The Temporary Agent
ALSO BY DANIEL JUDSON
The Gin Palace Trilogy
The Poisoned Rose
The Bone Orchard
The Gin Palace
The Southampton Trilogy
The Darkest Place
The Water’s Edge
Voyeur
Stand-Alone Titles
The Violet Hour
The Betrayer
Avenged
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2016 by Daniel Judson
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of
Amazon.com
, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503934993
ISBN-10: 1503934993
Cover design by Rex Bonomelli
Cover photo by Rex Bonomelli
for Wendy
Contents
PART ONE
One
Cahill was no stranger to suffering, his own or that of others.
But the night he lost Erica was without a doubt the longest of his life.
Oblivious to his own gunshot wound, he drove his Jeep as fast as he dared along the dark back road, heading for the abandoned service station a few miles north of New Haven.
Erica was in the passenger seat, barely conscious, her white fisherman’s sweater soaked with blood.
The service station was his fallback position—his Alamo—and he had stocked it several months ago with emergency supplies, among which was a trauma kit.
He had received training in field medicine, would do what he had been taught to do—apply a compression bandage to the entry wound to at least slow the bleeding, then inject Erica with twenty milligrams of morphine, followed by another injection of three grams of ampicillin. He would cover her with an emergency blanket to keep her from going into shock, then retrieve a clean cell phone from his stored gear and use it to send a distress call via coded text message to the only person he could now trust.
After that, all he would be able to do is stay with her and keep her stable as he waited for expert help to arrive.
Such help was only an hour away and would leave immediately upon receiving the SOS. Cahill was certain of that.
But he knew enough about dying to know that the moment Erica’s lungs began to fill with blood, each gasp she took would only serve to bring her closer to her last.
He was still driving, the service station less than a mile away, when he looked at her and saw the telltale pinkish foam gathering in the corners of her mouth.
The simple autonomic function of her lungs filling themselves with air was likely causing the expanded hollow-point bullet lodged near her heart to shift, damaging even more vital tissue with its jagged edges as it did.
The very act of staying alive was killing her.
Death was something Cahill had seen before, more times than he cared to remember.
Was something he had once faced himself, his torso shredded by grenade fragments.
No stranger at all to suffering, he was nonetheless unable to bear hers.
He told her to look at him and she did, with fading eyes.
Even if he could have taken her to the nearest hospital, five miles in the other direction, it was obvious to him that she wouldn’t survive the drive.
He began to tell her to hang on, to stay with him, that everything was going to be okay. But her eyes were already glassy, her face pale and absent of expression.
Inside his heart, a rage was building.
Aimed not at the men who had come after them but at himself.
He should not have been so foolish as to fall in love with her.
He should have simply walked away that night they’d first talked.
And he never should have allowed himself to believe that it wouldn’t come to this.
He had of course taken precautions, more so than usual once she had entered his life. But his enemies knew as well as he that the human heart, located just left of center mass, was the best target.
And they had struck at his without mercy.
Leaving Cahill now with only one thing he could do.
Beg the woman he loved for her forgiveness.
Two
Six hours earlier, they had been together in a motel just off the Merritt Parkway.
In the four months they’d known each other, every one of their encounters had occurred in such a place, during the transition from afternoon to evening.
Naked together, the rented room growing steadily darker until full night surrounded them.
A sanctuary from their respective lives, if only for a few hours.
Cahill had arrived at the motel first, paying for the room with cash and handing over one of his fake driver’s licenses when the desk clerk asked for identification.
He had then circled the exterior of the motel once, casually, but carefully taking note of each of the cars parked in the narrow lot.
He had no doubt that he would easily spot the vehicle of some local private investigator waiting for them there.
He was also confident that he would have shaken any car that might have picked up his trail and attempted to follow him there.
He never took a direct route anywhere, made a point of circling blocks at random, often several times, and of entering and then exiting parking garages, always watching his rearview mirror as he made his careful maneuvers, his trained eye ready to take note of anything that appeared even remotely suspicious.
These habits were even more carefully observed whenever he drove beyond the city limits to one of the several out-of-the-way motels he had scouted and deemed suitable for their needs.
Once Cahill had entered the room, he adjusted the thermostat—Erica preferred it warm so they would both work up a sweat—and then stood beside the window, watching for her.
After she arrived and parked, Erica waited behind the wheel of her BMW until he sent her a text indicating he was certain she had not been followed, either.
When it was clear, she exited her vehicle. Cahill eyed the lot for any sudden movements as she headed for the room.
