State Of War (2003) Read online

  If they needed a longer conversation, or something that couldn't be said in code, they would do it face-to-face. Ames had more than one safe location, each with enough antibugging electronics going so that if Junior had suddenly taken it upon himself to use a hidden wire, Ames would know it before the first word was spoken.

  He'd met Junior at a shooting range and had carefully checked him out and cultivated him before . . . activating him. He was a rough tool, but he was greedy enough to be useful. If he stepped out of line, Ames would simply erase him and find another cat's paw.

  And even if Junior ever decided to try to blackmail Ames--or, more likely, if he got caught and tried to use Ames to cut a deal--he had nothing solid to give up. Like the leader of a good pickpocket team, Ames never held a stolen wallet any longer than it took to transfer it to a confederate. All his dealings with the man were in cash, and nobody save Bryce, who would spend ten years in jail before he said a word against Ames, knowing he'd retire rich when he got out, ever saw Junior and Ames together.

  So Ames was as safe as he could make himself. Which was good, because Junior was important to his plan. Not irreplaceable, but very important.

  Ames had never seen anybody as good with a handgun in a hurry, snub-nosed revolvers at that, and he'd been a shooter himself for most of his forty-six years. A man who could shoot, and who would shoot who you wanted him to, was an extremely valuable tool. You just had to be careful that you didn't cut yourself using him.

  He washed the greens, put them into the electric centrifuge, and hit the button to spin the water away. The machine's whirr rose in volume, and the scent of the slightly bruised greens wafted to his nostrils. Ah.

  Well. Enough about Junior. Corinna Skye was a much more pleasant subject upon which to dwell. After their drink to discuss her further lobbying efforts on behalf of CyberNation, he knew he had to spend some time and energy on her.

  He smiled at the double entendre and went to collect the fresh baby carrots. No matter what season of the year it was in New York, it was always harvest somewhere in the world. . . .

  Halethorpe, Maryland

  Junior was at a drugstore not far from the U of M Baltimore campus, just off I-95, and just a little bit nervous.

  He smiled at that, laughing at himself. Big Bad Boudreaux.

  He shook his head. A little nervous? The sweat was practically coming off him in buckets, and he kept wiping his hands on his jeans. It would be really stupid to die just because he was so scared he couldn't get a grip on his piece.

  The cop didn't have to worry about that. He wouldn't even know he was in trouble until it was too late to get sweaty.

  There came the car now, a single police officer in it just like the last two nights. The drugstore's parking lot was dark, a timer had shut the outside lights off at ten P.M. The inside lights were all dialed way down low, too. Thanks to conservation efforts, cities were a whole lot darker than they used to be. Tonight, though, Junior was glad for that.

  The squad car went through the lot of the all-night restaurant across the street. The place looked just like a Denny's, but its sign said Pablo's instead, no doubt catering to the ex-Cubanos who had recently moved into the neighborhood. Junior didn't have anything against those people. Back when he was a teenager, he'd bought his booze at a place called Cuban Liquors, down in Louisiana, and they'd always treated him okay.

  The cop looped out of the parking lot and came across the street. There was a pay phone on the front of the drugstore, one of those little half-booths attached to the side of the building, but there was no light to speak of. Junior had busted that out earlier. Still, there was enough glow from the store to see somebody was standing there, even if you couldn't tell much about who it was.

  The cruiser came across the street like a prowling cat, and pulled into the drugstore lot. The building sat kind of down in a little hollow, lower than the roads to the south and east of it, and the pay phone was behind the corner of the building. The combination didn't let the headlight shine on the phone when the cop pulled in. The only way to get a light directly on Junior would be if he looped wide from the driveway and turned in toward the front of the place. The cop hadn't done that either of the two previous evenings until he was ready to leave.

  Junior wiped his hands again. It wasn't too late to bail out. He could still pick up the receiver and pretend to be talking, just a guy who had to use the phone late at night. Maybe his wasn't working in his apartment, or maybe he was behind on the bill and they'd shut it off. No law against that, just being here to use the phone. The cop would mark him, but probably drive by.

