Brothers in Arms

CHAPTER TWELVE

Walter Clarke had been traveling for days along what he liked to call his “east coast run.” A grueling schedule to be sure but, when finished, a run that gave him three days straight with his family.

He sat inside his car for a minute, listening to the sound of the hard-worked engine tick, and watching the sun settling vibrantly across the Vermont skies. Then, closing his heavy, black briefcase and shoving whatever insurance documents spilled out carelessly under the front seat, he cracked open the car door and climbed out.

Cool, fresh air greeted him. Walter breathed deeply. Time for some wonderful downtime with the kids. He hadn’t had this much free time since he’d stayed—

The light footfall startled him. He spun, expecting a playful neighbor or his buddy Chris to be sneaking up behind. But the sight that greeted him made him think he’d inadvertently stumbled onto the set of The Walking Dead.

A tall, spare man stood six feet away. Walter gasped. The man’s eyes gave him a thousand-yard stare; his movements were robotic, but the big handgun never wavered. Walter stared down the wide, cruel barrel and wondered what he’d ever done wrong.

“You’ve got the wrong—” he started to say, but the weapon boomed and Walter Clarke knew no more.

Lights went on in houses close by. Curtains twitched.

The residents who dared to peek out forever wished they hadn’t. They were front-row witnesses as the zombie-like shooter took his own gun, placed it over his heart, and pulled the trigger.

Hayden rubbed tired eyes, increasingly frustrated by the lack of anything concrete in this case. Both she and Kinimaka were starting to wonder if Senator Turner’s attempted assassination had indeed been the random act of some nutjob. But other elements of the case didn’t add up. Chiefly, Dai Hibiki’s forewarning. Drake’s unofficial shooting down. The perp’s demeanor. An autopsy had found no chemicals in his body, no puncture marks in his flesh, no signs of foul play.

A mystery. Much like another mystery they had all contemplated frequently over the last few weeks — why the hell had Russell Cayman removed Kali’s bones from the third tomb of the gods in Germany? Despite a huge effort, the man and the bones were nowhere to be found. But he’d resurface, they all agreed. He’d resurface with a plan.

Hayden sat down, momentarily stumped. She was just about to announce her intention to take a couple of hours off when all hell broke loose. Ben squawked and Karin hit her desk hard. “Red flag,” she cried. “Putting it up on the monitor.”

Hayden stared as a police report flashed up on screen. A man in Vermont has been shot dead about an hour ago. Nothing unusual there, she thought. But what did raise the hairs on the back of her neck was the description of the shooter. The same MO, the same appearance, the same outcome. If Hayden hadn’t recently seen Michael Markel lying on a slab, she’d have thought he might have reanimated and done the deed himself.

Fire shot through her nerves. “Mano. Alicia. Dahl. Take a look at this. Looks like it’s about to kick off big time.”