122 Rules (28 page)

He pulled back the slide on the Sig Sauer P229, verified the chamber contained a round, and grabbed several extra magazines. He put the lot in a side pocket of his bag designed to holster the weapon.

This is totally unsanctioned; you don’t even know what you’re going to do,
Chet piped up.
You have no plan. Action without purpose is worse than no action at all, Rule eighty-eight, remember? You can’t do this on your own; you have to call the boss.

I don’t get it. First you tell me to not send the confirm to Josha, that I need to spend more time thinking for myself, and you berate me because I follow the Rules. Now you’re not only quoting them at me like they’re the gospel, but all you want me to do is follow the chain of command?

You can’t just go half-cocked on some wild mission. You’ve got nowhere to go, no idea where she’s at now, and you don’t even know who’s chasing her. You can’t go into this blind or everyone, maybe even you, will get killed. Not to be selfish or anything, but I have a vested interest in your well-being.

Without the support of The Agency, Sam would only have his skills and wits to rely on. Josha had told him to drop it, that the case had been closed. If he went against his boss’ order, he’d be in direct violation of agency protocol and could lose his job, or worse.

But his boss may have already known that Monica had been targeted by someone else. And if that were the case, why send a second party to do a job he’d already been hired to do? Did that mean that Josha, for once, didn’t have all the information? Maybe someone above him had leaked it?

It boiled down to either corruption in The Agency or Monica being such a big threat that they double-booked her and the other agent had simply gotten to her first. He’d been over her case a thousand times; no way had they sanctioned two agents. That meant someone had sold information. But to whom?

Then it hit him. Who had the reason above all else to see Monica dead? If she had told Sam the truth that night they’d slept together, then he knew exactly who had hired the hit.

What are you doing?
Chet asked as Sam picked up his phone.

Thinking outside The Agency.

The call connected on the second ring. “Armon.” The deep rich baritone sounded more like an opera singer than a former-Marine-turned-NYPD-police-detective.

“Armon, it’s Bradford.”

“Sam, you old bastard. How you doin’?”

He smiled at the butterscotch smoothness of his old friend’s voice. “About the same. How are Jenny and the girls?”

“Man, I wish you was here, I’m seriously outnumbered and out-flanked. I got princesses and pink up to my ass bones.” The man’s smile resonated through his words.

“And you love every minute of it.”

“Just don’t tell Jenny. She feels bad so lets me get off to poker on Mondays and b-ball on Thursdays.”

“She already knows it, Armon.”

“Yeah, ’spose she does. So, what can I do for you?”

He sobered. “I need a favor.”

“Didn’t figure you called for any other reason.

“The Laven Michaels case, what do you know about it?”

“Not a lot other than what’s been on TV and word around the office. What do you need?”

“Everything.”

“Can you narrow it down a bit? This is one of the hottest cases in the city. My chief will give me the stink eye if he finds out I’m poking around in it. What’s the angle?”

Sam filled him on the specifics of what he needed then hung up and resumed packing.

A half hour later Sam’s phone rang. “Bradford.”

“Hey, cracker,” the rich baritone voice replied. “You don’t mess around, there are a lot of folks with their panties in a wad over this. I couldn’t get everything, but I did find something that will help you out a bit.”

Sam knew his old buddy would come through. “What have you got?”

“You said you’ve researched everything in the news, right?”

“Yeah. I’ve been pounding all the public channels.”

“Well, here’s something you don’t know. We’ve got a mole in the office of the man who handles all of Mr. Michaels’ legal matters, Barry Yamalki. Seems Mr. Yamalki went to see our Crossbars Hotel guest a few days ago. In addition to the regular lawyer mumbo-jumbo, he was told to handle the ‘loose end’ problem. I’m thinking that ‘loose end’ would be your girl. Following said meeting, Mr. Yamalki called a local bad boy by the name of Tyron Erebus. Check your inbox; I just sent you the guy’s dossier.”

Sam sat at his computer and opened the email. He double-clicked on the first attachment, an image file. A scarred face with a large, misshapen nose bent to the right stared back at him. The man might have been in his mid-thirties, but the scarring obscured his actual age. His eyes disturbed Sam. Their cold lifelessness resembled the deepest pits of a rock floating through the frozen blackness of space. Sam had seen eyes like those before in Afghanistan. They belonged to a man who had walked into a crowded shopping square and detonated a bomb strapped to his chest.

Sam clicked on the second file to find a chronology of terrible things the scarred man had done over the course of his life. At age five, he’d moved into a foster home after watching his parents die in a drive-by shooting. A state-run facility took over his care at age seven when he killed his foster family’s poodle by jamming a corkscrew into its chest. When asked why he would do such a thing, he replied, “The dog wouldn’t shut up no matter how much I yelled at it. I figured I was going to show the mutt who’s boss.”

As Tyron made his way through school, he bounced from facility to facility, leaving a path of pain and misery behind him. He received his first conviction as an adult at age seventeen, when he repeatedly raped the mother of one of the families he lived with. The woman suffered the abuse for months before he hurt her to the point she ended up in the hospital.

He spent 18 months in the Pennsylvania State Penitentiary before a lawyer—as coincidences go, Barry Yamalki—got him out on a technicality. Tyron had been accused of aggregated assault no less than a dozen times, but in each instance, the accuser dropped the charges. He had been under suspicion of multiple homicides, but like his boss, Mr. Michaels, enough evidence never existed for a conviction.

“Cracker, this guy is ruthless. He doesn’t have official training other than what he’s learned on the streets, but anyone that’s tried to stop him has wound up in a hole in the ground. You take my meaning?”

“We’ve dealt with worse.”

