Repairman Jack [10]-Harbingers (42 page)

Jack watched Miller's prone form on the laptop's screen and waited for him to move again. He didn't.

Dead?

Jack hoped to hell not. He'd planned to leave one man standing, or at least alive enough to answer a few questions. The answers were of critical importance to Jack.

He watched a little longer. The camera's lens didn't provide enough resolution to see if his chest was moving. From here Miller didn't seem to be breathing, but he could be simply knocked out.

Or faking it.

Always that possibility. But if so, he'd deal with it. At least he wouldn't be walking in blind.

He disconnected the laptop from the cigarette lighter socket. The screen flickered as it switched to battery power, then stabilized. He cradled it as he opened the car door and kept an eye on the screen on his way to the warehouse.

When he reached the door he pulled out his keys and began unlocking the deadbolts. One… two… three.

Miller didn't budge.

Jack pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The place reeked of burned flesh. A thin layer of white smoke, disturbed by the open door, undulated in the air. Jack eased it closed behind him, then placed the laptop on the floor and drew his Glock.

Slowly he stepped toward Miller with all the caution of a lost camper approaching a sleeping bear.

Miller felt rather than heard the footsteps—a vibration from the floor into his skull. He hadn't heard the door, but no question about it, someone was here.

He snaked his right arm under him where he could grip his H-K. Then he waited, tensing his muscles. Closer… closer…

A work boot edged into view, but not close enough to grab. Then a second. Someone in jeans and steel-toed boots stood about four feet away, probably staring at him, wondering if he was dead.

Come on… just a couple of feet closer.

But the shoes didn't budge.

Okay. Right time or not, he had to make his move
now
!

He pulled the pistol, rolled as he brought it out and up and then the
crack
! of a shot and a stab of blinding pain in his arm. His fingers went numb and he dropped the pistol.

The fucker had been waiting for just that move.

Miller ignored the agony in his bloody arm and lunged for those jeans. He grabbed air instead. Where'd he go?

He scrambled to his feet, spun about and saw him. Yeah. Him. The Heir… or Jack… or whatever his name was. He had Miller's H-K in his left hand and what looked like a Glock in his right, but he had them pointed toward the floor. He stood by what was left of Hursey, and the thought of what had happened to him and Jolliff and Gold turned the air red.

With a roar he charged.

But the guy wasn't there when he arrived. He felt an explosion of pain in his left knee, and then he was losing his balance, tripping over Hursey to land by the blown-out wall.

He cheeked his knee. He hadn't heard a shot. No blood. Must have kicked him.

Miller fought to his feet but the knee barely held him. He found the guy standing about a dozen feet away, silent, expressionless, looking like someone waiting for a green light so he could cross the street.

He charged again, but it was an ungainly, limping charge. The guy easily ducked to his right, and though Miller saw the kick coming, he could do nothing to avoid it. The heavy work boot rammed the side of his other knee. He felt ligaments rip and cartilage tear. He crumbled to the floor.

Two blown-out knees. Goddammit! He was playing with him, just like he'd played with the bombs. Surgery. Carving out one life at a time—only here it was one limb at a time.

Miller tried to rise but he had the use of his left arm and nothing more. He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry like a baby. He'd lost. Goddammit he'd lost.

The guy squatted half a dozen feet away and stared at him. He still hadn't said a word.

"All right. You got me, asshole. No way that'd happen if you hadn't softened me up with your bombs. So do your worst. Come on. Get it over with."

And still the guy said nothing.

"You had the O fooled, and Davis too, but I was on to you. Knew from day one you were a phony. Have to admit, though, I didn't think you were working for the other side."

The guy shook his head and said, "I'm not."

The words seemed to echo down a long tunnel through the ringing in his ears.

"You gotta be. You've got no reason to do all this. You gotta be working for the Otherness."

Another slow shake of his head.

Miller gave him a closer look and noticed his eyes. This wasn't the same guy who'd tagged along when they did the Arabs Sunday night. That guy'd been a nothing, a schlub. This guy was scary. On the outside he looked like a cross between a stone-cold hard-ass doing some extermination work. But from somewhere in his eyes, his face, his voice came a whisper that this was all personal. Very personal.

"Then why? Who do you work for?"

"I work for me."

"Why, dammit! What did we ever do to you?"

"I had no beef with the MV at the start. Didn't want to join, but I was perfectly content to live and let live, let you go your way and me go mine. And that's the way it would have stayed. But then you and your crew effectively killed the two most important people in my world."

What was he talking about?

"Who? When?"

"The woman and child you ran down."

"You
knew
them?"

A nod. "I was going to marry the woman; I was going to make her little girl my own. The woman was carrying our child."

He pulled something from a pocket and held it out.

Miller squinted at what seemed to be a black-and-white photo, but he couldn't make it out.

"That supposed to mean something?"

"It's a sonogram of my daughter. We were going to name her Emma. But now her mother and sister are vegetables and Emma's dead. Because of you."

