Headhunters (18 page)

Isabelle approached the back of Max’s chair and I turned to
see her bring up a Heckler & Koch USP pistol in a two-handed grip, aimed at
the back of Max’s skull.

I wanted to say something, tried to say something, opened my
mouth to croak a word of warning, but nothing came out. I did not know if it
was an inability to speak that stopped me, or simply an unwillingness to stop
what I saw to be the inevitable. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kendrick
looking not at Isabelle or Max, but at me. He knew what was happening, had no
doubt of her capabilities. His regard was on me and how I’d react to it. The
moment hung in the air for an eternity and I imagined that I could see
everything happen in slow motion. Isabelle’s finger tightened on the trigger,
squeezing it, until at last, the hammer fell.

The USP went off with a resounding crash and I immediately
felt like my eardrums had exploded. The muzzle flash of the pistol backlit
Max’s head in what would’ve looked like an ethereal halo had that moment stood
alone in time. But it did not and in that same moment that the gun fired and
the muzzle belched fire, I saw the hollowpoint bullet exit through the front of
Max’s face in a spray of blood and tissue. The slug passed through his skull,
splintered a hole in the coffee table and buried itself in the floor. Max’s
body slumped forward and fell between Randall and I, hitting the table with a
sickening wet smack.

“Holy shit…” I wheezed. I could hear radio chatter through
my earpiece and wished I could pluck it out and throw it away, but that was
impossible just now. The voices sounded distant and muffled in the aftermath of
the shot and I pushed them out of my brain. My eyes were anchored to Max’s dead
body. He looked so small. Not the powerful man he’d been a moment before. No,
nothing close to that now.

My hand went to my chest. I’d felt the concussion of the
shot through my ribs. I could feel my heart hammering away and I knew then that
I was in woefully beyond my depths here.

I heard a sound behind me, to my left. Voices, running feet.
It was the Stooges. Max’s people outside the door. They were coming in. Acting
on instinct, I lunged from my chair, going for Kendrick. His eyes went wide
just before we collided.

I hit his chair high enough and tipped him over backwards a
moment before I heard the gunfire begin. I rolled over the top of Kendrick and
came to a stop with the armchair between us and Isabelle.

I peeked over the chair and saw her then. To say that I’d
never seen that side of Isabelle Athabasca is an exponential understatement.
But the beauty, the sheer deadly grace in the way she moved… I couldn’t look
away.

She fired doubletaps, two closely spaced shots in rapid
succession. The first two men through the door dropped in their tracks, dead,
one falling over the body of the other, lifeless before their bodies hit the
floor. She moved then, spinning to take cover behind a desk. She ejected the
magazine in her pistol, rammed another home and let the slide slam shut. The
entire operation took place in the breadth of a second. While she was reloading
her weapon the other two stormed through the door. The one was almost on us
when two rounds slammed into him. I looked over and saw Isabelle already aiming
at Moe, the last stooge standing.  He tried to run. Isabelle shot him once in
the back in the doorway. He fell in a pathetic splay of arms and legs. Isabelle
approached him and fired once more into his prone body.

I couldn’t help but watch her and marvel at what she’d done.
Five men down in under twenty seconds. I knew this had to be Kendrick’s
daughter. She approached, reloading as she did and jammed the extracted
magazine into the waistband of her jeans. I couldn’t stop the thought from
escaping that Jessica could never have done something like that. And with that
thought, I struggled as to whether or not that was a good thing.

“Simon! Simon! Are you okay?” I could hear Billy squalling
into my earpiece. I had to say something or he wouldn’t stop.

“Jesus…” I breathed. “Why did you do that? Why did you shoot
Max?”

I could hear Billy convey the news to Nan and Jessica, since
they were all in the van together. I only hoped that it kept them together and
focused. We had one target down, but I was still in the game… for now.

“I can only have one business partner,” Kendrick said. “And
Max just wasn’t cutting it.”

I looked at Max and could see the pool of blood that was
gathering where his head rested on the table. I stood suddenly and shuddered.
Kendrick stood as well, eyeing me to see what direction I’d go.

I gestured at the guards, at Max himself. I stuttered,
struggled for words.

“Don’t you… Don’t you feel anything?” I asked finally.

“Yes…” Kendrick began.

“…recoil,” his daughter finished for him. They shared a
smile then that chilled me to my core. Kendrick seemed to note my discomfort.

“Son, it’s what needs to be done,” he said. “Don’t you see?”

I didn’t shake my head so much as just tried to look away.

“What is it that bothers you?” Isabelle asked. “Is it really
that I killed them? Or is it that you wanted to kill Max yourself?”