  But, no. If he didn't do it now, he never would. He knew that. He had been arrested for simple assault a couple times, and he'd done a nickel for ADW. He had even been busted once for murder, but had gotten off--he should have, since he hadn't done it--but he never told anybody that he hadn't, even his lawyer, so people thought he had skated for a killing. They figured a smart lawyer had gotten off another guilty man, and more power to the mouthpiece. That gave Junior the rep, and it had paid a lot of freight. When serious folks wanted a bodyguard, they wanted a man who wouldn't be afraid to drop the hammer when the guns came out, and they thought he had already done it. He'd talked the talk for so long, he had 'em all fooled. They thought he was a killer, but he couldn't fool himself any longer.

  Junior had never killed anybody. Never even shot at anyone. Not for real. Sure, he had beaten more than a few bloody, and had waved his guns a lot to intimidate people, but he'd never actually killed anybody.

  And that ate at him. It made him feel . . . hollow, somehow. He knew he could squeeze the trigger, if it came down to it. He knew it. But he never had.

  Time to walk the walk, Junior, or else shut the hell up.

  He was scared, no question about that. But he was ready. He knew that, too.

  The cop idled the cruiser into the parking lot. It was a big Crown Vic, the car version of Jaws.

  He saw the cop spot him. He could see his face in the lights from the computer screen on the car's dash.

  Junior could have picked up the phone, now was the time, but he didn't. He just stood and stared.

  Cops were used to seeing people look at them, but there were citizen looks and then there were the "up-yours" looks. Junior was giving him one of those. No cop could let that pass, not in the middle of the night, not one on one, not unless he was a wimp.

  The cop in the Crown Vic was no wimp.

  He pulled over and stopped in the driveway twenty-five feet away. The door opened and the cop, maybe thirty or so, stepped out. He had his big aluminum head-basher flashlight in his left hand, but he didn't shine it at Junior. Not yet.

  "Good evening," the cop said. "Something wrong with the phone?"

  Junior took a deep breath. The little sleeveless nylon vest he wore had half a box of bullets in each of the side pockets, enough to give them some weight so he could clear them with a little buck and wiggle of his hips. The two Rugers were underneath the vest, secure in their holsters, as ready as they would ever be.

  Shit or get off the pot, Junior.

  "Nope, no trouble with it," Junior said. His voice sounded pretty calm. He was worried it might break, but it was okay. "I wasn't usin' it anyway, no."

  Junior saw the cop shift into a higher state of alertness. He edged his right hand back toward the pistol in his holster. Junior knew it was a Glock, probably a 22C in a .40 S&W, ten rounds in the magazine, one in the pipe, three-and-a-half-pound pull and not the heavier New York trigger. More gun than Junior's, way more. It would knock a man down ninety-five times out of a hundred with any solid hit.

  But that didn't matter, not if Junior was better.

  "Hey, let me ask you somethin'." Junior took a couple of steps toward the cop. Twenty feet. Eighteen.

  "Hold it right there, bud," the cop said, still not too worried, but with his hand now touching the Glock's plastic butt.

  So okay. Here it was. The cop was alert, had his hand
on his piece, and was looking straight at him. Fair enough.

  Junior stopped. He held his own hands low, by his hips, palms forward, to show they were empty. The ready position from which he had practiced drawing his guns a thousand times.

  Junior said, "So, how's your sister?"

  The cop frowned, and while he was thinking about that, Junior cleared the vest and grabbed his revolvers.

  Time slowed to a crawl.

  The hard rubber grips felt alive under his hands as he pulled the short-barreled guns and swung them up.

  The cop reacted. He jerked his Glock out at Junior's sudden move, but Junior was faster, a half-second ahead. He brought both revolvers up and on target even as the cop cleared leather.

