What Comes Around

CHAPTER 11

The rain had stopped.

After dinner at Nebo, Hawke and Brick walked back to the Hooker place, taking the main road along the harbor. It was a full moon, hanging bright and white and big in the sky. Each man knew what the other was thinking. There was no need of talking about it.

Finally, as they turned into the long Hooker drive, Brick stopped and looked at his friend.

“What’s your gut telling you, Alex?” Brick said. “Right this minute. Don’t edit. Spit it out.”

“Okay. That the timing of all this no coincidence. That what you’ve got is a totally bad-ass rogue agent running around the planet systematically killing your own top guys.”

“Yeah. That’s where I come out, too.”

“Let me find him for you, Brick.”

“Are you kidding? It’s my problem, not yours. My agency. My people getting killed. God knows, MI6 has got enough of its own problems these days. That intel meltdown in Syria, for starters.”

“This guy, whoever he is, killed my friend Hook, Brick. That makes him my problem, too.”

“You’re serious. You want to take this on?”

“I do.”

“You even have time to do this?”

“I’ve got another two weeks before C wants me to mysteriously appear in a Damascus souk, looking to purchase some bargain-basement Sarin gas.”

Brick looked at him and they started climbing the hill.

“Two weeks isn’t a long time to find a seasoned operative who’s gone to ground without a trace. Now roaming the globe on a murder spree but not leaving any tracks. But, listen, Alex. Hell, I won’t stop you from looking. Nobody is better at this than you. Just tell me what you need.”

“Don’t worry, I will. This is obviously not an MI6 operation. You’re right. And C and the brass at MI6 will pitch a fit if they find out I’ve gone freelance. So, I need somebody attached to this op at Langley. Files on every possible disaffected agent who had ties to multiple victims, for starters. Active and inactive. Send everything to Bermuda. I’ll get Ambrose Congreve on this with me. He’s there at his home on Bermuda now, as luck would have it.”

“Your very own ‘Weapon of Mass Deduction.’. If he can’t solve this, no one can.”

“Exactly.”

“I’ll tell you one thing,” Brick said, never breaking his stride but taking a deep breath and staring up at the blazing moon and cold stars. “I’m really going to miss Hook, that old bastard, won’t you, Alex?”

“I sure as hell will. But I’ll feel a whole lot better when I catch the son of a bitch who bloody killed him, I can tell you that bloody much. It won’t be pretty.”

“Easy,” he said, “Easy there, old compadre.”

“Who the hell, I ask you, who the hell would ever want to murder a fine old Yankee gentleman like Hook?”

“Go find out, Alex. Whoever he is, he needs killing soon. I have a lot of justifiably nervous campers out there right now.”

“Yeah. Murder’s bad for institutional morale.”

“Ambrose will have every shred of evidence I can pull together arrive at his Bermuda address by courier within forty-eight hours.”

“Sooner the better. A couple of weeks isn’t a long time.”