most part we're fine,” said Hampton.

“We're going to need to know everything Alex did,” said Kilmer. “I want you to lead a team and find everything Alex had possession of. When you find it, destroy it immediately.”

“Sir,” said Hampton, “that's not quite the correct procedure.”

“It's what I want to happen,” said Kilmer. “Just do it.”

“What are we looking for?” asked Luther. He remembered Kilmer's statement that Alex was “
in possession of that information, too
.” Now he wanted to know what that meant. “Sir, am I looking for something specific?”

“No,” said Kilmer quickly. “It will be a general search, just to make sure our priorities are secure. Tell me, how did you dispose of him?”

“I haven't,” said Luther. Kilmer had obviously assumed that Alex was dead. “I have him here with us, alive.”

There was silence on the line for a few seconds. Only the dis
tant crackle of the connection. Finally Kilmer said, “I am disappointed.”

“Sir,” said Luther, “Alex was up to something here in Detroit, and I think we're close to knowing what it was.”

“It's not your job to question, Luther. You will complete your mission right now. Neutralize Alex Deavers.”

Luther's hand went absently to his P99. The innate instinct of the killer was already working out the execution. Kilmer was right. The agency had been created with the mandate of doing just what Kilmer had suggested, being the protector without judgment, reason, or emotion—killing without question.

Luther's sense of duty and honor rose within him, and his grip tightened on the gun. And then he thought of Rule 35, a rule that called for the potential killing of loved ones in favor of the very feeling of duty that swelled inside him. He'd walked away from his entire life in service of his country, yet on this mission he had gone to great lengths to preserve people from that life, and he had done so even though the strict letter of the law forbade it.

Luther's grip on the gun loosened, and from somewhere in the conditioned and closed-off regions of his heart, he came to the conclusion that his actions of late had made him a bad agent but perhaps a better man.

“No,” said Luther.

Another deadly silence rose, and Luther looked at the little phone as if it were death itself.

“Then you have made your choice,” said Kilmer. “Agent Hampton, relieve Agent Green.”

Luther turned to see Hampton with his sidearm raised at Luther's head. He had put a silencer on the weapon, and it was cocked and ready to fire.

“Sorry, Luther, but I tried to tell you,” said Hampton. “You can't countermand an order within a mission without—”

“Put that gun away,” said Luther.

“Sir, what are my orders?” Hampton asked Kilmer.

“Complete the mission. Neutralize Deavers
and
Green.”

Hampton fired. Luther reeled backward and landed faceup on the floor. Hampton walked over to him and fired another shot. Then he went to the still-unconscious Alex and fired twice more. He then returned to the phone.

“It's done, sir,” he said, breathing heavily.

“Good,” said Kilmer. “The cleanup team is coming soon. Dispose of the bodies. Then find where Deavers hid his materials and destroy them.”

“Yes, sir,” said Hampton. “Sir, I've been wanting to move up to regular fieldwork. I'd like to talk about that with you when I return.”

“I can assure you a field assignment,” said Kilmer. “It took great character to do what you just did. See me first thing.”

“Yes, sir.”

The line went dead.

Hampton sat down hard in a chair, saddened by what he'd just done. All his glory as an agent had ended in this moment.

“You didn't have a choice,” said Luther. He'd fallen as loudly as he could to make it sound good for Kilmer. “He's not dealing honestly with us.”

“He's the director,” said Hampton. “He doesn't have to.”

“Destroy evidence and kill the one witness who can clear all this up? He has no right to do that. No one has. Not to mention that situation in New York. We could've let hundreds of innocent citizens die for whatever he's hiding.”

“We're both disgraced agents now,” Hampton said sadly.

“You're a good agent, Hampton. Don't beat yourself up.”

“I was covering for Kilmer, but I really do want a regular field position. I wanted to show that I could take action under pressure.”

This explained to Luther why Hampton had left his post in Baltimore and shot one of Luther's attackers.

“You didn't have to prove anything to me,” said Luther. “And if it's any consolation, when this is over, no one else will need proof either.”

“What Kilmer is doing just doesn't hold water,” said Hampton almost to himself. He was confused. The agency had always set the path for him, and now, for the first time, he was on his own. “What are we going to do?”

“We're going to find out what Alex was here for and why Kilmer wants him dead.”

“But can we trust a wolf?”

“Alex, Hampton. His name is Alex.”

 

Deavers looked at his old student and invoked that wretched thing he used for a smile.

“You're so much better than I thought,” said Alex groggily. “Should I feel proud because I'm a good teacher or sad that I'm no longer the master?”

“Kilmer wanted you dead,” said Luther. “Hampton here pretended to kill me, but when the cleanup team comes, they'll know what we did.” There were so many other things he wanted to say to his old friend, but right now he had to focus him.

“He did?” said Alex. “That's a surprise. You must know this
man well, Luther. Most people in the agency would've backwashed you without hesitation.”

“I'm not most people,” said Hampton defiantly. “You've endangered all our lives. Tell the man what he wants to know.”

“If you refused to kill me,” said Deavers, “and you—Hampton, is it?—pretended to execute us both, then Kilmer will send an execution team for all of us.”