Kendrick reached for me and I pulled away but found myself
backed up to the windows. I looked outside, down at the city.

“You know why you took this job in the first place, Simon,”
Kendrick said. “You knew what needed to be done. God knows, it’s not pretty, but
it’s what’s required. We do what others cannot. What the public wants to have
accomplished without knowing how it’s done. I used Max to draw out Burr. Max
wasn’t necessary anymore. So we buried him. Simple as that.”

I said nothing, but when I looked up, I realized that I
could see their reflection in the glass, standing behind me.

“Simon, I need to know what you’re thinking, son…” Kendrick
said. His voice held no threat and that perhaps was the most dangerous kind. I
never saw Isabelle as a threat and yet, she was the ace up his sleeve.

I turned back to face them and took a step toward Isabelle.

“You should have let me kill him,” I said, my voice flat.
She examined my face, my eyes, and I knew the scrutiny that I was under. Then
she did the last thing I would have imagined. She put her pistol in her pants,
just in front of her hipbone and put her arms around my neck and hugged me.

“I’m sorry for the people that you’ve lost,” she whispered.
“It must be so hard for you.”

I let it happen, not able to stop it. When she pulled back,
I could only nod. I turned to face Randall Kendrick.

“I want back into Blackthorn,” I said.

Chapter Seventeen

Randall Kendrick hugged me and I
felt as if the room was spinning. He pounded me on the back, welcoming me home.
I was his prodigal son. Although I didn’t remember if the prodigal son in the
Bible stabbed his father in the back after he was welcomed home. I think I
would have remembered that part if it had been in there.

Kendrick held me by my shoulders at arm’s reach and looked
me over.

“I’m glad to have you back, son,” Kendrick beamed.

I forced my lips to move, my cheeks to lift, made myself
smile. Forced myself to make it look natural. The result must have been
satisfactory because Kendrick laughed and slapped me on the arm. He put an arm
around my shoulders and turned me to walk with him.

“Mitchell Burr is on his way here,” Kendrick began. “He’s
going to be bringing his personal body guards with him…”

I prayed that Kendrick’s words were carrying through my
hidden microphone and to my team. It was one thing for Billy, Jess and Nan.
They were circling the city streets, removed from the danger, at least by
proximity. But Ron Crawford and Geoff Spanner… they were coming into the
building, heavily armed and anticipating a fight. The odds had just doubled
against them.

“So, what’s your plan?” I asked.

The words were no sooner out of my mouth than the doors to
the office opened and agents walked in. Blackthorn field agents. A dozen of
them.

And leading the pack were Agent Brock and Agent Vaughn.
Kendrick waved them over. I just tried to breathe. I’d had my hands full with
Kendrick and Isabelle Athabasca. Now with a dozen Blackthorn agents and Burr’s
security team on their way. I feared the worst. A bloodbath.

“Simon… Mitchell Burr is a terrorist on American soil,”
Kendrick said. “Moreover, he’s a murderer. In truth, he played a hand in the
events that took you away from your family. That lead to Claire’s depression…”

He didn’t need to say more. I looked from Kendrick to his
daughter and back.

“Will you let me take him?” I asked.

Kendrick regarded me closely, examining me. I could see
behind him the agents working. They were loading the bodies of Max Donovan’s
men into black body bags. I heard the harsh zipper of one and then saw it
carried from the room. Then another. Then another after it. I wanted to tell
them not to forget about Max… poor dead faceless Max, but Brock and Vaughn were
tending to him themselves. They’d moved his body, cleaned the table and moved
an ornate vase from an end table to the coffee table where the bullet hole had
been. It was as if Martha Stewart had joined CSI… no unsightly evidence of
homicide when your company comes over.

I choked back a laugh that sickened me and for a moment
thought I might vomit. I put the back of my hand to my mouth and turned away,
unable to look at the ghastly task.

“Not today, son,” Kendrick said.

I looked back at him, questioning.

“Not today?” I asked. “What—?”

Kendrick began to answer, but faltered and began coughing.
It began as a polite clearing of the throat, then a hacking, phlegmy spasm. I
put my hand on his shoulder to steady him and offered him my handkerchief.

“Thank you,” he gasped.

I looked up and saw Isabelle looking at me. Her eyes were
both accusing and alarmed. I could only give her a sympathetic smile. She shook
her head slowly, not understanding. Kendrick was still hunched, coughing into
my handkerchief and I managed to raise a finger to my lips before he
straightened up.

“Are you okay, my friend?” I asked.

