Chronic fear

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Gundersson had been prepared for the unexpected.

It was part of his training, and Harding had warned him that he was walking on quicksand. Somebody wanted Wendy and Roland, and after Wendy had told him the Morgans were on their way, he figured the odds of all hell breaking loose had increased exponentially. But the preemptive strike caught him by surprise.

Just the way Wendy had the night before.

She stood over her husband, swinging the frying pan nonchalantly at her side as if she were on her way to cook some bacon. Her eyes were vacant and hollow, staring past the wall as if heeding some unspoken command.

Gundersson was familiar with that expression, because he’d seen it in the firelight as they’d coupled. She’d been ravenous, almost frightening in her passion, as if she wanted not just to seduce him but to consume him.

What in the holy hell did Briggs plant in your head?

“Did you kill him?” Gundersson asked her, glancing at the prone body before returning to his surveillance. He’d seen shadows in the underbrush, but he couldn’t tell if the attackers were paramilitary or regular field agents of some kind.

“I just made him hurt,” she said. “Like he hurt my painting.”

Her gaze went to the chair, and Gundersson followed it. The painting was hidden behind the chair, leaning against the wall. He’d heard of people dying for their art, but killing for it?

“Keep your head down,” he said. “These guys are pros.”

“I thought you were a pro, too.”

For all her sexual prowess, Gundersson found he didn’t like her very much. She’d drained him dry and he still felt hollow, and the first twitch of guilt stirred in his gut. They had used each other, and now he was relieved he hadn’t told her everything.

But you told her you’d help her. Those goddamned black, inscrutable eyes just pulled it right out of you.

Gundersson saw movement and he fired one round through the shattered window. He wasn’t aiming to kill yet. He needed to know what he was up against. There was a possibility-a slim one-that these guys were on Gundersson’s team.

Crouching, he hurried across the short expanse of the main room to check the rear of the cabin. The chickens squawked and clucked, unsettled by the noise.

If they’re pros, they should have hit Roland on the porch. Something’s not right here. Unless they just wanted to scare him, and it’s me they really want out of the way.

Shifting his Glock to his left hand, he fished his Sectera from his pocket and hit the stored number for Harding’s desk.

Harding answered on the second ring. “Gundy. I was just about to call you.”

“I’m under fire, Chief.”

“Damn. Are you hit?”

“Flesh wound. I’m okay but I’m pinned down.”

“Secure?”

“Inside a cabin. There are at least two of them, maybe three. They have automatic weapons.”

Harding didn’t bother pointing out their range advantage over a handgun. “The closest backup is in Asheville. Two hours. Can you hold out?”

“Maybe. But I’ve got some civilians to babysit.”

“That’s what I was going to call you about. Roland Doyle’s name came up in connection with a murder in Cincinnati. It was right around the time of that Monkey House business. He was on the suspect list at one point but for some reason he was cleared before he was ever questioned.”

“Somebody’s got a long reach.”

“And it looks like they’ve reached you.”

Wendy pulled the painting from behind the chair and was looking at it-into it-as if divining the future in its frantic swirls and zigzags. Gundersson’s mind drifted to the tangling of their limbs by the fire, how she violently flung her body against his in disregard of her frail form.

“Gundy?” Harding’s voice came as if across a vast gulf, but it was enough to remind Gundersson of his situation.

“Doyle’s down. I don’t have anyone to watch my back.” Gundersson was relieved Wendy had put down the cast-iron pan before retrieving the painting. Roland’s revolver lay on the carpet near the sofa, and Wendy hadn’t even looked at it.

“This is what they want,” Wendy said.

“What?”

“What’s going on?” Harding demanded over the satcom link.

“Did you find out who’s after these guys?” Gundersson said in response.

“Best guess is it’s an inside job.”

“CIA? Fuck.”

“I’m still backtracking. But don’t forget, somebody put you there for a reason.”

“Yeah,” Gundersson said. “You did. To get my ass shot off.”

“Maybe you didn’t get the job done the way they wanted.”

“You’re all heart, Chief.” Gundersson shifted to the side window, making sure the view was clear. Roland let out a low groan but didn’t move.

“They wanted these drugs and thought you could get them the easy way, and then they could just intercept it. Now it looks like you’re part of the problem, not the solution.”

“What do you expect at my pay grade? I’m just goddamned dumb enough to do the right thing.”

