Fallen Angels 04 - Rapture (13 page)

After a retinal scan, the panel opened and then closed, leaving the operative alone to consider his options, which was SOP: Once
an assignment had been given over, the methods of execution were up to the delegatee. The brass cared only about the ends.

Caldwell, New York, was merely an hour away by plane, but better to drive. There was no telling the resources his target had, and aircraft could be tracked easier than unmarkeds.

As he left, the fact that he might well be going to his own death was irrelevant—and that was part of the reason he had been chosen from all the other soldiers and civilians who “applied” to get into XOps. Careful psychological and physical screening was conducted over years, not months or weeks, before you were tapped on the shoulder. Then again, the job required an unusual combination of urgency and disassociation, logic and freethinking, mental and physical discipline.

As well as the simple enjoyment of killing other human beings.

At the end of the day, playing Grim Reaper was fun to him, and this was the only legally sanctioned way to do it. Even the canniest serial killers got caught after a while. Working in this capacity for the U.S. government?

His only rate limiter was his ability to stay alive.

Matthias had had to let Mels go.

There hadn’t been any other choice. Standing in that cemetery with her, staring across Jim Heron’s grave, it had been very clear to him that they were separated by life and death—and she was on the vital side.

He wanted to keep her there.

After they’d argued for a while, she’d left him, walking off with a quick efficiency he approved of. In the wake of her departure, he’d stayed by Heron’s final resting place for as long as he estimated it would take her to return to her friend’s car—and sure enough, when he eventually returned to the cemetery’s front gates, the Toyota trash bin was gone.

Turned out she’d been right about the lack of taxis, but there’d been a bus stop not too far away, and though he’d had to wait a while, he had managed to get himself back downtown.

Better this way. Clean break—at least physically. Mentally, he had a feeling it wasn’t going to be quite so cut and dry.

Although there was still a part of her with him in the concrete sense: the sunglasses. She hadn’t demanded their return, and he’d forgotten they were on his face.

And covering up his bad eye was going to help in situations like this. …

Matthias entered the Starbucks on Fifteenth Street, and cased the place behind the Ray-Bans. The lunch crush had come and gone, and the three o’clock snoozers had yet to crowd in to solve their late-afternoon sags. Only a couple of customers nursing lattes, and a pair of baristas on the far side of the counter.

He picked the one who had the piercings all over her puss, and spiky navy-and-pink hair that looked like it hadn’t gotten over the shock of those needle assaults.

Either that or the shit was pissed off at the not-from-nature dye job.

As he approached, she looked up with a counting-down-the-clock expression, but that changed into something else. Something he was used to.

Speculation of the female variety.

He had chosen wisely.

“Hi,” she said as she searched his face … and then what she could see of his cane and his black windbreaker.

Matthias smiled at her, as if he were momentarily taken with her, too. “Ah, yeah, listen, I was supposed to meet a friend here, and he hasn’t shown. I went to call him on my cell phone and realized I’ve left the damn thing at home. Can I use your landline?”

She glanced over at her comrade-in-lattes. The guy was lounging against the back where the coffee machines were, arms crossed over his thin chest, chin down, as if he were taking a breather standing up.

“Yeah. Okay. Come over here.”

Matthias tracked her on the customer side of the counter, exaggerating his limp. “I’ll have to call information first, because he was in my contacts. But don’t worry, it’s just local. I can’t believe I forgot my phone.”

“Happens to everyone.” She was all flustered, those eyes of hers flipping up to him and shifting away like he was too bright to look at for long. “I’ve got to dial for you, though. You can’t come back here.”

“No problem.” When she passed the receiver over the partition, he gripped it and smiled slowly. “Thanks.”

Even more fluster. To the point where she had to take two tries to get through to information.

Matthias casually turned away and made like he was checking the entrance for his “friend” as a recorded voice hit him with, “City and state, please.”

“In Caldwell, New York.” Pause. Wait for the human to come on. “Yeah, the number of James Heron.”

As he held on for the number, the girl picked up a dishcloth and ran it over the counter, all casual. She was listening, though, those brows with the hoops down low.

“H-E-R-O-N,” Matthias spelled out. “Like the bird. First name James.”

For fuck’s sake, how many ways could you spell the damn—

411 came back on the line: “I’m sorry, but I don’t have anyone by that last name in Caldwell. Is there another name you’d like to search?”

Well, shit. But somehow it didn’t surprise him. Too easy. Not safe enough.

“No, thanks.” Matthias pivoted back to the waitress, returning the receiver. “Out of luck. Unlisted.”

“Did you say ‘Heron’?” the girl asked as she went to hang up. “You mean that guy who died?”