“Okay… okay…” he wheezed. He cleared his throat, adjusted
his tie and stood up straight at last. He apologized and pocketed my
handkerchief that was flecked with blood now.

“Burr… Burr is the gatekeeper… of hell,” Kendrick breathed.

I thought he’d lost it. Just absolutely given up his last
vestige of sensibility and gone off the deep end. He’d coughed so hard his
sanity had fallen away, leaving only hopeless madness. But I was wrong.

“Burr will take the DHS files,” Kendrick said,” and he will
split them up and sell them.”

“Sell them…” I repeated, digesting his words.

“To sleeper cells within the United States,” Kendrick said.
“To domestic terror groups like the Michigan Militia of the Oklahoma City
bombing, renegade paramilitary organizations, the Afghans. Any Middle Eastern
warlord with a grudge against the United States would want a piece of that pie.

“If those records got out, you could expect bombings in
federal buildings, airports and schoolyards. There are enemies of the state who
would absolutely rip this country apart with the information from those files.”

“So why not kill Burr now?” I asked.

“The DHS files are the biggest honey pot we’ve ever
uncovered,” Kendrick said. “The opportunity that this holds, to get those files
out into the open… every player in the international terror community will come
calling. Max Donovan…” Kendrick pointed at the body bag being carried out,
“…was a small fish compared to a man like Mitchell Burr. Max Donovan led to
Burr, Burr will lead to the heads of the terror networks.”

I swallowed hard, thinking of this. When I’d been in
parochial school growing up, I’d learned that the devil tells lies by telling
the truth half the time. There was truth and value in what Kendrick said. But
the lie, the big ugly lie that was buried beneath, still smelled rotten.

“But for your plan to work,” I said. “We need to let those
files out into the open… We would need to sell those files to terrorists…”

Kendrick waved a hand dismissively.

“It wouldn’t all be genuine data,” he said. “Not all of it
anyway.”

My heart picked up a beat.

“What are you saying?”

“We replace most of the data with bogus intel, just so that
we can track its sale and distribution,” Kendrick said.

“Most of the data… what’s not bogus then?”

“Well, we have to leave some things that are genuine,
otherwise the data doesn’t test true,” Kendrick said. “They’ll know we’re
selling something bogus, so we filter in some genuine data and have them test
that.”

“People will die…” I said. My voice sounded hollow, even to
my own ears.

“People would die anyway,” Kendrick replied. “But we can
save more this way. We can stop the people behind it. There are casualties in
every war, son.”

My knees felt weak as he continued on. I could hear him, but
the words soaked in slowly, like a delayed broadcast.

“My Rose died in this war, son,” Kendrick continued. “Your
Claire died because of this son of a bitch, Burr. But because of their
sacrifice, you and I have saved thousands of lives.”

I wanted to scream at him. Punch him. Stab him. Shoot him. I
cared for this poor, sick man and part of me wanted to believe that it was the
cancer that made him this way. That it had eaten into his brain and turned his
world upside down.

But I knew of no cancer that made a man evil. What Kendrick
had was a moral cancer. A battlefield cancer of one who’s seen so many soldiers
fall that a few more didn’t matter. It didn’t frighten me that my friend,
Randall Kendrick, was going to die. I could accept that, albeit sadly. But what
truly frightened me, what chilled me to my core was the manner in which he’d
lost his way. I’d respected Randall once. Thought him to be a great man. And
now, I saw him adrift from the world, his moral compass spinning wildly with no
true north.

“I understand,” I said at last.

Kendrick patted my shoulder and excused himself. He took my
handkerchief from his pocket and I could hear the low rumble working in his
chest and it pained me. He’d bide his time here, but once in the men’s room, I
imagined he would hack and cough until whatever vileness was caught inside of
him let loose. A shudder ran through me. I saw Brock return and reach to help
Kendrick but the old man waved him back and Brock, for his part, seemed
relieved not to have to touch him.

“What’s going on?” Isabelle asked, appearing at my side as I
looked after him.

I looked at her. She was beautiful in an exotic way. I
remembered what she’d done to Max… to his men… and I stayed my distance.

“He asked me not to tell you,” I replied. The truth sounded
refreshing in my mouth and I enjoyed speaking it.

“The hell with what he wants,” she growled. “What’s wrong
with him?”

“What do you think is wrong with him?” I asked.

She pondered that for a minute and realized that I didn’t
want to answer her.

“Is it cancer?” she asked. “Lymphoma?”

I shrugged and half nodded.

“God damn it, tell me!” she shouted.

I turned and looked at her and couldn’t manage to summon the
emotions, so I answered her simply.