  It was like he was in a trance: Everything but the cop vanished, sounds, lights, everything, and the cop was moving so . . . slow. . . .

  Junior cooked off two rounds, the right a hair faster than the left, and he would swear that he saw the bullets leave the barrels, even through the tongues of orange that washed out his night vision and the jets of greasy smoke; saw them fly at better than nine hundred feet a second across the six yards or so, which was impossible; saw the tiny lead rounds hit the cop, right one just above his left eye, left one on the bridge of his nose, whap! whap!

  The cop fell, still in slowmo, his pistol pointing at the concrete parking lot, not a chance of tagging Junior even if he fired, which he didn't.

  He hit the ground like a chainsawed redwood tree, dead or most of the way there when he landed. The Glock fell, bounced, and clattered away. Junior heard that, the Glock against the concrete. He couldn't remember hearing the shots, but he heard the Glock land. Weird.

  His heart raced like it was on speed, like a shot of Angola meth right into a vein, and after what seemed like years, he finally remembered to breathe. He had a little trouble doing that, and his breaths came and went real fast.

  Jesus Holy Christ! I shot the guy dead!

  It seemed very quiet all of a sudden.

  He looked around. Nobody in sight, but even the little .22s made noise this late at night. Somebody would have heard. They'd be looking around. Cop cars were like magnets, they pulled in the looks.

  Time to leave, Junior.

  He felt like he had just screwed his brains out. He was flushed all over, and limp, but in a good way. What a rush!

  No need to look at the cop. The man was worm food, no question about it.

  He reholstered the Rugers, turned, and walked to the north. A brisk walk, but not a run. His car was parked a block over, on a residential street, in front of some apartments. He had swiped a set of license plates from a little pickup truck that was parked outside a repair shop a couple miles away, and put those on his car. If anybody noticed it there--and they wouldn't in that neighborhood--it wouldn't come home to him even if they wrote down the plate number.

  If the dead cop had had any smarts, he would have called Junior in before he got out of his car. When he didn't report back, somebody would come looking. By then, though, Junior would be miles away in a car nobody had seen. And an hour after that, he'd be having a beer in his kitchen and replaying it all in his mind.

  They probably wouldn't get anything off the bullets. Those itty-bitty nonjacketed lead ones were bad for ballistics. But just in case, Junior would change barrels on both revolvers when he got home. He had three spare sets for each gun. Even if they somehow found him later and tested his guns, which wasn't going to happen, but if they did, the grooves in the new barrels wouldn't match. No way was he going to keep carrying guns that would ID him as a cop killer, no matter how much he loved 'em.

  As he drove off, the body rushes just kept coming. He had never felt so alive before! He had faced off against an armed cop, a trained shooter, and he had beat the guy, cold. Killed him and walked away. Nothing had ever felt like this before! He was like a god.

  Like a god!

  7

  Washington, D.C.

  Toni had planned to go to the supermarket to pick up a few things before Alex got home from work. It was almost dark and she wanted to get back before he did, so she was in a hurry to get going--until she opened the front door and saw the mob of reporters on her front walk.

  Well, okay, it wasn't really a mob. There were maybe seven or eight reporters, but it sure looked like more. As soon as she opened the door, they started yelling at her, creating a babble that was loud and only partially understandable:

  "Mrs. Michaels, Mrs. Michaels! Is it true you were one of the agents who killed workers on the Bon Chance?"

  "Mrs. Michaels--how you do feel about your husband being responsible for the deaths of those innocent men?"

  "--true that you are a martial arts expert who has killed several people with knives or your bare hands--?"

  "--fair to the taxpayers . . . ?"

  Guru came to the door behind her. She looked out at the men and women charging up the walk. She stepped past Toni to face the onrush of reporters. "The baby is sleeping," she said. "You must leave."

  The first woman to reach Guru, a television reporter, shoved a microphone into her face. "Who are you, ma'am?" she demanded to know. "What do you know about this?"

  Pushing the wireless mike into Guru's face was perhaps not the wisest thing the woman had ever done.

