Devil's Keep (37 page)

“Russian,” he said.

They both understood what this meant. Russians coming after her—could be coming after any of them.

“I’ll call Al,” she said. ”You call Stick.”

She went to her back deck and called Mendonza. He picked up on the first ring. He said that he was in Minneapolis, in the suite of a boorish actor who wouldn’t need a bodyguard if he weren’t such a twit.

“I’ll be watching,” he said. “What about Stick?”

She saw that Favor was talking on the phone. So he must’ve gotten through to Stickney.

Looks like Stick is fine,
she thought.

But something wasn’t right with Favor.

He put away the phone.

“What did he say?” she asked.

“It wasn’t him. It was his housekeeper. Stick is gone.”

There were no more attempts against them. Ballistics tests matched the bullet that had killed Stickney to one of the guns that had been used against Arielle in the backyard ambush.

Stickney’s friends and neighbors in Mendocino organized a memorial service about ten days after his death. They did it among the redwoods behind his workshop.

Favor and Mendonza and Arielle didn’t know anyone there. Favor almost didn’t recognize the man that they were eulogizing: the kindliness and gentleness and warmth they described. Favor had always seen these things in Stickney, but only as the flip side of something dark and hard and ferocious. Favor realized that Stickney had re-created himself here, becoming the person that he truly wanted to be, putting aside the parts that he no longer wanted to claim and letting the rest flourish.

Favor thought about Stickney raising the gun on Devil’s Keep to save the lives of his friends. He realized what an act of love and self-sacrifice it had been, summoning all the dark parts he had tried so hard to bury.

These people had never seen that side of him, Favor thought; they couldn’t imagine him doing what he had done on the island. As much as they liked and admired him, they wouldn’t have suspected the greatness that was in him at that moment.

Good for them,
he thought.
Good for Stick.

Just one other person seemed as out-of-place as they did. It was a young man, maybe thirty, maybe less. He wore a charcoal gray suit and carried a slim leather portfolio. He was tall, straight, with an athletic build. Dark skin that nearly matched the mahogany tone of the portfolio.

He hung near the back, watching politely as Stickney’s friends took turns talking about him and singing songs, and when the service was finished, he approached Favor and Mendonza and Arielle.

He said, “I represent a man named Simon. He would have liked to be here, but he knew that you would understand why that’s impossible.”

Simon. They knew Simon from Bravo. Simon
was
Bravo, as far as Bravo One Nine could tell. He was their trainer, their guide, their sponsor, their angel.

He said, “I can tell you who is responsible for the death of Winston Stickney, if you wish. But Simon has instructed me to tell you that this information shouldn’t be used to satisfy idle curiosity. You should ask to see it only if you intend to act appropriately. That’s the message, verbatim.”

He looked at them, waiting for a response.

“I want to see it,” Favor said.

“Yes, let me see it,” Arielle said.

“Open it up,” Mendonza said.

Arlo Addison was his name. He was near the end of his first year of training in the Bravo program, long enough to have heard the stories—the legends—about One Nine and its four members.

Stickney, Favor, Bouchard, Mendonza. Students and trainers often discussed them: not just what they had done, but how. The way they had worked, four personalities meshing and becoming one. It was a model of the Bravo concept.

Addison brought them to a picnic table, away from the rest of the mourners. He stood across the table from them, looked into their faces. He felt that he knew them.

He put the portfolio down on the table, keeping his fingertips on it, maintaining possession.

“The gunmen were working on contract to a man named Feodor Novokov,” he said. “A Russian crime boss, one of the biggest and, for sure, one of the most brutal. The connection has been verified. Recordings exist of conversations. Don’t be surprised; we’re in the realm of national security now. Especially with the death of one of our own.”

Addison opened the portfolio. Inside was a dossier on Feodor Novokov, and the one known photo.

“Novokov is a veteran of the Afghan war. So are many of his captains and soldiers. He was badly wounded, disfigured. He has been known to call himself Uncle Teddy—maybe in irony, I don’t know, but he is frankly a creep and a pig, and also an extremely vengeful man. His health has been shaky, but only the good die young.”

Addison stopped when he saw Favor’s reaction. He was looking down at the photograph, the image of the man with the sunken left cheek and the eye askew.

Favor was weeping. But not in grief, Addison thought. Something deeper and stronger than grief, and far more terrifying. His body shook with a barely controlled rage.

Addison suddenly wanted to be far away, anywhere but here.

Favor was looking at the other two, speaking to them. His voice was cold.

“Never again,” he was saying. “Never again. Never again.…”