Miller tried but couldn't quite grasp what he'd just been told. It was too far out, too crazy.

"But the Ally wanted them dead. The only reason for that would be they were connected to the Otherness."

His head did a slow shake. "No. No Otherness connection. Because they're connected to me."

"Then you must be Otherness connected."

Another head shake and a sigh—a tragic, despondent sound, weighted with incalculable grief.

"No, I'm Ally connected."

"Make sense, dammit!"

"Too late for that. But I've answered your questions, you answer one for me."

"If it's about the new O—"

"We'll get to her in a minute." He pulled something from his pocket and set it on the floor between them. "It's about LaGuardia."

Miller's gut tightened when he saw what it was: a cyanide-tipped 5.56mm NATO round. He'd filled the hollow with cyanide himself.

"Where'd you get that?"

"Found it under one of the lockers. That was an MV operation, wasn't it."

"Fuck you."

"Might as well tell me. It's not going to change the outcome here. And confession is good for the soul."

"I repeat: Fuck you."

The guy shook his head. "How do you do that? How do you stand there and mow down fifty-odd innocent people?"

"You should know. Between yesterday and today, look how many yeniçeri you took out."

"I had nothing to do with yesterday, but I take full credit for tonight."

For some reason, Miller believed him, but he wasn't about to admit that.

"So you say."

"I'll ask again: How do you stand there and mow down fifty-plus innocent people just to get to one man?"

He knows! How the fuck does he
know
?

"You figure it out."

"Okay. My guess is you got an Alarm from the Ally that showed you mowing down everyone at that particular baggage claim at that particular moment. Right? So you became Wrath of Allah."

Miller could only stare. He'd nailed it—except the Wrath of Allah part. He and Hursey had done the deed, yeah, but didn't make any calls to the media. Hadn't even thought of that. He'd been shocked when he heard some group calling itself Wrath of Allah was claiming credit for the attack.

He had to say something. "You don't second-guess the Ally. It sees the big picture, you don't."

"You'd have been a hit at Nuremberg."

"This isn't a game, goddammit. Human rules don't apply."

"Yeah, maybe. Who helped you—who was the other gunman? Jolliff or Hursey?"

"You can go to hell."

Suddenly he looked sad. "Do you know the name of the man you were supposed to kill?"

Miller shook his head. "No. Just that he'd be in the crowd."

"I knew him," the guy said. "I called him 'Dad.'"

Miller thought—no, was
sure
he'd misheard.

"What did you say?"

"My father. You killed my father that day."

Miller could only stare. If this guy was telling the truth, that meant that the yeniçeri—him most of all—had pretty much clear-cut his life.
If he
was telling the truth. A big if, but the look of loss on his face said he was.

What the fuck? Why did the Ally have such a hard-on for this guy? What had he done to get a cosmic being so pissed at him?

He'd probably never know the answer to that, but he did know that if positions were reversed, he'd have been planting bombs too.

Other things he knew were that he could expect no mercy from this guy, and that he had only minutes left to live.

Strangely enough, that didn't bother him as much as he would have expected. Not like he was leaving a wife and kids behind. As he'd been told half a million times, a spear has no branches.

And then the answer hit him: The Ally was pruning this guy's branches, making a spear out of him. Miller could see only one reason for that.

"You
are
the Heir after all."

He nodded glumly. "So I've been told. But enough about me: Where's your new O?"

Miller shook his head and looked longingly at the NATO round, just out of reach. A foot closer and he'd have been able to grab it and use it to make a quick exit.

"Can't have you planting a bomb under her too."

"I just want to talk to her."

"Yeah, right."

"You're going to tell me."

Miller shook his head again. "Ain't gonna happen."

He waggled his Glock. "I could make your last hours seem very, very long. Eternal."

Torture… Miller's gut clenched at the prospect. Would he be able to hold out? He didn't know. Everyone had their limit. Where was his?

He hoped he never found out.

He hid his dread and said, "Do your damnedest. I ain't saying shit."

The guy sighed. "You know what? I believe you."

He picked up the NATO round as he rose and walked around to Miller's left side.

"Don't take this personally. It's simply to keep you out of trouble."

He lowered the stolen H-K until its muzzle was only two inches from Miller's left elbow and fired. Miller screamed—he couldn't help it—and rolled onto his back. At which point the guy shot him in his right elbow.

The guy used his foot to roll him over onto his belly, then went through his pockets.

"You won't find anything there," Miller gritted through the pain.

Soon enough the guy realized he was right.

"Don't go away," he said as he walked off.

6

Shit!

Jack wanted to kick something, but he drew the line at kicking a helpless man. Even if it was Miller.

He'd planned to leave one yeniçeri alive—for questioning. Had to find out where they'd taken Diana, had to talk to her. She was Gia and Vicky's last hope. Maybe. An infinitely long shot, but a shot.