  Guru caught the outthrust instrument, twisted, and removed it from the reporter's grip. Adding her other hand, the eighty-five-year-old woman gripped the thing securely and snapped it in half. Then she dropped the pieces.

  The clatter of the broken sound gear falling upon the walk was quite loud.

  "You must be quiet," she said. "The baby is asleep."

  Apparently none of the reporters had ever before seen an old granny break an expensive, hard plastic and steel microphone as if it were a bread stick. They all stopped talking. They looked like a herd of grazing deer suddenly caught in headlights.

  Toni grinned.

  Guru shooed them with her hands. "Go, go." She took a step forward.

  The reporters nearly fell all over themselves backing away.

  Guru turned around, gave Toni the smallest of smiles, and went back into the house.

  The woman reporter said, "I'm going to send you a bill for that, lady! You can't just destroy equipment like that!"

  Toni said, very softly, "Who are you going to send it to?" Then she turned and went inside. She wasn't going to the market now, not and leave Guru and the baby alone with these jackals outside.

  When Michaels got home, he saw the gaggle of reporters on the walk out front. Son of a bitch. This wasn't right. If they wanted to come to HQ and interview him, that was fine, but no way should they be coming to his house!

  He pulled the company car into the driveway and hit the remote for the garage. Normally, he left the car parked on the street, to keep the garage empty for silat practice, but he didn't want to wade through this crowd.

  A couple of them moved into the driveway to block his path.

  He rolled down the window, stuck his head out. "Move out of the way, please."

  The reporters descended on the car like flies on honey.

  "Commander Michaels! Would you comment on the lawsuit against you?"

  "--Commander, was it really necessary to shoot those men--?"

  "--Commander, why did you send your wife on such a dangerous mission--?"

  He tried to inch the car forward, but the pack of reporters stayed with him, like hyenas on a wounded impala. The ones in front wouldn't get out of the way.

  He honked the horn.

  He stuck his head out again and glared at the two in front of his car. "Listen, I am going to drive into my garage. It would be a good idea for you to move. I wouldn't want anybody to get hurt." He smiled, the expression as fake as a three-dollar-bill.

  The pair, both men, both with cameras, stayed where they were.

  To hell with you, he thought. He dropped the smile, pulled his head back into the car, took his foot off the brake and let the car idle forw
ard.

  They didn't move until the car was almost touching them, but finally, they did.

  He pulled into the garage and hit the remote to shut the door. None of them followed him inside, which was good, because he would have been hard pressed not to toss them out physically.

  Once the garage door was closed, he got out of the car. Tommy had told him he'd be seeing reporters, and that whatever he did he was not to let them provoke him. Be polite, don't say anything except, "No comment," smile, nod, wave, and get away from them. They were like mosquitoes, Tommy had said. They will bite you and suck your blood, and if you swat one, another will quickly take its place. Better to leave than stand there squashing them.

  Toni met him at the door.

  "I'm sorry about all this," he said, waving at the garage door.

  "It's not your fault," she said. She stood up on her toes and kissed him. "Other than that, how was your day?"

  He grinned.

  The grin didn't last, though. In the living room Guru sat watching the evening news. He waved at her, and she pointed at the TV.

  Michaels looked over and saw himself on the screen. He stopped.

  The view was from one of the cameras that had been blocking the driveway, and a tight close-up of his face showed a flash of anger, then a smile that looked more like a leer. "Move," he said, as he pulled his head back into the car and started forward.

  They cut out the rest of what he'd said--the "It would be a good idea," and "I wouldn't want anybody to get hurt." A different angle, from another camera, cut in, showed the car heading toward the cameramen in front of the car. They made it look as if he was trying to run them down.

  His virgil cheeped. It was Tommy Bender.

  "What are you doing, Alex? I'm watching you on the news trying to run over Channel Nine's and Channel Four's cameramen. Why is that?"

  "Tommy, it isn't what it looks like."