Parker 05 - The Darkness (34 page)

to the bathroom, Carolyn, thanks.'"

"Got it."

"Once you enter the hallway past her desk, make a

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quick left, and it's the third office on your right. You

know who your target is."

"I do. Why..."

"No whys," Chester said. "Once it's done, you run as

fast as you can back here. The car will be idling in front

of the entrance. The door will be open. You just climb in,

hand me the gun, and we're gone. The gun will be disposed of before the police arrive on the scene. And we

want you to wear this," he said.

Chester handed Morgan a baseball cap, underneath

which and sewn in to the cap was a blond wig. Morgan

put it on his head, and Chester adjusted it so that none of

Morgan's black hair could be seen.

"Anything to throw them off a little bit. Carolyn will

be the only witness, and she's an old lady. They'll be

looking for a young blond guy wearing a baseball cap."

"Okay."

"We'll drop you off near the subway after we ditch the

car. Call your girlfriend. Have her come over, get her good

and drunk and screw the shit out of her. She'll be another

layer of protection, so to speak. Then wake up tomorrow,

come to work and act like this never happened."

Chester handed Morgan a folded piece of paper. The

young man opened it. It was a money order for $50,000,

made out to him.

"Just in case anyone asks, you've been doing some

contracting work on the side," he said with a grin. "You'll

get the second half once it's done. And Morgan?"

"Yeah?"

"Make sure nobody asks."

Morgan nodded, then folded the slip back up and

slipped it into the inside of his coat pocket. It felt good

to have it there, and it would feel even better tomorrow

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Jason Pinter

when he deposited a hundred thousand dollars into his

bank account.

Those debts, the ones that had nearly crippled him for

so long, would be wiped clean by the end of the month.

"You ready?" Chester said.

"Ready?" Morgan said with a smile. "I'm bored. Let's

do this."

39

"Go on," I said.

"Our troops invaded Panama because of Paz's death,

but because he ran from a PDF blockade the Panamanian

government claimed they did nothing wrong. So folks

back home in the States began to feel the same way, especially when more people started dying on both sides

of the conflict. Two weeks after Paz's death, a marine

unit was supposed to infiltrate a Noriega drug lab, but

instead they found themselves trapped in an alleyway

where they were ambushed by the PDF. They all managed to get out alive, but there were some on our side that

wondered if they were given the wrong directions on

purpose."

I said, "That they were led into a trap in the hopes

they'd be killed to strengthen the cause for the invasion."

"Exactly," Hollinsworth said. "Nobody knew for sure."

"That day in January," Jack said, "when your squad

was attacked...the same thing happened, didn't it?"

I could see Hollinsworth struggling to remain passive,

remain calm, but there was something behind those eyes that

he was unable to hide. It wasn't grief or sadness; it was rage.

"I know we were set up," Hollinsworth said. "We were

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scheduled to join up with a Ranger regiment. I was given

directions, instructions on when and where we'd meet. But

by the time we got there, it was just us and the armed guard.

By the time the survivors got back to the base, Chester was

dead. And the Rangers had no idea what the hell I was

talking about. The military discharged me a month after

that, and I went back to school to get my master's degree.

I never saw anyone else from our squad again."

"So Chester Malloy was killed that day," Jack said,

"but Rex Malloy and Eve Ramos lived."

"Rex, Chester and Eve were close," Hollinsworth continued. "The whole squad was like a family, but those

three were the tightest. When Chester died, it hit Rex and

Eve hard. Some of us thought Chester and Eve might have

been seeing each other behind closed doors, but we never

knew for sure."

I felt something then, a twinge, a faint bell going off.

I decided to go after it. I had a feeling we were close

to the truth.

I pulled my cell phone from my pocket, searched

through my e-mail in-box and found the message. Clicking on it, I opened the attachment. When it finished loading, I handed it to Williams Hollinsworth.

"Do you recognize that person?" I said.

Hollinsworth squinted, adjusting his glasses to view

the grainy shot better.

"It's hard to tell, with the angle and the picture quality

being, well, substandard. But if I had to guess...no...it

couldn't be." He looked at me. "Chester Malloy?"

"Close," I said. "You knew both Malloy brothers. Look

at the ear."

Hollinsworth took another glance, then nodded. "I

remember Rex's ear. We used to call him Potato Head

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285

because his ear looked like a mashed potato. But everything else is wrong. The hair. Rex's hair wasn't blond."

"You're right there," I said. "Rex's wasn't. Chester's

was. Rex Malloy is alive, and he's taken on his brother's

look, his dress, even coloring and styling his hair like

Chester used to."

"Okay," the professor said, "so you say. But so what?

I haven't seen Rex Malloy in almost twenty years."

"About a week ago," Jack said, "Rex Malloy kidnapped a woman and threatened to kill her daughter."

Hollinsworth's head snapped up, his eyes wide open.

"He did what?"

"You heard me," Jack said.

"Jesus, how do you know this?"

"Because the girl who took that photo was paid ten

thousand dollars by Malloy to help him."

"I don't understand," Hollinsworth said. "Why would

he do such a terrible thing?"

"The woman he kidnapped was a reporter," I said.

"Like us. He blackmailed her into writing an article for

her newspaper."

"I don't read the papers," he said.

"So I gather. I just happened to bring a copy with me."

I took out the copy of the
Gazette
with Paulina's article

and slid it across the table to Hollinsworth. He picked it up.