They had been seen together in public only twice, first meeting at a crowded private fund-raiser at Yale. Black tie, Cahill in a fitted tuxedo, Erica in a black cocktail dress.
His eyes had been drawn to her all night.
She had glanced at him only occasionally, but each time, she had met and confidently held his stare.
Their second public meeting had been at a luncheon several days later, in a hotel restaurant downtown.
A local journalist, Erica had been writing a PR piece on the charity Cahill had recently founded, so the meeting with the religious and community leaders who comprised the charity’s board had the appearance of being purely business.
Though Cahill avoided making the papers whenever possible, he had attended the luncheon simply to look at her again.
It was afterward, though, when Cahill had quietly pulled Erica aside and told her that he would like to see her again that she had replied, “I would like that, too. But my marriage is ending, and things are a bit . . . rough, so we would need to be discreet.”
Even if her situation hadn’t required it, Cahill would have practiced all possible discretion.
He lived these days like a ghost.
Not an eccentricity or a game—though he would admit he did enjoy the act of evasion.
It was a necessity that had simply become a part of who he was.
So Cahill had no reason to expect that anyone would be waiting for them when it came time to dress again shortly after eleven o’clock.
Cahill rose and crossed the dark room to where their clothing lay scattered.
He heard Erica roll onto her back as he searched for his jeans.
“I shouldn’t fall asleep like that,” she said.
Cahill found his jeans and pulled them on. “You were tired, Erica.”
“It’s dangerous. Coming home at midnight is pushing it as it is. What if we didn’t wake up? What if one night we slept through till morning?”
“It’s okay,” Cahill said. “I’ll set the alarm on my phone from now on. An easy fix, right?”
Erica switched on the bedside light but remained in the bed. She watched him pick up his shirt.
He was fit, had the hardest body she had ever known, but she was staring at his torso for a different reason.
It was mapped with dozens of scars, some of which were jagged fragment wounds, while others were the flat, dulled patches indicative of high-temperature burns.
Others still were the fine, raised lines—some almost perfectly straight, others sharply curved—that had been left by the many surgeons who had worked to sew him back together five years ago.
The sight of his long-healed wounds saddened her and filled her mind with questions she knew not to ask.
She pushed the sorrow from her thoughts and ignored her reporter’s nature.
“So I heard from my attorney today,” she said. “We’ve got our court date finally. It’s still a few months away, but at least the end is in sight.”
“That’s good news.”
“You and I will probably still have to be careful for a while, even after the divorce goes through.”
“Whatever you need,” Cahill said. “Whatever it takes to see you.”
He pulled his shirt on, then sat on the desk chair and reached for his leather boots.
Clipped inside the left boot was a neoprene holster containing a Kimber Ultra Raptor II compact 1911.
Three-inch barrel, short for a .45, so a weapon best suited for close-quarter combat, though Cahill could shoot tight enough groupings with it at fifty feet.
Fully loaded, cocked and locked, its grip rested just above the top of the boot.
A pair of spare seven-round magazines was in a small mag pouch secured inside his right boot.
As was the case with Cahill’s wounds, the sight of his firearm always brought to Erica’s mind a number of questions, but she let those go, too.
There was a strange kind of comfort in this for her—in not needing to know the details of a man’s past to know who that man was.
He’d been a marine, once—an elite marine, she knew that much.
Now he was a philanthropist—and an effective one at that.
She’d never known so little yet felt so close.
Or so safe.
She watched as Cahill pulled on his boots.
“So, are you going to stay in bed all night?” Cahill teased.
She smiled. “I just might.”
“The room’s paid for.”
“But you’re leaving.”
“Not if you aren’t.”
Now she teased him. “You know that the night we finally get to sleep all the way through to morning is the night you’ll lose interest in me.”
“Doubt that.”
“Yeah, who am I kidding, I’ll probably be the one to lose interest first. Like all women, I’m all about the chase, you know? The thrill of the conquest.”
Cahill looked at her for a moment.
She was tall—as tall as he was—and had piercing blue eyes and long blonde hair.
“Strong Nordic stock.” Cahill frequently teased her about this, though in reality he admired her athletic build and the natural strength she possessed.
Her response was to tease him right back with “Stoic Yankee Protestant.”
This never failed to make him smile.
“Checkout isn’t till noon,” he said.
She thought about that, then laughed and began to shake her head.
“What?” Cahill said.
“It’s just so sad that spending a few hours a week in a cheap motel is the best part of my life right now. I mean, who could have seen that coming? When little girls imagine their futures, they don’t ever imagine this.”