“Yeah, I ’spose we have, but we did it as a team. I’m guessing, since you’re calling me instead of going through your czar or whoever you work for, this job is off the books.”

“Something like that. Can you also get me information on Mr. Michaels’ operation? Who he does business with, who he’s pissed off, his organizational structure, all of it.”

“Let’s take a step back here. This guy is one of the biggest kingpins in New York. You will not be able to negotiate with him, blackmail him, or probably even talk to him. There’s no way you’re even getting close to this guy.”

“I don’t need to.”

“What are you planning?”

Sam smiled. “Just a little creative law enforcement.”

“You make my nipples hard when you talk all dirty like that.”

His smiled widened. He missed working with this man. “Do you think you can get that stuff for me?”

“Yeah, yeah. Give me a few hours, just be careful.”

“Thanks, Armon.” Sam disconnected the call.

He had the who, now he just needed to know the where. He clicked back over to the tracker app. The blinking pin showed the place that Monica had last logged on. He examined all the menu options and clicked on
Show All Traces.
The computer thought for a moment, then two more blips registered on the screen.

One pointed to Sam’s apartment in L.A. They’d said something in class about the program triangulating on anyone logged onto it. Something about it not knowing the difference between friend and foe. He right-clicked his bubble and chose
Incognito.
Hopefully that hid him from all prying eyes, including Josha’s.

He studied the screen. The second bubble seemed to be moving at a steady pace and had almost arrived at the diner. He must have logged on to the app through his phone, but never signed out.

I’ll bet that’s not the cavalry,
Chet said.

Oh shit. Erebus? But how?

With all that’s going on, you really need to ask that question? Someone high up has given the opposing team our playbook.

But why?

Does it matter? The question is: What do you plan to do about it?

Time to go ghost.
Sam shut down the PC,
grabbed his bag, loaded it onto his bike, and headed out. He had a job to do.

36

He stood in the bank of old growth pine trees observing the little house, the darkness of the night and the shadows of the timbers more than adequate to conceal him. The modest structure sat on a flag lot, several hundred feet from the street and nestled against a woodland backyard. Neighboring structures could be seen in the distance through the trees, but they had been built far enough away for him to conduct his business without the inconvenience of witnesses. One by one, the other homes’ lights had been extinguished as the late hour put the world to sleep.

When the glow from the woman’s window went dim, he slinked forward, the soft soles of his Converse sneakers making no more than a light rustle in the blanket of cones and needles covering the yard. He’d followed her after her shift at the restaurant, verifying via observation and perusing her mail that she resided alone. The location couldn’t have been more ideal. Had she lived in an apartment with units above, below, and on either side, he would have had to adjust his plans. Here, in the middle of nothingness, he had free rein.

He picked the simple lock of the back door and let himself into Coral’s humble kitchen. Remaining still, he studied the small space as he absorbed the traces of lavender and floor cleaner that rode on the back of the heavy scent of musty wood. Tyron touched the single chair tucked under a simple dining table, his fingers trailing the smooth, cool surface of the back and sliding down to the bottom where she would have sat. His thumbs traced a rough crack in the cheap vinyl while his fingers splayed over the concave surface. He could feel her essence, her heat, buried within its molecules, absorbed by the cheap piece of furniture after hour upon hour of contact.

He continued his tour of the kitchen, fondling the surfaces of the table, the refrigerator, stovetop, and cupboards, but none of them contained as much of the waitress as that small plane of vinyl, cardboard, and cotton.

Having gotten all that he could from the kitchen, he went into the tiny living room. It felt void of her, a forgotten chamber. Coral never spent much time here. He suspected the batteries of the remote didn’t work because she never watched television. The lamps wouldn’t work, their bulbs having long ago burned out, and the couch would be devoid of her aura.

Drawn by an elusive magnetism, he moved to the far wall, a large portion of its surface covered by a bookshelf. Coral, the simple waitress from a diner along a lone highway, loved these tomes. He traced the outlines of the books where hands, her hands, had done so a thousand times before, leaving her impression behind.

Tyron could see her imprint as clearly as if she’d written her name in the fog of a mirror and feel her warmth like she’d handed him the jacket off of her back. He allowed her vitality and affection to permeate his skin. The energy flowed into his bloodstream, the two of them becoming more intimate than the most forlorn lovers of any romance novel dared to dream.

He pulled the zipper of his bodysuit, the disengaging teeth no more than a sigh in the still night, removed his shoes and suit, and stood naked in Coral’s unused living space. He closed his eyes and held out his arms, clearing his mind of all worldly thoughts and desires, beckoning the gods to join him in this night of celebration and transformation.

Something that he could neither see nor hear, but detected with a sense that defied definition, descended into the room. It circled his unmoving form, touching his face, his shoulders, his thighs, his buttocks, and then came to rest before him. Its hot breath brushed his cheek, and he relished the underlying metallic odor as a child might savor the sweet aroma of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies on a snowy afternoon. The entity caressed his face, and gooseflesh pricked every inch of his body.

The creature moved closer, and Tyron welcomed it to enter him, absorbing it as though slurping it through his pores. It settled in, taking up residence within him, solidifying his substance, its essence mingling with his cells and interweaving with his fibers. Together they formed a mass more substantial than the two individually.

Though it felt what he felt and saw what he saw, the other could not directly control him. It had joined him for the ride and the eventual rising. He would help it experience the joys of the flesh which, without a body, it could not do alone.

Their mingling complete, Tyron turned to the task with which he had been both blessed and burdened. A small silk sack clicked softly as a doe’s hoof step as he retrieved it from a zippered pocket on his suit. His fingers caressed the slippery softness of the humble tool bag. The contents were alive and ready.