Imogen’s house was situated on the bluffs above Little Kennebec Bay, the nearest town being the tiny harbour of Machiasport. To get there we had to put down at a private airstrip outside the small town of Holden, because there was no way we’d get through security at Bangor International, then we drove up the rugged coastline in a 4×4 supplied by Rink’s contact at the airstrip.
Icy rain thundered on the cab. The heater was cranked high, blowing hot, dry gusts against my face, but outside it looked cold. Wearing my Florida get-up, I might succumb to hypothermia in an hour. Rink’s flamboyant shirt would be no protection at all.
‘We need to stop and get kitted out,’ I said.
Bryce was perhaps the best equipped for the cold, but even he nodded. We needed coats and hats that were designed for keeping the heat in rather than the sun out.
There were plenty of places on the way up to Little Kennebec Bay, and taking twenty minutes out of our journey, we restocked at a fishing tackle store. We bought fleece-lined coats and hats with ear-flaps, and we rigged Bryce out with a new pair of boots. Rink and I lived in our boots, so we were OK in that department. We paid with a credit card with a faked name. It sounds bad, but there was actually money I’d deposited into the account, so it was a genuine transaction: it would just never be traced back to me.
Behind the counter a radio was playing. A newscaster regaled his audience with the latest news. The top story centred on a gunfight where one cop had died and another was critically injured. It came as no surprise that my name was thrown into the pot, but I walked out of the store pretty thankful. There was no mention of a woman having been found mutilated.
Because mobile telephones are deceptively easy to trace, I turned off the one I’d used in Tampa, removing the battery for good measure, and purchased another with prepaid credit at a service station a little further along our route. I tried Walter Hayes Conrad again, but with similar results.
‘You don’t think Walter’s involved, do you?’ Rink asked when we were back in the 4×4 and on the road again. His tone told me that he didn’t give his words much credence.
‘Stuff like that only happens in the movies,’ I said. But I did wonder where he’d gone to. My greatest fear was that he’d already been targeted by the people we were up against, but it was highly unlikely. Walter rarely travelled anywhere without an entourage of bodyguards. I preferred to think that he was simply too busy with his own investigation to reply to my calls. Then a thought struck me. I stared directly at Bryce.
‘When we first met, you said you wanted to check whose side I was on. Again, back at the safe house, you also mentioned that “according to some people” I was the one responsible for killing our team. Was Walter one of these people?’
‘No. Walter argued that it wasn’t you. It was why he contacted me and sent me to find you instead.’
‘He knew where to find me,’ I pointed out.
‘News had just come in about the murder of Jessica and Linden Case and how Case mentioned your name before he died. Walter couldn’t contact you directly for fear of being implicated in that crime. He was worried that his communications were being monitored.’
‘But he felt safe contacting you?’
‘We keep in touch on an informal basis: face to face. We occasionally meet up to have a beer and reminisce over the good old days.’
Bryce was obfuscating the way that Walter was also famous for. If a hit on a black ops team was under investigation, the CIA would have been on to Bryce much earlier than they’d been on to me. I noticed that Rink had picked up on the lie by the way he jutted out his chin. I let it go.
But then I laughed.
‘You know what this is, don’t you?’
Bryce frowned. Rink’s chin relaxed and a smile curled his lips.
‘Walter — in his own inimitable style — has reactivated us to clear up his shit. He sent you to put me on the right track, Bryce, knowing full well that I’d be like a dog after a bone. He knew that Rink would step up to help me.’
‘Figures,’ Rink said.
‘This is another embarrassment to the intelligence community. He wants it buried, so he’s chosen us to do his dirty work for him again.’
‘Just like Tubal Cain,’ Rink said. He unconsciously thumbed the white scar on his chin — a reminder of said psychopath.
Bryce wasn’t party to what had happened with Tubal Cain. Cain was actually Martin Maxwell, a former member of the secret service, better known as a bone-harvesting serial killer. When my brother John was kidnapped by Cain it was inevitable that I hunted the man down, but it served Walter that I bury him without a trace. On that occasion Walter had given me unofficial sanction to kill the maniac; it looked like I was being offered the same terms again.
‘I’m right, Bryce?’
‘I was supposed to show you the photos and then put you on Abadia’s trail,’ Bryce said. ‘Walter didn’t anticipate that you would be a fugitive from the law.’
