The Fifth Profession (34 page)

“This is difficult to explain. We need to talk. About a
lot
of things. It'll take quite a while. We can't do it here.”

“I just told you I can't stay away long. Suppose somebody sees us out here.”

“Why
shouldn't
they?”

“Damn it, Doyle, you know the rules. You're the one who wanted it this way. To get together again, we have to use the codes and safe houses you insisted on.”

“What are you
talking
about?”

“Doyle, are you all right?”

“I asked you in there—do you remember me?”

“Make sense.”

“What's all this about you owing me money?”

“It's all I could think of to explain the way you were acting. Except for punching you out. I could have done that. It fits your cover story. But someone would have called the MPs and the cops and … Wait a minute, Doyle. Is
that
what you wanted? Was I supposed to fight with you again?”

“Jesus, I don't understand what you're saying. Why are you calling me ‘Doyle’?”

Mac tensed, bracing his shoulders, swelling his chest. His eyes became wary, his voice a growl. “Okay, where are they?”

“Who?”

“The blonde and the Japanese who followed you out of the bar. It's obvious they're with you. What's the point? To advertise? To make everybody notice you? Damn it, if you had a plan, why didn't you let me know beforehand? I can't help you if I don't know. … I said,
where are they?”

Savage gestured. Across the alley, halfway between Savage and the alley's entrance, Akira and Rachel stepped out of the alcove's darkness into the shadows cast by the light above the door.

“Sure,” Mac said, his anger contorting his rugged features. “Watching. Listening. A test, right? To find out if I still obey the rules. What happens now? You got me to say more than I should have. What's my punishment? Shit duty? Forced retirement? You bastard, Doyle. Even if we're supposed to be enemies, I thought we were friends.”

“I don't know what you're talking about! Listen, Mac, someone did something to me! I told you it's hard to explain! I
remember things that never happened.
I don't know what
did
happen. I don't know why you call me ‘Doyle’! I don't know why —!”

Savage stiffened, pivoting in alarm. Hearing a powerful engine's roar, he saw a huge vehicle steer into the alley, coming from the same direction he had. The vehicle's shape was grotesque. Its headlights blinded him. Startled, he raised a hand to shield his eyes, saw Akira and Rachel duck back to the darkness of the alcove across from him, and suddenly realized that he himself had no place to hide. Crouching, fighting the urge to run, he shifted toward Mac, his hand on the .45 tucked under his belt at his spine beneath his jacket. At once, he recognized the vehicle lumbering noisily toward him.

“It's only a Dumpster truck,” Mac said. “Something
must
have happened to you, Doyle. Your nerves are shot. Is that why they gave you an escort? To watch how you behave? What did you say? You remember what never happened? What
did
happen? Too many missions? Too much stress? You had a breakdown?
Tell
me, Doyle. I want to help you.”

The truck rumbled closer. Steady, Savage told himself. Hang on. Be cool. There's no way in fifteen minutes anyone could have set this trap. No one knew I'd be here in this alley. Except for Mac.

Savage glanced warily toward the man he remembered as a friend.
Did Mac make a call from the bar while I waited outside?

No! I have to trust my instincts! I have to believe he was—
is
—my friend! Even if Mac
did
phone—why
would
he?—there still wasn't time to get this truck here.

As the truck moved clumsily nearer, Savage saw a driver, and
only
a driver, in the cab. The weary-looking man peered toward the Dumpster bin, pressed a button on the dash, and lowered the massive metal forks that had sat on the roof of the truck, aiming them toward a slot on each side of the bulky steel bin.

The truck came abreast of Savage. He pressed his back against the alley's grimy brick wall.

Mac squeezed next to him, his voice indistinct as the truck's roar increased. “You worry me, friend. Who
are
those people? The blonde and the Japanese, are they watchdogs? From the agency?”

Savage felt smothered by the noise and fumes of the truck. He pressed his back harder against the wall. “Agency?
The CIA?”

“What other agency is there? Doyle, are you serious? Someone actually screwed with your memory?”

“Why do you call me ‘Doyle’? That's not my name.”

“It is! Your first name's Robert. We had two Bobs on our team. So we used your last names to avoid confusion. Don't you remember?”