“We can stop. Until you’re completely in the clear, I mean.”
“Like I could stop.” She waited, then said, “You know, this is where you’re supposed to say you couldn’t stop, either.”
“It wouldn’t be easy.”
“I think maybe you can do better than that.”
“I’d go insane and die without you.”
“That’s better.” She smiled. “Was that so tough?”
“No.” He thought for a moment. “Our time will come, Erica. Because we want it to. In the meantime, we need to endure. Trust me, I know what it’s like to have to keep up appearances or lose everything. If it seems to you like I’m holding back, it’s because I don’t want you feel any more pressure than you already do. We both have commitments, though, and we both need to be smart about how we conclude them. Right?”
Erica nodded.
“If we could take off tonight,” Cahill said, “go somewhere and start over, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”
“That’s all I can think about sometimes.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
“C’mere,” she said.
He stepped to the bed and sat on the edge of the mattress.
She reached up and touched his face.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you, too, Erica.”
He leaned down and kissed her.
“We staying or going?” he asked.
“Going.”
“So it’s rise and shine, then.”
“Yes, Sarge.”
It was Cahill’s turn to watch her dress—slacks and a camisole, soft wool fisherman’s sweater over that, black shoes.
He was already thinking ahead to their next few hours together.
Then they stood in the center of the room, embraced, and kissed for a long moment before finally parting.
Cahill exited first, making a quick visual scan of the parking lot as he walked toward his Jeep.
The only vehicle present that hadn’t been there when he arrived was a beat-to-shit Ford Crown Vic with New York State markers.
Not an unusual thing to see outside a motel just a few quick turns off the Merritt Parkway.
Erica knew not to park near Cahill’s vehicle, so her BMW sedan was at the far side of the lot. At least two dozen cars, a mix of newer and older models, stood between her Beemer and Cahill’s Jeep.
The Ford was three spots past Erica’s vehicle, close to the very end of the rectangular lot.
Cahill reached his Jeep and stared at the Ford for a moment before deciding he wanted a closer look.
Something told him to do that, and he never ignored his instincts.
Knowing that Erica was watching him from the motel room window, he shook his head once, indicating that she was to hold her position.
He started walking, had passed the first car, then the second, was just passing the third—the front seat of the vehicle in question about to come into view—when he saw something he didn’t like.
The right bumper of the Ford jostled, sinking down slightly, then rising up.
Right away the left bumper did the same.
This could only mean one thing: the passenger had quickly gotten out of the vehicle, followed immediately by the driver.
From behind, Cahill heard the sound of straining tires.
He glanced quickly over his shoulder, just as a Ford Econoline cargo van moving at a high rate of speed made the turn into the motel parking lot.
The rear end of the van swung wide, but the driver compensated, correcting the vehicle’s path.
The badly tuned engine gunned, and the van hurtled across the lot.
Aimed straight at the door of the motel room Cahill had just exited.
From the corner of his eye, he detected something else he did not like.
The motel door was open.
And Erica was standing in it.
In a calm voice, Cahill called, “Get back inside, Erica. Lock the door and get down.”
To his dismay, she hesitated. Cahill had seen even trained men freeze when faced with sudden violence, but there wasn’t time for that now, so he called to her again, this time more firmly.
“Lock the door and get down.”
Erica snapped out of her trance yet still refused to move. He could tell that she was considering making a run toward him.
“Lock the door, Erica. Now.”
She did as ordered, flinging the door closed with two hands, but not before looking at him.
The last thing he saw was the look of fear on her face.
There was, though, no time for that, either.
In a well-practiced move, Cahill dropped down to one knee.
In his peripheral vision he saw the two men who had exited the Ford just seconds before clearing the back of the vehicle.
A quick glance told him that the passenger was armed with a cut-down, pump-action shotgun.
The man was raising the weapon, holding it single-handed by its pistol grip—and leveling it in Cahill’s direction.
With his right knee on the pavement and his other knee raised, Cahill pulled up his left pant leg, exposing the top of his leather boot.
A second later, the compact 1911 was in his right hand, his thumb switching the safety lever down.
A second after that, he was rising to a shooter’s crouch and completing a 360-degree grip of the firearm with his left hand.
Shoulders relaxed, he extended the weapon forward till the sights were directly between his right eye and his first target.
The front sight was in focus, the target forty feet away a blur, just as it should be.
Cahill waited till the sight alignment was perfect, then exhaled gently and went to work.