Matthias narrowed his eyes—not that she could tell, thanks to the Ray-Bans. “Kinda. My friend’s his brother, actually. They lived together. Phone was under Jim’s name. Like I said, my buddy and I were going to meet up here and, you know, talk about it all. It’s so hard losing someone like that, and I’ve been worried about what it’s doing to his head.”

“Oh, my God, it was
too
sad.” The girl shifted the dishrag back and forth in her hands. “My uncle worked with him—happened to be there when he was electrocuted at the site. And then to think he got shot, like, days later. I mean, how does that happen? I’m
so
sorry.”

“Your uncle knew Jim?”

“He’s the head of human resources for the construction company he worked for.”

Matthias took a deep breath, like he was choking up. “Jim was an awesome guy—we were in the war together.” He knocked the head of his cane into the partition. “You know how it is.”

Four … three … two … one …

“Look, why don’t I call my uncle for you. Maybe he has the number. Hold on.”

The girl slipped out of the partition, paused, and then nodded, like she was on a mission for good, and determined to Do the Right Thing.

As Matthias waited for her to come back, he listened for his conscience to speak up at the manipulation.

When nothing came, he was disturbed by how easy it was. Like the act of lying was so familiar and insignificant, it didn’t register any more than the blink of the eyes did.

The barista returned about five minutes later with a number
written in a girlie script that belied all the I’m-a-hard-ass piercing stuff. “I’ll dial it for you.”

Back behind the counter, she handed him the receiver again, and he listened to the beeping as she pushed the buttons.

Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring
—

No voicemail. No answer.

He gave her back the receiver. “No one’s home.”

Then again, what other response was there: Wake up on the guy’s grave, and he expected Heron to be answering a call? Long reach from six feet under to AT&T.

“Maybe he’s on his way?”

“Maybe.” Matthias stared at the girl for a moment. “Thank you so much. I really mean that.”

“You want some coffee as you wait?”

“I’d better go do a drive-by on the house. People react to tragedy in … funny ways.”

She nodded gravely. “I’m really sorry.”

And she was. A perfect stranger was honestly sorry for whatever he was going through.

He immediately thought of Mels, who’d also been so willing to help him.

Nice people. Good people. And his faulty memory said he didn’t belong in their company.

“Thank you,” he said gruffly before limping out.

The forty-caliber handgun in Jim’s right palm weighed thirty-two ounces, with ten bullets in the mag and one in the pipe.

He kept the weapon down at his side, by his thigh, as he walked out of the garage. After the mess in the shower, Adrian had left to go get some air and some food, taking his Harley and not his helmet.
Dog was safely upstairs, resting on the bed in a patch of sunlight. Jim was on guard duty.

Can’t you see? She’s in me—and she’s taking over
.

Fuck.

At least he had an outlet: The good thing about the garage was that it was all the way at the back of a farmhouse property—and the white main house with its porch and its redbrick chimney had been empty since he’d started renting here.

No one was going to see. But that wasn’t good enough.

Shoving his free hand into his combats, he took out a suppressor. The silencer added ten ounces in weight to the autoloader and changed the balance, but he was used to the weapon like that.

Now, no one would hear, either.

Standing on the loose pea gravel of the drive, he took a drag of his cigarette and then held the thing in his left hand. Focusing on a branch that was thirty feet from the ground, he lifted his weapon and locked in on the one-inch-thick stretch of oak.

Breathing calmly, he closed his eyes and pictured Devina’s face.

Crack!

Thanks to the suppressor, there was no noise from the gun, no pop, just the kick against his palm, and the impact on the wood.

Crack!

The trigger, like the grip and the barrel, was not only an extension of his arm, but his body, and he didn’t need his eyes to readjust the trajectory. He knew exactly where the lead was going.

Crack!

Calm. Centered. Breathing in the belly, not the chest. Unmoving, except for his forefinger and then his forearm muscles as they absorbed the subtle recoil of the gun.

The impact of the final bullet was softer, but then again, there wasn’t much wood left.

He opened his eyes just as the branch went into free fall, bouncing down through the arms of its brethren, delayed, but not stopped from the hard ground.

Putting his Marlboro back between his teeth, he crushed the fallen pine needles and the scratchy grass under his combat boots as he went over and picked the thing up. Clean cut, relatively speaking. Nothing like what a saw would have done, but considering the distance and the means, it was good enough—

“You are an excellent shot.”

The haughty English accent coming from behind him made Jim want to keep squeezing off bullets. “Nigel.”

“Have I caught you at an inopportune moment?”

“I still have seven bullets left. You decide.”

“Devina has been reprimanded.” As Jim spun around and narrowed his eyes on the aristocratic archangel, Nigel nodded. “I wanted you to know that. I thought it was rather important for you to know that.”

“Worried that I’m going off the rails?”