Sudden Death

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Ethan’s head pounded. The six ibuprofen and four Tylenol he’d taken over the last two hours had done little to diminish the pain. He needed to sleep, even if his sleep wasn’t real. Sleep for him was a movie of the past. It left him not only unrested, but panicky.

“You’re a fool.” She slapped him. Slapped him. “Hold on, Ethan. It’s almost over.”

“Where’s Hackett?”

“He’s coming,” she said. “Trust me.” She looked around the rented cabin, foot tapping, angry at him. Ethan didn’t know why.

He took one of his needles and absentmindedly pushed it into his palm. The accompanying pain masked the ache in his head. He pulled the needle out, rolling it between his fingers. “We should have gone to his house. I told you we should have gone to his house.”

“I shouldn’t have to explain to you again why that’s impossible. Too many people, a good security system. Hackett comes here every third Thursday. This is the best place to take him.”

“It’s too open. Too public.” He looked out the window toward the beach.

“He always gets a cabin, not a room in the main lodge.”

“That doesn’t matter. It’s still too public.”

“We’ll stuff a rag in his mouth like the guy in Vegas,” she said. “You just have to focus. No more mistakes, okay?”

He crossed his arms. The sun was setting. He could hear the ocean, but couldn’t see it under the reflecting shimmer of the light. He didn’t want to be here. He wanted to go home to Pennsylvania. Would his mother even recognize him? He hadn’t talked to her in five years. When he came back from Afghanistan, she’d cried. He couldn’t handle her tears. Her pain. Any pain, except his own.

“This is the end, Ethan. You know that, right?”

“There’s more.”

“No there isn’t.” She kissed his neck. He barely felt it. “After Hackett, you’ll finally have peace.”

“They aren’t all dead.”

“That’s okay.”

He pushed her away. “It’s not okay!”

“Can you do this? Or are you backing out now?”

“Of course I can do it,” he snapped, rubbing his temples. “Too much sun. I hate the beach.”

She shook her head. He didn’t know why hating the beach made her look at him with contempt. Was it important?

“I need to be able to trust you, Ethan. This is the last one.”

“We left Frank Cardenas alive.”

“We’ve talked about this.”

“I’m not done talking.”

“I am.” Stepping toward him, she touched his face softly. A caress. “Honey, I need to know that you’re with me. That you’re ready. This is the riskiest of them all.”

“I’m ready.” He nodded to emphasize how ready he was.

She started toward the door. “When I call-”

“What?” he asked. Where was she going? “Don’t leave me.”

“I have to. He’ll be here. Do not leave this room. Okay?”

She smiled and Ethan blinked rapidly. Did he see fangs in her mouth? No, it had been a trick of the light.

She said, “It won’t be long. Be ready when I call.”

He straightened. “I will be.”

His head pounded. Something wasn’t right, but he didn’t know what. Maybe it was just him. He was wrong. He was very, very wrong. He laughed, then squeezed his eyes shut with the pain.

She was still in the room. “Don’t do anything, go anywhere, talk to anyone. Not until I call you.”

Ethan picked up a vase and aimed for the wall, but she grabbed it out of his hands and slapped him. The familiar sting comforted him as much as the sound of her palm hitting his flesh.

“You’ve already jeopardized everything! Don’t cause a scene just because you can’t have your way.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong.” He didn’t think he had. She’d taught him to think on his feet, and he always did. Those people at the rest stop could have identified them, so he’d taken care of it.

“Don’t go there, Ethan.”

“They were witnesses. And you were listening to that fool.” He stared out the windows. The sun had disappeared. Maybe it had drowned in the ocean. All that was left was bleeding pools of orange, pitiful remnants of the dead sun.

“Do you know how many times I begged for mercy?” He didn’t know he’d spoken out loud until he heard his voice ringing in his ears. Still, he doubted. Had his lips moved? Had his throat vibrated?

“Do you know how many times I cried out for the God my parents told me, promised me, was there? I turned to Satan, hoping at least he was real and would deliver me. I didn’t care about my soul; I just wanted it to stop.”

And Satan had come, complete with tits and ass. Ethan turned away from the darkening sky and looked at his master.

She wasn’t a god or a devil. She was real, yes, in the flesh. His penis twitched, wanting her to touch him, to hurt him. Make him want to die. She could kill him. She wore a sexy red dress. Like Satan would wear if he were a woman.

“There is no God,” he whispered to her. “There is no Satan; there is nothing but humans slithering around the world much as they slithered out of the ooze millions of years ago. And you were buying it. You were listening. He would have told someone about you. Remembered you. You taught me to be careful. You taught me to cover our tracks, to wear disguises, to prevent evidence from building a case against us. It’s working, and then you turned into a quivering mass of pathetic, crying Jell-O when some idiot starts to pray for you. It’s your fault he’s dead.”

Her face was livid. “He caught me off-guard. But you killed him! You didn’t have to kill him.”

“What was your excuse with that fucking priest who left me to die? I should never have listened to you.”

“Don’t bring the priest into it. The fact remains, you shouldn’t have shot them. Ballistics, you asshole. You used the wrong gun!”