“No! Tell me why we're supposed to pretend we're enemies!”

“Because of your cover story.”

“What?”

The truck's roar intensified, deafening. Its forks strained, raising the bin, dumping garbage into the top of the truck. The stench made Savage gag. With a reverberating thunk, the truck set the bin down. It made another roar, its forks rising, the truck rumbling down the alley.

“Cover story?” Savage asked.

“Shit!” Mac pointed.

Savage spun, the truck no longer obscuring his vision. In front of the alcove where Akira had hidden with Rachel …

Akira and a tall Caucasian kicked and jabbed at each other, circling, lunging. Farther along the alley, two other Caucasians dragged Rachel—squirming and screaming—toward a car that blocked the alley's exit.

The attackers had stalked behind the truck, Savage realized. They'd used its noise and its bulk to conceal their approach. Out of sight from Savage, they'd taken Akira by surprise.

The two men tugged Rachel closer to the car. She screamed harder.

Dodging a blow, Akira whirled with the speed of a dervish. In a blur of hands and feet, he slammed his opponent's nose, rammed his rib cage, and smashed his larynx. The man fell, dying.

From the moment Savage had seen the commotion, he'd started running. Not toward Akira. He took for granted that Akira wouldn't need help. But even if Akira
had
needed help, Savage would have assisted him only if their prime objective wasn't jeopardized.

Rachel.
She
was what mattered. Their principal.
The client they'd pledged themselves to protect.

As Savage raced to help her, Akira joined him. At the end of the alley, the car's driver revved its engine. The two men—one on each side of Rachel—yanked her toward an open rear door.

Savage was too far away to reach her in time. No option. He knew what had to be done.

Halting abruptly, he drew his pistol. Akira halted simultaneously next to him, drawing his own. As if they'd trained together, as if they'd practiced coordinated maneuvers, each cocked his weapon precisely when the other did, the sharp clicks merging, echoing. They braced themselves identically, each turning slightly to the right, their feet apart, one foot angled away from the other for balance. They each used two hands to grip their weapons. Raising them, they each kept their left arm straight, their right arm slightly bent, their elbows locked for a steady aim.

Keeping both eyes open, lining up the front and rear sights, focusing on the
front
sight, the target beyond it slightly blurred, they fired. The simultaneous blasts reverberated along the alley. Ears rang, concussed. Though each man's bullet struck its target's chest, Savage and Akira fired again to make sure. The bullets walloped foreheads. Blood spurting, the targets fell.

Rachel stopped screaming. She knew enough, had learned enough, not to scramble around in confusion. Instead she dove to the alley's pavement, hugging it, removing herself from the line of fire.

The driver jerked up an arm.

Even at a distance, Savage recognized the shape of a pistol in his hand.

Savage aimed.

The driver shot first. His bullet buzzed past Savage's scalp as Savage dove to the left, Akira to the right.

Hitting the pavement, landing on their stomachs, they instantly propped their elbows to shoot from a prone position.

Too late. The driver stomped his foot on the throttle. Engine roaring, he sped from the alley's entrance. A cloud of exhaust replaced the car.

Savage thrust to his feet, charging toward Rachel. “Are you all right?”

“They almost wrenched my arms from their sockets.” She rubbed them. “Otherwise … Yes, I … What about
you?”

Savage and Akira looked at each other. Trembling, breathing heavily, they exchanged reassuring nods.

“And what about—?” Rachel's incomplete question became a moan.

Mac lay beside the tavern's exit, the dim bulb above it glinting off a spreading pool of blood.

“No!” Savage raced toward him.

Mac's eyes were open, unblinking.

“Oh, Christ,” Savage said. He felt Mac's wrist, put an ear against Mac's chest, rested a finger against Mac's unmoving nostrils. “No.”

“Please,” Akira said. “There's nothing we can do for him. I'm sorry, but we have to leave.”

The tavern's back door banged open.

Savage pivoted, aiming.

A man with a brush cut, who was built like a football player, with a tattoo of a seal on a forearm, glared toward Mac's body, toward Savage, Akira, and Rachel, toward the
other
bodies.

Harold. The Ship-to-Shore's owner.

Savage lowered his aim.

“I knew you were trouble when you came in,” Harold said.