“Hang in there. Backup’s on its way.”

Gundersson wasn’t sure he wanted backup. If the double cross was coming from within, then he wouldn’t be able to trust anybody who arrived on the scene.

Including Harding.

But he didn’t know anything definite, and he hadn’t discovered the pills that were the supposed purpose of the mission. Harding was right: he hadn’t done the job.

But it would have helped if he knew what the right thing was.

“You’ve got a warrior’s heart,” Wendy said, and he wasn’t sure if she was talking to him, her husband, or the painting.

Gundersson bent low, blood splotching his thigh, his ankle screaming a reminder of its sprain. He scuttled across the floor until he retrieved Roland’s fallen revolver. He thumbed open the chamber. No bullets.

The idiot was playing?

“Roland wanted to destroy it,” Wendy said. “Sebastian wanted it to live.”

Gundersson knew the feeling. But his gaze crawled to the canvas despite himself. The figure drawing was different from his last view of it yesterday. It was shot through with jagged lines and geometric shapes, and the whole aspect of it had changed. The huddled, shadowy figure was obscured by lighter gashes of color.

Shake out of it, Ace. So she’s gone cubist or something. This isn’t the Met Museum. This is a war zone.

He considered mounting the stairs for a more commanding view, but the loft was situated so he would only be able to watch two sides of the cabin. One of the attackers could have sprinted from the woods and even now be creeping along the foundation. The front door was locked but it wouldn’t stand up to a couple of determined kicks, and a gunman also had the stealth option of breaking a window and firing inside.

And if there are three of them, and they all charge at once “Why would they want you dead?” Gundersson asked Wendy, bothered by the fact that it had been several minutes since the last round was fired. At least shooting would reveal their locations. Silence was even more stressful.

“What you told me last night,” she said. “We have something somebody wants, and somebody else doesn’t want that other somebody to have it.”

Gundersson nodded. As screwy as it sounded, that was the simplest truth. And the “something” wasn’t a pill, it was a secret carried inside them.

Gundersson glanced at the painting again. “What’s that?”

“What Sebastian taught me. The key.”

“The key to what?” Gundersson limped to the door, making a recon sweep of the yard through the tiny shattered window, but he only stayed long enough to make sure it was clear. The Glock held seventeen rounds, and he had another magazine in his vest, but he wasn’t about to play Dirty Harry against marksmen with automatic rifles.

Even if he made a hobbled run for it and somehow reached the woods, his SUV was parked a mile away, on the far edge of the wilderness area. They could hunt him down easily even if he wasn’t running on one leg.

Plus, despite his distaste for them, he felt compelled to protect Wendy and Roland and whatever secret they harbored. The fact that someone wanted them dead meant they knew something important, and the government had a right to any information that could threaten its interests. And Gundersson had sworn to uphold those interests.

Okay, Dudley Do-Right? Do you have the balls to back up what you believe? Even when your own government might be trying to kill you?

He was at the kitchen window, peeking through the curtains, when the meaning of the painting’s symbols struck him. What he’d taken for abstract postmodernism was a formula of some kind, a cryptic code.

The key.

Roland stirred, letting out another moan. He wasn’t bleeding, but a welt the size of a robin’s egg rose above his left ear, rapidly becoming purple. Gundersson wondered if Wendy eventually turned on every man she slept with, a black widow in lovely skin.

A shot rang out, and it was of a different caliber and volume than the rifles.

Has one of them switched to small arms? That would be dumb, since they have the advantage.

A cluster of shots followed, the muffled rattle of automatic weaponry, followed by the louder gun. Somebody gave a high-pitched squeal that quickly trailed away. It was followed by a whoop of deranged and bloodthirsty triumph, like that of a boy taking down his first deer.

Either they’re shooting each other, or the cavalry has arrived. But Harding said backup would take two hours. Who, then?

“Stay down,” he barked at Wendy. She slouched from her sitting position on the sofa, still studying her painting. Smiling.

Someone shouted from the forest. “Roland! Wendy! Are you in there?”

Wendy looked up, snapping from her blissful stupor. “Mark.”

Mark? The guy training to be a cop? Then his doctor wife couldn’t be far behind.

So the Morgans had walked into Armageddon and had apparently managed to survive, at least to this point. Gundersson wondered how much they knew, and whether somebody wanted them dead as well.