He didn’t know what she was talking about. He didn’t know much about guns, only what she’d taught him. Yet she looked at him like he’d made a big mistake. He hadn’t! But she didn’t like him anymore. Despair washed over Ethan.

“I-”

“Just forget it. Forget it,” she barked. “They won’t be able to get the ballistics report overnight. Forty-eight hours, and that’s stretching it. They’d have to pull out all the stops to get anything that fast. I already got rid of the gun, we’re going to be okay, I hope it’s okay.” She shifted nervously on her high heel shoes. She was worried about something. He should remember what, but he couldn’t. He squeezed his temples again, the pain blinding.

“It could have been so much worse, Ethan. Get it together and don’t do anything without my express permission.”

His lip quivered and he bit it. “Okay.”

“I’ll call you when he gets here,” she said. “Then you’ll have to get ready. Can you do that?”

He nodded.

Karin stared at Ethan and worried that he was going to screw up her entire plan. There was too much riding on this for him to go totally bonkers on her. She’d been managing his psychosis for two years through manipulation, pain, and sex, but none of that seemed to be working anymore.

He didn’t look well. She couldn’t do anything about that now. She refused to feel guilty for what he had become. He had made his own choices, twisted mind and her manipulations notwithstanding.

She patted Ethan gently on the cheek, still red from her most recent slap. “I need you to be strong. We’re in this together. When we’re through, you’ll be back to your old self. You believe me, right? You know that this was the only way for you to reclaim your life?”

He nodded. She smiled and kissed him. “Good boy. Wait for me.”

She closed the door on him and took a deep breath, the evening air fresh and salty, a bit crisp. This was it. Everything she’d been working toward for the last year was riding on tonight.

As long as Ethan stayed in the cabin and waited for her call, her plan would work.

She pulled off the clear latex gloves she’d been wearing and stuffed them in her large purse. She’d had an excuse for Ethan had he questioned her about them, but he hadn’t noticed. She wondered if he even really saw her. Most of the time he didn’t remember her name.

Which was good, but she couldn’t count on it. Like she couldn’t count on Ethan not noticing that she hadn’t brought any of her personal belongings into their beach cabin.

She stopped far enough away so if Ethan was looking out, he wouldn’t see her. She pulled out her compact, inspected her new hair color. She wished she didn’t have to cut more hair off later, she kind of liked this in-between length.

She applied another layer of makeup, popped in brown-colored contacts, and fluffed her bottle-blond hair. She’d curled it earlier. She never wore her hair all primped and perfect. It would be a great cover. As soon as she got it wet, it would go straight.

She walked across the resort grounds and into the main hotel and sat in the bar to wait for General Lyle Hackett.

He preferred blondes.

Price took them to a dark biker bar on the outskirts of Cortez, Colorado, fifteen minutes from the airstrip. Megan didn’t like feeling intimidated, but she clearly stood out in this environment. She resented Jack for putting her in this situation when they could easily have talked back at the airstrip-or met Price on neutral turf. As it was, everyone in the bar knew Price by name. They called him “George,” not much of a new identity.

Price took a bottled American beer; Jack ordered the same. Megan asked for water. Everyone looked at her.

“Get her a beer.” Jack leaned over and whispered, “Loosen up. He’s okay. But everyone here was suspicious of you the second you walked in, and you announced you were a cop when you ordered water.”

“So what?” she snapped. She was a cop. A federal cop. She didn’t want to show Jack how nervous she was out of her element, but he knew. He tugged on her hair, kept his hand on her back. Protective. She didn’t need protecting. But she grudgingly admitted to herself that it felt nice.

“So you thought I was dead,” Price said after draining half his beer in a gulp.

“Yes,” Megan said. “Have you ever been to Sacramento-”

Jack cut her off. “You heard about the Hamstring Killer.”

“Not until my pal called me after talking to Padre.” He used his bottle to gesture toward the wide-screen television. A baseball game played on the screen. “This is the only television I watch, and it don’t play nothing but sports.”

The stupid act was just that: an act. Megan tried to ask another question, but Jack squeezed her leg. She bit her tongue and sipped her beer. She resisted the urge to wrinkle her nose. She’d never liked the taste of beer. Wine, sure; margaritas, any day. But beer? Never. Still, she had to do something; otherwise she’d give Jack Kin-caid a dressing down he’d never forget. Forced to trust him, she didn’t have to like it.

“Scout was one of his victims,” Jack said.

Price sipped his beer. “Sorry, Kincaid. That sucks.” He sounded genuine.

“So were you.”

Price shook his head. “Not me.”

“A guy in Sacramento was killed wearing your dog tags.”

Price continued shaking his head. “Don’t know anything about that. I tossed them five years ago. The day I walked out on the army.”

“Where?” Megan interjected.

“Excuse me?”

“Where did you toss them? In the garbage? Gave them to a friend?”

“Why?”

“My victim had them around his neck.”

Price shrugged. He glanced left and right as if waiting for someone to jump him. “Don’t know, don’t care.”

Jack said, “He could go after Padre next. It’s connected to one of your missions. I think it’s related to the one with the reporter. Your team disbanded after that.”