‘If he’d come directly to me those cops wouldn’t have died, Imogen would be safe, and I wouldn’t be being hunted like a rabid dog.’
‘An’ we wouldn’t have to freeze our asses in Maine.’ Rink said. To add validity to his words, he flicked on the windscreen wipers to bat away sleet. ‘There is a good reason why I live in Florida.’
‘Won’t be here long,’ I promised him.
‘I think we’re wasting our time coming here,’ Bryce said. ‘The woman’s already dead.’
‘We don’t know that. Until we know for sure, we assume she’s still alive.’
‘You’ve seen the photos, Hunter. You know what happens to the victims.’
‘That’s exactly why we’re here: I’m not going to let that happen to her.’
‘We should concentrate on finding Abadia.’
‘No, Bryce. We concentrate on finding Imogen first.’
The woman was in danger through no fault of her own. She’d been snatched as a way of hurting me. Kate and I had been together — if only briefly — before she was murdered, and I thought now that if Kate was still alive I’d be looking at Imogen as an extended member of my family. And no one fucks with my family.
My problem was where to start.
Imogen’s house was the obvious place, but for the time being it would be cordoned off behind crime scene tape and a horde of investigators. Going there would solve nothing and most likely see us behind bars.
‘Does Walter have any idea who’s behind this?’
‘Abadia.’
‘OK. Let’s play make-believe for a minute,’ I said. ‘Let’s just suppose that Abadia survived three point-blank rounds in the chest and he’s now looking for revenge: where would he start?’
‘He starts by identifying the men sent to kill him.’
‘Exactly. But those files were buried. So how does he get to them?’
‘He needs someone on the inside,’ Bryce said. It was like he’d just confessed a sin and he jerked upright in his seat. ‘Hey, now hold on! I hope you don’t think I had anything to do with this?’
‘Calm yourself, Bryce. If I thought you were involved, I’d have already broken your neck. I’m thinking someone else.’
‘There is no one else.’
‘There are plenty. There were officers from the Drug Action Service along for the ride. Any one of them could’ve been forced into feeding him the information he’d need.’
Bryce looked pensive. ‘Victor Montoya was the first to die. It’s possible that someone led Abadia to Victor and then the other names were extracted from him. Remember he was tortured. Maybe it was because he wouldn’t speak that his family were murdered in front of him.’
It sounded feasible.
‘Next question: who does Abadia use to get his revenge? All of us are highly trained; he doesn’t send someone incapable of getting the job done.’
‘Has to be ex-military,’ Rink said.
‘A mercenary,’ Bryce offered.
‘Probably Special Forces,’ I said. ‘Someone just like us.’
‘That doesn’t narrow things down very much,’ Bryce said. ‘There have got to be thousands of ex-Special Ops out there looking to make a buck.’
‘Most of them are men of honour. They wouldn’t make war on women and children.’ Rink stared directly ahead into the growing storm. ‘Most of them.’
‘Why would they have to be Special Forces?’ Bryce asked.
‘Could be something else,’ I concurred. ‘Whoever it is, he’s highly trained and highly efficient. He has experience with sniper rifles. It’s possible that he’s a freelance assassin or a cop or maybe even a run-of-the-mill soldier. But I’m still running with the Special Forces angle.’
‘Why are you so sure?’
‘The guy I spoke to on the phone sounded Caucasian. I think that Abadia — or whoever — met the killer while he was on active duty in Colombia. British and American Special Ops guys have been in and out of Colombia for years, training and equipping the anti-narcotics cops down there. The SAS were there back in the nineties, more recently it’s been the US Army Rangers.’
Beside me Rink grunted. Rink was a Ranger before he joined my unit.
‘Next time we stop,’ he said, ‘I’ll get Harvey on to it.’
Harvey Lucas was also a Ranger in his past life. He still had connections: maybe he could draw information from someone that would send us in the right direction. If not, Harvey was still a good man to have at our backs.
‘If he’s a Ranger, we’re in for one helluva fight,’ Rink said. He squirmed a little, as though his loyalty to his old troop meant he had to give the killer a modicum of respect. It was an abrasive notion.
‘We’re surmising an awful lot,’ Bryce said.
‘Yeah.’
Maybe I was way off base in my thinking. But as usual I was going to prepare for the worst-case scenario. Anything less would be a welcome bonus.