And as soon as he read the headline, I knew the whole

story was about to unravel.

"That's...that's impossible," he said.

Hollinsworth ripped open the paper to Paulina's story

and read the entire piece. We sat there, watching his face,

studying it, transfixed by the multitude of emotions that

ran through it.

When he finished, the professor dropped the paper to

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the floor. The man's shoulders were slumped, his eyes

nearly closed. He stared at the floor.

Then finally he said, his voice barely above a whisper,

"I never thought they'd do it."

"Do what?" I said.

"Darkness...Ramos...Rex and Eve were always talking about some new drug Noriega's people were developing, something that if synthesized properly would be

twice as potent but half the cost. But the way they were

talking about it...it wasn't kosher. I always got the feeling

that if we didn't keep tabs on them they could--"

Then, before William Hollinsworth could say another

word, the door to his office banged open. Standing in the

doorway was a young man wearing a suit along with a

baseball cap. His hair was blond, but I noticed a tuft of

black hair beneath it. He was wearing a wig.

And I knew what he was going to do even before he

pulled the gun out.

Suddenly the world became a blur, and before I could

get out of my seat the young man was holding a small,

black gun and pointing it at William Hollinsworth.

The professor's eyes went wide and I heard him

scream,
"No!"

Then there were three deafening blasts, and three

gouts of blood erupted from the former Special Forces

agent's chest.

I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, watching helplessly

as Hollinsworth toppled backward in his chair, a horrific

spray of blood covering the back wall of his office, decorating the space with grisly red where the professor

himself had declined to hang any decorations.

The shooter's eyes met mine, and to my surprise there

was no anger or malice in them, but pure and simple fear.

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287

His head shook as our eyes met, and suddenly he

turned and ran away.

"Jack, call 911!" I shouted, jumping from my seat and

racing into the hallway.

Peeking out from the doorway to make sure there

wasn't a muzzle waiting for me, I saw the coattail of the

man rounding the corner and heading for the lobby.

I ran after him, screaming and shouting echoing in the

halls behind me. I couldn't sense anything else; my world

narrowed to a tunnel.

Turning the corner at the end of the hall, I heard some

sort of commotion and a loud crash. Again I leaned out

from the corner, only to see that the shooter had tripped

over Carolyn's desk and was gathering himself up.

Carolyn was screaming, holding her head in her hands

and she stared at the man with terror etched on her face.

Then I saw it. The gun. It had fallen from his grasp and

was sitting mere feet away.

I had one chance.

Without thinking, I sprinted forward and threw my

weight into the man's back.

I heard a
humph
as his breath was driven from him, as

we both fell forward onto the ugly brown carpeting.

The man swung his elbow around at my head, but I

was able to duck it. As he did so, the ball cap and wig fell

off, revealing the man's hair and face.

His hair was short, black, and he was breathing heavy,

sweating. One thing was for sure, this man was far from

any sort of professional.

The suit. Something snapped together in my mind,

and I knew why this man was here.

Then I heard him pleading with me.

"Let me go! Please!"

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Jason Pinter

What kind of killer said
please?

I held on tighter, tried to get a better grip to immobilize

the man. I needed to hold him down long enough for

someone to help me incapacitate him until the cops arrived.

"Get off him!" I heard somebody scream. I turned

around slightly to see Carolyn hovering over us holding

her desk lamp. It was a big thing, brass colored, metal and

a foot and a half long. We both looked, and then she

swung the pole at us.

Then I felt a massive crunch on the back of my neck,

and for a moment the world went black. I could feel the

man getting out from under me, so I blindly grabbed at

him. I managed to catch my fingers inside some sort of

pocket, which tore away as he escaped.

When the darkness cleared, I looked up to see Carolyn

standing over me. Her hand was covering her mouth as

she stammered.

"Oh my God! I'm so sorry, I was trying to hit him!

Are you okay?"

I nodded, but felt exactly like I'd been hit with a metal

pole on the back of my neck. Carolyn dropped the lamp

and went over to help me up.

When I got to my feet I looked around. My stomach

lurched when I realized that he was gone. Not only that,

but the gun was gone, too.

I ran/stumbled out into the street, hoping to see a flash

of suit jacket, something. But the street was empty.

Business as usual. If anybody had seen where the shooter

had gone, they weren't letting on.

I turned around and jogged back inside where Carolyn

was still blubbering. That's when I saw Jack enter the lobby.

His shirt was covered in blood, and his face was a terrible

crimson mask. He looked at me, his lower lip trembling.

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289

"Hollinsworth," I said.

"He's gone," Jack replied.

"Goddamn it!" I yelled. "Who the hell knew we were

coming here?"

Jack came over to me and held out his hand. I thought

he was going to hug me, so I said, "Not now, Jack."

Instead he walked right past me, leaned down and

picked something up off the floor.

"What is that?"

Jack stood back up and showed me. It was a piece of

black cloth from the pocket I'd ripped during the struggle.

Beneath it was a folded piece of paper. Jack opened it.

"What the hell..." I said.

In Jack's hand was a money order. It was made out for

fifty thousand dollars to a Morgan Isaacs.

"I bet this guy knows," Jack said.

The payee on the order was a man named Leonard

Reeves.

40

"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,"

Morgan said.

That his heart hadn't exploded yet was shocking, but

every pore in his body seemed to be leaking sweat, every

nerve ending on fire.

Once he was able to get away from the guy who'd

tackled him, Morgan found the car waiting for him just