“He’s dying because he misses his wife,” I said. “He misses
Rose. And all this fucking bullshit is sucking the life out of him. So, if
you’re so anxious to put a bullet in someone, do your father a favor…”

I don’t really remember anything after that except for a
faint feeling of déjà vu, only this time when I’d run off my smart mouth, I
hadn’t gotten hit by my father’s shovel, but by the barrel of Isabelle’s gun.

***

I woke slowly, clawing my way up
into consciousness, but it was a reluctant climb. With consciousness came pain.
With sleep, the pain eased. I lost the battle three times before finally
opening my eyes. I cracked them only open a little.

My left cheek was throbbing in a sharp, biting pain. The
right side of my head was a pulsing ache. My brain struggled to comprehend for
a second until I realized that Isabelle had hit me with her USP pistol and the
front sight had tore into my cheek. I’d gone down hard and hit the other side
of my head on the floor. It all made perfect sense. It didn’t make my head hurt
any less, but it did make perfect sense.

“He’s awake,” I heard a voice say.

I lifted my head and felt as if my neck were not up for the
task of keeping my skull upright on my shoulders.

“Agent Vaughn?” I asked.

Vaughn was sitting across from me and nodded, smiling.

“Good morning,” I mumbled.

“It’s nearly midnight,” he scoffed.

“Of course it is,” I replied, nonplussed.

I tested my neck, my head, felt my cheek. Everything still
worked.

“Could I get some—“ I began to ask.

A hand tapped me on the shoulder and offered me something. I
held out my palm. Two caplets were dropped. I looked up.

“Agent Brock,” I slurred, not having to act disoriented
nearly as much as I’d hoped. I looked at the pills. “Cyanide, I presume?”

“Here, take them,” Brock handed me a glass of water. I
swallowed the caplets and drank the water, then belched. An agent on the other
side of the room stifled a laugh and I tried to find him but couldn’t.

“I can’t believe you let a woman kick your ass,” Vaughn said
with a smile. He’d been given a bandage across his nose from our last meeting.
It was still swollen and from the new bump in it, broken.

“Well, I kicked your ass and she kicked mine, so what does
that tell you?” I asked with a smile.

Brock and Vaughn looked at one another, then back at me.

“That’s a tough woman,” Vaughn agreed. Brock nodded beside
him.

Randall Kendrick approached. He motioned for his agents to
be on their way and they were. Vaughn even slapped me on the back as he walked
away. Kendrick dropped into the seat across from me. He was smiling and shaking
his head.

“Son, what the hell did you say to her?”

I shrugged and put a hand to my cheek. Brock reappeared for
a moment and offered a towel with ice inside.

“What? Oh, thanks, man,” I said and Brock disappeared.
Kendrick was still looking at me, waiting for his answer. “She wanted to know
about you… your condition…”

“What did you tell her?” he asked. His voice was sensitive
and I missed him as a friend.

“Nothing at first,” I replied. I pulled the ice away and
showed him my cheek. “Your daughter can be very persistent. Just like her old
man.”

Kendrick chuckled.

“Did you tell her?” he asked.

“She figured it out,” I replied.

Kendrick looked down at his shoes and nodded sagely, then
let out a quiet laugh. “I suppose it was inevitable.”

“I told her she should put you down,” I confessed.

Kendrick gave me a hard stare, then broke out in a gust of
laughter.

“No wonder she clocked you, son!” Kendrick couldn’t help
himself from laughing and I couldn’t help but join him.

Finally he settled back and looked me over.

“I’m going to tell you something, and I want you to take it
in the spirit that it’s intended,” Kendrick said.

“This can’t be good,” I replied.

Kendrick waved his hand dismissively.

“You’ve… moved on in life, Simon,” he said. “You’re here
with us now. You’ve decided on the life that you want. But… I’m never going to
see the end of this operation.”

I understood what he was saying.

“But you will. My daughter is here… Simon, I want you to
have the life I couldn’t have. The life I couldn’t complete.”

“Randall… what are you saying?”

“I want you to take over Blackthorn operations when I die,”
Kendrick said.

For a long moment, I couldn’t breathe. The sentence still
hung in the air, the words ringing in my ears.

“Are you serious?” I asked.

Kendrick nodded.

“I am. More than you know,” he said. “There’s something
else, too.”

I was afraid to ask.

“What is it?”

“I want you to run it with Isabelle at your side,” Kendrick
said.

My mind faltered at the notion.

“Isabelle?”

“I think you two would be good together,” Kendrick said.

“What?” I said, louder than I intended. “She just
pistol-whipped me!”