“Don’t fucking bring up that little prick.” Price slammed the empty bottle down on the bar. Without asking, the bartender brought another.

“We have to catch this guy. Padre gave me the players, and the only people still alive who were on that mission are you, Padre, and Jerry Jefferson. Jefferson is still overseas.”

“And Rosemont,” Megan added. “We’re looking for him right now.” Hans said he’d put in a call after getting the list of operations from Padre, but Megan hadn’t been briefed.

“I hope he’s dead.” Price snarled.

Megan didn’t like George Price. “How did you feel about the rest of your team?”

He leaned forward almost imperceptibly. Jack tensed beside her, but Megan held her own. She wasn’t going to have either of these men bully her, lie to her, or manipulate her. She had too much riding on this case. Justice for the dead, for one. But more important, stopping the killers from claiming another victim.

Price’s voice was low. “Let me make it perfectly clear, Miz Elliott, Barry Rosemont was never part of my team. He was our fucking albatross. He killed Thornton as certainly as if he’d pulled the trigger himself.”

Jack said, “Padre said it was a trap.”

“You can call it a trap. I call it a setup. They were waiting for us. Because Rosemont couldn’t follow orders. He wandered off, was seen by one of their spies, who reported it. By the time we realized we were being followed, our target was long gone and we were surrounded. Thing is, Rosemont knew he’d been seen. He didn’t tell us because his assignment was to write about a Special Ops mission from planning through execution.”

Price was so tense Megan thought if she touched him he’d blow. She stayed silent; this was Jack’s world.

“I was in Somalia,” Jack said quietly. “The media really fucked us over there.”

“I don’t blame the assholes in the media as much as the damn politicians thinking that every battle should be broadcast live so the world can watch. And the military leaders who went along with them. Public relations. Fuck that. War ain’t pretty, never was, never will be.”

“Who had the bright idea to send a reporter on a covert mission?” Jack asked.

“Hackett.” Price practically spat his name. When Jack didn’t say anything, Price added, “He’s retired. He should be dead, too.” Price stared straight ahead. “Joe Thornton had two boys. Little kids. He had four more months and then he was out. Was going to be a cop, was already accepted to the police academy.”

The pain in Price’s voice hit Megan hard. Her dad had come home melancholy at times, looking a lot like Price did now: hard, defeated, hopeless. But Dad had always come back to himself, had always been a solid, noble role model. Price was no role model, but Megan didn’t think he was a cold-blooded killer either. Nor was he a torturer. If Price killed anyone, it would be the person he held responsible for the failed operation, not his compatriots.

“Scout had a girlfriend,” Jack said, surprising Megan. “Rina had two boys. Thought he’d finally settle down a bit.”

“Sometimes it’s not in the cards for men like us,” Price said. “Sometimes it is.” He looked pointedly at Megan. She resisted the urge to shift in her seat, but couldn’t stop herself from straightening her back.

“Why’d you attack Russo?” Jack asked.

“Haven’t you wanted to deck your commanding officer now and then? When they were stupid?”

“I never did.”

“You’re a better man than me.”

“You didn’t deck him. You stabbed him.”

“That was an accident. I just wanted to beat the crap out of him. It got out of hand. And it was his knife. He pulled it first.”

That was news.

“Why?”

“The interview he did. Five years ago, right after we brought Thornton’s desecrated body home. He went on one of those twenty-four-hour news programs and blamed us for what happened. He was there, he knew exactly what happened and what Rosemont did-and didn’t do. Yet he told America that it was his fault, him and his team. That Rosemont had been our responsibility, and we lost him and Thornton because of an error in judgment.”

Price slammed his hand on the bar. “I was like an uncle to Joe’s boys, but I haven’t seen them in five years because their mother thinks I’m the reason their dad is dead. When I saw the program, I snapped. Russo had excuse after fucking excuse, but the fact was, he felt guilty that we didn’t go back after Rosemont. When he gave the interview, he’d just gotten word that the reporter was a hostage, not dead like we’d thought. The Taliban was between us and them. We called in reinforcements and waited for a couple Blackhawks so we could return and extract Thornton. But they were hidden, as secure as possible under the circumstances.”

Price closed his eyes. “Thornton radioed, said Rosemont had panicked. Compromised their position. His radio was on when the bastards shot him.” He drained his beer. “Twenty-two minutes. The prick couldn’t sit still for the twenty-two minutes it took the choppers to rendezvous with us and return. Joe died a hero. That’s what Russo should have said.”

Twenty minutes later, Price dropped Jack and Meg back at the airstrip. “You don’t have to disappear,” Megan said. “I’m not going to turn you in.”

Price nodded. “I appreciate that. But I’m outta here. Sometimes people do things they don’t want to do. You’d feel guilty about it, but you won’t lie if you’re asked a direct question.”

“But-”

Price shook his head. “I’m a good judge of character. That’s how I’ve stayed a free man for the last five years.”

“What happened to your dog tags?” Megan asked.

“I thought Russo was a dead man. I didn’t mean to stab him, but I didn’t want anyone else taking the fall. I dropped them on his body and disappeared. Haven’t seen them since.”