Luther didn't want to argue with him. He had to keep him talking. “Why would he do that?”

“Because I'm here in Detroit under E-1 Rule 225.”

“There
is
no Rule 225,” said Luther quickly. “There's—”

“There are only two hundred twenty-four rules in the manual,” said Hampton, finishing the thought.

“It's not an official rule, and only us old-timers know of it—and the director, of course,” said Alex, adjusting to his bonds in the chair. “Deuce and a Quarter.” He laughed. “Ironic.”

“I don't see the irony,” said Luther.

“My civilian operative, Nappy, was helping me invoke Rule 225, and he drives a car that bears the same number, that's all,” said Alex.

Alex sat himself up straight; then as if he were reciting a prayer, he said, “‘When an operative is certain that his agency or the governing body controlling it has been corrupted, the operative shall take all measures necessary to eradicate the corrupting influence and restore justice to all concerned.' That's Rule 225,
my
deuce and a quarter.”

“Okay,” said Luther to Alex, “if it's true, then what did you learn about the agency to invoke this so-called rule?”

“The murder of the secretary of commerce was a conspiracy,” said Alex. “But it had deeper implications than even I knew. I
accompanied the secretary to Africa, but my E-1 mission was to recover information from a man named Kiko Salli.”

“Kilmer said you were there to kill a strongman named Behiddah,” said Luther.

“An internal cover mission,” said Alex calmly. “Kilmer had to conceal what he was doing even from his own agents. Behiddah was killed by his own men, just like the news services reported. My mission was to get Salli's information, with the help of the secretary, and then take it from him, replacing it with useless files. The secretary would have knowledge of the information but no proof.”

“If Kilmer wanted the secretary dead, why not ask you to do it?” asked Luther.

“First, I wouldn't have done it,” said Deavers. “The secretary posed no threat to the United States. Second, I think the decision to kill us all came later. I don't think Kilmer wanted to chance anything. But he picked a man outside E-1, he got sloppy, and I got lucky.”

“So where is the information?” asked Luther. He didn't expect Alex to tell him, so this would be the end of the interrogation. Alex would try to get free by telling Luther that he had to take him to the information.

“The information I brought from Africa led me to different places. It was hidden in parts of the cities you followed me to. I hid it in the wall of a garage in the backyard of a drug-supply house in your fair city,” said Alex.

“How dangerous is this drug house?” asked Luther.

“It supplies runners, so it's minimum security. It's on a street called St. Aubin near your old home. Nice touch, huh?”

“Is this one of Nappy's places?” asked Luther. He knew that it
probably was, and he wasn't happy about the prospect of encountering Nappy again.

“Of course,” said Alex. “But he doesn't know. I don't trust Nappy that much.”

“Why not just tell me all this?” Luther asked with a little anger in his voice. “Why try to kill me and force me to kill you?”

“I calmly ask you to commit treason, to work against your own agency as a counteragent? And what would you have done?”

“I would have killed you,” said Luther, “and then I would have looked into it.” He saw Alex's point.

“But this information you refer to,” said Hampton, “doesn't it speak for itself?”

“Not completely,” said Alex. “Which is why I'm here in Detroit. The last part of it, the verifying part, is here, and only I know where it is. The agency doesn't know that, because they've never seen the Africa information.”

“And my family?” Luther made this last statement with resentment.

“Rule 225 does not negate the other rules. I was just trying to win the game. They were forfeit, Luther, but you've obviously taken measures to save them. In the end that's always a mistake.”

Luther saw real truth in the face of his old mentor. In a job where lies and half-truths were the norm, only action spoke clearly and without taint and deception. Alex's actions had been honest and unsullied. He'd risked his life and endangered the lives of others to obtain something in this city. He'd gone against the agency to do it, and he'd forced a pursuing agent to doubt his commanders by taking that agent to extremes. Luther was left with no logical choice. He believed Alex. God help him, but he believed that Alex's Rule 225 was real.

And then, from the back of his mind, something rose, a statement he'd heard about rules and their importance. He struggled to remember, because so much had happened to him in the last few weeks.

“Why did you kill Lisa Radcliff, the MI6 agent?”

Alex's face did not change. He took on no sad or guilty look at the mention of Lisa's name. “She didn't believe me,” he said simply. “I wanted her to join me, but she didn't go for the story simply by being asked. There are too many lies and layers of deception in our lives. Only the mission speaks the truth. And so I knew I had to use the mission to recruit you to my cause.”

“Jesus, he
is
insane,” said Hampton.

Luther thought he saw something of humanity in Deavers's eyes—just a flash, a wink of the man inside the agent. Alex had loved Lisa as much as an agent could love, and he had killed her for the greater love of duty.

“Where are you now, Alex?” asked Luther. “What do you need?” He was slipping just a little, showing concern for his friend.

“I must…we must get the domestic information, marry it to the African information, and clean out our agency,” said Alex calmly.

Alex wasn't going to become human again, thought Luther, at least not right now. He was all business. He'd risked everything to get an ally in this mission, and so Luther's compassion was falling on deaf ears and a closed heart.