He scowled at Akira. “You bastards killed my father on Two Jima.”

He raised his arms. “It took me a while. But Doyle, at last I remember. Go ahead, shoot me, you son of a bitch. I'll die a hero. Along with Mac. You're a fucking disgrace. You don't deserve to have been a SEAL.”

Harold lunged.

Savage felt paralyzed.

Akira intercepted the attack, kicked Harold's groin, and grabbed Savage, urging him away.

As Harold fell toward the alley, Rachel helped Akira, tugging Savage.

Discipline insisted. Savage twisted his arms, freeing the hands that gripped him.

“Okay,” he said.
“Let's go.”

15

Sirens wailed in the night. Despite his anxiety, Savage forced himself to maintain the speed limit, driving unobtrusively, blending with traffic. Rachel sat, her knees bent, her head hunched, on the floor in front of the passenger seat. Akira lay on the floor in back.

“I don't think anyone saw us reach the car,” Savage said. “So they don't know our license number. They won't be looking for a Taurus.”

“But two men and a woman. A blonde and a Japanese,” Rachel said. “Harold will tell the police who to look for. If a cop pulls up next to us, he might see us hiding in here.”

“In daylight maybe,” Savage said. “But at night? Unless the cop used a flashlight, he wouldn't notice you.”

Savage tried to sound reassuring. The truth was, the headlights and streetlights he drove past sometimes illuminated her. He kept his eyes straight ahead, barely moving his lips when he spoke, doing his best not to attract attention by seeming to talk to himself or to make a passing motorist guess he was talking to someone hidden in the car.

“Harold indeed will tell the police.” Akira's voice came muffled from the floor in back. “I could have killed him. I think now I should have.”

“No,” Savage said. “You did the right thing. We're protectors, not assassins! We were forced to kill to save Rachel. We made an ethical, necessary choice. But killing Harold would have been …”

“Needless?” Akira asked. “Gratuitous? What he saw— what he tells the police—
threatens
us. If we were justified in killing those men to save Rachel, I'd have been equally justified in killing Harold to save
ourselves.”

“It's not the same,” Savage said. “I can't tell you why I'm sure of that. But I
am
sure. Harold must have heard the shots. Why didn't anyone else? Who knows? Maybe Harold was coming out of the men's room in the corridor. So he opened the outside door and found us. His timing, by accident, was terrible. A hit man for the mob would have killed him. But I'll say it again. We're not assassins. We don't kill innocent people because their timing's bad.”

“Evidently I agree. Because I
didn't
kill him.”

“And I thank you for that.”

“This is
my
fault,” Rachel said. She sounded cramped in the narrow space. “If I hadn't begged to come with you …”

“We accepted you,” Savage said. “We
agreed.
That topic's settled.”

“Let me finish,” Rachel said. “If I hadn't come along, if I hadn't been in that alley, my husband's men wouldn't have tried to grab me. You wouldn't have killed them. A misaimed bullet wouldn't have killed your friend. He'd have told you what you needed to know. You wouldn't be grieving. You wouldn't be trying to escape the police. Everything—all of it—is
my
fault.”

“If? My God,” Savage said, “is
that
what you've been thinking? Blaming yourself? Don't you understand what happened? The men who attacked you had nothing to do with your husband.”

“What?”

“Your husband couldn't have known where you were,” Akira said from behind the front seat. “We concealed your trail impeccably. From the attempt on you in southern France, we used every strategy we could think of to elude your husband. His men could
not
have followed us here.”

“Maybe they're better than you imagine,” Rachel said.

“If so, they'd have chosen an earlier moment to try to abduct you. At the various hotels where we stayed. Outside the various hospitals where we sought help. I can think of a dozen perfect intervention sites. If your husband's men
did
decide to grab you, why did they wait so long? And in such a complicated situation?”

“To take advantage of that complication, hoping you'd be distracted,” Rachel said.

Savage interrupted. “But your husband's men
couldn't
have known that I'd agreed to meet Mac in that alley! To support your theory, we'd have to assume that these presumably clever professionals decided all at once, with no plan, just for the hell of it, to take advantage of the Dumpster truck that entered the alley, to depend on luck and make a grab for you.”